MEMORIES OF BEING: ORLAN'S THEATER OF THE SELF, David Moos*, Art + Text 54 (1996), pp. 67-72
www.stanford.edu—Orlan.html
Consider Orlan's performance activity as a kind of "virtual mirror." How does the alteration of her own body suggest the presence of an all-encompassing interactive mirror?
Remember to post your response on Tuesday evening for discussion on Wednesday.
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I think the reading suggests her body as a kind of landscape because it is changing and transforming over time and her work moves through different states of making. Each surgery is a different stage with an ending result or form. I think she usually records the surgeries which may act like a mirror that outsiders are looking in on or that she may reflect on later (but may not necessarily look the same anymore).
ReplyDeleteTo me, the most prominent point about this article was when Grotowski stated, “It is the actor’s duty to reveal to them this “something,” that which was left either unobserved or forgotten.” In addition, “That Grotowski’s theater may unlock or dislodge something essential in the spectator’s being concerns orders of reality shared between actor and spectator, artist and viewer.” The connection between actor and spectator is so closely related to artist and viewer in a sense that they reveal the object of what is being conveyed. The artist brings art to a reality for the viewer just as the actor connects to the spectator.
ReplyDelete“The lower register of the diptych is comprised of computer- generated portraits of Orlan as composites of ideal female portraits. With morphing software Orlan superimposed upon her own facial image the chin of Botticelli's Venus, the eyes of Gerome's Psyche, the forehead of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, the mouth of Boucher's Europa, and the nose of a School of Fontainebleau Diana. "After mixing my own image with these images," Orlan notes, "I reworked the whole as any painter does, until the final portrait emerged and it was possible to stop and sign it.”
ReplyDeleteWhat was just said is that no matter what you think is “perfect or ideal,” someone else, such as the painter, will think other wise and change the face and body more to what they like, all done on the computer possibly with Photoshop. Watching Sarah’s last project ties into this. The head of the figure is a model and getting hair and make-up done once the photo is taken, the computer generates a “more beautiful” model.
Kristen Long says:
ReplyDeleteThe reason for Grotowski’s lack of documentation for his work definitely brought up an interesting point, similar to the views of Walter Benjamin and his concept of “aura”. The work of art, as an experience, is the moment when the created work of art is being viewed by the spectator and they both coexist in this constructed reality. Grotowski does not document his work because the repeated viewing of this work would not have the same effect or same “aura” on the viewer as it would in real time. Orlan takes this idea past boundaries that many other artists would never consider. By using herself as the medium, her “skin becomes the intertwining of the sight’s physicality onto the being of her body.”
I like what Aubrey has to say about the body acting as a kind of landscape. Thats an interesting perspective. In the reading I like this quote: The anatomy of the painting quickly becomes its physiognomy, where in the ever- evolving circuit of surface the painter comes to see himself reflected from the inside on the surface of the painting....In a way surgery is used to better reflect the inside.
ReplyDelete"Consider the theater of Orlan. It aims to impact memory, to physically condition this mental state, thereby suggesting that one's thoughts and the recollection upon which they rely can somehow be tangibly modeled, shaped."
ReplyDeleteOrlan has used her body as a canvas throughout the works. Her willingness to alter her physical being, shows the viewer the reality of interactiveness. The documentation of the processes imitates an all encompassing interactive mirror. She has been able to alter her physical appearance while further influencing people's past memory of her and her previous being. To the viewer this process is only superficial in nature but to Orlan the process is very intimate.
I would seem that Orlan did not feel as if she was in her right skin "I have the skin of an angel but I am a jackal ... the skin of a crocodile but I am a poodle, the skin of a black person but I am white, the skin of a woman but I am a man; I never have the skin of what I am." She is using her appearance as a live canvas to obtain her reality of self.
ReplyDeleteOrlan is attempting to reach the root of portraiture by embodying the insight of de Kooning, "Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented."
ReplyDeleteShe lets her natural body processes create the aesthetic of her art as it reacts to her surgical manipulation. She mirrors herself to old portrait paintings, as well as to herself pre-manipulation, and its in this referencing that the artistic connection is created, as the viewer is presented with the dramatic changes of her form.
Orlan's obsession with plastic surgery seems, to me, to be comparable to Michael Jackson's obsession. She completely transforms her appearance with numerous surgeries and she fully documents each stage with before and after photos. She explores issues of identity and self-portraiture and she uses gallery spaces to exhibit her findings. Orlan's performance art acts as an interactive mirror because she invites people to participate through viewing of the entire process whether live or later in a gallery instead of privately hiding the results of the surgeries, like Michael Jackson commonly did.
ReplyDelete