Due to PubPub formatting, the graphic design of this edition has been removed. For full overview of the graphic design contact [email protected]. Thank you for Hanna Wyszomierska and Antonia Bienbeck still for creating the graphic design for the print issue.
BLIK 16.1 Academic Journal for Audiovisual Culture
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Editorial Team Editor-in-Chief Maria Bosacka Secretary Moorle Slager Public Relations Official Hannah Feldmann Treasurer Roos Thomassen Art Director Ani Encheva Editors Stepan Lastuvka, Elena D'Onofrio
Editorial Council René Glas, Michiel Kamp, Frank Kessler, Hanna Surma, Jasper van Vugh
BLIK's Friends - The editorial team appreciates the support BLIK’s friends have given over many years and would therefore like to show gratitude toward them here: Ansje van Beusekom, Maaike Bleeker, Asher Boersma, Willem Bongers-Dek, Joost Broeren-Huitenga, Vincent Crone, Karin van Es, Frank de Glas, Chiel Kattenbelt, Frank Kessler, Sonja de Leeuw, Koen Leurs, Sigrid Merx, Jan-Willem van der Mijde, Toine Minnaert, Eggo Müller, Roda van Opheusden, Joost Raessens, Iris van der Tuin, André van der Velden, Nanna Verhoeff, Imar de Vries, Jasper van Vught, Moira van der Weijden, Lizzy van Winsen, Herman de Wit, Klaas de Zwaan
With Special Thanks To Frank Kessler, Klaas de Zwaan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BLIK Catcher: Maria Bosacka,A Realistic BLIK Catcher Student Paper: Sterre van der Pijll, The Not-So-Gentle Male Crisp of Laverne Cox’s Voice in the Italian-Language Version of Promising Young Woman (2020) Teacher's Column: Paul Ziche, “Embedding”, Complexity and Concreteness - a Travelogue on Philosophical Concepts Student Paper: Vincent Heere, Controlled Growth Editorial Column: Elena D'Onofrio, Pushing Boundaries or Being Held Back by Them? Student Paper: Roos Korderijnk, ‘Cozy Games’ en hun Potentie voor Inclusiviteit en Mentale Gezondheid Teacher's Interview: Frank Kessler, Frank Kessler’s Research on Early Cinema and the Magic Lantern - An interview with BLIK Editors Moorle Slager and Roos Thomassen Graphic Essay: Antonia Bienbeck, A realistic BLIK Catcher
Maria Bosacka, November 2022
Dear BLIK reader,
Some might say not much has happened since you’ve last read this journal, although it feels like we’ve travelled forward three light years here, at Muntstraat 2A. I say three because two seems like not enough, yet four a bit of an exaggeration, let’s be realistic. What are these shifts, you ask? Well, firstly, our previous editor- in-chief, Macy Hohenleitner, gradu- ated from the university, gracefully handing over her position into the hands of a somewhat chaotic, but determined, me. I will spare one more sentence for recognizing how inspi- ring Macy was for every member in this team, as we still feel her presence in every paper we edit.
As for the current BLIK team, my right-hand woman is now Ani Encheva, who joined last year as our art director, yet has been more than helpful in aiding me in my new role, many thanks to her. I’ve seen the shift of responsibilities also be taken over by editor Moorle Slager, who became our secretary in September of this year. On another, positive note, we have been lucky enough to keep our PR manager, Hannah Feldmann, as she commenced a Masters’ programme within our department in September, adherently deciding to stay on the editorial board. In effect, BLIK’s parameters are filled by both BA and MA students of Media and Culture, an exciting way of expanding our academic reach. We’ve also had a third year Media and Culture student Elena D’Onofrio join our team.. A grand welcome to her! I am so happy to see the team flourish in all of its members, from older editors to newly-joined, you make my newly acquired leadership more-than-enjoyable.
Nevertheless, this column is here for a reason, and that is to inform our journal subscribers about the contents of the newest BLIK journal. In the first edition of this academic year, 16.1, we have a set of exciting papers we are proud to have you read, commencing with an essay written by Sterre van der Pijll. She introduces us to the representational systems that stem from the audiovisual dubbing prac- tices in Western media, through the case of the Italian version of Promising Young Woman (2020). Further, this edition’s teacher’s column is written by Paul Ziche, a professor within the department of Philosophy and Reli- gious studies. His column is inspired by his travels to Hiraizumi, Japan, and the park that exists there today, which he writes about through a media studies perspective. Additionally, you will read a dramaturgical analysis conducted by Vincent Heere, who takes a look at the larger societal practices inherent within the performance Before Your Very Eyes (2011), and the way theatricality is manifested in order to contend ideas regarding the freedoms of adulthood. Further on, you will find our editorial column written by Elena, an opinion piece on Olivia Wilde’s recent film production Don’t Worry Darling (2022). The Dutch paper of 16.1 is written by Roos Korderijnk, who performed an intersectional analysis of the video game Stardew Valley (2016), asking whether the game
adheres to the concept of ‘cosy games’ in full form. The interview of this edition revolves around the magic lantern, which we were so lucky to conduct with Professor Frank Kessler of our department. I would like to thank Frank for this opportunity and our editors Moorle and Roos for directing this process. BLIK 16.1 concludes with Antonia Bienbeck’s graphic essay, who is our cover designer. It is also Antonia's work you see on both sides of the journal you are holding. Finally, I would like to thank Hanna Wyszomierska for aiding with the layout of this journal, who managed to make this BLIK edition a clean, organised one, despite the time crunch.
For those of you, dear readers, that have also been following our previous editions, the past years have been a ‘bolting process’, as Macy framed it. BLIK has been striving to become an open access journal, aiming towards digitalization. As of now, there are not many updates I can offer, however I can assure the process has com- menced. As previously mentioned, it will not be a quick one, so we have been patiently waiting to partake in BLIK’s future as an open access journal.
These are all of the updates I bring forth for you, and can now only do what is left; wish you a pleasurable experience with this edition, I hope you find BLIK 16.1 of interest!
Student paper The Not-So-Gentle Male Crisp of Laverne Cox’s Voice in the Italian-Language Version of Promising Young Woman (2020)
A Critical Investigation into Auditory and Visual Signification Practices for the Representation of Trans Women of Color in Euro-American Media
Sterre van der Pijll is in the final stages of her Bachelor’s Language & Culture Studies, for which she specialized in Postcolonial & Gender Studies. Currently, she is doing an internship at the Critical Mass Foundation, which develops interactive working forms that initiate conversations about (racial) discrimination and social exclusion. She volunteers at the Client Council of Altrecht, Utrecht’s largest mental health orga- nization. In her spare time, she loves to read and write poetry, goes to as many concerts as her bank account allows her to, enjoys going out with friends, and is up for pretty much anything creative or impulsive.
Abstract
For the Italian-language adaptation of Emerald Fennel’s Promising Young Woman (2020), the voice of actress and transgender woman of color Laverne Cox was dubbed with the male voice of Italian actor Roberto Pedicini. Using this incident and the statement of the film’s production company Universal Pictures International as a case study, this paper aims to understand how voice acting and dubbing can be considered an instrument of power that complexifies the understanding of TWOC representations in media. This paper details how sound and voice function as instruments for the identification of gender and acts of (dis)embodiment; how they can both strengthen and displace visual representations. Ultimately, this essay argues in favor of “an embodied spectatorship theory” (54) which contests prevailing notions of sound as a way to transcend the located body and, with that, escape representation.
Introduction
When it comes to addressing and challenging the visibility of trans- gender women of color in Euro- American media, actress, activist and transgender black woman Laverne Cox has been paving the way for many years now. Perhaps her best known contribution to the visibility of transgender women of color (here- after TWOC) in media, is her portrayal of Sophia Burset in Netflix’s Original Orange is the New Black. In addition, Cox shows to be a prominent activist for the LGBTQ+ community by speaking at national conferences and, in 2020, taking on the role of executive producer for Disclosure, a Netflix documentary film “that examines depictions of transgender people in film and television over the past century.” In that same year, Cox appeared in Emerald Fennel’s Promising Young Woman (2020), a
“black comedy thriller film” that follows the turbulent life of a young woman with a traumatic past (Promising Young Woman - IMDb, 2020). In interviews leading up to the film’s premiere, Cox stated she was grateful to be involved in a project that draws attention to important questions about feelings of empo- werment among marginalized identities, such as TWOC. However, despite the film's empowering narrative and its overall positive reception, the European release of the film sparked public outrage (The Guardian 2021).
The reason for the public’s dis- approval mainly concerns the Italian- language adaptation of the film that used the deep voice of Italian actor Roberto Pedicini, a white heterosexual man, to dub the voice of Cox’s female character. Given the indisputable incongruences in this decision, fans of Cox turned to social media to collecti-
vely voice their discontents. Italian trans voice actress Vittoria Schisano also weighed in, calling the occurrence “insulting” and "a straight- up act of violence” (Corbett 2021). Responding to the matter, the film’s media production and distribution company Universal Pictures Inter- national (hereafter UPI) provided a statement to Entertainment Weekly. In its statement, UPI writes:
We are deeply grateful to Laverne and the transgender community for opening our eyes to a bias that neither we nor many in our industry had recognized. While there was no malicious intent behind this mistake, we […] are thankful that we can address the situation on this film and prevent similar mistakes from happening again on future projects (Lash 2021)
With this statement, UPI expresses that they had no bad intentions and explain their actions as part of a much bigger and complex issue that goes beyond dubbing Cox’s voice with Pedicini’s. In doing so, UPI excuses itself from taking accountability as, despite acknowledging the outspoken concern of the public, they do not explain the motive behind the decision, nor do they provide insight into their proposed course of action for future projects that hold similar implications (meaning other media productions that portray transgender characters and/or actors of color). Moreover, as this is not the first time that UPI and other production companies have used male voice actors to dub the voices of transgen-
der women, the statement fails to address the structural, violent nature of the incident. In doing so, UPI neglects to address the dire need of reformation for Euro-American media productions and, thus, the urgency for more research into this issue.
In “Resisting the Male Gaze,” Diane Ponterotto (2016) tends to the structural nature that lies at the foundation of dubbing Cox’s voice. Ponterotto explains how Western academia has continuously contested what she calls “the historical in- visibility and inaudibility of the female subject” (134). Expanding on Ponterotto’s, in “Images, Power, and Politics” Marita Sturken & Lisa Cartwright (2009) write the following:
Through looking, and through touching and hearing as means of navigating space organized around the sense of sight, we negotiate our social relationships and meanings. Like other practices, looking involves relationships of power. ( 9 )
Continuing Sturken and Cartwright’s (2009) trail of thought, this paper argues that even though UPI claims to not have "recognized" it, the bias in dubbing Cox’s voice with Pedicini’s in the film’s Italian version is inherently present and has tactile consequences. Additionally, acknowledging UPI’s powerful position not only within the Western media landscape, but world- wide, this statement presents itself as innocent, but in reality uncovers unfounded and insufficient position.
Central Research Question & Approach
Therefore, this paper intends to take the case of Cox and UPI as point of vantage for research into structural issues and social processes that are involved in the representation of TWOC in Euro-American media productions. Notably, Cox’s contri- butions to the representation of TWOC in media, as well as her activist work, have already been addressed and analyzed by a number of critical scholars in visual culture and media studies (Favors 2016; Glover 2016; Hettinga 2021). However, within these academic spheres, most often the analyses tend to visual signification processes that underlie represe- ntational practices in media. Regarding this, scholar of cinema, lite- rature and popular culture Kathleen Vernon (2016) writes in “Sound and Gender,”
“[…] sound has been treated as secondary, subordinate, and supple- mentary to the visual dimension of cinema, […] critical consideration of [sound’s] nature and function has often been rendered in terms of gender.” (47)
In agreement with Vernon (2016), this paper therefore aims to investigate the implications of technology and sound for TWOC in Euro-American media, paying particular attention to the auditory signification processes in voice acting and dubbing.
Using Cox’s role in Promising Young Woman (2020) and Pedicini’s voice dubbing as case study, the central re- search question that then guides this investigation is twofold: to what extent can voice acting and voice dubbing be considered an instrument of power that expands and complexifies the understanding of TWOC representations in media; additionally, how might sound fun- ction as an act of (dis)embodiment? To answer this question, the inner workings of visual signification processes are explained using the work of Sturken & Cartwright (2009) and Kaja Silverman (1984). Secondly, a discussion follows that addresses relationships of power involved in systems of representation, asking for introduction of the concept of spectatorship and gazing. As critical feminist Donna Haraway (1988) writes in “Situated Knowledges,” specta- torship, the act of looking without participating (hooks 2014), always involves a spectator or viewer with a specific gaze, a way of looking and seeing, which drives the “struggle over what will count as rational accounts of the world are struggles over how to see” (Haraway 1988, 587). Further on, these two concepts are essential for explaining how media productions signal, reify, and resist dominant patriarchal paradigms. For this discussion, the work of critical feminist scholars Laura Mulvey (1989), bell hooks (2014) is added.
