Abortion is art [somewhat NSFW]

[Shade]

A lot of it is like this...

1. Do something. Anything. (knit covers for various pieces of exercise equipment, staple diapers to the wall in a vague pattern, pretend that you're making art with fetus juice, videotape someone vomiting and play it backwards on a TV screen on infinite loops)
2. Step back. Talk about how there is no wrong way to look at it, and whatever experience the viewer has to it is unique and valid. It's not about the piece, it's about the viewer's reaction to the piece. In fact, just talk for as long as possible.

Congratulations you're a fineartist.

[Beckwin]

A lot of it is like this...

1. Do something. Anything. (knit covers for various pieces of exercise equipment, staple diapers to the wall in a vague pattern, pretend that you're making art with fetus juice, videotape someone vomiting and play it backwards on a TV screen on infinite loops)
2. Step back. Talk about how there is no wrong way to look at it, and whatever experience the viewer has to it is unique and valid. It's not about the piece, it's about the viewer's reaction to the piece. In fact, just talk for as long as possible.

Congratulations you're a fineartist.

until you actually try to do that and either: a) can't come up with anything or b) it's terrible and no one, educated or pedestrian, likes or respects it

[Shade]

*scratches head* Hmm?

Sorry. I'm just a jaded design/illustration student, we have a healthy rivalry with the finearts types. :b Every example I gave were RL installations I've seen ('cept for the one from the article), and I've definitely met people who talk like that.

In theory the "it's about the viewer's response to the piece" outlook is interesting, but in practice you do get a lot of wankers.

[Beckwin]

I'm saying the complete vagueness/100% open ended approach doesn't hold water in fine arts and you'll get called out for it. General consensus is you have to be able to say something about formal elements and/or representation of an idea.

[CalaisDL]

So how exactly does one abort oneself? I wouldn't know at what point of the pregnancy she did this but I could imagine it couldn't have been very pleasant.

basically morning after pills or whatever could force a miscarriage.

I hate to bump a post a page back, but this is a common misconception that is just wrong. The morning after pill does not force miscarriages. As far as medical research shows it does not have any effect on a woman who is already pregnant. The only controversial thing about the morning after pill is whether or not it affects implantation and not just ovulation. A point on which scientists are still undecided but pro-lifers love to grab a hold of and use to swear up and down that the morning after pill is an abortion drug.

The drug you're thinking of is RU-486 (Mifepristone) which does induce miscarriage. The morning after pill is essentially just high dose standard birth control pills. It's a fairly significant difference.

/rant off

[Neosutra]

So how exactly does one abort oneself? I wouldn't know at what point of the pregnancy she did this but I could imagine it couldn't have been very pleasant.

basically morning after pills or whatever could force a miscarriage.

I hate to bump a post a page back, but this is a common misconception that is just wrong. The morning after pill does not force miscarriages. As far as medical research shows it does not have any effect on a woman who is already pregnant. The only controversial thing about the morning after pill is whether or not it affects implantation and not just ovulation. A point on which scientists are still undecided but pro-lifers love to grab a hold of and use to swear up and down that the morning after pill is an abortion drug.

The drug you're thinking of is RU-486 (Mifepristone) which does induce miscarriage. The morning after pill is essentially just high dose standard birth control pills. It's a fairly significant difference.

/rant off

Quoted for truth.

[Nystul]

A lot of it is like this...

1. Do something. Anything. (knit covers for various pieces of exercise equipment, staple diapers to the wall in a vague pattern, pretend that you're making art with fetus juice, videotape someone vomiting and play it backwards on a TV screen on infinite loops)
2. Step back. Talk about how there is no wrong way to look at it, and whatever experience the viewer has to it is unique and valid. It's not about the piece, it's about the viewer's reaction to the piece. In fact, just talk for as long as possible.

Congratulations you're a fineartist.

A lot of modern art is like this. Dadaism which kind of started everything off like this pretty much even admitted it was just random shit trying to shock people. I've never been impressed by that, I don't think it's terribly hard to shock people. Figure out social norms, go against them brazenly. Done! I went to a museum and while walking through the modern art wing I saw a large room with huge canvases that were all white. I went up to the security guard and asked if they were installing something, he said no, these were the paintings. Some of them had ID tags next to them with painter/title/price and values over $100,000. For a white fucking canvas. It was white. Thats it. No white with different white designs. Just 20x15' white fucking canvases. ugh.

