In the single channel video Shrugging Offing, UK artist Lucy Clout uses the model of online ASMR broadcasts to discuss the positioning of intimacy, sexuality and comfort on the surfaces of the female body.
Through their sound and image structure Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response videos claim to create a calming feeling within the body of the audience. They are used as sleep aids and relaxants and made almost exclusively by young women, and so are prone to sexual readings. ASMR involves role-play to camera, whispering with soothing tones whilst acting routines such as wrapping presents or applying make-up to the absent audience. Popular ASMR creators rack up hundreds of thousands of views on their YouTube channels.
Shrugging Offing begins in a London factory that manufactures modest clothing for women. The floaty, discreet garments disrupt focus and exist within the video as an insubstantial, moire patterned, refusal of surface. The video is paced by shrieking and flirting voices, squeezing and picking at unseen friends and lovers.
presented by Nick Strike
SHRUGGING OFF
Lucy Clout
19/6 – 5/7/15