Project Report: Media, art and gender

The project Media, art and gender consisted of three parts: lectures, workshop and exhibition. Each of these parts will be presented separately in this report. This text tells about the points of departure, the process of our work and the results of it. It recollects both the difficulties and the benefits of such project. It is about the satisfaction of joint work.

1. PRESENTATIONS
Danica Minic

1. Post socialist media: Gender and Representing the Nation

The first lecture started with the introduction to different models of communication within media studies. The older, transmission model has been replaced by constructivist model of communication. Instead of the idea of media representation as a reflection of reality, media are now seen as reconstructing reality at the same time while representing it.
The main body of the lecture was focused at the subject of `Gender and Representing the Nation`, situated within the context of post socialism. The following issues were discussed:
I Postsocialism and gender identity
II Representing the nation - a woman: 1.Mother homeland -nation as pure, natural and united 2. Pictorial representations of nation by a female figure 3. Women as cultural symbols - tradition and modernization
III Representing the nation - a man: a political portrait
The lecture was followed by extensive visual material that exemplified the presented thesis. Visual examples of this subject were mainly taken from Serbian media context (TV clips, press photos, paintings etc), but were accompanied by the parallel of art and iconography history.

2. Gender, Advertising and Culture Jamming

The second lecture started with the introduction to the issues of gender and advertising. The focus of this introduction was the commercialization of women`s bodies as accompanying phenomena of postsocialist transitions to market relations. Photos of billboards in Belgrade were presented and discussed in this part.
The main subject of this lecture was the Culture Jamming, the umbrella - term for the number of art/activist groups in USA, from 70ies up to now. Based in the critical theory of media within the consumer society, culture jammers show the inspiring model for symbolic alternative to media mainstream. They pose the questions of access to the information and colonization of public mind for commercial purposes. Their art strategies of intervening, manipulating and recycling the media material point to the `radical politics of visual literacy`(Umberto Ecco) useful for the methods of this workshop. The following art groups were presented: Adbusters, Guerrilla Girls, Billboard Liberation Front, ®TMark.

3. Eastern European Art Focused on Gender:
Private/Political Body
De/Contexts/Contrasts

The fist part of this presentation discussed the works of Eastern European artists that deal with the relations between the symbolic notions of gender and material existence of body. The following artists were presented: Zdena Koleckova (Czech Republic), Jindra Vikova (Czech Republic), Sanja Ivekovic (Croatia), Alicja Zebrowska (Poland), Katarzina Kozyra (Poland), Silvia Lazarova (Bulgaria), Jelica Radovanovic (Serbia). The contrast of illness, imperfections of physical body to idealized bodies of media imagery, as well as influence that media has on our body postures and gender specific behavior were the subject of some of these works. Some others explored the body as powerful bearer of socio-political symbols, playing on gendered body and signs of Nazism, victory, and religion.
The second part of this presentation focused at works that deconstruct mainstream models of gender by the principle of decontextualization. Artists such as: Sanja Ivekovic, Jelena Radic (Serbia), Alla Georgieva (Bulgaria) and Vlasta Delimar (Croatia) were presented in this part. Putting skillfully together contrasted contexts such as - advertising and anti fascist activism, embroidery and pornography etc, they point to the exclusions and conflicts produced by dominant gender models.

4. Eastern European Art Focused on Gender:
Applying the Role, Parody of Stereotypes

The last presentation pointed to the works that investigate gender by using the tools of hyperbole, parody, self-objectification etc. These artists were presented: Jelica Radovanovic, Milica Tomic (Serbia), Tanja Ostojic (Serbia/Germany), Maja Rakocevic (Serbia), Rassim Krastev (Bulgaria), Adelina Popnedeleva (Bulgaria), Boriana Dragoeva (Bulgaria), Daniela Kostova (Bulgaria), Silvia Lazarova (Bulgaria) and Alla Georgieva.
Assuming the role of a woman as a symbol of the nation or the prostitute/angel pair...of romantic couples, body builders and folk singers, some of these artists deconstruct notions of femininity, masculinity by objectifying themselves as too perfect models of gender. Other compare their personal experience to media ideals or use the media imagery of gender to communicate the opposite meanings.

