Day 10
My last and most comfortable day.
Today, although with a delay, I eventually managed to decorate my face to look like an Aboriginal. The Aboriginals are the indigenous people of Australia. Art is an integral part of their lives and body painting, decorations and personal adornment have deep spiritual importance. The designs and motifs painted on their faces have specific meaning and reflect an individuals social position and relationship to family, ancestors, totemic animals and land extent. The designs and motifs are all either lines and circles. A person can never change his/her appearance out of will, unless a set of patterns are first obeyed.
Pigments extracted from the earth are used to paint the face and body which indicate an intimate relationship
between human and environment. The elaborate painting is practices mainly during ceremonies, particularly initiations and funerals. In the black and white photograph, four elaborately decorated aboriginal men are standing in front of a sand painting at a ceremony (Aboriginal Art Online, 2000).
In her book, The Body in Society, Alexandra Howson speaks of body modification and its role in historic and modern society. Body modifications such as neck-stretching, scarring, piercing, corset moulding, foot-binding and circumcision, to fashion, make-up, tattooing and plastic surgery are all means through which we establish our changing social stances in society or in more modern times, our differentiation from dominant social groups. Piercing in the West for example, in contrast to the more traditional non-Western cultures where it symbolizes social ranking, provides a way in which we can express ourselves regardless of what society says. This practice is often referred to as Modern Primitivism where Westerners seek for a bond with non-Western cultures to signal a feeling of discontent with the modern social way of things. Modern Primitivism particularly challenges the 'simulacrum society', where images reign over texts and representations over reality so that personal identity and validity is lost. Piercing, tattooing and scarification is therefore seen by Modern Primitivism as a 'radical gesture' towards dominant norms in society (Howson, A, 2004).
Howson also talks abo
ut ready-made markings, such as gender and race which automatically puts one in a social position (Howson, A, 2004). In other words, not everyone needs to do something to his or her body to be the 'other' in society. However, the body is a wonderful tool or canvas on which marks or symbols of differentiation can be made, to bind and dissociate one from a particular group or 'other'.
Painting by Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, 2008My last and most comfortable day.
Today, although with a delay, I eventually managed to decorate my face to look like an Aboriginal. The Aboriginals are the indigenous people of Australia. Art is an integral part of their lives and body painting, decorations and personal adornment have deep spiritual importance. The designs and motifs painted on their faces have specific meaning and reflect an individuals social position and relationship to family, ancestors, totemic animals and land extent. The designs and motifs are all either lines and circles. A person can never change his/her appearance out of will, unless a set of patterns are first obeyed.
Pigments extracted from the earth are used to paint the face and body which indicate an intimate relationship
between human and environment. The elaborate painting is practices mainly during ceremonies, particularly initiations and funerals. In the black and white photograph, four elaborately decorated aboriginal men are standing in front of a sand painting at a ceremony (Aboriginal Art Online, 2000).In her book, The Body in Society, Alexandra Howson speaks of body modification and its role in historic and modern society. Body modifications such as neck-stretching, scarring, piercing, corset moulding, foot-binding and circumcision, to fashion, make-up, tattooing and plastic surgery are all means through which we establish our changing social stances in society or in more modern times, our differentiation from dominant social groups. Piercing in the West for example, in contrast to the more traditional non-Western cultures where it symbolizes social ranking, provides a way in which we can express ourselves regardless of what society says. This practice is often referred to as Modern Primitivism where Westerners seek for a bond with non-Western cultures to signal a feeling of discontent with the modern social way of things. Modern Primitivism particularly challenges the 'simulacrum society', where images reign over texts and representations over reality so that personal identity and validity is lost. Piercing, tattooing and scarification is therefore seen by Modern Primitivism as a 'radical gesture' towards dominant norms in society (Howson, A, 2004).
Howson also talks abo
ut ready-made markings, such as gender and race which automatically puts one in a social position (Howson, A, 2004). In other words, not everyone needs to do something to his or her body to be the 'other' in society. However, the body is a wonderful tool or canvas on which marks or symbols of differentiation can be made, to bind and dissociate one from a particular group or 'other'.References
Aboriginal Art Online. 2000. Retrieved 13 October from
http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/art/body.php
Aboriginal Art Online. 2000. [image]. Retrieved 13 October from
http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/art/body.php
Howson, A. 2004. Chapter 4: The Body in Consumer Culture. In: The Body in Society. Cambridge: Blackwell Press. Pp 109-113
Tjapaltjarri, W. 2008. [image]. Retrieved 13 October 2010 from
http://www.aboriginalartstore.com.au/news/2008/01/tourism-australia-purchases-wa.php
http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/art/body.php
Aboriginal Art Online. 2000. [image]. Retrieved 13 October from
http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/art/body.php
Howson, A. 2004. Chapter 4: The Body in Consumer Culture. In: The Body in Society. Cambridge: Blackwell Press. Pp 109-113
Tjapaltjarri, W. 2008. [image]. Retrieved 13 October 2010 from
http://www.aboriginalartstore.com.au/news/2008/01/tourism-australia-purchases-wa.php
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