Darling Angel

16mm film, Dolby Digital 5.1, 3’33’’, 2019

A mixed medium fusion between 16mm and Virtual Reality, Darling Angel is an exploration of contemporary puppy-play, a social phenomenon of the gay fetish community where participants take on the headspace of a dog or owner to reach a different understanding of themselves. Here, our Darling Angel enters this kinky carnivalesque reality discovering the depths of human puppy-play. A clear parallel is drawn between the puppy hood and the VR headset, both mystical masks providing new perspectives on self and one’s role in the environment around them. By day, all upright citizens of the LGBTQ+ community, by night, human-pups transmorph through neoprene, leather, and rubber to cast off the trappings of humanity to become simply and sublimely super-animal. For them, it is at the dog’s door that man’s troubles fall away.

Tom Rhodes, 2019