“…for the first time in human history, lifelike humanoid robots serving as counterparts for romantic and sexual encounters are no longer just a fantasy of science fiction authors. Advances in the fields of artificial intelligence, biomechanics, robotics and animatronics, have them emerging on the horizon as a real possibility, causing a fundamental shift of the narrative from the imaginary to the tangible, from fiction to facticity.”
Kubes, T. (2019)
This week I’ve been reading Kubes journal submissions on sex robots in contemporary culture, where she questions why these robots have to be an idealisation of beauty, and heteronormality and gender stereotypes, now they are a tangible reality instead of from the realm of a sci-fi world, Kubes writes:
“Do we really want to further reinforce idealizations of what an ‘aesthetic body’ should look like? And who, finally, were to decide on these ideals of beauty? Who could we endow with this kind of normative power? Manufacturers? Designers? That seems the safe way to inscribe gender by stereotyping or using the I-methodology.”
Kubes, T. (2019; 68)
This aligns with my current intentions with my practice, particularly e-maGen which directly questions these aesthetics of beauty and sense of identity in this digital world.
In this week’s webinar the feedback was largely positive in that it matched my intentions that my series was repetitive enough that it was disturbing but not so repetitive it was boring. The elements within my images were not overwhelming and instead evoked a sense of interaction around robots and captcha, where it made the viewer reflect upon what they are feeding in regards to information. It was also mentioned that I might like to look at Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Wiebke Leister’s images that handle the topic of masks and identity.
Wiebke Leister
“´Broken Promises´ consists of digital enlargements of stamp-size, handcrafted collages that merge visual promises of glossy magazines into shattered mirrors of ever-happy media masks: beaming faces tempting our sympathy and imitation; perfect smiles strangely out of place; disembodied mouths grafted onto social facades. Taken out of context, these smiles vandalize and expose attitudes and aspirations in, of and in front of the image.”
Leister, W. (2004)
Looking at Leister’s series Broken Promises and the series statement of intent supplied with it (quoted above) has really resonated with me and my own intentions. Leister takes a more traditional collaging approach of using found imagery from magazines to create these strange metamorphosised entities of mixed identities, like a commercialised e-fit, but of an individual that does not exist, a distorted frankenstein of identities that highlights the falseness of images found within glossy magazines, how they are airbrushed and consumed as though they are reality and pre-cursor to the images that adorn social media today.
Broken Promises is just one of Leister’s series which tackles the notion of face and identity, a more recent rendition of work that tackles these issues is a body of work called Echoes and Transformations (2016) a collaborative performance piece with artists Naoki Takashi and Kaho Aso with references to Noh theatre, a type of theatre which revolves around a masked identity.
The series is shown in three ways, firstly in an exhibition context in paired diptychs which are described as inverting the conventional understanding of active subject, passive object through the combination of images of inside of masks and images of whitened faces reminiscent of classical sculptures, the heavy us of white is intended to be a non-representational space, a placeholder that allows the personas depicted to be highlighted as being the point of the piece. Secondly as a printed publication called Echoes and Afterlives, which differs in display offers a different experience where the pages of masks and face fold onto each other as you turn the pages, placing mask onto faces and faces onto masks. Lastly displayed in a performance context with sound artists in the form of a collaboration that utilises improvisation, to interlink with Leister’s layering, overwriting, decollaging to create a reproduction as a live-collage-projection, an ultimately transient experience of constant change each performance, including but not limited to the sound artist changing.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
The other practitioner I was recommended to look at was Ralph Eugene Meatyard, who upon seeing his images reminded me I had looked at his work way back when doing my HND. Meatyard’s work often depicted adults and humans adorned in masks, with dolls and other props or enacting a gesture leading to outcomes which are theatrical yet at the same time surreal and uncanny creating a evocative narrative, experimenting with motion blurring the line between ephermeral and the physical, as well as what we consciously observe versus the subconscious. Meatyard himself mentions his use of masks is not dissimilar to that of a billboard:
“Billboards in any art are the first things that one sees—the masks might be interpreted as billboards. Once you get past the billboard then you can see into the past (forest, etc.), the present, & the future. I feel that because of the “strange” that more attention is paid to backgrounds & that has been the essence of my photography forever.”
Meatyard, R.E. [in] McDermott, T. (2011)
Ultimately I feel Meatyard’s use of masks, transform the everyday mundane images of suburban America, distorting and hiding the identities of his sitters pulling into question the posed nature of the family photograph, challenging the idea of the posed staged photograph as simply being a masked persona of falseness, that doesn’t depict a sitters true sense of self. I find it interesting that Meatyard too like Barth explored out of focus abstraction as this is something I have too explored in the past, with similar intentions.
In the forums a peer mentioned that my work reminded them of body dysmorphic disorders and mentioned a New York Times article about Plastic Surgery and the Secret World of Instagram Dolls (2019) which describes the phenomena: “They call themselves dolls. These are cosmetic surgery patients who document their desires and results on Instagram, but only, most say, for other patients or prospective clients.” (Giles, C. 2019) This I find intriguing as it’s something I had looked at a long time ago back in my HND days when I was researching for Life in Plastic whilst this was in the early days of face filters apps and snapchat filters but I recall a study that mentioned more of my generation were going to cosmetic surgeons with edited images of themselves. This is perhaps something I should look into and reflect more on during the next module.
