Two Cover Studies is a Super 8 film in two parts. This structure is frequent in Vito Acconci's early works. Here, he puts side by side two actions whose purpose is to protect another actor with his body, by hiding them or enclosing them.

The first sequence, Scene Steal, shows the artist from behind, moving and bending his body according to the movements of the woman, who we can see is naked. He tries to protect her from the appearance of her naked body on the screen and constricts her by removing this possibility from her. She then tries to disengage herself and the tension rises progressively in the movements and in this relationship between the masculine and feminine.

In the second sequence, Container, Vito Acconci is naked and kneeling on the ground. He is trying to enclose a cat by folding himself round this body much smaller than him. The artist lets the animal escape several times or expels it - thus, the cats wriggles away backwards, behind him. By introducing the image of maternity, the feminine role of protection is suggested. The action finishes with the cat enclosed under Vito Acconci's body. The movements of his shoulders indicate a struggle within this closed space.

This film is part of a set of works in which the artists experiments with his action on another actor, focusing particularly on the theme of control of the other. Here, whether it is masculine control over the feminine or feminine or masculine control of the neuter (since animals and children are often called "it" in English), the act of protecting is placed in a dialectic relationship with conflict.

Thérèse Beyler