From crib to coffin, we are put in boxes. At birth, our gender is recorded by checking one of two boxes; male or female. Just out of the womb, we are assigned a lifetime of expectations and limitations. While growing up we see variations in others and in ourselves. This personal sense of gender, our gender identity, forms at the age of 3 and raises the number of options from 2 to 32+. However inclusive and well-meaning, these labels are still confining as they are just more boxes. Look in the box to see the person. Remove the box and they will grow in surprising ways. Sometime the box may feel like a shelter from public scrutiny. Stay there too long, and it will shape you.*
For some, it is not enough to think outside the box; They must live there.
For some, it is not enough to think outside the box; They must live there.
* This is a picture of a real watermelon. It was grown in a box. Its shape could only be achieved at the expense of its contents. Square melons must be harvested before they are ripe, rendering them inedible.
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| Protagonist, Character Sheet: The 7 Stages of Human Development |
CREDITS
Director/Animator: Kurosh ValaNejad
Choreographer/Performer: Stephen Hues
Music: 34 Ghost IV at 1/4 speed by NIN
(Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA)
Music: 34 Ghost IV at 1/4 speed by NIN
(Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA)
MEDIA DESCRIPTION
Total Running Time 4:30 sec
Video: Quicktime, H.264, 24 fps, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Audio: 2 Channel, 44 kHzTotal Running Time 4:30 sec
Video: Quicktime, H.264, 24 fps, 1920 x 1080 pixels
The animation was procedurally generated with the Body Scrub device.
Gender ID, the Resolution is a scene of a live performance in development. You can see some of the other clips here:
My interest in gender identity grew from the experience I had at Moogfest 2016 in North Carolina, where I was invited to exhibit Gender - my response to North Carolina's House Bill 2 (a.k.a. the Bathroom Law)
Like Gender, Gender ID can be shown as an interactive installation.
Art & Technology Inspiration
Technical Challenge
Subject-Matter Expertise
BRIEF BIO
Kurosh ValaNejad is an Iranian-American who was born an American-Iranian in 1966 in Tehran to an Iranian father and an American mother. In 1977 at the age of 11, he moved to Midwest City, Oklahoma and now lives in West Mid City neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. From 2001-2016 he served as a staff artist and art director at research labs at the University of Southern California where he helped develop virtual reality applications to advance remote learning and cultural sensitivity (Sensory Environments Evaluation) and innovative Impact games (The Cat and the Coup, The Night Journey - both video games were released on Sony's PlayStation 4 console in Fall, 2018) ValaNejad invented 2 new animation techniques (Procedurally generated, gesture-controlled Spatialized Animation, Scratch Animation on Film with Robotic Arm.) while earning an MFA (2018) in Animation and Digital Art from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
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Technical Challenge
Subject-Matter Expertise
BRIEF BIO
Kurosh ValaNejad is an Iranian-American who was born an American-Iranian in 1966 in Tehran to an Iranian father and an American mother. In 1977 at the age of 11, he moved to Midwest City, Oklahoma and now lives in West Mid City neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. From 2001-2016 he served as a staff artist and art director at research labs at the University of Southern California where he helped develop virtual reality applications to advance remote learning and cultural sensitivity (Sensory Environments Evaluation) and innovative Impact games (The Cat and the Coup, The Night Journey - both video games were released on Sony's PlayStation 4 console in Fall, 2018) ValaNejad invented 2 new animation techniques (Procedurally generated, gesture-controlled Spatialized Animation, Scratch Animation on Film with Robotic Arm.) while earning an MFA (2018) in Animation and Digital Art from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
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