Skin and Cast:Capturing Temporality Between Myself and the World - Thesis Example

Skin Artist ment It cloaks us, creates an illusion of who we are and what we represent. It defines us without the substance to define. It issmooth and long along the body, but also rough, detailed with minute valleys and crags that create a world on which the eye does not gaze. It is beauty and great horror all at once. It is who we are and who we pretend to be. It is nothing and everything. I look at the brush and methodically fill it with medium. I brush it over my skin, the thickness course and ridged as I move the brush against the skin, rough and smooth at the same time, both and neither. It dries and I peel it away. It is another skin, shaped like mine, not like mine. It is filled with the imperfections that is my skin, but has no conscious, no sense of thought or sensation of feeling. It is who I am and not. It is like the real thing without blood and muscle lying underneath. Its truest meaning is that it has no meaning. It is a cloak, an illusion, that can be replicated at will without any knowledge of what runs beneath. The art pieces that I have been constructing are casts of the skin. They are created with a brush which is then used to apply a clear colour acrylic over the skin and allowed to dry. It is peeled away, leaving the cast of the skin revealed with all of its texture and flaws revealed. In its flawed state, there is perfection as it performs its function, reflecting what is contained and as it is temporal to its moment, it is the past captured and preserved. 2. Skin The artistic expression that I have been exploring is based upon the idea of skin. In my art I replicate the skin through casting over it and peeling away the layer to reveal texture and flaws. The act of brushing the medium on skin and peeling it away represents the act of peeling away the outer layer in order to see something that is deeper, that reflects something that lies beneath. The act of making the art is also art, expression of an intension that should be fulfilled. Skin is the formal aspect of my practice of art. The question that must be asked in order to explore this topic is: ‘What is the meaning of skin?’ There are a number of different approaches to looking at the meaning of skin. It can be examined from a physiological perspective, from a social perspective, from an anthropological perspective, and from a philosophical perspective. It can even be studied in regard to psychological meaning in order to understand skin as it has a relationship with the one who wears it. 2.1 Colour Colour of skin is often the most researched topic in relationship to the meaning of skin in society. The colour of skin has been defined and given traits. It insinuates something about the person. Sociologically speaking, it has implications that place people within the context of their time and their social class. Skin colour has meaning in the social context that is not reflective of a physiological difference. Jablonsky (2012, p. 1) has made a study of skin colour, examining it from the biological purpose of differences to the meaning of colour in a social context. Part of the reason that there is such an importance associated with skin colour is that for thousands of years there was no rational explanation for the colour of skin. This meant that mythologies have been created in order to justify the differences in colour and these mythologies have included creating differences based on skin colour. In lighter skin, most of the colour comes from the circulation of blood beneath the surface. Eumelanin is the substance that deepens the colour of the skin, its true purpose to protect the internal organs from the ravages of the sun. Eumelanin resists the ultraviolet rays of the sun and has a high level of anti-oxidant properties. Fungus darkens because it too has eumelanin (Jablonski 2012, p. 12). The very thing that Eumelanin does best is often the thing that creates prejudices. In placing brown tones on the skin there is an unfortunate eruption of something nasty and crawling across the surface of society. Thompson and Keith (2001, p. 337) discuss the meaning of skin tone as it ranges in hue from dark to light. The importance of the tonal colour of the skin is relevant to the development of self esteem and self efficacy. This is reflected in the male and female with males being impacted on efficacy and women being more impacted on esteem. The hue and tone of the skin colour is central to perceived ideals of the nature of skin. In the case of the oppressed who are judged by the colour of their skin, it is the wearing of their social banner, pride and fear all mixed into a sense of self that struggles to breath. The colour in the skin, however, has an ancient function. It communicates the emotions of the individual, blushing lightly with pleasure, deep red with anger, or purple with rage. The colour palate of the flesh is far more than ethnographic or racial – it is deeply human and embedded in the communications that are aroused between people. 2.2 Function Skin is far more than the mere essence of colour that has defined so much of the discourse of the 20th century. Skin is protection. It is a shell. It has meaning on many other levels other than just that of its colour appearance. Essentially, however, the skin has six basic functions. The skin conducts sensation, regulates heat, functions to absorb, protects, excretes, and secretes. The skin is a medium of connection, transmitting communications from the exterior world into its interior (Hiscock and Stoddart 2004, p. 145). The contact between skin on skin, the sensual experience that begins in infancy, creates a narrative of the self. The desire to touch and the civilized space kept between people is a struggle of the self and of the comfort of skin. The touch of the skin of another reassures and defines the capacity to be loved. When someone does not feel that capacity, they reject touch, rejecting the comfort of communal intervention on the self. Kohute (1959, p. 470-471) wrote that the need to touch and the resistance to touching represents “an unstructured psyche struggling to maintain contact with an archaic object or to keep up the tenuous separation from it”. Resistance to touch is “the direct continuation of an early reality that was too distant, too rejecting, or too unreliable to be transformed into solid psychological structures” (Kohute 1959, p. 470-471). Cannata, Maggiali, and Metta (2008, p. 435) presented a paper on creating a touch sensitive outer layer for robotics. The purpose of the skin was to communicate between the exterior world and the interior of the computerized ‘brain’. The skin serves a multitude of functions, however, as it creates a barrier between the robotic under-workings and exposure to the exterior world. It also works as a ‘face’, which represents a more pleasing presence in the world. The human skin functions very similarly. The skin creates an identity that can be shed only with great effort. The exterior appearance is centrally connected to the interior idea of self representation. Gilmore (1996, p. xiv) writes about the concept of self-representation as it relates to the autobiography. The skin is pulled back to reveal the internalized experience when writing an autobiography. The skin can be seen as a map of the biographical experiences of the human being. Self-representation as a practice of art is the revelation of what is underneath, no matter the pain, no matter the bloody mess that leaks out in the process. 