Titulo Estágio
A Critical Exploration of the Masculine/Feminine Dichotomy in Media Art
Local do Estágio
CISUC-CMS
Enquadramento
“Form” in Western art has historically been conceived as abstract and neutral, disassociated from the body, sensitive experience and materiality. As Ziarek (2014) argues, this conception operates as an instrument of domination that marginalizes expressions that privilege experimentation, subjectivity and corporeality.
This reflection gains particular relevance in the field of Media Art, where initiatives such as the Old Boys Network collective in the 1990s created theoretical and artistic platforms that gave visibility to women and others in the digital space. In these archives, we observe how aesthetic strategies linked to the decorative, the excessive and the performative can serve to deconstruct the “masculinist beloved mind-blogging culture sh*t of the Internet” (Sollfrank & Volkart, 1999).
The motivation of this project thus lies in investigating and reclaiming these languages - often associated with the cyberfeminist movement - as legitimate forms of resistance in the context of contemporary Media Art.
Objetivo
This dissertation aims to explore how aesthetic strategies coded as feminine - which value ornamentation, excess and performance - can be used as critical tools in the field of Media Art to challenge dominant aesthetic hierarchies.
This main goal will be achieved by investigating how artists linked to the cyberfeminist movement of the 1990s appropriated visual styles traditionally marginalized as frivolous or decorative, subverting masculine norms rooted in digital culture. Inspired by historical references and movements, as well as contemporary, this research aims at analyzing how these aesthetics function as acts of resistance and as identity-building practices, their consonances and dissonances in expression, and how we can design an artefact that reflects on these perspectives.
To achieve these objectives, an artistic and interactive artefacts will be developed, which incorporates audiovisual languages as a form of critical intervention in the field of Media Art.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 1
A1. (Sep-Nov) State-of-the-art research - research and document the relevant SoA, publications and software review; detailed characterization of the problem to be solved stating specific goals and requirements;
A2. (Nov-Dec) Design Proposal - conception and drafting of the artefact design proposal and narrative, which includes the exploration of multiple visual and audio software architectures, and respective interaction opportunities;
A3 (Dec-Jan) Writing and preparation of the intermediate version of the dissertation document.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 2
A4. (Jan-April) Prototyping - implementation of a proof-of-concept prototype, tuning or corrections based on evaluation results;
A5. (May) Evaluation - definition of evaluation criteria and method; performance of evaluation and analysis of results
A6. (June - July) Statement of Learning - production of dissertation with process report and reflection on knowledge production, which might result in a paper production
Condições
N/A
Orientador
Mariana Seiça
marianac@dei.uc.pt 📩