Vidi Vici: Narrative and the death of desire

Tony Conrad
1988-01-01

0
11 min

If the intersection of desire and authority is phallus, the intersection of absence and vigilance is vagina. The tape’s laconic title (I saw, I conquered—but I didn’t come) encodes its vaginal pretense. In effect, Vidi Vici is a male artist exploring a vaginal posture. By interleafing different gender characterizations with various narrative impulses, it circumvents linearity while emptying our gaze into the interstices between action and incapacity. —Tony Conrad