Aesthetics of Gender Oppression is a multimedia generative film that weaves together creative coding, sound design, and contemporary dance to explore the visceral and psychological effects of gendered violence. Through the real-time synchronization of wavetable synthesis with a dancer’s movements, the piece channels the unseen currents of human energy—manifesting sound as bodily gesture and gesture as memory. The code captures fractured stills of the dancer mid-motion, generating ghostly "meta-shadows" that echo the body's contortions, adaptations, and mutations over time. This work is rooted in a personal narrative of childhood sexual abuse and the survival tactics developed in response. As a child, Jess instinctively altered her posture—hunching her back, tucking in her hips—in an effort to obscure her femininity, to become invisible, grotesque, or illegible to the male gaze. These acts of bodily deformation were both defense mechanisms and desperate forms of self-erasure, attempts to escape the cycles of objectification and harm. Aesthetics of Gender Oppression gives form to this deeply internal struggle, visualizing the ways trauma etches itself into muscle memory and identity. Choreographed and performed by Madi Tanguay, the film becomes a meditative study of vulnerability, resistance, and reclamation. Her movements tell a nonlinear story of perseverance and grief, where the body is both a site of pain and a medium for transcendence. The generative visuals and layered soundscapes reflect how trauma fragments perception—each frame becomes a flicker of memory, an echo of dissociation, or a glimpse into resilience. Beyond the personal, the piece critiques the broader structures of gender inequality, rape culture, and patriarchal surveillance that normalize violence against women and gender non-conforming bodies. It reflects on how individuals—especially femmes and queer people—are often forced to mold themselves into socially palatable forms to avoid further harm. In doing so, the work exposes how systems of gender oppression distort not just physical presence but emotional landscapes and self-perception. Ultimately, Aesthetics of Gender Oppression is a poetic protest—a reclamation of the narrative through embodied expression. It asks: How do we carry the past in our bodies? How do we reclaim our form when it has been shaped by violence? And how can creative technologies be used not to erase pain, but to alchemize it into new forms of visibility, truth, and liberation? Film Duration: 00:09:39 (nine minutes and 39 seconds)

Exhibition Locations:
Voices per Sara Grilli
November 20th - December 8th, 2024
CICA Museum. Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

MiRNArte Metaverso per Sara Grilli
November 16th - December 8th, 2024
Arte Laguna Prize 19th Edition, Arsenale Nord. Venice, Italy

MiRNArte
July 7th, 2023 - December 1st, 2023
Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. Dorsoduro, 1, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy