Week 3: Twisted
- What does the show have to say about gender as a construct? What role does technology play?
Gender and technology were both manufactured for humans by humans. When we open our phones we know exactly what it is going to do. We know how it works. People expect the same from humans. People want people to behave as their “assigned gender” because it’s easier on them. I think the show portrayed how different we are from technology. Although people want to put us in boxes and understand us easily, they can’t. We are complex multidimensional human beings.
2. What does the show have to say about Artificial intelligence and womanhood?
I think people gather information about a woman and then apply them to a broader set of women. Through media, it seems that men don’t see women as complex characters. To them, women are essentially all the same, with some minor tweaks…just like AI.
3. What elements of the show speak to definitions of ‘girlhood’?
The dolls. Before even reading the discussion questions, I immedietly tied the dolls to girlhood. Young girls are so impressionable, especially by older women. I know I was. These dolls are programed to watch and record everything they see. As a human we reflect and internalize these people we interact with. We are constantly receiving information left and right on what it means to be a female through the media or the people we know. Whether we know it or not, we are internalizing this information still today.
4. How does her use of video and technology inform her message?
Just as technology is evolving, so are women. Just 101 years ago women gained the RIGHT to vote. That doesn’t automatically means their opinion was validated or even listened to. The television came on the seen in 1927. In a way it’s like women and technology were progressing in society together. Through this time together, women have been sexualized and abused on these screens. I also think the surveillance made the audience feel like their being watched, just like women who always feel like they are on display due to the way the media portrays women.
5. What does her depiction of the female body convey about what it means to be human?
I think with the mirrors everywhere, photos of women’s body parts being replaced my technology, and the robo-dolls, I felt like to be a female human is to be looked at. Sometimes, being a female it feels as if your body is your most important tool. A tool to get ahead, seduce, attract, compare, etc. Although, at the end of the day, we are all the same underneath. Seeing it over and over desensitizes it, it’s just a body. Why do we put so much pressure on it?
6. If Hershman Leeson is the master of all the channels and depictions what does that mean for female empowerment?
I think it means that there is no end to how women can tell their stories. Maybe, without knowing prior information, a man could walk through the exhibit and not pick up on her trauma and comments on body image. Although, personally speaking, I was able to immediately pick up on what she was saying. Especially the dolls watching us, taking in information.
7. Why is the show called Twisted? (No wrong answers)
I think the show is titled Twisted due to the fact that we are so intertwined with technology nowadays. We are tightly wound together and twisted and jumped in our screens that it seems inesacable.