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Refashioning and Reframing: Gender, Agency, and the Body in Jana Sterbak’s Remote Control II

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Refashioning and Reframing: Gender, Agency, and the Body in Jana Sterbak’s Remote Control II

Duncan, Daisy (2024) Refashioning and Reframing: Gender, Agency, and the Body in Jana Sterbak’s Remote Control II. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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Abstract

This thesis examines Remote Control II (1989), a wearable sculpture by multidisciplinary artist Jana Sterbak. The sculpture references cage crinoline, a popular garment in Europe that was a staple in women’s wardrobes from 1856 until the late 1800s. Visually mimicking a birdcage, the sartorial style prioritized an idealized femininity, enforcing corporeal, cultural, and social control over the female body through immobilization, constriction, and threatening livelihoods. Remote Control II mimics this silhouette with added material and formal elements that highlight the crinoline’s controlling intention. Informed by feminist and queer methodologies and design histories, this thesis argues that Remote Control II is subversive in reappropriating the cage crinoline and transforming the silhouette into one that may offer agency and autonomy. To demonstrate my argument, I analyze the cage crinoline’s history, the broader cultural significance of clothing, and Sterbak’s reinterpretation to highlight how Remote Control II is effective in subverting the cage crinoline’s history through appropriation, material choices, and complicating gendered design elements. This thesis concludes by exploring Remote Control II’s relevance in our contemporary context at a time in which the dress no longer stands for singular femininity.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Fine Arts > Art History
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Duncan, Daisy
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Art History
Date:June 2024
Thesis Supervisor(s):Jim, Alice Ming Wai
Keywords:wearable sculpture, gender, possibility, reappropriation, textiles, frame, fashion, feminism, queering, orientations, phenomenology, memory, agency, autonomy, technology
ID Code:994156
Deposited By: Daisy Duncan
Deposited On:24 Oct 2024 15:29
Last Modified:24 Oct 2024 15:29

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