Eugenio Recuenco

proposal

Is there a specific layout you would like us to use or should I stick with the basic structure on the brief?

'outline your question, aims, research methods and key research sources'

My God I've Created a Monster!

1. “Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.” (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein)

2.   “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.” (J. Robert Oppenheimer 1965)

 

  

3. What's number 3 going to be? What is the next invention that epitomises 'Man' playing 'God' through the use of technology? Perhaps the omnipotent Internet? Maybe TV?

 

Do monsters really exist?

“This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.”

‘Monsters are our children. They can be pushed to the farthest margins of geography and discourse, hidden away at the edges of the world and in the forbidden recesses of our mind, but they always return. And when they come back, they bring not just a fuller knowledge of our place in history and the history of knowing our place, but they bear self-acknowledge, human knowledge – and a discourse all the more sacred as it arises from the Outside. These monsters ask us how we perceive the world, and how we have misrepresented what we have attempted to place. They ask us to reevaluate our cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, our perception of difference, our tolerance toward its expression. They ask us why we have created them.’ (Cohen 1996 university of Minnesota)

Illustration of a feminine monster

This is "Myra" by Marcus Harvey.  Based on the police mugshot of Hindley at the time of her arrest, Harvey reworked the image using the plaster-cast of a child's hand.  The image caused outrage when it was shown at the 'Sensations" exhibition at the Royal Acadamy in 1997, and had to be protected by glass and security guards after atempts were made by visitors to the exhibition to deface it.  David Lee, the editor of Art Review back in 1997 was quoted as saying:  "It was said at the time that this work was exploring and examining pedophelia and aspects of child abuse.  It wasn't actually doing anything of the kind. It was merely exploiting a very famous image of a very infamous subject in order to advance the career of the artist."

 

all things rolled into one

This is from a guy called apatheticash. Its part of a series of drawings he did called 'The bloody chamber series'. You should go and check them out:

http://apatheticash.deviantart.com/gallery/

This post comes via Will.

He is having trouble getting on this blog and has asked me to repost this.


http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/137079-visceral-games-body-horror-and-the-monstrous-female-body 

Fatal Frame: Feminizing the Final Girl

http://cerise.theirisnetwork.org/2007/10/05/fatal-frame-feminizing-the-final-girl/

click the link above for an article by Jenni Lada that may be of interest:

"The premise of the “Final Girl” feminist film theory is that, through a surviving female lead character in a movie, the audience is able to investigate the nuances of the film and deepen the terror experience in a way that would not be possible if a man were to take the lead. Moreover, many argue that the way the final girl is created and fights the villain allows the opportunity to make her more masculine.

The Fatal Frame series of video games challenges this notion through the lead characters and the manner in which they dispatch the ghostly villains that surround them. With this shift, Temco is challenging the notion that the final girl needs to become masculine. This makes the argument that a girl does not need to tap into or mimic some sort of masculine behavior pattern in order to face and defeat a fearsome opponent."

...or does it just allow game designers the excuse to design lead female characters as cute, 'virginal' and naive, sexually pleasing to a male audience, and unthreatening to a female audience, thereby merely enforcing existing gender stereotypes?????

Judy Chicago and the monstrous feminine?

Remembered another interesting artist http://www.judychicago.com/

She has worked in an unusually wide range of media, including ephemeral pyrotechnic and atmospheric displays, live performances, painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and both individual works of art and mixed media installations drawing on crafts such as china-painting, ceramics, needlework, tapestry and glass.

'The Dinner Party' was a mixed media tribute to the cultural achievements of women in history, created with assistance from hundreds of volunteers during the late 1970s, and is definitely worth a closer look...

Vagina Dentata...The Play

I found this, a play called Vagina Dentata...http://www.volcanotheatre.co.uk/298/past-productions/vagina-dentata.html

Frida Kahlo

Ive previously looked into the artist frida kahlo and her work. I came across this passage which also links to the monstrous feminine, thought it was quite interesting

http://womensstudies.byu.edu/KristinaGibby_FridaKahlo/

monstrous feminine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH8yuld4DUE

Looking at the film Teeth and exploring into the Vagina Dentata Mythology thought it had some relevance. Dawn is her chastity group's most active participant. But she discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence and experiences both the pitfalls and power of living the vagina dentata myth.


http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Truth-Behind-Teeths-Vagina-Dentata-Mythology&id=1279230
Interesting site about the myth. 

Red Cap

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm wrote ‘Little Red Cap’ in 1812, who included the folk tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ in their collection Grimm’s Fairy Tales after revising it, changing the ending to the Huntsman’s rescue, the conclusion more commonly known today. This is referred to in the poster by the date, the title, and the text “Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm present”.

