Gender | MUSEUM FATIGUE

Mystery Object #24: Truck With Masculine Steel Ball Hitch

October 27, 2018 by Museum Fatigue

Today’s news that there has been an arrest in the case of the mysterious pipe bombs sent to vocal critics of Donald Trump was accompanied by images of the alleged perpetrator’s white van plastered with layers of partisan political stickers. This immediately reminded me of other such vehicles that I have seen over the years. Specifically, I recalled the red pickup truck of a Trump supporter that I saw in Arizona last year. The back of the truck was covered with […]

Categories: Colonialism, Gender, Mystery Objects • Tags: bumper stickers, masculinity, pickup truck

Mystery Object #19: Breasts and Personal Technology

May 31, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Subject to continual upgrade cycles and constant and dependable obsolesce, our personal technology resist the attachment and love that we develop for them. While we take them everywhere and learn to depend on them for communication, entertainment and even to find a bite to eat—the technology pushes back and resists our advances—never retaining the object-histories that might give them human meaning over time. With no history our personal technology never develop the patinas of value that speak to their interaction […]

Categories: Bodies, Gender, Mystery Objects, Technology • Tags: accessories, affection, breasts, crack chic, iPhone, mouse pad, personal technology, puni puni, steampunk

Oriental Torture Cabinet

September 3, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

For folks in the Twin Cities the last weeks of August leading up to Labor Day is the time for the “Great Minnesota Get Together”—The Minnesota State Fair. Perhaps on of the only rituals truly shared by a large diverse cross section of Minnesotans, the fair hosts hundreds of thousands of people from a wide variety of backgrounds. It brings together rural and urban, old and young, people of different ethnic and cultural groups, new immigrants and old. It is […]

Categories: Bodies, Consumption, Exhibitions and Fairs, Gender, Mythologies • Tags: Minnesota State Fair, Orientalism

Hardware and Games

April 26, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

It isn’t much of a stretch to say that the hardware store is a space that is primarily gendered as male—a place where men buy tools and materials for construction. Whether professional or weekend do-it-yourselfers, the stores promise encounters with physical labor—selling things for—designing, building and fixing. They sell hardware. So imagine my surprise when on a visit to my local Menards, I walked past a display selling software—”Value Video Games.” If there is a male that is configured as the inverse […]

Categories: Games, Gender, Labor, Play, Work • Tags: gamer, handyman, hardware, hardware store, Menards, software, video games