Jordan Wolfson's (Female Figure), 2014

The Female Figure itself is scantily clad in a white bustier and diaphanous miniskirt, tilted onto its tip-toes by knee-high "stripper boots", its robotic arms painted white to mimic elbow-length gloves.  A cascade of beautiful blonde hair rains down its back and rocks rhythmically as the figure gyrates its luscious hips.  But the purity of the figure is smudged with dark dirt.  It dances sexily to slowed, distorted pop tunes in front of a large mirror in the middle of a great blank room.  If you bother to look up into the figure's face, meet its eyes in the reflection of the mirror, you'll be confronted by a hideous green witch-mask over too-human eyes.  Eyes that gaze back at you as it whispers in the deep, masculine voice of the artist: Jordan Wolfson.

Widely publicized as "The Lady Gaga Robot" or "The Creepiest Robot Ever" in click-bait articles from websites like Buzzfeed to iO9, Jordan Wolfson's installation at the David Zwirner Gallery seemed destined to captivate the internet's attention from the get-go.  Designed in collaboration with Spectral Motion, a special-effects studio in Los Angeles, (Female Figure), 2014 is the perfect cocktail of sexuality, ugliness, uncanny valley weirdness, and social confrontation.

The art installation was not merely an unbelievably life-like animatronic doll in a blank white room, it also included a film about the figure, and a performance aspect: the robot's dance.  A metal pole extended out from the mirror, attaching to the center of the figure, just below the breasts.  This held the life-sized figure up and allowed it to dance and whisper for hours on end.  It also connected the robot to the machinery that controlled its seven-minute, variable choreography, and the facial-recognition software that allowed it to make eye contact with gallery-goers.

If you had the fortune to experience (Female Figure), 2014, you were likely led into the room by yourself, or with two to five other individuals.  The small size of the viewing party combined with the narrow, dim passage that they had to pass through to get to the room, created a sense of formality as well as foreboding.  Once inside the room, viewers would come upon the robot standing at attention on its platform heels, or perhaps dancing gracefully.

The robot included several features designed to confront and discomfort the viewer.  A motion sensor allowed it to detect when other people entered or left the room.  Finding itself no longer alone, the robot would quietly watch any new visitors until they left.  If a viewer stood too closely to the robot, its facial-recognition software would seek out their face, and stare deeply into the viewer's eyes.

The figure was also programmed to murmur phrases recorded in Wolfson's deep voice, its animatronic jaw wagging with weird accuracy.  In fact, the movement of the figure was so life-like that it succeeded in its attempts at sexual titillation (if you avoided the face, of course).  As Lady Gaga's "Applause", Paul Simon's "Graceland", and a slowed version of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" played, the figure would wiggle and squat with Bob Fosse lascivity.  Its expensive plastic fingers would flutter at the end of graceful dancer's wrists.

Altogether, the installation was designed to examine the effect of gaze in our society (among other themes such as humanity, technology, and mirrors qua examining identity).  Specifically, the installation confronts the male gaze, of which so much social theory and commentary has been written.  The male gaze that objectifies women into sexual objects, reducing them to their attractiveness: into commodities carefully calculated to be consumed through the eyes of anonymous people who have the liberty to be actual people, and not plastic things.

But in (Female Figure), 2014 the sexualized object gazes back.  The figure isn't human, but it manages to strike at the discomfort of breaking social conventions.  Don't make eye contact.  Don't stare, robot.  Certainly don't stare at strangers, robot!  And ABSOLUTELY don't stare at the people staring at you, especially with such an ugly face and such lively eyes.

In less pretentious words: (Female Figure), 2014 is awesome because it tempts you to oogle it, and then makes you feel super-weird for doing so.  In fact, it doesn't just stop at trying to embarrass you- it tries to terrify you.

Below I've linked two videos: one that gives you a broader view of the figure, and a second that Wolfson produced himself, full of uncomfortable close-ups.

 

However, the scariest thing about (Female Figure), 2014 is not its uncanniness, and not the juxtaposition between its pop-sexuality and its foulness.  The scariest thing about the female figure is that it they didn't turn it off.  The figure isn't just oriented to dance in the mirror for artistic reasons about viewership.  It also faced the mirror so that when left alone, it could gaze at itself.  The program running it wouldn't shut down when visitors left the room.  If left by itself, the robot would find the only face left in the room: its own.

And so it would gaze deep into its own eyes, dancing and whispering to itself in the empty, blank room.    

Read more here: http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibition/jordan-wolfson-3/

-J. J. Roye

Stranger Visions

Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg wins my award of the year for simultaneously being a classy, poised, creative genius and a weird, invasive, street creeper.  You see, D-H has found a way to create realistic 3D renderings of people all around the state of New York by simply gathering cigarette butts and chewed gum off the streets and sidewalks.

How, you might ask?  Or better yet, WHY?  Well, let's go back to the beginning.

