Test Shoots

Images


I was given the opportunity to borrow a latex penis which resembles the prosthetic's that will be used in Forms of Friction. This test shoot was mainly used for experimenting with colour and hard contrasts.
The colour of the latex is more of an off-white colour. This being the case, lighting is a crucial component in highlighting the details of the prosthetic. The angle of the lighting during production has the ability to effect the image in post production.
Further lighting experiments are yet to come!

Video

Being that I was given this opportunity to experiment with one component of my piece (the male prosthetic), I decided to also do stop motion test shoots. This test shoot was used to experiment with lighting, colour, and the visibility of the prosthetic in the process. 

The conclusion of this test shoot is that there are to be many more test shoots, more lighting investigations, and more colour tests.

Projection Tests

This test shoot was for experimenting with different surfaces, multiple images and motion. The projection surfaces include: Paper rolls, which were used to test the idea of projecting on large cardboard tubes; the wall, and curtains. 

The projection of multiple images is another way in which Forms of Friction can be visualized. Instead of the viewer having to approach the installation, the installation will surround the viewer. 

Multiples Test Shoot

Audio Investigations

The following are two experimental audio clips created as audio investigations. These clips play with different forms of percussion and the configuring of beats within these sounds. 

Created in Ableton Live 8.

Quick Sketch

Just a quick sketch of what I envision the installation to look like.

Prosthetics - Documentation

The posthuman forms in Forms of Friction will utilize male and female genitalia, and exchange their genitalia amongst each other. For this visualization to become a reality required the fashioning of prosthetics.
A very kind friend agreed to create these prosthetics for my piece. The prosthetics will fit like a jock and will be held against the body with magnets, allowing for the redistribution of genitalia amongst the forms. The following images are the beginning stages of the male and female prosthetics.

Molds

Male

Female

Male & Female

Applying Latex 

Male & Female

Male

Female

Magnets in Filled Mold

Male

Female

Male & Female

Terms: Posthuman, Prosthetic, Performativity

The following terms are described as how they appear in Forms of Friction.

Posthuman -

The posthuman body is in a constant state of flux. The identity of these bodies is an effect of experiences with others. The posthuman identity is neither concrete nor foundational to their existence. Embodiment for the posthuman allows for information to take a form in order for the posthuman to adapt to and reconstruct their environments and bodies based on external experiences. Gender is thus not a customary ritual for the posthuman, but instead a performative act of fluidity with the use of prosthetics. 

The posthuman has no genesis, and no familial connection, and does not identify itself within the past. Sexual pleasure for the posthuman is not for reproductive purposes, but purely for the purpose of self-pleasure. The possibilities for posthuman sexual pleasure are unlimited; there are no restrictions to whom one is able to interact with. 

Prosthetics - 

In conjunction with gender performativity, prosthetics allow for the posthuman to maintain gender fluidity. Prosthetics in this sense, allow for the posthuman to apply and reapply an identity. Prosthetics employed by the posthuman are objects in which are extensions of the posthuman body – make-up, facial hair, razors, male and female genitalia.

Prosthetics do not act to replace either a part, or a whole of an identity which once existed, rather, the prosthetics extend from an already whole body – initiating the fluidity of the posthuman identity, an identity that defies an origin.

 Performativity - 

Gender performativity signifies how bodies act and interact based on gender. Gender, being a societal construction imposes particular performative actions on both males and females. The performative actions between gendered bodies maintain a heteronormative ideology, one that does not allow for an identity outside the male/female binary.

Posthuman Investigations

After reading articles on the posthuman, I have compiled some thoughts of what the posthuman is. This, like the posthuman, will change. For myself, the investigation into posthumanism leads to many new ways of perceiving the potential of this body, and I will undoubtedly transform my perception of the posthuman.
The following is just the beginning into my visualization of what the posthuman is.

What is Post Human?

The following is an account of the perception of the posthuman body influenced by articles such as Posthuman Bodies: Introduction by Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston, Posthuman Performance: A Feminist Intervention by Lucian Gomoll.

 The Posthuman body brings many questions along with it - What is the Posthuman body? What is this body capable of? What is it not capable of? Are Posthuman bodies inherently Queer? It this body always technological? What is Posthuman sex?

