#the visual gestures and sequences to articulate them are so cool..!! i like it!!!

[wizardmarriage]

also picked up some ultrama.n nexus recently \o/ it's very interesting, but it's kind of funny watching while following arc's broadcast

[paige-s-pages]

15 Feminist Artists Respond To The Censorship Of Women’s Bodies Online

“n March, artist and poet Rupi Kaur uploaded an image to Instagram, depicting Kaur curled up on the bed in sweats and a t-shirt. She’s also on her period, and the blood has dripped through her pants onto the sheets. The image was flagged and removed from Instagram — twice.”

thank you Instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique. you deleted my photo twice...

Posted by Rupi Kaur on Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Kaur responded to the act of censorship on Facebook and Tumblr; her posts on both of these platforms were shared over 11,000 times. “Their patriarchy is leaking. Their misogyny is leaking. We will not be censored,” she wrote. Instagram eventually responded, explaining the image was “accidentally removed” — twice.

The incident speaks to a larger issue, the way women’s bodies are sexualized and silenced, shaved and shamed by the mainstream media. We reached out to a group of feminist artists we admire, all of whom use their work to address in some way this so-called “feminine grotesque” — the conversion of the female body into something monstrous, abnormal, obscene. The artists graciously shared their responses to Kaur’s image, and the wider problems surrounding women’s bodies online.

Below, 14 other artists respond to the way women’s bodies are still judged and muffled in 2015:

1. Ellie Hunter

“It’s interesting that Kuar’s image would ‘violate’ Instagram’s terms and conditions, when women and women’s bodies are violated on social media thousands of times every day.”

Ruin Aesthetic, 2014, 60 x 28 x 12 inches, Cement, steel rod, tulle, fabric, and natural dye

“The online world is constantly morphing and updating, and creating new systems of power along the way. While it’s positive that Kuar was able to rally enough activists for Instagram to restore her photo, it’s so typical of Instagram’s hetero-fascist technocracy to sidestep the issue with the excuse that it’s removal was a mistake. I’m interested in work that’s exploring the so called ‘feminine grotesque’ as it addresses everyday, low-level anxiety I feel about my inherent attributes as a human woman, despite my constant efforts to counteract this shame. For me, exposing these tensions is a dual gesture of intimacy and of aggression or activism.”

2. Katya Grokhovsky

“There is a clear message here: cover it up, erase it, shut up, be pretty and clean, don’t show us you are a human woman. In fact, we prefer you were a hairless, ageless, oh-so-cool-sexy, tiny, easily-manipulated, shiny machine-object, not a visceral, bleeding, odor-and-noise-and-fluids-producing, food-needing, bathroom-going, valuable, capable, ambitious, smart, emotion-and pain-feeling, gloriously human being.”

Katya Grokhovsky, One Fine Day, 2014, photo Yan Gi Cheng

“The issue of censorship of women’s bodies in general makes me VERY ANGRY. Bear with me, as I clear my thoughts, whilst scampering around the block, amidst the smoke fumes spattering out of my scorching volcano of fury, quickly filling up my breathing space. The persistent, relentless, frightening removal of the reality of women’s bodies by the media and society at large is simply another tool of misogynistic oppression. Thank you for your work, Rupi Kaur. This is important, and we need to consistently bring this problem to light. Ruthlessly. Please excuse me, as I lie down, due to another volatile bout of extreme, nauseating patriarchy fatigue. “

3. Marilyn Minter

“The culture industry creates these impossible robotic ideals through Photoshopping and editing the human body. I think what Rupi Kaur and others are doing is really kind of a punk rebellion against these images, and it’s about time.”

“I think the work of Rupi Kaur and Petra Collins, as well as anyone else who’s work is involved in the feminine grotesque, is a backlash to the cultural ideal that is perpetuated on women, especially young women. The culture industry creates these impossible robotic ideals through Photoshopping and editing the human body. I think what Rupi Kaur and others are doing is really kind of a punk rebellion against these images, and it’s about time. This type of work is an important counterweight to the images we’re inundated with every day.”

4. Rhiannon Schneiderman

“Why is everyone still so terrified of vaginas?”

