The Second Sex: Part One, Chapter One
Simone de Beauvoir
In Part One, Chapter One, “The Data of Biology”, Simone De Beauvoir inquires about the definition of women and responds with a classic male definition: “. . . she is a womb, an ovary: she is a female” (p.3). The author points out that from a male point of view, the word “female” is an insult, and she shows that this reaction limits a woman to a purely sexual definition. A man tends to look at biology for a justification for this definition. The author exemplifies these sentiments showing us that the world “female” refers to images of a monstrous ovum castrating a spermatozoon, a queen bee in which the male are killed or, like in the case of praying mantis, swallow by the female.
The author analyzes two questions: “What does the female denote in the animal kingdom?” And “what particular kind of female is manifest in woman?”(p.4). She states that the division of a species in two sexes, with the objective of reproduction, is not really clear, and points out that in nature many other animals use different systems of reproduction, such as multiplication (cellular division, and subdivision) as a way to reproduce. Other animals reproduce themselves by schizogenesis, which is the union or segmentation of an individual that creates a new one or by blastogenesis, which is the creation of a new organism base on a section of the parental body. In the case of the parthogenesis the female doesn’t need the male fertilization. The author points out that some scientists proposed that even in these species male fertilization was necessary to fortify the species, but the author shows that this hypothesis was disclosed as incorrect by recent research which shows that this asexual reproductive system can perform for ever without any degeneration of the spices showing the non necessity of the male.
The author points out that the existence of two gametes- like the sperm and the egg – don’t necessarily indicate the existence of two sexes. These two gametes can be produced by the same being like in a hermaphroditic species. However, some biologists defined the existence of the two sexes as a response of evolution, others debate about the superiority of the other system. The author states the importance of both systems to fulfill the survival concerns of the different species.
De Beavoir uses Hegel’s definition of woman as “an incidental being, suggesting with this the incidental nature of sexuality” (p.6), and continues referring to Hegel to define sexuality as a way for an individual to find a signification of herself in other individuals. According to Hegel, for this to happen, there must be sexual differentiation. Then the author analyzes Hegel’s discourse, implying that the problem with Hegel is comparing significance with necessity. She then points out that men give importance to sexual activity just as he gives importance to other functions.
The author refers to Merleau-Ponty, and points out that “human existence requires us to revise our ideas of necessity and contingence.” Existence, he says, “has no casual, fortuitous qualities, no content that does not contribute to the formation of its aspect; it does not admit the notion of sheer fact, for it is only through existence that the facts are manifested”(p.7). Then de Beauvoir states that we can consider the reproduction as something implicit to the nature of being, However, she says that the perpetuation of the species doesn’t need sexual differentiation.
The author refers to different myths about reproduction, and she describes Hippocrates and Aristotle’s theories in which reproduction is materialized as a male accomplishment, between a weak and a strong “seed”. The author presents theories from after the seventeenth century, in which the role of women was limited only as a receptor and sustenance of the new embryo. Not until the use of the microscope was the ovule defined, and cellular division and the union of gametes was observed.
De Beauvoir refers again to Hegel and his idea about the necessity of two different sexes, one passive and one active, and his emphasis on the tendency of man to allude to the “lively movements of the sperm”. Here the author refers to different experiments about parthogenesis, which shows the sperm as a simple reactant to initiate the development of the embryo, and she inquires, that in this case the sperm is not necessary for reproduction. However, she states that parthenogenesis is not more essential than sexual reproduction. Finally, she states that the only way we can grasp the meaning of sexuality is by “studying it in its concrete manifestation; and then perhaps the meaning of the word female will stand revealed” (p.9).
The definition of male and females depends on the gametes each of the individuals produce, and these two gametes develop from equivalent cells. It develops into sperm or ovule, and each of these contains a similar number of chromosomes. The sperm contains x and y chromosomes, meanwhile the ovule contains x and x chromosomes. During fertilization the egg contains two sets of chromosomes, which will determine the sex of the new individual - the 48 chromosomes in humans form later. The author shows that the female and male play identical roles in the hereditary context, so neither sperm nor ovule are superior to the other. The author describes the difference in size between the sperm and the egg, and describes the union of these two showing how the sperm lose its tail and is being absorbed and unified into the nucleus of the ovule. In response of the relevance of one gamete to the other, the author describes the active role of the sperm in fertilization, provoking new life in contrast the passivity of the egg as representing all the factors to maintain and develop life. The author states that both, in different ways, have the same rolls in procreation, and that this differences has been a source of theories about women and men rolls in society, and declares that these analogies are more the result of the philosophy of nature from the Middle Ages.
