Pronouncing "Prune"

This 2-minute excerpt features the artist, Moira Lovell, working with speech coach, Sue Holling. In the video, Sue gently coaches Moira to pronounce the word "Prune", using phonics, words, and verses. Sometimes Moira fails, unable to grasp individual sounds, and deconstructed words, yet, able to put the whole word together. Moira is practicing verbalising “prune” as - according to influencer Aimee Song in her book Capture Your Style – saying “prune” to your camera-phone, during selfie-making, will help you ‘get that adorable upturn of the mouth’, or, to put it another way, pronouncing the term “prune” enables an acceptable and limiting performance of femininity for the selfie-representation. Moira therefore disrupts, undo’s, and takes the word “prune” out of context; stretching it, emptying out its original meaning and in this way language ‘goes on holiday’ (Wittgenstein, 1953). This artwork is part of a body of video-works that sit under the umbrella title Gestures (for the selfie) in which the artist practices over and over, again, and once more, a series of terms - “prune” “prawn” “cheese” and “sausages” - that ostensibly help women construct their faces in desirable ways for the camera, perpetuating a certain kind of image performativity that puts women to work on their image, in the digital age.