Nobody’s Here but Me. Cindy Sherman - ACE285.4

Video sequence of woman eating ice-cream. Sherman, her VO pointing out that her generation was the first to grow up watching television. More video footage. Untitled Film Still. Photographs: Sherman VO talking about the look she was aiming for, and the sort of narrative she constructs. Film and photographs of a "road" story. City driving. Photographs. Film of sites of some of these photographs intercut with the images. Various photographs with urban settings; VO on the resonances these images have. Photographs of domestic interiors; detergent commercial. Sherman says that any woman appearing on television would have been some kind of role model. Photograph of a woman whom Curtis describes as a "Frances Farmer" figure, conveying an instantly recognisable mixture of glamour, frustration, and hidden anger. Photograph of a Marilyn Monroe type. New York streets at night. Sherman looking at book of her Centrefold photographs (1982). Marilyn-type voice reading from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. B&W photograph. Sherman says she wanted men to react to the Centrefold series by feeling themselves to be violators; this is the first time she’s consciously thought about "the male gaze". Though she would not describe herself as a "heavy duty… feminist… political person", she feels that political statements do appear in her work. More photographs intercut with night city scenes. Sherman talks about the ambiguity in her work. Disaster photograph heading magazine article. Other written material. Sherman’s VO saying she’s not particularly interested in what’s being written and the theories advanced. She finds it amusing to see how her work can be stretched to fit other people’s theories.