Time is a humbling force: yesterday\u2019s proposals for tomorrow risk becoming today\u2019s retro-futuristic relics. This essay dives into selected works from \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d each charged with a constellation of concerns of particular relevance today. While some vintage artworks now appear especially prescient in anticipating the present, those made today are still experimental reflections on the here and now, not yet tested by time\u2019s relentless march. Reaching into the past while also celebrating artists of the present, \u201cThe Body Electric\u201d <\/i>asks how artworks gather renewed resonance and meaning given where we find ourselves today. It is entirely possible\u2014in fact, probable\u2014that a slew of artists excluded from the exhibition would warrant inclusion, should the exhibition (and, by extension, this essay) appear ten, twenty, or thirty years from now. As such, from the perch of 2021, this essay acknowledges the inevitable blind spots that I hope the future reader might forgive.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/still.inbetweenartfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/2-2.jpg” alt=”Martine Syms, Notes on Gesture, 2015. Video still. Single channel video (color, sound), 10:27 minutes, loop. Image copyright: Martine Syms. Courtesy of the artist, and Bridget Donahue, New York City.” title_text=”Martine Syms, Notes on Gesture, 2015. Video still. Single channel video (color, sound), 10:27 minutes, loop. Image copyright: Martine Syms. Courtesy of the artist, and Bridget Donahue, New York City.” module_id=”img1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”70%” max_width=”70%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_id=”tptext” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n
Martine Syms,\u00a0Notes on Gesture<\/i>, 2015. Video still. Single channel video (color, sound), 10:27 minutes, loop. Image copyright: Martine Syms. Courtesy of the artist, and Bridget Donahue, New York City.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ text_font_size=”20px” custom_margin=”20px||20px||true|false”]<\/p>\n
Drawing upon the work of Vito Acconci, Lynda Benglis, and Bruce Nauman, Rosalind Krauss\u2019s essay \u201cVideo: The Aesthetics of Narcissism\u201d (1976) posits that \u201cself-encapsulation\u2014the body or psyche as its own surround\u2014<\/span>is everywhere to be found in the corpus of video art.\u201d4<\/sup><\/span> While charting varying degrees of critical distance with which artists approached the then-nascent medium, Krauss nonetheless establishes video art as a \u201cpsychological situation\u201d that, through mirroring, collapses the boundary between artists and their representation, the subject and the object.<\/p>\n BY EMBRACING THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN ONE\u2019S OWN BODY AND ITS LIVE IMAGE ON THE TV MONITOR\u2014REFERRED TO AS THE \u201cONGOING MIRROR\u201d BY JOAN JONAS\u2014THIS EARLY GENERATION OF VIDEO ARTISTS ESTABLISHED THE MOVING IMAGE AS A MEANS TO SPLINTER REALITY BY LAYERING SPACE AND TIME AND CONFLATING THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND ITS MULTIPLIED REPRESENTATIONS.<\/p>\n By embracing the interplay between one\u2019<\/span>s own body and its live image on the TV monitor\u2014referred to as the \u201c<\/span>ongoing mirror\u201d by Joan Jonas\u2014this early generation of video artists established the moving image as a means to splinter reality by layering space and time and conflating the physical world and its multiplied representations.5<\/sup><\/span> This blurring is felt even more acutely today: owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, daily screen time has shot up dramatically and most of our current interactions take place via social media.6<\/sup><\/span> Confined in our homes like never before, we are negotiating the world via the screen, much like the artists brought together in the exhibition section \u2018Performing for the Camera,\u2019 who each turn the lens of the camera onto their own bodies to raise questions about race, nationality, sexuality, LGBTQIA+ identity, and femininity. Their self-portraits are kindred images to today\u2019s omnipresent selfies, which in turn bring Krauss\u2019s reflections on narcissism into sharp relief with a renewed relevance. Art mirrors life and vice versa and these works urge us to consider the conditions of our daily lives, especially in light of how social media