GMU:Artists LabIII/Pedro Ramos/Masculinities

Masculinities

Masculinities is a 3-channel video installation that explores the contemporary possibilities and meanings of masculinity in the 21st century.

Developed through interviews with men from 4 different continents, it explores how the comprehension of masculinity may converge or diverge across cultures, as well as the ongoing transformations in the face of technology and globalization, its influence on societies and the corresponding demands of alternative models of masculinity in the wake of a broader influence of gender equality movements around the world.

The project, that consists on interviews with men between 19 and 30 years old, addresses how the comprehension of masculinity is influenced, and potentially shaped, by the cultural and local dynamics of its meaning across different societies - but also explores how it takes place on an intercultural and global level, its potential convergent or divergent meanings, as well as the former, contemporary and possible future comprehensions of manhood in the wake of new gender models and possibilities.

It features conversations with 9 men, from 8 countries and 4 different continents - Frederic (Canada), Etienne (France), Ammar (Sudan), Ben (USA), Ewan (USA), Jack (Taiwan), HanKyul (Korea), Clemens (Germany), and Pedro (Brazil), who is also the artist behind the project.

Through conversations that go through family, gender, personal experiences and cultural comprehensions of gender, Masculinity is explored on an intercultural level, in order to investigate which layers of patriarchal understanding have resemblances regardless of place, as well as current orders of reconfiguration and ongoing social transformation of the meaning of what it means to be a man for the current and future generations - and what could be potentially more sustainable models and understandings of masculinity with greater regard on the decade-long efforts of the feminist movements for more gender-equal societies.

To gather such comprehension either on a local, and intercultural level, it features conversations with men either displaced of its original locality - international men living in Germany - and men currently still living in their home countries.

Drawing inspiration and reference on a varied span of knowledge areas, such as Gender, Language, Performance and Affect Studies, as well as Expanded Cinema, Performance and Video Art, the project was developed with the aim of exploring alternative storytelling strategies and the affective-political potential of Media Art, how it can be used in profit to raise awareness and visibility to an increasingly contemporary Theme and its already existing parallels on social activism.

Development

The development of the project consisted of different stages that influenced one another and shaped the final product.

The first stage consisted of interviews with international men living in Weimar. The first parallels found on the conversation were of great interest to stimulate the further inclusion of other topics on the development of the project and in later interviews, as well as the stimulation of the investigation of different societal aspects on them.

The second stage consisted on a Video-performance, which stimulated the video inclusion of the artist in the project and further exploration on the comprehension of aspects in Performance and Performance Studies, which were of great importance considering the previous studies in the comprehension of Gender Performance in Gender Theory, such as of writer Judith Butler. It was also a further stage of referential influence of Expanded Cinema on the development of the project.

The third stage was the final stage of Skype interviews with men currently residing in their home countries, which clarified the importance of expanding the exploration on the theme on a broader sense outside of an intercultural environment, for men mostly displaced from their original countries and societal comprehension on the theme. These interviews, conducted with an interval of over 6 months later than the first interviews, also included a broad set of themes that weren’t included in the first ones, which were also an indicative on how the dynamics of the theme also evolved over the development of the project. This stage also included the video interview with the artist in the studio, conducted by the Taiwanese filmmaker and fellow student Sheng Chou.

Considerations

The project was developed over two semesters, as the continuation of the WiSe 2018/19 module Bits, Beats & Pieces, conducted by Max Neupert. The first stage of the project was developed in collaboration with Sandra Anhalt.

It had many different conceptual stages, as well as different experiments regarding format and content, of which profit is especially on expansion on the comprehension of working with Video and Installation in the dimensions of Media Art.

The exchange with the participants of the interviews, which kindly took time for it, was elemental - as well as the exchanges in the classroom in the Artist Lab. Through its development, the project also included conversations with David (Brazil) and Nima (Iran), which couldn’t make into the final project due to technical issues.