Identity construction with the camera as a transitional object: an analysis of the work of Sadie Benning

Abstract

The present text analyses the wor k of Sadie Benning, a N orthamerican artist who, at the beginning of the nineties, began her first forays into video with a FisherPrice toy camera, in front of whose lens she talked, acted and expressed her most intimate thoughts and ideas. The purpose of this analysis is to show ho w in her work, the camera, which helps her in her teenage years to discover and accept her sexuality, plays a fundamental role in the development of the young artist’s homosexual identity. This use of the camera as a tool which participates in the construction of the self is compared with the case of Jenny Ringley, described by Victor Burgin, in which the camera became a kind of friend confidant. Thus, the text poses an identification of the camera with the «transitional object» concept developed by the psychoanalyst Winnicott, whereby the subject maintains a symbolic relationship with the object within the individualization process.