As for this chick, I found it stupid before I knew it was fake (and thought it probably was fake but didn't much care) and still find it stupid now. I don't think it's particularly clever unless you like to stroke yourself over the idea of riling up people that are anti-abortion which just makes you kind of a petty douche anyway.

[kuronosan]

Does this mean some day we'll put an end to Krye and his schvarting?


And uh, her statement failed. Miserably. "Just trying to prove how gullible people are, lol"...

Well, no shit... if you say something controversial and you have evidence to prove it is true (even though it's not) people have no choice but to believe it. It doesn't make them gullible.

That's just like saying you melted chocolate and formed it into a pile of shit, then laughed because people mistook it for a pile of shit. Doesn't take a genius, you know.

Fucking artists... some of these people seriously think they're creative.

[Vuitton]

Ha! It is REAL. The below link is her interview with the Yale Daily News where she states this isn't a hoax.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24528

The below wall of text I believe is her thesis for the project. Its all mumbo jumo until the last 2 paragraphs where she finally gets to her "point".

"For the past year, I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages. I created a group of fabricators from volunteers who submitted to periodic STD screenings and agreed to their complete and permanent anonymity. From the 9th to the 15th day of my menstrual cycle, the fabricators would provide me with sperm samples, which I used to privately self-inseminate. Using a needleless syringe, I would inject the sperm near my cervix within 30 minutes of its collection, so as to insure the possibility of fertilization. On the 28th day of my cycle, I would ingest an abortifacient, after which I would experience cramps and heavy bleeding.

To protect myself and others, only I know the number of fabricators who participated, the frequency and accuracy with which I inseminated and the specific abortifacient I used. Because of these measures of privacy, the piece exists only in its telling. This telling can take textual, visual, spatial, temporal and performative forms — copies of copies of which there is no original.

This piece — in its textual and sculptural forms — is meant to call into question the relationship between form and function as they converge on the body. The artwork exists as the verbal narrative you see above, as an installation that will take place in Green Hall, as a time-based performance, as a independent concept, as a myth and as a public discourse.

It creates an ambiguity that isolates the locus of ontology to an act of readership. An intentional ambiguity pervades both the act and the objects I produced in relation to it. The performance exists only as I chose to represent it. For me, the most poignant aspect of this representation — the part most meaningful in terms of its political agenda (and, incidentally, the aspect that has not been discussed thus far) — is the impossibility of accurately identifying the resulting blood. Because the miscarriages coincide with the expected date of menstruation (the 28th day of my cycle), it remains ambiguous whether the there was ever a fertilized ovum or not. The reality of the pregnancy, both for myself and for the audience, is a matter of reading.

This ambivalence makes obvious how the act of identification or naming — the act of ascribing a word to something physical — is at its heart an ideological act, an act that literally has the power to construct bodies. In a sense, the act of conception occurs when the viewer assigns the term “miscarriage” or “period” to that blood.

In some sense, neither term is exactly accurate or inaccurate; the ambiguity is not merely a matter of context, but is embodied in the physicality of the object. This central ambiguity defies a clear definition of the act. The reality of miscarriage is very much a linguistic and political reality, an act of reading constructed by an act of naming — an authorial act.

It is the intention of this piece to destabilize the locus of that authorial act, and in doing so, reclaim it from the heteronormative structures that seek to naturalize it.

As an intervention into our normative understanding of “the real” and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are “meant” to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are “natural” (while all the other potential functions are “unnatural”) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.

Just as it is a myth that women are “meant” to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are “meant” for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not “meant” for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child.

When considering my own bodily form, I recognize its potential as extending beyond its ability to participate in a normative function. While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction — the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth — the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things, can have other purposes, and it is the prerogative of every individual to acknowledge and explore this wide realm of capability."

[Aella]

Just as it is a myth that women are “meant” to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are “meant” for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not “meant” for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child.

That...makes no sense. She's trying to compare two completely different things. Of course the ovaries are made to birth a child. If that's not completely obvious...
Yeah, she's fucked up.

