The Naked female body and its connotations

The Naked body in its barest form is something that when covered in varying materials can be tainted and viewed differently. Luce Irigaray states from a feminist perspective that womens bodies, are ‘Socially, they are ‘objects’ for and amongst men.’ (Irigaray, 2997, pg.2) This idea suggests the female form is something objectified purely on an image based value system by males. Irigang states that the matter of her beauty decides a woman’s value. Our presentation to the naked or partially clothed form was not something we wanted to be sexualized. The connotation and feminist themes, in which our piece evoked, were although not intentional, we were aware of their place in an all female performance. We know that if we were to have had a male performer it would have completely changed the meaning of the piece, it wouldn’t have been shaped by an equality framed by our gender and would have been much more sexually suggestive by the pairing of the female and male forms put together.

We in our process looked at adding something to varying forms of nudity, which would make it less sexual. We presented the body to a group of member of the public as a canvas, in which they could draw on the changes they felt would make our own forms better. The process of drawing on our flesh made presence of the nudity not crucial, as the changed drawn on became something imprinted on our egos and insecurities as much as on our skin. This plastic surgery based trial became a challenge to the participants and at times they stated they forgot we were in essence naked and viewed our bodies in a more clinical critical way.

Similarly in another experiment ‘The human plate’ We took a Japanese inspired tradition of Nyotaimori,’ Eating Sushi of a perfectly still, naked womens body’ otherwise known as human sushi’ (Bindel, 2010, pg.1) and placed innocence into the performance. Presented to small audience groups were three partially clothed- to fully naked performers, covered in sweets. After looking at forms and the principles between food and sexual fantasies being very much intertwined in the forms of, feederism and veroraphila, we decided the food placed on the body had to be something that had to have in its own right, non-sexual associations.  The direct comparison of themes were highlighted when the naked body presented so explicitly, laying on the floor of a lit studio, and covered with traces of innocent which triggers uncomfortable themes of childhood and indulgence.

1477673_10202832527001255_258972171_n Credit Lauren 11/11/13

‘The idea of placing food on the naked body is a process that is seen through varying cultures in history.’ (Bindel, 2010, pg.2) Both processes were steering away from a sexual nature by tainting the body with textures and patterns traditionally viewed as non sexual and the audiences all stated how they felt sympathy for me as I was always the least clothed. It then swayed their participants, i.e. in the human plate when given the choice to take a sweet of us, almost all the audience members went to me as they felt they wanted to ‘give something back’ in return for the bravery they felt went with the presentation of being naked. Because of the aesthetics of the human plate we began to find it hard for the naked form not to be framed sexually, as people took sweets from my body with their mouths. This sensual act highlighted how even when trying to diminish the sexual frame that we felt limited our exposure it was impossible.

When viewing Beacroft work, such as ‘Vogue’ and the instillation piece placed on the opening in the window of the Louis Vuitton on the Champs- Elysees in Paris, I felt the objectification of the female body scream out of her work. By placing naked models on shelves in windows next to luxury goods, the idea of a women being a desirable object, a possession framed in the window of such establishment was inescapable. The nudity against the leather good not only highlights the principle of ‘sex sells’ but also seems to try and frame women in the sense of perfection against such intricately designed goods. It reinstates the idea of unattainability for the average onlooker with economics, and the design and manipulation of beauty seemed intertwined when placed together. The textures of flesh and leather echoed the idea of the liquid sweet substances such as cream and chocolate placed on our own skin. The bags themselves became ‘sex fueled’ due to what they were placed on and around.

beetag_500-1 Beecroft, Espace Louis Vuitton, 2006

Lauran Mulvey stated this as she states that females ‘With their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.’ (Mulvey, 1975, pg.8) Therefore the act of removing clothing and makeup used to make one more sexually appealing, such as red lipstick and high heels still became erotic. Although we wanted to break down ourselves to its most bare and human, the act of removing clothes with people watching in it is unavoidably a ‘visual pleasure and narrative cinema.’ (Mulvey 1975, pg.7)

1.  Irigaray, L (1997) From this sex Which is not one. Ithaca; University press

2. Bindel, J. (2010) ‘ Iam about to eat Sushi of a naked woman’s body’ The Guardian, 12th Feb, [Online] available from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/12/nyotaimori-eating-sushi-naked-woman accessed on the 7th of November

3. Mulvey, L (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen 16/3 (Autum)

Marina Abramovic- a pioneer on exposure

Marina Abramovic’s self-exposure in mental and physical forms is seen throughout her work. Her public relationship with artistic and romantic partner- Ulay, were crucial parts in many of her performances, which due to the nature of their fame evoked by their work were objectified and revealed in a lot of her work. She showed an example of de sexualizing the physical female form in a collaborative instillation piece presented in the opening of Onsolo park, in which bodies were painted silver and intertwined in the surrounding of the park. Many of her works such as ‘Nude with Skeleton’ (2002) and ‘Thomas lips’ (1975) she bares her self naked to an audience and shows her honest reactions to physical pain such as cutting herself with a scalpel and matters of the heart in her durational piece ‘ The Artist is Present’ performance in the New York Musem of Modern Art.

