Concept has changed a bit. Here is my wall blurb for the big exhibit tomorrow! I love where this project has taken me.
Megan Rippey
Jewelry Box Theater
The jewelry puppets are fragile-- please play gently.
I have constructed my "hope chest" in the form of a Jewelry Box Theater. The exterior and interior of my box are not synonymous, but are in conversation. While the exterior of the box realistically resembles a traditional jewelry box (in which one might find a strand of pearls to be worn on a future wedding day), the interior of the box is designed with the style of Rauschenberg in mind (found objects, collage, installation). Certain materials used to design the interior should indicate a miniature theater (red curtain, stage, dressing rooms, etc.). The box appears to contain pieces of jewelry, as a traditional jewelry box would, but on closer inspection the viewer should notice the subversiveness of these objects. The wearable pieces deal with themes such as queerness, anti-marriage, pro-gay marriage, and queer culture. The three necklaces hanging from the ceiling of the theater are meant to be puppets one might play with. The two pairs of earrings are meant to represent the bride and groom in their respective chambers (dressing rooms) prior to the wedding ceremony. However, one might notice that I have exaggerated the conventions of traditional femininity and masculinity so much that they have become "queered." The bride, in effect, is a drag queen, and the groom is a boi (a term I use to refer to a butch lesbian). Because the genders of the bride and groom are queered, their marriage is queered (as they are not a heterosexual couple). I have done this in an effort to confront the controversy of gay marriage. Additionally, all of the theatrical elements I have represented in this piece (script, makeup, costume, roles, audience, etc.) are meant to reveal that things like gender, marriage, and ceremonies are performative and constructed.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Brainstorming/Proposal for Marriage Hope Chest Project
Ideas I potentially want to play with:
*hope chest
*jewelry box
*Pandora's box
*black box theater
*hat box
*vagina box
*drawer
*bureau
*treasure chest
*heart box! (just came up with that!)
Shapes I am considering... non-square, to be sure. Well... actually, a black box theater would probably be square. Rectangular, possibly. I'm attracted to the idea of a circular box (perhaps oval-esque, a feminine shape). I am of course contemplating a heart box. A vagina box would ideally resemble a vulva. A hat box would be circular.
I narrow this list down to... jewelry box, black box, vagina box, and heart box. I shall now sketch them.
The vagina box would be shaped like a vulva, decorated to resemble a vulva, with a lid. Interior would be filled with...
precious treasures!
identity
previous/current/future lovers
something or somethings for myself
a distant dream
The black box theater would be a wooden cube painted black. It would not have a lid. Instead, it would be missing one of its walls, in the tradition of conventional black box realism. The interior would be a stage:
performance of marriage
ceremony
rites
roles
scripts
costumes
audience
The heart box would be similar to vulva box-- a place to keep special things that are mine, gifts of love to myself. The exterior would be shaped like a heart, and it would have a removable lid. Decorated with collage in the Rauschenberg/Johns style: expressing identity with found materials. Interior would be a special room! A "heart chamber."
Place for love letters I have written to/for myself
vows to myself
The jewelry box would be rectangular, and would have a lid that hinged. The exterior would be decorated with feminine details, such as lace, the color pink, beads... The jewelry box would appear feminine and conventional from the outside, but the jewelry inside would be subversive! Anti-wedding, anti-marriage, queer, anti-(ironically) feminine. I might use alternative jewelry-making materials (such as barbed wire), or use traditional jewelry-making materials and use images and text (collage) to make the jewelry have a subversive message. On the underside of the hinged lid I would attach small hooks to hold bracelets and necklaces.
But which idea shall I go with?
Talked with Fereshteh; got some helpful feedback. I'm going to build a box that is a hybrid of my black box theater and my jewelry box.