Third, the challenges that auditory signification processes pose for understanding contemporary media representations are highlighted in order to explain how the phenomenon of voice dubbing broadens signi- fication processes in terms of gender and identity. For questions regarding early research into auditory signification processes, the works of Kathleen Vernon (2016), Dianne Ponterotto (2016) and Luca Soudant (2021) are most useful. Lastly, this paper details how sound and voice function as instruments for the identification of gender and acts of (dis)embodiment and how they can both strengthen and displace visual representations. For this, Vernon's work is once again a useful point of reference, in addition to research conducted by critical media scholars Roxanne Samer & William Whittington (2017).
Ultimately, this paper argues in favor of what Vernon (2016) calls “an embodied spectatorship theory” (54) which contests prevailing notions of sound as a way to transcend the located body and, with that, escape representation. Rather, sound and voice need to be analyzed as embodied practices, as situated knowledges that carry the burden of representation. However, first, the following section offers a look into the constitution of visual signification processes which reveals the concepts vision, the physiological ability to see, and visuality: what can be seen, as well as what has been socially & culturally constructed around it. With the help of these theories and concepts it is then possible to explain how the visibility of Laverne Cox in Euro-American television culture is, in a way, an oppositional gaze.
Visual Signification Practices: Triadic Systems and Levels of Interpretation
For research into the functions and power relations in media and culture, cultural studies consider visual practices to function in ways similar to language, and therefore utilize the concepts and theories of linguistics and semiotics (Sturken & Cartwright 2009). A scholar of Linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure, came up with early theorizations of semiotics, however, Charles Sanders Peirce and Roland Barthes developed more extensive theories that are more commonly used today across a range of disciplines (Silverman 1984). Though the parameters of this paper do not allow for or justify a detailed deli- neation of all concepts involved in these theories, a few aspects are useful and rather necessary to discuss. To start with Peirce’s contributions, semiotics revolve around the use of signs, which can be understood as a triadic relation of “something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity” (Marty, 2012). Thus, Peirce argued, the sign is a system that consists of three parts that are always in relation to each other: the sign vehicle which refers to the physical form of the sign, the sign object which details the aspect of the material world that it represents, and the interpretant which includes both the receiver of the sign and the meaning they attach to it. Roland Barthes, then, distinguished three levels of interpretation for the meanings the receiver attaches to a sign: denotation, connotation, and
myth (Silverman 1984). Denotation refers to the most literal and descriptive level of interpretation, whereas connotations also refer to the social and cultural meanings that the denotative sign is meant to convey. The third level, the myth, universalizes and neutralizes the cultural and social meanings that the connotative sign produces (Silverman 1984).
These visual practices are the foundation of visual culture and media analyses within gender studies and are considered the underlying processes of representation. Resembling Barthes’ denotative level of interpretation, vision refers to the physiological abi- lity to see, the human capacity to register what is visibly present in the world around us. It is considered the most basic and objective level of interpretation, an almost neutral way of encountering the material world (Sturken & Cartwright 2009). For example, taking the case of Laverne Cox in Promising Young Woman (2020), a denotative interpretation details what can be seen: the scenes she appears in, the setting for the scenes, her narrative in the film, the clothing she wears, etc. In contrast, the concept of visuality emphasizes that we do not just see the material world but also attach connotative meanings to what we see (Sturken & Cartwright 2009). For example, how the narrative of Cox’s characters relates to the viewers’ understanding of TWOC and how the way she acts, moves, talks, dresses coincide with the viewers’ knowledge and understan- dings.
Representation: Spectatorship & (Resisting) the Male Gaze
The introduction of this paper already described that signification practices always occur within a specific social and cultural context, following the argumentation provided by Sturken & Cartwright (2009). In effect, signification processes affect our social relationships and are always involved with relationships of power. In this train of thought, Laura Mulvey (1898) explains in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” that Hollywood productions form “an advanced representational system” (804). They produce and project interpretations of the world and the people in it, including their identities. Staying within the realms of Visual Culture and thus visual practices, the representational system that Mulvey (1989) proposes can be further explored through the concepts of spectatorship and gazing (hooks 2014).
Through the lens of spectatorship understood as looking and seeing without participating, visual repre- sentations are understood as a site where, on the one hand; men are the subject, the ones looking, and on the other; women are objectified, to be looked at. In other words, the female body in cinema is presented to satisfy the male spectator, motivating Mulvey (1989) to coin the term “the male gaze.” For instance, Cox is frequently met with criticism for establishing her female identity by adhering to the patriarchal and heteronormative female stereotype, simultaneously conforming to the male gaze (hooks 2015; Glover 2016). The male gaze,
Donna Haraway (1988) argues, is the “struggle over what will count as rational accounts of the world [which] are struggles over how to see” (587). It constitutes the male perspective as objective and neutral, of looking from above. Therefore, Haraway insists on, “the embodied nature of all vision and so reclaim the sensory system that has been used to signify a leap out of the marked body and into a conquering gaze from nowhere. This is the gaze that mythically inscribes all the marked bodies, that makes the unmarked category claim the power to see and not be seen, to represent while escaping representation.” (Haraway 1988: 581)
From this, though the concept of gazing (of subject and object) has been adopted and developed from a range of different scholarships, within feminist discourse it is inherently tied to the female necessity to discard objectification and reclaim authority, agency and identity (Haraway 1988). In this sense, I suggest the presence of Laverne Cox in visual media also reflects what bell hooks calls the oppositional gaze (2014). In “The Oppositional Gaze,” hooks (2014) writes from her own experience, explaining how Black women have been repressed to gaze, systemically prohibiting them from having the power to look. In the words of hooks, this resulted in “an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze” (116), making looking back an active form of resistance. In this light, the presence of Laverne Cox in Hollywood media production can also be considered to provide this oppositional gaze in order to resist the invisibility of (black) transgender women, as a way of looking back to reclaim their identity.
Auditory Signification Processes: Gender, (Dis)embodiment and
Displaced Identity
As was already mentioned in the introduction to this paper, the visual practices delineated above hold a favored position within Western epistemology — an “ideology of the visible” (Vernon 2016, 47) with a focus on concepts such as spectatorship to analyze the distance and relationship between the viewer and the subject/object, that focuses on what can be seen. With this, Western epistemology has (implicitly) esta- blished vision as the rational and superior account for knowledge of representational practices in media and culture (Vernon 2016). Auditory practices, Vernon (2016) continues, were then theorized as the direct opposite to vision, considered inferior. Thus, as Roxanne Samer and William Whittington argue in “Spectatorship” (2017), research into auditory signi- fication processes was largely neglected within Western academia. Vernon (2016) argues that in effect, soundtrack and voice offered a place for female agency, a place within media and visual culture that was not yet male-dominated and open for exploring identities.
However, initial studies into audi- tory processes of signification that emerged around the 1980s mostly reiterated the dominant visual paradigm, leaning heavily on the pre-vailing psychoanalytical theories in visual culture of spectatorship and the male gaze. Thus, Vernon (2016) continues by borrowing from the work of Guy Rosolato (1974), that the unattended nature of film sound and its subsequent connection to feminist scholarship ultimately reiterates androcentric “structural and cultural binaries,” establishing sound as the “feminine and the corporeal,” transcending the realms of signi- fication. As a result, within understan- dings of auditory signification processes, gender became a way to understand how sound connects to image, as well as to voice, the physiological body, language and te- chnology. The female voice, too, functioned only in connection to a voyeuristic male gaze, as an identification of the objectified female body (Vernon 2016).
In “Trans*formative Thinking Through Sound,” writer, curator and artistic researcher Luca Soudant (2021) discusses how sound can be understood as a culturally constructed process of signification and way to categorize visual representations of gender. Soudant (2021) explains, the human voice, similar to visual practices, allows the spectator to locate the sound they hear and assign it to a certain identity, informed by socially and culturally acquired associations between (gender) identity and intonation, volume, accents, and pitch (Soudant 2021). Not only that, Soudant (2021) describes how the spectator often associates the sound of a vacuum with female domesticity, and how crunching loudly while eating is considered masculine as opposed to the feminine, more quiet and reserved, crunch. The male voice on the other hand, Vernon (2016) adds, functions as an extension of visual disembodiment, as a technological guise for the speaker. The male voice thus characterized the “neutral” system of representation in media and acquired a sense of “invisibility and anonymity” (Vernon 2016, 52). Notably, however, the critical intervention of Vernon (2016) and the theories that she discusses, address the issue of transgender women’s voices being dubbed by male voices.
Technology, Bodily Transcendence and Displacement of Identity
The previous sections explained how the voice and sound are connected to different accounts of identity and, similar to visual representations, thus offer important insights for research into the visibility and audibility of marginalized groups; for understan- ding how the subject speaks, who makes and lets it speak, and what the subject is allowed to speak about (Soudant 2021). As Donna Haraway (1988) already argued for the case of visual representations, disembodiment allows those in power to escape representation, while still holding the power to represent. Vernon (2016) adds to this, that synchronized sound, voice dubbing, “works to engender a complex system of displacement” (52). In the case of voice acting and dubbing, technology enables the inaudibility of TWOC from behind a technological, “neutral” guise. The visual representation remains unaltered as Cox’s physical presence is unchanged, but the auditory repre- sentation — which, as previous paragraphs revealed, functions in close connection to the visual representation — is no longer her own. The dubbing of Cox’s voice with the male voice of Pedicini distorts and displaces Cox’s visual representation of her gendered identity.
Nonetheless, media and feminist scholars increasingly consider audito- ry processes a useful and necessary expansion to understanding represen- tational systems in visual culture. For example, scholars of cinema and media studies Roxanne Samer and William Whittington (2017) state that sound and the voice are crucial for understanding representations of identity, gender, and relationships of power in media structures, arguing that it is necessary to consider listening as a form of spectatorship, for it is “located in specific bodies and tied to different subject positioning” (5). It is exactly the emotional and affective nature of sound that is able to physically enter the body, to move and inform the spectator, to make meanings. For this, Vernon (Vernon, 2016) proposes sound and the body as a form of critique that challenges the myth of a transcendent, disembodied spectator and/or subject. Sound, like vision, thus calls for an “embodied spectatorship theory” (Vernon, 54), do we wish to achieve a comprehensive understanding of processes of signification and relationships of power that are inherent to mediatized representations such as those of Cox in Promising Young Woman (2022), and the voice dubbing done by Roberto Pedicini as instructed by UPI.
Conclusion
To summarize, representations in media are conveyed by processes of signification, through triadic systems of signs that allow the viewer, spectator, to enter three levels of interpretation: denotation, conno- tation, and myth (Silverman 1984). The denotative level, like vision, is considered the most literal, neutral and object form of interpretation, while connotation, like visuality, subsequently connects meanings to culturally and socially acquired associations. Institutions and groups of power then have the ability to exercise hegemony over the meanings that are conveyed as normative, naturalizing connotative meanings as myth. For the case of Laverne Cox’s portrayal in Promising Young Woman (2020), her visual representation can be considered to reify the male gaze, for she conforms to the preferred patriarchal performance of gender. On the other hand, her visibility in Hollywood media culture acts as an oppositional gaze, a way of looking back at systems of domination and reclaiming her sense of identity and the visibility of TWOC (hooks 2014).
The voice and sound then, are connected to gendered accounts of identity and, similar to visual representations, offer important insights for research into the visibility and audibility of marginalized groups; for understanding how the subject speaks, who makes and lets it speak, and what the subject is allowed to speak about. As was demonstrated through the work of Haraway (1988), Vernon (2016), Soudant (2021) andSamer & Whittington (2017), the technological aspects of voice dubbing, the displacement of sound and the human voice can be understood as a form of bodily transcendence – it allows UPI to dub the voice of Laverne Cox with that of Roberto Pedicini, without having to acknowledge the structural nature of their actions. They simply did not see or recognize the obvious bias and discrimination, allowing both the UPI and Pedicini to represent whilst escaping representation.
