Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

Winter project proposal! Environmental Portraits on Identity. 

Timothy
Concept Rhyming Paper #3
Essay Questions


THE SELF


Question:
Through the destruction of the heart machine in the film Metropoilis, both upper and lower levels were deemed useless due to the loss of power. How could equality between the two classes of Metropolis be gained through the destruction of the heart machine?

My Answer:

Through the loss of the machine, the city was deemed useless. The lower levels were flooded deeming them useless as well. Yet at the end of the film, the head, heart, and body were united creating a triad. Through this triad, it would appear that equality was gained To create equality would be for both the lower and upper class to act like the machine they destroyed. For the machine they would have to create a democracy, a new form of government and organization. A new machine to power the city would have to be built, yet through this process might occur difficulties in equality, so it would have to be a cooperative movement, like a well oiled machine.


THE SUBJECT

Question:
How is identity evolving through gender and sexuality? How would Butler define identity? What is gender’s role in identity?

My Answer:
It seems that Butler isn’t interested in defining identity. It’s a constantly moving perception both within others and us. She’s interested in how gender plays into identity. Like identity, gender sometimes isn’t a set thing. Like identity, gender is moving. Shaping identity in numerous ways.

THE CITIZEN

Question:
How is gender an ideology? Is it? How Teresa de Lauretis talk about ideology in context with gender?

My Answer:
- Ideology: “visionary theorizing, a system of concepts about human life or culture,” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary).
- “Replacing ideology with gender in Athusser’s quote: “All ideaology has the function (which defines it) of ‘constituting’ concrete individuals as subjects,’ (Althusser, 171),” (de Lauretis, 7). Gives us a a parallel between gender and ideology.

I first fell in love the camera during high school. Wait, scratch that. I first fell in love with making images in middle school taking digital photographs and then altering them digitally. Years later in highschool, I found the black and white dark room and I was sold. Taking photographs since then has almost replaced writing for me. While before I used to write about everything, now I photograph it. Through this new mode of expression and creation, I used the camera to photograph people and to learn about them. Through the use of my camera I have a discussion with light, shadow, focus, and perception. This is my mode of communication. This is my prosthesis. 

 

Whoopie cushion

 

The whoopie cushion is here for my amusement. It makes me smile when I'm stressed. Like the camera it creates room for discussion. By blowing it up, and placing it on an unknowing subjects chair, it creates mode of humor. It's lung like shape allows air in silent and out rudely.  It's a simple and cheap way to make a room laugh or become uncomfortable. 

 

The Farmer's Market

Presented by Timothy, Melissa, and iea 

 

Audio
Audio+pictures
Naming rounds

Sensory Overload. Entering into the structure, one is accosted by sounds, sights and smells. One finds tightly compact spaces layered with items displayed. The structure itself provides various scenarios for the body to interact in, while the structure as Farmer’s Market places the body into three distinct categories: Vendor, Consumer Musician, as documented by a pseudo-fourth category: the observers (in other words, us).

Observing provided quite a bit of questions, some of which are on the handout. We’d like to focus on the inquiry of “How does the time mechanism set a pace/direct the flow and interaction of bodies? How does time affect power between the bodies and within the structure?”

Vendors can only sell within the set hours of ten and three and the space marked for appropriate action as a vendor is designated by a bell: one ring in the morning to signify the beginning of the day and one in the afternoon to indicate the close of the day.  If anyone wishes to deviate from the bell, they must approach the staff in the office and request special permission.  

Before the bell, bodies interact in a fast pace manner using machinery, while as time approaches the bell, the bodies settle in for a more repetitive role.  Between the bell, the interaction of bodies exercise in parabolic energy. Beginning with the arrival of the vendors the energy begins to build and then subside in anticipation of the bell. Once the bell sounds, energy rises with the arrival of the consumer. As the consumer population increases so does the tension between the three classifications of bodies. The musicians add to the pace of time by designating the peek hours with their function as entertainment. The energy reaches its peak and then disintegrates on the approach of the bell. The musicians leave, the consumers begin to dwindle, and the bell rings, releasing tension. The interaction then turns to bodies and machines once again. Thus,, time is a technique, which provides the space for these functions to exist.