[Beckwin]

another twist!

and also, Dada was more than just "random shit to shock people".

[Zosi]

Her claim that it's "real" is nothing more than a bunch of meaningless existential nonsense. She's intentionally being vague to make it sound more appealing. As has been stated, the real "work" is the deception, not the gallery display, and she's trying to play the part to the bitter end despite the Yale officials announcing the truth.

[Vuitton]

Just as it is a myth that women are “meant” to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are “meant” for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not “meant” for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child.

That...makes no sense. She's trying to compare two completely different things. Of course the ovaries are made to birth a child. If that's not completely obvious...
Yeah, she's fucked up.

Well, I think she is aknowledging that physically ovaries were developed to eventually birth a child. But I think she is saying that they have other uses besides what they're meant for?

Just like our hands were developed to handle tools such as the penis in order to masterbate. We can also use our hands to do other things such as type on keyboards.

Her ovaries obviously can also bleed into a cup in a shower stall. I am not sure how useful that is though.

[Nystul]

another twist!

and also, Dada was more than just "random shit to shock people".

Ohh I'm sure you can say it was a rebellion against the industrialized nature of the era, or that it delved into the existentialist concepts that were being brought up at the time...but you know, you can stick fur on a turd, slap a leash on it, drag it around town and call it fido but that thing isn't ever going to catch a frisbee and bring it back to you.

Because it's a turd. And no matter what kind of face you put on it, it's still just a turd.

Dadaism has some notable interesting and compelling artists...but they occupy the top 1%, the rest are just a bunch of antisocial heroin/opium/morphine/absinthe junkies that did stupid stuff in public to get attention. The TV show Jackass would actually fit in well with them. Thats not saying much.

Just as it is a myth that women are “meant” to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are “meant” for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not “meant” for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child.

That...makes no sense. She's trying to compare two completely different things. Of course the ovaries are made to birth a child. If that's not completely obvious...
Yeah, she's fucked up.

Yea that quote is fucking retarded. Penises and vaginas are MEANT for penetrative sex. The uterus is meant for birthing children. It is. You can argue that until you're blue in the face but they were designed for that purpose. A gun is meant to shoot living tihngs. You can use it as a can opener but it was MEANT to shoot living things. She's mixing up terminology and it doesn't strengthen her point much, it kind of undermines it.

[Aella]

Just as it is a myth that women are “meant” to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are “meant” for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not “meant” for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child.

That...makes no sense. She's trying to compare two completely different things. Of course the ovaries are made to birth a child. If that's not completely obvious...
Yeah, she's fucked up.

Well, I think she is aknowledging that physically ovaries were developed to eventually birth a child. But I think she is saying that they have other uses besides what they're meant for?

Just like our hands were developed to handle tools such as the penis in order to masterbate. We can also use our hands to do other things such as type on keyboards.

Her ovaries obviously can also bleed into a cup in a shower stall. I am not sure how useful that is though.

I can see how that makes sense...in a way far too abstract to actually mean anything.

Edited to make clear what I'm responding to...

[Beckwin]

Sorry dude, but you don't know what you're talking about. If you want to know why Dada was more than just poop with a face drawn on it (not sure where you're getting that from) then I can explain, but if you're just going to pridefully cling to low-brow "art is crap and meaningless" mantra then I'm not gonna fucking bother.

[Zosi]

Just as it is a myth that women are “meant” to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are “meant” for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not “meant” for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child.

That...makes no sense. She's trying to compare two completely different things. Of course the ovaries are made to birth a child. If that's not completely obvious...
Yeah, she's fucked up.

Well, I think she is aknowledging that physically ovaries were developed to eventually birth a child. But I think she is saying that they have other uses besides what they're meant for?

Just like our hands were developed to handle tools such as the penis in order to masterbate. We can also use our hands to do other things such as type on keyboards.

Her ovaries obviously can also bleed into a cup in a shower stall. I am not sure how useful that is though.

She is, to put it mildly, an idiot. She confuses the various meanings of "meant" almost criminally, to the point where the word itself is meaningless. How can an object be "meant" to do anything, using her definitions? It can't, because there's no cosmological force that causes all instances of one object to invariably be used for one and only one purpose.

