Images documenting a performance
by Valie Export, 1968

When I started out with my postings about sex,
I didn´t realize that this “juicy” topic
photographically isn´t that interesting.

I was thinking
about Nan Goldins “The Ballad of Sex Dependancy”,
“Tulsa” by Larry Clark,
and “Teenage Lust” , also by Larry Clark.

When I first saw those books,
as a student,
I was sort of overwhelmed
by the possibility to see the sexual act
and other intimacies
just like that,
on photographs.

Meanwhile I have seen a lot more of that,
and these images lost most of their magic for me.

I guess in those years,
explicite photographs
as part of a documentary project,
were rather provocative.

They are not any more.

Following lines I copied from “body tracks”:

For Touch Cinema,
Valie Export allowed people to touch
her breasts
through a portable curtained contraption
for 30 seconds per person.

In the artist’s own words:

As usual, the film is ‘shown’ in the dark. But the cinema has shrunk somewhat – only two hands fit inside it. To see (i.e. feel, touch) the film, the viewer (user) has to stretch his hands through the entrance to the cinema. At last, the curtain which formerly rose only for the eyes now rises for both hands.
The tactile reception is the opposite of the deceit of voyeurism. For as long as the citizen is satisfied with the reproduced copy of sexual freedom, the state is spared the sexual revolution. ‘Tap and Touch Cinema’ is an example of how re-interpretation can activate the public.’

In the safety of your home
you are watching porn.

The action
is gone.

You haven´t been part of it.

You are touching yourself,
thats what pornography is
meant for.

It´s nothing but a fake:
sex is being acted out for you.
You are not part of it.

Valie Export
brought
the essence of virtual sex
into reality,
causing embarrassment
and unease.