Computer graphics, the visual interaction with data, has a relatively short history yet has revolutionized our capabilities of representation. Photography, which preceded the first dabblings in mechanical computation by roughly two decades, represents the most radical shift in visual convention and cognitive response since the Renaissance. Feminism and gender theory use visual media as examples of our patriarchal social structure; how representations of women as objects in popular culture delimits the social and personal growth of their freedoms and means. This paper is concerned with the intersections of these stories. The scientific, the aesthetic, and the social intersect of these enterprises constitute a potential for a redefinition of what it means (and what it looks like) to be a person. The first part is concerned with what visual conventions photography has given the viewer. The second explores the history and processes of computer generated representations and their photo-realistic potential. The last part confronts feminist critiques of representation and culture that have been left by the wayside— but which become relevant when discussing computer models. Last, I argue that the construction of naturalized standards of femininity can be subverted; redefined to engage viewers in new ways of seeing and new approaches to communicating the personal through the visual. The digital construction of a gendered object allows for limitless flexibility and conceptual creativity that has been impossible until recently.

I.
Photography advanced the field of scientific inquiry as fast as it changed the aesthetic conventions of society. After halftone printing made the mass-distribution of photographic images possible, photos presented the public with a staggering array of viewpoints not previously possible. Fields of study were dramatically aided and, in some cases, created due to photography. Media and entertainment shifted from Vaudeville and live performances to cinema. Social studies began using the photograph as a way of promoting public welfare and bringing standards of living to the horrendous conditions of those in the lowest economic spheres in the early 20th century. Inroads were made into identification documents, archaeology, biology, behavioral studies, and many more because the photograph represented things that were actually there. The conventional understanding of the photograph as a representation of experiential fact changed nearly every facet of our culture. The photograph as a signifier of "Fact" cannot be understated as one of the most revolutionary ways of looking at an image by an audience.

Photography was arguably the first "transparent media"; a medium in which the physical properties are easily transcended to engage the image as experience. Because the artifice, the technical knowledge, involved in creating the image is secondary to the image itself (unlike painting), the photograph can be spoken of in terms of a "window" or a "doorway" through which the viewer re-enters the world through the eyes of the photographer. The psychological impact that a photograph has is entirely due to this phenomena. Images of everything from public housing to war have swayed public opinion and political agendas based on the emotionally draining experience of understanding the photograph as "real" and the photographer's vantage as that of the viewer themselves.

The field of media studies for the past two decades has brought to light and exposed the damaging effects this has on people brought up and exposed to images that deny their personal identity in favor of an identity which has been constructed to further corporate or governmental interests. When the image is understood to be factual, the signifiers that the photo contains collude with the viewer's psychology to warp aesthetic into personal views. Advertising constructs images that pander to desire and self-esteem through representations of the self projected into the positive construction of product. Nowhere is this more apparent than in fashion advertising where the narrative story contained within the photograph is geared to suggest an egress into that image (and therefore the narrative) via the purchase of clothing. The documentation of both consumer advocate groups and psychologists suggest that photography's dual nature as both aesthetic and as "real" is a catalyst for the viewer's externalization of their cognitive engagement.

Photography, regardless of the intentions of any party, is grounded in experiential phenomena. There is no way around the requirements of actually taking the image: Models, locations, lighting, photographer. Although photographs can and often are manipulated in the darkroom, the silver crystals that recorded the photo shoot are the basis for any alterations. This is an important point: all photographs, regardless, are firmly grounded in this initial photographic collaboration between the photographer and that which is in the field of view.

II.
Computer graphics (CG) represent, I believe, an extension of what began with photography. In the last 30 years CG has evolved from primitive programs to a robust technology that allows the creation of photo-realistic images. The "creation" rather than the "capture" of images that look like photographs is an important distinction and one that ought to give pause— especially following the section above. Rather than manipulations of imagery, the creation of an image lends all of the creative stops one can find in painting, sculpture, drawing, and other traditional representational media. Unlike those media CG art borrows signifiers from photography. The most important of which is the image-as-truth.