De Beavoir states that the determination of sex during fertilization can be affected by the environment, and gives as an example of the bees and ants. These species are affected by nutrition, which determine if a larva is going to be an asexual worker or a fertile queen. In contrast, in vertebrates the hormones produced by the testicle and the ovaries (gonad) are important regulators - any alteration in the endocrine system can cause serious disorder.
The author analyses the central importance of reproduction in different species and gives as an example in the parasitic crab, which in the case of the female is physically a sac full of eggs, In the case “Edriolydnus” the male is attached to the female’s shell and lacks a digestive intestine; he depends on her to survive and his only function is reproduction. In the case of insects, the egg is the most important thing. In many insect species, both male and female die after sexual intercourse. Female insects have a special role since they care and protect the eggs’ development. The author cites several insect species in which the male’s role is purely reproductive and, as a consequence, is killed after fulfilling his mission. De Beauvoir points out that in reality both female and male are, in different ways, destroyed by the process of reproduction. In the case of the female, life is longer but without independence, her life is focused completely on the protection and development of the egg. For this reason, males are physically evolved and the female presents physical deficiencies as a product of her role.
Two more important phases, or roles, in reproduction are: “maintenance of the specie and creation of new individuals” (p.19). These are distributed between the two sexes. However in some species, there is some independence between the parents and the egg. In the majority of fish, as well as in some frogs, copulation doesn’t exist. Fertilization is through stimulation, and in these cases, the eggs are left to develop by themselves.
Reproduction in mammals is more complicated. De Beauvoir explains that the division of these two roles, “maintenance and creation”, determines the role of the different sexes, female being the victim “under regulation of a sexual cycle”. The male’s roll is minor and consists in fertilization, and he recuperates his individuality almost instantly. The female is subordinated, first of all to menstruation, then to the “penetration and internal fertilization.” Here, the author writes that the female is “alienated - she becomes, in part, another than herself” (p.22). Then she carries the embryo for its development (the time depends of the species). After birth, the female needs to feed it; and then finally menopause arrives. For the female, in contrast to the male, her individuality is restricted in the name of the species.
The author describes the physical characteristics of the male and female. The males develop greater strength in relation to the female’s body. On the contrary, the female body, possesses all the processes and changes that the body goes through in different stages, for example the development of the breast, the processes of ovarian secretion and its endocrine manifestation involving different glands like pituitary, the thyroid, and the adrenals. “Woman, like men, is her body; but her body is something other than herself.” Menopause represents the end of the servitude established by her own biology. The female develops physical characteristics, which are determined by hormonal activity, such as less muscular strength, respiratory capacity, and the instability of metabolism. These characteristics have been a source of subordination. She writes, “Woman is of all mammalian females at once the one who is most profoundly alienated. . . the one who most violently resists this alienation; in no other is enslavement of the organism to reproduction more imperious or more unwillingly accepted”(p.32).
Biological characteristics are important in analyzing women’s condition, but these characteristics are not sufficient to define her destiny, she writes. She mentions several attempts, using “psycho physiological parallelism” to make a comparative analysis between male and female body to demonstrate male superiority, but she rejects these theories, and declares them absurd to analyze man and woman based on an “evolutionary hierarchy”(p.33).
De Beauvoir writes about Merleau-Ponty’s definition of the status of women as something in process - “. . . man is not a natural species: he is an historical idea. Woman is not a completed reality” (p.34). She agrees that women are half of the human species, and they haven’t developed all their capabilities; they are in the process of developing. Analyzing the body purely in term of biology is inherently limiting – if man wants to measure everything from a biological point of view, then the issues of actual human existence are ignored.
In conclusion, while nature is always “present”, social practice between humans can’t be based on biology. The practice of society reflects its other nature, thus the body is not only a biological organism, rather a body subject to taboos, laws and social values that define it.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith, born in German in 1954, uses various media and materials to create her artwork. Since the beginning of her career in 1979, she has been using diverse material as sculptural medium like papier-mâché, wax, wood, fabric, glass, etc., material considered “feminine”. For Smith the use of material is connected to the dualism of the concept of the body as feminine and head as masculine in the Western culture, as well as the definition of nature and women as inferior.
