Beauty Meets Technology

For this project, I was inspired to create futuristic figures that showcase advancements in technology and beauty standards.  I wanted to create figures that were a hybrid of natural human bodies and technological modifications. I imagine these figures existing in our world in the not to distant future. As a society, we already have a tendency to modify our bodies, whether it is more beauty or health reasons. I think that in the future these tendencies will become more standard than they already are. In the future, I can see individuals putting actual pieces of technology onto and into their bodies. The three figures I presented in my piece are a glimpse into what I believe could become a reality one day. I wanted to make these figures unsettling to the viewer in a variety of ways. By making them bodiless, I wanted emphasize the modifications done to their face and hair. By making them eyeless, I wanted to showcase that while they might be humans to the core, they also are machinelike.

My main influence for this piece was Agnieszka Osipa. Although she is not an artist in the traditional sense, to me she is. Agnieszka is a Polish costume designer I recently stumbled upon. When I first saw photos of her work, it stopped me in my tracks because of how different it was. Her work mainly consists of elaborate headdresses and gowns. She infuses Eastern European traditions with elements of fantasy. Her works are undoubtedly beautiful, but also evoke a sort of eeire darkness.  I hoped to capture this unsettling feeling that comes from her works, as well as the rich detail that goes into each of them. She uses luxurious materials like lace, pearls, fine metals, and jewels. I tried to mimic the same sense of detail, but with materials that seemed more futuristic and cyborg like. I also wanted to show the same precision that she shows in her work. While her works take months to complete and I didn’t have that kind of time, I still wanted to use small materials and make my designs precise.

Another one of my influences was the beauty standards of the Capitol in the Hunger Games. In the movies and the books, the Capitol represents the most of elite of the population. Many of the residents have has extreme beauty procedures and body modifications done that fit the drastic beauty standards of the time. Seeing as the Hunger Games acts as sort of a social commentary on what could happen in the future, it seems realistic that beauty procedures like the ones shown could exist one day.  

http://www.bellexotique-magazine.com/2015/01/07/agnieszka-osipa-exclusive-slavic-goddess/

https://www.instagram.com/agnieszkaosipa/?hl=en

https://beautifulbizarre.net/2015/12/17/historical-couture-works-of-agnieszka-osipa/

http://capitolcouture.pn

http://www.instyle.com/celebrity/hunger-games-fashion-effies-most-outrageous-looks#340579

http://www.fashiongonerogue.com/covergirl-hunger-games-makeup-collection/

Star Spangled

       With the election and all of the political upheaval going on, I had a hard time deviating away from a very political piece, for my mind could not stop thinking about the unrest that is going on in America. When I started to think of a machine, I thought of the capitalist machine and how wealth can turn people cold and mechanical, thinking only of profit. With the results of this election in, it has become clear that capitalism will be stronger now more than ever and that the political machine will carry on.

       The idea of the human turned machine really fascinated me, because I do believe that over time, people can lose the sentimental nature that they once had and lose faith in other humans, turning them cold. Often, once people have something that they deem willing to protect, they forget about the compassion they once had for others that are struggling. They solidify their beliefs and forget that they once believed so deeply in something else. As much as I can appreciate the benefits of capitalism, I do believe that it is a system that favors a certain group of people and dehumanizes the lower classes and deems them unworthy of resources. The amount of greed that can come out of capitalism or even politics in general is so unfortunate, which is why I selected the very symbolic images that I did for my collage.

