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INVISIBLE - 2020

Photography & Illustration

The programme started with a thorough literature review of research in the areas that I thought may shed some light on the following two questions: (1) What is the relationship between women, technology and fashion? And (2) How does technology impact women? Traits traditionally cited as feminine include gentleness, empathy, humility, and sensitivity (Kite, 2001), though traits associated with femininity vary across societies and individuals and are influenced by a variety of social and cultural factors (Burke and Stets, 2009). I have researched and studied gender studies, psychoanalytic theories, theories of fashion and bodies, and symbolic interactionism studies in the last two terms of my postgraduate study, which has paved the way for me to explore these themes in more detail on a master’s programme. Thus, I began with the research question and my research areas included feminist theories about science, Donna Haraway’s cyborg feminism, post-human feminism, neurophysiology, Zeki Semir’s neurasthenic, theories of technology and social theories and visual culture. 

As Haraway (1991) points out in Apes, Centaurs and Women: “tracing one vision of women’s “place” in the integrated circuit, touching only a few idealized social locations seen primarily from the point of view of advanced capitalist societies: Home, Market, Paid Work Place, State, School, Clinic-Hospital, and Church. Each of these idealized spaces is logically and practically implied in every other locus, perhaps analogous to a holographic photograph. However, there is no 'place' for women in these networks, only geometries of difference and contradiction crucial to women's cyborg identities.” This shows that women are invisible in the network environment. How can a woman find ways to read these webs of power and social life? They may have to learn new couplings and new coalitions. 

This project is divided into 9 parts and is illustrated by 9 subjects: transformation, time and space, data integration, confusion, cyber women, rebirth, moon, face and mask. The elements of the images display the features of technology and femininity and all images combine illustration and photography in an elegant, dreamlike and surreal style. The images use elements of myth and cyber to express women’s emotions, explore ecofeminism where by women are metaphorically and closely related nature, and cyberfeminism, where women are related to technology. 

The details of the images in “INVISIBLE” are as below:
Transformation: With the development of biotechnology and the transmission, integration, conduction and combination of DNA coding, the secrets of the human brain are gradually being discovered. The mechanics of the human brain are connected to the mechanics of technology, such as the encoding of a computer chip. This also represents the relationship between biology and machines in cyber feminism, and the creation of social reality or fictional creation and how women recode themselves in today’s era are questions that need to be considered. 
Time: Taking inspiration from Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, the book explores the origin and fate of the universe, time and space, our cognition of the past and future, and human beings' imagination and exploration beyond themselves. These ancient propositions hide the human desire to manipulate and control nature, which is related to the cultural control of nature (females) in ecofeminism. 
Data: On one hand, it is the tolerant stereotype given by traditional culture, on the other hand, it is how cyber women can have their own voice in post-human society. 
Confusion: All of us exist in a real and virtual world, which may cause us to ask what is real and natural, what is mechanical and network. The development of science and technology and the explosion of network knowledge and information confuse us as to the nature of the world. Sometimes we cannot even find our own position. But, as women, we still have the right to fight for our rights. 
Cyber women: As women, how we code ourselves in the network depends on our ability to use and identify technology. 
Rebirth: The development of science and technology gave birth modern capitalist society (Daniel and Steven, 2001, pp. 451-492). In the gendered social order before the emergence of classes, gender determined the division of labour. However, with the development of capitalism, division of labour became a hierarchical system. Whether the advent of technology has had a positive or negative impact on women, is, in a sense, a rebirth.
Moon:Spaceexplorationnotonlyprovidesamirrorforhumanbeing,butalsobrings us new technologies, new challenges and enterprising spirits, as well as an optimistic and confident attitude towards reality. I believe that what humans have learned from the universe fully demonstrates Albert Schweitzer's famous saying: "I look at the future with anxiety, but still full of hope."
Face:Inthenetwork,whichoneisyourappearance,andwhichoneisyourreality?
Mask: From the perspective of biotechnology and human cloning, what will technology bring us?


  

SPONSOR: ISLAND RECORDS

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