From my exploration of Sweet Tooth Colour, Jane questioned in my 1-1 last week, what would To Bite look like in black and white. I felt tempted to try this the night before I submitted for my group crit 24/03/21 and after my research Bruce Nauman, I also felt intrigued to experiment with slight slow motion. In reflection to Sweet Tooth in colour, I liked them but felt like they weren’t quite right, too much going on. I decided to cut this back and to start again – edit the film differently, trial it in an intense black and white. It immediately had Hollywood cinema old fashioned films, see initial notes below.
Reflection 30/04/21: It’s interesting to see that this was a large turning point for my work – I have really used this film to explore all aspects of it when installing it in situ. It has also up rose many ideas of how it can be perceived by both male and female audience.
Reflection 24/03/21: From my group crit 24/03/21 the black and white felt stronger to my peers, it was mentioned its just as visually bold as my coloured images which I was worried it may not be. It appeared much more effective and felt more like a statement due to the colouration being black and white just like the statement I am tying to make with the art work – sexualisation/consumption/desirability of women in film/by men.
With old fashioned films comes the sexual objectification of female actresses being used for their beauty and their body. Hollywood cinema aimed to build starry women for the gaze of the world – Marylin Monroe. From L5 where I used Monroe as a symbol of women from the 1950s+ that were used for their “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, 1973, p 62) in the cinema, the media for the male gaze. The visual of this has surprisingly been continued through to Sweet Tooth B&W with an aggressive image of women being controlled/destroyed/consumed by male control. Monroe and among many women within Hollywood have experienced this, Judy Garland from The Wizard of Oz was told to live up to the expected image of a beautifully small young women on screen. “Garland was hassled about her looks for the majority of her career” (Green, 2019) and battled with issues regarding her body size, she was told by the directors “whether or not to eat, how much to eat, what to eat.” (Green, 2019) “She was banned from having a single bite of candy, and she was put on a strict diet to maintain her figure. Her diet consisted of black coffee, chicken soup, and 80 or so cigarettes a day (which was intended to help curb her hunger)” (Green, 2019). Hollywood glamorises young happy women on the screen but wouldn’t never discuss the issues that lead to this. It had scarred her as it’s “the magic of Hollywood style” (Mulvey, 1973, p 59). “The cinema builds the way she is looked at into the spectacle itself” (Mulvey, 1973, p 67).
Mulvey talks about these kind of issues in “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” where “she is isolated, glamorised, on display, sexualised” (Mulvey, 1973, p 64). This quotation has stuck with me, it’s represented in Sweet Tooth B&W below as the women, a breast, is isolated on display and sexualised. I introduced some slow motion parts – puts you off as you wouldn’t expect parts to be slowed.
Reflection 21/04/21: Currently I am working towards researching the representation of women in pornography, artists like Naomi Uman uses pornography to highlight the sexual objectification they face in Removed – pornography act as the cinema, creating a situation/context to normalise it, making, mostly men, refer to this way of using women.
Reflection 26/05/21: Me and Jane discussed how I, a women, have directed the male to put and bite down on the breast in his mouth, if this was a males instruction/direction, the outcome of the film would be different/sexualising and glamorising the control of the female form, instructed by a male. A female instructing a male to do the act makes the work feels female dominant in the sense of myself having control over the male in the film and essentially the breast. OR does it encourage sexual objectification?
B&W suggests no identity it becomes relatable for all women. See above, in Sweet Tooth Replay, I was interested in capturing this same repetition of an ongoing film, one that would “become an object just by being there, visit it whenever you wanted too” (Art21, 2013) as Bruce Nauman stated in a talk with Art21, but I wanted to change it slightly, to cut the other half of the film in reverse a moment, one that wouldn’t be expected. Does it suggest something different to the beginning of the film? Or does it edit the way the first half is perceived?
I continued with the breasts representing women as “Evidence from behavioural data suggested that female sexual body parts could be better recognised in isolation, whereas male sexual body parts are better recognised within the context of the entire body (Gervais et al., 2012). Bernard et al (2015) also found that the occurrence of sexual objectification results from a focus on the sexual body parts of women” (Zucco, 2019), it goes onto say that “women’s bodies are more likely to be perceived with a localised focus, especially the sexual regions, rather than as entire bodies” (Zucco, 2019) and its with medias such as Hollywood cinema Pornography and now arguably social media, that continues this portrayal of women, meaning we are unable to shake from the stigma. This is what is being explored through the breast perched in between the teeth of the male in black and white, the aggressive destruction of women by the media, the male gaze and the cinema.
