Note: If you see this text you use a browser which does not support usual Web-standards. Therefore the design of Media Art Net will not display correctly. Contents are nevertheless provided. For greatest possible comfort and full functionality you should use one of the recommended browsers.

Themesicon: navigation pathCyborg Bodiesicon: navigation pathExtensive Bodies
 
Bodies INCorporated (Vesna, Victoria), 1995Empyrean (Rackham, Melinda)Osmose (Davies, Charlotte), 1995
 
Living Book of the Senses (Gromala, Diane), 2000Camouflage Town (Wortzel, Adrienne), 2001
 

icon: previous page

body is culturally important. Naturally, as an artist I share an exploration of discourses about the transformation of the body with other women artists like Victoria Vesna, Char Davies, Melinda Rackham, Diane Gromala and Adrianne Wortzel. Each of these artists treat the concepts of the mediated audience, the representation of the body and constructed space in different ways. While Victoria Vesna networks e.g. «Bodies INCorporated» often comment on political metaphors of ownership and trading of body parts and avatars in cyber-cities, Melinda Rackham releases her viewers to be immersed in VRML worlds where her intention is to feminise VR. In other words she tries to make the user feel that they are cohabiting with body-like peach-soft avatars floating in a type of 9soft space. : In «Empyrean» space becomes a living organism embodied with the attributes of growth and floating with molecular bodies. This same desire for a more intuitive interactive experience is also favoured by Char Davies in works like «Osmose». However, here the interface is very grounding for the body, as the actual organic breath of the viewers, allows them to navigate through a set of artificially constructed fairylands.

 

By comparison, in Diane Gromala' s work entitled «Living Book of the Senses» viewers can influence the contents and layers of the book through their sensory (bio) feedback and in other works she deals with health and thresholds of human pain. She often firmly asks the viewer to take on socially responsible roles. Adrianne Wortzel looks for metaphors of fusion between robots and humans in her theatrical spectacles like «Camouflage Town» an Internet driven robot who inhabits public cultural spaces. What these artists share is a keen interest in the transformation of the body, and they are all exploring dramas, spaces and interactivity as a way to express this interest. With them I have often discussed our role as women in the exploration of technological metaphors. Consequently, we often share discourses about media as a device to shift the viewer's experience of the body in time and space.

 

YV: With respect do body fantasies, artistic strategies, and theory and science, how and to what extensions did the body discourse change within the last years?

icon: next page