wallflowermanifesto:

‘Black Sun’ by Sue De Beer (2005)

De Beer’s videos have moved beyond her earlier work’s explicit invocation of adolescence, while retaining many of her characteristic visual modes and psychological types. Black Sun, her investigation of multivalent identity and of ephemeral moments of direct, unmigitated sensation, centres on aspects of feminine desire and display via the ‘spatial metaphors’ of Julia Kristiva evoked by the title. Wanting, one might argue, is ultimately determined by the idea of memory; the focus on the peak and the final moments crowd out memories of duration. The video traces the life or the memory of a single girl at three significant ages, marked by simple, numerical intertitles.