GUEST PRESENTATION:

Smaranda Vultur: Photography of women in Timisoara at the beginning of XX century

Starting from the modernist notions of femininity and beauty and Timisoara archive of photographs, Smaranda Vultur analyzes the signification of gender, class and national identities of the women in those photos. She discusses the common body postures of Timisoara women in the photos at that time, which repeat the image of a woman as an actress, as well as the fashion of the folk dresses as a reference to nationality or symbolization of a certain jewelry as a sign of bourgeois identity. Her presentation and the archive photos as the part of the exhibition "Media, art and gender", provide a useful historical background for the issues of visual representations and constructions of gender.

2. WORKSHOP

The main idea of the workshop, as the part of `Media, art and gender` project, was to offer to artists a chaotic amount of gender images (taken from different magazines) as their working material and investigate the possibilities of their reorganization into art works on the subject of gender. Individual or joint work done within the workshop resulted in different attachments to such working material. They range from personal experience related to these images or discovery of visual patterns of mass media gender representations, to drawing the parallel to art history. According to different approaches of the artists, the process of the workshop had following directions:

work in space: reorganization of media material
These activities resulted in the grouping of media material according to the visual patterns of gender images or media patterns in general. Looking through this material made it possible to discover the patterns that were repeating such as: the image of a doubled face of a woman (doubled in mirror or without it), the image of a woman with half covered face, the fragmentation of the body, the before & after pattern of beauty narratives etc. Apart from these topic specific patterns, other groups of media material were made: romantic couples, logos on the bodies, women - men, colorist or close - ups groups and titles of these magazines were rearranged into experimental texts… Practical work with this material provided an experience as the basis for learning on media patterns.

private/public - personal experience
Some of the participants related their personal or everyday experience to the magazine images found on the walls of H.arta space. The juxtaposition of their private photos and stories to the sexism of tabloids and advertising or to tellenovellas as a conventionally women`s genre, opened a space for intimacy as the attitude to the public scenery of gender.

art/history parallel
The archive photography of Timisoara women in the beginning of XX century provided the workshop from its start with the art/historical background. However, the participants made other relations of that kind during the workshop. The books from their private collections served as a point of departure for discovering the similar visual patterns in representing the women`s bodies a century ago and in today's fashion photography. The result of this comparison showed that what was once considered as a pornographic body posture has entered into a common fashion imagery.

media, art and gender spaces - toilet, alternative gallery, street, room
The process of the workshop developed in a space sensitive way. Throughout the workshop appeared the issues of topology of gender, art, intimacy or public sphere. Some of these notions pointed to the material conditions related to gender or art. Cleaning the toilet as a usual and unpaid women's work or the material conditions in the alternative art space such as H.arta (such as listening to the workers drills during the presentations) pointed to the existential costs that are produced by social inequality or to difficulties that often accompany the alternative choices. As some of the art works deal with these issues, this space sensitive approach will be the part of the exhibition too.

dissemination - discussions, exchanges, reader
A collateral benefit of the workshop was the exchange of information, articles, CD-s on Serbian and Romanian art scene or on contemporary art in general. These information gifts happen to be essential in the countries where traveling isn't that easy for financial or visa reasons. They are also a good start for developing an art network of your own and such a network is necessary for cooperation on the longer-term basis. Printing the Reader with the selected texts on `media, art and gender` issues was of the same importance in the situation where the libraries do not offer a sufficient choice of contemporary editions.

