DIAPHANES No. 5: Taming the Gaze

<p>Art has always been the site of struggle: it’s forms obscure, it’s freedoms pure fiction. And the territory is currently being resurveyed. While identities blur, the terrain is being fractured. Old and new forces are intervening, speculating for various interests, claiming their share in the visible and invisible—the accursed share.</p> <p>What some ignore, others must delete. What mustn’t be shown can be read in a deeper darkness under a stronger light. Blinded, baited, ensnared in finely woven nets, our eyes are like those of tamed animals, first wild, then sore, often dulled: overstimulated, tired, and yet very desirable beasts. But who trains them? Cyborgs? Bots? Avatars? As if there were identities galore, and just behind, uploaded, were a world. For here there is no place that does not see you.</p> <p>Andrea Éva Gyóri traumatizes apples and lemons. Alexander García Düttmann addresses the moralism of form. Beyond the pleasure principle, Wong Ping’s true stories are a provo­cation. Ashley Hans Scheirl stages her scene’s obsceneries. Lars von Trier seeks the Kaspar Hauser of cinema. Uma Thurman’s face becomes vulnerable. Elena Dorfman beholds the origin of the world in Uncanny Valley.</p> <p>DIAPHANES 5 turns its attention to deception and censorship, violence and consumerism, desire and norm, looks for reflections between the poles, ambiguous peripheries, moments of anarchic seeing—not just in art.</p>