.<<.<<.>>.>>.<<.<<.>>.>>.<<.<<.>>.>>.<<.<<.>>.>>.<<.<<.>>.>>.<<.<<.>>.>>.<<.<<.>>.>>.
When I opened the handbook of the Body In Performance module for the first time, the first thing that got my attention was the word scopophilia in the key concepts of the course outline. I didn't know what it meant so I looked it up and I was immediately intrigued. Indeed, in the module, we read and discussed about key terms such as scopophilia, voyeurism, exhibitionism. These terms are highly connected on seeing or been looked. This journal is my journey of thoughts of understanding what observing is for me and how I might relate to the terms mentioned. There is a sense of unstructured format, a lack of linearity in this journal, but I mostly see it as an honest train of thoughts, an interconncection of reflections that has turned into an edited collage. Some thoughts are old, some are new, some sentences are edited, some are purposefully written in certain ways, some are pure intuitions.
Warning: There is a sense of self- interrogation, as I am trying to answer my own questions that keep appearing. Some might seem purely answered and some don't even have an answer, but not every question needs one. Sometimes the answer is the question itself, hanging in the possibilties it provides. Yes. There are many questions I ask myself in this journal. Because in every answer there is a new question, in any question there is a new question. I think its better not to force an answer but let it grow inside you slowly.
There has been some time now, that I have realized how fascinated I am by -observing those who observe others-. Even the sentence as a sentence is particularly interesting to me as a word play. But how does my particular interest fit, resemble or oppose to some of the definitions of the aboved mentioned terms? First, I chose to examine voyeurism and scopophilia because they are the two terms which are connected to the act of active looking and the visual pleasure.
Scopophilia:
According to The American Psychological Association, scopophilia is defined as 'n. sexual pleasure derived from watching others in a state of nudity, undressing, or engaging in sexual activity. If scopophilia is persistent, the condition is essentially voyeurism. Also called scoptophilia'.
Dictionary.apa.org. (2019). Scopophilia. [online] Available at: https://dictionary.apa.org/scopophilia [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].
In psychology and psychiatry, scopophilia refers to the pleasure derived by looking at something or someone.However, In human sexuality and sexual studies, scopophilia refers to the sexual pleasure taken by looking at erotic objects, subjects and acts.
Voyeurism:
Voyeurism is the sexual interest in looking at people while they are enganging in private and intimate acts such as sexual activities, being naked or undressing. Usually the individual who is been looked at is unaware of their voyeur. The 'voyeur' is a french word which means 'the one who is looking'.
The American Psychological Association dercribes voyeurism as paraphilia and defines that 'Although the voyeur seeks no sexual activity with the person observed, orgasm is usually produced through masturbation during the act of “peeping” or later, while visualizing and remembering the event. Also called inspectionalism'.
Dictionary.apa.org. (2019). Voyeurism. [online] Available at: https://dictionary.apa.org/voyeurism [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].
+Paraphilia being ' n. in DSM–IV–TR, any of a group of disorders in which unusual or bizarre fantasies or behavior are necessary for sexual excitement. Paraphilias include such specific types as fetishism, frotteurism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, and necrophilia. In DSM–5, a paraphilia is considered a paraphilic disorder only if it causes distress or impairment to the individual or if its practice has harmed or risked harming others'.
Dictionary.apa.org. (2019). Paraphilia. [online] Available at: https://dictionary.apa.org/voyeurism [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].
+Inspectionalism being the psychiatric term for voyeurism.
Sex-lexis.com. (2019). inspectionism - Dictionary of sexual terms. [online] Available at: http://www.sex-lexis.com/-dictionary/inspectionism [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].
Nevertheless, there are more definitions of voyeurism depending on the field of study. For instance, Patricia Hill Collins (1993) sugests,
'One common pattern of relationships across differences in power is one that I label "voyeurism." From the perspective of the privileged, the lives of people of color, of the poor, and of women are interesting for their entertainment value. The privileged become voyeurs, passive onlookers who do not relate to the less powerful, but who are interested in seeing
how the "different" live' (p.42).
Collins, P. (1993). Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection. Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender & Class Journal, 1(1).
