2019. Work in Progress. Cinematography by Sweatmother.
Exhibited at Spectral Lines,Winter 2019.
Most people are familiar with the term “JPEG,” a type of image file. Yet despite encountering thousands of JPEGs on a daily basis, few know what JPEG stands for, or that it’s controlled by an elite organization: the Joint Photographic Experts Group. Because JPEG is a compressed file format, the group’s members have the power to determine what information remains visible and what is discarded through their algorithm.
A hybrid of fact and fiction, FANTASY.JPEG brings together a real-life network of filmmakers, comprising every female-identified filmmaker with whom writer and director Lily Benson is personally acquainted. They collaborate to infiltrate an actual JPEG conference for the purpose of liberating digital images from unfair bias, symbolically reclaiming the space of visual fantasy that is often dominated by the male gaze.