Assessment 2 - Final Body of Work
Eugenie Easton (z5063212)
My final body of work aims to reflect some of the ideas that Donna Hardaway spearheaded in her Cyborg Manifesto. In her manifesto she notes three major boundary breakdowns that have occurred in the past 21st century that have lead to the era of the post human. These were between the animal and the human, the organism and the machine, and the physical and the non-physical.I was initially interested in representing all three of these boundary breakdowns as a series of work but after research into artists such as Stelarc, Eduardo Kac, Lee Woo and probably most influential for my final works Lee Bul, I decided to represent the contemporary human in a more ambiguous way.
I like the idea that the human used to be rather well defined. Humans were believed to be at the centre of all inquiry. It was a widespread belief that the universe revolved around the Earth, that human culture and nature were completely separate, and that humans had free will. Through four major paradigm shifts these ideas were challenged and the definition of the âhumanâ has become increasingly ambiguous.These paradigm shifts were the Copernican, which proved we werenât at the centre of the universe, the Darwinian, which proved we were in fact evolutionarily related to animals, the Freudian which argued we donât have control over actions, and the Digital and synthetic revolution which argues that humans are now inseparable from technology.
All of these paradigm shifts and boundary breakdowns that have occurred, and are still occurring have created a more diverse human. The human of 2015 can not be easily defined, it is acceptable now for humans to have permanent technological attachments on their body e.g. Neil Harbisson. The human of today can fluidly change perspectives and manifest through multiple identities, humans are not a singular well defined individuals rather someone who can embody a multitude of identities and see the world from heterogeneous perspectives.
For my final body of work I really wanted to emphasise how the modern human is multifaceted and can take on many different forms and perspectives. I was heavily inspired by Lee Bulâs style of work, in particular the smashed mirror piece - I loved the interactive quality of this work, and the way it distorted and fragmented the human body, I was really interested in extending this idea in my final piece and attempting to fragment the body even further. I was also really drawn to Bulâs work The Secret Sharer (2011) which was a beautiful sculptural piece which reflects intricate light patterns across the walls.
I have created a piece which is essentially the mirror of the modern human. When the viewer approaches this work they become immersed in this space, they experience the reflection of their own face from a myriad of angles and positions. Because of the design of the sculpture the viewer experiences 7 different versions of themselves all of which are completely fractured and can be confusing to look at. This highlights my understanding of what constitutes as a âhumanâ today⊠we are not well-defined, and can embody multiple identities and forms. This work also references the way we destruct and reconstruct the human body. We live in an age where face transplants, gender reassignments, prosthetics, and gene mapping are all available to us, to quote Stelarc âThe body has become a contemporary chimeraâ, Iâve used smashed pieces of mirror in order to construct this piece, so I the material choice and method also reflects the way we destruct and reconstruct our own bodies.Â
For the second element of my body of work I have used my sculpture as a prop to create a series of photographs that involve the human body. I have used my mirror piece to reflect fractured light directly back onto the human body. I was very pleased with the way the photographs turned out. The patterns that were created almost resemble robotic attachments on the human body and possibly frightening dystopian city landscapes. We can see the human body become increasingly unrecognisable as it eventually evolves into a vague geometric pattern.
In conclusion my body of work reflects the modern heterogeneous human and how the human can be recognised in many different forms and from a multitude of perspectives. It reflects some of the points that Haraway discussed in her Cyborg manifesto, in particular i think my work shows the breakdown of the barrier between organism and the machine but also vaguely refers to the other barrier breakdowns in the sense that there are now many different ways we can define a human due to the lack of boundaries we have.
Bul, L. (n.d.). Studio | Lee Bul. Retrieved September 17, 2015, from http://www.leebul.com
Haraway, D. (1987). A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s. Australian Feminist Studies, 2(4), 1-42.
Hicks, J. (2012, September 14). Meat, metal, and code: Stelarcâs alternate anatomical architectures. Retrieved September 14, 2015, from http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/14/3261078/meat-metal-and-code-stelarcs-alternate-anatomical-architectures
Kac, E. (n.d.). Bio Art: From Genesis to Natural History of the Enigma. Retrieved August 19, 2015, from http://www.ekac.org/bioart_kac.pdf
Farnell, R. (n.d.). In Dialogue With `Posthumanâ Bodies: Interview With Stelarc. Body & Society, 5(2-3), 129-147.
Wolfe, C. (2010). Introduction. In What is posthumanism? Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
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