“Cybernetics, the study of systems that are structured utilizing feedback and continuous communication, provides a framework within video games to dissect how female characters are constructed and circulated. Examining video games from 1990 to 2015, I explore the ongoing underrepresentation, oversexualization, and voyeuristic framing of female characters who are shaped through anticipatory design choices and reinforced through gameplay. Exposing a gaze that positions women as objects rather than subjects, my paintings interrogate how these portrayals are constructed, consumed, and intensified through interaction. Through layering imagery from gameplay and Playboy magazines, I expose the parallels between game culture and porn industry where men are often depicted in various instances using women as commodities and status symbols. The overlays of video game and magazine images evoke the movement of camera angles experienced during gameplay, while simultaneously illustrating how both porn and game industry seek to satisfy male desires. Images in games are not passive, and are constantly communicating instructions, threat, and reward. Female characters often communicate through visual codes tied to sexuality, vulnerability, or spectacle. Through painting, I disrupt the cybernetic loop that enforces these design choices as I reprocess these codes through alternative images, disrupting the immediate legibility, resulting in new interactions. My work moves through stages of critique toward a reclamation that reimagines these characters and explores different ways to play and view them. Through the slow process of painting and layering visuals, the subject shifts from a responsive, interactive output into a reflective analysis, revealing a representation generated through ongoing cycles of viewing and consumption.”