The Body Breached: Post-Soviet Masculinity on Screen

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Goscilo
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Soviet Cinema ◽  
Material Values

Whereas the utopian male body of the Soviet Imaginary hyperbolized and recast in steel or bronze the anatomical ideals of classical antiquity (Mikhail Bakhtin’s ‘closed body’), post-Soviet cinema typically has featured a male corporeality resembling the open body of apertures and protruberances posited by Bakhtin, but as degraded, marred, and vulnerable (Kenneth Clark) rather than celebratory or regenerative. Thus the indomitable heroes of hypertrophied bulk, brawn, and beauty in Stalinist films such as Grigorii Aleksandrov’s Circus (1936), Mikhail Kalatozov’s Valerii Chkalov (1941), and Mikheil Chiaureli’s Fall of Berlin (1949) have been superseded by the dramatically violated and traumatized physiques of protagonists in recent films confronting war—Aleksandr Nevzorov’s Purgatory (1998 ), Valerii Todorovskii’s My Stepbrother Frankenstein (2004), Aleksandr Veledinskii’s Alive (2006)—and those reassessing the Stalinist era: Aleksei German’s Khrustalev, the Car (1998) and Pavel Livnev’s Hammer and Sickle (1994). Indeed, the latter explicitly deconstructs the forcible transformation of Soviet citizenry into fantastic icons of Stakhanovite virility and its tragic consequences. Similarly, post-Soviet onscreen crime devastates the male body, and nowhere more vividly than in Filipp Iankovskii’s Lermontov-indebted Sword Bearer (2006), which violently imprints all contemporary experience, most of it lethal, on the human form in a world ruled by material values and devoid of communal ideals.

Making Up 3D Bodies

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Kiona Hagen Niehaus ◽  
Rebecca Fiebrink
Keyword(s):  
Software Tool ◽  
The Body ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Modeling Systems ◽  
Exploratory Approach ◽  
Disability Status ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

This paper describes the process of developing a software tool for digital artistic exploration of 3D human figures. Previously available software for modeling mesh-based 3D human figures restricts user output based on normative assumptions about the form that a body might take, particularly in terms of gender, race, and disability status, which are reinforced by ubiquitous use of range-limited sliders mapped to singular high-level design parameters. CreatorCustom, the software prototype created during this research, is designed to foreground an exploratory approach to modeling 3D human bodies, treating the digital body as a sculptural landscape rather than a presupposed form for rote technical representation. Building on prior research into serendipity in Human-Computer Interaction and 3D modeling systems for users at various levels of proficiency, among other areas, this research comprises two qualitative studies and investigation of the impact on the first author's artistic practice. Study 1 uses interviews and practice sessions to explore the practices of six queer artists working with the body and the language, materials, and actions they use in their practice; these then informed the design of the software tool. Study 2 investigates the usability, creativity support, and bodily implications of the software when used by thirteen artists in a workshop. These studies reveal the importance of exploration and unexpectedness in artistic practice, and a desire for experimental digital approaches to the human form.

scholarly journals Idrott och genus: Kroppens materialisering

2005 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-72
Author(s):  
Håkan Larsson
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Track And Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Entity ◽  
Male Body ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Male Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One ◽  
Cultural Effect

Håkan Larsson: Sport and gender This article concerns bodily materialisation as it occurs in youth sport. It is based on interviews with teenagers 16 to 19 years of age doing track and field athletics. The purpose of the article is to elucidate how the notion of a “natural body“ can be seen as a cultural effect of sports practice and sports discourse. On the one hand, the body is materialised as a performing body, and on the other as a beautiful body. The “performing body“ is a single-sexed biological entity. The “beautiful body“ is a double-sexed and distinctly heterosexually appealing body. As these bodies collide in teenager track and field, the female body materialises as a problematic body, a body that is at the same time the subject of the girl’s personality. The male body materialises as an unproblematic body, a body that is the object of the boy’s personality. However, the body as “(a problematic) subject“ or as “(an unproblematic) object“ is not in itself a gendered body. Rather, these are positions on a cultural grid of power-knowledge relations. A girl might position herself in a male discourse, and a boy might position himself in a female discourse, but in doing so, they seem to have to pay a certain price in order not to be seen as queer.

