The Body + The Lens: Shrink, Wax, Purge, Bleach.
(2019)
author(s): Tyler Payne
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
"The Body + the Lens: Shrink, Wax, Purge, Bleach" was a creative practice research project that investigated the relationship of (white) women’s embodiment to the lens of gendered advertising. To focus the research, a recently mainstreamed group of female cosmetic rituals were chosen — body-contour wear (SPANX), Brazilian waxing, salt-water cleansing, and fake tanning. The intent of the research was to interrogate the relationship between these body-correcting practices and the idealized image of the "Glossy Magazine Girl" — i.e. preternaturally thin, hairless, and unblemished by shades darker than pink — which now appear with more frequency in women’s everyday life, and have reconfigured the social construction of female gender. The (artistic-research) response to the subject matter was a series of video and photographic works in the genre of self-portraiture. These works attempted to critique the new norms of embodiment emerging through these practices through the researcher’s parodic undergoing of the cosmetic rituals themselves. This "carnal" methodology, following from the methodology of Louis Wacquant, is one that embodies the researcher in the social practices being researched, i.e. body-correcting practices. This method produced research results — embodied and affective — not available to purely observational research, which should interest the artistic research community and feminism generally. The images and videos de-fetishize and denaturalize the embodied product of the cosmetic rituals. My studio-led research reveals the intractable, comic "failures" in the face of the demands placed on the everyday performance of women’s gender. By doing so, it turns these failures to affirmation, as well as critique of the gender norm these practices construct.
Visualizing the Invisible: Artistic Explorations of the Electromagnetic Spectrum through Mixed Media
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): Babak Abdullayev
This exposition is in review and its share status is: visible to all.
This artistic research explores the creative transformation of the electromagnetic spectrum into visual language, particularly gamma rays. Continuing the previous part of my research developed during my Master's thesis at RUFA, Rome, Italy (2023), the present-day work expands the focus from gamma radiation to a broader engagement with the electromagnetic spectrum. When I started working on these pieces, I did not want to limit the work to a purely scientific explanation of the phenomenon. That approach felt too limited for what I was trying to express. I used colors, rhythm, and space for form in each work. Gamma rays serve as a starting point for considering transformation and inner strength. Works such as "New gamma-ray burst with a white hole," "Visible," and "Mariotti" merge scientific ideas with symbolic narratives.
I have based this work on scientific sources and my experience. I also followed my intuition while examining the relationship between radiation physics and neuroaesthetics. Ultimately, this evolving work demonstrates how artwork can reframe scientific principles. It presents an aesthetic strategy for perceiving the imperceptible.
Aim
This artistic research explores how the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes both seen and invisible frequencies such as gamma rays, microwaves, and radio waves, can be translated into visual form through modern-day blended media practices. Rather than illustrating scientific concepts in a didactic manner, the project seeks to evoke electromagnetic energy's perceptual, emotional, and symbolic dimensions. The study aspires to provide a new creative framework for engaging with unseen forces that structure each herbal phenomenon and internal human state by integrating material experimentation, digital techniques, and theoretical insights from neuroaesthetics, physics, and human psychology.