Artist bio
Anna Kennedy, also known by her professional moniker Akfortysevs, has been exhibiting in Berlin and Melbourne since 2016. Her recent work has been shown at George Paton, Brightspace, Assembly Point and MPavillion. She has completed an artist residency in one of the most vibrant and colourful cultural hubs, Berlin. Along with performing and exhibiting, she was also involved in the organisation and exhibitions of the artist run initiative Parkstrasse; Soulcatcher, an annual Art and Music festival; was a performance artist as part of a travelling immersive theatre troupe; and made visual projections for music festivals and bands. She is a recipient of the RMIT creative funding award, is a graduate of VCA and is currently pursuing her Masters of Fine Art at RMIT.
Kennedy’s practice concentrates on new media and installation, integrating material/space and feminist theory with the theories of time, space, technology and the virtual world. Her practice explores the relation between the virtual and the real from a female perspective, focusing on the body in an increasingly technological world. She applies theories of film and digital culture to explore the object/subject dynamic in virtual space and the role of technology in social change. Her work focuses on issues such as the tension between the real and the virtual self, our reliance on technology for memory and document, our learned filmic and digital languages, and ways of rethinking the experience of time. She is a predominantly digital and video artist, though her recent work seeks to replicate the moving image using sculpture and the physical movement of the audience, reversing the traditional language of the film camera to mimic the human experience.