From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Jan 21 2001 - 18:26:48 MST
Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de writes:
> Most of my students said there was a significant difference between [French
> performance artist] Orlan and Jackson: Both employed the same cutting-edge
> medical technology, but while the means were comparable, the ends differed
> greatly. When asked why she is reconstructing herself to look like Barbie,
> Jackson replies that it is for power: "I used to seek pleasure from men,
> and now they seek it from me.... This is the ultimate feminist statement. I
> refuse to let nature decide my fate just because I missed out on the
> genetic lottery."
I think those students did not fully understand their points (have
I?): they are deciding their appearances to look according to some
ideal they have themselves decided. That Orlan makes herself less like
the popular ideal and Cindy more like the popular ideal doesn't mean
the ends are different. Orlan may be doing it as an official artwork
- and hence cannot allow herself to look like the popular ideal since
that would be an uncreative, rather derivative artwork - and Cindy as
self-fulfilment, but both seem to be doing it as self-expression.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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