fuels narcissistic and compulsive behavioral patterns of self-promotion and performativity.7<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n Within \u2018Performing for the Camera,\u2019 a cluster of works by Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, and Amalia Ulman offers a lens through which to examine how media shapes our understanding of beauty and femininity. Sherman\u2019s Untitled<\/i> (1981) and Simpson\u2019s LA\u201957-NY\u201909<\/i> (2009) both subvert the language (and concomitant expectations) of the pinup image that typically caters to the pleasure of the male gaze. In Untitled<\/i>\u2014conceived as a spread for Artforum<\/i> to mimic the centerfold format of men\u2019s erotic magazines\u2014we see Sherman in a disturbed emotional state. Spot-lit, she appears fearful and disheveled, the photograph communicating a sense of terror and foreboding rather than fulfilling a lustful, flirtatious promise. Simpson\u2019s work blurs the real and the imagined by presenting side-by-side two sets of images: photos purchased on eBay that were taken in Los Angeles in 1957 featuring unidentified women (and occasionally men) modeling in the popular pinup style, alongside the artist\u2019s self-portraits that faithfully replicate the setting and poses of the originals. Seen together, Simpson\u2019s images reveal the means by which we carry ourselves and perform via choices in styling, clothing, and body language. In Excellences and Perfections<\/i> (2014), Amalia Ulman extends Simpson and Sherman\u2019s concerns into the realm of the Internet and social media. During a five-month period across her Instagram and Facebook profiles, Ulman channeled the vacuous persona of a beauty blogger through a stream of carefully selected images of styled interiors, luxury products, and doe-eyed selfies. Tiptoeing a fine line between critique and wanton emulation, the series raises questions of (particularly white) privilege and the commodification of the self via lifestyle and branding choices. Those sympathetic to Ulman might read Excellences and Perfections<\/i> via anthropologist Crystal Abidin\u2019s notion of \u201csubversive frivolity,\u201d in which she perceives such online influencer behavior\u2014 purposefully cloaked behind a language of vacuity and conceit\u2014as a generative and affirmative means.8<\/sup><\/span> Others might side with curator and writer Legacy Russell\u2019s take on Ulman\u2019s work, which she sees as failing to critically engage with the very platform it harnesses and becoming merely \u201can unfortunate flaunting of privilege, haunted by a sort of socioeconomic \u2018passing\u2019 that went unquestioned by a public accustomed to the gourmandized consumption of the superrich.\u201d9<\/sup><\/span> Reflecting on selfies in 2012, critic Brian Droitcour wrote that the \u201caestheticization of everyday life in social media\u2026 has leeched the authority of image-making from mass media.\u201d10<\/sup><\/span> Seen together, these works by Sherman, Simpson, and Ulman challenge Droitcour\u2019s statement that from today\u2019s vantage point seems ruefully optimistic.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/still.inbetweenartfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/3-1.jpg” alt=”View of the exhibition \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2019. Photo: Bobby Rogers” title_text=”View of the exhibition \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2019. Photo: Bobby Rogers” module_id=”img1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”70%” max_width=”70%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_id=”tptext” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n View of the exhibition \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2019. Photo: Bobby Rogers<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ text_font_size=”20px” custom_margin=”20px||20px||true|false”]<\/p>\n Many of the artists in the exhibition\u2014Laurie Anderson, Ed Atkins, Zach Blas, Peter Campus, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Pierre Huyghe, Sondra Perry, and Ulrike Rosenbach\u2014 have explored the transference (or transcendence?) of the embodied self into the virtual realm through the use of avatars. Digital approximations of our likenesses have proliferated wildly in the last two years: in 2019 Apple released the Memoji feature, while in 2020 Facebook premiered the Avatars function, both of which generate customizable cartoonlike