My name is Karike Ashworth, I am a 2nd year Fine Art student at QCA, Griffith University in Brisbane.

In June/July 2011 I undertook an International Study Tour of central Europe... ...including:

Germany Czech

Frankfurt & Wurzburg Prague Berlin .. and Venice for the 54th biennale

Italy

This series of videos are a study into the social behaviour of the cultural tourist, focusing on notions of Othering and Performance through a largely feminist lens.

To be a cultural tourist is one of the characteristics of the modern experience, like possessing a car or a nice home. It is a marker of status and a necessity for good health (Urry, 2002).
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Tourism is a cultural laboratory in which people derive pleasure from performing and narrating alternative identities and ways of being together in other places. (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003)

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Photography is the theatre of life where tourists perform various places, scripts, and roles to and for themselves. (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003)

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

 and one the unique modern mediums through which people produce life narratives and lasting memories by performing photographic events actively and bodily. (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003)

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

In my video works my gaze is one of critical social observer. I watch and critically analyse social behaviours because - I am fascinated by people - and I am trying to make sense of people so I can make sense of myself, the world, and my place in it. This fascination with people, social behaviours, relationships, rituals, and social boundaries are of central concern to me in my art practise. These video works are essentially a social commentary and a reflection of my continual search for an understanding of humanity.

According to Rose (1995), ... constructing the Other or Othering is ... defining where you belong through a contrast with other places, or who you are through a contrast with other people. Drawing on the work of Irigary, inherent to the construction of Other are the binary distinctions of Self and Other. The construction of the Other is dependant upon the simultaneous construction of The Self. The Self is typically accorded greater power and status than that which is defined as Other. (Rose cited in Aitchinson, 2001)

This visual diary shows my progression during the tour from --> tourist who captures otherness (through the gaze of my camera) in order to make sense of myself, the world and my place in it... ... culminating in --> me being subject of the gaze (being Othered).

This is my visual journey ...

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Cultural tourists visually devour their environment and the people in it; engaging in a quest to find the picturesque or authentic Other. (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003)

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Central to this process of consumptive devouring is the construction of places and people as foreign, exotic and Other. Brochures, guide books and the like represent places and people as constructed signifiers of the Other to be consumed by tourists.

(Haldrup & Larsen, 2003)

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

The tourist industry relies upon the marketing of difference, and the reproduction of both places and people as the desirable Other in order to sustain itself. (Aitchinson, 2001)

St John of Nepomuk
When on the Charles Bridge in Prague which was an awful touristy place - it struck me as curious that everyone and I mean everyone (except me because I was videoing) touched the bronze statue of St Johns of Nepomuk, and mostly had someone take a photo of them doing it.
Touching the statue is a Prague ritual. It
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Watch film 1

is supposed to bring good luck and ensure that you return to Prague soon. According to social theorists, embodied ritual is a way for different people with different orientations and directives to come together.

Photography involves obligations. People feel that they must not miss seeing particular scenes since otherwise photo opportunities will be missed (Urry, 2002).

St John of Nepomuk
In the video, the following is evident:
Tourists engaging in relatively
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

unconstrained communitas or social togetherness (Urry, 2002).

Tourists reflexively staging &

performing the sight, the object and the social relation for the camera in order to produce narratives and lasting memories of a blissful holiday experience (Haldrup & Larsen, 2003).

The presence of others gives a place a sense of atmosphere and sense of

carnival, indicating this is the place to be (Urry, 2002).

Tourists have expectations associated with going away and holiday - they are

searching for events endowed with particular significance - looking for the extraordinary (Urry, 2002).

Oh baby baby
At the Kampa Museum in Prague there were a group of large baby sculptures. The public continuously interacted with them.
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

It was fascinating!
When you watch the film, look out for the social interactions of the people as they relate to one another. Watch the women! They are blatantly sexualising themselves.

This film is very voyeuristic me, watching them, them/him watching her, other tourists watching them and us watching this video. It demonstrates our love of looking and watching.

Watch film 2

Oh baby baby
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

The women in this film are playing to the male gaze... According to Laura Mulvey (c1976)...

men are invested with the power to look while women function primarily as image or object of sight.

in their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-belooked-at-ness...she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire.

Abandoned bus & overcrowded vaparetto

This work is about tourist frustrations, my frustrations, the strangeness of public transport system...

Photographer: Karike Ashworth Photographer: Karike Ashworth

The strangeness...

Watch film 3

Locals meet
In this work, I am flaneur I am able to travel, arrive, to gaze, to be anonymous... to be in a liminal zone, in order to watch ... unseen. The flaneur was forerunner of the 20th century tourist of being seen and recorded, and seeing others and recording them. both seeer and seen. (Urry, 2002)
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Watch film 4

What is around the corner?

While in Wurzburg two friends (women) were physically attacked by a man while innocently going about their tourist business. I was quite affected by this incident. It highlighted our vulnerability as tourists, in particular female tourists. As tourists we are in unfamiliar surroundings, and on this tour I was travelling without my partner for the first time in 12 years, with a group of virtual strangers. As tourists in unfamiliar surroundings our behaviours are at times unchecked because we behave differently to how we do at home. - our gaze is externally focused rather than directionally focused on a destination, as it is at home. We are more curious ... we tend to wander ... As a result we are open to experiences and adventures but are also therefore more vulnerable.

