Vera-d-mirarse

Abstract

The project explores the complex relationship between the body, the gaze, and visual devices through a theoretical and practical lens, drawing on psychoanalysis, contemporary art, and visual culture. Grounded in concepts such as Lacan’s mirror stage, scopophilic drive, and voyeurism, the author analyzes how the gaze constructs subjectivity and corporeality—especially within environments like gyms. The work discusses how bodies are fragmented and objectified through cameras, how desire is represented and stimulated, and how visual culture shaped by screens, mirrors, and optical technologies creates new bodily imaginaries. The study critically engages with the visual representation of bodies, questioning how mediated images influence our perceptions of self and others. In the practical phase, Pulido documents gym environments by recording video using a hidden micro-camera while she exercises, thus embedding herself as both observer and observed. This performative approach reveals social dynamics of gender, visibility, and bodily display, where machines, mirrors, and architecture co-produce the experience of being looked at and looking. The project culminates in a video installation that mimics the gym’s spatial logic, segmenting the videos to reflect bodily zones and visual rhythms. Through this, Vera-d-mirarse critically reflects on the gym as a site of bodily production and visual consumption, where the pursuit of physical transformation intersects with surveillance, discipline, and desire.