FOR BEST RESULTS, VIEW AS SLIDESHOW.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
The Web Cam Girls was shot directly off of the computer screen from free adult chat rooms found on the Internet. Distortion and noise in the final prints
emphasize the intangibility of any relationship between "performer" and "guest". The performers in these images - employing a variety of contrived seductions - pose in revealing outfits, jiggle and gyrate, tease and flirt in an...
more »FOR BEST RESULTS, VIEW AS SLIDESHOW.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
The Web Cam Girls was shot directly off of the computer screen from free adult chat rooms found on the Internet. Distortion and noise in the final prints
emphasize the intangibility of any relationship between "performer" and "guest". The performers in these images - employing a variety of contrived seductions - pose in revealing outfits, jiggle and gyrate, tease and flirt in an attempt to arouse then entice a guest into joining them in a private chat room where, for a fee, they fulfill fantasies and acquiesce to the guest's desires on screen. In this case voyeurism and seduction are complicit.
Web Cam Sex Shows are the Striptease and the Peep Show Palaces in the age of the internet, replete with the brazenness and kitsch associated with them: showy, gaudy décor, frilly lingerie, high heels, and heavy make-up. But behind the anonymity of the web and in the comfort of their home, a guest can interact with a performer of their choosing and desire originating from many locations.
Photography as voyeurism has had a long history, notably with Merry Alpern and her project, Dirty Windows, Silvia Plachy with Red Light, Kohei Yoshiyuki with The Park along with numerous street photographers who consistently shoot from the hip. As with many of these projects, and by choice, there was no interaction of any means between the performers and the photographer.
Web Cam Girls was shot with a digital camera set at a high ISO enhancing the "noise" and evoking the graininess of film, thus adding another dimension to the images; blurring reality to another level - a technique I've been exploring in ongoing projects of street and portrait photographs.
The large format glossy Digital C-print enhances the images, but retains the aspect ratio of the window seen on the computer screen adding objectivity and impassiveness between the images of the performers and audiences viewing the art.
J-F Vergel,
New York, 2011
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