The Gaze Armor

The Gaze Armor is a prosthetic designed to confront microaggressions in the form of the male gaze. Realized as part of the Harvard sexual harassment lawsuit and countless silenced cases on college campuses, the piece seeks to interrogate the notion of woman as a “spectacle” and man as “the bearer of the look”. These gazes are not neutral and it is crucial to problematize the contexts and frictions that pre- cede after the bodily experience.
Wearable technology on the breast-space mediates new ways of seeing female bodies: The performer invites attention to no other body parts but the breasts, and uses the gathered attention as a medium of protest. By reclaiming the symbolic silence, the armor engages the audience with a sequence of layered imagery depict- ing the multidimensionality of the female narrative – redefining beauty as a delicate process of care, nurture, empowerment, pleasure, and conflict. Through the deliberate disruption of “the gaze,” the performer regains bodily agency and is empowered through self-advocacy.