The Female Form

The progress of my exhibition proposal has been going well, I have continued the exploration of using the studio at uni further this week by working larger and also by involving actual cellophane more into the space, like the digital collage I created below, rather than through the imagery.

19/04/21 I went into uni to sit and work in the space with daisy chaining the projectors again as it feels most successful – the mirrored image of the breast in the males mouth suggests a pair of breasts or eyes. Relates to the gaze. From my 1-1’s with Matt and Gary I learnt that film may work best in response to documenting this kind of installation so I wanted to explore this. See film below, I wanted to show the scale of the projections if people were allowed to sit and be in the space as part of the documentation process. The projection becomes quite daunting and even more aggressive when you’re so close to it like I was – a lot to take in. There also becomes this relationship to the artist and the artwork again, like Martha Rosler in Semiotics of the Kitchen, even though I am not making/doing anything, it’s the simple act fo the gaze/looking that adds to this film of the projection. Artist and artwork is something I have commented on a few times within my practice this year.

I decided to record for longer between filming, it gives a better idea of the loop I have chosen to play for this endless exhibition, like Nauman, using a seamless and never ending appearance to his film Poke in the eye/ear/nose.

I thought about different placements of the camera/angles of how the film could be perceived. From my group crit 24/03/21, my peers said they like the view up to the film Sweet Tooth B&W. As me and Catinca discussed, the camera becomes the audiences eye and I aim o continue to use the camera in this respects to suggest this feeling of a cinema, where you are lower looking up to watch female representation/sexualisation.

See film above, I shot this to get a feel for the space/walls and the angle suggests the way you try to look but you may not want to. It encourages this ideas of the grotesque/disgust of a female intimate area being physically consumed. “She is isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualised” (Mulvey, 1973, p). “Mainstream film coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order” (Mulvey, 1973, p59).

Yet with the film above, it feels intrusive and unapologetic. This is what I want when it comes to the exhibition proposal, I think the studio space works so well with the type of projection – I will need the space to be darker but this can be sorted. There is a good development from my initial drawings etc.

On the 21/04/21 I brought cellophane into the studio. As my original idea in my digital drawings was to create a space with cellophane draped etc, I felt I needed to try it and as me and Gary mentioned in my 1-1 15/04/21, to not over complicate it, the work doesn’t need it. But I think these also work well in relation to bring the film/experience to the environment, like Are You Watching? and CUBED. I think there is more of a relation to CUBED here as CUBED was more interactive int he sense you could physically go into the space, where as Are You Watching? was very intimate/personal as it was my home, and the camera did the looking/viewing for the audience. There are ideas of pornography and may always will be but it is important to note that pornography acts as the cinema, where it creates a situation/context to normalise it. The use of the large projections, creating a double suggests this warped version of the cinema/representation of women and the visual of sexual objectification you don’t often see at the cinema, but do in pornography, they of course glamorise it too.

I really enjoy the low angles, giving a glimpse of the cellophane helps picture what it is – they continue the thoughts of the peering gaze/looking at something you shouldn’t which have all been comments made my peers and tutors throughout documenting this work, especially in group crit 24/03/21.

I think it might be interesting to have a movement film, like from Are You Watching? and the last film above for the exhibition proposal. Or does the focus only need to be on the film/placement? It will allow the viewers to see more of the space and the sparkle from the projector onto the cellophane. Creates a more in-depth perception of the cellophane as this glorifying material, covering, but not covering, up the action happening behind. In the image below, I edited it to appear similar to Sweet Box where I installed carpet into the cardboard box to have a visual of a soft but destructive experience. I tried to bring this back into the still and I think it’s something I am going to have to experiment with – actual carpet or digital manipulation? Is it needed? It think the darker floor creates a more cinematic space.

After discussing my first prints for the Riso with Srin last week, I wanted to get more hands on e.g. think about layering, the formation of colours and possibly text. I created these stencils with no bitmap to play around with the appearance of photos from the Riso, currently I am considering pornography within my practice, Andrea Dworkin’s text struck me as quite aggressive and angry, similarly to my still/films of Sweet Tooth B&W. I wanted to work with text within print and decided to play around with Dworkin’s text from “Pornography: Men Possessing Women”. Me and Srin spoke of placement within the image, I had thoughts of replacing the breast in the mouth with a section of text from Dworkin’s passage to combine these ideas, as well as experimenting with movement of the text around the page. See stencils below.

