Sofie Bussé

The eternal interaction between seduction and repulsion.

Seduction and repulsion, video art.
Creating an image that screams for attention, an image that u can’t just ignore, an image that is at the same time pleasant and unpleasant.
For example, I started from the artist Bruce Nauman1. His video contains an eye, an ear and a mouth. These three body part are being poked by a finger. Not a very pleasant image to look at. He talks about how he consciously makes the camera go out of focus. Because it’s out of focus, the attention of the viewer shifts. It shifts between the seduction, I look at the video. The repulsion, when the video goes out of focus (this is the way I translated the art work). It becomes an object. Because of this I got the feeling that the image was breathing. I got the feeling that, just like he said, the video became something on its own. I find this a great example of how I see seduction and repulsion. Creating something that stimulus the mind.

For example, in my own video art, I like to make the viewer go a little crazy. The interaction between an image and a black screen. It feels like a light goes on and then back off, and on and off. You don’t know where to look at or what exactly is happening. The swift between the different images creates a light. A seduction for the viewer. But looking at this to long creates a repulsion. You don’t know where to look anymore, the mind is over-stimulated.

The mind is something difficult, something subjective. Playing with this creates an artwork that plays with body and mind.
The most difficult part is the relationship between our collective mind and our individual mind. I can experience something as intense, when somebody else can experience it as normal. This is, in my eyes, the key between seduction and repulsion. As an artist, most of the time, I know how I see my own work. But I can never predict what the audience will feel and see.
When I use seduction, to get the audience’s attention, I make my artwork for example raw, beautiful or it suggest a feeling,... Then, to make the art work a structure of time or to make it a thing on its own, I try to use repulsion. The artwork start playing with the mind and the body. But, the question is, how does one do this?

My question; ‘How does one do this with repulsion’. By using repulsion I want to create a feeling (subjective) for the audience. Playing with mind and body, playing with a feeling that the artwork creates.

Everything is still very vague. I hope to do a lot of research and just trying out different ideas, to get an answer on the question.