manonthomsonstudio4

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Manon Thomson, Blow Me, Tissue Box, Digital Print

Like said in the previous blog, this work is a further iteration of Man-Made and explores the sexual myths that surround female bodies in order for men to gain some sense of control over the “unknown” (females). I honestly am very happy with this work, I think it has many layers and I think that is down to how many iterations were made - I had a clear vision and it definitely came to life as I wanted it to. Using DigiFab labs I was able to print my digital work, Man-Made, into 8 small squares. I made sure when printing them I had them scaled to the perfect size in which would fit the tissue box well. I then used glue to stick these prints onto the pre-existing tissue box. Also highly simple, I think that the work is effective and eye-catching whilst also delving into an array of issues within the broad topic of feminism.

Unlike the digital mock-up of this work I decided to choose the blinged teeth rather than the plain black as I think it holds more pre-existing connotations that viewer’s will be able to connect with more.

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Process of Blow Me Mock-up

I decided I wanted to take Man-Made even further and create a sculptural work. After reading about the sexual implications of a runny nose and how literal and disgusting that is to me I decided to create a work about it. Tissues are helped obviously when one has a runny nose but there is also a link to masturbation or sexual completion - “reaching for the tissue box”.

I decided to do a mock-up of the sculptural work, Blow Me, and place the photos taken for the work Man-made digitally onto a tissue box. Although I am not great at photoshop and the perspectives aren’t perfect i think this clearly demonstrates how the work will look when complete. Honestly, I am extremely happy with this concept, I think it highlights a feminine rage at a lifetime and history of sexual repression. Despite wanting to use the gemstone lettering edit for the final, the work is almost egging viewers on to see if they will continue to sexualise yet also diminish it. It’s angry and its confronting - it also brings up issues of sexual assault and continuous unwanted sexual attention. It is attempting to showcase that we will fight back and we will bite yet we are still plastered to the tissue box - a symbol of a patriarchal society.

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Reading // Sexual Implications of the nose

Book, H. E. (1971). Sexual implications of the nose. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 12(5), 450–455. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-440X(71)90084-8

Within this book, the author explains the sexual implications that the nose has and has had throughout history linking all the way back to Ancient Greek mythology. The nose was considered to be a symbol of a penis and more so a runny nose was the body’s own punishment for a lack of sexual self-restraint - this was thought to be in the 1920s!

I think sexual myths are incredibly interesting as they are rooted in deep deep misogyny and are a result of human’s perception of our bodies without the help of sophisticated science - although it is still an issue today…

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Manon Thomson, Man-Made, Single channel video, 0:00:37

When taking pictures for the previous iteration, Man-made, I decided to also take videos so I could also make a video work. Using video editing software/AI “Videoleap”, I was able to create a distorted glitchy videos in which the lips/mouth, kisses, licks, snarls and purses. Originally when downloading this AI software I wanted it to remove the background of the video only leaving the lips in frame although the eyelashes were too complicated for AI to achieve this and it instead created this glitchy effect which I decided I actually thoroughly enjoyed. This video is highly uncomfortable and almost gross, the tongue licking the lips contains sexual implications. As explained in previous works, the lips explore the concept of Vagina Dentata - but by using my mouth I am also exploring the silencing of women. I think this work is highly successful at creating an uncomfortable environment whilst also highlighting issues of feminine demonisation throughout history.

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Process

I decided to take a number of photos and videos to attempt to achieve a still/photo that I could edit in post. Above is a still from a video taken in which I got extremely close to camera in which there was a lamp next to it. The lamp with warm light allowed for the beautiful contrast in light within the photo - even unedited I think this photo is beautiful despite the uncomfortable nature of the hairy lips and the gnarling teeth.

I then sourced this photo online which displays the little plastic gems that I would use to decorate things and make them “prettier” when I was younger. I decided I wanted to decorate the teeth with these and arrange them in the words: “bite me”. The words are aggressive and it seems ironic that the mouth is taunting the viewer to “bite them” when it’s them who is looking as though they are inches away from biting.

It’s like she is tempting the viewer’s to hurt her but she knows she has the power to fight back. This is an iteration of Vagina Game and it explores the myth of Vagina Dentata - the myth that women’s (or people with vaginas) vaginas have teeth. I think that the gems feel feminine and they also feel childish to me - fake treasure that people use to decorate plain objects to make them special. This links well to the concept of a feminine performance - decorating ourselves with false additions in order to be more desirable to men. Although unfortunately the gems look fake and like they are not actually on the teeth which I think takes away from the viewer’s attention rather.

I decided to then change the lettering to a simple handwritten lettering in black. Which aesthetically I really enjoy but I think the symbolism of the gems in more engaging. Unfortunately due to time restraints I was unable to find time to retake the image so instead I will attempt to make the gems look more realistic against my teeth.

After further editing I think that the gems look more natural on the teeth. I added a slight shadow behind them as well as adding a shadow where the lip creates one across the teeth. The colours are different in the actual image but for some reason tumblr is slightly changing them… you can see what the final image looks like in my folio.

