Writing Machine, March 22

Past Work - What / Why / How

In my last work I engaged with a classical photographic genre: the nude. I was annoyed by the single sided view which is typically a man turning a woman or a gay man tuning another man into an image. So basically the nude is a manifestation of a male gaze and fantasy. I felt left out in this. So I used my own fantasy as a motor and created nude images with men. I looked for athletic male models, set up colourful and bright backgrounds and let them pose for me. I don't show any genitals but concentrated on their butt. I made them take strange positions and they seem to be very aware of the camera. All in all these are very staged photographs. I present them with a fold in the middle so they become more of an object. I call them centerfolds, referring to the center spreads in magazines that usually show naked women.

What issues was the work addressing

My motivation was the lack of female desire in images on the body. The female body serves male artists as a canvas to show their great abilities and make their fantasies come true. I could hardly find any work where women expressed their fantasies / desires. I feel this a big underestimated lack in (visual) art (and actually not only art but culture as a whole), that I find addressed to little. I feel not represented and I want to change that.

[Irma: Are you focusing on what you find attractive? Or is your goal to address other women, who are attracted to men, as your "target market"]

Paula: I don't think about what other women may find attractive at all. I focus on my own ideas. It's not necessarily about what I find attractive, it was about me trying to find a language to address the topic of the male nude from a different angle that had been done before.

What is the relation to previous work

The works build up on each other. Also in the work before I worked from my motivation of desrie. Also this work was about the power and direction of the gaze but my focus within the work shifted.

What is the relation to a larger context

I feel connectd to queer feminism. Even though I don't want to label my work as feminist work [why not?], it's definitely queer feminist ideas that inform my work. Also I'm influenced by Michel Foucault and how he is questioning leading posttions of knowledge and history. Taking a queer look at art history, the male desire in the female form peaks in the genre of the nude. Also I examine gay photography and put my work into contrast.

Is there specific texts / media that influence you

The work of Michel Foucault for example "on sexuality & truth", Judith Butlers "Gender Trouble" and cultural critic Elisabeth Bronfen's texts influenced me. I also read a lot of text about queering art history which influenced me a lot. Of course Queer Theory in general informs my work a lot. I working on establishing a queer method of working for myself.

Current Work - What / Why /How

In my current work I take images from the internet and modify them. It's images from Beauty Queens at their crowning moments. I zoom in and blow up their faces larger than life-size. I move away from the image on the wall and go towards an installation in space. Bz using found footage taken from the net / screen and leaving in the artefacts, I also engage with the idea of how these images reach us. I'm deconstructing the notion of beauty by concentrating on the very moment the Beauty Queens don't look beautiful in a common sense at all. The frantic emotions turn into the opposite: joy becomes horror. This is also a comment on political developments.

[Irma: Maybe explain how it comments on political developments]

Paula: I feel that Beauty Pageants are a very American institution. Trump himself has owned Miss Universe for two decades. He likes to publicly surround and present himself with Beauty Queens. I like the fact that in this work the expression of extreme joy turns grotesque. For me these women seem to scream "get me out of this". They seem to foreshadow something bad.

How is the current work similar to the last project?

Both works are a photographic series with a repeating pattern. Each images has about the same cropping and shows a variation on the other images in the series.

[Irma: Is there a conceptual relationship?]

Paula: For the centerfolds it makes sense because centerfolds as magazine spreads are collectable items of pretty much the same size - the spread of a magazine. As for the Beauty Queens the repetition of heads creates confronting mass in which the individual is pretty much interchangeable. Actually in both cases the individual is interchangeable.

How does the current work differ from the last project?

The current work uses found footage as its source material. It's also more of an installation in the room. Within the images there are emotions depicted which is new in my work that usually has an analytical gaze. This work is not about photographic quality, the artefacts of the low res images are welcomed.

[Fabian: Isn't it still an analytical gaze?]

Paula: Well, I don't know about that. I'm not really analysing anything with these images as I did before (posture, lighting, references). I'm collecting them and combine them to state an argument.

Who can help and how?

A person who can help me with the idea of sound. Should I incorporate the sound and if yes how?

[Fabian: You presented it at Eye without sound in the end, are you considering it again?]

Paula: Yes, I'm considering it. I would be interested what people think about it.

Provisional Timetable

Finish Prototypes for framing in April. Set up an installation and photograph it April/May. Promote the work from now on to find a place to show it.

Where can it lead?

I would love to engage more with installations. To bring images into the room, not only as photographs on the wall. I would also love to include other media such as video, sound and writing. I want strong room filling installations, engaging with the materiality in a playful manner.

[Fabian: What do you mean with strong room filling? In size or in impact? And with "materiality" are you talking about photographs?]

Paula: I mean impact. I'm a bit fed up with framed images on the wall that you can only look at and walk past. I would love to create a setting that you can experience in a sense. That could be a video projected on a hanging fabric accompanied by a sound piece with headphones and photographs projected maybe on a translucent glass hanging in the room. Or have a projection on smoke. Something playful.

Future Work

What could it be and what form could it take?

It could also on some level engage with questions of desire & sexuality. It could be photographs as well as videos and sound. It could be a big installation circulating around one topic. Not trying to give answers but draw the viewer in on a broad level. Combining media would be great!

[Fabian: Do you already know in what direction this will be?]

Paula: I've done fragments of different things. I've been filming my mom, I've been reading the first collection of sexual fantasies of women from the 70s and have one sent in to be read by a professional as a voice over. I've been filming myself saying one sentence everyday that starts with the words "I REFUSE TO..." and I've done some creative writing. I still have the video of the shaking boobs. Maybe I could take this material as a starting point to try out different modes of presentation.

What could be a specific form and why?

I would like to use different media to touch different senses of the viewer.

Who are your allies / buddies?

Definitely the queer community, queer feminists and cultural critics. Lotte, Sara, Tanja.