Claude Cahun, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, was a surrealist, photographer, sculptor and activist. She is best known for her gender fluidity in art and her anti-Nazi resistance. She was from Nantes and was born into a provincial Jewish family. From an early age, Cahun struggled with her gender identity and in the early 1920s, she adopted the first name Claude because it could be a man or a woman.
Cahun combined several elements of surrealism, including reflections and doubling. A common theme in her work was the subversion of society’s expectations of women. Even in photographs where Cahun appears more traditionally feminine, she adds elements such as cropped hair to defy expectations of beauty.
One of my favourite images of Cahun’s is “Self Portrait of a Young Girl”. It depicts her lying in bed, looking quite sickly, hair spread out around her, reminiscent of Medusa’s. Most observers note that the tone and appearance are not appealing, many depictions of women on a bed in fine art are eroticized and Cahun’s point of view is a stark contrast to this. Cahun herself has said that the image reflects her mental health struggles after her mother fell ill and had to be committed to a mental hospital.
Cahun was friends with many Surrealist artists and writers and André Breton once called her “one of the most curious spirits of our time.” While many male Surrealists depicted women as objects of male desire, Cahun staged images of herself that challenge the idea of the politics of gender. Cahun was championing the idea of gender fluidity way before the hashtags of today. She was exploring her identity, not defining it.
In 2017, Gillian Wearing opened an exhibition in the Nation Portrait Gallery, this showed her recreating multiple of Cahun’s images using makeup and prosthetics, for example, her most famous recreation is of Cahun’s image “I am in training, don’t kiss me”. During this exhibition, Wearing often referenced what Cahun famously said “Under this mask, another mask. I will never finish removing all these faces.,” this reference is very much shown in the image “Me as Cahun holding a mask of my face” where she is recreating the image made by Cahun I have previously mentioned however with her own twist to it in which she is dressed as Cahun in the image, but she is holding a mask of her own face.
On the left it shows the original image made by Cahun and on the right it shows Wearing’s recreation.
Nancy Honey (born 1948) is a UK-based American documentary and portrait photographer. Her work focuses on the lives of women, autobiographical, collaborative and documentary. She has been photographing for more than 40 years and has studied fine art, graphic design and photography in the United States and the United Kingdom. She has received many awards and commissions for her widely publicised work.
Nancy Honey’s personal work is just that – personal. Made over nearly 40 years, her images draw on her own experiences to consider topics such as motherhood, sexuality, power, and ageing. But though they’re framed by her biography, her projects look outwards, depicting and recording everyone from schoolgirls to businesswomen, infants to the elderly, models and bus passengers.
Her works
Woman to Woman
“In this body of work I set out to define and separate the various strands that make up my sense of my own femininity. How does sexuality manifest itself in me and what is the difference between what I feel and the ubiquitous stereotypical mass cultural images that surround me? How conditioned are my responses?” – Honey on the project
It consists of 22 colour triptychs.
Honey uses this quote from John Berger’s academic work to describe the project:
“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself, whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.”— Ways of Seeing, John Berger, 1972
“This is a large collection of pictures I made with my daughter, Daisy over many years. I became fascinated with photographing her as I emerged as a photographic artist. She and I did it together and it was something I greatly enjoyed.” -Honey on this project
“I continued to make pictures of Daisy over many years and included her in every project I could. My son, Jesse, declared that making pictures together was boring early on and therefore I made far less which included him.
The project, which was never a formal one, just kept evolving. She was very good natured and patient and rarely refused.”
“During 2012-2014, I endeavoured to photograph 100 of Britain’s most respected women over the age of 55; from academics to entrepreneurs, fashion designers to composers. The Leading Ladies all share one thing in common; they are leading figures in their fields and have defied gender stereotypes.”
“I invited each woman to select a place of inspiration for their portrait setting, affording the viewer further insight into the lives, personalities and character of these admirable women.”
The photos were first exhibited at Somerset House, London in 2014. The exhibition toured the UK for 2 years afterwards.
