Freud was the first to claim that "visual impressions remain the most frequent pathway along which libidinal excitation is aroused" and to recognize that art is a means by which these impressions can be sublimated. Indeed, one might say that all visual artists are voyeurs since they deal with the perceivable and are consistently gratifying their scopophilic instinct. One might also say that they are exhibitionists who display some aspect of themselves for the visual pleasure of others.
According to classic psychoanalytic theory, the desire to look derives from the primal scene, a child's observation of parental sex. Although not all children actually witness their parents having sex, the universality of primal scene fantasies remains undisputed. Everyone develops fantasies about what parents do behind closed doors. Such fantasies are dramatic mise-en-scnes that depict shifting identifications with each parent as well as the parental pair.
Freud considered the primal scene to be traumatic because he believed the child would be overstimulated to a point at which his/her defensive barrier is breached, and the undischarged libido creates anxiety that then results in symptom formation or psychic disequilibrium. Another reason for the traumatic nature of the primal scene is explained by the child's narcissistic injury at feeling rejected, excluded, or treated like an unwelcomed intruder. The child often interprets the sexual act as a sadistic one, adding to his/her feelings of unease.
Despite its potential for trauma, because the primal scene is a universal phenomenon, it cannot and should not be assumed to be necessarily pathogenic. In fact, the stimulating effects the primal scene could have on a child's curiosity, intellectual activity, and affective development are essential components of ambitious strivings as well as work in the sciences and arts. More importantly, the primal scene represents the child's formation of an internalized blueprint for what relationships - particularly intimate and passionate ones - consist of. The configuration of primal scene fantasies therefore includes a dynamic, shifting multiplicity of identifications comprised of images of interacting self and others.
Back to art. I would like to propose that visual artists are "playing" with their primal scene experiences and fantasies by taking control of a situation in which they were once passive observers. I view the artist as someone who actively relives and masters painful early experiences that were once passively endured by enacting and concretizing the primal scene schema from the vantage point of all identificatory positions. In the new scenario, the artist plays the roles of creator, director, and at times, actor(s), thereby turning the tables and relegating the audience, spectator, or viewer to the role of the excluded outsider and voyeur. The artist thus replaces a situation in which he or she had felt excluded with one in which he or she not only participates, but also pulls all the strings. An example is Janine Antoni's video of herself playing hide-and-seek with her father, provocatively titled, "Ready or not here I come!" In an artistic reversal of the primal scene, Antoni has her father search for her in room after room, only to finally find her in the last one, nude.
Similarly, much of the tension and excitement in the films of David Lynch derive from his juxtaposition of the naive security of childhood and the unknown dangers of adulthood. Lynch has said, "Everyone is a detective. All of us want to know what's going on." In the climactic scene of Blue Velvet, he draws us into the role of Peeping Toms as he has us furtively look through a closet with his hero, Jeffrey Beaumont. Jeffrey watches the mysterious "blue lady" engage in sadomasochistic sex with his alter ego, Frank Booth. The primal scene is reinvented and Jeffrey's sexual awakening begins. As viewers, we intrude upon the sex act much like the child who accidentally happens upon his or her parents engaged in sexual intercourse. And, as the child interprets parental sex as a sadistic act on the part of the father, so too we observe Frank Booth, the presumed villain, forcing and beating Dorothy as he calls her "Mommy" and shouts "Baby wants to fuck!" Frank's character expresses one side of our ambivalence by repeatedly demanding, "Don't you fuckin' look at me!" The other side is expressed in our own feelings of horror and fascination at the fact that we can do nothing but look.
The primal scene permeates the art of the exhibition, Voyeur's Delight. The artists are preoccupied with secrets and the obtaining of knowledge via voyeurism. They not only invite the audience's curiosity, but their participation, by having them share in the revelation of clues, overhear private conversations, or see what takes place behind closed doors. Thus, Sophie Calle illustrates her primal scene curiosity by photographing private belongings of hotel guests; Janine Gordon stages "gang bangs" on the internet for all to see; Lee Gordon's images fuse the bodies of child and adult as a way of violating the generational boundary set up in the primal scene (i.e., adults do it; children don't); and Jocelyn Taylor takes control of a commonly endured situation by women: she manipulates us into the role of voyeur as we watch a videotape of her lying down, feet in stirrups, on a gynecologist's table. The art in Voyeur's Delight stimulates us, shocks us, arouses our curiosity and shame, and offers a number of alluring variations on a universal theme.
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