Facing the protest. An Investigation of the Human Face as a Site and Means of Protest in the 21st Century.

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FACING THE PROTEST

An Investigation of the Human Face as a Site and Means of

Protest in the 21st Century.

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The aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of the human face as site and tool in protests in early 21st Century. The study examines why and in what ways the face itself becomes an important means to show dissent and a place of protest. It offers a comparative and cross-cultural reading of instances in which the face is used frequently both in art and civic protests.

In order to accomplish this investigation, I refer to the meaning of the mask by giving a brief history and its etymology, and then I give a small introduction about the aspects of collective identity. After illustrating what for me were the most relevant case studies, I divided them into two main chapters.

In the first, I observe the protests of Anonymous, Pussy Riot and Black Bloc where masks balaclavas and hoods are fundamental elements for the protests. I also explore the artistic-activist projects of two contemporary artists, Zach Blas and Leo Selvaggio, who created masks as a tool for protection and concealment of peoples’ identities, in response to the obsessive surveillance measures of our times.

In the second chapter I analyse protests in which the face is still partially covered by fake beards such in La Barbe and becomes completely visible in Orlan’s project of face metamorphosis. Finally, in the third case I analyse the refugee’s protest in which their face is mutilated and their lips are sewn together. It is the refugee’s attempt of visibility and protest against the harsh conditions of detention they are forced to live in. Particularly this kind of “facing the protest” shakes the viewer making him/her aware of issues that otherwise he/she would not pay attention to. Finally, I assert that the face plays such an important role especially in the early 21st century because the face itself is the “protagonist” in our daily life, with the widespread use of social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Skype, and a site of control through the facial biometric surveillance measures. Specifically for this reason, the face is thus a privileged site of protest because it seems to identify policies in social media, but this is not the only reason why it is success.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE COVERED FACE IN PROTEST

1.1. INTRODUCTION HIDING THE FACE IN PROTEST: THE VISIBILITY OF THE INVISIBLE.

The face is arguably the most culturally charged marker of the human being. It is both uniquely individual as well as a referent of identification to a certain culture, ethnicity, family and gender. It is the locus of direct inter-personal communication. It links the senses of sight, hearing, taste and smell through the organs of the eyes, ears, mouth and nose. It is also one of the most crucial vehicles of expression of emotions, both verbal as well as non-verbal. The face can be understood as a surface, as captured in the phrase ‘face value’, indicating that it is what appears but which lays bare more underneath the surface. Yet it is also seen as the concentration or carrier of all that is essential to a person. ‘To face’ someone or something is to confront the truth about them, beyond all superficialities. The face is different from other organs such as the hand or the leg, because it contains all the senses. But the most relevant reason why it is different from the other parts of the human body is the fact that it is only through the face human beings are able to communicate to the outside world, verbally and thanks to the facial expression.

In terms of cultural history, the importance of the face as a means of communication and interaction extends over a vast range of fields: from the identification of self with the face, to its value as an indicator of beauty, shame or honesty, from its recurrent appearance in visual popular culture to the canonization of certain kinds of faces. The face is so specific as an indicator of class, racial, ethnic or gender difference, yet simultaneously universal and quintessentially human. The American psychologist Paul Ekman conducted a series of investigations on the relation between emotions and facial expressions, in terms of differences between so-called Western and Eastern cultures. He concluded that even if cultures are extremely different, all recognized emotions connected to facial expressions in the same way. Psychological research has

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classified six facial expressions that correspond to different emotions universally recognized: surprise, happiness, disgust, fear, sadness, joy.1

This study adopts a Humanities-based perspective, and is less interested in a classification of emotions and facial expressions, but more in an interpretation of the ways in which the face works in cultural communication and interaction. Of particular interest to this study is the role of the face as a means and tool of protest. From the asylum seekers who stitched their lips in protest against harsh detention conditions and deportation at the CIE (Centre for Identification and Expulsion) in Rome 2013, to the anonymous protestors wearing the Guy Fawkes masks, or the facial transfigurations of performance artists such as Orlan and Mike Parr, the relationship between the face and its use in protest is a fascinating area of enquiry. It may be a vehicle for articulating and making visible emotions and claims: it is the organ of communication that may not to be possible in speech, writing or other means of protest. The material I found comes mostly from Internet, the Press, Facebook, Twitter and for this reason it is necessary to warn the reader that all of these cases could have been mediated by these channels, so it is important to read these cases with a critic point of view. The use of the images is limited to eight pictures, in order to exemplify some of the case studies I analysed. The purpose of my thesis is to investigate the face as a site in protest, therefore I will explore different practices, but I will not offer an image material.

My questions are now the following:

In what ways is the face relevant as a means and tool of protest in early 21st_century?

How does the face communicate dissent? How is the face used, transformed, transfigured in protest cultures to carry new or contest existing meanings? How can the use of face and the meaning of the protest be described and analysed using the tools of performance studies? And finally, what is the relationship of the face to the concept of pain?

The planned research is based on the analysis of the face as the main tool in protest and the different procedures used by different people or groups connected to this relevant physical feature. I collected all the case studies in which the face takes on the preliminary and main role as a tool of protest. Some of these examples are very

1

Black, Michael J. and Yacoob, Yaser, “Recognizing facial expressions in image sequences using local parameterized models of image motion”, Int. Journal of Computer Vision, 25(1) (1997),:95.

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similar and connected to each other, whereas others may seen less connected to a superficial eye. I divided these very interesting and, in my opinion fascinating case studies into two main categories: the covered and the uncovered face. The division becomes clearer with the subdivision into two main chapters.

