Cremaster 4

The fourth part of the cycle came about as the first, chronologically, in 1994. In this instalment, Matthew Barney adheres most closely to the project’s biological model. The environment (a haunting one, as tends to be the case with Barney, and again a character itself in the narrative) is the Isle of Man between England and Ireland. The film absorbs the island’s folklore as well as its more recent incarnation as host to the Tourist Trophy motorcycle race. Barney here finds himself in the role of the “Loughton Candidate” – a satyr, who will eventually grow into the mature Loughton Ram. The animal, which plays a role in the island’s folklore, has two pairs of horns, one pair arcing upward and one down, symbolising ascension and descent, as do the yellow and blue motorcycle sidecar teams, which start off on the track in opposite directions. The motorcycle teams (collective characters called the Ascending and Descending Hacks) are in search of gonadal forms – internal sex organs undifferentiated into poles of gender.

Here too Barney creates the metaphor of an organism transformed into a specific gender. The system itself however resists, and attempts to remain in the blissful state of neutrality. Matthew Barney tells his story through a remarkable stream of images, sounds, atmospheres – faeries, the tap-dancing satyr, underwater scenes – all of which he integrates into his plan – a plan that has an order of its own for all its unconstraint and surprise.