The Subject as Object

Thus far, we have seen many photographs in which the main subject is the human body. I found it very interesting that the fascination with the body can be directly linked to progressing technology, even when technology is absent from the photograph itself. On page 170 of the reading, Fran Herbello’s Untitled image depicts a man’s body as a kind of attire. This photograph is a prime example of the world’s attention towards technological development. Because developments in genetics and medicine were occurring during the time this photograph was taken, the representation of the body as clothing, sewn in with a tag, shows the interest in the alteration of the human body.

I find it very interesting that there seems to have been a major shift in appreciation of a radically transformed body in such a short amount of time. “In the early 1990s, many cultural theorists and writers viewed the prospect of a technologically altered ‘posthuman’ or cyborg body as exciting, even liberating. A decade later, as this seems an ever ore plausible reality, it was increasingly viewed in dystopian, rather than utopian terms.” Today, using the human body as the subject of a photograph is almost always linked to a rising social issue- whether it is politically implicated, in promotion of a product, or linked to a bodily crisis. Fran Herbello’s photograph proves this, as it elicits a cringe from the viewer rather than an interest or desire to see more.