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• 1 2017-11-28T09:27:52-08:00 The Aesthetic of The Baroque and its Shock Value 9 plain 2017-12-08T11:37:04-08:00

  This idea of baroque images works well to promote shock value as a way of jarring the reader into realization.  In our daily life, we come to expect things to be a certain way, and when that idea is challenged it causes us to stop for just a moment and notice the simulacrum that surrounds us.  Using the example of this movement to use real mannequins to fashion clothes instead of fake ones allows onlookers to be shocked when they realize these dolls are real people.  These “representations of representations,” which use a simulation of dolls with almost human-like appearance, display a desired image of what clothes may look like on, after you purchase them, which in fact never does quite measure up, and is suddenly challenged by an injection of real when the models are suddenly other women (Sawchuk, 52).  Pieces of Herself shocks the reader by using common, everyday items and repurposing them as something to use to make yourself or your character.  By layering a baby over the cross on the church, it shocks the reader into discovering a worry many women have to contend with, and it continues to layer simple images to create an ambiguous and broad meaning.  It gives multiple understandings to what a cross or baby can mean to a woman, not just the connotations of religion and family, but also shame.  As this idea of the baroque progresses into our postmodern era, it comes to a point where “the imaginary - the unconscious modes of seeing - is thrown into confusion by technological developments and the ‘mass’ dimension of all reality” (Buci-Glucksmann, 74).  We have so much to look at and do now with the introduction of new technologies that it makes it difficult to look beyond the surface or see everything we want to see.  As our society shifts to a new era with an overwhelming amount of images and ideas being thrown into the mix it becomes “a veritable duel between a will to see everything and a will to see everything different in a different way” (Buci-Glucksmann, 75).  In this world it is impossible to see everything if not to just glimpse amongst the surface and miss the ambiguity the baroque images are concealing beneath their crystal clear surface.  Recent ads show beautiful women and men, which on first glance seem overtly elegant and lavish, but looking back it is clear in both ads women are at the feet of or being pushed down by men, this works to push forward this idea of a need for women to be submissive to men.  In Pieces of Herself, the image of the baby on the cross drew me as a reader to the questions, where is the man in this?  Why is the woman left to bear this weight all on her own?  Throughout every scene change those questions can be repeated, as every room reflects how alone women are in bearing these weights.  As a character in this hypertext, you do not find people in any other room unless it is through the interviews you hear as audio files attached to objects throughout the room. These audio files work to push the message of each item further as the reader is met with these now baroque, ambiguous objects.  

      Going through Pieces of Herself it is interesting how these baroque objects and images reflect stereotypical “historical scars of power” (Sawchuk, 53).  Through now-a-day ads and objects in the hypertext like the street sign blocking your character’s way down the street it reflects “a mark of colonization, the ‘anchoring’ of our bodies… into specific positions, and… in the line of the gaze” (Sawchuk, 53).  Women have historically been this constantly watched and corrected object in our culture, and the hypertext itself works well to “signify women as the colonized subject,” as the image of the baby over the church, or the writings of love in the bathroom becomes something less real, but relatable, it becomes something watched and judged by the reader.  It is the reader’s choice if they want to pass over these images and view them as their baroque surface or to glance deeper and look for something more.

• 1 2017-11-28T07:32:54-08:00 A Recognizable Simulacrum 7 plain 2017-12-08T11:04:33-08:00

  While the use of bilingual code and language creates a recognizable world, it is still a simulacrum.  Most everything around us can be reasoned to be simulacra now, but this piece feels more realistic than our billboard ads and even the magical Disney World.  While an example of simulacrum would be a TV show consisting of female characters that exemplify the “perfect” woman, this text breaks that because it is attempting to take apart all of the pieces of what makes a woman and show the impact that has on the individual by evoking a reaction from the reader.  “Simulation threatens the difference between the ‘true’ and the ‘false,’ the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’” (Baudrillard).  While the voices you hear and interviews are real, the body you are filling is not truly real or your own, but as you go through each scene, it is easy to become picky of what you decide to place into your character, so inadvertently it begins to become a representation of yourself.  “It is truth that hides the fact that there is none…The simulacrum is true.” (Baudrillard).  So while this could convey there is no longer truth anywhere, it relates to Pieces of Herself by revealing that there is no true definition of what a woman should be, there is no formula or societal dictation that is correct, and in ripping apart these ideas this simulation offers its own truth to those reading along.  It also offers something much more real and true than what society is trying to feed us, in showing us one dimensional characters, of the pure woman and the impure woman, that there is no overlapping between them, only a paradoxical binary.
      When entering the scene of Main Street in Pieces of Herself, I most distinctly remember the line, “I was running away from something that I could not see” (Davis).  Upon experiencing this it causes the reader to stop and look at one’s self and realize many of us are fleeing from qualities and ideas that are continually being thrust upon us, such as how we look and act.  That is the one of the truths of the piece that the author wants you to confront and contend with.  “Behind the baroqueness of images hides the eminence grise of politics” (Baudrillard).  This relates to how Davis is using artwork and this platform to create something inspirational and moving.  This is displayed in the picture following, where once you go outside you can see a church but you can see an embryo that you can also place inside of your character.  Davis’ use of a baby in reference to church  touches on abortion as a much larger issue that women can face during their life.

  There is a hidden depth in residing among the codes of audio files, and while your character is not real the truth behind the message of this piece is very real.  An interesting facet of this is that “the eye of TV is no longer the source of an absolute gaze” (Baudrillard).  There is so many more avenues to convey information now.  Television is only one of those ways, in a room of Pieces of Herself your character can turn on the tv to hear Oprah, and while its noise drowns out other audio occurring in the room, you can escape it by leaving or waiting for it to turn off, you cannot even put it inside your character, so that shows that it is not the most important piece of information when filling your character and there is more that the scene wants you to pay attention to.