As part of NYCxDesign, the students of the MFA in Products of Design at the School of Visual Arts presented—or more appropriately, performed—Engender, a roving band of design interventions that were at once provocative, daring, and, well, very entertaining.
The argument of the work is that gender and our ideas about gender are absolutely constructed and "designed," and that shining a light on how this takes place is ripe for exploration. (The work is also the result of a 10-week class called Design Performance taught by Sinclair Smith—a course that argues that design needs to be more than objects of pedestals, and one that focuses on interaction, participation, and staging new behaviors.
It's amazing how quickly we "gender-up" people. When you hear about someone's pregnancy, you immediately ask, 'boy or girl?' And as soon as you have your answer, you already see it all clearly—the design of the baby shower invitation, the room paint colors, the bed linens. It's like we're pre-branded...before we're even born!
The work took the form of seven different interventions, each looking at different aspects of gender and inviting participants to engage and play along. Here's the run-down of the various work.
Reshaper came in two forms, both using the vernacular of the "carnival vendor" hoisting up toys and cotton candy in the air. Instead, the poles contained body parts—some stuffed, some in the form of shaped wires—but each representing a stereotypically 'desirable' or 'undesirable' feature (think big biceps or flabby butts). People tried on these parts, taking selfies and posting them on social media. The body parts were clearly a hit, especially in the evening when the drinks were flowing an inhibitions were low.
Rebrander let participants design and brand themselves with custom rubber stamps in 16 iconic shapes and variations. Students used the metaphor of the syringe for the applicator—which was also very consistent with their choice of silicone for the custom-made branded vests they all wore—giving the devices a medical quality that referenced oppressive histories of tattooing individuals who identify outside of binary gender norms. Here, guest could mark themselves in any way they chose to invent their own graphic identity...and then wear it for a few days.
Olfactor was one of the most curious of the design pieces, essentially asking people to "guess the gender" of the neutrally-dressed baby dolls. It turned out the caps of each of the 4 babies was scented using gendered and branded deodorant products. The students knew which was which, and it was pretty easy to guess wrong. (You can try this yourself next time you're shopping in a drug store.)
Students remarked that it's amazing how quickly we "gender-up" people. When you hear about someone's pregnancy, you immediately ask, 'boy or girl?' And as soon as you have your answer, you already see it all clearly—the design of the baby shower invitation, the room paint colors, the bed linens. It's like we're pre-branded...before we're even born!
Translator featured a roaming student drawing portraits "with a twist"—caricatures, really—for unsuspecting guests. The trick here is that their portrait was drawn in a way that flipped their gender or was completely neutral. The surprise and delight on people's faces when they "saw themselves as a woman" or otherwise was very delightful to watch. People loved them.
Renderer used a very intuitive tablet app to digitally augment visitors' physiognomies. Some wanted broader shoulders or longer legs; others wanted to try the opposite—adding weight in stereotypically "bad" places. People were quick to take control themselves, pushing and pulling on different body parts or facial features, and many grabbed their phones to snap pictures of the results and share them to their networks.
Deconstructor was a set of stickers and appliqués that abstracted and accentuated some of our most physical manifestations of gender. From eyebrows and mustaches to lips and pasties—participant chose what facial and body features they wanted to amplify or mask— quickly subverting the most obvious ways that people interpret and judge their gender. Again, particularly at nighttime, these were a hit.
Dispenser was perhaps the most verbally-engaging of the interventions, really insisting on a conversation about gender with the students. Guests were offered confections labeled with negative, gendered characteristics, loading an ordinarily, mundane choice with stereotypical implication and meaning. Through the provocation of hesitance—"wait, these are candies with the word promiscuous on them? Huh?" Dispenser highlighted how "harmless" stereotypes might not be so harmless after all.
Finally, all visitors were given a sticker pack consisting of fragmented shapes taken from the astrological symbols for man and woman—Mars and Venus. Guests were encouraged to apply the stickers to their skin, their phones—really anything—to construct their own personal gender symbol, and to explore the alchemical design process of gender construction.
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