Submission

When people meet in everyday life, they also perceive themselves as bodies. In our performance-oriented society, there is a growing tendency towards an objectification that encodes the body as an arbitrarily manipulable mass. We can do something with our body, shape it or manipulate it. Artificial body extensions (prostheses) have long since become socially accepted, even if they serve only the purpose of self-expression or self-optimization. Aging or illness are considered as stigma and should be stopped or hidden as much as possible. In the work discobedient bodies I confront the viewer with photographic images of diseased or old bodies and combine these with images of artificial body parts or aids for body optimization. I mainly focus on details that make an relation with certain parts of the body or an identification with the person almost impossible. Although the closeness creates a certain abstraction, but allows a direct confrontation with the body lined by age or disease. I consciously stage the prosthesis, wigs or aids in the style of commercial product photography, but in a rather neutral almost sterile visual language though. I see these photographs as an contrast to the hyperreal, perfect body images that we encounter every day in the mass media. Photography plays a major role in the distribution of idealized body images, as the flood of images bears up the dream of a young, healthy and flawless body over and over again.