“SEXx (Social Expectations of Women)” is a project that reflects on the social norms of woman oppression which targets to point out issues that women are usually being judged and evaluated their values from their expressions of desire and behaviours especially when it comes to SEX. In order to engage people understandings and make them indulge into the pool of those issues, the project creates an environment for visitors by using mixed media such as photography, installation and videography, for the audiences to experience the hidden issues that women face in the society.
The project is inspired by the beautiful living form of Physarum Polysephalum (Slime Mould), an intelligent unicellular organism that can find the shortest path to access their food and avoid harmful environments. The visual act of slime moulds searching for food does not only portray the freedom of their desire for food, but also manifest the power of expression and decisiveness regardless any conditions. The intrigued pattern of slime moulds when hunting for food influenced me to look deeper into the possibility of our new social norms. What if we, women, can finally express ourselves freely without being judged or evaluated, how pleasant of life could it be?
Before cracking the core of the norms, I firstly want to peel the shell by allowing us, everyone, to understand the difficulties of limited expression by using slime moulds and putting them into a controlling environment which firmly against their nature. Then, I observed their struggling patterns of not being able to access their food and documented them by photography and time-lapse, in order to reflect the message of the project visually. The idea is to enhance the fact that we are diverse in every level and scale as well as other organisms, and we deserve to be able to exercise our passion and desire as free as possible. Otherwise, we will see this struggling pattern exists everywhere.
In conclusion, the project aims to increase sympathy, raise the standard of our social norms and slim down the inequality borders to allow women to express their desires and behaviours as equal as other genders because we are all simply just the products of the nature.
Technique
The project contains two experiments and observations:
Experiment No1: I put slime mould in a divided container which has 12 holes, then put agar into the bottom of every hole and put slime moulds and oats separately and left some of the holes empty. Slime moulds can easily sense the food but in order to reach, they need to find the way to access through the empty space between the holes. I record the movement with time lapse, photography and microscope.
Result: Slime mould used little bridges between the holes to reach the oats and some of them moved downwards to the bottom of the container and climbed up to the holes that full with oats and some of them used the lid of the container as a bridge to reach the oats. The empty holes that are not in between the oats and slime moulds were not part of the journey which means slime moulds still chosen the shortest paths instead of searching every hole but the journey took a bit longer than usual. In the end, they could take over most of the oat holes and grew very big then dried out because of the lack of agar. From the observation, I can see the hard work in the journey, and it was inspiring how they creatively manage to find the way to the food in a difficult situation.
Experiment No.2: I divided 2 sets of slime moulds lied on agar layer in a different type of container: one set can access their food easily while the other set was under controlled environment that prohibited them from accessing food. Both sets were put together in the same installation that is also designed by its position to project the idea of sexual hierarchy. Not only to observe the result that one can perform their acts of desire easier than the other in compared, but also to reflect the image of women who are mostly stuck in the controlling condition at the bottom of our ongoing patriarchal society. I aimed to see different results of how each set trying to reach the food.
Result: slime mould in both set took longer time than the first experiment to move around, the set at the top which can freely access to the oats did not move towards the oats easily, my assumption is because the opened environment of the container made the habitat becomes too dry and not easy for slime moulds to live. The other set at the bottom grew faster until they reached the edge of the covering glass, I put some of them outside of the glass to see if they can climb up to the oats. However, they stopped moving once the agar is too dry and could not make it to the oats. What I learn from this experiment is, even the desire for food was still there but when the basic factor such as habitat cannot support them, it is impossible for them to even live.
process
First Attempt:
I came up with an idea to metaphorically compare sexual behavior between organisms to human sexual behavior especially with females. In order to project the idea that there is still negative judgement from society that put highly expectation on females more than other genders, especially when it comes to sex. The judgement does not only restrict the expression, behaviour and desire, but also affect directly to one's value and it's still going on.
Feedback:
After my presentations in Miga and Ursula classes, I’ve received a lot of constructive criticisms from Miga, Ursula and also from my friends especially Martin :) that questioned about the relevant of the sexual activities in organisms and in human beings.
The conceptual questions is: Even if there are proofs that other organisms can reproduce sexually, but do they have sex for pleasure like humans do?
The technical question is: What organisms can really represent my ideas? As I can’t observe all of them and I need to pick the most relevant and also related to the class.
Second Attempt:
Yes, the questions have affected the main part of the project. To portray the ideas that we all are “the products of nature” like other living organisms. Thus, the sexual activities of women that are currently being judged by the society should finally stop, and should also be normalised and understood as “nature” like how we look at the same activities on other genders.
The only way to make the idea sensible is to find the real connection between the living organisms and women sexual behavior. Then… I got a few ideas pop in to my head.
#1 The Irony
If the living organisms, by their natural rules, do sexual activity only for reproduction not for pleasure like humans do, so… women, by our society rules, can also only do sexual activity for reproduction too?”
#2 The Connection
Sex for pleasure, in other words, Sexual Desire, can be compared to other desire activities of the organisms. So, do other organisms have their own desires to do anything? Yes, the desire for food! :)
With these 2 ideas together I finally came up with something more solid and related.
The conceptual
Women desires are limited by society and being judged by the different standard which against the nature of living freely. While other organisms are just living their life and express their desire without being concerned that their values might be judged by their nature. But what will happen if the living organisms are forced to control their desire in the controlling environment that stop them from perform some actions to achieve their desire goals?
The technical
To project the idea ironically, I will put the the slime mould into 2 experiments: one set on a few petri dishes that contain a partition which separate the slime mould from the food (oat flex). For the other set, I will put slime mould onto the normal petri dishes that they can naturally and freely search for their food.
I will document the movement by using time-lapse, stop motions, or photography, the goal is to observe the patterns between 2 sets of slime mould and how they perform to reach their food in different environments to project the thoughts of the DESIRE in the limited condition, like our society, and in their normal state of living in their nature ways.
The visual
I want to deliver the observation through photography, videography and interactive activity. The audience will enter a room that is divided into 2 sides: on the left is the observation results from the free desire activity and on the right will show the observation results from the controlling condition. Moreover, the middle I want to put an aquarium that contains milk that cover the whole base. On the base I will drop a few yellow liquid on randomly, then ask the audiences to scatter the oat flex around, the same action we do when we feed the slime mould. After that, I will give each audience a special q-tips (cotton buds) and ask everyone to dip it into the yellow liquid spots. The outcome is visually similar to the action of slime mould when they search for food. I want the audience to interactively feel the free desire and realise their power of choices to finally stop the inequality judgement.