Today's porn consumers are no longer satisfied with regular, male-dominated pornography. Mainstream pornography increasingly merges sex with violence and degradation from spitting and choking to 'gang banging' and 'facials'.
Pornographer John Stagliano was the originator of 'gonzo pornography'. In gonzo pornography, females (and occasionally men) are made subject to intentionally degrading and dehumanising sexual acts, including gagging, choking, slapping, humiliation, double penetration, anal penetration, double anal penetration, and various other forms of physical and verbal violence. By delivering unpredictable material, Stagliano kept customers engaged and gonzo was therefore very successful.
John Stagliano
John Stagliano aka 'Buttman' -
"I was the first to shoot Rocco [pornography performer].Together we evolved toward rougher stuff. He started to spit on girls. A strong male-dominant thing, with women being pushed to their limits. It looks violent but it's not. I mean, pleasure and pain are the same thing, right? Rocco is driven by the market. What makes it in today's market place is reality."
Sculpture 7:
I wanted to show the build up of what women have to go through in the mass production of sexual violence in mainstream pornography. It could also symbolise the role that pornography plays in our lives, how technology have made it accessible on mobile phones, video games and laptops.
(A very bad sketch in biro of my Asda basket.)
This is an Asda basket that I stole and spray painted black so it would fit with my colour scheme that I have used throughout my project. I chose a shopping basket to show the idea of mass production. As things in a supermarket are mass produced, similarly to pornography.
I decided to fill the basket with expandable foam. I did this to show the way women are being 'pushed' in the porn industry. I thought this would be a good example as the foam will expand out of the basket. Overflowing out of it to link it to the idea of fantasy becoming reality.
I think this idea works really well, it links to the unconscious mind as these are similar to the sexual urges and disturbing material that is too threatening to fully acknowledge in our conscious mind.
I will be adding more expandable foam to the sculpture, I just want to build it up layer by layer to ensure all of it is covered by paint.
If I had the materials, I would explore this idea further. Maybe I could experiment by using 'hard' materials with this too?
New ideas — ways to adapt my practise:
Internet based works
Could make collages with photography of my work that I've already taken to expand and experiment with my ideas
Could create small sculptures?
I would like to experiment with my sculptures by adding light to them? Maybe I could use mannequins in someway too? I could cut pieces of my sculpture out so the light could shine through? E.g. cut the nipples out of the mannequin? Use the plug of the light as a tail? (Linking to animalistic behaviours.)
I want to link my work to surrealist ideas.
Sculpture 8:
I really like this piece as I was finally able to experiment with combining metal and expandable foam.
As I’m working from home, I have very limited resources so my works have to be a lot smaller and less adventurous. I think this sculpture is very effective and successfully shows my ideas. I wanted to use both hard and soft materials together to show the contradiction between them and create a sense of isolation. Similarly to how pornography abuse women and use photographically cut-up images of women’s body parts into isolation and fetishised parts.
Sculpture 9:
I tried a different technique to add paint onto these sculptures. Instead of painting them with a paint brush or using spray paint. I dipped them into a tin of paint, leaving some parts uncovered. I really liked this technique as it created a very thick layer of paint on the sculpture but also showed all of the indents and textures. I want to explore this painting technique further.
Sculpture 5:
I really liked the metal ring and expandable foam sculpture (Sculpture 5) and wanted to experiment with different ideas of how I could create different sculptures with a similar style. Even though I am unable to physically make them, I'd like to think of different avenues I could go down to symbolise the issues with pornography.
I thought about the possibility of cutting holes into the sculptures so they'd be similar to sensory boxes, where the viewer could put their hand into them and feel different textures and materials. Or I could put things inside the hole that the viewer could take away with them? As this could symbolise what the pornography industry takes from a woman? By dehumanising, abusing and sexually objectifying them.
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