Dayna Mcleod
Interview by: Michelle Marin
About: Dayna Mcleod is a, Montreal based, interdisciplinary artist that specializes in the video and performing arts. She uses humor to convey important topics like gender, media representation, the female body and the construction of sexual identity.
To find out more information and to view more of Mcleod's work visit:
Michelle: What inspired you to become a filmmaker? And what inspired you to choose the topics that you go over in your films?
Dayna: Well, I would say that I am an interdisciplinary artist, so I use performance-based practices in my work and video, as this is the best way to communicate the things that I want to do. I ask questions like, ‘do I want to make a video?’ ‘Do I have a show coming up?’ ‘Is it live?’ That sort of dictates how I make work. ‘What is going to be the most effective way to communicate’? So if I’m doing remix, or if I’m using a lot of preexisting material then it makes sense to sort of mash up Mary Poppins with The Sound of Music, as opposed to trying to reenact this myself.
Michelle: For Pleasure Zone, what made you want to create a piece that combined sports and pornography? What was the inspiration behind that?
Dayna: That piece now is 10 years old now. And so at the time, and to be quite clear that I am pro sex, pro sex worker. What I was seeing in mainstream culture at the time was a lot of feminist lingo being used to prop up, sell, and otherwise promote online pornography. Online pornography which you know, basically built the internet and internet innovations, was starting to use feminist lingo in the 2000’s, a big response to a feminist backlash that was anti-porn, anti-sex, anti-positive that really pigeon-holed pornography as exploitative to women. So in terms of how that developed, seeing online-properties if you will, using the language or white feminist language of “she is an independent woman!” in their profiles of female porn stars to sell the act to a mainstream audience. I found this really unusual, but this was also just at the cusp of social media, competing for our attention, that these things were sort of combined in this way. So with Pleasure Zone, I was very much interested, and at the time there was a lot of porn stars doing quantitative porn such as 100+ gangbang, this equation of, especially with an online audience, of how many certain types of sex acts were in each porn, it was becoming very quantitative. It became very competitive. So seeing how many sex acts does something have as judging if it is good porn or not, and again I’m talking about mainstream porn, seemed to be a good pairing for football language or soccer language or baseball language, where racking up those numbers is what matters.
Michelle: Also for Pleasure Zone, in your vimeo description, it says that it was taken on one shot, was there a purpose behind that?
Dayna: Oh yes, there was a time where I was very much interested in that, because if you have seen some of my other work, I quite love editing, and working with editing as a technique to tell a story but also compress time. I’m very much a fan of the jump cut. I was very much interested in a kind of choreographing and staging an event like Pleasure Zone, in one single shot. In the 1970’s and 80’s with experimental video works, being able to capture one event in a single take was very intriguing. Something I was interested in with Pleasure Zone is seeing if we could do that. I worked with a really talented cast and a really talented director of photography. The take that we ended up with was actually the third take that we shot. I was just really trying to work with what happens when you stage something without interrupting the shot. Also to get the viewer really invested, I mean I know that I disrupt the frame with versions of myself and with graphics, but the main shot is what guides us through the work. So Pleasure Zone was definitely an homage to the 70s but also as a performance-based artist, I was interested in looking at how we can stage bodies for a moving camera and if it will work.
To view Pleasure Zone, follow this link: https://vimeo.com/177746087
Michelle: In “Come Shred My Heart“ you had people insert notes of advice or regret for their past or future selves and then have it shredded by the Vagina Dentata. What is the role or purpose of the Vagina Dentata? Why a vagina? What is the intended purpose behind keeping the shredded notes in a mason jar?
