Make up, two single video channel. 4:3 video, PAL, 07’30 min, color, sound, 2008
Soundtrack: The Sleep, a musical composition by the Norweigian composer Knut Vaage
Make Up is a reflection on the meaning of an image and its transcendentality. We are all aware that any life takes the inevitable course towards death. However, as no one is prepared for the mystery of this unknown moment, the intention of the makeup of a corpse is to prevent our contact with death and decay, turning a repulsive event into a moment of aesthetic pleasure. Unable to admit this transformation we like to see the face of a deceased as of someone who is sleeping.
Since we can not bring it back to life, we try to immortalize the image. For the family this last image of the deceased person is very important.
As if through this image only positive memories should survive and let the departed disappear in peace and with dignity.
In this video, the artist works with a professional makeup artist who specializes in working with deceased people and who knows how to recover virtue, peace, dignity and the impression of life on these faces. He is filming her from above during the process of working with a man and a woman.
Although the people who are being treated with this makeup, both seem to be real dead people, both live pretending to be dead. This is only done by the viewer after a while. The intention to create this contradictory situation for such an existential subject is to create confusion and active thinking in the viewer.
