Qiyun Zheng

Using Mulvey’s theory on spectatorship in film and cinema, try to unpick how your own performances (whether aesthetic as in theatre/dance/performance art/music etc, or everyday performance of the self) have addressed, formed, informed audiences. How is the formation of identity/subjectivity/objectifcation created consciously/uncosciously in your work?

Not a ____ plays with a mainstream patriarchal gaze, and experiments with how easily female body parts can evoke erotic associations. This work questions and traps the pleasure in watching. What you see is the pleasure your mind wants to see.

A Shot of Anti-patriarchy not only seeks to reverse the actual power relations between female and male, but also switched the object, because usually in mainstream gaze, female is often the object to be gazed upon. In this work, the representation of a male figure is indeed an object, especially an uncanny object that is at a female figure’s disposal.

I feel so much objectified by people looking at me or my food, not much difference from how they look at women in the red light district. I encouraged myself to look back to them, to objectify them as if they are a video playing on laptop. Some of them immediately looked away when they realize I’m watching too, some kept looking at me, some decided to queue up and eat.