“Bodies in Flux” offers feminist readings of time, labor, and becoming in artistic practice at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde on 23 January. The talk is part of the public programs for the ongoing exhibition maria taniguchi: body of work. It is the first survey show of the internationally acclaimed visual artist which brings together some of her largest canvasses, key videos, objects, and site-specific commissions.

Dr. Rosallia Domingo, the vice chair of the Department of Philosophy at De La Salle University (DLSU), will spearhead the session. Her research interests lie at the intersection of feminist philosophy, gender studies, and gender development, with a particular focus on gender equality and AI. She is likewise deeply engaged in feminist post-structuralism and post-humanism, in an exploration of how these theories challenge traditional notions of identity, power, and technology.

In “Bodies of Flux,” Domingo will provide another angle to view Taniguchi’s artworks. She will offer a feminist reading of French thinker Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of becoming and duration. The expert will expound on how Deleuze’s idea of becoming emphasizes fluid, transformative processes. She will draw on contemporary philosopher and feminist theoretician Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic subjectivity to explore embodied labor in artistic practice. Braidotti’s theory challenges fixed identities, viewing the body as a dynamic site of resistance. Through the lens of Deleuze and Braidotti, it critiques patriarchal frameworks to render a reimagined understanding of artistic labor as both a site of agency and embodied transformation, where labor and identity are fluid and resistant to mechanization.

The discussion will examine how repetitive, disciplined art-making externalizes gendered labor, and reframes it as an engagement with time and materiality.

Domingo holds a Master in Arts degree in Gender Studies from the Central European University, a private research campus in Vienna, Austria, and PhD and MA degrees in Philosophy from DLSU. Her work on AI and gender equality was recently selected for a video presentation at the Global Forum on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence 2024 in Kranj, Slovenia, which was co-organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence.

She is also an active member of the Global Feminist Artificial Intelligence Research Network.

“Bodies in Flux” is free and open to the public. It is at 3 p.m., at the Learning Commons of the Benilde Design + Arts Campus, 950 Pablo Ocampo Street, Malate, Manila. Interested participants may register through tinyurl.com/MCADBodiesinFlux. For more information, visit facebook.com/MCADManila or mcadmanila.org.ph/.