Sophie Bates: Scabs

video, 16', 2018

A scab is one of the body's healing systems to protect what is damaged below the skin. If you were to pick a scab, whatever is below won’t heal and will keep coming back. "Scabs" is a montage of micro video clips, mostly shot POV on iPhone, which hold together moments of Sophie’s private life in a sphere of entangled anecdotes. She films friends, flat-mates, food, make-up, tights, bedroom ornaments, and indiscernible close ups of fabrics, packaging, skin and non-specific environments. This footage grapples with back-to-back woven memories from the artist’s life and a sense of displacement between The Netherlands and England. The stream of consciousness-like voice-over dives in and out of specific stories of friends, strangers, colleagues, and exes; personality traits, geography, lifestyle, artists and yoga. Scattered throughout the video are quotes from Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl echoed by a male voice. The monotony of the voice devalues any narrative hierarchy and pokes fun at her world, insignificant daily occurrences, her interrogation of her own mind, her own sanity and the choice to pursue art making.