The Making of a Raped Mannequin
The title of this post is seriously disturbing, but hey, we chose a disturbing topic and if you feel uncomfortable, that means WE'RE DOING A GOOD JOB.
I wrote of our trial and error last week, and after we learned our lesson, we came back with some stiff chicken wire, and some improvisation.
Creating the bodice, with help from Pak Rahmat. First, we wrapped the chicken wire around the mannequin, and cut it according to size. Then, we applied force in areas such as the waist and décolletage. We had to fold the wire over some parts that overlapped. Next, we cut the wire right beneath the buttocks. The end result looks somewhat like a dress made of chicken wire, only you'd probably be arrested if you wore this dress outside.
Next we create the limbs.
Faza did a test run at home and created one leg. First, she wrapped one leg with plastic bags, held together with tape. Then, she layered torn newspaper over the plastic bags, again secured with tape. A shitload of tape finishes the ensemble.
Then, she drew a line from the bottom to the top of the artificial leg and cut it open, sealing the cut edges with tape.
The artificial leg is then filled with crumpled balls of newspaper to retain its shape.
Here's a video of us doing it on her arm:
Sorry it was a bit shaky, this was taken on my phone! Also, at the end of the video you can see all of us standing up and rushing, that was when Asa was having an asthma attack. It's a long, looong story.
More pictures of the process:
Then we tore out more magazine papers and crumpled them to make the fillings:
Next, we had to make the head.
We had two ideas for the head: first, put duct tape over where the mouth is, to symbolise "taping up" a person's rights based on sexual exploitation.
Second, we could put a coffee cup where the mouth is, with the words "is this what you want?" inside. In rape culture, it is often stated that women "ask" to be raped because of the clothes they wear, the makeup they put on, etc etc. Therefore, by confronting the viewers directly if this broken mannequin, or broken person, is what they want from rape, we are establishing a direct connection between the concept and the audience.
In the end, we made two heads but went for the coffee cup idea because 1) it resembles a blow up doll better and that's what we're trying to represent and 2) it shows more technique, and Comping Techniques is all about, well, technique.
Stay tuned for the next post, which is about trying to get this thing to fly!
Just kidding, strings involved.