Concept statement:
I propose to construct a box that is slightly rectangular, elongated lengthwise just a few more inches than the width so that it is not a square. I have yet to decide if I want a functioning lid or a non-functioning lid at the top of the box, and/or a false wall of the box that drops down like a drawbridge. The top (lid?) of the box will feature small hooks (or fabric with snaps) which will serve to hold necklaces, which I will make. The exterior of the box will be overtly feminine, frilly, and "girly", and I will accomplish this using the Rauschenberg/Johns style of collage, found materials, and possibly text (OR the opposite-- I might paint the exterior in the style of abstract expressionism, and make the jewelry in the style of RR/JJ, thereby re-telling the story of how they opposed and subverted the popular abstract expressionism of their time with their work). The color of the exterior will be primarily pink, the color that saturates "girlworld." The interior of the box will be dramatically different from the exterior: it will resemble a theater, and the necklaces that hang down from the roof of the box will be the characters on the floor of the box, which will be the stage. I am contemplating whether to have a functioning lid that is hinged in the back as well as a false wall that drops down to create more playing space for the dolls/characters/jewelry pieces, or to construct only one "door." The jewelry pieces I plan to make will be subversive, directly in opposition to the conventionally feminine exterior. I plan to use images and text and found materials in the style of Rauschenberg to give my jewelry pieces subversive meanings. The jewelry pieces will also resemble bodies, which inhabit a performance space (the stage of the box). I plan to incorporate as many theatrical and performative elements into this work as possible in order to reveal things like gender, marriage, femininity, and ceremonies as performative and constructed.
*hope chest
*jewelry box
*Pandora's box
*black box theater
*hat box
*vagina box
*drawer
*bureau
*treasure chest
*heart box! (just came up with that!)
Shapes I am considering... non-square, to be sure. Well... actually, a black box theater would probably be square. Rectangular, possibly. I'm attracted to the idea of a circular box (perhaps oval-esque, a feminine shape). I am of course contemplating a heart box. A vagina box would ideally resemble a vulva. A hat box would be circular.
I narrow this list down to... jewelry box, black box, vagina box, and heart box. I shall now sketch them.
The vagina box would be shaped like a vulva, decorated to resemble a vulva, with a lid. Interior would be filled with...
precious treasures!
identity
previous/current/future lovers
something or somethings for myself
a distant dream
The black box theater would be a wooden cube painted black. It would not have a lid. Instead, it would be missing one of its walls, in the tradition of conventional black box realism. The interior would be a stage:
performance of marriage
ceremony
rites
roles
scripts
costumes
audience
The heart box would be similar to vulva box-- a place to keep special things that are mine, gifts of love to myself. The exterior would be shaped like a heart, and it would have a removable lid. Decorated with collage in the Rauschenberg/Johns style: expressing identity with found materials. Interior would be a special room! A "heart chamber."
Place for love letters I have written to/for myself
vows to myself
The jewelry box would be rectangular, and would have a lid that hinged. The exterior would be decorated with feminine details, such as lace, the color pink, beads... The jewelry box would appear feminine and conventional from the outside, but the jewelry inside would be subversive! Anti-wedding, anti-marriage, queer, anti-(ironically) feminine. I might use alternative jewelry-making materials (such as barbed wire), or use traditional jewelry-making materials and use images and text (collage) to make the jewelry have a subversive message. On the underside of the hinged lid I would attach small hooks to hold bracelets and necklaces.
But which idea shall I go with?
Talked with Fereshteh; got some helpful feedback. I'm going to build a box that is a hybrid of my black box theater and my jewelry box.
Concept statement:
I propose to construct a box that is slightly rectangular, elongated lengthwise just a few more inches than the width so that it is not a square. I have yet to decide if I want a functioning lid or a non-functioning lid at the top of the box, and/or a false wall of the box that drops down like a drawbridge. The top (lid?) of the box will feature small hooks (or fabric with snaps) which will serve to hold necklaces, which I will make. The exterior of the box will be overtly feminine, frilly, and "girly", and I will accomplish this using the Rauschenberg/Johns style of collage, found materials, and possibly text (OR the opposite-- I might paint the exterior in the style of abstract expressionism, and make the jewelry in the style of RR/JJ, thereby re-telling the story of how they opposed and subverted the popular abstract expressionism of their time with their work). The color of the exterior will be primarily pink, the color that saturates "girlworld." The interior of the box will be dramatically different from the exterior: it will resemble a theater, and the necklaces that hang down from the roof of the box will be the characters on the floor of the box, which will be the stage. I am contemplating whether to have a functioning lid that is hinged in the back as well as a false wall that drops down to create more playing space for the dolls/characters/jewelry pieces, or to construct only one "door." The jewelry pieces I plan to make will be subversive, directly in opposition to the conventionally feminine exterior. I plan to use images and text and found materials in the style of Rauschenberg to give my jewelry pieces subversive meanings. The jewelry pieces will also resemble bodies, which inhabit a performance space (the stage of the box). I plan to incorporate as many theatrical and performative elements into this work as possible in order to reveal things like gender, marriage, femininity, and ceremonies as performative and constructed.
