Ann Stoddard astoddard@net-site.com

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Ge/ynealogy is a 10 minute mixed media, projection installation that explores the social -and physical- construction of gender from a feminist point of view. The distorted projection of an archival medical photograph of a hermaphrodite over layered wall texts suggest point of view and context are everything, - difference exists even when invisible: transgressive montage as futuristic, political response to scientific, patriarchal determinism. Meanings change with viewer position, due to the placement of the projector, wall text, and entrance. Viewed on approach, the frontal female figure appears model-thin, and the text is unreadable, but when viewed frontally, projected the text becomes readable, and, beneath the text, her body reveals fertility goddess proportions. Walking between a nebula of burning votive candles and a sea of urine specimens, viewers occupy a metaphorical boundary between patriarchal power/ social control,- female sexuality/ self determination. Recontextualization/ reinscription challenge gender stereotypes and patriarchal control, reveal connections between physician father/ artist daughter, gynecology/ genealogy, hermaphrodite/ artist, sexuality/ spirituality, Catholicism/ domestic patriarchy. In the dialogic public space of Ge/ynealogy, genealogy becomes a deconstructionist tool, and gynecology is preoccupied with female self-determination and constructing an audible feminine subject, while eroding distinctions between Science and Art.