In the first one I focused on the covered-face protests, analysing the case studies of the Anonymous, (2008), and its use of the Guy Fawkes masks, proceeding with the “cartoon-like” masked Pussy Riot (2011) to the violent and sometimes scary, black masks of the Black Blocs2. The three case studies are connected, first of all, because of the use of masks, balaclavas, or bandanas, to hide their identities, but also because of their concept that it is not relevant to identify one individual, behind the mask stands the idea. An idea does not have a leader; the people who belong to these movements repeat it constantly. The idea cannot be captured as an individual can be: it circulates virally, and it can be banned or fined but it will continue to exist. The very famous case of the three women, member of Pussy Riot, who were condemned to jail, is the example of my observation: the three women were forced to uncover their faces, revealing their identity. Everybody could see their faces and know their names, but this event did not stop the movement from continuing. Everybody can be a Pussy Riot, an Anonymous, or a Black Bloc militant and the day after come back to their “real” life.

In the first chapter I also continued with the analysis of another aspect mask, which in this case is used to cover the identity of the person behind it and give back the lost privacy. In this instance I am referring to the artistic demonstration of dissent against the biometrical recognition by two contemporary artists: the Australian Zach Blas and the American Leo Selvaggio. The case study of the two artists will give me the possibility to analyse other meanings for covering a face. In the final part of my this chapter, the mask will take another acceptation: the Guy Fawkes’ mask as well as the Pussy Riot’s balaclava, and those of the Black Bloc’s are not worn merely to hide the identity of the individual, but more importantly to reveal ideas. In the last example, the artist’s mask becomes a sort of new face in order to keep the real identity of the

2_{The term}_{Schwarzer Block was founded in the ‘80s in Germany, lately the term changed into Black Bloc. I am referring to more} recent actions that see the Black Bloc as protagonist of violent events in particular the G8 violent demonstrations in Genova, July 2001.

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individual safe. The artists claim their right to anonymity, instead of continuously being under the spotlights.

1.2. COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN PROTEST: A GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

An important concept to keep in mind during the reading of my research is the idea of collective identity. Essentially, it is the basis for recognizing others and recognizing the self. It is permanent yet fluid, individual yet collective, and a precursor to social movement formation yet also a barrier. I would like to examine a few features concerning the relationship between the use of the face in protest and its own recognisability in a collective identity, because it will be useful to better understand specific examples of protests of the early 21st Century, even though this is a very abstract notion. Many studies of collective identity have suggested that it is something that should be highly valued for its binding effects on social movements.

At this point I wanted to understand if a particular use of the mask can be one of the elements that make a group feel part of a social movement? What makes the mask so powerful? Is it easier to feel part of a collective identity by using the same kind of mask? Before answering this question I will give few notions about the concept of collective identity that does not have a clear definition everybody agrees with. For instance in their analysis Polletta and Jasper3_{write about collective identity as a}

concept connected with the individual, defining it as a moral and emotional connection made by the individual with a broader community, or category or practice. Alberto Melucci synthesises this concept and gives us the best definition of collective identity. He rejected the idea of collective identity as given and tried to understand how it became a movement primarily, then he attempted to connect the gap between individual beliefs and meanings and collective action by exploring the dynamic

3_{Francesca Polletta and James M. Jasper. “Collective Identity and Social Movements”, Annual review of Sociology (2001): 27:} 283-305.

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process through which actors understand and construct their action through shared repeated interaction. Therefore, Melucci’s perspective is that Collective identity concerns a network of active relationships and, most importantly, he talks about the emotional involvement of activists4. In this case I see the mask as a powerful tool for this “emotional” identification in the group for the single individual. By “emotional” identification, I mean the feeling of pride of these individuals who are lofty to belong to a gig movement.

Another factor that is necessary in movements is symbolic resource as signifier of collective identity, like the black masks and clothes of the Black Bloc, the coloured balaclavas of the Pussy Riot or the Guy Fawkes masks of the Anonymous and movements. A relevant part of the Black Bloc collective identity is the commitment to direct action tactics and organizational styles5.

During the research and the reading of the movements I was analysing, some questions started to come to mind. One of them was: what do activists identifies with? Reading especially about the material concerning Black Bloc, I understood that they can identify themselves without belonging to a particular group. This can prove important because activists such as Anonymous and Black Bloc think that many autonomous networks may be forced to dissolve on a regular basis. They do not presuppose their permanence, but conversely they anticipate their temporal contingency. This means that they can disappear when they are no longer satisfied or useful, and elements of the group will restart their existence in another form.

1.3. THE MASK: AN ETYMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Elias Canetti, the modern novelist, playwright and non-fiction writer of our century, proposes a personal interpretation of what the mask represents and provokes in relation with a spectator.

4

Alberto Melucci, “The new social movements: A theoretical approach”, Social science Information (2) (1980): 199-226. 5_{James Jasper. The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements, (University of Chicago}

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Everything behind the mask is mysterious. When the mask is taken seriously, no one must know what lies behind it. A mask expresses much, but hides even more. Above all it separates. Charged with a menace which must not be precisely known –one element of which indeed, is the fact that it cannot be known- it comes close to the spectator, but, in spite of this proximity, remains clearly separated from him. It threatens him/her with the secret dammed up behind it. Unlike a face, there are no passing changes in it, which can be interpreted, and so he/she suspects and fears the unknown it conceals.6

Considering the covered face as starting point of my thesis, I find Canetti’s quote very interesting as far as the use of the mask in protest. The mystery Canetti talks about, together with the fact that we do not know who stands behind the mask, gains an important value in protest. The mask becomes the carrier of a message as strong as the human being who wears it. Because of its fixity, the mask does not run the risk of dropping out emotions; it remains coherent with the meaning it transmits.

The mask has acquired many functions and meanings within the theatrical studies and history. I do not aim to investigate the mask from a theatrical point of view, but my intent is more specifically to analyse the performative use of the mask in protest. In order to achieve that, I will start from the meaning of the word Mask from an etymological point of view.

According to the Collins' Etymological Dictionary7, the mask is the carrier of different meanings in different historical periods.

From the funny “buffoon, mockery” Arabic mask, continuing with the French “cover to hide or guard the face”, until the Italian carnival maschera. But in Latin, masca

6

Elias Canetti, Crowd and Power , Translation of Masse und Macht . (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), 375-76.

