Pieces of Herself
The simulation consists of images and audio of both public and private environments that reflect different components of gender identity. Some examples are the shower, work and kitchen.
The blurred barrier between the analogue interface and digital program allow readers to decide and select which “pieces,” or identities, will compile the female dress-up doll from each environment. This interactive aspect of the game helps to “reconceptualize materiality as the interplay between a text’s physical characteristics and its signifying strategies” (Hayes).
How does this relate to fetishized simulacrums?
The dress-up doll itself is actually a simulacrum because, even though it is not tangible, it becomes a physical representation of female gender identity.
Users of the program also adhere to Marx’s definition of laborers by imprinting their own idea of what a female should be by clicking and dragging objects into the dress-up doll.
For example, in the kitchen, readers have the option of selecting an image of a flame. Once they drag and place the image into the doll, audio of a woman begins to play. This technique is a “bilingual practice that breaks the conventional link between phoneme and written mark, forging new connections between code and English” (Hayes). The audio explains how, if she could be any food, she would be a nut-filled butterhorn pastry of her mother-in-law’s recipe. The pastry takes all day to make because they are full of “tender love and care” and, when you eat them, they “melt in your mouth."
