YouCam, 2016, Urethane Resin Life-Cast, TV mount, iphone running YouCam Makeup App Mirrored to TV Monitor in Real Time
YouCam parodies the act of applying makeup. Equipped with an app that allows users to embellish or glamorize their features, the iPhone becomes a canvas by which the viewer manufactures their appearance. The image captured is mirrored to the TV for the audience’s viewing, forcing the user to confront the way they project themselves. This public engagement is theatrical, requiring users to engage in a more overt form of the performative behavior we unwittingly carry out every day. YouCam outs gender constructs as being both performative, and as having mask-like qualities. We continuously behave in ways—consciously or not—which affirm our gender identity and distance us from identities we wish not to be associated with. Many participants laugh at themselves, highlighting the way in which signifiers that are viewed as routine when seen on one gender become an absurd mockery when seen on another. This situational absurdity betrays the arbitrary and even comical nature of gender roles.
