Thursday, April 12, 2012

All You Zombies- Truth Before God

I came across this sculpture in Jennifer Gonzales' article, "Envisioning Cyborg Bodies: Notes From Current Research" and I thought that I should share it.  It's a piece titled "All You Zombies: Truth Before God" by Robert Longo.

This cyborg/monster is a really powerful representation of cyborg resistance.  Gonzales points out some important things, such as the fact that this monster has both a phallus (with wings instead of testes) as well as a single developed breast and a feminine hand reaching out of its chest.  She also points out that its stance resembles Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People"-

What I find most interesting with this buddy is its ability to be violent and challenging to binaries just by existing.  I'll admit that it sort of scares me, but I have faith that it's fighting for autonomy, not for power.  This little guy is a nightmare from the imagination, caught within the frame of multiple gender, temporal, and class subjectivities that make it totally unique but also maybe sort of relatable. Ze (yes I went there) is really sort of beautiful when you get down to it.  Unlike Liberty, ze is alone, or rather on a stage, naked to the public gaze.  Who is being rallied?  I don't know about you, but whenever I think about this sculpture, I feel like I'm personally being called to arms, that I'm one of the zombies (or not one of the zombies) that this creature is fighting.  I don't know if I'd go so far as to call hir my muse, but why the hell not?

1 comment:

  1. I've loved this piece since I first saw it in a magazine in, probably, 1987. It's fascinating. I'd love to see it in person.

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