Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained @ Martha Rosler. 1977

- ROSLER Martha, Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained, 1977. (video)

Since the early 1970s, Martha Rosler’s (1970) works have constructed social and political analyses of the myths and socio-political realities of contemporary culture. Her video works investigate with deadpan with how socio-economic realities and political ideologies dominate ordinary life. Presenting complex critical analyses in accessible forms, Rosler merges performances, narrative, documentary and mass media images.

— Based on a performance presented at the University of California, San Diego in 1974, this video is a critique of social standardization. (…) A woman’s body is measured in a clinical stting and compared with standard measurement. Voiceovers, symbolic scenes, and photographs suggest the implication of enforcing social standards of measurement –  whether by the stat through its police functions or, more informally, by ‘common sense’ (Martha Rosler).