Video Work: The Platium Eaters | whitebitches

I was hoping that I might contribute to a larger project called, One Hundred Black Women, One Hundred Actions, but instead I stumbled upon an expansion of The Platinum Eaters|whitebitches project, by utilizing video. I've made one video installment, with more to follow. Each video piece will focus on one the 'Actions' I outline below.

There are three primary actions by which paper doll-marionette-fetish objects are created. This video series is meant to document each of these functions as time-based performative samples.

ACTIONS

1. The Search For Standardized Beauty: This includes the review of American mass-market monthly publications such as Vogue, Bazaar, Vanity Fair, etc. As paper dolls, these objects must reflect mainstream conventions of fashion and beauty. Particular attention is paid to the identification and selection of the fair-haired feminine ideal.
2. Manipulation of Articulations: The string is to serve as a control mechanism, with both obvious and indirect parallels to the functionality of marionette puppets. While placement, range of motion, and tempo are each determined by this connective material.
3. Codified Rituals: The elements (fire, water, blood, breath) found in traditional West African rituals of fetization are revealed through simulation and allusion by repetitive construction techniques. Ritual templates will continue to be derived from a geographic area known as the ‘Slave Coast’.

Construction Ritual for Paper Doll-Marionette-Fetish objects from Kenya Robinson on Vimeo.

• Modern Standards of Beauty: Nature or Nurture?An Evolutionary Perspective
• 'Blonde is beautiful' mystique
• The Vogue Asia Standard of Beauty: White Blonde Girls
• Original Paper Doll Artists Guild
• Sylvia Kleindinst talks about making Paper Dolls
• Fetishism
• "Voodoo and West Africa's Spiritual Life"