The Cybergaze: On the digitisation of corporeality, space and feminist practices by rca-issuu

RALUCA MOLDOVEANU/

THE CYBERGAZE: ON THE DIGITISATION OF CORPOREALITY, SPACE AND FEMINIST PRACTICES

20/21

ADS8

RALUCA MOLDOVEANU/

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

CONTENTS

The Cybergaze: On the Digitisation of Corporeality, Space and Feminist Practices

/25

Corporeality Digital Translation

/55

Feminism and Digital Environments

/69

Construction of Digital Environments

/83

League of Maidens and The Male Gaze

/91

Character Representation in Mortal Kombat 11 Aftermath

20/21

ADS8

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

THE CYBERGAZE: ON THE DIGITISATION OF CORPOREALITY, SPACE AND FEMINIST PRACTICES

20/21

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

THE CYBERGAZE: ON THE DIGITISATION OF CORPOREALITY, SPACE AND FEMINIST PRACTICES

[Abstract] My research focuses on the digitisation of bodies, specifically of the gendered body, in relation to the spatial practice of architecture. The investigation begins by analysing historical female representation through the lenses of the male gaze, from religion, to art, and further, to anthropometry, a practice in direct connection to the production of space. Identity in relation to the body is also questioned. Issues around embodied experiences and the reduction of such experiences in the form of graphical representations (such as gender choices and skin colour swatches) are investigated, while a consideration for avatars as digital alter egos is acknowledged. Further, the research concludes with an apprehension of the engagement with female online corporeality and an analysis on the issues surrounding the post humanity of the female body manifested online. Overall, the research questions the implications of gendered bodily representations in digital environments through an understanding of feminist movements regarding cyberspace and corporeality.

[Research Questions] 1.

As avatars only exist in digital environments, both their construction and spatialisation does not necessarily need to adhere to physical rules for the definition of space. Why is it that our default instinct is to follow the same standards established in the real world when we design digital corporeality and environments?

What are the methods in which the cybergaze can refuse the pre-established biases and offer a neutral observation point for the female body through a critical engagement with designing environments and bodies with digital softwares?

How can we overcome the embedded biases within 3D modelling softwares? Will they continue to dominate the way in which bodies, especially the female body, are explored in the digital realm?

20/21

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

THE CYBERGAZE: ON THE DIGITISATION OF CORPOREALITY, SPACE AND FEMINIST PRACTICES

[Male Gaze; History of female representation] As a medium of depicting the female body, the nude painting marked the prevalence of sexual imagery dissemination. With the pleasure in looking being split between active/male and passive/female1, Laura Mulvey identified that though forming the object of the view rather than the subject, the female nude characterised ‘the male gaze’. Further, art historian John Berger put the male gaze in relation to classical art and the depiction of female bodies in nude painting.2 Accordingly, the capacity to portray the bare feminine form through the argument of ‘exploring the nude’ has favoured the concealment of objectification.

Mulvey, Laura, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, 16.3 (1975), 6–18

Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972)

First large scale nude in Venice. In Manet’s reproduction of Titian’s nude, Olympia, the forms, features and atitude of the initial nude are harshened, in a refusal to abide to standards depictions of the naked female body.

Venus of Urbino by Titian (1536-38)

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

Genesis 2:22

These were eventually removed in the 1980s when the painting was fully restored and cleaned.

Enfield, Lizzie, ‘The Fine Line between Art and Pornography’ <https://www.bbc.com/culture/ article/20200917-the-fine-linebetween-art-and-pornography> [accessed 15 December 2020]

Christianity provides a pivotal influence in European art. According to the Genesis creation narrative, man is agent of God, while woman was created in relation to the man: “He made a woman and brought her to him.”3 The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, before and after restoration, shows how three centuries after the fresco was painted, the penultimate Medici ordered that fig leaves are added to conceal the genitals of the figures.4 With this, the initial representations depicting the Genesis sequence disappeared, while the moment chosen to be portrayed started to show shame, particularly for the illustrated females.5 And further, the mirror became a symbol of vanity, also usually depicted in the sphere of the feminine, suggesting that the appreciation of the self represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins, as earthly possessions and embodiments are meaningless and only God’s worshipping will lead to righteousness. Under such ideologies, the female body was exposed to a constant examination by androcentric culture.

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden by Masaccio (before and after restoration)

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Diana of Ephesus as allegory of Nature by Joseph Werner (c.1680)

So, dichotomies between males and females have been accentuated both by representation and symbolism. As opposed to the Vitruvian Man, where the proportions of the male body were explained with the use of mathematics and geometry, suggesting a certain order and discipline, the female body is often associated with the passive nature.6 Such conceptualisation of nature as a female entity dates back to Plato and Aristotle, and results in implications of women being identified as “biological mechanism of reproduction,”7 while as Western metaphysics propose, mind exceeds matter.8

20/21

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci (c.1487)

Nead, Lynda, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1992)

Balsamo, Anne, ‘‘The Virtual Body in Cyberspace’, in Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women’, in Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women, ed. by Anne Marie Balsamo (Durham, NC ; London: Duke University Press), pp. 116–32

The rational processes, a trait of men, surpass the reproductive capacities of the female body

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

Lefebvre, Henri, Donald Nicholson-Smith, and David Harvey, The production of space, 1991

Dreyfuss, Henry, Designing for People (New York, 1955)

Le Corbusier, The Modulor (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1968)

Neufert, Ernst, Architects’ Data, 1936

Kelly, Mary, Imaging Desire (MIT Press, 1998)

Betterton, Rosemary, ‘How Do Women Look? The Female Nude in the Work of Suzanne Valadon’, Feminist Review, 19.1 (1985), 3–24

Alcoff, Linda Martín, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self, Visible Identities (Oxford University Press)

Naturally, the rationalisation of bodies began with the male body. As outlined by Lefebvre, inhabitation practices are greatly influenced by corporealities, while in turn space acts as an externalisation of selfhood, resulting in bodily representations to have deep implication in the production and use of space.9 In anthropometry, until industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss adapted standardising diagrams by including binary distinctions,10 Le Corbusier’s modulor man was presumed to express a “range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture.”11 “Neufert’s Architects’ Data positions such standardised body in relation to its direct built surroundings.12 Here, unless in the context of housework where female representations are displayed, spatial practices appear to generally be morphed to a male body standard. Such anthropometric normative measurements indicate that to be able to spatialise a body, such body should comply to certain measurements, and intrinsically, that the spatialised body should also comply to defined architectural standards. Alongside architectural representation and artistic depictions, medical recordings have aided in an extensive documentation of the female body.13 With the historical exclusivity of the disciplines, a certain degree of regulation over the feminine emerged, while the established ‘catalogue of standards’ is further reflected in the expectations to fulfil the ideal, and in the conventionality of the female body portrayal. Thus, moderation over the female body is also reflected in the increased desire of women to materialise ideal measurements and characteristics. “Rosemarie Betterton argued that the embodiment of the male gaze is a result of “how women are addressed by androcentric culture and how femininity itself is socially constructed,”14 while Linda Alcoff agrees that bodily consciousness is reflected by gender and racial behaviour, which with time becomes unconscious.15 So, how does our cultural context affect the way in which we regard our bodies in relation to aesthetics? How would women perceive unbiased beauty?