Reflection 10/04/21: Dworkin stated “male dominance of the female body is the basic material reality of women’s lives” (Dworkin, 1981, p203) as that though that is all they’re there for, a sexual possession, this is highlighted in Sweet Tooth B&W, the harsh control/clutch of the male upon the female form. – Makes the film feel more intense and disturbing after researching Dworkin’s writings of pornography.
I installed the film, to work with the space the same way I did with Sweet Tooth in colour. As the film is very performative I felt it didn’t need much else, I wanted the focus to be on the action, the breast and the mouth to deepen this grotesque/uncomfortable emotion that follows. I projected Sweet Tooth B&W and it immediately gave off a new feel, more intense and a scary element which I was surprised about. Placements been important within my work and I’ve noticed it especially here. I projected it high up to begin with, see below, to have the feel of being at a cinema gazing up and this felt effective see below. The black seemed darker and the white seemed brighter, showing it for what it is, men consuming women.
Reflection 21/04/21: The term scary/sinister was used in the group crit 24/03/21 and it’s something I have continued to work with. I aim to get a reaction from the viewers, an impact. It’s a very delicate subject which I am passionate about I want it to come across that way.
Cellophane – I aimed to continue this glamorised view of sexualisation and destruction of the female form/representation in Hollywood – the cellophane stood out more and seemed to have a better place with Sweet Tooth B&W projected as the coloured projection felt confusing. I kept it simple with one mirror below the projection to focus on introducing ideas of voyeurism and developed this with angling the camera certain ways to suggests peeping in, watching something you shouldn’t see as Mulvey spotlights within her essay. See film above, it suggested thoughts of watching from a distance, looking without being seen, a grotesque angle. See below, the behind the scenes of the images further below.
Reflection 20/05/21: Cellophane has been massively influential within my installation of my practice form here. It has transformed the space as well as the way the work is seen. It also has evoked ideas of trying to hide something but not doing a very good job – like Hollywood cinema. This also worked very well in relation to Sweet Box projection.
I worked from Bruce Nauman’s Poke in the eye/nose/ear and Richard Serra’s Catching Lead where they include no sound in their films and focus more on action, this benefits the impact of the my film as there’s very little distraction. No dancing around the point of the art, but making a strong statement to watching/think about the work/message.
I captured stills to share a relation to Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #2 – she explores the way women are used/dismissed within film representation and Hollywood itself, hence the use of the title, Sweet Tooth Film Still. As researched previously, Untitled Film Still #2 works with the gaze, mirrors, young women and also photography. See images below, I wanted to work with the thoughts of women being an edible, a treat, a dessert, and the cellophane accentuated this. I wanted the aim to be on the mouth, the moving lips that encapsulate the breasts and to evoke emotion whether that’s anger, disgust or frustration to express how we as women feel.
Reflection 26/05/21: I was contacted by A-N to be part of their Degree Show Guide 2021, so I put forward a still from the selection above alongside 3 other images capturing the graduation of my work from them to now! Following the same themes of consumption, it was so exciting!!
Reflection 10/04/21: Also the white icing breast becomes slightly unclear, just like women in Removed, once projected and suggests showing all that is wrong with male dominance over the women in sex/sexual objectification. Feels confrontational to pornography as well as sex obj.
See above, I used the large wrap of cellophane to create a sweet wrapper effect around the breast, highlighting this desirable like feature of the breast further. I wanted it to feel aggressive and almost angry, the screwed up cellophane appears like its been crumpled – does this add to the effect?
Reflection 24/03/21: From my group crit 24/03/21, my peers picked up on this use of a sweet wrapper and creates the projection to become a 3D sculpture in situ of the space, not just the projection. It becomes an object of its own, like the objectification of women. And also suggested it has ideas of censorship, almost a warning/cover up before seeing the real image. Does this make it feel more disturbing? Is this a good thing?
