Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman

The video opens with a barrage of explosive imagery along with an audio track of a siren taken from the 1970s television series Wonder Woman. The following scenes are fast-paced repeated shots from Wonder Woman, with several scenes following of actress Lynda Carter as the main character Diana Prince, performing her transformative spin from secretarial role into superhero role.{{cite book|last1=Demos|first1=T.J.|title=Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman|date=2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781846380662|pages=2–4}}

The juxtaposition of Diana Prince as secretary to Diana Prince as superhero stands to expose the multiplicity of identities through mediated surfaces and "points to gender as a subject to an image chain of reproductions."{{cite web|last1=Tuer|first1=Dot|title=Mirrors and Mimesis: An Examination of Strategies of Image Appropriation and Repetition in the Work of Dara Birnbaum|url=http://www.ktpress.co.uk/pdf/nparadoxaissue3_Dot-Tuer_4-16.pdf|accessdate=April 24, 2015|page=7}} Footage of Diana Prince spinning into becoming Wonder Woman in varying landscapes (near trees, in a room of mirrors, in the outdoors) are repeated throughout the run of the video and are accompanied by 1970s funk soundtrack.{{cite book|last1=Demos|first1=T.J.|title=Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman|date=2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781846380662|pages=2–5}} The representation of repeated transformations expose the illusion of fixed female identities in media and attempts to show the emergence of a new woman through use of technology.{{cite web|last1=Tuer|first1=Dot|title=Mirrors and Mimesis: An Examination of Strategies of Image Appropriation and Repetition in the Work of Dara Birnbaum|url=http://www.ktpress.co.uk/pdf/nparadoxaissue3_Dot-Tuer_4-16.pdf|accessdate=April 24, 2015|page=8}} The use of repetition and mimicry that Birnbaum employs throughout Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman mirrors and re-stages television's technical procedures.{{cite book|last1=Demos|first1=T.J.|title=Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman|date=2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781846380662|pages=58}} The video ends with a scene of repeating explosions that precedes a blue background with white text that scrolls upwards, delivering a transcription of lyrics to the song "Wonder Woman Disco" (1978) by The Wonderland Disco Band.{{cite book|last1=Demos|first1=T.J.|title=Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman|date=2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781846380662|pages=1–2}}

Birnbaum's use of deconstructed television footage to make Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman has been noted for its potential criticism of television and its modalities. The video's reception at time of release read as a "paragon of feminist critique", in opposition to mass media's gendered stereotypes.{{cite book|last1=Demos|first1=T.J.|title=Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman|date=2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781846380662|pages=3}} Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman has remained relevant, however, as its fast-paced, repetitive aesthetic with a woman subject resonates with contemporary aesthetics. The video's reception shifted from one of subversive deconstruction towards an affirmative image making of the female body.{{cite book|last1=Demos|first1=T.J.|title=Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman|date=2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781846380662|page=4}} Another way the video constructs positive body politics is through its representations of the male figure juxtaposed with the woman. In an interview with BOMB magazine from 2009, Birnbaum says: "...A purposeful strategy that I have not talked about previously, [and that] is the image of men included in works…. In Wonder Woman she meets a guy who is really timid; he hides behind a column and she defends him. In Drift of Politics, any time a man enters into the frame, the shot goes white. There's an inability to deal with the presence of a man interfering with or occupying space."{{cite web|last1=Schröder|first1=Barbara |first2=Karen |last2=Kelley|title=Dara Birnbaum|url=http://bombmagazine.org/article/3141/dara-birnbaum|work=BOMB|date=}}

Through Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman{{'}}s tightly controlled environment of appropriated images, sequence, mimicry, and popular music of the current time, Birnbaum uncovers television's "repertoire of freakishly artificial expressions" and mass media's identity formation methods.{{cite book|last1=Eklund|first1=Douglas|title=The Pictures Generation 1971-1984|year=2009|page=171|isbn=9781588393142|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1L5g8ueDlTMC&q=kiss+the+girls&pg=PA320}}

{{Reflist}}

• Edwards, Stassa. “[http://themuse.jezebel.com/revisiting-video-artist-dara-birnbaums-feminist-wonder-1795652963 Revisiting Video Artist Dara Birnbaum's Feminist Wonder Woman Remix].” The Muse, Themuse.jezebel.com, 30 May 2017. Accessed 30 May 2017.
• Lee, Pamela M, and Johanna Burton. New Games: Postmodernism After Contemporary Art. Routledge, 2012. {{ISBN|9781135858711}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJhEgbz9piI YouTube: Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman - by Dara Birnbaum (1978)]

{{Wonder Woman}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Technology Transformation: Wonder Woman}}

Category:1979 films

Category:Feminist criticism

Category:Wonder Woman in other media