NEW FILM: CRUISE: MISDAVENURES IN HOMOEROTIC DESIRE (2021)

 CRUISE: MISDAVENURES IN HOMOEROTIC DESIRE (2021) 

'Very bruising, the scene is a foreign country, they do things differently there... this is brilliant Lee'

'Interesting reflective critique as gay male art. Genius'

‘Cruising is a political act … t’s not just about desire… there is a social and political dynamic there too …  How is cruising happening, who is cruising what, where and how those politics are at play. Desire is operating from a very neoliberal perspective.  The commodification of desire. The commodification of bodies and bodies that are classed as desirable…. lower-class bodies (viewed) with disgust and distrust.’  SHANNON PHILIP 

This film is all about the complexities associated with gay cruising. It shows different vignettes/scenarios that men cruise i.e., look for men for sex or purely look at men for homoerotic desire. 

This film is made using my drawings, paintings and sound and moving image spanning more than 20 years since 1999. For example, moving image recordings made on a Sony Ericsson Cybershoot K800i mobile phone between 2005-2006, mixed media paintings on canvases including office planner sticky dots, mapping pins, supermarket reduced price stickers made between 1999-2005, pencil drawings made in 2019, and recordings made on an iPhone between 2019-2020.

It starts on a train, moves to the office and the world of online cruising, then outside in the bushes and finally on the street or in fact anywhere  two guys can see one another. Juxtaposing the politics and practices of cruising and spaces of production, this film explores gay cruising in terms of men looking for men but not just going around looking for men in cruising spots like in the woods or public toilets but also looking for men on the internet and telephone chat lines, and specifically cruising for men whilst at work and on the train to work. 

We begin on the London Underground. Look closely and see if you can spot the moving tongue under the surface ... A playful reflection on everyday temporary and fleeting pornographic encounters and temporary acts of looking, desiring and fantasising that are often hidden/in secret/covert. The constant blowing and bouncing around of a balloon stands in for imagined (homo)sexual adventure. But the balloon pops. The desire is over - a 'misadventure': maybe the cruise was unreciprocated. 

We then move to the office workplace. Using the language of consumerism (bargain basement, reduced, top value, sale, blue X), the film explores men putting themselves on sale, the nasty side of cruising: cheapening/ 'reducing’ yourself/selling yourself cheap. Customers always want customer satisfaction, guys cruising always want satisfaction. There are two sides to cruising, two sides to ‘you’ve been matched’: It’s not just about stalking but wanting to be seen - you want to look/be the voyeur and you also want to be seen: the word ‘SEE ME’ on repeat reminds us of this. There is also a certain amount of lying: the voyeur and those guys he is looking at embellish the truth to make themselves more desirable to each other in a bid to get that all important hook-up/have sex. But cruising, like shopping, is a totally unsatisfying experience: we are never satisfied at any point in the process. The film ends with the word ‘disarray’: what exactly are you ‘matched’ for? 

Between 1999-2005, I worked with the tradition of the adapted readymade via the supermarket price sticker and the anti-spectacle whilst at the same time looking at the spectacle of advertising and how it links into the production of subjectivity. The price sticker paintings that feature in this film are part of that body of work I made twenty years ago - a social commentary on consumerism at that moment in time - shopping before the Internet and the commodity of buying. This film is still about buying but about buying people - you are a commodity when you put yourself on the Internet - you do not have to sell yourself for money but people have to sell/market themselves on dating websites. 

We then move outside to cruising on a river where the tour guide of a riverboat cruise announces that we can see “Devil’s Hole’ - 'hole' taking on a very different meaning (innuendo for rectum) when it comes to cruising. Is cruising (bottom line) really concerned about getting someone's or offering one's hole?  

The film ends in the famous cruise bar The Kings Arms pub in Soho, London where I first discovered that bears and cubs don’t just live in the forest. As a hairy slightly stocky  gay man in the early 2000s in London, I felt at home here amongst men who looked like me, whose bodies were like mine. I found men with this body type very attractive sexually and very desirable and likewise I wanted men to find my body sexy and desirable. But I soon learned that there were power relations and antagonisms, processes of inclusion and exclusion; gay men can exclude, leave you outside in the cold as quick as they can include and convivially welcome. I was told I was too slim to be a 'bear' and too fat to be a 'cub'. So where do I go? Like I say, ‘cruising you, will you cruise me back? men bruising me like I’m the wrong kind of fat’.  Defying the antagonists, I would continue to socialise and drink in that pub regardless (and desire and be desired).