“I’ve always loved period-themed photographs. I just love having that mutual understanding with another woman of ‘holy shit, my body does this, we are superior!’ To have that connection with the earth, that natural rhythm — that’s a pretty big fucking deal. These women, like Rupi Kaur, are recognizing that cycle and how important it is and how powerful they are for experiencing it. For Instagram to remove those images is over the effing top — I’ve seen blood before, I’ve definitely seen it on Instagram. How can you censor blood? Because the implication is that it fell out of someone’s vagina? Really?? Then maybe you should censor newborn babies, too. Why is everyone still so terrified of vaginas? I hope Rupi fights this, because it’s bullshit. And if she needs help, give her my contact info.”

5. Rebecca Morgan

“I think the larger scope of the problem comes with the long held taboos of women’s bodies and menstruation, seeing them as something dirty we should hide or be ashamed of. The problem is a societal one.”

Show Off, 2014 Ink on vellum 12.75” x 11”

“There is a lot of creative freedom for women artists within our often insular art world; some of the most challenging and interesting work that is being made on both large and small scale is being made by women artists, some even using the language of femininity, craft, gender roles and subverting and reclaiming it. It’s a powerful and exciting thing to see. [...] It is when images like Rupi and Prabh Kaur’s reach the masses that the subjugating and stigmatizing of women is so glaringly obvious and discouraging. The photographs serve as examples reminding women that they have a voice, a vision and a mark to leave, as well as a reminder that they have nowhere to leave it, and no ears to listen. The more that images like Rupi Kaur’s cross over with social and mainstream media and the more this conversation is articulated publicly, the more normalized and de-stigmatized the female body will hopefully be.”

6. Carolee Schneemann

“Many cultures have envied or demonized this bleeding, which is not of an injury, but rather embodies the power of maternity.”

Blood Work Diary (Detail), 1972 Menstrual Blottings on Tissue, Five 29x23” Panels. Photo by Anthony McCall. Courtesy of the Artist.

“‘Blood Work Diary’ [seen above] was a 1972 sequence of menstrual blottings which established the structural form of a fluid physiological process. Through their repetition I developed a visual continuum which charted the permutation of this bleeding over time. Menstruation is often subject to overflow, noting the commonality of menstrual occurrence, women would tell each other, ‘Once again, I’ve just left my mark!’ Many cultures have envied or demonized this bleeding, which is not of an injury, but rather embodies the power of maternity. Profound taboos sustain traditions of cultural revulsion, which attempt to make women’s biology the site of shame.”

7. Melanie Bonajo

“Perhaps I have become lost in a world so technologically advanced and impersonal that, without me noticing, we reached the point where nobody is born naked anymore.”

“As [I am] so often censored, flagged and deleted after showing a naked female body — which for me speaks of nothing more then trust and innocence, humor, play — the only thing I can add for now is: We are taught there is nothing more normal to watch than executions which look like they are produced by Hollywood’s best production teams without blinking an eye, while at the same time we need to be protected from the sight of a nipple, because such a thing can shock us so greatly we might end up on the psychiatric couch. All this just raises one question to me. Perhaps I have become lost in a world so technologically advanced and impersonal that, without me noticing, we reached the point where nobody is born naked anymore.”

8. Audrey Wollen

“I think there is something very powerful about being labeled monstrous. Perhaps an alternative feminist strategy might be to reframe Instagram’s censorship as a positive thing — because it reveals the point at which we exceed the limits of the status quo.”

“I think the censorship of certain parts of women’s bodies [...] is complicated, because our initial reaction is to insist on the ‘naturalness’ of those parts, to insist on our own normalcy. We end up begging to be assimilated. But I think there is something very powerful about being labeled monstrous. Perhaps an alternative feminist strategy might be to reframe Instagram’s censorship as a positive thing — because it reveals the point at which we exceed the limits of the status quo. Instagram (and other social media) is an inherently normalizing, policing force and our exclusion from that is a sign that the female body still has the ability to horrify, to disrupt. Our very existence, in its unedited, embodied form, is threatening, and I think that is something to revel in, rather than resist.”

9. Zhu Tian

“I think my work says better than I.”