Thus, one can argue that technology has evidently provided those in power with another instrument to silence female voices, as voice acting and dubbing enables the inaudibility of TWOC from behind a technological, “neutral” guise. In doing so, using the case of Cox and UPI as illustration, the identity of both Cox and her character are distorted: the visual represen- tation of TWOC provided by Cox herself and the auditory represen- tation that is ascribed by UPI are an act of condensation – the com- pression of two separate qualities into one --- and ultimately, distort Cox’s identity: the technological synchro- nization of Roberto Pedicini’s deep male voice to Cox’s visual bodily representation. Her visual portrayal still holds the locus of an empowered feeling but is ultimately displaced. As counter-argument to considering sound a bodily transcendence and an elusive feminine entity that escapes embodied signification, this paper is in agreement with Haraway (1988) who insists on an embodied nature of all visions, and joins Vernon’s (2016) call for an embodied spectatorship theory
that takes into account the connection between sound and image, as well as power, identity and the body.
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Teacher's column Paul Ziche, “Embedding”, Complexity and Concreteness – a Travelogue on Philosophical Concepts
PaulZiche is professor for the History of Modern Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht. He is working on topics concerning the interaction between philosophy and the sciences around 1800 and around 1900, is interested in German Idealism and Romanticism, in the philosophy of nature, in unknown authors, in aesthetics, and in interdisciplinary work in general. As a teacher, he contributes to the programs in philosophy, but also to History and Philosophy of Science and to other programs. He has been teaching courses at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and is fascinated by Japanese culture and traditions. Photography and the theoretical reflection upon photography are among his more hobbyist interests.
There is a very natural link between what I do in my own field - the history of philosophy and of the sciences - and issues in media theory. Two key terms, which are also key ideals, in my research (and, I hope, also in my teaching) are concreteness and com- plexity: never study phenomena (authors, texts, theories, ...) in abstract isolation, always study them in their relations. Research (and teaching) is about making things richer, dis- covering new structures and nuance. These are key ideals of historical work in general, and the history of science, in particular, can show us that science only gets the more exciting, and a study of the sciences only gets the more realistic, if complex and concrete aspects (materialities, insti- tutional contexts, links between divergent fields, ...) are factored in. A particularly strong form of relations is that of embedding. Being embedded is a relationship that cannot be recon- structed in terms of a set of pre-given, determined elements. Embedding means: discovering novel relations, in a potentially infinite complexity in the interplay between an individual phenomenon and its contexts (the hermeneutic phraseology is not coincidental here) (see also Ziche 2023). “Medium” is a very traditional term for the context of embedding – “medium” in the sense of: the large- scale surroundings within which individual events unfold, and that influence and are influenced by these events. This requires, of course, a concrete illustration. Let me share with you a part of a travelogue from a recent trip to Japan, more particularly to Hiraizumi in Iwate prefecture (all details on this place: see Nomination of Hiraizumi 2010), a place that invites, requires, and facilitates processes of embedding.
Hiraizumi is very much a place of ancient glory. In the 12th century, the Fujiwara family turned Hiraizumi into their home, and built a city that rivalled Kyoto in grandeur and splendour, with temple districts and extensive landscaped grounds de- signed to evoke the Buddhist ‘pure land’. Already in 1189, the city of Hiraizumi was destroyed in war, and fell into decay. Today, Hiraizumi is a place in which memory is celebrated, with and in particular also without material remains from the past. What makes Hiraizumi particularly inte- resting is that throughout the centuries, a multi-layered, complex network of memory references invol- ving media ranging from words to grass, water, pebbles and rocks, has been built, has been carefully preserved, and has been added to. As every scholar interested in pheno- mena of memory, and of memory media and objects, I am much indebted to the work of Ann Rigney, but cannot discuss this here.
Immortalizing a volatile poem
When the great poet Matsuo Basho visited Hiraizumi on his trip to the wild North of Japan in the year 1689, he wept bitterly in the face of the fading traces of faded glory – and this intense emotion transported him beyond experiencing his present surroundings and the present time(“I sat down on my hat and wept bitterly till I almost forgot time”). He immortalized this moment of sadness in a famous haiku that can be rendered in translation as follows:
A thicket of summer grass Is all that remains
Of the dreams and ambitions
Of ancient warriors. (Basho 1966, 118)
Many alternative translations can be given; one example (itself presented as an inscription at Hiraizumi): „The summer's grass/'Tis all that's left/Of ancient warrior's dreams“.
The haiku is a poetic format that requires and stimulates spontaneity and dialogue, quite as in a poetry slam today (it might be interesting to also look into attempts of photographing Haikus; see e.g. Timm 2015; Till 2016. The photos in this text have no ambitions in this direction). But in this case, the moment and the location where this haiku was composed were itself immortalized, already in Basho’s own times, by erecting a stone on the spot where this haiku was written (composed, recited, ...) which is, at the same time, the very spot upon which this poem reflects. It is said that this stone bears an inscription of the poem in Basho’s own hand (can this be true?). For today’s visitor, certainly for the visitor ignorant of the Japanese language, hardly any traces of an inscription are visible on the stone. But the stone is hidden behind beautiful maple leaves in the colours of early autumn, and the site of the stone is tended with great attention by scores of gardeners, even if it looks
like a very unassuming spot of sand with some moss covering it in patches. In terms of memory media, this is a multiply complex course of events and of objects. A rock-solid stone memo- rises a poem that is all about capturing the volatility of time and of human achievements. This stone is itself erected as part of a landscape that is a monument of the past. And this old stone – ‘old’ in the sense of having been individually singled out as a relevant object for a long time – is accompanied by a number of more recent stone monuments featuring the same poem, also in translation, and in Hiraizumi, there are many more stone monuments remembering famous poems. There is an obvious dialectics here: that of wanting to remember the fleeting event of writing the fleeting poetical crystallisation that is a haiku in the unyielding medium of a stone. But what is really important about Hiraizumi as a memory landscape is that this very dialectics between hard and soft, words and rocks, is suspended. Stones are no longer fully inert, and words no longer just fleeting sound waves or brush strokes. Also, Hiraizumi, as a memory place, has been translated into music, see (listen to) Simon Hutchinson’s “Hiraizumi Memories (2018)” (Hutchinson 2018).
The ruin of a pond
Our guide told the following story: when the mummified bodies of members of the Fujiwara family, the builders of the once splendid place of Hiraizumi, were last investigated, researchers discovered lotus seeds, as old as the mummies, in the bucket containing the severed head of one Fujiwara. With much botanical effort, the seeds could be grown into flowers again, and these lotus plants are now tended in what in the times of ancient splendour was a formally laid out pond (for an account of this story, see The long road 2017) – a place our guide referred to, in a very poetic phrase, as the “ruin of a pond”. Referring to the ruin of a pond testifies to the importance that landscape archite- cture and gardening had and has in Japanese culture, but doing so by reinvigorating ancient plants from a mummy’s tomb rather dramatically confounds our sense of time. Other than the old plants that are proudly presented in some ancient places in Europe (think of the 1000-year-old rose bush adorning the choir of Hildesheim cathedral in Germany), these lotus flowers are not only about continuity throughout the times, but also, and even more so, about the eternity of ever-changing life cycles.
The pond of a ruin
This is what an information sign tells the visitors of Hiraizumi: here, we have the only extant “feeder stream” from the times of Hiraizumi’s great- ness, carefully planned and built, man- made in every detail, except, of course, for the water streaming down
into the pond. This stream follows, in minute detail, down to the tiniest pebble, the most important gardening manual from the 11th century, Sakuteiki (a modern translation: Takei/Keane 2008). The Sakuteiki itself is a manual for building from memories; it asks us to collect memories of natural landscapes and take these memories as the starting point and the material for building a landscape that is artificial and natural at the same time (Takei/Keane 2008, 149).
Here are more photos of this pond, its carefully designed shoreline, and of the tracings of ancient structures in the landscape surrounding this pond:
Medium and content, background and foreground, old and contem-porary intersect, or better: become mutually embedded in this place. Old texts, today’s information boards, widely shared traditions, concrete objects, and their concrete absences, all come together here. In terms of impact upon the spectator: this multi-layered place makes the spectator suspicious and curious, sceptical and over- whelmed, reflective and contem- plative, critical and enthusiastic, and receptive and speculative, all at the same time. And, returning to my opening remarks: this makes for a nice credo for research and teaching. So what about this tree in Hiraizumi – is it also a kind of monument, a memory object, an inscription?
References
Basho, Matsuo: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. Translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa. London: Penguin 1966, 118.
Takei, Jiro/Keane, Marc P.: Sakuteiki. Visions of the Japanese Garden. A Modern Translation of Japan’s Gardening Classic. Tokyo et al.: Tuttle Publishing 2008.
The long road of the Chusonji Lotus spans nearly a millennium of Japanese history,
Ziche, Paul: “Concreteness”. Key Concepts in World Philosophies: A Toolkit for Philosophers, ed. by Sarah Flavel/ Chiara Robbiano, London et al.: Bloomsbury 2023, 341-350.
Photos: Paul Ziche
Student paper Controlled Growth
Vincent Heere is a first-year student of the Linguistics bachelor programme at Utrecht University, having previously had a year-long stint in Media and Culture at the same institution. His academic aspirations are limited, but he intends to continue his research well into his eventual MA by arbitrarily linking his scholarly obligations to his interests: cinema, narratology, poetry, and music. When not complaining or writing about films for an adoring crowd of half-a-dozen people, he can often be found either procrastinating said writing or watching said films.
Abstract
First performed in 2011, the performance Before Your Very Eyes by European collective Gob Squad entails a simulation of how a group of children in a glass box grow through various stages of their lives in real time, controlled by a voice from an invisible source. By using concepts developed by Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink and Sigrid Merx as its central theoretical basis, this analysis argues that the performance uses various elements of design and dramaturgy to address the audience in a way that disrupts the standard Western mode of looking. Through elements of scenography, such as the ‘vivarium,’ as well as the monitors on either side of the stage, the performance highlights its own artificiality and by extension invites the audience to adopt a critical view. In combination with the performance’s satiric approach to growing older in both a visual and a narrative sense, Before Your Very Eyes stimulates the audience to question Western notions of adulthood."
Introduction
A life lived in freedom cannot be contained within the span of a single hour, but a life lived in subordinance can. First performed in the spring of 2011, British-German collective Gob Squad collaborated with various groups of youngsters aged eight to fourteen on Before Your Very Eyes, a performance in which the children simulate living out various coming phases of their lives onstage, entirely taking place within a vivarium of sorts: a glass box constructed out of one- way mirrors (Gob Squad and CAMPO 2011). Throughout the performance, the actors are addressed by a voice from an invisible source, which persistently instructs them with orders that become progressively more specific, and that become followed more and more as the performers ‘age.’
Theoretical background
In this essay, Before Your Very Eyes is analysed using theories about scenography and theatricality, in order to establish how the perfor- mance crafts and presents its statement: a critique of Western notions of adulthood, specifically of the assumed liberties that are associated with it. To carry out this analysis, I draw on Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink and Sigrid Merx’ model of dramaturgical analysis as proposed in “Dramaturgical Analysis: A Relational Approach” (Groot Nibbelink and Merx 2021, 6). This model is, as the title implies, relational in nature, and thus focuses not just on elements of the
performance, but also on the perfor- mance’s relation to society, making it uniquely equipped to explicate my thesis statement. The authors distin- guish three planes of dramaturgy in their model, namely spectator, composition, and context, and they ascertain a relation between each of these (7-10).
Because this analysis is focused not only on the way Before Your Very Eyes constructs its critique of Westernised ideas of adulthood, but also on how it brings said critique across to its audience, I analyse the performance through all three of these planes, and more specifically through two of the relations between them. The first of these relations that I touch upon is that between the spectator and the composition, what Groot Nibbelink and Merx call ‘spectatorship;’ the way the elements of the composition address the spectator, and invite the spectator to take up a specific position towards the performance, regardless of the nature of said position (Groot Nibbelink and Merx 2021, 8-9). The second relation that I discuss is between the composition and the context of the work, or what the authors call ‘statement;’ the coale- scence of the compositional elements and the socio-cultural context in which they are presented, which together result in the work expressing social commentary (Nibbelink and Merx 2021, 9).
Analysis: spectatorship
As soon as the performance starts, or rather even as soon as the stage becomes visible, Before Your Very Eyes presents the spectator with a noteworthy visual element. Sat upon the stage is a box constructed out of rather large one-way mirrors— through which the children during the performance state they cannot see— which acts as a vivarium of sorts in terms of staging the performance. These elements constructing the space of the performance are part of what Liesbweth Groot Nibbelink in her (aptly-named) text “How Does Scenography Think?” Groot Nibbelink 2019) calls scenography. Scenography, as explained by Groot Nibbelink, is the design of the physical and temporal space in which a performance is put on. More specifically, analysing these elements allows for observations to be made regarding the manner in which the performance-space influences the performance itself, as well as for observations regarding the way in which the performance-space addresses the audience (Groot Nibbelink 2019, 100-01).
