#furybox

I give you permission. Step into the space and surround yourself with the work of my peers. In the centre you’ll see a ply wood box, varnished for a pleasing finish, with one exterior wall coated in a luscious fur. This wall of fur references the  ‘Oppenheim Fur Teacup’ 1936 from its mousy characteristics and placement where it doesn’t belong. The top centre of this wall presents a gap. Before really seeing that it is a viewing window, like a camera obscurer, it firstly provides a sexual connotation: look at this hole in my fury box. Paired with the slightly flesh-tones of the plywood, the structure recalls a position of wide open legs. As pointed out yesterday, the hole is conveniently at the ideal height for a male’s genital engagement also. The work contains exterior engagement, but quickly becomes closed off work when realising the stronger content is inside the box. One must kneel down and look through the fury hole. The act of kneeling is gracious, submissive and holy in itself. As the creator of this work, getting the audience to engage in this manner is very powerful. It’s a forced engagement. I have your attention. This gesture stemmed from the childhood action of peeping through dolls house windows, or ideas of spying, creeping, sneaking. It is all a secretive, invasive act. The point of difference between peeping, is that I have given you permission to look at this work, to look at something you feel you shouldn’t be. This is calling upon the work of Duchamp’s ‘Étant donnés;’ (1946-66) and contemporary Pipilotti Rist’s ‘Selbstlos im Lavabad' (Selfless in the Bath of Lava)1994. Duchamp’s work is a hole in a door, while Rist’s is a hole embedded in the floor boards, and both employ the nude female as subject matter, instantly starring a taboo subject matter. My video inside the box does not include nudity, but it includes a close up of a female’s face taken from the 4-minute black and white, 16mm film, ‘Portrait of a Girl’ 1966. The film revolves around females putting on make up. I took out a simple shot and placed her in extreme slow-motion (that is’s a little glitchy frame by frame) as she turns to face the viewer, ending on meeting eye-lines between viewer and subject. The meet of their gaze is to talk to the infamous idea of ‘The Gaze’ which Laura Mulvey profoundly discusses in her writings, and to use the idea of ‘being caught looking’. Much like when snatched up by a stranger on the street staring, the character of my video catches you watching her, just as surrounding audience members, are watching you watch the video. There are multiple physical and metaphorical ideas surrounding the idea of watching. The video is of a green, sci-fi nature, to detract from black and white banality, and give a sickly tone and hint of night-vision surveillance. To press the emphasis of looking, through the means of mass media and The Cinematic, the audio content of my work has been abstracted from Lynn Hirschhorn’s Screen Tests (a youtube series) of interviews with celebrities. The already collaged nature of these interviews gave me the chance to re-collage their dialogue. I focussed on female actresses to stay confined in the realms of females personas and role models for my feminist undertones.  The selection of words was slightly random, a matter of listening and choosing, but all to fit under the umbrella of sexual innuendoes, references to becoming a different person, and the role of being famous. The purpose of using these lines was to generated a fragmented narrative with their words, and remove them from their original context, so I could manipulate them to mean what I wanted. I could cut their sentence half way and juxtapose it with another sentence from someone else, and the meaning completely shifts. This is to comment on the crude nature of paparazzi and the hectic life of a celebrity as a role of attention and someone who is constantly under scrutiny. The audio element of this work asks the viewers to put on a set of headphones, more so they can focus closely on the dialogue, to try and form their own understanding of what is being relayed. The combination of the single-viewing box and the headphones with the act of kneeling down results in a very personal and subjective experience with the work. This is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to take away the mass-viewing so commonly utilised through cinema and moving-image media and give people a chance to pause and engage. I also believe that viewing a work as an individual, leaves little room for distraction, especially from the presence of others. The only influence people can have, is the fact that they are watching you, watching. But this is intentional. I want you to feel slightly unsettled that someone is watching you watch something you may feel you shouldn’t be. I am taking away the commodifying of the role of the spectator and turning it back into the first camera obscurer where only one person can watch at a time. Paired with a minor dolls house reference, means that the viewer has permission to generate their own little world within the space of this box. I value moving image for its ability to contain an element of stillness that photography has, while expanding the image through its cinematic qualities. Moving Image is a fragment of a narrative and rests in this in-between state. This uncanny position asks the for an audience’s imagination, outside of the frame. It asks them to enter a new space and construct their own sense of time. I’m honing in on this idea, physically with my construction, to allow viewers to enter into a new space and time. By referencing the work of Bill Viola, due to his use of slow motion, I have manipulated a sense of reality. Both the audio and visual material have been slowed down, as if they’re almost trapped in this other world, on repeat. It also made the dialogue very deep in nature. Even after evening out the pitches of the voices, they employ a male’s tone, which is in turn commenting on gender roles within the media, cinema and society. The role reversal is playing up popular ideas of gender equality and the exploitation of females. My work contains some heavy feminist undertones.  To avoid being too direct about the politics involved, as I’m not yet educated enough to deal with them, I have placed a focus on creating this extra time/space for a viewers experience. Again, the individual experience will mean the viewer can take what they wish from the work, and I’m am not imposing a view onto a mass crowd.

All in all, I’ve desired to create an uncomfortable setting around the ideas of famous personas and the content of their female characters removed from context, to generate a new engagement with them, in a means of being permissively invasive. I give you permission to break codes of censorship and peep into my hole of the fury box and listen to the words of others and take away a different meaning from they intended. I give you permission to start a rumour in your head about what it means. I give you permission to watch the female under night-vision tones. I give her permission to look at you looking. I give you permission to let it be okay to be watched watching. I give you permission.

Jessica Philbrick

Self Directed Project “UN”