[{"id":300,"date":"2022-03-29T18:19:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T23:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=300"},"modified":"2022-04-20T15:52:18","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T20:52:18","slug":"figures","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/figures\/","title":{"rendered":"List of Figures"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false”]<\/p>\n

RESOURCES<\/h5>\n

LIST OF FIGURES<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px||60px|||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Figure List” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” link_text_color=”#ff4500″]<\/p>\n

Figure 1:<\/strong>\u00a0Cover for\u00a0An Analysis of Donna Haraway\u2019s A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century<\/em>\u00a0(The Macat Library), 2019.<\/p>\n

Figure 2:<\/strong>\u00a0Sorayama Hajime,\u00a0HS_Paint_163<\/em>, 2018. Taken from the artist’s website,\u00a0http:\/\/sorayama.jp\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 3:<\/strong> iPhone XR advertisement, 2018. See https:\/\/youtu.be\/1EnDE-Sd_fw<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 4:<\/strong>\u00a0Sorayama Hajime,\u00a0HS_Paint_138<\/em>, 2017. Taken from the artist’s website,\u00a0http:\/\/sorayama.jp\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 5:<\/strong>\u00a0Sorayama Hajime, HS_Paint_141<\/em>, 2017.\u00a0Taken from the artist’s website,\u00a0http:\/\/sorayama.jp\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 6:<\/strong> Mamoru Oshii (director),\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, 1995. Film still showing Motoko Kusanagi (the Major).<\/p>\n

Figure 7:<\/strong>\u00a0Mamoru Oshii (director),\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, 1995. Film still showing Motoko Kusanagi (left) and her partner Batou (right).<\/p>\n

Figure 8:<\/strong>\u00a0Mamoru Oshii (director),\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, 1995. Film still showing Motoko Kusanagi (the Major).<\/p>\n

Figure 9:<\/strong>\u00a0Mamoru Oshii (director),\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, 1995. Film still showing Motoko Kusanagi (the Major).<\/p>\n

Figure 10:<\/strong>\u00a0Liang Jun, the first female tractor driver in China, and her assistant. From\u00a0The People\u2019s Pictorial<\/em>, August 1950. Taken from Du, \u201cSocialist Modernity in the Wasteland,\u201d 63.<\/p>\n

Figure 11:<\/strong>\u00a0Photograph of a young factory worker in Dongguan, 2018. From \u201c\u6771\u839e\u6253\u5de5\u59b9\u7684\u300c\u5ee0\u82b1\uff0c\u4e00\u500b\u6bd4\u4e00\u500b\u6f02\u4eae\u6709\u6c23\u8cea [The ‘flowers’ of factories in Dongguan are pretty and elegant<\/span>]\u201d\u00a0KK News<\/em>, https:\/\/kknews.cc\/society\/3ojvvoa.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 12:<\/strong>\u00a0Photograph of Fan Xiaoyan, from Xuehua News<\/em>, https:\/\/www.xuehua.us\/a\/5eb649d586ec4d2aade2483d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 13:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.<\/p>\n

Figure 14:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,\u00a0Physical Attachment-02<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 168 x 65 x 143cm.<\/p>\n

Figure 15:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,\u00a0Physical Attachment-03<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 216 x 93 x 133 cm.<\/p>\n

Figure 16:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,\u00a0Physical Attachment-04<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 208 x 96 x 136cm.\u00a0Accessed at https:\/\/zhuanlan.zhihu.com\/p\/377512086<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 17:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,<\/em> frontal view of Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.\u00a0Accessed at https:\/\/www.xuehua.us\/a\/5eb649d586ec4d2aade2483d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 18:<\/strong>\u00a0Masamune Shirow, Poster for\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, 1995.<\/p>\n

Figure 19:<\/strong> Fan Xiaoyan,\u00a0Physical Attachment-04<\/em> (side view), 2008.\u00a0Stainless steel and mixed materials, 208 x 96 x 136cm.\u00a0Accessed at https:\/\/www.juxtapoz.com\/news\/fan-xiaoyans-flesh-and-steel\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 20:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W1-W4<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 21:<\/strong>\u00a0Photograph of Lee Bul. Photo by Klaus Vyhnalek.\u00a0Accessed at https:\/\/www.artbasel.com\/news\/lee-bul-artist-visionary-korea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 22:<\/strong>\u00a0Lee Bul, Abortion<\/em>, 1989. Performance, The 1st Korea\u2013Japan Performance Festival, Lobby Theater, Dongsoong Art Center, Seoul. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 23:<\/strong>\u00a0Lee Bul, Sorry for suffering\u2013You think I’m a puppy on a picnic?<\/em>, 1990. Performance, 12 days, The 2nd Japan and Korea Performance Festival, Gimpo Airport, Korea; Narita Airport, Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Otemachi Station, Koganji Temple, Asakusa, Shibuya, University of Tokyo and Tokiwaza Theater, Tokyo, Japan. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 24:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg Red<\/em> and Cyborg Blue<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm each. Installation view of Le Consortium centre d\u2019art contemporain, Dijon, 2002. Photo: Andr\u00e9 Morin. Photo Courtesy: Le Consortium.<\/p>\n

Figure 25:\u00a0<\/strong>Left: Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg Red, 1997-1998. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.\u00a0Right: Lee Bul, Cyborg Blue<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 26:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W1<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 56 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 27:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W2<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 74 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 28:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W3<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 81 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 29:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W4<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 188 x 60 x 50 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 30:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W5<\/em>, 1999. Hand-cut ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) panels on fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP), polyurethane coating, 150 x 55 x 90cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 31:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W6<\/em>, 2001. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 232 x 67 x 67 cm. Photo: Kim Hyun-soo. Photo Courtesy: Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

Figure 32:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W7<\/em>, 2000. Hand-cut polyurethane panels on FRP, polyurethane coating. Installation view at Amorepacific Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

Figure 33:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W8<\/em>, 2004. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 181 x 65 x 115 cm. Photo: Atsushi Nakamichi\/Nac\u00e1sa & Partners. Photo Courtesy: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.<\/p>\n

Figure 34:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W9<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 60 x 70 cm. Accessed at https:\/\/artmap.com\/ropacsalzburg\/exhibition\/lee-bul-2007<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 35:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W10<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 70 x 60cm.\u00a0Accessed at https:\/\/ropac.net\/news\/314-lee-bul-on-my-shelf\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 36:<\/strong> Alexandros of Antioch,\u00a0Venus de Milo<\/em>, 150-125 BCE. Parian Marble, 204 cm.<\/p>\n

Figure 37:<\/strong> Poster for cyberpunk anime miniseries \u201cBubblegum Crisis\u201d (1987-1991), 1987.<\/p>\n

Figure 38:<\/strong> Poster for\u00a0Black Widow\u00a0<\/em>(2021), 2020.<\/p>\n

Figure 39:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W9<\/em>\u00a0(back view), 2006 with\u00a0Cyborg W10<\/em>\u00a0(2006),\u00a0Chiasma<\/em>\u00a0(2005) and\u00a0Untitled<\/em>\u00a0(Anagram drawings No.2-5)<\/em>\u00a0in the background. Installation view of Domus Artium 02, Salamanca, 2007. Photo: Santiago Santos. Photo Courtesy: Domus Artium 02, Salamanca.<\/p>\n

Figure 40:<\/strong> Lee Bul, side view of\u00a0Cyborg W5<\/em>, 1999. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 150 x 55 x 90cm.\u00a0National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. \u00a9\uc774\ubd88 .\u00a0Accessed at http:\/\/www.mu-um.com\/?mid=02&act=dtl&idx=36923<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Figure 41:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W7<\/em>, 2000. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating. Photo: Jeon Byung-cheol. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

Figure 42:<\/strong>\u00a0Installation Gallery.
Installation view of Cyborg W2-W4<\/em>, \u201cCrash\u201d at Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2006. Taken from https:\/\/www.lehmannmaupin.com\/ko\/haeoe-jeonsi\/lee-bul-crash<\/a>.
Installation view of “LEE BUL” at Mudam Luxembourg (5 October 2013-9 June 2014). Photo \u00a9 Eric Chenal. Accessed at https:\/\/www.yatzer.com\/lee-bul-shaping-science-fiction-fantasies-out-crystal-and-glass\/slideshow\/2<\/a>.
Installation view of \u201cLee Bul: Crashing\u201d at the Hayward Gallery, London, 2018. Photo by Mark Blower. \u00a9Lee Bul.\u00a0Accessed at https:\/\/www.artbasel.com\/news\/lee-bul-artist-visionary-korea<\/a>.
Lee Bul, Cyborg W10 (2006). Installation view of Domus Artium 02, Salamanca, 2007. Photo: Santiago Santos. Courtesy of the artist.
Installation view of \u201cHumans, Seven Questions\u201d at the Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021. \u00a9 Yonhap News. Accessed at https:\/\/www.yna.co.kr\/view\/PYH20211005104800013<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false”] RESOURCES LIST OF FIGURES [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px||60px|||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Figure List” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” link_text_color=”#ff4500″] Figure 1:\u00a0Cover for\u00a0An Analysis of Donna Haraway\u2019s A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-300","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":258,"date":"2022-03-21T15:25:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=258"},"modified":"2022-04-19T14:24:01","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:24:01","slug":"conclusion","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”39px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n

PART III |\u00a0BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

CONCLUSION<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

In conclusion, Lee Bul\u2019s cyborg sculptures leave the interpretation of her sculptures as feminist open-ended and dependent on the way they are hung. While their forms signal Lee\u2019s rejection of the female body\u2019s objectification and embody some goals of cyborg theory, the lack of a unified display method undermines a straightforward interpretation. Ultimately, her experiment in cyborg figuration cannot be considered unconditionally feminist. Rather, it is a reflection of the enduring power of the male gaze, especially in East Asia, and the difficulty of portraying the female form in a feminist manner. Lee Bul\u2019s sculptures pose to us these crucial questions: Is it possible for a feminist representation of the female cyborg body to come about in the context of pervasive and sexualized depictions of female bodies and women? And if the cyborg has not been successfully mobilized for a feminist purpose in East Asia, is there potential for an East Asian \u201ccyborg feminism?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/conclusion\/” button_text=”Next: Conclusion” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”339,338,340,341,342,366,364,343,31,346″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][\/et_pb_gallery][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”off|off|on” admin_label=”mobile\/tablet” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ admin_label=”mobile\/tablet” disabled_on=”off|off|on” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

In conclusion, Lee Bul\u2019s cyborg sculptures leave the interpretation of her sculptures as feminist open-ended and dependent on the way they are hung. While their forms signal Lee\u2019s rejection of the female body\u2019s objectification and embody some goals of cyborg theory, the lack of a unified display method undermines a straightforward interpretation. Ultimately, her experiment in cyborg figuration cannot be considered unconditionally feminist. Rather, it is a reflection of the enduring power of the male gaze, especially in East Asia, and the difficulty of portraying the female form in a feminist manner. Lee Bul\u2019s sculptures pose to us these crucial questions: Is it possible for a feminist representation of the female cyborg body to come about in the context of pervasive and sexualized depictions of female bodies and women? And if the cyborg has not been successfully mobilized for a feminist purpose in East Asia, is there potential for an East Asian \u201ccyborg feminism?\u201d<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”339,338,340,341,342,366,364,343,31,346″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/conclusion\/” button_text=”Next: Conclusion” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ button_on_hover=”off”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”39px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART III |\u00a0BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS CONCLUSION [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”] In conclusion, Lee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":96,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-258","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":257,"date":"2022-03-21T15:25:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=257"},"modified":"2022-04-19T14:23:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:23:28","slug":"critiquing-the-sexy-cyborg","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/critiquing-the-sexy-cyborg\/","title":{"rendered":"Critiquing the Sexy Cyborg?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n

PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

CRITIQUING THE SEXY CYBORG?<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px||14px|||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop row” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Lee Bul’s cyborg sculptures take issue with the cyborg in application, especially the representation of the sexy female cyborg in media. However, because of the artist\u2019s association with feminist art (despite her rejection of the term), scholars have assumed her work has an innately feminist meaning or interpretation. As I argue below, a critical examination of how her works deal with the sexualized female body and if they can be considered feminist complicates such a straightforward connection. Cyborg W1-W10<\/em> first and foremost attempt to reject and undermine how female cyborgs are problematically presented in anime, yet their effect is ultimately unresolved and ambiguous due to the changing nature of their display.<\/p>\n

As previously discussed, in anime like Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, female cyborg bodies are objectified for the assumed male audience in lingering and provocative shots that present the sexualized female form for visual consumption. Motoko Kusanagi\u2019s body, for example, is characterized by tactile realism and an idealized rendering of female features that appeals to the male gaze. Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s Physical Attachment<\/em> similarly presents the female cyborg body as an erotic site of visual consumption in style and presentation. Her realistic style, which mimics the natural coloring of skin, nipples, and facial features visually brings the sculptures closer to real human bodies, allowing them to be more readily eroticized. Additionally, the organic parts of the bodies are representations of a highly sexualized female form characterized by thin limbs, small waists, and round, full breasts. Despite the radical conception of the cyborg as a figure that can confuse gender boundaries, in these two examples the cyborg is clearly gendered as female, and its radical potential is contained within the paradigm of the female body as a sexual object. Lee\u2019s sculptures have more ambiguous relationship with this paradigm. They exhibit the visual features of the sexualized female cyborg form present in anime and Physical Attachment<\/em>, particularly the emphasis on breasts, yet their visual form disrupts and ridicules an eroticized viewing experience.<\/p>\n

