Two events are portrayed simultaneously on a split screen. The first event on the right hand side of the screen portrays a dancer putting on her make-up and getting ready for her performance. This filmed sequence is also connected to the public space camera. The two camera's are connected to a fader, operations of the waiting audience register at the same time. The fader and the camera in the changing rooms have been linked for their part with a wipe slide, that allows for the picture on the monitor to divide in half in two equal verticals. The left side of the screen shows the public, whilst the right side shows the intimate setting and preparation of a dancer . The two spaces that is the body of the dancer and the public create a visual closeness, an artific…al intimacy which creates its own reality. The faces that are united almost become one creating a hybrid of sorts. In Intimacies we see the artist represented as a dancer alone in her studio. Yet with the monitor image split directly in vertical halves, the members of the audience, in front of whom she will soon perform, complete the video image, one half of her face is her own, the other that of the audience. Thought a 'single being' they are forever separated. By video editing Cárdenas tries to unite the two to match exactly the position and movements of the artists/dancer and that of the audience.

Netherlands Media Art Institute, Stefan Aquilina Read more...