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Marina Abramovic, 2002, Nude with a Skeleton

She exposed herself to judgment as well as physical abuse and even a potential death, giving her audience member a suggestive use of the tools she had presented to them, such as scissors, cigarettes and a gun to inflict alteration to her, in some of her works. Artists such as Yoko Ono presented similar work in her piece ‘ Cut piece’ in which audience cut of her clothes.

Abramovic’s fame has lead her to have many curious fans, despite so much of her works honesty based on her own personal relationships and exploration, she conducted on Reddit an hour long‘ Ask me Anything’ session, in which she answered varying questions asked by her fans. The honesty presented in her answers we could not physically see her forum was much larger, but to me I felt it dehumanized her and her answers were not spoken by typed. This process I had found after we had edited our film and I found in principle it was intimate and truthful but due to the medium it was presented in, it became cold and distanced, the barrier between the audience and the performer was so distinct and strict that I found her answers were not relatable to me. This made me realize how the importance of exposure was in our performer, if were just to have shown the film, we could not have even been in the space or had to witness the judgment and empathy potentially felt by the audience. The idea that for 1 hour 50 minutes and 27 seconds we could not escape the secrets and truths we had revealed, or the looks and thoughts physicalized through human reactions became a daunting prospect. The reason for the medium of the film was to stream the honesty that we thought would have been clouded if we were to conduct the process live. We found by becoming an observer of the film we also were subject to our own live reactions being viewed by the audience.

 

 

We explored the groups inner self

The piece began at 6pm on the dot on Wednesday 11th December 2013. We all started fully clothed, dressed in all black wearing high heels and with a full face of make up. This is us in our most comfortable state. We decided that we would not stand in any order or have set positions, and we were free to move around the space freely.  As the clock began to countdown, members of the group began to break themselves down, stripping themselves of whatever they felt comfortable with, piece by piece. As ‘audience’ members started to enter the space, we could either strip ourselves of more, or put items of clothing back on.

We had hoped that the people viewing the piece would feel in a state where they could explore the space as we did, but in actuality, they decided to stick to the edges of the space, with only a few choosing to take advantage of the sofa. They did, however, interact with the group members through speech and touch, often whispering words of support, or embracing us throughout the piece.

I have never been more proud to be part of a creative process, and I feel we worked well as a group to achieve our aims set out at the beginning of the semester. If we were to re-do the piece, I would choose to make the piece more durational, so we could evaluate how the audience and performers reacted differently over time. I would also like to see how the piece, and the idea of vulnerability in general, would change had we been part of a mixed sex group.

I feel our use of experiments as part of the process has led to us having a better understanding of the concept of vulnerability in general, and the fact that the piece changed so dramatically over time shows that we put a great deal of thought into the most effective way of portraying our initial ideas

 

 

 

Your eyes can reveal almost anything about you.

During our experiences in experimenting, we found the eyes played a very important part, some audiences thought that by having our eyes closed, we looked more vulnerable, for us it was a way to keep safe, I felt as though if I couldn’t see them then they couldn’t see me either. It was during our performance we decided to keep our eyes open, closing them only at times we couldn’t bare to see the audiences reactions. I no for me I felt embarrassed, looking at myself on screen bring completely honest and truthful, hearing darker parts of my life, knowingly revealing them to the audience sometimes became to much at other times I would keep my eyes open and look directly at audience members, this was to gauge their reaction. At the end of the performance my eye contact became an act of defiance, throughout the experiments, the filming and the performance my vulnerability increased. As progressively I would reveal more of myself physically and mentally. Within the last few minutes I gained a bout of confidence and this is where I had the confidence to look people in the eye to defy and challenge.

marina Fig 1. Marina Abramović ‘ The Artist is Present’

 

Marina Abramović  at the Museum of Modern Art performed ‘The Artist is Present’, a silent performance, where she invited audience members to sit opposite her and look into each others eyes and remain silent. This was something that inspired our experiments of having our eyes open or not, we decided it should be natural, not something that we made a group decision on so it became ‘part of the performance’, we decided that if we did what we felt was right then it was part of us showing our vulnerability.

Fig 1. Available from: http://www.theartfuldesperado.com/a-life-lesson-by-marina-abramovic-and-ulay/

We Tell the Truth

After experimenting so much on our physical vulnerability, we decided to explore mental vulnerability but not exclusively related to the group members. To achieve this, we asked people to write a question, based on the instruction that they should think of a time that they have felt most exposed/vulnerable and write down a question relating to it. We asked a wide range of people in order to attempt to gain a conclusive example of general vulnerability, and put all the questions in a box, so they were anonymous.

For the experiment itself, we split the questions into six piles of equal numbers and answered them in front of a recording camera. We decided unfold the questions on film in order to get a more honest emotional response. The space in which we decided to film the questions was also based on our individual vulnerabilities. The two situations that seemed to recur throughout our conversation were in the bedroom, and in public. We therefore decided to film in a group members bedroom, and in a corridor in the LPAC, in which we knew the public would be frequently passing through.

chloe to camera

After going through all the questions, we realised that numerous topics occurred repeatedly, such as sex, relationships, your past and loss. We then realised that despite the wide variety of people asked, vulnerability seemed to revolve around a few common themes, though none of the questions delved deep enough into our specific vulnerabilities to make us feel truly exposed. We therefore re-wrote some of the questions, keeping the original idea but slightly changing the wording, and assigned them to specific people. The person answering the question had not seen it previously, ensuring we still got the honesty we initially set out to achieve.