Elodie Silberstein in conversation with Anna-Lucie Feracci - october 2007

Elodie Silberstein : How did you get an interest in bondage ?

Anna-Lucie Feracci : Once, I found an old edition of Histoire d'O with explicit watercolours in my parents’ library. The question for me a the time, because I was young, was to understand why O would abandon her will and submit to her lover's wishes. The book described a feminine aspect of self sacrifice and the objectification of a woman but because the story was seen throught the eyes of O and the writer was a woman, it made the content less sadistic, more human. It recalled emotions and conflicts I had witnessed as a child.
Later in life, I discovered Araki’s photographs : I got into Araki through his images of flowers. But while seeing a retrospective of his work I grasped the initial interest I had in the flowers.
Of course bondage is used as a metaphor : what is your approach of it in your work ?

Elodie : I am actually interested by bondage in the frame of the BDSM activities. My father was a photographer and also owned a video shop. I spent my childhood looking at his photographic books and film covers, among others, the iconic erotic films of the last century like Emmanuelle, Caligula, Madame claude and Histoire d’O. Today, I could say that the aesthetic of these film references refers from my perspective to the disturbing worlds of photographers like Guy Bourdin or Helmut Newton which describe close, sophisticated and elitist worlds of pleasure. As a young child, I was deeply influenced by their iconography which was first a visual experience that prophesied my strong interest in the art of the “mise en scène”. The eroticism of BDSM is often theatrical, elegant and associated with a strong narrative. It borders with other perversions on the freudian sense of the term, like fetishism or exhibitionism whish are two other important components of my work. Unlike many other sexual practices, the orgasm is not in the centre of the preoccupation of sadomasochism but elsewhere, in a different state. This is this potential in a new troubling destination that has captured my imagination.

Anna : An interest in that iconography derives from a precocious curiosity. My dad - also a photographer - owned books showing early scenes of war. Those photos made me aware of a voyeurist - at times morbid - concept where eroticism and death are intimately intricated.
The erotic aspect in bondage culture doesn't interest me : the fact that the practice is significant of submition and domination which are inherent to the human experience interests me. Through that work I wanted to understand - when boundaries are not clearely defined, accepted or simply recognized - how sadism occurs.
You have also refered to bondage in your art practice : in what is it relevant today ?

Elodie : My work explores principally dysfunctional behaviour between adult and children. If most of my thematic in the past focussed on girlhood and the contentious concept of childhood, I made a switch a few months ago to investigate incest in its most extreme way. For Algolagnia, a forthcoming project, I underscore the complexity and pathology of one of the most revered and protected icons, namely motherhood. The project was influenced by psychoanalysts’ writings that had investigated the link between perversion and parenthood. These have included Masud Khan who identified a pathogenic relationship with the mother as the common factor in all perversions; Imre Hermann who was the first psychoanalyst to report sadomasochistic acts in the mother-child relationship or Estella Welldon who discusses motherhood as a role that could give women the opportunity to act out fantasies of power. To be a mother is often a game of domination-submission in which women are supposed to display the ultimate sacrificial love to be left for another female when their son grows up. In a more general way, I investigate the sequelae of infantile traumatic scenarios in the cartography of adult sexual personalities and the coping reparative processes put in place to sublimate psychic pain.
I think BDSM is relevant of my work “sur le fond et la forme”, as a conceptual and aesthetic research and a way I would like to approach the audience. I could establish a parallel between my practice where I am willing to push the emotional and physical boundaries of the public, and BDSM that I find very cathartic. In fact, this quest of pain and please was defined by the philosopher Edmund Burke related to the phylosophical idea of “sublime”. Ideally, I would like my audience to feel the same as after a BDSM experience. I made a first move in some of my projects where the scenography brings the audience through an exploration of taboos in an intimate and voyeuristic approach. I think today I slowly accept to take more risk to become who I am and to make art which do not fulfil social expectation.
I would like to ask you something about one of your references : Histoire d’O. the erotic novel written by Dominique Aury was addressed to her lover Jean Paulhaun who was a firm admirer of the Marquis de Sade. sade referred obviously more to pure sadism than to sado-masochism. His work also seems to emulate this universe of “erotism and death” that you described previously where morbidity seems to be predominent. How does this compare with your concept of sadism ?