See simple mock ups below of how I wish the print to look as an outcome. The text may add depth to the image and capture the viewers attention for longer.

Reflection 19/04/21: As I printed these I realised how unrecognisable the main layer of Sweet Tooth B&W is. I feel you can see the breast if you know what to look for, this is a similar issue I was having from my 1-1 with Gary 15/04/21, there can be a line where you play with the image too much it looses its identity. I may have to use To Bite imagery instead, one which hasn’t been over layered with cellophane.

Andy Warhol is known for his screen prints, especially the one of Marilyn Monroe. He uses the coloured ink to highlight the important parts/well known parts of Monroe – “her iconic lips are boldly colored a deep red” (Masterworks Fine Art Gallery, n.d.), “her platinum blonde hair by adding variants of yellow” (Masterworks Fine Art Gallery, n.d.), see below. This is what I have carried out within this experimentation of prints using pornographic text to embody the breast, of which represents a women to explore these ideas of sexual objectification through a print sense instead. The use of bold colour in Warhols prints suggest the vibrancy Monroe lived and this glamorisation of herself which came from the cinema and the male gaze.

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967.

The use of paper within this experiment was very weak as I am yet to buy coloured card/paper – the white worked really well with vibrancy for the inks, I learnt I prefer the neon quality of the inks. Where as the brown paper dulls the actual ink, absorbing its boldness, especially the yellow, see below. Reflecting on the previous prints I did, I prefer the sand like colour – I think it was soft enough to act as a base colour for the print. Maybe my paper of choice for submission after more trials. I aim to try documenting these in situ of the studio too but the documentation of the colours work well in the sun. – Work with better placement.

Reflection 20/04/21: After reviewing these prints, I felt they looked flat, the image was lost – I have recently created some extra layers to add depth to the prints including – coloured paper, text, imagery (photo or bitmap, or both?) and then a digital drawing on top highlighting breast/mouth. I felt the mouth/breast was lost in these experiments and I want them to be the main focus.

I think pastel coloured paper may work really well with these prints. Like Warhol uses a background to work off, I feel a background colour, instead of a gradient, would give more depth and tonality to the image. I previously tried colour paper and it was very effective, giving the ink more of a base.

I really enjoyed the photographic look the print as well to these images. Before I just used bitmap for all layers, would be good to work with a mix of textures with the levels. I feel I could use a bitmap layer as the final finisher on top instead to add depth and they feel quite flat without a gradient.

I firstly experimented with blue and pink – I felt like the blue text dominated the image while experimenting with a number of lay outs, the main focus of the print and felt quite dark see below. I didn’t like this however, I feel yellow and pink work best in relation to layering and soft-ness as well as the ideas that come with women’s representation in pornography. I feel the ‘pretty colours’ relate to the glamorisation of destruction in the image – cellophane glamorising the breast being eaten. ‘Pretty colours’ act as a new form of cellophane.

Reflection 20/04/21: I felt the blue was too bold/contrasting for the text – I aim to trial black as an over lay (digital drawing) to redefine the mouth and use the paler colour (yellow) for the text so it doesn’t draw too much attention away from the main imagery.

The side format of the type is interesting blue – this would work well if the photo was more recognisable – the blue text isn’t as distracting. But layered completely over the breast isn’t appealing, I feel the yellow is less distracting but works quietly with the context of the photo as well as being visually pleasing considering the image.

I also combined some life drawings with text and photography, this was to experiment with how drawing would come out like – I liked them but I wasn’t sure they worked with so much already going on. I threw them off centre.

I am having a crit like session 21/04/21 to assess these images/context/paper and colours to get feedback with how to approach the next lot of prints.

I met with Jane and took Sweet Tooth B&W projected images with cellophane into uni and finally used the daisy chain effect on the projectors – linking two projections projecting the same image. From my group crit 24/03/21, it was discussed that I could look at ways of projecting the films/images further but to continue down the ‘old fashioned’ film path route which is working really well. I really enjoyed this process and mirrored projection, it transformed the way the film is seen, making it even more uncomfortable and intimate suggesting a pair of breasts see below.

Reflection 18/04/21: Gary in my 15/04/21 1-1 suggested the pair look like eyes, a watching gaze back at the viewer – this was a comment mentioned in 24/03/21 by a peer that said the one breast looked like a singular eye, made it uncomfortable. As though you’re being caught looking.

