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Play, download and edit the free video FOOD Costantino Ciervo, Perversion of Signs, (No. 12 of 84), 2008 7:45 min, HD (original DV-Pal, 4:3), sound.

The video selected for Videocity is part of the cycle “Perversion of Signs”. It shows a man who is licking various signs drawn with coloured sugar paint from a glass plate. The frame only shows the lower half of the face of the man, allowing for a definition of sex and approximate age of the protagonist but giving no clear indication of his identity or ethnic background. This anonymity is supported by the numbering that replaces a proper title.
During the video, the techniques of licking vary greatly – they reach from sucking to licking, blurring, rotating, drawing shapes, or pulling off the colour. Sometimes the tongue moves quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes it follows the lines in pleasure, sometimes the lips assist. All these techniques are accompanied by the sound of smacking lips, the saliva moving in the oral cavity, and the friction of the tongue on the glass surface. The movement itself, the licking, has a clear erotic component by suggesting oral satisfaction, to which the title of the video series also refers. To the viewer, the sound emphasizes the feeling of witnessing an intimate but everyday action - be it the enjoyment of food or sexual pleasure.
The depicted signs are international icons and symbols that represent institutions, faiths, feelings, objects and value systems. Most of them were chosen by the participants themselves from a selection of 72 signs. Their signification and universal understandability is based partly on their similarity to the represented object (like a television). Other signs (e. g. the Euro-sign or the peace dove) can only be deciphered through learning or by being part of a specific cultural community.
When the artwork was first presented, all 84 videos were arranged on 84 monitors in the shape of a pyramid. This mode of presentation establishes an analogy between the Egyptian characters, the hieroglyphs, and the signs used the video. Both types of signs are only intelligible if they show a similarity to the depicted objects or the viewers share the same conventionalised understanding of our world and its value systems.
By integrating emotions, Costantino Ciervo broadens the options for interpretation. Despite not speaking, the protagonist in the video positions himself unmistakeably: while facing the NS-Imperial Eagle with pulled-down lips and then fully eliminating it with pressure, the Star of David is being smiled at and licked off with careful, tender movements a few sequences later.
Ciervo’s installation thus also has a political dimension, as he himself comments on his work in an interpretative text: “The artwork reflects a critical position towards the (partly successful) attempt to flatten and homologise human behaviour and language. The critical aspect is further emphasized by the generalised, greedy, passive and libidinal behaviour of the protagonists while consuming and licking. It is as if one was swallowing a reality in a perverse ritual where common, trivial, conformist concepts appear essential, sweet, provoking and immensely attractive.”
The licking becomes an auditive and visual transmission of content, reaching far beyond the process of understanding signs. As Ciervo’s videos in “Perversion of Signs” demonstrate, what connects people is more universal than an image or writing, it is the emotions like lust, love, disgust, hunger and dislike that we share, by which we communicate and position ourselves politically.
Laura Rehme, translated by Laura Rehme

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