Project proposal
What do you want to make?
Working title: (sur)face
In the first year of Piet Zwart I have been looking at LGBT related topics. I mostly did so from a personal subjective perspective in photography, and by looking into queer cinema. In the presentation of the second term I made clear that I wanted to be make a statement with my work, be more political. As feedback the tutors told me I already make a statement in the work that I make.
Ideally, as a graduation proposal, I would to continue with the three lines of thought I’ve been working on in the first year. The photographic medium in itself (and the methodology of the ‘table’ not the tableau’) , making the (gay) cinematic language my own combined with CGI and LGBT issues/identity.
As an end result I would like to bring these three things together, though it might still be loose entities. I think It could be interesting to work towards an installation through curation of the material I will gather.
One of the actualities that caught my fascination is the study “Deep Neural Networks (DNN) can detect sexual orientation from faces” by Yilun Wang and Michael Kosinski. It claims that faces contain information about sexual orientation and that AI can interpreted this better than humans. An Artificial Intelligence Gaydar so to say.
According to the study gay men and women tend to have gender-atypical facial morphology, expression and growing style. This corresponds with the idea of PHT (prenatal hormone theory).
This theory asserts the following:
“(…)same-gender sexual orientation stems from the underexposure of male fetuses and overexposure of female fetuses to prenatal androgens responsible for the sexual differentiation of faces, preferences and behavior” (Wang, Kosinski, page 30).”
Several questions arise from this assertion. Such as:
Heat map produced to see which parts of the face provides information about a subject's sexuality
(Stanford University, Kosinski and Wang)
At this stage the research remains very incomplete and has a lot of ‘what if’s’. The theory could even be wrong, but I am more interested in the possibilities or perhaps the dangers/dread in these technologies for the LGBT community. There is for example a possibility of a dystopian future; if in the wrong hands, state sponsored homophobia/transphobia could be further implemented through technology.
With this information, I would like to propose a video, not directly showing people’s faces being scanned (the example below might be is too obvious I think) but related to the surface of one’s identity or about the surface in general (this I think relates to photography as a medium aswell). I imagine a short film with overlapping footage (my own and found footage). Where fiction is blended with actualities related to the above mentioned. I will look at queer cinema and its representation and also will try to involve people from my ‘bubble’, for example friends, acquaintances and other people from the community. They will be ask to perform, pose or talk in my work.
sketch one to illustrate 
sketch two to illustrate
How do you plan to make it?
What is your timetable?
Practice:
Medio December: have first materials as a rough sketch for installation (or whatever the end result will be)
Weekly schedule untill at least December:
At least one day a week: creating images (still and/or moving)
One day a week: arranging/producing
Two days a week: theory/reading/research
One day: working to pay the bills
Weekend for or catching up in case there are other obligations during the week, working to pay the bills, or free.
Theory Deadlines:
10-11-17 Thesis outline (what form will it take?)
24-11-17 Graduate Proposal Deadline:
12-01-18 Deadline First Chapter
16-02-18: Deadline First Draft Thesis
05-03-18: Joint2: Deadline Second Draft thesis (texts to 2nd readers)
12-03-18: Deadlines Second readers' comments
05-04-17: DEADLINE THESIS
Why do you want to make it?
I feel the urgency to react to current developments in homophobia. I still do not understand the fear of the 'other'. I think we should celebrate diversity.
Who can help you and how?
| Michal Kosinski || assistant professor @ Stanford University, maker of the study about how DNN can detect someone's sexual preference |
| Jordi | styling / make-up /performing
| Thijs, Dino, Ting, Zu and others | as performers/actors/models |
| Ting, Karim | clothing/styling |
| Classmates | assistance with filming, questions and feedback
|
| Tutors | feedback, postproduction, thesis, texts and artists to research |
Relation to previous practice
This project is a continuation of what I have been working on in year one at the Piet Zwart institute.
For the text on methods for the last trimester click here: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Text_on_methods
Video:
Photography:
So I will keep researching queer cinema and photography as a medium. The only difference is that I want to add topicality (is that a word?) on top of this so it becomes more layered. I will also still think about subjects as objectivity vs. subjectivity, desire, collecting the world, seeing, observing, making analogies, contradictions, gay identity, truth, the occult and also atheism.
Relation to a larger context (from text on methods)
A) Photography as a medium
Artist Wolfgang Tillmans greatly influences me in the way of thinking about the photographic medium in itself, but also about the presentation of my own work. He creates site-specific installations where images are interchangeable and have no hierarchy. The seemingly arbitrary images of his immediate surroundings are powerful yet intimate. We also share an urgency to react to matters like Brexit and LGBTQI issues (I still have to choose in which direction I will take that).
B) Rituals and the occult
As far as rituals and the occult are concerned I’ve been looking at how filmmaker Kenneth Anger incorporates elements of the occult in his films. I have also read about the controversial figure Aleister Crowley, who founded the Thelema religion and was a major influence on Anger’s vision of the occult. Interestingly, after reading about Crowley and the practice of so called “Magick”, I often seem to notice see references and signs in artworks I encounter (latest example being the work of Philip Guston at le Gallerie dell’ Accademia in Venice). I would like to expand on this subject matter by for example reading the book Sud e Magia (1959) written by anthropologist Ernesto de Martino. The book consist in a study of ceremonial magic and witchcraft in southern Italy. In this book “De Martino is not interested in the question of whether magic is rational or irrational but rather in why it came to be perceived as a problem of knowledge.” (https://haubooks.org/magic-a-theory-from-the-south/)
C) Queer Cinema and LGBTQI issues
Most artist that influence me are gay or queer. Besides Wolfgang Tillmans and Kenneth Anger mentioned above, I enjoy or can relate to the work of Greg Araki, Derek Jarman, Brucelabruce, Sergei Parajanov (who is not queer or gay, but I consider the work The Colors of Pommegranates slightly homoerotic), together with Alejandro Jodorovski (not gay or queer either), Matt Lambert and Alexandre Haelefi.
References
The preprint paper: https://osf.io/zn79k/
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a33xb4/a-frightening-ai-can-determine-a-persons-sexuality-with-91-accuracy?utm_source=mbfb
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/09/hrc-glaad-release-silly-statement-gay-face-study/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/07/new-artificial-intelligence-can-tell-whether-youre-gay-or-straight-from-a-photograph
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ai-gay-faces-facial-recognition-study-claims-artificial-intelligence-a7936851.html
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21728614-machines-read-faces-are-coming-advances-ai-are-used-spot-signs
Jenkinson, J. (1997), Face facts: A history of physiognomy from ancient Mesopotamia to the end of the 19th century. The Journal biocommunication 24
Daston, L. and Galison, P. (2007), Objectivity, The MIT Press
http://www.aliciafrankovich.com/
http://jeremyshaw.net/