Dayna: My interest in the Vagina Dentata was thinking about the role of the vagina on a body. What does it do? And symbolically, what are we afraid of? Why are we so afraid culturally, especially in mainstream culture of the vagina? Where does this fear come from? Why are we afraid of anything attached to bodies marked female, this idea of disgust or fear or the unknown? So with Come Shred My Heart, I wanted to look into reclaiming that space and trying to turn it into something positive. The idea of being a literal Vagina Dentata, transforming not only my vagina but my whole body into this thing that eats and destroys, but through a productive means, was my intent. When I was making this piece in 2007, there were a lot of Internet memes and self-help posts going around about, “what would you tell your younger self?” I wanted to capitalize on this and also provide a way to process those feelings for an audience. I don't know if it was necessarily therapeutic, but I wanted to use structures of quick-fix therapy and quick-fix therapeutic methods to engage with an audience, so I asked people to write down either advice to their younger selves or even something to themselves in the future. I didn't want to read it, because I didn't want to have that responsibility. What was great about the actual paper shredder device that I used as the vagina dentata is not only that it shredded, but it spit out paper so we were able to keep all this refuse in jars kind of like jam. I felt that that was important too, that I wasn’t devouring it as a Vagina Dentata as she is traditionally depicted, but expelling it in a productive way.
Michelle: How was it being on the receiving end? How was that?
Dayna: It was something, I’ll tell ya. That’s a great question because with a lot of the work I do especially the performance-based work that I do, we talk a lot about safe space. Because I’m using my physical body in a lot of this work, what does that mean for me and what constitutes that. I performed that piece at a bunch of places here in Montreal and all of those shows and exhibitions were absolutely feminist friendly, queer friendly, and art friendly venues. I performed in France, again in the context of a feminist festival, and that is very important to me because I can’t do this type of work at Frat parties or corporate events or whatever. So that for me, first of all, is really important because then I’m able to be relaxed. I felt really fantastic, people were so nice and into it and even when there were people being like, “what is this about?” once they saw that there’s no trick, that I’m not going to read it out loud, they became engaged in writing down their own messages to themselves. I’m really putting myself out there in that piece specifically as a way for you to process your feelings, if you want to, and it can be as serious or playful as you want to get. So for me it was really great because a lot of people wanted to talk about it before they approached me. I was very happy with the experience. It was very pleasurable, but the most pleasurable was engagement like talking to people about what we were about to do, what the point of it was, and that there was no tricks. With a lot of this type of work, sometimes people are suspicious like, “why do you want to know that?” or “what are we doing here” and it’s all good, it is all done in the spirit of generosity.
Michelle: I really like that, I really enjoy experiencing different kinds of installations and performance art that makes you question things, and being able to engage and think about why you were questioning it as you’re going through it. Those are my favorite or things that make me uncomfortable.
To view Come Shred My Heart, follow this link: https://vimeo.com/188581260
Michelle: In “Tea bagging & Other Beauty Secrets”, why did you choose to make it seem like a documentary or infomercial?
Dayna: I am very much a fan of television and at that time in 2009, when I was producing it, there was a lot of reporting in the news that ,“Hollywood is turning everyone gay with all of these gay movies,” right? And then they would cut to, in this kind of documentary format or TMZ-like format, a Midwest farmer who’s going to give you a stereotypical answer that you already know which is hitting those markers, as opposed to going to find the gay farmer in the Midwest and asking their opinion. In terms of this style, I was interested in using the language that was basically saying that Hollywood is making everyone gay, this stereotypical, very tired and boring and clichéd critique that seems to recycle every however many years. I am also very much a fan of both mockumentary as a process but also television-based documentary formats like Dateline NBC where they have this very prescriptive, very organized format. Where there is absolutely an agenda by the makers. Since using tea bagging as a beauty regimen is so ridiculous, I felt the best way to communicate that would be to work with this really talented group of actresses who I know here and who were just so up for it. They were so great and we basically just improv’d everything and I knew that they would be able to do it and to sell it. The instructions from me were just that we are assuming that this is a real thing, teabagging for beauty is a real thing, first of all. Second of all, we have to make it as nonsexual as possible. Everybody had their own character identity and I made all of their fake teabags, if you will. And we kind of just assigned it from there- we did a lit bit of workshopping before the shoot. I was very interested in the foreground, mid-ground and background. So there was always something happening in the back when I was interviewing the subjects. Also with the over-the-top voice over, I quite like that voice that is kind of a Voice of God, within the context of a documentary, that is telling you how to think like, “this is so out there and wild”. I am very much interested in kind of playing voices off of each other. It was super fun, and making all those graphics was super fun to do. Because, looking at different types of media like Cosmopolitan magazine or whatever, all of these formats are culturally understood. So by putting this absurd concept of teabagging as a beauty regimen into those formats, I then used those formats as backup to legitimize them. It helps frame it as a real thing within the reality of the piece. I had people say, “is this a real thing?” and I was like, “oh my God really? No it’s not a real thing.”
