Final Project IS2 – Visual Culture

Prototype (Updated on April 28th)

This is the record of my first attempting to transform from a female to a male through makeup in appearance. It’s kind of like a makeup tutorial, but it’s not, it’s just a record of the process. I did it as well as I could, this includes adding background music and filters to video, as well as doing subtitles and clips that I think are suitable for viewing. In Final Work, I will also show the process of changing from female to male in appearance, but more importantly, I will also show my inner transformation.

Brief Statement & Material Explanation

I will take myself as the research object, study and explore the concept and significance of gender queer and gender fluidity, and shape my own understanding of gender fluidity. I will create a video, and this video may be shot from two perspectives, one is my own first perspective, and the other is the third perspective of the people around me. This video records that I became a man in one day, from dressing in the morning, finishing my hair and makeup, to going to school, having dinner, talking with friends and so on, to coming home in the evening, undressing, finishing my hair and makeup and changing back into a woman. Most importantly, this video will be a true and complete record of my mindset and thoughts, as well as my exploration of gender queer and gender mobility in my appearance and soul. The reason why I decided to use video recording to complete this work is that video is the most intuitive and clear medium to show my state and experience. I would do the voices in the video so that the audience could intuitively understand my thoughts and mentality.

Feedback From Critique

What I heard in critique was how can I transform from a woman to a man, what did other artists’ works for exploring and challenging gender fluidity, and what experiences should I pay attention to show in the video. It was helpful because it made me more aware of what I should prepare for this video and what I should present. I also drew inspiration from the work of other artists.

On-Going Research

Since last week I have been studying how to transform from a woman to a man in terms of appearance, which is mainly how to make yourself look “masculine” through hairstyle, dressing, and makeup. I studied Ruby Rose, Cindy Sherman, and some artists on YouTube. In the next few weeks, I’ll focus on what my video should show and how it should show my ideas. I also need to prepare special equipment for shooting and find someone with professional knowledge to help me shoot.

Time Management Work Plan

Discuss with my professor on how to be more detailed in gender transition—15 min
Submodule detailed planning of video content—30min
Buy equipment and materials online—30min
Look for professional photographers—1hr~?

Changes on Final Work (Studio) (Updated May 1th)

I want to make it a two-channel video, and get rid of the third-person perspective, and make it a first-person vlog form, because I think two-channel video can best show the difference between my life as a man and a woman.

Feedback on Critique (Updated May 1th)

Because I didn’t have a finished product at the time of processing, I took what I’m going to do and the idea of my work and talked to them about it. They expressed their support for my approach and thought I should focus on showing my body movements, so I thought I would try to show my body movements in the final video.

On-going Research

Since last week I have been working on the design of the lens and have even drawn some storyboards for it. However, I found it difficult to realize my idea in practice, so I decided to record my life in the form of a vlog.

Process Photos: Storyboards

Time Management Work Plan

Discuss with my professor on how to make the two-channel video more immersive to watch—15 min
Submodule detailed planning of video content—30min
Look for professional photographers—1hr~?

 

Final Work (Updated on May 14th)

STUDIO

 

For my final work in Studio, I took myself as the research object, study and explore the concept and significance of gender queer and gender fluidity, and most importantly, explore my own understanding of my own gender.

 I created two video logs and combined them together into a 2-channel video. The reason why I decided to use video recording to complete this work is that video is the most intuitive and clear medium to show my state and experience. These two videos recorded my one day of being a female and a male, from dressing in the morning, finishing my hair and makeup, to going to school, and coming home in the evening, undressing, finishing my hair and makeup and going to bed. In these two channels, everything I do is the same or similar, but “I” as the subject is different. On the left side, I am female, while on the right side, I am male. This leads to different ways of doing things. Visually, I made different tone treatments for the left and right channels. The left side is warm and the right side is cool. It may be true that there are some gender “stereotypes” associated with this color treatment, but I think it’s a more visual representation of my different states as a man and a woman. For the background sound, I recorded the sound of my own breathing and processed it into a “masculine” and “feminine” sound. The two sounds are intertwined and confusing, creating an effect of separation and fusion.

SEMINAR

I studied different people’s understanding of gender fluidity and many gender fluid communities in different regions throughout the history, and studied many works inspired by these gender fluid groups by various artists, and how these works affected these communities and drew the attention of the public on gender fluidity.

