I started making the pictures you are seeing some ten years ago. It happened as a result of my international consulting practice, which left me working all hours of day and night in my home attic-office when not on travel. Late at night and exhausted after a day of writing documents, calculating spread-sheets, e-mail and making Power Point presentations, I hankered for something more relaxing, more entertaining, something more visual and visceral.
Being an “on-line pioneer” as well as an early Internet consultant, I long had an Internet connection on my machine. I knew there were “news groups” out there that contained "dirty" pictures, even before the web existed. I started downloading some of them, a process that took next to forever with the 2,400 baud modems of the time. These pictures were in a different dimension than anything in my day work, interesting to me and - lets face it - more than a little titillating.
Soon I was viewing and downloading porn regularly – until my internal work and family ethics ganged up on me and told me to stop wasting my precious time. Besides, I was happily married and too old for the 20 year-old damsels in my pictures. Mind you, I had long enjoyed a monogamous and great sexual relationship with my wife, which I still enjoy today. My superego said “Why are you doing this porno stuff, Vic? Get a hold of yourself and cut it out.” But, I didn't stop.
Then, one day I decided to play with one of the porno pictures with a photo-editor program and, lo and behold, I found I could transform the raunchy stuff into what looked to me like interesting art. Wow! Now I had something creative to do, and it was sexy in its own way too.
So making art out of porn became my night-time hobby, and my creations became ever-more sophisticated. I have generated perhaps 700 art pieces this way over the years, and the 136 on this web site are a selection of some of my best.
I tried to keep my porno-art hobby a secret up till three years year ago. This was usually easy to do because I could hear people tromping up the stairs to get to my third-floor office in my home. I could then quickly switch a lurid picture on my computer screen to something dull like a spreadsheet. However, thanks to the freezing propensity of Windows98, I sometimes got caught. On occasions the keys or mouse would not respond. Then, my wife, one of my grown sons or even my ex-wife would catch me with a frozen screen-full of raw porn. I would sheepishly explain “This is just raw material for my art.” My family consists of tolerant people and I would usually get a smile and a response like “Yeah, sure. We understand. Art? Sure.” I showed a few of my creations to my wife once, who responded with something like “Yuk. What kind of pleasure do you get from distorting and mutilating womens’ bodies?” So, embarrassed, I kept my art strictly private. It lived only on my hard disk and I did not share it with anybody.
All this changed about two years ago when made a fast-moving video called Sexual Hallucinations based on about 400 pieces my art. After four months of work it was done. But then I was hesitant to show the video because I did not know whether my images would be received as art or as warmed-over pornography. But I swallowed my embarrassment and sheepishly did a few semi-public showings of the film. Most of the viewers responded that what they saw was art, and they liked it. They encouraged me to share the art further and take this next step, to put up some of my choice pieces on a web site. One result is the site you are viewing.
For years, in the process of making the art, making the Sexual Hallucinations movie and even in the first stages of making the web site, I had been struggling with the questions like: "Why am I doing this?" "How does this contribute to people." "Is this a productive use of my time?" In its first version, this web site was a hodgepodge of my pictures. I had assigned descriptions to each, but they were without order. My wife then made a key suggestion that led to a breakthrough in my self-doubt - that I arrange the pictures and assign the descriptions to them so as to tell a story. Doing that, I discovered that my work over these years has been an effort to reconcile the sacred and profane within myself. If you follow the text as well as the pictures, you will see the story that effectively answers my questions and soothes my doubts. I am no longer tortured by these questions.
Recently I have identified with the Art KOU KUO movement, for it seems to represent my philosophy of art and life.
I invite you to send me e-mail telling me your reactions to my art. You can contact me via e-mail at vicjacobian@yahoo.com
Victor
Back to the Sexual Hallucinations Art Gallery