The image of the tarred-and-feathered outcast remains a metaphor for severe public criticism and shaming. Shame incorporates the gaze of the other, and ruptures the spontaneous and unreflected performance of the primordial bodily self. In shame we are thrown back on ourselves, as the other’s gaze transforms the lived-body into a reflective self. Human self-consciousness, grounded in shame, begins with the expulsion from Paradise: “From then on, shame would become the oldest and most powerful instance of self-referentiality through which the individual ‘makes an image’ of himself. The deepest traces of Being as an extant shortcoming are inscribed in this image.” (Peter Sloterdijk, 1993) Shame is employed both as a marker of non-conformity and a regulatory mechanism, located at the boundary defining the normal and the abnormal. Experienced through a collapse of the private and public, of the self and the collective, shame can connect us to others in contexts where all are fallen and all are shamed.
PROJECT DETAILS
DATE : 2015
MEDIUM : 1 channel HD video. Stereo audio
DURATION : 4’33”
CREDITS
Concept and editing : Michaela Davies
Sound design: Michaela Davies
Camera and post production : Boris Bagattini
Performers : Louise Maloney & Michaela Davies
Commissioned by ACON for iloveclaude.com, 2015