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Two Nudes

Far apart
two nude bodies are naked
together
side by side with a distance between,
strangers brought together in vulnerability
trying to get out,
cornered by two walls and the floor,
going nowhere,
ignorant of the other.

Far apart, two nude bodies are naked, together, side by side with a distance between, strangers brought together in vulnerability trying to get out, cornered by two walls and the floor, going nowhere, ignorant of the other.


1994
Double projection Super-8mm film transferred to Betacam SP slowed to 10%, looped.
Performers: Tom Noone and Fiona Menmuir
Location: Oxford
The artist directed two actors to perform seemingly trapped in a corner by the frame of the lens. They did not know each other, nor did they ever meet each other, projected side by side on human scale. Both in the same physical situation but suffering their own psychological spaces. 

The grain of the super-8 film further degraded when transferred to Betacam and projected life size at approx. 10% speed reduced movement to the barely perceptible. In a darkened space the colours were rich and fragmented reminiscent of a pointillist paint technique like the paintings of Pierre Bonnard; the figures moved and shimmered on the wall like one of his paintings with all the alarming undercurrent and intense paranoia. Nudity becomes naked, without ceremony.


© Sophie Standford, 2024