Ars Electronica Archive
Prix
Prix Map
Pictures
Videos
Publications
Special Projects
Women in Media Art
Prix
The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Menstruation Machine - Takashi's Take
Sputniko!
It’s 2012, so why are humans still menstruating?
As a female artist I had one intriguing question I wanted to solve.
When the contraceptive pill first became commercially available in the 1960s, it was deliberately designed to have one pill-free, menstruating week every month. This was because the doctors felt that female users would find having no periods too worrying and unacceptable. 50 years have passed since then, and modern technology has accomplished even more—space travel, mobile phones, the Internet, cloning and genetically modified food—but women are still bleeding. New pills such as Lybrel and Seasonique, which reduce the frequency of menstruation to none or four times a year have recently been developed, but they are not yet widely used.
For example in Japan, it only took the ministry of health six months to approve Viagra, but it took them more than nine years to approve the contraceptive pill in 1999 (which was approved three months after the approval of Viagra). It is quite clear that the advancement of technology can be heavily influenced by political, social and cultural backgrounds of the time.
So what does menstruation mean to humans, biologically, culturally and historically? Who might choose to have it, and how might they have it? _The Menstruation Machine_—fitted with a blood dispensing mechanism and electrodes simulating the lower abdomen—stimulates the pain and bleeding of a five-day menstruation process.
Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gnb-rdGbm6s http://www.sputniko.com/?p=91600#
As a female artist I had one intriguing question I wanted to solve.
When the contraceptive pill first became commercially available in the 1960s, it was deliberately designed to have one pill-free, menstruating week every month. This was because the doctors felt that female users would find having no periods too worrying and unacceptable. 50 years have passed since then, and modern technology has accomplished even more—space travel, mobile phones, the Internet, cloning and genetically modified food—but women are still bleeding. New pills such as Lybrel and Seasonique, which reduce the frequency of menstruation to none or four times a year have recently been developed, but they are not yet widely used.
For example in Japan, it only took the ministry of health six months to approve Viagra, but it took them more than nine years to approve the contraceptive pill in 1999 (which was approved three months after the approval of Viagra). It is quite clear that the advancement of technology can be heavily influenced by political, social and cultural backgrounds of the time.
So what does menstruation mean to humans, biologically, culturally and historically? Who might choose to have it, and how might they have it? _The Menstruation Machine_—fitted with a blood dispensing mechanism and electrodes simulating the lower abdomen—stimulates the pain and bleeding of a five-day menstruation process.
Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gnb-rdGbm6s http://www.sputniko.com/?p=91600#
Music and Lyrics by Sputniko!
Video Written by Sputniko!, Directed by Yasuhito Tsuge
Video Production: AUG5, Inc.
Sound Production: DJ Codomo
Director of Photography: Takahiro Motonami
Stylist: Shoko Sei
Fashion: galaxxxy, MANIAC WORKS , chimaniamu, Emma Lundgren, Amakiru, Grace Du Prez, Anna Schwamborn
Hair: Yuki Akagi
Make Up: Kanta Mukasa
Product Design: Naoki Kawamoto
Metalwork: Longfellowguitars
Image Photography: Rai Royal
Set Design: Sam Frances
Photography Make Up: Hiroe Tomikawa
The machine was developed with research support from Professor Jan Brosens at the Department of Medicine, Imperial College London.
Video Written by Sputniko!, Directed by Yasuhito Tsuge
Video Production: AUG5, Inc.
Sound Production: DJ Codomo
Director of Photography: Takahiro Motonami
Stylist: Shoko Sei
Fashion: galaxxxy, MANIAC WORKS , chimaniamu, Emma Lundgren, Amakiru, Grace Du Prez, Anna Schwamborn
Hair: Yuki Akagi
Make Up: Kanta Mukasa
Product Design: Naoki Kawamoto
Metalwork: Longfellowguitars
Image Photography: Rai Royal
Set Design: Sam Frances
Photography Make Up: Hiroe Tomikawa
The machine was developed with research support from Professor Jan Brosens at the Department of Medicine, Imperial College London.
**Sputniko! **(UK / JP). Born to an English mother and a Japanese father who are both mathematics professors, Sputniko! graduated high school early to study mathematics at Imperial College, London. As she pursued her studies in science, she grew interested in arts, which allowed her science thinking to become more communicative and flexible, leading her to study for an MA at the Royal College of Art, London. Sputniko! creates machines, films and music exploring the intersections of technology, feminism and pop culture. Her narrative works are produced via research investigation with scientists and specialists to critically investigate a possible future of human and technology.