Groot Nibbelink acknowledges four different components of scenography in this text, but I contend that the relevant categories for this specific example from Before Your Very Eyes are ‘relationality’ and ‘affectivity.’ Relationality is the way that the design of the material space informs the distance between the spectator and the performance, both in the literal, physical sense, and—more importantly for the chosen example—in the sense of ‘perceived’ distance (Groot Nibbelink 2019, 106-07). Affectivity is the way that the design of the material space appeals to the spectator’s senses, emotions, and cognition, and by extension of the latter two, calls upon the spectator’s connotations (107-08). On the other hand, relationality is relevant in the sense that the vivarium has a physical fourth wall that a ‘normal’ stage lacks. The performance is enclosed, and therefore becomes its own separate microcosm in the mind of the spectator, creating a sense of perceived distance between them and the performance. This underlines the observing position of the spectator. With regards to affectivity, I have specifically used the word vivarium thus far, and not simply because it is referred to in the Groot Nibbelink text concerning the company behind an ostensibly very similar stage (Groot Nibbelink 2019, 107). I instead use that specific term because the effect that the glass construction produces in Before Your Very Eyes not just physically and relationally separates the audience from the work, but also reminds the spectator of such vivaria that one is likely to see in zoos. The spectator is not just observing but, through the connotative affectivity of the glass box, is being instructed to observe as one would usually observe animals. This similarity implies a hierarchy between the spectator and the performance that is similar to that between the visitor of a zoo and the animals ‘on display.’ Together, these two components make the vivarium a notable scenographic element. By diverging from ‘standard’ stage design, both in terms of perceived distance as well as in terms of connotation, the spectator is rendered mindful of the fact that what they are watching is staged; they are made explicitly aware of observing. This state wherein the spectator is not just aware that something is being staged, but also by extension becomes critical of their own perspective and “mode of looking,” is what Maaike Bleeker in her article “Limited Visibility” refers to as ‘theatricality’ (Bleeker 2011, 149-152). By calling the spec-tator’s attention to their own position vis-à-vis the performance, the vivarium destabilises the traditional Western notion of the relationship between performance and spectator—where the spectator is seen as a passive ‘receiver’ of the performance—in favour of a theatrical affect that renders the spectator as negotiating component within the performance. One reason to make spectators aware of their own perspectives, as men-tioned by Bleeker, is to “inspire critical thinking” (150). I argue that, by making the observer aware of their own mode of looking, the vivarium invites them to take up a critical view of the performance, and to thus read between the lines of the composition. The spectator’s newfound critical awareness then provokes them to discover that the vivarium not only functions as an invitation to critically evaluate the way they perceive the play as a whole, but that it has an additional function. The staging, through its theatrical address, calls attention to its own scenography, as well as the spectator’s perspective regarding it. The result of this critical view is that the aforementioned connotative affectivity is imbued with additional meaning—the similarity is no longer just a signifier of artificiality, but rather a curated part of the composition, installed to provoke the viewer. They are invited to ponder this specific scenographic decision, both within the context of the rest of the composition as well as within the socio-cultural context the performan- ce exists within, through which the similarity between captive animals and the children is revealed metapho- rically. Consequently, the audience becomes aware of not just the voyeuristic nature of the construc- tion’s one-way visibility, but also of the accompanying power relationship. The children are trapped both physically and thematically, a notion which informs the spectator on how to perceive the forthcoming perfor- mance, and one that will become more pronounced as the performance unfolds.
Analysis: statement
Having invited the viewer from the very start of the performance onwards to adopt a critical point of view and consider the context of the work, the performance unfolds its statement. To analyse how it does so, it is pertinent to distinguish the different phases that the children present. The first of these is the pre-recorded video material, in which the performers are younger than they present to be onstage. This phase is shown simultaneously with the first three live phases the performers are in, being (respectively) their ‘actual’ ages, adolescence, and adulthood. In each of these stages, the children talk to their past-selves. This works via a set-up of a television monitor on either side of the stage, with the left monitor showing the children live in the vivarium, and the right showing the prerecorded footage. The final phase is old age, in which the (final remaining) actor does not speak with his past-self.
The first instance where one of the children is being inhibited in their agency is at the end of the intro- duction when the last child, one of the youngest, enters the vivarium and continues dancing even after the music has finished. He is told by the voice to stop, but initially does not listen. He does not cease dancing until one of the eldest of the children intervenes and signals for him to do so. The age-difference is a seemingly innocuous detail, but it emphasises a discrepancy in responsivity to the voice that becomes a recurring theme; the further the performers venture into adulthood, the more they adhere to the voice’s commands. The catalyst for the performers to leave their youth behind is the voice telling them to “grow up,” which they (somewhat hesitantly) do.
The performers’ lack of agency is not entirely obvious in the adolescent stage - comparatively to the other stages, the voice does not order the performers around frequently. Its influence is more subtle; it is present in the manner in which the voice confronts the performers with their past-selves (despite telling them earlier to grow up) and how the performers communicate with their past-selves. Having been told by the voice to grow up when they were still children themselves, they now reiterate its command, telling their past- selves the same thing.
The most explicit example of the voice’s influence is around the half- way mark of the performance, when the performers are approximately in their 40s, and attending a dinner party. In this phase, they appear to have no agency whatsoever; they have no control over their behaviour, actions, or lives. The only actions they undertake are those they are told to perform by the voice: the performers are as puppets. They move as instructed, and only speak when told to do so. This is largely presented in a rather comical way, for example, by one of the male performers reluctantly eating a seemingly horrendous piece of homemade sushi.
I argue that the extreme manner in which this ‘obedience’ is presented, with the performers unwillingly executing movements and delivering lines exactly as prescribed, satirically exposes the artificial nature of the performance (and the fact that it’s staged) to even further extents than the scenography did. As Bleeker describes, this exposing of artifice fosters theatricality by reminding the spectator that the performance is staged (Bleeker 2011, 149). When considering the fact that this theatricality invites the spectator to take up a critical view of not just the work but of their own perspective, I contend that they are provoked to consider that throughout these phases, the recurring authority of the voice is signifying something outside of the performance.
In youth, the performers are told to be themselves and to play, but they are paradoxically also instructed to “grow up” and become adults. In a similar manner of contradiction, in adolescence, the performers are told to act their ages, shortly before being confronted with (and tethered to) their past-selves. In adulthood, where the performers are so inundated with the control that the voice has that they simply follow its every command, the contradiction is slightly more complex. Here, the contradiction is twofold—for one, in adolescence, the performers stated that their coming adulthood will largely bring them freedom, for example to have sex, or to drive a car, among a range of autonomous activities. Yet, as adults, they are constricted to the whims of the voice, and they are significantly less positive about their own freedoms and capabilities when asked.
The main contradiction however does not relate to the internal workings of the performance itself, but rather to a societal context—we are inclined to assume, at least in the West, that adults do enjoy autonomy and freedom, so to see them follow the strict orders of the voice to the point of hilarity surprises the audience. A spectator that has already been activated into being critical of their own perspective, then, as invited by both the extremity of the sequence as well as the ever-present theatricality evoked by the scenography, is conditioned to be more likely to question this notion. The invisible voice, as viewed through this critical lens encouraged by theatricality, no longer just functions as a driving force for the performance, but as a greater metaphor for societal pressures. The ‘adults’ in the performance are not free, they merely present an illusion of freedom by knowing better than to disobey the voice.
To further support this claim, I would like to introduce a concept that Adrian Kear discusses in his text “How Does Theatre Think Through Theatri- cality?,” namely his elaboration on Thomas Postlewait’s theory that power structures harbour an “inherent theatricality” (Postlewait 2019, 298). Kear specifies that if the notion “all the world’s a stage” is accurate and power structures are inherently performative, the ability to highlight this theatricality makes theatre uniquely equipped to combat such structures. In other words, the critical view imbued by theatricality undermines the self-evidence of power structures. The power struc- ture on display in Before Your Very Eyes is slightly abstract, as the enacting power of the voice is an unembodied representation of a tendency, rather than an agent itself. I nonetheless argue that the interplay of the different phases of life themselves represent a power dynamic, especially with the way they are presented in the performance. This is especially visible when considering the adulthood phase, where the characters are subjugated to the voice and stripped of (almost) all autonomy. An additional example of such structures being challenged in the performance lies in the transition-periods between pha- ses. The children grow up by changing into clothes that were already visibly lying on the stage, and by putting on make-up either to look more ‘woman- like,’ in the case of the girls, or to simulate facial hair, in the case of the boys. By having the performers carry out these changes onstage, the Western mode of looking is inherently disrupted, as convention dictates that the processes of any costume changes are invisible to the spectator, to persuade them into believing that any changes in appearance are natural.' Seeing the children grow up ‘before your very eyes’ clashes with this notion, reminding the spectator that the performance is staged, thus (as Bleeker addresses) fostering theatri- cality (Bleeker 2011, 149). The performance hence uses its cultural context to subvert its audience’s expectations, and by fostering theatri- cality through this means it highlights the inherent artificiality of growing up; the only ‘real’ change that the performers go through, is becoming more and more submissive to the voice and all it represents. By juxtaposing the artificiality of the physical progression with the increa- sing obedience, adulthood is explicitly displayed as a performative act, con- sequentially scrutinising the powers and privileges that adults have as opposed to children in the modern- day Western society in which the play is performed.
Conclusion
Concludingly, by using Groot Nibbelink and Merx’ method of dra- maturgical analysis, I have contended that Before Your Very Eyes uses matters of composition to cultivate theatricality, in order to make the spectator critically aware of both their own perspective and of convention— the societal and cultural context of the performance. I argue that this ultima- tely allows Before Your Very Eyes to transmit its subversive statement regarding adulthood, being that, as opposed to popular Western belief, growing up brings about less agency than generally assumed; Before Your Very Eyes argues that adulthood is largely a matter of becoming more receptive to societal pressure. I fur- ther argue that the performance makes sure to facilitate critical reading; the vivarium-like stage design in combination with the contradictory nature of the voice’s interaction with the performers in the first two phases, as well as the explicitly satiric nature in which orders are given and followed in the adulthood phase, each function to guide the audience into a critical perspective. By transparently inviting the spectator to interpret the per- formance, Before Your Very Eyes thus tries to be minimally ambiguous in the manner in which it presents its statement.
References
Before Your Very Eyes. 2011. Directed and scripted by Gob Squad, produced by CAMPO and Gob Squad, performed by Maurice Belpaire, Fons Dhossche, Tasja Doom, Robbe Langeraert, Zoë Luca, Ramses de Ruyck, and Aiko Vanparys. CAMPO, Ghent, May 13, 2011. Performance available at https://vimeo.com/33714018.
Bleeker, Maaike. 2011. “Limited Visibility.” Thamyris/Intersecting, no. 23: 143-60. CAMPO. 2014. “Before Your Very Eyes.” Accessed June 10, 2022. https://www.campo.nu/index.php/
Groot Nibbelink, Liesbeth, and Sigrid Merx. 2021. “Dramaturgical Analysis: A Relational Approach.” FORUM+ 28, no. 3 (Autumn): 4-16.
Groot Nibbelink, Liesbeth. 2019. “How Does Scenography Think?.” In Thinking Through Theatre and Performance, edited by Maaike Bleeker et al., 100-14. London: Methuen Drama.
Kear, Adrian. 2019. “How Does Theatre Think Through Theatricality?.” In Thinking Through Theatre and Performance, edited by Maaike Bleeker et al., 296-310. London: Methuen Drama.
Editorial Column Pushing Boundaries or Being Held Back by Them? How Olivia Wilde's Don't Worry Darling Didn't Quite Surprise Me
ElenaD'Onofrio is a third-year Media and Culture student from Italy specialising in Participatory Cultures. She is currently interning at DUB, Utrecht University’s independent newspaper, and hopes to follow a journalism- oriented master’s degree next year. Within her studies, she is particularly interested in women’s representation in mythology, as well as how identity and the concept of self are constructed in popular media. In her free time, she likes photography, ballet, and abstract painting.