Moreover, Osei Appiah (2018) provides his definition on cultural voyeurism as
'the process by which mediated experiences provide a window into a culture that would otherwise be difficult for the voyuer to access. (...) It is a deliberate, recurrent and proactive effort to acquire information about another culture, or cultural phenomenon, sometimes from a distance and sometimes as a participant observer'.
Appiah, O. (2018). Cultural Voyeurism: A New Framework for Understanding Race, Ethnicity, and Mediated Intergroup Interaction. Journal of Communication, 68 (2), pp.233–242.
Rodosthenous George (2015), on his study on theatre as voyeurism, proposes that
'voyeurism can be defined as an intense curiosity which generates a compulsive desire to observe people (un)aware in natural states or performed primal
acts and leads to a heightening of pleasure for the viewer' (p.6).
Rodosthenous, G. (2015). Theatre as Voyeurism; The Pleasures of Watching. Palgrave MacMillan.
It was a relief to see that voyeurism has more definitions than the most popular one. I started thinking where my voyeurstic pleasures could fit in. For my part, my observational pleasure doesn't come along with sexual pleasure.
If I extract the sexual parameters from voyeurism, then it is the act of looking at someone enganging in private sexual activities without any sexual pleasure for the voyeur. If I also distract the sexual parameters from scopophilia, then it is the act of looking and getting simple pleasure from the observation. So, scopophilia/ voyeurism (do I really have to pick one of the two to describe it?) under the realm of general psychology and not particularly sexual studies, is what interests me.
I was intrested to see how artists in different media have intrepreted, used or reflected upon scopophilia and voyeurism. It turned out that many artists have dealt with these concepts, so I collected some works that I have added below.
Let's start with scopophilia.
I add this chair/artwork/ installation/ sculpture here, because I find the title interesting in relation to the work. What is the understanding of the word 'scopophilia'? Does this work contain any sexual connotations because a chair's function is to have someone sit on it? I don't want to make assumptions. Still, to include these pictures in this journal, provides the artist's interpretation of scopophilia and this feeds us with more perspectives on the matter.
In his statement, the artist explains that the people in the photographs were volunteers that responded to his add that was looking for a variety of bodies and people. To exhibit his work, he placed the canvases on the floor instead of the walls, to challenge the relation of the audience with photography.
'With this work, my intent is that the viewer approaches the photography not just as a representation of another place or time, but also as a unique irreproducible objects that interact within a space. My desire is for these figures to take on a physical aura and presence not usually experienced in the viewing of figurative photography'.
Mettler, G. (2010). Scopophilia - Artist Statement. [online] Greg Mettler. Available at: http://gregmettler.com/35-2/scopophilia/scopophilia-artist-statement/ [Accessed 9 Nov. 2019].
This installation was named Scopophilia. In my understanding, the artist refers to the scopophilic tendencies of the audience. Does this imply that all audiences are scopophilic? This has been suggested multiple times in theatre, but this work makes me wonder about the the intentions of the artist. Does he want to outline or provoke the scopophilic tendencies?
Scopophilia (2018). Directed by Natalia Lampropoulou and Ilektra Aggeletopoulou.
I haven't watched the movie, but from the trailer, there is the understanding that the main character is intrigued and even addicted to spying on other people's lives through their webcam, until he witnesses a crime.
This is the way most of the people think of scopophilia and voyeurism. As something creepy and dangerous. And indeed, voyeurs can go to extremes in order to fullfill their desires in looking for sexual satisfaction.
I am wondering; Am I romanticizing this? Of course, looking at people through their webcams, spying, and intervening in personal lives is criminal and illegal. I think the line is drawn in the obsession and the persistence one devotes. Looking at people, collecting information that expands one's knowledge on humans, observing personality traits and human behaviors is afterall a human characteristic. Isn' t it?
I see it also as a survival mechanism. Let me check what others do to survive, how they act, how they behave in this world, so that I can too.
The next works are related to voyeurism and indeed have mostly to do with sexual desires, but I consider them worth mentioneing as well.