versions of their users. Avatars are increasingly common in our everyday lives\u2014they communicate with us as virtual assistants via natural language-processing algorithms and even screen us at airports upon arrival.11<\/sup><\/span> We negotiate our mediations online (or lack thereof, as evidenced by the work of disability rights groups advocating for more <\/span>diverse emojis),12<\/sup><\/span> and even our afterlives, as social media profiles of the deceased force <\/span>us to confront new dimensions of grief and bereavement.13<\/sup><\/span> The contours of what is real and virtual are shifting\u2014\u201cAFK\u201d (\u201caway from keyboard\u201d) is becoming a more accurate description of the \u201creal\u201d than \u201cIRL\u201d (\u201cin real life\u201d)\u2014as so much of our lives is negotiated in cyberspace. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan foresaw this shift in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man<\/i> (1964), in which he perceived growing communication technologies as extensions not only of our bodies, but also our very selves: \u201cIn this electric age we see ourselves . . . <\/span>moving toward the technological extension of consciousness.\u201d14<\/sup><\/span> Yet what, then, of the body and its immediate physical surroundings? While the digital trades in the illusion of immateriality\u2014the cloud as a mysterious metaphor for opaqueness and weightlessness\u2014lurking behind the digital veil is, as writer and artist James Bridle describes in New Dark Age<\/i> (2019), \u201ca physical infrastructure consisting of phone lines, fibre optics, satellites, cables on the ocean floor, and vast warehouses filled with computers, which consume huge amounts of water and energy and reside within na<\/span>tional and legal jurisdictions.\u201d15<\/sup><\/span> These two realms\u2014on\/offline, physical\/virtual, here\/there\u2014are inextricably bound together and interdependent, and both are decidedly real. In the hands of artists, avatars offer a means to prod at the limits to which our bodies and minds are entangled within the tension of the real\/virtual divide. Where does the embodied self end and the disembodied virtual being begin?<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/still.inbetweenartfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/4.png” alt=”Ed Atkins, Happy Birthday!!, 2014. Video still. HD video, sound; 6:32 min. Courtesy of the artist; and Cabinet, London.” title_text=”Ed Atkins, Happy Birthday!!, 2014. Video still. HD video, sound; 6:32 min. Courtesy of the artist; and Cabinet, London.” module_id=”img1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”70%” max_width=”70%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_id=”tptext” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n Ed Atkins,\u00a0Happy Birthday!!<\/i>, 2014. Video still. HD video, sound; 6:32 min.\u00a0Courtesy\u00a0of the artist; and Cabinet, London.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ text_font_size=”20px” custom_margin=”20px||20px||true|false”]<\/p>\n In Ed Atkins\u2019s Happy Birthday!!<\/i> (2014), we encounter a highly realistic CGI male character, who mumbles through a seemingly arbitrary list of years, days, and time codes, as if struggling to remember a significant past event. As he searches back in his \u201cmemories,\u201d various images appear collaged\u2014swirling CGI animations, the night sky, a bedroom\u2014and set against pathetic heartrending music such as Elvis Presley crooning \u201cAlways on My Mind.\u201d Atkins has described Happy Birthday!!<\/i> as a work full of \u201cterrible nostalgia,\u201d an achingly melancholic meditation on memory and mortality.16<\/sup><\/span> Hyperreal in its rendered appearance, the work\u2019s protagonist is nonetheless rooted within the real world. He bears a direct connection to Atkins himself, who provides the avatar\u2019s voice as well as facial movements that have been motion-captured from the artist \u201cperforming\u201d in front of a camera. The character also takes its CGI likeness from a real-life person: a model who has been scanned into an avatar, which was then purchased by Atkins via TurboSquid, a website that supplies 3D stock models for use in computer games, adult entertainment, and architectural renderings. The uncanny encounter with Atkins\u2019s confused and dazed protagonist forges the uneasy question: \u201cCan you empathize with an avatar?