Smith’s focus has been the body and how the body is a physical receptacle for knowledge, belief, and storytelling. According to Eleanor Heartney in her essay “Kiki Smith: A View from the Inside Out”, Smith rejects the Western tendency of privileging the vision over other senses. Over the course of her career, Smith has been moving from working about the inside of the body to the outside. In the 80’s her work concentrated on the organs, cells and other systems and now she sees the body as a landscape in which political and social issues take place. Her work states the condition of women. She has created work inspired in biblical and mythological figures changing their historic or mythology meaning.
Rosemary Betterton-An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body
An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body
Rosemary Betterton
In Chapter One of “An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body”, Betterton examines Suzanne Valadon’s “Self Portrait”, in which the artist, 66 years old, presents herself naked and without commiseration. Betterton points out that Valadon’s painting is” intimate”, and at the same time she upholds her body as “an object of representation”(p.7). According to Betterton, when an artist such as Valadon, looks at her representation, she completes that space between “self and others” (p.7). Betterton examines two extremes in the representation of the body - looking at the body, and the embodiment itself. She explains her interest in the analysis of the symbolism of distance and touch in women’s art and how the center of interest in Western art and science is looking. By looking, we establish a distance between the subject and the object. In contrast to Western art theory, feminist theory presents an alternative view of the way we think, see and talk about the body.
These alternatives include examining the “borderline between the biological and the social, the natural and the cultural”(p. 9). The author states that the way the body has been represented in culture and in language is at the core of feminist theory. She mentions the importance that feminist theory has made of the poststructuralist and psychoanalytic work of Foucault and Lacan to question the “notion of a coherent female subject.” (p. 9) Betterton points out that women artists have started to recreate the cultural meaning of the female body as a specifically female experience. Women artists were, in effect, reclaiming the cultural meaning of the female body. In the 1970’s, pornography was a catalyst for the discussion about the representation of the female body that contested the male view of the female body as only genitalia.
The author points out that the analysis of aesthetics was a point of debate in feminist theory in the 70’s. The deconstruction of the traditional representation of women’s body became a central point for women artists. Rejecting traditional art forms like painting, feminist artists turned to methods and genres that allowed them to deconstruct the image of the female such as text, performance, and photo. The author explains that deconstruction represents an important tool to analyze “cultural forms and women’s oppression”(p11), and points out that if women artists want to represent their bodies, that it should be out of the “male gaze frame”.
To define the relationship between looking and embodiment, Betterton uses a comparison between Roland Barthes who stated that the only possibility to see our body is through existing cultural codes, and Luce Irigaray who rejected the idea of the image of women as re-duplicating male gaze, and states that the relationship to the body and its representation has been the center of debate in feminist visual theory.
Back to Roland Barthes - the author shows other interpretations about the body in representation, in his essay, “The Grain of the Voice”. He suggests another way to see the body, as a relationship “based on looking and one based on other senses” (p.13). For Luce Irigaray, the look has been privileged over other senses.
In the section ”Social Bodies”, the author points out the tendency of Western culture to establish dichotomies. Women have been categorized as inferior and aligned with nature, different from the category of the white, male, middle class. Males have been defined as rational (the mind) and women as just the body. The body has been defined as a “binary term of difference”. The author states the difference between identity as a result of social discourse, and embodiment. According to her, modern feminism has responded to this position about the body in two ways: taking the liberal theory of equal rights, but leaving out specific status of women, and adopting sexual differences, and affirming the idea of nature as something positive, but not questioning “male rationality”(p.14).
In the last part of Chapter One, Betterton describes how feminist theory has defined the body as the point of “social and political inscription rather than giving a biological veracity”(p.15). In contrast, the author presents the feminist literature of science in a progressive level in the deconstructive analysis of the sexual difference, by presenting the interaction of cultural, and biological parts in the female body.