I had a 1-1 with Gary and Matt on the 15/04/21 regarding these new images. See initial notes below from both tutorials. It was really interesting to see that straight away there was this strange look they gave trying to figure out what is happening. As I had experimented with these images it was also clear to me that the breast was becoming unidentifiable and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. This was something Gary picked up on in image below, is there a point where the projection becomes too distorted that it plays with the work too much?

I am currently playing with some of the colours/editing on these images/films as I really liked the original grunge look of the colours but also think they work as well as b&w – intensify the act. The cellophane in the projection feels as though its in the space, if I brought it into the space as well would it be too much? – An encapsulating space. Gary mentioned that there’s something visceral about a mouth and breast being black and white, so close up. Plays with the psychology of consumption and this desired approach of the mouth from fetishisation/sexualisation even further as there’s no colour to ‘pretty’ up the act. It becomes weird to look at someone eating, let alone a breast in a mouth and double – uncanny. NOTES: I also wanted to involve within my current work a comment from group crit 19/02/21 where there was a defined difference between projection and space, see below.

I wanted to focus in on the mouth while I projected, experimenting for our exhibition proposals, to see how the space would work – floors, corners and walls. Consuming the walls of the projection really helped zone the eye to the uncomfortable, you’re forced to see it. As Matt mentioned in the 1-1, there’s two different dismembering acts of the women present, focusing of this objectification – violence is implied where there can be male dominance, as well as the intimate act of a breast and mouth. There’s two angles of uncomfortableness where my work is still unnatural to the human eye. Like films/cinemas, pornography plays with context to normalise the situation – sex, where as my films suggest the unnatural to get attention and discomfort to see all that is wrong with sexual objectification within life, pornography and the cinema. Matt suggested my work looks film stills: Jacques Bouffard and French philosopher George Bataille, Mouth novels. Bataille makes the human areas connect deeply to bring back the natural/uncomfortable.

NOTE: I like this uncertainty that comes with my work, until you begin to see what is int he mouth, it becomes uncomfortable and unusual. Gary mentioned to hold this level of attention and to not confuse the viewer too much. Keep it simple and eye catching/not look away – Freudian.

Gary mentioned J G Ballard film Crash – works with fetishisation and pornography – could explore through the ideas of violence/destruction.

While stretching the projection onto the floor, see below, like I have done previously this year with To Squeeze/Only Touch With CLEAN Hands, they begin to look distorted, something I have played around a lot with this year and really enjoyed. I liked the depth to these images, there’s photography, projection of photography with cellophane and now more projection and working with natural distortion within the space. This kind of projection would play well within a gallery space, feels interactive almost, having to walk around/into it to see more or work out what is happening. The immersive-ness from the two walls is something to develop further, like Yayoi Kasuma, as it would also making an interesting space – feelings of not being able to escape.

Reflection 18/04/21: The floor projections created a grainy appearance to the mouth/face, working with the stubble – suggests Serra’s old fashioned Hand Catching Lead films, this use of repetition.

This lead me to involve objects/boxes. The use of projecting onto a box reminded me of Naomi Uman’s Removed – visually objectifying the women in the film with white, suggests the same way I have in my projection, using the box below, to highlight the breast, to make the breast more of an object in front of you. – Definitely something to work further with. I combined the distortion and the objectification in one. As discussed with Matt, it’s an even closer angle of what its happening in the film, an isolation of the violent/sexual act. – Abjection of the body/uneasy. Tony Oursler was a name mentioned again! Previously mentioned my peers. Oursler works with fabric/projection, where objects become the host of the work, like the box does with my work below.

After experimenting with rough surfaces such as the floor/wall, I enjoyed the effect within the film, it aded the grainy and unusual look/old fashioned film. I aim to experiment with cellophane within the space as well to slightly recreate Sweet Box with the projection/cellophane but in person to see how it comes across too.

I began to research Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography: Men Possessing Women essay, Pornography, as Jane mentioned I should start searching the representation of women in pornography as I have spoken lightly about it previously. Dworkin addresses that pornography creates this “truly obscene idea that sex and the domination of women must be combined” (Dworkin, 1981, p199) and even though this essay is 40 years old, it stills carries the same ideas now of women in sexual situations, if not worse. “With technological advanced methods of graphic depiction, real women are required for the depiction as such to exist” (Dworkin, 1981, p200). Technology makes it more real/more visual as these women are real people and real situations, it puts the perspective into the viewers mind that that is how they should also treat women in real life. Previously I have spoken about male domination over women in my work and especially visually within Sweet Tooth B&W – chewing suggests this destructive tense control that does also suggest visual of female representation in sexual situations. See the essay below, I have highlighted the quotations which relates out to my practice and notes my initial thoughts.

