In Julika Rudelius’ 3rd solo show at the Galerie Reinhard Hauff opening 15.11.2013, the German film maker shows two new video works: Liaison (10 mins) and And I For No Woman (9:30 mins). Focusing on fantasy play and body language, observing, on the one hand, heterosexual couples toying with guns as power fetish, and, on the other hand, individuals with self-chosen gender voiced over by passages from Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

Liaison is filmed in domestic settings of beauty and sophistication. Projected on two parallel screens, young couples from the art and culture scene play around and engage in a silent, intimate seduction and fantasy game with a range of guns. Though playful, notions and stereotype action-movie gestures of domination, submission, temptation, aggression and caressing with the weapons heighten the strange attraction and thrill of make believe death at your fingertips and comes across as an aphrodisiac of eerie intensity. The film reality of Rudelius’ young couples is that of taste and privilege – in an orderly and civilized environment. The spacious metro-chic interiors, however, open op towards exteriors of lush landscapes, bringing to mind the power of the irrational “natural” killer instincts. Ultimately, toying with guns is toying with God like power - and death.

Taboo meets class in And I For No Woman, which is also set in a chic, upscale apartment, tastefully decorated with contemporary art and furniture. A cast of young characters chosen from among models, military personal, sex workers and university students proudly display and wear their female seductive attributes: large round breasts and buttocks, shiny leggings, voluptuous décolleté’s, tight dresses in traffic light colours, bare skin and domino high heels. Their brazen physicality seems to disturb the decor. Scenes alternating with body conscious prancing about and posing, are juxtaposed with outdoor night scenes in a garden where the protagonists read aloud from Shakespeare’s As you Like It, a comedy where gender is playfully and constantly switched - not only by the characters within the play, but also by the original all male cast. As a result of the constant gender swapping, a new overall floating gender is created and audiences begin to ask: What gender is this person and is that important?