Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T09:25:30.557Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Video and the Technological Milieu of Desire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2024

Edited by
Anaïs Nony
Anaïs Nony
Affiliation:
University of Johannesburg
Get access

Summary

Abstract: This chapter foregrounds the presence of video technology in shaping the milieu where desire emerges. I interrogate the milieu we share with video technology to foreground an ecology of desiring, desired, and desirable relations to performative technology. Moving beyond the psychological model applied to video and its aesthetics of narcissism, this chapter looks at both dispersive and penetrating video images to account for the flesh in subversive ways. I do so by looking at an historical moment: the demolition of the last women's jail in Paris portrayed in Nicole Croiset, Judy Blum, and Nil Yalter's collective work La Roquette, prison de femmes from 1974, and by comparatively approaching two video installations: Mona Hatoum's Corps étranger from 1994 and Thierry Kuntzel's La Peau from 2007. Dispersive and penetrating modes of video existence foreground the necessity to think about desire in relation to the milieu where images, objects, and subjects cohabit.

Keywords: desire, video, technology, Mona Hatoum, Nil Yalter, Thierry Kuntzel

Perhaps the work of art (the work art does) has never been anything other than life worked on, through, and by a certain intention.

– Denise Ferreira da Silva

Desire beyond Narcissism

The question of desire in relation to video technology is the question of the living together with technology. It is the question of living entities sharing modes of existence with and within technological platforms of relation. What draws me to desire in this chapter is the performative dimension of image technology and its capacity to act on the milieu in which images are seen. Specifically, I am interested in the performative dimension of video images because in that dimension I see the power of technology to shape the psychic and collective environment we inhabit. In that context the psychological model applied to visual studies has been central to interrogating the relationship between video-image technology, intimacy, and identity. This psychological model, applied to video art, was introduced in Rosalind Krauss's seminal article “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism” in 1976. In the article, Krauss generalized the image of self-regard, namely narcissism, as “the condition of the entire genre.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Performative Images
A Philosophy of Video Art Technology in France
 , pp. 141 - 170
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×