Re-mapping the curve of the young female figure; feminist media art practice, in the age of digital transformation by Sophie Hedderwick

This practice research project (re) imagines the young female body and the transformation of adolescence; using the curve as an expanded motif, conceived in relational, figurative, temporal and geometric terms. I reflect on how the adolescent body is (re) presented differently by digital technologies, through the prism of feminist post-human philosophy. I explore how new media can (re) imagine the pubescent body in its polymorphous becoming using multimedia time displacement techniques and immersive technologies. Through multimedia technologies - photography, film, animation and 3D - I explore the female figure from an eco feminist perspective. I aim to emancipate the young female figure from a patriarchal representation and linear trajectory to one that looks both backwards and forwards to a possible future, a feminist space (Kristeva. 1981); using a feminist praxis to examine the possibilities of a non-linear arc of transformation. Through a series of iterative experimental digital artworks I (re)imagine the young female figure in terms of relational movement (Manning. 2009) and the post-human notion of becoming woman (Braidotti. 2016). I explore how the adolescent girl/woman moves in relation to the environment and others, using immersive digital technologies that privilege a sensory encounter.

Inspired by Foucault’s description of the movement of the corporeal gaze when analysing Velasquez’ Las Meninas(1646) as an “imperceptible dance” (1986)this video essay expands the notion of this invisible dance as a figurative/geometric movement, in relation to the teenage figure.

This video essay maps the iterative 3D viewing experiences of my photogrammetry/laser scans of sculptural body parts,young dancer aged 14.Beginning with my initial 3D projections in the Data Arena, UTS (2017) it maps my journey towards using VR and immersive encounters.

In conversaation with Manning's theory of the (un)archive as "that which catches the surplus of the event" (Manning 2019) this video essay attempts to capture the sensory experience using visuals, text and sound overlaid.

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Imperceptible Dance

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