scholarly journals Male Infertility: Pathogenetic Significance of Oxidative Stress and Antioxidant Defence (Review)

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Vsevolod Koshevoy ◽  
Svitlana Naumenko ◽  
Pavlo Skliarov ◽  
Serhiy Fedorenko ◽  
Lidia Kostyshyn
Keyword(s):  
Oxidative Stress ◽  
Male Infertility ◽  
Nitrosative Stress ◽  
Antioxidant Properties ◽  
Malonic Dialdehyde ◽  
The Body ◽  
Redox Activity ◽  
Enzymatic System ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Mitochondrial Potential

The basis of the pathogenesis of male infertility is the processes of peroxide oxidation of biological substrates, especially lipids and proteins. By destroying the sperm membrane, toxic peroxidation products reduce its motility and ability to fertilize the egg, which is determined by a decrease in the number of motile sperm in the ejaculate. These changes lead to complete or partial male infertility. The authors of the review found that is accompanied by a damaging effect on the structural and functional activity of the gonads and is manifested, in particular, by an imbalance in the hormonal background of the male body. Similar effects are characteristic of an increase in the content of reactive Nitrogen species and its metabolites, which cause nitrosative stress, which is also the cause of male hypofertility and is inseparable from the state of oxidative stress. In scientific work it is determined that the accumulation of harmful peroxidation products leads to damage and destruction of sperm DNA, reduced activity of acrosomal enzymes and mitochondrial potential of sperm, reduced overall antioxidant activity. This makes it impossible for an adequate response of the body. Multi component antioxidant defense system resists stress. It is represented by enzymatic and non-enzymatic links, which can neutralize harmful radicals and peroxidation products. It contributes to the full manifestation of reproductive function. The presence of powerful antioxidant properties of catalase, superoxide dismutase, and enzymes of the thiol-disulfide system, which form the enzymatic system of antioxidant protection, as well as selenium, zinc, copper, other trace elements, retinol, tocopherol, ascorbic acid, and vitamins as parts of the non-enzymatic system is shown. The efficiency of registration is substantiated thin biochemical shift detectors or complex methods, such as total antioxidant status of sperm or sperm plasma, mitochondrial membrane potential, etc along with simple markers of oxidative stress, such as diene conjugates, malonic dialdehyde, and metabolites of the Nitrogen Oxide cycle. Given the leading role of oxidative stress in the development of male hypofertility, the prospect of further research is the search for modern means for correction, especially among substances with pronounced redox activity

scholarly journals A Novel Body Plan Alters Diversification of Body Shape and Genitalia in Live-Bearing Fish

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Brian Langerhans ◽  
Eduardo Rosa-Molinar
Keyword(s):  
Complex Traits ◽  
Body Shape ◽  
Body Plan ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sperm Transfer ◽  
Body Region ◽  
Adaptive Divergence ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Correlated Evolution ◽  
Anterior Transposition

