Cheang Shu Lea's Brandon

Introduction:

Brandon, created by Taiwanese artist, Cheang Shu Lea in 1998, was the first web-based work to be commissioned by New York Guggenheim museum.
This narrative web project used the nonlinear and the paricipatory nature of the Internet as a means to explore and illuminate a tragic story. It is based on a true story of Teena Brandon, a gender-crossing woman in USA, who was raped and murdered in 1993 after her female anatomy has been revealed.

 

Description: 

The site is divided into several subsections and interfaces, using videos, images, texts and sounds to convey different ideas:

The bigdoll interface
A page with signs, texts and images suggesting a sense of violence and trouble. They change and disappear with mouse-clicks.

The Roadtrip interface
- Tells a finctional story of Brandon and his murder. The page includes a link to the search engine with the search word Teena Brandon. It provides further information about her tragedy.

 

The mooplay interface
- Includeds a game of role play and a chat room. Users can chande their ID and gender to hide their real identity.

 

The panopticon Interface
- A theme of punishment. The page mentions the discrimination of abnormal genders, by treating them as criminals. They are mistreated or are forced to take certain therapy.

 

 

The interfaces in Brandon are collaborative and the contents of each interface can move in and out flexibly.

 

 

Intention:

There are some deep meanings behind Brandon. The first one, quoted from New Media Art, Cheang is inviting viewers to investigate and introspect the issue of human sexuality.

"It explores Brandon Teena's story in an experimental way that conveys the "fluidity and ambiguity of gender and identity in contemporary societies. "

(Tribe, Mark; Jana, Reena (2007). New Media Art. Germany: Taschen.

The second quote, from the book Rethinking women + Cyberculture, points out that Cheang was dealing with the boundaried of actual and virtual boundaried of gender. Brandon forces viewers out of their comfort zone to speak out against transgendered discrimination.

"The Brandon site deals with themes such as boundaries and borders between actual /virtual and male/female and also questions hegemonic and  also questions hegemonic and institutional bias toward the clearly defined and conformist body."
(Flanagan, M., & Booth, A. (2002). Reload: Rethinking women+ ctberculture. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.)

 

 

Features of Web-based art:

1) Using techniques from earlier art movements
- Dada artists' provocative use and fragmented arrangement of images and text have reappeared in Brandon

2) An interest on random events/ chances
- The content of the website develops randomly according to the participation of users.

3) An interest on random events/ chance

-The content of the website develops and displays randomly according to the paricipation of users.

 

4) Audience participation

- Through the internet, Cheang makes it possible for viewers from different locations joinning together at the same time to communicate.
- She created an online chat room, encouraged viewers to participate and provide ideas on this provocative issue.
- Viewers can also rearrange or add new text and images into the website and their interpretation will become a part of the final work. In this case, users have been engaged as active participants.


Combination of the real and the virtual world:

- Brandon blurred the distinctions between real and virtual world to encourage public interaction. The work expends itself into different public events and activities, including installation, live chat format and actual performances.
- eg. The physical installation at the Guggenheim Soho's Video Wall, in New York.

Remarkable point/ own opinions:

- Interesting part: Cheang enables people to play with different gender roles and characters by using the mutable "skin" of the internet, in order to respond to the issue of gender fusion.

- Brandon is an example of "cyberfeminist art", which treats the Internet as means of freedom from social constructs like gender and sex difference.

-Cheang challenges the traditional concept of "Doing Gender". In the society, individuals are used to play with their role of gender in order to meet societal expectations. Yet, she points out that gender should be defined by our behavior instead of the nature. We belong to a certain gender because we act like that, not because of we bron in that way.

- The presentation of gender isn't conservative or immutable, instead, it can be playful and confusing.

 

Bus Uncle

1) Do you see videos such as “Bus uncle” and its copies or Chris Crocker “ Leave Britney alone” and its copies as a good addition to creative culture?

I think their copies are good addition to creative culture. Such videos are called paradies or derivative works. People make them for entertainment or expressions of their own ideas. To order to provide enjoyment to viewers, derivation videos require the good use of creative techniques, such as innovative editing methods, various visual and sound effects. Thus, they contribute to the creative culture.

2) Is the wide availability of such videos a good thing for society or not?
 

It depends on the content of such videos. If they are not ad hominem and they do not contain harmful values or messages, they can be a good thing for society because they are a source of entertainment.

 

3) How many viewers are estimated to have watched the Youtube video?

Over a million.

 

4) How would you rate the video?

Is it of high quality in technical terms? Is it interesting aesthetically (eg camera angles, use of light, the narrative), and so on?

 
Since this video is taken by a low-resolution mobile phone, it doesn't have impressive camera angles, use of light or other techniques. I don't think it contains aesthetical elements, instead, I only treat it as a record of an incident.

 

5) Does it raise interesting socio-cultural issues?

 
Although many found the video humorous and entertaining, others warned that it hinted at a more alarming and sinister prognosis of life in stress-filled Hong Kong. The video became a cultural sensation in Hong Kong, inspiring vigorous debate and discussion on lifestyle, etiquette, civic awareness and media ethics within the city, eventually attracting the attention of the media around the world.

 

6) Do you think it deserved the attention that it received from the internet community?

I think most people only treat it as a kind of show for them to tease of but it still deserves the popularity from the internet. Some people really take this incident seriously. They think the video reflects the stressful lifestyle of Hong Kong people so they keep on sharing the video. When we put our fucus on the content of the video, we'll raise our concern on societal problems.
 

Interview on Inter Dis-Communication Machine (1993)

1) Describe this work in detail.

This is an artwork of Kazuhiko Hachiya, named "Inter discommunication machine". It is a communication system which is composed by a video camera, head mounted displays, batteries and feathers. People can exchange their sense of hearing and seeing to each other. You can see and hear what your partner see and hear when using this machine.The artwork contains the sense of Taoist Cosmology which focus on the interaction between two opposite elements as a whole. By adding elements of Taoism, the artist want to express the idea of combination and independence. In this artwork, the participant and his partner' are independent but their senses of seeing and hearing are combined into one.

 

2) How does the work use technology to extend or change the abilities of the human body?

After turning on the inter-discommunication machine, human can become a communication system which will be able to transmitting and receiving sensual experiences.

 
3) What issues does this work raise (eg. about today's society/ about the effects of existing technologies/ about the potential or possibilities that new technologies might have?) 

The Inter-discommunication machine allows you to experience a whole new way of viewing the world, a non-human way.
 

According to the artist, the concept of this project is to create a “double identity self” and “mutual identity”. He created this artwork in an attempt to confuse the boundaries between “you” and “me”, to let the participants see the world from the others’ eyes, which can be drastically different from their own view. Since the so- called “world” in which we live is only the product of our subjective perception and there is diversity of perceptions of different people, the world in different people’s eyes hence varies, too. I think this machine encourages people to think about others and put yourself in other's position, in order to create a harmonious society.