For the confused, I'll explain some more There's multiple definitions of "meant", depending on the context. One is that an object was created for the sake of realizing a particular goal. Via that definition, ovaries are "meant" for reproduction, because that's the evolutionary mechanism that caused them to exist. Another definition is the imperative that a certain usage of an object is the "proper" usage, whereas other uses are "improper" and not suitable. This is different than the first, because one deals with the reasons for creation, and the other deals with the moral implications of certain uses. One is purely a historical perspective, the other is a moral opinion about actions. She's combining the two definitions into one that is clearly contradictory, and using her faulty definition to claim that there's no purpose (in both senses mentioned above) for any particular item to exist.

[Beckwin]

She's saying that common notions (or "myths") of what body parts are "meant" for are largely irrelevant and far from absolute. Sexuality has moved beyond reproduction, and that's why breasts/anuses/silicon/rubber/metal/etc participate in the same realm of the human organs that were thought to be "meant" for it.

Similarly, ovaries/female reproductive anatomy don't have to create children anymore. They can, or they can not (via the abortificients she took), or they can simply exist as biochemical centers of femininity, or whatever else.

[Nystul]

Sorry dude, but you don't know what you're talking about. If you want to know why Dada was more than just poop with a face drawn on it (not sure where you're getting that from) then I can explain, but if you're just going to pridefully cling to low-brow "art is crap and meaningless" mantra then I'm not gonna fucking bother.

I know precisely what I'm talking about. You can play snooty "oh you uncultured heathens just don't get it" all you want but the very fact that many of the artists at the time would freely admit that they were mostly just trying to get a rise out of people is proof enough. I've been to exhibits (most recently the national gallery in DC ran a huge Dada exhibit just shy of 2 years ago), I've taken classes, I know about this stuff. And while, again as I already said, there were a top 1% of excellent and interesting artists, the majority of it was just a bunch of douchebags trying to stir things up. "Oh this will shock the Bourgeoisie!" *yawn* Just like how existentialist writing is limited to a small great class of Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Camus- all of whom I'm actually quite a fan of- and then a bunch of hack imitators.

Oh look! A dummy with a German army uniform and a pig mask. HOLY SHIT SHOCKING! Oh look, a guy drew a mustache on the mona lisa! Hey! There's someone doing a collage using words about war from newspapers! How trite.

You can stroke the Dada cock all you want for being the movement that challenged our concepts of what art is and I can think it sucks for that same reason because frankly, they're the reason some guy gets paid to piss in a jar and drop in a crucifix. It's not clever, it's not interesting, it's just trying to be shocking. meh. But then again, Dada was anti capitalist/pro socialist movement for the most part, a lot of juvenile "fuck the man" ideology so I'm guessing that it's your favorite thing so we can go round and round on this for weeks but we've both pretty much made up our minds on this issue.

She's saying that common notions (or "myths") of what body parts are "meant" for are largely irrelevant and far from absolute. Sexuality has moved beyond reproduction, and that's why breasts/anuses/silicon/rubber/metal/etc participate in the same realm of the human organs that were thought to be "meant" for it.

Similarly, ovaries/female reproductive anatomy don't have to create children anymore. They can, or they can not (via the abortificients she took), or they can simply exist as biochemical centers of femininity, or whatever else.

See, this is why art like this pisses me off. Some assclown at Yale pulls a stupid stunt like this, people react as expected, and then she sits back and says haha, you reacted as expected- it's like when you throw a ball at someone and they duck/flinch and you laugh "haha you flinched" well no shit, what do you expect to happen? ANd then she justifies it with a concept that is hardly shocking/enlightening etc. Her point is not interesting.

The overwhelming majority of the population worldwide has sex for pleasure and pleasure only with some regularity.
No woman on the planet gives birth every cycle...the concept that a womb can or can not bear children based upon the whims of the owner isn't exactly novel.
Abortion is/has been legal for a while.

So what exactly is she saying that is new, intersting, novel, unique? Because I'm not seeing it. She might as well have done a thesis on how the sky is blue and the sun is hot. No shit. Maybe next time she'll take a lot of laxatives and then a lot of stuff that makes her constipated and say that she controls her ass. You don't have to poop when you don't want to! OMG!

[Senoska]

Dunno about you guys but I use my vagina as a purse.