THE BODY/TEXT PROJECT
the photographic explorations of Darren Saravis
Photography is inherently voyeuristic, intimate and immutable. To project one narrow meaning onto the deliciously metamorphic ambiguity present within the body/text project would be too simple. The models already have text projected onto them -- quite literally. This introduction does not seek to impose answers, but aims to suggest possible lines of inquiry.
Where are we lead by these images that unite the sexual and the textual? What are we to make of these competing layers of reality? A piece of paper (or a computer screen) becomes the canvas for the image -- the image is of a woman who has herself become a canvas for a further image. The images of the body/text project merge word and form. The model wears a self-written projected text tattoo; the multiple layers of meaning emanate from the model's intimate persona; form and thought. The landscape of the photograph, the subject matter, is the woman herself.
Is this naked woman, used as a canvas screen, a commodity -- or is she empowered, given voice, and imbued with language in an otherwise silent medium? Do these words clothe the model with honor and respect? Or has the artist shot these words onto her naked defenseless flesh like a conquered one-night exploit?
There is no single interpretation, just as there is no single artist. A photographer, many models, many writers -- the body/text project is a collaboration. It is also a voyeuristic prying into the complex intimate relationship between words and flesh, captured in a contemporary context.
As one of the models, I feel the experience was immensely empowering. But the diversity of female responses to any stimulus is much like the diversity of female bodies, or of our minds. No two are alike. And for that reason I would not presume to speak for another model, another woman, or females as a whole.
Art slices the world in half. Apollonian organization and technique meets Dionysius creativity and potency. Not one or the other, but both, all the time. In the body/text project photographic form mingles with female desire. The photographer/artist provides a platform for the model/artist to express physically and linguistically. The models of the body/text project are confronted by themselves and challenged to play in the balance between the forces of Apollo and Dionysius.
Darren Saravis photographs bare bodies projected with text written by the subject. Lit by the single source of the projector, the process of the body/text project demands the model to participate fully. Some of the models are pros and some of us first timers. Darren melds his artistic vision with a cutting edge technique creating an opportunity for the model to express. A designer by trade, Darren began the body/text project in earnest late summer of 2006. I crossed his path in the early part of 2007. Incidentally, during the same period, I began writing some poetry in a theatrical setting. When I heard about his project my interest was piqued. I was curious. My theatre artist exhibitionist self embraced the desire to bare my soul on Apollo's structured stage, in front of Darren's Dionysian lens.
I model for hobby. I desire to see myself more clearly; I seek empowerment. I enthusiastically and proudly wore my personal text tattoo. Wearing my thoughts and emotions on the outside was a potent experience. This project provided me a glimpse of my awesomeness; my own power harnessed. My personal image of broken beauty is redefined as powerful, provocative, sexy and self-possessed. The experience has changed me. I am somehow transformed and more fully in possession of my own being. Now, I feel full and ripe.
When given the opportunity to own the space, inhabit my body and therefore the female form, I felt as if I was reclaiming personal property while at the same time conscious of my own objectification. For me, this paradoxical state is encapsulated in a permanent knowledge. The experience lives inside my flesh and hangs on my wall.
I suppose the experience of this project has left me with a pleasantly confused jumble of discordant pairings and jarring juxtapositions. This most ancient icon of the female form appears in a medium little more than a century old. The diversity of a woman's body is fore grounded by the relentless constraint of the word; nipple, adverb, navel, line break, pussy and prose. The body bends the word to conform to its tantalizing surface. At the same time the cold, dispassionate rationality of the verbiage threatens to unsex the body.
The body/text project is many things. It's what you take away. Ultimately it is a promise of exploration, frozen in time: liberating, provocative, open.
Rachel Maize