Rosemary Betterton
In Chapter One of “An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body”, Betterton examines Suzanne Valadon’s “Self Portrait”, in which the artist, 66 years old, presents herself naked and without commiseration. Betterton points out that Valadon’s painting is” intimate”, and at the same time she upholds her body as “an object of representation”(p.7). According to Betterton, when an artist such as Valadon, looks at her representation, she completes that space between “self and others” (p.7). Betterton examines two extremes in the representation of the body - looking at the body, and the embodiment itself. She explains her interest in the analysis of the symbolism of distance and touch in women’s art and how the center of interest in Western art and science is looking. By looking, we establish a distance between the subject and the object. In contrast to Western art theory, feminist theory presents an alternative view of the way we think, see and talk about the body.
These alternatives include examining the “borderline between the biological and the social, the natural and the cultural”(p. 9). The author states that the way the body has been represented in culture and in language is at the core of feminist theory. She mentions the importance that feminist theory has made of the poststructuralist and psychoanalytic work of Foucault and Lacan to question the “notion of a coherent female subject.” (p. 9) Betterton points out that women artists have started to recreate the cultural meaning of the female body as a specifically female experience. Women artists were, in effect, reclaiming the cultural meaning of the female body. In the 1970’s, pornography was a catalyst for the discussion about the representation of the female body that contested the male view of the female body as only genitalia.
The author points out that the analysis of aesthetics was a point of debate in feminist theory in the 70’s. The deconstruction of the traditional representation of women’s body became a central point for women artists. Rejecting traditional art forms like painting, feminist artists turned to methods and genres that allowed them to deconstruct the image of the female such as text, performance, and photo. The author explains that deconstruction represents an important tool to analyze “cultural forms and women’s oppression”(p11), and points out that if women artists want to represent their bodies, that it should be out of the “male gaze frame”.
To define the relationship between looking and embodiment, Betterton uses a comparison between Roland Barthes who stated that the only possibility to see our body is through existing cultural codes, and Luce Irigaray who rejected the idea of the image of women as re-duplicating male gaze, and states that the relationship to the body and its representation has been the center of debate in feminist visual theory.
Back to Roland Barthes - the author shows other interpretations about the body in representation, in his essay, “The Grain of the Voice”. He suggests another way to see the body, as a relationship “based on looking and one based on other senses” (p.13). For Luce Irigaray, the look has been privileged over other senses.
In the section ”Social Bodies”, the author points out the tendency of Western culture to establish dichotomies. Women have been categorized as inferior and aligned with nature, different from the category of the white, male, middle class. Males have been defined as rational (the mind) and women as just the body. The body has been defined as a “binary term of difference”. The author states the difference between identity as a result of social discourse, and embodiment. According to her, modern feminism has responded to this position about the body in two ways: taking the liberal theory of equal rights, but leaving out specific status of women, and adopting sexual differences, and affirming the idea of nature as something positive, but not questioning “male rationality”(p.14).
In the last part of Chapter One, Betterton describes how feminist theory has defined the body as the point of “social and political inscription rather than giving a biological veracity”(p.15). In contrast, the author presents the feminist literature of science in a progressive level in the deconstructive analysis of the sexual difference, by presenting the interaction of cultural, and biological parts in the female body.
Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramovic
Abramovic is a Yugoslavian performance artist from who since1965 has used her body as the medium to explore personal experiences of pain, power, abuse, relationship and punishment. In her performance she places her body as the object and the subject. According to Sue Scott in her essay “Marina Abramovic: Between Life and Death”, the violence and self abuse the artist imposed on her own body had been always in her life. The artist defines her performances not as feminist body art. She said, “When feminism became an issue, I was in Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia women were partisans, absolutely in power…I never felt that I didn’t have things because I was a woman.” Her work, full of symbolism, is focused on the area between the body and the mind.
The artist uses the performance as a medium, using knives, fire, animals, objects, and the most important element: her body.
References
Marina Abromovic’s Performance: Stresses on the Body and Psych in Installation Art. By: Turim, Maureen. Camera Obscura, Dec2003, Vol. 18 Issue 54, p98-117, 20p.
