Paper short abstract:

With the support of audio notes and a small set of images, in this presentation I reflect on the representational reversal that followed my fieldwork in a BDSM studio in the Netherlands. What does it mean to be caught in an archive of bodies that I, the researcher, will never have access to?

Paper long abstract:

Between January and August 2017, I conducted fieldwork in a BDSM studio in the Netherlands. Working together with two elderly BDSM studio owners, a filmmaker and a visual artist/photographer, the aim of my research was to gain insight into the roles digital images play in this scene. BDSM scenes generally overflow with images that depict, imagine and co-create a wide range of intimate and erotic practices, fantasies and scenarios. I am not a filmmaker; and instead of making images as part of fieldwork, images were quasi-constantly made of the scene, and very often also of me. In the studio, and during fieldwork, the video camera was always on. The two participants I worked with safeguarded a vast archive of still and moving images of BDSM sessions with the people they invited into their studio. As one of "my" participants told me, “video and photography are a form of fetishism.”

As fieldwork progressed, however, the relationship between my research participants and me grew increasingly tense. One night in August 2017, after a violent confrontation that compromised my safety, I decided to terminate fieldwork. In this presentation, with the support of audio notes and a small set of images, I reflect on the awkward and affective implications of this representational reversal. What does it mean to be caught and, as it were, “colonized” in an archive of bodies that I, the researcher, will never have access to?