Autopsychobabble #5

Meiro Koizumi

Live performance with video projection and sound.

This is the fifth in the Autopsychobabble performance series, which mixes video sampling, voice dubbing, and the violent gesture of a live pencil drawing. For this work, Koizumi has made a performative intervention on the image of Setsuko Hara, one of the most famous actresses in Japanese film history, treating Hara—known as “The Eternal Virgin”—as trapped in men’s fantasies. Koizumi traps the audience in the same space, where men’s fantasies create a monstrous image of “The Eternal Virgin” through repression and symbolic violence.

An iconic Japanese actress of the 1940s and 1950s, Setsuko Hara played innocents throughout her career. At the age of 42, she suddenly retired, never again appearing in public. She never married. In both her public and private life, she continued to playing the role of “The Eternal Virgin”.