Major evolutionary innovations can greatly influence subsequent evolution. While many major transitions occurred in the deep past, male live-bearing fishes (family Poeciliidae) more recently evolved a novel body plan. This group possesses a three-region axial skeleton, with one region—the ano-urogenital region—representing a unique body region accommodating male genitalic structures (gonopodial complex). Here we evaluate several hypotheses for the evolution of diversity in this region and examine its role in the evolution of male body shape. Examining Gambusia fishes, we tested a priori predictions for (1) joint influence of gonopodial-complex traits on mating performance, (2) correlated evolution of gonopodial-complex traits at macro- and microevolutionary scales, and (3) predator-driven evolution of gonopodial-complex traits in a post-Pleistocene radiation of Bahamas mosquitofish. We found the length of the sperm-transfer organ (gonopodium) and its placement along the body (gonopodial anterior transposition) jointly influenced mating success, with correlational selection favoring particular trait combinations. Despite these two traits functionally interacting during mating, we found no evidence for their correlated evolution at macro- or microevolutionary scales. In contrast, we did uncover correlated evolution of modified vertebral hemal spines (part of the novel body region) and gonopodial anterior transposition at both evolutionary scales, matching predictions of developmental connections between these components. Developmental linkages in the ano-urogenital region apparently play key roles in evolutionary trajectories, but multiple selective agents likely act on gonopodium length and cause less predictable evolution. Within Bahamas mosquitofish, evolution of hemal-spine morphology, and gonopodial anterior transposition across predation regimes was quite predictable, with populations evolving under high predation risk showing more modified hemal spines with greater modifications and a more anteriorly positioned gonopodium. These changes in the ano-urogenital vertebral region have facilitated adaptive divergence in swimming abilities and body shape between predation regimes. Gonopodium surface area, but not length, evolved as predicted in Bahamas mosquitofish, consistent with a previously suggested tradeoff between natural and sexual selection on gonopodium size. These results provide insight into how restructured body plans offer novel evolutionary solutions. Here, a novel body region—originally evolved to aid sperm transfer—was apparently co-opted to alter whole-organism performance, facilitating phenotypic diversification.

The Body Imaged: The Human Form and Visual Culture since the Renaissance

1994 ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Caroline Evans ◽  
Kathleen Adler ◽  
Marcia Pointon ◽  
Lynda Nead
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Form

Fractured and Effaced Façades

2021 ◽  
pp. 162-185
Author(s):  
Ron J. Popenhagen
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Deprivation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Antonin Artaud ◽  
Body Form ◽  
Dynamic Expression ◽  
Marc Chagall ◽  
Dynamic Form ◽  
The Face ◽  
Involuntary Displacement

The rise of Fascism in Europe and its aftermath rest ever in the background of Chapter Six and its collection of ‘Disfigured Bodies’. The face and gaze of Antonin Artaud best characterises the tone of this series of violent destructions, lost ones and the isolated (like Picasso in occupied Paris). Amid ‘Veiled and Displaced Faces’ and ‘Empty Gazes’, involuntary displacement and sensory deprivation haunt representations of the human form. The head and human figures presented here are almost unrecognisable when re-conceived by a metteur en scène like Étienne Decroux or a sculptor like Alberto Giacometti. Marc Chagall, in exile, invents fantasy forms that masquerade the figures of opera and ballet performers with colourful, cushioned exteriors in magical scenographic spaces. Experimentation with actor as object manipulator or manipulacteur, like the scenographic, dynamic form in some of Jacques Lecoq’s work, displace dynamic expression to ‘things’ outside of the body form itself. In Chapter Six, some non-verbal performers search for statements beyond language: texts in the materiality of space itself. The abstracted silhouette speaks as depersonalised, masquerading image.

The Werewolf, Inside and Out

2020 ◽  
pp. 82-108
Author(s):  
Daniel Ogden
Keyword(s):  
Inner Core ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Human Element ◽  
The Core ◽  
Opposite Process ◽  
Human Flesh

Ancient werewolf thinking was strongly articulated in accordance with an axis between an inside and an outside, in three ways. First, the werewolf was often understood as a combination of an outer carapace and an inner core: more often the human element formed the carapace, and the lupine element the core, but the opposite arrangement could also obtain. Usually the humanoid carapace was identified, awkwardly, with the werewolf’s human clothing, and the wolf was revealed once this was shed; but sometimes, perhaps, the wolf could be more deeply buried within, as in the cases of those, like Aristomenes, that boasted a hairy heart. The inner and outer form could be pinned together, as it were, by an identifying wound; it is also possible that the belief that a wound could force a werewolf back into human form existed already in the ancient world. Secondly, a werewolf transformation, in either direction, could be effected by the taking of a foodstuff within the body: a man could be transformed into a werewolf by eating an (enchanted?) piece of bread, or the food most appropriate to a wolf, human flesh; he could be transformed back into a man either by abstinence from human flesh or by the equal-and-opposite process of eating a wolf’s heart. And, thirdly, it was the impulse of the werewolf, when transformed from man to wolf, to make a bolt from the inner places of humanity and civilisation for the outer places of the wilderness and the forest.

