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Wednesday, August 11, 2004
photo: Julie Keefe from the Village Voice
I first heard about the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls from Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney (whom I met at Yoshitomo Nara's recent artist talk -- and who is super nice, btw), and now there's a great article in the Voice by Sharon Lerner. The camp is a one-week session for 8 - 18 year old girls who arrive at camp, form bands, learn/play instruments, and write their own songs to perform at a showcase at the end of the week. They also learn recording technologies, music rights management, and self-defense. I don't have much more to say about it except that it sounds like a great, great thing! I get all teary just thinking about it.
4:35 PM
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Friday, August 06, 2004
Latter-day Pygmalions rejoice. The rest of the world has the Olympics and you have: Miss Digital World, the first beauty contest for "virtual" women, i.e., those created with 3D modeling software. Like Lara Croft, and an idiotic army of online customer service reps, these "women" are creations of, you guessed it, the male imagination. Why bother with all the messy details of real, live women when you can whip up your own fantasy girl. She's not even subject to the laws of gravity (as some of the less skillfully rendered "contestants" can substantiate).
I can hardly think of anything more stupid...and yet, strangely alluring. I looked through all 7 pages of entrants, some with multiple photos -- close-ups, full-length shots, front, back, swimwear, evening wear, military dress...ahem. And while most are predictably button-nosed and buxom, there were some refreshingly un-characteristic "beauties" in the mix. But whether these anomalies were due to variations in taste or technical skill is difficult to determine. For example, cross-eyed girls are plentiful, from which I gather not that this is some new trend in hotties, but that the "gaze" of a virtual figure might be a challenging thing to control.
The feminist critique of this endeavor goes without saying, of course, and is much the same as that commonly leveled at real, live beauty pageants: women paraded around like pieces of meat, valued only for their exterior appearance and the degree to which that appearance conforms to dominant definitions of beauty. But frankly, on one level, those women are no more "real" than their new, virtual compatriots.
What's even more disturbing about the virtual women is that they are (or could be) utterly pure figments of imagination/desire. Womanhood completely dissociated from anything physical, biological, or indeed earthly. The Greek myths were obviously authored by men or they would hardly have let Pygmalion get away with marrying his perfect, sculpted woman, Galatea, without some dire repercussion for flouting the laws of nature (anxiety over female reproductive powers, anyone?). Then again, perhaps the myth is an exhortation to stay true to one's ideals. From that angle, given the diverse spectrum of desire, I was disappointed that there weren't more "different" looking women -- total fantasy creations. Most of the entrants adhere to a fairly narrow spectrum of attractiveness -- natural coloring, conventional (often boring!) clothing, and not a tail, scale or extra appendage to be seen. So much for freedom of imagination. (Granted, the competition positions itself as a showcase for the next virtual "superstar," i.e., for video game characters, newscasters, etc. Apparently the world isn't ready for the news delivered by even a conventional-looking, blue-toned beauty like X-Men's Mystique.)
Most of the Miss Digital World contestants are eerily realistic, but there's always something -- the awkward curve of an elbow, a bulging shoulder falling out of perspective, a shadow that's just a little too deep and hard -- to jolt you out of reverie. It's the fakeness of the images (my favorite theme) rather than their chilly reality that is so intriguing. They flicker on that line between reality and illusion, exposing the mechanics of simulation.
Of course the line between reality and fiction has hardly mattered when it comes to desire. Remember Kyoko Date? A creation of the Japanese company HoriPro, Inc., she was a virtual pop star, complete with her own CD and effusive, fawning fan mail.
2:37 PM
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Tuesday, August 03, 2004
I was on the radio for the first time today, as an "art critic" on KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny. I participated in a discussion on "The Intersection of Contemporary Art and Street Culture" centered around two local exhibits: "Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and "Nothing Ever Happens: Yoshitomo Nara" at the San Jose Museum of Art. I was just as surprised as you probably are. I was nervous as hell and ended up stumbling through some of my points, but it was actually kind of fun.
Also check out my article on Nara in The Metro.
4:11 PM
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