Orifice
(2006)

Tamar Nissim chooses a woman’s mouth as an orifice, title, and subject of her video. A reverse chronology is used. What we initially see, is actually the result of the formation process. Slow motions are alternated with fast ones. Close-ups of a mouth. It bites and chews undefined items that become concrete objects such as a double rectangle metal, a white round fabric on a squared plastic piece, a black disk, and a small round metal. Some viewers may realise that these are parts of a floppy disk: the shutter, the housing with the polyester sheet and the magnetic coated plastic disk with its hub, while the 2000s generation may just recognise the representation of the floppy disk as the save icon.

The floppy disk was a popular storage medium used between the 1970s and 2000s. Due to its limited capacity, it was soon replaced by CD and USB drives.

Being a middle-aged woman or an obsolete floppy disk does not mean being impotent. The mouth shown is not as a stereotypical one that expresses feelings, forms words, eats and drinks, but it is Tamar Nissim’s mouth itself and it represents the literal meaning of an orifice, a “mouth-making”. It is a conscious and artistic mouth.

The artist could have chosen another orifice, another medium to transmit her message, but as Marshall McLuhan used to say, “the medium is itself the message”.

Valentina Sankolli-Peduzzi