Michelle: How did you come up with all of the different materials for the “Tea bags”?
Dayna: I had made a whole bunch of them and I kind of just laid them out and everybody gathered around, and then naturally, there was no argument over which ones they wanted. There were a couple that got left behind. The dog hair one was my favorite, that was fun for everyone.
Michelle: Was that actually dog fur?
Dayna: No it was fun fur that I had glued onto Styrofoam balls. The actress that took those was like, “no, this is dog fur, I’ve got a whole thing for it,” and she went with those. Basically I had constructed a bunch of these things and then they invented their back stories with each of the teabag sets, which was really great. It was really hard to cut actually, because everybody was just so fantastic. The first version was 20 minutes and that was just way too long. The second cut was, I think 11 minutes. It was really hard because everyone was just so funny. But you know, after a while you have to make some tough decisions. The one that I released was 7 minutes.
To view Teabagging & Other Beauty Secrets, follow this link: https://vimeo.com/176886285
Michelle: For the Mary Poppins & Maria Von Trapp Sub/ Dom video, Was there a specific reason as to why you chose those characters?
Dayna: So again, I was noticing this argument in media that “to be gay is only to be a narcissist.” There was some very pseudo-science, pseudo-psychology going around saying that, “to be gay, to be queer, to be lesbian is only to be in love with yourself.” For me, as a kid growing up, The Sound of Music was very prominent. I do enjoy musicals but also, Julie Andrews like come on. Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp and as Mary Poppins are both characters that have been fetishized, and kind of already put into those dom and sub positions. So my feeling was very much, as I described in the video, a way to explore that fantasy but also capitalize on Julie Andrews playing both of these characters. A lot of my work is, “let’s assume that this ridiculous claim for a moment is true, that to be gay, lesbian or queer is only about narcissism because, I can’t find my mirror in the opposite sex,” or something as equally ludicrous. So let’s assume that this is true, and oh here comes Julie Andrews who can illustrate this perfectly because she is both Maria Von Trapp and Mary Poppins, right? And, because there is a queer subculture that already imagines these characters in these positions, I just edit them together and made them have a little scene using remix strategies. That’s an example of a piece that utilizes both my performative enactment and edited film footage to tell a story, because seeing them in the way that I describe and edit, is believing the story just a little bit more.
To view Ultimate SUB Ultimate DOM: Maria Von Trapp & Mary Poppins, follow this link: https://vimeo.com/176885782
Michelle: Overall, how would you describe your experience from “Cougar for a Year”?
