Nucleu 0007

Coordinated by Gabriela Mateescu, April – May 2019

The “Nucleu 0007” project consisted of 3 exhibitions: 2 solo shows and one duo, and it was the first one organized outside of Bucharest, at 2/2 artist run space in Timișoara

Episode 1: Before the Fetish, Behind the Illusion. Artists: Anastasia Manole and taietzel ticalos

Episode 2: A Young Engineer Killed Herself for an Artist. Artist: Roberta Curcă

Episode 3: AM AM. Artist: Andrei Mateescu

Episode 1: Before the Fetish, Behind the Illusion

Artists: Anastasia Manole and taietzel ticalos

The first duo exhibition showcased two similar works by the founders of the group Nucleu 0000. After a 15-year friendship and living together for the last 2 years, Anastasia Manole and taietzel ticalos have developed a symbiotic body of works inspired by their interests and their new way of living. Taietzel ticalos has been working in and out for a porn producing company for the last 4 years as a customer service and PR professional, promoting and creating inventive posts for their social media accounts. Knowing the insights of this industry, she became more interested in the kink side and started to incorporate specific fetishes into her body of work. For the past 2 years, her focus has been the online financial domination community, for which she created Cherie Pie, the 3D Goddess.

Displayed as a series of confessional videos, While the Future Unfolds follows Cherie Pie in her attempt to become a financial dominatrix. Deeply marked by Samantha (the sex doll) and the rise of female voices in AI, Cherie Pie takes her own voice from a free online text-to-speech service and enters the world of financial domination as Queen of Cups, the Inhuman Mistress. Providing insight into a BDSM niche where the power exchange may take place solely via the Internet, the narration highlights the fluidity between real and unreal as Cherie Pie develops her dominatrix persona.

Anastasia Manole`s work is part of her fight for artists that sustain themselves financially from external sources and an attempt to show the face of the new online wave of post-feminist sex work, with women feeling empowered by their own objectification, this time under their own terms. They reclaim their bodies, using them for the entertainment of men and emptying their pockets. The female body is objectified, but this time by the bearer; they subject themselves to the male gaze in compensation for financial gain, but from the protective environment of their home or studios that secures them and on their own terms.

Both projects make an effort to fight back against the male-dominant industry, as the adult industry is male-targeted, male-owned, and male-directed. Women, even independent freelancers, are subjected to men’s desires, requests, and fantasies. As the audience keeps getting younger and the request for violent and harsher imagery keeps growing, is there a way in which female performers can truly be independent of the male`s gaze?