Daniel Ploeger | Thinking Critical/Looking Sexy, London

The CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY AND DIGITAL PERFORMANCE at Brunel University, London, invites you to:
Daniel Ploeger
“Thinking Critical/Looking Sexy”
January 30, 2013

Cultural theorist Rob Cover (2003) has suggested that the unstable character of relational contexts in postmodern culture results in all nudity potentially signifying sexuality. Accordingly, I suggest that the presentation of naked bodies in contemporary performance art is always likely to be perceived as sexual. In addition, I observe that many body artists perform transgressive actions that appear to reject normative body culture, but at the same time demonstrate a fascination with the very mainstream body-beautiful ideals their actions seem to challenge; their bodies as well as their self-representation in the media often reveal a careful maintenance of their bodies through exercise regimes and other cosmetic endeavors in accordance with cultural norms. In this presentation, I propose an approach that seeks to actively provoke the sexualization of the performer’s body (thus accommodating fascinations with normative bodily regimes), whilst at the same time undermining this reading by equally heightening cues that suggest a medical, commodified and artistic reading of the body.
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