Visual representations of female techno/house producers

if all you're doing is acting surprised that they exist, or denying agency, or saying things like "in many other genres the artist is always depicted on the cover" which is literally indefensible then i don't see how there's any real discussion at all

i mean, you could equally talk about the male artists who use their actual male names or male honorifics...

― lex pretend, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 6:21 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Guy Mann Dude, Buddy Guy...

i was interested in spacecadet's thoughts about clubbing as exclusionary and the relationship between "sexiness" and sexistness tho

I'm struggling too. Can you give an example of a cover which is completely unrepresentative of the music?

My point wasn't really that the covers are "completely unrepresentative", rather than that the ways of representation available to women seem to more limited than those available for men. But if you want an example, there's the Cassy mix someone posted above. If you look at the full cover, I fail to see how that represents the music inside.

(The images linked to are NSFW.)

where the artist is depicted in stereotypically feminine ways

i don't get what being depicted in a stereotypically feminine way is - are we talking 'dressed in a ra-ra skirt' or 'doing some needlepoint' or are we talking 'wearing makeup' or 'having a woman's haircut'?

the majority of album covers with the female producer on the front that i can think of are a headshot: you could argue that there's more effort made to make a female artist conventionally attractive in than headshot than there would be for a male artist, but that's true of all pictures of female artists/producers/human beings.

in that headshot

or saying things like "in many other genres the artist is always depicted on the cover" which is literally indefensible then i don't see how there's any real discussion at all

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but you wouldn't probably disagree that in, say, pop music having the artist on the cover is much, much more common than in house/techno?

Yeah, that Cassy one supports your case in a way the Dinky one doesn't.

i don't think the Cassy cover supports anything tbh unless nudity is stereotypically feminine

that's true of all pictures of female artists/producers/human beings.

Is it really? Just look at the cover of the 2003 Dinky album I linked to in the first post, and compare it to Anemik: don't you think there's a big difference in degrees of conventional feminity there?

kiki being stereotypically feminine on the cover of his boogybytes mix?

http://theletter.co.uk/images/boobybytes1.jpg

i don't think the Cassy cover supports anything tbh unless nudity is stereotypically feminine

Can you name many albums by straight male artists that would have a cover like that?

Yeah, let me know when a male DJ appears nude in gatefold.

Because the norm is male, a producer who is not identified as female is assumed to be male, not left as an anonymous genderless blank. Having other people assume you are male, when you're not, is having other people assume you're a different human being than you are. It's tantamount to lying. Why are you suggesting that it's weird that producers would not want to lie about themselves?

this is what I feel, like, the nina kraviz one above, she just looks like "a woman". is she supposed to look more like a man or something? or less feminine? it's a photo of a woman, wearing fairly non-descript clothes, in low light.

(Xpost - the thread topic is "visual representations of female techno/house producers" not "women on dance music album covers" dude)

it's focussed so far on covers. and videos, i mean dance music videos... how many of them have you even watched in the last five years? they aren't even a part of dance music.

It isn't female producers who emphasise their gender more than male ones, it's male producers who are able to exist as if their gender is unremarkable.

this is exactly right.

where the artist is depicted in stereotypically feminine ways

it's a picture, of a woman! what's stereotypical about it? and anyway, half of this debate is about album covers being done in stereotypical ways, big surprise when the person designing them is prob lower on the artistic food chain than someone drawing on school desk.

i don't think the Cassy cover supports anything tbh unless nudity is stereotypically feminine

well, it's widely believed that female nudity is more "sexy" and worth seeing than male nudity. (there was that awful piece in the graun Guide when that male stripper film came out that argued that male nudity was always funny and unsexy)

Tuomas you realise on the cover of that first Dinky album she looks like on of the models in Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video, right?

Didn't realise slicked-back hair was such a challenge to hegemony tbh

that's the only time cassy has ever appeared on the cover of any of her releases. her follow-up commercial mix looked like:

http://s.discogss.com/image/R-2058046-1261421407.jpeg

i've been fighting the urge to post the orig Diamond Dogs cover

if you're arguing that this

http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B000084TT7.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

is deglamourised or ungendered or makes no play with sexuality then lol x infinity

Tuomas you realise on the cover of that first Dinky album she looks like on of the models in Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video, right?

She's also smoking a cigarette, and you know what they say about those kind of girls.

Tuomas I think the reason you're tying yourself in knots a bit here is because you're trying to tackle both "visual representation of women vs men in techno" and "why are women presenting themselves in this way in this supposedly faceless genre?" at the same time.

This is also overlooking people like Anja Schneider and Maya Jane Coles who have very recognisable images and aren't particularly sexualised. I mean even Ellen Allien's album covers post-Berlinette are about disguising or adorning her face in different ways, Bjork-style.

where the artist is depicted in stereotypically feminine ways

it's a picture, of a woman! what's stereotypical about it?