I think this image represents the female gaze very well, even if the image is of a nude woman, it is taken in a way to show the natural beauty of the woman, not the idealistic view that can be seen in the male gaze. The natural light coming into the room really enforces the natural view of the female gaze
I plan to explore Masculinity, Androgyny and Femininity using the male and female gazes.
Why does it matter to you?
I personally experiment with gender all the time, as I am fluid within my gender and I feel as though it could be fun to represent my thought process within gender through photography whilst using other people.
How do you wish to develop your project?
As I said, I experiment with gender and would like to represent this using different people dressed in a “masculine” or “feminine” manner. I have a group of friends who would be willing to dress up and wear makeup to be part of this project.
When and where do you intend to begin your study?
Most of my shoots will be in a studio, as it’s a controlled condition and I want the people to feel comfortable during the shoot no matter what, my main concern in the sense of the people is making sure that they feel like they can express themselves and have fun while doing it.
Throughout the years, many photographers have experimented with gender in their work and in this project I will only be using a couple of them to help me develop my outcomes. Not only will I be delving into Masculinity & Femininity but also going against typical gender stereotypes that have been around for many years, especially if it was acceptable to do certain things in the past that are now unacceptable or frowned upon by a large group of people.
Using the key work OBSERVE, I will use the male and female gazes to view (observe) each gender from each gaze. Gaze has become a familiar term to describe a particular way of looking at, perceiving and understanding the world, in my project, I will be looking into the voyeuristic gaze which describes how men view women and women view men. I think it will be interesting to see how each gender view both the other and their own in the eyes of everyone else.
In reference to SEEK, I will be asking the people to photograph images of the other people in the group to explore and look for (seek) how they view the genders and gender stereotypes. I will enjoy seeing how everyone views how certain genders should present themselves and show the diversity of ideas in young people.
The final word CHALLENGE will be the most experimental, I would like to delve into gender stereotypes and go against (challenge) them, for example, have someone who would be perceived as “feminine” dress in a “masculine” manner and vice versa. This could be a great opportunity to experiment and have fun with this project as experimenting with gender should be fun.
Overall, I would like my project to be a way to experiment and have fun with gender while also using the voyeuristic gaze to present these images. This project while being fun, will reflect my own view on my gender and gender stereotypes, making this something I feel quite passionate about.
To understand the difference between the female and male gaze, it is important to look at how both are viewed in society.
The male gaze focuses more on the power that is held within the gaze, rather than the degradation of a woman. Objectification comes more from the viewers rather than the initial male gaze we see. The male gaze is represented more so by the power which is held in his look, leaning more towards the ego that is taking place in the man. This idea is that he is looking at a woman; in his mind, she is already his. The male gaze and objectification both share the similarity of high egos being involved, meaning that they are degrading women to get themselves higher. When looking at the male gaze, it becomes quite clear that this is the lens cinema has been casting for decades. “The man controls the film phantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense”. There is this stereotypical viewpoint on women that cannot be escaped by the male gaze, which I also see as the gaze of society.
After understanding the male gaze, it is appropriate to believe the female gaze is quite opposite of that. It is a way of speaking and listening, rather than the action and chaos that fills a screen. As well as, looking through the lens of both desire and detail that take place in a women’s cinema. Allowing there to be this connection to desire, but in a way that isn’t just purely sexual. I also think that the female gaze can be viewed in a few different ways. The female gaze is how women view themselves. That there is finally this ability to look in, rather than just the reflection of how society has wanted to see us. There is also the definition of the world being viewed from a female gaze, meaning more feminine without the purpose of benefiting men. I do believe the two definitions I have named also tend to intertwine with each other.
The gaze, as a visual act, generates modes of power, domination, and control. It has the ability to categorize people, generate feelings of shame, and assert one’s superiority. The gaze of the superior and privileged person, specifically directed toward oppressed and less privileged groups of people, is one type of the manifestation of power and control.