Babe’, 2013, Rubber, human hair, pigment

10. Lessa Millet

“People need to keep speaking up about their Facebooks being shut down, or their images being flagged, to encourage others to ask questions about who is deciding what is ‘offensive,’ and inspire conversations about how that reflects on our society.”

“Both women and art have been censored for centuries. But now, because of the internet — and the fact that we have access to multiple channels of communication where we can share our thoughts — we are able to bring attention to who is censoring us and what is being censored. People need to keep speaking up about their Facebooks being shut down, or their images being flagged, to encourage others to ask questions about who is deciding what is ‘offensive,’ and inspire conversations about how that reflects on our society. To me, one of the fundamental functions of art is precisely that: starting conversations, asking challenging questions, and helping us understand the society and moment we live in. I don’t think censorship is going to disappear, but neither are people going to stop fighting it and standing up for our freedom of expression.”

11. Kenya (Robinson) — as CHEEKY LaSHAE

“That’s how you can tell someone is a feminine. Period. Oh, and birthing a baby, who, not coincidentally, also has a powder named after them, an honor that is shared with foot.”

CHEEKY LaSHAE + The Red Bath Mat, Performance at Mike Shultis Studio, Photo by: Jackson Ray Petty, 2014

“I suppose CHEEKY should be up in box about the Instagram reaction to period blood poetics. CHEEKY prefers to turn the focus on itself — reminiscing about its own menarche — which actually looked like melted chocolate in the crotch of its pantydraws. Having mistaken those first cramps for diarrhea, made for a temporarily confusing discovery. Fortunately, Mama LaSHAE had prepared young CHEEKY with a toolbox of all things menstruation –- tampons, flightless pads, ibuprofen, vaginal (b)itch cream, disposable douches, moist towelettes, newspaper (for disposal) and, of course, feminine powder — because CHEEKY was most certainly a feminine now. ‘Cause of the period. That’s how you can tell someone is a feminine. Period. Oh, and birthing a baby, who, not coincidentally, also has a powder named after them, an honor that is shared with foot.”

12. Casey Jenkins

“The reality is that no one censors dominant cultures, no one censors the most powerful and prevalent points of view — they’re the ones who censorship panders to and minorities and those less powerful just have to cop it while having their own expressions silenced.”

“In theory I’m all for people having the choice to either view or avoid viewing whatever they choose. A whole plethora of things might be triggering and traumatic for people and giving advance notice about the nature of content about to be viewed seems to be a considerate and humane thing to do. There are certainly days when I would rather be prepared before having the visages of either of the leaders of the major political parties in my country slapped in my face, or endless reports about male-dominated sports, all of which I find offensive and depressing. The reality is though that no one censors dominant cultures, no one censors the most powerful and prevalent points of view — they’re the ones who censorship panders to and minorities and those less powerful just have to cop it while having their own expressions silenced.

“All of this just perpetuates and strengthens the positions of already powerful cultural norms. Recently the news report of my ‘Casting Off My Womb’ performance work, posted to YouTube by TV station SBS2 as ‘Vaginal Knitting’, had restrictions around it tightened and it’s now available for viewing only to those 18 years or older (this is after almost 6.5 million views though so it’s probably fair to say that ship has sailed). Most other news reports about the piece had big ‘Warning!’ banners plastered across them also and I’d be curious to hear exactly what it was that self-appointed censors considered so potentially harmful about the piece — the fleeting shot of my pubic hair? The stain of my menstrual blood? [...] When artwork is wrapped in a censorship banner people gear themselves up for horror and tend to see what they’re primed to, rather than what it actually there.”

13. Jenny Sharaf

“Politics aside, this is pretty good marketing on Rupi Kaur’s part. People aren’t usually writing about poems and period art in the breaking news category.”

14. Doreen Garner

“The idea of feminine and grotesque in the negative sense existing as a combined term encourages us to despise biological truths regarding physical progress into womanhood which includes pubic hair, stains, menstrual blood, secretions, and other pungent qualities.”