Objectification Zoo: Embodying Prescriptive Feminine Body Ideals
As my video documentation will show, my final demonstration as a culmination of weeks of brainstorming, theorizing, and planning underwent dramatic changes from what I originally described in my project proposal. Previously titled “Gaze-Challenging Body Suit/Skin,” this project evolved from a staged, static demonstration of “Gaze backlash” (I would define this as the act of displaying oneself as an object while frustrating or troubling that status as an object by returning the Gaze to the spectator/voyeur) and reflexivity (with this term I refer to the irony of being covered with images of objectified, fetishized women/sex objects from fashion magazines while at the same time objectifying oneself in a similar manner—on display, posing for onlookers), into something involving these elements but executed quite differently.
Gradually, my project began to form around a particular narrative I had been considering during the brainstorming process: a two-stage transformation of a character. I was advised by my professor that performing my demonstration as a narrative would give more meaning to the duration of time that I was to be performing, and would also provide a more interesting documentation of the performance.
In the first stage of the demonstration, I portrayed a human female—presumably a young adult, which is an age I both resemble and inhabit—performing the mundane, identifiable ritual of flipping through popular fashion magazines and cutting out images, but in a store window. The store window was necessary in that it is a space in which stationary objects are displayed in order to entice potential customers so that they will consume the items. By situating my living body into the space of a store display window, it was my intention to suggest the association between consumable store items and consumable female bodies as objects of the Gaze. The images I cut out of the magazines were images of female body parts that my character desired to embody (for example, an image of perfectly toned thighs, or beautifully make-up eyes, or a thinner waist—any body part that my character admired, envied, and/or desired). Finally, I glued the cut-out images of ideal feminine body parts to my own body, thus literally “embodying” the images. The act of gluing the magazine clippings to my skin demonstrated a transformation, which I will discuss further.
Prior to the actual demonstration, I created a “body suit” of magazine images by taping the clippings to a black leotard. This was essential to the demonstration because I wanted to appear as if I had covered the entire surface area of my skin with the images so that no part of my body appeared to be safe from the invasion of these images. Ideally, I would have preferred to conduct my performance in the nude, but I was concerned for my safety and did not wish to break any laws. Interestingly, the image-laden leotard became a tangible relic of the demonstration; after I removed it, I found that it resembled a shell, or a discarded cocoon, or even a corset that could be re-fastened to the body.
The emergence of a “creature,” a character separate from the human female character in the first stage, distinguishes the second stage of the demonstration, the “transformation stage.” At this point in the demonstration, I had covered my bare skin with multiple images of female body parts cut out of magazines. I then performed a creature that had evolved from the first character. What I wanted to demonstrate was that the human female character who had applied idealized images of body parts to her own body had transformed into something clearly non-human, a creature representing what I see as the result of our beauty ideal-saturated culture and the effects these ideals have on girls and women. In order to perform a “creature” I simply crawled around the window display on all fours, alternating between moods of aggression (in which case I growled, hissed, and clawed through the window at passers-by), or sometimes bewildered shyness, as if I did not understand why I was being looked at. Crawling around inside a glass box made me feel as if I were in a zoo, and the way spectators looked at me and interacted with me certainly made me feel that I was indeed an exotic specimen.
It is important to note that during the first stage, my performance bears a significant resemblance to theatrical realism: I performed in a box with a (literally) transparent fourth wall and utilized the conventions of realistic acting such as ignoring the audience, pretending to be alone and unwatched, and not making any eye contact whatsoever with those looking in. As a performer, I invited and allowed the Gaze of my spectators without challenging it. In the second stage, my performance demonstrated the opposite. I not only made eye-contact, thus challenging their Gaze, I also actively engaged my spectators and sometimes attempted to interact with them. As a result, I found that people were much more willing to stop and stare at me while I was performing in a realistic sense—when I ignored them and did not look up at them. When I actively tried to engage passers-by, I found that people were more likely to exude a quick reaction (usually surprise, amusement, or confusion), then become (seemingly) self-conscious and continue walking.
My project deals with personal space in that my “personal space” in the store window interacts with the “public space” beyond the glass. The glass window being permeable to Gaze, these boundaries were blurred when passers-by had the opportunity to be voyeurs and look in on me performing. The glass provides, in my opinion, the justification that some of the spectators seemed to experience once they saw that I was not going to challenge their gaze; I was doing something alone and secretive, and they had the opportunity to watch. Personal space was again troubled when I, as the creature, returned the Gaze. I was soliciting for responses and reactions, but I was still “safe” behind my glass wall, in my personal space. Even so, many people appeared to be uncomfortable, as if my demonstration in a store window were invading their space, though physically this was not the case. Another way in which my demonstration deals with personal space is the application of magazine clippings to my skin; my personal space was literally invaded by the images of fetishized body parts. This was the performed representation of how fashion images can alter one’s body.
