SYMPOSIUM ESSAY - “Glitch Me”: Escapism and Sexuality within the Self.
Chelsea-Anne Salter
MA Fine Art (Full Time)
UCA Farnham
Section One - Female Autonomy In Literature
Chapter One - Video Works
Figure One - “My Dearest Emma” (2022) - Video on Screen With Audio [Installation View]
Figure One for example shows an installation view of “My Dearest Emma” (2022), an animated video featuring a female google voice reading the proposal scene between Mr. Knightley and the titular Emma, of Jane Austen’s “Emma”. Inspired by the romance of Jane Austen and her ideas around gender expectations and roles, the film re-appropriates the language of the marriage proposals and explores how romance filled Austen’s life and yet she never said, “I do”. The short animated video attempts to inhabit the space, taking control back from the typically male role of the proposal, historical literature, this is exacerbated through the all-female household that lived in the cottage during Austen’s time. Additionally, having a robotic voice forces the audience to add accents and inflexions to what they hear, as well as linking to the evolution of reading into audiobooks for convenience and portability. Criticizing the heteronormative expectations of marriage and social standards the use of a female voice for a traditionally male activity of proposing not only makes an unconscious connection to Austen's suggested bisexuality but uproots the sexual stereotypes of literature. The type of literature this project focuses on is often written from a woman's point of view for a woman's entertainment and escapism. In an intended juxtaposition the google voice is almost completely monotone, which not only destroys the romantic element of the proposal that is being read but also demands attention in its official documentary-esk accent. Famous printing house of romantic literature Mills& Boon, whose stories inform a lot of the project's literary influences, base their ideology on the “woman’s sphere - standing for stability, safety, peace and strength”. (Dixon, 1999) Even when the antitype of a “big strong male saviour” as seen in countless romantic novels aimed at women including “Their Wayward Bride” by Vanessa Vale, “Full Package” by Lauren Blankely, “Stay Close” by Alexa Riley and “Feral” by Alessandra Hazard, saves the day and confirms the heroine's social identity by ultimately marrying for her for the reader’s happily ever after, it is, in fact, the “woman who is drawing the hero into the woman's world [...] and constantly argue that men must change to meet women’s standards”. (Dixon, 1999) This is not to say that Mills and Boon don’t play on desire, fantasy and the fetishised object on their covers to draw readers in, although as Audrey Jaffe has put it, “the reader is a mass character” (Jaffe, 2010), which suggests it's important to make the audience feel represented and included in the work. This can also be true for the audience of a piece of artwork, not only verbally, but a viewer can connect visually as if entering the world of the artwork. Installations from Reba Maybury, invite the audience to enter space on their own accord to be welcomed into the private world of sexuality in order to relate to it, something a novel does on a much more inmate and smaller scale.
Figure Two - “O is For…” (2022) - Video on Screen With Audio [DIY Installation View]
Another novel of heavy influence on the project is the Story of O by Anne Desclos. Desclos' lover and employer Jean Paulhan, a fervent admirer of the Marquis de Sade, had made the remark to her that no woman was capable of writing an erotic novel. To prove him wrong, Desclos wrote a graphic, sadomasochistic novel in June 1954. (Ciuraru, Carmela (11 June 2011). "The Story of the Story of O". Guernica. Retrieved 31 December 2013.) This dare-like status of the novel is inspiring as it breaks the expectations of what women could do, despite having just as much sexual fantasy as men. Figure Two shows an install view of the video work “O is For…”. Showing scenes from the 1975 Franco-German erotic drama film directed by Just Jaeckin and starring Corinne Cléry and Udo Kier, the sound is replaced with a list of words starting with the letter “o”, which can also be seen on the wall behind the screen. Written rather than typed, the words bring a sense of infallible humanity, standing out from the digital materiality of the video, as well as slowly the comprehension down to allow the audience to fully read and digest what they see. The audio speed varies throughout the video and is predominantly slightly faster than the speaking speed which creates tension between the slow reading, and emotional visuals. Scenes including graphic imagery are complimented with a quicker speed as well as narrated through the use of words such as “ouch”, “object” and “obedient”, in order to create an unconscious bias through word association, whereas more PG scenes are narrated with neutral or unrelated words such as “otter”, “outland” and “ornament”. Society during the 1970s was a lot more open to sexuality than it had been before, allowing both artists and authors to express themselves. In “O is For… ” the audio is a recognizable female google voice, similar to that of Kindle or audiobooks, which causes certain inflexions and forced pronunciations in works that break the fantasy of the visuals, forcing the audience back into reality, despite the emotional situations of the scene at the time.
