The light sound of rain and the whooshing of water fills the room. I am standing in the dimly lit exhibition room of Horse Hospital, a gallery in Russell Square. Surrounding me are several objects of rubber fetishism, specifically found images of one person’s photography of themselves partaking in an underwater rubber autoerotic practice. The images which make up the exhibit were, according to the sign Augenblick Press provided, found at a car boot sale, and thus it can be assumed that they were discarded by either their creator or their creators family. Yet, what was once someone’s most private moments are now on display for an audience to see, and the subject of the photos has no idea at all.
Horse Hospital’s exhibition space is dark, a little damp and windowless. Its gray walls and darkness make me feel as though I, too, am sinking into the water with the photos.
Furthermore, it can be presumed that in this person’s real life they would not share this side of themselves with anyone, despite how important it clearly seems to them. If this other person is flesh, rather than plastic, who were they to the subject? A partner? Or something else? If they were real, why did they let these images end up in a car boot sale? The images are simultaneously intimate and distant, they fill me with more questions than answers.
My upcoming piece The Latex Maid was, in part, inspired by the aesthetics of rubber fetishism in vintage porn magazines, as well as the exploration of gender which exists within the genre. However, unlike both the club kids whose words are at the center of the performance and the models who appear in the magazines, the model in the Rain Time exhibit was not dressing up for anyone.
Not for the gaze of instagram, not for the gaze of anyone sexually aroused by this aside from themselves. Not for anyone, or anything, else. They were not even doing this for any large circle of friends, because the images are distinctly private. Much like the monologue in The Latex Maid, which is a collage of recorded statements made by people during raves and their after parties, Rain Time interrogates parts of yourself not supposed to be put on display. However, there is a key difference in that Rain Time’s images were supposed to be recorded, but never displayed, while the statements in The Latex Maid were supposed to only be heard by a few people in a throwaway moment, rather than recorded and played to a wider audience.
As I leave Horse Hospital and return to the bright light outside, I am struck by how strange the world sounds without rain in the background.