Friday 30 November 2012
Monday 12 November 2012
Typology
Considering
the theme of typology, the study of type and duplication of images within the
same composition, I developed my original Rayogram work, as my project is a question of
“…the pornographic reductions of the female body to a mere form for the purposes
of consumption and exploitation.” O’Reilly.(2009, p.21) and considering the
aspect of the male gaze, I chose to exploit that. Through the topic of femininity I have discovered that
throughout art, women can become exploited on stereotyped to be a representation
of a visual spectacle. Even in advertisements in the 21st century
women are poised in certain ways to appeal to the idea of the ‘male gaze’.
Therefore, considering the artist Gina Pane, I believe she was using herself as
the visual spectacle and inducing the pain and constraints society inflicts on
her as a women in a real life experience but in its most extreme form. She was
showcasing her self-ownership of her body. This way she had the power to
confuse people and make them gaze at her, not in a sexual way, but in wonder.
Her performances challenge her audiences with discomfort or shock and therefore
her audiences leave the performance with a deeper understanding of the
inferiority of the female body. It is this shock or repulse that is a central theme
to all of my chosen artists. Therefore,
this is the theme I adopted for the idea of typology. I followed the depiction
of tampons and exaggerated the idea. Using real tampons I coated them in red
paint to depict blood and displayed the visually ‘used’ tampons on white
background in a systematic way. The white of the background contrasted hugely
with the red and made the image more of a spectacle. The splats of paint that
are also on the white background add a sinister feel to the image. The overall image
is a representation of the male gaze. If women are to be a spectacle and
objectified by men as merely beautiful specimens with essentially, large
breasts and a perfectly proportioned figure, then why not objectify ourselves in which such
behaviour can constitute an act of liberation from perspective and
authoritarian control. The image basically portrays an everyday regime of
women, it shows women in their realistic raw form, away from any superficial
ideas that society have labelled them with. It is a repulsing spectacle of the
representation of women.
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