PROGRESS

Progress ! I initially had another dress in mind for my finale dress, but the simplicity in this silhouette and the way it drapes on the body is making me re-think my decision !

TOUCH (PT 3) IMPRESSIONS X SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS

Impressions / Scout Pare- Phillips

self portrait series, 8/10. digital.
January/February 2011

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I am so obsessed with this series !

INSPIRATION: EMILY BROWNING X SLEEPING BEAUTY (2011)

Sleeping Beauty (2011) / directed by Julia Leigh

I found something so fascinating about this film. I cannot decide whether it was the unwavering feeling of intrigue, admiration and beauty in a film with undoubtedly confronting and vulgar scenes or the beautiful costumes but I loved it all so much. There is no denying that this film was unsettling and  confronting, but the juxtaposition was done so beautifully that I remained captivated the entire sitting. This feels like a film that you just have to watch to appreciate (and perhaps google the meaning after which I won't deny that I did.) Pure genius. 

My favourite part of the film were the costumes worn by the girls at the dinner party, and also the scenes in which she does the lab tests for money (fourth frame.) it was very difficult to watch as she put the tube down her throat, but i found this insanely clever. Here is a film review that explains why in words better than I ever could:

"Lucy’s ambivalence towards sex is also expressed in the film’s refusal to sexualise any of what is on screen. No actual acts of sex are shown and the extensive shots of naked or half naked characters are cold and detached, sometimes bordering on the absurd in the case of the dinner parties with the lingerie-wearing waiting staff. A common critique of pornography, and the appropriation of the pornographic aesthetic in mainstream culture, is that images that have adopted such endlessly replicated and industrialised representations of sexuality are in fact drained of any actual eroticism or sensuality. By visually and narratively presenting various situations where the expression of sexuality is artificial, Sleeping Beauty appropriates this idea and prevents the viewer from engaging with the sexual content in any emotional way. The dominant gaze of heterosexual men is thus exposed and therefore denied, allowing the film to delve deeper into ideas of intimacy and violation.
The men who pay to be in the room with Lucy while she is drugged asleep are repeatedly told that no penetration is allowed, further fitting in with the film’s absence of what is typically regarded as sex. In fact, the only time we actually see Lucy penetrated is in the opening, and then one subsequent scene later, when she swallows a balloon attached to a long tube for a medical experiment she’s being paid to take part in. Using the sterile environment of a laboratory for this visceral and unconventionally invasive, yet consensual, violation of her body sets up the film perfectly." 

Thomas Caldwell, 2011
Cinema Autopsy
(click for link)

So obsessed with this film, sigh !

LISTENING TO: KAVINSKY

Nightcall / Kavinksy

I'm giving you a night call to tell you how I feel
I want to drive you through the night, down the hills
I'm gonna tell you something you don't want to hear
I'm gonna show you where it's dark, but have no fear

TOUCH (PT. 2)

(trigger warning: bruises)

this post is in no way made with the intent to glorify or romanticize bruises (or the circumstances in which they are inflicted), but I cannot deny that there is something both unsettling and beautiful about them. i feel both uncomfortable yet captivated by the sight of them which in itself is a contrast of light and shade that i often captivates me. i feel uneasy when i can see a bruise forming, yet i long to see the formation and colouration and secretly perhaps a narcissistic part of me is pleased to have one on display. there is something honest, raw and real about bruises and perhaps this is what intrigues me most of all. your skin cannot lie, and whatever the circumstances even if it should and no matter how much you would like it too, it won't. such honesty is a rarity to witness and such bravery is empowering.

TOUCH

touch

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Verb Come so close to (an object) as to be or come into contact with it.

Noun An act of bringing a part of one's body, typically one's hand, into contact with someone or something: "her touch on his shoulder".

Synonyms verb.   feel - handle - affect noun.   contact - feeling

“Touch has a memory”

― John Keats