Feminism and Interactivity... Chatroulette?

The selection of videos we watched last week was very broad. In method and aesthetic, they were all incredibly different. However, they were all, in some form or another, a critique of popular culture and media. All of the artists were working within their specific cultural context, as well as their place within the evolution of feminist theory.

Lynn Hershman’s piece that we watched for the class was primarily about posthumanism and cybernetics, but a lot her other work (especially Lorna and her performance as Roberta Breitmore) is purely about construction of identity in mass mediated culture. Joan Braderman’s Joan Does Dynasty seemed to be more of a video essay (think Los Angeles Plays Itself), but with superimposed images of Braderman reading aloud her critique of the television show Dynasty—directly addressing the show and the audience. Braderman’s critique was placed distinctly within a 1980s feminist analysis of a popular television show at the time. Anne Hirsch’s project was more similar to Hershman’s performances, except in a contemporary YouTube context. Ryan Trecartin’s pieces were excessive (and make me want to add “hyper-” to “postmodern,” because I can’t begin to understand them), but in their excessiveness critique our immediate contemporary cybernetic culture. Following the evolution of feminist theory to include and address issues of trans-(cultural/gender/national/etc.) identities.

While we were supposed to be talking about interactivity that week, we did not really get a chance to really participate in any sort of interactive works. (Unless you take the view that simply watching a video is interactive and participatory.) Some of the projects however, were very interactive in nature, even if the part that we saw was not interacting. Forrest talked about Anne Hirsch’s YouTube persona, and the depths to which she went with her project. While the project was based in video, it was entirely dependent on feedback from her viewers. Her audience commented on the pieces, requested specific songs, created videos and sent her images in response. This sort of interactivity is new and specific to our current Internet experience, and it makes me think of Chatroulette.

Chatroulette adds a new level of immediacy to the meeting of strangers on the Internet. It is entirely up to chance with whom you will be paired (more frequently than one would hope, it is some guy masturbating), and if you don’t like the looks of someone, you can click on to the next one immediately. While not intended as an art project, its dependency on chance provides its participants with a unique experience of the Internet. While you are actually meeting strangers, the anonymity creates for interactions that would never happen in real life, or even through such a medium as YouTube. Since YouTube videos are uploaded for the entire world to see, there is censorship, they are still anonymous but linked to your account. With Chatroulette, participants are completely anonymous, yet the experience is oddly personal. It is a one on one interaction with a person—and that, paired with they anonymity, for some reason that means people are comfortable being sexually explicit. While it would be a different sort of project, much more ephemeral than Hirsch’s YouTube persona, I think it would be really interesting to explore Chatroulette from an artistic perspective. Such as, say, projecting it into a gallery.