D-H's creepy foray into scavenging for discarded items began in a public bathroom in Penn Station where she collected hairs from the sink of a bathroom. [Gagging already.] Her collection expanded shortly thereafter to fingernails, cigg butts, and best of all, already chewed and spit out bubble gum.  D-H is a PhD student studying electronic arts at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute.  She is able to extract DNA from the items she collects and sequences their genomic regions into a computer program, creating a model of the person who the discarded item once belonged to.  But D-H takes it one step further.  Instead of just being creepy on her computer in her own time, she creates actual sculptures of these people's faces using a 3D printer.

And thus was born "Stranger Visions."  Each creepy floating head is hung on a gallery wall, often accompanied with a wooden box holding the original sample that was collected and a photograph of the street or alley in which it was discovered.  If you are truly interested in the specific scientific process that D-H uses to analyze the DNA, I will link below an article from SmithsonianMag.com which has a few paragraphs detailing it.  If you're like me, however, you want to see the creepy pictures.  So, let's get to it.

 

 

D-H has even created a DNA derived self-portrait.  Judge for yourself its accuracy.  I think it's not too shabby.  D-H is quoted as saying, "It came from this place of noticing that we are leaving genetic material everywhere.  That, combined with the increasing accessibility to molecular biology and these techniques means that this kind of science fiction future is here now.  It is available to us today.  The question really is what are we going to do with that?"

The overarching problem I have with this is, um, this whole concept of, you know, CONSENT.  I mean, really, I am guilty of launching a piece of chewed gum in the air to see how far it can go.  I'm damn sure every smoker doesn't religiously deposit his/her butt into the designated ashtray.  And if every time your fingernail breaks off, you run to the nearest trashcan to properly dispose of it rather than letting it fall to the earth, I am going to sit here and silently judge you.  That being said, the gift D-H leaves with us all is now we have to be super paranoid that someone out there is collecting these items and, for all we know, a 3D model of our head could be plastered on the wall of an art gallery somewhere.  WTF.  Could you imagine if you happened to be in New York and wanted to check out some cool new art shows and, BOOM, there's your face looking back at you, soulless, unblinking, staring.  I mean, really, I'm sure there would be a way for her to identify these people based on their DNA to go ask their permission and this could even have a great forensic link for solving criminal cases if she were to hone her craft, but D-H isn't in this for the science.  She's in it for the art which makes her both cool as hell but so...so...sketchy. (Disregard the terrible art pun.)

-Amanda

Reference Article #1

Ayano Tsukimi

I have to file the story of Ayano Tsukimi and the ghost town of Nagoro under the 'sweet but creepy' catalogue.

Nagoro is a small village located in the valley of Shikoku, Japan.  Once vibrant with business and families, over time, the village population has dwindled as its residents seek out job opportunities in larger cities.  65-year-old Ayano Tsukimi, a Japanese artist, took it upon herself to create hundreds of large dolls and placed them strategically throughout the village to represent those who have passed away or left the city.  There are currently only 35 residents left in Nagoro and they are outnumbered three to one by the dolls made by Tsukimi. 

See what I mean?  It is doubly heartbreaking and creepy as hell.  She's obviously a sweet woman with a kind heart and a love and respect for her home and people, but I mean, take a look at some of these dolls just chilling in a classroom or lurking in the bushes.  Tsukimi says the dolls bring back memories for her.  She refers to an old lady doll representing a woman who used to come and chat with her and drink tea and an old man doll as a man who used to drink sake and tell stories.  Being that there are only 35 residents left in the town, most of them elderly, there are no youth to raise, thus no need for an elementary school.  Tsukimi has filled the abandoned school with doll replicas of young children and their teachers.

 

Tsukimi returned to her hometown of Naguro initially to take care of her ailing 85 year old father.  She tried her hand at farming when she first moved back.  After discovering her radishes had been destroyed by crows, she built her first scarecrow to keep them away.  It takes a lot of time, effort, and precision to create these dolls/scarecrows/mannequins, but I guess when you live in a desolate village, what else are you really going to do with your time?  Tsukimi even brings one doll along with her on her 90 minute drive to the next nearest big town to buy groceries.

Fritz Schumann made a documentary on Tsukimi which can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/92453765 in which Tsukimi refers to the dolls as "her children."  In a way though, Tsukimi's wish for acknowledgement of her little village has been granted due to her creativity and talents.  Now tourists stop through the village of Nagoro to take pictures and marvel at all of the dolls strategically placed around the village when before they would've passed right by.  The vigor and vitality of Nagoro may never be the same as it used to be, but at least Tsukimi has kept them on the map and brought curiosity and interest to her village due to her unique and creepy hobby.  After all, a 28 year old in southern Virginia is writing an entire blog post about her.  Tip of the hat to you, creepy and sweet Ms. Tsukimi.

-Amanda