My work, which is a performance piece, does have historical references from painting. I started off in my first and second years in painting and my work developed looking at identity and then trying to paint my experiences of a woman in the 21st century.

I just became very frustrated trying to paint an experience, which as you can understand, is an abstract concept.

During my summer holidays as I was studying for my dissertation it suddenly became clear to me that one of my experiences is the cultural part of the identity that is handed to us from the moment we are born. Gender if you like and how were pushed towards a certain state of being and behaving and how these images are given to us through magazine and film.

So is your performance rebelling at the stereotypical image of a 21st century woman?

No, it shows my ambivalence towards it as I don't know what the alternative will be. We don't live in a vacuum, we live in a culture, you can't say if you stepped outside that culture what the alternative would be.

It's an examination of why and how I socialise my body to be accepted in society I guess. We all want to be accepted and that's why we do it.

The work starts off with me grooming myself and that's where it relates to paintings like Venus at her toilette where I'm observed in a mirror.

I then notice that I'm being observed and I then start reacting with the audience and realise that I'm almost a cloned being from this given facet of the identity.

Performance by Annie Hall

A big part of this work is using visual technology and devices like cameras and mirrors.

Well a great part of our cultural identity is brought to us through television, film and magazines and this is a very direct way of bringing that identity to people.

At the beginning of this academic year I started with photography and video and then it occurred to me that when I put an exhibition up in January I became interested in watching people looking at me.

We judge people every time we see somebody, they're looking at you and making an assessment and that became very interesting to me.

So I thought it's the bits that are missing out of the photograph that I wanted to show. The preparation to be observed, it's the reason we have mirrors in our house - it's a surrogate public eye if you like.

With my work, unlike a woman in a painting who's just there and being looked at... although I've given permission to my voyeurs, I can actually direct that back at them and make the people looking at me feel quite uncomfortable about it.

You're naked in front of an invited audience, what has been the reaction from those who have seen the work to date?

I think the poster advertising the performance might have given them some idea. It's not an erotic performance or of a sexual nature, it is as though I'm just born.

It's as though I'm getting rid of the things that make us erotic like lipstick and high-heels - I'm getting rid of those fetishistic elements that we do to ourselves and questioning why we do it. But as I say, what's the alternative?

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