PART II | DECEPTIVELY TRADITIONAL: THE ILLUSORY RADICALISM OF FAN XIAOYAN’S CYBORGS

UNDERMINING THE RADICAL CYBORG

As I have demonstrated, a better understanding of Fan Xiaoyan’s work necessitates a deeper exploration of the way the female body is visually represented. I would first like to explore the way Fan Xiaoyan rendered the nude female body, and what effects these representations have. In conversation with Shuqin Cui about Physical Attachment, Fan stated that the series promotes “the arrival of a new era…in which men and women are really equal.”[81] The optimistic and utopian tone of this statement, which will be examined in full later, is important to consider moving forward. Responding to the artist’s characterization of the series and Cui’s argument, I investigate if Fan’s sculptures achieve her idealistic statement above and how they respond to the male gaze. If the purpose of these sculptures is to destabilize conventions of femininity and stereotypes about the sexual availability of women, as Cui argued, why are they so sexually alluring? What is the purpose of showing these cyborg women naked, and why are their bodies so sensuous and idealized? Examining these questions reveals that the sculpture series actually undermines the message of the cyborg as a radical, feminist figure, transforming the female cyborg into a new kind of commodified object.

Physical Attachment portrays the female body in a distinctively sexualized way, emphasizing female sex characteristics and physical qualities culturally associated with female bodies. The style of the sculptures is almost hyper-realistic and closely resembles the appearance and proportion of an idealized Chinese body, with a naturalistic skin color, detailed facial features, and wigs that mimic the appearance of hair. Their bodies are true-to-life and therefore visually connected to actual, living female bodies, but represent an idealized type of female body rather than an “average” or “real” body. And this idealized female body is delicately curved and sensuous, as in Physical Attachment-02 (figure 14), which has round breasts that appear almost disproportionately large and gravity-defying. This roundness and fullness is further highlighted by the cylindrical construct over her right breast. The poses of the sculptures also connote sensuality and submissiveness, highlighting their curvy bodies. For example, Physical Attachment04 (figure 16) is posed as if on her hands and knees (although she does not have hands), a sex position that emphasizes the curve of her back and buttocks and draws attention to her dangling breasts. Despite the fact that her arms appear to be large shotguns, there is nothing threatening about the way this cyborg is posed, and the “hands and knees” pose even seems docile. Physical Attachment-02 is posed in a similarly alluring way, with her slightly arched back and raised leg emphasizing her breasts and thigh. Compare these poses to the provocative poster for Ghost in the Shell (figure 18), which shows a nude and kneeling Motoko Kusanagi with her chest thrust outward. Her body is strategically positioned and posed in the most erotic way possible, showing the viewer both her bottom and a side profile of her breast, nipple perfectly outlined in silhouette. The submissiveness and explicit eroticism seen in this poster are present in Fan’s cyborg sculptures, particularly in their poses, which emphasize the sexual availability of their curvaceous bodies. Physical Attachment-02, as previously discussed, is posed with chest out and leg up to emphasize the sensuous curves of her body, and similarly to the Ghost in the Shell poster, she looks up into the distance, giving the viewer permission to visually consume her body in the round without confrontation. Physical Attachment-04 is posed in a way that not only highlights her large breasts and bottom, but is also a literal sex position. She too lacks a strong gaze to confront the viewer, as her eyes are hidden behind mechanical goggles. These examples allow us to see the influence of anime on Fan’s work, in which images of the female body cater to and validate the male gaze.[82]

Without the mechanical attachments, there is no doubt that these sculptures would be considered stereotypically sexualized. Fan replicates the image of the female cyborg as an object for the male gaze by portraying her cyborgs as nude and sensuously curvy. In contrast to Cui’s claim that “the artist expresses a consciousness toward…(re)locating the female body against hegemonic social-cultural conditions,” and the artist’s claim that her cyborgs envision a world where men and women are equal, the female bodies here in fact replicate the traditional conditions of the woman’s place as an erotic object of the gaze.[83] This raises a few questions: does the work still succeed as a feminist critique by including the machine attachments? Does the transformation of these women into cyborgs interrupt the voyeuristic viewing experience of their sensuous bodies?

