Tamara González Ibáñez

Performing Gender

In my work Performing Gender, I explore gender fluidity and drag culture in Dublin. The first of three related projects, is a series of nude portraits produced in the private and controlled environment of the studio. These sensitive images were produced collaboratively with each performer where trust and respect is reciprocated between each drag artist and myself. The resulting images explore the sensuality of the body in a kind of gender 'symbiosis'. The second series includes each drag artist in their performing outfits. These images were produced in the studio and it reflects the performative feminine side of each artist, using props, pads and outfits to enhance their female figure. The third series explored the transitional environment of the dressing room, where the performers transform in front of unforgiving mirrors. It is in the dressing room where gender fluidity is more present than ever, portraying each transitional step that drag artists take before going on stage. This series also contains photographs where drag artists were captured under the neon glow of theatre lights. Collectively, the project amounts to a unique insight into the lives of drag artists in Dublin who in their daily lives perform more traditional roles as office workers, teachers and lawyers.

In my thesis, I explore the punctum in the context of digital photography. Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida defines his concept of the punctum as a) a visual detail that strikes and ‘pricks’ the spectator or b) a temporal realisation that the photograph certifies above all else ‘what was there’. He does so only in terms of analogue photography. What is it, then in the wake of digital photography and the change in the photographic medium from materiality to digitalization? Does the production of digital images render the punctum redundant? What if any is the impact on the punctum with how smartphones and social media modifies our way of sharing photographs. Through an examination of this we see how digital photography and analogue photography are closer than we thought in terms of sharing, editing techniques and showing in photographs. I also discuss the existence of what is being called the “digital punctum” or “new punctum” as a response to the current conditions.