These questions often hinder the ability for some to recognize the posthuman body as a possible escape from herteronormative perceptions of the body and entering into a queer one. The illusion of the body as a concrete foundation for one’s identity is challenged with the posthuman body, as they “are not slaves to masterdiscourses” (Halberstam & Livingston, 2). These masterdiscourses create a sense of normalcy within human society. When the body is no longer devoted to these masterdicourses the illusion of binaries, as well as hierarchies, is lifted.

The posthuman body is in a constant state of flux. The ability of this type of fluidity allows for the posthuman  to “represent(s) attempts to keep up with the present and to process the identities that rub up against the body” (Halberstam & Livingston, 4). The identity of these bodies thus is an effect of experiences with others. The posthuman identity is neither concrete nor foundational to their existence. Embodiment though, is a “Significant prosthesis” (Halberstam & Livingston, 2). Embodiment for the posthuman allows for information to take shape in order to adapt to and reconstruct their environments. Thus embodiment allows for the posthuman to “recreate that real world in their own image, to repeople it and to challenge in an intensively artistic way the conventions of domination” (Halberstam & Livingston, 6). It is in the best interest of the posthuman to not create the notion of the ‘real’, as this will allow for the creation of hierarchies based around the body. This would then collapse the foundation in which posthuman embodiment relies upon. The superiority of the ‘real’ within society is thus diminished, as the ‘real’ becomes an insignificant portrayal of embodiment.

The notion of ‘some’ is described as, “not an indefinite number waiting a more accurate measurement, but a rigorous theoretical mandate whose specification, necessary as it is (since the multiple must be made), is neither numerable nor, in the common sense, innumerable (Halberstam & Livingston, 9).  Within the posthuman body, this notion of ‘some’ alludes to the notion that the posthuman is neither singular nor immeasurable. The posthuman body is capable of various different representations, but “there is no “best” representation of the posthuman” (Halberstam & Livingston, 10). There is no limit to the potential identities to which the posthuman can readapt. Instead of recreating normative identities, the posthuman become relational to the notion of the other as, the posthuman “participates in re-distributions of difference and identity” (Halberstam & Livingston, 10). The constant exchange of identities allows for the posthuman to evolve and take form based on new experiences with others and environment.

The posthuman also implies a body that is PostFamilial. The posthuman does not have a family, as it does not have a genesis. As a being independent from others, “Posthuman bodies were never in the womb” (Halberstam & Livingston, 17). This notion of the posthuman brings about questions of posthuman sex. The possibilities of posthuman sex do not emerge necessarily from the desire to reproduce. Reproduction through sex is not typically the goal, “discursive bodies allow no such neat distinctions; they are both warm-blooded (self-regulating) and coldblooded (sensitively dependent on their enviroments); both sexually and asexually reproduced” (Halberstam & Livingston, 11).  What the posthuman offers instead is a variety of questions as to “what is fucking?” (Halberstam & Livingston, 12).  This act of ‘fucking’ amongst the posthuman is an act of pleasure. It is not driven by the desire to reproduce and maintain a familial link. ‘Fucking’ is dirty and clean, orgasmic and non-orgasmic, there is ejaculation, and there isn’t ejaculation. The unlimited potential of posthuman ‘fucking’ integrates bodies based on experience, and not based on gender.

It is through the means of the posthuman that one is able to visualize the potential of queer bodies. There is a certain amount of fear generated by queer bodies, it is the fear of difference, the fear of a body that is disruptive. These disruptive bodies display how “reverse discourse ceases to be simply “the reverse” when it begins to challenge and disrupt the terms offered to it for self-definition” (Halberstam & Livingston, 15). The act of challenging societal terms of the body allows for the queer body to enter into posthumanism. Instead of simply wanting to ‘reverse’ these terms, by challenging them, queer bodies are actively altering these terms and bodies.

The posthuman is thus a key form when discussing queer bodies, these bodies both “depend on a network of signifying relationships” (Halberstam & Livingston, 16). These relationships allow for experience and influence outside of the heteronormative matrix. This allows for the creation of affinity between bodies based on their status as ‘other’ as well as their desire for transformation. “Posthumanity is not about making an authentic culture or an organic community but about multiple viabilities” (Halberstam & Livingston, 18).