\u201d Or vice versa: could Agent K and his holographic girlfriend Joi of Bladerunner 2049<\/i> truly love one another? These are not farfetched or speculative notions\u2014we are already developing relationships with AI companions. In 2016, the Japanese company Gatebox unveiled <\/span>Azuma Hikari, the anime \u201ccomforting bride,\u201d17<\/sup><\/span> whose holographic likeness floats within a transparent container<\/span> like a trapped Tinkerbell.18<\/sup><\/span> Azuma might text you a flirty message while you\u2019re at work, she can activate smart home appliances on your command, and offers a girlfriend\u2019s companionship. While still a nascent industry, virtual companions such as Azuma force us to consider the emotive aspects of our relationships with artificially intelligent avatars, opening new dimensions of intimacy, empathy, and loneliness.<\/span><\/p>\n \n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/still.inbetweenartfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/5-2.jpg” alt=”Sondra Perry, Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation, 2016. Installation view in \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Photo: Bobby Rogers.” title_text=”Sondra Perry, Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation, 2016. Installation view in \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Photo: Bobby Rogers.” module_id=”img1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”70%” max_width=”70%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_id=”tptext” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n Sondra Perry, Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation<\/i>, 2016. Installation view in \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Photo: Bobby Rogers.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ text_font_size=”20px” custom_margin=”20px||20px||true|false”]<\/p>\n Sondra Perry employs avatars to addresses inherent bias within technology, specifically in relation to gender and race. Graft and Ash for a Three Monitor Workstation<\/i> (2016) consists of a modified exercise-bike workstation, a type of office furnishing that queasily reinforces the glorification of capitalist productivity: the workers not only perform their role but also work out and tone their fit bodies. Perry has affixed three screens to the bike, across which a story unfolds, narrated by the artist\u2019s own avatar. She describes the limitations of the software that rendered her being: \u201cIt could not replicate her fatness .\u00a0.\u00a0. Sondra\u2019s body type was not an accessible preexisting template.\u201d Any humor inherent in the avatar\u2019s deadpan delivery quickly dissipates upon considering the many problems that people of color face in relation to new technologies. Several recent studies have shown that facial recognition software used by police in the United States disproportionally singles out nonwhite individuals,19<\/sup><\/span> while even mundane appliances such as automatic soap dispensers have been unable to recognize darker skin tones.<\/span><\/p>\n Technology mirrors the society that develops it, as we saw with the fiasco of Tay, an artificially intelligent chatter bot released by Microsoft on Twitter in 2016. Shut down shortly after its premier due to trolling, the bot quickly assimilated the hateful speech it was fed and began spewing racist and sexually charged tweets. The Tay scandal brings to the fore the question: \u201cWhose worldview does technology really reflect?\u201d In crafting our digital presence, we are confronted not only by the question of how we mediate our sense of self, but also our bodies online. In terms of race, these issues are manifested through activist groups such as the World White Web, a website that draws attention to the dominance of imagery of white bodies on the Internet; as well the work of those advocating for diverse emoji skin tones.<\/p>\n These questions\u2014as with Azuma Hikari\u2014gain even more complexity and ambiguity when we confront humanmade avatars that stand in for no real person. In 2016, the Los Angeles start-up Brud launched the Instagram influencer Lil Miquela, a corporate avatar that has since advertised major brands and also championed causes such as Black Lives Matter, DACA, and trans rights. Of a mixed-race and bicultural identity (half-Spanish, half-Brazilian) not reflective of her makers, Lil Miquela has come under fire for virtue signaling and embracing a racially ambiguous character that \u201cgives brands the freedom to latch on to key woke messaging points about identity politics without having to deal with the often-messy reality that encompasses those difficult topics.