The camera lens is another demonstration of a powerful gaze, referred to as the photographic gaze, simulating the gaze of the naked eye. Indeed, the former could even be more powerful than the gaze of the naked eye due to photographic permanence. Susan Sontag in On Photography notes that “photographs are a neat slice of time, not a flow” (17). It is the stillness of a photograph that gives it power and makes it more effective than television broadcasting or film. Photography, then, has the ability to capture in “still time” the expression of oppressed subjects as the camera gazes at them.
John Berger’s In Ways Of Seeing
In Ways of Seeing, a highly influential book based on a BBC television series, John Berger observed that ‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome – men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ (Berger 1972, 45, 47).
Writing in 1972, Berger insisted that women were still ‘depicted in a different way to men – because the “ideal” spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him’ (ibid., 64). In 1996 Jib Fowles still felt able to insist that ‘in advertising males gaze, and females are gazed at’ (Fowles 1996, 204). And Paul Messaris notes that female models in ads addressed to women ‘treat the lens as a substitute for the eye of an imaginary male onlooker,’ adding that ‘it could be argued that when women look at these ads, they are actually seeing themselves as a man might see them’ (Messaris 1997, 41). We may note that within this dominant representational tradition the spectator is typically assumed not simply to be male but also to be heterosexual, over the age of puberty and often also white.
a person who watches or notices something.’to a casual observer, he was at peace’.
a person who follows events closely and comments publicly on them. ;some observers expect interest rates to rise’.
a person posted in an official capacity to an area to monitor political or military events ‘elections scrutinized by international observers.’
SYNONYMS: spectator, onlooker, watcher, voyeur, looker on, fly on the wall, viewer, witness, eyewitness, bystander, sightseer, commentator, reporter, blogger, monitor.
SEEK
VERB
attempt to find (something):’they came here to seek shelter from biting winter winds’ :SIMILAR: look for, be on the lookout for, search for, try to find, look about for
attempt or desire to obtain or achieve (something): ‘the new regime sought his extradition’. ‘her parents had never sought to interfere with her freedom’ SIMILAR: pursue, go after, go for, tr, attempt, endeavour, strive.
ask for (something) from someone: ‘he sought help from the police’. SIMILAR: ask for, request solicit, call on, invite, entre, beg for
(SEEK SOMEONE/SOMETHING OUT)
CHALLENGE
To call to someone to participate in a competitive situation or fight to decide who is superior in terms of ability or strength. SIMILAR: dare, provocation, summons
a call to prove or justify something ‘a challenge to the legality of the banning order’. SIMILAR: opposition, defiance, ultimatum, confrontation with.
VERB
invite (someone) to engage in a contest. SIMILAR: dare, summon, invite, bid, throw down the gauntlet, to defy someone to do something.
dispute the truth or validity of: ‘it is possible to challenge the reports assumptions’ SIMILAR: question, take exception to, confront, dispute, take issue with.
I will be photographing bubbles like the ones in Kawauchi’s work. I will also possibly explore photographing some ordinary objects and scenes like the other artists I looked at.
Where?
At home, perhaps also in surrounding area for some plant related images.
When?
In daytime for outdoor images (especially with good sunlight) and any time for indoor images.
How?
I will be using a tripod to take these images as I will be using a small aperture and large shutter speed which will increase camera shake. I may even choose to use a flash at some point.
My intent for this project is to focus on the strategies and tactics behind games such as chess, checkers, cards etc. I will be photographing both people playing the games as well as the actual pieces themselves in addition to taking images that represent my artists references while sticking to my theme of games. My reason behind this idea of games is that it links into the theme of observe seek and challenge since we observe our opponents, the pieces and the game itself all while seeking to win and beat our opposition. The challenge is the game itself, coming up with strategies and tactics to best the person we are playing against.
When presenting my study I plan to create both a photo book as well as prints that I will manually edit. The main aesthetic that I plan to go for is contrasted black and white photos, while also having some of my images in colour but keeping the tones muted. This way, my images will all fit together when producing my photo book or prints as they will have a consistent theme while also remaining interesting to the viewer as it will cause them to focus more on the details in the photograph. In order to accomplish this I will be using Light room classic as well as Photoshop if need be to edit my images.