The tagline is taken from the stated moral of the earliest printed version of Little Red Riding Hood:

“One sees here that young children, especially young girls, pretty, well brought-up, and gentle, should never listen to anyone who happens by, and if this occurs, it is not strange when the wolf should eat them. I say the wolf, for all wolves are not of the same kind. There are some with winning ways, not loud, nor bitter, or angry, who are tame, good natured, and pleasant, and follow young ladies right into their homes, right into their alcoves. But alas for those who do not know that of all wolves the docile ones are those who are most dangerous.”
Charles Perrault, 1697

The quotations in white that form the small print of the poster are quotes from the second edition of Jack Zipes book ‘The trials and tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood’ (1993). In the book, Zipes explores the origins, meanings and various versions of the story.

- Isaac Livingstone, James Tubb.

Monstrous Feminine and The Descent

Found an interesting essay at www.pleasantfluff.com that looks at films such as The Descent and Ginger Snaps, discussing how these films relate to ideas about the monstrous-feminine. The author, Aiyesha McInerney, references the work of Barbara Creed and Carol Clover, and notes how these two theorists' work is indebted to Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema.

http://www.pleasantfluff.com/2009/09/24/female-subjectivity-as-primal-sisterhood-from-feminist-film-theory-to-feminine-horror-in-ginger-snaps-and-the-descent/

Dyadic mothers

'Smiling a tight little smile, in a toneless voice, Louise Fletcher forces Jack Nicholson to take his tranquilizing medication. With the same smooth, bland expression, she will later order his lobotomy'

ALJEAN HARMETZ for the NYT 1975

 link : http://www.littlereview.com/goddesslouise/articles/nyt1175.htm

Louise Fletcher's performance of this character is a great example of the dyadic mother.

From a video game percpective I think the two biggest dyadic mothers must be SHODAN and GlaDOS.

Interestingly in System Shock 2 SHODAN is interacting with a character who is male (you the player)

while in Portal GlaDOS is interacting with a female character (schell/you)

SHODAN is megalomaniacal in her interaction saying things like:

'You move like an insect. You think like an insect. You ARE an insect. There is another who can serve my purpose. Take care not to fall too far out of my favor... patience is not characteristic of a goddess.'

Whereas GlaDOS intereacts on a far more grounded level with constant digs at the players weight/family and education:

"You're unlikeable. It says so right here in your personal file, unlikeable, liked by no one. A bitter unlikeable loner who's passing shall NOT be mourned. SHALL NOT BE MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very offical....It also says you were adopted, so that's funny too."

I am going to talk further about my research into both of these mother figure AI's on thursday and try to come up with a sold reason for the different treatments depending on the antagonists sexuality.

Hansel and Gretel

Funnily enough just came across this...going back a little but still relevant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlfnhVsbyeQ

Who's the monster here?

Thought it really went with the whole monster theme. and the twist of how the story changes around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cXDgFwE13g

Film Posters

  

My film poster, based on the film 27 dresses and the life and times of Schlitzie Surtees, a performer from the film 'Freaks", who was always costumed as a girl or toddler.  Horrible (and undignified) dresses all round!

Madame Tutli-Putli

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5917397149002641601y?

I'm not sure what to say about this but it must somehow be relevent.

Snow White and the Huntsman

New version of the Snow White story by Tim Burton....click the link below

Snow White and the Huntsman

Hard Candy

Little Red Riding Hood strikes back.

Errr...

Look at this...

...and now look at this.

I'm not sure what to make of this!

Schlitzie Surtees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDK1BCOM138&feature=related

I've been looking at a performer who appeared in Tod Browning's Freaks , called Schlitzie Surtees, and particularly at the way he was costumed for his part in shows - mostly dressed as a little girl.  This clip is really relevant to they way his persona was portrayed.  Hope it works!

the "freakshow" - permissible titillation?

“Everyone's a freak. No two bodies are the same; we all have unpleasant, wonderful, shocking and extraordinary features; we are all unique. But for centuries the word 'freak' has been used cruelly to describe people born with 'abnormal' features, or those able to perform extraordinary physical acts by contorting or misshaping their bodies.” (www.bl.uk/learning)

What is the ongoing fascination of the freakshow?
Have we moved away from the exploitation of bodily difference that emerged in the sideshow circuses of the late 1800's, and are we still taking pleasure in looking, disguised as a medical (or academic) gaze?
Is Channel 4's BodyShock series an excuse for a televised version of this voyeurism? How is it disguised? Science? technology? progress? Or blatant spectacle? "You'll be shocked and amazed..."

