To view Moon Bathing please use the Vimeo link below:
Link:https://vimeo.com/340661714
Moon Bathing is a single screen video installation 2.30 minutes in duration; a blend of video and hand-coloured images exploring female sexuality, lunacy and landscape, accompanied by a recitation of Klara du Plessis’ poem “Someone other than else”.
Moon Bathing was developed during an artist-in-residence at Can Serrat, Montserrat, Spain (2018). Drawing on the historic romanticism associated with the surrounding mountainous landscapes and referencing the literary works of Daphne du Maurier and Jean Rhy’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Salmon examines the relationship between female sexuality, desire, lunacy and landscape. Using herself as sole subject matter in a series of nighttime performances, Salmon uses digital and analogue long exposures to capture intimate scenarios between multiple selfs; presenting the female figure(s) in tender or sexualised relationships or roles: as self, lovers, family members or friends.
Harking back to the dream-like, magical affect reminiscent of early photography and film, Salmon uses the traditional post-production technique of hand colouring with the contrasting starkness of black and white to create a narrative that appears to flicker and move in breath-like rhythms that fall and rise between reality/fantasy, conscious/sub-conscious and dreamer/dreams.
Accompanying the moving image and breaking the silence of the female figure is an audio work: an extract from Canadian South African poet, Klara du Plessis’ poem “Someone other than else” (recited by Salmon). While the female figure inhabits her own body in privacy, adopting gently erotic poses, she is being viewed almost voyeuristically by the audience—the accompanying audio poem serves to literally give voice to this female body, which traditionally is disallowed from developing beyond an aesthetic and sexualized object. As such, the moving image and audio collaborate to empower the female figure and to activate her to an expressive, generative subject.
Moon Bathing
2018
Black and white and hand coloured film
2:28mins