I CARE
Synopsis
Men perform everyday household tasks making visible what is otherwise taken for granted, and therefore invisible, if performed by women. And then pose as pin-ups. Men — the perfect house-husbands PLUS.
MENTAL LOAD - Invisible Work
Specs
Genre: Video art (loop)
Production: AUT 2026
Running Time: 3:42 min
Language: n.a. (English)
Shooting Format: RAW
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Sound Mix: Stereo 2.0
Concept and Realization
Robert Cambrinus
Cast
Robert Kraner
Peter Marchart
Markus Schaarschmidt
Konstantin Dellbrügge
Robert Nibbelink
Robert Cambrinus
Music
Title — The Blue Danube
Composer — Johann Strauss II
Arranger — Julian Gallant
Arranger — Jeff Meegan
Arranger — David Tobin
Publisher — Audio Network Rights
Exhibitions
Mental Load — Invisible Work (Bad Ischl, Austria)
La Biennale di Venezia — ECC Palazzo Mora (Venice, Italy)
Notes
I CARE addresses the invisible, unpaid care and housework by revealing its gendered coding through a performative role reversal. Men perform everyday household tasks — mopping floors, cleaning windows, tidying bathrooms, or making beds — activities that are still often marked as "feminine" in the social consciousness. The real irritation does not lie in the act itself, but in the shift in attribution: only the man in this role makes visible what is otherwise taken for granted, and therefore invisible.
The video uses cinematic techniques, such as the repetition of everyday gestures and a quasi-documentary visual language, to mark routines as political terrain. These scenes are interrupted by short, stylized inserts of classic pin-up iconography. In these, the protagonists pose in positions that traditionally portray women as desirable objects. This breach creates a double shift: The “perfect house-husband” is simultaneously staged as a sex object — a satirical reversal of the “male gaze” (Laura Mulvey) that exposes its mechanisms.
The irony here functions not merely as a punchline, but as a strategic method of making things visible. The film explores questions of the body, labour, and the viewpoint, and shows how deeply hegemonic gender roles are inscribed in everyday practices as well as in visual cultural techniques.
Film poster designed by Anita Kern