Michael Bosworth
The Dutch Wives
May 20 - July 1, 2006
The Dutch Wives is part of a continuing, contemporary exploration of 19th century phantasmagoria. Three translucent white air supported globes, nine feet in diameter, float in the gallery. The globes are illuminated by rear-projected images from 24 lens magic lanterns suspended in the center of each one. After passing the globes, viewers can enter an air-supported chamber to view video projected from behind the walls. Inside the translucent cave, a camera records and publishes images to the Internet. Viewers of the website can see into the cave and make changes to a wiki-driven page that is continuously read aloud into the space by the project computer.
The three spheres and the cave reference Macbeth and the Weird Sisters. “Dutch Wife” is a term originating in the Dutch East Indies where sailors would weave wicker bolsters to sleep with on long journeys at sea. In Japan, a Dutch Wife is an elaborate and expensive silicone sex doll that can be purchased or rented by the hour and delivered to a hotel room.
Anthropomorphism derives from our sympathetic human tendency to want to see everything as personified and a need to feel empathy. When we see ourselves reflected in the eyes of something nonhuman, even though the eyes staring into our own may be dead, their look is for us alone.
The expectations of opening night, or any public interaction, are that we will watch and be seen. Courting Bellmer or Atget’s manikins alone in our rooms illustrates both desire and fear. Our desires for social connection can involve both the will-o-wisp of the projected image or the computer screen and touching someone in a crowded art gallery. — Michael Bosworth
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