In Cyborg W1-W10<\/em>, female sex characteristics are presented in an artificially exaggerated way, undermining the titillating viewing experience present in anime depictions of cyborgs. Breasts take warped shapes like pointed cones and rectangular protrusions. Waists are made excessively small in proportion to the shoulders and hips, creating unnatural and disturbing curves. The female aspects of the cyborg body are amplified and distorted to become grotesque, undermining their sexual desirability. The connection between her sculptures and the problematic objectification present in anime is one aspect of Lee Bul\u2019s critique of the cyborg. In comparison with Fan Xiaoyan, both artists have used the features characteristic of female bodies, like wide hips and breasts, but they do so in entirely different ways. While Fan\u2019s cyborgs resemble real women with added mechanical attachments, Lee\u2019s sculptures are more abstract. Cyborg W3<\/em> (figure 28)<\/strong>, in contrast to Fan\u2019s cyborgs, is headless, monochromatic, and has distorted body features. The mechanical attachments are here less \u201cattached\u201d than they are an essential part of the cyborg\u2019s body. This both gives the figure more cohesion and distances it from the appearance of organic bodies. This is not simply a woman with added machine parts, but an entirely new, hybrid being. According to scholar Jeon Hyesook, these \u201c\u2018disabled-female-cyborgs\u2019 break the conclusiveness of technology that was considered to be the domain of men, and by doing so, they eliminate the collusion of \u2018machine-power,\u2019 deactivate the male gaze, and become hybrids that exist beyond boundaries.\u201d[116]<\/sup><\/a> Here Jeon argues that the female cyborgs contradict the common perception that men are better-suited to work with technology and break the male dominance of technology by integrating the female body with the machine. Lee alluded to the traditional sexualization of the female body by making the cyborgs curvy, while simultaneously impeding the viewer from sexualizing the sculpture. Her cyborgs strike a delicate balance that can be read as criticizing the sexualization of women, while Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s do not.<\/p>\n

However, the varying types of display that are possible with these sculptures complicates the view that they represent a straightforward, feminist repudiation of the sexy cyborg form. Fan Xiaoyan alluringly presented the cyborg body directly on the floor, variously posed on their hands and knees (figure 16)<\/strong> or laying down (figure 15)<\/strong>,which conveys a provocative or passive presence that invites the erotic gaze of the spectator. Furthermore, since the cyborg in Physical Attachment-03<\/em> is splayed out on the floor, the viewer is literally looking down at the piece, a physical manifestation of the power dynamic between viewer and viewed. This dynamic is not so readily applied to Lee Bul\u2019s cyborgs, who maintain an inconclusive relationship with the viewer due to their variable display. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Because Cyborg W1-W10<\/em> are hung, the viewer is able to see the entire cyborg body without the interference of a pedestal or base. Each sculpture can be consumed from many angles, including from below, and their lack of heads, limbs, and assistive devices also suggests a lack of physical agency and potential, and thus erotic consumption, as in Fan\u2019s sculptures. While the sculptures can be observed by the viewer, their headless bodies cannot reciprocate a gaze. As in Physical Attachment<\/em>, Lee\u2019s sculptures replicate the historical visual hierarchy that categorizes men as active lookers and women as objects that are looked at. The lack of a pedestal also eliminates a barrier that visually and physically prevents the viewer from approaching the sculptures, allowing for an invasion of their \u201cpersonal space,\u201d so to speak. Unlike the majority of figurative art, which has some impediment or demarcation between the viewer and the work of art (for example, a frame, vitrine, or pedestal), these headless and immobile female bodies can be brought into close contact with the viewer. Therefore, the viewer has the power of the unrestrained gaze: not only can they consume the female body from all angles, they can do so from close proximity. In addition, the sculptures are larger than life-size, which allows for a closer inspection of the cyborg body, especially if they are hung closer to the ground. Inviting intimate observation, the female body is thus subject to the viewer\u2019s complete visual, and potentially erotic, consumption. Alternatively, the works can be hung farther off the ground, creating varying degrees of distance from the viewer that could impede a voyeuristic viewing experience. Hanging the cyborgs at an elevated height, for example, would make the experience of contemplating the female body physically uncomfortable and difficult to sustain over long periods of time. In this scenario, the monumental scale of the sculptures, as well as the sci-fi effect of a hovering sculpture far above one\u2019s head, fully rejects the male gaze. In practice, different museum or gallery spaces utilize vastly different hangings of the sculptures (see figure 42<\/strong>), and therefore there cannot be a universal interpretation of Lee Bul\u2019s series. However, this inconsistency in display signals the ambiguity of a feminist interpretation; when hung low, the sculptures are more easily eroticized, while a hang that places them far away from the viewer thwarts the erotic consumption of the female body.<\/p>\n

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[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/conclusion” button_text=”Next: Conclusion” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/W6-crop-1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w6″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 31:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W6<\/em>, 2001. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 232 x 67 x 67 cm. Photo: Kim Hyun-soo. Photo Courtesy: Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 26:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W1<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 56 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/04\/w2-w3-combo.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w2 w3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 27:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W2<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 74 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.
Figure 28:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W3<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 81 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/02\/14.-IMG_0349-1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w7″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 41:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W7<\/em>, 2000. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating. Photo: Jeon Byung-cheol. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”428,429,430,431,432″ fullwidth=”on” admin_label=”installation gallery” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.3em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 42:<\/strong> Installation Gallery (click to enlarge and see captions)<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px||60px|||” disabled_on=”off|off|on” admin_label=”mobile\/tablet row” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Lee Bul’s cyborg sculptures take issue with the cyborg in application, especially the representation of the sexy female cyborg in media. However, because of the artist\u2019s association with feminist art (despite her rejection of the term), scholars have assumed her work has an innately feminist meaning or interpretation. As I argue below, a critical examination of how her works deal with the sexualized female body and if they can be considered feminist complicates such a straightforward connection. Cyborg W1-W10<\/em> first and foremost attempt to reject and undermine how female cyborgs are problematically presented in anime, yet their effect is ultimately unresolved and ambiguous due to the changing nature of their display.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/W6-crop-1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w6″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”w6 cap” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||13px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 31:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W6<\/em>, 2001. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 232 x 67 x 67 cm. Photo: Kim Hyun-soo. Photo Courtesy: Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”||20px|||”]<\/p>\n

As previously discussed, in anime like Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, female cyborg bodies are objectified for the assumed male audience in lingering and provocative shots that present the sexualized female form for visual consumption. Motoko Kusanagi\u2019s body, for example, is characterized by tactile realism and an idealized rendering of female features that appeals to the male gaze. Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s Physical Attachment<\/em> similarly presents the female cyborg body as an erotic site of visual consumption in style and presentation. Her realistic style, which mimics the natural coloring of skin, nipples, and facial features visually brings the sculptures closer to real human bodies, allowing them to be more readily eroticized. Additionally, the organic parts of the bodies are representations of a highly sexualized female form characterized by thin limbs, small waists, and round, full breasts. Despite the radical conception of the cyborg as a figure that can confuse gender boundaries, in these two examples the cyborg is clearly gendered as female, and its radical potential is contained within the paradigm of the female body as a sexual object. Lee\u2019s sculptures have more ambiguous relationship with this paradigm. They exhibit the visual features of the sexualized female cyborg form present in anime and Physical Attachment<\/em>, particularly the emphasis on breasts, yet their visual form disrupts and ridicules an eroticized viewing experience.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”w1 cap” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||11px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 26:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W1<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 56 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”||18px|||”]<\/p>\n

In Cyborg W1-W10<\/em>, female sex characteristics are presented in an artificially exaggerated way, undermining the titillating viewing experience present in anime depictions of cyborgs. Breasts take warped shapes like pointed cones and rectangular protrusions. Waists are made excessively small in proportion to the shoulders and hips, creating unnatural and disturbing curves. The female aspects of the cyborg body are amplified and distorted to become grotesque, undermining their sexual desirability. The connection between her sculptures and the problematic objectification present in anime is one aspect of Lee Bul\u2019s critique of the cyborg. In comparison with Fan Xiaoyan, both artists have used the features characteristic of female bodies, like wide hips and breasts, but they do so in entirely different ways. While Fan\u2019s cyborgs resemble real women with added mechanical attachments, Lee\u2019s sculptures are more abstract. Cyborg W3<\/em> (figure 28)<\/strong>, in contrast to Fan\u2019s cyborgs, is headless, monochromatic, and has distorted body features. The mechanical attachments are here less \u201cattached\u201d than they are an essential part of the cyborg\u2019s body. This both gives the figure more cohesion and distances it from the appearance of organic bodies. This is not simply a woman with added machine parts, but an entirely new, hybrid being. According to scholar Jeon Hyesook, these \u201c\u2018disabled-female-cyborgs\u2019 break the conclusiveness of technology that was considered to be the domain of men, and by doing so, they eliminate the collusion of \u2018machine-power,\u2019 deactivate the male gaze, and become hybrids that exist beyond boundaries.\u201d[116]<\/sup><\/a> Here Jeon argues that the female cyborgs contradict the common perception that men are better-suited to work with technology and break the male dominance of technology by integrating the female body with the machine. Lee alluded to the traditional sexualization of the female body by making the cyborgs curvy, while simultaneously impeding the viewer from sexualizing the sculpture. Her cyborgs strike a delicate balance that can be read as criticizing the sexualization of women, while Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s do not.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/04\/w2-w3-combo.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w2 w3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”w2\/w3 cap” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||13px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 27:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W2<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 74 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.
Figure 28:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W3<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 81 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”||19px|||”]<\/p>\n

However, the varying types of display that are possible with these sculptures complicates the view that they represent a straightforward, feminist repudiation of the sexy cyborg form. Fan Xiaoyan alluringly presented the cyborg body directly on the floor, variously posed on their hands and knees (figure 16)<\/strong> or laying down (figure 15)<\/strong>,which conveys a provocative or passive presence that invites the erotic gaze of the spectator. Furthermore, since the cyborg in Physical Attachment-03<\/em> is splayed out on the floor, the viewer is literally looking down at the piece, a physical manifestation of the power dynamic between viewer and viewed. This dynamic is not so readily applied to Lee Bul\u2019s cyborgs, who maintain an inconclusive relationship with the viewer due to their variable display.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/02\/14.-IMG_0349-1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w7″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”w7 cap” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||13px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 41:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W7<\/em>, 2000. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating. Photo: Jeon Byung-cheol. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”||19px|||”]<\/p>\n

Because Cyborg W1-W10<\/em> are hung, the viewer is able to see the entire cyborg body without the interference of a pedestal or base. Each sculpture can be consumed from many angles, including from below, and their lack of heads, limbs, and assistive devices also suggests a lack of physical agency and potential, and thus erotic consumption, as in Fan\u2019s sculptures. While the sculptures can be observed by the viewer, their headless bodies cannot reciprocate a gaze. As in Physical Attachment<\/em>, Lee\u2019s sculptures replicate the historical visual hierarchy that categorizes men as active lookers and women as objects that are looked at. The lack of a pedestal also eliminates a barrier that visually and physically prevents the viewer from approaching the sculptures, allowing for an invasion of their \u201cpersonal space,\u201d so to speak. Unlike the majority of figurative art, which has some impediment or demarcation between the viewer and the work of art (for example, a frame, vitrine, or pedestal), these headless and immobile female bodies can be brought into close contact with the viewer. Therefore, the viewer has the power of the unrestrained gaze: not only can they consume the female body from all angles, they can do so from close proximity. In addition, the sculptures are larger than life-size, which allows for a closer inspection of the cyborg body, especially if they are hung closer to the ground. Inviting intimate observation, the female body is thus subject to the viewer\u2019s complete visual, and potentially erotic, consumption. Alternatively, the works can be hung farther off the ground, creating varying degrees of distance from the viewer that could impede a voyeuristic viewing experience. Hanging the cyborgs at an elevated height, for example, would make the experience of contemplating the female body physically uncomfortable and difficult to sustain over long periods of time. In this scenario, the monumental scale of the sculptures, as well as the sci-fi effect of a hovering sculpture far above one\u2019s head, fully rejects the male gaze. In practice, different museum or gallery spaces utilize vastly different hangings of the sculptures (see figure 42<\/strong>), and therefore there cannot be a universal interpretation of Lee Bul\u2019s series. However, this inconsistency in display signals the ambiguity of a feminist interpretation; when hung low, the sculptures are more easily eroticized, while a hang that places them far away from the viewer thwarts the erotic consumption of the female body.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”428,429,430,431,432″ fullwidth=”on” admin_label=”installation gallery” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text admin_label=”installation cap” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.3em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 42:<\/strong> Installation Gallery (click to enlarge and see captions)<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/conclusion” button_text=”Next: Conclusion” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ button_on_hover=”off”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ background_color=”#eeeeee” custom_padding=”23px||17px|||” saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”25px” header_4_letter_spacing=”5px” header_5_text_align=”left” header_5_text_color=”#292929″ header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”4px” custom_padding=”||6px|||”][116]<\/span><\/a> Jeon Hyesook, “Woman, Body, and Posthumanism: Lee Bul’s Cyborgs and Monsters,”\u00a0Asian Journal of Women’s Studies<\/em>\u00a023, no. 1 (2017): 7.[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS CRITIQUING THE SEXY CYBORG? [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px||14px|||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop row” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":96,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-257","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/257\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":256,"date":"2022-03-21T15:24:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=256"},"modified":"2022-04-19T16:29:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T21:29:28","slug":"embodying-ambiguity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/embodying-ambiguity\/","title":{"rendered":"Embodying Ambiguity"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n

PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

EMBODYING AMBIGUITY<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop row” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

A defining feature of cyborg theory is a commitment to confusing and destabilizing socially constructed categories, thus opening up infinite possibilities for meaning. Donna Haraway stated this in her manifesto:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence.\u201d<\/strong>[113]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Lee Bul\u2019s cyborg sculptures are similarly dedicated to confusion and ambiguity, and the range of scholarly and critical responses to them are evidence of this. While Kurzmeyer characterized these cyborgs as \u201csad female knights,\u201d Randy Lee Cutler described them as \u201chard, seductive, and Amazonian.\u201d[114]<\/sup><\/a> Simultaneously alluring and grotesque, the scope of responses these sculptures elicit encapsulates some of their essential qualities: their ambiguity and ability to evoke a multiplicity of interpretations.<\/p>\n

The sculptures are undeniably threatening, exhibiting spiky appendages and militaristic armor. The hands of Cyborg W1-W4 <\/em>all have sharply pointed fingers, suggesting claws or pointy nails, often associated with villainous characters in both American and East Asian culture.[115]<\/sup><\/a> Many are over six feet tall and ominously loom over the viewer when hung, and some, like Cyborg W3<\/em>, even seem frozen in a moment of dynamic, aggressive action. But this menacing impression is instantly destabilized by elements that give the sculptures a sense of victimhood. The fragmentation of their forms, which are missing heads and limbs, implies violence enacted on their bodies, despite their heavy armor. The connection between bodily violence and fragmentation is especially apparent in Cyborg W9<\/em> and W10<\/em>, where the rounded ends of their severed limbs resemble those of amputees, or soldiers who have lost their limbs in battle. The allusion to militarism in their design only heightens the sense of enacted bodily violence. However, the specific violence they reference is unclear, whether they refer to the disproportionate violence that people with female bodies face or the violence of war. Additionally, the presentation of the sculptures as hung evokes a multitude of associations with victimhood, or perhaps at least immobility. Lee\u2019s performance of Abortion<\/em> involved the hanging of her own body to recreate the physical, social and emotional pain of an abortion, suggesting a connection with her cyborg sculptures. If the act of hanging a body from the ceiling is connected with pain for the artist (and those familiar with her work), that pain is evoked here. \u00a0The hanging cyborgs suggest motionless puppets, meat hanging in a butcher shop, or when hung low, perhaps victims of the gallows.<\/p>\n

Even an identification of the figures as bodies at all is ambiguous. Overlapping panels, tubes, and apparatuses, all in the same color and material, confuse the eye and obscure the human-like form of the sculpture. When viewed from different angles, some of the sculptures, like Cyborg W5<\/em> (figure 40)<\/strong>, for example, become abstracted and lose their association with the human body completely. Cyborg W8<\/em> is similarly abstracted. Presented as fragmentary and not whole as we imagine a body \u201cshould\u201d be, they destabilize our notions of what a human body looks like. They each bear signs of individuality, yet they are decapitated, severed from their identity. They hover somewhere between human and object provoking feelings of both identification and distance.<\/p>\n

In this way Lee Bul\u2019s cyborgs are a perfect embodiment of cyborg theory, which delights in the undefined, ambiguous, and hybrid. They are contradictory and resistant to categorization, opening up multiple possibilities for connection and interpretation. They pose poignant questions about our existence in the age of technological mediation: what is<\/em> a body, and what does it look like? What does a female body look like? What makes a human? And how does our interaction with technology change us and how we exist in the world? However, these observations of the sculptures in the context of cyborg theory are limited, showing the ineffectiveness of cyborg theory in art historical application. A deeper understanding of the series requires an investigation of their visual forms and methods of display in order to conclude if it represents a feminist take on the female cyborg form.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w3.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 28:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W3<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 81 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w9-and-w10.png” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w9 and w10″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 34 (left):<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W9<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 60 x 70 cm.
Figure 35 (right):<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W10<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 70 x 60cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/04\/w5-w8-better.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w5 and w8″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 40 (left):<\/strong> Lee Bul, side view of\u00a0Cyborg W5<\/em>, 1999. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 150 x 55 x 90cm.
Figure 33 (right):<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W8<\/em>, 2004. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 181 x 65 x 115 cm. Photo: Atsushi Nakamichi\/Nac\u00e1sa & Partners. Photo Courtesy: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”off|off|on” admin_label=”mobile\/tablet row” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

A defining feature of cyborg theory is a commitment to confusing and destabilizing socially constructed categories, thus opening up infinite possibilities for meaning. Donna Haraway stated this in her manifesto:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence.\u201d<\/strong>[113]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Lee Bul\u2019s cyborg sculptures are similarly dedicated to confusion and ambiguity, and the range of scholarly and critical responses to them are evidence of this. While Kurzmeyer characterized these cyborgs as \u201csad female knights,\u201d Randy Lee Cutler described them as \u201chard, seductive, and Amazonian.\u201d[114]<\/sup><\/a> Simultaneously alluring and grotesque, the scope of responses these sculptures elicit encapsulates some of their essential qualities: their ambiguity and ability to evoke a multiplicity of interpretations.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w3.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||14px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 28:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W3<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 81 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”||11px|||”]<\/p>\n

The sculptures are undeniably threatening, exhibiting spiky appendages and militaristic armor. The hands of Cyborg W1-W4 <\/em>all have sharply pointed fingers, suggesting claws or pointy nails, often associated with villainous characters in both American and East Asian culture.[115]<\/sup><\/a> Many are over six feet tall and ominously loom over the viewer when hung, and some, like Cyborg W3<\/em>, even seem frozen in a moment of dynamic, aggressive action. But this menacing impression is instantly destabilized by elements that give the sculptures a sense of victimhood. The fragmentation of their forms, which are missing heads and limbs, implies violence enacted on their bodies, despite their heavy armor. The connection between bodily violence and fragmentation is especially apparent in Cyborg W9<\/em> and W10<\/em>, where the rounded ends of their severed limbs resemble those of amputees, or soldiers who have lost their limbs in battle. The allusion to militarism in their design only heightens the sense of enacted bodily violence. However, the specific violence they reference is unclear, whether they refer to the disproportionate violence that people with female bodies face or the violence of war. Additionally, the presentation of the sculptures as hung evokes a multitude of associations with victimhood, or perhaps at least immobility. Lee\u2019s performance of Abortion<\/em> involved the hanging of her own body to recreate the physical, social and emotional pain of an abortion, suggesting a connection with her cyborg sculptures. If the act of hanging a body from the ceiling is connected with pain for the artist (and those familiar with her work), that pain is evoked here. \u00a0The hanging cyborgs suggest motionless puppets, meat hanging in a butcher shop, or when hung low, perhaps victims of the gallows.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w9-and-w10.png” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w9 and w10″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||13px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 34 (left):<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W9<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 60 x 70 cm.
Figure 35 (right):<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W10<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 70 x 60cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”||13px|||”]<\/p>\n

Even an identification of the figures as bodies at all is ambiguous. Overlapping panels, tubes, and apparatuses, all in the same color and material, confuse the eye and obscure the human-like form of the sculpture. When viewed from different angles, some of the sculptures, like Cyborg W5<\/em> (figure 40)<\/strong>, for example, become abstracted and lose their association with the human body completely. Cyborg W8<\/em> is similarly abstracted. Presented as fragmentary and not whole as we imagine a body \u201cshould\u201d be, they destabilize our notions of what a human body looks like. They each bear signs of individuality, yet they are decapitated, severed from their identity. They hover somewhere between human and object provoking feelings of both identification and distance.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/04\/w5-w8-better.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w5 and w8″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||14px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 40 (left):<\/strong> Lee Bul, side view of\u00a0Cyborg W5<\/em>, 1999. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 150 x 55 x 90cm.
Figure 33 (right):<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W8<\/em>, 2004. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 181 x 65 x 115 cm. Photo: Atsushi Nakamichi\/Nac\u00e1sa & Partners. Photo Courtesy: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

In this way Lee Bul\u2019s cyborgs are a perfect embodiment of cyborg theory, which delights in the undefined, ambiguous, and hybrid. They are contradictory and resistant to categorization, opening up multiple possibilities for connection and interpretation. They pose poignant questions about our existence in the age of technological mediation: what is<\/em> a body, and what does it look like? What does a female body look like? What makes a human? And how does our interaction with technology change us and how we exist in the world? However, these observations of the sculptures in the context of cyborg theory are limited, showing the ineffectiveness of cyborg theory in art historical application. A deeper understanding of the series requires an investigation of their visual forms and methods of display in order to conclude if it represents a feminist take on the female cyborg form.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/critiquing-the-sexy-cyborg\/” button_text=”Next: Critiquing the Sexy Cyborg?” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ button_on_hover_tablet=”off” button_on_hover_last_edited=”on|tablet”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ background_color=”#eeeeee” custom_padding=”23px|||||” saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ link_text_color=”#ff4500″ header_4_font_size=”25px” header_4_letter_spacing=”5px” header_5_text_align=”left” header_5_text_color=”#292929″ header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”4px” custom_padding=”||6px|||”][113]<\/span><\/a> Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,\u201d 9.<\/p>\n

[114]<\/span><\/a> Randy Lee Cutler, \u201cWarning: Sheborgs\/Cyberfems Rupture Image Stream,\u201d in The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture<\/em>, ed. Bruce Grenville (Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2001), 192.<\/p>\n

[115]<\/span><\/a> This is a common trope in visual media across cultures, dubbed \u201cfemme fatalons\u201d by trope-based encyclopedia TV Tropes<\/em>. Characters who exhibit femme fatalons are almost always villains, and examples include Yzma from the Disney film The Emperor\u2019s New Groove<\/em>, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty<\/em>, and Lust from the anime \u201cFullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.\u201d See the\u00a0TV Tropes website<\/a> for more examples.[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS EMBODYING AMBIGUITY [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop row” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":96,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-256","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":255,"date":"2022-03-21T15:24:35","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=255"},"modified":"2022-04-22T10:09:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T15:09:58","slug":"transition-to-cyborgs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/transition-to-cyborgs\/","title":{"rendered":"Transition to Cyborgs"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n

PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

TRANSITION TO CYBORGS<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”body row 1 desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s first experiments in cyborg representation before her main series were Cyborg Red<\/em> and Cyborg Blue <\/em>(1997-98, figure 24-25<\/strong>), two installation sculptures made of cast silicone. They are truncated, abstracted, and mechanized versions of organic human bodies that are propped up by steel supports and sprout plastic tubing from within their bodies. Cyborg Red and Blue<\/em> differ from her following series in two important ways: color and presentation. Though they are composed of cast silicone like Cyborg W1-W4 <\/em>of her following series, they are colored a bold red and light blue, and appear semi-translucent because of the spotlights behind them. This translucency gives a visual sense that they are light or insubstantial, as well as non-human. Secondly, while the works in the following series are all hung, liberated from their pedestals, these two are thoroughly grounded. Each sculpture rests one foot on the worn, well-used wood platforms, and the black metal supports further anchor them to the ground, giving a sense of solidity or groundedness. The two elements of insubstantiality and groundedness create a visual ambiguity that is similar to that present in the Cyborg W1-W10<\/em>. Lastly, these figures, like her following series, are coded female and sexualized through their hourglass body shape and an emphasis on their breasts, hips, and waists. These features qualify them as the prototypes for her second series, which is a more fully realized articulation of her conception of the cyborg.<\/p>\n

Cyborg Red and Blue <\/em>were followed by Lee\u2019s long-running series Cyborg W1-W10<\/em> (1998-2006, figure 26-35<\/strong>). These sculptures are white, displayed hanging from the ceiling on wire, and show a considerable evolution in style and material over time. Installation photos reveal that the sculptures in the series are sometimes hung above eye level in galleries which have higher ceilings (figure 30-31)<\/strong>, so the average viewer must look up, or even crane their neck, to look at them. Most are six feet tall or larger, despite their lack of heads, making them larger than life sized. Lee Bul has stated that a visual inspiration for these works was the depiction of the idealized female body in Western culture:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe white color, which is quite neutral and in a way \u2018timeless,\u2019 was primarily a means to engage with notions of classical sculpture while producing forms that would produce a complex interplay with this color. And another reason was to invoke mythical archetypes of heroism, of associating the color white with virtues.\u201d<\/strong>[100]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

