PT #1398

PT #1398 is a performance for camera that involves sadomasochistic and body modification practices, and kinky activities, specifically fisting.
Conceptually, the video focuses on the implications that medical institutions have in the control of the body and the construction of sexual perversions. The hospital becomes a metaphor for a disciplinary space where human flesh is manipulated and transformed with practices that open the patient’s body inside out, leading to the creation of sexual perversion, which is represented by fisting.
The video also explores the extent to which a work of art that involves BDSM practices may be affected by institutional power. In other words, in the UK, it is legally forbidden to possess material that depicts people engaging in sadomasochistic and kinky activities. People can be convicted under Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, otherwise known as the Extreme Pornography Act. Artists may also be affected by the aforementioned regulation should they be unable to demonstrate that the images shown are part of an artwork. Therefore, to prove that the sadomasochist practices have been performed to create an artwork, at the beginning and the end of the video, I have used a statement that declares that every act performed is part of an art piece. The statement does not have to be understood as something separated from the work, but as an integral part of it. The end of the video also shows the aftercare. The statement and the aftercare underline the extent to which the production of a work of art that focuses on the use of sadomasochistic practices may be challenged by the regulations that address BDSM as illegal despite being consensual.