Barebacking (an aside)

 

When we first presented these ideas at the 2014 Computers and Writing Conference, Jonathan read narratives of technological dis/orientation while Jackie choreographed the simultaneous presentation of several different videos—using many of the videos you can see in this webtext. Discussion ensued (see one review of the session here).

 

Participants in the session were particularly intrigued by the video loop of the naked back. The loop cycled continuously throughout the 45-minute installation/presentation, augmenting and refracting our points, usually unintentionally. Some members of the audience asked about the race and gender of the person whose back they saw. They described making different interpretations, feeling compelled to decipher what they were seeing. The acts of interpretation often reflected different projections made from the different subject positions of the participants; one African American observer assumed the back was from a black person’s body; a gay man thought it was a cute young guy. Such projections onto the surface of the naked back in order to make sense of it doubles the projection, since the back was itself a projection onto which we invited projections. As participants attempted to orient themselves to what they were seeing, the “projected” images called forth an awareness of the orienting trajectories of their own projections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Put another way, the projection of and onto the naked back oriented

the viewers’ attention to the processes of orientation.