The costume of MoCap: A spatial collision of velcro, avatar and Oskar Schlemmer

Scene ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-232
Author(s):  
Matt Delbridge
Keyword(s):  
Motion Capture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Mathematical Properties ◽  
Victor Turner ◽  
Spatial Discourse ◽  
Screen Space ◽  
Contemporary Practice ◽  
A Performance

The rationale that governs motion of the organic in the cubical leans towards a transformation of the body in space, emphasizes its mathematical properties and highlights the potential to measure and plot movement – this is the work of a Motion Capture (MoCap) system. The translation in the MoCap studio from physical to virtual is facilitated by the MoCap suit, a device that determines the abstract cubical representation that drives first the neutral, and then the characterized avatar in screen space. The enabling nature of the suit, as apparatus, is a spatial phenomenon informed by Schlemmer’s abstract ‘native’ costume and his vision of the Tanzermensch as the most appropriate form to occupy cubical space. The MoCap suit is similarly native. It bridges the physical and virtual, provides a Victor Turner like threshold and connection between environments, enacting a spatial discourse facilitated by costume. This collision of Velcro, Avatar and Oskar Schlemmer allows a performance of space, binding historical modernity to contemporary practice. This performance of activated space is captured by a costume that endures, in Dorita Hannah’s words, despite the human form.

«WITHOUT MEASURE AND WITHOUT ANALOGY»: THE TRADITION OF THE DIVINE BODY IN 2 (SLAVONIC) ENOCH

Scrinium ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-257
Author(s):  
Andrei A. Orlov
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Divine Body

The artice investigates the origins of the Shiccur Qomah tradition. This tradition depicts visionaries, Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiba, receiving from the supreme angel Metatron revelations of the «measurement of the body» (in Hebrew, Shiccur Qomah), an anthropomorphic description of the Deity together with the mystical names of its gigantic limbs. Although the majority of the evidence of the the Shiccur Qomah tradition survived in late Jewish writings, Gershom Scholem argued that the beginning of Shiccur Qomah speculations can be found in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch where one can find the description of the appearance of the Lord as a terrifying extent analogous to the human form. The article develops Scholem's hypothesis arguing that the traditions about the divine body in 2 Enoch were shaped by the early Adamic traditions. The portrayal of the prelapsarian Adam found in the longer recension of 2 Enoch reveals fascinating similarities to the later Shiccur Qomah descriptions.

Physical Correlates of College Students' Body Image Satisfaction Levels

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Çatikkaş
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Body Image ◽  
Body Fat ◽  
Physical Characteristics ◽  
The Body ◽  
Female College Students ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Body Image Satisfaction ◽  
Satisfaction Questionnaire ◽  
Male Body Image

Whether or not the association between physical characteristics and body image satisfaction varies by gender was investigated. The sample included 148 male and 104 female college students aged 19-27 years. To assess body image satisfaction, the Body Image Satisfaction Questionnaire (Berscheid, Walster, & Bohrnstedt, 1973) was used. Body fat, waist to hip, chest to shoulder ratio, weight, and height were measured. The results indicate that males had significantly greater body image satisfaction than did females. There was a small but significant correlation between physical characteristics and body image satisfaction for females but not for males. The regression model, consisting of bodily measures, predicted a significant variance in female body image satisfaction. The same model failed to explain male body image satisfaction.

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