Documentary filmmaker Eileen Yaghoobian has a fascinating new project that “explores the language of modern sexuality and its intersection with technology.” She solicits real life sexts from the public, and for a fee, turns them into short art films. You have to see Ted & Holly, below, to understand what I’m talking about:
The site is called simply, Send Me Your Sexts, and for eighty dollars you can watch your personal down and dirty sexts come to life with visual concepts ranging from pinball arcades to tennis courts. Despite the base, carnal nature of the material, the commentary on modern culture is amazingly profound, and often just flat-out fucking hilarious.
“My personal fascination with sexting got me talking to other people about it, and then the conversations led to ‘It would be funny to see this come to life!’ Sexts are really the perfect inspiration, they are current, contemporary, and filled with creativity, tension, real drama and humor,” says Yaghoobian.
Yaghoobian was inspired by her experience as documentary filmmaker (she made Died Young, Stayed Pretty, a movie about rock posters) where she dealt with the concept of reenactment, and by her theater background where she reenacted text.
“The material is hilarious. I mean you can’t make this stuff up. It’s the narrative aspect that interests me most. I like the idea of combining the world of sex with the world of indie.”
Yaghoobian’s pieces aren’t porn because the visuals are not hardcore, yet she is redefining pornography in a very important way. We all lament how hardcore porn has become so boring and mechanical, and that the violent aspects are being pushed to the limit because of this lack of imagination. Many men, women and couples I’ve talked to about pornography recently long for the innocence of 1970’s-style porn when people actually watched narrative and enjoyed the anticipation of sex as much as the act itself.
Yaghoobian’s work brilliantly solves the dilemma of dead-end overblown porn. While remaining fully entrenched in the cutting edge world of Internet memes and serious dirty talk, she also allows us our cherished 70’s-style porn narrative, in the form of someone else’s sexting fantasy, a ‘reality TV’ voyeuristic aspect that cleverly brings us the best of both worlds. Who needs more violence in porn when we can make art instead?
So what are you waiting for? Send her your sexts!
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