“Men don’t come in this film. Only women here!” (Wagmeister 2022). The first thing Olivia Wilde says in her interview with Variety magazine about her second directorial debut, Don’t Worry Darling, is definitely a shocking one. Wilde is known for her intense and outspoken takes on feminism and on women’s portrayal in the media: she has openly criticised many of her co-stars on various sets about their carelessness for such topics, and sees the world “through a post-feminist prism, as it should be” (Wagmeister 2022). The women she wants to depict in her movies act on their own volition, without the influence of men (Wagmeister 2022). Don’t Worry Darling was supposed to be infused with some of these convictions: loosely based on Betty Friedan’s Le Feminine Mistique, a critical book on the role of women as caretakers credited with having sparked second- wave feminism, the movie tries to explore these themes with a more modern approach. Thanks to its nostalgically attractive atmosphere, with Florence Pugh starring as a 50s- like housewife who cooks and cleans for her working husband, Wilde’s critique is blatantly obvious. But is the movie really living up to her principles?
Wilde’s Shortcomings: the Larger Picture
Wilde doesn’t exactly come from a socially isolated family: her mother, Leslie Cockburn, is an award-winning investigative journalist who graduated from the second class of women ever permitted to attend Yale University. Together with Wilde’s father, Andrew Cockburn, she documented and wrote articles on several world conflicts, and has been an outspoken supporter of women’s rights in the USA. Wilde mentioned these values being influential over her lifestyle from a young age, with her mother’s catchphrase “don’t be boring” en- graved in her head (Miller 2022). It is almost obvious that she would hope to transfer such ideals to her directorial work, but there are other forces at play: surrounded by not-so-positive media coverage since announcing singer Harry Styles in the role of one of the main characters, Don’t Worry Darling’s reputation seems to have followed it all the way to the big screen. While some may have been lured into watching to see the famous singer acting, the true star of the film is undoubtedly Florence Pugh: her performance glides over the some- what superficial plot to deliver a well- rounded individual and impeccable acting. As the main character, her role is supposed to be in the spotlight: Styles’ performance, however, still takes up much of the film’s focus, and the majority of headlines.
His presence as a pop-star can be a distracting element for the audience, taking away from the movie’s feminist discourse while overshadowing his fellow actors. Rumours spreading on social media describe his role as a public relations strategy to attract more attention to the movie. Regardless, his casting – as either a famous figure or just another male actor who receives more attention than his much more talented female co-star – doesn’t seem to live up to Wilde’s ostentatiously grand ideals. How can she strive to make Don’t Worry Darling a pillar of post-feminist thought, if those same principles are not upheld behind the scenes with her own cast? Pugh herself spoke up about the issue in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, where she criticised the very choice of hiring Styles and the way her scenes with him were directed: “when it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world go down on someone, it’s not why we do it. It’s not why I’m in this industry. Obviously, [that’s] the nature of hiring the most famous pop star in the world, you’re going to have conversations like that” (Cuttler 2022). However, she also stated that the movie as a whole was “bigger and better” (Cuttler 2022). So, what exactly is Don’t Worry Darling trying to communicate?
Wilde’s Shortcomings: the Picture Itself
For those of you who have not watched the movie yet, please be careful: there will be spoilers. Alice (Florence Pugh) and her husband Jack (Harry Styles) live a seemingly idyllic 1950s life in the quaint town of Victory: while Jack works on the highly secretive Victory Project, Alice spends her repetitive days cooking, cleaning, and gossiping with other women, whose husbands also work on the classified operation. Slowly but steadily, Alice’s world starts collapsing in on itself as she begins to question the truth of her reality. In a somehow expectable turn of events, the whole world of Victory is revealed to be a simulation, one that Alice unwilingly entered and that she desperately wants to escape. Jack is exposed as an incel-type man who forcefully tied his girlfriend to her bed and keeps her eyes focused on Victory’s mind- numbing images. In an even more worrying discovery, every man in town is doing the exact same thing to their female partner. Intriguing, isn’t it? Well, that’s all you’re going to get. The movie, quite literally, ends here. The unsettling idea lying at its core – that men’s love, or rather, obsession, with a woman entitles them to her physical and mental autonomy – is not explored further: the writers do not seem concerned enough to wrestle with its implications, and the idea simply stands there, as a sort of token of awareness.
The movie does tell us that the simulation was built by a man named Frank (Chris Pine), a charismatic persona who seems to rule over the town of Victory. Frank’s online community is shown to be the reason Jack decides to join. In a talk with Interview magazine, Olivia Wilde attri- buted her inspiration for Frank’s character to Jordan Peterson, a right- wing Canadian professor whose alarming beliefs include, but are unfortunately not limited to, identity politics as the road to totalitarianism and “victimhood culture” as the reason why women report sexual assaults (Gyllenhaal 2022). The connection between Peterson’s ideas and Frank’s incel fantasy town adds a current and relatable layer to the movie, but it’s still not enough. The subtle criticism of male dominance over female agency Wilde pushed so much remains, regrettably, too subcon- scious: it is not simply hidden from plain view, but rather non-existent. The movie’s almost painfully slow narrative is constructed to build up to a big reveal, which never really comes (how many more “this is not real and we are living in a simulation” Truman- like tropes are really going to shock viewers?), while what could have been the true breakthrough and its interesting aspects are not explored. Albeit hinting that something is wrong throughout the entire narrative, the actual time dedicated to explaining what’s behind Victory town is dramatically short. Even though viewers are given contextual flash- backs right before, Alice only finds out that she is in a simulation with less than 30 minutes left of screen time: the whole situation is then rashly explained amongst a car chase, a confession, and at least two killings, which means that most of it is left to the viewer’s imagination. By the time credits rolled in, I was disappointed and confused, left with the yearning feeling of wanting more. The whole message of the movie, therefore, felt performative, and the finished work lacked the boldness of Wilde’s widely professed convictions.
Judging a Book by its Cover
Many movies, however, have open and disappointing endings: why has this one been so overly scrutinised? Is it because the director is a woman? The world of female directing is small, and it reduces even more, when the budget is taken into consideration. As of today, only around 20 women have had the chance to direct a movie with a budget upwards of 100 million dollars (including animated movies and movies with a male co-director) (Rosenfeld 2021). Some examples are Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time, Chloé Zhao’s Eternals and Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie. At a much lower 35 million dollars, Don’t Worry Darling does not even fall under this category. Regardless, it is Wilde’s first big-hit directorial debut and Styles’ first relevant role, which makes it almost inevitable for it to miss the spotlight. Nonetheless, that light has been particularly harsh: the turmoil surrounding the casting choice and the actors’ personal lives caught international attention, and it was the face of gossip websites for weeks. Wilde’s cryptic comment "I don't feel like my male directing colleagues are answering questions about their cast" (Wagmeister 2022) made it clear where she stands on the issue, whether her movie reflects it or not.
So, is Don’t Worry Darling’s feminist message being projected on the big screen and perceived by the public eye? That is a hard question to answer. It is clear that Wilde’s grand ideals are not as grand in the actual movie, and that the casting choice and subsequent focus on “the most famous man in the world” definitely missed the mark. However, the over-scrutinisation of Wilde’s work, choi-ces, and personal life can, and probably should, be tied to the highly patriarchal and male- dominated Hollywood culture of today where women are rarely given a dignified status with no strings attached. There is no doubt that Wilde got caught in the eye of the storm: almost every part of her personal and professional life was dissected under a microscope while she was filming the movie, to the point that she was served custody papers on the stage of Las Vegas CinemaCon last April, sparking a tabloid war over pictures and videos of the event. The details around who organised the stunt are vague, but one certainty remains: no matter how hard working you are or what your career is, being a woman comes with the burden of being seen as a mother and caretaker first, and as anything else second. Such a violation of Wilde’s workplace and a public display of her private life becomes, then, an act of power, whose only purpose is the reinforcement of a patriarchal view of the world, topped up with a smidge of public shaming. Dubbing the situation as simply unprofessional is therefore a definite understatement, and claiming to judge Wilde according to the same standards of a man in her position outright naive. The difference in treatment between men and women in the film industry, from lower paychecks to higher standards, has been repeatedly proven and analysed, and has become prevalent to the point of normality. Reaching back to statements I myself previously made in this article, I have to wonder how many of them were influenced by such heedless biases. This difference must then be taken into account when talking about controversies around a female director, especially when thesecontroversies have been fueled by abloid websites.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the point of this article was not to needlessly berate Don’t Worry Darling, Wilde, or Styles, but rather to analyse the shortcomings of such a publicly advertised piece of media, while additionally adding context to the Hollywood industry's embedded (gendered) power struc- tures. I ultimately believe that Wilde’s attempt to develop a deeper feminist agenda deserves recognition; I just don’t believe the message is delivered clearly enough in this particular movie, in terms of both behind the scenes and narrative. Her struggle for recognition as a female director and the difference in treatment compared to her male colleagues are major issues that I tried to take into consideration when discussing her and her work. Female directors are more harshly criticised than their male counterparts, and that’s just a fact: what it isn’t, however, is an excuse for Wilde not to create an accurate representation of the ideals she grew up with and that she so desperately wants to spread.
Student paper ‘Cozy Games’ en hun Potentie voor Inclusiviteit en Mentale Gezondheid een Discoursanalyse van Stardew Valley vanuit een Intersectioneel Feministisch Perspectief
RoosKorderijnk is a fourth-year Communication and Information Science student at Utrecht University, with a big interest in the different ways entertainment media play a role in our lives. Through electives, she enjoyed exploring different approaches to this question, like Media Studies, Gender Studies, Behavioral Science, and Game Studies. She is excited to focus more on one certain perspective when she starts her MA in Media Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit next year, and delve deeper into the psychological impacts of media use. In her free time, Roos enjoys journalling, binging series, and playing in a marching band in the small town she grew up in.
Abstract
Dit paper bevat een analyse van het boerderijspel Stardew Valley, een spel dat door fans is bestempeld als een ‘cozy game’. Het paper gaat in op de betekenis van een cozy game, en op basis van de tekstuele representatie, audiovisuele representatie en spel- mechanismen in het spel wordt geanalyseerd in hoeverre Stardew Valley, vanuit een intersectioneel perspectief op inclusiviteit, kan worden beschouwd als een cozy game.
Introductie
Stardew Valley is een boerderij- simulatie spel, ontwikkeld voor PC, de Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox en smartphone. Het spel is ontwikkeld door ConcernedApe – ofwel Eric Barone, wie zelfstandig, zonder een productiebedrijf, alles van het spel heeft gemaakt. Het spel is erg succesvol: in 2021 is het al 15 miljoen keer verkocht.
Stardew Valley wordt door spelers en journalisten gezien als een ‘cozy game’, naast titels zoals Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Story of Seasons, Celeste en anderen. Deze spellen worden door veel spelers beschouwd als spellen die ruimte bieden voor veiligheid en inclusie. Dergelijke spellen bieden ruimte aan karakters en narratieven die gemarginaliseerde groepen repre- senteren (Waskiewicz & Bakun, 2020). Ook worden de spellen beschouwd als veilig, bijvoorbeeld door de afwezigheid van geweld (Waskiewicz & Bakun, 2020) en doordat de spellen tijdens de COVID-19 pandemie een ontsnapping aan de buitenwereld boden (Barr & Copeland-Stewart,021; Comerford, 2020). Zo verschenen tijdens de COVID-19 pandemie talloze artikelen over ‘The Cozy Games Revolution’ (Wilson, 2021), waarin journalisten schrijven over de rol van dergelijke spellen tijdens de pandemie: ‘’Elements like aesthetics, player freedom, and a focus on calmness all pair together to help turn these games into a true escape in a hectic world’’ (Lyman, 2021).
Hoewel de term ‘cozy games’ onder spelers, spelontwikkelaars en jour- nalisten veel wordt gebruikt, is de term nog niet erg bekend in de academische wereld. Waszkiewicz & Bakun (2020) hebben het academische discours rondom cozy games gestart, en bespreken dit genre binnen de context van intersectioneel-femini- stisch en inclusief speldesign. Hoewel er veel literatuur bestaat over inter- sectioneel-feministisch en inclusief speldesign, is er over het begrip van cozy games nog niet veel geschreven. Het huidige onderzoek zoomt nader in op dit begrip om zo de literatuur rondom cozy games uit te breiden. Dit wordt gedaan middels een Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 2003) van Stardew Valley, waarbij het spel wordt geanalyseerd vanuit een intersectioneel feministisch perspec- tief op game design. Hierbij staat de olgende onderzoeksvraag centraal: ‘op welke manier is Stardew Valley vanuit een intersectioneel-feministisch per- spectief door middel van haar gameplay, verhaal en audio-visuele representatie een ‘cozy game’?’ Het onderzoek gaat daarnaast in op de volgende deelvragen: ‘wat is een cozy game?’ en ‘hoe kunnen spellen worden bestudeerd vanuit een intersectioneel feministische context?’
