The Postmodern malleability of the body and the identity

“When one proceeds to the core of the human, 
both the animal and the machine emerge into the discussion”

(MAZIS, “Approaching Humans, Animals, Machines”, 2008:6)

In Postmodernism, the body is easily transformed. One can change gender through crossdressing or surgery, race through changing skin tone and using colored lenses, and appearance and shape through liposuction, plastic surgery, prosthetics…This malleability is in contrast to the image of the body in modernity, in which the body was perceived to be boundaried, stable, and fixed. Therefore, the postmodern concepts include the integration of technologies into bodies, the creation of Cyborg bodies, the metaphors of fragmentation and malleability, and the idea of the body as a genetic map of DNA. All of these concepts have consequences for the relationship between the body and the identity. Through several examples, I will explain how these concepts are used for artistic, scientific and humanitarian purposes. 

In “Humans, Animals and Machines”, Mazis points out that a “Cyborg being -our sense of incorporating tools, and becoming interwoven with machines within us, about us, and within the messes of how we have organized the world -has always existed- it is just becoming more literal and extravagant”. 

The fluid postmodern body and identity is explored by the French artist Orlan. Her work is a series of cosmetic surgeries made to her own body and performed with plastic surgeons in art galleries. In them, aspects of the face were combined with facial features taken from popular paintings in order to create a kind if hybrid anti-model that breaks the ideals and norms such as beauty and natural.

On the other hand, morphing digital techniques are used to make statements about universal humanity and the mixing of races. For example, the cover of TIME from 1993 shows a computer-generated composition of racial types, which is 15% Anglo-Saxon, 17.5% Middle/Eastern, 17.5% African, 7.5% Asian, 35% Southern European, 7.5% Hispanic. TIME’s composition embraces a multicultural future society, but also one that is idealized in a version of young woman beauty. As, Evelynn M. Hammonds argues “New race technologies” reinforce old centuries stereotypes of racial difference.  Indeed, “The New Face of America” cover story enacts both a fear of racial mixing and a fantastic construction of a generic woman of color.

Nancy Burson goes beyond the use of morphing with artistic purposes. She developed computer sofware to make portrait images of how individuals will look like years after the photos were taken. This technique is still used for locating missing persons and for criminal identification. Also, Burson’s “HumanRace Machine” project (2000) allowed participants to visualize themselves in different races, move beyond the difference and arrive at “sameness”.

To sum up, with these examples one can see that the concepts that feature the postmodern body and identity, such as Cyborg, have guided not only inventions and experiments of artists, but also scientific and humanitarian purposes that make connections between humans. 

REFERENCES:

Evelynn M. Hammonds, "New technologies of Race", in Processed Lives: Gender and Technology in Everyday Life (1997), ed. Jennifer Terry and melodie Calvert, New York: Routledge, pp 113-20 

Time, "The New Face of America", 2 (Fall 1993)

Jessica Walker, "Only Screen Deep: Racial Morphing". Web (20/05/13): http://www.jessicawalker.net/screendeep.htm

Marita Sturken/ Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking. An introduction to Visual Culture (2009), ed. OXFORD University Press, Second Edition, New York, pp 326-81

Glen A. Mazis ‘Approaching Humans, Animals and Machines', in: Humans, Animals, Machines: Blurring Boundaries (2008), Albany: State University of New York Press, pp 1-19