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Reading//Man-Made Women

Richardson, K., & Odlind, C. (Eds.). (2023). Man-Made Women : The Sexual Politics of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots. Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

This reading explores the psychological reasoning behind sex dolls. Despite my work not really exploring sex dolls I think that they are a clear physical embodiment of what a man wants - a woman who does not speak and just acts as a vessel. “Rather than marking a progressive development in human relationships, they represent the continued dehumanisation of women and girls as sexual property.”

The title of this book also stuck out to me: “Man-made women”. I think this is interesting if you take it away from the topic of sex dolls. My work explores identity as a result of continuous performance attempting to please men. Sometimes I do feel like a man-made woman.

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I decided I wanted to create another work that explored vagina dentata but instead of having it as a seperate embodiment I wanted it to be on my body. I thought that lips were the perfect spot because not only are they “lips” which are directly linked to vaginas, they also are linked to speech, which is often taken away from women. I wanted to create a digital work using photography to highlight the demonisation of women in a patriarchal society.

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Attached is a video demonstrating how the Vagina Game works. Despite having to hold it upright with my other hand as it was quite wobbly, this video shows how the lips close around the finger which can evoke fear (I have done it too many times now that it doesn’t make me jump).

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Manon Thomson, Vagina Game, 2023

Vagina Game is a physical embodiment of the myth, Vagina Dentata, which theorises that a woman’s vagina is filled with teeth, ready to attack men. It explores men’s fear and demonisation of a woman’s body because they are the “other”. This work is interactive as audience’s can press down the teeth, waiting for the one that will cause it to snap. It links to the feminine experience to be one of a game in which we are forced to play to feel worthy to men. Even when playing the roles required we are still demonised. This leads to states of disassociation - a disconnect between our bodies and our psychological state. Vagina Game portrays only the vagina alienated from the rest of it’s body.

I was able to make holes in the back of the work and screw it into the wall which didn’t work super well and definitely wouldn’t hold for an exhibition but as I was quickly taking photos it was able to hold long enough. I think overall this work is very successful but I feel like it could be more successful in a larger state - using repetition to further create meaning. I can imagine an entire wall filled of these - perhaps in different colours and shapes to represent a larger inclusion of vaginas. Perhaps this is something I can explore in the future when I have more money :)

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Vagina Game Process

Originally with this idea I was inspired by my work In the Blink of an Eye, and I wanted to create a work that explored false intimacy. This was going to be a mechanism that blinked on the viewer if they allowed themselves to be close enough to the work. I decided I did not have the engineering skills required to make a mechanism like this in a matter of a few weeks so I decided to iterate this work into something slightly more achievable.

This transitioned into the physical manipulation of chattering teeth, utilising the already input mechanics to allow for it to blink rapidly on one’s skin.

My thoughts were to superglue false eyelashes around the teeth and to remove the eyeballs. But after coming up with this idea it became impossible to ignore the concept of the vagina dentata - a myth in which women have teeth in the vagina, chopping off men’s penises if they tried to enter. As written about previously in this blog, this myth is rooted in men’s fear of women - especially their bodies. So the idea morphed again into a comment on society’s fear of women being anything other than the “other” sex.

I went searching for chattering teeth but could not find them anywhere. I instead came across the snapping shark game…

This felt even more appropriate to use than the chattering teeth. A game in which players are meant to feel on edge allowing their fingers to enter the shark’s mouth - unsure of which tooth pressed with set off the snapping shut mouth. I decided this was the perfect base to my work.

Using a variety of tools including knives and a lighter, I was able to cut off the shark fin as well as the tail as I did not want these assets to take away from the work.

I then added a layer of polymer clay around the casing, adding folds to mimic a vagina. I painted the interior of the shark in the same colour as the clay to remove any of the existing blue shade of the plastic. In the photo above you can see the view of the work when the mouth is shut, the teeth protruding from the mouth - creating a monster looking object.

I then added a layer of false eyelashes lining the top and bottom of the mouth, acting like pubic hair.

Attached is a video of niamh trying my vagina game. Anyone that I gave the game to play looked frightened and hesitant to press the teeth, afraid of the mouth shutting on their fingers. Despite not installed yet, the work already demonstrates clear success as it creates fear - much like the female human body.

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Vivienne Binns, Vag Dens, 1967

Binns is a female Australian artist who explores sexual liberation - embracing a community of neglected and ‘invisible’ woman artists. This work in particular is one that we studied last year in art history and it stuck with me - it was the first time I had heard and read about Vagina Dentata. This colourful depiction of the woman’s body takes a myth rooted in misogyny and flips it into a celebration - empowering women rather than putting them down. Her work is definitely something I am inspired by, perhaps not aesthetically but definitely the concept.

