Voxelations: Her Voice (interactive CD-ROM component) is an interactive, multimedia work featuring kinetic image and text, and sound. It is a modular work that combines photographic images of women from reality, and images from the media, advertising and other representations in the public domain. The interface involves a linear structure, based on true stories from Steven McCarthy’s mother’s personal history, and lateral, dislocating links that expose media persuasions.

The anecdotal stories are paired with the ‘real’ images, yet the connection between the actual facts and the person depicted are only made plausible by proximity – these stories did not happen to these women, or did they? Clicking from the ‘real’ screens, via a tv-shaped button, transports the viewer to parallel images culled from advertising. Here coarse sound and jumpy graphics combine with almost accusatory persuasions, indicative of the landscape that confronts women daily, regarding identity, self-esteem, gender roles and consumer consumption.

Voxelations addresses issues of truth, representation, reality, modularity and identity through an interface that is not necessarily ‘user-friendly’ – when discussing these topics, why should it be? The interface suggests that there are no easy answers, just complex negotiations.

self-initiated project | 2000