7_{Mask. Etymology:}_{1530s, from Middle French masque "covering to hide or guard the face" (16c.), from Italian maschera, from} Medieval Latin masca "mask, specter, nightmare," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Arabic maskharah "buffoon, mockery," from sakhira "be mocked, ridiculed." Or via Provençal mascarar, Catalan mascarar, Old French mascurer "to black (the face)," perhaps from a Germanic source akin to English mesh (q.v.). But compare Occitan mascara "to blacken, darken," derived from mask- "black," which is held to be from a pre-Indo-European language, and Old Occitan masco "witch," surviving in dialects; in Beziers it means "dark cloud before the rain comes." See Walther von Wartburg, "Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch:

Eine Darstellung galloromanischen sprachschatzes". Figurative use by 1570s. Collins' Etymological Dictionary, (Reprint

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refers to something frightening like specter or nightmare. I want to put the attention on the Latin version of the mask’s meaning.

The mask can be also synonymous of terror. Sometimes it could seem that it shows a violent and aggressive behaviour towards us. Even if we think we are self-confident, a hidden feeling of fear arises. The ancient Greeks, for example, used to connect the mask to the Gorgon, the legendary monster of hell that expresses the power and the feeling of terror that the hidden face can produce.

Analysing Canetti’s point of view and Latin and Greek conceptions of the mask, we can see that the very deep function of the mask is to hide an unknown and strong power. According to the focus of my research, it is possible to connect this power with the masked protesters, like the case studies I will analyse: Anonymous group, the Pussy Riot and the Black Blocs.

Their power is the urge to save the whole world and express its claims and necessities. The struggle that all these groups are dealing with is not the struggle for the individual, but the search for a radical change in everybody’s quality of life. For this reason, the mask is a very thin layer that, of course, separates and protects the identity of the single person behind it, but above all, collects and holds the dream, maybe the utopia, of the people of the world.

The Police can arrest individuals, but the mask will continue to exist and circulate, protecting the idea behind it. The use of a mask in early 21st_{Century is so frequent in}

protests all over the world that the hidden face becomes the icon of a new way of demonstrate dissent.

Collective masked protests erupted everywhere so strongly that the face of the Protester was celebrated in 2011 by the worldwide famous magazine “Time”.

For the first time in the history of this very important magazine, there is the typical example of the hidden face of the activist depicted on the front cover.

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Picture1: The Protester, Person of the Year, Time Magazine, New York, (2011)

1.4. ANONYMOUS AND GUY FAWKES’s MASK

In order to illustrate the concept of using the mask in protest as a form of collective identity, I choose the example of the Anonymous. In my opinion this case study is a valid starting point to open up the questions I raised before.

Nowadays it is impossible to deny the recognisability of the mask used by the Anonymous group as a symbol of a collective protest. In this particular case the mask produces the effect of identification in a collective face: the invisibility on the individual gives birth to a new conception of the meaning of visibility. I will now go more into details about the history and most important actions of this group.

Since actions like “Leaks” in 2010, hacking and mass-protests became an ordinary element of political life on the Internet. Anonymous is one of the most relevant group of protesters, which became known in 2012. The group managed to challenge corporations, governments and very important companies. The power of Anonymous stands in some crucial features: it is able to attract media’s attention, it has very recognizable aesthetics, it has a participatory openness and above all, it is unpredictable. The world became aware of the Anonymous’ acts after the latter’s support of Wiki Leaks in December 2001. The DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)8

8_{DDOS is a type of DOS attack where multiple compromised systems -- which are usually infected with a Trojan -- are used to} target a single system causing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Victims of a DDoS attack consist of both the end targeted system and all systems maliciously used and controlled by the hacker in the distributed attack.

According to this report on eSecurityPlanet, in a DDoS attack, the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from many different sources – potentially hundreds of thousands or more. This effectively makes it impossible to stop the attack simply by blocking a single IP address; plus, it is very difficult to distinguish legitimate user traffic from attack traffic when spread across so many points of origin. Source: www.wobopedia.com

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attacks aimed to switch off the Visa, Master Card, Bank of America and other groups which disabled donations to Wiki Leaks.

The video that Anonymous released on YouTube on the 3rd_{of December 2011 became}

quickly worldwide famous. For this group, the Internet has always been the fundamental channel to broadcast their manifesto9.

It is important to realize that Anonymous does not exist. It is just an idea. It means that it can be appropriated by anyone, anytime, for a common cause, for the benefit for the humankind. This means that anyone can launch a new ideological message or campaign under the banner of Anonymous. Anyone can take the leading role in the spreading of the unknown consciousness.

Anonymous collective emerged in a political situation of globalized crises that started in 2008. The crisis is on of capitalism and of the neo-liberal ideology. The mask used by the activists is an appropriation of the face of Guy Fawkes, the insurgent who tried to blow up the British parliament in 1605. Fawkes’s mask became popular since it appears inside the graphic novel Warrior in 1982.10 Guy Fawkes’ mask appears again in the big screen with the movie V for Vendetta.11 The movie centres the effort of a man to destroy the government of the United Kingdom. Over the past decade, the stylized mask became a symbol of dissent.12

The mask was first used by Anonymous in 2008 at the Project Chanology Protest, a march on the church of Scientology. The protest was a response to the church’s attempt to remove Internet video clips of an interview with celebrity Scientologist, Tom Cruise. The collective has never explained the choice to use masks or more specifically, the Guy Fawkes mask, but it is clear that it is homage to the movie scene in which a group of masked protesters march towards the British Parliament.