Om de eerste deelvraag uit dit onderzoek te beantwoorden bevat deze sectie een reflectie op het wetenschappelijke debat rondom cozy games. In dit onderzoek worden cozy games gedefinieerd volgens de opvatting van Waszkiewicz & Bakun (2020). Zij zien cozy games als een ontwikkeling van women’s games.
Deze spellen, die gericht zijn op een vrouwelijk publiek, zijn namelijk vaak stereotyperend van aard en daardoor alsnog schadelijk en niet inclusief (Waszkiewicz & Bakun, 2020 p. 230). Verder bespreken de auteurs het begrip coziness volgens het idee van Cook (2018). Hij beschrijft dit begrip als volgt: ‘how strongly a game evokes the fantasy of safety, abundance, and softess’ (Cook, 2018). Veiligheid wordt hier gezien als de afwezigheid van risico’s en gevaar. Waszkiewicz & Bakun voegen hieraan toe dat veiligheid niet enkel verwijst naar fysi- eke veiligheid: ook de mate waarin er ruimte is voor inclusiviteit zodat spelers met gemarginaliseerde iden- titeiten zich veilig kunnen uitdrukken is van belang (2020). Overvloed ver- wijst naar de mate waarin onvervulde behoeften worden vervuld. Wasz- kiewicz & Bakun (2020) verwijzen hierbij naar Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, waarin alle menselijke be- hoeften zijn onderverdeeld in 5 hiërarchische categorieën: primaire behoeften, veiligheid, sociaal contact, erkenning, zelfontplooiing (1943). Cozy games vervullen de speler in veel behoeften, bijvoorbeeld door de afwezigheid van gevaar of de afwezigheid van de nood om te eten om de speler ‘levend’ te houden. Hierdoor is er voor de speler genoeg ruimte over om zich bezig te houden met sociaal contact, erkenning en zelfontplooiing. Tot slot verwijst zachtheid naar de mate waarin de audiovisuele representatie in een game uitstraalt dat er sprake is van een low stress omgeving vol veiligheid en overvloed. De analyse zal stilstaan bij de mate waarin elementen van veiligheid, overvloed en zachtheid, zoals gedefinieerd door Waszkiewicz & Bakun (2020), terugkomen in Stardew Valley.
Inclusief game design
Om Stardew Valley nader te bes- tuderen met betrekking tot inclu- siviteit bekijkt dit onderzoek het spel vanuit het perspectief op digitale spellen van Raessens (2015), wie stelt dat spellen op een bepaalde manier ideologieën representeren. Spelers kunnen het spel vervolgens gebruiken om hun identiteit te ‘spelen’: ze spelen met de waarden en spellen waarmee zij zich identificeren (Raessens, 2015 p. 250). De sociale waarden die in dit on- derzoek centraal staan zijn inclusivi- teit en mentale gezondheid. Digitale spellen kunnen namelijk positief bijdragen aan de mentale gezondheid van spelers (Barr & Copeland-Stewart, 2021; Granic et al., 2014; Johannes et al., 2021), onder andere door ruimte te bieden aan gemarginaliseerde iden- titeiten (Waszkiewicz & Bakun 2020). Op dit moment is er nog steeds een tekort aan inclusiviteit in spellen, waardoor het van belang is om stil te blijven staan bij de representatie van diversiteit en inclusiviteit in spellen (Kafai et al., 2017). Kafai et al. noemen dat veel onderzoek naar inclusiviteit in spellen voornamelijk werd gedaan vanuit een feministisch perspectief, waarbij er vooral aandacht was voor de rol van gender in spellen (2017). Zo heeft feministisch onderzoek naar de eerder genoemde Women’s Games uitgewezen dat deze niet erg inclusief waren (Waszkiewicz & Bakun 2020). Echter, door verloop van tijd werd duidelijk dat er verder moet worden gekeken dan een traditioneel femini- stisch perspectief, omdat er naast gender ook andere assen van identiteit bestudeerd dienen te worden. Spellen dienen daarom geanalyseerd te wor- den vanuit een intersectioneel perspe- ctief (Kafai et al., 2017), waarbij naast gender ook aspecten zoals seksu- aliteit, etniciteit en (mentale) gezondheid worden meegenomen, en waarbij wordt erkend dat dergelijke aspecten elkaar beïnvloeden (Shaw, 1991). In dit onder zoek zal Stardew Valley dan ook vanuit een intersectio- ineel feministisch perspectief worden geanalyseerd.
Methode
De methode die in dit onderzoek wordt toegepast is de Critical Dis- course Analysis (CDA) (Foucalt, 2003). Deze methode is geschikt om te analyseren welke discoursen in een mediaobject bestaan, en wat de relatie is tussen het object, het discours en de sociale praktijk. De CDA is volgens Foucalt dan ook drieledig, en bestaat uit een analyse van de ‘tekst’, de discursieve praktijk en de sociale praktijk (2003).
Het tekstuele deel van de analyse focust op de game zelf: Stardew Valley. Omdat het mediaobject in dit onderzoek een game bevat, kan de tekst niet zomaar worden geana- lyseerd. Fernández-Vara (2019) noemt verschillende building blocks waaruit spellen zijn opgebouwd. Aan de hand van deze building blocks kunnen spellen vervolgens geanalyseerd worden. In dit onderzoek dienen deze building blocks als leidraad voor de analyse van Stardew Valley. De analyse van de discursieve praktijk richt zich op de interpretatie en reacties van spelers. Hiervoor worden media- berichten van Stardew Valley spelers op Reddit en Instagram bekeken. Dit onderzoek richt zich op Reddit omdat op dit platform veel discussies plaatsvinden over spellen, en op Instagram omdat op dit platform veel gebruikers actief zijn die zich identificeren als een Cozy Gamer. Ook voor de discursieve analyse worden twee building blocks van Fernández- Vara toegepast: Game Communities en Gameplay Experience (2019). Tot slot richt de analyse van de sociale praktijk zich op de relatie tussen Stardew Valley en de sociale praktijk van inclusiviteit.
Een belangrijke building block in spellen is Rules and Goals of the Game/Game Mechanics (Fernández- Vara, 2019). Dit verwijst naar doelen en regels van het spel, en de moge- lijkheden en restricties die hierbij komen kijken. In Stardew Valley wordt je personage wakker om 6.00 en moet die vóór 2.00 weer in bed liggen. Voor de speler dit duurt ongeveer 13 minuten. In het spel bestaan 4 seizoenen en elk seizoen bestaat uit ongeveer 30 dagen. Zo begint het spel op de eerste dag van de lente, en wanneer de speler de dag erna wakker wordt is het de tweede dag van de lente. Nadat alle seizoenen voorbij zijn gekomen begint er een nieuw jaar; dit gaat eindeloos door.
Elke dag kan de speler zelf beslissen wat diegene doet. Zo kan de speler hun boerderij ontwikkelen door groenten te verbouwen, vee te houden en/of door andere goederen te produceren. Ook kan de speler foerageren, vissen, houthakken, mijnen en vechten met monsters. Er is echter wel een restrictie: de speler moet vóór 2 uur ’s nachts weer thuis in bed liggen. Als dit niet gebeurt valt de speler flauw en verliest die voor- werpen en geld. Aangezien elke dag in het spel maar 13 minuten duurt in real-time moet de speler in de gaten houden dat die ’s nachts niet te ver van huis is om op tijd in bed te kunnen liggen. Andere restricties zijn de health en energy bars. Wanneer de speler fy- siek werk doet, zoals houthakken, vissen of mijnen, verliest de speler langzaam energie. Dit kan worden aangevuld door voedsel te eten. Zoals genoemd kan de speler vechten met monsters: deze zitten enkel in de mijnen en zijn daarom te vermijden. Wanneer de speler wordt geraakt door monsters verliest die gezondheid. Wanneer de health en energy bars leeg raken valt de speler flauw en verliest die voorwerpen en geld. De speler kan ook vriendschappen en romantische relaties opbouwen met dorpsbe-woners. Hoe vaker de speler praat tegen dorpsbewoners, hoe beter de relatie wordt. De speler kan ook cadeaus geven, en wanneer de relatie heel goed is kan de speler zelfs een huwelijk instappen. Stardew Valley heeft geen hoofddoel, waardoor spelers worden vrijgelaten om zelf te bepalen wat ze doen. Spelers kunnen hierdoor een eigen doel uitkiezen, bijvoorbeeld het ontwikkelen van hun boerderij, relaties opbouwen met buurtbewoners, of zo diep mogelijk in de mijnen komen. Ook is één van de mogelijkheden in het spel het opknappen van een verlaten buurthuis. Hiervoor moet de speler items verzamelen waarvoor alle bovengenoemde activiteiten vereist zijn. Daarnaast kan de speler geld verdienen door gewassen, dierlijke producten en andere voorwerpen te verkopen. Het verdiende geld kan worden uitgegeven aan zaadjes van gewassen, stallen en boerderijdieren, of upgrades aan het huis van de speler. De speler heeft geen vaste lasten zoals huur, waardoor het niet noodzakelijk is dat de speler geld verdient. Tegelijkertijd heeft de speler wel geld nodig om de boerderij te ontwikkelen en uit te breiden. Wat betreft de mogelijkheden en restricties blijkt Stardew Valley niet bijzonder hoog te scoren op Waszkiewicz & Bakun’s (2020) noties van veiligheid en over- vloed. Zo kan de dreiging van flauwvallen naar aanleiding van een te lage energie of gezondheid, of het te laat slapen, een stressvol element zijn in het spel. Daarnaast bestaat er door middel van de monsters direct gevaar voor spelers. Ook vereist de beperkte tijd en energie per dag dat de spelers bewust kiezen wat zij doen op een dag. Het vermijden van gevaren en het omgaan met de tijdsdruk zal spelers volgens Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943) belemmeren in het vervullen van de andere behoeftes zoals sociaal contact en zelfontplooiing.
Een van de andere building blocks die relevant is voor de onderzoeksvraag is Representation and Identity, wat verwijst naar de manier waarop de representatie in een spel identiteiten creëert (Fernández-Vara, 2019). In Stardew Valley krijgt de speler voordat het spel start de optie om hun eigen personage te creëren. De speler kiest onder andere een naam, geslacht, huidskleur, haarstijl en kleding (zie figuur 1).
Fig. 1
Er is een diversiteit aan huidskleuren, waardoor spelers van elke etniciteit een geschikte optie kunnen kiezen. Qua geslachtsidentiteit zijn de opties binair: de speler kan kiezen uit man of vrouw. De speler kan overigens wel, ondanks geslacht, uit alle uiterlijke customisatie-opties kiezen zoals baarden of lang haar. Wat betreft de dorpsbewoners in Stardew Valley is er minder diversiteit te vinden. Zo zijn er, van alle menselijke personages, 27 mannelijke en 15 vrouwelijke perso- nages. Vooral wanneer het gaat om etnische diversiteit zien we een groot verschil. Namelijk, slechts 2 van de 42 menselijke personages zijn niet wit. Één personage, George, heeft een fysieke beperking en zit in een rolstoel. Er zijn ook personages met mentale problemen: Shane heeft een alcohol-verslaving en is depressief, zo zit er zelfs een dialoog in het spel waarin hij spreekt over zelfdoding (figuur 2).
