ART 302 Social Aspects of Fashion - "Social Skin"

The objective of this project was to gain an understanding of society's influence on the way we dress and, in return, how our dress reflects back onto society. I assumed the subculture of tattoos by exploring the concept of body work as art.
The paint you see on me is Ben Nye MagiColor liquid latex, which I bought at Robinson Beautilities for $7 a jar. My best friend Lidia and I spent the day at Venice Beach which boosts a funky and eclectic beachside ambiance where just about anything goes! Follow our adventure as the rest of the story unfolds here. Please, enjoy!
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Also, over the course of researching I accumulated a handful of quotes which I found interesting and I think you will too.

Enid Schildkrout:
"The body, as a canvas, is not only the site where culture is inscribed but also a place where the individual is defined and inserted into the cultural landscape."
"Skin is the surface onto which [we] project [our] understandings of the relationship between psyche and society, the commonalities and differences between cultures, and even the meaning of art."
"[Tattoos] are a way of writing one's autobiography on the surface of the body."
"Skin, as a visible way of defining individual identity and cultural difference, is a highly elaborated preoccupation in many cultures."
"The act of tattooing is embedded in rituals of personal transformation."
"[Tattoos highlight] the boundaries between the individual and society, between societies, and between representations and experiences."
"[Tattoos] redefine the relationship between self and society through the skin."
A "disembodied poststructuralism body": a cry to free the soul from the body because life rejects a universal validity.

Herbert M. Cole referred to corporeal inscriptions as "the vital arts".
I credit Terence Turner for the phrase "social skin".
And it was Pierre Bourdieu who acknowledged that tattoos commend a "socially informed body."

Alfred Gell:
"Tattooing [is] a stigma of humanity."
"To be tattooed was always to interpose a barrier between a secular self and unmediated divinity."
"Tattooing is simultaneously the exteriorization of the interior which is simultaneous the interiorization of the exterior."

Andrew and Marilyn Strathern:
"Body decoration expresses and constructs personal and cultural identity."

Claude Lévi-Strauss:
"The body [is] a surface waiting for the imprintation of culture."
"The marked body [is] a cultured body."

Sigmund Freud:
"Perceptions and memories are entangled inside and through the body's surface."

Michel Foucault:
"The body [is] a text upon which social reality is inscribed."

Chris Rainier:
"[We] want to carve out an identity in a chaotic postindustrial age by inscribing shoulders and shins with symbols of love, death, and belonging."
"We live in a culture where everything is disposable, and it's like, 'wow, that's forever.' "

Mark C. Taylor:
"Body art represents a sustained effort to reverse the dematerialization of art by making the body matter."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• CSULA ART 302
• Tattoo
• Venice Beach California
• Natasha Bedingfield - Strip Me