The inspiration to pursue the ideas behind this exhibit came about through one single image. In the tradition of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, I placed a grotesque male mask on a beautiful nude female body. The resulting combination was confusing: beauty and the beast all in one, a representation of a man realizing that he had a woman's body. Representing the ultimate "male gaze," I brought it into class for critique. After the only other male student in the class made a comment about the picture, the uproar from the women in the class took me by surprise. I knew that I had touched on a raw nerve. The comment that really pressed my direction was "how could you know how women feel?" It was true; putting myself in the position of a woman and trying to understand how she would feel was not the route to take nor had it been my original intention. So I contemplated the issue and my response was a short video entitled "my corner." I reread Laura Mulvey's essay on the Hollywood filmmaker's role in the relationship between the viewer and the objectification of the women portrayed.
I knew that I myself was an example of someone influenced by the media into believing a fantasy. Real women never seemed to fit the molds that I was led to believe in. I know that my adolescent bubble was burst when I worked as a photo assistant at Playboy Magazine and realized that photographers enhanced women's charms and hid their flaws to create idealized characters for men to fantasize about. Combined with advertising and popular culture, viewers are tricked into believing these media illusions of perfectly retouched skin and flawless bodies that compete with reality in the minds of men and women.
In his BBC series "Ways of Seeing," John Berger states that "men dream of women, but women dream of being looked at." In his book with the same title, he concludes that if women are to escape the male gaze, then a more neutral gaze must be developed, and in order to do this, everyday images must be dissected to understand the underlying forces that drive women to be "objectified spectacles."
Garry Winogrand's book, Women Are Beautiful became my inspiration. His candid images of women led me into public places to photograph through my own male gaze. I wanted to see what it was that made me look. There are many levels of and reasons for looking: curiosity, judgment, and sexual attraction are a few. My favorite places include beaches, malls, openings and conventions or large gatherings, all open to the public. Unlike women from other cultures, American women have a choice about what they wear in public. Observing that choice is what this work documents.
My reason for using a stereo camera is threefold: first, it engages the viewer in an intimate viewing arrangement, reminiscent of a "peep show;" second, stereo vision is something realized in the mind and can only be interpreted there; and finally I have developed a cataract in my right eye and am in the process of losing my stereovision. You don't know what you've got till it's gone.
