Unit 1
Medusa II
‘Medusa II’
‘Medusa II’ is a 6 minute 12 seconds film work shown above. This is my final outcome for Unit 1. Below are screenshots taken from this work. The work depicts an adaptation of the Classical myth of Medusa, while also featuring mythical motifs taken from the Classical myth of Pygmalion. The characters of Medusa and Galatea within the artwork are both performed by myself. My representation of Medusa is depicted through wearing a papier-mâché headdress I made myself with snake-like shapes attached. Galatea is represented through a drawing, my face edited on top of the drawing and a clay body attached to the drawn/performed head. Medusa’s narrative voice is also voiced by me. The footage for the work was all filmed by me and then edited together on Adobe Premier Pro Software. The sound effects within the footage were all performed and recorded by myself, before they were edited on Adobe Audition. The soundtrack for the film was taken from a group sound-artist residency that I was a part of that took place on the island of Evia, in Greece. The collaborators within this residency are listed in the end credits of the film.
Medusa’s narrative voice begins the film in describing an incident of rape, referencing Poseidon’s act of rape against her within various adaptations of the myth. She then describes Perseus, who has intruded her home. Perseus is another character who is featured within the work. He is represented by a clay and wire puppet that has then been digitally animated using Adobe Premier Pro. Perseus commits the voyeuristic act of scrolling through images of Galatea on his phone, whilst polishing his sword as a metaphor for masturbation. Galatea is a reference in this work to the sculpture crafted by Pygmalion that is later brought to life in the Classical story of Pygmalion. Perseus later proceeds to accidentally lose his fingers in my film after polishing the sword as a portrayal of metaphorical castration. By the end of the film, he is finally turned into a 2D drawn image through Medusa’s paralysing feminine gaze, counteracting his own objectifying gaze. Galatea then escapes the confines of the phone and comes alive, signalling her gaining subjectivity, having previously been used as a sexual object within the film. Medusa and Galatea share a laugh in the final shot of the film, celebrating their new-found subjectivity and sisterhood.
‘Medusa II’, 2023, screenshots taken from video, video length: 00:06:12
For more information on my thoughts about this work, the stylistic choices and the background to this work please visit the ‘Supporting Work’ page of my website, here:
For more information on the artistic influences that inspired this work, please visit the ‘Critical Reflection’ page of my website, here:
Thoughts for unit 2
At the beginning of Unit 1, I was drawn to the subject of surveillance, social media as a form of surveillance and its impact on selfhood. This was before my project progression and research developed to focus more specifically on gazes and subverting Classical mythical narratives that have fetishised female characters, or portrayed them as monstrous. As I look forward to Unit 2, I am considering how I might take the mythical characters of Galatea and Medusa and develop their narratives further, perhaps departing from the original Classical Mythology to make my own narratives that fit our contemporary technological society.
Donna Haraway famously stated in ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’: ‘I would rather be a Cyborg than a Goddess.’ (Haraway, 1991, pp.28) Perhaps within my next artworks, I might combine both the symbols of the cyborg and the mythological goddess figure to establish my own storyline that combines mythical motifs with a postmodern conception of ourselves in relation to technology. I also intend to explore the subject of Xenofeminism in more depth, beginning with the text of the same name written by Helen Hester that states that Xenofeminism is ‘a politics without “the infection of purity”, (Hester, 2018, pp.1) in collecting and revising differing feminist political perspectives, such as the named list of: ‘cyberfeminism, posthumanism, acceleration- ism, neorationalism, materialist feminism’. (Hester, 2018, pp. 1) Further research into a postmodern understanding of feminism may help to ground my artistic process as I continue into Unit 2.
Melissa Colleen Stevenson in the journal article: ‘Trying to Plug In: Posthuman Cyborgs and the Search for Connection’, states: ‘Defining the human on the basis of the body excludes as often as it includes’. (Stevenson, 2007, pp.100) I found this quotation interesting in considering how to move forward and how to consider the subject of objectification. ‘Medusa II’ ended with Galatea becoming subject just as Perseus becomes object in the metaphorical form of sculpture and drawings. In attending ‘Moving Image’ workshop sessions led by Paul Tarragó, I hope to find more ways to animate form within my film works, and perhaps explore the theme of the physical constraints of a body or of an object in more depth.
Bibliography:
Haraway, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, New York, 149-181. pp.28 [online] Available from: https://www.sfu.ca/~decaste/OISE/page2/files/HarawayCyborg.pdf [Accessed: 24th January 2023]
Hester, H. (2018). Xenofeminism. [eBook] Oxford: Polity Press. Available from: https://www.are.na/block/15715854 [Accessed: 24th January 2023]
Stevenson, M, C. (2007) ‘Trying to Plug In: Posthuman Cyborgs and the Search for Connection’, Science Fiction Studies. Vol. 34, No. 1. pp. 100. [online] Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4241495?seq=14