What is normally perceived as ugly now throws into question what is traditionally considered as beautiful.
While technology makes it possible to refashion the 'natural' human body through cosmetic surgery, there is also the potential for gender boundaries to be blurred or reconstructed, in turn radically redefining who we are. The 'cosmetic' work offered by new artists, photographers and designers often emphasises the artificiality of beauty, the images presenting the viewer with new forms of embodiment that defy gender identity. It is possible that this refashioning of beauty, as evidenced by the anti aesthetic of work of artists such as Davide Faggiano, is used as a way of challenging patriarchal conceptions of beauty, and highlights the fact that gender is a performance rather than a biologically determined given. The techniques and procedures used by the cosmetic creatives only serves to magnify the role crafted practices play in the construction of identity, as opposed to the relatively recent use of technology and surgical techniques favoured by so many.
SPEECH from davide faggiano on Vimeo.
While technology makes it possible to refashion the 'natural' human body through cosmetic surgery, there is also the potential for gender boundaries to be blurred or reconstructed, in turn radically redefining who we are. The 'cosmetic' work offered by new artists, photographers and designers often emphasises the artificiality of beauty, the images presenting the viewer with new forms of embodiment that defy gender identity. It is possible that this refashioning of beauty, as evidenced by the anti aesthetic of work of artists such as Davide Faggiano, is used as a way of challenging patriarchal conceptions of beauty, and highlights the fact that gender is a performance rather than a biologically determined given. The techniques and procedures used by the cosmetic creatives only serves to magnify the role crafted practices play in the construction of identity, as opposed to the relatively recent use of technology and surgical techniques favoured by so many.
SPEECH from davide faggiano on Vimeo.
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