While researching my project I have come across a few artists who have become quite popular through social networks. Namely, Instagram. Instagram can be, when used effectively, a clever way to capture peoples attention. This is how I found the artist Elly Smallwood and have since found many other artists and interesting people.
I’ve started to dither back into the realm of film and the role that play within the art world. I stumbled across a videographer/photographer/exhibitionist who goes by the alias of Vex. She has started a website called Four Chambers which depicts people through a variety of closeup shots. Vex chooses to have a main theme for the films and works in correspondence to that theme. While looking at her films the most popular way she interprets the theme is through sexual acts, or the illusion of sexual acts. Her films are tastefully shot with beautiful chemistry between the people involved. This had a direct link to my work and how I am focusing on porn film stills at the moment in order to capture a moment. However, in a way, I think Vex’s films capture a truer moment than the stills I’m re-creating at the moment. Vex captures chemistry, captures a pure igniting moment between two (or more) people.
There is one particular film where she focuses on the marks that can be made upon her body by two other people. The intensity in the moments where you are waiting for one person to touch the other is unbearable; the energy that is captured through the slowed down footage is indescribable. I think part of the intensity is due to the clever editing of slowing the clips down to such a pace that it still keeps the viewer interested but that builds tension. There is a variety of slow and fast paced moments in the films which is really effective. What is also effective, is how Vex doesn’t try to encompass too much into an image; the simplistic shooting/set-up of the films lends itself to the tastefulness of the film. By zooming in on either the reaction from the people in the film, or zooming in so much to the action taking place that it blurs, creates an ambiguity. We are on edge because we know what is happening, we have a good idea of what is going on, but there’s nothing to confirm that;from ambiguous names such as ‘Tendrils’ and ‘The Renascence’, there is a sublime element to the pieces.
Since my dissertation, I have found myself returning more and more to the theory of the sublime and one thing I have learned is that the sublime is very individual to the person experiencing. What may be sublime for me may not be for another person and vice versa. but that individual experience and the way images/sounds/art is interpreted is what makes the sublime so terrifying. The very idea that something as complex as the sublime is both definable and indefinable at the same time is hard for some people to comprehend. It is definable because an individual can define it for themselves, but they cannot define it for everyone else. There is no universal meaning for the sublime. I quite like the idea of looking into the individual experience of the sublime and not just my own experience. When doing group tutorials for my dissertation it was interesting to see how all of our definitions of the sublime differed.
*All the images belong to Vex, the people of Four Chambers, or the individuals involved in the making of the films/photographs.*
