"Apart Together" (1999) by Alicia Framis

"Apart Together" (1999) by Alicia Framis. 4'10'' (sound, colour). Collection: Netherlands Media Art Institute.

Clip requires Realplayer. Artist: born 1967, Barcelona, Spain, lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The room is completely dark, but every few seconds there is the flash of a stroboscopic lamp, and slowly but surely a recognizable image begins to take shape on your retina. A young woman is lying on a bed, wriggling herself out of her clothes. Each new image shows her more naked than the previous one. The camera is very close to her, one and a half metre away at the most. Things are becoming explicitly erotic when the woman begins to sigh more and more intensely, the situation becomes more and more electric: due to the presence of the camera; when the noises make you aware that the camera is also recording in the dark; when you notice that the camera must be hand-held, because the image is not static, and particularly when you can hear the woman\u2019s excited noises mixing with those of a man. This can only be the cameraman, who is getting more and more involved in the erotic play. Hesitating between watching curiously and keeping an appropriate distance, you try to determine your position. But it is difficult to escape from the presence of your gaze upon the scene. First and foremost because the dark intervals between the images tempt you to keep your eyes fixed on the woman. But eventually also because the lens of the camera has become an extension of your own eyes. Emphatically a sense that you share with the cameraman. And from exactly the same lack of distance, you see exactly what he sees, and what excites him so much.

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