Domain: New Media | Video
Techniques: Digital Betacam, PAL, color, sound
Duration: 6 minutes
Acquisition: Donated by the Society of Friends of the Museum. Project for contemporary art
Inventory number. AM 2004-93
On display:
Museum, level 4, Cinema, video, sound, digital works area
On display: Pompidou Museum, level 4, Cinema, video, sound, digital works area
https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cKa5dL
A voice appeared, a woman said, “In order to survive, we can sell anything, even our body and soul, but there is only one thing we cannot sell!” A man said, “What?” A woman said, “Love!”
The picture is dark and unclear, like an open-air night. On the screen is the painful and decisive voice of a Mongolian woman. She is a long-haired beauty from the 1970s, holding her chin high, telling a historical declaration. The resolute man’s doubtful expression seemed to complement the woman’s decisive declaration on the screen. This sound is repeated continuously in conjunction with the picture, exceeding people’s expectations of the common sense judgment of the picture, and the continuous repetition of this sound also creates a sense of oppression and a violent invasion in the viewer’s heart. For one minute , two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, every minute of expectation and patience is a self-destructive contradiction that cannot be resisted and endured.
First, the setting is in the restroom of an entertainment venue that clearly carries a ‘romantic’ atmosphere. The individuals appearing in the images are primarily young women engaged in sexual industry work, and they are ‘real people in real situations,’ appearing in small groups in the large mirror within the restroom. According to the author, these scenes were captured with a miniature hidden camera. Because a female restroom is a space designated for the convenience of numerous individuals of the same gender, it is ‘public’ in nature. However, because it is designated for women, the situations and details within fall entirely outside the imagination of men (and, indeed, most women).
I admit that some young women, who on the streets do not stand out as particularly unusual, have truly opened my eyes in this mundane public space of the ‘restroom.’ One after another, they face the mirror, performing their most private acts with unrestrained freedom, as if no one else is present. Soon after these actions, they quickly disappear from the mirror, likely heading out of the restroom. Outside, I imagine countless men with fiery gazes and wallets brimming with cash (whether private or public funds) awaiting them. A metaphor that immediately comes to mind is that they leap out as if emerging from the trenches…”
《新潮杂志》”Eyes Behind the Mirror” (《镜子后面的眼睛》), Author: Wu Wenguang
Video link: http://archive.freewaves.org/video/ladies-room
