frame[o]ut 2023: A Room Of One's Own: Self-Portraits and Gendered Bodies

Shorts | 2020 - 2023 | 70 min. | OV

Whether video, avatar, data collection or alter ego: self-portraits by artists open up the possibility for the virtual self to evade social norms and viewing regimes. Away from algorithms and standardized formats, alternative ideas of bodies and identities can be created. Self-portrayals gain autonomy and speak back: as confusing body parts, naked monkeys in dialogical soliloquy, morphing alter egos and time-traveling voice messages.

Issues with My Other Half 

R: Anna Vasof | AT 2023 | 5:30 min.

A look in the mirror and at one's own body reveals a creepy-amusing moment of shock: instead of the usual actions and reactions, the body takes on new, unexpected forms and functions. The fingertips form chewing gum bubbles, the face seems to melt away under the influence of the hair dryer and when swimming, only the upper body dares to jump into the water. Surreal scenes of confusing body parts open up a strange view of the perception of one's own body and raise questions about automatisms and autonomy of (physical) fragments of the self.

Me Myself and I 

R: Claudia Larchet | AT 2022 | 6 min.

Claudia Larcher feeds an artificial intelligence (Generative Adversarial Network) 350 photos of herself while feeding a script about identity from a dialogue with chatbots. The analog image becomes a new self-portrait in the digital - deformed, distorted, deformed, constantly morphing. A productive disappearance that, in the simultaneous fragmentation and composition, produces grotesque creations and makes room for continuous re-creation.

Things That Won't Die / Cosas que nunca van a morir

R: Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta | ES 2022 | 14 min.

Pictures of a girl on a screen. She films herself, telling invisible viewers about her life: holidays, Christmas presents, school. Who did she shoot these videos for? who saw her Filmmaker Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta pulls images of herself from personal and public archives and creates a cinematic collage about the relationship between visibility and vulnerability. Inquiring about what remains when one is still there oneself, but the images already seem to have disappeared, she recaptures her own image.

Gut Feelings: Fragments of Truth 

R: Katayoun Jalilipour  | IR 2021 | 12 min.

"I thought I should let you know that I saw some things about you on the internet recently" - a voice message through time. Katayoun Jalilipour's 3D avatar speaks to/with Tāj al-Saltaneh (1884 - 1936), member of the Qajar dynasty and feminist fighter, and reports a Google search discovery: Tāj al-Saltaneh's image is with that of Maria Anna von Neuburg (1667 - 1740) has been confused. A discovery becomes a queer reading that critiques the reproduction of white ideals of beauty and heteronormative sexisms through the circulation of images on the internet and asks who and what defines us when we only exist on the internet. "Because I like, that when I die, people can distinguish which images are me and which aren't"

Untiteld

R: Sweatmother | UK 2022 | 10 min.

Sweatmother sits in front of two monitors and talks to his avatar, a hyper-feminized programmed version of himself. Their dialogue weaves their own experiences and reflections with those of Paul B. Preciado and Walt Whitman to create a reflection on trans identity in the hybrid between digital and analogue space and to open up the construction and performativity of gender. "Trans bodies (...) by their existence speak different languages unknown to the colonizers, they have dreams that psychoanalysts do not know about." (Paul B Preciado)

Like You Really Mean It

R: Ale Bachlechner | AT 2020 | 12:45 min.

In a virtual space, the artist Ale Bachlechner enters into a dialogue with various alter egos: somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Death Valley, a workshop leader, a woman wearing tracksuits and a naked monkey meet. They gossip about expectations, living conditions, being an artist and networking and exchange ideas about how-to's of self-representation. "Like You Really Mean It" is a virtual workshop in which the sociable round of a soliloquy first discusses internally how to present yourself to the outside world.

Come Feel My Skin

R: Cristian Anutoiu | AT 2022 | 5:15 min.

The self looks at itself, finally reversing the direction of gaze. What does it mean that you are seeing me this way? An approach and touch, an invitation and confrontation. Who sees, who is seen? Does one exist without the other?

I am existing as you are, seeing you the way you see me.

In a juxtaposition of the artificial and the organic, of the designed and the grown world, Cristian Anutoiu dismantles boundaries and challenges his fragile relationship between subjectivity and normativity.

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