HANNE NIELSEN & BIRGIT JOHNSEN _ VIDEORAUM

Constructions in Space,
Looped, 1996.

A man is lying on a table placed in a field. Above his head a model glider circulates. The glider is not floating in space freely, but is fastened the male member, and the circle of the glider is followed by an erection which is also circulating. Without any start or end the circulation continuous in an ongoing loop.

The video takes clichés about masculinity on its words. The lying man captures the surrounding space by means of the male member, which is connected to the glider, as a metaphor of the connection between sexual power and machine. In the same time the video include an art historian reference to Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of the Vitruvian man. The male body was in Leonardos drawing exactly the unit of measurement of divine harmony, inscribed in a perfect circle.

But here the man captures the surroundings with a grotesque lack of logic. The glider will never be able to take off when it is tied to the male member and perhaps the male member would not be able to get the erection without the glider. The connection between potency and machine puts obstacles in the way of each other instead of creating enterprise and energy.

Constructions in Spacecreates pictures of a cliché, which pervades the perception of gender. Here the cliché about masculinity is taken apart, and we realize the cliché.