The Anonymous way of showing dissent grew and became a national movement with manifestations in Boston, Michigan, Florida and Los Angeles. In little time, the activists became a worldwide anti-establishment movement. Also, the Occupy

9

“What is Anonymous?-Understand us!”, Uploaded on 17 December, 2010,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cqP8qqqfI0 10

Warrior. Written by Alan Moore, illustrated by David Lloyd. Britain, 1982 11

V for Vendetta. Political thriller film directed by James McTeigue and written by the Wachowskis, USA-Germany

production, 2006. 12

Oliver Kohns., “Guy Fawkes in the 21st Century. A Contribution to the Political Iconography of Revolt”, Image and

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movement used the same mask in 2011 to fight against corruption and social injustice. The event took place in New York at the Zuccotti Park in Wall Street. The date was the 5th_{of November, which is celebrated as Guy Fawkes Day in the UK. After that}

famous date, many protests sprung up across the world, using the Anonymous mask. The widespread acceptance of the group all over the world is a consequence of the mission itself. The recognisability of the individual in a collective face allows anyone to be part of it.

However, unlike traditional societies that make use of masks, it is not necessary to pass any ritual of initiation in order to be part of the movement. It is not required to pass any test through “elders” or senior members of the group. The decisive factor, instead, is to have advanced web and programming skills and know how to use a computer in a proper way. It is imperative to spend a lot of time online in order to become more familiar with the language of coding and understand Internet culture. The fact that many of the activists who belong to this group are hackers is not a surprising; sometimes they are part of the programmes and computers administration. At this point, the collective identity of Anonymous has not only become a part of the Internet tradition; it is also already being used by people to breed an elastic self who would stand up for his/her rights if necessary.

If we come back to the effect that a collective covered face can have on the public, a particular image of an Anonymous protester seems relevant to me, in which appears a slogan: “The corrupt fear us”.

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Fear is a powerful emotion; it can control people from all over the world. European nations used the power of fear to colonize countries; Anonymous can destroy the centres of businesses and governments alike, merely through the tactic of fear.

But Fear is not the scariest word within the sentence. What can be really scary is “Us”. What does the word mean? ”Us” does not allow the companies who are risking Anonymous attacks to count how many people are part of the movement: the impossibility to determine the number of activists multiplies the threat of their unpredictable actions.

We arrive now to the crucial meaning and use of the Guy Fawkes mask. Let us observe the features of this face for a moment.

The smiling face provokes a ghostly image that recalls the phantom that menaces to haunt the corrupt companies until their complete destruction. The pale colour, almost white and the clean face give us a sense of elegance but fear at the same time. The style of the facial hair, very accurate and precise, reminds us of the typical aesthetics of the Renaissance beauty, giving us the feeling that only a person with a very high level of intelligence can hide him/her self behind the mask.

The cleanness, the perfect and linear traits and the mocking expression with smiling eyes seems to speak to us and communicate that the people who are behind this mask are really serious, determined and quiet, but they know exactly what has to be done. Therefore, Anonymous claims the right to wear a mask, to make use of a speaking position that would otherwise not be available, both online and in physical space. I will conclude my paragraph about Anonymous by quoting a sentence from the journalist Luca Mastrantonio that appears on the Corriere Della Sera newspaper in 2011 and gives a very interesting description of Anonymous masks:

“They are the portraits of our time’s state of mind, a X-Ray of an emoticon face”13. A fundamental question that must be posed in order to understand Anonymous as a collective identity is not who the individuals hidden behind the mask are, but what does this mask allow them to do? It probably allows them to reconstruct a new identity starting from a recognizable anonymity, a new shared and collective one. Considering Melucci’s perspective this collective identity entails the ability to understand the collective ‘Self’, which is different from the ‘Other’ and to be

13

Luca Mastrantonio . “Oggi il nuovo Che è un hacker papista”. The letter to the Corriere della Sera, (n. 4, Sunday 4: december 2011).

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recognized by those ‘Others’. An activist group recognizes itself through a reflexive understanding of its relationship to the environment or the context in which it develops, including also the awareness of the opportunities and constraints it faces in a given field of action14.

In conclusion of this paragraph, I would like to put the attention on one aspect of this group. It is interesting that the symbol of the movement is the face of a person who really existed in the history, but it is used as a mask to conceal the identity of the wearers. If we think for a moment about the name Anonymous, we could imagine a person with a covered face, which makes it impossible to distinguish the person’s features. In this case the face is clearly visible, but it is not the protester’s one: it is “ the face” of the English Guy Fawkes who fought for his country in the past. At this level, the face gains a very important role; it is not important anymore to see everyone’s face, because the one we see symbolises the exact meaning of the protest. Everyone who will wear this face-mask knows exactly which is his/her role, but also the people who will be threatened by those “faces”, will know the Anonymous’ group’s intent: to fight “for the benefit of the humankind”, as they state in their video-manifesto.15

1.5. PUSSY RIOT’S BALACLAVAS: A CARTOON-‐ LIKE-‐IMAGE FOR A SERIOUS INTENT

14

Alberto Melucci, “The new social movements: A theoretical approach”, Social science Information (2) (1980): 199-226. 15_{Anonumoys. Manifesto}:_{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cqP8qqqfI0 min: 4:07.}

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Picture 3: Pussy Riot, Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Moscow, February 21, 2012.

On February 21, 2012 at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, five young women wearing coloured balaclavas and bright clothes, enter the religious place and start to perform a “punk prayer” to the Mother of God. The prayer-song is an incitement against Putin’s power and their aim is to get rid of the Russian President as soon as possible.

The Police immediately stopped this act and three women were arrested and sentenced to prison. These women are part of the Pussy Riot.

The news of their arrest reached all the international headlines virally. People across the world recognized an act of political confrontation but, more importantly, a work of art that found a new way to speak out the truth, in a corrupted world saturated with lies.16

But why is the “Pussy Riot” a special case? Why did the protest of these women with faces covered by coloured balaclavas become a famous movement worldwide?

The Pussy Riot people are courageous activists who risk their lives and put their bodies in the frontline every time they demonstrate, embodying an idea.