She looked to Ancient Greek statues like the Venus de Milo<\/em> (figure 36)<\/strong>, which have historically been held up as representations of \u201cideal beauty\u201d in European culture, for inspiration. Cyborg W9<\/em> (figure 34)<\/strong> evokes the Venus de Milo<\/em> through the pure white color and suggestion of a contrapposto<\/em> pose. Even the missing limbs themselves recall the Venus de Milo<\/em> and other Classical sculptures that have been damaged over their thousands of years of existence, evoking the passage of time.\u00a0However, the fragmented and distorted nature of the cyborg bodies disrupts a reading of the sculptures as a simple evocation of Classical beauty, leading scholars like H.G. Masters to describe this allusion as \u201cironic.\u201d[101]<\/sup><\/a> There is something darker in these headless, hanging, and fragmented figures than a simple allusion to Western sculpture.[102]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/red-and-blue.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”Cyborg Red & Blue” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 24:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg Red<\/em> & Cyborg Blue<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm each. Installation view of Le Consortium centre d\u2019art contemporain, Dijon, 2002. Photo: Andr\u00e9 Morin. Photo Courtesy: Le Consortium.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/red-and-blue-2.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”Cyborg red & blue 2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 25: Left:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg Red<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.\u00a0Right: <\/strong>Lee Bul, Cyborg Blue<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w1-w4.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”W1-W4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 20:\u00a0<\/strong>Lee Bul, Cyborg W1-W4, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|||||” custom_margin=”|auto|-38px|auto||” disabled_on=”off|off|on” admin_label=”body row 1 mobile\/tablet” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s first experiments in cyborg representation before her main series were Cyborg Red<\/em> and Cyborg Blue <\/em>(1997-98, figure 24-25<\/strong>), two installation sculptures made of cast silicone. They are truncated, abstracted, and mechanized versions of organic human bodies that are propped up by steel supports and sprout plastic tubing from within their bodies. Cyborg Red and Blue<\/em> differ from her following series in two important ways: color and presentation. Though they are composed of cast silicone like Cyborg W1-W4 <\/em>of her following series, they are colored a bold red and light blue, and appear semi-translucent because of the spotlights behind them. This translucency gives a visual sense that they are light or insubstantial, as well as non-human. Secondly, while the works in the following series are all hung, liberated from their pedestals, these two are thoroughly grounded. Each sculpture rests one foot on the worn, well-used wood platforms, and the black metal supports further anchor them to the ground, giving a sense of solidity or groundedness. The two elements of insubstantiality and groundedness create a visual ambiguity that is similar to that present in the Cyborg W1-W10<\/em>. Lastly, these figures, like her following series, are coded female and sexualized through their hourglass body shape and an emphasis on their breasts, hips, and waists. These features qualify them as the prototypes for her second series, which is a more fully realized articulation of her conception of the cyborg.<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/red-and-blue.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”Cyborg Red & Blue” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 24:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg Red<\/em> & Cyborg Blue<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm each. Installation view of Le Consortium centre d\u2019art contemporain, Dijon, 2002. Photo: Andr\u00e9 Morin. Photo Courtesy: Le Consortium.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/red-and-blue-2.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”Cyborg red & blue 2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||15px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 25: Left:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg Red<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.\u00a0Right: <\/strong>Lee Bul, Cyborg Blue<\/em>, 1997-98. Cast silicone, paint pigment, steel pipe support and base, 160 x 70 x 110 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Cyborg Red and Blue <\/em>were followed by Lee\u2019s long-running series Cyborg W1-W10<\/em> (1998-2006, figure 26-35<\/strong>). These sculptures are white, displayed hanging from the ceiling on wire, and show a considerable evolution in style and material over time. Installation photos reveal that the sculptures in the series are sometimes hung above eye level in galleries which have higher ceilings (figure 30-31)<\/strong>, so the average viewer must look up, or even crane their neck, to look at them. Most are six feet tall or larger, despite their lack of heads, making them larger than life sized. Lee Bul has stated that a visual inspiration for these works was the depiction of the idealized female body in Western culture:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe white color, which is quite neutral and in a way \u2018timeless,\u2019 was primarily a means to engage with notions of classical sculpture while producing forms that would produce a complex interplay with this color. And another reason was to invoke mythical archetypes of heroism, of associating the color white with virtues.\u201d<\/strong>[100]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w1-w4.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”W1-W4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||1px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 20:\u00a0<\/strong>Lee Bul, Cyborg W1-W4, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

She looked to Ancient Greek statues like the Venus de Milo<\/em> (figure 36)<\/strong>, which have historically been held up as representations of \u201cideal beauty\u201d in European culture, for inspiration. Cyborg W9<\/em> (figure 34)<\/strong> evokes the Venus de Milo<\/em> through the pure white color and suggestion of a contrapposto<\/em> pose. Even the missing limbs themselves recall the Venus de Milo<\/em> and other Classical sculptures that have been damaged over their thousands of years of existence, evoking the passage of time.\u00a0However, the fragmented and distorted nature of the cyborg bodies disrupts a reading of the sculptures as a simple evocation of Classical beauty, leading scholars like H.G. Masters to describe this allusion as \u201cironic.\u201d[101]<\/sup><\/a> There is something darker in these headless, hanging, and fragmented figures than a simple allusion to Western sculpture.[102]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_4,1_4,1_4,1_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”W1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 26:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W1<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 56 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w2.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”W2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 27:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W2<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 56 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w3.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”W3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 28:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W3<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 185 x 81 x 58 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w4.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”W4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 29:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W4<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment, 188 x 60 x 50 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”w1-w4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

The first four iterations (figure 26-29)<\/strong>, completed in 1998, are made of cast silicone, a material that is known for its compatibility with the human body, and several scholars have argued its use may refer to plastic surgery.[103]<\/sup><\/a> Cyborg W1-W4 are executed in a retrofuturistic style that features elaborate and overlapping geometric forms and allusions to the aesthetics of past technology.[104]<\/sup><\/a> The forms of these four sculptures are blocky and exaggerated, especially their idealized female traits (breasts, large hips, and thin waists). Each sculpture is missing a head, one arm, and one leg, and they are always displayed hanging on wire, either from a built structure or the ceiling.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,1_3,1_3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w5.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w5″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 30:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W5<\/em>, 1999. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, urethane coating, 150 x 55 x 90 cm. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/W6-crop-1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”w6″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 31:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W6<\/em>, 2001. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 232 x 67 x 67 cm. Photo: Kim Hyun-soo. Photo Courtesy: Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/W7-crop.jpeg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” admin_label=”w7″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 32:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W7<\/em>, 2000. Hand-cut polyurethane panels on FRP, polyurethane coating. Installation view at Amorepacific Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px||1px|||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”w5-w7″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Cyborg W5-W7<\/em> (figure 30-32)<\/strong> mark her transition to a different medium, in which Lee hand-cut and attached separate ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) panels to a fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) form. These cyborgs are even more ornamented than the first four in the series, and have a more layered appearance due to the change in material. For example, Cyborg W5<\/em> (figure 30)<\/strong> has tubes that sprout from the chest area and arm, overlapping planes of material on the chest, and flat, disc-like, sequential protrusions that emerge from the left hip. A layered, tube-like appendage that resembles vertebrae comes out of the left shoulder and connects to the lower back, perhaps standing in for the missing left arm. This style is visually crowded and looks more dramatic than the first four, especially under bright lighting. This is due to the change in process, which involves more overlapping forms that create depth and cast dramatic shadows on the sculptures\u2019 surfaces. Again, each figure is headless and missing at least two limbs, and has recognizably female features, though they are less hyperbolic than in Cyborg<\/em> W1-W4<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Figure 33:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W8<\/em>, 2004. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 181 x 65 x 115 cm. Photo: Atsushi Nakamichi\/Nac\u00e1sa & Partners. Photo Courtesy: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.<\/p>\n

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Figure 34:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W9<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 60 x 70 cm.<\/p>\n

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Figure 35:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W10<\/em>, 2006. Hand-cut EVA panels on FRP, polyurethane coating, 180 x 70 x 60cm.<\/p>\n

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The last three, Cyborg W8-W10<\/em> (figure 33-35)<\/strong>, were made using the same materials and process as the previous three, but indicate a shift to a style that differs starkly from the previous seven. This style might be considered more \u201cfuturistic\u201d looking, due to its sleek, minimalistic aesthetic.[105]<\/sup><\/a> The forms are simpler and more streamlined, and the body looks as if it is deliberately armored. The armor is close-fit to the body, similar to clothing or armor in some Cyberpunk anime (figure 37)<\/strong> and modern movies (figure 38)<\/strong>. In other contexts where armor like this appears, like in anime and action movies, it is not simply decorative, and its use is linked to the dangerous, action-packed, and violent scenarios the characters encounter. Indeed, cyborg technology more generally is inherently linked to militarism and violence; many cybernetic enhancements like prosthetic arms and legs only exist as a result of military research and development.[106]<\/sup><\/a> The more realistic armor and bodies of these sculptures, especially Cyborg W9<\/em> and W10<\/em>, link them visually to this real-world connection between modern militarism and cyborg technology. Despite the more simplified style, the female body continues to be invoked in through the emphasis on breasts and hips, as well as through references to clothing. In Cyborg W9 <\/em>and W10<\/em>, each sculpture has an attachment or apparel that resembles underwear, which is clear when seen from the back (figure 39)<\/strong>. The combination of the sexy female body and revealing underwear indicates an association with the commodified female form, which is often presented with little to no clothing in advertisements and media.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”2px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”last row desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Lee Bul has cited several diverse influences for these sculptures, including classical sculpture\u00a0(figure 36)<\/strong> and anime. Her citation of these influences has shaped the writing about her work to some extent, but many writers also invoke Haraway\u2019s cyborg theory in order to discuss Cyborg W1-W10<\/em>. However, whether scholars invoke theory or anime in their interpretations, they neglect specific visual analysis in their work, and none to my knowledge have surveyed the entire series. I fill this gap by synthesizing the ideas of cyborg theory as well as representations of the cyborg in anime and attending more specifically to the visual elements of the sculptures. Overall, the scholarship falls into two camps: those who have argued that her series represents more postmodern, universal human concerns, and those who took a socio-historical, identity-based, or feminist approach. Those in the first camp often focused on the series\u2019 connection to cyborg theory and postmodern theory. Some posited that the sculptures comment on the eternal human desire for bodily perfection,[107]<\/sup><\/a> while some saw the series as an expression of the postmodern consciousness, which is characterized as fragmented, unstable, and ever-changing. Here the sculptures\u2019 visual form, fragmented, distorted, and ambiguous, has been described as a concrete articulation of the postmodern era. Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, for example, believed the cyborgs represent a more general crisis of the human body in the contemporary period, in which the body is simply seen as a shell for the mind.[108]<\/sup><\/a> Lee Bul herself has admitted to knowledge of Haraway\u2019s theories, but did not originally have them in mind when she created her series.[109]<\/sup><\/a> Despite this, many scholars have continued to use cyborg theory as an analytical framework due to the preeminence and staying power of Haraway\u2019s work in cyborg discourse. However, these writers neglect the connection with anime, which is critical to interpreting her work.<\/p>\n

Scholars in the second camp, who have discussed both cyborg theory and anime, usually argued that the sculptures offer commentary on gender (or less frequently, race). Rhee Jieun, for example, used Haraway\u2019s theory of \u201cwoman of color\u201d as a quintessential cyborg identity to discuss how Lee\u2019s cyborg sculptures disrupt and disassemble stereotypes surrounding Asian women.[110]<\/sup><\/a> Others discussing gendered issues considered on the sculptures\u2019 relationship with anime representations of cyborgs, which are often problematically sexualized. Roman Kurzmeyer, who characterizes Lee\u2019s cyborg sculptures as a \u201cclassic male fantasy\u201d that are at once threatening and submissive, attributes these qualities to representations of female cyborgs in anime, who are physically powerful, yet always given distinctively feminine or \u201cgirlish\u201d features.[111]<\/sup><\/a> He correctly points out that this reference to futuristic anime makes it clear that despite technological advancement in these narratives, traditional gender norms have persisted.[112]<\/sup><\/a> However, these identity based approaches often lack the nuance to deal with the numerous ambiguities present in the sculpture series, and do not present visual evidence for their conclusions. In what follows, I examine how the sculptures embody some aspects of cyborg theory through ambiguity. However, though the framework of cyborg theory does allow for an analysis of some of the series\u2019 key attributes, its utopian premise occludes a more detailed and nuanced examination.<\/p>\n

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Figure 36 (left):<\/strong>\u00a0Alexandros of Antioch,\u00a0Venus de Milo<\/em>, 150-125 BCE. Parian Marble, 204 cm.
Figure 37 (center):<\/strong>\u00a0Poster for cyberpunk anime miniseries \u201cBubblegum Crisis\u201d (1987-1991), 1987.
Figure 38 (right):<\/strong> Poster for\u00a0Black Widow\u00a0<\/em>(2021), 2020.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w9.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” module_alignment=”center”]<\/p>\n

Figure 39:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W9<\/em>\u00a0(back view), 2006 with\u00a0Cyborg W10<\/em>\u00a0(2006),\u00a0Chiasma<\/em>\u00a0(2005) and\u00a0Untitled<\/em>\u00a0(Anagram drawings No.2-5)<\/em>\u00a0in the background. Installation view of Domus Artium 02, Salamanca, 2007. Photo: Santiago Santos. Photo Courtesy: Domus Artium 02, Salamanca.<\/p>\n