Scott, Sue. “Marina Abramovic : Between Life and Death: After the Revolution Women Who Transforms Contemporary Art, Prestel Press, 2007.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Valie Export
In 1967, Waltraud Hollinger changed her name to Valie Export, adopting a new identity that was different from one associated with a father or husband, and at the same time, she created a brand name of her identity as an artist. Export is one of the first artists to use her own body as the central artistic tool. She deconstructs her own body as a way to explore identity and society, as well as to explore image and representation. A second important expression in Export’s work is the concept of “body configurations” - the artist uses her body as a symbol or sign in nature or architecture as a way to show how we the body is an extension of the architecture as well as a contrast, and as a way to separate itself from “ideological environment”.
Export has used images of herself through performance to create her photographic and film work that explore the image and its representation. In the process of creation, her body is transformed from object to active subject. Many times the artist re-uses the images with the intention of change the meaning.
Export is one of the most prolific media artists; she uses different media such as her own body, video, film, performance, photo, and drawing. Her conceptual work in photography and film has become important to the history of this art period.
References:
Alberro Alexander. Artforum International, Valie Export, April 01.
Markus Hallensleben. Importing Valie Export: Corporeal Topographies in Contemporary Austrian Body Art, Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 42, No. 3, University of British Columbia. 2009.
Sally O’Reilly. Valie Export, Art Monthly, Vol. 28.
David Stromberg. A Self-Created Personality. July 24, 2009.
Orlan-Feminist Artist
Orlan
Orland is a French artist whose work is about the body, and she uses her own body as a medium to analyze both female stereotypes and the concept of female beauty as something imposed. As many feminist artists, Orlan has not used traditional media like painting or sculpture; instead, she has been using alternative visual media to represent her body. Orlan uses plastic surgery as a medium to explore the idea of beauty in different personages from the Renaissance. The artist has created several performances in which a medical team carries out plastic surgery on the body, and most of the time on the face of the artist. Orland has performed nine plastic surgeries - each one has been video transmitted live to different galleries and museums like the Pompidou in Paris. In each of these performances, the audience was able to ask her questions through a video conference about the performance and interact with her at the same time that the surgery was taking place. The post-surgical (painful) period was an important part of the performance. Orlan incorporates pain as an important part of this performance to emphasize the lengths that women will go through to fit themselves into the male definition of beauty.
In the scope of her work, Orlan has used various media like video, video conference, digital photo, the Internet, and plastic surgery.
References
Review/Art; Surgical Sculpture: The Body as Costume
Smith, Roberta. New York Times, New York, N.Y., Dec 17, 1993. p. C.31.
Flesh & Feminism: Abstract (Summary)
Carey Lovelace. Ms. Arlington: Spring 2004. Vol.14, pp. 1 – 65.
Wilson, Stephen. Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology: MIT Press, 2002.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Wilson,Stephen. Information Arts, Intersections of Art, Science and Technology
Information Arts, Intersections of Art, Science and Technology
Stephen Wilson
In Chapter 2, “Biology, Microbiology, Animals and Plants, Ecology, and Medicine and the Body”, the author describes how biology has been a source of attention from artists since the Renaissance. In this chapter, the author describes the areas of biological research in the U.S. through the National Science Foundation. The NSF’s biology department, according to the author, is divided in four areas such as: biological infrastructure, environmental biology, integrative biology and neuroscience, and molecular and cellular bioscience. In addition, the NSF develops different projects such as: human genomic project, biodiversity studies, and microbial research. The author gives special importance to a workshop developed by NSF called “Impact of Emerging Technologies on the Biological Science”, in which the NSF “identified technologies that would shape the future of biological research and ultimately intervention”(p.56). The author summarizes these technologies as: bioinformatics (using a computer for analysis and data), computational biology (use of computers for research purposes), functional imagining of the chemical and molecular dynamics of life (spectroscopy and fluorescence), transformation and transient expression technologies (technology for the research of DNA), nanotechnology (to merge mechanical and biosensors). The author explains that some of these areas represent a good terrain for artistic exploration in biology and the body, although there are limitations imposed by researchers and moral standards in the development of these complex projects (bioethics). However, artists exploring these areas “can serve a useful function by being aware of the full range of research that may be culturally significant in the future”(p.59).
In this section, the author describes research focusing on the senses, and he emphasizes the importance of this scope of research for information technology, with the intention to design computers (sensors) and the possibility of developing software capable of performing these sense processes. This area, according to Wilson, represents a great opportunity for artists to explore; however, the artistic intervention in this area has been limited.
