In January of 2007 I made a video lasting 16 minutes 28 seconds, it was a documentation of a performance I conducted myself. I titled the piece I’ve Been Trying for Days. I wanted to see if I could make myself cry on demand, with no falseness about it. The result is a film, which I find rather long and uneventful yet after showing the work to a group of people I am told this is not so.

The most obvious artistic references contextually that apply to I’ve Been Trying for Days are found with Bas Jan Ader’s I’m Too Sad to Tell You, Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests and various pieces by Bill Viola. However due to its format, coordination and differences I feel it is most interestingly compared to Moment a 12-minute 16mm Avant-Garde film made at the end of the 60’s by Stephen Dwoskin. I saw this at Shoot Shoot Shoot 2 in Nottingham’s Broadway cinema. In the short film we witness a woman’s face before during and after 0rgasm. Ultimately, both pieces are documentation of attempts at achieving a self-imposed change of physiological state.

The sound, camera use and editing in both pieces seems to be very similar and pretty simple. The sound in neither piece is that relevant but it’s still there, they are quite quiet pieces of work, yet neither is tranquil. It’s possible for Dwoskin to have cropped his film at either end but both run in real-time.

In Moment the performers face and naked shoulder are all that we can see of a figure laying upon a red pillow and presumably bed. Dwoskin says that the film is “A concentration on the subtle changes within the face.” and asks, “Have you ever really watched the face in 0rgasm?” I don’t personally feel that his performers subtle facial changes were that interesting and I don’t remember a specific definite moment in the film where she was mid-0rgasm, it was more a stumbling build up and build down which blurred into each other, interspersed with cigarette smoking. The performer he has chosen doesn’t have the most expressive of faces and while I appreciate that it might have been difficult to find a performer to be in this film I feel that without one the piece is almost defunct.

In I’ve Been Trying for Days my work takes a longer and more interesting build up to what was a far less enjoyable conclusion. I sneeze, laugh, and it is clear from my facial expressions and meandering eyes that I am in a rather fluxing state of mind. Her climax is ambiguous yet it is clear when I am crying, this is perhaps due to tears being produced and that the image is far clearer on Hi-Definition Video than 16mm film. In Moment the presence of a cigarette was unexpected and it made the work seem less experimental, even a bit seedy. I also felt that from the viewer’s point of view, the smoking limited the scope for imagining what might be on her mind; this seems to reduce the eroticism of the piece.

I feel that Dwoskin’s choice to portray a woman being pleasured rather than himself or a male brings the work closer to er0ticism and brings up issues of exploitation and sexism. The work is quite close to p0rnography in that it is material of a sexual nature and its artistic merit is unclear; it hasn’t been produced for arousal but does take a fascination in a sexual act. I’m not accusing Moment of being p0rnographic; it is the seemingly exploitative notions that I find interesting.

The performers have chosen to be documented conducting, what I consider normally quite private acts knowing that they will later be publicly displayed. This is probably where I see the strongest of similarities between the two pieces, and why it intrigued me. I don’t like the piece but what fascinated me was this woman’s choice to take part in it. I found myself telling many people about my film but showing it to very few. I could have easily attempted to make myself cry without filming it, but I must have wanted to show people this. It is a strange thing to want to do and I am still unsure as to why I did it. I don’t feel as though I have exploited myself and if I have then I am ok with it. It might be a far more male thing; publicly showing off my ability to cry. But I think that this is reading into things a bit too much; applying meaning and interpretation where it is inappropriate. I think that both pieces are what they are: His work was about observing minor alterations in the face whereas mine was an attempt at seeing whether or not I could cry on demand. Dwoskin wanted to produce a short film where we could observe and I wanted to document a performance that was an experiment with myself.

Dwoskin has chosen to use somebody else. I would have preferred Dwoskin to have turned the camera upon himself for this piece because his use of a performer seems cowardly and I think complicates the piece. However I’m not sure of the appeal in the idea of watching a film where an artist portrays their self, having an 0 rgasm. This would probably seem a little too narcissistic. I think filming a performer turns what could have been an impersonal exploration into physiology into a much more personal and sentimental insight of an anonymous woman. The use of somebody else performing questions the authorship of the piece, whose work is Moment? I think that the performer should take more credit for the work and that Dwoskin’s involvement was quite minimal; you could even go so far as to label the work a ‘found performance’. I don’t like Moment. It is quite banal and has become very dated. Also the visual language is not one I am used to because filmmaking, performance art, eroticism and film direction have all become so much more immediate in the years following Moment. It may be considered a highly influential piece of film, but I feel I achieve a similar effect with I’ve Been Trying for Days. Moment doesn’t achieve what it could and is disappointing, I wasn’t expecting a subtle work, and I don’t think it works as one.