Posthuman Performance:

Posthuman performance as described by Lucian Gomoll is “a type of interventionism that explores relationships and social transformation outside the parameters of liberal humanism, but without ignoring or abjecting the live body” (Gomoll, 4). Thus, the posthuman is not capable of explore the limits of the body without the heteronormative, live body. This is because the posthuman relies on the ‘human’ to generate its transformation. Without the ‘human’ there would be no posthuman. Taking into account the performatives, identities, ect, of the ‘human’ is a critical component to the construction of the posthuman. Understanding and awareness of these ideologies allows the posthuman to transform them, through the act of ‘playing’ with them.

The artist Orlan transforms her body through surgery as a critique of Western beauty standards. These surgeries are “not used to “improve” her body, but to transform it so as to experience its difference, to desacralize Western medicine, and critique out standards of beauty rather than perpetuate them” (Gomoll, 5). Transforming the body based on experience in order to have new experiences allow the posthuman body to maintain its fluidity. The desire for experience engenders the posthuman body as form willing to cause friction. This friction is produced through the posthuman’s disregard for Western ideology of identity, specifically gender.

The use of prosthetics allows for the posthuman to formulate new identities. Posthuman bodies also show that “through the use of prosthetics the posthuman body need not be exclusively cybernetic” (Gomoll, 9). Prosthetics not only create new identities and experiences for the posthuman, but they also separate the body for this idea of ‘cybernetics’. It is when one is able to disassociate the posthuman with cybernetics that the realization of the actuality of the posthuman is known. The posthuman therefore is amongst us. These bodies do not rely of transforming their body in a cybernetic environment; instead they are able to do it in reality. The “ posthuman performances will reject the category of the human outright, insisting that we do not need it in order to act responsibly or to treat any being with dignity” (Gomoll, 15). The posthuman body allows for the fluidity of identities through its acceptance of the ‘human’ and the desire to transform these categories created by the ‘human’.

Halberstam, Judith, and Ira Livingston. Posthuman Bodies: edited by Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston. 1st ed. 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. 1-19. Print.

Gomoll, Lucian. "Posthuman Performance: A Feminist Intervention." Total Art Journal. 1.1 (2001): 1-15. Print.

Found Video's

The following are videos that I find inspiring and interesting. Each one plays with an element which Forms of Friction looks into.

Queer Technologies    Check out this link too.  

A bit of research.

The theoretical texts that I have utilized so far in my research cover the area of gender, performativity, and the Post Human. The majority of texts read have been around gender and performativity, while more extensive research into the Post Human is underway.
The major influential texts include:

Fast Feminism Shannon Bell

Fast Feminism, Shannon Bell-

Bell, Shannon. Fast Feminism. 1^st. ed. 1. New York: Autonomedia. 2010. 1-193.

Shannon Bell’s Fast Feminism discusses the concept of a new form a feminism. This feminism is “ a new-old feminism grounded in politics, performance, and philosophy. It is in close proximity to postfeminisms of the poststructuralist variety – third-wave feminism, queer feminism, cyberfeminism, and feminism 3.0” (Bell, frontispiece). 

Bell’s ‘Fast Feminist' is a, “post gender provocateur, not so much a gender terrorist as a gender risk taker going the distance with her body” (Bell, 11). 

Gender Trouble Judith Butler

Gender Trouble, Judith Butler- 

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. 2^nd. ed. 1. New York: Routledge. 1990. 1-203. 

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble brings to light issues of heteronormativity and gender within society. Within Gender Trouble, Butler discusses the identity politics women, and who is included within the term ‘woman’. It is in Gender Trouble that Butler discusses the notion of ‘the masculine’ and ‘the feminine’ as socially constructed and not biological, as well as introduces gender performativty in relation to everyday activities. 

Undoing Gender Judith Butler

Undoing Gender, Judith Butler

Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. 1^st ed. 1. New York: Routledge. 2004. 1-250. 

Judith Butler’s Undoing Gender expands upon the notions made within Gender Trouble. Butler examines the social norms of gender and sexuality and how they govern bodies. Undoing Gender critiques gender as a form of survival within society, and that for some to “do” one’s gender they way they wish can lead to the “undoing” of notions of identity.

Queering Bathrooms Sheila Cavanagh

Queering Bathrooms, Sheila Cavanagh

Cavanagh, Sheila L. Queering Bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality, 

and the Hygienic Imagination. 1st ed. 1.

