RAnd and imagined, desired. Modified, manipulated and very tattooed. In an increasingly (im) material world, can we still say that the human body is a measure of all things? Or on the contrary, they officially define ourselves confused by what science and technology impose daily? There is still so much to be surprised, in front of the electric miracle of the synapses. But the threatened electronic supremacy of artificial intelligence scares pessimists and even the most curious.
Our body in the world
“The body is increasingly means of communication, a business card. Many are detached making it hyper-performant, a better version of itself. But it is only a way of forgetting their fragility, wrinkles, disease and inevitable end. We even created spare parts! ” explains Walter Siti, author of the book Once upon a time there was (Feltrinelli), among the most intriguing volumes that, in recent months, have made our physical part protagonist. “There is an identity problem. Ten works are changed, the social roles have disappeared, as well as the “certain” position in a place in the world. Young people seem to know everything about them and therefore try to escape, focusing on the body as a private place because so much, on the psyche, you can no longer count ». Old age becomes a subjective fact, at the expense of that “seniority” which, once, was synonymous with wisdom. Under a tense skin and muscles with care carefully, the mind collapses: for sites, it is the reality of forty bent over under the weight of anxieties and depressions.
“It is the psyche as something curable with some tablets. But there is almost no more spirituality, which is not necessarily religion. The spiritual element transcends the body, leading you to observe it differently. Now we live in the culture of “being able to be everything” that makes us perplexed: what has been of the social animal of Aristotle, when can we socialize being closed at home? Is the body discharged on the mobile phone than the imperfect ones out there?». Doubts that are born by observing realities revealed by the author, such as the Californian Singularity University. In this corporate incubator, the Guru Hi-Tch Ray Kurzweil (convinced that, with technology, Forms of artificial intelligence higher than human intelligence will be created) Think of “spiritual” machines, which will act as hybrid and immortal beings on the planet.
The organic charm of everyday life
Seeing the body as a map on which personality, memory and emotions draw their journey is the goal of Vittorio Lingiardi in the acclaimed body, human (Einaudi). The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst takes us to our secret world, explaining fabrics and organs with historical, anatomical and literary anecdotes. “From the body you don’t run away. From the presence, more from the absence. The body lives in the desire: have we lost me of the network of the net, have we abandoned it? Do we still know that he is the protagonist of falling in love? Or is it so only for us twentieth century that we cannot “believe with the meat” to virtual enjoyments and avatar, inside which we would like to put the index as incredulous Tommaso? ” The writer is interrogated.
Rita now in London with a chrome spine, an example of prosthetic makeup at the fashion Awards 2023. (Photo by Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
In his research, even the pleura becomes poetic with the “lung” words of Allen Ginsberg: “I write poetry because the English word inspire comes from the Latin Spiritus, I breathe, I want to breathe free”. And so, for Lingiardi, if the inspiration throws air into the lungs, the inspiration brings oxygen to the minds (to guarantee it, the anatomical haute couture of Schiaparelli which in 2021 transformed even gold bronchi in the necklace).
Staying on the breath, the body becomes a metaphor for emancipation. In the 16th century, the poet Laura Battiferri was portrayed by Bronzino with her nose hooked well in sight: a cultured woman, already at the time, showed that she ran out of beauty. «We then think about the eyes. In the same years, Princess Ana Mendoza de la Cerda was often painted proud of her black bandage: noble and pazzerella, it seems to have lost an eye by dueling with a page. Later, he was confined on charges of conspiracy »explains Arabella Cifani, art historian and author with Stefano cause of Hand -to -hand body. A story of art from head to toe (Joints). An artistic world is explored which, explains Cifani, can now intimidate.
All around art (and our face)
“We don’t know how to read art. And a work reads just like a book. Using the parts of the body can be useful to understand what has changed in society and what has remained the same in history »continues Cifani. There is no shortage of curiosities: the author discovers how British and French churches were rich in female figures with the genitals well in sight. While at the end of the fifteenth century, pants for the noblemen was a point of honor: the Bratta put in the foreground all the virility of rich gentlemen in luxurious guise.
Bella Hadid at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, on 11 July 2021 he wears the haute couture Schiaparelli dress. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
“We see the past as a lot of “sticker”, but it is the council of Trento that puts artists back in line by covering people up to the neck. In the 1700s, the highest classes of society, especially in France, start to strip a little. The Victorian nineteenth century was so modest as to also cover the legs of the tables: The relationship between the body, its modesty and its representation has always been at a variable rate ». To argue the mirror of the soul we needed a whole book. With Visus. Stories of the face from antiquity to selfie (Einaudi), Riccardo Falcinelli explains how, deep in the mind, among all the forms that of the face is the most powerful stimulus. Speaking of masks, millenary works but also of those who for the first time (even as an adult) discover the line of their profile. Insidious laying because, from there, you are looked at without knowing it. The front posture is more authoritative, that of those who know it long: from politicians to the tenders of the news.
From the portrait to the photograph, of course, the artifice is an obligatory step. Who knows what make-up we should wear to hear us dedicate that “supernatural charm” with which Baudelaire called the charm of rigged women: fun or fiction? After all, Falcinelli explains how Marilyn Monroe stated that he could have seen himself naked, but never removed: Not because he considered himself ugly, but because he knew that without makeup no one would recognize him. A doubt that today also grips on social networks, where always being up to its public image is not a small challenge.
“Let’s say “post” a selfie. In English to post it means this: making public, placing on the street, as was done with the edicts or proclamations. A dilemma that was once only reigns that of the presentation of their appearance – now pervades the life of anyone, from the most tender age ».
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