Despite the possibilities that the human-machine interaction proposes, Fan Xiaoyan’s transformation of these women into cyborgs does not interrupt the voyeurism of viewing their objectified bodies. In fact, the addition of the machine parts only further emphasizes the vulnerability and accessibility of the female body. While the artist and Cui have both insisted that the mechanical attachments symbolize the strengthening of the female body in response to its perceived inferiority and weakness, it is inappropriate to consider the mechanical additions in such a positive light. Firstly, while Fan may have intended to destabilize traditional ideas regarding the female body, her sculptures validate the very position she’s trying to contradict. By promoting these augmented female bodies as the final stage in a transformation from weakness to strength, Fan implicitly upholds the idea that female bodies are inherently weak and inferior to male bodies in their unmodified state.

Secondly, the mechanical attachments in Fan’s sculpture series do not appear to enhance the body’s function at all, further diminishing the artist’s desire to “strengthen” the female body. In fact, many of these attachments would hinder the movement and physical freedom of these cyborgs. For example, the figure in Physical Attachment-03 (figure 15), who lays in a deliberately sprawled pose on the ground, does not even look like she would be able to walk or move around effectively. The majority of her right leg is replaced by a metal piece ending in a dramatically tapered spring, while the other is replaced by an awkwardly shaped addition that curves backward behind her body and connects with her left arm. Her right arm has been replaced by another ambiguous metal piece that seems to serve no function. Why these attachments? What purpose do they serve? Do they enhance or supplement the body in any way?

Physical Attachment-03 certainly does not seem to have benefited from these mechanical attachments. How could this woman move or engage with others? For example, while the curved part that connects the left arm and leg seems to have a downward extension that could substitute for a foot, walking upright would be difficult, if not impossible. Crawling or shuffling across the ground would also be quite challenging, because every part of the figure’s body that touches the floor is made of metal, a material that does not have sufficient grip to move across all surfaces. The freedom of movement this cyborg could have is severely limited by the impracticality of her metallic attachments. The movement of Physical Attachment-01 would be similarly hindered by the awkward constructions that protrude from her knees and the point where her legs converge together (figure 17). Here the stainless steel material that comprises the long chainsaw and hammer attachments would also make movement of the arms strenuous and exhausting. While stainless steel is indeed a heavy-duty material that symbolizes strength for Fan Xiaoyan, it is also dense, meaning it would be unfeasible for this thin-armed figure to even move her arms. This calls the artist’s optimistic statement that these sculptures “strengthen” the female body into question. Rather than strengthening the bodies, these attachments hinder movement and weigh them down. They are not “supporting” the body, as Cui puts it, but serve to make the figure more vulnerable, not less. By limiting the cyborgs’ freedom of movement, the attachments also take away their physical agency, in contrast to the freedom of movement that a viewer might have in the gallery or museum space. The combination of these factors implies the viewer’s assumed access to her body, which has a distinctly sexualized dimension in the context of how their bodies are objectified. Physical Attachment-03, for example, is positioned in a way that displays her sexualized characteristics and is open and inviting to the viewer, while implying her motionlessness. These mechanical attachments do not imply power, but hindered mobility and accessibility to the viewer.