In the section “Theoretical Perspectives on Biology and the Body”, the author states the importance of questioning the established concepts and methodologies in biological research. The cultural theory demands a deep analysis of the ideology of science. He writes, “Deconstruct all aspects of life to understand how text, image, and narrative work to produce and reinforce behavior and ideology”(p.72).
In “Rethinking the Body and Medicine”, the author describes the interest of artists in the body as a subject matter. Later he refers to the text “Making of the Modern Body” in which the authors Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Walter Laqueur analyses the different ways the body has been explored and “represented”(p.79), in different cultural circumstances. One of the authors notes that there are several interpretations of the body depending of the point of view of analysis. The author refers to Michel Foucault as somebody who had great importance in the analysis of the body. The author notes that for Foucault “the body is the ultimate site of political and ideological control, surveillance and regulation”(p.80). And explains that Foucault claims that the body has been the center of the imposition of power.
The author describes how cultural theory analyses different concepts and technologies about the merging between the body and mechanical technology. He presents as an example the human genome as some kind of mechanization and the consequent reactions of the idea of seeing the body as a system able to be scanned or decoded in the computer and with this creating a space of power and control. To illustrate this point, the author refers to Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” and he writes, “Haraway analyzes science’s fascination with domination and control. With the new technology it is possible to have access to images inside the body” and this, according to Wildon, represents a great opportunity for the artist, and that in the majority of cases, the artists use the same technology that the researchers use. But it is not just important to use the same technology - artists should use the deconstructive process to analyze science and technology’s concepts. Science and technology are defined by culture, and here the author claims that “the more information artists have about the research and its contexts, the more adequately they can respond”(p.88).
In the section “Impact on Cultural Frameworks”, the author explains how scientific research impacts “general cultural discourse”(p.89), and gives an example of the social response to the birth control pill, and how it changed important sexual and social behavior. These social reactions represent a great “advantage of artists”, since “artists are cultural producers”(p.89). In this section the author presents several artists who actually are working with different materials like chromosomes and genes. One of them is Suzanne Anker, who creates installations using chromosomes. In her work “Chromosome Chart of Suzanne Anker”, she works with her DNA to create a representation of herself using the print materials of the chromosomes. Other artists mentioned by the author in this section are Susan Alexjander and Dave Dareamer, who create music using their own DNA. Gail Wight creates work about scientific experiments. Using the same scientific resources, she creates installations, which analyze the social and moral involvements of scientific experiments.
In the section “Bodies, Technology, and Theory”, the author explains that the body has been used by artists in different areas, and, in some cases, the body itself is the principal form of expression, and in other cases it is the principal theme of the expression. Here the author gives us an example of video and film that regularly explore different expressions giving the opportunity to change our perception over “gender and identity”(p149). The author explains how scientific, medical and technological research has converted the body as the center of attention for “cultural discourse and artistic experimentation”(p149). The author refers to the body as something we all know and something we experiment with every day. However, the author explains, many of the characteristics that define us or feelings we perceive are “socially constructed”(p.149).
In the section “Extropian and Post-Human Approaches”, Wilson points out that some groups (Extropian and Post-Human) believe that we should be experimenting more and using the results of scientific and technological research, for example plastic surgery, artificial implantations, etc. However, the author warns us that there are other sectors of this movement that we need to be careful of in the use of new technology. The author points out that “for artists, the impact of the technologies on identity and concepts of self are of prime concern”(p.156).
In the section “Artist’s Experiments with Technological Stimulation”, the authors describe a great number of artists investigating through technology the body and its cultural discourse. In the first place the author points out an Australian artist, Stella, who merges the body and technology to play with the idea of the “post-human”, the super-powerful human, and the decadence of the human body.
Marcel Attunes Roca uses the computer as a tool to manipulate his face and other parts of the body - with the help of an audience - to control his pain or pleasure. He has several projects, among them one named Phantom Body, which examines the idea of missing organs.
Stahl Stenslie and Kirk Woolford, are exploring different functions of the body in “contemporary culture”(p.164). In the cyberSM project they use a special suit with sensors that the audience can manipulate to simulate touch. Another artist working with the same technology, and with interest in exploring the body are: Knut Mork, Kate Pendry, Stahl Stenslie, and Marius Watz. One of their projects consisted of wearing a bodysuit with sixteen sensors in different parts, and the user of the suit has, then, the feeling of being touched, and with the use of goggles the user can see virtual images representing the people they are touching.
