wideo, 18'
1989
Robakowski made Joseph’s Touch while on a residency in Montreal, with the participation of a gay couple he was friends with. In the film, slow, erotic images, close-ups of lips and wet hair, scenes of make-up, and vignettes of intimacy and tenderness serve as a backdrop for his own reminiscences about homosexual desire: three micro-narratives that are accompanied by the artist’s hand touching a screen with a frozen frame. In the short monologues, the artist recalls encountering homosexuality at different stages of his life: as a child, a teenager, and a young man. Highly intimate, the reminiscences provide a kind of commentary on the scenes with the gay lovers. As in Robakowski’s other works, the narrator’s voice is not obviously that of the creator. In a film with a separate soundtrack, the artist, in his characteristic manner, introduces a spoken narrative independent of the images.
Work produced and distributed by Videographe, Montreal.
