Airicist
5th February 2014, 00:24
Personal Website - sputniko.com (https://sputniko.com)
youtube.com/iromiOzaki (https://www.youtube.com/HiromiOzaki)
vimeo.com/user1729974 (https://vimeo.com/user1729974)
facebook.com/Sputniko-125260300663 (https://www.facebook.com/Sputniko-125260300663)
twitter.com/5putniko (https://twitter.com/5putniko)
linkedin.com/in/hiromi-ozaki-13373a42 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiromi-ozaki-13373a42)
blog.media.mit.edu/2013/06/welcome-to-new-faculty-member-hiromi.html (http://blog.media.mit.edu/2013/06/welcome-to-new-faculty-member-hiromi.html)
starnow.com.au/hiromiozaki (https://www.starnow.com.au/hiromiozaki)
Airicist
5th February 2014, 00:36
https://youtu.be/gnb-rdGbm6s
Sputniko! - Menstruation Machine, Takashi's Take
Uploaded on Jun 29, 2010
Installation with video (color, sound), screens, and printed panels, 3:24 min., dimensions variable;
Device: aluminum, electronics, and acrylic
13 3/8 x 13 13/16 x 13 3/8" (34 x 35 x 34 cm)
Courtesy the artist and Scai the Bathhouse, Tokyo.
It's 2010, so why are humans still menstruating?
As a female artist I had one intriguing question I wanted to solve.
When the contraceptive pill first became commercially available in the 1960s, it was deliberately designed to have a pill-free, menstruating week every month. This was because the doctors felt that users would find having no periods too worrying and unacceptable. 50 years have passed since then, and modern technology has accomplished even more -- space travel, mobile phones, internet, cloning and genetically modified foods -- but women are still bleeding. New pills such as Lybrel and Seasonique, which reduce the frequency of menstruation to none or 4 times a year have recently been developed, but they are not yet widely used.
For example in Japan, it only took the Ministry of Health only 6 months to approve Viagra, but it took them more than 9 years to approve the contraceptive pill in 1999 (which was approved 3 months after the approval of Viagra). It is quite clear that the advancement of technology can be heavily influenced by political, social and cultural backgrounds of the time.
So what does Menstruation mean, biologically, culturally and historically, to humans? Who might choose to have it, and how might they have it? The Menstruation Machine -- fitted with a blood dispensing mechanism and electrodes simulating the lower abdomen -- simulates the pain and bleeding of a 5 day menstruation process. The machine was developed with research support from Professor Jan Brosens at the Department of Medicine, Imperial College London.
The music video features a Japanese transvestite boy Takashi, who one day chooses to wear 'Menstruation' in an attempt to biologically dress up as a female, being unsatisfied by just aesthetically appearing female. He builds and wears the machine to fulfill his desire to understand what the period feels like for his female friends. The music video was posted on Youtube to trigger reaction from a wide audience outside of the traditional gallery environment. The video was immediately posted on influential blogs including Wired, Gizmodo and Boing Boing, and the story of Takashi's desire to have menstruation created a viral frenzy of debates, resulting in 100000 Youtube hits in mere one week.
Airicist
5th February 2014, 00:37
https://youtu.be/6P1uFNdKdQA
Sputniko! - The Moonwalk Machine - Selena's Step
Published on Oct 7, 2013
The Moonwalk Machine - Selena's Step (2013)
WORK WEBSITE (http://sputniko.com/?p=5532543)
Nearly half a century has passed since Apollo 11 made man's first lunar landing in history but no female steps have been made on the moon yet. "The Moonwalk Machine - Selena's Step" unravels a story about the protagonist Selena, a science geek girl, who invents a lunar rover rigged with high-heels with the hope to leave her marks on the surface of the moon. The installation includes an image of a super heroine "Lunar Girl" - which Selena dreams of becoming, as well as the actual lunar rover. The machine was realized with the information provided by engineers and specialists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and is designed so that the high-heel marks will be left firmly on the moon's surface. True to the word "sci-fi", the work embodies a mixture of science and fiction, but the inspiration actually came from an amateur scientist, a 13 year old girl, who succeeded in launching a Hello Kitty doll aboard a rubber balloon into the stratosphere. One may feel that the next 'giant leap for mankind' maybe made in the not so distant future, not for the purpose of winning the space race but for fulfilling a personal and romantic wish.
Airicist
5th February 2014, 00:38
https://youtu.be/4w0Nj35B_N0
High Heels On The Moon | Meet Sputniko!
Published on Jan 31, 2014
Sputniko!'s "The Moonwalk Machine - Selena's Step" uses high heels on the lunar surface to explore how feminism and technology collide in the physical and digital worlds. Take a look at her latest multimedia works in the video above.