Hacia arriba, a la cima
…experimentando el deseo
(Upwards to the top
…experiencing desire)
Videoperformance
March 2023
Valencia, Spain
Material: 1 ice cube, two mouths.
Avvicinarsi,
spinti dal desiderio,
e infine sfiorarsi,
mentre il desiderio,
poco a poco, svanisce.
(Approach,
driven by desire,
and finally brushing against each other,
as the desire,
little by little,
fades away.)
The desire transforms itself, the desire causes transformation.
Photo and video credits: IRA
Video links:
full video
short video
Upwards, to the top …experiencing desire is a video-performance project centred on desire.
Desire understood as an act of devotion exercised through emotional and affective tension.
An act of devotion towards an idea, a thought, an image, an object of desire.
The ice cube passes from mouth to mouth, and little by little the cube melts and the mouths come closer until they touch.
There are many types of desire and they often have a unifying factor, Freudianly defined as a transformative quality.
Thus, some types of desire arise from a lack, others seek an addition.
My reflection on desire is situated in the precarious balance between absence and excess, between the attempt to come as close as possible to the attainment of desire and, at the same time, the realisation that once attained, desire as such will vanish.
Sublimation of acts and artifices.
Between a state of feverish excitement and the ineluctable advance towards the realisation that fervour and ardour can no longer burn at full strength, in between I situate video performance in an attempt at sublimation.
Finally, there is a Turkish word: Hasret, which means desire, love and loss at the same time.
Within its semiological meaning it takes a journey through all the stages of romantic desire.
And although it is not the type of desire investigated and recreated in this video performance, I find interesting the complexity of a concept that is resolved in its clear absence.
The type of desire I focus on is visceral, under the skin, a strongly physical emotion that is nevertheless expressed and fulfilled in an ephemeral way.
To move from corporeality to the dimension of the subtle, because the desire transforms itself, the desire causes transformation.