I mainly focus on four artworks of four groups of people. The first one is the Coffin of the lady of the house from Ancient Egypt. They believed that it was men who created life and then gave it to women through intercourse, so women had to become men and then become women in the process of reborn. The existence of this work proves to modern people that the concept of gender fluidity has been around for a long time, and provides people with ideas from ancient people to study gender fluidity. The second work is about Sworn Virgins, which is a gender fluid community of women who live as men in Albania in the 15thcentury because they are the only heir to their family. The photographer, Jill Peters, took lots of photos of them from 2009 to 2013. These photos contributed to the growing awareness of gender equality specific to the Albanian community. A lot of women followed their own will to be Sworn Virgins even they were not the only heir to their family. The third work is called “Il Femminiello” created by Giuseppe Bonito about a  gender fluid community called Femminelllo in Naples, Italy in the 18thcentury. This group was with young men starting to wear women’s clothing from an early age. As the only portrait of Femminelli before they were photographed, this work clearly has a high value. It was noticed for its shocking depiction of a man in women’s clothing and began to be studied, as well as the life of Femminiello as depicted in the painting. The last one is a film made by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson about a gender fluid group called Mahu in Hawaii. They were a symbol of diversity, balance, wisdom, and protection in Hawaii’s local culture. But Māhūs’ community was repressed, ostracized and began to fade away as Europeans exported religious ideas and culture to Hawaii. This film had a tremendous impact. Over the years, more and more Māhūs and other transgender people have felt accepted by others, eliminated their inferiority complex and are proud of being transgender.

 

Process

STUDIO

Initially, I created a diptych using digital images. This work is called THIS IS ME. For the left side, I photographed my naked upper body. And for the right side, photoshopped my face on the face of a male model and he is as naked as me. You can easily distinguish male and female bodies. The reason why I did this is that I wanted to show my gender is composed of 50% male and 50% female. This is like a powerful slogan I want to say to my friends and family. Then recorded my first attempting to transform from a female to a male in appearance through makeup for the prototype. It’s kind of like a makeup tutorial on YouTube, but it’s not, it’s just a record of the process. There is a small problem here. In order to make this video more comfortable to watch, I added casual background music. If this is a makeup tutorial, it is fine. But as an “artwork”, background music can be a distraction, so Bryan suggested I get rid of it. So for my final video, I didn’t add such kind of music.

“THIS IS ME.”

“I Transformed From A Female to A Male Through Makeup”

Process Photos

The makeup supplies for the video.

The initial storyline for the video. Due to some limitations, I didn’t complete this. For my next step, I am going to create a complete storyline.

The women restroom I passed by when being a male.

SEMINAR

For Seminar, when I started searching artworks about gender fluidity on Google, I found that most of the works were created by contemporary artists, so I began to think, was there no such artwork before? With such doubts in mind, I began to focus on looking for works with ages, and actually found many time-honored gender fluid communities such as mahu in Hawaii, Famminiello in Italy and so on. And there are a lot of artworks about them, so my goal became researching works created by different artists of various gender fluid communities, and continuously drew the attention of the public.

Conclusion

STUDIO

To sum up my final work for Studio, I think the best part I have done is to use a two-channel video to show my idea which is the visual effect of my final work. If I need to improve in the future, I hope I can create a complete storyline and then make the video-log into a microfilm, and I can add my own narration about my mood and thinking, which may be more immersive.

SEMINAR

For Seminar, I really like the idea of exploring gender fluid communities that have a long history, so I will continuously study other gender fluid groups and gain a deeper understanding of the concept of gender fluidity.

Reflection on Visual Culture

Before taking this course, I had seen the word “visual culture” in many places, but I never thought about the meaning of the word. I think my previous understanding of “visual culture” is narrow, and I define the concept as the scope of solidified visual works such as posters, pictures, and photos, which are more inclined to pop culture. However, after studying this course especially Studio for several months, I gradually came to understand that visual culture is a very broad definition, including all visual things, but not only covering vision but also including other human senses (but mainly the visual part). And works in this field can also be kaleidoscopic, not just some planar works, but also three-dimensional, abstract and even intangible. In the Seminar class, we’re more writing. This made me think about the connection between words and vision. At first sight, words are not as strong as other visual works, but when people read the words, they can have a deeper understanding of the author’s thoughts, which is very wonderful. Therefore, I think sometimes when making visual work, adding text appropriately will have an unexpected effect.

 

Reflection on what I’ve learned

What I benefited most from this course was clearer and deeper understanding of my own sexual orientation and gender, which could not be separated from my research on the topic of gender in this whole semester. Before, I had been very ignorant about my sexual orientation and would subconsciously avoid things related to homosexuality. However, with the study of gender in Studio and Seminar and the encouragement from the professor, I really dug out my more real self. Maybe I would never have thought about gender without these two courses, so I really appreciate my professors’ inspiration for me. Now I can freely admit that I am a gender queer, gender fluid, and like people of any gender. I also learned how to create works about gender to inspire others to think about it. These two courses are about self-discovery, and I will probably never forget them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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