The static nature of sculpture as a medium, in contrast to the emphasis on movement in Ghost in the Shell, only heightens our perception of the figures as sexualized and vulnerable. The Major’s power partially comes from movement and the use of her advanced cybernetic body, and this is a theme repeated throughout the film. In the opening scene, which establishes her as a commanding character, the audience watches as a mostly-nude Kusanagi jumps off the top of a building, assassinates a foreign diplomat, and then disappears using her thermo-optic camouflage as she falls toward the ground below. Fan Xiaoyan’s sculptures, which are naturally static, get no such display of power or agency. Another factor that strips the sculptures of any power is the fact that they are looked at, but do not look. There is no moment of confrontation between the viewer and sculpture in which the art “looks back.” Sculptures 03 and 04 wear some form of enhanced eye goggles, while 01 and 02 look down at the floor and up into the distance (respectively). There is no moment of eye contact, of confrontation with the viewer, that disrupts the voyeuristic viewing process. Just as Kusanagi was repeatedly transformed into a passive object to be looked at by the audience, so too are the cyborgs of Physical Attachment. The only difference is the Major is portrayed in ways that are not objectifying, while Fan’s sculptures are not. Kusanagi appears in several scenes fully clothed, and her sexualized body is not the visual focus, while the exposed skin of Fan Xiaoyan’s sculptures is visible from all angles. This only serves to further emphasize the impression that these sculptures are vulnerable, perhaps even more vulnerable than a human woman, to the intrusion of the male gaze and male domination. And while the male gaze is present here, thus implicating the presence of a male viewing body, there is a lack of male bodies in Fan Xiaoyan’s depiction of a futuristic utopia.

The absence of men and a similar portrayal of male nudity, like in cyborg anime, is another element that subverts the message of post-gendered equality that Fan Xiaoyan strove for in Physical Attachment. As previously discussed, one of the most problematic elements of the film is the obsessive objectification of the Major’s female-coded body, combined with the lack of corresponding portrayals of the male body. Physical Attachment has a similar problem, yet the artist does not seem to be aware of it.

The violent contrast between delicate, yielding flesh and cold, hard steel gives rise to an extremely intense visual effect. The attachment of heavy paraphernalia to the female body gives rise to a kind of strength and sweetness……the work appears to proclaim the arrival of a new era, a new kind of human being, a new power, a new sensation. I aim to express, I am creating a surrealistic virtual world in which men and women are really equal![84]

In the optimistic statement above, Fan claimed that the “violent contrast between delicate, yielding flesh and cold, hard steel,” as well as the “attachment of heavy paraphernalia to the female body gives rise to a kind of strength and sweetness.”[85] Ironically, her idealistic statement illustrates several of Physical Attachment’s more problematic and conflicting aspects. Her contradictory description of how the “heavy paraphernalia” evokes both strength and sweetness illustrates the conflict at the heart of this work. Physical Attachment is caught between the “sweetness” of traditional depictions of femininity and the “strength” of the radical potential of the cyborg. Ultimately, she does not successfully channel the way human-machine interactions can, according to cyborg theory, challenge gendered representations of the body, evoking only the “sweetness” of the soft, sensuous female body. The artist’s statement of creating “a surrealistic virtual world in which men and women are really equal” is equally telling yet problematic. If Fan wanted to portray a futuristic, “virtual” world where women and men were “really equal,” where are the men in her series? This absence is telling, and it further highlights how the work actually fails to promote equality. Equality involves equal representation, and arguably should involve equal levels of sexualization. Even if we disregard the fact that the bodies of her sculptures are visibly coded as female, her use of gendered terms also reveals a lack of interest in using the cyborg to articulate a body or personhood that transcends constructed categories of sex/gender differentiation.

Figure 13: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-01, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.

Figure 14: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-02, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 168 x 65 x 143cm.

Figure 15: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-03, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 216 x 93 x 133 cm.

Figure 16: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-04, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 208 x 96 x 136cm.

Figure 17: Fan Xiaoyan, frontal view of Physical Attachment-01, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.

Figure 18: Masamune Shirow, Poster for Ghost in the Shell, 1995.