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Still affected by the incident, I encountered the Murder in the House painting at National Gallery in Prague.

http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Jakub_Schikaneder_-_Murder_in_the_House.JPG

Jakub Schikaneder Murder in the House, 1890

Murder in the House (1890) is essentially a social history painting. It embodies the role of women in Victorian society during this time (1890), and their possible fate if they did not conform to misogynistic expectations of the times. (Rutherford 2007).
Jakub Schikaneder Murder in the House, 1890

What intrigued me was the social arrangement / engagement of the onlookers. The artist has captured something incredible - that moment of inaction - That moment of Othering. She is fallen women and corpse (corpse is the ultimate Other). They stand by unwilling to get involved, reluctant to be incriminated in the act... we see guilt, shock we see these things most beautifully captured in this painting. I remember being distinctly moved by this work. I think visually I made some decisions - something I find quite incredible as an artist that we made visual decisions based on visual cues, and we are not even aware that we are doing it.

http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Jakub_Schikaneder_-_Murder_in_the_House.JPG

Then in Venice, I saw this work by Taryn Simon....

http://tarynsimon.com/works_additional.php

Taryn Simon, Zahra / Farah, 2011 (Danish Pavilion)

Taryn Simon, Zahra / Farah

Zahra is the name of the actress in Brian DePalmas film Redacted, she plays the role of Farah in the film. The film is based on the gang rape and murder of a 14 year-old Iraqi girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, by U.S. soldiers outside Mahmudiya on March 12, 2006. Abeers mother, father, and 6-year old sister were murdered while she was being raped. After the soldiers took turns raping Abeer, she was shot in the head and her body set on fire.
http://tarynsimon.com/works_additional.php

I was struck by the fear, the vulnerability, the horror in this work...the potential horrors, our potential horrors as tourists on this trip. The fear It reflected my personal horrors.

Something happened

Othering ... and my involvement thus far ...

http://tarynsimon.com/works_additional.php

Here... I am APART from the scene... Judging THEIR actions.

Here... I am PART of the scene watching /discovering the body.

http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Jakub_Schikaneder_-_Murder_in_the_House.JPG

The next stage

Voyeur in alleyway
I decided what I wanted to do, I wanted to try to generate a moment akin to what I witnessed in these works but on location in Venice. Obviously it wasnt going to be a murder scene! There are elements of ethics and risk at play because although both the paintings mentioned are completely contrived arrangements I was intending to create something real and video it. Authenticity is very important to me in my work. I wanted to explore my vulnerability as a tourist and as a women, search out the vulnerability of others and test the social fabric of the tourist.

Cruel ? Perhaps ?
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Interesting ?

.... very.

This work, although short, captures the vulnerability of the female tourist as object of predatory male gaze.

Watch film 5

When pushing social boundaries ethics are always at play. I wanted to generate something but not create a huge amount of unnecessary alarm or confusion just a little bit of something.

Its also worth noting that I am looking through a feminist lens and making some huge assumptions in these works. There are of course multiple interpretations, this is just the one I choose:
This man is looking down on me as an oddity, as Other.. Inferior other.

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

He is casting his gaze his tourist gaze & his male gaze.

Subject of the gaze

Safety was important thank you to Kaye and Joe for your help ... What I think is interesting about this video is: ...to photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves (Sontag 1971). ...we are all being violated in this work. I am violating the people who watch me by capturing their vulnerability (their moment of uncertainty), and I am allowing myself to be violated by laying on the ground in a position of inferiority and helplessness.

The back drop is important to my intention..

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Watch film 6

I was interested in generating a Spectacle so as to study the gaze/behaviour of the tourist.. This work represents a culmination in my fascination in tourist behaviour while on tour. I am incriminating myself in this observation. I find it interesting that people put their camera between me and them. According to Sontag (1971) ...most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture. ... the camera turns nature and society into grabable objects (Urry 2002) - I am object feminised object, as signified by the window dressing in the background.

Male aggression or playfulness ? You decide...

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

According to Aitchinson (2001), Otherness is projected onto women by, and in the interests of men, such that we are constructed as inferior and abnormal. Urry (2002) writes... ...bodies themselves are especially subject to the gaze, especially the marked racial and gender inequalities that are involved. Males look through a kind of porno-tropic lens which is endlessly voyeuristic. .. tourism is about the body as seen displaying, performing, seducing visitors with skill, charm, strength, sexuality etc. The moving or performing body is often what gets gazed upon, as a spectacular corporeality.

Photographer: Karike Ashworth

Can you read my vulnerability?

Conclusion The work is about boundaries, social boundaries. I am very clearly toying with a boundary. In my work I look for them and push them a little. Me laying on the street is about me trying to generate something for a split second, to test the reactions of people. I am searching for humanity, testing humanity, judging humanity ... and judging their reactions. I find sadistic pleasure in their discomfort as it mirrors my own discomfort.
Photographer: Karike Ashworth

The end.

References
Aitchison, C 2001, Theorizing Other discourses of tourism, gender and culture : Can the subaltern speak (in tourism)? Tourist Studies, vol. 1, no. 133, pp. 133-147. Columpar, C 2002, The Gaze as Theoretical Touchstone, Womens Studies Quarterly, vol. 30 no. 1 /2 , pp. 25-44. Haldrup, M & Larsen, J 2003, The Family Gaze, Tourist Studies, vol. 3, no. 23, pp. 23-46. Hammett, J 1997, The Ideological Impediment: Feminism and Film Theory, Cinema Journal, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 85-99. MacCannell, D 2001, Tourist Agency, Tourist Studies, vol. 1, no. 23, pp. 23-37. Mulvey, L c1976, Visual Pleasure and narrative cinema, Film Theory and Critisism, L. Brady et al., Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 837-848. Rutherford, A 2007, A Dramatic Reading of Augustus Leopold Eggs Untitled Triptych, Tate Papers, http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/07spring/rutherford.htm. Sontag, S 1971, On Photography, Penguin, New York. Urry, J 2002, The Tourist Gaze , Sage Publication Ltd., London.