special note: changing the plan
Characteristic for this workshop process or maybe for the workshops in general was that it developed in its own way, which was different then the program planned it. As coordinators of the project we didn't intend to have some rigid attitude concerning the plan and the actual process, but a change in a plan that happened at the beginning of the workshop seemed just too disruptive to us. The whole situation was about the artwork that participants from Serbia insisted on performing it the first day, where some other participants were waiting at H.arta to start the work as it was planned in the program. It was a problematic situation because on one hand there was an authentic motivation of some participants to produce an artwork for this project and on the other hand it was a huge organizational stress because their decision could have the consequences of loosing one day of work with other group of participants. Eventually, this situation resolved well, having the work of the first group and ideas for the workshop that came out of discussion with the second group. The next day, this experience opened a discussion on some issues concerning artwork:
- individual and group work - do our educational systems teach us to be competitive and not to work in groups,
- what is the point where the defined subject or the media of the art workshop becomes a limitation for the artists,
- what is it with the issue of artist's reaction - how much is it a myth of artist as a rebel and in what part changing the plan is something art specific.

This way the educational part of the project was interactive. It wasn't all the time the smooth one, but it certainly brought the experience that can be applied in the projects to come.

3. EXHIBITION

The exhibition will include individual and joint works produced in groups of participants, participants and coordinators, coordinators and authors…arranged together with documentary about the whole process and photos from Timisoara archive…In the exhibition all of these workshop categories turn into participant category.

Their names are:

Gordana Belic, Belgrade
Maja Bekan, Trebinje/Belgrade
Aura Balanescu, Timisoara
Gabi Cosma, Arad/Timisoara
Maria Crista, Timisoara
Anca Gyemant, Timisoara
Ioana Eremias, Arad/Timisoara
Tanja Markovic, Belgrade
Danica Minic, Belgrade
Rares Moldovan, Arad/Timisoara
Alin Neagu, Timisoara
Marija Pavlovic, Belgrade
Mihaela Petric, Timisoara
Gabrijel Savic, Belgrade
Rodica Tache, Timisoara
Raluca Voinea, Bucharest
Smaranda Vultur - Fundatia A Treia Europa - Timisoara

The exhibition is loosely structured into following groups of works, according to different approaches to media, art and gender:

- Cut&Paste -

- Private/Public -

- Material # conditions -

- Archive -

- Docummentation

This is how artists interpreted these issues:

Cut&Paste
rearrange, find patterns, relate, intervene…

----- Gabi Cosma ------
Title: Nato beauty honey style
The artist has used different magazine titles as a working material to compose experimental texts/visual poems/verbal collages. Intentional or random links between their fonts, colors and meanings produce cynical points on this media dictionary of gender or just enter the noise in such communication channel.

-------- Group work ----------
Anca Gyemant, Rodica Tache, Danica Minic, Maria Crista, Raluca Voinea, Gabrijel Savic
Title: Patterns
Magazine images are installed according to the media patterns they employ in representing women, men, body, sexuality, beauty etc. They are grouped as:
Double faces
Covered faces
Fragmented body
Before&After

------ Ioana Eremias ----------
Title: Frivol
The artists will juxtapose similar body postures of women in erotic art or pornography from the beginning of XX century and in today`s fashion photography. The work plays on similarity and difference: similar body postures of women are contrasted by the visually obvious time gap or the genre change that followed these body postures in time.

------ Rares Moldovan --------
Title: Interventions
Using glossy women`s magazines as a paper for his drawings the artist performs the basic action of intervening marker, spray or paint familiar to children, graffiti specialist, political activist or maybe to everyone.

Private/Public
intimacy with screen…

------ Raluca Voinea ----------
Title: Libertatea ID
Starting from her everyday experience of the journey to and from the work in the Museum and the sexist imagery that intrudes her view for that time, the artist relates her different identities - as a young woman, art historian, curator, person living in Bucharest to the the media environment her view is subjected to.

------- Danica Minic ----------
Title: Kasandra & Municipality
The author displays her private archive of media products concerning gender that bare some personal significance to her in different ways. The personal statements that relate these images to the author's sister, mother or herself, follow them.

---------- Ioanna Eremias --------
Title: Top miss
The artist has made a selection of top 10 beauties out of the given media material. She will perform the competition among them asking people to vote for the Miss. The winner of this competition will be printed on the T-shirt and the artist will wear it at the opening. All three parts of this work - candidates, voting and the winner T-shirt, will be exhibited together.