This is a perfect example of multi-layered voyeurism. The woman is aware of the photographer, she is actually performing for him. We, as an audeince, are looking at the photograph, analyzing it, as witnesses and voyeurs at the same time. We are free to process the content in our own way. Are we voyeurs? It is given to us as a gift, free of consequences, since its content was its purpose, since it was designed to result in this image. These questions come to me, due to the title. For me it is a study on voyeurism, not because of the photographer leaning over a woman and capturing her, but because of the second lense, depicting the whole scene. Who is the voyeur? The camera man? Newton? Or the viewer? What difference does it make that the woman is not unaware of the documentation but is actively participating? Who is the subject targeted in this image? The woman? The camera man? Newton? Or the viewer?
Kohei Yoshiyuki photographed people in parks at Tokyo who would be having sex or would be watching others do, thus documenting a voyeuristic reality that was evolving in that time.
He managed to photograph without disturbance, by presenting himself to the voyeurs as one of them. Instead of photographing only the couples, he also photographed the voyeurs. Does this make him a voyeur? Do the means of voyeuristic activities constitute what and when voyeurism becomes 'a paraphilia', 'a criminal act'?
'Having a grainy, raw and snapshot-like quality and reminiscent of surveillance footage, these photographs implicate the photographer, viewer and subject making the work especially poignant and intriguing. any of these images seem to position the viewer in the role of a “peeping Tom”, while at the same time posing questions about who was looking and why when the picture was made and whether we should participate in this point of view.
On the other hand, like Nan Goldin famously said, “There is a popular notion that the photographer is by nature a voyeur, the last one invited to the party”'.
Martinique, E. (2016). The Intimacy and Voyeurism in Kohei Yoshiyuki's The Park. [online] Wide Walls. Available at: https://www.widewalls.ch/kohei-yoshiyuki-the-park/ [Accessed 8 Nov. 2019].
The work of Duchamp was only visible through two holes (one for each eye) in a wooden door.
**
To further understand my understading of what I am trying to understand, I intuitevely went on by analyzing and questioning the pleasure I get from observing. In particular, I would describe the following part as a self- interview on my pleasure on observing those who observe others.
Is it to observe how they observe?
Why they observe?
What they observe?
Probably it is everything about it, but mostly the how. How are they affected, what happens to them when they observe. The expressions and reactions of the people to what they are looking at, gives so much information about their character. That's what I like to observe the most. I feel that in that moment, I have access to their deepest secrets, that I am the only one who has the chance to see how they are really like when they think no one is watching.
example 1:
To observe an artist watching a performance.
For me this is important, because I analyze through their eyes the performance. I borrow their lenses and their way of looking. This, not only gives me input about their character and perception, but enriches me with new ways of seeing myself. Then it is also important for me to evaluate their impact on me. Do I choose to follow their gaze or not? Do I really have a choice, after I have been 'infected' by their own way of looking?
example 2:
To observe a man watching a woman passing by.
I am always on a dilemma with this one. There are two ways I might observe this scene. I either happen to witness it or purposefully check to see if it will happpen. My breath continues normally when the man I had my eye one passes the test. When I witness however their gaze drilling the body of another woman or girl in a hidious and unrespectful way, I can feel it on my body as well. The dilemma occurs when the woman doesn't notice. Numerous times I hold my tongue. Because the thought that occurs each time is that I don't want to ruin the woman's day. So I leave the men gazing and I just burn inside by observing them. There is nothing wrong with looking at a woman or a man. As a matter of act, this is exactly what I do. There is nothing wrong in admiring a person, or gaze at them due to their appearance. I am talking about the disrespectful look. The look that screams 'You are a whore for dressing up like that. I want to fuck you right now and I don't care about what you want. I am controlling you with my eyes and you have no voice'. You know this look once you have felt it in your skin. Of course in this case, I dont see the women through their lenses.
