Project name: Default Body
Medium: Video Essay
Duration: 10'00''
Year: 2025
Tags: #donnaharaway #feminism #digitalbody #normality
Credits: Ksenia Sova



Presentation text
Default Body is a video essay that critically explores the notion of the queer body across both physical and digital realms, using the metaphor of sport climbing. Grounded in the artist’s own queer feminist perspective, the work is shaped by two foundational texts: Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, which exposes systemic gender data gaps, and The Frailty Myth by Colette Dowling, which challenges the pervasive
belief that female bodies are inherently less capable than male ones.

Through this lens, Default Body investigates how the same biases that marginalize non-normative bodies in the physical world are being replicated in digital spaces. Once claimed as domains of liberation and possibility, digital environments have increasingly mirrored the prejudices of their developers - often due to development teams lacking in diversity and the lived experience necessary to recognize alternative modes of
embodiment.

Project presentation PDF: Art-project proposal for exhibition space
Thesis paper: Normal Body PDF

Biography of the authors:

Ksenia Sova (they/them) is a media artist based in Germany. They studied media art at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, Germany. They work are especially interested in exploring topics connected with alienation, isolation and anxiety of a queer body in digital environments. They use an expanded cinema approach to create time-based art-pieces for personal and group exhibitions.