For example, the colours and lighting (seductive, soft, deep reds; as opposed to more stark colours often found in photos of male techno artists), her pose (leaning forwards, more passive than active, slightly sexual), the way her long hair (very much a feminine signifier) covers her eyes (denying the agency her stare could give her, further objectifying her)... Do you really think every photo of a woman is equally feminine, regardless of the staging/pose/colours/etc?

if you're arguing that this

http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B000084TT7.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

is deglamourised or ungendered or makes no play with sexuality then lol x infinity

I wasn't arguing that, I was saying that the cover of Anemik clearly depicts her in a more stereotypically feminine way.

in 1940 maybe

I think some people are confusing "sexuality" and "feminity" in this thread, they are not fully interchangeable terms.

tbh i find this whole conversation weird because i'm sort of the opposite of Tuomas -- without thinking very hard about it I'd assume that the visual style of female producers is actually less stereotypically "feminine", less "sexy", more androgynous and arty?

and i've always assumed there was a reaction against the podium dancer image: a female producer, in order to be taken seriously in a genre where there's a common hypersexualised image of female consumers, needs to make herself visibly different. So the visual style of female producers, in my head at least, tends towards sharp haircuts, simple cuts of clothing, avant makeup. Not "masculine" but trying to avoid a certain set of "sexy" female signifiers.

Maybe it's just cos I mostly listen to those corny german fuxors?

(to me this also ties into what spacecadet was talking about upthread)

Perhaps the Dinky album cover is intended to fool Nicola Roberts fans* into buying the album?

*Most niche accidental demographic ever obviously.

For example, the colours and lighting (seductive, soft, deep reds; as opposed to more stark colours often found in photos of male techno artists), her pose (leaning forwards, more passive than active, slightly sexual), the way her long hair (very much a feminine signifier) covers her eyes (denying the agency her stare could give her, further objectifying her)... Do you really think every photo of a woman is equally feminine, regardless of the staging/pose/colours/etc?

not at all, but this photo to me is more arty rather than anything else.

certainly it's clear judging by reactions here that it's a matter of opinion, at best.

also given she has long hair, should she shave it to avoid being criticised for a feminine album cover? or just not appear on the cover? i don't really know what's expected of women here, to be more like the men, or to be less like themselves, if it is themselves, or what.

tbh i find this whole conversation weird because i'm sort of the opposite of Tuomas -- without thinking very hard about it I'd assume that the visual style of female producers is actually less stereotypically "feminine", less "sexy", more androgynous and arty?

"Less feminine" and "less sexy" compared to what? My point wasn't to compare house/techno to other genres, some of which obviously have more stereotypical and/or sexual depictions of female artists, rather than to talk about the disparities within this particular genre.

i think the problem with that is that this has to be discussed in the context of album covers as a whole, not least because there such an irrelevant sidenote to techno itself.

they're

My point wasn't to compare house/techno to other genres, some of which obviously have more stereotypical and/or sexual depictions of female artists, rather than to talk about the disparities within this particular genre.

sorry, I don't understand this, could you rephrase please?

for a start, less "feminine" and less "sexy" compared to what other women are wearing on the dancefloor.

I'm not saying my assumption is right: I'm saying it's interesting that my unreflective assumption was the opposite of yours.

Can you name many albums by straight male artists that would have a cover like that?

http://www.udancecn.com/uploads/Tiga%20-%20DJ%20Kicks.jpg

My point wasn't to compare house/techno to other genres, some of which obviously have more stereotypical and/or sexual depictions of female artists, rather than to talk about the disparities within this particular genre.

sorry, I don't understand this, could you rephrase please?

Read the first post: I was discussing about the disparity between record covers of male and female techno/house producers. Obviously if you bring people on the dancefloor to the discussion, that's a somewhat different (though I guess related) issue.

Sic, Tiga doesn't appeart to be nude on that cover...?

he's lying down and poking his pert little bum in the air though

for our enjoyment

the tart

Read the first post: I was discussing about the disparity between record covers of male and female techno/house producers. Obviously if you bring people on the dancefloor to the discussion, that's a somewhat different (though I guess related) issue.

you're talking about the disparities within this particular genre in terms of producers' visual representation being "masculine" or "feminine" or "gender neutral" but if you won't allow reference outside the genre, or to different people involved in the genre, how do we know what counts as a "masculine" or a "feminine" or a "gender neutral" visual representation?

You have a sense that the visual representation of male techno artists is particularly "gender neutral": where does this come from if not through a comparison to the visual representation of male artists in other genres?

what is a "masculine" visual representation in techno? what does it look like? is it only ever there when a male producer is trying to make his masculinity a selling point? why would that be? have you ever listened to a techno artist who felt faceless and assumed they were female and been surprised to discover they were male?

you won't allow reference outside the genre, or to different people involved in the genre, how do we know what counts as a "masculine" or a "feminine" or a "gender neutral" visual representation?

I'm not saying I'm not allowing comparisons, I was just saying that it's kind of a pointless excercise to bring images from other genres where overtly gendered and/or sexualized depictions of artists are more common to this discussion, because of course you're gonna find more glaring examples there. I just thought it was interesting to discuss the aesthetic choices and limitations within this particular genre of music.

xpost ^ ding ding ding

males' gender is discursively "neutral" (their gender is a "negative" attribute; it clears the way for other attributes to flood in, cf "wimpy" "tough" "funny" "heroic" "dull"); females' gender is discursively "positive" - it sticks out, is something to notice - "The Top 10 Female DJs in the World!! Pg 23" etc; it doesn't get out of the way, makes it harder for other attributes to find purchase

why this should be any different in the case of techno album covers i have no idea

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8112545/DJ-fashion.html

The difference is, as I've tried to explain, that techno's conventions of pseudonyms and imagery would allow female artists to embrace this "neutrality" (instead of "positivity" (which can be a burden too)) far more easily than in, say, pop.

maybe the thing that you think is neutrality is masculinity