The Observatory, 2014, Video, Hour Performance inside Glass Box

“Originally, grotesque as a 15th century term is a style of elaborate curves and decorative elements of paintings found in the ruins of Roman caves or grottoes. Today we use it to describe qualities of a person place or object that is repulsive, strange or disgusting. Grotesque as a descriptive element functions in a space of perversion which is simultaneously occupied by my creative practice. The feminine grotesque is a term that I am very much confused by as a woman and as an artist. Constructed by White American misogyny, the idea of feminine and grotesque in the negative sense existing as a combined term encourages us to despise biological truths regarding physical progress into womanhood which includes pubic hair, stains, menstrual blood, secretions, and other pungent qualities. All of which coexist with publicly embraced signifiers of beauty.”

BEFORE YOU GO

Twin Blue Ribbon (diptych), 2011 Graphite and gouache on masonite 6” x 6” and 6” x 6” RM020

Sweet Jug, 2014 Porcelain 7” x 5” x 5” RM015-cer

Internet Creep, 2011 Ink on paper 8.25” x 5” RM050-wop

Prize Jugs, 2011 Graphite and oil on panel 22” x 30”

Hunter or Hipster, Male, 2012 Graphite and oil on panel 26” x 22”

Patina Jug, 2014 Terracotta 7” x 5” x 6”

Self-Portrait as Prisoner, 2012 Graphite and oil on panel

Self-Portrait wearing my favorite scarf and sweater/my face the fattest it’s ever been, 2013 Graphite and oil on panel

Tourist Bumpkin at Dusk, 2011 Graphite and oil on panel 12” x 9”

Bride, 2014 Ink on vellum 14” x 11” RM132-wop

Precious Jug, 2014 Porcelain 7” x 5.5” x 5.5” RM019-cer

Silver Shock Jug, 2014 Porcelain 6.5” x 5” x 5”

Homecoming Picnic, 2012 Graphite and oil on panel 62 x 69”

Hippie Witch Man, 2014 Graphite and gouache on masonite 6” x 6”

Beauty Jug, 2014 Porcelain 7” x 5” x 5”

I Love New York, 2009 Graphite on paper

Small Grey Jug, 2014 Porcelain 6.5” x 4” x 5” RM021-cer

Butt, 2014 Ink on vellum 12.75” x 11”

Untitled, 2014 Ink and gouache on paper 5.5” x 3.5”

Mountain Love, 2013 Ink on Color-aid 9” x 6”

Show Off, 2009 Porcelain 6” x 4.5” x 5.5″

Frank, Priscilla. “15 Feminist Artists Respond To The Censorship Of Women's Bodies Online.” HuffPost. HuffPost, December 7, 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/artists-respond-female-body-censorship-online_n_7042926.

[entamewitchlulu]

Besides the resentment cause by some people, what is your current opinion on Vrains? Personally overall I like it but I just wish Yusaku wasn't so perfect and people would stop staying this is best thing in yugioh ever when we're only 10 eps in.

welllllll okay, at the risk of sounding kinda bitchy….I’m not particularly enjoying it so far. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like it!  About as much as any other Yu-Gi-Oh series (except for Arc V which is…always going to be on a different level for me for personal reasons.  But I digress).

Resentment towards the fanbase and it’s antics aside, the show itself is…just a little lackluster for me.  It’s kind of why I stopped doing those episode by episode reviews, because I didn’t want to steal anyone’s thunder with my own lack of enthusiasm.

But…anyway.  Let me try to quantify my feelings more specifically; i’ll put it under a cut cause it might be a bit long.

ALSO, please bear in mind that I’m…actually two episodes behind;;;;  So some of the things I complain about may or may not have been addressed in those two episodes, I don’t know. (but then, there’s the main problem right there…I haven’t felt an urge to watch them….anyway.)

first…the setting.  I just…don’t feel like it’s been utilized to it’s fullest extent.  Virtual reality is cool!!!  It’s super cool!!  But….but VRAINS just looks like….regular space.  Regular space with the occasional data stream/storm to hoverboard through.  It’s not….very visually interesting.  Everything about it is pretty subdued, realistic, and with a darker, duller palette, which are not my favorite aesthetics.  Like, it’s virtual reality, man!!!  Show me beautiful ridiculously spread out environments like mountain ranges and meadows and forests, not just…the same old cityscapes that we see in the real world.  VRAINS and the real world do not look visually distinct, at all.  If not for the avatars, I would not know when the characters were in one world or the other, and I fail to see the necessity of the VRAINS system at all.  Why is it important?  Why is it more important that the duels take place on that stage rather than anywhere else?

