Mel Keiser (b.1985, IL; b.2003, IL; b.2007, IL; b.2007, PA; b.2011, IL; b.2014, IL; b.2018, IL) is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptually driven work explores the social and psychological impact of treating herself as a stratified series of distinct selves rather than a single person in fluid development. With a “playful self-awareness” and “bright, dreamy, intimacy,” Keiser blends installation, object making, and performance with research methodologies and knowledge hybridized from disciplines like evolutionary biology, personality psychology, and quantum physics. Her work appropriates institutional authority with sly whimsy, using taxonomic structures from natural history museums and academia as a counterpoint to her “familiarity to her subject matter.” Further, she writes and performs as Melga Blank, self-evolutionary biologist who discovered The Mels, the first known species to evolve as psychically discrete selves in a single physical body.
Keiser received grants from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts, and Judith Dawn Memorial Foundation. Her work exhibited at Wedge Projects, Filter Space, Martha Schneider Gallery, Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University, and THE SUB-MISSION. She recently published “Mel as Hyperobject” in Performance Philosophy and co-leads an artist writing group with Matthew Goulish.
Keiser received grants from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts, and Judith Dawn Memorial Foundation. Her work exhibited at Wedge Projects, Filter Space, Martha Schneider Gallery, Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University, and THE SUB-MISSION. She recently published “Mel as Hyperobject” in Performance Philosophy and co-leads an artist writing group with Matthew Goulish.