This case study represents another kind of covered face protest. In fact unlike the Anonymous, the Pussy Riot’s identity has been disclosed. We know the names and faces of the three women who were arrested in the Cathedral in Moscow, but in the meantime we are able to connect those faces to the brand of their protest: the coloured balaclavas. The simplicity of this “homemade” mask allows a countless amount of people to continue to wear it and to recognize themselves in this symbol of protest.

16_{Claire Tancons, “Carnival to Commons: Pussy Riot Punk Protest and the Exercise of Democratic Culture”, e-flux journal} (#37: September 2012), 1-9.

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Picture 4: A Pussy Riot punk music

As we can see from the image number 4, the style is instantly recognizable and ‘readable’: hints of punk and 1990s rave culture. The group was able to create conditions for individuals to identify with the elements of the movement. That was possible through many practices: the use of simple masks, balaclavas, and the style of the performances, but in particular the anonymity.

As we can observe from the images, the simplicity of the balaclava masks is important, especially for promoting the identification within the group, more than hiding their own identity from the authorities. The “open” mask can be seen as the opposite to Anonymous one. Guy Fawkes’s mask is a very defined and specific one while the Pussy Riot mask is simple and easy to make at home.

A crucial feature of the Pussy Riot mask is that it allows them to identify the group as a movement rather than a group of individuals. The group created a shared collective identity that can be used to confuse the state power and make it impossible to identify and punish protesters. Moreover, the ability of the dissenters is to avoid the tendency of commercial media in order to focus on the individuals rather than on the protest’s issue and meaning. Therefore, the menace that Pussy Riot caused was not the menace of a small and confined group of women but that of a social movement whose members could not be counted.

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Pussy Riot is a collective of radical political activists, which is exclusively composed by women. However it is not a feminist group who fight only for women’s right, far from that. The femininity of the components is visible through the bright dresses and stockings that the band don for every public appearance with also one addition: the bright and coloured balaclava that hides their face. The balaclava, which has gained a reputation as a standard of dissenters all over the world, enforces the principle of anonymity adopted by the members of the group and also guarantees its continuity in case one of the activists is arrested. Therefore the Pussy Riot’s tactic does not only consist in hiding the face, the use of pseudonyms gives them further safety and, as I said before, allows the movement to continue their purposes even if they lose somebody on the way, such as what happened to Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. These women became the two most famous members of the Pussy Riot, symbols of the movement. They spent two years in jail after the “Punk prayer” in the Cathedral in Moscow together with a third woman, Ekaterina Samutsevich. Although now we know the identities of the three activists, these facts did not mean the uncovering of the other activists’ identities and their movement.

I decided to quote here a short version of an interview to some anonymous Pussy Riot activists after the revelation of the identities of the three members who went to prison. This event made gave more visibility to the movement and made the Pussy Riot women famous worldwide. That part of the interview will allow me to better clarify their point of view. The article appears on the page of the website VICE17

Q: Are you looking for new members?

A: Always: Pussy Riot has to keep on expanding. That’s one of the reasons we choose always to wear balaclavas-new members can join the bunch and it does not really matter who takes part in the next act. Pussy Riot is a pulsating and growing body.

Q: What was the reason behind choosing to stay anonymous?

A: Our goal is to move away from personalities and towards symbols and pure protest. We often change names, balaclavas, dresses and roles inside the groups: people drop out, new members join the group, and the line up in each Pussy Riot

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guerrilla performance can be entirely different. Putin would never want to meet Pussy Riot face to face”.

1.6. THE BLACK MASKS OF THE BLACK BLOCS

In the matter of masked face, I will direct my attention to a different one of its uses: the violent protest, analysing the black mask of the Black Bloc. In this example the face appears covered once again, but in a different way. Of course there is the necessity of anonymity, but more than in the other cases here the mask becomes a real identity protector, that allows the violent action to continue to exist.

The G8 summit took place between the 19th and 22nd July 2001, in Genova, Italy. Leaders of the industrialized countries met there to discuss diverse issues like food, global health, energy and economy and poverty. The summit in Genova became known worldwide for the violent reactions against the police that tried to repress anti-globalization groups and for the death of a 23 year-old man, Carlo Giuliani. 200.000 protesters came to Genova to show their dissent against the G8 summit, many people received medical assistance, because of the violence that took place throughout these days of protest. Many people were taken into custody after the raids; they accused police of severe abuse of their power. Many people witnessed that the behaviour of the police was extremely violent and brutal, denying any right to protest in a peaceful manner. The Italian ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi answered that the policemen were not as many as the people described. He asserted that these people exaggerated. The peaceful protest suddenly became an image of hell: the city’s centre was called the red zone. It was a closed area for all the non-residents and was surrounded by barricades. In this huge chaos, a violent group of masked people, wearing black clothes, infiltrated the protesters by using measures such as vandalism and rioting. The group is called Black Bloc.

The Black Bloc is not an organization or network, it is a specific set of tactics promulgated by young militants during protests. The group often deploys means such as the destruction of private property like banks and shops. The actions are a confrontation with the police or more performative acts like marches in small compact groups or jail solidarity. Their attitude is aggressive and confronting. The dress code is militant: black pants and jumpers, black boots and black masks or

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bandanas to cover the face. The use of masks is linked to the fact that the activists need of course to protect their identities for personal security, but it is used especially to express collective solidarity through anonymity and to portray archetypical images of young rebellion.

The black clothes, the black boots and especially the hood are, of course, used to hide the face, but the use of these clothes is also connected to a choice for a more spectacular form of protest. And the reason for the choice is this particular dress code, entirely black, is connected to the fact that the clothes, not only the identity of the wearer must remain anonymous. This tactic also requires the use of violence and the destruction of luxurious shop windows, very expensive cars and other strategic places considered symbols of capitalism, meaning the dissenters must not wear anything recognizable.

