The Sensory Threshold: ‘Femmage’ as Politics of the Surface
Keywords:
Femmage, feminist visual theory, haptic, surface, collage, close-upAbstract
This article investigates the sensory and material role of the surface, approaching it through the conceptual and formal lens of Melissa Meyer and Miriam Schapiro’s concept of femmage (1977-78). Drawing on concepts of indexicality, haptic visuality, and feminist visual theory, the study explores how the surface operates not only as a boundary between image and viewer but as an agentive site of meaning. Tracing femmage from 1970s feminist collage practices to contemporary post-digital assemblages, the study offers close readings of works by Su Friedrich, Susan Stein, Anne Bean, and Sara Cwynar. It argues that strategies of fragmentation, layering, and close-up construct surfaces that do not merely show, but perform.
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