Chapter Two - Pictorial Work
Figure Three - “Safe Word” (2022) - Screenprint [Installation View]
Based on the context of communication in relationships, inspired by literature "Safe Word" (shown in Figure Three) features three screenprints representing the traffic light safe word system (red, yellow and green), often used in BDSM dynamics to ensure a healthy consensual relationship. The safety word method even suggests that the ultimate power over the SM scene lies with the sub(missive), and not the dom(minant) (Love 2000; Weinberg & Kamel 1995). Again, Inspired by The Story of O, the owl hybrid woman represents female autonomy and sexual empowerment. The woman, representing any woman (or female-presenting people), is censored by a pair of lips over her nether regions and a banner over her chest. Love’s point of view can suggest that O, in this case, uses her men for her pleasure rather than the instinctive view of her sexual (consensual) slavery being one of unadulterated ownership, a view with many anti-porn feminists raise as a large concern in regards to female oppression. Relating to current social pressures on women, “Safe Word” presents room for discord regarding sexual freedom and escapism, and that these themes should not be believed at face value; there is a second side to the relationship coin. O is not the only fictional woman to gain gratification from her being used by many men. Mathilde, the titular character in Anaïs Nin’s novel images herself as a plastic sex doll for local sailors to enjoy, caress and love as “this woman had been beautifully made and gave them [the sailors] the perfect illusion. The sailors loved her. They look her [the doll] to bed with them [...] there was no fights between them, no possessiveness. The rubber would be very much loved.” (Nin, 1977)
Figure Four - “Marchioness de Sad” (2022) - Image and Text Installation [Installation View]
Figure Four shows an installation view of the video work “Marchioness de Sad”, a play on words on Marquis de Sade and his political views on sexual hedonism, as well as from the emotions towards such unsolicited comments, including sadness and pitty - sadness that the senders think these type of messages are appropriate, effective or even wanted. Its form is specially designed to copy the endless, repetitive and second nature ease scroll format of Instagram, rather than the limiting sphere of a gallery space. Each photo is narrated with an unsolicited comment from various social media including phrases such as “you will bleed for me”, “I would love to take advantage of you” and “hey whore”. Flis Holland’s “Virtual Tour” acted as an inspiration for the social media format that allows a different comprehension of the video. When played on a mobile phone, as is its intended viewing, rather than a traditional screen, the use of social media makes it appear as if the viewer is the recipient of the messages, including them in the situation in the same way one might feel interacting with characters in novels. As an installation, compared with its video version, the pages take on a new meaning, the heaviness and weight of the comments literally pull the images down and in a slow-motion performance, tear themselves off the wall, falling in the same manner of tears; one by one, as well as a physical metaphor for the stripping away of one's confidence and self-esteem. Inspired by the work of Betty Tompkins, this work is direct, hard-hitting and most importantly, needs to be given light to highlight the almost second nature this online interaction has become. Similarly, Tompkins's “Woman Words” highlights how women are viewed in soliciting and asking for donations of works. She received more than 3,500 responses to her initial query, with the most common words sent in response being “cunt”, “bitch”, “slut” and “mother”. (Gavlak Gallery, 2016) Marchioness de Sad found similar results, phrases such as “whore”, “slut” and “baby” being dotted within the vile detritus. Zanele Muholi posits that “You cannot change the laws without changing the image in space” (Freemuse, 2013), in regards to talking about gay lesbian and transgender art, although the same sentiment can be made for expressing sexuality and harassment.
Section Two - Online Digital Presence
Chapter Three - Digital Colleges
Figure Five and Figure Six - “Glitch me” [Series] (2022) - Photographs.
A second inspiration for this project is the idea of the online presence, identity and digital autonomy. Mirroring the development of literature, identity and escapism on a digital level, Figures Five and Six are heavily inspired by the themes of Glitch Feminism which embraces the causality of "error" and turns the gloomy implication of "glitch" on its ear by acknowledging that an error in a social system disturbed by economic, racial, social, sexual and cultural stratification and the imperialist wrecking-ball of globalization—processes that continue to enact violence on all bodies—may not be "error" at all, but rather a much-needed erratum. (Russell, n.d) Having said that, Legacy Russell is clear to make the distinction for Glitch Feminism that it isn’t exclusively about glitching feminism, but rather about presenting an opportunity to make visible new configurations of the corporeal, with such modes of experimentation beginning online, and then entering out into the world. (Russell, 2018) It has been suggested in “A Politics of the Performative” that “one ‘exists’ not only by virtue of being recognized but … by being recognizable.” (Butler, 1997) “Glitch Me” attempts to play with this recognizability along with the influence of an online presence. By reducing a person to their pixels, the photographic series brings up questions of one's identity and anonymity behind the screen compared with their IRL (in real life) actions and responsibilities or as Russell puts it “AFK” (away from keyboard). In the same way, as in literature, the internet allows a person to become anything or anyone they want to, which holds a lot of power in the realism of self-esteem in society. The series consists of images taken from my Instagram, a few of which have gained unsolicited and unnecessary attention, while comments, likes and shares are part of the course for online activity, there is no excise