Screen Kiss (2007-2013)

Expanded cinema performance: 16mm film, lipstick, live manipulated optical & magnetic sound

Reimag(in)ing feminine desire, this ‘living film’ film subverts Hollywood's projections of compulsory heterosexuality. The performer applies lipstick and kisses a film loop as it runs through the projector. The lipstick imprints made onto the surface of the celluloid are transformed into flickering, abstracted, increasingly ecstatic images onscreen.

The kisses spill over the boundaries of the film frame onto the optical sound strip, which translates these tactile traces of human touch into sound… mixed live with tape-recorded screen kisses… then fed through guitar effects pedals. The performance ends when the film is too clogged with lipstick to run through the projector, and suddenly slips out of the gate.

Performances (screening):

Film Material #8, Rogue Studios, Manchester | 2013

Misdirect Movies, The Royal Standard, Liverpool | 2013

Cinema Corporel, Dark Arches, Granary Wharf, Leeds | 2011

Ladyfest, Holy Trinity Church, Leeds | 2007

FEATURED IN print:

Analog Cookbook #7: Analog Erotica (US) | 2023

Anastassiou, M. ‘Silver Screens’ in: Tompouris, L. ed. Physical or Otherwise: Suggestions and Encounters. Glasgow: The Telfer Gallery, pp.32-49 | 2018