Le Corbusier, The Modulor (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1968)

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Unite d’Habitation, Marseille, Le Corbusier (Photo by Anna Armstrong)

20/21

Henry Dreyfuss, The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design, 2nd ed. (New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1967)

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

10/

Neufert, Ernst, Architects’ Data, 1936, p.262

/11

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

Since 1960s and the development of CAD software programs, physical space became primarily designed through digital tools. And with this, the availability of translating the physicality of the body to a digital corporeality followed (e.g.: 3D body scans, motion capture, etc.). Yet, the anthropometric survey conducted by the US Army (ANSUR) in 1988 marked a critical moment in standardisation of body measurements, as the ANSUR data set stands as a base for computer generated human models.16 Simone Niquille argues that as such a data set on corporeality stands as foundation, methods of bodily digitisation further “uncover the normative standards” embedded within the development of 3D modelling softwares concerned with the representation” of both human and non-human bodies.17 As a result, the question of the suitability of computer softwares for construction of corporeality emerges, as the abnormal body, disregarded as of gender, class, race or disability is not being taken into account in the software development. Further, limitations of digital representation and translation of bodies are inherent to the medium, as digital space operates in a Cartesian system, where X, Y, Z coordinates determine position of points, which in turn determine meshes and geometries. So, bodies that are designed and constructed digitally are subjected to the same rules. The Cartesian grid has the restraint of not being able to map your physical presence of movement and bodily expansions, such as breathing, ageing and all other human processes. Bodies entangled within the Cartesian grid don’t show the same fragility, as explored by Kate Cooper in Symptom Machine (2017) where she uses CGI avatars to challenge the aesthetic ‘perfection’ of digital corporeality. The tendency to design digital space in the same way as we design physical space is also flawed, as bodies in digital environments experience space quite differently. As avatars only exist in digital environments, both their construction and spatialisation does not necessarily need to adhere to physical rules for the definition of space. Why is it that our default instinct is to follow the same standards established in the real world when we design digital corporeality and environments?

Niquille, Simone C., ‘SimFactory - Architecture e-Flux’ <https://www.e-flux. com/architecture/artificiallabor/153913/simfactory/> [accessed 16 December 2020]

Niquille, Simone C., ‘Technoflesh: An Interview with Simone Niquille on Normalizing the Body Digitally, Physically, and in the Workplace | Archinect’ <https://archinect.com/features/ article/150185698/technofleshan-int...e-on-normalizing-thebody-digitally-physically-andin-the-workplace> [accessed 8 November 2020]

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

12/

[Body and Identity; Embodied experiences]

Russell, Legacy, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (Verso Books, 2020)

Themes around the relation between identity and body have been explored through various theories throughout history, with the most prominent one being René Descartes’s dualism. The Cartesian logic supports a complete split between mind and body, subject and object, resulting in many early feminist movements to identify with such distinction in regard to the male gaze. Thus, the idea of a separation between bodily characteristics and the rational mind was widely embraced, as it was essential to break any connections between physicality, psychic, and further, the social role.18 More recently, a similar type of ‘split’ has been recognised in relation to online and offline, and like in the case of Cartesian theory, the idea has been discredited by multiple theorists with arguments that a complete separation is not possible due to the way in which both digital and physical identities are interconnected. Social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson rejects such ‘digital dualism’ through arguing that the term IRL (acronym for ‘in real life’) is now dated, as it indicates that “two selves (example: an online self versus an offline self) operate in isolation from each other, thereby inferring that any and all online activity lacks authenticity and is divorced from a user’s identity offline.”19 He therefore suggests that using the term AFK (acronym for ‘away from keyboard’) is more appropriate as it takes into account a continuous identity of the self, expressed both physically and digitally.

Skin Swatches, Sims 4

/13

[RESEARCH [DESIGN STRATEGY] JOURNAL]

20/21

Title [Subtitle]

Us magnimagnima Similarly, the digital is elit often faccati regarded busapitiur as having sincto the potential comnim landi for a disembodied sim venis samfigure, es autadolenturem body in thehitatem ideal sense, laut haruptam, post gender volorio and post rendisi racial. musam, It is important tectam qui todipsa note conem that digital fugias body porem shape, reroaoptat. cumulus of data and geometries, has to be considered within the cultural Henia debisi and social dolorporro implications magnihici of what in remthat et ut body quiduciet reprequaese sents. What doluptin does nis it mean entotae to select cum verum feminine et ut avatar velibus quo essunt, features compared nonem to facepta an embodied simus sit, experience cones et, saegender? of dolupturWhat aut pos does magnim it meaneariatem. to change Ti dolupta the skin tquatii swatch colour ssumquidigitally consenis compared dolor repremo to an embodied luptaquo eatest ad etofdirace? experience ommolorrovit fugitis aut ea sedit est, eos sequam quos as eveliquaecte reptatur archiciet apedi rendam ex ex et ut landicae con cuptatu ribearupta consequi

Us magnimagnima elit faccati busapitiur sincto comnim landi sim venis sam es aut dolenturem hitatem laut haruptam, volorio rendisi musam, tectam qui dipsa conem fugias porem rero optat. Henia debisi dolorporro magnihici in rem et ut quiduciet quaese doluptin nis entotae cum verum et ut velibus quo essunt, nonem facepta simus sit, cones et, sae doluptur aut pos magnim eariatem. Ti dolupta tquatii ssumqui consenis dolor repremo luptaquo eatest ad et di ommolorrovit fugitis aut ea sedit est, eos sequam quos as eveliquaecte reptatur archiciet apedi rendam ex ex et ut landicae con cuptatu ribearupta consequi

Character Customisation Gender Choice, Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red, 2020

Image Name Image DescriptionTur, utem eicimped magnam sus acese in non corOptaspedipit, ut dolorio vel essequia con nonsend itatur aut porit quos est, ute dolupicim utestiaspid qui

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

Quaranta, Domenico, ‘Eva and Franco Mattes Aka 0100101110101101.ORG Reenactment of Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s Imponderabilia’, Re-Akt! Imponderabilia <http://reakt. aksioma.org/imponderabilia/> [accessed 14 December 2020]

Weiss, Gail, Body Images: Embodiment as Intercorporeality (New York: Routledge, 1999)

“In a virtual world, representation and existence are one and the same thing. We no longer distinguish between the medium and life, because life is entirely mediated.”20 This concept suggests that the way we engage with our digital representation is different than means of engaging with our physical selves, as connecting the body to a device that allows to see ourselves in new ways (whether a mirror or a technological tool that allows such reflection), the body expands and starts to incorporate new definitions of the self. For Merleau-Ponty, the mental image of ourselves represents the awareness of our figure: “my posture in the inter-sensory world, a form.”21 As we already have a mental image which allows us to position and carry ourselves in the world, technology offers the opportunity to express this self image digitally. This can be defined as an avatar, which takes form as a graphical representation of our body or of our character. Such an avatar also allows for introspection, while the presence on digital platforms and environments allows an exploration and expansion of various strands of our personalities and identities. What are the relations of avatar and mental images we carry around of ourselves as they are externalised through these processes of digitisation?

