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Art2200 Project 1 Proposal

 

For my slow video, I will have three shots. All three will be filmed using a tripod. The first shot will be a long shot showing me holding a bucket of water over my head and beginning to tip the bucket forward. The next shot will be a close up of the water going down over my face and running my makeup. The third shot will be slightly pulled back and I will take a cloth and wipe the runny makeup from my face. I plan to keep my facial expression as neutral as possible. For sound, I will record some running water and have it taper off as the video ends.

For my fast video, I will set up a camera on a tripod facing my bathroom mirror and speed up the footage of me applying dramatic makeup. I will use the original sound, sped up with the video and pitch-corrected.

 

Makeup is a highly gendered practice and an important part of many people’s self expression and gender presentation. It is also something that is pushed on women in a way that has turned it from an option to an obligation. As a very young person, I liked to experiment and play around with makeup in the same way that I liked to draw on myself (and my young friends) with markers and decorate objects with stickers. When I was a little older, around 10 and 11, though, makeup became just another one of the gendered expectations that were being forced on me and I strongly rejected the practice.

As a Queer adult now, though, secure in my identity, I have rejected those gendered expectations to the point that I feel rather freed from them. I have begun to experiment with makeup again and occasional makeup is now a part of my gender presentation.

These videos in tandem are exploring how identity can be expressed through gender presentation and makeup, and also how presentation can be shifted/ “wiped away.” By presenting the slow “removal” video before the fast “application” video, in reverse of the expected order, I am calling back to that childhood rejection of the practice as well as celebrating the joy I have found in makeup as an adult.

Sontag Cotext- The Disasters of War

One of the works highlighted in Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others (and, indeed, featured on the cover of most of the editions of the book) is a series of etchings by Francisco Goya, entitled Los desastres de la guerra or The Disasters of War. The Disasters of War is a series of 81 prints, reflecting on the horror’s Goya witnessed during the Spanish revolutionary war against the French and the following years of famine (Bouvier. 2011). The Disasters of War wasn’t published until 35 years after Goya’s death- 55 years after the war itself had started (Tomlinson, 1989).

Etching is a process in which grooves are carved into metal, either with a tool or acid compound. The metal plate is then inked and wiped, so ink only remains in the grooves, before being pressed to paper. This process is not all that different from how photographic prints would eventually be produced, just manual, with a piece of metal, the artist’s eyes, and a scratching tool.

Goya’s etchings from The Disasters of War are very small- ranging from 5.6 × 6.6 in to 6.4 × 10.2 in (Connell, 2004). Connell cites material shortages, but I recall my printmaking teacher telling us that another reason for their small size was to make them easier to conceal, as their material was too critical of the reinstated French powers to be published.

The images in The Disasters of War deeply evocative- they are beautiful in their rendering, but horrific in their content, which depicts rape, the mutilated corpses of soldier and civilian alike, and people wasting away from starvation. The image that features on the cover of Regarding the Pain of Others is plate number 36, entitled [translated from Spanish] “Not [in this case] either.” I recommend you view the whole series here, but another plate that has stood out to me since I took printmaking in high school is plate 64, “Cartload to the cemetery.”

 

Bouvier, P. (2011). ‘Yo lo vi’. Goya witnessing the disasters of war: an appeal to the sentiment of humanity. International Review of the Red Cross, 93(884), 1107–1133. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1017/S1816383112000379

Connell, E. (2004) Francisco Goya: A Life. Counterpoint, 2004. ISBN 1-58243-307-0

Tomlinson, J. A., Goya, F., & Wallach Art Gallery. (1989). Graphic evolutions: The print series of francisco goya. New York: Columbia University Press.