Luis Quiles, Social Media and Sexism

Luis' work popped up on my tumblr newsfeed a while back and I really loved it. I'm always fascinated by things which seem shocking and offensive but Luis' work evidently has a much deeper purpose. Undoubtedly his work is shocking but offers a very interesting critique of society and modern cultural phenomenons. 

I've recently being covering some interesting material on biopolitics, a Foucaltian idea. Whereby an individual is governed by a variety of different things such as media, technologies, educations etc. By governed I mean regulated or controlled so to speak. Interestingly I have been focusing on media as a means of regulating. 

In relation to Luis Quiles work I think it's interesting to consider how some social medias and online medias regulate gender roles and simultaneously sexism. 

This second image I found extremely interesting. Instagram as many of you know, is an app designed to share photos and consequently focuses upon the visual. Laura Mulvey's idea of the male gaze, which to again summarize very briefly, is the idea that the male has the privilege of gazing upon the photo of the female which is not a privilege women are entitled to. In relation to the second photo, the male gaze, instagram or digital medias might be interpreted as the phallic, thus a privilege exclusive to men. Arguably social media may be considered to reconstruct male privilege. 

Similarly, the next few pictures address gaming and how this is gendered. Gaming is arguably something which is dominated by male designers and players, essentially designed by men for men. As exemplified in the first image with Laura Craft a renounced sexualised character who was developed during the 90s. 

For some of the ideas I referred to look up:

Laura Mulvey "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema."

Michel Foucault "The History of Sexuality," and "Discipline and Punishment."