Tom Rubnitz / Dynasty Handbag

This group of short essays details the work of Tom Rubnitz and one of his frequent subjects, Jibz Cameron.  Cameron’s performance as alter-ego Dynasty Handbag is discussed in terms of its eschewing of the interiority of the performer, and in performing the subject in favor of assuming what Lubin-Levy refers to as "cyber-personalities".  It is these cyber-personalities that are at play in Rubnitz’s work, where his performers oscillate between absurdity and vulnerability, while also mining cinematic and performative tropes.  For Rubnitz and Cameron, performance is not utilized in order to be communicative, but rather as a way of desublimating the self through the articulation of a perverse intimacy.