Anna : The association between sex and death, eloquent in the colloquial french for orgasm : “la petite mort”, is visualy shown in Oshima's movie The realm of the senses : eroticism and sex, as an expression of trust and possessiveness, are taken to their purest limit. Because of the extreme erotic experience the two lovers endure in the movie, a freudian “death instinct” is in manifestation : in the case of repetition of a trauma in order to anihilate recurrent past tensions as you have mentioned earlier, the same forces of destruction and chaos take over. And yes eroticism recalls a primitive conscience of death at times and the flesh of naked bodies smells of morbidity.
I can't comment fully on the Marquis de Sade because I couldn't finish to read his erotic novels : this has to do with the conception of (in)humanity I can bear; I am aware of the deepest horrors humanity is capable of but can't conceive them therefore I had to stop reading. I met my own emotional limits when I saw Nagh und nebel as a teenager since then I know when I have to stop (this is where my imagination would associate naked bodies with dead bodies). If my work depicts scenes of bondage it's purely metaphorical of some aspects of the human nature - aspects I feel the need to recognise - it is not to promote sadism but because I wonder about sadism or to what degree we are animals; it is easy to comment on our thoughts but when confronted to death, our acts are more spontaneous and transgressive than our believes or morals. Some critics have pointed out that the Marquis de Sade's experience was a way to transcend the morals and regime of his time - and Pasolini's Salo an opposition to Mussolini's fascist regime - so Sade's work can be seen as metaphorical to some extent (to the extent that he freely abused young prostitutes).
Long before psychoanalist theories, with Venus in fur, Sacher-Masoch revealed the incapacity of possessing someone else's mind and body and the impossible existence of pleasure without pain; it aknowledges our inevitable dance with masochism - perversion doesn't need to come into play for that, life is in essence a masochistic experience. With another controversial sadomasochist movie, Night porter, we witness the desperate remains of humanity two characters have maintained (for each other) in their bare needs for survival : in those two references sadism is confronted to masochism, a dominant is confronted to the trust a submitted as given him, therefore to its limits. In the case of the Marquis de Sade's novels, sadism as no opponent and is expressed as a pure act of fantasm. His abuse is not contrebalanced by empathy and is a perversion.
Jean Paulhan's admiration of Sade lies in an intellectual fascination for the evil and the transgression of tabous : Dominic Aury said that "the atrocious fascinated him (...) the enchanted enchanted him", she wrote her novel to win his admiration and keep his favours. O lost interest in the game when she realised that her lover never conceived as noble feelings as hers; Dominique Aury has met her limits with sadism. For me the fascination with sadism is an illusion, like the quest for the absolute or infinity, and perversion is a trap. How does your concept of sadism compare to mine ? Have you watch Pasolini's movie Salo or the 120 days of Sodom ? What would you expect about going through such an experience ?

Elodie : I do not really have an interest in the pure notion of sadism. I think the most difficult memory of sadism that I could have was my father coming home one day mortified by the dark spectacle he had just witnessed. We were living in Cameroon at a time where the political and economical situations were dramatic. I remember him describing the slow death of a thief caught by local people. The scene took place in the public arena and some of the tortures involved putting nail in his testicules. Today this childhood memory reminds me "Le supplice des cent morceaux”. This photograph shows us graphically the torture of the chinese Fou-Tchou-Li tied and slowly cut apart by the crowd. I am very far from the eroticism of Bataille who always carried this haunting image and considered it to be a mixture of the ultimate suffering and pleasure. For me, sadism is a hole into which I do not want to fall as the risk of being absorbed and not emerging seems tangible. This is why I still today am not able to see Pasolini’s movie Salo.
Having said that, I should accept that my work is full of obscure areas where things may not be so straightforward. In a way, I think I am more able to handle sadism in two situations : the first one is when it is more psychological than physical. It came back to all my research in collaboration with psychoanalysts where I feel very comfortable to explore the worst of the male and female brain.
The second one is with the barrier of aesthetics. I think aesthetics in my work allow me and the viewers to approach the obscenity of humanity without realising it first. Another artist described my approach as being a trappe and I found the metaphor accurate. In fact, even our conversations make me realise the high degree of morbidity my new direction carries. I think so far I haven’t acknowledged it even if in my two next projects, the photographic studies I am making show corpses which have been involved in a sexual act. I am not really sure from where this interest arose. Even if some of the artists I most admire, like Guy Bourdin or Pierre Molinier had make a subtle mixture of violence, sex and glamour, I do not really have a clear recollection of a strong past memory. Speaking of memory, you spoke earlier about “the cruelty of domestic/sexual abuse and the ritualisation of that hidden violence”. May I ask you to be more explicit ?

Anna : You are unveiling different layers of meaning behind the mystery of death. I find the iconography of your recent photographic work close to the work of Virginie Barre : I see the aesthetic connexion on a sophisticated eroticism level but you explore other topics than the glamorous. The horror you refer to in your dad's story for example is complex (politicaly, socialy, emotionaly ect...) and entails aspects that can't all be revealed at once.
My dad did experience scenes of torture that he has not been able to talk about. After the war he became politicaly active. Some of my work is a response to him, a way to give a voice to those affected by the consequences of war.
The domestic abuse I am refering to is specific to the violence soldiers bring back to their families homes - the ennemy they bring back from war is themselves.
In the same way you are using aesthetics to push the horror away, I have used the wabi aesthetics (from the japanese tea ceremony), which are very ritualised, where every object has a meaning and carry a symbolic force, to explore the concept of ritualisation in violence and impose a healing force.

Elodie : Anna, I found that aspect of your work fascinating. For me, this is a completely new facet of your artwork which, in any event, is very kaleidoscopic. When you said “my work is a response to his mutism”, are you speaking only of this work or are you developing other research on this thematic ? Is this work a parenthesis in parallel to your main artistic trajectory or something you would like to develop more in the future ?

Anna : That aspect appeared following the Eat art party. I often refer to war, migrations and the post-colonial era in my work. This time with the idea that civilizations are victims and tormentors of one another, I confronted my own family history. I don't want to explore in that direction especially or become self indulgent. As you say, my work is often immerged in multiple dimensions like with the russian dolls so I have to pin down the essence of where I am going. Recent projects are concerned with the TAZ, Pirate Utopias, the rhizome concept as described by Deleuze and Gattari and relating this to underground communities. In short I am moving towards a research on survival instinct and possible alternatives.


 

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