Dead Horny was a contribution to Women 2003 - a billboard project featuring 100 Nordic female artists commenting upon the image of women in advertisement and media. The project was presented on billboards all over Malmoe and Copenhagen during March and April 2003, and was curated by Danish artist Anne-Lise Thomsen. For more information on the arrangement, please see www.women2003.dk

Dead Horny was located at Vesterport Station in Copenhagen.

Dead Horny - statement:

The image Dead Horny is a complex one.

One interpretation could be that the work is commenting upon the violence against women and female sexuality, being heavily promoted in film and media. The careless adoptation of concepts, words and images are seemingly dissolved and legitimized as it becomes an element of style rather than a message, but to suppose that this has no consequence would be a mistake. The connections made in media are stored in the conscious or unconscious layers of our minds, contributing to the foundation on which views and opinions are being formed.

The image, however, can also be read in a different way. In this case, it is obvious that the surroundings are a scene; the woman is clearly staged as a victim, but we don’t know if she is dead or if her pose is an expression of sexuality. In this way, her role becomes ambiguous; she appears simultaneously as a victim and as empowered.

Another aspect is that she inhabits a traditionally male universe, where gunfights are an exclusively masculine occupation. Still, we know that historically women have occatinally concurred male areas, but only on men’s terms and only on the condition that they have adapted a male behaviour. When the female sexuality emerges, however, the mirror cracks. And what about the rules for female sexuality? To what extent can a woman be an active and agressive participant in this game, without being branded a rabbit-boiling psychopath in immediate need of institutionalisation? And what happens if the female desire takes affect on it’s own terms, not those of a patriarchal society?

Discussing issues like the femal gender role and the female sexuality - in media as well as in society - is a complicated undertaking, as concepts like these cannot be defined in any conclusive way. They contain elements that are seemingly contradictory and that are nessecarily based on individual practice and experience. For this reason, it is important to diversify the discussion so that it can contain the ambivalence that the question demands.

Annika Lundgren
Copenhagen, March 2003