Mirror Tapping (Empathy Labourers)
2014
iPhone Video
Binaural sound
3’54
Voice: DianaDew Asmr Hands: Cordelia Cembrowicz
ASMR videos (Autonomous sensory meridian response) seek to elicit feelings of physical ‘tingly’ sensations usually in the head, scalp or neck region of the body. They have become a recent online phenomena attracting as many producers as there are viewers, contributing to a community of ASMR lovers. Often videos centre around particular sounds, movements, speech patterns or tactile stimuli. These videos are usually produced using modest recording technologies, by a solitary performer. Due to the amateur imperfections of the recording set up, outside noises and interruptions are often common characteristics of the ASMR video. Often there is a complex relationship between technology, moving bodies, economy and action. It has become increasingly popular for performers to create tutorials based upon subscribers request. These requests are often made through payment via platforms such as PayPal.
A script was compiled from transcribing various ASMR videos that dealt with a generic and ambiguous dialogue. The dialogue assembled draws attention to the agency and construction of the ASMR tutorial. A notable ASMR performer DianaDew Asmr was commissioned to narrate the script and create the soundtrack for the video. The binaural recording technique makes use of stereo splitting to enhance the bodily perceptible element in the videos. The film was played and filmed from an iPad as a gesture towards completion of technology and screen as body. The pausing, swiping and pinching motion acts as a way of trying to maintain a connection with the original tutorial and to extend the mirror device further.
“In contrast, the more contemporary work is defined by a kind of loneliness, an understanding that our connections are becoming increasingly mediated. In Adam Knight’s Mirror Tapping (Empathy Labourers) (2025), the artist’s hands are shown on screen (with another screen in the background, echoing eternally like Grabski in one of the ads), overlapping and manipulating the image. There are moments where a voice addresses the viewer in quiet, almost apologetic tones; at one point, they apologize for the quality of the video (it is, by design, lower resolution, almost analogue), and at the end of the video, they say “thank you for staying with me.” The impulse is to create a connection, however tenuous and mediated, and to understand that the ways in which we define intimacy are now shaped by our relationships with technology as much as with each other.”
Viddy Horrorshow/Daytime Viewing, TACO! London. Summer 2025 [DVD]
Direct Object/Direct Action, ACRE TV/Threewalls, Chicago. Summer 2015