response 5: Acconci and Dillon

When watching "Pryings" by Vito Acconci, the first thing I notice is the contrasting physical aggressiveness in the video compared to the soft and passive aggression of "Undertone" and "Theme Song." Acconci tries to pry open Kathy Dillon's eyes as if he was searching for something in them, trying to look into them and get a sense of who she was. It was as if he was trying not only to get in her personal space but past that space into her mind and emotions. Yet the only emotions I saw from her movement and facial expressions were struggle and anticipation. It was like she knew what he was going to do to her face but she did not try to prevent it from happening until it got too uncomfortable for her. Of course her eyes were closed and she could not see him when he reached for her eyes, but she still looked as if she knew it was going to happen. But she just let it happen anyway-maybe for the sake of the point of the whole video.

But looking further into the "why" of the performance, why was he doing this to her? Was he making her see something she did not want to see? See what? Does he want to look into her eyes and make her more uncomfortable with the closeness of his face to her face and his body to her body? The struggle was both physical and psychological, using both their bodies and the performance as mediums to show that. Other points I wanted to make were that during the whole video it seemed as if she only said one inaudible word and did not speak nor breathe as hard as Acconci did. The other point is that I think that there was a camera man in that tiny space with them who only functioned as a camera man and not someone to try and stop the struggle. It was like the camera man acted as a viewer as well, wanting to see what Acconci wanted to see.