This interview from 20 May
2008 between Cheryl Rondeau and Louise Bak is reprinted from www.toromagazine.com.
Louise Bak: Why a 100 serial portraits in Eclipse? Have
you abstracted these images in any ways? What do you hope to convey in this
series of portraits? Any sense of narrative in the impressions?
Cheryl Rondeau:
Actually I could go on forever with this project. I decided on a hundred in
order to have an end and to have enough portraits
to create this feeling of repetition and destabilization. Through this
repetition of so many women performing a similar gesture, as well as blowing
them up and manipulating them digitally in the editing process, I am attempting
to abstract this gesture, to denaturalize it, create a disconnect with its
implied meaning. By focusing on a very specific micro-gesture and extracting it
completely from its original context I am interested in showing its absurdity
when devoid of content. In a sense I am taking to its extreme Judith Butler’s
theory of gender performativity where
she describes repetition of certain behaviours and gestures as integral to the
naturalization of sex and gender differences. My interest is in isolating these
gestures and exposing their meanings as constructs. Actually Eclipse is the third video in a trilogy
that isolates a number of gestures. The first one Blanc focuses on the toss of the female head as it turns toward the
camera, and the second one, Les Petites
Morts, isolates women in the act of screaming toward the camera.
LB: What do you think of the processes of people
making mixtapes of their most effecting porn moments? How has this
investigative process affected you? Altered your perception of pleasure?
CR: I think
it is an interesting process to better understanding one’s own perception of
pleasure. For me, I have actually questioned my own outward expression of
ecstasy. How much of it is mimicked, or learned from watching porn, and how
much of it is an authentic bodily response to those pangs of pleasure?
LB: In watching the porn material, did you
notice any interesting shots of the male’s release facially? Like not just the
money shot. Why do you think the camera cares to go there and not look equally
at the way the male faces look?
CR: As I mentioned
earlier the face is a substitute for visually representing ecstasy. Why go to a
man’s face when his ejaculation provides such voluminously visual evidence.
LB: Porn seems to be everywhere, like ever-more
available. The range of actions in it changes some times, as I’ve seen on the
internet. Would you wish to see more male portraiture in commercial porn?
CR: I think
it would be interesting to see how well received such porn would be if there
was more focus on the portrait of
ecstasy by both sexes. I would love to compare porn that is focused on the
money shot and that which is focused on male portraiture as I think men in this
type of porn would actually have to think about how their faces look in the
throes of ecstasy. As you can imagine in porn the female actors are more
concerned with their facial presence then their actual orgasm, since that is
where the camera tends to be focused.
LB: In consuming porn, what would you wish to
see, in terms of other bodily levels, that’s not really there?
CR: It might
be fun to make my own porn. I could use this opportunity to focus the camera
equally on male and female faces, and of course on the genitalia. This way I
could better explore and examine how the actors respond (males in particular)
and how such imagery would be received by the viewing audience.
LB: You’re also an active cyclist. You go on
long expeditions, exploring art and spatial differences on the bike.
CR: My
cycling projects like Art Ride or Cycles (web-based visual mapping
projects) seem on the surface the antithetical opposite of projects like Eclipse. Yet at the core they share
similar concerns. Embedded in its very origins: what gesture could be more
endlessly repetitive than the pedaling of a bicycle; the lone figure of a woman
on a bike is surely archetypal, a woman who may be fleeing, or equally,
arriving. For me, these images offer a way out of the narrow perception of
women offered up in popular culture.
LB: Have you thought of doing self-portraiture
of your own erotic heights?
CR: Funny
you should ask . . . I think that every art student goes through the sex phase
– might be on film, tape, canvas or often a performance – something of a right
of passage. I’m certainly no exception; I produced assorted self-portraits of
my own erotic heights. I was studying photography and video at the time.
