photophilia (Grace / Amanda)

 

I am a glossy photograph

I am in color and softly lit

Overexposed and well blown up

Carefully printed and neatly cut

You can look at me for hours

I won't mind, I'll let you dream

From the page of a magazine

I am a glossy photograph

Of course I am a bit retouched

And my color has been processed

But cameras always erase

Fear lurking behind a face

I am a lie and I am gold

But I shall never grow old

My lips are parted

But they're not for kissing

My eyes are open

But I'm not listening

My breasts are round

But my heart is missing

I'm a photograph, I'm a photograph

I'm better than the real thing

I am a glossy photograph

I am appearing by the magic

Of a Nikon Automatic

Maybe I'm just a piece of paper

But some think that I am better

Cause photographs do not complain

Or cry, or love, or suffer

Or cry, or love, or suffer

Or cry, or love, or suffer

"I am a Photograph" is the title of a song by Amanda Lear (1977), which Sabranski is performing with 35 % accelerated speed playback and synchron. He is sitting in a close up in front of a wood structured wall paper and is wearing different eye masks, made of different photographs. In the beginning the masks change in time with the music and are accompanied by studio lightning. When the voice comes in till the end of the video Sabranski is wearing the same mask. The lyrics of the songs are telling from the perspective of the photograph, the different working steps in the developing process of a photograph and their different aspects.

Cf