Bridging visual and erotic pleasure, Pegnosis generates a series of facial fembots bringing attention to the act of looking, as well as facial diversion in the cinema while being looked at . These fembots are as natural as they are artificial, as historical as they are futuristic.

This series accompanies Emblematic Elusions to echo its exploration of African filmmakers’ counter-strategic choice of the extreme close-up and close-up shots to decentralize the voyeuristic gaze on the Black body. The bodily form, being usually rendered through medium shots such as the cowboy shot, hip shot or full body shot. The [extreme] close-up shot humanizes while capturing essence from emotional reactions – or lack thereof. In the convergence of visual and erotic pleasures, Pegnosis' portrayals transcend mere concepts of artificiality to reclaim agency from the wounding gaze fixated on the Black body.

There is much to be said on the visually-arresting nature of Black individuals. Our visual media culture indeed uses a scopophilic lens on the dark-coded signifier; there is a love of looking at the Black body – an obsession, some might say…
As emphasized by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, scopophilia in film refers to the pleasure derived from looking at other people's bodies as particularly erotic objects, with the subject unaware of being seen by those on or off-screen. This gaze, whether voyeuristic, admirative, or fetishistic, has defined how Blackness is culturally understood. The term scoptophilia, meanwhile, describes the sexual act of looking at prurient objects to substitute active participation in a sexual relationship or act.