Oct
12th
Initially I am simply going to post my artifact, and later this week I will make a post explaining my concept. But as it is a VISUAL artifact I am interested to learn how it speaks for itself and posting it with a textual explanation would undermine what may emerge naturally from that quality. So, enjoy (and crank up your volume as there is music with it – and there is an interesting story there too, which I will also post later).
Future female: fetish or force?
Really enjoyed the VA – sometimes for the ‘wrong’ reasons (LOL!). Nice sourcing of ‘found images’ from the web. I did wonder though if you were presenting the available options in overly polarized terms: either objectified Bellmer-esque fetishized femme-poupée or a kick-ass Ripley/tank girl?
That is exactly what I was doing haha! No but if you can think of some moderately but not overtly sexy slightly kick-ass but also kinda girl next door cyberpunk/sci-fi female heros let me know. I mean apart from Hopey and Maggie from Love and Rockets (who I included) who are definitely too chubby and dorky to be polarised – oh except that they are the first comic book examples of really cool lesbian cyberpunk chicks (which isn’t a male fantasy, oh no
). But yes, I was being deliberately provocative in more ways than one – which was the fun part. Thanks for the comment – glad you enjoyed it, in whatever way you enjoyed it.
Fantastic video, Tracy. You have really raised the bar with this one. I like the message at the end – to make a choice before it is made for us cyberwomen!
Thank you!!
Yeah – we wouldn’t want to end up an Austin Powers fembot eh Silvana?
Hi Tracy,
Re: “f you can think of some moderately but not overtly sexy slightly kick-ass but also kinda girl next door cyberpunk/sci-fi female heros let me know”.
I’ve been wracking my brains for an example. The closest I can get is Velma in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleased. Velma’s the ‘brainy’ one you (glasses = intelligence) and there’s a scene in which she wears a latex/PVC catsuit
Scooby Doo – I rest my case
.
lol, your link to Velma in a pvc catsuit doesn’t work – and frankly I am not sure I want it to
I did consider including Michelle Pfieffer’s catwoman – or Halle Berry’s. But that would be a superhero, which I felt was a whole other kettle of fetish.
VRs like World of Warcraft supply a choice of female role models, half are tall lithe with big assets (strangly played by many of my male friends) and half are short, or undead, or trolls – usually played by my women friends. Wonder what that says about us!
Viewing this made me feel freakish as a size 14 in a virtual world where no one seems larger than an 8. Is this what awaits us – a world where we must all confirm to the western ideals of tall and slim or will we actually begin to reflect reality with all its bumpy bits?
Love it – you made me think.
Unless there is some significance to the order of pictures, as yet hidden from us, I don’t think you need to offer any explanation. I think the video asks pertinent questions of both men and women.
In evolving to digital woman – given endless possibility, who defines “perfection.”
Within digital culture, it is possible to develop a society with alternative norms and values. Why must sexual inequality and division migrate there?
In a “perfect” digital culture is there a need for gender at all?
Is it assumed utopia cannot be realised and conflict will always exist?
Buddha nature exists in the real world. With greater opportunity to shape digital society, I believe enlightenment can be realised in cyberland too.
Lovely thoughts Andy, thank you for commenting. Maybe I don’t need to give an explanation to make the artifact ‘work’ but I will probably give my version of the reason anyway – so I can make my journey explicit. But yes, a visual artifact is like a work of art – the creator should stand back and allow art and viewer to make their own meaning.
Jen – I know what you mean, something interesting is emerging – That Bell article freaked me out a little. But I think it links to Tony’s comments about the question of narcisissm on his VA, which really made me think and re-evaluate a few of my opinions. Ooo so much to ponder!
Sarah, your comments brought me back to why I made this piece in the first place – the gulf between the ‘ideal’ beauty of my Second Life avatar and my real life self.
Strong message there Tracy with imagery intimitating to most men apart from perhaps the battle-heartened alpha-4 males.
It is interesting to note that there are ample of examples of fembots out there but (to my knowledge) there is no ‘mascbot’-equivalent or the like around.
Is this not an indicaiton that the RW has a strong influence on the shape of the emerging cyber society.
Thanks Henry. The RW? I think it is an indication that women have better things to do with their time. If you google ‘aiko fembot’ there are tons of interesting (in a sad way) articles about her and her creator. Apparently she can clean his ears and her software could be tweaked to “simulate her having an orgasm.” Why? There is a lot of great work on robotics going on but the robots that look like women are just gloified ‘real dolls’ (another thing to google if you don’t know what they are
). Women are happy with a toy they can hold in their hand if you get my drift, we don’t need it to have a hairy chest and a six-pack.
