My work challenges the constructed nature of masculinity and manhood in the United States, and portrays the arbitrary and harmful traditional cultural expectations these norms instill. Through wallpaper samples, manipulated photographs, and video, The Semiotics of Masculinity is a multimedia installation that aims to start a conversation about the toxic nature of hegemonic masculinity.
The wallpapers and the manipulated photographs pull from the same photographic series of images that observe public objects that have masculine connections, either through traditionally masculine activities or as traditionally masculine possessions. The wallpaper samples take the foci of some of these images, remove the objects from context, and then tile these objects to create a repeating pattern. The repeating pattern references the gendered wallpapers that are found in children’s rooms. For the manipulated photographs, the image code was manipulated to feature words like Masc4Masc (changed from msc) and ManUP (changed from man), which are common terms used to exclude individuals who don’t meet the traditional standards of masculinity.
The multichannel video work, spanning three vertical monitors, sources video from the computer game The Sims, a life simulator franchise published by Electronic Arts. In two panels of video, I, as the simulation controller, take the role of society by creating the ideal male sim and deny him any free will. I force him to only engage in activities deemed by me to be acceptably masculine. Being rewarded by having needs decreased or punished by having needs increased based on how well he listens, these panels represent the relationship between society rewarding or punishing individuals for meeting or failing to meet traditional masculine ideals. For the center video panel, the ideal man is freed from this relationship and is allowed to follow his free will. He is given total freedom to perform any action he wants, however, is no longer allowed any of the benefits of being taken care of by society.
Through wallpaper samples, manipulated photographs, and video, part of the experience of hegemonic masculinity is explored. On one side, society pushes the traditional ideals of what is considered masculine both through surveillance and reward/punishment and through attaching masculinity with inanimate objects. On the other side rejecting these traditional ideals results in a lack of acceptance by society.