“Mixed among the disgust, the fear, the horror, was the pleasure. For some, certainly, the pleasure came precisely from the horror, the sense of the forbidden, the unusual and unknown, the gothic intermixing of categories and kinds” (Sharrona Pearl)

What has your research led you to discover about the nature of the freakshow? How have you contextualised it? Please share it here...

The Philosophy of King Kong (1933)

“Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.”
“Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.” 
(Discuss)

**Fairytale Resources online**

Saw this and thought of you...
www.surlalunefairytales.com

Really excellent resource for all things fairytale. Includes original annotated texts, history and links to useful websites.

Little Red Riding Hood in Graphic Design

Here are the images I collected as examples of Little Red Riding Hood themed graphic design. Enjoy!

The Little Girl and the Wolf by James Thurber

One afternoon a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did come along and she was carrying a basket of food. "Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother?" asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood. 

When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead. 

(Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.)

Little Red Riding Hood [original version] by Charles Perrault

ONCE upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little red¹ riding hood made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood².

One day her mother, having made some cakes, said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing³, for I hear she has been very ill. Take her a cake, and this little pot of butter."⁴

Little Red Riding Hood set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village.

As she was going through the wood, she met with a wolf,⁵ who had a very great mind to eat her up, but he dared not, because of some woodcutters working nearby in the forest. He asked her where she was going. The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stay and talk to a wolf, said to him, "I am going to see my grandmother and carry her a cake and a little pot of butter from my mother."

"Does she live far off?" said the wolf

"Oh I say," answered Little Red Riding Hood; "it is beyond that mill you see there, at the first house in the village."

"Well," said the wolf, "and I'll go and see her too. I'll go this way and go you that, and we shall see who will be there first."

The wolf ran as fast as he could, taking the shortest path, and the little girl took a roundabout way, entertaining herself by gathering nuts, running after butterflies, and gathering bouquets of little flowers. It was not long before the wolf arrived at the old woman's house. He knocked at the door: tap, tap.

"Who's there?"

"Your grandchild, Little Red Riding Hood," replied the wolf, counterfeiting her voice; "who has brought you a cake and a little pot of butter sent you by mother."

The good grandmother, who was in bed, because she was somewhat ill, cried out, "Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up."

The wolf pulled the bobbin, and the door opened, and then he immediately fell upon the good woman and ate her up in a moment,⁶ for it been more than three days since he had eaten. He then shut the door and got into the grandmother's bed, expecting Little Red Riding Hood, who came some time afterwards and knocked at the door: tap, tap.

"Who's there?"

Little Red Riding Hood, hearing the big voice of the wolf, was at first afraid; but believing her grandmother had a cold and was hoarse, answered, "It is your grandchild Little Red Riding Hood, who has brought you a cake and a little pot of butter mother sends you."

The wolf cried out to her, softening his voice as much as he could, "Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up."

Little Red Riding Hood pulled the bobbin, and the door opened.

The wolf, seeing her come in, said to her, hiding himself under the bedclothes, "Put the cake and the little pot of butter upon the stool, and come get into bed with me."⁷

Little Red Riding Hood took off her clothes and got into bed. She was greatly amazed to see how her grandmother looked in her nightclothes, and said to her, "Grandmother, what big arms you have!"⁸

"All the better to hug you with, my dear."

"Grandmother, what big legs you have!"

"All the better to run with, my child."

"Grandmother, what big ears you have!"

"All the better to hear with, my child."

"Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"

"All the better to see with, my child."

"Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!"

"All the better to eat you up with."

And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her all up.⁹

Moral: Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say "wolf," but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.

by Charles Perrault

taken from www.surlalunefairytales.com

...unsettling...

(thezulu = frederic btw)

This is the piece I was talking to you about.. 

http://www.adam-butcher.co.uk/internet-story

I can't decide wether Al1 is the monster or Fortress or even exactly what the moral of the story is ... I suppose the nameless faceless nature of the interent and the ability to become 'cyborgs' is partly what makes this scary. Could this be a modern day fairytale?...

I had to go check what the general formula for a fairy tale was and it turns out they do not require a good ending only a resolution of events tied around a central messege. In which case this stories moral, to me, is not to trust everything you read or see on the net? I'm not sure...



also this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La6T8Bq6CsU
scares the shit out of me o_o

Little Red Riding Hood Show and Tell

Thanks for your input this morning! It was an interesting session in which to learn more about each of you, your interests and your ideas.

As discussed we will be focusing on fairytales next week. Please bring to the session a cultural artefact that particularly relates to the story of Red Riding Hood. This could be a picture, a game, film clip, piece of ceramic, fashion piece etc. It would be extra interesting if your chosen item was linked to your own discipline.

Research your chosen item and be prepared to show and tell!
Feel free to bring your own games consoles, easels or other necessary props to aid your show 'n' tell. Thanks