THE CARNAL ART OF ORALN
Orlan has undergone numerous plastic surgeries in an attempt to make herself look like her computer-generated collage, built from idealized figures from art history. The forehead of the Mona Lisa, the eyes of a School of Fontainebleau Diana, the nose of Gerome’s Psyche, the lips of Boucher’s Europa, and the chin of Botticelli’s Venus.
The point, however, is not simply for Orlan literally to become a work of art—
each operation is treated as a performance piece in its own right. Orlan only allows herself to be given local anesthetics and thus is able, from the operating table, to direct the transformation of the surgical theater into her personal performance space. Orlan and her medical team wear designer gowns and costumes, she reads aloud from texts (for example, the work of philosopher Michel Serres), and often employs the use of props. The central act however is the surgery itself, with a state-certified surgeon, aggressively draining fat from her thighs and then injecting it into select locations of her face (above her eyelids, below her cheekbones, and into her upper lip) by means of syringes.
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