14/

The sense of vision is one of the main channels for the reception of aestheticism, so images (both still and moving) became the primary form of representation in the digital. The focus on identity expression through visual mediums is reinforced by the majority of opportunities to disclose characteristics of your physical embodiment and self image through the customisation of avatars. In such cases, the identity of the user focuses on looks, with a very limited choice on how the avatar moves, speaks and acts. This consists of a challenge in the digital landscape; there is a need for imagining new forms of representation of the body as such, that go beyond current one.

/15

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Avatrar versus image of real corporeality with a focus on the face

20/21

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

Yalcinkaya, Gunseli, ‘Exploring the Politics of Beauty in the World of VR and Gaming’, Dazed, 2019 <https://www. dazeddigital.com/soul/ article/43428/1/beauty-avatarsworld-vr-ar-gaming> [accessed 15 December 2020]

Donnella, Leah, ‘Is Beauty In The Eyes Of The Colonizer? | Code Switch | NPR’ <https:// www.npr.org/sections/

Høilund, Sarah Julie Ege, ‘Where Is Representation Going? | Vogue Italia’ <https:// www.vogue.it/fotografia/article/ where-is-representation-going> [accessed 15 December 2020]

Donnella, Leah, ‘Is Beauty In The Eyes Of The Colonizer? | Code Switch | NPR’ <https:// www.npr.org/sections/

When customising one’s digital avatar, our choices are biased, inherently “affected by our preconception of what beauty is;”22 though horizontal sliders which allow for selection of bodily features of the graphical representation (such as dimension, gender, age and race) would suggest such tools permit for any character to be created. As mentioned above, while digital environments are a space to experiment fluidity of identities through shifting data sets and parameters, such user engagement in designing avatars can be considered superficial, as it doesn’t carry the same value as a physical engagement with issues in regard to gender and race. While definitions of beauty from early racial theorists describe the Caucasian race as the most beautiful of the races,23 current beauty standards consist of a blend of features from multiple cultures, yet still influenced by Eurocentric beauty ideals.24 From the ‘fox eye’ beauty trend influenced by Asian culture, to the exaggerated artificial tan which appropriates darker skin tones, Leah Donnella asks: “Is beauty in the eyes of the coloniser?”25 All such issues are also accentuated by avatar customisation softwares which are developed within a social framework engaged within current economic, political, and cultural environmental issues. When first opening a 3D avatar modelling software or a game’s customisation feature, the base character shown tends to be a slender white male figure, making it difficult for the disregarded bodies to identify with the avatar. This further suggests the context in which the software/ game has been produced. How can such biases be overcome? Will they continue to dominate the way in which bodies, especially the female body, are explored in the digital realm?

16/

Eurocentric Instagram Beauty Ideals ‘cherrypicking’ features from various cultures

/17

Character representative of beauty Eurocentric ideals, EVE Online, CCP Games, 2020

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

18/

[Bodies in the digital]

Wilding, Faith, ‘Where Is the Feminism in Cyberfeminism?’, 1998

Ibid.

In In the 1990s, the cyberfeminist movement, anticipated both issues and potentialities in regard to cyber culture and feminist ideologies. With computer technology largely seen as the domain of men, cyberfeminists asked whether there is a possibility of escaping gender online. Sadie Plant, pioneer of the movement, suggests that in cyberspace traditional gender representation “refuses a fixed […] position.”26 For cyberfeminists, the digital environment is “regarded as an arena inherently free of the same old gender relations and struggles.”27 As previously established, such a claim is not entirely achieva-

Merchants of Slime by VNS Matrix, 1991

ble, due to the impossibility of a complete digital dualism, for your online and offline identity exist in tandem and are not separable. Thus, the post-human female form can be used to defy stereotypes that objectify and constrain women though a cybergaze which allows for the empowerment of female users, while taking into account implicit issues of AFK and IRL identities. What are the methods in which the cybergaze can refuse the pre-established biases and offer a neutral observation point for the female body?

/19

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Through a shift in the engagement of gender power dynamics in the virtual landscape, the female body has the opportunity to be discharged from the standardised objectification, or directly profit from it through either empowerment or financial relief. Further, the objectification is denied by females by taking control over their image, with an increasing participation of females in digital sexual expression though websites allowing for the transaction of sexual imagery (such as camming websites, websites for selling adult visual content, as well as the pornographic video websites). As opposed to the Christian way of regarding the acknowledgement of the self as vain, the digital realm offers a possibility for self definition. For the female body narrative to be reclaimed in the digital, a reflection on how female sexuality is depicted, explored and consumed is necessary. Thus, the question of virtual environments being able to offer a medium of exploration for the female body as the cyberfeminists envisioned it to be is a crucial part of this investigation. Digital Alter Ego/Avatar by Sarah Nicole François, 2018

20/21

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

Haraway, Donna J., Manifestly Haraway (U of Minnesota Press, 2016)

Sommer, Liz, ‘Post-Feminist, Post-Humanist Instagram Fembot Microcelebrities: Lil Miquela and Shudu’, Medium, 2018 <https://medium.com/@ lizcsommer/post-feminist-posthumanist-instagram-fembotmicrocelebrities-lil-miquelaand-shudu-a138c85794a0> [accessed 15 December 2020]

Ibid.

Haraway, Donna J., Manifestly Haraway (U of Minnesota Press, 2016)

The Funambulist Magazine, ‘A Subversive Approach to the Ideal Normatized Body’, The Funambulist Magazine, 2012 <https://thefunambulist.net/ architecture/architecturaltheories-a-subversive-approachto-the-ideal-normatized-body> [accessed 15 December 2020]

As boundaries between technology and humanity are softened and notions surrounding corporeality are interrogated, the manifestation of female post-humanism began to be expressed on social media platforms. Thus, as we morph into cyborgs, as discussed by Donna Harraway,28 some women choose to build alter egos of themselves in the form of avatars in order to explore their identity and corporeality; there are also cases in which some of these female avatars are not associated with a single individual but materialise as ‘ideal’ female personas, while their bodies are simply designed to be commodified. In such cases, the female embodiment is key to the identity of these characters, although the avatar bodies are not controlled by depicted females, and thus further “reinforce capitalist systems of the objectification of women for profit.”29 Such issues further perpetuate the idea of females as passive sexual objects, available to be “consumed for the heterosexual male pleasure.”30 Although, this objectification is blurred by the uncertainty over the significance of what it means to be a real person versus an artificial online entity.

