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Abstract:
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As individuals, we eat into culture, continually oscillating
between primary, natural and necessary acts, as, simultaneously
we consume and ingest our identities. (Elspeth
Probyn, Carnal Appetites)
As performers of body-based art in the context of (predominantly
Western) fin de steele postmodern culture, Orlan and Stelarc have all
of the past and future of body transformation techniques potentially
available for reinscription and reconfiguration. Perhaps this is what
engages so many of us: the simultaneous working through of several
layers of historical and cultural meanings about the body and its limits.
Interwoven with contemporary media and postmodern themes are
statements that come from an earlier, Cartesian, modernity, while the
performances themselves, we will argue, bear distinctly medieval
characteristics. |