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Figure 36 (left):<\/strong>\u00a0Alexandros of Antioch,\u00a0Venus de Milo<\/em>, 150-125 BCE. Parian Marble, 204 cm.
Figure 37 (center):<\/strong>\u00a0Poster for cyberpunk anime miniseries \u201cBubblegum Crisis\u201d (1987-1991), 1987.
Figure 38 (right):<\/strong> Poster for\u00a0Black Widow\u00a0<\/em>(2021), 2020.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w9.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” module_alignment=”center”]<\/p>\n

Figure 39:<\/strong> Lee Bul,\u00a0Cyborg W9<\/em>\u00a0(back view), 2006 with\u00a0Cyborg W10<\/em>\u00a0(2006),\u00a0Chiasma<\/em>\u00a0(2005) and\u00a0Untitled<\/em>\u00a0(Anagram drawings No.2-5)<\/em>\u00a0in the background. Installation view of Domus Artium 02, Salamanca, 2007. Photo: Santiago Santos. Photo Courtesy: Domus Artium 02, Salamanca.<\/p>\n

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Lee Bul has cited several diverse influences for these sculptures, including classical sculpture\u00a0(figure 36)<\/strong> and anime. Her citation of these influences has shaped the writing about her work to some extent, but many writers also invoke Haraway\u2019s cyborg theory in order to discuss Cyborg W1-W10<\/em>. However, whether scholars invoke theory or anime in their interpretations, they neglect specific visual analysis in their work, and none to my knowledge have surveyed the entire series. I fill this gap by synthesizing the ideas of cyborg theory as well as representations of the cyborg in anime and attending more specifically to the visual elements of the sculptures. Overall, the scholarship falls into two camps: those who have argued that her series represents more postmodern, universal human concerns, and those who took a socio-historical, identity-based, or feminist approach. Those in the first camp often focused on the series\u2019 connection to cyborg theory and postmodern theory. Some posited that the sculptures comment on the eternal human desire for bodily perfection,[107]<\/sup><\/a> while some saw the series as an expression of the postmodern consciousness, which is characterized as fragmented, unstable, and ever-changing. Here the sculptures\u2019 visual form, fragmented, distorted, and ambiguous, has been described as a concrete articulation of the postmodern era. Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, for example, believed the cyborgs represent a more general crisis of the human body in the contemporary period, in which the body is simply seen as a shell for the mind.[108]<\/sup><\/a> Lee Bul herself has admitted to knowledge of Haraway\u2019s theories, but did not originally have them in mind when she created her series.[109]<\/sup><\/a> Despite this, many scholars have continued to use cyborg theory as an analytical framework due to the preeminence and staying power of Haraway\u2019s work in cyborg discourse. However, these writers neglect the connection with anime, which is critical to interpreting her work.<\/p>\n

Scholars in the second camp, who have discussed both cyborg theory and anime, usually argued that the sculptures offer commentary on gender (or less frequently, race). Rhee Jieun, for example, used Haraway\u2019s theory of \u201cwoman of color\u201d as a quintessential cyborg identity to discuss how Lee\u2019s cyborg sculptures disrupt and disassemble stereotypes surrounding Asian women.[110]<\/sup><\/a> Others discussing gendered issues considered on the sculptures\u2019 relationship with anime representations of cyborgs, which are often problematically sexualized. Roman Kurzmeyer, who characterizes Lee\u2019s cyborg sculptures as a \u201cclassic male fantasy\u201d that are at once threatening and submissive, attributes these qualities to representations of female cyborgs in anime, who are physically powerful, yet always given distinctively feminine or \u201cgirlish\u201d features.[111]<\/sup><\/a> He correctly points out that this reference to futuristic anime makes it clear that despite technological advancement in these narratives, traditional gender norms have persisted.[112]<\/sup><\/a> However, these identity based approaches often lack the nuance to deal with the numerous ambiguities present in the sculpture series, and do not present visual evidence for their conclusions. In what follows, I examine how the sculptures embody some aspects of cyborg theory through ambiguity. However, though the framework of cyborg theory does allow for an analysis of some of the series\u2019 key attributes, its utopian premise occludes a more detailed and nuanced examination.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/embodying-ambiguity\/” button_text=”Next: Embodying Ambiguity” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ button_on_hover_tablet=”off” button_on_hover_last_edited=”on|tablet”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ background_color=”#eeeeee” custom_padding=”23px|||||” saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”25px” header_4_letter_spacing=”5px” header_5_text_align=”left” header_5_text_color=”#292929″ header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”4px”]<\/p>\n

[100]<\/span><\/a> Franck Gautherot, \u201cLee Bul: Supernova in Karaoke Land\u201d [Interview with Lee Bul], Flash Art International<\/em>, no.217 (March-April 2001): 83.<\/p>\n

[101]<\/span><\/a> H.G. Masters, \u201cWayward Tangents: Lee Bul,\u201d ArtAsiaPacific<\/em> 56 (Nov\/Dec 2007): 128.<\/p>\n

[102]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0While this capstone does not delve into the connection with Classical sculpture or theories of sculpture due to its focus on the treatment of the female body, these theoretical concerns pose interesting directions for future scholarship on Lee’s cyborg sculptures. For example, further research could consider how these “flying cyborgs” modify Rosalind Krauss\u2019 ideas in Passages in Modern Sculpture<\/em> and other theories regarding the location of sculpture (i.e., the move from the monument to the pedestal or from a grounded, sited location to something that is ungrounded). These works are are located overhead, activating and activated by the ceiling itself. This seems to advance yet another stage in the process of the relocation\/dislocation of the place of sculpture. See Rosalind Krauss,\u00a0Passages in Modern Sculpture\u00a0<\/em>(Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1981).<\/p>\n

[103]<\/span><\/a> Rhee Jieun relates this to the \u201cplastic surgery boom\u201d occurring in some East Asian countries and suggests that Lee\u2019s use of the material could imply that her sculptures are an \u201cobjectification of desirable Western bodies as much as for a futuristic women-warrior.\u201d See Rhee Jieun, \u201cFrom Goddess to Cyborg: Mariko Mori and Lee Bul,\u201d N. paradoxa<\/em>\u00a014 (July 2004): 10-11.<\/p>\n

[104]<\/span><\/a> This stylistic choice of single actual material in combination with hybrid material references, and the later change to a different material and process, raises several theoretical and practical lines of inquiry. However, more evidence is necessary to discern if Lee\u2019s choices of medium were due to theoretical concerns or material choices and constraints.<\/p>\n

[105]<\/span><\/a> The distinctions between these two styles can be visualized in several movies, one of which is the Disney movie WALL-E<\/em> (2008). It is similar to the distinction between WALL-E, the old-fashioned robot, and EVE, the new robot whose character design was done by Jonathan Ive, the designer of the iPod.<\/p>\n

[106]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Hamraie and Fritsch, “Crip Technoscience Manifesto,”\u00a03.<\/p>\n

[107]<\/span><\/a> Kataoka, \u201cIn Pursuit of Something Between the Self and the Universe,\u201d\u00a032.<\/p>\n

[108]<\/span><\/a> Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, \u201cThe Divine Shell: An Introduction to the Work of Lee Bul,\u201d Lee Bul: The Divine Shell<\/em>, exhibition catalogue (Wien: Bawag Foundation, February 16 – April 1, 2001), 9. Quoted in Cho, \u201cCan the Subaltern Artist Speak?,\u201d 164-65.<\/p>\n

[109]<\/span><\/a> Obrist, \u201cLee Bul,\u201d 530.<\/p>\n

[110]<\/span><\/a> Rhee, \u201cFrom Goddess to Cyborg,\u201d 11-12.<\/p>\n

[111]<\/span><\/a> Roman Kurzmeyer, \u201cCyborgs\u201d in Lee Bul:<\/em> in Medias Res<\/em>, trans. John Southard (Seoul: Ssamzie Art Project, 1999), 24.<\/p>\n

[112]<\/span><\/a> Hans Rudolf Reust, \u201cLee Bul in der Kunsthalle Bern im Projektraum,\u201d cited in Kurzmeyer, \u201cCyborgs,\u201d 24.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS TRANSITION TO CYBORGS [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”body row 1 desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":96,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-255","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/255\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":254,"date":"2022-03-21T15:24:02","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=254"},"modified":"2022-04-19T14:37:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:37:31","slug":"lee-bul-radical-artist","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/lee-bul-radical-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee Bul: Radical Artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

LEE BUL: RADICAL ARTIST<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Lee Bul (figure 21)<\/strong>, born in 1964 in Yeongweol, grew up during a harsh military dictatorship and the subsequent transition to republican democracy. Because her parents were left-wing political dissidents under dictator Park Chung-hee\u2019s rule, they had to move frequently to avoid political persecution.[87]<\/sup><\/a> These childhood experiences were formative for Lee\u2019s mindset and artistic practice, which she felt was the only way she could express herself in a politically repressive environment.[88]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Of these experiences, she stated that they<\/p>\n

taught me certain strategies of survival. I learned that you can\u2019t be a revolutionary and hope to survive, but that you can remain elusive, iconoclastic, alert to the fissures that you can penetrate in order to destabilize a rigid, oppressive system. On the other hand, I don\u2019t think it made my art politically conscious in any overt way.<\/strong>[89]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This statement in many ways characterizes Lee\u2019s artistic practice, which is politically and socially conscious, yet ambiguous and suggestive, rather than straightforward. Upon graduating from Hongik University in 1987, the same year that South Korea declared itself a representative democracy, Lee began exhibiting her early performance work to ambivalent reviews. At the time, the South Korean art scene was dominated by two main art movements: modernist Monochrome painting (tansaekhwa<\/em>) and \u201cPeople\u2019s Art\u201d (Minjung misul<\/em>). Monochrome painting, which originated in the 1960s and came from the fusion of Western minimalism and Taoist philosophy, maintained a privileged status in the South Korean art world in the 1970s and 80s.[90]<\/sup><\/a> The People\u2019s Art movement, similar to Chinese Socialist Realism, was based in social and political activism and arose in challenge to Monochrome painting\u2019s dominance. Members of the People\u2019s Art movement criticized modernist artists for their reliance on Western art forms and advocated for art that reflected a \u201cnational culture.\u201d[91]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In sum, when Lee graduated in 1987, the South Korean art world was divided between two movements that were diametrically opposed in both ideology and style. Because of her upbringing and resistance to \u201ctotalizing ideas and claims to absolutes\u2014aesthetic or otherwise,\u201d Lee did not feel an affinity for either of these movements.[92]<\/sup><\/a> She specifically felt that the Minjung misul<\/em> movement, which claimed to be the people\u2019s \u201cart of liberation,\u201d was \u201cnaive and even fraudulent, this notion that you could confront guns and nightsticks with paintbrushes and canvases.\u201d[93]<\/sup><\/a> Performance art was, then, an oppositional artistic strategy for Lee as she found her artistic voice outside of these two dominant discourses. At the time, performance art was still considered to be radical and relatively marginal, and her work initially received mixed reviews. Her early performances, which include Abortion<\/em>\u00a0in 1989 (<\/strong>figure 22)<\/strong> and Sorry for suffering\u2014You think I’m a puppy on a picnic? <\/em>in 1990\u00a0(figure 23)<\/strong> were characterized by a focus on the body and her personal experiences, as well as allegorical political references. For example, Abortion<\/em> involved a nude Lee hanging upside down (a precursor to the display of her hanging cyborg series) while she discussed her experience of an abortion. This performance, like her other early work, was a deeply personal expression of her own life that also attempted to reach out to others with the same experiences. But as discourses about feminism and body politics became more widespread in the 1990s in Korea, people began to read political and social themes into her work\u2014whether it was her original intention or not.[94]<\/sup><\/a> Lee attributed the critical reinterpretation of her work in the context of feminism to her identity as a woman, stating,<\/p>\n

