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fleurs du mal

@nightnaiads

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TRADEMARKS Photo piece, 1970

Biting myself: biting as much of my body as I can reach.

If someone passionately embraces his double through the glass, at that moment the double becomes alive, and the being and the image love one another through the wall. —Alfred Jarry, Les Jours et Les Nuits, 1897

Vito Acconci was one of the first to experiment with performance art, in which the artist’s own body was treated like clay—a material to be manipulated, altered, posed, punished, and displayed. In Trademarks, Acconci established a task to execute and then performed it diligently, biting as many parts of his naked body as he could reach and documenting his self-mutilation with photographs and printer’s ink. Like much of his work, Trademarks seeks to breach the boundaries between inside and outside, private and public. The work is also intended as an astute, even humorous, commentary on the branding and marketing of artists and their labor.

what i don't see talked about a lot is the horror trope subversion of angelina (mark's sister). i know it is likely due to saw maintaining deliberate distance from sexual/romance driven plots which is also a feat in and of itself in horror, but to make an antagonist's motivation his sister rather than a wife or love interest is so interesting and rarely done. when it should really be capitalized on more since the bond between siblings is an incredibly powerful and unique bond that people don't even share with their parents. and it fleshes out mark hoffman in such a good, original way. that's all.