Eduardo Kac website
Eduardo Kac's GFP Bunny
Adam Zaretsky
Monday, 3 May 2010
Sandy Skoglund
Sandy Skoglund website
"Spirituality in the Flesh"
Sandy Skoglund’s Spirituality in the Flesh, created for Artforum
magazine in February 1992, shows a photograph of a mannequin as she sits on a stool. She wears a sleeveless blue dress and has a blonde wig on, the whole portrait, at first glance, looks just like a stereotypical commercial portrait photograph. However, when looked at closer we start to notice some oddities about the image, her skin isn’t smooth and shiny as it should be if it were a plastic mannequin, and it is of the same material as the stool, floor and walls. It is only with further inspection that we begin to notice that the material the mannequin and other objects are made from is of raw ground beef. We find this image repulsive and shocking, however the sight of a raw beef burger does not have an effect upon us at all. I feel that this is because we are shown for what the human really is, raw flesh and meat. Sandy Skoglund wrote a six line text to accompany the image: “The body is buried in animal flesh. A russet field of ground beef surrounds folds of blue velvet. It is the hour before decomposition begins. The glowing, moist field will turn dark and crusty, as the oxygen molecules in the room begin to invade the bits of fat and muscle. Yet the appearance of the torn tissue is far from the violence that made it. Its colour is not bloody; the stench is gone. A muted calm overwhelms the grim evidence. Although the event is over, we see it still. Death is arrested as the enemy approaches-and it is a photograph
"Spirituality in the Flesh"
Sandy Skoglund’s Spirituality in the Flesh, created for Artforum
magazine in February 1992, shows a photograph of a mannequin as she sits on a stool. She wears a sleeveless blue dress and has a blonde wig on, the whole portrait, at first glance, looks just like a stereotypical commercial portrait photograph. However, when looked at closer we start to notice some oddities about the image, her skin isn’t smooth and shiny as it should be if it were a plastic mannequin, and it is of the same material as the stool, floor and walls. It is only with further inspection that we begin to notice that the material the mannequin and other objects are made from is of raw ground beef. We find this image repulsive and shocking, however the sight of a raw beef burger does not have an effect upon us at all. I feel that this is because we are shown for what the human really is, raw flesh and meat. Sandy Skoglund wrote a six line text to accompany the image: “The body is buried in animal flesh. A russet field of ground beef surrounds folds of blue velvet. It is the hour before decomposition begins. The glowing, moist field will turn dark and crusty, as the oxygen molecules in the room begin to invade the bits of fat and muscle. Yet the appearance of the torn tissue is far from the violence that made it. Its colour is not bloody; the stench is gone. A muted calm overwhelms the grim evidence. Although the event is over, we see it still. Death is arrested as the enemy approaches-and it is a photograph
update
Haven't posted on here in far too long so this is likely to be a fairly lengthy post.
I have been looking at other ways of getting across what I want to say, as using a human with a mask didn't seem to work well, the mask was deemed too scary and evil looking so people were unable to sympathise with it. Instead I've bought some cuddly toys off ebay and plan to use them in some way. We think of children and innocence when toys are mentioned, and cuddly toys especially are made to look cute, so it would be more repulsive when we are visually attracted to the object or it evokes personal feelings within us. I have tried different uses with the toys, including creating a mock slaughter, stuffing with meat, cooking them. I'm not sure whether to use one as an sculpture or keep it to photography.
I am also creating another stop motion animation (if i don't run out of time to finish) of a red man and a pig. I wanted the man to be red as I am wanting it to represent his flesh and blood.
Last thing I'm doing is things with meat, bought a couple of packs of mince, and along with stuffing the cuddly toys I sculpted a face and cooked it in the oven, taking photos of the process. Not the prettiest thing I've ever seen!
I think my whole point I'm trying to get across in all the pieces I'm doing is that we should give the animals we eat a little more respect, and while we raise them for slaughter, treat them well and give them the life they deserve. When it comes down to it we are flesh and blood just like them, the only difference is we have superior intelliegence and I wouldn't always say that is a good thing considering the mess we as a race make of things.
I emailed another abattoir a while ago after the one in Inverurie never got back to me. This one was in Portlethen and unfortunately decided to ignore me as well, figured it was best to give up on that idea, someone really doesn't want me to see animals die.
I decided to use three folders to keep my reasearch in, one for why I should eat me, one for why I shouldn't and one for artists and miscellaneous articles. I'm hoping this will help define my research better and help me to even out each arguement.
I have been looking at other ways of getting across what I want to say, as using a human with a mask didn't seem to work well, the mask was deemed too scary and evil looking so people were unable to sympathise with it. Instead I've bought some cuddly toys off ebay and plan to use them in some way. We think of children and innocence when toys are mentioned, and cuddly toys especially are made to look cute, so it would be more repulsive when we are visually attracted to the object or it evokes personal feelings within us. I have tried different uses with the toys, including creating a mock slaughter, stuffing with meat, cooking them. I'm not sure whether to use one as an sculpture or keep it to photography.
I am also creating another stop motion animation (if i don't run out of time to finish) of a red man and a pig. I wanted the man to be red as I am wanting it to represent his flesh and blood.
Last thing I'm doing is things with meat, bought a couple of packs of mince, and along with stuffing the cuddly toys I sculpted a face and cooked it in the oven, taking photos of the process. Not the prettiest thing I've ever seen!
