目で触る: touch with your eyes
Hue Hale & Rebecca Flynn
A body belongs to the person who resides within it. However, when that body is placed in the public arena, its ownership can become destabilized. The gaze of most, if not all viewers, consciously or not, fetishizes and objectifies. False claims can be laid to the body of another, either through this process or by the machinations of more malignant individuals.
Touch With Your Eyes attempts to visualize this fetishization; the objectification and loss of clarity surrounding the photographed individual’s ownership of their body. It also examines the role of the viewer and the means by which they either passively or actively consume the image.
The octopus/squid imagery is inspired by traditional Japanese tentacle erotica. I wanted to use tentacles to visually represent the viewers who comment or send inappropriate messages (without being prompted) to people on social media about their bodies, thereby objectifying and fetishizing them without consent. The tentacles being put in virtually, as a 3D render, plays with the concept of hyperreality. Hyperreality is explained as an inability to distinguish between what’s reality and fiction. Social media is not true reality, but as it is more and more a part of our lives, the line between what’s real and what’s not has become blurred.
