Turn On begins with a close-up - so close as to be almost indefinable - of the back of Vito Acconci's head. He sings softly, moving his head slightly to an obsessive, almost autistic rhythm. The tension rises: he sings louder and louder, becoming violent and aggressive, while his movements are increasingly jerky. Suddenly, he turns round, panting, to face the camera and his menacing expression fills the screen: "Now ! I have to face you now. Reveal myself… But you can't take it yet. I have to wait." He turns his back on the camera again and starts singing again with increasing intensity. This cycle of turning towards and away from the camera while alternating between singing and speaking is repeated several times. In these passages facing the camera, Vito Acconci talks about certain aspects of his art, through his relationship with the spectator, and confronts the autobiographical element in the context of his artistic method: "I can talk about her, but maybe you've heard me talk too much about women." He rejects his past creative strategies: "I've been too abstract, now I can be concrete, no more galleries, no more museums. It's me. I have no conviction anymore. I can't find any reason to do art."

Turn on : switching on, but also turning someone on. Vito Acconci will never go so far in the raw psychological relationship, the violence which he suddenly spits at the spectator before shouting in an exacerbated paradox: "I'm waiting for you […] not to be there."

This rejection of the spectator and this violence mark a crisis in the face-to-face relationship which he has built up through video. The same year, in Face of the Earth, also in color and filmed in close-up, the message has already taken another direction: in it, he introduces History and fiction, an American mythology to define the other reasons for acting, locating oneself and locating the spectator.

Kamel Boukhechem