Skip to main content
Presentation
On Longing in Confessional Art
The Human Condition Series: EROS, Nipissing University (2010)
  • Matthew Ryan Smith, University of Western Ontario
Abstract

This project considers that the confessional video camera works in similar ways to the confessional. Like the confessional, the video camera positions space as distance from confessor to confessant, or from the inmate to lover. It can be argued that distance serves to reinforce longing, and the distance displayed through and by the confessional video camera, like that of confessional architecture, represents an impossibility of fulfilling desire. At issue is that desire, usually sexual, can be exhilarating, yet if prolonged, incessant, excruciating and even painful.

Keywords
  • Confession,
  • art,
  • desire,
  • truth,
  • eros,
  • confessional,
  • Protestant,
  • Mary Evans,
  • Michel Foucault,
  • Jeremy Tambling
Publication Date
Spring May 21, 2010
Citation Information
Matthew Ryan Smith. "On Longing in Confessional Art" The Human Condition Series: EROS, Nipissing University (2010)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/matthewryansmith/12/