Phobia, Philias, Fetish Edit Prop

I propose two related projects: 1) describe in 30 words 2) describe in 30 words

One Title: [Surrogate] The next body of work will focus on male and female bodies (my own), depicted in photographs and simultaneously, in video recordings of the photographs being produced. My subject will be heavily muscled men, bulbous in shape, with grotesque protrusions and with statures which greatly exceed my own. I will photograph these men using extremely bright and saturated light, which will in certain areas, wash away detail and recognizability from the figure. The intention is to further warp the familiarity of the bodies, and alter the body builder association. The images will all be tightly framed on certain muscles, allowing the muscles to produce shadows on its own body using the artificial light. The presence of hair, or lack of will serve to create an unsavoury texture at such a close range. In addition to the still images the project will include video documentation of the photos being created.The production aspect of this project is important for the way in which the entire project will be viewed. [Here describe the production process (the bits we cut out)] I am beginning this work by talking to men online and and on dating websites which have the massive bodies I spoke of. After contacting them and asking to meet in person, I am suggesting that they allow me to photograph them in the nude, or partially so. We are than meeting in an apartment, alone, and I video the process of the two of us cooperating in making the images. I do this for two reasons: 1, [this is a bad excuse — build your own security into the process] I do not have the finances to hire an assistant, or someone to be there for safety reasons. In this setting, I am essentially expecting that they will honor the unspoken social contract of not killing me or overtaking me, considering their size permits them to essentially do whatever they want to me. The reasons I have chosen largely muscled men is to highlight our difference is size, their power over me, and as a personal fetishization of a man that was once in my life, whose body I no longer have access to. I had tried many times to make photographs of this man, but he insisted that I was "objectifying" him, and he was against it. He maintained that I could only have access to his body after being given permission, and that the photographs would detach him from our relationship. My relationship with this man is over, and I am still clinging to that body. This series is about the dominance in our relationship. He was a man who resembled these giant, muscled, body builder types. He never allowed me to do a photoshoot in order to create an object from images of him, so I am now trying to use these other bodies as a stand in to create the images of him which I was forbidden to make. account for it but not in such personal terms] In that relationship, he was very dominant and I was unable to convince him that the images were anything but an objectification of his body and beauty. It has been years since this relationship ended, and until now, I could not consider doing something like this, as the bodies reminded me of him and it was painful. [interesting that making a representation of something that is retreating into memory— rendering it symbolic.] Technically, I think this whole project is really a strange take on the self portrait because the work is more about me in relationship to these bodies than about the bodies themselves. Self portraiture is the only realm of photography I have ever really felt was valuable for me, but as I dealt with critique of my work, the reoccurring comment is that I was too typically female and typically beautiful for the images to be transgressive. In that moment, I attempted to pair myself with a large masculine creature, the brahman, but the critique than became centered around the myth of Europa, animal/female partnership, mythology, and was again not about interpersonal power dynamics. Trying to move away from cattle, [unpack describe the cattle project] I started looking for a more powerful and exotic creature to juxtapose my own delicate form with, and I think that the most appropriately exotic creature will be these abnormally muscled men. An important addition to the work is this documentation of the image making, partly to show the threat of safety, and also the fact that I am volunteering to put myself in this situation. Post-heart break, I began to think masochistically in regard to my ex-lover. I kind of have a fantasy that he kills me, although I do not think about him physically killing me, I just kind of sigh and wish that he had. However, I do not actually hope one of these men hurts me and I get the opportunity to catch it on camera. [This is not true>>] But all women basically go through life hoping and assuming that the men we come in contact with will honor the social contract of not killing us, because they certainly are capable of it. [<<give reference] 
In combination with my fetishization of physically strong men, there is another aspect of my broken heart that I would like to deal with using a more literally definded self portrait. As I read about the grotesque body, and these physical protrusions, like the bulky muscles, I've thought about how I can use myself as a representation of the grotesque body. As I mentioned before, it has been a challenge for me to try and use my own body for this because of my feminine and soft features. [Edit this down]

Project two: title In reading "The Grotesque Image of The Body" from Bakhtin on Rabelais, there is a focus on the grotesque body in two parts, the "upper stratum" and "lower stratum". From Rabelias's perspective, the grotesque lies in the lower stratum. For example, excrement, vomit, mucus, urine, and birth. However, I am not interesting in making work that involves any of these specific acts. But I am very interested in the image of the "gaping mouth" as a symbol for what goes in, and what comes out. I want to make a video shot and looped forwards and backwards of my own gaping mouth with a kind of goo, or mucus like substance that appears to be coming out of my body, but will ultimately all go back in via the rewind of the tape. A notable issue in my failed relationships is that I am very much not soft enough in my demeanor, or feminine, or sweet. After being broken up with for these specific reasons, my ex-lover would continue to emphasize how beautiful I was- only after having pointed out how very not beautiful he believed I am on the "inside". A song by Barrington Levy came on at this moment where the lyrics read "Your pretty looks can't control me- Your pretty looks is deceiving, girl" and then he kind of laughed, and I kind of cried. Since this experience, I have made a forceful effort to curb my quick, harsh, and abrupt behavior- but who knows if that has been effective. I want to create this video of dramatically expelling an internal substance, in order to purge myself of these bad traits, which will then again be re-consumed. My hope is that by removing my face with the exception of my mouth, chin, and neck, and including what will appear to be the act of vomiting some gooey substance, I will be able to include myself in the work and maintain the grotesque asethetic which I am able to capture with the cattle and the less feminine subjects. I am going to mimic, to some degree, the aesthetic of Marilyn Minters video of the women licking the beads. What I would like to avoid, which is a heavy feature of this work, is the strong eroticization of the mouth. My work always has an eroticism to it, and that is not to be avoided entirely, but I do not want the work to be sorely sexual. I want to focus on this obscene act of expelling something from inside the belly, and then taking it all back down again. Even writing that now, it sounds pornographic, but according to some, porn is inherently obscene, whether or not it does serve to arouse.

Motivation [again express in less personal terms— from the point of view of a professional] : I am concerned with this issue of comfort, fear, safety, and violence and I want to address this using these strong male bodies. Since a dramatic heart break, I only have further fetishized strong and masculine male bodies because I yearn to feel protected, and the body that I lost was exceptionally strong.