Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Bassam El Baroni

Thesis: "The Mythical Xeno-Droids”,

Researching the materialization of a genderless feminism

July 2015

Abstract

Are authoritative forms of social relationships cognate only to humans, are they only constrained to corporeity and thus to gender?

Without the necessity to contest epistemological postures on feminism and parting from my own position as an artist, this research is a skeptical dissertation of the already existent voices around gender politics and art. Although critic in its basis, the aim of this essay is trying to find the relevance of this movement in contemporary times and the form art influences this updating process. By channeling the voices of theoreticians like Sadie Plant, Donna Haraway, Amanda Beech, Thomas Sankara and Nick Land among others, I propose a discourse that although rooted in the feminist ideology also aims to go beyond this perspective and reflect upon a broader understanding of identity. The hypothesis of this research roams around spheres like science fiction, economy, biology, media, technology and activism as they inevitably intersect and progress creating cartography of the same query. Thus gender, rather than a form of given identity is approached as already a natural state of plasticity of the self, which is essential as embodiment and interstice between body and image, both placed, learnt, constructed and influenced by current sociopolitical and cultural phenomena.

Rather than a finished research, this paper that takes the form of a master thesis is as well, in its core, an intellectual exercise on power; as power is helplessly bound to gender politics, and thus to the symbolism of a corporeity entirely colonized by a pretension of sovereignty.

Author: Laila Torres Mendieta