Session Two - Exhibition Notes - Tent & WDW

Tent - October 4 Julius Thissen’s video ‘The Wardens” is a single channel video installation that is part of the exhibition ‘Among Other Things I’ve Taken Up Smoking.’ The video two performers dressed in nearly identical all black outfits outfits, with matching close-cropped haircuts, as if fresh from a visit to the barber.

One performer is more traditionally masculine in appearance, while the other somewhat more androgynous, but both through posture, clothing, and comportment signal a male identity. Set against a white wall, with two patterned images with the appearance of roughly cut and torn paper with pieces of dirty fluorescent yellow paper set against a blue marble-like and white paper.

Through alternating wide and medium shots, the video begins with the figures standing idly, appearing bored and listless, at opposite edges of the frame. After a period of standing around they meet in the middle of the frame and embrace each other.

The embrace begins almost gently, as the performers take turns patting each other on the back. As the video progresses the patting becomes increasingly more intense and more aggressive. As the patting becomes harder, the performers struggle to maintain composure, grimacing and panting but nevertheless maintaining the embrace. They periodically step apart with their arms locked, meet each other’s gaze and then resume the embrace.

Eventually the embrace ceases and the performers return to their starting positions at opposite ends of the frame, each standing next to the artwork on the wall. The entire video can almost be seen as a loop, where the two performers start and end at the same standing position in the video frame.

The wall text accompanying the piece states the video explores the idea of “Toxic Masculinity.” The juxtaposition of the soft and intimate gesture of embracing with the almost brutal way that they engage in the embrace, highlights the emotional and physical toll that performing masculinity and dominance can entail.

The seriousness of affect of the performers contrasts with the ridiculous nature of the action that are performing, and gives the sense that the performers are trapped in a feedback loop that they would rather not participate in.

Between Being by Olle Lundin’ approaches ideas of identity not from the perspective of outside structures as in the work of Julius Thissen, but rather from the perspective of self-identification, specifically self-identification within the context of online communities.

Ludin’s work consists of three flatscreen monitors, each with webcams mounted above the monitors. Each of the monitor’s display is split between a feed of the webcam on the left half of the screen which acts as a kind of mirror, and the right hand of the screen an array of hashtags is displayed across the screen. In the initial state of the installation the video feed from the webcam is rendered in black and white, and the hashtags on the right side of the screen change so rapidly that they are impossible to read. If the viewer remains still in from of the screen eventually the video feed slowly gains color and the hashtags slow and nearly become readable.