This video piece depicts 3 minutes of videos harvested from horror movies, concerned women looking out of windows. This piece illustrates the anxiety surrounding the notion of the home and the American Dream in horror films as well as the gendered vulnerability of women within the genre. Despite the fact these women theoretically have the protection of a house, security is fallible, and the killer always gets in. The repetition of the action serves to heighten the viewer's sense of tension. In the piece, the plot never moves forward, and these women are forever looped in a cycle of watching and hoping nothing is out there. When we consider this phenomenon within the context of the implication of domesticity and the notion that the home is "where a woman belongs" because it's "safe," the anxieties presented within these films throw a wrench in that idea and make it clear that women aren't safe no matter where they are. When we think about the house as a metaphor for the body, as something that one inhabits, we can consider the invasion trope within horror as a metaphor for assault. In the show, this piece is projected upon a window and only plays at night. The context in which the video can be viewed mimics the setting of the scenes. This parallel points to the reality of some of the anxieties presented in horror.
This exhibition and the work that it houses provide a platform for viewers to experience the systems of horror at a safe distance. By filtering the violence through my personal experiences, I'm offering the viewer a new possibility for understanding horror and the aesthetics of violence while maintaining enough breathing room and ambiguity so the audience may still come to their own conclusions about how horror may function in their own lives. This artwork serves to open a door and offer some shared catharsis and perhaps some new understanding between myself and the viewer.