The well known 'male gaze' of Laura Mulvey, that the writer elaborates on, in her essay 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema' (1975) is traced in everyday reality. Mulvey used Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic observations on scopophilia to expose the masculine scopophilia that is encouraged and designed purposefully in Hollywood films. I link this here because what strikes me the most is the controlling eye. The female characters are potrayed as sexual objects and are controlled by the male gaze. Similarly, the men I see in every day life, reveal in their eyes how natural it is for them to capture a woman in their sight, objectify them and make them their own. Yes, they usually won't say or actually do something. But we have all seen that it in some men's eyes.
example 3:
To observe the train driver watching the people waiting as the train arrives in the platform.
In this case I am mostly intrested in their gaze. Not in the way it affects the observed one. It is highly possible that this is my own interpretation of the train driver, but through my perception, I see them checking the people in the platform as the train arrives with force, checking that everyone is standing back. The train driver has an enormous power but at the same time is helpless. And for those milliseconds that I manage to observe their face, I see that.
That makes me think of time. How different it is to observe something for hours or seconds? What information I might miss, assumptions I might make when the observation is a glimpse.
**
Do my eyes control me or do I control my eyes? (How) do I use my eyes for my pleasure?
How would someone else observe me as I observed something else?
*I have myopia. I used to not wear glasses or contact lenses all the time and this was firing up my imagination. I would see shapes and images out of regular blurred objects. My sight, although weak, was strong enough that out run my brain which would then send the signal that what I saw wasn't and couldn't be true.
*I like shapes and structure. In all the ridiculous (yet thankfully functional) ways in which this affects my life, from where I choose to sit, to how I place my food in the fridge, I have noticed one more thing. I play around with shapes for my visual pleasure. I have observed myself multiple times, talking to someone and at the same time aligning lines of their background objects. For example, the frame of the window with the lines of the coat hanging behind them. Making sense of shapes, fitting one into the other. It is something by brain does and I later notice. I then decide to play the game, and dedicate my focus in making sense of what I see and the way I process it.
**
My observational skills:
It is frankly paradoxical and I still haven't figured when and why my mind decides to be observant or not.
There are cases where I am not observing at all. My focus is absolutely zero, to the point that my house might change color and I wouldn't notice. At the same time, I might observe tiny details like repeated movements someone makes when they talk, or a specific way they walk, or a particular curve of a road. As I think about it, I think I tend to be more observant in patterns. My big passion though is people. I love watching them and analyzing them. I love seeing through their lenses.
Show me, what have I not seen yet?
**
When I think of observing, I tend to narrow it to the visual sense.
What about observing with the sense of hearing, smelling, tasting?
I haven't observed if I observe these.
I believe it is because when it comes to observation, we tend to emphasize on our vision. If the sight is one of our strongest senses, how are our observing skills affected, when we consider the amount of information ones perceives nowadays? Do we see less? Does the over-information of our contemporary world, make us see less?
**
I started reflecting on how I got this interest with observing.
When was the first time I felt observed?
Well, I think it’s hard to point this down, because kids grow up with a constant sense of being observed. For some reason though, the first memory I have associated with being observed was one that also involved an emotional response. I was around 10 years old and I remember dancing and thinking that people were looking at me and laughing. But since this is something I made up for whatever reason at that moment, the next memory I have is a bit older. I was around 14 years old, I was in a play with some adults, having the role of an exotic bird. In the play, people were admiring the bird, saying how beautiful it was, how magical its voice sounded. I remember being on stage and blushing as if they were talking about me. Then I would blush even more because I was embarrassed of people thinking I actually believed it was about me.
how do I observe myself when I know I am being observed by others?
This makes me extra alert of my moves, the way I exist. When I know I am being observed, every small movement, every shift is suddenly important. It requires attention and is analyzed to its core. I dissociate with myself at that moment, because I observe myself through the other's lenses. I become the object and the subject. Passive and active. Observed and observing.
Do I observe in order to understand why I am being observed and how I would like to be observed?
I come to the understanding that what my unconscious chooses to observe has to do with what is (in)directly relevant to me. This is why some things surprisingly don’t get my attention although they should (either of size, importance, being obvious, etc.). This is why irrelevant things sometimes do. If humans learn how to be by observing others as they grow, by following the example of the authority (teacher, parents, etc.), then I think it becomes natural to do that for the rest of our lives.
The necessity to observe becomes curiosity.
𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓮𝓷𝓭?