Orlan - e-resources.

For this week’s blog I decided to research the French artist Orlan. I came to this decision as I felt I was a little closed minded about her and her work when she appeared in this week’s seminar. I am curious to know whether learning more about her will change my initial opinion of her and her work. Orlan is considered to be a performance artist. She often uses her body as the medium for her art, sometimes even resorting to body altering cosmetic surgery. Under local anaesthetic, so she is awake throughout the procedure and uses a camera to film the operation, making the act of altering her body a performance piece for her art.

In one of her earlier works, in 1978, Orlan put her menstruating genitals under a magnifying glass and used it as a performance piece titled Documentary Study: The Head of Medusa. The inspiration for this came from a text by Sigmund Freud: “At the sight of the vulva, even the devil runs away." In her Medusa installation Orlan filmed her viewers’ faces and expressions as they entered and exited the performance, this made the audience an essential part of the artwork. From 1990 to 1995 Orlan underwent nine surgical procedures. These plastic surgery operations completely changed how Orlan looked. Her mouth was altered to look like the mouth of Francois Boucher’s 'Europa', her forehead to mimic that of Leonardo’s 'Mona Lisa' and another to alter her chin to look like that of Botticelli’s 'Venus'. These icons were not chosen because of their appearance or beauty but for their mythological or historical significance.

I find the most interesting aspect of Orlan and her work is the use she makes of computer technology. The face she wishes to have made by cosmetic surgery is first assembled on a computer screen, digitally constructed from a mixture of her own features and the features of the icons that she wants reconstructing. Orlans surgical change of Identity appears at times to be a race with technology, sometimes the surgery that she requests is likely only possible in many years time. Orlan's art has always been on the edge of what is possible; she was experimenting with new technology such as holograms and lasers in her work in the 1980s. I think that, given the technological boundaries that she pushes, Orlan is an experimental artist whose work is genuinely original.

I feel I have particularly benefited from this week’s research/blog, as I felt that I had chosen a genuinely interesting artist to research. Although not 100% convinced that she is 'mentally sound' her work, nevertheless, is interesting and challenging to see. Although some of her work is rather vulgar and disturbing to see, I feel that the ideas and points raised by it are highlighting things in today’s society that people, intentionally or unintentionally, often overlook.



Bibliography.

Ince, K 1998, 'Operations of Redress: Orlan, the Body and Its Limits', Fashion Theory: The Journal Of Dress, Body & Culture, 2, 2, pp. 111-127, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 10 February 2012.

Enright, R 1998, 'Beauty and the I of the beholder: a conversation with Orlan', Border Crossings, 17, 2, pp. 44-47, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 10 February 2012.

Blair, L, & Shalmon, M 2005, 'Cosmetic Surgery and the Cultural Construction of Beauty', Art Education, 58, 3, pp. 14-18, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 12 February 2012.