Contribution short abstract:

Bodypainting is an activity that centers the body, however, the models describe their fascination for the art as a way to better accept their bodies and to ultimately surpass them by becoming part of an artwork.

Contribution long abstract:

"The body as canvas"—this frequently used phrase is the typical way to describe bodypainting. After giving an introduction to the multifold cultural connections of bodypainting and discussing the issue of cultural appropriation, the art is defined with regard to the scene of bodypainting and with a focus on the "living canvas", the model. Although bodypainting can be challenging for him/her, models report that they enjoy the process and the result, even if they may not be confident about their own bodies. One reason is that collective creativity can help to deal with the shortcomings of reality. Another cause is that the transformation, the “double staging”–becoming a three-dimensional work of art and later on being staged for a photograph—distances the body from the model and gives him/her the chance to see his/her painted body detached from him-/herself. Therefore, on the one hand, bodypainting closely relates to the body, on the other hand, it can help to overcome the body.

Contribution short abstract:

This presentation analyses women’s artistic representations regarding their changing bodies across cancer experiences. Expanding the normal, the amputated, bald, asymmetric, scarred and reconstructed body, dismantle stereotypes of what we assume as female, sensual, beautiful, strong and whole.

Contribution long abstract:

This presentation intersects the results of a research trilogy, conducted between 2005 and 2019, about women’s knowledge, narratives and artistic representations regarding their changing bodies across cancer experiences. Gathering two different lists of art projects across the Internet, going across and beyond breast cancer, opening the research to the many organs and malignancies depicted in women’s representations of oncology’s material culture, we will discuss how art takes part in the process of rethinking and reconstructing lives and bodies. The arts, and photography in particular, predominant over other media, exposes hidden realities that normally stay unnoticed behind clothes and prosthetic devices. Increasing the visual list of what we understand as normal, the amputated, bald, asymmetric, scarred and reconstructed body, dismantle stereotypes of what we assume as healthy, female, sensual, beautiful, strong and whole. From theory to practice, the researcher also transferred to paper the stories of women and cancer patients from her own relational circle, completing the texts with drawings, paintings and photographs. In this illustrated monograph, we also find women and experiences that redefine understandings of wholeness, finding completeness within new body contours, refusing medical implants and prostheses, enhancing and extending their flesh and bodies through alternative objects, materialities and substances, from make-up and clothes to the reconstructive ink of tattoos.

Keywords: art; cancer; amputation; alternative beauty and wholeness

Contribution short abstract:

Based on the analysis of the Chinese social network dedicated to cosmetic surgery, I will try to understand how physical transformations and the use of filters in selfies create images influenced by a distinctly unreal aesthetic, transforming the human body into an almost non-human figuration.

Contribution long abstract:

In recent years, with the introduction of technology in daily life, many new practices have emerged. Selfie is an example, a new word defined in 2013 as “photography that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media”.

Recurrent research on selfies focuses not only on its meaning, but also on its authenticity, showing that a large percentage of those that are placed on social networks are subject to filters, presenting individuals not as they are but as they would like to be. Some works relate this phenomenon to the search for aesthetic interventions, known as snapchat dysmorphia disorder.

Among the countries that observe an exponential growth of aesthetic intervention, there’s China, ranking second in the list of countries that most perform plastic surgery, and simultaneously the country with the largest number of users of social networks.

In my proposal, I intend to analyze the content of a Chinese social network that has no parallel with others. So Young is an exclusive network designed to demonstrate the results of aesthetic interventions but where filters continue being used.

I propose to demonstrate how the result of the aesthetic interventions carried out is not necessarily the result the user intended, being necessary the use of filters to make it possible to achieve the ideal imaginary.

This ideal imaginary, as we shall see, is influenced by a distinctly unreal aesthetic, transforming the human body and sculpting it according to an almost non-human figuration.

Contribution short abstract:

Material-discursive tattooing practices in Naples are performative articulations of the interrelated beauty of the city and its people. In Late Modernity, tattoos in Naples are re/activated cultural reserves (Hauschild 2008) between cultural capitalism (Reckwitz 2019) and aesthetic lust (Böhme 2013)

Contribution long abstract:

What is the tattooed beauty of Naples and how can tattooing practices help to see beauty itself in a different light? Drawing from my fieldwork in Naples, I argue that there is a local dynamic, an urge for a positive, a ‘beautiful’ image, not only of the people themselves, but of the whole city. Tattooing as a material-discursive practice rose from the social margins to the forefront of a Neapolitan beauty(-industry)-complex. The individual mark on one’s skin also reflects the city’s discursive landscape(s), its beauty-standards and much praised uniqueness. Not limited to the local criminal sphere or foreign ‘cultures’ anymore, tattooing today is fashionable and can be a possible determinant factor of social (upward) mobility for its bearer and its producer, the tattoo-artist. The performed beautification can help to understand beauty as a social and more-than-aesthetic category. Paradoxically, tattooing, as formerly criticized practice of disgust, became one of the methods to ward off the ugly sides of the city and contribute to its branding as beautiful, unique and resilient. Therewith, tattooing practices can be located in a field of tensions between cultural capitalism (Reckwitz 2019) and aesthetic lust (Böhme 2013). As ambiguous cultural reserve (Hauschild 2008), tattooing has become an integral part of the capitalist Late Modernity and its liberal tendencies but at the same time it is used as a form of resistance to neoliberal imperatives, new and old insecurities.

Contribution short abstract:

The following paper focuses on the relation between body modifications and the power of emotions. It will be looked through different examples, where people try to convey their emotions by getting a tattoo or a piercing and that way, making a mark on their bodies, serving as a permanent reminder.

Contribution long abstract:

The following paper is a part of a bigger research, focused on the permanent aesthetic effects on the human body in Bulgaria. In other words the research is focused on body modifications, such as tattoos and piercings. This phenomenon has its own roots in the whole Balkan area, but the its legalization and its professionalization haven't happened before the nineties of the twentieth century. In Bulgaria most of the tattoo parlors are registered as "beauty saloons", so part of the research is focused on the controversial idea of the beauty of body modifications. Most of the people in society are not used to this "new" concept and tattoos and piercings are often considered as ugly or an indication of a criminal past. The main idea of the proposed paper is to represent some of the changes and the new ideas about body modifications during the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first century. There will be presented some results and answers to questions such as: How do people started to accept tattoos and piercings during the new millennium? Are body modifications considered as a new fashion trend? Do emotions have any effect on the choice for a new tattoo? And last, but not least is there a relation between gaining body awareness and deciding on making changes sometimes considered as radical.