We analyzed the dynamics of the exchange in the farmer’s market through both a triad and a binary conception and the context in which time interacts in these theories.

As a triad, we have, as already discussed, the consumer, the vendor and the musician. The vendor causes the space to function as the farmer’s market; the musician provides the presence of the farmer’s market and lastly, the consumer uses the space. All three categories support each other and provide an interchanging flow of power.

Similarly, in a binary manner, as Foucault tends to explore, we found dichotomous tension. For example, in the physical structure versus bodily structure, it is difficult to segment the two for they relate to each other, as the setup of the place and the interaction contained within the place. In the interior and exterior shows how the exterior of the building sets boundaries for the place, while the interior explodes nearly limitlessly (various sights, smells and sounds). If we reterm objectivity and subjectivity, objectivity implies following the rules within the structure, while subjectivity exerts as a manner in which to bend the rules while still existing within the structure.  In subjectivity, then, we enter into another dichotomy of high stakes/low stakes.  We, as observers, toyed with the idea of high stakes/low stakes, which the tension between the two is made possible in part by Judith Butler’s term of performativity, where a power structure only exerts its power by a constant reiteration of its function and it is in this repetitive notion that the power structure becomes vulnerable.  If the farmer’s market is constantly a place where bodies go to exchange, then Tim, Melissa and I, as observers, broke this primary rule of exchange in a low stakes manner.  The constant rule of the farmer’s market provided us with the space for observation in more of a low stakes manner because we were able to blend with the other bodies, while remaining apart from the bodies and interacting very little with the market as a place where bodies come to exchange.  Thus, we were left with a dichotomous high stakes/low stakes question of “What is not the farmer’s market?”

 

I had a dream I got into a car wreck with my father's old car. Here is the obituary for the car.

Delivered in 1954, it arrived gleaming and bright. Purchased as a present for my grandmother by my grandfather, it was classy. As the years past, various hands held that large steering wheel, long before the days of power steering, it was a beast. I remember as a boy, my cousin and I, taking it for a spin. After my grandfather past away, it stayed put in the garage at my grandmothers until my father decided, it needed an overhaul. A month later, it emerged, just as new. A new coat of paint, matched to the original shade of fire engine red, and some modifications to the engine and frame it was ready. I remember the day I first sat in front of the steering wheel. The dashboard, an assortment of gauges and knobs, no modern car contained. Yet now, we stand here, at the final resting spot of this gorgeous piece of machinery. It's body smashed and faded, it's engine purr, no longer audible. It will truly be missed. 

So, I had the film, Sin City, on the brain when I wrote this:

     He ran. Frightened for his life. He'd never understood the reason for them coming after him.

    "Stop you!" he heard them shout, but he couldn't stop. Oxygen to the brain and he kept running. He kept thinking back to what started this all: the intrusion. 

    But this dread was something different. It was a fear of intrusion into himself rather than an expansion of the world's gaze.

    It was after that first intrusion that he started running. His mind ached for it, very much the way someone with terminal lung cancer ached for a cigarette. He craved the feeling, the air, the movement, of running.

    Turn over please...Mmmm, Very pronounced gluteus maximus. 

    There it was again. The shock. The street signs blurred. The dirt around him kicked up. He heard the sounds of gunfire. The vision of the place, still etched in his mind: red doors. White numbers. With a flash of light he saw it.

    The way the plaster had been teased up into little fronds on the wall, like miniature stalactites.

    It was an astonishing sight for someone like Margoulies, who understood the anatomy of the human body both from within and without. 

      It began to rain now, the water hitting the ground like drumsticks on a snare drum. They filed quietly past, their mission accomplished.

 

 

 

Performed as a monologue.