20/

So, alongside concepts established by Haraway, a virtual body has the potential to change fundamentals of “body based subjectivities” by negotiating the current tensions between body and perception, physical entity and mind, aesthetics and substance.31 As bodies affect and are affected by their immediate environment, whether digital or physical, representation is key in understanding the embedded issues within the built environment in relation to corporeality. By developing spatial practices with a regard for the standardised body, it is implied that corporeal identities should tend towards a standard; architecture evolves into “a machine engaging processes of normalisation,”32 reinforcing ideas surrounding how the body should perform. In consequence, disruptive mechanisms that allow the irregularities of bodies should be created; spaces that allow for glitching bodies to resist perfect functioning. The body should also begin to express itself in resistance to standardised spatiality. With such refusal having the opportunity to be manifested digitally, what is the importance of computer technologies in establishing a feminist future?

/21

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

@lilmiquela

20/21

ADS8

[DESIGN STRATEGY]

22/

[Proposal]

I consider the body as both a site and a sight, register of and actor within the social and political realities within which it is situated. As previously established, the design of the body is intrinsic to the design of digital and physical space, which are further inherently biased through their construction. But the digital body has the opportunity to refuse the current rigid depiction, through a denial of adhering to preestablished rules for corporeal representation, as such representation is heavily influenced by common development methods of digital space (which is in turn based on physical space). As a means of engaging with the research, I wish to develop a short film which will explore the possibilities of avatars as digital representations of corporealities. The methodology consists in an extensive investigation from historical representation of female bodies, to identities regarding the body and to an understanding of digital expression of corporeality. Further, this research will stand as foundation for experimentation around the theme of bodily notions.

Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge, 2011)

Haraway, Donna J., Manifestly Haraway (U of Minnesota Press, 2016)

Thus, the project will culminate in a moving image piece, that will document the body of research developed over the entire academic year, alongside conducted tests, through an overarching narrative about the representation of bodies as seen through explored feminist practices. I will use my own corporeality as a subject of experimentation, as using myself negates making any assumptions about an avatar based on someone else’s character and characteristics. A theoretical framework based on feminist theory will allow an understanding of different perspectives of gendered bodies. The piece will look into how the body is regarded by multiple feminist theories, with a focus on post modernist feminist movements. For example, theories established by Judith Butler33 which regard gender as performative, influenced by cultural and social context, and feminist post humanist theory, as explored by Donna Harraway34 and the cyborg which rejects notions of essentialism though a synthesis between machine and animal, will take the form of avatars. So, with the purpose of using feminist ideologies to expand our understanding on bodily representations, a cumulus of avatars will allow for a reflection on current issues such representation pose.

[Key Image] Still from short animation experimenting with pushing the limits of the body in the digital environment

/23

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

Title [Subtitle]

Us magnimagnima elit faccati busapitiur sincto comnim landi sim venis sam es aut dolenturem hitatem laut haruptam, volorio rendisi musam, tectam qui dipsa conem fugias porem rero optat.

Henia debisi dolorporro magnihici in rem et ut quiduciet quaese doluptin nis entotae cum verum et ut velibus quo essunt, nonem facepta simus sit, cones et, sae doluptur aut pos magnim eariatem. Ti dolupta tquatii ssumqui consenis dolor repremo luptaquo eatest ad et di ommolorrovit fugitis aut ea sedit est, eos sequam quos as eveliquaecte reptatur archiciet apedi rendam ex ex et ut landicae con cuptatu ribearupta consequi

Image Name Image DescriptionTur, utem eicimped magnam sus acese in non corOptaspedipit, ut dolorio vel essequia con nonsend itatur aut porit quos est, ute dolupicim utestiaspid qui

ADS8

24/

/25

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY

“We no longer distinguish between the medium and life, because life is entirely mediated.”

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

FaceBuilder modelling process

26/

/27

Digital Translation of Corporeality

[Digital Bodies] The emergence of digital capabilities opened up the possibility of translating the materiality of the body, where past archives of bodies serve as the foundation for the current development of corporeality databases.

[FaceBuilder] FaceBuilder is a Blender plug-in that allows you to create 3D models of human faces and heads from photos. You need up to seven viewpoints to complete your model: the frontal, two 3/4 views, two side views, one bottom view, and one top view. The first step in creating a 3D model is to upload your photographs and then ‘pin’ them together. The points of a ‘standard’ 3D head model are matched with points of facial features from the inputted photographs as a result of this technique. The results of this method manages to get a fairly accurate overall shape of some facial festures such as nose, ears, mouth, eyes. Symmetry is also not expected/ prescribed by the software, as the user controlls each side of the face individually.

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

Charles H. Deetz and Oscar S. Adams, Demonstration of four common map projection techniques on a human head, 1921 (Upper left: Globular; Upper right: Orthographic; Lower left: Stereographic; Lower right: Mercator)

Sylvie Gourand by Henri Gouraud, Computer Display of Curved Surfaces, 1971

28/

/29

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

A UV map is a flat depiction of a 3D model’s surface that is used to simply wrap textures. The U and V represent the horizontal and vertical axes of 2D space, whereas X, Y, and Z are already used in 3D space. UV maps are specifically geenrated based on the model, applying a texture map unfolded in one method on a model set to map it in a different method can offer a glithced result, as in the case of the image above.

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

Legacy UV Unwrap

30/

Butterfly UV Unwrap

/31

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Maxface UV Unwrap

Spherical UV Unwrap

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

Digitally translated body

[Scanned Body and Face] 35

Simone C. Niquille, Faceless Here Be Faces, 2018

“As our body (parts) are being translated into machine readable data, biometric processes distill our corporeal identity into a pass/fail binary.” Various methods of face and body scanning have been employed. From the Sense Scanner, a tool comprised of a scanner that projects a patterned infrared (IR) beam onto the object, which is detected by a webcam and further translated into points and meshes, from the XBOX 360 Kinect, a camera designed for gaming motion capture where aditional third party softwares have been deeloped in order to allow for the tool to be used as an ‘object’ scanner.

32/

/33

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

/35

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

The human form was mathematically divided into simple geometric forms that could be remade as coordinates in the digital space, as an early attempts at Computer - generated imagery. As computational capacity increased, its outcomes began to resemble primitive anatomy. Thus, the question of how suited computerized tools are as for the production of both bodies and spaces emerge. Also, as optimal characteristics of bodies are used to create both real and virtual space, how appropriate are such tools for developing inhabitation?

Erhard Schön, Unnderweissung der proportzion unnd stellung der possen, 1540

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

Misbehaving bodies

[Corporealities denying rigid depictions] Bodies both influence and are influenced by their immediate surroundings, whether digital or physical. Recognizing the ingrained issues of gender struggles within the domestic and urban architectural fabric is dependent on representation. The development of design based on the consideration of an optimal body suggests that corporeal identities should aspire to a standard. Architecture transforms tehrefore in a tool that engages in normalisation processes. As a result, disruptive apparatuses that enable anomalies should be developed. The body should start to express itself in opposition to spatiality, especially to standardised spatiality. Experiments with limitations of digital corporealities have been carried, in order to understand and also to decompose the very elements that make up a body in the real world.

