Just looked at the Palmer video on the web, and I see what you mean. There’s definitely something striking about that face. In this image, I’m struck by how blatantly the store owner is using sex to move product. Far from being coy about it, they’re foregrounding it. At least they’re honest, I guess.
Also, whenever I see mannequins like these, that would have been cast from the body of a live person, I remember that the original model often receives a royalty whenever one of these mannequins is made. Somehow, that strikes me as odd.. that the model’s body is also her intellectual property. I don’t object to this practice, it just seems strange to me.
pixpop said:
“Somehow, that strikes me as odd.. that the models body is also her intellectual property. I dont object to this practice, it just seems strange to me.”
It’s interesting to see that there is an automatically made link in thought between ‘royalties’ and ‘intellectual property’. Then, we all learn to consider a body as something purely physical and non intellectual. Actually, if I rethink about it, I see how the body if fully intellectualized and carrier of symbolic meanings all over. To be able for the owners of the store to use it in such a way, it must somehow be invested with some relevant meaning, partly due to the use they make of it. But the original model must be very austere in the way she handles her body. It must be preserved by means of a strict diet, training, gymnastics etc. Even the pose of the mannequins is taught and acquired. In a way, the model is a priestess, in service either of the ‘god of sex’ or ‘the god of sales and money’. The models have no private live, so they live by the rules of a nearly nun order. Anyway, our body is as much an intellectual ‘product’ as it is pre-given by nature. For us, human beings, nature is not (only) something beyond, but a fully symbolically invested entity (as well). So there is an ‘investment’ in the body of a model to produce a mannequin, and this could well be intellectual (if we push it a little, lawyers do). And actually it is not ‘a body’, but an image of a body or a statue of a body, so the statue is reproduced in many pieces (the model’s body being presumably the ‘original’, acting as the legitimation of the double, that the mannequin is). An image is a double from the ground up, there is no image that can be conceived as something prototype, because it is an ‘image of something’, even if this something doesn’t exist. So is a photo or a book, or a letter of the alphabet. In a way, even a body is an image, and not prototype, so god comes into existence as a ‘lost’(?) prototype. Bodies are alike each other. Of course, here the ‘bodies’ are forbidden, through the window pane and through the intangible quality of a photo.
And yes, there is something else I find very interesting here as well, it is the letters that are on the mannequins ‘bodies’. Very primitive in a way, but maybe because of this very strong. The letter is stamped on a ‘body’, this is a metaphor taken literally here. ‘The Scarlet Letter” comes into mind.
Anamesa, very perceptive comments. Looking at the image again, I see the letters as branding. This opens up another set of associations, of course. Ranchers burn their identity into the flesh of livestock, proclaiming not only “This is mine”, but also “This is owned”. Cattle/Chattel. Marketers want their brands to be “burned” into the collective psyche. They will speak of ‘owning’ a market, by which they mean a group of people. The model strives to make her body conform to the brand of ideal feminine desirability, as if a cow were to brand itself with the mark of a certain ranch.
This reminds me of Brian Palmer’s video for Addicted to Love – the vibrant red of the lettering, and the rather aloof expressions of the mannequins.
Just looked at the Palmer video on the web, and I see what you mean. There’s definitely something striking about that face. In this image, I’m struck by how blatantly the store owner is using sex to move product. Far from being coy about it, they’re foregrounding it. At least they’re honest, I guess.
Also, whenever I see mannequins like these, that would have been cast from the body of a live person, I remember that the original model often receives a royalty whenever one of these mannequins is made. Somehow, that strikes me as odd.. that the model’s body is also her intellectual property. I don’t object to this practice, it just seems strange to me.
this is gold.
roc solid.
Thanks, P.P.
pixpop said:
“Somehow, that strikes me as odd.. that the models body is also her intellectual property. I dont object to this practice, it just seems strange to me.”
It’s interesting to see that there is an automatically made link in thought between ‘royalties’ and ‘intellectual property’. Then, we all learn to consider a body as something purely physical and non intellectual. Actually, if I rethink about it, I see how the body if fully intellectualized and carrier of symbolic meanings all over. To be able for the owners of the store to use it in such a way, it must somehow be invested with some relevant meaning, partly due to the use they make of it. But the original model must be very austere in the way she handles her body. It must be preserved by means of a strict diet, training, gymnastics etc. Even the pose of the mannequins is taught and acquired. In a way, the model is a priestess, in service either of the ‘god of sex’ or ‘the god of sales and money’. The models have no private live, so they live by the rules of a nearly nun order. Anyway, our body is as much an intellectual ‘product’ as it is pre-given by nature. For us, human beings, nature is not (only) something beyond, but a fully symbolically invested entity (as well). So there is an ‘investment’ in the body of a model to produce a mannequin, and this could well be intellectual (if we push it a little, lawyers do). And actually it is not ‘a body’, but an image of a body or a statue of a body, so the statue is reproduced in many pieces (the model’s body being presumably the ‘original’, acting as the legitimation of the double, that the mannequin is). An image is a double from the ground up, there is no image that can be conceived as something prototype, because it is an ‘image of something’, even if this something doesn’t exist. So is a photo or a book, or a letter of the alphabet. In a way, even a body is an image, and not prototype, so god comes into existence as a ‘lost’(?) prototype. Bodies are alike each other. Of course, here the ‘bodies’ are forbidden, through the window pane and through the intangible quality of a photo.
And yes, there is something else I find very interesting here as well, it is the letters that are on the mannequins ‘bodies’. Very primitive in a way, but maybe because of this very strong. The letter is stamped on a ‘body’, this is a metaphor taken literally here. ‘The Scarlet Letter” comes into mind.
‘Love for Sale’ jumps to mind as well, hehe.
Anamesa, very perceptive comments. Looking at the image again, I see the letters as branding. This opens up another set of associations, of course. Ranchers burn their identity into the flesh of livestock, proclaiming not only “This is mine”, but also “This is owned”. Cattle/Chattel. Marketers want their brands to be “burned” into the collective psyche. They will speak of ‘owning’ a market, by which they mean a group of people. The model strives to make her body conform to the brand of ideal feminine desirability, as if a cow were to brand itself with the mark of a certain ranch.
lovely lovely
pure sweetness
Thank you, Rosa.