Dé X construction

2003


Helsinki, Kiasma Nykytaiteen museo


Interactive video installation for 5 video-projectors, 1 video camera, 1 TV set and several mirrors, objects and prints.
5 video loops from 21 sec to 35 sec.

Screenshots from Psycho, showing Marion Crane showering at the Bates motel just before she is attacked, are projected into the darkness of room X on to a number of perforated walls. By standing up against the walls and looking through the perforations the visitor can see reproductions of various paintings by Francis Bacon. (Head I, II and VI) which inspired the screenshots. An infrared camera films part of the area set apart for the installation. The images caught by this camera can be viewed on a monitor located behind one of the walls.

In order to see the compositions by Francis Bacon the visitor must put his face up against the walls in the room. In so doing his upper body comes between the projector and the surface of the projection, deforming or destroying the image of Marion’s body. The gaze participates in the violence, emphasised by the switch from one register of image to another: the sensual pleasure of the shower, accentuated by Hitchcock through shots which are smooth and light, substituted by visions of Bacon’s deformed, emaciated and disturbing entities, which foreshadow the aggression that Marion will shortly suffer.

To interact with the installation the visitor must dare to disrupt the very essence of the projected scenes. His upper body must merge with Marion’s naked torso and penetrate the Image to access its hidden depths. The emaciated heads visible through the holes in the walls confirm the intimacy that is the reward coerced by the motivated act of looking. The heads emphasise how the enactment of the visual impulse degenerates into an act with both sexual and criminal repercussions.

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Copyright © 2016 Laurent Fiévet