[syndicate] MOUCHETTE - Franklin Furnace's first "Future of the Present 2003" Artist

[Eryk Salvaggio]

A Critical Analysis of Mouchette.org

After a request from an artist claiming to be responsible for Mouchette.org
in regards to my recent statements on the syndicate mailing list concerning
the site, I intend to address how the web site http://www.mouchette.org can
be seen as a glorification of sexual abuse and a celebration of pedophilia
against young girls. For those who aren't familiar, the premise of the
website is that a 12 year old girl by the name of Mouchette is going to
commit suicide on her 13th birthday, and the website is a collection of her
art work.


I want to be careful in explaining that I am not intending to accuse the
artist responsible for Mouchette.org of being a pedophile, nor that
Mouchette.org advocates sex with children, merely that the art can be read
as a glorification of youth sexualization. It has been mentioned to me that
pedophilia against young girls has been a component of "legitimate" and
"acceptable" art for centuries, including the obligatory references to
Lolita, although I tend to think that we are not encouraged to feel sympathy
for Humbert, whereas with Mouchettes website, we are directly encouraged to
participate in virtual interactions against a young girl. I see this as an
attempt to evoke "the inner pedophile" and to relate child sexuality with
"normal" (for lack of a better word) adult sexuality, something that
Nabokov's text inherently condemns. Nor do I believe that because mankind
has a tradition of fetishizing young girls, it makes an acceptable case for
perpetuating it. The oppression of women has been a component of
fundamentalist religion for centuries and I don't feel like this makes an
acceptable case for sects that glorify female genital mutilation.


http://www.mouchette.org/touch/plush.html is a piece in which we are
encouraged to look through a plethora of childrens toys to find "a pink open
mouth" [which resembles a vagina] and a "striped penis." I am wondering what
we are supposed to interpret the message of this piece to be? I find very
little evidence that Mouchette is exploring anything except for the
territory of sexualization in this piece, nor do I find any explicit or
implied condemnation of the practice. Is there an alternative reading of
this piece? Another piece is: http://mouchette.org/music/index.html where we
hear either "whimpers" or "moans" depending on your interactions,
specifically, where you put your mouse icon. This takes on sinister new
meanings when combined with the idea that your mouse is your hand, as
described in this text:


"The arrow ...turns into a little ........... .......... hand

It feels like there's something behind the page

if you .....just press the mouse

the little pointed finger will.... penetrate ......

the secret link"

-from http://mouchette.org/secret/secret.html


I can't really see any other interpretation for "music" that is made with
the sounds of little girls crying or moaning depending on where you
"penetrate" the screen with your "finger." There are also numerous pieces
where the Mouchette character encourages the viewer to engage with her
through the screen. In one piece, "flesh and blood", at:
http://www.mouchette.org/flesh/tong.html for example, we are invited to tell
the 13 year old girl what her tongue tastes like. When we do- with a button
that says "come closer," we are treated to a close up of those lips sucking
on a finger.


The punchline of sorts to this project, and the central underlying
narrative, is Mouchettes suicide to happen at her 13th birthday party. If
this is presented as some sort of redemption for the abuses that Mouchette
has been implied to endure, it is a poor one that serves no function, aside
from the further titillation of the audience and the degradation of the
fictional child. The final act of Mouchette's life is still that of a
victim. Once she has committed to suicide, there can be no redemption; and
Mouchette lives permanently as a martyr to the predatory lust that created
her. It is a perfect resolution to this threadbare narrative, since this
ending merely glosses over the actual effects of sexual trauma. As if to say
that a child, once used, is worthless, and so it is made to disappear. This
convenient elimination of concern for consequences to the adult psychology
of the victim keeps the child in perpetual youth. This is an extension of
basic pedophiliac fantasies, an eternally innocent child to be used without
consequence and therefore without remorse. (The same impulse which drives
most child molesters towards children who live in poverty and are considered
"neglected.")


