Lipstuck, interactive video installation, 2009
Lipstuck's video sequence shows the artist acting out “La Toilette”. After emerging from the bathtub, she puts on faces in front of the mirror and becomes fixed on the repeated motions of making herself up. This ritual of self-reflection becomes narcissistic obsession, and culminates in hysteria. She returns to the tub in tears--only to emerge again: stuck in an endless loop. Using a hacked lipstick, the viewer can scratch through the loop in real-time, frame by frame, manipulating and exploiting the intimacy of the scene. Compelling the viewer to manipulate the image, the work implicates the viewer in the performance of self-editing while the viewer's voyeuristic intervention amplifies the pitch of the hysterical ritual.
