ATOMICX - Insert/Command (2026)

Insert/Command

Abstract: Insert/Command (2026) seeks to critique the visual codes associated with online contemporary pornography and how digital intervention techniques via photogrammetry can destabilise their consumption. The project examines feminist discourse and research in pornography to evaluate the over-consumption and hyper-sexualised femme bodies in digital spaces, while also challenging spectatorship and the Gaze. This research is grounded in societal interactions and evolving digital spaces that shape our perceptions of each other. Australian researcher Alan McKee explores the positioning of the ‘female’ as the ‘Other’ and ‘male’ as the ‘Subject’ in pornographic interactions, while American literary critic Sianne Ngai contextualises this consumption through aesthetic categories. This research seeks to create a parody of contemporary online pornography seen on social media sites, with a focus on femme, solo-style content that can manifest in both still images and video. Australian artist Yandell Walton’s use of 3D modelling and use of photogrammetry provides structure for the studio outcomes of this research project, contrasted with Sarah Lucas’ potent installations, while American artist Betty Tompkins challenges censorship and the representations of explicit media. The digital intervention techniques employed in the studio outcomes of this project disrupt the traditional “looking” experience as coined by Tina Campt via photogrammetry, resulting in a series of sculptures of overly edited bodies that parody provocative poses. They are situated along with a series of animated photogrammetry models on constructed, low-resolution screens, and a selection of those renderings materializing in 3D printed forms, delving into the expanded photography realm. Creating a parody of pornography through this lens has allowed this project to confront the way society engages with and consumes femme bodies in digital spaces, Insert/Command is significant as online spaces evolve overtime, and the way femme bodies are consumed and sexualised becomes more widespread and explicit.