Trichotillomania (2008)

Digital Video, Loop, 87m 39s

For the film I picked out my entire beard, at first with fingers and then tweezers. Although it is an action borne out of stress when I forced/instructed myself to do so it became meditative. The camera was set up beneath my chin with a sheet of acetate across the lens so when I drop the hairs they appear to fall onto the screen. The hairs demarcate the dividing line between viewer and subject; they actually illustrate the screen, or the lens, or video surface, making it appear real and tactile and separating the space I occupy as the subject and the space they occupy as the viewer.

As the film progresses and I pick more hairs the screen fills up, increasing the coverage on the acetate and thus creating a more opaque boundary between the viewer and myself. As I become more self-involved and the action becomes more meditative the viewer is further distanced from myself, physically partitioned by the presence of the hairs. As the film progresses the viewers initial definition of themselves in relation to myself changes as their presence is negated by pieces of me.