Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss
Solo Show, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin
22 March - 26 May 2024
Five-channel 4K film installation with stereo sound
Photos: Ros Kavanagh
Running time: film 13min, intermission 3min, film with closed-captions 13min, intermission with closed captions 3min, looped.
EXHIBITION TEXT
Sunlight heightens intensity. It bleaches or enhances colour, it focuses attention and strains the eyes, it is simultaneously nourishing and draining; it expresses a multitude of contradictions that elevate and impede closeness and connection. In her new film, Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss (2023-24), Lisa Freeman draws on natural light’s influence on psychological positivity, patterns and focus. The film begins with an awakening, the soft vibration of a phone call in a room lit with the bright glow of summer sunshine. The call is answered by a young woman who relays her experience of a personal dilemma, and tells of how the artificial lights at home have been fizzing and flashing, a hint that an energy imbalance is affecting her luck and connectivity to others. As the woman opens the apartment’s balcony doors, the sound of a bustling city square fills the room and she immediately falls into a state of relaxation. Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss follows the woman, the film’s protagonist, as she makes her way through an unfamiliar city. During the course of a day, she meets several people with their own sets of expectations and forms of communication. The film uses elements of holiday suspense or ‘sunshine noir’ genres to convey psychological drama, but rather than the protagonist succumbing to a situation of horror or dread, her encounters are acts of kindness and openness from strangers in a place away from home. These gestures appear unnerving, even to the woman, as there is an expectation of hostility and confrontation in this urban landscape. Freeman reclaims a sense of tenderness and generosity in the civic space, which is a development of her recent works that also address gaps in emotional and verbal interaction (Slipped, Fell and Smacked my Face on the Dance Floor, 2022), and social isolation in the public realm (Hook, Spill, Cry Your Eyes Out, 2022). Rejecting the desire for idyllic escapism, Freeman instead proposes intimacy as a method of resistance.
The young woman describes a longing for comfort and cosiness, but does not anticipate the gentle, spontaneous empathy afforded her by strangers that mark her journey. This is a tenderness that transcends friendships and family, and is closer to an understanding of fate, when people share a conscious connection in the moment, with no baggage of the past, or pressure to consider future implications of their actions. In her 2019 Nobel Lecture in Literature, writer Olga Tokarczuk describes an inherent gravity holding feelings of connection and solidarity among people: “Tenderness is deep emotional concern about another being, its fragility, its unique nature, and its lack of immunity to suffering and the effects of time. (…) It is a way of looking that shows the world as being alive, living, interconnected, cooperating with, and codependent on itself."1
Tokarczuk also outlines the contemporary nature of first-person narratives, individualised perspectives that are emotionally personal, but tend to abandon broader collective viewpoints. This potentially alienating position is now present in many forms of storytelling in art, literature and cinema, and is closely aligned to online experience and social media. Freeman plays with these tropes in her film with the use of synchronised dancing to Youtube videos and selfie opportunities, and the online musical subculture phenomenon of ‘slowed + reverb’ remixes,2 which expand the emotional range from superficial to communal. The characters hum, sing, and dance to a repeated theme song throughout, a half-remembered and distorted tune that amplifies a kind of timeless and rootless nostalgia. The simmering hum of the cityscape and dislocated soundtrack suggests that the viewer is sometimes occupying the same headspace as the film's protagonist.
Freeman’s exhibition at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios elaborates on her original single-channel cinema edit of Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss, by reforming the film in its entirety over five television screens. In addition to the links drawn between the gallery’s site and architecture, the film’s new format expands on its own internal narratives of sensitivity, synchronicity and feeling both overwhelmed by and set adrift from the world around us. The installation draws its audience from screen to screen through a rhythmic loop of scenarios. This motif has been used in previous works by Freeman to question how we might relive past events, or to convey the monotony of restricted living situations.3 In addition to repeating alternative scenes that split the flow of time, Freeman uses visual repetition to obscure what is taking place within the subconscious, within the film’s reality, or through out-of-body sensations.