The visuals of data storm duels just…aren’t very interesting to me, either.  They’re getting repetitive, and I’m already sick of seeing the Link Summon animation because it’s so LONG.  and what with the backgrounds being so boring, too, i just…I want them to have to zip around obstacles and shit, instead of just zooming down a freeway and then occasionally getting sucked into a data storm, where Yusaku does the exact same animation for his skill as always. (like man there is so much recycled animation in this series, his transformation sequence, the Link Summon sequences, the Storm Access skill…no wonder the animation is so good and consistence, they only have to animate new footage for about half the episode)

Second, the characters so far.  I just…I don’t feel much of a connection to them.  As far as Yusaku goes, I do like him, and I’ll get into the parts that I do like about him later in this response, but as far as he goes, I feel like we’re watching him from the outside, rather than actually getting into his head.  We’re not getting much, if any, of his internal monologue.  I feel as though we’re being told how he feels instead of being shown how he feels.  There’s nothing wrong with a stoic character!!  Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all, I mean, I adore Yusei.  What I don’t like is a stoic character who’s….just stoic.  Yusaku is just a little too perfect so far; he never gets tripped up by anything, even when it looked like Blue Angel had him on the ropes, it turned out he had been planning on the entire situation from the beginning.  Like…I’m getting BBC Sherlock vibes out of him at the moment, and I…I don’t like it.  Let me see Yusaku fail.  Let me see Yusaku get upset when he does.  Let me see him feeling, let me see his flaws, besides his single-minded focus on revenge.

I found Go somewhat lackluster as well; his aesthetic didn’t appeal to me, and he just………what about him was “”entertainment dueling”” ?  Maybe once he joins the crew and interacts I’ll enjoy him more but I really can’t even say much about him because I don’t feel like I learned anything about him.

And as for Aoi…..let me preface this with the fact that she is by and large my favorite character in the series so far.  I think she does the subdued personality better than Yusaku does so far, but i think it helps that we have the duality of her Blue Angel persona to really give her some depth to her conflicted personality and nature.  But besides that…?  She’s been treated very poorly so far.  They set her up as a very powerful and important duelist, which is great! ….but then they immediately had her possessed by the bad guys and sent her into a coma.

and….as an aside, i was….uncomfortable with the long, drawn out scene where she was fighting her possession.  There was really…no actual reason for that whole scene of her losing her wings and falling, like…what exactly was happening there????  And just the drawn out sequence of her just sitting here, screaming, without seeing her internal struggle–like, was she actually fighting the virus?  if so, instead of seeing her losing her wings and falling, I would have liked to see her shouting at the virus in her head and struggling with it.  Instead we just got….almost five minutes of her just screaming in pain and it almost felt like torture porn to me.  I would have accepted the losing her wings scene if we had seen some kind of internal monologue about her feeling like she was failing her desire/purpose to prove herself to her brother, and that was why she felt like she was losing her wings, but…instead it was just, straight up screaming in pain.

don’t get me wrong, i loooove seeing characters get broken down, i just like to feel like there’s a character point to it instead of just seeing it to see it

and finally……the plot.  A lot of people have hailed this as the “first yugioh series to focus on plot” but i would counter with….exposition is not plot.  What we have gotten is not plot so much as it is info-dumping.  And there’s nothing wrong with that, not at all.  I just…it rubs me the wrong way to call it “”plot”” because so far, the plot is still developing.  You can’t act like they dumped all of it into the beginning, and you can’t act like a series not doing the same thing is somehow “not plot.”  Plot is the overarching storyline; what we have right now is not plot it’s just…….vague info dumping that makes me feel like i know less than if they hadn’t told me anything at all.  A lot of that info-dumping has been done in an incredibly stilted manner imo, also.  Like Akira talking to Bishop, and he explained things out loud to Bishop that….both of them would have already known.  He was just saying it for the sake of the audience.  That’s…imo that’s a poor way to explain backstory.  It’s telling instead of showing, instead of letting the plot simmer up through the actual story and peek through the cracks, slowly drawing you into the world and slowly getting you involved.  Nope just…just dumps it on ya.  Here it is.  Here’s the back story.