I’m surprised I’m enjoying this topic I feel quite passionate about it and feel it may take my work further forward in regards to the cinema, representation and forms of confrontation.

Dworkin writes, “Whores exist only within framework of male sexual domination. Whores exist to serve men sexually.” (Dworkin, 1981, p200). Pornography derives from ancient greek which means “writings about whores” – there’s this suggestion that women and sex have always been referred to as whores, as though that is all they are and all they will be when it comes to sex. There automatically comes this idea that women, ‘whores’, only have the purpose to serve them sexually and have no control over domination – it’s quite upsetting and disturbing. Dworkin writings are so well written, she’s very straight to the point, no dancing around the subject, feels very factual yet confrontational. This is the same angle I am trying to approach with my practice, quite raw and disturbing visuals in a uneasy environment, hoping for impact.

• During this research, there is this similarity to the cold and isolating feel of women in pornography, as though they don’t have a voice/say, this is presented in the dark space within Sweet Box – experimentation for my exhibition installation proposal, showcasing the visual effect of women being consumed.

It makes it impossible for women to to not be sexualised and seen as an object of desire – as pornography isn’t going to change, neither will society’s view/men’s view on women. Even though pornography is easier to get hold of now due to technology, cinemas follow a very similar path, as said before, glorifying and sexualising the female figure almost plays to pornography in a twister way.

“Men have created the group, the type, the concept, the epithet, the insult, the industry, the trade, the commodity, the reality of woman as whore” (Dworkin, 1981, p200).

I moved onto chapter Whores, Dworkin states “the sexual colonisation of women bodies is a material reality, men control the sexual and reproductive uses of women’s body” (Dworkin, 1981, p203) – “the institution of control include law, marriage, prosititution, pornography, health care, the economy, organised religion, and systematised physical aggression against women (for instance, in rape and battery)” (Dworkin, 1981, p203). “The ideology of male sexual domination posits that men are superior to women by virtue of their penises” (Dworkin, 1981, p203), this relates to Freud’s Penis Envy theory which is reflected in pornography and the cinema, men hold a level of dominance over women who apparently as Freud writes, wish to possess a penis, is continued through sexual control.

It’s interesting to note that women in sex are seen as whores, whereas men in sex are seen as “pimps of pornography”, they are “hailed by leftists as saviours and savants” (Dworkin, 1981, p208). Women are seen to “embrace herself as a whore” and abide to those labels so ultimately there is no escape. “Rene Guyon, who argued for male defined sexual liberation, writes that “Women ages much sooner. Much earlier in life she looses her freshness, her charm, and begins to look withered or overripe. She ceases to be an object of desire” (Dworkin, 1981, p205), suggesting to women and men that there is a negative outlook on growing old, especially as pornography and films idealise the ideal women/figure.

Dworkin’s writings reminded me of Naomi Uman’s work who I researched at the beginning of L5, Removed in particular, see below. Uman uses pornography and to exploit the sexual objectification that is present within the porn industry by showing “the naked woman, an object of desire, is removed from the image with bleach and nail varnish.” (IFFR, 2000), there’s this destruction of the actual film/image/women being reverted down to an object, nothing more, of which a man has sex with, showing the objectification women face in porn and real life, see film below. Uman’s film feels as abrupt as Dworkin’s writings, they’re bullet statements which feel powerful and straight to the point, the same as Uman’s clear visual of the women.

“It’s hard to watch removed without thinking about the laborious work involved in erasing the women from each and every frame of the filmstrip using nail polish remover and bleach” (Rymes, 2017). It draws the attention of the male viewers and all that is wrong with the male gaze as well as porn and sexual objectification, making it almost humorous in a though provoking way. “Uman’s celebrated film is a smart retort to pornography’s obsessive gaze at the female body” (IMDb, 1999) that may perhaps always continue.

Naomi Uman, Removed, 1999.