Fig. 2: Screenshot van een cutscène waarin de speler Shane dronken tegenkomt naast een klif
Ook heeft Pam een drankprobleem heeft Kent last van PTSS, en lijkt Sebastian depressieve klachten te hebben. Een ander building block dat relevant is voor de onderzoeksvraag van dit onderzoek is Values and Procedural Rhetoric (Fernández-Vara, 2019). Dit verwijst naar de culturele en sociale waarden die een digitaal spel uitdrukt, bijvoorbeeld door welke acties in een spel mogelijk zijn of gesimuleerd worden, en of deze als positief of negatief worden beschouwd (Fernández-Vara, 2019). Een voorbeeld van een waarde die Stardew Valley uitdraagt is seksuele inclusiviteit. De speler kan namelijk romantische relaties opbouwen en zelfs trouwen en een kind krijgen met de dorpsbew-oners die geen relatie hebben, zowel man als vrouw, ongeacht het geslacht dat de speler heeft gekozen. Het spel staat het zelfs toe om een romantische relatie te hebben met meerdere personen tegelijk, hoewel de dorpsbewoners daar niet positief op reageren. Monogamie blijkt hier de norm. Daarnaast is het ook mogelijk om geen romantische relatie op te bouwen en single te blijven. Het spel draagt geen voorkeur uit tussen het aangaan van roma- ntische relaties of het single blijven. Zo biedt het spel ook ruimte voor aseksualiteit. Wat genderidentiteit betreft is het spel niet volledig inclusief. De speler moet aan het begin van het spel een geslacht kiezen - man of vrouw - waardoor er geen ruimte is voor non-binaire genderidentiteiten. Zoals genoemd is er ook wat etniciteit betreft een gebrek aan inclusiviteit: er bestaan maar 2 nietwitte personages in Stardew Valley. Dit heeft als gevolg dat de speler weinig mogelijkheden heeft om interacties aan te gaan met niet-witte spelers, waardoor het spel weinig representatie biedt aan het hebben van een diverse sociale kring. Verder draagt het spel acceptatie uit rondom mentale problemen. Zoals genoemd heeft Shane last van een drankprobleem en depressiviteit. Als gevolg hiervan is hij niet altijd even aardig, wat ook terugkomt in zijn dialogen richting de speler: ‘’I don't know you. Why are you talking to me?; Why are you bothering me? I want to be alone; What do you want from me? Money? I'd give you a pot of gold to leave me alone!’’ Het spel ‘straft’ Shane niet voor zijn problemen: de andere dorpsbewoners ondersteunen hem in zijn herstel en het spel ontmoedigt de speler niet om een relatie aan te gaan met Shane. Een andere waarde die het spel uitdraagt is de vrijheid in het maken van levenskeuzes. Zo kan de speler zelf doelen stellen en elke dag zelf bepalen wat diegene doet. Hoewel Stardew Valley niet expliciet communiceert dat bepaalde activiteiten meer gewenst zijn dan anderen, leveren bepaalde activiteiten wel meer op dan andere. Zo kan de speler veel meer geld verdienen met het produceren van dierlijke producten en gewassen dan met vissen of forageren, en is het voor de speler lastiger om de mijnen te bezoeken omdat deze ver weg zijn van de boerderij. Wat betreft Values and Procedural Rhetoric sluit Stardew Valley niet helemaal aan bij Wasz- kiewicz & Bakun’s (2020) opvattingen van veiligheid en overvloed. De veiligheid die gecreëerd kan worden door een inclusieve omgeving is niet optimaal, aangezien verschillende etnische en gender identiteiten geen plaats hebben in het spel. Het spel biedt wel inclusiviteit voor mentale gezondheid. Ook kan het spel veiligheid oproepen door de vrijheid die spelers hebben in hun keuzes, hoewel Stardew Valley impliciet toch bepaalde acties meer beloont dan andere. Ook de building block genaamd Representation: visual design, sound design and music (Fernández- Vara, 2019) speelt een grote rol in Stardew Valley. Dit onderdeel draagt bij aan de stemming die het spel uitdraagt, wat vervolgens bijdraagt aan het verhaal in het spel (Fernández- Vara, 2019). Stardew Valley is visueel weergegeven door middel van pixel art (zie figuur 3).
Fig. 3
stijl geeft Stardew Valley een nostalgische uitstraling. Dit sluit aan bij de idyllische omgeving waarin Stardew Valley plaatsvindt: de boerderij en alle verwante locaties zijn erg landelijk, met weinig bebouwing en veel flora. Het design van personages, items en dieren (zie figuur 3) is eenvoudig en schattig, wat een veilige sfeer uitdraagt. Daarnaast bevat Stardew Valley rustige, vrolijke muziek en natuurlijke geluiden zoals fluitende vogels en stromend water. Het spel bevat geen dreigende geluiden of muziek. Ook dit draagt bij aan een rustige, veilige en landelijke uitstraling. Dit komt goed overeen met Waszkiewicz & Bakun’s (2020) notie van zachtheid (2018), waarbij de uitstraling van een low-stress omgeving centraal staat.
Discursieve praktijk
Voor de analyse van de discursieve praktijk kijkt dit onderzoek weer naar de building blocks die Fernández-Vara (2019) onderscheidt. De eerste is Game Communities, welke verwijst naar de specifieke groepen die rondom een spel zijn gevormd, met een eigen cultuur en ‘taal’ (Fernández-Vara, 2019). Hiervoor richt dit onderzoek zich op Instagram, waar een community genaamd de ‘Cozy Gamer Community’ bestaat. Figuur 4 en 5 laten voorbeelden zien van @cozygames en @simplehylian op Instagram, twee accounts die focussen op cozy games. In figuur 4 is een Nintendo Switch Lite te zien waarop Stardew Valley is geopend, en in het onderschrift staat dat de gebruiker
Fig. 4
Stardew Valley maar niet kan wegleggen omdat het zo cozy is. Dit account heeft momenteel meer dan 20.000 volgers.
Fig. 5
In figuur 5 wenst de gebruiker haar ‘cozy friends’ een fijn weekend, en op de foto is, achter haar cozy mok, Stardew Valley te zien. Dit account heeft 14.000 volgers. Overigens valt bij de Instagram be-richten op dat Waszkiewicz & Bakun’s (2020) idee van zachtheid aanwezig is op beide foto’s door de zachte, knusse uitstraling van de foto’s. Dat er een toegewijde online gemeenschap bestaat rondom cozy games blijkt niet alleen uit deze populaire Instagram-accounts, maar ook uit populaire hashtags. Zo zijn er onder de hashtag #cozygaming zo’n 47 duizend berichten, en #cozygames zo’n 28 duizend berichten geplaatst op Instagram. Deze hashtags wijzen ook uit dat Stardew Valley wordt gezien als een cozy game: een zoekopdracht naar #cozygames resulteert bij de 8 meest populaire berichten in 3 berichten over Stardew Valley (zie bijlage 1).
De tweede building block die relevant is voor dit deel van de analyse van Stardew Valley is Gameplay Expe- rience (Fernández-Vara 2019). Een belangrijke vraag binnen dit building block is de vraag welke houding spelers hebben tegenover het spel. Om deze vraag te beantwoorden kijken we naar berichten van spelers van Stardew Valley op Reddit (zie bijlage 1). Uit reacties van spelers blijkt dat zij het gevoel hebben dat Stardew Valley hen helpt met hun mentale gezondheid. Spelers geven daarnaast aan dat ze het waarderen dat er personages voorkomen in Stardew Valley die zelf problemen ondervinden met hun mentale gezondheid, omdat het ze een gevoel van kalmte en vrede oplevert. Daarbij geven spelers ook aan dat ze seksuele diversiteit onder personages in Stardew Valley waar- deren, maar dat ze diversiteit met betrekking tot fysieke beperkingen en etniciteit missen. In tegenstelling geven spelers aan dat ze Stardew Valley ook juist als stressvol kunnen ervaren door de restricties die het spel meebrengt: “I feel pressured to use all the time of the day and all the energy, sell everything for max value etc” (bijlage 2). Dit is overigens ook terug te zien in de caption van het Insta- grambericht in figuur 4: “The fall festival always stresses me out, though!”
Sociale praktijk
Uit de tekstuele en discursieve analyse is gebleken dat Stardew Valley op verschillende manieren ruimte biedt aan inclusiviteit. De tekstuele analyse wees uit dat het spel ruimte biedt voor verschillende seksuele identiteiten en de acceptatie van mentale problemen. Tegelijkertijd was er minder ruimte voor verschillende etniciteiten en gen-deridentiteiten. Uit de discursieve analyse bleek dat dit overeenkomt met de ervaring van spelers. Wanneer niet alle sociale groepen uit de samen-leving worden gerepresenteerd, in hoeverre is Stardew Valley dan een inclusief spel? Voor dit vraagstuk is het passend om een intersectioneel perspectief op inclusiviteit aan te houden (Shaw, 2003). Dit perspectief gaat er vanuit dat personen op meerdere ‘assen’ discriminatie kunnen ondervinden – zoals etniciteit, gender, seksualiteit, gezondheid – welke elkaar onderling beïnvloeden. Wat betreft Stardew Valley: het feit dat het spel ruimte biedt aan homo- en aseksualiteit, betekent nog niet dat elke homo- en aseksuele persoon geïncludeerd wordt. Door de afwezigheid van verschillende etniciteiten in Stardew Valley zijn niet-witte homo- en aseksuele personen nog steeds niet geïncludeerd, evenals niet-witte personen met een non-binaire genderidentiteit. Desondanks blijkt uit de discursieve analyse dat Stardew Valley in de sociale praktijk voor veel spelers toch als een bron van rust en veiligheid kan dienen, en dat spelers positieve effecten ervaren met betrek- king tot hun mentale gezondheid.
Conclusie
De onderzoeksvraag in dit onderzoek was: ‘op welke manier is Stardew Valley vanuit een intersectioneel- feministisch perspectief door middel van haar gameplay, verhaal en audiovisuele representatie een ‘cozy game’?’ Uit de tekstuele, discursieve en sociale analyse blijkt Stardew Valley niet op alle aspecten die Waszkiewicz & Bakun (2020) onderscheiden - veiligheid, overvloed en zachtheid - een cozy game te zijn. Wat betreft veiligheid bevat het spel elementen die dreiging kunnen opleveren, zoals de tijdsdruk, het beperkte aantal energie dat de speler heeft per dag en het gevaar dat de health bar op raakt. Qua veiligheid met betrekking tot inclu- siviteit biedt het spel een veilige plek aan verschillende seksuele identiteiten en mentale problemen, maar voor verschillende etnische en non-binaire identiteiten is er nog geen ruimte in het spel. Wat betreft overvloed: Stardew Valley voorziet de speler niet in al diens behoeften, zoals eten, energie en geld. Bij veel acties gaat de energiebalk van de speler omlaag, wat de speler kan aanvullen door te eten of te slapen. Daarnaast moet de speler op tijd in bed liggen om niet flauw te vallen, wat hun limiteert in het gebruikmaken van alle mogelijke acties in het spel. De speler heeft daarnaast geen overvloed aan geld, en moet acties uitvoeren om geld te verzamelen. Wat betreft zachtheid past Stardew Valley goed bij het idee van een low-stress uitstraling door middel van het nostalgische design en de rustige muziek in het spel.
Ondanksdat Stardew Valley niet aan elk aspect van een cozy game volgens Waszkiewicz & Bakun (2020) voldeed, bleek toch dat veel spelers het spel wel degelijk zien als een cozy game. Aangezien het huidige onderzoek slechts een kleinschalige discoursana- lyse bevatte, was er beperkte ruimte voor het perspectief van spelers. Mogelijk kan vervolgonderzoek verder ingaan op de opvattingen die spelers hebben over wat een cozy game typeert, waardoor het begrip nader gedefinieerd kan worden binnen het wetenschappelijke veld van femi- nistische game studies.
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Bijlage 1
Bijlage 2
Teacher's Inteview Frank Kessler’s Research on Early Cinema and the Magic Lantern - An interview with BLIK Editors Moorle Slager and Roos Thomassen, October 2022
FrankKessler is a professor of Media History at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, where he directed the research institutes OGC, and then ICON between 2011 and 2022. He is a former president of DOMITOR, the international association for research on early cinema, and one of the founders of KINtop. Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des frühen Films. His research interests are focused on the emergence of cinema as a mass medium and cultural form. In his current research projects, he works on the role of the optical lantern as a medium for knowledge transmission in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Moorle: Just to make sure we are on the same page, you sent us an email telling us you were stepping down as a research director. So, did you mean from the Media and Culture department?
Frank: Not really. I was the director of ICON, the Institute for Cultural Inquiry, which is a research institute that covers three research groups under Media and Culture studies: Musicology, Media and Performance, and Gender Studies. ICON has two departments and therefore also two directors, so besides me, it was Els Rose from Medieval Studies. I had already been a research director from 2011 to 2013, when this was still the Faculty of Letters, before we became the Faculty of Humanities. Back then, there were two research institutes, one for History and Culture, which I was the director of, and one for Linguistics. When Philosophy and Religious studies were joined together with the Faculty of Letters, we became the Faculty of Humanities, and we now have four research institutes (ICON, Linguistics, History and Art History, Philosophy and Religious Studies).
Moorle: So this position of being a research director, what exactly did it entail? What did you do?
Frank: ICON, and therefore me as a research director, is responsible for PhD training. There is also a graduate school that organises courses, but we are the ones that, for instance, have the annual progress meetings with the
PhD students and make sure that the PhD trajectories run as smoothly as possible. We are also responsible for coaching and helping people who want to write research applications for funding either here in the Netherlands for NWO, or on the European scale, and sometimes also for other types of funding. So we were mainly coaching and training people, trying to make the applications as strong as possible. Then, very impor- tantly, we also represent research on a faculty level: so we have a monthly meeting of the research directors with the Dean to discuss the overall re- search policy of the faculty, which is combined with a monthly meeting of the graduate school, to discuss every- thing concerning the PhDs. Therefore, we also make sure that people could get opportunities to do their research, and that funding applications are financially viable for the department. Since we need external funding as a department and as a faculty, we look into whether this would be profitable in the long run.