Gradually, my project began to form around a particular narrative I had been considering during the brainstorming process: a two-stage transformation of a character. I was advised by my professor that performing my demonstration as a narrative would give more meaning to the duration of time that I was to be performing, and would also provide a more interesting documentation of the performance.
In the first stage of the demonstration, I portrayed a human female—presumably a young adult, which is an age I both resemble and inhabit—performing the mundane, identifiable ritual of flipping through popular fashion magazines and cutting out images, but in a store window. The store window was necessary in that it is a space in which stationary objects are displayed in order to entice potential customers so that they will consume the items. By situating my living body into the space of a store display window, it was my intention to suggest the association between consumable store items and consumable female bodies as objects of the Gaze. The images I cut out of the magazines were images of female body parts that my character desired to embody (for example, an image of perfectly toned thighs, or beautifully make-up eyes, or a thinner waist—any body part that my character admired, envied, and/or desired). Finally, I glued the cut-out images of ideal feminine body parts to my own body, thus literally “embodying” the images. The act of gluing the magazine clippings to my skin demonstrated a transformation, which I will discuss further.
Prior to the actual demonstration, I created a “body suit” of magazine images by taping the clippings to a black leotard. This was essential to the demonstration because I wanted to appear as if I had covered the entire surface area of my skin with the images so that no part of my body appeared to be safe from the invasion of these images. Ideally, I would have preferred to conduct my performance in the nude, but I was concerned for my safety and did not wish to break any laws. Interestingly, the image-laden leotard became a tangible relic of the demonstration; after I removed it, I found that it resembled a shell, or a discarded cocoon, or even a corset that could be re-fastened to the body.
The emergence of a “creature,” a character separate from the human female character in the first stage, distinguishes the second stage of the demonstration, the “transformation stage.” At this point in the demonstration, I had covered my bare skin with multiple images of female body parts cut out of magazines. I then performed a creature that had evolved from the first character. What I wanted to demonstrate was that the human female character who had applied idealized images of body parts to her own body had transformed into something clearly non-human, a creature representing what I see as the result of our beauty ideal-saturated culture and the effects these ideals have on girls and women. In order to perform a “creature” I simply crawled around the window display on all fours, alternating between moods of aggression (in which case I growled, hissed, and clawed through the window at passers-by), or sometimes bewildered shyness, as if I did not understand why I was being looked at. Crawling around inside a glass box made me feel as if I were in a zoo, and the way spectators looked at me and interacted with me certainly made me feel that I was indeed an exotic specimen.
It is important to note that during the first stage, my performance bears a significant resemblance to theatrical realism: I performed in a box with a (literally) transparent fourth wall and utilized the conventions of realistic acting such as ignoring the audience, pretending to be alone and unwatched, and not making any eye contact whatsoever with those looking in. As a performer, I invited and allowed the Gaze of my spectators without challenging it. In the second stage, my performance demonstrated the opposite. I not only made eye-contact, thus challenging their Gaze, I also actively engaged my spectators and sometimes attempted to interact with them. As a result, I found that people were much more willing to stop and stare at me while I was performing in a realistic sense—when I ignored them and did not look up at them. When I actively tried to engage passers-by, I found that people were more likely to exude a quick reaction (usually surprise, amusement, or confusion), then become (seemingly) self-conscious and continue walking.
My project deals with personal space in that my “personal space” in the store window interacts with the “public space” beyond the glass. The glass window being permeable to Gaze, these boundaries were blurred when passers-by had the opportunity to be voyeurs and look in on me performing. The glass provides, in my opinion, the justification that some of the spectators seemed to experience once they saw that I was not going to challenge their gaze; I was doing something alone and secretive, and they had the opportunity to watch. Personal space was again troubled when I, as the creature, returned the Gaze. I was soliciting for responses and reactions, but I was still “safe” behind my glass wall, in my personal space. Even so, many people appeared to be uncomfortable, as if my demonstration in a store window were invading their space, though physically this was not the case. Another way in which my demonstration deals with personal space is the application of magazine clippings to my skin; my personal space was literally invaded by the images of fetishized body parts. This was the performed representation of how fashion images can alter one’s body.