I’m not so sure, though, that I had a definite activist agenda in mind when I began these performances\u2026 But the fact that I was a woman doing this in public gave it a political dimension. And that I was dealing with aspects of the body, my body\u2014which, of course, happens to be feminine\u2014made it controversial, and even confrontational, for many people.<\/strong>[95]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This does not mean that her works have no political implications; rather, it is a representation of the artist\u2019s resistance to being categorized, especially because of her gender. Despite the fact that she \u201cprobably could be called a feminist until the first part of the 1990s,\u201d Lee stated in a 2002 interview that, \u201cI would say I\u2019m not now because that word rules out lots of other concepts.\u201d[96]<\/sup><\/a> The artist has often been quoted as denying the term \u201cfeminist\u201d in relation to her work, and Hyeok Cho attributes this to the limitations of feminist discourse and Lee Bul\u2019s greater project of creating ambiguity and blurring boundaries. According to Cho, her rejection of the feminist label comes out of a desire to think about difference in ways that do not refer to \u201creductive and totalizing systems of thought\u201d and open up new possibilities for examining her specific experience as a woman artist.[97]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This is consistent with many other East Asian woman artists of Lee Bul\u2019s generation, who express discomfort with the feminist label and an emphasis on female identity. Paek Chi-suk, the director of the 1999 exhibition \u201cWomen\u2019s Art Festival 99: The March of Patzzis<\/em>\u201d noted that many of the young artists included in the feminist festival (a group which included Lee) personally rejected the title of feminist.[98]<\/sup><\/a> She attributed this to the artists\u2019 belief that categorization leads to stereotyping, which in turn prevented a deep and meaningful engagement with their work.[99]<\/sup><\/a> The artists believed that Paek limited the interpretation of their art within a feminist or female-centered framework by categorizing their work as feminist. The curator\u2019s impression of this trend is consistent with Lee\u2019s 2002 statement that identification with the term feminist \u201crules out lots of other concepts.\u201d This is a useful framework to keep in mind when analyzing Lee\u2019s cyborg sculptures, which deal with matters of gendered representation but should not be considered wholly within the realm of \u201cfeminist art.\u201d This framework allows for an interpretation of Lee Bul\u2019s work that does not rely on it conveying a \u201cfeminist\u201d message and can consider the ways in which the sculptures might validate, rather than reject, the male gaze.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/lee-bul.jpeg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 21: <\/strong>Lee Bul<\/em>. Courtesy\u00a0of Swarovski Kristallwelten and Lehmann Maupin, New York City, Hong Kong, and Seoul.\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Klaus Vyhnalek.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/abortion.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 22:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Abortion<\/em>, 1989. Performance, The 1st Korea\u2013Japan Performance Festival, Lobby Theater, Dongsoong Art Center, Seoul. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/sfs1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/sfs2.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 23:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Sorry for suffering\u2013You think I’m a puppy on a picnic?<\/em>, 1990. Performance, 12 days, The 2nd Japan and Korea Performance Festival, Gimpo Airport, Korea; Narita Airport, Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Otemachi Station, Koganji Temple, Asakusa, Shibuya, University of Tokyo and Tokiwaza Theater, Tokyo, Japan. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”off|off|on” admin_label=”mobile\/tablet” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/lee-bul.jpeg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||15px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 21: <\/strong>Lee Bul<\/em>. Courtesy\u00a0of Swarovski Kristallwelten and Lehmann Maupin, New York City, Hong Kong, and Seoul.\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Klaus Vyhnalek.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Lee Bul (figure 21)<\/strong>, born in 1964 in Yeongweol, grew up during a harsh military dictatorship and the subsequent transition to republican democracy. Because her parents were left-wing political dissidents under dictator Park Chung-hee\u2019s rule, they had to move frequently to avoid political persecution.[87]<\/sup><\/a> These childhood experiences were formative for Lee\u2019s mindset and artistic practice, which she felt was the only way she could express herself in a politically repressive environment.[88]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Of these experiences, she stated that they<\/p>\n

taught me certain strategies of survival. I learned that you can\u2019t be a revolutionary and hope to survive, but that you can remain elusive, iconoclastic, alert to the fissures that you can penetrate in order to destabilize a rigid, oppressive system. On the other hand, I don\u2019t think it made my art politically conscious in any overt way.<\/strong>[89]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This statement in many ways characterizes Lee\u2019s artistic practice, which is politically and socially conscious, yet ambiguous and suggestive, rather than straightforward. Upon graduating from Hongik University in 1987, the same year that South Korea declared itself a representative democracy, Lee began exhibiting her early performance work to ambivalent reviews. At the time, the South Korean art scene was dominated by two main art movements: modernist Monochrome painting (tansaekhwa<\/em>) and \u201cPeople\u2019s Art\u201d (Minjung misul<\/em>). Monochrome painting, which originated in the 1960s and came from the fusion of Western minimalism and Taoist philosophy, maintained a privileged status in the South Korean art world in the 1970s and 80s.[90]<\/sup><\/a> The People\u2019s Art movement, similar to Chinese Socialist Realism, was based in social and political activism and arose in challenge to Monochrome painting\u2019s dominance. Members of the People\u2019s Art movement criticized modernist artists for their reliance on Western art forms and advocated for art that reflected a \u201cnational culture.\u201d[91]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/abortion.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||-2px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 22:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Abortion<\/em>, 1989. Performance, The 1st Korea\u2013Japan Performance Festival, Lobby Theater, Dongsoong Art Center, Seoul. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In sum, when Lee graduated in 1987, the South Korean art world was divided between two movements that were diametrically opposed in both ideology and style. Because of her upbringing and resistance to \u201ctotalizing ideas and claims to absolutes\u2014aesthetic or otherwise,\u201d Lee did not feel an affinity for either of these movements.[92]<\/sup><\/a> She specifically felt that the Minjung misul<\/em> movement, which claimed to be the people\u2019s \u201cart of liberation,\u201d was \u201cnaive and even fraudulent, this notion that you could confront guns and nightsticks with paintbrushes and canvases.\u201d[93]<\/sup><\/a> Performance art was, then, an oppositional artistic strategy for Lee as she found her artistic voice outside of these two dominant discourses. At the time, performance art was still considered to be radical and relatively marginal, and her work initially received mixed reviews. Her early performances, which include Abortion<\/em>\u00a0in 1989 (<\/strong>figure 22)<\/strong> and Sorry for suffering\u2014You think I’m a puppy on a picnic? <\/em>in 1990\u00a0(figure 23)<\/strong> were characterized by a focus on the body and her personal experiences, as well as allegorical political references. For example, Abortion<\/em> involved a nude Lee hanging upside down (a precursor to the display of her hanging cyborg series) while she discussed her experience of an abortion. This performance, like her other early work, was a deeply personal expression of her own life that also attempted to reach out to others with the same experiences. But as discourses about feminism and body politics became more widespread in the 1990s in Korea, people began to read political and social themes into her work\u2014whether it was her original intention or not.[94]<\/sup><\/a> Lee attributed the critical reinterpretation of her work in the context of feminism to her identity as a woman, stating,<\/p>\n

I’m not so sure, though, that I had a definite activist agenda in mind when I began these performances\u2026 But the fact that I was a woman doing this in public gave it a political dimension. And that I was dealing with aspects of the body, my body\u2014which, of course, happens to be feminine\u2014made it controversial, and even confrontational, for many people.<\/strong>[95]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This does not mean that her works have no political implications; rather, it is a representation of the artist\u2019s resistance to being categorized, especially because of her gender. Despite the fact that she \u201cprobably could be called a feminist until the first part of the 1990s,\u201d Lee stated in a 2002 interview that, \u201cI would say I\u2019m not now because that word rules out lots of other concepts.\u201d[96]<\/sup><\/a> The artist has often been quoted as denying the term \u201cfeminist\u201d in relation to her work, and Hyeok Cho attributes this to the limitations of feminist discourse and Lee Bul\u2019s greater project of creating ambiguity and blurring boundaries. According to Cho, her rejection of the feminist label comes out of a desire to think about difference in ways that do not refer to \u201creductive and totalizing systems of thought\u201d and open up new possibilities for examining her specific experience as a woman artist.[97]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/sfs1.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/sfs2.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||1px|||”]<\/p>\n

Figure 23:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Sorry for suffering\u2013You think I’m a puppy on a picnic?<\/em>, 1990. Performance, 12 days, The 2nd Japan and Korea Performance Festival, Gimpo Airport, Korea; Narita Airport, Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Otemachi Station, Koganji Temple, Asakusa, Shibuya, University of Tokyo and Tokiwaza Theater, Tokyo, Japan. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 3″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

This is consistent with many other East Asian woman artists of Lee Bul\u2019s generation, who express discomfort with the feminist label and an emphasis on female identity. Paek Chi-suk, the director of the 1999 exhibition \u201cWomen\u2019s Art Festival 99: The March of <\/span>Patzzis<\/em>\u201d noted that many of the young artists included in the feminist festival (a group which included Lee) personally rejected the title of feminist.<\/span>[98]<\/sup><\/a> She attributed this to the artists\u2019 belief that categorization leads to stereotyping, which in turn prevented a deep and meaningful engagement with their work.<\/span>[99]<\/sup><\/a> The artists believed that Paek limited the interpretation of their art within a feminist or female-centered framework by categorizing their work as feminist. The curator\u2019s impression of this trend is consistent with Lee\u2019s 2002 statement that identification with the term feminist \u201crules out lots of other concepts.\u201d This is a useful framework to keep in mind when analyzing Lee\u2019s cyborg sculptures, which deal with matters of gendered representation but should not be considered wholly within the realm of \u201cfeminist art.\u201d This framework allows for an interpretation of Lee Bul\u2019s work that does not rely on it conveying a \u201cfeminist\u201d message and can consider the ways in which the sculptures might validate, rather than reject, the male gaze.<\/span><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/transition-to-cyborgs\/” button_text=”Next: Transition to Cyborgs” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ button_on_hover_tablet=”off” button_on_hover_last_edited=”on|tablet”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ background_color=”#eeeeee” custom_padding=”23px|||||” saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”25px” header_4_letter_spacing=”5px” header_5_text_align=”left” header_5_text_color=”#292929″ header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”4px”]<\/p>\n

[87]<\/span><\/a> Kataoka Mami, \u201cIn Pursuit of Something Between the Self and the Universe,\u201d in Lee Bul: From Me, Belongs to You Only<\/em>, ed. Kataoka Mami (Tokyo: Mori Art Museum, 2012), 27.<\/p>\n

[88]<\/span><\/a> Kataoka, \u201cIn Pursuit of Something Between the Self and the Universe,\u201d 27.<\/p>\n

[89]<\/span><\/a> Lee Bul, \u201cLee Bul: The Artist’s Two Bodies,\u201d interview by Kim Seung-duk. Art Press<\/em>, no. 279 (May 2002):\u00a023.<\/span><\/p>\n

[90]<\/span><\/a> Hyeok Cho, “Can the Subaltern Artist Speak? Postmodernist Theory, Feminist Practice, and the Art of Lee Bul” (PhD dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton, 2020), 37-38.<\/p>\n

[91]<\/span><\/a> Cho, \u201cCan the Subaltern Artist Speak?,\u201d 37-38.<\/p>\n

[92]<\/span><\/a> Lee, \u201cLee Bul: The Artist’s Two Bodies,\u201d 23.<\/p>\n

[93]<\/span><\/a> Lee, \u201cLee Bul: The Artist’s Two Bodies,\u201d 23.<\/p>\n

[94]<\/span><\/a> See Miriam Ching and Yoon Louie, \u201cMinjung Feminism: Korean Women\u2019s Movement for Gender and Class Liberation,\u201d Women\u2019s Studies International Forum<\/em> 18, no. 4 (July 1, 1995): 417\u201330.<\/p>\n

[95]<\/span><\/a> Lee, \u201cLee Bul: The Artist’s Two Bodies,\u201d 23.<\/p>\n

[96]<\/span><\/a> Kim Ch\u014fng-hi, \u201cTaejung munhwa wa ellit\u2019\u016d tamnon sai \u016di honhy\u014fla [A Child of Mixed Blood between Pop Culture and Elite Discourses],\u201d W\u014flgan misul<\/em> [Monthly Art<\/em>] 14, no. 2 (February 2002): 77, quoted in Cho, 90.<\/p>\n

[97]<\/span><\/a> Cho, \u201cCan the Subaltern Artist Speak?,\u201d 154.<\/p>\n

[98]<\/span><\/a> Paek Chi-suk, \u201c99 y\u014fs\u014fng misulche \u2018patzzi t\u016dl \u016di haengjin \u016dl poks\u016dp hada [Reviewing \u201cWomen\u2019s Art Festival 99: \u2018The March of Patzzis\u2019<\/em>\u201d],\u201d Y\u014fs\u014fng kwa sahoe<\/em> [Woman and Society<\/em>] 11 (2000): 259, cited in Cho, 90-91.<\/p>\n

[99]<\/span><\/a> Paek, \u201cReviewing \u201c\u2018Women\u2019s Art Festival 99,\u2019\u201d\u00a0259, cited in Cho, 90-91.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS LEE BUL: RADICAL ARTIST [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":96,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-254","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/254\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":240,"date":"2022-03-19T14:45:16","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T19:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=240"},"modified":"2022-04-19T14:21:34","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:21:34","slug":"conclusion","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/fan-xiaoyan\/conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n

PART II |\u00a0DECEPTIVELY TRADITIONAL: THE ILLUSORY RADICALISM OF FAN XIAOYAN’S CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