Black Bloc practices can be seen as the embodiment of a political vision based on anti-capitalism, physical confrontation and total opposition to the state. The values they fight for are shown through specific codes and highly sensational ritualized violent performances: this kind of militant protest requires the promulgation of specific styles of violent performance by the means of precise bodily techniques, their dress-code, communicative practices and ritualistic symbols. The classical image of the Black Bloc protester reveals the masculine idea of militant rebellions. Performative violence, bodily techniques and dress-style help to constitute a precise youth subcultural style18. These subcultures embody systems of communication thanks to which different forms of discourse and fashion are adopted and transformed through subcultural bricolage. Inside many squatting, anti-capitalist activist networks, styles and symbols embody crucial elements of a youth counter-culture. In this case, Black Bloc strategies can be analysed as the active use of counter-cultural practices to engage in spectacular rituals of resistance.

The use of masks is the element that I am focusing on in my dissertation.

So my questions here are: how is this other type of covering the face relevant? How does this mask work in terms of collectivity? Does the masked face function differently in this instance? In the Black Bloc’s case it is almost impossible to identify who is hidden behind the mask, all the people involved in this organization are very

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careful not to show their identities especially to journalists. The real identity is the group itself; their face is their mask. But some of the Black Blocs who were interviewed, still keeping their identity secret, said that they are regular people who live inside the society. It is wrong to think that whoever belongs to this group is a marginalized person who does not have any contact with “real life”, everyday life. They are teachers, lawyers, and managers, in short, respectable people. Only a very small percentage of them lives at the borders of the city, in communes. What is interesting is that it is very hard to describe the Black Bloc in a way that can include all of the people who belong to this group: there is not a stereotype of the Black Bloc. Is it then possible that all the Black Bloc live a quiet life in the city or in the countryside? On the website www.alternet.org, an important document first appeared with the most accurate sociological, cultural, ideological and political description of the “Blacks”:

I'm part of a loosely affiliated international group of individuals known as the Black Bloc. We don't have a party platform, and you don't have to sign anything or go to any meetings to join us. We show up at all kinds of demonstrations, from actions to free Mumia Abu Jamal, to protests against the sanctions in Iraq, and at just about every meeting of international financial and political organizations from the WTO to the G8. Although most anarchists would never wear black bandanas over their faces or break windows at McDonalds, almost all of us are anarchist. I think that the stereotype is correct that we are mostly young and mostly white, although I wouldn't agree that we are mostly men. When I'm dressed from head to toe in baggy black clothes, and my face is covered up, most people think I'm a man too. The behaviour of Black Bloc protesters is not associated with women, so reporters often assume we are all guys. I have heard from the left, and in particular from other, non-Black Bloc protesters, is that they don't like our masks. Other kind of protester wanted us to take off our mask. This idea is impossible for most of us. What we are doing is illegal. We are well aware that police photograph and videotape demonstrations, even when they are legally disallowed from doing so. To take off our masks will put us in direct danger of the police.19

19

Mary Black, “Letter from inside the Black Bloc”, AlterNet, July 24, 2001, http://www.alternet.org/story/11230/letter_from_inside_the_black_bloc

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The main purpose of using the mask is symbolic: they really believe in the value of the group identity that overcomes the importance of the individual. The group is safer than a single person: to be many gives more probability to achieve the goals. Furthermore, in the group there is not struggle for the advancement of the individual. The anonymity of the masks allows the participants to have a feeling of equality in which crucially everyone is as important as anybody else within the group. The tactic is horizontal; there is not a leader within the group, only individuals who are part of small independent groups. The people who belong to the Black Bloc know each other very well; this is also their strength, it makes the actions change and evolve instantaneously, even fighting against the police if required. These little groups always act with a sort of pre-formed scheme whereby the single group’s tactic is always the same.

Very important aspect of the spectacularization of the group, through the combination of the use of the black masks and clothes and the violence of the acts, is that it serves to gain a very strong visibility in the media. The presence of the media, from which the actors hide as individuals, is very much necessary during the moment of the protest. The Black Blocs need to be seen by the “spectators” as much as possible in order to be known as a collective of people to be aware of. Hence a very good knowledge of the media is required in order to exploit them and take advantage in every situation

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Picture 6: Black bloc anarchist and mediate assault on the Royal Bank of Scotland, (2009)

The risk is that a sort of mirror game can start: the protesters are finally visible, but the television will gain attention too. Of course for more spectators, it is more appealing to see someone with a covered face destroying a window than it is to listen to a “boring” speech on television! But if there were no camera to film all the devastations and the violence in the streets, probably these events would not need to exist either. This is a question that cannot yet be answered. We live in a society in which every political action is a spectacle to be watched on television, this is the conviction of the Black Bloc. The visibility of the actions exists only thanks to the media. Concerning the events that happened in Genova during the G8, the whole city was surrounded by television; the media were only waiting for something extraordinary to happen. The decisions made during the G8 summit become less important than what was happening in the streets of the beautiful city. Everybody was interested in counting how many shop windows were destroyed, how many cars were burned, precisely which brand, and how many people were injured. The strategy of the media, at that time, seemed to be to transform a political event into a criminal one. To gain visibility and create interest that was the media’s goal and they achieved that. Before moving to the very last part of this chapter, I would like spend some more words about the three case studies just observed. The use of a mask in protest can be a very helpful tool for circulating the group’s idea. As we saw with the Anonymous movement and the Pussy Riot too, being hidden behind a mask or a balaclava, helps the people to be protected from being captured and, even if some of the identities in

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both movements were revealed (especially if we consider the three Pussy Riot’s members), it did not mean the end of the movement itself, but the continuation of its activity. But in some cases, the mask can become a very dangerous tool that provokes exactly the opposite result. This is the case of the Black Bloc, where the covered face causes a threatening effect on the people inside and outside of the group. Even though they know each other, there is always the risk of infiltrations by people who do not have anything to do with the protests. Therefore, in terms of collective identity the image of this group takes on negative connotations, producing also a negative image of the people who participate. In this specific case thus, even if the movement’s intention is good, the group will always be considered as violent.