Physical Attachment portrays the female body in a distinctively sexualized way, emphasizing female sex characteristics and physical qualities culturally associated with female bodies. The style of the sculptures is almost hyper-realistic and closely resembles the appearance and proportion of an idealized Chinese body, with a naturalistic skin color, detailed facial features, and wigs that mimic the appearance of hair. Their bodies are true-to-life and therefore visually connected to actual, living female bodies, but represent an idealized type of female body rather than an “average” or “real” body. And this idealized female body is delicately curved and sensuous, as in Physical Attachment-02 (figure 14), which has round breasts that appear almost disproportionately large and gravity-defying. This roundness and fullness is further highlighted by the cylindrical construct over her right breast. The poses of the sculptures also connote sensuality and submissiveness, highlighting their curvy bodies. For example, Physical Attachment04 (figure 16) is posed as if on her hands and knees (although she does not have hands), a sex position that emphasizes the curve of her back and buttocks and draws attention to her dangling breasts. Despite the fact that her arms appear to be large shotguns, there is nothing threatening about the way this cyborg is posed, and the “hands and knees” pose even seems docile. Physical Attachment-02 is posed in a similarly alluring way, with her slightly arched back and raised leg emphasizing her breasts and thigh. Compare these poses to the provocative poster for Ghost in the Shell (figure 18), which shows a nude and kneeling Motoko Kusanagi with her chest thrust outward. Her body is strategically positioned and posed in the most erotic way possible, showing the viewer both her bottom and a side profile of her breast, nipple perfectly outlined in silhouette. The submissiveness and explicit eroticism seen in this poster are present in Fan’s cyborg sculptures, particularly in their poses, which emphasize the sexual availability of their curvaceous bodies. Physical Attachment-02, as previously discussed, is posed with chest out and leg up to emphasize the sensuous curves of her body, and similarly to the Ghost in the Shell poster, she looks up into the distance, giving the viewer permission to visually consume her body in the round without confrontation. Physical Attachment-04 is posed in a way that not only highlights her large breasts and bottom, but is also a literal sex position. She too lacks a strong gaze to confront the viewer, as her eyes are hidden behind mechanical goggles. These examples allow us to see the influence of anime on Fan’s work, in which images of the female body cater to and validate the male gaze.[82]

Figure 13: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-01, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.

Without the mechanical attachments, there is no doubt that these sculptures would be considered stereotypically sexualized. Fan replicates the image of the female cyborg as an object for the male gaze by portraying her cyborgs as nude and sensuously curvy. In contrast to Cui’s claim that “the artist expresses a consciousness toward…(re)locating the female body against hegemonic social-cultural conditions,” and the artist’s claim that her cyborgs envision a world where men and women are equal, the female bodies here in fact replicate the traditional conditions of the woman’s place as an erotic object of the gaze.[83] This raises a few questions: does the work still succeed as a feminist critique by including the machine attachments? Does the transformation of these women into cyborgs interrupt the voyeuristic viewing experience of their sensuous bodies?

Figure 14: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-02, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 168 x 65 x 143cm.

Despite the possibilities that the human-machine interaction proposes, Fan Xiaoyan’s transformation of these women into cyborgs does not interrupt the voyeurism of viewing their objectified bodies. In fact, the addition of the machine parts only further emphasizes the vulnerability and accessibility of the female body. While the artist and Cui have both insisted that the mechanical attachments symbolize the strengthening of the female body in response to its perceived inferiority and weakness, it is inappropriate to consider the mechanical additions in such a positive light. Firstly, while Fan may have intended to destabilize traditional ideas regarding the female body, her sculptures validate the very position she’s trying to contradict. By promoting these augmented female bodies as the final stage in a transformation from weakness to strength, Fan implicitly upholds the idea that female bodies are inherently weak and inferior to male bodies in their unmodified state.

Figure 15: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-03, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 216 x 93 x 133 cm.

