In the series of photographs Femme Fatale and Big Game, the central motif is human body – the body which is the instrument of achieving material or spiritual goals, the body as an object of admiration and worship, the body which is a toy. The questions which I wished to ask are concerned with the meaning and value of that body, the justifiability of goals in whose service it is, the reasons of adoring and the significance of the game of which main part it is.
Femme Fatale
Whether we consider her ability to successfully sell a product or a service (beautiful models and actresses in leading roles of the great number of advertisements), or to boost up the morale during wartime (the American soldiers in Korean War and Marilyn Monroe) perfect, beautiful woman confirms herself as one of the most powerful means of seduction and manipulation. For men, the experience of woman as the opposite sex, and for other women – of her own identity – significantly shapes the world of an individual, immediately creating fashion, cultural and social tendencies and, at the same time, changes the entire spirit of the time.
I see Femme Fatale as the object of sexual desire, the goal of ambitions, and the illusion of the life’s dream fulfilled. She is also universal sex symbol which depicts the idea of a woman as a ruler of the emotional and symbolic realm (J. Baudrillard). Fulfilling her needs and wishes (emotional and intellectual, material, sexual and social) implicitly includes the affirmation of every man. In accordance to this, society favours the moulding of those personal characteristics and attitudes which lead to one goal – the self-realization through self-confirmation. It also includes the adoption of certain behavioural models, gaining education, money, high social positions...
Emotional being encourages individuals to act efficiently in order to accomplish those goals which society deems important, desirable and proper. It motivates us to answer numerous challenges and to accept our part in the Big Game. The number of points won in this personal and, at the same time, global game show how close we are to that which, ideally, we should be.
Big Game
Does a reaching proclaimed ideal include mastering of new areas within which the continuation of an individual or global progress is certain?
The need for overage of material values in the dawn of the history of mankind accelerated the economic prosperity and thus initiated the forming of the social system of civilisation. The system itself seeks its own preservation and permanence – its unity and functionality are maintained by the use of force and compulsion, which provides further economical, at first, and then cultural progress. The progress of society and violence are inseparable.
The significant overage of material values includes the overage of violence, which gradually loses its original purpose. It turns into a crime and, on the other hand, it also turns into a type of entertainment which is available to all through spectacle or simulation. And it is very popular as well.
The violence is presented to children in the form of a game. The boys dream of becoming soldiers when they grow up, while not having any objective notion of what being a soldier means in reality.
Sometimes I wonder how this world would look like if the boys did not play war games.