Orlan is a French artist using plastic surgery as a medium to explore identity, as well as to show the relationship between the inside and outside.
In the section of “Body Modification”, the author mentions other artists like: Fakir Musafar, who bases his work on the idea that our body is ours, and rejects the imposition and control of the” Judeo-Christian body programming and emotional conditioning”(p.176). He believes that technology has been a determining factor for the body modification movement.
Between other artists included in this section are: Peras Kaul, working with “ 3-d words that are navigated by brainwaves”(p.182). David Rosenboom, working with nerves and music. Catherine Richards works with different technology, and the artist explores parts of the body, and at the same time challenges the possibilities of the technology.
In the section “The Psychological Processes of Perception, Cognition, Appreciation, and Creativity”, the author refers to artists working on different functions like Masayuki Towata and Yasuaki Matsumoto, who are interested in exploring senses. Paul Vanouse, through his project “A Corpus of Knowledge on the Rationalized Subject”, uses a bar-code reader, and invites people to scan parts of the body of a live model, localizing internal organs.
In the last part of this chapter, the author makes a brief review of other artists working with 3-D technologies, the concept of death, and the use of MRI and PET.
Stephen Wilson
In Chapter 2, “Biology, Microbiology, Animals and Plants, Ecology, and Medicine and the Body”, the author describes how biology has been a source of attention from artists since the Renaissance. In this chapter, the author describes the areas of biological research in the U.S. through the National Science Foundation. The NSF’s biology department, according to the author, is divided in four areas such as: biological infrastructure, environmental biology, integrative biology and neuroscience, and molecular and cellular bioscience. In addition, the NSF develops different projects such as: human genomic project, biodiversity studies, and microbial research. The author gives special importance to a workshop developed by NSF called “Impact of Emerging Technologies on the Biological Science”, in which the NSF “identified technologies that would shape the future of biological research and ultimately intervention”(p.56). The author summarizes these technologies as: bioinformatics (using a computer for analysis and data), computational biology (use of computers for research purposes), functional imagining of the chemical and molecular dynamics of life (spectroscopy and fluorescence), transformation and transient expression technologies (technology for the research of DNA), nanotechnology (to merge mechanical and biosensors). The author explains that some of these areas represent a good terrain for artistic exploration in biology and the body, although there are limitations imposed by researchers and moral standards in the development of these complex projects (bioethics). However, artists exploring these areas “can serve a useful function by being aware of the full range of research that may be culturally significant in the future”(p.59).
In this section, the author describes research focusing on the senses, and he emphasizes the importance of this scope of research for information technology, with the intention to design computers (sensors) and the possibility of developing software capable of performing these sense processes. This area, according to Wilson, represents a great opportunity for artists to explore; however, the artistic intervention in this area has been limited.
In the section “Theoretical Perspectives on Biology and the Body”, the author states the importance of questioning the established concepts and methodologies in biological research. The cultural theory demands a deep analysis of the ideology of science. He writes, “Deconstruct all aspects of life to understand how text, image, and narrative work to produce and reinforce behavior and ideology”(p.72).
In “Rethinking the Body and Medicine”, the author describes the interest of artists in the body as a subject matter. Later he refers to the text “Making of the Modern Body” in which the authors Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Walter Laqueur analyses the different ways the body has been explored and “represented”(p.79), in different cultural circumstances. One of the authors notes that there are several interpretations of the body depending of the point of view of analysis. The author refers to Michel Foucault as somebody who had great importance in the analysis of the body. The author notes that for Foucault “the body is the ultimate site of political and ideological control, surveillance and regulation”(p.80). And explains that Foucault claims that the body has been the center of the imposition of power.
The author describes how cultural theory analyses different concepts and technologies about the merging between the body and mechanical technology. He presents as an example the human genome as some kind of mechanization and the consequent reactions of the idea of seeing the body as a system able to be scanned or decoded in the computer and with this creating a space of power and control. To illustrate this point, the author refers to Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” and he writes, “Haraway analyzes science’s fascination with domination and control. With the new technology it is possible to have access to images inside the body” and this, according to Wildon, represents a great opportunity for the artist, and that in the majority of cases, the artists use the same technology that the researchers use. But it is not just important to use the same technology - artists should use the deconstructive process to analyze science and technology’s concepts. Science and technology are defined by culture, and here the author claims that “the more information artists have about the research and its contexts, the more adequately they can respond”(p.88).