for harassment and vile comments. Using a digital pixel filter, with varying sizes of the squares, “Glitch Me” tries to find the balance between too ambiguous and too obvious. The work aims to balance the tension to remain between what the audience thought they were looking at versus what they were actually seeing. The name “Glitch Me” comes from the aesthetics of the photos, reminiscent of the photos one might have on a dating profile in order to invite the gaze. Andrea Dworkin, in her book Pornography: Men Possessing Women suggests that “The object, the woman, goes out into the world formed as men have formed her to be used as men wish to use her. She is then a provocation [and] the object provokes its use” (Dworkin, 1981), which would suggest that photos in “Glitch Me” invited the behaviour seen in “Marchioness de Sad”, which is not the intention of the images. The project did not invite nor encourage the responses, merely interacting until it became vile. Video artist Ann Hirsh, within her own work, suggests a reason for the attraction of such comments, which challenges this Dworkin’s view, stating;
“Instead of projecting fantasies onto text, you now project a fantasy onto an image, which is inherently a pornographic process. So even if you view an image of a woman that's non-pornographic, it becomes a certain kind of porn to the viewer and a similar sort of violence is enacted in that pornified gaze.” (Banks, 2016)
This again suggests a lack of choice for people on the internet, so if the project cannot beat them it might as well take fun from it and take that “shame” that's expected of open sexuality and turn it into power. These images when displayed do not have frames as in a way they represent societal boxes and labels and are set on the border of the digital screen when created, in the same way, a photograph is held on the border of the viewfinder, and so, adding a physical frame that is to say double framing them, while perhaps cementing forced labelling one might feel pressured to follow, would also suggest a hierarchy of items and grandiose importance to a subject that is personal and private. Also analyzing the idea of evolution to the digital and sexual relationship is Dr Bo Ruberg in their book “Sex Dolls at Sea Imagined Histories of Sexual Technologies” (2022). Ruberg suggests an almost symbiotic relationship between sex tech and the digital, as well as revealing the stories of the sex workers, women, queer people, and people of colour whose lives have been hidden behind the shadow of these sexual technologies. As these forms of gratification and exploration became more popular and available, erotica too had to keep up with the technologies of other gratification tools.
Supporting this quote on quote “race” to keep up, Laura Antoniou, an erotic fiction author, comments in an interview (quoted in Anderson-Minshall 2013):
“I think the mainstream media ‘discovers’ kinky sex every ten years or so. […]Every single time the media clutched its collective pearls and wondered how feminists would respond, hastened to assure us all that it’s OK to have fantasies of submission, and did cute little sidebar stories on an occasional SM club or leather bar or sex toy shop. And then they forgot about kinky until the next one rolled to the top of the media haystack.”
While it can be said that society has built a tolerance or blindness to the shock value of erotica and sexual art, after the likes of Valie Export, Caroline Schneemann and Annie Sprinkle, the project still aims to show such themes as a point of discord and inspiration. In the same way “Glitch Me” removed one's identification, these digital colleges too, aim to remove one's representation and recognizability. Nin in the Delta of Venus mentions that “Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore.” (Nin, 1977) as in a way art does if the audience is spoon-fed then there is no room for interpretation or experience to guide an understanding.
Section Three - Future Work
Figure Seven - “Eye See You” [Curational Plan with Annotations] (2022)
Video Artist Ann Hirsh posits that “whenever you put your body online, in some way you are in conversation with porn” (Fateman, n.d.) “Marchioness de Sad”, in the same way, “O is For…” and “Glitch Me” aim to show the other side of the coin when it comes to sexual freedom, presenting a different view from that which is traditionally shown. Figure Seven shows a plan for an installation called “Eye See You”, which will consist of wallpaper, prints, a mirror wall and an artefact, in this case, a collar that will link to the influence of the Story of O. The work here will look at consent, as much as these fantasies of both the digital realm and literature allow escapism, that does not mean it's appropriate to push onto people online. Like the curation before, eyes are very important to the work, both internalised and real, all be it pixilated and subtle previously. The large mirror would reflect the eye wallpaper developing the audience and will make the audience feel as if they are the recipient (or the main character in the case of literary influences) of online messages and digital experiences. The artefact would represent a goal the audience member could relate to a life goal or an interest yet because of the inescapable gaze, be that of the wallpaper, the internal and externally reflected gaze or even the omnipotent gaze through the lens of the gallery security system, its consumption is challenged.
Working towards installation and film, this project will continue to highlight and celebrate female sexuality (in whatever form that might take) as well as that of fantasy and escapism, be that of the artist, or a relatable theme for the viewer.
Figures
Figure One - “My Dearest Emma” (2022) - Video on Screen With Audio [Installation View]
Figure Two - “Safe Word” (2022) - Screenprint [Installation View]
Figure Three - “Safe Word” (2022) - Screenprint [Installation View]
Figure Four - “Marchioness de Sad” (2022) - Image and Text Installation [Installation View]
Figure Five - “Glitch me” [Series] (2022) - Photographs.
Figure Six -“Glitch me” [Series] (2022) - Photographs.
Figure Seven - “Eye See You” [Curational Plan with Annotations] (2022)
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