Hals Uber Kopf

This practice-based research set out to explore the aesthetic space between the various poles of loving touch, mock terror, hysterical giggle and helpless repugnance, as tickling can be played out differently in different situations. Action and reflex at the same time, our remembrance of being tickled can 'tickle' varying sensations within us including the upsetting memories of the unwelcome hands of the 'wrong' person. Displayed in four sets, the fourteen images of this series were taken in colour, in some cases representing children writhing in pleasure, with open mouths and squirming bodies, in others resuming semi-foetal positions.

The core research idea is that laughter is not just a pleasurable experience. This practice based research set out to explore the space between the various poles of loving trust, mock terror and repugnance as tickling can be played out differently in different family situations. Our remembrance of being tickled as children can also ‘tickle’ varying sensations within us including the upsetting memories of the unwelcome hands of the ‘wrong’ person.

This particular exhibition of this work was themed around the idea “what collaboration can mean in contemporary photographic portraiture”. Wiebke Leister was one of eight exhibitors and exhibited a tableau of five images from the larger series. The collaboration in this series were infant children, the children’s family relatives and the photographer who all variously participate in the childhood ‘tickle game’. There is also the viewer who becomes complicit in the activity and may well ask who is gaining the most pleasure?

The images were taken in colour and on one level represent children writhing in pleasure, with open mouths and squirming bodies, in some cases resuming semi foetal position. The exhibition was part of the 2006 City of Fremantle Festival of Photography and the other exhibitors were Adam Broomberg, Oliver Chanarin, Emma Crichley, Anna Fox, Sara Haq, Meleanie Manchot and Paul Jeff. It went on to the Australian Centre of Photography in Sydney in 2007. The curator of 1 = 1 = 3 was Susan Bright who has since gone on to co-curate How We Are at Tate Britain, 2007. It was reviewed in Realtime Arts Magazine.