CONCLUSION<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]In conclusion, Physical Attachment<\/em> does not succeed as an \u201cexperiment in cyborg feminism.\u201d Because it relies so heavily on the sexualized depiction of the female body, all while stripping the figures of any literal or theoretical power, Fan Xiaoyan’s\u00a0series tacitly reinforces gendered constructs and relationships. In this way, it also problematizes the very concept of the radical cyborg, which has rarely, if ever, been successfully articulated. In fact, the failure of Physical Attachment<\/em>‘s feminist messaging\u00a0implies something more about how technological progress has historically reinforced (and continues to reinforce) traditional structures of power and domination. Just as Fan’s cyborg sculptures appear deceptively revolutionary, \u201cinformation technology often presents itself to us as potentially liberating when in fact our actual interactions with it often reinforce conventional social structures of domination.\u201d[86]<\/sup><\/a> This case study in cyborg art illustrates some of the salient issues that obstruct the possibility of a \u201ccyborg feminism\u201d in East Asia, especially the superficial embrace of technology\u2019s liberating potential, evident in the artist\u2019s treatment of the mechanical attachments, as well as the lingering power of the male gaze. [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/04-side-.png” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 19:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,\u00a0Physical Attachment-04<\/em> (side view), 2008.\u00a0Stainless steel and mixed materials, 208 x 96 x 136cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/introduction” button_text=”Next: Lee Bul” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ hover_enabled=”0″ button_on_hover_last_edited=”on|tablet” button_on_hover_tablet=”off”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ background_color=”#eeeeee” custom_padding=”23px||20px|||” saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”25px” header_4_letter_spacing=”5px” header_5_text_align=”left” header_5_text_color=”#292929″ header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”4px”][86]<\/span><\/a> Silvio, “Refiguring the Radical Cyborg,” 55.[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART II |\u00a0DECEPTIVELY TRADITIONAL: THE ILLUSORY RADICALISM OF FAN XIAOYAN’S CYBORGS CONCLUSION [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]In conclusion, Physical Attachment does not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":71,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-240","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/240\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":238,"date":"2022-03-19T14:44:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T19:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=238"},"modified":"2022-04-22T10:08:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T15:08:58","slug":"undermining-the-radical-cyborg","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/fan-xiaoyan\/undermining-the-radical-cyborg\/","title":{"rendered":"Undermining the Radical Cyborg"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”title” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”38px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n

PART II |\u00a0DECEPTIVELY TRADITIONAL: THE ILLUSORY RADICALISM OF FAN XIAOYAN’S CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

UNDERMINING THE RADICAL CYBORG<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”1px||17px|||” admin_label=”row 1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

As I have demonstrated, a better understanding of Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s 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<\/em>, Fan stated that the series promotes \u201cthe arrival of a new era\u2026in which men and women are really equal.\u201d[81]<\/sup><\/a> 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\u2019s characterization of the series and Cui\u2019s argument, I investigate if Fan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px||22px|||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”row 2 desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

Physical Attachment<\/em> 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<\/em> of female body rather than an \u201caverage\u201d or “real” body. And this idealized female body is delicately curved and sensuous, as in Physical Attachment-02<\/em> (figure 14)<\/strong>, 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 Attachment<\/em>–04<\/em> (figure 16)<\/strong> 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 \u201chands and knees\u201d pose even seems docile. Physical Attachment-02 <\/em>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<\/em> (figure 18)<\/strong>, 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\u2019s cyborg sculptures, particularly in their poses, which emphasize the sexual availability of their curvaceous bodies. Physical Attachment-02<\/em>, 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 <\/em>poster, she looks up into the distance, giving the viewer permission to visually consume her body in the round without confrontation. Physical Attachment-04<\/em> 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\u2019s work, in which images of the female body cater to and validate the male gaze.[82]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019s claim that \u201cthe artist expresses a consciousness toward\u2026(re)locating the female body against hegemonic social-cultural conditions,\u201d and the artist\u2019s 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\u2019s place as an erotic object of the gaze.[83]<\/sup><\/a> 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?<\/p>\n

Despite the possibilities that the human-machine interaction proposes, Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the mechanical attachments in Fan\u2019s sculpture series do not appear to enhance the body\u2019s function at all, further diminishing the artist\u2019s 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 <\/em>(figure 15)<\/strong>, 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?<\/p>\n

Physical Attachment-03<\/em> 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\u2019s 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<\/em> would be similarly hindered by the awkward constructions that protrude from her knees and the point where her legs converge together (figure 17)<\/strong>. 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\u2019s optimistic statement that these sculptures \u201cstrengthen\u201d the female body into question. Rather than strengthening the bodies, these attachments hinder movement and weigh them down. They are not \u201csupporting\u201d the body, as Cui puts it, but serve to make the figure more<\/em> vulnerable, not less. By limiting the cyborgs\u2019 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\u2019s assumed access to her body, which has a distinctly sexualized dimension in the context of how their bodies are objectified. Physical Attachment-03<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n

The static nature of sculpture as a medium, in contrast to the emphasis on movement in Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, only heightens our perception of the figures as sexualized and vulnerable. The Major\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u201clooks back.\u201d Sculptures 03<\/em> and 04<\/em> wear some form of enhanced eye goggles, while 01<\/em> and 02<\/em> 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.<\/em> The only difference is the Major is portrayed in ways that are not objectifying, while Fan\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s depiction of a futuristic utopia.<\/p>\n

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. <\/em>As previously discussed, one of the most problematic elements of the film is the obsessive objectification of the Major\u2019s female-coded body, combined with the lack of corresponding portrayals of the male body. Physical Attachment <\/em>has a similar problem, yet the artist does not seem to be aware of it.<\/p>\n

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\u2026\u2026the 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!<\/strong>[84]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In the optimistic statement above, Fan claimed that the \u201cviolent contrast between delicate, yielding flesh and cold, hard steel,\u201d as well as the \u201cattachment of heavy paraphernalia to the female body gives rise to a kind of strength and sweetness.\u201d[85]<\/sup><\/a> Ironically, her idealistic statement illustrates several of Physical Attachment<\/em>\u2019s more problematic and conflicting aspects. Her contradictory description of how the \u201cheavy paraphernalia\u201d evokes both strength and sweetness illustrates the conflict at the heart of this work. Physical Attachment<\/em> is caught between the \u201csweetness\u201d of traditional depictions of femininity and the \u201cstrength\u201d 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 \u201csweetness\u201d of the soft, sensuous female body. The artist\u2019s statement of creating \u201ca surrealistic virtual world in which men and women are really equal\u201d is equally telling yet problematic. If Fan wanted to portray a futuristic, \u201cvirtual\u201d world where women and men were \u201creally equal,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-01.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 01″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 01 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 13:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-02.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” force_fullwidth=”on” admin_label=”PA 02″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 02 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 14:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-02<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 168 x 65 x 143cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-03.jpg” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 03″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 03 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 15:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-03, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 216 x 93 x 133 cm.<\/em><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/PA-04-from-article-peng-sent.jpeg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 04″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 04 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 16:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,\u00a0Physical Attachment-04<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 208 x 96 x 136cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/PA-01.jpeg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 01 frontal” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 01 frontal Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 17:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,<\/em> frontal view of Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/poster-Cropped.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”GiTS poster” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”GiTS caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 18:<\/strong>\u00a0Masamune Shirow, Poster for\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, 1995.<\/p>\n

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Physical Attachment<\/em> 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<\/em> of female body rather than an \u201caverage\u201d or “real” body. And this idealized female body is delicately curved and sensuous, as in Physical Attachment-02<\/em> (figure 14)<\/strong>, 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 Attachment<\/em>–04<\/em> (figure 16)<\/strong> 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 \u201chands and knees\u201d pose even seems docile. Physical Attachment-02 <\/em>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<\/em> (figure 18)<\/strong>, 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\u2019s cyborg sculptures, particularly in their poses, which emphasize the sexual availability of their curvaceous bodies. Physical Attachment-02<\/em>, 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 <\/em>poster, she looks up into the distance, giving the viewer permission to visually consume her body in the round without confrontation. Physical Attachment-04<\/em> 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\u2019s work, in which images of the female body cater to and validate the male gaze.[82]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-01.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 01″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 01 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 13:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s claim that \u201cthe artist expresses a consciousness toward\u2026(re)locating the female body against hegemonic social-cultural conditions,\u201d and the artist\u2019s 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\u2019s place as an erotic object of the gaze.[83]<\/sup><\/a> 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?<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-02.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” force_fullwidth=”on” admin_label=”PA 02″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 02 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 14:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-02<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 168 x 65 x 143cm.<\/p>\n

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Despite the possibilities that the human-machine interaction proposes, Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-03.jpg” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 03″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 03 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 15:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-03, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 216 x 93 x 133 cm.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Secondly, the mechanical attachments in Fan\u2019s sculpture series do not appear to enhance the body\u2019s function at all, further diminishing the artist\u2019s 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 <\/em>(figure 15)<\/strong>, 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?<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/PA-04-from-article-peng-sent.jpeg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 04″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 04 Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 16:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,\u00a0Physical Attachment-04<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 208 x 96 x 136cm.<\/p>\n

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Physical Attachment-03<\/em> 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\u2019s 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<\/em> would be similarly hindered by the awkward constructions that protrude from her knees and the point where her legs converge together (figure 17)<\/strong>. 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\u2019s optimistic statement that these sculptures \u201cstrengthen\u201d the female body into question. Rather than strengthening the bodies, these attachments hinder movement and weigh them down. They are not \u201csupporting\u201d the body, as Cui puts it, but serve to make the figure more<\/em> vulnerable, not less. By limiting the cyborgs\u2019 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\u2019s assumed access to her body, which has a distinctly sexualized dimension in the context of how their bodies are objectified. Physical Attachment-03<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/PA-01.jpeg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”PA 01 frontal” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”PA 01 frontal Caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 17:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan,<\/em> frontal view of Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.<\/p>\n

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The static nature of sculpture as a medium, in contrast to the emphasis on movement in Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, only heightens our perception of the figures as sexualized and vulnerable. The Major\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u201clooks back.\u201d Sculptures 03<\/em> and 04<\/em> wear some form of enhanced eye goggles, while 01<\/em> and 02<\/em> 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.<\/em> The only difference is the Major is portrayed in ways that are not objectifying, while Fan\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s depiction of a futuristic utopia.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/poster-Cropped.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” admin_label=”GiTS poster” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label=”GiTS caption” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 18:<\/strong>\u00a0Masamune Shirow, Poster for\u00a0Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, 1995.<\/p>\n

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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. <\/em>As previously discussed, one of the most problematic elements of the film is the obsessive objectification of the Major\u2019s female-coded body, combined with the lack of corresponding portrayals of the male body. Physical Attachment <\/em>has a similar problem, yet the artist does not seem to be aware of it.<\/p>\n

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\u2026\u2026the 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!<\/strong>[84]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In the optimistic statement above, Fan claimed that the \u201cviolent contrast between delicate, yielding flesh and cold, hard steel,\u201d as well as the \u201cattachment of heavy paraphernalia to the female body gives rise to a kind of strength and sweetness.\u201d[85]<\/sup><\/a> Ironically, her idealistic statement illustrates several of Physical Attachment<\/em>\u2019s more problematic and conflicting aspects. Her contradictory description of how the \u201cheavy paraphernalia\u201d evokes both strength and sweetness illustrates the conflict at the heart of this work. Physical Attachment<\/em> is caught between the \u201csweetness\u201d of traditional depictions of femininity and the \u201cstrength\u201d 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 \u201csweetness\u201d of the soft, sensuous female body. The artist\u2019s statement of creating \u201ca surrealistic virtual world in which men and women are really equal\u201d is equally telling yet problematic. If Fan wanted to portray a futuristic, \u201cvirtual\u201d world where women and men were \u201creally equal,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s Physical Attachment <\/em>series functions in a similar way to Ghost in the Shell<\/em>; they both appear to provide liberation and radical progress while simultaneously entrenching established codes of gendered power. Fan\u2019s 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 <\/em>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\u00a0or 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\u00a0Physical Attachment<\/em> do not achieve the kind of feminist agenda provided by cyborg theory.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/fan-xiaoyan\/conclusion\/” button_text=”Next: Conclusion” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ button_on_hover_tablet=”off” button_on_hover_last_edited=”on|tablet”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ background_color=”#eeeeee” custom_padding=”23px|||||” saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”25px” header_4_letter_spacing=”5px” header_5_text_align=”left” header_5_text_color=”#292929″ header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”4px”]<\/p>\n

[81]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 188.<\/p>\n

[82]<\/span><\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

[83]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 188.<\/p>\n

[84]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 188.<\/p>\n

[85]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 188.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”title” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”58px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”38px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART II |\u00a0DECEPTIVELY TRADITIONAL: THE ILLUSORY RADICALISM OF FAN XIAOYAN’S CYBORGS UNDERMINING THE RADICAL CYBORG [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”1px||17px|||” admin_label=”row 1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”body 1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":71,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-238","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":178,"date":"2022-03-14T12:12:46","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T17:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=178"},"modified":"2022-04-19T14:21:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:21:57","slug":"introduction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

INTRODUCTION<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”]<\/p>\n

In contrast to the more realistic interpretation of the cyborg in Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s work, Lee Bul\u2019s cyborgs are entirely hybrid creations. Lee, widely considered the most internationally successful living artist in her home country of South Korea, made her debut on the Korean art scene in the late 1980s as a radical performance artist. From her early performance works to recent utopian cityscapes, Lee\u2019s practice wrestles with concepts of utopia and dystopia, the female body, and the body\u2019s interaction with technology, all of which are reflected in her cyborg works. In this section, I investigate how Lee responds to the male gaze and how applicable cyborg theory is in an interpretation of her work. I argue that in the context of theory and popular depictions of the cyborg, the series Cyborg W1-W10<\/em> (figure 26-35)<\/strong> embodies some of the goals of cyborg theory, but ultimately reveals its limits in an East Asian artistic context. Additionally, Lee\u2019s sculptures critically interrogate gendered representation and the presence of the male gaze in representations of the cyborg body, but the interpretation of her works as feminist remains inconclusive due to the multiple possibilities of display.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/03\/w1-w4.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em”]<\/p>\n

