Abstract

Through a series of performative documentary video works that interweave self-shot footage with found interviews in an approach informed by theories of chance and embodiment, this creation-as-research project explores ‘authenticity’ as a condition of labour in the production of pornography. In order to trouble the understanding of authentic porn as ethical porn and, further, the notion that there is a single ‘truth’ to sex work at all, I draw on a practice established by transgressive feminist documentarians and video artists of radical subjectivity as a tool of resistance. Through a process-driven recontextualization of audio and video in the style of assemblage, the nonfiction pieces produced in this thesis tell a nuanced story – not only of sex as work, but of the practice and potential of ‘embodied editing’ towards the advancement of ‘radically subjective’ documentary film.