The Process: How does an object become erotic?

About this episode

Artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen discusses her digital commission 'Grumpy' and the themes of gender and objectification in art.

In this special interview edition of the Process, artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen unpacks the background to her digital commission Grumpy . Sidsel Meineche Hansen is a Danish artist who is interested in how things are made, both through the lens of the industrial complex and material forms of craft. Her work looks at the ways gender is produced and mutated through the production of female gendered commodities in the tech and porn industry, such as the sex robot or the sex doll, exploring questions around ownership and profit. In Grumpy, her commission for our digital platform Channel, Sidsel created a computer-animated version of the anatomical Venus - a wax model of a dissected woman, clad in pearls, which was used to teach medical students' anatomy in the 18th Century. The head of the model hangs backwards, singing softly, as we pan up over her splayed open torso, revealing only the reproductive organs and a smiling foetus To make the work, Sidsel sourced real-life human sexual organs from a cadaver before working on the animation. In this special interview version of The Process, Sidsel unpacks the background to the work with the director of Somerset House Studios Marie…

People in this episode

Host: Marie McPartlin

Guest: Sidsel Meineche Hansen

Topics covered

• art
• gender
• technology
• sexuality
• animation
• interview

Keywords

• Sidsel Meineche Hansen
• Grumpy
• anatomical Venus
• gender
• art
• animation
• sex robot
• sex doll
• Somerset House

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Somerset House Studios

Books & works: Grumpy, anatomical Venus

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