\u201d20<\/sup><\/span> Sondra Perry\u2019s work wades into exactly this territory rife with unresolved dilemmas of how we negotiate markers of embodiment within digital technologies that often serve the ambiguous agendas of their capitalist makers.<\/p>\n \n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/still.inbetweenartfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/6-1.jpg” alt=”Sidsel Meineche Hansen, SECOND SEX WAR ZONE (detail), 2016. Courtesy of the artist; and Rodeo Gallery, London\/Piraeus.” title_text=”Sidsel Meineche Hansen, SECOND SEX WAR ZONE (detail), 2016. Courtesy of the artist; and Rodeo Gallery, London\/Piraeus.” module_id=”img1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”70%” max_width=”70%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_id=”tptext” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n Sidsel Meineche Hansen, SECOND SEX WAR ZONE<\/i> (detail), 2016. Courtesy of the artist; and Rodeo Gallery, London\/Piraeus.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ text_font_size=”20px” custom_margin=”20px||20px||true|false”]<\/p>\n Citing the writings of Donna Haraway, theorist Paul B. Preciado reflected: \u201cThe twenty-first-century body is a technoliving system, the result of an irreversible implosion of <\/span>modern binaries (female\/male, animal\/human, nature\/culture).\u201d21<\/sup><\/span> Preciado\u2019s contemplation of the human-machine divide forces us to ask: Where does our flesh end and technology begin? How have artists turned to prosthetics and artificial intelligence to traverse and marry this gap? In 1986, the performance artist Stelarc wrote: \u201cSkin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality .\u00a0.\u00a0. technology has become the body\u2019s new membrane of existence.\u201d22<\/sup><\/span> While Stelarc\u2019s statement had the ring of futurity at the time, it now announces a tomorrow just around the corner. While many wearables have failed to take off (such as Google Glass), other \u201cskin technologies\u201d (especially sports devices such as fitbits, as well as smart jewelry) are in high demand, blurring the boundary between body and device.<\/p>\n The work of Lynn Hershman Leeson and Sidsel Meineche Hansen offer a critical commentary of the membranes of the technoliving system, especially in relation to the female body and its commodification for consumption, pleasure, and sexual gratification. One of her first interactive installations, Leeson\u2019s Deep Contact<\/i> (1984\u201389) was originally installed with a surveillance camera that would detect the presence of a gallery visitor. \u201cTouch me,\u201d murmured Marion, the work\u2019s protagonist, with whom we are invited to engage via a touchscreen television. Each body part triggers a different series of fifty-seven possible events: pressing Marion\u2019s head, for example, activates brief accounts of how television shapes perceptions of women\u2019s bodies. Yet, what does it mean to directing Marion? How, in this voyeuristic encounter, are the dimensions of power negotiated? What are the implications of the user (human)\u2013servant (Marion) dynamic?<\/p>\n Similar questions fuel Hansen\u2019s SECOND SEX WAR <\/i>(2016), a body of work spurred by the 2014 ruling of the\u00a0British\u00a0Board of Film Classification that restricted the showing of a variety of acts (such as female ejaculation) in pornography produced in the UK. Responding to this decision, Hansen created DICKGIRL 3D(X)<\/i> (2016), a work that features EVA v3.0, a royalty-free avatar that the artist sourced through TurboSquid. Experienced via Oculus Rift in virtual reality, the hypersexualized CGI animation shows the character fitted with genital props and fucking an amorphous blob. Just as Atkins\u2019s avatars are borne of a real-life human being, so too are EVA v3.0\u2019s movements, which were motion-captured from pornographic films. It was estimated that by 2020 the VR adult entertainment industry was to hit a US\u00a0$1 billion value, driving\u2014along with gaming\u2014much of the technology\u2019s innovation. Yet, just as systemic racism is made manifest online, so too are questions of how bodies are represented for pleasure.23<\/sup><\/span> How are entrenched heteronormative patriarchal perceptions of the attractive