Abstract: As a visual artist, the creation of the self though image and word has always been central to my concerns. I began in London in the late 1980s where I chose the medium of performance to express myself. Photographs which evolved from this practice became an investigation into the gendered gaze. A simple shutter release cable empowered me to simultaneously act as photographer (subject) and model (object).
In recent years I returned to the subject of the female self. The new works frequently incorporate spoken language and animated text, elements that become digitally disrupted, evoking the way that daily floods of imagery and words are playing havoc with female identity in both real and digital worlds.
Self 2023 explores the visceral reality of the body, while Self II 2023 derived from the former incorporates additional references to digital tools, filters and language.
Self 2024 (Small Island) engages with both female identity and migration, the protagonist struggling to overcome symbolic obstacles to equality and freedom.
Self 2024 Reflecting World(s) I–IV incorporate mysteriously animated hands and mirroring to disturbing effect, exploring narcissism and the machinic body.
Self 2025 (I found myself) shows a head, restricted and rendered invisible by thick cord wound around it, literally spitting out words on paper like an organic printer.
Self 2025 (I found myself II), rendering the same footage more abstractly, ultimately deconstructs the conventions of video art, in that the end credits that traditionally identify the maker infiltrate the entire piece, obsessively reasserting identity.
In Self 2026 (grown tree-ish) the female body is exploring new ways of merging with the natural environment, while Neue Erde (New Earth), Bürger's recently completed first novel transcribes notions of visual creation to the reconstruction of the entire Earth, 1000 years after all life had been destroyed.
Self. Selves. Selfies:
a post digital investigation into female identity through video, language and performance art
'Word, Image and Social Dynamics', a conference organised by IAWIS, International Association of Word and Image Studies
24–28 August 2026
at the University of Amsterdam
A talk illustrated with video clips
to be presented at
Self 2026 [grown tree-ish] (2026) | series of photographic self portraits | ink jet prints on archival matte paper, dimensions variable
Self 2024 [Small Island] (2024) | series of photographic self portraits | ink jet prints on archival matte paper, dimensions variable
River Ravensbourne, London/Lewisham 1988
Lindau, Lake Constance 1991