----------- Group work --------
EVERYBODY
Title: I wanna live with common people…
Getting out of gallery to the city space… searching for corresponding gender images in the streets of Timisoara and taking photographs of them…comparing common people to magazine people…photographing body collages made of ours and magazine body parts…our bodies as live billboards for advertising slogans…displaying all these flesh-image hybrids…back in the gallery space.

--------- Group work --------
Anca Gyemant, Rodica Tache, Maria Crista, Danica Minic
Title: Coordinators of the project
This is a separate part of the previous joint work. The work displays the portraits of four coordinators of the project "Media, art and gender" with the smile of a woman from the magazine. To present themselves to the audience coordinators of this project borrow her perfect skin, good lipstick and heavy pearls.

Material # conditions
destiny in toilets and drills?

-------- Group work --------
Gordana Belic, Maja Bekan, Tanja Markovic, Marija Pavlovic, Gabrijel Savic
Title: Consumption, toilet, leisure
The work is a photo record of the artists` performance of actions that are usually women's work or associated with them. Pointing to women as consumers, unpaid labour force or beauty & romance& food related, the photo session starts with time for consumption, then leads to time for work and ends with leisure time. Artists` purchase of articles such as food, detergent, make up and fashion magazines continues through the cleaning of toilet and ends with eating chips, reading Vogue, putting make up on.
This timeline is repeated by its installation in H.arta space that situates the photos in the space before, in and after the actual toilet, offering the intimate toilet experience of art about gender. The idea for the work on material conditions, which are produced by social inequality of sexes, has its origins in the material conditions that have accompanied this workshop in alternative art space such as H.arta: the artists had a problem with their accommodation in the Student Dormitory and they really wanted to clean that toilet! Cleaning as a usual and unpaid women's work is this way related to the material conditions of alternative art events pointing to the existential gender costs or to the difficulties that often accompany the alternative (art) no/choices.

-------- Rares Moldovan -------
Title: Parasites
The artist exterminates different kinds of junk found in the space, such as - faces cut off in the course of someone else`s work and leftover from the renovation works done in the space at that time - by transforming it into dozens of objects/creatures/parasites that just continue to mingle around the space as a junk with personality.

------ Aura Balanescu ------
Title: Image package
The artist has installed her choice of advertising images as a huge package on the table that is wrapped into plastic folia we usually put food into. Images are served for consumption pointing to the objectification of the body as commodity.

Archive
historical background…

Fundatia Treia Europa, Smaranda Vultur
Installation of archive photos: Rodica Tache
Photos of Timisoara people in the beginning of XX century - women posing as actresses, families in the picnics, mothers with their children…all provide a visual contrast and historical overview of the notions of femininity and masculinity.

Docummentation
information dissemination…

--------- Alin Neagu --------
Title: Workshop Record
The video material that was recorded during the workshop is now in the faze of editing and will be also presented to the audience within the course of exhibition.

--------- Group work ---------
Anca Gyemant, Rodica Tache, Danica Minic, Maria Crista
Title: Double workshop
At the same time of media, art and gender workshop, we actually had another workshop going on in the same building. The workers were doing some renovations. Having the sound of drills as a background for the presentations wasn't a real inspiration, but we got some beautiful photos of these double workshop…workers arranging the windows… looking at…workers arranging the images…The photos documenting the process of our workshop will be arranged together with the photos of their work. We both put the same effort in our work and we were each other's audience for that time.

------- Danica Minic --------
Title: Media, art and gender READER
It is a selection of texts as the introduction to: feminist media studies, culture jamming as art/activist movement, relations of gender to national identity and Eastern European art that deals with gender.

--------- Group work ------------
EVERYBODY
Title: Miscellaneous: discussions, exchanges
Different materials (catalogues, CDs…) that participants have presented to each other during the workshop will be displayed as its relevant part.