So, to some extent, it is an administrative job - looking at policies, finances, etc. It is also the one job that you have on this administration level where you are very intensely con- cerned with content, so you see what people are developing as research projects, what the PhDs are doing, etc., which is why I enjoyed it. So we have a good view of what is going on in the common debates.
Moorle: So within this content, what is your main area of research?
Frank: My own research, for many years, has been the so-called early cinema, or the period between the late 19th century and the First World War. That has grown into a larger interest in media in the 19th century and visual media. In these past years, I have been particularly interested in the optical lantern, or magic lantern, and was involved in several projects.
Moorle: I indeed understand the multifaceted engagement you have within the research on the lantern. Could you tell us more about the concept of the lantern itself and the projects you are a part of?
Frank: The lantern itself is an old invention, and as in most cases, it is very difficult to say who was the first.
Roos: Prior to this interview, I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it mentioned the lantern already being invented in 1654, so at an earlier stage.
Frank: It was around that time, and Christiaan Huygens is very often credited as being the first to have built a working one. Basically, it has existed since the 17th century and was then mainly used for entertainment, but also for teaching. We know that at the French court, for instance, the princes were educated with projected images. After the French Revolution, in the later part of the 18th and the earlier part of the 19th century, you had, on the one hand, a lot of travelling show people, often coming from poor regions in France such as the Savoya. They were therefore also called the Savoyards, and would then be hired to come to wealthier people’s homes and give presentations for the children and grown-ups. There was also a form of entertainment called the Phanta- smagoria, which is another tradition of the lantern, showing ghosts and phantoms and frightening stuff, diabolical demons, etc. But what is interesting to our project is that, from basically the mid-19th century onward, people increasingly used it for education. In different countries, people were very much trying to promote this, and around 1880, it was possible to mass-produce photogra- phic slides and also to have self-made slides. For instance, you could repro- duce images from books, transfer them onto a glass plate, and then project them.
The basic lantern apparatus is a light source, a condenser, lenses, and slides that you put in. You are probably too young to remember the 35 mm slide projectors with holiday pictures, etc., which is something that comes after the 19th-century magic lantern where you still have glass plates, which were heavier and bigger and had very good image quality. In the mid-20th century, the 35 mm slides became a means for amateurs and families to document their holidays.
There was an increasing use of the lantern for teaching, and that is what my current project here in Utrecht is about. We have two PhDs - one working on the introduction of the lantern as a teaching tool in uni- versities, because it transformed teaching to some extent, and created new possibilities - a bit like how PowerPoint changed teaching for us. The other is about public lectures on knowledge transmission organised by different organisations all over the Netherlands, where either academics or professional lecturers would come and talk about all sorts of topics. These would often be everyday topics, such as growing vegetables in your garden or raising chicken, doing that in rural communities, for instance. Then there is a postdoc who writes case studies of people who were using the lantern both inside and outside academia, so knowledge valorization and outreach activities.
Moorle: So what sparked your interest in the lantern? How did you get into these projects in particular?
Frank: First of all, there was already quite a strong connection between the lantern and early cinema, and in one of the book series of which I am co- editor, we also had already published books on the lantern. We had also been part of a few shows and presentations that combined the magic lantern and film. Then, one of my former PhDs put together a European project of which I acted as project leader, which was called “A Million Pictures,” where we were working together with both institutions and scholars in various countries - Great Britain, Spain, and Belgium. So, what interested me in that was something I was already interested in the field of early cinema, which was the use of the lantern for knowledge dissemination. Then, at the end of “A Million Pictures,” together with three of our partners from the Belgian team, I wrote a project in Belgium, “B-Magic,” which became funded. That was about the history of the magic lantern in Belgium, with us from Utrecht being the external partner. While doing that, I thought I could indeed try to transform my interest in the educational use of film into a new project, but focus on the lantern, as it was from an earlier point quite evident that this was a largely unknown field. So, there was really a lot to be discovered.
Moorle: We have a question on “B- Magic '' as well. We know it is a Belgium-based project, but you are also a part of the Netherlands-based project “Projecting Knowledge.” Are there any similarities or differences between the two, considering the different cultural contexts?
Frank: The similarities are, of course, that they are both on the magic lantern. It was also very fortunate that both projects basically ran parallel that whole period, and in the Belgian project there were, all in all, eight teams involved: three from French- speaking universities, three from Flemish-speaking universities (that is also one of the preconditions for “B- Magic,” that it had to involve universities from both language communities), and then there was an art school in Gent. Lastly, there was a possibility to have an external partner, which was Utrecht, so I had a postdoc working on that project from the Utrecht side. But that was a much larger project, in the sense that it covered different terrains. For instance, there was research on the use of slides for children, as well as research on the way in which slideshows and magic lantern shows triggered emotions, on which there is a whole project in Brussels. There have been projects on the use of the lantern by the Catholics in Belgium and by the Freemasons. So, it is much larger. In terms of education, there was actually one project that focused very much on schools - primary and secondary schools - whereas here with “Projecting Knowledge,” we work on academic teaching and public knowledge transmission.
Roos: So the project in Belgium is a bit broader?
Frank: It is broader as a project. It involves many more people, five PhD's divided over different universities. They were very much complementary as projects, and that was very productive. For instance, the PhD from Leuven, who was working on secondary schools, visited for two months and worked together with us.
Roos: And there was a lot of travel?
Frank: Well, in principle there should have been, we also had quite extensive travel funds, but then the pandemic came and stopped short all possibilities of travel.
Roos: So it was a lot of Teams meet- ings?
Frank: We did a lot of online meetings, yes. We tried to keep up the monthly seminars and workshops, but these had to move online.
Moorle: Well it is nice that you still got to continue the project despite it. More about the lantern itself: we were wondering in what other ways we can see that the invention of the lantern changed the scope of the media environment today. Are there any currently digitised mediums that find their ancestry in the lantern?
Frank: Well, I think that almost everything that is about still image projection is rooted in the lantern. Film also, of course. If you look at many of the first film projectors, such as the Lumière Brothers’ cinemato- graph, you see that there is a magic lantern behind the cinematograph for the projection. So, to begin with, there is very often the lantern and, as an addition, the possibility to project moving images. It is only with the growth of the industry that we got the more autonomous film projector that then exclusively turned into a film projector. In that respect, there is thus very much a genealogy of projection media going back to the lantern.
Moore: So, it is really the core of a lot of media we see today, would you agree?
Frank: Yeah, technologically and, in some respects, in presentational forms. Consider, for example, the Hartlooper Complex in Utrecht. Hartlooper was a film lecturer and lecturing was almost automatically part of magic lantern presentations, both for knowledge transmission and entertainment. Lecturers often told a story and then showed corresponding illustrations.
Roos: Is there still a place where you can see the magic lantern in action today?
Frank: Yes. There are several groups and collectors that have their own lanterns and collections of slides here in the Netherlands and that do performances regularly. We have the Toverlantaarn Museum in Scheve- ningen, or the Wagenaar family who have their own theatre in their house. All over Europe, there are a number of people who actively do shows and presentations, some who try to earn money with it as they have quite huge costs for travelling and transporting things. Sometimes, they also hire actors to help with the shows as important infrastructure. In Great Britain, there is a very important magic lantern society, of which most of the continental magic lantern collectors are also members. They have regular meetings, and these almost always include shows.
Roos: Do you often attend these kinds of shows?
Frank: When I have the possibility, yes. If you want, you can have a look at the “B-Magic” website. There is a possibility to go to the “B-Magic” conference, which has a registration of all the lectures and shows that were represented there.
Moorle: So these projects are also about raising awareness?
Frank: Yes, especially “B Magic” had that as a very important aspect. So there were also a lot of activities linked to that. With “Projecting Knowledge,” on the other hand, we looked more at our stakeholders, archives, and museums that have collections and tried to get in contact with them to ask how to use them, and what to do with them, and that is a different angle and approach. But we also have quite good relations with the Teylers Museum in Haarlem where we did our stakeholders’ meetings and where they are right now preparing an exhibition which was also supposed to be in 2022 but because of the pandemic, it is happening a lot later. Now, it is scheduled for 2024 which will be called “Virtual Realities” and will be about 19th-century media and 21st-century media. So there is also going to be a spot for the lantern in that.
Moorle: So that is at the Teylers Museum? I have always appreciated that museum.
Frank: Teylers, yes, it is a wonderful museum. Actually, just last week, we had a conference at which the curator from Teylers gave a presentation.
Moorle and Roos: Oh wow, that looks very interesting, we should definitely visit it! So is there anything you could tell us about upcoming projects? What are you planning to do next?
Frank: This year, I am definitely concentrating on “Projecting Know- ledge” because I have to write the synthesis of the project. And then, I will probably pick up an earlier project and try to wrap that up, which is on the Féerie, a very popularstage/show/spectacle in the 19th century. Féerie was also really important for early cinema, for example, Georges Méliès did a lot of Féerie films. And I have written quite a number of articles on that topic, but I want to transform that into a book now.
Moorle: Into a book?! Wow! So does that mean there will be no more work on the magic lantern?
Frank: Well, we will see. First of all, we will finish the synthesis, and then there will be new things coming up. So that is not completely put aside.
Roos: Of course, understandable. Can I ask about KINtop, what was your involvement in it?
Frank: Together with two colleagues, I founded a yearbook dedicated to research on early cinema called “KINtop: Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des frühen Films”. Each issue had a main theme, for instance, a filmmaker such as Georges Méliès, but also topics such as topical films and newsreels, image and word, projection histories, audiences, etc. The yearbook existed from 1992 onwards for 15 years, and then we had to stop it. But we continued, first, with the publisher of the yearbook to publish books on early cinema and 19th-century media, and then we created an English language publication series where up to now seven books have appeared. Both about early cinema and the magic lantern.
Moorle: That is all from us, thank you for your time! This was very insightful, good luck with your future projects.
GRAPHIC ESSAY
Antonia Bienbeck is a third-year social work student at Münster University with interests in art therapy, gender studies and antidiscri- mination approaches. At the moment, she is in her last term before writing her bachelor's thesis. In the future, she would like to use her creative skills to work with people with disabilities in art therapy. Next year, she will most likely continue at Münster University with a MA in social work before participating in further education in art therapy. In her free time, Antonia loves to draw, read, participate in fan cultures and spend time with her loved ones.
I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't create art. Since I was young, art has accompanied me as a form of personal expression, a hobby, and something that fulfils me and occupies me for hours on end. I was one of those children who always painted a picture for their parent’s and grandparents' birthdays. In school, I was always sketching on the books or desks instead of listening. There was never a time when I wasn’t drawing, painting, crafting, or building things.
But what inspires me when I create art myself?
I'm especially inspired by the beauty of the world and by the people in my environment. If I see a person on the street who catches my eye, I often have the instant urge to draw them. Most of all, I love to paint faces and people because I love to depict the character traits and personality of a person in a drawing. For me, putting the essence of a person on paper is like solving a puzzle, tricky but oh-so captivating.
Nowadays, my art is mostly inspired by the media I like. This includes books, music, movies, and TV shows, ranging from Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings to Dungeons and Dragons and Taylor Swift, and defines itself very differently depending on the type of media. I can't think of a better way to spend my time than escaping into fantasy worlds of books and imagining my favourite characters and how they interact with the people around them. What I find particularly interesting is between different characters (my inner hopeless romantic coming to the fore).
Beyond these aspects, I am particularly inspired by the works of artists of Impressionism and Expressionism because of the way they depict the world and how they use colours. I could spend hours in museums marvelling at works by my favourite artists. Claude Monet is especially invigorating to me because he was the very first artist whose works left a lasting impression on me as a child. In high school, I wrote a paper about his water lily works and intensively studied his biography. From his choice of colours to his representation of light and the expression of emotional states that can be seen in his works, he inspired me from the beginning. Artists like Claude Monet have influenced me in how I see beauty in every leaf, every flower petal, and every ray of light when I go out into nature. So, I try to give appreciation to such things in my art that are rather overlooked or ignored by other people, and pay attention to the small things.
My goal for the future is to be less self- critical and more confident about my own abilities in art, to the point that my prints or postcards could give joy to strangers. In terms of work, I would love to find a job in the field of art education or in a museum. Let’s see what the future beholds… whatever comes, I hope art will remain a constant companion in my life.
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