Julia Scher Lip Sync 2015, 2016

In this video work, Julia Scher is filmed in an office corridor lip-syncing Miley Cyrus’ pop song Wrecking Ball in a deliberately amateurish performance. Facing the camera, Scher expressively enacts Cyrus’ lyrics, moving her lips and body in rhythm with the music. However, the performance quickly turns into a game of cat and mouse between the artist and the camera operator. Scher uses the sudden rhythmic changes of the chorus to run along the corridor, chased by the camera. The home movie aesthetic gives the performance an intimate feel, yet the omnipresence of the viewer—embodied by the camera operator whose reflection we briefly catch in a mirror—introduces an element of voyeurism and anxiety.

With this video, part of a series of earlier lip-syncing works, Scher underlines the contradictory feelings that arise in the face of global communication and the omnipresence of screens and cameras: from voluntary posing in front of the camera to the desperate and hopeless attempt to flee back into the private sphere.