Dé X construction

2003


Helsinki, Kiasma Nykytaiteen museo


The installation’s reference to the scenario from Psycho infers a likeness between the visitor and Marion’s assassin, Norman Bates. In the film Bates is also presented as having an attitude similar to that imposed on the visitor by the installation. Shortly before Marion begins her shower Bates is seen taking a picture down and revealing a hole in the wall, through which he can observe the woman without her knowing. In Dé-X Construction the voyeuristic mechanism is turned on its head, as it is the filmic image which is disrupted in order to access a pictorial image, and it is this inversion which confers meaning on the analytical process in which the visitor is encouraged to engage.

Hitchcock’s images are once again restored through an effect of symmetrical balance when the voyeur moves away from the wall, and the original scene regains its completeness. With absolute impunity the gaze turns itself away in an effect which refutes any hints of interference. This act is undermined by the physical fact that the body is placed back into its context. In its restored state, the shower continues to erase all traces before the visitor, caught up in the device, decides to look through another opening. Only the series of perforations in the wall suggest that something has occurred.

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Copyright © 2016 Laurent Fiévet