Behind The Velvet Rope

At Bad Behaviour, we spend most of our time looking forward, being often busy with new challenges and gigs. There's no time to pat ourselves on the back or do much navel gazing. It's easy to forget all the cool jobs we've done. 

While recently updating and reorganising my recent portfolio, I came across a  photoshoot from a bondage workshop I attended in Melbourne during its Leather Pride Week Celebrations. Cameras normally are not allowed at the workshops, however the organisers allowed me the rare priviledge of documenting this extraordinary fetish event. 

Till I make my final selection for release, Check out this sneak peek video of some of the images captured from this special shoot, that till now has not be unreleased.  

I expected that the presence of my camera would make at least some of the guys attending uncomfortable and interfere with the level of intimacy that they choose to express. And that was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to capture the magic, connection and authenticity of people discovering and learning new aspects of their sexuality.

But the people attending were so open and proud and they shared their wonder, discovery and pleasure with me through the camera. I was blown away by their trust and openess. It was the first time I really understood the level of professional respect and trust I had earned in just a few years of my photography career.  I'm so proud of that reputation that allows models to allow me in to an authentic moment or experience, even when I'm photographing them at their most vulnerable and intimate. People nearly always say afterwards that working with me is amongst the most positive and supportive experiences they have had. That means the world to me. 

Challenging expectations

'I Once Heard Another Man's Heartbeat' was a series of multimedia artworks I created for the 2015 'Company Of Men Exhibition' in Melbourne, Australia. It is an experiential and interactive work, thematically exploring the construction of 'male experience' through intimacy experienced between male identifying people. It asked if there there was an essential truth about masculinity that existed beyond the constructions, biology or binary thinking.

I photographed and then I recorded an interviews with a variety of male identifying individuals that varied in age, race, relationship status and attitude. I asked them to tell me about a significant experience intimacy (not necessarily sexual) that they shared with a man.  

I then used a range of analog and digital technologies to convey the perspectives by altering reality of images and objects I made or acquired, and by changing what the viewer saw and experienced. I hijacked (with permission) other artists work from the exhibition, which came to life to anonymously share their secret slice of secret mens business.  

View the work and how it functions below:

I ONCE HEARD ANOTHER MAN'S HEARTBEAT by Travis de Jonk from Travis de Jonk on Vimeo.

Below is a detail from a piece in the exhibition titled 'Danny'. It consists of a static red/cyan photographic image that altered with interaction. For example it became 3D when viewed through anaglyph glasses. And when scanned with a mobile device, it came to life and morphed gender and body structure of those depicted. 



The subjects photographed in these two images above were both born biological women. However they both defy expectations of how we traditionally construct gender. Danny is an intelligent and evolved creature who lives totally and deliberately beyond tranditional gender and expectations of the way gender and sexuality is expressed, even by the LGBTI community standards. 

The other subject, Esther, provides the a comparative tone that is initially a counterpart to Danny's masculinity. Further investigation and interaction changes the work, and as it shifts, so does our understanding of what we are looking at. It's much like the experience of meeting Danny in person, 


"I'm just being me. And this is who I want to be, and who I am comfortable being. And you either accept that, or you don't. I hope when people meet me that it's a bit of a head fuck." said Danny in their interview,

"Because when they are challenged or fascinated, that's when I know they are actually 'seeing me'..." 


We still largely build our reality thinking that 'looking' is the same as 'seeing', and that 'seeing' is the same as 'knowing'. Subsequently we can't see what is in front of us through our own projections and expectations. I use interactivity and play to engage the viewer and create a dialogue between them and the work.

Just like meeting people and getting to know them, viewing this art is not a passive experience. But hopefully it's one that brings you closer to the heart of the matter.

NO SELFIE CONTROL

CLICK THE IMAGE to watch PIX by Antonio Da Silva

I'm a big fan of artist Antonio Da Silva.

PIX is a work of his that borders on brilliant for it's labour intensive simplicity and it's sharp commentary on the consumption, proliferation and ubiquity of online dating app in our lives and the selfies that are such a part of that. Da Silva fuses hundreds of individual dating app selfies into a sort of striptease narrative that literally climaxes. It's an amazingly detailed study of the posing, posturing and performance that is so often used to define gender, attractiveness and sexuality, that we so unconsciously replicate. You can see more of his amazing work at the link.