Inflated Constructions I II III 

Inflated Construction consist of 3 works. 2000
Inflated Construction I  a video projection 14:25 min. 4:3 dv cam
Inflated Construction II / Bang Movie. 5:13 min. 4:3. Bang Movie looping  in monitor
Inflated Constructions III / a Motion Flipbook. All parts can be shown separately 

Uddrag fra pressemeddelelse  fra Aarhus Kunstmuseum 2000, Kropsterapi – en introduktion til Johnsen og Nielsen af Anders Kold

Hanne Nielsen & Birgit Johnsen står med deres nye værk “Inflated Constructions” bag årets tredie demo installation. Installationen vises fra d. 16. juni - 10. september. Det nye værk består af to videoer, hvoraf den ene vises som vægprojektion og den anden på en monitor på gulvet. Tredje element er en flipbog, hvor - hvis man bladrer hurtigt - en af videoens scenerier udspiller sig. De tre elementer betegner samtidig tre meget forskellige måder at tilegne sig og være i rum med kunsten. Den distante, store projektion, monitorens billeder noget tættere på og i gulvhøjde og endelig flipbogen, der udspiller sig lige under beskuerens næse og mellem hænderne på os.
Alle tre elementer drejer sig om den samme historie, hvor vi som beskuere konfronteres med et sceneri af tilsyneladende meget direkte seksuel karakter. Hvorved de tre værker selvfølgelig også bliver til tre grader af voyeurisme. Den meget cool seksualitet - en knælende kvinde blæser balloner op fra en dildo fastspændt en hovedløs mand - har dog mange lag i sig.
Der er afgjort feministiske elementer i den, men den er også udpræget finurlig, dybt ironisk, parodierende og på en fantastisk måde knyttet til barnets univers. Kønnene kæmper åbenlyst med hinanden, beskueren må kæmpe med sig selv og sin nærhed til værket (hvem er man, hvad ser man og hvor langt vil man stikke næsen frem i denne sag?) og endelig kan man sige, at kampen, som så ofte i de senere års kunst, også den mellem hverdagens stof (det enkle og banale) og kunstens evigt reflekterende stof (skaberakten, det at kunsten vrider virkeligheden, puster den op og frigør sig fra verden).
Alle disse elementer, hvad enten de nu er specifikke for vores tid eller altid har været en del af kunstens dagsorden, formår Nielsen og Johnsen at “puste nyt liv i”, for nu at trække lidt på værkets titel, Inflated Constructions, oppustede konstruktioner. Udover således at gribe tilbage til emner, man før har kunnet iagttage i de to kunstneres værker, søsættes disse små kulturelle fortællinger med både den stramhed i iscenesættelsen, de to altid har benyttet sig af, men også en ny, mere slående visuel effekt. Lyd og billede er i de nye værker helt fremme i øjet og øret på betragteren.

The commentary on male and female roles and the way of formulating such problems can also be seen in the latest video installation, "Inflated Constructions", where both the man and the woman are present.
I. A fully dressed woman is kneeling in front of a standing, fully dressed man, sporting a seemingly as erect (though not dressed) member, which turns out to be a dildo mounted with a pump. The woman puts her mouth on the member and starts to blow. Out grows a long balloon of the common kind. The woman releases the balloon from the crotch of the man, ties a knot and gets up. Holding the balloon in her hands, she moves towards the camera where she forms an animal out of the balloon. In the end, the animal "emits" a long groan.
II. A fully dressed woman does the same as in the previous scene, but instead of her tying a knot, the balloon explodes between the man’s legs.
III. A small extended flipbook shows the first scene when you flip through it very rapidly. In the narrative’s (I and II) immediate reference to sex and/or pornography, In the narrative’s (I and II) immediate reference to sex and/or pornography, the first clash takes place in the production of meaning. The apparently "naughty" scenario is rather innocent, after all, because the pornographic reference operates through a symbolic use of items (the balloon) which contain a whole different value and meaning in everyday life. Neither the balloon animal nor the balloon itself are usually linked to any form of sexual meaning and neither of them possesses any form of gender or sexuality. Apart from its phallic shape, the balloon can be viewed as quite neutral in any context. In "Inflated Constructions", it is nevertheless sexualised. It becomes a symbol of the man’s penis and thereby a phallus in the best Freudian sense. In psychoanalysis phallus is defined as the symbolic penis. It is not to be understood concretely, but it constitutes a kind of cardinal point in a symbolic frame of understanding, where the phallus constitutes something abstract in the construction of meaning revolving around sex and the world. Phallus is (according to psychoanalysis) something that men have and women want to have, something they downright strive for. Phallus does not merely signify sexual satisfaction but satisfaction as such, since phallus implies an ideological power. Jaques Lacan, Freud’s successor within psychoanalysis, goes as far as to claim that all meaning (which is being produced in the world) is centered around phallus. The symbolic phallus is the cardinal point in the patriarchy, which is a masculinely defined ideological construction of meaning (6). Feminist psychoanalytical theory from the 1970s criticised Lacan’s interpretation and his bestowal of privilege on phallus, and called this conception phallo-centrism (and phallo-gocentrism). The opinion was that it was exactly at this point that feminism had to intervene, in order to deconstruct the dominating position of the phallus (7).
In the works by Nielsen & Johnsen one can thus trace a feminist deconstructive intention in relation to the phallo-centrism. Not using the same dogmatic feminist language as in the 1970s, but through a humorous parody of the symbolic (and maybe cultural, historical and social) phallus. They point toward the power relations between man and woman and toward the man’s phallo-centric power as an "inflated construction" (cf. the title), which partly blows up (literally) and is partly transformed into a small balloon animal (a toy animal) in the woman’s hands (the woman’s power). If one were to realise this sexual-metaphorical comparison, to its full degree, the woman’s hands would then be equivalent with the woman’s symbolic sexuality, and also with the place (the logocentric emblem) where she assumes power. Both the man and the woman are placed here in outer positions. The man’s phallus/power is, at first, taken away from him (video I) whereupon it is blown up (video II). His phallo-centric power is parodied as a play and as a masking, since this is a matter of substitutions, in an ambiguous sense. First a dildo, then a balloon, which in itself has two different meanings: as it has already been shown, the balloon is the inflated phallus (the symbolic one) and is as such equivalent with the play (a representation), while the dildo is actually the masking (the false penis) and not only shows the sex but also the meaning of the sex as a construction. The woman’s power, insofar as she deprives the man of his, is something else. She is presented in a kneeling humility, a position from where she tries to satisfy (here, once again, we can take refuge in the literal meaning) the man, in her ordinary female role. The female role, however, has been distorted into something comical. The sexual and cultural satisfaction (the power over both the real and the symbolic phallus) becomes a parody exemplified through a groaning balloon animal, in video I, while the woman’s attempt to please winds up in an exaggeration of her own sexual role, in video II, since the balloon blows up. She has, quite simply, overdone her attempt to satisfy the man.