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Does human body representation reflect a contemporary idea of soul’s material support?
In a global world, it is strange to realize that soul is marked in Anglo-Saxon world by either water (seele, soul) or by fire (spirit, alcohol and thus passion) while in Latin languages anima represents the air. How in such conditions, people’s feminine icons have found such a large recognition across cultural backgrounds: from Marilyn to BB, from Jerry Hall to Naomi Campbell and now Kate Moss? Similarly, although male representation appeared later on with photographs of the 40’s, body perfection is similar from Tokyo to Moscow and Canberra. Is there thus a common acceptance of Freud libido expression, the very Darwinian search for best adaptative performers for reproduction? Is it fashion driven or beyond obvious superficiality are we looking for a view of the inside that would finally reveal an ultimate beauty.
Are diamonds girl’s best friends? Mankind with jewels seems to parallel its quest for zero default as for human bodies. Those that have forever been used to underline beauty and to magnify the fascinating power of leaders, are not only often rediscovered in mummies and statues of Buddha, but their identity and purity is increasingly defined by X rays.
Beyond eyes’ sight, along with dreams of voyeurism is a permanent concern of our understanding. New high definition imaging techniques have not only broken up a common acceptance of life intimacy, but they have simultaneously changed an inner deadly reporting into life enhancement through medical care and public audiences as well.
Alike traces of humoral and electric concepts of the vital force have now disappeared: if Harvey’s theory “the inner room the shrine where is the font of the heart, the vital spirit, emotions, the passion “ was denied by colleagues such as Willis who saw the heart as a muscle, but electric strength was still discussed by scientists at the turn of the XXth century -although it is now limited to cardiac defibrillation or/and electric chair-.
Travelling inside the human body becme a true opportunity with the new millennium. Then the resilient idea of Ulysses journey, that had begun after he declined Calypso’s offer of immortality, has revived unrealistic dreams of gigantic progress of our understanding, at least among a portion of the biosciences community, that who is willing to communicate her early enthusiasm to politicians, instead: “the PET images of the neuronal activity is now awaiting its Champollion” was part of the inaugural speech of L’âme au corps exhibition in Paris and Vienna a decade ago.
While plastinated volunteers bodies are travelling worldwide (after Germany and San Diego, they’re back in Paris for the spring 2009) after death, revealing under the skin transparencies in preset frozen dance moves, copying Degas or the other Fragonard who did the same in the XVIIIth century this ensemble of holographic images and 3 or 4D motion pictures not only reveal the inside of alive creatures, from ant to man with an accuracy never reached to date 50 µm in vivo and 1 µm for minerals but have been modified and turned into art visions by contemporary artists supported by scientists. The whole is an intriguing dialogue between art and science with striking views of actual life.
The combined views of human bodies with that of jewels, underlines the perfect detail of the loved ones.
From the precursor work of Barbara Hammer who spent days to combine the recovered X rays images of Nazi Dr Mengele with her loved friend sharing a barited drink and presenting their hands play as butterfly moves in the air, to the most recent images of Wim Delvoye and Peter Coffin, it’s noteworthy to consider that art expression with the human body after its most sacred parts such as blood (Gina Pane, M. Journiac) or skin (Eva Hesse, Hermann Nitsch, Louise Bourgeois) gained a large audience while remaining very provocative: Spencer Tunick picture performances now gather thousands of naked individuals in towns over the whole world and Van Hughens show draws crowds of visitors from California to Japan Australia and Europe. Photography and video e.g. with Nan Goldin or Nicole Tran Ban Vang (Skinning series) and Pipilotti Rist have exposed life intimacy with an increasing popularity.
When CT scan, MRI and suprasonic waves allow to track the slightest moves, the smallest anatomic lesion, the noise of our inside muscle contractions, science also becomes an art and art is questioning science.
While the economic value of the gems tested are a direct positive function of the final cut that will avoid undesired inclusions, while MDs will soon get rid of the 2D slides that are so difficult to interpret by using a global 3/4D representation on new HD screens, the merger of sciences of imaging and artistic creativity is not only leading to striking and almost fictitious images with unequalled resolution but to in depth questioning of our future. While the world is facing a crisis, looking through a new type of mirror that makes our inside visible is both the promise of a better life and the threat of an unknown condition.
Bernar Venet, the famous sculptor living both in NY and on the French Riviera, was the first artist intrigued by the mathematical approach of image treatment, fascinated by enormous calculation capacity of the computers put in series for high definition volume rendering. His friend asked for the stripping of matricial representations and the results were presented in Barbican Gallery, London. JP Raynaud whose oeuvre reflects a strong concern of death or Jaume Plensa whose works reflect the magic of loneliness imposed by the missing or Wim Delvoye who sold lately the tattooed skin of a fan were also among the first artists wishing to develop their work with these new imaging techniques developed by Useful Progress on new high performing Siemens Healthcare machines.
As in Nanoart, the combined visions of artists with the support of scientists not only reveals hidden beauties of the differences, but recalls everyone is bearing “the intangible trace of a humble origin” (Darwin, The descent of man).
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