Artist Statement
Ellenberg’s video practice centers around research into the contemporary body-psyche, through an investigation of the aesthetics and poetics of medical discourse. In her moving image based work, saturated color and soft focus photography integrate tones of melancholia, euphoria and sublimated desire. In her single channel videos and sound loops, psychological terminology and the bodily split apart into momentary glimpses of abstract melancholia and imaginary pleasure.
Ellenberg’s color photography and film work spans from visceral, investigations of bodily ephemera, (Cut Snip Ooze, 16mm, 2003) to sensual parodies and restagings of pharmaceutical television and internet advertisements. In her video “The Psychotrophic Alphabet” (2004) and sound piece, “Wettings” (2006) medical terminology and health questionnaires are twisted into a space between diagnosis, psychosis and the unconscious. Psychotropic advertising discourse is the textual base for absurdist word play and magical hypnosis in Ellenberg’s hypperreal text animations (Anxious TV’s, 2005) and voice over work.
Ellenberg's practice has often included collaborations with electro-acoustic composers (James Fei, Dymaxion) in order to create live video performances drawing from the strategies of noise music, visual hypnotherapy and psychoacoustic techniques. Currently, she is working on a new series of photographs “Fun Tack and Other Fragments” as well as a 16mm film installation, addressing the fluid gap between cyber discourse and physical touch.