The Glitch of Women’s Portrayal in Society
Glitch art was exasperating and provoked irritation within me. Going into my first glitch art experience, I asked myself how difficult can it be to produce and exploit ‘errors’ emergent in digital media? To my surprise, I underestimated how difficult and time-consuming it is to find a balance between not breaking (or completely destroying) an image and simply bending an image. I wanted to incorporate these emotions into a current social problem that provokes similar feelings of anger and irritation within me.
I chose to work on a 2007 Dolce & Gabbana advertisement that stir unsettling emotions in me. This advertisement shows a female swimsuit model being pinned to the ground while bare-chested men stand over looking down at her. This image (similar to many images in today’s society) portrays the woman as helpless and passive.
Society portrays a flawed representation of women and unfortunately it has become the norm and acceptable. Glitches are used to create work that questions the forms and traditions of art; I used glitches to create work that questions society’s portrayal of women.
My first (and most frustrating) attempt at glitch art was through text edit on a Gucci advertisement. I added flawed words that society often associates with women such as “cook”, “thin”, “frail”, “passive”, and “sex symbol”. This blurred the overall image, which symbolizes society’s blurred and distorted vision of women. Then I deleted sections of code to symbolize deleting traits that society doesn’t (but should) associate with women such as bravery, strength, intelligence, and power. Deleting the code continues to blur the image and symbolize society’s unclear vision of women. In other words, our society is not seeing the clear picture. When you remove (in this case delete) traits that should be associated with women, society will never have a clear, accurate vision of women.
Secondly, I wanted to bring attention to the aspect of woman being dominated by men. Why aren’t “gender roles” reversed and women dominating a man in the photo? To show this representation, I found how many “w” (“w” representing woman) appeared in the text, which were 611. Then I searched to see how many “m” (“m” representing men) appeared in the text, which were 703. There was more “m” than “w” which represents the domination of men in the photo. To reverse this domination, I switched the “w” to “m”. The bottom section of the photo turned dark blue and black, completely eliminating the woman. This represents that society is not set up for women to dominate men.
Then I switched the “m” to “w” to represent men’s domination over woman. Instead of the photo turning black and eliminating the women, it turned bright green and highlighted the domination of man over women. It turned the woman’s skin to green, which represents that society’s portrayal of women is distorted.
Glitch art produces and exploits digital ‘errors’ and turns them into art. I aimed to exploit society’s ‘errors’ (errors referring to the portrayal of women) and turn it into art. My first photo clarifies that society does not portray a clear image of women. When you add careless traits that society associates with woman and delete liberating traits that society should associate with woman, society does not have a clear nor accurate vision of women. My second photo shows that society enables the domination of men over women. The green in the third photo highlights men’s domination and the distorted view society has of women.
Glitch art finds a balance between not breaking (or completely destroying) an image and simply bending an image. Now it’s time for society to find a balance between not breaking (or inaccurately portraying) women and simply bending women (to enhance their liberating traits). I hope my glitch art offers insight into society’s portrayal of women and sparks an interest to question this portrayal.
