Nostrils and Lascivious

With the emergence of technical recording devices it first became possible to separate, isolate and thereby enlarge individual body parts. Classical painting never attempted a close-up of a body part. The media permit a different body image: fragments of the body in close-up. These works are the result of my investigation in regard to the theory of partial objects as objects of desire. In classical psychoanalysis and cultural theory genital maturity and phallocentrism are stressed. In cultural practice, above all in the mass media, we observe the opposite, namely a visual favoritism for partial objects such as eyes, mouth, breasts, feet, etc. The mass media have become partisans of the partial drive, exploiters of erogenous zones in the service of consumer industry. Exhibitionism, voyeurism, masochism are the system of coordinates of fashion and the media. Medial body images offer new images of the body. This has been im-pressively demonstrated by a film about the effects of photography, tellingly entitled Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966). (Peter Weibel)