Why look in the mirror when you can use one of these?

Lucy Mcrae's metallic skin

Metallic Skin from Lucy McRae on Vimeo.

In the “Rojo Nova Work in Progress” exhibition at the Sao Paolo Museum of Image and Sound,  McRae is currently showcasing her unique perspective on the body.  In a statement, the museum stated that “her provocative and often grotesquely beautiful imagery suggests a new breed; a future human archetype existing in an alternate world.”  It is here that the point of the work of Macrae and other artists and designers featured on this blog becomes evident, it is possible that these creative images of various human archetypes can further our understanding of clusters of tendencies and possibilities for future growth and development, particular as the models visual stories are developed, their strengths and weaknesses studied.

The body as a design question

While it is clear that the human body is capable of adapting to so many impositions placed on it, it is interesting to see the body as a design question rather than as a problem.  As seen in Dezeen magazine,  Marcia Nolt has constructed a series of portraits that illustrate how the human body is capable of adapting itself to the design of products, including a hole in the lips for smokers and an extended shoulder for holding the phone.  The series is called Corpus 2.0 and shows a a variety of versions of the human body, influenced by factors like developments in technology, but also fashion phenomena, ways of living and products.  Other proposals seen here include a ridge in the nose developed for wearing glasses, ears moulded to accommodate earphones, a thumb with an extra joint for sending SMS messages more efficiently and a foot adapted to create the same posture as wearing high heels.  

The Imperfectionist Returns

So it's been a while, and although I may have been absent, hopefully I have not been forgotten.  In fitting tribute to my return I thought it would be appropriate to post the work of designer Sophie Duran, found in De Zeen magazine.  Duran has created a series of facial jewellery, including these lips which can be inflated with a hand pump.  The series is called The Imperfectionist, and includes a blue moustache with spectacle frames with a handle, as a homage to the vagaries of style the wearer can wind the false eyelashes up and down.  For those who find it difficult to commit permanently to a style (like myself) this is the perfect solution.

Kosovar-Bosnian bride

A Kosovar Bosnian bride, Senita Demirovic, has her face painted by a woman on her wedding day for a traditional ceremony in the village of Donje Ljubinje, Kosovo. The tradition, whose origins date from beyond living memory, is virtually viewed by almost all residents with universal pride as it has come to symbolize this place’s special identity. The bride has her face painted to prevent bad luck during the wedding ceremony. Donje Ljubinje is situated in the Shar mountains that form the border between Kosovo and FYROM. The inhabitants call themselves ‘Torbesh.’

Boo Ritson

"Boo Ritson paints people, but not on canvas or on board – she literally coats people with paint. Presented as photographs, Ritson’s portraits are a double masquerade: her subjects coated in sticky disguise, and the documentary image a surrogate representation of the tangible painterly, sculptural, and performative qualities of work. By using photography Ritson capitalises on the associations of snapshot memory and filmic narrative, with each of her characters playing out readily recognisable stereotypes.

Bathed beneath the gooeyness of common household paint, Ritson’s subjects are transformed into athletes, cowgirls, and slot-jockeys. Highlighting the malleability of identity, Ritson’s impostors are rendered oddly totemic as the dripping contours of their wet ‘skins’ create a statuesque effect that’s equally stoically chiselled and insincerely plastic. Balancing between social masks and suffocating veneers, Ritson’s painted effigies stand as psychological animi; a sentiment epitomised in Godfather, where the eyes of her living model are exposed, giving a jarring humility to his hard man mafioso exterior."

Via The Saatchi Gallery

 

Cowgirl, 2006

Girlfriend, 2006

Godfather, 2006

Slotplayer, 2006

Blue Swimmer, 2006

Illamsqua supports student collections

It is always exciting to see a Cosmetic brand like Illamasqua support burgeoning new talent, so I thought I would post the video they filmed of the Media Fashion Styling students at their fashion show a few weeks ago.