"Extended and Prosthetic Bodies" response

Thinking about the performative body in space is a concept I learned how to wrap my mind around very early in my academic career, but conceptualizing the possibilities of performances in non-space, such as the mind, is something I am still grappling with. The art work “Dialogue of Hands” is an example of this kind of art that fascinates me: as described in the text, “the Mobius strip becomes incorporated into the body and becomes an embodiment of consciousness and inter-relationality, an extension of body into psyche, rather than out into space” (pg 180). The hands that are held within the Mobius strip perform by moving within the range of movement allowed by the elasticity of the strip, but the performance is transcribed into the mind. There is a “theater of the mind” that is being practiced and experimented with in Slovenia which deals with the relationship between spatial performance and the internal, theatrical mind. It is very interesting, but excruciatingly difficult to understand!

Louise Bourgeois seems to be, as far as this small description goes, a radical (as referring to a kind of feminism, not referring to the dictionary meaning of the adjective), performative feminist artist. Her art is very “loud,” and seems to reflect the feminist climate of the early 1970s, which might be described as being rather separatist compared to the more “politically correct” version of humanist feminism which emphasizes equality rather than superiority. Her work appears to go beyond anti-patriarchy to express a violent hatred for “The Father,” or the patriarchy. This is not necessarily a criticism; though I have not studied her, I would venture to guess that she was a revolutionary feminist artist that had a lot of valid anger to express in her art. I am only wary to “congratulate” her on the theoretical value of this costume piece because the author suggests that the costume symbolizes castrated testicles, which is a message of violence that I respect and value as an opinionated message but do not necessarily agree with. However, I would be interested to read the artist’s statement on the costume. The artist’s description of the installation “The Destruction of the Father” is also very violent but very provocative and interesting to me-- specifically, the fact that the family, including the brother, consumed the father in protest of his patriarchal conceit. Consuming the patriarch, instead of simply killing him, is notable because of what it means for the consumers who are eliminating his space, canceling his body, and also nourishing themselves with him. It is a horrific image, but a very interesting one that I’d like to think more on.

I have never heard of or thought about a feminist plastic surgeon, but there is one mentioned in the description of Orlan’s “performance-operation.” What makes a feminist plastic surgeon? Or rather-- what makes a feminist a plastic surgeon, or a plastic surgeon a feminist? Unfortunately I would be unable to watch Orlan’s plastic surgery performance, as I am incorrigibly squeamish.

The piece “Hyperventilation” by Heli Rekula is great! The notion and visual of a self-contained human body with all orifices safely sealed and recycling its own waste is a beautiful idea, but the body ultimately cannot survive this way, thus proving that the human being needs openings-- for food in the mouth, words in the ear, sexual pleasure, release of excrement, etc. That’s a very smart work.

This quote by Stahl Stenslie is really valuable: “At the end of the millennium, the body has turned into a schizoid corpus. It is on the one hand a single, unitary, physical object with a lifespan of approximately seventy years, and on the other hand it has done the quantum jump into a transcendental, multiple self of mediated realities.”

I like the maternal connotations associated with Egle Rakauskaite’s “In Honey” work. It is a striking image to see an adult woman curled in a womb of honey, suspended in the air as if inside a vast, life-supporting female body.

I want this book.