We often presume that those capable of mastering the complexities of emerging technologies, view the world in a manageable binary: discernable 1s and 0s, “yes”es and “no”s, true black and optic white. We assume that these technical savants would trivialize their and our relationships with archaic concepts of material color, shape, and form. Wouldn’t they as well,l be completely disinterested in how those concepts interact with bodies that yearn to be adorned, enhanced and exaggerated?
And what of their craft and corporally focused nemeses immersed in pursuits of blurring the lines between beauty and bawdy…working in mediums neither digital nor organic, but somewhere quite disturbingly in between (like poplin or peau de soie). Wouldn’t these visionaries, dedicated to a unique brand of sculpture insistent on a human form’s engagement, find the fascination with pure concept and visual aesthetic, indulgent? Wouldn’t they see the non-functional (and non commercial) as, creatively too simplistic?
…Leaving us to consider those that embrace just that brand self-purposed creativity: the artists. Dedicated to nurturing their often deliberately complex expressive voices, wouldn’t they scoff at their far more accessible cousins: the techie and the tailor?
What if these three played together, engaging shared passions in varying amounts depending on chosen context, criticism, or conceptual objective?
This triumvirate is responsible for perhaps one of the most dynamic relationships occurring in contemporary creative media: the three-way synergy between fashion, technology and art. It is characterized by explorations of cultural “power” associated with specific material icons and their associated performances. It is complicated by “perverse” inversions of convention that (like so many of our fascinations) we love to hate and hate to love. Most intriguingly, it is stimulated by the break neck “pace” of our cultural metronome that flits back and forth from extreme to extreme, encountering each unique intermediary point at breakneck speeds.
Digital Veil & LED Eyelashes
Artist: Soomi Park
Work: Digital Veil & LED Eyelashes (a digitally documented performance) ()
Project Execution Date and Location: July 2007, Seoul, Korea
Sunglasses, visors, false lashes, SARS masks…What is the link between glamour and the obscured faces to which it is so often attributed? What are the aesthetic parameters of this phenomenon and are there unexplored technological modes of this virtual facial augmentation? These are among the interrogations triggered by Soomi Park’s Digital Vail and LED Eyelashes. Park risks rendering her models grotesque in order to test the limitations of extreme glamour: beauty remains firmly in the critical eye of the beholder.
Yellow
Artist: Olga of Greece
Work: Yellow by Christian Louboutin (Sony Mini DV film, duration: 54 secs)
Olga of Greece engages both the most conventional and contemporary considerations of womanhood in this short film. In 54 seconds, we follow a pair a citron pumps on narrative path complicated by heartache, discovery, liberation, and love. The director is keenly aware of the associations her audience will apply to subtle nuances in imagery and plays with these details dynamically. Though the film's subjects are only depicted from the knees down, by the film's final frame, we know them entirely. Like the large scale model-populated performances pieces of Vanessa Beecroft (http://www.vanessabeecroft.com/), Olga’s work elucidates the representational capabilities of this generally trivialized accessory.
Guise
Artist: Deborah Oropopallo (www.deborahoropallo.com)
Work: Guise (a series of digital prints)
Show Date/Location: Jan./Feb. 2007, San Francisco’s Gallery 16
Related Site: http://www.kehindewiley.com/
http://rhizome.org/editorial/fp/blog.php/347
Artist Deborah Oropallo’s creative foundation (oil painting) is evident in her use of digital image layering, in order to create rhythmic images. These either juxtapose, or mash-up, traditional military portraits with fetish apparel catalog models. Unlike the paintings of artist Kehinde Wiley who renders contemporary black young men in the conventional poses of military portraiture, Orapallo’s catalog pinups are grafted with remarkably analogous postures to those of our nation’s founding fathers’.
Men in Tights
Artist: Bernard Wilhelm, Knick Knight, Damien Jalet
Work: Men in Tights (a digital film, duration: 20.00 mins)
Viewing Date/Location: Mar. 3, 2008, New York’s Tribeca Grand
In this provocative film directed by Nick Knight, mens ready-to-wear designer Bernard Wilhelm appropriates what could be one of the most coded icons of femininity, hosiery, and reassigns it decidedly male eroticism. Furthering the impact of this imagery, is choreography by Damien Jalet which positions legs as kinetic erogenous zones rivaled only by the rear and the crotch. The film leaves one wondering: in regard to the restrictive allure of binding foundation garments, are briefs the newest and most sinister bra?
The Sartorialist
Artist: Scott Schuman
Work: The Sartorialist (a digital photo blog, duration: Sept. 2005 - Present)
Related Site: (http://wearpalettes.blogspot.com/)
Time Magazine has named Scott Schuman one of the world’s most influential tastemakers, because his work chronicles the lightning fast evolution of today’s clothing conscious style capitols. Beyond charting dips and dives in hemlines and hair lengths, Schuman’s unique digital portraiture tells the intimate tale of each subject via the narrative of his or her clothing. In addition Shuman’s relationship with those who comment on his photo posts, has shaped his eye as both a photographer and a social critic.
Paper Rad Fashions
Artist: Paper Rad (http://www.paperrad.org/info/info/)
Work: Paper Rad Fashions (a digital flim, duration: 2mins 50secs)
Paper Rad operates as an enigmatic design collective, hell bent on defying the conventions of art world networking and electronic self-promotion. Their boisterous aesthetic is at once inform by looking beyond the status quo visual and contextual tropes of contemporary media, and flirting with a mid 90s rave culture nostalgia. This dichotomy is revealed in the production of a YouTube “fashion show”: quaintly retro in its naïve production it seeks to move beyond the here and now by offer the notion that a fashion presentation can be executed by any and everybody, wearing every or anything.
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