The Kiss

Standard 16mm Film & Installation

The Kiss is an exploration of the nature of the climatic cinematic kiss sequence; the nature of the camera’s gaze; and how the audience are affected by these ‘sublime’ images.

The installation draws upon auteur film director Alfred Hitchcock’s notion of the temporary ménage a trois; the theory that through the presence of a camera, the audience are drawn into these sublime images and made to feel as though they are apart of the couples embrace.  Giving them ‘the great privilege of embracing’ the couple (Hitchcock). 

The couple on the screen cannot exist, however, without the camera, as a ‘couple implies a third… there is thus always a third party in a couple - a gaze welding it together’ (Pascal Bowiter).  Through the presence of the camera, which represents the audience, we become a third party to the lovers embrace, thereby creating Hitchcock’s temporary ménage à trois.

The Kiss was installed within a small pseudo cinema projection booth. The audience were restricted to watching the film via the reflected, slightly out of focus light spillage from the projector, creating an inversion of the cinematic experience that forced them to assume the perspective of the Projectionist instead of the spellbound spectator.  Free to move around the projection booth, they inadvertently walked through and disrupted the refracted film image, revealing its true form - merely ephemeral light - and the fallacy of these supposedly sublime images.

The Kiss

Conceived, Directed, Filmed & Produced by Laura Jean Healey