female body coded within this new technology? Hansen deliberately chose to generate DICKGIRL 3D(X)<\/i> in VR to engage with \u201cpost-human porn production from within,\u201d harnessing the very technology that the porn industry is currently most aggressively investing in.24<\/sup> <\/span>Seen via a headset while reclining on a vegan leather beanbag, the work forces us to not only confront the status of its imagery but also the very hardware that facilitates the experience. In this way, Hansen\u2019s work can also be read against the burgeoning teledildonics industry of interactive sex toys that sync couples online to facilitate touch at a distance via haptic technology. Yet another industry booming due to the pandemic\u2014when not only our social, but, for many, sexual encounters are taking place online\u2014these innovations force us to question the infrastructure that frames and supports these experiences.25<\/sup><\/span> In 2018, Ralph Russo and Christophe Ramstein, then leaders of the haptic sensor technology firm Novasentis, heralded the dawn of the \u201cneo-sensory age,\u201d which they saw as one \u201cwhere previously lifeless electronic devices come alive through touch and touch feedback .\u00a0.\u00a0. that respond to human touch.\u201d26<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n Both Leeson and Hansen\u2014drawing on the technologies available to each at the time\u2014force us to renegotiate our understanding of touch, lust, and desire within these newly mediated environments, not only vis-\u00e0-vis one another but also in relation to the now-alive machine. It is worth returning to Haraway, whose cyborg theory posited that technology relies on \u201cthe translation of the world into a problem of coding<\/i>, a search for a common language in which all resistance to instrumental control disappears and all heterogeneity can be submitted to disassembly, reassembly, investment, and exchange.\u201d27 <\/sup><\/span>Leeson and Hansen, along with many other voices in \u201cThe Body Electric\u201d\u2014<\/i>especially those of Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Zach Blas, Sondra Perry, and Martine Syms\u2014question the very means by which technology codes, asking \u201cWhat are the possibilities of resisting perpetuated normative categories that result in control and domination?\u201d<\/p>\n \n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/still.inbetweenartfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/7.jpg” alt=”Cristina Lucas, Mundo Masculino y Mundo Femenino, 2010. Courtesy of the artist” title_text=”7″ module_id=”img1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”70%” max_width=”70%”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_id=”tptext” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n Carolyn Lazard, installation view of In Sickness and Study<\/i>, (2015-present) in \u201cThe Body Electric,\u201d Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Photo: Bobby Rogers.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ text_font_size=”20px” custom_margin=”20px||20px||true|false”]<\/p>\n While much of \u201cThe Body Electric\u201d looks at the ways in which we define ourselves vis-\u00e0-vis the screen, the exhibition\u2019s final section\u2014\u2018The Malleable Body\u2019\u2014explores how the body becomes porous, fluid, and subject to transformation via internal or external forces. Many of the artists gathered here\u2014especially Jes Fan, Josh Kline, Carolyn Lazard, Candice Lin, Marianna Simnett, Patrick Staff, and Anicka Yi\u2014ask how invisible molecular substances, such as hormones or bacteria, become gendered, racialized, and charged with meaning.<\/p>\n Kline\u2019s and Lazard\u2019s work gained particularly pointed meaning during the pandemic, given their emphasis on health. Kline\u2019s Share the Health<\/i> (2011\u2013ongoing) consists of now-ubiquitous hand sanitizer dispensers, each filled with a nutrient gel. Showing, literally, a landscape of unfolding decay\u2014the very stuff our minds have been preoccupied with since March 2020\u2014each dispenser grows bacteria-swabbed sites specified by the artist. His choice of cities in the exhibition\u2019s tour was telling, each dispenser becoming a portrait rife with connotations of social class and belonging.28 <\/sup><\/span>Denied their disinfectant purpose, the dispensers made visible the constant presence of the invisible viral pathogens that surround us, garnering renewed