 

Character: Boy, age 10

"Have you ever felt your life fly before you? A boy in shorts and a faded t-shirt climbs an apple tree and wonders why we're here or who we really are. Why does he feel like he's flying high above the earth when hes firmly rooted to the ground and taking the dog for a walk? It's like that scene in that movie. Where the camera pans out like it's rooted in outer space. You see the ground sink beneath you as your vision gets higher and higher as if you're flying towards the sky, towards space, towards nowhere. We see the earth, the milky way and suddenly, the scene changes to show a creature holding a marble, thats the universe as humans know it. The creature drops the marble in the bag and then bam! The films over. I feel like that sometimes. It's kinda weird."

 

 

 Why do you want  to know who lives here?!  Should i mention the man who showed up one night wearing a prison jump suite?  

Okay, ill give you a name. John Doe.

Telephone number? Why do you want them to answer more questions?  

Hm. If I say what sex I am, then this information will be a statistic.

So why ask both the age and year? Can't you do math?!

Shouldn't question #5 go together with #6.

Marriage eh? Weird. What about partnership?

How do i answer this question if I attended private and public schools?!

Where did I live five years ago? What a question.

No. No.

I work in an interesting industry. Can you guess which one? I bet not.

No, I won't tell you how much money I make a year, you might try and tax me more.

Never served in the military, never will. Pray there's no draft. I'd get mad.

No, there's no telephone in the house, and if there was, would I answer your phone call.

So If my son lives in a box truck in the backyard. Does this count as a vehicle if it's missing one wheel?

I am a photographer looking to do some sort of photography series for my winter project. I haven't narrowed down the content aspect of my project,  although it'll be in the form of portraits and images speaking about the human body in relation to culture. How does fashion play into what our identities as individuals and of a culture and society? I'm still hesitant about this concept. Considering a group project if folks are interested. The ability to provide honest, critical, and technical feedback about work is a must. Whether you're doing film or digital doesn't matter to me. I have experience in both, and could provide a commercial insight to people interested in fine art. I'm also interested in the concept of images and their effective use in advertising. How do images play a roll in how we see ourselves. These are questions that I'm trying to figure out in order to narrow the concept of my project down.

 I'm looking for folks, who are creative, organized, but can also be spontaneous.    If you're interested, let me know!

 

 

 

 

Timothy 10/11/07
Fashioning the Body
Fall 07/08
Julia Zay

Power and Foucault


What is power? Who is Michel Foucault? How do power and Foucault connect? In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality: An Introduction Vol. 1, he was fascinated in the “forms of power, the channels it takes and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous and individual modes of behavior,” (Foucault, 11). Power was everywhere, especially in the evolution of sexuality, as it is known present day. Yet, power has multiples definitions. It can be defined as a set standard, a ruling; we either have it or we don’t. For Foucault, however, it was everywhere, woven within sexuality and society, and life. To us however, someone in authority, creating a hierarchy, holds power. Foucault disagreed with this statement.
“Power operated as a mechanism of attraction; it drew out those peculiarities over which it kept watch. Pleasure spread to the power that harried it; power anchored the pleasure it uncovered,” (Foucault, 45). By using words such as pleasure, Foucault was able to weave the concept of power into different meanings. It was something that was found within our minds, our bodies, and us. We can use power to further investigate the concepts within sexuality. “It did not set boundaries for sexuality; it extended the various forms of sexuality pursuing them to lines of indifference,” (Foucault, 47). It was this energy that existed everywhere. To everyone else, power was authority, the set way. Nevertheless grounded in Foucault’s theories was the concept that power could be many things.
Religion, and the confession was a concept of power. To confess was to transfer power. “Confession frees, but power reduces one to silence; truth does not belong to the order of power but shares an original affinity with freedom,” (Foucalt, 60). Confession, A shift of power from one to another, was key in the concept of power. Was religion a means of confining power? To express power was to express desire. By confessing ones sins, and particularly the ones concerning sexual deviances, power was easily acquired. Yet, power on both the behalf of the confessor and the confessed. This gave much insight into what we could learn from society, and from our own bodies. By confessing, we sought we relieve the body of sin. Yet, people weren’t so open about it. “Perhaps the point to consider is not the level of indulgence or the quantity of repression but the form of power that was exercised,” (Foucault, 41). What had we learned from being repressed? Were we? Foucault argues we weren’t.