       I started out with the face of the Statue of Liberty, which is a huge symbol for America and freedom. I cut out her eyes and under them I placed a sign for a Trump Tower in New York, in attempt to show how the eyes of liberty have been jaded and covered by Donald Trump’s ideals. Instead of points on her headpiece, I placed three Trump towers and the final Trump tower is cut up along the right side of her body. I drew her body in menswear to capitalize on the idea that it is “a man’s world” and everything about women, even our bodies, is about men.  In the background, I cut up five different images of gold bricks and shattered them in the background. I wanted to reference greed but also a shattered and spilt nation. Although not very noticeable, I printed out pictures of walls that exist on borders of countries and included three of them in the background, leading to the head of the statue of liberty. The final element I wanted to include was this transparent black paper along with stars. This was meant to represent the confusion and overlapping lies and judgment form the government, along with a cloud of confusion and doubt for this country. The stars represent the patriotism of the victors in the election, but can have a more spiritual or universal metaphor for the losers. This universe is so big and there are powers larger than us and maybe this horrible thing happened for a reason and there will be a change in America that cannot yet be seen. I put all of this on a silver sheet of wrapping paper, to outline how everything in America seems shiny and new and ideal, but in truth we actually have a lot of problems. This election was very emotional for me and this piece embodies my emotions toward the outcome and the despair for this country that I have begun to face.

Nasty Women

The artist I chose to focus on for inspiration in this project is Hannah Hoch. Hannah Hoch is a German artist who was a well known member of the Berlin Dada movement. She is primarily known for her work with photo-montage techniques, and many of her works added a feminist note to the Dada movement’s philosophy of disgust with the perceived wrongs of society.

I was particularly drawn to Hoch’s work not only because of the technical collage aspects, but also because of the messages the work sends about women and the struggles they face in a male dominated society. This has been a theme in many of my own works in the past, and especially in light of the recent events in the election and the controversy that has brought, I feel as though her work, and the work of feminist artists alike has a renewed importance.

One thing I found particularly interesting within my research on Hoch was that she was in fact the only female member of the Dada movement. This caused quite a bit of controversy between her and many of the male members, two of which, George Grosz and John Heartfield, even went as far as to try to prevent her from displaying her work alongside theirs in the First International Dada Fair in Berlin. It was only when her lover, Raoul Hausmann, threatened to pull his own work that they relented. This kind of blatant sexism was common during her time period, but what is sad is that even after all these years it is so clearly apparent to this day, both in the art world and beyond.

I began this project with the intention of incorporating plants into the human form as somewhat of a paradox between the alternate forms of life of plants and animals. I have always had a fascination and love for plants, and the fact that they live and grow so simply yet so beautifully. There is both a certain fragility and strength within plant forms that I see as very different to that of humans or other animals, and I wanted to play off the idea of this difference. However, after the election Tuesday night and the unfavorable outcome, I decided to take the project in a bit of a different direction.

During Hoch’s time, women lived daily in a world that undervalued and disrespected them. That was and is a reality that women have faced throughout history, and despite all of our progression throughout the years, I feel as though the election of Donald Trump has taken us back 100 years (not to mention for the LGBTQ community, POC, Immigrants, etc. as well). This election result is so infuriating and terrifying for so many groups of people, and I can’t begin to imagine the pain that so many innocent people feel and will continue to feel in the coming years.

In my project, I focus on a small margin of the citizens negatively affected by Trump’s election: women. I decided to continue with the theme of plants and my original idea, but a new meaning was added to the work, that of an emphasis on the strength rather than weakness. Women have endured so much hardship and will continue to endure it especially now, but throughout it all we are strong. Women will fight back against sexism and misogyny with renewed enthusiasm and strength, never letting the Donald Trumps of the world take that strength away. In order to convey this idea I did a series of two collages. The first of which is a portrait of a woman seemingly “growing” a cactus out of her face and shoulder, and the second a group of cactus’s with an arm reaching out. These works in conjunction are meant to symbolize the toughness and power of women as represented through the cacti and it’s sharp spikes. I intended for the drawing and portrait aspect of the works to be rendered in a beautiful, smooth way in order to contradict the sharp spikes of the collaged cactus. This represents the two sides of a woman in society: the soft, “pretty” exterior expectation of society, and the sharp, strong interior within our beings. As for the second drawing, the arm reaches out of the sharp spikes as a representation of overcoming the pain and hardship of what we are facing today.