salience during COVID-19 when we are frantically seeking to protect our skin and immediate surroundings. Originally made for Instagram, In Sickness and Study<\/i> (2015\u2013ongoing) documents biweekly intravenous iron infusions that Lazard receives as treatment for their autoimmune disorders. Each image, taken in the hospital room, shows the artist\u2019s hand holding up the cover of whichever book they are reading at the time. In many ways, In Sickness and Study<\/i> is a fitting coda for \u201cThe Body Electric\u201d in 2021. The work makes Lazard\u2019s body visible to confront the social codes that inform our understanding of sickness and treatment. While once the hospital room might have been the main space of healing, COVID-19 has transformed our homes into places of convalescence where we are forced to self-isolate. It is impossible to look at the series today without being reminded of the pronounced inequalities of healthcare access, as well as the distrust that many communities of color have toward vaccinations, a disenfranchisement perpetuated by a systemically racist healthcare system. Finally, like much of \u201cThe Body Electric\u201d, Lazard\u2019s series reminds us that our lives are negotiated at the interstice of the here and now and the endless and timeless space of the screen. As technology mediates our lives in increasingly complex ways, the work of so many artists on view encapsulate the tension between two polarities we face every day\u2014enthrallment with technology\u2019s new possibilities and a skepticism of its often sinister and invisible agendas at play.<\/span><\/p>\n \n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_tabs active_tab_background_color=”#FFFFFF” inactive_tab_background_color=”#FFFFFF” active_tab_text_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.5)” disabled_on=”on|on|off” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” tab_text_color=”#000000″ body_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” body_line_height=”1.4em” tab_font=”ABC Web regular|||on|||||” tab_letter_spacing=”1px” body_link_text_color=”#cecece” background_color=”#FFFFFF” max_height=”600px” overflow-y=”scroll” filter_saturate=”0%” sticky_position=”top” sticky_offset_top=”115px” sticky_limit_top=”row” sticky_limit_bottom=”row” sticky_offset_surrounding=”off” sticky_transition=”off” border_width_all=”0px” body_link_text_color__hover_enabled=”on|desktop”][et_pb_tab title=”Bio” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” tab_letter_spacing=”2px” overflow-y=”scroll”]<\/p>\n Pavel S. Py\u015b<\/b>, Curator of Visual Arts, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis<\/p>\n Pavel S. Py\u015b\u00a0is Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. At the Walker, Pavel has curated projects across the galleries, theater and Sculpture Garden, including the group exhibition\u00a0\u201cThe Body Electric\u201d\u00a0and solo projects with Daniel Buren, Paul\u00a0Chan, Michaela Eichwald, Carolyn\u00a0Lazard, and\u00a0Elizabeth Price.\u00a0He was the Exhibitions & Displays Curator at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds between 2011-2015.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_tab][et_pb_tab title=”Notes” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” body_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” tab_font=”ABC Web regular||||||||” tab_font_size=”14px” tab_letter_spacing=”2px” background_color=”RGBA(0,0,0,0)” background_enable_color=”on” overflow-y=”auto”]<\/p>\n 1 \u201cThe Body Electric\u201d premiered at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis in March 2019 and travelled to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (September 2019-February 2020) and the Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College (November 2020-May 2021).<\/p>\n 2 Such as the exhibitions Speculations on Anonymous Materials<\/i> (2013) and Inhuman <\/i>(2015), curated by Susanne Pfeffer at the Fridericianum in Kassel, as well as Art Post-Internet<\/i> (2014), curated by Karen Archey at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.<\/p>\n 3 See Brian Droitcour, \u201cThe Perils of Post-Internet Art\u201d Art in America<\/i>, October 29, 2014, available online.<\/p>\n 4 Rosalind Krauss, \u201cVideo: The Aesthetics of Narcissism,\u201d October<\/i> 1 (Spring 1976): 53.<\/p>\n 5 Joan Jonas quoted in an interview with Karin Schneider, BOMB<\/i>, July 1, 2010, available online.