Statement About “Gaze-Challenging Body Suit/Skin”
I propose to construct a costume that will be bonded directly to the skin of the artist/model. The costume would be a collage of magazine clippings of images of sexualized women. My inclination is to only use images of disembodied body parts; for example, an eye instead of an entire face. The demonstration would consist of the artist/model displaying herself in a store window, preferably in an indoor mall. While on display, the artist/model would pose for the spectator/voyeur that stopped to look, but would not be a passive object. The artist/model would instead make eye contact with the spectators/voyeurs, thereby effectively “troubling” their Gaze.
Personal space is affected by the clear glass between the spectator/voyeur and the artist/model: the spectators feel safe and justified in staring at the model due to her status as a display object and a sex object, and she feels safe in her “private” personal space behind the glass. This is similar to a peep show, which I am reminded of while I theorize my idea by an applicable book I recently read about women, power, and erotic dancing called Bare by Elizabeth Eaves. In it, Eaves discusses the nature and constructions of power between customers and peep show dancers, the strange comfort of the glass between them, and notions of feeling safe and powerful while subjecting oneself to objectification for the means of a stranger’s sexual gratification. I struggled with these themes throughout the book, and having finished it, I still find these topics to be problematic and fascinating.
By covering myself with images of disembodied sexualized women in magazines, I am conducting an exercise of reflexivity: by eliciting the spectator’s gaze to the images on my body I am in effect drawing the spectator’s attention to his (or her) voyeurism and my objectification. The suit/skin of images brings to mind a kind of armor, or scales...
The imagery of scales is powerful, and I am contemplating working more with that idea. A little rhyme I made up comes to mind:
you consume me.
I consume you.
I am the creature
of your objectification zoo.
The Gaze being consumptive, the spectator/voyeur consumes me while I direct my Gaze back and consume the spectator/voyeur. With the collage of images I hope to evoke an image of a creature covered in scales, a creature that is the product of our objectifying society, a creature that is the product of what women have morphed into through the evolution of fashion, rape-culture, and patriarchy. As if there is a zoo of these women, and I am a creature in the zoo.
Something else I found myself toying with is communication, and how badly I want to communicate during this process. I do not want to verbally say anything during the demonstration, and I think that is important, but I feel the urge to create a venue of discourse for the public to communicate with me. I thought about posing a question without verbally asking it, and having the spectators answer, either on a message board, or to the video camera. Some questions I would love to know are as follows:
what do I mean to you?
what does this mean to you?
what do you think about this?
and my favorite, which would be the most succinct:
(un)comfortable?
I have many decisions about this project yet to be made.
Personal space is affected by the clear glass between the spectator/voyeur and the artist/model: the spectators feel safe and justified in staring at the model due to her status as a display object and a sex object, and she feels safe in her “private” personal space behind the glass. This is similar to a peep show, which I am reminded of while I theorize my idea by an applicable book I recently read about women, power, and erotic dancing called Bare by Elizabeth Eaves. In it, Eaves discusses the nature and constructions of power between customers and peep show dancers, the strange comfort of the glass between them, and notions of feeling safe and powerful while subjecting oneself to objectification for the means of a stranger’s sexual gratification. I struggled with these themes throughout the book, and having finished it, I still find these topics to be problematic and fascinating.
By covering myself with images of disembodied sexualized women in magazines, I am conducting an exercise of reflexivity: by eliciting the spectator’s gaze to the images on my body I am in effect drawing the spectator’s attention to his (or her) voyeurism and my objectification. The suit/skin of images brings to mind a kind of armor, or scales...
The imagery of scales is powerful, and I am contemplating working more with that idea. A little rhyme I made up comes to mind:
you consume me.
I consume you.
I am the creature
of your objectification zoo.
The Gaze being consumptive, the spectator/voyeur consumes me while I direct my Gaze back and consume the spectator/voyeur. With the collage of images I hope to evoke an image of a creature covered in scales, a creature that is the product of our objectifying society, a creature that is the product of what women have morphed into through the evolution of fashion, rape-culture, and patriarchy. As if there is a zoo of these women, and I am a creature in the zoo.
Something else I found myself toying with is communication, and how badly I want to communicate during this process. I do not want to verbally say anything during the demonstration, and I think that is important, but I feel the urge to create a venue of discourse for the public to communicate with me. I thought about posing a question without verbally asking it, and having the spectators answer, either on a message board, or to the video camera. Some questions I would love to know are as follows:
what do I mean to you?
what does this mean to you?
what do you think about this?
and my favorite, which would be the most succinct:
(un)comfortable?
I have many decisions about this project yet to be made.
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