Frame and Focus, 2017, Video (1 minute 53 seconds).
Frames and Focus opens in a studio environment with a dark gray background. My face is looking directly into the camera. Soon, a child’s hands can be seen emerging from the bottom of the screen. They reach up and start to push my cheeks together. A low, slowed down voice can be heard encouraging the action. The child, who is my son, slaps, squeezes and smushes my face, sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes reluctantly, while I try to keep my eyes straight ahead. I think there are physical and emotional parallels between this piece and Vito Acconci’s 1971 video Pryings as well as Hannah Wilke’s 1974 video Gestures except that in both of those pieces, it is the artist’s hand that is in control. I’m ceding some authority of my corporeal form to my 4-year-old son.