’Techno-feminism’ in the immersive arts will help reduce the impact of the male gaze and could lead to future content being freed of it, according to speakers at this week’s Geneva Digital Market (GDM).
Writer and director Mariana Cadenas, VR creator Gaëlle Mourre and producer Pascaline Sordet came together for a discussion called ‘Female Gaze + VR: When Techno-Feminism takes over Digital Environments’.
Cadenas, whose debut VR documentary Draw for Change: We Exist, We Resist had its world premiere at DOK Leipzig 2023 and is now screening in the international Immersive Experience competition of the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF), says her project examines the impact of the male gaze and its global impact. “My film is conceptually an experience about what it is like to be a woman in the street, specifically in Mexico, but universally the feeling of micro-aggressions that we as women face daily,” said Cadenas.
Draw for Change: We Exist, We Resist is centred on the work of Mexican cartoonist Maremoto which emphasises the role of women in society, backgrounded by the horrific fact that there are 10 instances of femicide a day in Mexico. “The discussion with the developers to try to understand what I wanted to evoke, was hard, says Cadenas, “When we talked about it with the developers who were guys, many things were lost.”
Mourre, who also writes and directs traditional film and content, said she thought the female gaze is subverting what has historically been established as the male gaze. “[Gazes) are not exclusive to each gender. I think VR or any immersive sector is a very good tool in order to explore what another gaze is.” She noted people sometimes describe VR as an empathy tool. “I wrote down this quote from Agnes Varda. She said, ‘The first feminist gesture is to say: “OK, they’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.’ I think that’s very empowering.”
An associate programmer, XR 2024 at SXSW, Mourre garnered a special jury recognition plaudit in 2022 for Hi)Story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow, which she made with Quentin Darras. It is about the world of Artemisia Gentileschi, an internationally celebrated artist in 17th century Italy.
Producer Sordet is at the GDM with her first XR project, Rave, by Swiss filmmaker Patrick Muroni, about his memories and experiences in the Swiss rave scene. Sordet was keen to collaborate with him again after producing Muroni’s feature documentary Climage, even though she says she “basically didn’t know shit about VR or XR.”
The project, which is in prototype phase, will put the viewer into Switzerland’s rave scene of a few years back. The more the headset wearer dances, the more will be revealed, taking the audience through an all-night rave.
“This idea is not so much about female gaze, per se. It is a way of reframing the narrative and making it accessible through VR headsets, to people who would never go to a rave,” Sordet said. “For example, kids can do it, it can also be done on a chair, because it’s mostly your hands that you move so it means you can be in a wheelchair, for example, and still experience the rave.”
The panelists agreed the male gaze was embedded in their filmmaking DNA but being aware of that armed them against its deployment..
“Also, as a producer and script writer, I can use the male gaze, because I’ve been educated and I grew up in a society where male gaze was dominant,” Sordet noted.
She pointed out that literature, XR, or any kind of cultural production can use the male gaze to analyse ideas and ask questions about the material and what it is giving audiences.
All the panelists also agreed that challenges remain for women as the majority of funding gatekeepers are men. Striving for inclusivity and diversity remains top of the wishlist for the audiovisual industries.
“It’s not just men, but also people who function with biases and an old way of doing things,” Mourre said. “A cultural shift is needed and that’s why diversity and representation is so important. There are things that I’m not going to understand. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be pushed forward and expressed. It’s impossible for homogenous group to be truly representative.”
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