36/

ADS8

[LEAGUE OF MAIDENS AND THE MALE GAZE]

38/

/39

20/21

ADS8

40/

/41

Many computer softwares for building a digital alter ego, also known as an avatar, are constructed based on preexisting data sets on bodies. So, when you first enter the program, a standard/average body is presented to you as a base for building your own representation. This impies that a ‘normal’ body is a body that is symmetrical, without any disabilities, and one that can be clearely labeled by gender. Can such softwarews be pushed to their limits to create an avatar which breaks the mould of typical corporeal representation?

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

42/

/43

[Fluid digital bodies] How far can a digital body be pushed in regards to representation so that it looses the very elements which are labeled as composing the human body? Can we still relate to a representation which looses such elements? Here, the body scan has been altered and transformed into a fluid mass which constantly fluctuates, exploring how a changing identity could potentially be represented.

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

[Glitched Digital Bodies] A glitched body indicates an acceptance of mistakes, errors, and a refusal to function. “Glitch Feminism” by Legacy Russel sees the world wide web as a place for glitched corporealities to be explored, specifically for fluid bodies that do not coincide with white cisgender heteronormativity. Experimenting with what makes up a glitch in a digital environment, and how the glitch can be used to the advantage of the one who refuses representation have been explored.

44/

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

Russell, Legacy, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (Verso Books, 2020)

“As glitch feminists, this is our politic: we refuse to be hewn to the hegemonic line of a binary body. This calculated failure prompts the violent socio-cultural machine to hiccup, sigh, shudder, buffer. We want a new framework and for this framework, we want new skin. The digital world provides a potential space where this can play out. Through the digital, we make new worlds and dare to modify our own. Through the digital, the body ‘in glitch’ finds its genesis. Embracing the glitch is therefore a participatory action that challenges the status quo.”

46/

/47

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

Constructing Beauty

[What is beauty and who defines what beauty is] 38

McGill, Mary,‘How the Light Gets In: Notes on the Female Gaze and Selfie Culture’, MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture, 2018 <https://maifeminism. com/how-the-light-gets-innotes-on-the-female-gaze-andselfie-culture/>.

“Rosemarie Betterton (1985) argues, the ability of women to inhabit the male gaze cannot account for the distance that exists between the lived experience of womanhood and visual culture’s attempts to represent femininity. It is within this distance that Betterton locates the existence of a female way of seeing. This way of seeing is not based on an essence but rather on how women are addressed by androcentric culture and how femininity itself is socially constructed. Within this system, women can admire images of femininity while concurrently recognising their limitations, contradictions and absences.”

Yalcinkaya, Gunseli, ‘Exploring the Politics of Beauty in the World of VR and Gaming’, Dazed, 2019 <https://www. dazeddigital.com/soul/ article/43428/1/beauty-avatarsworld-vr-ar-gaming>.

When customising one’s digital avatar, although ”a set of horizontal sliders, suggests that by interpolating settings for gender, race, size and age, any ‘human’ representation can be ‘made’”, our choices are inherently “affected by our preconception of what beauty is.” Further, current beauty standards consist of an “amalgamation of features from different cultures”, yet “influenced by Eurocentric ideals.”

48/

/49

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Almond shaped cat eye

Heart shaped face

Small ears

Small nose

High cheekbones

Contoured jawline Plump lips

Current western beauty standards

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

50/

‘Perfect’ Features

[Golden Ratio Beauty] 40

Dela Plana, Zoe. ‘“Instagram Face”: Our Generation’s Beauty Standard’, FIB, 2020 <https:// fashionindustrybroadcast. com/2020/06/02/instagramface-our-generations-beautystandard/>.

The male gaze has produced and continues to reproduce ‘a univocal model for the female body’”. Currently this is expressed in the emergence of beauty standards, where the “idea of a perfect face is one forged by men, drawing on the fact that majority of board-certified plastic surgeons are men, with a 92% female client base”, while designers behind Instagram “flattering filters, are 77% male.” Notable artists employed a calculation known as the “golden ratio” to plan out their works during the European Renaissance. Scientists adapted this mathematical formula thousands of years later to help explain why certain people are considered beautiful.

Female and Male Beauty face masks based on the Golden Ratio

/51

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF CORPOREALITY]

Runway AI algorithm trained with portraits of 200 female faces

52/

/53

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Unbiased AI?

[Redefining ‘beauty’] Expeiriments with training an AI have been made in order to test whether such software can offer a more neutral perspective on what beauty is and who can define it. Is it possible for AI to offer an unbiased perspective and generate normal female bodies?

20/21

/55

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

FEMINISM AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

Beauvoir, Simone de, The Second Sex (Random House, 2014)

ADS8

[FEMINISM AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

Maria’s Transformation in sci-fi moive Metropolis (1927)

56/

/57

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

POSTHUMANIST FEMINISM

[Key Characteristics]

[Critiques]

Posthumanist feminism theories established by Donna Harraway in ‘Cyborg Manifesto” suggest that the cyborg is a rejection of rigid boundaries (those separating “human” from “animal” and “human” from “machine”). Such theory criticises traditional notions of feminism (feminist focuses on identity politics, and encourages instead coalition through affinity), and calls for amove beyond the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics

Some believe the theory to be anti-feminist because it denies any commonalities of the female experience.

In the “Manifesto”, Haraway writes “there is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women”, which goes against a defining characteristic of traditional feminism that calls women to join together in order to advocate for members of their gender.

Some have criticised the movement due to the heavy representative of North American culture symbolizing a “non-universalizing vision for feminist strategies.”

They identify three boundary breakdowns since the 20th century that have allowed for her hybrid, cyborg myth: the breakdown of boundaries between human and animal, animal-human and machine, and physical and non-physical. (Evolution has blurred the lines between human and animal; 20th century machines have made ambiguous the lines between natural and artificial; and microelectronics and the political invisibility of cyborgs have confused the lines of physicality.) Posthumanism feminism believes that the problematic use and justification of Western traditions like patriarchy, colonialism, essentialism, and naturalism, which in turn allow for problematic formations of taxonomies (classifications) — “antagonistic dualisms” that order Western discourse; systematic to the logics and practices of domination. Among problematic dualisms there are: • self/other, • culture/nature • male/female • civilised/primitive • right/wrong • truth/illusion • total/partial • God/man The theory believes there should be a move beyond naturalism and essentialism, criticizing feminist tactics as “identity politics” that victimize those excluded, and she proposes that it is better strategically to confuse identities . It also suggests a revision of the concept of gender.

