Short Film | 4mins | May 2020
The afternoon motion sickness.
Look outside, it helps.
LEGAULT. ARUDA. 2 UNREAD MESSAGES.
The sun is warm
but no one waits for a haircut at the barbershop.
TRUDEAU. TAM. RESCUED DOGS ON DODO.
The breeze is light
but no one is running towards the metro.
TRUMP. FAUCI. PIZZA FILTER ON MESSENGER CHAT.
The quivering ribbon in the tree
is still out of reach.
*ding*
3 UNREAD MESSAGES. MARU THE CAT SITS IN A BOX.
Pay attention Gabriela.
A short film project challenges artists to find ‘inspiration and enlightenment’ in the experience of sheltering in place. And it’s working. [1]Norman Wilner, “Canadian directors are making films in self-isolation”, Now Toronto, May 12, 2020, https://nowtoronto.com/movies/canadian-directors-making-films-in-self-isolation, accessed on … Continue reading
But the film I was making was not going to be inspiring. I wasn’t sure if I had the energy when I was asked to make a film for the Greetings from Isolation Project, but I had nothing to lose and less to do. Dirty Talk is a time capsule of my state of mind during the first wave of the pandemic. It captures the yearning and the revulsion I felt as a single person living alone. It feels like the floor is liquid. Spit bubbles, licking doorknobs and washing hands in saliva in close up against a black background while I channelled my inner ASMR host to create something erotic and uncanny, intimate and anonymous. I’m delighted to have a PG film programmed at two porn film festivals.
This project follows my research on the grotesque which creates gaps, spaces of play in between culturally relative boundaries; it generates an uncomfortable oscillation between attraction and repulsion. [2] Frances S. Connelly, “Introduction: Entering the Spielraum”, The Grotesque in Western Art and Culture, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2012. [3] Noël Carrol “The Grotesque Today: Premilinary Notes on a Taxonomy”, Modern Art and the Grotesque, Eds Frances S. Connelly, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2003, pp. 291-311. [4] Justin D. Edwards and Rune Graulund, Grotesque, London and New York, Routledge, 2013. [5]Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, Methen & Co Ltd, London, 1972. What was grotesque yesterday is mundane today as we create new boundaries in new places. I also expected the experience of this film would evolve with the pandemic. As I write this in the spring of 2022, a gulf has grown between this past version of myself. These obsessions seem quaint and exhausting.
References
↑1 | Norman Wilner, “Canadian directors are making films in self-isolation”, Now Toronto, May 12, 2020, https://nowtoronto.com/movies/canadian-directors-making-films-in-self-isolation, accessed on March 29, 2021. |
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↑2 | Frances S. Connelly, “Introduction: Entering the Spielraum”, The Grotesque in Western Art and Culture, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2012. |
↑3 | Noël Carrol “The Grotesque Today: Premilinary Notes on a Taxonomy”, Modern Art and the Grotesque, Eds Frances S. Connelly, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2003, pp. 291-311. |
↑4 | Justin D. Edwards and Rune Graulund, Grotesque, London and New York, Routledge, 2013. |
↑5 | Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, Methen & Co Ltd, London, 1972. |