Confusing the Algorithm
I’ve realised that despite looking at CV Dazzle and other methods of masking and disguising of the self I haven’t mentioned the concept at all in my CRJ. Again this is something I want to look into further in the future (so this post will just lightly cover the concept), as I’m intrigued by this idea of confusing the facial recognition algorithm into thinking one is not human with my images. A June article on Business Insider describes the concept “Facial recognition software uses artificial intelligence to detect faces or human figures in real-time. But that software is fallible — clothing can “dazzle” the software with misleading shapes that stop the AI from knowing what it’s looking at. Other designs confuse AI with images of decoy faces, preventing it from making the right identification.” (Holmes, A. 2020) The most prolific and known concept is CV Dazzle a makeup technique, which I believe in part has since been cracked with modern development since it’s invention a couple of years ago, as a lot of the patterns explored existed pre-neural networks, as proven by the trials and errors of martymoment (Figure 5). The main elements of CV Dazzle is to distort the points of recognition, such as lips, chin, eyes, nose bridge and forehead, confusing the AI into thinking it’s not looking at a human face or human presence.
References
Figures
Figure 1 Leister, W. (2004) Broken Promises (9), 24x30cm. [Online] Available from: http://eitherand.org/photographys-new-materiality/broken-promises/ [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Figure 2 Leister, W. (2016) Echoes and Transformation. [Online] Available from: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/10794/ [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Figure 3 Meatyard, R.E. (1950s-1960s) Untitled. [Online] Available from: https://finearts.uky.edu/art-museum/exhibitions/ralph-eugene-meatyard-stages-being [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Figure 4 Roso, M. & Harvey, A. (2020?) Dis Magazine: How to Hide from Machines. [Online] Available from: http://dismagazine.com/dystopia/evolved-lifestyles/8115/anti-surveillance-how-to-hide-from-machines/ [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Figure 5 Martymoment (2020) CV Dazzle. [Online] Available from: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CA2xbn3H_pX/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/CBaq8ZED2fx/ [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Bibliography
Bates Museum of Art (2019-2020) Press Release: Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Stages for Being. [Online] Available from: https://www.bates.edu/museum/ralph-eugene-meatyard-stages-for-being/ [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Bucknell, A. (2017) Artsy: What Memes Owe to Art History. [Online] Available from: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-memes-owe-art-history [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Davenport, G. (2013) American Suburb X: On Ralph Eugene Meatyard (Excerpt) (1997) Excerpt from The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays. [Online] Available from: https://americansuburbx.com/2013/10/ralph-eugene-meatyard-excerpt-1997.html [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Giles, C. (2019) The New York Times: Plastic Surgery and the Secret World of Instagram Dolls [Online] Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/style/instagram-plastic-surgery-doll-accounts.html [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Harvey, A. (2010-) CV Dazzle. [Online] Available from: https://cvdazzle.com/ [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Holmes, A. (2020) Business Insider: These clothes use outlandish designs to trick facial recognition software into thinking you’re not human. [Online] Available from: https://www.businessinsider.com/clothes-accessories-that-outsmart-facial-recognition-tech-2019-10?r=US&IR=T [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Kubes, T. (2019) Social Sciences: New Materialist Perspectives on Sex Robots. A Feminist Dystopia/Utopia? [Online] Available from: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/8/224 [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Kubes T. (2019) Bypassing the Uncanny Valley: Sex Robots and Robot Sex Beyond Mimicry. pg 67. [in] Loh J., Coeckelbergh M. (eds) Feminist Philosophy of Technology. Techno:Phil – Aktuelle Herausforderungen der Technikphilosophie, vol 2. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. [Online] Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04967-4_4 [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Leister, W. (2004) Broken Promises. [Online] Available from: http://eitherand.org/photographys-new-materiality/broken-promises/ [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Leister, W. (2016) Echoes and Transformation. [Online] Available from: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/10794/ [Accessed 06/08/2020]
Meatyard, R.E. [in] McDermott, T. (2011) American Suburb X: The Family Albums of Ralph Eugene Meatyard (2006) [Online] Available from: https://americansuburbx.com/2011/11/ralph-eugene-meatyard-the-family-albums-of-ralph-eugene-meatyard-2006-2.html [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Modrak, R. & Anthes, B. (2013) American Suburb X: Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Learning to See ‘No-Focus’ (2011) excerpt from Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice, 2011 [Online] Available from: https://americansuburbx.com/2013/01/ralph-eugene-meatyard-reframing-photography-theory-and-practice-excerpt-2011.html [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Osborn, C. & Stanescu, I. (2019) IFFR: Authenticity in Appropriation. [Online] Available from: https://iffr.com/en/blog/authenticity-in-appropriation [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Philomene, L. (2018) Vice: These Photos Explore the Multiple Identities We Have Online and Off [Online] Available from: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/8xee3x/these-photos-explore-the-multiple-identities-we-have-online-and-off-v25n2 [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Text (2020-) Live Text Typer. [Online] Available from: https://www.circularbit.com/rewritetext/livetext/60576/1 [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Zax, D. (2011) Smithsonian Magazine: Ralph Eugene Meatyard: The Man Behind the Masks [Online] Available from: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ralph-eugene-meatyard-the-man-behind-the-masks-106625198/ [Accessed 07/08/2020]
Jasmine Murray Photography 