from Irina, Re: [spectre] Media Forum Moscow 2007

Mon Jul 9 15:20:52 CEST 2007

Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2007 09:15:25 -0400
To: czegledy at interlog.com
Cc: EAF Director <director at eaf.asn.au>, spectre at mikrolisten.de,
	czegledy at interlog.com
Subject: Re: Re: [spectre] Media Forum Moscow 2007
From: "Irina Aristarkhova" <ixa10 at psu.edu>

Dear Nina and others,

Thank you for your comments and for your interest 
in our event. I am not sure where this current 
discussion is coming from, so it is difficult for 
me to respond, but I will try.

I can agree that taken out of context it does 
lead to certain generalizations and 
misunderstanding of terminology and definitions. 
If you notice, both phrases - with regards to 
"male and female body" are not meant literally, 
they are specific references to specific 
positions - one from Foucault's History of 
Sexuality Introduction, 1st volume, and another 
one from Kelly Oliver's book "Family Values". I 
wrote this for our round table to start a 
discussion, since the topic itself is old and 
well presented.

During our round table, we discussed different 
histories of sexuality and de-sexualizations 
during Soviet period. Now there is Kulik's 
retrospective in Moscow. Depending on one's own 
'eye', one can only see Kulik's nude male body, 
while for others it would be 'body of terror' 
(e.g., Ryklin), or  "petit objet a" (Renata S.).

Thus, when one official said that 'we did not 
have sex in the USSR" (u nas ne bylo sexa), she 
used the word 'sex' as something foreign, without 
using a Russian word for 'sex', and she spoke to 
American audience.  To say that we did not have 
sex would be absurd, and really, it is not about 
sex at all ("this is not a pipe"). The same here 
with the male and female body. Kelly Oliver does 
not mean it literally when she talks about its 
absence. Or Lacan (or Zizek who repeats him) when 
says "woman does not exist': it is about 
something else, at least, within these authors.

There are many positions, I just want to clarify 
at the end that no one tries to deny or neglect 
male body in art, or whatever we mean by this 
here. We wanted also to discuss how a certain 
history of performance art and its 'bodies' are 
reflected in new media art too. This is a huge 
topic, we were just outlining it during this 
year's theme of Media Forum.

Best regards,
Irina

On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:03:33 -0400 czegledy at interlog.com wrote:

Dear Melentie,

thanks for your comments. I copy this letter to
Irina,
the comment on the  "absent male body" came from
her
introductory text, thus she can provide the
context much better.

nina

Dear Nina and Andreas,

I tend to
look at nudity as an issue of ephemeral concern to both 
Stelarc and
Kulik, but in a way, I agree with Andreas's comments that 
certain
generalizations in some of the statements are clearly out of 
place.
One can hardly speak of "absent male body" in the works of both of
the 
above mentioned, but also with artists such as Rassim,
Zoran
Todorovic, etc. etc.

Cheers,

Melentie

At 4:18 AM +0200 6/7/07, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
dear
nina,

oleg may appear as an exception, but having seen stelarc
present in 
berlin in february, and having seen marcelli antunez present
his work 
in madrid recently, i wonder how their extremely physical male
nude 
body work relates to the statements made during the panel? (i
really 
only make this comment because the juxtaposition of Kelly
Oliver's 
statement and Oleg Kulik's exhibition seemed somewhat
at odds...)

regards,
-a

Next day,  June 28,
"Super-Embodiment of  Woman Artists  in
Media Arts" was
presented by Irina Aristarkhova, Nina Czegledy and Elena
Kovylina. Irina
noted in her introduction  that "Nudity and the Nude - have
become
key issues in contemporary art, theory and politics. Women artists
face
what Foucault called 'hysteriarization of female body', while men
artists
face an issue of 'absent male body' (Kelly Oliver) and
respond to it with
various strategies. One might argue that both Western
and Eastern
European  women artists have exhibited 'too much
body', and to a certain
extent find it difficult to leave ?body?
behind.

The schedule left room for us to visit some artists studios,
participate in
the mega-retrospective by Oleg Kulik and Vinzavod (...)

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Don't miss these shows when travelling (to) Europe this summer:

/////// History Will Repeat Itself ////// Strategies of re-enactment
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////// irational.org ////// Tools, Techniques and Events 1996-2006,
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