Project 3 artist statement: "my eyes are down here"

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI9ji2bR78A/?igsh=bDN3Z3ZzZzltbDMx

In my project, my eyes are down here, I offer a tongue-in-cheek feminist critique of the sexualization of the female body by bringing a humorous twist to the phrase “my eyes are up here.” I spotlight the sexualized parts of a woman’s body (breasts and crotch), as well as the part linked to her personhood/identity (face), by covering those parts of the body with wondering eyes and smiling, puckering mouths through the use of projection mapping. The default position with the mouth on the face, and eyes on the breasts and crotch, draws attention to how forms of sexualization reduce a woman to her body and create a loss of personhood.  

When I was first conceptualizing the project, I was drawn to the idea of how censorship can bring attention to what it’s attempting to cover up by labeling it as “inappropriate,”  which made me want to combat censorship by revealing the parts of the body meant to be censored while blurring out the rest of the body. The idea then evolved into using eyes to “censor” parts of the body, while simultaneously bringing attention to them to serve as a humorous confrontation to the sexualization of a woman’s body. I was also inspired by a t-shirt I saw on Pinterest a while ago that had crazy eyeballs on the boobs with the phrase “my eyes are down here!” 

After creating this project and getting a taste of projection mapping, I would be interested in exploring this method of digital art further. One part of the project that could’ve been improved was the performance element, where I manually turned the eyes and mouths on and off to give them a different configuration. If I knew how to put these changes on a loop or timer, more viewers would have been able to experience this more engaging aspect of my project. So, for future projection mapping projects, I would love to explore how far I can go to get that sort of desired outcome and see what else projection mapping can do.