There’s the ghost like quality to the women, as an object the colouration is cream and moves like a visual of a spirit. It relates to my current cinematic work, where Sweet Tooth B&W shares this horror story like feel to the projection, especially in the still below as the icing breast in the males mouth after projection, loses its identity. It becomes a white object too, and once its chewed, it shares no resemblance to the breast or female form, like Uman’s bleached women. Just an object. – would my work have the same impact if I was to remove the braes from the frame?

• May make my work stronger if I play to the ideas of female representation in pornography and how it impacts women today as well as the male gazes’ visual upon women.

From 31/03/21 I have used Sweet Box to project Sweet Tooth B&W into for my exhibition proposal experimentation. I used a verity of angles and close up to get a feel for the maquette space as well as an installation itself. See the stills below from this session, I used the cellophane at this perspective to curve around the mouth, almost bringing the film out of the screen and into the space. – These images have a very similar appearance to the original projections in my studio which I am glad because I have been quite successful with the box becoming a space.

• Does stills or film work best for this?

Reflection 02/04/21: In these images, the box feels large when the images are taken from inside, it’s like how I envision Kasuma’s installations, there actually really small rooms but the use of mirrors make them feel infinitive. This somehow seems to work for Sweet Box too, black = can’t see where the walls start/end and the large projection inside makes it feel larger than it is.

I wanted to incorporate this idea of censorship of images within this exhibition maquette – where an image online shares a warning message/almost covered up but you can still see parts of the image. This was a point brought up from my group crit 24/03/21 and an issue I discussed in my dissertation. I continued to channel his through the placement of the cellophane but using it as a suggestion. This plays with your curiosity as a viewer, feeling almost drawn to see what’s underneath. It seems with the Hollywood cinema they do this with the female form by playing to the eyes of the male gaze, showing almost everything of a women in a manner which glorifies and normalises this sexualisation. It impacts the female gazes’ self gaze with the way we think we should see ourselves. I feel with this visual of projection in a setting such as the cinema which both genders attend to watch movies, it involves everyone and doesn’t target men or women in particular. – This was a point Jane said to make aware. This piece is most effective virtually, where as if this exhibition was in a space, it may be better in the real. It must be both male and female viewers for the justification of the art work to be received otherwise I don’t think there will ever be a change.

See films below. I placed the camera down and tilted it up to the screen, to begin with I didn’t mean to cut off some of the picture but I think it really played well where you can still see the film/what it is but also the space. – It has this appearance of trying not to look but you can’t help but look.

There does feel like so much aggression in this series, from the physicality of chewing the breast, to the screwed up cellophane that’s draped across the mouth. The darkness accentuates the harshness of what is happening in the actual film. I’m surprised I’d like working with monotone colours as previously it’s been about the brightest I can get the images/projection. It’s an interesting contrast to almost seriousness.

The use of no sound definitely works well and especially being projected in a space like this, plays up to the horror movie aspect which was previously mentioned in my group crit 24/03/21. The black walls adds to the emotion/eery-ness of the space. I also then played to that with the editing of the actual film making it the imagery of the breast being eaten/un-eaten on a continual repeat – this makes it feels dramatic in the sense you can’t take your eyes off incase it changes. This reminded me of Bruce Nauman’s Poke in the eye/ear/nose where he would leave it playing continuously and people would fail to see where the start/end point is. With Sweet Tooth Cinema Box View Point 3 I decided that there isn’t one. (I forgot to film this one landscape!)

I really enjoy this off centred view point, it is as though there’s different seats within the cinema and each viewer is getting a different perspective. The projection also cancels out all tone/shade and instead portrays the breast as an object/toy. With censorship comes this connection to pornography and the censored images/acts. The sexual objectification in pornography must be acknowledged especially here, reminding of old fashioned adult cinemas – adult movies “did play along a couple of social movements of their time, like feminism, with women being superior to men in poster depictions” (Savage Thrills) using women in a high patriarchal role as a material to draw attention/money to the movie and to be sexualised. This is something I aim to research further. With the film below, I held the camera instead of being place down, it has a unique connection to a gazing eye watching the film, as though it is how the artist wants the viewers to see it. This is something I learnt from Are You Watching? part of Congruous.

• !!! Research Andrea Dworkin Pornography: Men possessing women (p199)
• Using soft (relates to sensual-ness) fabric – Tony Oursler?

See behind the scenes below, the box is fairly large due to the size of the projection but I can’t make any smaller/increase focus. I really enjoyed this process, I felt my work jump forward a step by creating a physical space.