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Feminine Aesthetics As Feminist Critique in Amalia Ulman's Feminine Aesthetics as Feminist Critique in Amalia Ulman’s Excellences & Perfections (2014) Siri Skotvedt Master’s Thesis in the History of Art and Visual Studies Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas Supervisor: Professor Aron Vinegar UNIVERSITY OF OSLO January 2019 i Feminine Aesthetics as Feminist Critique in Amalia Ulman’s Excellences & Perfections (2014) Siri Skotvedt ii © Siri Skotvedt 2019 Feminine Aesthetics as Feminist Critique in Amalia Ulman’s Excellences & Perfections (2014) Siri Skotvedt http://www.duo.uio.no Trykk: Grafisk Senter, Oslo iii Abstract Excellences & Perfections is an immersive art performance that was carried out on Instagram in 2014, in which the artist Amalia Ulman performed feminine tropes common to Instagram culture to assert a feminist critique about the constructedness of femininity. Approaching Excellences & Perfections through the framework of affect, performativity and cyborg theory, this thesis investigates the critical and empowering potential of feminine aesthetics, as well as the creative and entrepreneurial possibilities of using social media platforms to produce feminine subjectivities. Ulman is blurring the boundaries between character and self, artist and artwork, reality and fiction, and by interweaving aesthetic and narrative tropes of femininity, she produces a rich fabric for understanding the complexity of feminine representation in contemporary digital society. By examining the feminine tropes that Ulman embodies in the three episodes that make up the performance, I will argue that these tropes, which can easily be dismissed as reductive stereotypes that flatten the diversity of female experience into mere image, in fact can be read as multilayered critical commentary about the relations between the representations of young women, the logics of neoliberal consumer capitalism, and gendered embodiment in the contemporary contexts of social media. My analytical method involves relating the tropes evoked by Ulman’s characters to feminine stereotypes and symbolic figures that are conceptualized to represent certain themes and assert a specific critique about contemporary society. Through this relation, I provide a reading of Ulman’s characters as manifestations of those themes and criticisms, which allows me to explore how femininity is employed as a tool, both in the discourses of feminist internet art, and in the cultural and social contexts that produce ideals and pedagogies that shape women’s self-expressions. The aim of this thesis is to show that Excellences & Perfections embraces a double movement of feminist critique, one that foregrounds how these tropes are constructions that can easily be reconstructed, deconstructed and repurposed, while also giving existential legitimacy to the lived subjectivities that are made to emulate them. This way, I argue, the work critically subverts the feminine image and celebrates its feminist potential, without erasing the real experiences that are framed by it. iv v Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Aron Vinegar, for his guidance and patience throughout this process. I would like to thank the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo for granting me a master stipend, and thank their teaching staff for making my time as a student thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding. Thanks to my family for your love and encouragement. I am especially grateful to have had your support in everything I have ever wanted to do. I also wish thank the Torp family for their exceptional generosity and hospitality during this process. Completing this thesis would have been impossible without the love and support of my friends, I owe a massive debt of gratitude to Maja, for being there for me, listening to my frustrations, and amazing 24-hour proof-reading services; Helene, for always making me laugh and making sure I eat; Simen, for advice and help in all matters; fellow MA students Linn-Magnhild, Jenny and Ane, for discussions, input, solidarity and coffee. Thank you Christer, for your love, encouragement, and everlasting patience. You are truly the best. And lastly, many thanks to the ladies and gentlemen of Blindern Studenterhjem. I never thought I would have the privilege of living with so many wonderful people, you have been simultaneously incredibly supportive and incredibly distracting. Without you, my social and academic life would never have been the same. vi vii Table of Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Presentation of Thesis .............................................................................................................. 2 1.1.1 Research Aims ........................................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 Presentation of Amalia Ulman and Excellences & Perfections ..................................... 5 1.2.1 The Artist: Amalia Ulman ..................................................................................................................... 5 1.2.2 The Site: Social Media and Instagram ............................................................................................. 6 1.2.3 The Work: Excellences & Perfections ................................................................................................ 7 1.3 Existing Scholarship ................................................................................................................... 9 1.4 Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 11 1.4.1 Theoretical Framework ...................................................................................................................... 12 1.4.2 Thesis Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 15 2 The Feminine Body in Feminist Internet Art: A History ........................................ 19 2.1 Disembodiment in Cyberspace ........................................................................................... 20 2.2 The Cyborg ................................................................................................................................. 21 2.3 Cyberfeminism ......................................................................................................................... 24 2.4 The Social Web .......................................................................................................................... 27 2.5 Networked Feminism ............................................................................................................. 31 2.6 Digifeminism ............................................................................................................................. 32 3 The Young Girl and Digital Labor .................................................................................. 39 3.1 The Cute Girl and the Selfie .................................................................................................. 40 3.2 Tiqqun and the Young-Girl ................................................................................................... 43 3.3 Late Capitalism and Neoliberalism .................................................................................... 45 3.4 Neoliberal Ideology in Instagram Cultures ..................................................................... 47 3.5 Consumption, Aspiration, Entrepreneurialism ............................................................. 48 3.6 Ulman as Brand ........................................................................................................................ 51 4 The Postfeminist and Cruel Optimism ......................................................................... 54 4.1 The Sugar Baby ......................................................................................................................... 55 4.2 Postfeminism and Feminine (dis)Empowerment ......................................................... 56 4.3 Self-improvement and Body Labor .................................................................................... 58 4.4 Cruel Optimism ......................................................................................................................... 61 4.5 “The sadder the girl, the happier the troll” ..................................................................... 63 4.6 The Sad Girl and the Impasse .............................................................................................. 66 5 The Basic Bitch and the Authentic Self ........................................................................ 70 5.1 The Life Goddess ...................................................................................................................... 71 5.2 The Authentic Self .................................................................................................................... 73 5.3 The Basic Bitch ......................................................................................................................... 76 5.4 The Scripts of Femininity ...................................................................................................... 77 5.5 Performativity .........................................................................................................................
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