IMO, if we ever create a masbot it will be for the military, and it will make war, not the other thing.
@tracy
What about the girl heroes from Final Fantasy X2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_X-2)? Do they qualify as a combination of “moderately but not overtly sexy slightly kick-ass but also kinda girl next door cyberpunk/sci-fi female heroes”, Tracy?
Enjoyed the vid, by the way, and I think that both you and Tony are right: yes, there seems to be such a distinction in popular (cyber)culture and yes, it was presented in a polarised manner.
Truly brilliant use of music and image, Tracy – this is a really compelling piece of work!
I think the main point I took from the film is that there is little in the way of difference between the fetish and the force in these representations – I often couldn’t tell which was which. Both rely on extreme gender parodies and are highly fetishised. So I interpret the call to ‘make your choice’ as a call for alternative representations, not a call to choose between what is currently on offer. However, I wonder if that overly simplifies what is possible in virtual (or physical for that matter – a la Judith Butler) worlds. Some of you might remember TL Taylor’s work from IDEL. She wrote an article in 2003 called “Intentional Bodies: Virtual environments and the designers who shape them” (http://tltaylor.com/2009/07/intentional-bodies-virtual-environments-and-the-designers-who-shape-them/) which discusses the social context of software design. Ie: you can customise your avatar in Second Life or WoW a lot, but you don’t have a choice about choosing a gender. Mediated environments are never neutral, and *someone’s* assumptions are always going to be coded in.
But perhaps it doesn’t overly simplify it, just raises it as a possibility for us to discuss. In which case – success!
I really enjoyed the video too Tracey (although I’m a bit jealous I didn’t think of it first!). Gender and embodiment of gender in digital spaces is fascinating. A lot of the comments above have noted the consistency of form of the women in the video – slim, attractive, busty – and what I think is interesting is that future male exemplars are more varied from the skinny and pale to the enormously pumped and most everything (especially ordinary looking middle aged men when you get to the 50s/60s future males) in between. That the fetishist imagery hasn’t desisted (and has perhaps increased) over the last 40 years says some interesting things about how mediated images effect expectations and sense of self.
If the options are vulnerable and glamorous or masculine, gun toting and glamorous I am not sure that there is a future female embodiment out there that represents me. I want cuddly, geeky, a bit kick ass and, yeah, a bit intimidating, a bit sexy to be more my archetype. Something of Willow from Buffy crossed with Angelina Jolie in Hackers plus an awful lot of cake sort of gets near the image I’d like to see offered as a future female. Judzia Dax on DS9 isn’t a bad non-stereotypical portrayal but she is leggy, attractive, and, rather crucially (darn it), her intelligence is portrayed as largely directly inherited from a male soul/memory which is about as compromising as you can get. I actually think the, usually comic, popularity of male to female sex change characters in film and television is related to the quite specific fantasy of male power, aggression and ambition in an (invariably) improbable female form.
Anyway I digress… A rocking video!
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Oo lots of lovely comments!!
Nicola, my favourite comment so far “I want cuddly, geeky, a bit kick ass and, yeah, a bit intimidating, a bit sexy to be more my archetype. Something of Willow from Buffy crossed with Angelina Jolie in Hackers plus an awful lot of cake”. Thank you!!
Bill, hehe these girls? http://www.ffshrine.org/ffx2/wallpapers/01.jpg Oh ok, you can count them if you want but I don’t think they have really been trying with the cake, have they?
Jen, yes… and no, well maybe. Gah this needs a whole post to itself
I will read the article before posting though.
Tracy, very glad to hear I get a gold star for comment there – maybe we should sketch out a whole new archetype for future female as a side project. See if we can ever make her as culturally alluring as the rubber clad sexbot types
Hi Nicola, one of the things that strikes me about your video is the sad expression on Audrey Hepburn’s face. I think this speaks volumes about the pressures on woman to be everything to all people…..really powerful stuff and cyberwomen seem to be no different.
Moving on to the other characters – most, if not all, have sad or expressionless looks on their faces. the detached smile is significant for me also. is the smile real – No….really powerful and interesting stuff – I loved it.
down with cybersuperwoman!
Hi Lesley, thank you for the comments. Yes I thought that too, the whole of My Fair Lady is a lesson on how painful it can be for a woman to attempt to conform to a man’s idealised image of how they should be.
And I also chose the bionic woman doll to try and show that dislocation – her face was removable (for those of us born in the 70’s perhaps our first exposure to a cyberwoman).