The history of CG is brief and breathtaking in it's rapid advancement. The first inklings of what was to come began when Digital Equipment Corporation opened it's doors in August 1957. In 1961, DEC produced the first miniaturized prototype of what would one day become the microprocessor. From then, through the early 70's, the evolution of the computer allowed programs to create more complex imagery. By that time, 3-dimensional CG was finally taking place outside the laboratories; in the entertainment industry. Several movies, Tron and The Last Starfighter, were early experiments into CG representation of actual worlds. When ILM produced Jurassic Park in 1993, the industry had evolved enough for actual CG characters to star: in this case, dinosaurs. Experiments were still going on at other big companies. Pixar, for example, entered into a 6 movie contract with Disney. Toy Story was both a proof-of-concept and the first full-length CG movie. As complex calculations for lighting, surface materials, and motion began to run on faster and faster computers, what wasn't possible in 1997 is easily done today. The 2001 release of Final Fantasy by Sony Pictures was a stunning example of the realism that CG can generate.

The realism goes beyond simple chiaroscuro formulations. The calculations the computer makes mimic nearly exactly what is already present for a photographer. The algorithmic process known as ray tracing follows light rays as they move and bounce from one surface to the next in 3D computer space. Radiosity, a newer and more complex technique calculates light emanation and reflection using mathematical models for heat dissipation. Sub Surface Scattering is an extension of Radiosity, except that it takes into account the material aspects of the object's surface. Thus, translucent objects scatter light rather than simply diffusing photonic energies. These mathematical models and others describe a 3D space so realistically that it is impossible for the viewer to discern the image as non-photographic. This potential for the fictional, constructed world of the CG artist to be viewed as photographic fact carries tremendous power. CG art represents a new and amazing ability of presenting simulacra. It alters drastically the paradigm of photographic conventions that indicate to the viewer whether or not an image represents something real. And this capability raises some very interesting societal questions.

III.
The representation of women in our culture has been a contentious issues to say the very least. Writers like Jean Kilbourne apply critical media studies, semiotic deconstruction, and group psychology studies when exploring the impact that images (in particular advertising images) have on people. Social feminists like Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin have had a profound influence on the debate of pornographic imagery in the public sphere. More recently, Donna Haraway's "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980's" tackled the new computerized space and its ability to subvert traditional understandings of gender and social performativitiy (a la Judith Butler's Gender Trouble). Regardless of political or social agendas, what these studies and concerns point to is the significant power of the image, and more precisely the photograph, on modern society.

Concerns brought up relevant to the topic at hand are the objectification of the image's subject by the viewer, the viewer's controlling gaze, and the legal ramifications (control and ownership) of representations of ones' image. These issues, with the profound ability of CG to construct photo-realistic representations of people are extremely relevant once again. The construction of a woman in 3D computer space necessitates that she is actually an object; a set of polygonal structures defining contour, volume, displacement, and refraction, all controlled by the artist. The model-object-woman is also a construction based on a naturalized social viewpoint of beauty, the feminine ideal, and aculturated understandings of femininity itself: a viewpoint, an ideal, and a cognitive stance that most feminists agree is counterproductive to an agenda of equality and cultural reform. Furthermore, the CG model can be copyrighted, a legal procedure that in the case of the photograph applies only to the image recorded, but in the case of the CG model applies to any image produced— in any constructed situation and in any pose across multiple images.

Due to the decentralized nature of the internet, it is all but impossible to do a comprehensive study of who is producing images and how those images are being presented to an audience. A cursory look at internet forums for CG work like RAPH.com and CGTalk.com as well as the 2001 publication Digital Beauties by Tachen Press reveals a dearth of women artists. With all this at stake, how can feminists not get involved?

The medium is democratic: for a few thousand dollars anyone can purchase a computer and the software to construct anything they can imagine. By taking control of such a significant means with which to explore complex issues that have been brought up in the last forty years, this is an ideal course of action to take.

What is most important to realize is that there are no limitations on what can be represented now. The artist has the opportunity to realize their own vision and to hijack the transparency of the photographic experience to deliver their message.