Walking drunk in high shoes

Anahita Razmi &

A camera placed at a very low angle shows, from the waist down, a woman's body clad in a red dress, black tights and black heels. The figure in the background contrasts with a bottle of vodka stationed in the proximity of the camera’s eye. The woman starts walking towards the viewer, following the trajectory of the wooden floor planks that frame the whole videoscape in a one-point perspective. She walks back and forth, twice, in a straight line, as if providing a reference point against which the following movements will be judged. Starting on her third run, the woman stops in the foreground, takes a sip of vodka and returns to her initial position. The camera’s eye transforms into a voyeuristic peephole, as the viewer observes the woman getting progressively more drunk. She gradually loses her balance, starting to writhe and cringe, thus revealing more of her body and her face. At some point it becomes apparent that it is the artist herself who is acting out the scene.

Paradoxically, the viewer discovers the identity of the actor only after her upright position collapses under the weight of inebriation – a telling suggestion that true subjectivity can only be revealed at the time of its utmost vulnerability. Razmi's work refers back to both Bruce Nauman's explorations of physicality and space exemplified in his video Stamping in the studio and Tracy Emin's monoprint Walking Drunk in High Shoes. (Olena Chervonic)

* We can only show an excerpt of this work in the online archive. For the complete version, please contact the artist.

About the video

Title Walking drunk in high shoes
Year 2010
Videonale VIDEONALE.13
Length 00:47:22
Format 16:9
Country Germany,
Language No dialog
Courtesy the artist
Specifications color, sound, single-channel video

About the artist

Anahita Razmi
  • 1981 in Hamburg, GER.
    Studied at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, GER, at the Pratt Institute in New York, USA, and at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, GER
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