1.7. FAG FACE MASK AND “ANTI-‐ID MASK”

AN ARTISTIC ASNWER TO BIOMETRIC SURVEIILANCE

In the Golden Age of Surveillance, the world is becoming increasingly monitored. In many big cities there are cameras networked to a single facial recognition center anybody can be tracked during a normal walk outside.

That is the answer to biometrics and facial detection technologies, and their obsessive and paranoid impulses to know, capture and categorize human faces. Recent forays into facial recognition include the use of biometrics as a security technology for border crossings and visas. Each day we witness an increase in the number surveillance cameras in urban centers, the growth of biometric marketing that automates personalized advertisements based on gender, race, as well as physical and behavioural traits. There is a proliferation of facial identification and verification platforms such as Facebook’s auto-face-tagging or the iPhone’s Recognize-Me application that uses face scanning to unlock phones. In such an atmosphere, the real meaning of the face, what it is and what it communicates, is continuously refined.

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Moreover, the fear following the terrorist acts of 9/11 led to a change in security concepts and the instalment of surveillance systems in public spaces, “for our own safety”. This is at least what the relevant institutions told us. But the result is a sense that our faces, and by extension our identities, are becoming “compressed” overly exposed. Hence the only way for us to recover our lost privacy must be through subversive media strategies or by reinventing privacy itself. After the tragic attack on the Twin Towers, people became more used to seeing masked faces of terrorists. This event reminded us how unsafe the times we currently live in truly are. At the same time, throughout Europe, people began campaign for a ban on covering one’s face in public spaces, targeting Burqas, but also balaclavas and hoods especially during demonstrations. Measures were taken to force people to be visible, and this also meant under control.

This new era of strong surveillance is undeniably connected to the fast development and rise in popularity of the social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Although first intended as platforms to facilitate communication, these networking sites soon became and inevitable daily practice. Hiding behind the excuse of social networking as an important tool of self-promotion, the new media became very difficult to navigate for many users and, at the same time, a simple and legal means to invade people’s privacy with their consent.

During these hard times of control and surveillance, the artistic protest of the Australian Zach Blas begs for the return of the mask, and its ancient meaning, when it was used as a form of protection from the soldiers, or a disguise to hide the who was identity of the wearer.

Zach Blas is an Australian artist, writer and curator who is interested in technology and politics. At the moment his attention is focused on works that touch upon technological control and the refusal of political visibility through tactics of escape, disappearance, illegibility, and opacity.20 His work is an intervention against media policies and instructs on how to manipulate one’s appearance and escape being identified without consent whilst maintaining one’s own personal identity.

The artist produces a statement in which he makes it clear that a face can also be used as weapon. He opposes the notion that it is possible to deduce people’s sexual orientation by biometric data or obtain ethnic background information from facial

20

Zach Blas, and Christopher O’Leary, edited by,Speculative Exhibition Catalog, (Los Angeles: Contemporary Exhibitions,

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features. Those kinds of practices create categories of marginalization and deformation. Collective information now becomes a valid defence mechanism against the violent invasiveness of surveillance.

The Facial Weaponization Suite was presented on 2011; it is a “project against biometric facial recognition and the inequalities these technologies propagate”21. The project consists of a series of workshops about facial recognition the culmination of which is the creation of a mask that brings together all the facial data collected from the various people who take part. The result is a very particular and coloured amorphous mask that renders the wearer undetectable to biometric recognition exams. The Fag face project is an attempt to confuse the biometric “eyes” by sending an illegible signal, which is impossible to classify.

The artist-activist criticizes the means of data collection as well as the algorithmic principles that calculates the average features that make a given identity such as gender of or ethnicity that are then employed at border crossings or used to interpret the faces of people under surveillance.

The first example in the image number 9 is the very first mask Blas made: a Pink Fag Mask.

Picture 7: Fag Face, Multiple Views Zach Blas, (2011-2014)

The Pink Fag Mask is the artistic and provocative answer to a study that was made in 2008, in which faces of gay people without tattoo or piercings were presented to a test group in short exposure times. By showing static pictures for not more than 50 m/s, to

21

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a test group, the experts noticed that in short amount of time the testers gathered enough information to judge male sexual orientation with above-chance accuracy. There was some sort of agreement between participants in their judgments of personality features simply from looking at the faces. The implication is that even brief exposure to a face can communicate relevant information that is rapidly processed by the social perceiver22

Blas’ critiques the tools of oppression and turns them against their primary use. During his workshops, the Australian artist collects data and designs the masks using a 3D facial scanning tool and 3D modelling software. Blas exaggerates all the data he collects so the last result is an illegible and overblown plastic mask. The desire of the artist is to produce these masks in order to give a tangible impression of the inconspicuous workings of digital surveillance technologies.

In 2013 the artist created another piece, related to the Fag Face, this new project is called Blas’s Face Cages in which he represents facial measurements in three-dimensional metal grids and applies them onto the face. With this project, the artist recreates a visible representation of what usually happens in our everyday encounters with surveillance cameras.

Another artist caught my attention during my research. Leo Selvaggio, from Chicago, USA. In 2013 he created a cheap, effective, some must say ironic way for the public to fight against the growing profusion of security cameras: rubber masks that can make the devices unable to identify people by making everyone look the same. The interesting thing is that the mask he crated has the face of the artist, Leo Selvaggio, which means that everyone who wears this mask will resemble him. The purpose is to fool biometric software into thinking the streets are filled with copies of the same person.

22

Nicholas O.Rule, Nalini Ambady, “ Brief exposures: Male sexual orientation is accurately perceived at 50 ms”, Journal of

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The artist was inspired by many other artists who try to respond to the obsessive biometric surveillance exams, like Zach Blas’s Fag Face, or the CV Dazzle project, created by the artist Adam Harvey:

“CV Dazzle is a form of expressive interference that takes the form of makeup and hair styling (or other modifications). The name is derived from CV, a common abbreviation for computer vision, and Dazzle a type of camouflage used during WWI”23.