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Reading // Gendered Devitalisations: A Double Reading of the “Vagina Dentata” Motif in India

Rossi, R. (2017). Gendered Devitalisations: A Double Reading of the “Vagina Dentata” Motif in India. Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Studia Religiologica, 50(4), 345–357. https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.17.022.8756

The motif of the “Vagina Dentata” appears throughout history as a symbol for the masculine fear of feminine sexuality or the “other”. The fangs or teeth that supposedly surround a woman’s vagina represent the “weaker’s” attempt to defend themselves against violence - often linked to cases of rape. The myth is rooted in a fear of the female body and this is a concept that I want to explore within my own work.

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Manon Thomson, A Self-Portrait but I’m Not Real, oil and acrylic on canvas, 50 x 60cm

Through an exploration of masks, façade and role-playing, as well as links to the Madonna-whore complex, my work, A Self-Portrait but I’m Not Real, explores feminine identity as a game of continuous performance. I collaborated with artificial intelligence to produce a self-portrait reference image contaminated with underlying beauty standards in which I then painted. In doing so, creating a dialogue between myself and the competing cyclical nature of an online presence. The character is hyper-feminine, donned in a pink and white outfit embellished with stars and bows. Her expression doesn’t conform to the typical doll-like demeanour in which she portrays; instead, she gazes inquisitively at the viewer, questioning them. A continuous censorship of my physical and psychological form as a female has resulted in a dissociative state – not feeling like a real person and instead an embodied result of unattainable feminine standards. The use of AI in generating this self-portrait further accentuates the cyclic disconnection I seek to convey.

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Jake Elwes, Zizi – Queering the Dataset (stills), 2019

Jake Elwes is a queer artist using AI to explore online identities, integrating both drag identities and AI. Elwes states that he is “hacking the technology and finding poetry in what it wasn’t intended to do… That’s the idea of queering the dataset, moving it into a space of otherness away from normative identities.” I feel inspired by Elwes’ work as too am utilising AI to explore identity in a way that comments on beauty standards and gender. Despite having different formal qualities our process remains similar.

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Process

I decided I wanted to create a self-portrait generated from AI with some then edits from myself. With this cycle of generated content, physical editing and then regenerating, I was able to create a reference image that explored a sense of false identity and intimacy.

Firstly i used hotpot.ai, I asked it to generate a female clown doll with blonde hair sitting down. It generated these images which were a little creepy and horror clown which wasn’t the look I was after.

I then used a still from my work, For I am Blind Now, to generate a new image which I did enjoy.

I then used this generated image and a work by Keely Majewski (poi) to generate a new image which I then physically drew on to create something new.

I kept generating different works to find something I liked. I liked the metallic work but felt like I wanted the expression and face to still be “realistic”.

This was my final design which was a mixture of AI design and my own drawing to achieve an image that I was happy with. Having never played with AI before I found this process quite difficult as it often went other directions than what you wanted. It was unpredictable which is to be expected and I think this is a good thing in a way as it allows you to consider forms that you wouldn’t usually. The continuous editing of the ai generated images which were then regenerated online became a nice dialogue between me and the digital - allowing questions of identity and intimacy to become apparent

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Reading// Tactical Entanglements

Zeilinger, M. (2021). Tactical entanglements : AI art, creative agency, and the limits of intellectual property. Meson Press. https://doi.org/10.14619/1839

This reading explores AI in the art world and how it can on one hand be looked upon as a post humanist agent, assisting in new paradigms of thinking. But it is also rooted in socio-economic and political regimes. It explores the entanglement of AI art and artists, focusing on issues of authorship and copyright. It is a complex and highly contemporary issue that artists are attempting to explore. I am in the position of allowing AI to become an addition to one’s practice, an aid to achieve a certain perspective. Although the use of AI in my opinion changes the meaning behind the work and it becomes a comment on AI as a form of false identity and intimacy.

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Manon Thomson, For I Am Blind Now, I Do Not Wish To See, 2023

I decided that my video work, For I am Blind Now, contains stills that are effective within themself and I therefore wanted to include them as their own work. I decided to include four stills from the original video, in a grid-like pattern. The subject has different hairstyles in each image, some covering her face and other sticking into the air around. In some images she looks around the space as though she is dreaming whereas in others she stares directly at the audience. Her eyes are swirling as though she is blind, unable to see. Yet she looks content, as though she does not want to see what is around her regardless. Like in the work’s film state, it attempts to comment on identity as a facade and a role to play to please men. The work comments on the Madonna-Whore complex as a way to remain in a constant state of being desirable.

Despite being a part of a video work, the stills feel finalised and whole rather than a snippet of something larger. After a conversation with Dan I realised that when talking about this work I referred to the subject as “she” rather than “I”. Despite being a self portrait I did not view this character as myself and instead as an embodiment of patriarchal priorities. This links to feelings of dissociation that results from a continuous edit and manipulation of my own character - both psychological and physical. Even though this work was taken with the intention of being a video, she is posed so that with every screenshot she looks poised and positioned. This could be a result of the requirements placed on females to be “perfect”