My New video 'You Are a Very Naughty Boy!' (2007) created for Transcabaret can be viewed here
Dark smoky eyes stare at the camera and she insists to the viewer “You are a very naughty boy”. In this slightly ludicrous yet sultry performance, a dominating female solicits male masochistic pleasure: a parody of simplistic reversals of the traditional viewing scenario of the active male look and sexualized, passive female. The assertive ‘punishing’ stamp of the female lifts the shutter revealing the female object in the spotlight. For an instant, the male is indulged with a peepshow of black stockings and frills, before the shutter snaps abruptly down. Initially seductive, her performance escalates into a hysteria that is simultaneously threatening and humorous.
The work relies on the simulation of a photographic apparatus via the video camera. Thus playing with the nature of the screen, meshing the ‘making’ space with the ‘viewing’ space of the visual artwork. This simulates a ‘live’ performance whilst lending the female control of her image through the camera apparatus. You Are a Very Naughty Boy!evokes voyeuristic pleasures of the cinema and the burlesque performance and yet intervening in familiar codes of spectatorship as the screen of projection intermittently becomes a violent shutter to the peep show.
