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Very poor tele cine of my film LILITH, but you get the idea:  A 16mm black and white film cataloging the ageing process through three generations of women, granddaughter, daughter and mother. The film itself replicating the ageing process with its own self destruction over time. The piece was originally projected onto three hanging cloths of muslin, as the image became more faded on each individual layer of fabric. This project takes its inspiration originally from the biblical tale of LILITH, but also from the female form, conversations with female family members and a visit to a dementia care home during the project.

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Me next to my installation! 

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This work contains adult content. Viewer discretion advised. 

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Judges from Seoul University (Korea) looking at the work. 

I won this prize from the Seoul University for creativity of concept. 

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Close up of monitors.  

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Opening night, work in situ, three channel installation. 

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My CFM printed up ready to be mounted. 

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SCREEN 3

Cyber Feminist Manifesto - The Art of Humiliation. 

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SCREEN 2

Cyber Feminist Manifesto - Is Empowerment Achievable? 

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SCREEN 1

Cyber Feminist Manifesto - Everybody Wants a Piece of Me.

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Evaluation Statement:

Cyber Feminist Manifesto Bebe Bentley (2016) (3 channel installation, webcam performance). Virtual or “cyber” space has been conceptualised as either fundamentally liberating or constraining, in particular the subversive world of Cam Girls, a topic which requires more rumination than to simply categorise it as empowering or not. Cyber Feminist Manifesto questions the ethics and psychological consequences of Cam Girling through re-enactment of feminist performance pieces. Through the gaze of a webcam, the audience becomes a complicit voyeur to the performer’s suggestive acts, played out intimately in a bedroom. The performer allows herself to teeter on the delicate line between mercy and control, engaging both the live and digital audiences to question women’s freedom over their own bodies and boundaries. The work is an evocative take on the uncanny allure of liveness, the darker side of digital space, and the risks of self disclosure where it can be so easily disseminated. 

—————————————————————————————- I feel the above is a good description of the concept of the work, in terms of how it has developed over these months I feel the greatest change has been in my understanding of women’s agency online and the risks of entering a digital space in the way I did. I also feel the work had just the perfect amount of time to become nuanced and as always I learnt the lesson of less is more, right before the deadline. In terms of whether the project has strayed from the original proposal, I feel I have stuck relatively tightly to the original themes. The genesis of this idea was a short Kafka story, the themes of which I believe are still very relevant in the work (even though they may not be perceptible to the audience). In my original proposal I said I intended to tackle the world of Cam Girling, and the themes it encompasses - I think I have achieved this and honed by own understanding of that world, while maybe informing others of it too. In terms of the technical and aesthetic side of the project I greatly improved my skills on After Effects, taking myself through tutorials and really enjoying the process.  I made thoughtful decisions about the medium I chose to film on, the place I chose to film and the way the installation will be displayed. The performance pieces I chose to recreate were intuitive selections, pieces that really spoke to me. Looking at this work now, I think it brings together many of the elements I have learnt over the last three years, bringing together passionately the things I want to share through making film. 

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I found this tutorial REALLY helpful, and although it was kinda complicated it gave me a much better, more professional way of blurring out the more explicit parts of the film. 

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Net Art in the Age of Reproduction: Web.art, net.art…it captured my imagination like nothing since video art on my own personal radar screen some 30 years ago. Oddly the net is attracting the attention of media artists who are both attracted to and repelled by this new thing, whatever it is, in a fashion directly reminiscent of the filmmaking community to the portable video technology in the late 60s and early 70s.

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“Do Women (still) have to be naked to get into the Met museum”?

I’m still debating the censoring of my body in my film. A part of me really doesn’t want to show my breasts and bum in the film. In other films I’ve made I’ve shown my nude body, in both a sexual way and a non erotic way… but this film, I really want to make a point about not giving yourself away, about just selling yourself for such little monetary and psychological value.

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new aesthetic vs minimalism? I just don’t know what to do…

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Last Tutorial with MNT.

So this tutorial was pretty positive. It has made me think A LOT, and a few things MNT said really stuck in my mind, and I’ve been stewing them over - and have made several different edits since then. 

It seems I have a decision to make now - either go minimal, or go the whole hog with the post-internet/new aesthetic thing. There isn’t an in between really. MNT said “I wish there was a leaflet for students “minimalism in the degree show”.  And deep down I know he’s kinda right, either one way or the other. It’s a really hard decision.  We also discussed the placement of the screens - and how actually seeing all three at once was totally overwhelming, and you were not able to focus on all the elements at once. This actually distracts the viewer, and if anything makes the piece easier to watch, which is not the intention. We tried moving the screens further apart, on different tables etc. Deciding that they do work better separated, but the final arrangement will be during the setting up of the show. 

We also thought having a round table might be quite cool, as people would accidentally catch each others eyes from across the table. I have been looking for some round tables on Freecycle as MP said we probably cant jigsaw a whole in the middle of one for the wires to go through :( 

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