In the section “Impact on Cultural Frameworks”, the author explains how scientific research impacts “general cultural discourse”(p.89), and gives an example of the social response to the birth control pill, and how it changed important sexual and social behavior. These social reactions represent a great “advantage of artists”, since “artists are cultural producers”(p.89). In this section the author presents several artists who actually are working with different materials like chromosomes and genes. One of them is Suzanne Anker, who creates installations using chromosomes. In her work “Chromosome Chart of Suzanne Anker”, she works with her DNA to create a representation of herself using the print materials of the chromosomes. Other artists mentioned by the author in this section are Susan Alexjander and Dave Dareamer, who create music using their own DNA. Gail Wight creates work about scientific experiments. Using the same scientific resources, she creates installations, which analyze the social and moral involvements of scientific experiments.
In the section “Bodies, Technology, and Theory”, the author explains that the body has been used by artists in different areas, and, in some cases, the body itself is the principal form of expression, and in other cases it is the principal theme of the expression. Here the author gives us an example of video and film that regularly explore different expressions giving the opportunity to change our perception over “gender and identity”(p149). The author explains how scientific, medical and technological research has converted the body as the center of attention for “cultural discourse and artistic experimentation”(p149). The author refers to the body as something we all know and something we experiment with every day. However, the author explains, many of the characteristics that define us or feelings we perceive are “socially constructed”(p.149).
In the section “Extropian and Post-Human Approaches”, Wilson points out that some groups (Extropian and Post-Human) believe that we should be experimenting more and using the results of scientific and technological research, for example plastic surgery, artificial implantations, etc. However, the author warns us that there are other sectors of this movement that we need to be careful of in the use of new technology. The author points out that “for artists, the impact of the technologies on identity and concepts of self are of prime concern”(p.156).
In the section “Artist’s Experiments with Technological Stimulation”, the authors describe a great number of artists investigating through technology the body and its cultural discourse. In the first place the author points out an Australian artist, Stella, who merges the body and technology to play with the idea of the “post-human”, the super-powerful human, and the decadence of the human body.
Marcel Attunes Roca uses the computer as a tool to manipulate his face and other parts of the body - with the help of an audience - to control his pain or pleasure. He has several projects, among them one named Phantom Body, which examines the idea of missing organs.
Stahl Stenslie and Kirk Woolford, are exploring different functions of the body in “contemporary culture”(p.164). In the cyberSM project they use a special suit with sensors that the audience can manipulate to simulate touch. Another artist working with the same technology, and with interest in exploring the body are: Knut Mork, Kate Pendry, Stahl Stenslie, and Marius Watz. One of their projects consisted of wearing a bodysuit with sixteen sensors in different parts, and the user of the suit has, then, the feeling of being touched, and with the use of goggles the user can see virtual images representing the people they are touching.
Orlan is a French artist using plastic surgery as a medium to explore identity, as well as to show the relationship between the inside and outside.
In the section of “Body Modification”, the author mentions other artists like: Fakir Musafar, who bases his work on the idea that our body is ours, and rejects the imposition and control of the” Judeo-Christian body programming and emotional conditioning”(p.176). He believes that technology has been a determining factor for the body modification movement.
Between other artists included in this section are: Peras Kaul, working with “ 3-d words that are navigated by brainwaves”(p.182). David Rosenboom, working with nerves and music. Catherine Richards works with different technology, and the artist explores parts of the body, and at the same time challenges the possibilities of the technology.
In the section “The Psychological Processes of Perception, Cognition, Appreciation, and Creativity”, the author refers to artists working on different functions like Masayuki Towata and Yasuaki Matsumoto, who are interested in exploring senses. Paul Vanouse, through his project “A Corpus of Knowledge on the Rationalized Subject”, uses a bar-code reader, and invites people to scan parts of the body of a live model, localizing internal organs.
In the last part of this chapter, the author makes a brief review of other artists working with 3-D technologies, the concept of death, and the use of MRI and PET.
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