nadahada

2018

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While typically working masked, costumed, creature-ly, in this piece we are stripped–literally and figuratively–of those materials. In fact, those were the rules: “Make a video—one shot, static camera—where your face shows the entire time. There can be no costumes, no language, and you are allowed only one prop.”

 

So we chose to wear nothing, paint on misplaced body parts, and interact with "Pandora's Box: A 3-Dimensional Celebration of Greek Mythology", an all-in-one pop-up book and board game. The camera becomes a portal peeking into a tiny alien dimension in which we have no idea how to interact with a book, and tear apart the venerated, idealized images of Greek antiquity. 

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We mounted this video on a monitor inside the closet in the gallery. On the exterior, viewers were confronted with a campy PEEP SHOW sign and glowing neon pink flamingo. A black velvet curtain covered the doorway, and to the left of the opening, a sign read: 

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Instructions for Procedure

Insert yourself into the space behind the curtain. Apply latex-free exam gloves from the dispenser on the wall before handling the buttocks. Firmly grab the buttocks with gloved hands, and observe through the anus.

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Inside the closet, a buttocks with a gaping hole, made of paper mache, yarn, and panty hose, hangs from the ceiling by a black leather harness and old horse reigns. The viewer must apply the gloves and peer through the butt hole to watch the video. After all, the capacity to psycho-anal-eyes would not be possible without Greek mythology. Oedipal complex, anyone?

 

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Video