honestly, let me clarify that previous complaint with this: I am 100% a character over plot person.  Give me characters that I love and I will ride through any plot, no matter how convoluted or poorly written.  I am of the firm belief that if you have well-written characters who interact in interesting ways, the plot will fall into place behind them.  My first rule of thumb when writing is, if you have a scene with only one person, do whatever you can to add at least second person for them to play off against.

So far….?  VRAINS has not wowed me with its characters interactions.  And I think the plot is suffering for it.  I don’t know these characters.  I don’t know how they feel about each other.  The majority of interaction comes from them zipping around from a distance on the field, and they don’t really talk…they mostly talk to themselves about what the other person is doing, and then do some loud trash talking that isn’t real interaction.  The closest VRAINS has gotten so far to getting the kind of interaction I want to see is in the intro ep for Blue Angel, where Yusaku had some good interaction with Ignis and Kusanagi, and then with Naoki and Aoi.

I think it’s telling that the only parts of the show that I’ve really, really enjoyed so far are the above mentioned instances.  Not the duels, not the backstory, not the evil dudes plotting, not the new cards or summoning types, not even the fucking virtual reality gimmick.  The only parts I’ve actually really, really loved watching are the parts where Yusaku is put on the spot and expected to awkwardly interact with things that have nothing to do with his overall mission.

And i think that’s a good segway into what I do like about VRAINS so far.  First, what little we DO have of Yusaku, I do like more than i dislike.  I think he’s cute, and like I said before, during those brief moments of awkwardness he had with Ignis/Kusanagi’s teasing and with Naoki strongarming him into the duel club, i loved a lot.  That is what i want to see more out of him.  I want to see him put on the spot, dragged out of his comfort zone, forced to see things from outside his tunnel vision.  I do love his ticks, like his “three reasons” thing, I think that’s actually a very interesting master gesture for him that implies an extra depth that i hope will be explored later.

I like Ignis, and I like his relationship with Yusaku.  I like that it’s almost a reverse Yuma/Astral thing.  I love how expressive Ignis is even though he’s just an eye. 

The animation is good!  My complaint about recycled animation aside, the animation actually is v good, the CGI bits aren’t too bad, definitely improved since their first usage in BBT.  The characters are nicely articulated and expressive in their movements.  My complaints about the backgrounds and sameness aside, this is a style that would become more than just beautiful if and when it decides to expand from it’s current repertoire of backgrounds.

And the parts of the plot that they haven’t explained?  I am fascinated by that.  TBH I could care less about the AI subplot, but the flashback of tiny Yusaku getting dragged out of a house in a blanket as though there was some kind of fire?  That is interesting to me, because they left questions unanswered, and didn’t throw any exposition at me for it yet.  That i am looking forward to seeing explored and explained and threaded through the story.

And as for what I’m looking forward to: I’m looking forward to Yusaku getting a squad.  That’s basically it.  I think my opinion of the show will increase tenfold once Yusaku has his friend group.  Like I said, I’m a character person.  I want characters over plot.  Once Yusaku has his team put together, I think I’ll be much more engaged.

So my overall thoughts, if somehow you read through that entire monstrosity of a response?  I don’t hate it, but I’m not currently very engaged.  This isn’t meant to be a comparison, but coming off of the high of Arc V, which is very important to me for personal reasons, it’s harder for me to become engaged in the new story when it doesn’t hit my buttons for the things I generally like in media.

I’m still definitely in it for the long haul, I’ll be watching the entire series no matter what, and I expect to enjoy it, but I don’t expect it to overtake any of the other yugioh series in terms of my overall love and interest in it.

And I apologize sincerely if this wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to hear…I really do wish that I enjoyed it more, and I’m glad for all the people who are enjoying it.  Please don’t let my own disengagement take the wind out of your sails.