During a repeat of the film’s opening scene, a pair of twin sisters discuss performative personas when moving through the city. The sequences of intricately choreographed movement and disorientating spoken exchanges activate a surreal psychological experience, in which layers of selfhood are shuffled and exposed. Everyday acts appear imaginary and just out of reach, while dreamlike interactions are depicted as ordinary occurrences. The characters’ dialogue is full of self-referential questions; declarations of feelings are absent-mindedly conjured and rarely reciprocated as several voices state their concerns without direct response to one another. Their moments of touch however are subtle, bright and perceptive, unselfconscious gestures of tenderness: a reassuring hug, an arm draped around a shoulder, a head nestled on a lap, one second of a sweet kiss.4
Text by Michael Hill
1 Olga Tokarczuk, ‘The Tender Narrator’, Nobel Lecture in Literature, 7 December 2019: https://www.nobelprize.org/pri...
2 Andy Cush, ‘How Slowed + Reverb Remixes Became the Melancholy Heart of Music YouTube’, Pitchfork, 7 April 2020: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch...
3 ’We’re on a loop, we’re on a loop. This is exactly two metres by two metres and we lie on it sometimes to feel.’ Extract from the script of Slipped, Fell and Smacked my Face on the Dance Floor, Lisa Freeman, 2022.
4 This paragraph incorporates words and ideas by Lucie McLaughlin from critical conversations with Lisa Freeman.
Sunlight heightens intensity. It bleaches or enhances colour, it focuses attention and strains the eyes, it is simultaneously nourishing and draining; it expresses a multitude of contradictions that elevate and impede closeness and connection. In her new film, Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss (2023-24), Lisa Freeman draws on natural light’s influence on psychological positivity, patterns and focus. The film begins with an awakening, the soft vibration of a phone call in a room lit with the bright glow of summer sunshine. The call is answered by a young woman who relays her experience of a personal dilemma, and tells of how the artificial lights at home have been fizzing and flashing, a hint that an energy imbalance is affecting her luck and connectivity to others. As the woman opens the apartment’s balcony doors, the sound of a bustling city square fills the room and she immediately falls into a state of relaxation. Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss follows the woman, the film’s protagonist, as she makes her way through an unfamiliar city. During the course of a day, she meets several people with their own sets of expectations and forms of communication. The film uses elements of holiday suspense or ‘sunshine noir’ genres to convey psychological drama, but rather than the protagonist succumbing to a situation of horror or dread, her encounters are acts of kindness and openness from strangers in a place away from home. These gestures appear unnerving, even to the woman, as there is an expectation of hostility and confrontation in this urban landscape. Freeman reclaims a sense of tenderness and generosity in the civic space, which is a development of her recent works that also address gaps in emotional and verbal interaction (Slipped, Fell and Smacked my Face on the Dance Floor, 2022), and social isolation in the public realm (Hook, Spill, Cry Your Eyes Out, 2022). Rejecting the desire for idyllic escapism, Freeman instead proposes intimacy as a method of resistance.
The young woman describes a longing for comfort and cosiness, but does not anticipate the gentle, spontaneous empathy afforded her by strangers that mark her journey. This is a tenderness that transcends friendships and family, and is closer to an understanding of fate, when people share a conscious connection in the moment, with no baggage of the past, or pressure to consider future implications of their actions. In her 2019 Nobel Lecture in Literature, writer Olga Tokarczuk describes an inherent gravity holding feelings of connection and solidarity among people: “Tenderness is deep emotional concern about another being, its fragility, its unique nature, and its lack of immunity to suffering and the effects of time. (…) It is a way of looking that shows the world as being alive, living, interconnected, cooperating with, and codependent on itself."1
Tokarczuk also outlines the contemporary nature of first-person narratives, individualised perspectives that are emotionally personal, but tend to abandon broader collective viewpoints. This potentially alienating position is now present in many forms of storytelling in art, literature and cinema, and is closely aligned to online experience and social media. Freeman plays with these tropes in her film with the use of synchronised dancing to Youtube videos and selfie opportunities, and the online musical subculture phenomenon of ‘slowed + reverb’ remixes,2 which expand the emotional range from superficial to communal. The characters hum, sing, and dance to a repeated theme song throughout, a half-remembered and distorted tune that amplifies a kind of timeless and rootless nostalgia. The simmering hum of the cityscape and dislocated soundtrack suggests that the viewer is sometimes occupying the same headspace as the film's protagonist.
