I Remember (Glamour), 1999, 19:30 min

I Remember Glamour 1 copy

This video was taken in a studio in London for amateur photographers. The model is posing for photographs who are asking her to sit or stand in different positions. Judd added a voice-over to give the impression that he was predicting the next pose that the model will take. The voice-over says things such as “I remember when you touched your hair”, or “I remember when you leaned back on the bed and laughed.” The words come before the action, so that there is a mood somewhere between an intimate memory and a remote series of instructions.

Judd wanted the work to have a feeling of being simultaneously close and distant; a similar feeling to being a tourist and attempting to familiarise oneself with something through the act of photographing or videoing it. To look at something through a lens legitimises the act of looking and produces an illusion of intimacy, but also by its very nature it removes you from the subject.