Menina Collection

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITION

Fundación Cazadores. Exhibition as part of the Impulso Cazadores Programme with artistic direction by Mariana Obersztern and mentoring by Santiago Villanueva.

→ Video Record of the Exhibition

Credits

Project supported by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Mecenazgo and Itaú Fundación.

Project director: Victoria Papagni
Design, development and realisation of dildos: Victoria Papagni
Graphic Designer: Julián Solis Morales
Electronic Technician: Martin Lopez Palermo
Programmer: Juan Martin Sesali
Realisation: Eric Sauerhering
Photography: Santiago Orti
Video Production: Tomo Cabrera
3D Animation: Pitsy, n4rf_
Technical Drawing: Arq. Josefina Sposito
Textile: Fantasy Dinasty and Muta Faura

AGRADECIMIENTOS

Alejandro Ikonicoff, Miguel Harte, Suavecitxs, Julián Sorter, Lucas Medina, Dalia Drajnudel, Beto Mundim, Alejandra Giorgi, Mario Papagni.

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Menina is a collection of dildos scepters developed with usability criteria in transdisciplinary collaboration with professionals from different fields. They are hybrid objects that amalgamate the anime poetics of magical heroines, popular globalized consumption of the 90's - the artist's generation - with queer philosophy, which proposes the dildo as a techno-sexual prosthesis that dismantles the artificial construction of the sex-gender system.

The dildo as a technological object functions as a prosthesis to be fitted into our cyborg body. The dildo plays with gender roles, decenters genital pleasure, substitutes the concentration and production of pleasure in an element foreign to the body, a prosthetic and posthuman object.

The existence of sexual prostheses dates back to before the third century. It was medicine, in the 18th century, which was responsible for its mechanical improvement and its massive diffusion, since vibrators were a crucial part of the therapy against the so-called "female hysteria". The history of the dildo is assimilated and accompanies the dramatic history of censorship of feminine and queer sexualities. This project claims and appropriates it (with joy and pleasure) as an emancipatory object from its analogy with the Scepter of power of the magical warriors. The Scepter is conceived as a non-human prosthesis that confers magical powers to the heroines, whose aesthetic code proposes the admiration of what is beautiful for being tender.

The project combines semi-industrial materials and technological processes with DIY (Do It Yourself) craft practices. It stimulates DIY Pleasure: self-exploration, self-care and agency of one's own sexuality.
Menina Collection presents a versatile selection. Each dildo has a personality, a particular use and a magic power.

The exhibition proposal is framed in the crossroads between Art, Industrial Design and Technology and investigates the relationship between a work of art, an object of use and a commercial product. The project is materialized through technical developments that involve formal research with new materials.

The criteria of usability/interactivity, the queer perspective, and the sustainability of the project's materials are fundamental: ecological bioplastics for 3D printing, recyclable plastics and environmentally inert and medical grade silicones for hygienic contact with the skin, approved and certified by official bodies such as the FDA.

The technical process of realization includes 3D modeling of different types, such as digital sculpting to define the final shape and parametric modeling to design the 3D matrices (molds) and then print them. Interspersed are also 100% manual techniques of traditional tooling to work the silicone. Specific machinery is used to handle the rubber correctly: pumps and vacuum chambers. Old and new processes are combined to reach the desired end result.

In the case of the Dildo Menina, we worked with a team that not only designed its external shape, but also its internal electronic circuit, with its multiple functions and the possibility of being controlled by a Bluetooth application through a cell phone.

For the Biennial of Performance, Menina displays its Merch designed in collaboration with young artists working on the intersection work - product - object of use and independent entrepreneurs specializing in Queer products.

I use my body as a support for the presentation, while I parade the garments in a photo shoot around the exhibition space. The dildos are used as counter-accessories.

→ READ MORE ON PERFORMANCE MENINA

Cada dildo, antes de ser materializado, comienza modelado en un software digital. Es por eso que la exhibición incluye su hibridez en ambos formatos: físico y digital, a modo de animación 3D.