The Fussy Eye: The Penetrating Gaze

Let's dress our TVs in bondage gear!

There’s nothing good on TV. So let’s paint it hot pink and dress it up . . . with bondage gear! Well, maybe that’s not the exact working method of Wynne Greenwood, but there’s a certain dirty whimsy suggested by her installation Strap-on TVs. Two brightly painted television sets sit on the floor of the tiny alcove gallery, positioned so you can plop down on benches and stare. They’re both adorned with strap-ons, only the phalli are missing, so you just peer through the crotch holes at whatever’s onscreen. It’s a good deal less sexy than it sounds. Instead of smut, the video loops seem to be of furniture—tables and benches and counters. Porn would be too obvious, especially when the concept here—the penetrating gaze, etc.—is quite sufficiently explicit. But still you watch, hoping something, well, exciting will happen. But the rather grainy, fuzzy images are resolutely boring; anything potentially erotic is left to your imagination. (Is the framing on those table corners triangular, vaguely vulvar?) Still, a little programming variety would be nice. Not pornography, but a Seahawks game or Glenn Beck or Animal Planet— something that needs a hard look, so to speak.