[Sic.] – Eric Baudelaire

In Eric Baudelaire’s video [Sic.], a woman in a bookshop in Kyoto is reviewing all the items just delivered, censoring, title after title, all the details that cannot be seen. The technique used is called bokashi, which implies that, by using a bisturi, everything that can cause sexual excitement in the viewer is scratched and deleted from the image. 

The process of selection gradually becomes more obscure and disturbing; from Nobuyoshi Araki’s erotic subjects, the girl’s job focuses on flower arrangements, urban elements, the horizon in Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes, and on the dates in On Kawara’s series Today. Despite this process, the images that undergo the violence of the bisturi seem to be enriched by the act: together with the white colour of the underlying page they show new possible interpretations. The video shows a dual position, between a criticism towards the process of unnecessary selection and a fascination for the touch of the blade that transfigures the photographs in something different.

Monica Poggi

Eric Baudelaire, [Sic.], video frame, 2009.

© Eric Baudelaire 2009.