Dan Grahamコミュのbody press

Body Press


1970-1972
two 16mm films, color, two synchronous loop 16 mm projectors
variable according to installation
: two films are projected on two parallel and opposite walls

Two filmmakers stand within a surrounding and completely
mirrornized cylinder, body trunk stationary, hands holding and
pressing a camera's back-end flush to, while slowly rotating
it about, the surface cylinder of their individual bodies.
One rotation circumscribes the body's contour, spiralling
slightly upward with the next turn.
With successive rotations, the body surface areas are completely
covered as a template by the back of the camera(s) until eye-level
(view through camera's eyes) is reached; then a reverse mapping
downward begins until the original starting point is reached.
The rotations are at a correlated speed; when each camera is
roteted to each body's rear it is then facing and filming the other
where they are exchanged so the camera's “identify” “changes hands”
and each performer is handling a new camera.
The cameras are of different size and mass.
In the process, the performers are to concentrate on the coexistent,
simultaneous identify of both camera's describing them and their body.　※1

Optically, the two cameras film the image reflected on the mirror which is
the same surface as the box (and lens) of the camera's five visible sides,
the body of the performer, and (possibly) his eyes on the mirror ※2

The camera's angle of orientation/view of the area of the mirror's
reflective image is determined by the placement of the camera on
the body contour at a given moment.
(The camera might be pressed against the chest but such an upward
angle shows head and eyes.)
To the spectator the camera's optical vantage is skin.
(An exception is when the performer's eyes are also seen reflected
or the cameras are seen filming the other.)
The performer's musculature is ‘seen’ pressing into the surface of
the body (pulling inside out).
At the same time, kinesthetically, the handling of the camera can be‘felt’,
by the spectator, as surface tension, as the hidden side of the camera
presses and sides against the skin it covers at a particular moment.

The films are projected at the same time on two loop projectors,
very large size on two opposite, but very close, room walls.
A member of the audience (man or woman) might identify one image
or the other from the same camera or can identify with one body
or the other, shifting their view each time to face the other screen
when the cameras ara evchanged.


※1 The camera may/or may not be read as an extension of the body's identify.
※2 In projection what is seen by the spectator.


Selected Works 1972 n.p.