journal - the body...

[dragonofdispair]

Focus Question: How have medical, computer or other technologies altered our perception of our bodies? How have contemporary artists chosen to express these new representations of the human form? What is the the difference between nudity and pornography?

medical technology gives us a more accurate knowledge of the human form, both inside and out. computer technologies make it so that that knowledge is accessible to everyone. if i'm curious of what the human brain looks like, i type "human brain" into google and it gives me 33,900,000 results -- and while many of those will be completely useless, it conveniently gives me a separate set of results within that of images. so now i know what a human brain looks like viewed from x-rays. mris, and autopsies. (it also gives me video results -- yay for youtube! -- but i didn't watch those.)

so all in all, i think we have a more accurate physical knowledge of what the human body is. so what does that leave us with? well, as with photography, we could, as drawing-artists, continue to depict the body in the most accurate way our skills allow, or use this new technology and knowledge to abstract the body. or attempt to explore the symbolic meanings of the parts. or any combination thereof. which seems to be what all three of the suggested artists are doing...

nudity and pornography... in some minds, there will be no difference. i, however, am not a sex-obsessed, mentally twelve-year-old moron whom i would very much like to...yeah, not going there. basically, pornography is an image which is designed to arouse and which has no real purpose beyond that. just because someone is nude in a picture, doesn't mean you're supposed to be getting off on it. and some perfectly good porn shows the subject, or subjects, fully clothed. the lack of nudity doesn't make it not-porn.