20/21

ADS8

[FEMINISM AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

Seduction by Lynn Hershman Leeson (1986)

58/

/59

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

CYBERFEMINISM

[Key Characteristics] Cybefeminism foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet and technology through theorizing, critiquing, exploring and re-making the Internet, cyberspace and new-media technologies in general. Cyberfeminsim belieces in defying any sort of boundaries of identity and definition and rather be truly postmodern in its potential for radical openness Cyberfeminism only exists in plural. It aims not just to consume new technologies but to actively participate in their making, and it believes in a critical engagement with new technologies and their entanglement with power structures and systemic oppression. The movement believes in an utopian view of cyberspace and the Internet as a means of freedom from social constructs such as gender, sex differencliberal, socialist, radical and postmodern feministse and race, where echnology is a means to link the body with machines. Cyberfeminism can be a critique at equality in cyberspace, challenge the gender stereotype in the cyberspace, examine the gender relationship in cyberspace, examine the collaboration between human and technology, examine the relationship between women and technology and more.

[Critiques] 1. 2.

Lack of intersectional focus Utopian vision of cyberspace not doing the tough work of technical, theoretical and political education

20/21

ADS8

[FEMINISM AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

The Bride of Frankenstein by James Whale (1935)

60/

/61

XENOFEMINISM

[Key Characteristics] Xenofeminsim argues against nature as natural, where identities are agender-based (gender-abolitionist). Xenofeminism is a class abolitionism, anti capitalism movement. It states that the realization of gender justice and feminist emancipation contribute to a universalist politics assembled from the needs of every human, cutting across race, ability, economic standing, and geographical position. XF is vehemently anti-naturalist. XF seeks to strategically deploy existing technologies to re-engineer the world. It believes that there is nothing that cannot be studied scientifically and manipulated technologically. It sees nature as no longer beinga able to constitute a refuge of injustice, or a basis for any political justification whatsoever. “If nature is unjust, change nature!”

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[FEMINISM AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

The Bride of Frankenstein by James Whale (1935)

62/

/63

GLITCH FEMINISM

[Key Characteristics] Glitch feminism believes there is no difference between AFK [away from keyboard] and IRL [in real life]; false notion of ‘digital dualism.’ The glitch acknowledges that gendered bodies are far from absolute but rather an imaginary, manufactured and commodified for capital. The movement believes that legibility becomes a condition of manipulation and calls for an illegibility of bodies and gender. It acknowledges for multiple selves and for aslippage between IRL and URL. Glitch feminism states that if the quote “The Masters tools will never. dismantle the Masters house” still holds true, then perhaps what these institutions - both online and off- require is not dismantling but rather mutiny in the form of strategic occupation. It regards gender as a damaging construct. It asks wether in rejecting binary gender, can we challenge how our data is harvested, and, in turn, how data moves. Calls for self-definition; Avatars can become rhetorical bodies, one that challenge how we perform our abstract and varied self stores the goal of becoming or to ourselves, both on and offline.

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[FEMINISM AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

Rana Ayyub, Journalist and deepfake victim

64/

/65

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

NETWORKED FEMINISM

[Key Characteristics]

[Critiques]

Fourth

Depends on technology (disproportionate access to and ownership of digital media devices) “Inherent classism and ableism” created by giving the greatest voice to those who can afford and use technology

Only inclusive of western feminist movements

wave feminist movement focuses on the empowerment of women through the use of internet tools. It supports intersectionality and belives in a greater gender equality by focusing on gendered norms and marginalisation of women in society. Fourth wave feminism aims for the the stratification of traditionally marginalised groups, such as women of colour and trans women.

Fourth wave feminism aims to harness digital media as a far-reaching platform on which to connect, share perspectives, create a broader view of experienced oppression, and critique past feminist waves. It is mainly manifested through social-media activism.

20/21

ADS8

[FEMINISM AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

66/

[Digital Feminist Corporealities]

As digital bodies have the opportunity to refuse the current rigid depictions through a denial of adhering to preestablished rules for representation, a feminist methodology is applied to explore different embodiments. Such approach will allow for acknowledging the multiplicity of theories in relation to digital bodies. The reason for using my own corporeality as a subject of experimentation is because I am rejecting having to make assumptions about an avatar based on someone else’s character and characteristics. I believe that my corporeal speculations will be able to further make space for other subjectivities to be exposed by others who wish to do so.

XENOFEMINISM NETWORKED FEMINISM

CYBERFEMINISM

GLITCH FEMINISM

avatar; self-representation

bodyless

online activism; real body; real body; bodyhacking

human+machine hybrid

POSTHUMAN FEMINISM

/67

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

/69

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

CONSTRUCTION OF DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS

20/21

ADS8

[CONSTRUCTION OF DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

Digital Space of the Domestic

[Construction of Digtial Space]

As digitally constructed spaces and corporealities offer a hyperreal engagement with the medium of construction, I will be working with translations of physicalities in the digital space, in order to mediate the two and embrace the glitched outcomes of the realm of negotiation. Digital space is therefore constructed as a continuously accommodating surrounding for unconventional digital representations of the body. The dynamic nature of the environment, as well as the constantly morphing character of the corporealities will follow themes of identity in connection to gender and possible fluidity between IRL and URL selves.

70/

/71

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[CONSTRUCTION OF DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

72/

/73

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Digital representation of space

Constructed Digital environment constructed via digital tools/softwaes; Cartesian grid logic used to construct and represent such environments

Translated Physical environment translated digitaly through scanning/reconstructing tools such as (Lidar Scanner, Photogrammetry); Usually takes the form of pointclouds or meshes

20/21

ADS8

[CONSTRUCTION OF DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

74/

/75

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[CONSTRUCTION OF DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

[Reconstructed Environment of the Domestic]

The digital environment will specifically be reflecting on the space I inhabit, which is in turn the space my corporeality operates within. So, the domestic, a space of exteriorisation of the self, dominated by the sphere of the private and intimate, will stand as base of uncovering the politically charged narrative of the project. The house can also be regarded as a “complex terrain of social and sexual significance”, accentuating dichotomies such as male/female, outside/inside, public/private.

76/

/77

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[CONSTRUCTION OF DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS]

78/

/79

[Objects of Social Constructs]

The translated domestic landscape will also engage with objects in relation to social constructs, reflecting on everyday objects such as mirrors and concepts of identity and vanity, laptops and notions of digital connectivity, TVs and idea of connection with media and culture and so on. The use of some of the stated above objects also supports the intrinsic nature of biases which has become embedded seamlessly into our daily routines. Such objects, embodying cultural and social significance will be used to shape a narrative weaving through different definitions of selfhood in relation to inhabitation practices.

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

/81

APPENDIX

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

/83

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

LEAGUE OF MAIDENS AND THE MALE GAZE

“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”

Ways of Seeing by John Berger Summarises the concept of “Woman as Image, Men as Bearer of the Look”, where “the determining male gaze projects its fantasy on to the female figure, which is usually styled accordingly.

/85

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

LEAGUE OF MAIDENS AND THE MALE GAZE

[The Male Gaze] Thus, woman are transformed into an “object of vision: a sight”1, causing the “pleasure in looking to be split between active/male and passive/female”.2Woman are surveyed by the male surveyor.

