Alone Together (2018)
‘Girlfriend roleplay’ is a popular subculture on YouTube. In this variant of ASMR videos (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), in which visual and auditory stimuli create a sense of pleasure in those susceptible to them, women film themselves in bed whispering to their webcam as if it were their lover. ‘How was your day?’, they ask, ‘I really appreciate all that you’ve done.’ The short films go no further than a little kiss to the camera but are spellbinding and comforting. Documentary filmmaker Guus Voorham edited several of these videos into a short film and created his ideal partner out of all these virtual girlfriends, with names like Softlygaloshes, Stephanie 7whispers and Fairyblossom. ‘Nobody can replace you; you are the one unique you’, they say to him - and to all the others watching. What happens when intimacy becomes a product?
Since graduation, Guus Voorham has been concerned with the influence of the internet on human interaction. In 2012 the public expectation of the internet was still overwhelmingly positive, but the tide has turned, and the discussion nowadays is mainly about the negative effect on the public debate, attention span, thinking capacity, intimacy and libido. Voorham sees the internet as a distorting mirror, in which human desires, fears and needs are reflected in a twisted form. By examining how this happens, he gets to know his impulses and inhibitions and thus finds better answers to the question of what it means to be human.
single-channel video, 16:16 min.
direction and edit: Guus Voorham | music: Beau Zwart | sound post production: Henk-Jelle De Groot | coloring: Laurent Fluttert | text contribution: Artist Statement
