When a sexier body means a better life,
When the embodiment of the male gaze leads to the discipline of the female body,
When Youtube channels spread beauty ideals and daily routines to the mass,
When the body becomes assets,
… there is a mind-body problem.
Our interactions with the digital have increased during the pandemic via the use of online tutorials and exercices to stay fit. But which kind of body images are spread through those channels and how do those bodies move? Influencers have increased in popularity and so the idea of a sexy and performative body; an uniformity in how the body moves and is shaped prevails.
This video projeplays with found footages from youtube and instagram channels and uses editing as a way to choreograph.
Artémise Ploegaerts (FR/NL) is a choreographer, video artist, and dancer. In 2011, she completed a B.A Dance Theatre at Trinity Laban (London). She received the Michelle Simone award for outstanding achievement in the field of choreography. In 2012, Artémise began her Master of choreography at ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, Arnhem, to pursue her artistic research while working as an independent artist in the Netherlands. While studying at ArtEZ, she started to investigate her choreographic practice with video by herself and in collaboration with the visual artist Louis Hothothot. She is interested in editing process as a way to choreograph. Her work has been shown internationally (Dansmakers Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, VanAbbe museum Eindhoven, BAU in Het Veem Theatre Amsterdam, Dance Base Edinburgh, De Lindenberg Nijmegen, Dreamspace Gallery London, Laban Centre, among others). She also shows her work in different art platforms and festivals (Cinedans, Festival à Corps). Her practice includes the use of archival material taken from personal archive and the internet. It stresses the links between the moving body and people’s personal history. From those personal stories and experiences, I reveal a wider context in how the body is disciplined and its identity formed by the mass media and a given socio-cultural context. It questions the establishment of stereootypes. She is particularly interested in the relationship between the mass media and the female body.