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey

Genesis 2:22

1.1

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden by Masaccio

[European Art and depiction of male and female bodies] Christianity provides a pivotal influence in European art. According to the Genesis creation narrative, man is “agent to God”, while woman was created in relation to the man: “He made a woman and brought her to him”.3 The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, before and after restoration, shows how three centuries after the fresco was painted, the penultimate Medici, ordered that fig leaves be added to conceal the genitals of the figures. These were eventually removed in the 1980s when the painting was fully restored and cleaned. While the initial representations depicting the Genesis sequence disappeared, the moment chosen to be portrayed started to show shame for the females.

Fresco before and after restoration

ADS8

[LEAGUE OF MAIDENS AND THE MALE GAZE]

86/

[The Heterosexual Male Spectator] 4

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

In Renaissance oil paintings, women are the recurring subjects, while the “protagonist is not painted: “He is the spectator in front of the picture and he is presumed to be a man.”

The Gamer’s Gaze (Part 3) by K Cox [http://www.your-critic com/2011/07/gamers-gazepart-3.html]

In video games, “the stories we play contain visual (and sometimes auditory) cues that tell us, in unquestionable terms, that the player meant to be viewing these stories and sharing these perspectives is an archetypal sort of heterosexual male.”

Ibid.

It is also known that “males often create female avatars in third-person-perspective games so that they have

1.2

League of Maidens by Maiden Gaming Inc. Character Costumisation

someone attractive to look at”, resulting in “female characters being designed as visions of male fantasies”. This is also the case in the game League of Maidens, where female bodies have unrealistic typologies and proportions, with impractical armours with the sole purpose of revealing the playable character’s almost naked body. While some may argue that the characters are powerful, their strength is diminished by the nakedness in the eye of the player, the targeted male. Such power is stripped away through the over-sexualisation of the female characters.

/87

[Frontal Sexual Imagery] Post-renaissance “sexual imagery became mainly frontal,” with “female bodies arranged to be seen by man looking at picture, displayed to him.” This suggests that the picture is “made to appeal to his sexuality.” This theory can also be applied to games such as League of Maidens, where advertising images show female character posing their hips in order to accentuate their curves, in contrast with other majority of male character images, where men are shown “ in action, presenting their challenges and presenting their weapons.” Same goes for movement. Generally, male movement is meant to “emphasise characteristics and personality traits”, while female movement is meant to “evoke sexuality,” though an exaggerated hip sway.

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

1.3

Allegory of Time and Love by Bronzino Female body tuned towards spectator

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Strategic Coverings by Anita Sarkeesian [https:// feministfrequency.com/video/ strategic-butt-coverings/]

1.4

League of Maidens by Maiden Gaming Inc. poster Female characters posing for the spectator

ADS8

[LEAGUE OF MAIDENS AND THE MALE GAZE]

[Cinematics] 9

The Gamer’s Gaze (Part 2) by K Cox [http://www.your-critic com/2011/06/gamers-gazepart-2.html]

Cinematics also contribute to the over sexualisation of female playable characters. “In gaming, the camera goes beyond cinematic, games contain a level of spectator participation and interactivity above and beyond that of film. Whether through direct control or through controlling our avatars, in most modern gaming we participate in the camera’s positioning.” So, the player does contribute to the gaze in games through active choice. The game’s authors, by creating the content and the camera, and the game’s players, by choosing character perspective both literal and figurative, work in tandem to create the final gaze that the spectator takes.

Strategic Coverings by Anita Sarkeesian [https:// feministfrequency.com/video/ strategic-butt-coverings/]

1.5

League of Maidens by Maiden Gaming Inc. Camera angles

In League of Maidens, like in many other female as main playable character games, the woman’s behind is always at the centre of the screen, “the camera is not shy”. This results for the “player gaze to be drawn to the female forms, emphasised by costume and exaggerated hip sway”.

88/

/89

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

[Language]

[Conclusion]

Maiden

“Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display.”

noun

[1] a girl or young unmarried woman; [2] maid; [3] a female virgin;

“Maiden” which can be defined in 3 ways = a girl or young unmarried woman (suggesting that youth is a value of beauty; worth noting that majority of playable female characters in video games are young); = maid (suggesting submission); = a female virgin (suggesting innocence, youth; possible fetishisation of young age)

20/21

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Oxford Languages Dictionary

All of the above points contribute to lack of relatable female characters. So when we take a deep examination into the presence of the male gaze in gaming, there are a few things to be taken into consideration: when does the player have a choice over where to look? How does the player look? What is the physical presentation of women (and of men) when the player has control of the camera? What is the physical presentation of women (and of men) when the player doesn’t have control of the camera?

ADS8

90/

/91

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

CHARACTER REPRESENTATION IN MORTAL KOMBAT 11 AFTERMATH

20/21

/93

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

CHARACTER REPRESENTATION IN MORTAL KOMBAT 11 AFTERMATH

[Character Design Evolution] With Mortal Kombat X, you can notice the series’ art direction was more inspired by realism, aging characters in believable ways, and taking strides to desexualise the lens in which we saw many of the games female characters through. The idea of covering up characters who’ve been elevated as sex symbols by much of the community was met with a sort of now predictable protest that seemed in 2015, with fans claiming that the game is now “catering for the wrong audience”.

20/21

ADS8

[MORTAL KOMBAT 11 AFTERMATH]

[Battle Damage and Character Customisaiton] Changes in battle damage outfits have also been noticed by fans. Mortal Kombat X and 11 do not have many details in regards to characters showing battle damage, character damage being signified only though blood stains. In comparison, Mortal Kombat 9 shows extensive damage, especially through ripped character clothes and carefully positioned bloody hand prints. Battle damage cannot be shown in same detail because too much skin was being revealed. Character customisation has also changed due to the previous sexual nature of the costumes. While previously you were able to change the character’s outfits with ones from previous versions of the game, in the more recent games this have been limited.

[Sony’s Outfit] An interesting contradiction was indeed made in Sonya’s Outfit. Women in sports not wearing very covering outfits when it comes to fighting is due to the fact that the lack of clothing facilitates ease of movement, but Mortal Kombat chose to cover her body in order to desexualise the character.

94/

/95

[Beauty Standards] Another backlash the franchise has been addressed was the fact that the faces of females in early trailers look rough and unfinished. Most people assumed it to be a political move for female characters to be made to look “more ugly/ manlier” in relation to responses in regards to sexism and hyper sexualisation of such characters. These claims have been dismissed as the game came out, with characters resembling their previous selves more. A cause for this was the fact that the Studio behind MK is known for how rough and masculine faces look before release. This also raises questions in regards to beauty and standards of beauty, how the majority of playable female characters in video games are expected to fulfil a certain standard of beauty, which most often is a subjective one.

