Atrophy Portraits (Short film series, 2019) Mature
For how long can we all hold the fiction of our civilised selves?
The history of traditional portraiture is about status and branding. With this portrait we were interested in breaking down those layers of constructed perfection. Initially in renaissance portrait painting, women are often pictured in a profile view, detached and passive. This painting was one of the first to have the female subject confronting the viewer, meeting your eyes without appeasing or smiling. There are parallels in the expressions in this film and in the painting.
And so in sex, submissives, especially in a feminine role, are presumed to be passive, detached receivers of the desires of others. This isn't always the case. The role of submissive, and the potential for transcendence in consensual degradation is powerful. Endurance is powerful. Subverting perfection is powerful.
These films are designed to be watched on a portrait screen, for example your phone. A portrait needs a frame and our screens are our frames.
Credits
I worked on this project
Vex Ashley United Kingdom
Performer, director, editor and producer of the Four Chambers project, in collaboration with a partner and other performers.
Four Chambers Unpublished
Four Chambers is a project, an idea and an ongoing collaboration with the intention to explore the aesthetic and conceptual potential of pornography as a medium for ideas.
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