Godfrey Reggio is an American film director, while he has made many movies the one that stands out the most and the one he is most known for is his movie, “Koyaanisqatsi”. Which is a documentary movie made in 1982 and is an hour long observation of the man-made world that features no commentary or words, only simplistic music to go in the background. It makes heavy use of time-lapse, jump cuts, multi exposure, freeze frames, match cuts, split screens and slow-motion shots of several cities in America. The movie took inspiration from other movies such as “Man with a Movie Camera” – (1929 by Dziga Vertov) which also used the same cinematic techniques, believed to be the first time in cinematic history.
More on the meaning and the details of the movie, The title “Koyaanisqatsi” means “life out of balance” in Hopi. Additionally, The reason for the lack of dialogue was explained by Reggio, when he said “it’s not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It’s because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live.”
This movie is not the only one of it’s kind, it is actually the first entry in the “Qatsi film trilogy” – It was followed by two more movies, Powaqqatsi (1988), which means “Life in Transformation”, and Naqoyqatsi (2002), which means “life as war”. The trilogy is supposed to depict the relationship of nature, humans and technology. In the future, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, aesthetically, or historically significant”.
Trailer for Koyaanisqatsi.
A drone video documenting the aftermath of “Storm Ciaran” in Jersey, could be inspiration.
Personal Response
I want to make a film project on the Storm Ciaran aftermath too, I can visit places in Jersey that are still damaged/being repaired and document each site into a non-commentary movie. With fitting music in the background. Another choice I can take is documenting St. Helier in a more similar fashion to the movie, with the same type of music in the background. Things I could have in the movie could be time-lapse footage of the busy roads like Victoria ave., time-lapse footage of the sun setting or rising, rainy days, busy streets full of people etc.. Another thing I can experiment with is setting up a camera pointing at me sitting on a bench sitting still, then having time-lapse of people walking past, almost to make it look like I’m literally observing everyday life. A certain music genre I have in mind is synthwave, to bring out the more abstract and unusualness of life – to make it more interesting.
The camera lens is another demonstration of a powerful gaze, referred to as the photographic gaze, simulating the gaze of the naked eye. Indeed, the former could even be more powerful than the gaze of the naked eye due to photographic permanence.
The act of photographing people involves a process of observation, scrutiny and looking. Sometimes the gaze is returned, and sometimes it is rejected. The power of the gaze can create complex relationships between the subject, the photographer and the audience.The camera lens is another demonstration of a powerful gaze, referred to as the photographic gaze, simulating the gaze of the naked eye.
The gaze, as a visual act, generates modes of power, domination, and control. It has the ability to categorize people, generate feelings of shame, and assert one’s superiority. Susan Sontag in On Photographyaddresses that “photographs are a neat slice of time, not a flow” (17). The stillness of a photograph provides it’s power and makes it more effective than television broadcasting or film. Photography, then, has the ability to capture in “still time” the expression of oppressed subjects as the camera gazes at them.
JOHN BERGER – WAYS OF SEEING:
In Ways of Seeing, an influential book based on a BBC television series, John Berger observed that ‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome – men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ (Berger 1972, 45, 47). Berger argues that in European art from the Renaissance onwards women were depicted as being ‘aware of being seen by a [male] spectator.’ Ways of Seeing is based on the 1972 BBC series and comprised of 7 essays, 3 of which are entirely pictorial, Ways of Seeing is a seminal work which examines how we view art.
Berger adds that at least from the seventeenth century, paintings of female nudes reflected the woman’s submission to ‘the owner of both woman and painting’. However it can still be argued even through woman’s feminist movements, women are still being viewed sexually and through and objective manner through the male gaze.
‘A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others. By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her.’
The juxtaposition in the quote located in Berger’s bool ‘Ways of Seeing’ presents the contrast between gender stereotypes. The man is shown to be more in power and control, whereas the woman is described as dainty and submissive. This quotation shows the past and present view of the gender stereotypes which can also be supported by Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory where women are sexualised for the male gratification.