Figure 20:<\/strong> Lee Bul, Cyborg W1-W4<\/em>, 1998. Cast silicone, polyurethane filling, paint pigment. Photo: Yoon Hyung-moon. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/lee-bul\/lee-bul-radical-artist\/” button_text=”Next: Lee Bul: Radical Artist” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ hover_enabled=”0″ button_on_hover_last_edited=”on|tablet” button_on_hover_tablet=”off”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||20px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”60px” header_letter_spacing=”3px” header_2_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_2_font_size=”45px” header_2_letter_spacing=”3px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”36px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART III | BUL IN A CHINA SHOP: LEE BUL’S PARADOXICAL CYBORGS INTRODUCTION [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px|||||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px”] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":96,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-178","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":157,"date":"2022-03-13T17:14:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-13T22:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/?page_id=157"},"modified":"2022-04-19T15:43:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T20:43:41","slug":"scholarship","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/fan-xiaoyan\/scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"English Scholarship on Physical Attachment"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||12px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”60px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”38px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”]<\/p>\n

PART II |\u00a0DECEPTIVELY TRADITIONAL: THE ILLUSORY RADICALISM OF FAN XIAOYAN’S CYBORGS<\/h5>\n

SCHOLARSHIP ON
PHYSICAL ATTACHMENT<\/em><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”-16px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”left” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n

Scholarship on Physical Attachment<\/em> is limited, and Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s work remains relatively unknown outside of China. Shuqin Cui, the only scholar who has written about the series in English, argued that Physical Attachment<\/em> disrupts conventional ideas of gender difference and socio-cultural hierarchies through the blending of machine and human forms. For Cui, Fan’s work functions as an \u201cexperiment in cyborg feminism\u201d that subverts Chinese socialist and post-socialist discourse on the interaction between body and machine.[70]<\/sup><\/a> Primarily, Cui claimed that Fan\u2019s series comments on the history of how female bodies, associated with machines, were mistreated in both the socialist and post-socialist period.<\/p>\n

In this way, Cui argues that Fan\u2019s series can be seen as a critique of the masculinization of the body that had to take place before women could form their bond with the machine in Socialist China.[71]<\/sup><\/a> By portraying the woman-machine hybrid as hyperfeminine, Fan allegedly showed that the female body and machines are not incompatible. She denies the forced de-sexualization of the female body in the Communist period, reclaiming the sexual power of the female body.\u00a0 However, the literal combination of the female body and the machine is not the same as the de-feminization of the body as a prerequisite for a productive worker-machine relationship. Additionally, the woman-machine relationship here is not a productive one, and the sculptures look more like awkward and beautiful objects. These sculptures do not convey the message the sexualized female body is compatible with machines, but rather turn the woman-machine relationship into an object to be looked at. Cui also asserted that the sculpture offers commentary of the treatment of the female factory worker in the post-socialist period. According to Cui, Fan critiques the abuse of these female bodies by portraying a weaponized femininity that resists domination.[72]<\/sup><\/a> If one sees her cyborg women as representations of the dagongmei<\/em>, Cui argued we should interpret them as a critique of the capitalist sexualization and exploitation of the female body. However, her argument is problematically vague about how<\/em> exactly the sculptures undermine socialist and post-socialist rhetoric about the relationship between female bodies and machines. She simply stated that they do so because Physical Attachment<\/em> \u201cforegrounds the integration of seemingly incompatible elements: female nudes and machine parts,\u201d and introduces the female body into the conventionally \u2018masculine\u2019 world of technology and machinery.[73]<\/sup><\/a> Her argument is presented as self-evident, but is not supported by visual analysis or a detailed explanation of how the historical context and message of the sculptures are related.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-03.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ max_height=”460px” custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||16px||false|false”]<\/p>\n

Figure 15:<\/strong> Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-03<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-01.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ height=”562px” custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”12px” text_line_height=”1.2em” width=”68%” module_alignment=”center”]<\/p>\n

Figure 13:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” disabled_on=”off|off|on” admin_label=”mobile\/desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”left” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n

Scholarship on Physical Attachment<\/em> is limited, and Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s work remains relatively unknown outside of China. Shuqin Cui, the only scholar who has written about the series in English, argued that Physical Attachment<\/em> disrupts conventional ideas of gender difference and socio-cultural hierarchies through the blending of machine and human forms. For Cui, Fan’s work functions as an \u201cexperiment in cyborg feminism\u201d that subverts Chinese socialist and post-socialist discourse on the interaction between body and machine.[70]<\/sup><\/a> Primarily, Cui claimed that Fan\u2019s series comments on the history of how female bodies, associated with machines, were mistreated in both the socialist and post-socialist period.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-03.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ max_height=”460px” custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”13px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||16px||false|false”]<\/p>\n

Figure 15:<\/strong> Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-03<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”left” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n

In this way, Cui argues that Fan\u2019s series can be seen as a critique of the masculinization of the body that had to take place before women could form their bond with the machine in Socialist China.[71]<\/sup><\/a> By portraying the woman-machine hybrid as hyperfeminine, Fan allegedly showed that the female body and machines are not incompatible. She denies the forced de-sexualization of the female body in the Communist period, reclaiming the sexual power of the female body.\u00a0 However, the literal combination of the female body and the machine is not the same as the de-feminization of the body as a prerequisite for a productive worker-machine relationship. Additionally, the woman-machine relationship here is not a productive one, and the sculptures look more like awkward and beautiful objects. These sculptures do not convey the message the sexualized female body is compatible with machines, but rather turn the woman-machine relationship into an object to be looked at. Cui also asserted that the sculpture offers commentary of the treatment of the female factory worker in the post-socialist period. According to Cui, Fan critiques the abuse of these female bodies by portraying a weaponized femininity that resists domination.[72]<\/sup><\/a> If one sees her cyborg women as representations of the dagongmei<\/em>, Cui argued we should interpret them as a critique of the capitalist sexualization and exploitation of the female body. However, her argument is problematically vague about how<\/em> exactly the sculptures undermine socialist and post-socialist rhetoric about the relationship between female bodies and machines. She simply stated that they do so because Physical Attachment<\/em> \u201cforegrounds the integration of seemingly incompatible elements: female nudes and machine parts,\u201d and introduces the female body into the conventionally \u2018masculine\u2019 world of technology and machinery.[73]<\/sup><\/a> Her argument is presented as self-evident, but is not supported by visual analysis or a detailed explanation of how the historical context and message of the sculptures are related.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/km6048a\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2004\/2022\/01\/pa-01.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”||10px||false|false”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”center” text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”12px” text_line_height=”1.2em” module_alignment=”center”]<\/p>\n

Figure 13:<\/strong>\u00a0Fan Xiaoyan, Physical Attachment-01<\/em>, 2008. Stainless steel and mixed materials. 171 x 88 x 110 cm.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”16px|||||” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ text_font_size=”15px” custom_padding=”||9px|||”]<\/p>\n

In contrast to what Cui argued, it is unlikely that Fan\u2019s sculptures are a critique of the treatment of the female body in socialist and post-socialist China. Fan was born in 1983, making her part of a generation that did not experience the Cultural Revolution and was much more influenced by the process of globalization. Jie Li, a scholar concerned about the mediation of memory in modern China, has urged for the preservation and analysis of \u201cred legacies\u201d of the Cultural Revolution and Maoist period.[74]<\/sup><\/a> She noted that \u201cideologies, cultures, and institutions from the Mao era have either faded away entirely or persisted in residual forms, meeting with erasure or revival at various times and places.\u201d[75]<\/sup><\/a> Many people born post-1980 were either unaware of or uninterested in the legacies of the Maoist period, growing up in a China that was rapidly globalizing and embracing the ideals of capitalism. This is partially due to a generational gap between those who experienced the Cultural Revolution and those who were born after, but also due to the government\u2019s suppression of information. Li explained that despite the government\u2019s 1981 resolution condemning the Cultural Revolution, \u201ctextbooks, museums, and official mass media circumvent any mention of this traumatic decade and of other sensitive histories.\u201d[76]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Art movements were also fundamentally affected by these factors of globalization and the suppression of \u201cred memories.\u201d While the art movements of the 1980s were deeply concerned with the relationship between art and society and believed art should facilitate humanism and social progress, contemporary art movements of the 1990s and beyond largely abandoned this idealism.[77]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Art historian Wu Hung attributed this shift to several factors, namely globalization, commercialization, urbanization, and changing living and working conditions for artists.[78]<\/sup><\/a> These trends, which caused the direction of Chinese art to shift from modern to contemporary art in the 1990s, only intensified in the 2000s, when Fan Xiaoyan attended art school in Beijing. With the advent of the internet in the mid-90s, Chinese citizens became even more integrated on a global stage, and were exposed to a wide range of visual material. One of the most influential types of media that circulates in China (and East Asia as a whole) is Japanese animation, which serves as a more productive lens through which to read the Physical Attachment <\/em>series.<\/p>\n

Lastly, Cui also discussed how the series interacts with the viewer to convey the radical potential of the cyborg. For example, she claimed that Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s blending of the soft forms of the female body with the hard, unyielding machine attachments disrupts a purely voyeuristic viewing experience. The experience of viewing the nude female form in a sexual way is disrupted by the \u201casexual mechanical toughness\u201d of the machine parts, while a viewer who intends to focus on the machine is interrupted by the attractiveness of the nude body.[79]<\/sup><\/a> I would argue that the combination of the sexualized female form and the shiny mechanical attachments does not necessarily prevent an erotic viewing experience, but suggests a connection with the commodity culture of consumer capitalism. The sexy female body, used prominently in ads in China in the 1930s, has long been associated with advertising in modern and contemporary capitalist economies. As the saying goes, \u201csex sells.\u201d The shiny metal attachments also evoke associations with consumerism, as seen in smartphone advertisements (figure 5)<\/strong>, in which the lustrous metal signifies cutting-edge, high-end, luxury technology. Therefore, these associations of both the female body and the shiny metal attachments make these sculptures a new kind of commodity, rather than disrupting the commodification of the female body. While Cui argued that \u201cany tendency toward possessing the female body as a unified identity will fail because of the body-machine hybridity,\u201d I contend that Fan has simply created a new unified identity, which is as easily \u201cpossessed\u201d or visually consumed as a body without these attachments.[80]<\/sup><\/a> Rather than rendering the female body as fragmentary and unobtainable, the mechanical attachments merge the two commodities together. As I will demonstrate, the addition of mechanical attachments is not enough to disrupt a process of viewing that objectifies the female body, and at times heightens this objectification.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/fan-xiaoyan\/undermining-the-radical-cyborg\/” button_text=”Next: Undermining the Radical Cyborg” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#292929″ button_on_hover_tablet=”off” button_on_hover_last_edited=”on|tablet”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ background_color=”#eeeeee” custom_padding=”23px|||||” saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”25px” header_4_letter_spacing=”5px” header_5_text_align=”left” header_5_text_color=”#292929″ header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”4px”]<\/p>\n

[70]<\/span><\/a> Cui does not define \u201ccyborg feminism,\u201d but I interpret this phrase to mean that Fan Xiaoyan\u2019s work utilizes the device of the hybrid cyborg body in order to make a feminist critique of the treatment and representation of women\u2019s bodies. Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 188.<\/p>\n

[71]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 185-6.<\/p>\n

[72]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 186-7.<\/p>\n

[73]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 187.<\/p>\n

[74]<\/span><\/a> Jie Li,\u00a0 “Introduction: Discerning Red Legacies in China,” in\u00a0Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution<\/em>, ed. Li Jie and Zhang Enhua (Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016), 3-4.<\/p>\n

[75]<\/span><\/a> Li,\u00a0 “Introduction: Discerning Red Legacies in China,” 2-3.<\/p>\n

[76]<\/span><\/a> Li,\u00a0 “Introduction: Discerning Red Legacies in China,” 3.<\/p>\n

[77]<\/span><\/a> Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century <\/em>(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 126-28<\/p>\n

[78]<\/span><\/a> Wu, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art<\/em>,\u00a0128.<\/p>\n

[79]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 185.<\/p>\n

[80]<\/span><\/a> Cui, \u201cCyborg Bodies,\u201d 185.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_padding=”||1px|||”][et_pb_row custom_padding=”20px||12px||false|false” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_font=”Space Mono||||||||” header_text_align=”left” header_text_color=”#000000″ header_font_size=”60px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” header_4_text_align=”left” header_4_text_color=”#292929″ header_4_font_size=”30px” header_4_letter_spacing=”3px” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_letter_spacing=”3px” custom_margin=”15px||15px||false|false” header_font_size_phone=”38px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone”] PART II |\u00a0DECEPTIVELY TRADITIONAL: THE ILLUSORY RADICALISM OF FAN XIAOYAN’S CYBORGS SCHOLARSHIP ON PHYSICAL ATTACHMENT   [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#292929″ divider_weight=”2px” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ custom_margin=”-16px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding=”0px||0px|||” disabled_on=”on|on|off” admin_label=”desktop” _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ text_text_align=”left” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3805,"featured_media":0,"parent":71,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-157","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/157\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/cy-candy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]