I think my whole point I'm trying to get across in all the pieces I'm doing is that we should give the animals we eat a little more respect, and while we raise them for slaughter, treat them well and give them the life they deserve. When it comes down to it we are flesh and blood just like them, the only difference is we have superior intelliegence and I wouldn't always say that is a good thing considering the mess we as a race make of things.
I emailed another abattoir a while ago after the one in Inverurie never got back to me. This one was in Portlethen and unfortunately decided to ignore me as well, figured it was best to give up on that idea, someone really doesn't want me to see animals die.
I decided to use three folders to keep my reasearch in, one for why I should eat me, one for why I shouldn't and one for artists and miscellaneous articles. I'm hoping this will help define my research better and help me to even out each arguement.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
the absent referent
The book The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams that I bought a while ago has just arrived today and I have been reading through bits of it. I came across this piece of text which I think explains perfectly what I'm trying to say about how we view meat.
"Through butchering, animals become absent referents. Animals in name and body are made absent as animals for meat to exist. Animals' lives precede and enable the existence of meat. If animals are alives they cannot be meat. Thus a dead body replaces the live animal. Without animals there would be no meat eating, yet they are absent from the act of eating meat because they have been transformed into food.
Animals are made absent through language that renames dead bodies before consumers participate in eating them. Our culture further mystifies the term "meat" with gastronomic language, so we do not conjure dead, butchered animals, but cuisine. Language thus contributes even further to animals' absences. While the cultural meanings of meat and meat eating shift historically, one essential part of meat's meaning is static: One does not eat meat without the death of an animals. Live animals are thus the absent referents in the concept of meat. The absent referent premits us to forget about the animal as an indepenent entity; it also enable us to resist efforts to make animals present.
There are actually three ways by which animals become absent referents. One is literally: as I have just argued, through meat eating they are literally abesnt because they are dead. Another is definitional: when we eat animals we change the way we talk about them, for instance, we no longer talk about baby animals but about veal or lamb. As we will see even more clearly in the next chapter, which examines language about eating animals, the word meat has an absent referent, the dead animals. The third way is metaphorical. Animals become metaphors for describing people's experiences. In this metaphorical sense, the meaning of the absent referent derives from its application or reference to something else."
"Through butchering, animals become absent referents. Animals in name and body are made absent as animals for meat to exist. Animals' lives precede and enable the existence of meat. If animals are alives they cannot be meat. Thus a dead body replaces the live animal. Without animals there would be no meat eating, yet they are absent from the act of eating meat because they have been transformed into food.
Animals are made absent through language that renames dead bodies before consumers participate in eating them. Our culture further mystifies the term "meat" with gastronomic language, so we do not conjure dead, butchered animals, but cuisine. Language thus contributes even further to animals' absences. While the cultural meanings of meat and meat eating shift historically, one essential part of meat's meaning is static: One does not eat meat without the death of an animals. Live animals are thus the absent referents in the concept of meat. The absent referent premits us to forget about the animal as an indepenent entity; it also enable us to resist efforts to make animals present.
There are actually three ways by which animals become absent referents. One is literally: as I have just argued, through meat eating they are literally abesnt because they are dead. Another is definitional: when we eat animals we change the way we talk about them, for instance, we no longer talk about baby animals but about veal or lamb. As we will see even more clearly in the next chapter, which examines language about eating animals, the word meat has an absent referent, the dead animals. The third way is metaphorical. Animals become metaphors for describing people's experiences. In this metaphorical sense, the meaning of the absent referent derives from its application or reference to something else."
Monday, 15 March 2010
they're made out of meat
A video that Yates told me about, I found it odd, funny and a little disturbing. For some reason it made me feel a bit sick at the end!
pigs head
Meant to mention in my last blog that I've also bought a pigs head mask for my photos. Was wanting to use a cows head then draw the cuts of meat on the body but I couldn't find a mask that was good enough so I opted for a pig instead. I might actually prefer this as a pigs skin is very close in comparison to ours, tattoo artists often practice on a piece of pig meat before humans as our skin is so similar. This might help to get what I want to say across better than if I was to use a cow. I wanted to see how the mask would look in a photo on a person, so I took a couple of photos and played around with them a bit.
Oh and ignore the Cliff Richard calender.
Oh and ignore the Cliff Richard calender.
walk no.2
Whenever I need inspiration or need to think I go for a walk along with River Dee, it's so quiet and peaceful there it allows me to clear my head and think properly. When I went for my walk I was also once again hoping to find some cows though again had no luck. Where does Aberdeen hide it's cows!? Anyway I walked further than I have before and came across some interesting things. Ended up walking into a wooded patch then came across a cluster of houses, where a group of people were doing some sort of gardening in the middle of them, I ran away up a hill where I found the fluffiest sheep, but no cows!
I have also bought two books, the first, In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave by Peter Singer has arrived and is very interesting, I'll be using it for CCS as well. The second book, The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams hasn't arrived yet, I think it's being shipped from America but it's taking forever! Somebody may be getting an angry email soon.
I have also bought two books, the first, In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave by Peter Singer has arrived and is very interesting, I'll be using it for CCS as well. The second book, The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams hasn't arrived yet, I think it's being shipped from America but it's taking forever! Somebody may be getting an angry email soon.
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