Theoretical Concert Project:

V-Effekt

In this project, we were asked to create a hypothetical concert with music surrounding one core theme. I designed a custom Vectorworks venue and brought it into Augment3d to visualize the final product.

This video contains flashing lights.

V-Effekt, at its core, is about reclaiming the individuality that is stripped away when others try to make you fit boxes as defined by sexuality or gender. Being a “boy” or a “girl” means dressing certain ways, behaving certain ways, being certain ways that don’t necessarily align with one’s ideology. Lady Gaga’s Fashion! is about transforming one’s appearance and the confidence that one feels by being able to express themselves how they feel. In Poppy’s Am I a Girl, she questions her own gender, neither subscribing to traditional masculinity nor femininity. STRUT by EMELINE is about reclaiming the walk of shame: rather than feeling shameful for pursuing sexual pleasure, strutting back home unabashedly. Poppy’s Interlude 1 transitions us into the finale, serving as a vessel to amplify the scale for the closer. Chic Chick is about how Poppy is redefining her femininity in a way that forces onlookers to reanalyze their definition of gender. The set is a combination of the female gender symbol, ♀, and four runways converging into one central runway. Symbolism is imbued into the plot as well, most notably with the backlight forming the shape of XOXOX, serving the dual function of XOXOX–hugs and kisses–and XXX–sex. I can also, through the backlight, embed XX and XY into Am I a Girl, denoting the chromosomal differences between the sexes. There will be a declining color development from piece to piece, representing what is lost when we confine ourselves to gendered norms, but the scale of the concert should peak in the finale, to represent what is possible when we live outside of them. Each song features moments of pure white, which is meant to allude to the color palette of the final song, and to show that even in the presence of gender, there exist ways of aesthetic presentation that transcend what is conventionally allowed. The full scale of the venue should only be seen in the first and last song. This is to represent the expanded worldview you entitle yourself to by allowing yourself to explore what exists independent of or push the boundaries within gender. The concert’s name, V-Effekt is a double entendre: firstly, as shorthand for Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt, a means by which audiences are alienated by means of challenging theatrical practices, in this case, alienating gender by thriving in spite of it; secondly, with all of my artists identifying as women, V-Effekt can also stand for “Vagina Effect,” i.e. the social effect being born with female reproductive parts has insofar as gender presentation is concerned.