The Problematics of the Erotic: Intimacy and Exposure in Artistic Performance (original) (raw)
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Performing the erotic: (re)presenting the body in popular culture
2019
In 1995, Mitchell suggested that spheres of public culture, and the academies that study them, are in the midst of a 'pictorial turn' which entails thinking about images in digital communication and mass multimedia as forms of life. In the study reported in this thesis, a critical semiotic analysis of mainstream, moving images that are designed, performed, mediated, and repeatable was conducted. The study focuses on the role of social constructs of gender, race, and class (along with size, age, and ability) in the ordering processes of society which are, in turn, sustained and reproduced by the (re)presentation of eroticised bodies in visual media in the twentyfirst century. The study is informed by the premise that rapid technological advancements, the deregulation of media industries, and ongoing convergence possibilities have made the availability and accessibility of mass media on numerous (personal) devices commonplace in modern life but not in the form of traditional media that deliver data or content to an audience. Rather, media now take the form of interactive communication and participatory culture. A critical semiotic analysis of the images used in the study, as well as an analysis of the relevant literature, confirmed this hypothesis with further insights that, in the contemporary era, the cultural constructions and political materialities of bodies, as well as normative understandings of beauty, desirability, and value, all congregate around questions of representation and global homologies. By way of synthesis, the study argues that the dynamics of 'virtuality' in the digital age are altering traditional demarcations of space, place, time, and community and have paved the way for formations of global cultures that are, at the same time, informative, expedient, empowering, homogenising, prescriptive, and imperialising. Global cultures are recognised as discursive formations that people can only reason about from within. With that v limitation in mind, the study sketches the contours of a critical tool that the emergent imaginary critical consumer might be able to utilise. As one positions oneself within this imaginary, it becomes possible to treat the relation between consumer and commodity as dialectical. As a consequence of these analyses, the study expands the theory and application range of linguistic and cognitive metaphors by applying them specifically to modes of aestheticisation and performance of the erotic in contemporary visual media. The study uses metaphor theory to identify discursive markers on bodies at the surface (or representational level) that produce performative frames which sustain orderings of body prototypes (at the ideological level). These framings and orderings are critiqued as trading in ideologies and stereotypes that have long been in sociocultural production and circulation. The analyses of images and scripts show them to be sensationalist; however, they are not new, despite being presented as such in the expanding inundation of visual entertainment worldwide. The study argues that such orderings engage in a reiterable exchange of already circulating social and cultural capital in which not everyone may participate with equal opportunity and agency and some, not at all. Such forms of capital are primarily distributed as a means to generate more economic capital in an age where commodification and consumption, not the public good, are of central importance in human activity and action.
DESIRE, PERFORMANCE, AND CLASSIFICATION: Critical Perspectives on the Erotic
In November 2011, artists, professors, students and scholars from around the world gathered in Prague, Czech Republic, to attempt to define what could be considered the erotic. The conference sought submissions that addressed interactions of the erotic with history, art, literature, practices, performances, pedagogy, and sexuality, among many others. This wide focus brought together an intellectually rich meeting that interrogated the boundaries between eroticism, sex, and desire. This volume represents a sampling of papers presented at the conference, and the diverse focuses within these papers are indicative of the inter- and trans-disciplinary work that was presented. Each work within this collection brings a fresh and unique approach to the erotic and, in its own way, tries to answer the question, ‘What is erotic?’
The Body Politic: Female Sexuality & Women Artists since 1970
Art History, 1978
The recent work of a number of women artists has taken as its starting point the human body. This paper is concerned to pursue some of the implications that arise from this; to suggest some categories for the material; and to investigate its significance in the light of Linda Nochlin's observation that 'The growing power of woman in the politics of both sex and art is bound to revolutionize the realm of erotic representation'.
Zines Journal #3: Queer Zines in Transglobal World , 2021
The present article aims at an analysis of representations of the feminine in art history and in the press, made mostly by patriarchal and heteronormative values of society and the art produced by cisgender male artists, who place the female body as an object of desire for hegemonic masculinity. In dialogue, and also in opposition, we will present the lesbian erotic content contained in the images of the ChanacomChana newsletters, having as main theoretical reference the text « Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power », by Audre Lorde, to build a critical reflection about the character subversive and powerful of these women's erotic self-representations, made for the lesbian audience.
A matrixial gaze: portrayals of the male nude by female artists
PHD Thesis, 2018
A matrixial gaze: portrayals of the male nude by female artists. Traditionally although there are any number of nude men and women produced by male artists and many female nudes created by women there have been relatively few women artists working in the field of male nude. Those that have ventured into the genre face the problem of working with the male body in ways that do not perpetuate the objectification and sexualization of the body that male artists have often been accused of when they deal with the female body. This awareness of issues around subjectivity and agency in the visual arts has meant that there has been a gradual growth and readjustment of the concept of a gaze in whatever guise it comes and a need to create a means to work with the body in ways that transcend this polarizing and subjectivizing trope. This thesis explores a relatively neglected aspect of female artistic practice, the male nude, through the lens of a matrixial gaze. This framework has previously primarily been applied to the works of its creator Bracha Ettinger and not in the context of the nude male. The concept of the matrixial gaze was used to analyse of the works of several women artists who have worked in this field. Each chapter aligns with themes gleaned from the matrixial gaze and the works of the artists have been selected insofar as they demonstrate such attributes in their work. The research evaluated how, in the ongoing process of attempting to find means to work with the body in a way that neither denigrates it nor sets up binary and oppositional viewpoints, the matrixial gaze provides a practical methodology to work in this field. The female artists surveyed demonstrated key elements of the matrixial gaze and metramorphic borderlinking, including; fascinance, co-poieisis, wit(h)nessing and compassionate hospitality in their works. This was demonstrated in the paintings of Sylvia Sleigh who exemplifies matrixial attributes associated with fascinance and duration through her sustained interest and involvement with the male body as well as her especially close involvement with a few particular favourite models who take on the role of muse. The co-poietic framework, where individuals work together to share partial subjectivity, is clearly in evidence through the erotic pairings depicted in Chapter 3. The images of couples sharing subjectivity and creating new beings reveal the way in which the subject/object paradigm can be subverted by exchanges- co-poïesis brings on and sets up the conditions for metramorphosis. Wit(h)nessing occurs in Polly Borland’s Babies series where she works to transform the trauma and pain of the marginalised subculture of men who dress as babies. This also occurs when Barbara de Genevieve works with the dispossessed, impoverished Afro-American men in the Panhandler Project where she crosses racial and class barriers to heal their wounds and vulnerabilities. This shows that each artist worked to create encounters between herself, subject and viewers which set up conditions for co-operative making and sharing as well as establishing partial or shared subjectivity between all participants involved. Furthermore, the matrix of encounters and interconnected networks between artist, subject and viewer provided opportunities for transformation and creation of new ideas from a trope, the male nude that has been largely associated with a particular Western Classical tradition.