- Rhizome
- Journal
- Artbase
- Community
- Programs

## I Want You (But I Can't) (2006)

by Joelle Bitton

ArtBase Selection |

Tweet

I Want You (But I Can't) is a video collage: hundreds of movies, of representations and of staged stories absorbed during the adolescence have shaped the form of my ideal man, have conditioned my desire and my libido. These images have imprisoned me in a love relationship forever fantasized and unresolved. Yet, between Clark Gable and Fred Astaire, there's no meeting point: if only just the game of love played so that it transcends them both into objects of desire to take, to possess and finally to anticipate for a better transfer. This project consists in traveling back in time and in coming back to those moments of movies that have crystallized everything for me. The video collage aims to show the mechanism of fixation and maybe to take it apart in restaging almost in a reiterated way what is at stake in the desire and the frustration. This is the history of cinema, of pop music, of Hollywood, and of a spectator without distance.

Tags: cinema collider Database desire exhibition film I Want You (But I Can't) identity memory Narrative nostalgia QuickTime video

###### Full Description

I Want You (But I Can't) is a video collage: hundreds of movies, of representations and of staged stories absorbed during the adolescence have shaped the form of my ideal man, have conditioned my desire and my libido. These images have imprisoned me in a love relationship forever fantasized and unresolved. Yet, between Clark Gable and Fred Astaire, there's no meeting point: if only just the game of love played so that it transcends them both into objects of desire to take, to possess and finally to anticipate for a better transfer. This project consists in traveling back in time and in coming back to those moments of movies that have crystallized everything for me. The video collage aims to show the mechanism of fixation and maybe to take it apart in restaging almost in a reiterated way what is at stake in the desire and the frustration. This is the history of cinema, of pop music, of Hollywood, and of a spectator without distance.

###### Work metadata

- Year Created: 2006
- Submitted to ArtBase: Wednesday Jul 12th, 2006
- Original Url: http://www.superficiel.org/joelle/art/pages/iwy.htm
- Permalink: http://www.superficiel.org/joelle/art/pages/iwy.htm
- Work Credits:
  - Joelle Bitton, creator

Want to see more?
Take full advantage of the ArtBase by Becoming a Member

###### Related works

###### Comments

This artwork has no comments. You should add one!