Exposition

The Body + The Lens: Shrink, Wax, Purge, Bleach. (2019)

Tyler Payne
open exposition

About this exposition

"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.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsfeminism, art, creative practice research, video, video art, feminist art, parasocial interaction theory, carnal sociology, commodity fetishizm, commercial photography, media studies, feminist media studies, artistic research, the male gaze, feminist epistemology, the female gaze, contemporary art
date26/07/2018
published18/01/2019
last modified18/01/2019
statuspublished
share statusprivate
affiliationRMIT University
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/493639/493640
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/jar.493639
published inJournal for Artistic Research
portal issue17. 17


Simple Media

id name copyright license
493643 SPANK Billboard Image - copy Tyler Payne All rights reserved
493655 other table 2018 Tyler Payne All rights reserved
493657 table a3 (C) Tyler Payne 2018 All rights reserved
493662 Line (C) Tyler Payne 2018 All rights reserved
493669 text 2018 All rights reserved
493700 nothightgap2 - copy Tyler Payne No Thigh Gap All rights reserved
493708 nothightgap2 - copy Tyler Payne No Thigh Gap All rights reserved
493709 nothightgap2 - copy - copy Tyler Payne No Thigh Gap All rights reserved
493866 line2 (C) Tyler Payne 2018 All rights reserved
493878 Untitled No Thigh Gap (C) Tyler Payne 2018 All rights reserved
493893 Salt Water Cleanse Video - copy Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
493894 Salt Water Cleanse Video - copy - copy Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
493919 linewide Tyler Payne All rights reserved
494191 SWC Still (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494195 Salt Water Cleanse MEDIUM res (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494203 Fake Tan 1 (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494204 Fake Tan 1 (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494206 Fake Tan 2 (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494208 Fake Tan 3 (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494210 Fake Tan (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494212 Fake Tan (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494214 Untitled (Fake Tan Series 1) (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494215 Untitled (Fake Tan Series 2) (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494216 Untitled (Fake Tan Series 3) (C) Tyler Payne 2015 All rights reserved
494227 Kate-GQ-Oct-22 - copy GQ Magazine 2003 All rights reserved
494229 fea-kerry-washington-cover-01-2016 - copy Adweek 2015 All rights reserved
494231 020415-march-cover-594 - copy InStyle Magazine 2015 All rights reserved
494233 Lupita - copy Lupita Twitter All rights reserved
494257 SK FAT before 1 (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494259 SKINNYFAT (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494276 Brazillian Wax (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494279 Eyebrow Plucking (C) Tyler Payne 2018 All rights reserved
494281 Eyebrow Plucking (C) Tyler Payne 2018 All rights reserved
494283 Spanx Wiggle (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494410 Spanx Wiggle (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494411 Spanx Wiggle (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved
494430 Tyler Payne_SPANK_single (C) Tyler Payne 2016 All rights reserved

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