The "home movie" concept corresponds in French to the term "family video" whose connotations differ from one generation of artists to the next. Under this title, Vito Acconci presents the structure of the relationships between his private life, his work and the public. In the frame provided by the fixed camera, the artist defines four spaces by means of the positions of his body and his movements, and by means of a monologue which enables him to identify his special relationship with his partner, on the one hand, and the spectator, on the other. He moves from one position to the next in a looped advance repeated ten times during the video.

The starting position has Vito Acconci sitting facing his work, with his back to the camera and the spectator. He indicates the fact that he is an artist and introduces his work with a succinct commentary on his works from 1969 to 1971. Without standing up, he turns to the left and speaks to a person who is absent, out of view: his partner. He speaks of their life as a couple, his entourage (notably the presence of a third person in their personal life), the compromises of this life, the control which he has to exercise over each person and over himself , and his existential difficulties in the years 1970 and 71. The artist then gets up and stands in front of a slide projection screen. The flashes of light mean that we see it intermittently. Through his inexplicit words, he shows his critical view of his work. Declaring his wish to add an example, he turns to the left and leans forward. But he speaks of structural and substructural relationships between the past and present, temporally and spatially, without illustrating them. Here, he addresses the public and his partner without distinction. Vito Acconci does not provide any element which might help us to understand the content of his work through his biography, it is a question of positional relations.

Under the title Home Movies, Vito Acconci proposes a conceptual approach to his relationship with the private and the public, although this concept also refers to a completely different genre in the decade that followed: to video of record, where the daily life of a family is exhibited (Joël Bartoloméo, Pierrick Sorin).

Thérèse Beyler