But for the American artist, these projects are only methods of obscuring and hiding one’s face. A mask, a balaclava, hoods or just sun glasses instil even more curiosity, because hiding the face is often associated with criminality and suspicion. Moreover, Selvaggio considers the problem of surveillance as something that concerns a large number of people, the whole community, for that reason he considers that the other artists’ project, such as the CV Dazzle project for instance, are too aesthetic. The surveillance he is criticizing is that which occurs in crowded public spaces, where invisible cameras are recording every detail of the public.

A mask or make up is still too visible for the American artist who proposes instead something more particular, because his plastic mask substitutes the face of the wearer with the artist’s one that will allow the users to be recognized by the biometric surveillance as Leo Selvaggio himself, and thus enabling them to walk through a crowd without being identified.

Selvaggio’s innovation is capable of confusing multi-billion dollar face recognition surveillance systems merely through the use of this personal prosthetic mask. In fact, Selvaggio does not have to be seen as a reaction to the other artists, the American artist-activist is simply giving his contribution within the already existing discussion about biometric surveillance.

Selvaggio states artists should consider their work within the context of social practice, because this is an issue that really involves everybody. It is specifically for this reason that Selvaggio offers to sell the URME (You are me) kit, and he specifies on his website that he will not gain any profit from this sale. The picture below reproduces the mask with Leo Selvaggio’s face and the URME project

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Picture 8: URME (You are me) Kit, Join the URME Community, crated by Leo Selvaggio (2013)

CHAPTER TWO

THE UNCOVERED FACE IN PROTEST

2.1. INTRODUCTION: UNMASKING THE FACE: EXHIBITION, MANIPULATION AND PAIN

In the first part of my thesis, I examined different cases of protest in which the face was completely covered. In this part, I shall analyse the use of a visible face in protest and performance. The face is now free from covers and it is exposed, manipulated and transfigured. I started with observing the partial covering of the face, with La Barbe feminist groups’ case, where the identity of these women is partially covered by a fake beard and moustaches. The use of fake beards is the tool the feminist group

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adopt for their non-violent and humoristic actions, as a way to protest and raise awareness about a still nowadays male dominated world.

I continue investigating the artistic project of metamorphosis of the French contemporary artist Orlan, who is still continuing modelling and transforming her face, and her fight against male domination. Orlan’s protest raises questions on the meaning of identity that she considers as anything but stable, claiming that identity signifies legality and surveillance, or the documents like the passport. In this case, I became unsure and confused about the real meaning of identity; considering that I am focusing on the face as a site of protest, I started to ask myself if and how much the face can determine somebody’s identity, and how strong it can be, especially in protest.

As final part of my dissertation, I directed my attention on the observation and analysis of the lip sewing practice as tool of protest of refugees and asylum seekers in detention camps. I focused the attention in particular on the Australian episode in Woomera (2002), and the Italian one in Rome (2013). This practice is the last desperate attempt by the refugees to be heard. Here the face is shown as a site for violation: the protest became stronger than others because of its cruelty. The violence of these acts and the visibility as opposed to the invisible cruelty of their incarcerated lives, reached a broader public. It is not only the face that is used as a site of protest, therefore I raised questions such as: in which way can a mutilated and transfigured face produce new meanings in protest? What does the visibility of the face, connected with the feeling of pain, produce in the eyes of the audience? Finally, I exemplified that by sewing their lips together, the refugees’ refusal is also their refusal to speak and thus the cruel practice definitely takes on new meanings.

2.2. LA BARBE: THE THEATRICAL IRONY OF THE FEMINIST GROUP

The first material about the feminist group La Barbe I found comes from their official website: La Barbe Group d’Action Féministe.24 Already from the home page, the irony that characterises this feminist collective is immediately clear since there are

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many pictures of bearded people in women’s dresses. At first look it seems they are women with a fake beard, but to a closer look, it becomes clear that bearded men wearing very old style women’s clothes are represented. I tried to better understand the aim of this group, because it could not be meant just to make fun of men. Indeed their manifesto was anything but superficial. The French collective was founded in France in 2008 and it is composed of almost 100 women. The women claim their right to participate in politics, business and education, because at the moment the majority in all these fields is still composed by male personalities.

We can think about La Barbe group as a modern and light-hearted version of the French feminists of the seventies: they were fighting against the female oppression in life and art, highlighting the repression of women. At the basis of the French feminists of the 1970s25 was the critique to the condition of the woman and the sexual discrimination, sexual abuse and pornography. Criticizing the phallocentric discourse (male discourse), the feminists proposed that women had to create a new language, carrier of female values.

The peculiarity of the contemporary activist group instead, is the irony characterised by the use of fake beards that cover their faces, which are used in every public intervention. The result is a non-violent and sarcastic demonstration that quickly became well known, also because of the performativity of the action: it consists out of arriving, e.g. at stockholders meetings, wearing clearly fake-beards and congratulating them on the absence of women within the group.

The name La Barbe comes from the group’s pantomime style of protest. Its members infiltrate high-level male dominated meetings. In due course, they get to their feet and silently wear the fake beards before one of them reads out an ironic statement, congratulating the men on their supremacy. The emphasis on facial hair ridicules old-fashioned male attitudes. In colloquial French, “La Barbe” also means “enough is enough”. They have “enough” with entrenched sexism. The use of the symbols of typically male features is ironically an attempt to destroy them. The feminists remind us the old metaphor of the beard as something boring, obsolete. It is just as boring as the fact that in many institutions the role of the woman is still not considered equal to that of the male.

25

For the historical framework I found source material from the book of Bibia Pavard, Les Editions Des femmes.Histoire des

Facing the protest. An Investigation of the Human Face as a Site and Means of Protest in the 21st Century.