Untitled (Hover Kiss)

In the video work ‘Untitled (Hover Kiss)’ the tense but commonly used film and television trope of the ‘almost kiss’ is isolated, reversed and looped so that the protagonists remain in an endless cycle of hovering attraction and resistance, desire and hesitation. The illusion of this endless but fruitless attraction is broken only by the momentary outwards gaze of the male character, turning the endless flirtation from frustrating and somewhat comical to something more self aware and almost sinister.

The film moment is taken from a pre-existing film (Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, 1960), drawing on representations of the trope from popular romantic films. What is only an awkward three second exchange in the film is slowed down into an eternal cycle of desire and indecision. The work explores desire, emotion and the intimacy of such encounters in reality as well as representations of tension, desire and romance in popular culture. This intimate and private moment is juxtaposed against the enlarged projection of this presentation as well as it's cinematic origins.

Installation shot at

Trepidation
I report a concern

4th- 28th March 2008
"This exhibition originates from external factors of influence that pervade our lives, and inevitably make their way into art practice. These factors are our concerns. Concerns about money, political and social apocalypse, the future of the nation, the possibility of getting laid ever again, employment, death, art and other things.

Trepidation – I report a concern is an exhibition that focuses on worries, from the legitimate to the paranoid, that emerge within individual practices. Thoughts and disturbances, our collective anxieties, perceived idiosyncrasies or restrained objections have generated the work in this exhibition."
Artists:
Catherine Connolly
Kel Glaister
Tamsin Green
Yvette King
David Short
Kieran Stewart

Curated by:

Kieran Stewart
Library Arts Space
Fitzroy North VICwww.j-studios.org

See the Exhibition Texts page exhibition essay by Simon Gregg:

As installed for High Views, Northcote Visual Arts Festival at Green Butterfly. June 2009