Cuerpos encriptados: entre el ser real e irreal

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of the treatment of the body in three works of Nicola Costantino: Peletería Humana, Savon de corps and Trailer. Body Art was the first in taking the body as a working material (from the sixties and seventies in the 20th century).

Later, in the nineties, there was a return to the body in art, referring to his ability to be a real object and, at the same time a symbolic one. With new practices carried out by the artists, several concepts, as carnal art (proposed by Orlan), new meat and posthumanism were introduced. This latter view means that the human body nature -the corporeal- has been changed. From this vision, is no necessary to scan under the skin or in the unconscious (as in body art) but, after Ivan Mejias, “ask about the new experiences that modify and sculpt the body, such as cosmetics, light food, cosmetic surgery ... “. Thus, the bodies are encrypted through different operations. The encryption term comes from computing and means the process to transform important information in unreadable information which has to be decoded by a password. The body is a significant matter and takes different meanings; although it is the body itself, which carries it real “information” of itself.