Freeman’s exhibition at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios elaborates on her original single-channel cinema edit of Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss, by reforming the film in its entirety over five television screens. In addition to the links drawn between the gallery’s site and architecture, the film’s new format expands on its own internal narratives of sensitivity, synchronicity and feeling both overwhelmed by and set adrift from the world around us. The installation draws its audience from screen to screen through a rhythmic loop of scenarios. This motif has been used in previous works by Freeman to question how we might relive past events, or to convey the monotony of restricted living situations.3 In addition to repeating alternative scenes that split the flow of time, Freeman uses visual repetition to obscure what is taking place within the subconscious, within the film’s reality, or through out-of-body sensations.
During a repeat of the film’s opening scene, a pair of twin sisters discuss performative personas when moving through the city. The sequences of intricately choreographed movement and disorientating spoken exchanges activate a surreal psychological experience, in which layers of selfhood are shuffled and exposed. Everyday acts appear imaginary and just out of reach, while dreamlike interactions are depicted as ordinary occurrences. The characters’ dialogue is full of self-referential questions; declarations of feelings are absent-mindedly conjured and rarely reciprocated as several voices state their concerns without direct response to one another. Their moments of touch however are subtle, bright and perceptive, unselfconscious gestures of tenderness: a reassuring hug, an arm draped around a shoulder, a head nestled on a lap, one second of a sweet kiss.4
Text by Michael Hill
1 Olga Tokarczuk, ‘The Tender Narrator’, Nobel Lecture in Literature, 7 December 2019: https://www.nobelprize.org/pri...
2 Andy Cush, ‘How Slowed + Reverb Remixes Became the Melancholy Heart of Music YouTube’, Pitchfork, 7 April 2020: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch...
3 ’We’re on a loop, we’re on a loop. This is exactly two metres by two metres and we lie on it sometimes to feel.’ Extract from the script of Slipped, Fell and Smacked my Face on the Dance Floor, Lisa Freeman, 2022.
4 This paragraph incorporates words and ideas by Lucie McLaughlin from critical conversations with Lisa Freeman.
PRESS
ArtReview, Review of Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios by Declan Long
Paper Visual Art, Review of Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios by Lucie McLaughlin RTÉ Lyric FM- Something for the Weekend: Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin
RTÉ Culture 5 - Your Cultural Highlights: Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin
Visual Artists’ News Sheet Ireland, Film column, detailing Solo Exhibition’s at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin & SIRIUS, Cork
EXHIBITION FILM
Approx 1 Second of a Sweet Kiss, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, 22 March – 19 May 2024.
Documented by Jenny Brady. FILM + INSTALLATION CREDITS
Written and directed | Lisa Freeman
Cast | Niamh McPhillips, Diana Sá, Carminda Soares, Maria R. Soares
Director of Photography | Fábio Mota
Editors | Lisa Freeman, Aoife Carolan
Sound recordist | Luís Silveira
Camera assistant | Márcio Enes
Gaffer | Jotta Sousa
Colourist | Michael Higgins
Sound composer and mixer | Seán Mac Erlaine
Captions | Eat The Pips (Lucie McLaughlin)
Titles and credits designer | Or Studio (Kate Brangan & Jo Little)
Multi-channel editors | Lisa Freeman, Aoife Carolan
Intermission composition | Seán Mac Erlaine
With thanks to: Miguel Amado, Alexandra Balona, Stephane Bena Hanly,
Alice Butler, Vera Carmo, Matthew Coll, Daniel Fitzpatrick,
Helena Gouveia Monteiro, Órla Goodwin, Sarah Grimes, Michael Hill,
Sadbh O’Brien, Megan O’Driscoll, Anna Maye, Dáire Mc Evoy,
Dennis McNulty, Dan Reidy, Seerish Sanassy, Tewson Seeoun,
Clíodhna Shaffrey, Anna Stuart, Julie Weber.
Originally commissioned by aemi and Sirius Arts Centre.
Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Additional funding Kildare County Council.
EXHIBITION EVENTS
Art Walk: March 2024
From Practice to Exhibition: Studio Visit with Lisa Freeman
Young Art Writers workshop with writer Nicole Flattery
Artist Talk: Lisa Freeman in conversation with Michael Hill
Photo: Jed Niezgoda