Thursday, December 21, 2006

Retrospectives on the Body Class - Orlan

During the final week of my body and lit class, we talked about Orlan, a French performance artist whose work includes body modification and plastic surgery.

To be honest, Orlan's work strikes me as both incredibly interesting, and weird as all get out. The hybridity stuff, for example. What does it mean that a white (well, she looks white) woman from a country (France) that was involved in colonialism is making herself into hybridized figures of Native American and African peoples? Is it a hyper-aware critique of colonialism? Further acts of appropriation? What does it mean to "adopt" momentarily and for the making of art, a small part of the practices of another people? (Hybridizing with robots seems less troubling to me. But then, as someone who's a cyborg, I find it discomfiting to see that appropriated, too. Cyborgness wasn't fun to get, and isn't fun to have, but I depend on it. Does Orlan making it art seem too easy?)

Given the nature of her work, I think it's a critique, but even within the critique, there's slippage, it seems to me.

I guess it gets to my discomfort with what it means to encounter other cultures. I'm uncomfortable with some aspects of tourism, the practices of going to "see" other cultures on display, especially when the seeing of those cultures on display involves people having to dress up in a way that isn't practiced really? But then, I feel a bit strange when I go see "pioneer" museums or whatever with white folks dressed up as pretend pioneers. It's a job, right? But still, the theatricality pretending to be the "real" (yes, I went all Lacan on you, sorry), when the "real" really isn't accessible in that way.

I want the "real" but can't get at the real, really. Authentic experience is always changed by my presence, inserted into spaces real and metaphorical. (Angsty, me? Why do you ask?)

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:14 AM

    I had a similar reaction to going to see Body World (the science exhibition where a guy peels off different layers/exposes body parts of cadavers and puts them in unusual positions). I know a lot of anatomy and have seen lots of bones of dead people and animals, so that didn't bother me. But I was bothered by the positioning of the bodies. All of the male bodies seemed to have some authority: standing tall, looking afar, ski jumping, leading a child by the hand, doing "the thinker," etc. But the women were in sexualized yoga positions, dancer positions, standing coyly with one hand at their lips, and another curved around their stomach. In the same way it seems you're uncomfortable with this white woman appropriating other cultures, I was uncomfortable with this white man appropriating the female body (and likely many bodies from people of color, though race was impossible to tell in these cadavers). Blech.

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  2. Anonymous10:36 AM

    What rock do I live under? I'm not aware of any of these bizarre "performance artists"...maybe it's better that way!
    A

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  3. Kate,
    I saw Body Worlds too, and we discussed it in class. Totally fascinating and WEIRD handling of gender and race issues. And the fetus room is a womb room. I'll have to write on that, too!

    Artemis,
    Hang with me, I know all the best stuffs!

    Clanger,
    Great examples! I, too, have a fondness for Tim Curry in that role. One of the best entrances on films, with the heels and all.

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  4. Anonymous7:18 PM

    Ah yes, gotta love Tim Curry. And I will always think mermaid whenever I see Daryl Hannah
    Matt

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