Returning the Gaze: Robotic Installation for Milan Fashion Week

Abstract

Industrial robots have long been used for manufacturing and research purposes around the world. More recently they have also been used in the fields of art, performance, dance, and interaction design, where they have served as a collaborator, autonomous agent, and, in some cases, as an extension of the artist. This project explores how a robotic extension could engage with the critical feminist issue of "the male gaze." In doing so, it provides a brief theoretical context to the notion of the gaze in the context of visual culture and feminism. Finally, it illustrates the application of such a critical concept through the example of a robotic installation developed by the author for Milan Fashion Week in collaboration with Universal Robots. It engages with ways in which robots might extend the gaze through to discourses of resistance, whereby the gaze could be used to empower those who typically face discrimination.