Post Natyam Collective Assignment Feb 2014 Cultural Queering by Meena Murugesan from meena murugesan on Vimeo.
PW: disidentification
i) what stands out to you in terms of what this body doing?
ii) how would you describe this body?
iii) is this body doing anything subversive?
iv) how is this body constructing its own subjecthood (if this body is indeed constructing its own subjectivity)?
v) how is the camera and/or the editing constructing (co-constructing?) this body's subjecthood?
vi) anything else?
i) what stands out to you in terms of what this body doing?
ReplyDeleteIn the first distant section, I particularly notice the contrast of the very dominant masculine poses and the receptive sexual stance (that also reads masculine to me).
Toward the end of this section I also am struck by the pulsing in different body parts. It seems rather aggressive, and yet controlled at the same time.
In the close up section I am again drawn to contrast: the contrast between gestural movement and a sort of delusional type meltdown.
ii) how would you describe this body?
Masculine
In control, deliberate
Commanding
a mixture of casual and regal (clothing)
iii) is this body doing anything subversive?
I think the contrasting of the dominant postures and the receptive sexual stances twists and expands mainstream ideas of masculinity.
There is something in the pulsing too, something about seeming still but actually having this aggressive force inside that might be subversive but I’m not sure yet how.
The camera blurring our vision is subverting my gaze, not allowing me to see the body clearly.
What appears to me as “drunk abhinaya” definitely subverts the idea of telling a story, when the storyteller becomes unreliable.
iv) how is this body constructing its own subjecthood (if this body is indeed constructing its own subjectivity)?
Very slow deliberate movements make me feel that this body is very much in control. The calling movements seem commanding. Even the slide into the receptive sexual stance seems very deliberate and in control. The stare at the camera is very clear In the awareness of being watched and watching back.
v) how is the camera and/or the editing constructing (co-constructing?) this body's subjecthood?
The blurry frame, not quite allowing us to fully see, keeps a certain control in the subject’s hands. For example , in the beginning I can't tell if the body is a man's or a woman's.
Always jumping back to the stare at the camera is a constant recalling of the looking back at the viewer.
vi) anything else?
I am interested in the possibility of the blurry camera being the vision of the body when the up close head becomes what I’m calling delusional/drunk
I am interested in the opposites: king vs casual, dominant vs receptive, still vs pulsing, stare vs smile.
The smiling stands out as the least masculine moments. At first the smiles seem like a command to someone, but later they seem like they’re out of the character that I have constructed in my mind of this kingly type of character.
The pulsing is quite eerie, almost feel like it is a double take, or like my eye itself is pulsing.
This feels like a fascinating character study that seems very different than the much more feminine character I feel you constructed in “we used to see this”. I think you’re on to something, and I’m excited to see more!
i) The body poses, lounges, careless, legs wide. The body positions itself for sexual positions. The body calls and demands. The body pulses, aggressively. The body repeats itself.
ReplyDeleteii) Androgynous or genderqueer, a mixture of masculine and feminine postures and expressions, dominant, demanding, unapologetic, erotic, impassive and sweetly coy, South Asian
iii) The body defies gender norms. In some ways it also seems to perform the audience/viewer role, rather than the performer role. See also v.
iv) It seems deliberate, intentional. For some reason the parts that look most like conventional abhinaya -- which also read as more "feminine," especially whenever you smile -- also read as the moments when the body's subjectivity is weakest, as well as the parts that are faster. During the "feminine" abhinaya section, I wondered if you were engaging in ekaharya abhinaya strategies of switching between characters: ie, switching between playing the king/patron/viewer and a female performer. In all other sections I thought that you were one character who was embodying different aspects of his/her/their personality.
v) Some of the most unsettling parts of the piece are constructed through the camera and edits: the fuzziness in the beginning which prevents me as a viewer from clearly associating a gender identity with the performer; the quick rhythmic cuts between the initial poses, which we have already seen; the beats or pulses (like a record skipping) that have a very aggressive, masculine effect, similar to popping in hip hop; the repetition (such as your face in close-up positioning the camera) which undermines the naturalistic sense of linear continuity. The denaturalization of chronological time brings into question, for me, the continuity of the subject, representing subjectivity as fragmented, subject to contradiction, manipulation, and subversion.
vi) For me there is a clear break around 3:00 between the fuzzy intro and the rest of the work. Having just watched your MFA concert on video, I could see the fuzzy portion being reworked as a loop (maybe in black and white, and a bit grainy?) that is projected while the rest is performed live. I do find myself wondering what environment you are in and what that communicates, as the out of focus nature of the camerawork makes me notice the blinds and bench more.