<\/p>\n 6 See Jeremy Engle, \u201cHow Worried Should We Be About Screen Time During the Pandemic?\u201d The New York Times<\/i>, January 22, 2021, available online.<\/p>\n 7 For an analysis of the relationship between social media and narcissism, see Laura E. Buffardi and W. Keith Campbell, \u201cNarcissism and Social Networking Web Sites,\u201d Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin<\/i> 34, issue 10 (2008): 1303\u201314.<\/p>\n 8 Crystal Abidin, \u201cAren\u2019t These Just Young, Rich Women Doing Vain Things Online?: Influencer Selfies as Subversive Frivolity,\u201d Social Media + Society<\/i> 2, issue 2 (April 11, 2016), available online.<\/p>\n 9 Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto<\/i> (London\/New York: Verso, 2020), 105.<\/p>\n 10 Brian Droitcour, \u201cLet Us See You See You,\u201d DIS Magazine<\/i>, December 3, 2012, available online.<\/p>\n 11 In 2018, New Zealand\u2019s Auckland airport premiered VAI, the AI-powered biosecurity officer, which questions arriving passengers at immigration checkpoints.<\/p>\n 12 Such as the British charity Scope, which, on occasion of the 2016 World Emoji Day, released a number of new emojis representing variously abled bodies, see Emily Reynolds, \u201cWhere are all the disabled emoji? Scope releases icons to celebrate the Paralympics,\u201d Wired<\/i>, July 14, 2016, available online.<\/p>\n 13 Brandon Ambrosino, \u201cFacebook is a growing and unstoppable digital graveyard,\u201d BBC Future<\/i>, March 13, 2016, available online.<\/p>\n 14 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man<\/i> (New York: Mentor, 1964), 64.<\/p>\n 15 James Bridle, New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future<\/i> (New York: Verso, 2018), 7.<\/p>\n 16 Ed Atkins describing Happy Birthday!!<\/i> in a promotional video for his solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz in 2019. Kunsthaus Bregenz, \u201cVermittlungsfilm: KUB 2019.01 Ed Atkins,\u201d February 13, 2019, YouTube video, 16:57, available online.<\/p>\n 17 As advertised by Gatebox on their website\u2019s page dedicated to Azuma Hikari.<\/p>\n 18 I thank Zach Blas for drawing my attention to Azuma Hikari.<\/p>\n 19 See Kashmir Hill, \u201cWrongfully Accused by an Algorithm,\u201d The New York Times<\/i>, June 24, 2020, available online.<\/p>\n 20 Stephanie Phillips, \u201cExploring Mixed Race Identity in CGI Influencers,\u201d Dazed Digital<\/i>, September 26, 2018, available online.<\/p>\n 21 Paul. B. Preciado, Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era<\/i> (New York: The Feminist Press, 2013), p. 44.<\/p>\n 22 Stelarc, \u201cBeyond the Body: Amplified Body, Laser Eyes, and Third Hand,\u201d in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists Writing<\/i>, ed. Kristine Stiles and Peter Howard Selz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 427\u201330. Essay first published in 1986.<\/p>\n 23 David M. Ewalt, \u201cThe First Real Boom in Virtual Reality? It\u2019s Pornography,\u201d The Wall Street Journal<\/i>, July 11, 2018, available online.<\/p>\n 24 E-flux announcement for Sidsel Meineche Hansen\u2019s exhibition SECOND SEX WAR<\/i>, Gasworks, London, March 17\u2013May 29, 2016, available online.<\/p>\n 25 EJ Dickinson, \u201cThanks to COVID-19, Internet-Connected Sex Toy Sales Are Booming,\u201d in Rolling Stone<\/i>, March 31, 2020, available online.<\/p>\n 26 Ralph Russo and Christophe Ramstein, \u201cWearables and the \u2018Neo-Sensory Age\u2019,\u201d Wired<\/i>, August 2018, available online.<\/p>\n 27 Donna J. Haraway, \u201cA cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century,\u201d in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature<\/i> (London: Free Association Books, 1991), 164.<\/p>\n 28 The following places were swabbed for bacteria to produce Kline\u2019s work: in Minneapolis, the hunting section of a Walmart, a Home Depot checkout line, leaflets provided at a US military recruiting station, a McDonald\u2019s tabletop, and the back of a long-haul trailer truck; in San Francisco, Twitter headquarters, a Tesla dealership, the restaurant Chez Panisse, a Facebook bus, and an Equinox gym; in Miami, Hotel Delano, the Miami Beach Convention Center, Standard Spa & Hotel, Joe\u2019s Stone Crab, and a luxury yacht.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_tab][et_pb_tab title=”Images” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” tab_letter_spacing=”2px” overflow-y=”scroll”]<\/p>\n
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