Malibu resident Tiffany Trenda is one of more than 40 artists whose work will be showcased this weekend at the first annual Malibu Contemporary Art Fair.
By Patrick Timothy Mullikin / Special to The Malibu Times
Look into video installation performance artist Tiffany Trenda’s face, and you might see yourself peering back-literally.
It’s narcissism of sorts, with a wink, a nudge and a nod to technology. Rigged with cameras and video screens, Trenda creates odd-sometimes eerie-personalities and characters during her live performances that leave children entranced and some grownups more than just a little creeped out.
Trenda is one of more than 40 internationally exhibiting artists whose work in a variety of media (painting, photography, sculpture, video, drawing and installation) will be showcased at the first annual Malibu Contemporary Art Fair from Aug. 28-30.
What she does exactly is tough to describe, and must be seen to be appreciated. But even then, it’s still difficult to define, and that’s its beauty.
Take her upcoming performance this Friday at the art fair. Trenda, wearing a dress made from real moss, will be encased in a Plexiglas box along with 24 live butterflies. On each hand she will wear a camera. The front of her moss dress also has a camera, and three video screens. So when viewers look at the dress or at her hands, they will see themselves on the video screens.
“People think I am a robot or something,” Trenda said last week in an interview with The Malibu Times. “They don’t know if I am real. They think I’m something else, which is what I always try to evoke.”
Trenda is, indeed, a real person. Maybe slightly surreal.
He journeyed into the world of a video installation performance art-a name she lightheartedly claims to have authored-started out eight years ago when the then painter/photographer/dancer attended The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
“I got really fascinated with video and projection,” Trenda said from the kitchen of her Malibu home. “I love video installation, and so I started dabbling with that for a little while when I was going to the Art Center.”
Her dabbling culminated in her first performance, she recalled with a hearty laugh, as a student at the Art Center, a school she praises but admits was a bit conservative by her standards. Compared to some of her later performances, the debut was tame. Trenda attached speakers to her body and played the distorted tones of a video clip she had tweaked beyond recognition.
The reaction? “My teacher loved it,” she said of her debut as a video installation performance artist. “Some of the students were shocked, and the girls were very disturbed by it.”
But “shocking” and “disturbing” are often hallmarks of performance art. While some of Trenda’s performances leave viewers scratching heads, her performances are never dull.
Take “Death of an Icon” Trenda first memorized the dance steps of a Madonna music video, then removed all images of Madonna from it, leaving only images of people reacting to her. Trenda then projected her edited version of the music video on a screen behind her as she danced, Madonna-like.
“Three quarters of the way through [the performance of “Death of an Icon”], a shot rings through and I lie dead on the floor,” Trenda explained. “Then somebody comes up and puts a plaque on the floor, a description of the piece.”
“I lay on the floor till the end of the gallery show, which was like two and a half hours, without moving,” she continued. “People actually thought I was dead, and walked around taking pictures.”
Her point? We create icons like Madonna and Britney Spears who we destroy ultimately, she said.
This is heavy stuff from an otherwise normal 30-year-old who works a daytime job as a consultant at Joanne Burke Art Consultants, Inc., in Venice.
“I just like to have an edge where it’s interesting,” Trenda said while flipping through the pages of the photo album of her various video installation performances. “I’m not a dark and creepy person. I’m pretty much happy.”
In a few weeks after her performance at the Malibu Contemporary Art Fair on Friday, Trenda will head to London to receive an award at the London International Creative Competition for her work as video installation performance artist.
“I always try to keep it beautiful,” she said. “There’s a lot of art out there that’s, like, shock value-crazy and creepy, but in a horrific way-and I completely stay away from that.”
The first annual Malibu Contemporary Art Fair runs Aug. 28-30 at Malibu Country Mart. The event is free to the public. More information can be obtained online at www.malibuannual.com.