ORLAN

http://www.orlan.net/

Orlan is not an artist of one medium. She is mostly famous for her work with plastic surgery in the early to mid nineties, but she has a body of work that started long before, and that is still evolving and innovating.

"I can observe my own body cut open, without suffering!... I see myself all the way down to my entrails; a new mirror stage. "I can see to the heart of my lover; his splendid design has nothing to do with sickly sentimentalities"- Darling, I love your spleen; I love your liver; I adore your pancreas, and the line of your femur excites me." ORLAN - Carnal Art Manifesto

The Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan, which started in 1990, involved a series of plastic surgeries in the course of which the artist started to morph herself with respect to some of the most well known historical paintings and sculptures. Supported by her Carnal Art manifesto, these works were filmed and broadcast in institutions throughout the world, such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Sandra Gehring Gallery in New York. Orlan's goal in these surgeries is to acquire the ideal of beauty as suggested by the men who painted women. When the surgeries are completed she will have the chin of Botticelli’s Venus, the nose of Gerome’s Psyche, the lips of François Boucher’s Europa, the eyes of Diana from a sixteenth-century French School of Fontainebleu painting and the forehead of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Orlan picked these characters, “not for the canons of beauty they represent… but rather on account of the stories associated with them.” Diana because she is inferior to the gods and men but is leader of the goddesses and women; Mona Lisa because of the standard of beauty, or anti-beauty, she represents; Psyche because of her fragility and vulnerability within the soul; Venus for carnal beauty; Europa for her adventurous outlook to the horizon, the future.

Create An Animated Image"


Since 1998, Orlan creates digital photographic series titled "Self-Hybridizations" where her face merges with past facial representations (masks, sculptures, paintings) of non-western civilizations. So far three series have been realized: Pre-Colombian, American-Indian and African.
In 2001, she orchestrates a series of filmic posters, "Le Plan du Film", with various artists and writers. The posters affirm the existence of films which do not exist as such. The posters question the notions of character and narrative doubled in the social reality of individual roles and stories.
In 2007, Orlan collaborates with the Symbiotica laboratory in Australia, resulting in the bio-art installation "The Harlequin's Coat".
Part of her on-going work includes "Suture/Hybridize/Recycle", a generative and collaborative series of clothing made from Orlan's wardrobe and focussing on suture: the deconstruction of past clothing reconstructed into new clothing that highlights the suture.

a href="http://fvx.com">Create An Animated Image"

INSATIABLE FOR ORLAN?!

Me & Elizabeth Berkley - my non-gay crush on

The Californication of The Balkans !!!

My sweet generation appears to be a number of shameless, aimless groupies, who follow their premature need of being seen ... high on Vanity & LSD.

We drive cars we can not afford. We smash leasing companies like toys.
We wear clothes made in sweatshops, still with glittering ARMANI lables.
We add silicone, like sugar to our coffees and we drink a lot of coffee.
We eat only 500 calories a day, but we never cook or feed.
We know all about soccer and politics, especially while having dinner with a shot of Schnapps.
We love gossips about the others drama, pain and misery that we just don't need our own lives to live. It's like TV.
We HATE negative people and we HATE haters, and we HATE bad things. We never rise a slogan with "LOVE".
We like to travel around the world, but the only map we need is the one that shows the Malls and Trade centers and Shopping Avenues.
We sell and buy the same old goods on cosmic prices, but it's the era of the free market.
I WANNA BE FOREVER YOUNG.


Hard core soft porn: IT'S CALIFORNICATION ... somewhere far from The Edge of Modern Civilization!

DISCOVER GERALD TOTO

http://www.geraldtoto.net/

Thessaloniki, Greece
28th Nov


Have you ever listened to GERALD TOTO? If you had the following will come as no surprise to you.
For those who aren't, but feel like discovering the very "French-ie" experience of the "bossa nova" & as it's called - "new wave" sound, be my guests.


Create An Animated Image"

***
Sat (28th of Nov) me, the boo & a friend of ours took a trip down South to Greece to see the Nouvelle Vague band performing live.
The place they were invited to play, almost fulfilled my idea of the Nouvelle Vague's stage - It was a theater-club named Principal, 20km away from the city side - dropped in the middle of nowhere. Actually, a very appropriate place for getting in a flavored "french" mood.

The show began!


>>The first thing that really grabbed me, was the artist who came out all by himself on the stage, armed with an acoustic guitar and deep brown eyes. ... "That must be Gerald Toto", said my boyfriend looking at the ticket.<<

Honestly, at first, I was like... what?! A single acoustic guitar for the next 5 songs (at least)? I better go and find a chair to sit until Nouvelle' come out!
Now - I must admit - I have never imagined what a single man, blessed with such an astounding talent, could do.
The first song was nothing exciting.
But somehow the second, the third songs began to grab more and more attention. The excited for Nouvelle Vague crowd began to snap their fingers a bit, clap their hands a bit, shake their waists a bit... A strange atmosphere fulfilled the place. In a few moments the infamous man with an acoustic guitar metamorphosed into a tender, insistent voice sneaking through the ears and wrapping around listeners' minds. And when he really got us all swinging and beat timing, totally obeyed to the voice, he startle us all with an astonishing improvisation by interchanging highs and lows with alternating voice. It was like a whole Sunday Choir singing - from the bass to the baritone to the tenor and back down. Then all together!!!!! I couldn't believe Toto was all by himself on the stage! ...Somehow he become a name among the crowd - Gerald Toto! Pure pleasure... I was so impressed from the singing that I focused my attention on his physical presence may be a bit to much. And here came the second hit!
Gerald was basically playing with his eyes closed, but on every 20 seconds he opened them and took a straight look into a listener's eyes. I have no idea if he actually sees the person in front of him, but he definitely manage to give them the sense of uniqueness, like he really sings those lyrics exactly at that one and gives their meaning just to that one. It was like only the two of them in there.
I saw the people smiling at him and waving and clapping louder and louder just to grab his attention. Everyone was focused on the lyrics that were coming out of his soul and we all together tried to follow and sing along. Repeating the lines, as a signature of the improvisation, he make us all shout and scream some words we found truly exciting though we heard them for a first time:

CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH CREAM AND RASPBERRIES!!!!
CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH CREAM AND RASPBERRIES!!!!
CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH CREAM AND RASPBERRIES!!!!

Now, listening to that song I kinda miss seeing Gerald in person! He is that type of an artist who's voice sounds better live than on an album.

...........................

I'm really suggesting you guys to check out his page and if you track a concert anywhere near you - go and grab the emotion I'm talking about. Such a talented man is one of a kind and the aura he has could not be touched simply by listening to the iPod.