Chiara Lombardi (1995) has been always interested in art. She graduated in photography from RUFA, before continuing her studies at Accademia Albertina in Turin in 2017. Her visions blend bodies, scrutinise the skin, and caress fleeting emotions: they are stories of hidden intimacy and hinted delicate gestures.

“Cam4shots is a personal project that examines some extremely sensitive topics: sex, vulgarity, humanity, beauty, art. Before starting, I wondered whether, given that we live in the age of glossy images, the value of art today isn’t to show what is Real for what it is, although that may be brutal and abject. And, therefore, what the role of the spectator can be today, if not that of reading art with all its raw and violent subtexts. I believe there is a need for humanity, to reflect aesthetically on the aspects of reality that we encounter, such as death or sex.”

Cam4shot Conversation With Chiara Lombardi C41 Magazine Issue 9 Eros 5

In a world where technology has taken over and people live through social media, sex remains a taboo. Sexual practice, pornography and masturbation are all “censored” topics. However, you portray them with a new vision. Where did the idea for the Cam4Shots project come from?

For a new media art exam, our professor made us create something from something that already existed. I analysed “9 eyes of google street view” by Jon Rafman, who researched a series of images from Google Street View that showed unique or absurd snapshots of everyday life. I have always been fascinated by the world of online webcams and I decided to use a webcam site. I specifically chose Cam4, a live streaming site with live webcam shows where the performers include cis men and women, transgender people and couples, mainly amateur.

The fact that you were able to shoot and later publish screenshots taken from the Cam4 website makes me think that privacy no longer exists, possibly due to technology. In the past, the act of sex took place in the privacy of a bedroom. Today, instead it is a way to practice more freedom. What value does sex have for you, and what value does it have in modern society?

For me, sex has different values depending on the context in which it is practiced. I have always considered it as a wonderful interlocking of bodies and minds in which a balance is somehow established and then destroyed and then created once more in a loop. It’s art.

What do you feel when you watch these videos? Do you choose the screenshots instinctively or is it a more rational practice?

My approach was rather methodical. I chose specific time frames in which to log on, based on when the site had most traffic, and I skipped through windows until something caught my eye. I paid more attention to homosexual sex and situations that were far from hot scenes, using no particular reason other than being more attracted to them. In general, I was seeking a composition, a connection or, more generally, an image that would satisfy my artistic eye.

My method was to take screenshots and later cut out the image, so that all the resulting photos focused solely on what was important to me.
My intention was to escape the pornographic environment and enter a human, sincere, simple and, above all, pure sphere that would connect back to the same eyes that I originally watched through.

I see a very human approach within your project. Through these bodies, you deal with themes such as beauty, imperfections, objectification and so on. As a woman a world where the female body is often seen as an object of “consumption”, how do you analyse these issues?

I think this is an important issue and one that needs to be constantly raised and discussed.
As a woman, I believe it essential to be very clear about the fact that we live in a masculine culture.

I believe that the body has a sacred value but I also believe that desecrating this idea is an important step in learning to idealise it less. As a human being, I only think of my body as the link between the ethereal me and the world, and most of the time I find it heavy, painful and unresponsive. However, I do love and respect it and I expect others to do so too.

The Cam4 site was opened by you as an artist and not as a mere spectator. It is not a collection of classic porn movies, with actors and screenplays, but what is the substantial differences between the two worlds? In what way is the porn movie, with porn actors, different from those presented by Cam4? What kind of audience does this kind of pornography attract?

Before selecting Cam4 as the only site from which to take my images, I browsed extensively, including movies, but almost none drew my attention. My artistic research is based on the body as a vehicle, on the simplicity with which I can naturally represent every perfect imperfection in a cold and symmetrical, yet very human manner. That’s the reason I chose Cam4, because it allowed me to go beyond the purely pornographic content of some performances: I often watched live streams of people who were sleeping or doing their make-up, people who were cooking or reading books and these moments are more rare on other sites. I think that this is what attracts the audience: the fact that the simplest and sometimes improvised gestures acquire a new value in real time.

Do you think you will continue this project in the future? Do you have other projects related to the theme of Eros and sexuality in mind?

I have something in the planning stage. I’m very interested in censorship right now, but I can’t reveal anything else.