Secondly, the mechanical attachments in Fan’s sculpture series do not appear to enhance the body’s function at all, further diminishing the artist’s desire to “strengthen” the female body. In fact, many of these attachments would hinder the movement and physical freedom of these cyborgs. For example, the figure in Physical Attachment-03 (figure 15), who lays in a deliberately sprawled pose on the ground, does not even look like she would be able to walk or move around effectively. The majority of her right leg is replaced by a metal piece ending in a dramatically tapered spring, while the other is replaced by an awkwardly shaped addition that curves backward behind her body and connects with her left arm. Her right arm has been replaced by another ambiguous metal piece that seems to serve no function. Why these attachments? What purpose do they serve? Do they enhance or supplement the body in any way?

Figure 16: Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-04, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 208 x 96 x 136cm.

Physical Attachment-03 certainly does not seem to have benefited from these mechanical attachments. How could this woman move or engage with others? For example, while the curved part that connects the left arm and leg seems to have a downward extension that could substitute for a foot, walking upright would be difficult, if not impossible. Crawling or shuffling across the ground would also be quite challenging, because every part of the figure’s body that touches the floor is made of metal, a material that does not have sufficient grip to move across all surfaces. The freedom of movement this cyborg could have is severely limited by the impracticality of her metallic attachments. The movement of Physical Attachment-01 would be similarly hindered by the awkward constructions that protrude from her knees and the point where her legs converge together (figure 17). Here the stainless steel material that comprises the long chainsaw and hammer attachments would also make movement of the arms strenuous and exhausting. While stainless steel is indeed a heavy-duty material that symbolizes strength for Fan Xiaoyan, it is also dense, meaning it would be unfeasible for this thin-armed figure to even move her arms. This calls the artist’s optimistic statement that these sculptures “strengthen” the female body into question. Rather than strengthening the bodies, these attachments hinder movement and weigh them down. They are not “supporting” the body, as Cui puts it, but serve to make the figure more vulnerable, not less. By limiting the cyborgs’ freedom of movement, the attachments also take away their physical agency, in contrast to the freedom of movement that a viewer might have in the gallery or museum space. The combination of these factors implies the viewer’s assumed access to her body, which has a distinctly sexualized dimension in the context of how their bodies are objectified. Physical Attachment-03, for example, is positioned in a way that displays her sexualized characteristics and is open and inviting to the viewer, while implying her motionlessness. These mechanical attachments do not imply power, but hindered mobility and accessibility to the viewer.

Figure 17: Fan Xiaoyan, frontal view of Physical Attachment-01, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.

The static nature of sculpture as a medium, in contrast to the emphasis on movement in Ghost in the Shell, only heightens our perception of the figures as sexualized and vulnerable. The Major’s power partially comes from movement and the use of her advanced cybernetic body, and this is a theme repeated throughout the film. In the opening scene, which establishes her as a commanding character, the audience watches as a mostly-nude Kusanagi jumps off the top of a building, assassinates a foreign diplomat, and then disappears using her thermo-optic camouflage as she falls toward the ground below. Fan Xiaoyan’s sculptures, which are naturally static, get no such display of power or agency. Another factor that strips the sculptures of any power is the fact that they are looked at, but do not look. There is no moment of confrontation between the viewer and sculpture in which the art “looks back.” Sculptures 03 and 04 wear some form of enhanced eye goggles, while 01 and 02 look down at the floor and up into the distance (respectively). There is no moment of eye contact, of confrontation with the viewer, that disrupts the voyeuristic viewing process. Just as Kusanagi was repeatedly transformed into a passive object to be looked at by the audience, so too are the cyborgs of Physical Attachment. The only difference is the Major is portrayed in ways that are not objectifying, while Fan’s sculptures are not. Kusanagi appears in several scenes fully clothed, and her sexualized body is not the visual focus, while the exposed skin of Fan Xiaoyan’s sculptures is visible from all angles. This only serves to further emphasize the impression that these sculptures are vulnerable, perhaps even more vulnerable than a human woman, to the intrusion of the male gaze and male domination. And while the male gaze is present here, thus implicating the presence of a male viewing body, there is a lack of male bodies in Fan Xiaoyan’s depiction of a futuristic utopia.

