VALIE EXPORT: The Gaze

The Gaze of the Gaze - Observations (working title) 2004

Idea Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 1992

Project

A telescope mounted on a tripod stands in the center of an exhibition room. A video camera installed inside the telescope records the eyes, the real image of the eyes of a person who looks through the telescope. The image is projected onto a screen, a mini-video screen, which takes the place of the telescope's lens. The image of the eyes of a person that is captured by the camera appears on the mini-monitor. It is a person's first contact with the apparatus of acquisition and rendition, with the video camera. The video camera as membrane, the digital image stands for the optics, the lens of the telescope

The observer sees his or her own eyes on the screen and begins to "observe" the eyes, that is the eye, the eyeball moves in the act of observing, ever so slightly, probably almost unnoticeably or maybe impetuously to

"catch" the gaze of the eye, to grab it, to grasp it and thus not to lose it. However, through the movement of the eye the medial image of the eye, actually the medial gaze upon the eye is being altered until the media-image dissolves itself or until the observer abandons the focal point of observation.

My work is about seeing, about the gaze, the gaze upon oneself, and the gaze created by oneself, and the transformation of the gaze that is brought about by one's own gaze. It is the gaze upon / of oneself and the transformation of seeing and also of the image of seeing. What I want to show is the voyeuristic act, the observation of the gaze. One's own gaze observes oneself and reacts to the observation. One's self-observation reveals itself through the self-presentation of the gaze.

The transformation of the eye, of the eyeball evokes the creation of a text image, which is offered to the eye for reading. Through the movement of the eyeball the reading of the text becomes easier and easier. Thus distracted from itself, the text becomes present in its meaning and supplants the self-reflection.

The appearance of the text increases the sense of irritation and the question arises: Where is the site of seeing? Is it part of the observation or cognition, is it the observation of perception or is it part of the processes that the eye, the eyes "tell" the brain or that manifest themselves as inner perception through experiences.

If the image-eye is changed then a new connotation appears, of course. If the eyeball moves just a little it could perhaps mean that a person does not change his or her own gaze so not to lose it, so not to lose the "self-communication." On the other hand, when a person changes the gaze through rapid eye movement then the image of the eye will be lost.

The presentation for the visitor of the exhibition takes place on a projection disk where the eyes' first image without alteration of the gaze is displayed as a loop and the changing images of the eyes are being superimposed upon.

The actor who looks through the telescope does not see the projected image in the exhibition room. Only the visitor sees the moving images and also can read the text. The presentation of both eyes - gazes, the calm gaze and the changing gaze that creates a text field - complicates one's identification with the action of the gaze. A pair of eyes observes without changing/motion the change/motion of the second pair of eyes that observes itself.

I understand this project within the context of my previous work, which often dealt with the media-gaze, with the medial gaze and with forms of depiction of the perception of the gaze. This piece thematizes my engagement and differentiation of "authentic reality" within the triangle of perception - observation (change) - and representation.

The signified becomes signifier by revealing an unknown aspect like a hidden substance. Correspondingly, the signifying word is signifier by disclosing its actual power: it is seen (not read). Here, I do not have the complete text any longer, it's been lost.

Rendered into English by Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger

April 2009