This blog won't reduce scoptophilia to its moral majority definition of "watching others engaging in sexual activity" neither to its Freudian definition of "someone taking pleasure in submitting others to the control of his/her look", but will use it in its Greek acception: "the love of looking". Moralists and Psychoanalysts keep away.
Since these days death is everywhere around me and in my head too, I feel the need to post some images of this damned male desire (previous posts about it here), sometimes the only thing that seems to hang you to life. This strange thing penis is and this pleasure to feel it hard in our hand, when it seems it's the only part of our body that is still alive. These image caught here and there (most on tumblr, surely from porno shots) illustrate nicely and variously this eternal human motor. Don't see what may fit more my present state of mind.
Roger Ballen is one of the most intriguing, fascinating and metaphysical photographer in history. Falling in no specific category (it's documentary mixed with symbolism and even mysticism), it's the exact opposite of the euphemisation of the world or its spectacularization (sorry if I create words, I'm too lazy to see if their French equivalent is correct in English). Dirt and flesh are shown with a neutral perspective. No images have better shown our animality and the presence of animals (often despised ones) with humans in a very intimate proximity confirms this preoccupation. Born in the USA in 1950, he lives and works in South Africa since the 70's. His site here to see more.
Harry Cloud is a musician who is far above much of the usual shitty dolls majors or independant labels try to sell us as geniuses. His last album, released under the Single Mothers name (but now under his own name) was in my Top 10 fave LPs of last year (see here) and the demos of his new one (called apparently Ocean Song) will certainly be in my top 10 of this one if I'm still alive next December (both can be listened to below). He's doing music for quite a while now and it's a rather large amount of stuff you can find on his Soundcloud page (here). But of course, on Scoptophilia, it's not his music activity that made me post about him, but this weird series of pictures showing him as a young mum and her baby in a rather bloody and violent (more grotesque than realistic) scene. Impossible not to show it here, it fits well with my usual inclination to find food for thought in any borderline imagery. And it makes me remember my youth when I used to destroy a doll on stage. Seems so far now. One day Harry Cloud will maybe look at these pictures with the same nostalgia and sadness (fucking time making of us these old ugly people) than mine tonight. The whole series here (actually I posted the whole series)
Don't know much about Claudia Böhm and didn't find much about her on the net except she's German, born in 1964 and that these works seem to date from the nineties. Very strange given that I find these images (at least some of them) totally genius. If one visitor knows more about her, please leave a comment. I rarely have seen pictures this subversive in mixing elements that only nightmares can usually mix with such crudity (the baby with a skullhead is creepy). I used 2 of these images to do the cover of my 2012 fave tracks compilation here and it was normal to make a post here about this artist. Moreover it's rather how I see life these days and how are my nights. The only site I found about Claudia Böhm is here.
Inside Flesh is porn-art project from a collective consisting in members and collaborators of SUKA OFF/BlackFleshVideo (don't ask me what is it, I don't know but I surely should). Their approach is in theory based on "human carnality in all its aspects" (sic) but I think they are much more in the fetish than in the corporal domain. The body is magnified by leather, latex, bandage (not bondage) and submission figures and not shown crude and real as it may be if carnality was the true aim of the project. Their statement that "although INSIDE FLESH stands in opposition to the mainstream porn productions, it doesn’t have anything to do with the alt porn scene. It is not related to any specific subculture, ideology or gender. That it’s a new vision of porn" doesn't convince me since I don't think porn can be separated from sexual excitation of the viewer and IF pictures are often sexually explicit and hard but in no case may result in the same excitation that real porn or sexuality viewed unintentionally. It would be too long to discuss and I don't have enough vocabulary for that. However, the pictures I chose for this series are great and really deserve to feature here. IF is available either through their tumblr here, their blogsport there or a site (with password, try poss3ssions) there.