2.3 Self When studying the effects of changing the nature of self-representation an interesting dynamic can be found in virtual environments. In a virtual environment when the exterior is perfected, the nature of the individual begins to transform. Yee, Bailenson, and Ducheneaut (2009, p. 285) write that “It was found that both the height and attractiveness of an avatar in an online game were significant predictors of the players performance. In the second study, it was found that the behavioral changes stemming from the virtual environment transferred to subsequent face-to-face interactions”. The importance of the exterior was directly related to the development of the projection of the self. The skin, the real world exterior of the self is not an idealized self, but a reflection with the power to transform in its own right. The nature of the interior world is formed and shaped in the shadow of the skin as it informs its wearer of the experience to expect. There is no greater proof of the importance of the exterior than the digital capacity to represent the skin and the body in whatever way one chooses. Yee and Bailenson (2009, p. 195) discuss the importance of the skin, the representation of the self and the enacting of behaviours that bring about the consequences of interaction. Yee and Bailenson (2009, p. 195) make a specific point that the way in which people reacted to others was dictated by the way in which the body and the skin were represented in virtual realities. Skin is an indicator of social relevance even in virtual worlds. As much as the skin is a boundary between the world and the self, it is a layer that transmits the world to the interior and informs the self of its place based on bias, constructions of beauty and justifications of what is ugly. The skin is a medium of information, a sign of health or illness, a sign of the heart beneath, and a beacon that transmits the emotion of the body. It is the self and the protection of the self both in one. Didier Anzieu’s theories of the skin suggest that the skin functions as a boundary for containment, protection and communications. O’Dell (1998, p. 20) quotes Anzieu who said that: The primary function of the skin is as the sac which contains and retains inside of it the goodness and fullness accumulating there through feeding, care, the bathing in words. Its second function is as the interface which marks the boundary with the outside and keeps that outside out; it is the barrier which protects against penetration by the aggression and greed emanating from others, whether people or objects. Anzieu discusses the skin in two frames, taking the reality of skin and transferring it to the metaphorical representation of a psychic skin. The psychic skin performs the same function as the physical skin, creating boundaries around the mind so that it is protected from the exterior world. Thus, the skin becomes a symbol of protection that is created around the essence of the individual (Segal 2009, p. 28). In Anzieu’s book, The Skin Ego, (1989, p. 10) he discusses the skin as the primary element of the ego. The skin as the primary organ that is associated with the ego is formed through its being touched and the experience of being held and handled as the first level on which the ego is formed. The experience of being touched formalizes the sense of self and creates the individual. In essence, the skin holds in the bits, containing, protecting, and making what is uncivilized, discrete (Ahmed and Stacey 2004, p. 72). 2.4 Art and Skin Vito Acconci created performance art that was intended to create discussion both by how it was created as much as the result of the creation. He twisted himself into various positions and bit deeply into his skin, creating marks that were distinct, painful, and some of which created deep scars. After biting himself he took ink and used the impression to create his works. The performance of pain was the art as the works inked through his sacrificial acts were the memories of that pain. O’Dell (1998, p. 17) writes that while it was not performance art that was done before others, the performance of the creation of art was in evidence because of its documentation through the prints. The act of creating an impression is very similar to the act of casting. He used what was his to exploit and created a work that reflected a moment in time, his temporality reflecting his self-mutilation. O’Dell (1998, p. 18) writes that the works evoke images of blood and saliva, the saliva the weeping tears of the pain that he inflicted. The viewer can feel the blood rising to the surface of the skin as it pumped in response to the trauma. In discussing the association of skin to art, it must not be ignored that literally the skin can be a canvas. Marking of the skin has always been a way of being declarative. The individual declares themselves and what they believe in or cherish through the act of art on the body. It is a specific and intentional act that must be sought out. Creating the skin as art is a method of creating belongingness. There is some evidence to suggest that during the time of Christ marking on the forehead was tattooed in order to show that an individual was a follower. However, the cultural shift during the time of Constantine, inspired by his beliefs, was that marking the face with a tattoo was against the will of God. The act of tattooing the face was outlawed, taking that space of individuality away from those choosing to express something on that surface (Blandy and Congdon 1991, p. 73). Therefore, the skin is subject to its temporality. It is what it is in the moment and is never the same after. The meaning of skin is defined by cultural time, skin is marred by time, and it is ever changing so that each moment of its existence is dependent on what came before it. It is affected by the interior as much as the exterior, where the lack of water on the inside of the body cannot be made up for by laying in a lake; no amount of water consumed can change the burn of the fire. Interior and exterior are both one and separate. The ravages of time both within the interior and the exterior work toward a place of time so that the skin is in a temporal space. Through capturing that moment and reflecting its multiple responsibilities, the skin becomes a conduit of expression through the act of casting that has been undertaken as a way of discourse through texture and visual representation. 