University of Toronto Press, 2010. 1-221. 

Queering Bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality, and the Hygienic Imagination, examines the politics and issues surrounding bathroom use for Queers individuals. Canvanagh discusses this issue as it is for transgendered and transsexual individuals, as well as for masculine women and feminine men. Also discussed is the matter of architecture and gender. The ways to which bathrooms are formed demonstrate self-governance, and allow for occupants to critique gender. 

A Cyborg Manifesto Donna Haraway

A Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway- 

Haraway, Donna. “Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism

in the Late Twentieth Century”. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The

Reinvention of Nature. (1991): 149-181. Web. 28 Sep. 2011.

Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Lat twentieth Century discusses the traditional ideals of feminism through the form of the Cyborg. Haraway discusses a body that departs from the notion of dualism. This body thus separates itself from gender, politics and feminism. The Cyborg body is connected to others through the concept of affinity. This brings individuals together based on survival, and not gender, race, and age. 

Female Masculinity, Judith Halberstam- 

Female Masculinity Judith Halberstam

Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. 1^st ed. 1. Durham: Duke University Press.

1998. 1-277. 

Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity discusses the concept of masculinity without men, and the various forms this masculinity takes. These various forms of masculinity result in the notion of masculinity as a socially constructed identity. This assortment of masculinities offers insight to new hybrid genders.


UPDATE:

Queer Images: A History of Gay & Lesbian
Film in America, Harry M. Benshoff &
Sean Griffin

Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America, Harry M. Benshoff & Sean Griffin- 

Benshoff, Harry M., and Sean Griffin. Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian

Film in America. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publihers, INC, 2006.

Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America,  chapter one – “From Pansies to Predators: Queer Characters in Early American Cinema”, looks at the different depictions of queer characters within early Hollywood films. These stereotypes include the pansy, the predator, the villain, mannish woman, and buddies.

These stereotypes are reflected in Forms of Friction, as the posthuman displays and disrupt these stereotypes through its embodiment. The posthuman embodies the pansy, the predator, the villain, the mannish woman, and the buddy, all within its own experience and image.

Discipline and Punishment: Panopticism, Michel Foucault-

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punishment: Panopticism. 2nd ed. . 1. New York:

Random House, 1977.

Discipline & Punishment: Panopticism, Michel Foucault

In the chapter “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punishment, Foucault discusses Jeremy Bentham’s notion of the panopticon, where within prisons a watchtower sits in the middle while the prisoner’s cells surround the watchtower. This relates to the notion of self-governance since the prisoners feel as if they are being watched at all times from the eyes within the watchtower. Foucault takes Bentham’s panopticon into society, relating it to the way in which bodies are expected to self-govern, as well as govern others.

Foucault’s notions of the panopticon in relation to self-governance are visualized within Forms of Friction as the posthuman forms perform this action of self-governance. Once the viewer enters the room, they become the watchtower, the governing eyes. The only difference is that the posthuman does not govern its body the way in which is expected, instead they disrupt the body and return the gaze, making the viewers govern themselves. 

Judith Halberstam

Automating Gender: Postmodern Feminism in the Age of the Intelligent Machine, Judith Halberstam - 

Halberstam, Judith. "Automating Gender: Postmodern Feminism in the Age of the

Intelligent Machine." Feminist Studies. 17.3 (1991): 439-460

In Automating Gender: Postmodern Feminism in the Age of the Intelligent Machine, Halberstam discusses the relationship between gender and technology – how technology is gendered and how technology has a gender. Halberstam contends a need for a multiplicity, that the posthuman acknowledges power differentials but is not ruled by them, produces and reproduces difference, and understands gender as automated and intelligent. In Forms of Friction the posthuman is experienced through a multiplicity, which maintains its fluidity. The posthuman acknowledges power differentials through the use of recognizable genital, but is not ruled by it. The posthuman produces and reproduced these differences through the process of exchange, and understands gender to be automated and intelligent.

Posthuman Bodies- Introduction, Judith Halberstam & Ira Livingston- 

Halberstam, Judith, and Ira Livingston. Posthuman Bodies. Edited by Judith

Halberstam and Ira Livingston. 1^st ed. 1. Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1995. 1-19.