One might ask why it matters if a website includes an "acknowledgment" of
sexual instincts in children, but it's not as clear cut as that. There is a
rampant tendency among pedophiles to defend themselves with the argument
that their victims wanted to have sex; that children can and will
deliberately seduce adults as a result of "hormones" or some misguided
desire for affection. Because of this, the idea has made in roads in our
culture; usually attributed to "liberal values" though they are, in fact,
simply a defense tactic to garner what little public support pedophiles can
muster. For just one example, in the case of convicted pedophile Kenneth
Barrett, who began raping his girlfriends daughter when she was 12, his
defense included this statement: "After she started getting cuddly, you
know, that's when I started touching her. She wanted me to touch her body."
[source:
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000511_texasjustice_feature.html ]
Might we see this same streak of thought in a web project where a twelve
year old girl invites the viewer into a series of sexually evocative
situations? Is Mouchette trying to seduce us? What does this say about the
cultural acceptance of such predatory instincts?


I point to the Barrett case because it is also a horrifying example of what
happens in a culture of acceptable exploitation. Although convicted by way
of confession, Kenneth Barrett, convicted of child rape, has married the
victims mother, who believes that her husband was "seduced." Concerning her
daughter, she states: "I don't feel she was permanently injured." If one is
tempted to place this situation into a simple matter of "fucked up family
life," you may want to take notice that a local Christian School has offered
Mr. Barrett a teaching position as soon as he is released, an interesting
flip take on the hard right's attempts to portray Male Homosexuals as child
molesters. (Yet, when a "straight" child molester takes advantage of a
female, he's not only vindicated, but offered a teaching position.)


It is interesting to note that this same double standard also applies to
Mouchette when it comes to criticism of the web site. I've noticed how other
critics of net.art address the issue of Mouchette.org's content based on
their gender. While Josephine Bosma, a female critic, makes the case that
Mouchette is "based on staggeringly repulsive male fantasies" [from
http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?1156 ], a male critic, after discussing at
some length the pieces in which we are asked to taste Mouchettes tongue,
makes this statement:


"What's more, we're talking here of someone who goes by the name of
Mouchette and who has given her age as thirteen for a number of years
already... But one doesn't have to believe all that in order to enjoy
participating in her project." [from http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?1842 ]


I'm not going to argue that this writer literally "enjoyed" the pieces
sexual overtones, but at the very least, the entire text proves that such
net.art criticism can be focused on the idea of technology and theory so
much that it blinds us to the actual content an artist creates with it.


As I've mentioned, one of the biggest concerns I have is the "mainstreaming"
efforts by pedophile organizations such as NAMBLA towards a concept of
"acceptable pedophilia." At the same time I am aware that work can be
misinterpreted and that some "checklists" for sexual abuse are capable of
making almost any individual into a pedophile. One website defending the
notion of pedophilia has a list of oaths that pedophiles should take that
read like the ambitions of anyone who "respects kids". I don't think that
looking at Mouchette.org will breed a generation of child molesters. I want
to be perfectly clear: the subject is not whether the creator of
Mouchette.org [who remains anonymous] is a pedophile, but simply whether or
not the site can be read as mainstreaming, putting out the idea that
children are capable of seducing adults, an extension of the classic "she
was asking for it / dressed for rape" defense by male rapists. My conclusion
is that this can be read as the primary message within the work.


I am not attempting to censor any artists, nor do I believe that art
addressing the real impacts of sexual abuse would be problematic; nor that
explorations of sexuality are "immoral". I am not a defender of policies
which aim to child proof the world, nor do I believe in a world of 100%
political correctness. I believe that we have to begin to look at net.art as
a real art form that is interested in ideas and messages, and that we begin
to evaluate such work on the merits of these intentions. To do this, we must
look at the ideas and messages that artists are putting across in the work,
for better or for ill.


Eryk Salvaggio,
11-19-2002