Emmeline de Mooij – Poging tot een dutje (Attempting a Nap)

Poging tot een dutje’ (Attempting a Nap) by the Dutch artist Emmeline de Mooij is activated when someone takes place in the electrically-powered massage chair that measures your body and gives an accurate massage. Emmeline de Mooij made a special cloak with it in total harmony with the colours of the chair.

On the screen placed opposite of the chair, so-called ‘slime videos’ are being played. The video clips, inspired by slime videos on Instagram, show a slimy substance that is being kneaded by a woman’s hands.

The videos are part of ASMR (Automated Sensory Meridian Response), a specific YouTube genre that is supposed to give the viewer some kind of relaxation. The soothing female voice accompanying the videos usually gives the viewer a feel of ‘personal attention’ by mimicking an opticians test or hair-washing. In this case, however, the voice belongs to the artist, addressing less soothing, but parallel issues, such as the performance of ‘emotional labour’ by women, persistent myths surrounding motherhood, the association of touch with irrationality, and the elimination of the body from social processes.

Emmeline de Mooij is an artist whose body of work consists of outlining speculative scenarios through which she examines the possibility of recuperating a lost unity between man and his surroundings.

Courtesy: Andriesse – Eyck Galerie. Picture by Peter Cox.