Visualise being a woman or girl with a curfew, continuously cautious of your surroundings and distrustful of all passers by. This moving image captures the connection between women's safety and their relationship with their phones in vulnerable situations. The project critiques the failure of technology and social structures to stipulate authentic protection, revealing the fragility of trusting exclusively on phones as empowerment tools. Shield in Hand scrutinises how women and girls ritualistically use their phones as tools to provide a sense of safety, metamorphosing them into shield like, defence devices in an unsettled world. For women and girls, a phone is a tool for connection and protection against harm. One may ask, but *how reliable is this protection in an uncertain world? This moving image explores the tension between the empowerment a phone offers and it's limitations, calling attention to the broader societal structures that fail to guarantee the safety of women and girls in public spaces.
The project responds to pressing social issues and influential media works on women and girl's safety. A significant reference is the October 2024 BBC One talk show featuring Saoirse Ronan, who commented on using a phone as a weapon: >That’s what girls have to think about all the time. [1^] This statement generated a viral debate about the safety of women and girls, highlighting daily self-proactive strategies such as avoiding unlit paths or trying to appear bigger and angrier to deter unwanted attention (Guardian, 2024). The frustration of women and girls facing dangers that men generally do not experience was encapsulated by reactions like, It’s so easy to ignore a danger or threat if you don’t have to experience it yourself.[2^] These statements formed a critical foundation for the moving image, exploring the phone as a shield and a symbol of societal failure. Statistics further underscore the urgency of the issue, with violence against women and girls increasing by 37% since 2018 (BBC News, 2024). National Police Chief Maggie Blythe has even compared the epidemic of violence against females to the same level of threat as terrorism (BBC News, 2024).
The moving image was influenced by Media Studies lectures led by David Burns (2024), which explored creative and theoretical methods of media practices. Burns presented works by Hito Steyerl and Joan Jonas, whose methods informed the project. Steyerl’s moving image How Not to Be Seen A Fucking Didactic. (Burns Lecture 8, 2024) revealed the importance of capturing the audience’s attention with emerging societal issues, instigating the project’s emphasis on engaging viewers in the emotional realism of the safety of women and girls. Joan Jonas’s Vertical Roll (Burns Lecture 7, 2024) influenced the use of environmental noises to evoke a sense of vulnerability and intensify tension. These soundscapes that were generated in the same locations as the filming was purposefully added during moments of amplified nervousness to engage the audience in females’ daily fears.
In MS15 tutorials led by Sarah Akigbogun, theories from Dziga Vertov, Rudolf Laban, and Leslie Kern were studied and incorporated into the moving image. Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) encouraged the phone to become a tool and an observer, capturing action through intimate perspectives. Methods such as unconventional angles, superimpositions and rapid cuts were merged to replicate the fragmented vulnerability females often experience. Rudolf Laban’s Kinosphere, The Mastery of Movement(1960) influenced the camera work and choreography, showcasing how one’s movement shifts when anxious-from spacious motions to confined, hurried actions. Additionally, Leslie Kern’s Feminist City: Claiming Space in a man-made world (2021) formed the project’s critical investigation of gendered urban spaces, emphasising the universal issues that continue to enhance females’ vulnerability.
Shield in Hand explores the faults in current societal structures and technology in guaranteeing the safety of women and girls, engaging with themes of failure, vulnerability, and uncertainty. Through indeterminacy, the phone captures the journey, with the act of filming unfolding organically. The phone becomes an impartial observer, imitating the unpredictable and fragmented nature of women and girls experiences in public spaces.
The project symbolises the contrast of the phone as both a shield and a cause of vulnerability. The moving image has been filmed, edited, and exhibited entirely using a phone; it was be showcased alone on a stand in the exhibition, the replicate the sense of isolation women and girls can feel in public spaces. The moving image ultimately aims to highlight the physical and emotional realism of females’ safety, challenging societal observations and encouraging reflection on the current state of the issue.
[1^]:Saoirse Ronan Leaves Male Stars SPEECHLESS With Viral Response To Self-Defense Joke, BBC One, 2024 [2^]:Six women react to Saoirse Ronan’s viral comment. Will anything change?,The Guardian, 2024