Melissa Berman

Ancient art body: - preferred the eunich

- the “ideal” body

Fragmentation of the body- the body in pieces

- anatomical fragmentation of the body dates fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Evolution of skin:- through Enlightenment skin was regarded as sensitive organ, transmitting emotions

- by nineteenth century the skin a site of communication

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Jean- Auguste-Dominque- Ingres.

Portrait of CarolineRiviere. 1806.

Melissa Berman

OiB (organ instead of body)- a flat screen

- the body in pieces has been overcome, or how the fragmented body has become obsolete.

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

The Body in Pieces:

- medicine now see the body as parts that function effecting each other, instead of separate pieces.

- medical technology important in development of how we see our bodies

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

Visible Human Project (1993)-researchers “scanned” - digitally recorded-the body of Joseph Paul Jernigan

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

Visible Human Project (1993)-researchers “scanned” - digitally recorded-the body of Joseph Paul Jernigan

Human Genome Project-rewrites the human body by mapping the genetic code in what was called the “Book of Man”

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

The “Posthuman” Body- Visible Human Project- Computerized

Dominant body parts- any one body part can attain dominance the rest of the body

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

De-facement:- human face as “screen,” window intothe soul- diminished emphasis on faciality- The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls by Joan Jacobs Brumberg

“Faces are becoming obsolete.” (Wegenstein 223)

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

“what I am trying to show is not only the “loss” of the face… but how the priority of the face… has moved into the body, to organs, DNA, and other important hidden “information” concerning the “Book of Man.” (Wegenstein 234)

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

Erasure of the face as precursor to erasure that affects human corporeality.

- similarities drawn between man and animal- between man and computer

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

Sur-face:

- if any body part can be a face, then any body part must be able to have its own skin (sur-face)

- representation of the inner becoming the outer

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman

Swiss artist Maya Rikli’s “O.T.1992”

Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

“Hautnah”Alba d’Urbano

http://www.durbano.de/couture/index.html

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Synthetic Flesh:

- fusion between human and artificial flesh- blurring between the digital and the real

Orlan and Lacan

“The skin is deceptive. Breaking the skin’s surface down not necessarily assure something good. One doesn’t get anything more.”

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Under the Skin:

- “nothing” is really revealed under the skin

- the skin as “no-border” or as a signifier for the empty space behind the screen mirror

- the skin is a border that deceives us constantly

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Under the Skin:

- Philosopher Elizabeth Grosz on social extensions of the body

-borders of the body image are not limited by the container of the skin (Grosz 79)

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Under the Skin:

- Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Under the skin:

- Deleuze and Guattari’s BwO (body without organs)

- against organ-izations

- BwO went beyond fragmentation

- OiB (organ instead of body) is the posthuman body, borderless.

Melissa Berman Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete

Under the skin:

“For the skin is “flat’ and in its digitized representation it has a slippery surface, exactly like Deleuze and Guattari’s BwO. In other words, the body and all of its organs not only serve as a medium of expression through appearance to the outer world, but have themselves adopted the characteristics of the medium.”