Brice Dellsperger
10 May - 09 Jul 2011
BRICE DELLSPERGER
Body double 22
10 May - 9 July, 2011
“The very nature of the substitute is therefore double since it is a unique being with multiple facets, with multiple images and bodies. Verna is an image that replaces another image in a substitution film. And he plays all the roles. When he plays the role of the loved woman, he is also the one who loves. As a substitute, he loves a substitute, for a substitute love, reinforced by simulacra and parodical emotions and carried by the voices of the originals. In the close-ups, it is even more difficult to recognize or grant a status to this being. The disguised actor is hybrid, multiple and multiplied. In the moments of extreme disruption, when the mouth is only miming a Dreamland male or female voice, lost perception seeks a sign of recognition from this man who is no longer really man and who doesn’t give the line to anyone – save for himself. The body double is self-engendering and zaps itself. It regur- gitates itself at the same time that it devours itself. Strangely disturbing, it transforms into the other while remaining the same. Through its function as substitute and a voice vessel, its only status in the film is that of image. If Verna claims to be a “tool” in the Dellsperger’s film,
it is because he is not in action. Because he is a replicant with no will, he simply presents to us his body, from which all feeling has been drained, from which all pathos has been coldly pushed aside. Verna is a pit in which everything coils up, in which everything is integrated; through the play of mirrors, he watches himself in action, just as before every shot, he watches the model he is getting ready to reproduce. In the angle-reverse-angle shots, while he faces himself, he takes on the aspect of a twin who
is already dead because of the editing and by eyeline matching. It is a hologram that is removed from space and time. It only exists in the instant. The disguises and the mirrors turn him into a perpetual reflection in the catoptric game of the film.”
Marie Canet, Posture and High Heels, traduction Molly Stevens, Edited by Toasting Press et Sternberg Press, 2011
Body double 22
10 May - 9 July, 2011
“The very nature of the substitute is therefore double since it is a unique being with multiple facets, with multiple images and bodies. Verna is an image that replaces another image in a substitution film. And he plays all the roles. When he plays the role of the loved woman, he is also the one who loves. As a substitute, he loves a substitute, for a substitute love, reinforced by simulacra and parodical emotions and carried by the voices of the originals. In the close-ups, it is even more difficult to recognize or grant a status to this being. The disguised actor is hybrid, multiple and multiplied. In the moments of extreme disruption, when the mouth is only miming a Dreamland male or female voice, lost perception seeks a sign of recognition from this man who is no longer really man and who doesn’t give the line to anyone – save for himself. The body double is self-engendering and zaps itself. It regur- gitates itself at the same time that it devours itself. Strangely disturbing, it transforms into the other while remaining the same. Through its function as substitute and a voice vessel, its only status in the film is that of image. If Verna claims to be a “tool” in the Dellsperger’s film,
it is because he is not in action. Because he is a replicant with no will, he simply presents to us his body, from which all feeling has been drained, from which all pathos has been coldly pushed aside. Verna is a pit in which everything coils up, in which everything is integrated; through the play of mirrors, he watches himself in action, just as before every shot, he watches the model he is getting ready to reproduce. In the angle-reverse-angle shots, while he faces himself, he takes on the aspect of a twin who
is already dead because of the editing and by eyeline matching. It is a hologram that is removed from space and time. It only exists in the instant. The disguises and the mirrors turn him into a perpetual reflection in the catoptric game of the film.”
Marie Canet, Posture and High Heels, traduction Molly Stevens, Edited by Toasting Press et Sternberg Press, 2011