Shape of the Gaze, The

A hand-processed and optically printed film. I manipulate the film process to disrupt viewing expectations on a textual and aesthetic level. This re-positions the subject and discourse of gender ambiguity available in the gaze. Specifically, I attempt to interrupt and re-shape the triadic gaze operating between the subject, viewer and filmic apparatus. By shifting the discourse of the gaze, the film implicates viewers in the gazes between the lesbian filmmaker and her self-identified butch subjects. “Post riot-grrl ethos informed a number of the best works… [including] Maïa Cybelle Carpenter’s hand-processed vision of lesbians and machines, ‘The Shape of the Gaze.’” – Ed Halter, Indie Wire (Dec. 4, 2000) “In Carpenter’s drily witty ‘The Shape of the Gaze,’ butch women stare assertively at the camera, intercut with tools and machine parts.” – Fred Camper, Chicago Reader (Sept. 8, 2000)