Un/masking : reflections on a transformative process / Anna Baccanti [and three others], editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Baccanti, Anna, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Masks in art.

Genre:

works of art.

Informational works.

Art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (264 pages)

Place of Publication:

Berlin : Neofelis, [2021]

Summary:

This volume looks at masking and unmasking as indivisible aspects of the same process. It gathers articles from a wide range of disciplines and addresses un/masking both as a historical and a contemporary phenomenon. By highlighting the performative dimensions of un/masking, it challenges dichotomies like depth and surface, authenticity and deception, that play a central role in masks being commonly associated with illusion and dissimulation.The contributions explore topics such as the relationship between face, mask, and identity in artistic contexts ranging from Surrealist photography to video installations and from Modernist poetry to fin-de-siècle cabaret theater. They investigate un/masking as a process of transition and transformation - be it in the case of the wooden masks of the First Nations of the American Northwest Coast or of the elaborate costumes and vocal masking of pop icon Lady Gaga.In all of these instances, the act of un/masking has the power to simultaneously hide and reveal. It destabilizes supposedly fixed identities and blurs the lines between the self and the other, the visible and the invisible. The volume offers new perspectives on current debates surrounding issues such as protective masks in public spaces, facial recognition technologies, and colonial legacies in monuments and museums, offering insight into what the act of un/masking can mean today.With contributions by Laurette Burgholzer, Joyce Cheng, Sarah Hegenbart, Bethan Hughes, Judith Kemp, Christiane Lewe, W. Anthony Sheppard, Bernhard Siegert, Anja Wächter, and Eleonore Zapf.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Table of Contents

Anna Baccanti / Franziska Link / Johanna Spangenberg / Antonia Stichnoth: Paradigms of Transformation and Contemporary Perspectives. Introduction

1. Inside Out. The Liminal Space of Un/Masking

Laurette Burgholzer: Facing Trouble. On Conjunctures of Theatrical Masking and Unmasking

Bernhard Siegert: Switching Perspectives. The Operative Ontology of the Transformation Masks of the American Northwest Coast

Bethan Hughes: Corpsing. CGI as Grotesque Realism in the Work of Ed Atkins

2. Expressive Sur/Face. Looking Beyond the Mask

Anja Wächter: Creative Incognito. Stefan Moses' Künstler hinter Masken

Joyce Suechun Cheng: Style as Mask. Toward a Surrealist Theory of Expression

Christiane Lewe: Surface and Depth. The Revival of Physiognomy in Deep Learning

3. A Multitude of Selves. Artistic Personae, Identity, and Representation

Eleonore Zapf: Thoughts Becoming Persons. Fernando Pessoa's Existential Carnival

Judith Kemp: "Wüstes Farbengetändel". Peter Altenberg's Masken in Cabaret Fledermaus

W. Anthony Sheppard: Morality and Meaning in Lady Gaga's Vocal Masking

Sarah Hegenbart: Redressing History in South Africa. Sethembile Msezane and Mary Sibande and Their Masking of the Black Body

Table of Figures

Contributors

Colophon.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9783958083844

3958083846

OCLC:

1264475474