Theory - Mulvey's Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory directly links and applies to the perfume adverts I have been working with, as well as the majority of media we consume on a daily basis, from cinema to TV and as mentioned, adverts.

Mulvey argues that women are used and included in images, whether moving or still, for the sole purpose of being looked at and therefore desired by male viewers. They are thus controlled by the gaze, fulfilling gazer's voyueristic, sexual needs. The women become objects, their personalities and humility cast as irrelevant, the viewers subjects who dominate over the objects as a result.

In the adverts this idea is explicitly apparent. The women depicted are nothing more than sources of pleasure and objects of desire, to be looked at and lusted over and nothing more. Even though the products are for women, and the adverts exist to persuade a female audience to buy them, the pictures are still there to appeal to the male gaze. Scopophilia is the sexual pleasure from looking, voyeurism, and also acknowledges the pleasure of being looked at; the female audience is supposed to desire to become the women depicted in the adverts, so that they as a result become the objects of said male gaze.

Many have argued that we are so conditioned as a society and so frequently and constantly exposed to the male gaze concept that we rarely if ever notice it's existence or really consider it's implications. Often times we won't think twice about a sexy female form being shown on screen or on a billboard or in a magazine, we won't see it as anything out of the ordinary or inherently negative. I hope that by taking the images out of context, working into them with textures and rehashing them into other mediums and forms of visual imagery, an audience will be more aware of the male gaze and the nature of the images we so commonly consume. Even if my work isn't necessarily commenting directly on the concept or the imagery I am working with, I hope that it at least brings the images into the light out of the dark of familiarity and cultural and social conditioning.

Visual Journal - Textured Ladies

Combining my previous experiments with texture and line/shape, specifically in response to perfume adverts, I have found a slightly new aesthetic direction for my work.

I absolutely love these textured lady images, based off existing adverts, but subverting them into anonymous, slightly animated versions of the models depicted. I am aiming to keep a degree of elegance with these images, still taking them out of context but by using textures they almost become pieces of art rather than the raunchy and sexualised images they start as. For some reason they take on a different quality, one that is perhaps less objectifying and more respectful and appreciative...whether this is true or not I am unsure.

Again it is still about deconstructing the images we are force fed on a daily basis via advertising, seeing how their messages and interpretations change and alter with the context and the medium used to create them. 

Visual Journal - Failed Texture Experiments

Based off some of my artist research of textures, such as the work of Zes MSK, I wanted to try and explore textures within images of advertising and the people in them. So I headed into the city to collect photos of advertising to respond to.

Just as I was with my original line experiments, I wanted to try and incorporate overly happy and idealistic images that adverts often use, but that are quite dystopian and easily uneasy with how over the top and unrealistic they are. By using layering and gestural image making techniques I wanted to heighten this sense of eeriness. 

The outcome, although certainly dystopian, was horrific. I don't really know what went wrong with my drawing abilities this day, and trying to save it with more marks and layers evidently didn't work wonders. In this instance it is not the idea that was unsuccessful but the execution and image making, which is easily rectified by exploring other ways to present my ideas using layering and textures.

Visual Journal - Perfume Posters

Leading on from the ad slogan posters I made previously, I combined the perfume drawings and typography together to make some more posters.

Pairing the two really communicates the absurdity of the perfume names and the photos they usually exist next to. They are taken out of context when coupled with a drawing, but also the abstract and ambiguous nature of the drawing creates a strange almost dystopian feel to the images; faceless women with minimal features and just anatomical outlines.

Visual Journey - Posters

From my earlier textural and typographic work, I coupled them together to make posters; fake advertising selling nothing. There is an interesting discussion that exists regarding advertising being simply aesthetic instead of commercially functional. I was simply making posters that looked nice and commented on advertising yet served no further purpose as images.

Putting them up was a way of taking this idea and actually applying it, pushing it outside of the confines of the studio, something that I need to push more in my uni work. I don't know whether it particularly worked in this instance, due to the execution and process I used to actually stick them up. They are very DIY, 2 A4 sheets taped together which were then haphazardly taped up. It does show an interesting juxtaposition when compared to the polished, slick billboards we see daily and stands true to the DIY ethics, but in this case they may have been more effective had they exactly emulated real adverts. They also might have lasted longer...