Nike or Nike
Nike or Nike is an absurd video montage comprised entirely of found text, images, and screen-recorded clips. I use Nike —both the goddess of victory and the athleticwear company— as the throughline weaving together athleticism, advertising, photographic technology, and art history. Narrated over the collaged stream of images, I assembled a voice-over script from appropriated text sources.
From the athletes of the Heraean Games to Gigi Hadid’s ‘nip slip’ on the runway, the Winged Nike to the wings of the Victoria’s Secret Angels, and the pseudoscientific condition of hysteria to female athletes being subjected to gender tests, the associations in Nike or Nike highlight the paradoxical ways gendered expectations are embodied.
The script and imagery were compiled from the following sources:
Nike Thymiaterion Athlete Amphora, c. 490 BCE
Nike, greekgodsandgoddesses.net
“Caster Semenya in new Nike ad: ‘I was born to do this,’” ESPN, 2018
Ludwig Wilhelm Wichmann, Nike Assists the Wounded Warrior, 1853
Women compete in Track and Field for the first time, 1928 Olympics
Le Nain Brothers, Allegory of Victory, c.1635
Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, I, 10th Edition, 1996
Nike Women’s Advertising, Wikipedia
“I was born to do this,” Nike ad, 2018
Spartan woman athlete, 530 BCE
“Katherine Switzer Talks Boston Marathon, 1967 And Now,” Forbes, 2019
Katherine Switzer, first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon, 1967
Ancient History Sourcebook, Accounts of the Hellenic Games, c. 470 BCE- 175 CE
Heraen Games, Wikipedia
“The Process of Inclusion of Women in the Olympic Games,” 2006
Titan, Death of Actaeon, 1559-1576
“Gigi Hadid Just Had a Big Ol’ Nip Slip,” Cosmopolitan, 2016
Gigi Hadid handles fashion show wardrobe malfunction like a pro, 2016
Gigi Hadid remains professional with a nip slip on the runway, 2016
ZZ Top, “Legs” (official music video), 1984
“Did the Women of Ancient Athens Attend the Theater?” Classical Philology, 1998
Horst P. Horst, Round the Clock II, 1987
Horst P. Horst, Round the Clock IV, 1987
“Horst P. Horst- an introduction,” V&A
Horst P. Horst, Round the Clock, 1987
“The Science of Shapewear,” Shape, 2018
SKIMS by Kim Kardashian West
Rod Stewart, “Hot Legs” (official music video), 1977
SKIMS Solution Short #1 in Mica
What Kim Kardashian West Got Right With SKIMS, Forbes
SKIMS Sculpting Seamless Mid Waist Briefs in Sienna
“The Leg (1958) by Alberto Giacometti,” Guggenheim, 2018
Daido Moriyama, Untitled, 2012
Alberto Giacometti, The Leg, 1958
Photography as a Tool, LIFE Library of Photography, 1982
Wilhelm Röntgen, X-Ray of wife Anna Bertha Ludwig’s hand, 1895
“’I Have Seen My Death’: How the World Discovered the X-Ray,” PBS News Hour, 2012
“Triumph of Willful Blindness to the Horror of History” (Leni Riefenstahl on dolly filming “Olympia”)
Leni Riefenstahl, Schonheit im Olympischen Kampf, 1937
“The Rise of the Modern Sportswoman,” Smithsonian Magazine, 2016
Miss Trickey, winner of the 1000 meters, Women’s World Games, 1926
Katherine Switzer, Wikipedia
Nike (mythology), Wikipedia
7 Ancient Sports Stars, History.com, 2013
Who Said Woman was Not Meant to Fly, Nike Women’s Air Force III ad
Stories of Community: The First Ten Years of Nike Women's Advertising
“If You Let Me Play,” Nike Ad, 1995
”Starvation diets, obsessive training and no plus-size models: Victoria’s Secret sells a dangerous fantasy,” The Guardian, 2018
These photos of Victoria's Secret commercials over the years reveal why the store is struggling in the #MeToo era, Business Insider
This History of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show’s Angel wings, Vogue Australia
Victoria’s Secret Angels commercial, 1997
Kraftwerk, “The Model” (official music video), 1977
Amazon Women on the Moon, 1987, imdb
Foot Fragment, Bronze, Greek and Roman Art
“Victoria’s Secret Still Has A Ways To Go To Prove It Can Be sexy Again,” Forbes, 2019
“Nike’s rare ‘Moon Shoe’ is sold for $437, 500, shattering the auction record for sneakers,” CNN Style, 2019
Nike Air Zoom Victory, 2020
Amazon Women on the Moon (movie trailer), 1987
“The story behind the Nike logo,” FreeLogo Design, 2018
How Nike almost ended up with a very different name, Business Insider
“The story behind the Nike logo,” FreeLogo Design, 2018
Nike (Victory) in the Palace Garden of Charlottenburg, Google image Search
Nike of Paionios, 425-420 BCE, Wikipedia
Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, II, 10th Edition, 1996
“The Man Who Captured Time,” The Atlantic, 2016
Eadweard Muybridge, Wikipedia
Eadweard Muybridge, Woman Ricocheting on One Foot, from the book Animal Locomotion, c. 1887
Eadweard Muybridge, Nude Woman Spinning with Hands on Hips, c. 1887
Eadweard Muybridge, The Horse in Motion, 187875. Spanx Sizing Chart, Neiman Marcus
Nightclub Catalog, 1980s
Textile Industry (Loom), 19th c., Adobe Stock
La Nature-Iris diaphragm, 1888
“The Rockettes: Spectacle of their dancing. How five of them work and live,” LIFE Magazine, 1964
“Now your tummy stays put…while your legs go all day long!”, L’eggs Sheer Energy Control Top Pantyhose ad, 1983
Chronophotograph, 1894, Étienne-Jules Marey, The Metropolitan Museum
Guy Bourdin, Legs, Vogue Paris, 1971
Neptune’s Follies, 1934
Michel Frizot, A New History of Photography, 1998 (showing Étienne-Jules Marey’s Man Walking, chronophotography, 1890-91 and with found acetate and photographs)
“The Great Trouble with Art,” Marcel Duchamp, 1946
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, 1912
Gjon Mili, Nude Descending Staircase, 1949
Man Ray, The Primacy of Matter over Thought, 1929
Languorous Ladies on Couch and Cushion”, LIFE Magazine, 1956
Man Ray, The Primacy of Matter over Thought, 1929 (spread from Man Ray, Photographs)
Female Hysteria, Wikipedia
Jean Martin Charcot, Hysteria, 1878
Paul Richer, A hysterical female patient at the Salpêtrière sticking out her tongue in a supposedly automatic response to the tuning fork used by the physician,1889
PJ Harvey, “Man-Size,” 1993
“How Infertility Was Talked About Throughout History,” Bustle, 2015
Women’s World Games, Paris, 1922
Wilma Rudolph, Olympic Games, Rome, 1960
Playboy, “He loves my mind. And he drinks Johnnie Walker” ad, 1988
“Cynisca and the Heraean Games: The Female Athletes of Ancient Greece,” The Wire, 2016
Sophie de Renneville, Cynisca, 1825
Cynisca (female figurine running), 5th Century BCE
“Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you can’t have evil legs.” Nike ad, 1988
Winged Victory of Samothrace, 2nd Century BCE, Wikipedia