Monstrous Bodies and Virtuality: The Feminist Uncanny in Vitória Cribb

Abstract

This article argues that the creation of images of disfigured and monstrous bodies in virtual environments compels us to establish new relationships and connections with humanity. In the case of women’s bodies, these relationships take on unsettling meanings, as such bodies are continuously co-opted by patriarchal modes of seeing and imagining. From this perspective, the study investigates and analyzes two video series by the artist Vitória Cribb (Brazil, 1996), Cherith Experiments: Surreal Chaos (2025) and Hybrid Series (2026). The research draws on the concepts of image and technological apparatuses, by Vilém Flusser; glamour, by Serge Margel; the unheimlich, by Sigmund Freud; and the feminist uncanny, by Alexandra Kokoli. As a result, it demonstrates that Cribb’s work mobilizes the feminist uncanny as both an aesthetic and political strategy, challenging glamour and establishing forms of resistance to gender norms within virtual environments.