FORMS OF GAZE:
the spectator’s gaze: the gaze of the viewer at an image of a person (or animal, or object) in the text;
the intra-diegetic gaze: a gaze of one depicted person at another (or at an animal or an object) within the world of the text (typically depicted in filmic and televisual media by a subjective ‘point-of-view shot’);
the direct [or extra-diegetic] address to the viewer: the gaze of a person (or quasi-human being) depicted in the text looking ‘out of the frame’ as if at the viewer, with associated gestures and postures (in some genres, direct address is studiously avoided);
the look of the camera – the way that the camera itself appears to look at the people (or animals or objects) depicted; less metaphorically, the gaze of the film-maker or photographer.
LESS MENTIONED FORMS OF GAZE:
the gaze of a bystander – outside the world of the text, the gaze of another individual in the viewer’s social world catching the latter in the act of viewing – this can be highly charged, e.g. where the text is erotic (Willemen 1992);
the averted gaze – a depicted person’s noticeable avoidance of the gaze of another, or of the camera lens or artist (and thus of the viewer) – this may involve looking up, looking down or looking away (Dyer 1982);
the gaze of an audience within the text – certain kinds of popular televisual texts (such as game shows) often include shots of an audience watching those performing in the ‘text within a text’;
the editorial gaze – ‘the whole institutional process by which some portion of the photographer’s gaze is chosen for use and emphasis’ (Lutz & Collins 1994, 368)
MOODBOARD:
THE MALE GAZE AND HYPERFEMININITY:
WHAT IS THE MALE GAZE?
The male gaze is a feminist theory that states that cinema narratives and portrayals of women in cinema are constructed in an objectifying and limiting manner to satisfy the psychological desires of men, and more broadly, of patriarchal society.
The term was popularized, fifty years ago, by the British film theorist Laura Mulvey. Mulvey wrote, in 1973 an essay called “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” of how the “male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly.”Mulvey sought to break the conventions and exposing the cinematic conventions in stereotyping women by reinforcing the patriarchal fantasy.Mulvey also notes that Freud had referred to (infantile) scopophilia – the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects. In the darkness of the cinema auditorium it is notable that one may look without being seen either by those on screen by other members of the audience. Furthermore, Mulvey argues that various features of cinema viewing conditions facilitate for the viewer both in the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ seen on the screen.
‘An idea of woman stands as lynch pin to the system: it is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies’ Mulvey presents this idea that a women’s body its one for the male pleasure, which confirms this idea of the male gaze. Women are exposed highly objectified, and sexualised in order to please the patriarchal society that women are seen as a submissive accessory for men. Furthermore, this idea of highly sexualised women, alludes to the idea of hyper-femininity that highlights the way women are viewed by the male gaze, and how they should present themselves in society.
MY INTENTION FOR THE EXAM PROJECT THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHIC GAZE:
For my exam project through the theme, Observe, Seek, and Challenge I plan on studying and photographing females through the male gaze and exploring the idea of hyper femininity. This reinforces the photographic theme of ‘gaze‘ as Laura Mulvey states the ‘structures ways of seeing and pleasure in looking’ which enforces the concept of men gazing at women. In order for this project to fit with the exam requirement’s I will be focusing on the male gaze, and how men have a sexualised view of women which can be seen through the artist Cindy Sherman. In one of Sherman’s photography projects she emphasises the idea of sexualising women for the male society and she interprets this by exaggerating the beauty standards through the hyper-realistic makeup. However, through her interpretation you can argue that she is challenging the beauty standards by taking imagery of the hyper-real makeup by creating the unexpected and forming it into art. The makeup she presents in her photographs challenges the incredibly high beauty standards in the patriarchal society, which could also work for the exam theme ‘challenge’. However in another project she firmly focuses on reinforcing the stereotypical view of women, which could be a protest of the stereotypical views of women.
Cindy Sherman reveals how dressing up in character began as a kind of performance and evolved into her earliest photographic series such as “Bus Riders” (1976), “Untitled Film Stills” (1977-1980), and the untitled rear screen projections (1980)