Figure 18: Masamune Shirow, Poster for Ghost in the Shell, 1995.

The absence of men and a similar portrayal of male nudity, like in cyborg anime, is another element that subverts the message of post-gendered equality that Fan Xiaoyan strove for in Physical Attachment. As previously discussed, one of the most problematic elements of the film is the obsessive objectification of the Major’s female-coded body, combined with the lack of corresponding portrayals of the male body. Physical Attachment has a similar problem, yet the artist does not seem to be aware of it.

The violent contrast between delicate, yielding flesh and cold, hard steel gives rise to an extremely intense visual effect. The attachment of heavy paraphernalia to the female body gives rise to a kind of strength and sweetness……the work appears to proclaim the arrival of a new era, a new kind of human being, a new power, a new sensation. I aim to express, I am creating a surrealistic virtual world in which men and women are really equal![84]

In the optimistic statement above, Fan claimed that the “violent contrast between delicate, yielding flesh and cold, hard steel,” as well as the “attachment of heavy paraphernalia to the female body gives rise to a kind of strength and sweetness.”[85] Ironically, her idealistic statement illustrates several of Physical Attachment’s more problematic and conflicting aspects. Her contradictory description of how the “heavy paraphernalia” evokes both strength and sweetness illustrates the conflict at the heart of this work. Physical Attachment is caught between the “sweetness” of traditional depictions of femininity and the “strength” of the radical potential of the cyborg. Ultimately, she does not successfully channel the way human-machine interactions can, according to cyborg theory, challenge gendered representations of the body, evoking only the “sweetness” of the soft, sensuous female body. The artist’s statement of creating “a surrealistic virtual world in which men and women are really equal” is equally telling yet problematic. If Fan wanted to portray a futuristic, “virtual” world where women and men were “really equal,” where are the men in her series? This absence is telling, and it further highlights how the work actually fails to promote equality. Equality involves equal representation, and arguably should involve equal levels of sexualization. Even if we disregard the fact that the bodies of her sculptures are visibly coded as female, her use of gendered terms also reveals a lack of interest in using the cyborg to articulate a body or personhood that transcends constructed categories of sex/gender differentiation.

Fan Xiaoyan’s Physical Attachment series functions in a similar way to Ghost in the Shell; they both appear to provide liberation and radical progress while simultaneously entrenching established codes of gendered power. Fan’s statement, quoted above, shows that this work deliberately attempts to provide an image of an idealized future while failing to do so in reality. Both the film and the sculpture series, operating under the guise of gender equality, seem to advocate for a radical reformulation of gender and sex. Physical Attachment attempts to articulate a new version of the female body that promotes gender equality. However, it falls short of these goals, in part because of its obsessive sexualization and objectification of the female body. The excessive nudity, combined with the portrayal of idealized female bodies in sexualized poses, appeals to the male gaze without addressing its existence or confronting it. In certain cases the sculptures take positions that imply sexual acts or have attachments that appear to penetrate them, which display the literal sexual accessibility and penetrability of these bodies. The phallic motifs, present in mechanical attachments like guns also heightens this sense of objectification and subjugation. Additionally, the attachments fail to strengthen the female body, and are in fact complicit in the immobilization of these sexualized bodies. By failing to see her own role in the objectification and subjugation of the female body, Fan Xiaoyan and her series Physical Attachment do not achieve the kind of feminist agenda provided by cyborg theory.

[81] Cui, “Cyborg Bodies,” 188.

[82] This erotic and sexualized treatment of the female body is also pervasive in other forms of popular mass media, as well as pornography, fetish subculture, and in the fine arts. An examination of these connections is outside the scope of this capstone, but is an important avenue for future research. My focus is anime because of its popularity and mass appeal across East Asia and the world, and because it also encompasses some of these subcultural elements.

[83] Cui, “Cyborg Bodies,” 188.

[84] Cui, “Cyborg Bodies,” 188.

[85] Cui, “Cyborg Bodies,” 188.