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[MORTAL KOMBAT 11 AFTERMATH]

[Bechdel Test] A positive aspect of the game is the way in which Mortal Kombat features characters. Mortal Kombat 11 feature numerous recurring female characters, while such characters play a vital role in the progression of the narrative. The introduction of Kronika into the Mortal Kombat series creates a shift in power in which empowered female characters have greater influence on plot than previously; ultimately gives the series a freedom to focus on female characters, as opposed to the traditional male gaze dominated female character development the series has adopted in the past. A means of measuring this is by adapting the Bechdel Test, initially developed as a simple gauge of female representation and gender inequality in fiction, specifically in film. To pass the test, a work must: [1] have at least two named women present [2] they must talk to each other [3] that conversation must be about something other than a man.

96/

/97

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

98/

/99

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

20/21

ADS8

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

100/

[Key Reading] Alcoff, Linda Martín, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self, Visible Identities (Oxford University Press)

Høilund, Sarah Julie Ege, ‘Where Is Representa.on Going? | Vogue Italia’ <https://www. vogue.it/fotografia/ar.cle/where-is-representa.on-going> [accessed 15 December 2020]

Kelly, Mary, Imaging Desire (MIT Press, 1998) Laboria Cuboniks, ‘Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation | Laboria Cuboniks’ <https://laboriacuboniks.net/manifesto/xenofeminism-a-politics-for-alienation/> [accessed 25 May 2021].

Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (Bri.sh Broadcas.ng Corpora.on, 1972)

Le Corbusier, The Modulor (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1968)

Bassett, Caroline, ‘CYBERFEMINISM SPCL - With a Little Help from Our (New) Friends?’ <https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/cyberfeminism-spcl-little-helpour-new-friends> [accessed 25 May 2021]

Lefebvre, Henri, Donald Nicholson-Smith, and David Harvey, The production of space, 1991

Betterton, Rosemary, ‘How Do Women Look? The Female Nude in the Work of Suzanne Valadon’, Feminist Review, 19.1 (1985), 3–24 15 Alcoff, Linda Maryn, Visible IdenFFes: Race, Gender, and the Self, Visible IdenFFes (Oxford University Press) De Beauvoir, Simone, The Second Sex (Random House, 2014) Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge, 2011) Dela Plana, Zoe. ‘“Instagram Face”: Our Generation’s Beauty Standard’, FIB, 2020 <https://fashionindustrybroadcast.com/2020/06/02/instagram-face-our-generationsbeauty-standard/>. Donnella, Leah, ‘Is Beauty In The Eyes Of The Colonizer? | Code Switch | NPR’ <https:// www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/06/685506578/is-beauty-in-the-eyes-of-thecolonizer> [accessed 16 December 2020] Dreyfuss, Henry, Designing for People (New York, 1955) Enfield, Lizzie, ‘The Fine Line between Art and Pornography’ <https://www.bbc.com/ culture/ar.cle/20200917-the-fine-line-between-art-and-pornography> [accessed 15 December 2020] Gleeson, Jules Joanne ‘Breakthroughs & Bait: On Xenofeminism & Alienation’ <https:// www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/breakthroughs-bait-xenofeminism-alienation> [accessed 25 May 2021] Goh, Annie, ‘Appropriating the Alien: A Critique of Xenofeminism’, Mute (Mute Publishing Limited, 2019) <https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/appropriatingalien-critique-xenofeminism> [accessed 25 May 2021] Haraway, Donna J., Manifestly Haraway (U of Minnesota Press, 2016)

Lennon, Kathleen, ‘Feminist Perspectives on the Body (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Winter 2017 Edition)’ <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/ entries/feminist-body/> [accessed 15 December 2020] Lewis, Sophie ‘Cyborg Sentiments’ <https://www.redpepper.org.uk/cyborg-sentiments/> [accessed 2 December 2020] McGill, Mary,‘How the Light Gets In: Notes on the Female Gaze and Selfie Culture’, MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture, 2018 <https://maifeminism.com/how-the-light-getsin-notes-on-the-female-gaze-and-selfie-culture/>. Mulvey, Laura, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, 16.3 (1975), 6–18 Nead, Lynda, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1992) Neufert, Ernst, Architects’ Data, 1936 Niquille, Simone C., Faceless Here Be Faces, 2018 Niquille, Simone C., ‘SimFactory - Architecture - e-Flux’ <https://www.e-flux.com/ architecture/artificial-labor/153913/simfactory/> [accessed 16 December 2020] Niquille, Simone C.,‘Technoflesh: An Interview with Simone Niquille on Normalizing the Body Digitally, Physically, and in the Workplace | Archinect’ <https://archinect.com/ features/ar.cle/150185698/technofleshan-int...e-on-normalizing-the-body-digitallyphysically-and-in-the-workplace> [accessed 8 November 2020] Phillips, Stephanie, ’Exploring Mixed Race Identity in CGI Influencers | Dazed Beauty’ <https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/head/article/41436/1/mixed-race-identity-cgiinfluencers-lil-miquela> [accessed 25 May 2021] Quaranta, Domenico, ‘Eva and Franco Mattes Aka 0100101110101101.ORG

/101

[RESEARCH JOURNAL]

Reenactment of Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s Imponderabilia’, Re-Akt! Imponderabilia <http://reakt.aksioma.org/imponderabilia/> [accessed 14 December 2020] Robinson, ‘Howard Dualism’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2020 (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2020) <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/ dualism/> [accessed 25 May 2021] Russell, Legacy, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (Verso Books, 2020) Russell, Legacy and Davis, Ben, ‘“I Say Tear It All Down”: Curator Legacy Russell on How “Glitch Feminism” Can Be a Tool to Radically Reimagine the World | Artnet News’ <https://news.artnet.com/art-world/legacyrussell-glitch-feminism-a-manifesto-1910221> [accessed 25 May 2021] Sommer, Liz, ‘Post-Feminist, Post-Humanist Instagram Fembot Microcelebrities: Lil Miquela and Shudu’, Medium, 2018 <https://medium. com/@lizcsommer/post-feminist-post-humanist-instagram- fembotmicrocelebrities-lil-miquela-and-shudu-a138c85794a0> [accessed 15 December 2020] Streeter, Thomas and others, ‘A Web Essay on the Male Gaze, Fashion Advertising, and the Pose’ <http://www.uvm.edu/%7Etstreete/powerpose/ contents.html> [accessed 25 May 2021] Steyerl, Hito, ’In Defense of the Poor Image’ The Funambulist Magazine, ‘A Subversive Approach to the Ideal Normalized Body’, The Funambulist Magazine, 2012 <https:// thefunambulist.net/architecture/architectural-theories-a-subversiveapproach-to-the-ideal-normalized-body> [accessed 15 December 2020 Weiss, Gail, Body Images: Embodiment as Intercorporeality (New York: Routledge, 1999) Yalcinkaya, Gunseli, ‘Exploring the Politics of Beauty in the World of VR and Gaming’, Dazed, 2019 <https://www.dazeddigital.com/soul/ article/43428/1/beauty-avatars-world-vr-ar-gaming> [accessed 15 December 2020] Wilding, Faith, ‘Where Is the Feminism in Cyberfeminism?’, 1998

20/21

ADS8

RALUCA MOLDOVEANU/