Dayna: First of all, I have some privilege, to be able to do that project in the first place, as a middle-aged, white women living in Montreal. In terms of the type of work I do to make money, it’s not like I was working at a job that requires a uniform. I was teaching at a college and at a university at the time within Media Studies departments, so in both of these spaces I was able to do this piece without consequence. I have to acknowledge that. Secondly, in 2012 animal print was totally trending. I noticed that everyone was doing my project, so one of the rules that I set for myself was to wear at least 60% visible animal print. If I was on the metro or on the bus, or if I was waiting on the street, I was noticeably eccentric. Once I got into it, I felt really great being head to toe, you know 100%. We have some pretty intense winters over here, so one of the biggest challenges I had was, ‘what is going to be my winter coat?’ because I gotta stay warm, it gets to be -30, -40 degrees Celsius over here. One of the other things is that people gave me things all of the time. Somebody found a winter coat for me at a second-hand store, and it cost me about 30 bucks and that was very important. Once I got into it, if I wasn’t wearing 100% animal print, something felt a bit odd. And again the area I was circulating in, the neighborhood I live in is the Plateau, which is basically a bohemian arts area of Montreal where nobody would bat an eye twice. So in terms of where I was, being able to come to school and go to work allowed me to travel without too much interruption, of course there were exceptions to that. Being a woman just walking around in the streets, did solicit some comments, some interactions usually with older gentlemen, over-40 gentlemen who would like my number or whatever. But mostly, it was a great experience. Actually the most difficult experience was stopping the project. Not because I was in love with wearing animal print all of the time, but as soon as I stopped wearing it, I literally had it cut off my body in a performance piece in homage to Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece. Literally moments after me putting on another dress, that wasn’t animal print, I had three different people come up to me and say, “oh, so that’s what you’re wearing now?” The summer that I was done, there was this constant reinforcement of, “oh wow, what are you wearing now, what’s going on?” After performing a project like Cougar For a Year, in which I was inviting people to look at me for an entire year and make judgments, to stop that and be like, “okay it’s over,” really emphasized, for me at least, the perspective that women are public property. We’re always so judgmental about bodies marked female: ‘are they good enough?’, ‘Are they fat enough?’, ‘Are they thin enough?’, ‘Are they pretty enough?’, ‘Are they doing femininity correctly?’, because there is no such thing as a perfect woman.
Michelle: Now that you went through that, do you still wear animal print occasionally? How do you feel about it now?
Dayna: It’s funny right? Because for two years afterwards, I was like “NO” and I kept a few pieces that I liked. But anytime that I wore them people were like, “oh you’re still doing that? You’re doing that again?” I do kind of sneak one or two shirts in every once in awhile, but I am very aware of where I’m wearing it to and who’s going to be around to call me on it. I know it ruined the leopard spot for me, a little bit.
To learn more about Cougar for a Year, follow this link: http://cougarthis.com/
Michelle: I noticed that a lot of your work seems to be very satirical. Why is it that you use that so often? Do you find it to be an effective way to get your message across?
Dayna: Absolutely, is the short answer. One of the things that I use is humor because some of the things that I’m talking about, or some of the things that I want to address are a bit heavy. Or things that we have heard before, and nobody likes to be yelled at by a feminist, so that is something that I am contending with. How do we talk about misogyny? How do we talk about homophobia? How do we talk about these things in a way that isn’t the same old same old, and no offense to the same old same old, but how do we address a film and video audience, what is going to be the most effective way to do that? Satire, humor, parody are all tools that I use because they are the most effective.
Michelle: Out of all the work that you’ve done, do you have a favorite? Or would you say that one of your pieces is the most meaningful to you? Or maybe the process of it?
Dayna: I’m glad you brought up Pleasure Zone, because I would say that that is a piece, first of all because I got funding from the Quebec government to make it, which really gave me a sense of validation, in terms of what I was working on, but also that I got to pay everybody that worked on it. I think too, that I had a bit of a breakthrough in the writing of that piece. At first I had kind of a loose script. It was actually my Dad who said that I needed to have a color commentator, and I was like, “what does that mean?” He said, “in football, you have the guy that calls the plays but then you have the color commentator or the person that’s telling the jokes and adds the anecdotal stories to the commentary so it’s entertaining.” Originally I was only going to have one of me announcing the game, so with my Dad’s advice, it kind of changed it, because with just one of me it wasn’t working. I wrote and shot the voice over and green screen work after we shot the main take choreography. So I really feel like that process, first of all that I got funded, and I got to pay everybody, and that everybody was really on board with this project, everyone gave it their all. I couldn’t have asked for a better team, and that was just so rewarding. That showed me too, how important community is. Community is just so important, to get feedback as you’re working but also to work on projects together, everybody pitches in and it feels just great.