Week 4 | Medicine + Technology + Art | Blog Assignment

Body, Art, & Technology

"Medical technologies are constantly shifting the relationship that we have with our bodies and ourselves" (Vesna, Lecture Part 4). I have always been fascinated by the concept of plastic surgery and the advancement of medical technologies that have allowed humans to configure themselves to their own liking and conception of their own beauty standards. However, I think an interesting thing to think about is, are these beauty standards created by ourselves or the world around us? Is this medical technology freedom to control body image or is it further perpetuating external societal control over bodies and identities? 

I remember learning about the renowned performance artist, Orlan, for the first time at UCLA in a Sociology class about the body and society. I was definitely shocked by her artistry and the way that she uses cosmetic surgery to challenge the traditional ways that people undergo surgery. Instead of using surgery to attain mainstream beauty standards, she intended to produce new images that aren't traditionally seen as a body artist. Orlan's work is unique and has changed the ways in which the body, in relation to identity is perceived through various acts of famous paintings in her surgeries. Professor Vesna explains this process of external performance and how Orlan's artwork challenges generations of beauty standards and gender barriers in artistic practices (Vesna, Lecture Part 3). In the Omnipresence Youtube video, we see more in depth an example of Orlan's implants and procedures that reveal the brutal reality of cosmetic surgery based on sixteenth century beauty ideals (Youtube, 2019). 

There is a complex relationship between cosmetic surgery and identity which I read about in an article called Cosmetic Surgery and the Eclipse of Identity. It is not the women who decide to get cosmetic surgery but the pressures and standards created by society that drives women to feel unsatisfied or distant from the body that they were born with. Negrin (2002) explains that “cosmetic surgery is not about beauty but identity”, and is also a way for women to “renegotiate identity through her body”(p. 24). Women will “refashion” their bodies not to match the mainstream standards of beauty but rather to feel more like the way that they imagine themselves to be, which is constructed socially through the externalization of identity and experience that individuals have with other people.

Bibliography

    King, C. (2019, July 23). Social issues breadth. Social Issues Breadth. https://socialissuesbreadth.wordpress.com/

Negrin. Llewellyn (2002). Cosmetic Surgery and the Eclipse of Identity. Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 4.

YouTube. (2019, July 23). Omnipresence by Orlan at Perfection. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IM3ADSprFc

Vesna, Victoria (2024). Human Body & Medical Technologies Part 3. UCLA DESMA 9: Art, Science, and Technology. 

Vesna, Victoria (2024). Human Body & Medical Technologies Part 4. UCLA DESMA 9: Art, Science, and Technology.