Unfortunately I’m generally uncomfortable in front of the camera. I remember
reviewing the footage and discovering it to be so flat and subtle. I suppose
the way every-day sex actually looks. My homemade stuff just didn’t look right
– no pitches and valleys, clever camera work or exaggerated panting and
squealing. I remember lamenting that without the technical resources, staging
and professional actors, it’s practically impossible to make the sex look real.
LB: Do you think the moment of female facial
ecstasy is under-watched, compared to the other bits of porn? You obviously
find it interesting, telling such moments?
CR: I don’t
think those moments of female facial expressions in porn are under-watched or
else the porn director would not think they were important enough to include
them in the final product. I remember one female masturbation scene in
particular, it was in a shower and she was using a vibrator. The camera was
initially focused on her genitalia and her breasts yet these close up shots
were interlaced with long shots of her face and upper body. As she became more
excited the camera focused almost exclusively on her face to the point where
all we saw when she reached orgasm was a close up of her face, eyes closed,
teeth biting her lips and deep moans of pleasure.
LB: Having watched a lot of porn for this work,
slowing it down, did you get a sense that there’s differences in the ways the
female orgasm looks?
CR: Do you
mean a difference in how female orgasm looks in relation to men, or in relation
to other women? In relation to men I think there is an integral difference. A
man’s orgasm is external; the evidence is oh, so obvious visually by his
swollen member and the very demonstrative ejaculation. Why divert the camera to
his face when he is at the point of ejaculating? In relation to other women I
think there are subtle differences but ultimately since a woman’s moment of
ecstasy is internal she needs to externalize her pleasure in order to provide
something for the camera. Hence there is a certain iconic gesture that it seems
all women mimic and it is this throwing back of the head. An interesting aside,
having watched in slow motion the capturing of this moment in extreme close up
the woman’s face disappears to expose her neck, throat protruding. These images
have stuck with me as being incredibly phallic.
LB: Do you think they’re performing a certain
model of what they think female sexual release should look like?
CR: To a
certain degree yes . . . hell where did I learn to do that but through watching
porn. As I mentioned there is an expectation, if only for the camera, that
women need to outwardly express their moment of ecstasy. After all, the
director needs something to work with and show the audience that women do enjoy
and want whatever is being done to
them. A part of the male pleasure is ‘knowing’ he is able to make the woman get
off.
LB: I once talked to a guy who said he was
frightened of the look on his girlfriends face when she came, when he saw it
for the first time, out of the dark. Puzzling, I thought. How do you think porn
influences the way women think they’re supposed to look and sound when they
come?
CR: I think
this fear comes from the fact that a woman’s ecstasy is internal and hence an
intensely personal and inward moment of intense pleasure. In the case of this
guy he may have felt excluded from her pleasure, removed from the experience.
Her eyes closed, head pushed back, it is like she is far, far away communing
with something, or someone, otherworldly as opposed to communing with him and
his orgasm. I am reminded of Caravaggio’s painting of Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy.
Caravaggio has painted her alone with a stream of light descending on her face,
head rolled back and eyes half closed. This painting represents her communion
with God. It portrays an ecstatic moment that fluctuates between mystical and
carnal love, and where her lover’s presence is irrelevant.
LB: I’ve heard various talk about the elusive
female “O” – some men boastful that they can tell that it happened. It’s
interesting what portraiture of such moments can look like. Have you seen any
differences in the way this moment looks in hardcore and the way it gets
depicted in amateur, realcore?
CR: I think
the difference is as much in the filming and editing of these moments as it is
in the level of acting. Ultimately
these two types of porn are made for very different reasons and thus what is
captured, or what is focused on, is not the same. As for professional hardcore
there is a crew of professionals, and the ultimate intent is to make a product
for distribution and sale. With amateur porn, I sense more an interest in the
exhibitionism of the “actors” as opposed to creating a finished product for an audience.
I find the camera angles are different and there seems to be less close-ups in
amateur porn so female ecstasy is portrayed somewhat differently, if at all.