and bones are thrown at the camera and hit a glass frame right before our eyes.
Johnny decomposes and is reduced to pure plasma and an occasional organ in
the form of an eye, an ear, a mouth. As if a still-life picture or a snapshot, such
tableaus are held on the glass plate before the frenetic beat starts again, with
visuals tightly in synch with the music. When the biological remains that is
Johnny tear themselves loose again to revamp the ferocious movement, the
plasma is stuck on the glass plate for a while until it pops back, like chewing
gum. This connects to another rubber element here, namely that rubber quality
inherent in the frenzy of the electronic music and in the dance the video articu-
lates. Cunningham comments on the rubber quality in the music in an inter-
view:
The bass line in the track sounded like an elastic band to me and so I got the idea of
someone shapeshifting like a piece of chewing gum, whilst raving. The title Rubber
Johnny just seemed to fit the character and shapeshifting idea really well. It has noth-
ing whatsoever to do with condoms, although it is a bonus that Rubber Johnny is a
term that we used in the playground.On a more general level,“an elastic band,”situated around the waist, is also
key to the dynamism and elegance of dancers, vital for energetic rebounds.
Thus, Cunningham dramatizes a key element in dancing in his Rubber Johnny
character, who from a rubber-like music, in the words of Cunningham,”[is] sha-
peshifting like a piece of chewing gum.”However, this rubber quality, is in
Rubber Johnnyorchestrated with a spastic energy reflecting both the mechan-
ization of his body as well as its abnormal deformities, in a register far away
from any form of harmonious human dance.
Perception and the Limits of the Human
What Cunningham comes to explore in the mutable temporality ofRubber John-
nyis not merely a shapeshifting body capable of moving beyond human speed,
or a music pushing the boundaries of our perception. The limits of human per-
ception are thematized more fundamentally. The issue is first raised though the
questions about what Johnny sees. Implicitly, an ordinary human like the thera-
pist cannot see what Johnny can. An inserted picture of a Chihuahua, with its
eyes much like Johnny’s, white in the infrared camera’s green imagery, ironically
comments on our lacking perceptive capabilities. We are reminded that we are
incapable of seeing what the dog, and probably also Johnny, sees. Issues of per-
ception are also articulated by the infrared photography itself and its expansion
beyond the visual field where we can only operate with technological aids that
Mutable Temporality In and Beyond the Music Video 175