Halberstam and Livingston discuss what the posthuman body is, as well as its relation to family and the queer body. These posthuman bodies are “not slaves to master discourses” (2), and use “embodiment as a significant prosthesis” (2). This investigation into the posthuman relates directly to the image of the posthuman in Forms of Friction, as these forms do not follow the rules of master discourses and use embodiment (genitalia) as a prosthesis. In terms of family, the posthuman does not have one. The posthuman thus redefines reproduction and removes sex from reproducing. This affects ‘fucking’, and thus ‘fucking’ reaches unlimited possibilities. Based off of desire, and not reproduction, ‘fucking’ becomes queer, as bodies intermingle in spite of the temporary ‘gender’ representation of other bodies.

Posthuman, Nicholas Gane- 

Gane, Nicholas. "Posthuman." Theory, Culture, & Society. 2.3 (2006): 431-434.

<http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/23/2-3/431>.

Gane’s article, Posthuman, outlines the basics of posthumanism. Gane’s reference Hablerstam and Livingston’s account of the posthuman in Posthuman Bodies, gives his account of the posthuman a gendered background. This provides insight for Forms of Friction as Gane discusses the possible varieties of bodies within the posthuman, and how these bodies are created through experience. 

Dildonics, Dykes, and the Detachable Masculine, Jeanne E. Hamming-

Hamming, Jeanne E. "Dildonics, Dykes, and the Detachable Masculine." European

 Journal of Women's Studies. 8.3 (2001): 329-341. Print.

<http://ejw.sagepub.com/content/8/3/329>.

Hamming’s article looks at the issue of the use of dildos within the lesbian community. Hamming discusses how many see the dildo as a prosthetic used to make up for the lack of the female, or as a signifier in glorifying the male phallus as the superior within sexual pleasure.  Hamming also observes how the use of a dildo allows the ability for female’s to extend their bodies, not to replace something or fill in a void. The various positional uses of the dildo, outside of assumed heteronormative positions, allows for the female body within these situations to disrupt not only sex, but the male body/phallus.

These notions of the dildo resemble the prosthetics used in Forms of Friction. These prosthetics are not exchanged to replace or fill in void of the body, but instead they act as a temporary extension of the body. These prosthetics are used to disrupt and queer the body in the same manner that the dildo disrupts and queers the lesbian body.

Toward Virtual Embodiment in How We Become Posthuman, Katherine Hayles-

Hayles, Katherine. Toward Virtual Embodiment in How We Become Posthuman.

Katherine Hayles 

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Hayle’s chapter ‘Toward Virtual Embodiment’ in How We Became Posthuman discusses how embodiment has become informational and gives an account of the ‘posthuman view’. “1. Privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, embodiment as an accident of history. 2. Considers consciousness regarded as the seat of human identity in the Western tradition. 3. Body as original prostheses we all learn to manipulate, extending or replacing the body with other prostheses becomes a continuation of a process that began before we were born. 4. Configures human being so that it can seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines. No essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot technology and human goals”.  Hayle’s also mentions the ‘feedback loop’, which allows the ‘boundaries of an individual to be up for grabs’. This means that an individual is to constrained by the body, but can multiply and take on many forms – one representation is affected by the other.

Hayle’s notions of the posthuman view directly relate to Forms of Friction, Her third imposition, regarding prosthesis, relates to the way in which the posthuman uses the prosthetics to manipulate the body, as well as performing motions which are on going, and began before the viewer enters the space. Hayle’s account of the ‘feedback loop’ also reflects Forms of Friction, as the bodies are boundless, there is no limit to their representation, as well as are affected by the other bodies around them – their temporary representation depends on the other forms. 

Bodies That Matter: Science Fiction, Technoculture, and the Gendered Body, Kaye Mitchell

Mitchell, Kaye. “Bodies That Matter: Science Fiction, Technoculture, and the

Gendered Body”. Science Fiction Studies: Technoculture and Science Fiction. 33.3 (2006): 109-128. Web. 20 Oct 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4241411>.

Mitchell’s article looks at the way gender and technology work together, and questions whether or not technology can help create a post-gender world. Forms of Friction relates to Mitchell’s account of technology and the body through the ways to which she describes how technology can affect the body, making it based on data or information, not gender. Mitchell also addresses issues that contrast with the concept of Forms of Friction, such as it is not possible to bodies to become unsexed because the presence of the body makes it impossible to become post-gender.