3. Cast The concept of casting can be seen as action and as meaning. The cast that is created for these pieces of art are made from painting the object, the part of the body, with translucent acrylic colour and then peeling it off to produce a skin shaped layer. This technical side of the work also has a meaning, the act of the work having as much meaning as the visual representation that it creates. Casting creates an object, but it is also an act of objectification. The body becomes the object of transfer, the organic nature of the object transitional, thus the cast captures that moment and makes it static. Authenticity in the work is created through single production. Each production is subject to duplication, but duplication is done by hand, unique on its own. The authenticity to art is the meaning that is placed into the production, each piece textual in nature as it replays a narrative about the perceived for the perceiver. 3.1 Casting Practices In 1870 Wyatt (p. 183) discussed the technical nature of casting. The mould needed to have sufficient flexibility in order to fully capture the details of the object of casting. However, the materials available would not allow for a flexible mould as most materials used were stone, metal, or any of the materials available that could be reduced to a formative state, such as melted or ground, or cut into in order to create a negative. Sand provided for plasticity, something that was needed in order to more fully explore the concept of casting. This led to breaking down stone into a powder that could then be mixed with a binding medium that would harden against the object of the mould. Other forms included plaster, powdered brick, or brick earth were used in order to create the plasticity needed for fine casting. The act of casting created reactions, the technical skill needed to understand the thermal reactions as much a part of the practice as understanding the concept of the negative image. The mould had to be penetrated so that the gases could escape otherwise the mould would explode. Understanding process becomes a key to developing the work (Wyatt 1870, p. 183). The casting act is a reactive act. Everything from the pressure that is needed to force the material into the crevices to the essence of putting a material against another to create the production is reactive. The object of the practice is essentially reactive. It is a reactive presence to the process it underwent in order to be creative. It has reacted to the surface of the mould to take on its properties. Relational Art Bourriaud, Pleasance, Woods and Copeland (2002, p. 11) write that “Artistic activity is a game, whose forms patterns and functions develop and evolve according to periods and social contexts: it is not an immutable essence”. Casting has the capacity to show transformation. Art can be relational taking on the “realm of human interactions and social context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space” (Bourriaud, Pleasance, Woods and Copeland 2002, p. 14). The birth of relational art came from the emergence of an urban space in which the social construction provides a structure for expression. The timelessness of art has been transformed by modernity. The space in which art is appreciated is no longer long lasting, but is something to be moved through. The time period of art is when it has its importance, the temporal space it occupies filled with its meaning and representation until it is replaced with the next period. The relationship of art to its moment has become the primary way in which art is experienced within the urbanized experience of mobility and impermanence in a world in which a complex system of roads provides for escape and consumer culture makes everything disposable. Foucault commented on homosexuality as a threat to a way of life, rather than a threat to a way of having sex. Halberstam (2005, p. 1) discusses the nature of queerness in relationship to its temporality. He stated that there were logistics of movement, location, and identification in relationship to the place and time in which the representation captures the eccentric mode of being. The development of culture, in other words, is caught within its own time frame and can exist only within its own space, even if reflected by the future or history of the moment. In identifying the relationship of the moment in queer history to its temporality, the moment that is intended to be caught within the art that is being created from skin can be understood. It is not about anything other than what it is. It is the moment, caught and made still. In this way, the idea of capturing the moment in relationship to the cast of the skin can be compared to the work of a photographer as he or she captures the moment for their subject. Casting captures not only the moment, but in repeating the process, captures chronology. What is cast today will not be the same if it is cast tomorrow. In casting skin and defining the temporality of it aging becomes an appropriate discourse. The photography of age is given social context by age represented by defining messages that are positive or negative. The late 20th century was a time in which aging was represented as negative and very little was done in relationship to revealing the meaning of age that was not done by showing its ravages. In the late 1990s, however, photographic studies on age began to reveal its beauty and soulfulness (Cristofovici 2009, p. 4). The casting of the skin, the objectification of the body through reducing it to its covering, allows for the same kind of discovery in relationship to age. It is captured and made still in the moment of its casting, just like it is in the moment of photography. Age can be met with the moment of change as it occurs from the time and space of one casting to the time and space to the next. 3. Mimetic producibility of cast: 1)Mimesis 2) repetition 3) anthropological perspective Read More