Inverse Counter Phobia — Academic/Matt

The glamorous personification of the abject’s transgression

“We seek out both the inspired and insipid varieties of stupidity, and there is no longer much question that we probably depend more on the entertainment industry (as opposed to the visual arts) to remind us of just how addicted we’ve become to the idea that our collective mediocrity is exemplary.”
Joshua Decter, 'Stupidity as Destiny - American Idiot Culture' Flash Art No.178 October 1994

“Modern narratives appear to produce a semioticization of the body which is matched by a somatization of a story: a claim that the body must be a source and locus of meanings, and that stories cannot be told without making the body a prime vehicle of narrative significations.”
Peter Brooks 'Body Work - Objects of Desire in Modern Narrative' Harvard University Press 1993

In the late twentieth century, and nearing the advent of a new millennium, the somewhat media-saturated western hemisphere could perhaps be identified with the personification and proliferation of the ‘super’ species. The term or prefix ‘super’ appears everywhere - superpower, supermodel, superstore, the list seems infinite, and it seems to be a particularly aryian language which is being espoused. It’s the consumer notion of one-upmanship, in the sense of bettering something which appears to already exist with a hybridian form of the same thing (ie market / supermarket). Even this has been superceded by the term ‘hyper’ (hypermarket, hypernutrition, hypertension), although this seems to imply the absolute limit to something, so impressive in scale or appearance that it cannot be superceded, perhaps the term ‘super’ (which is not as extreme), purely denotes that it is better than all the rest, although there is some degree of weakness in that it will perhaps be overtaken. The term seems impermanent (yet not temporary).

Within this complicated and problematic linguistic arena, I intend to explore the somewhat perverse relationship between two such ‘super’ species and the issues raised through this hypothetical marriage. The most basic of ‘super’ terms, ‘superman’, leads me to assume that one of the fundamentals of this term is perhaps held with the arena of the superhero / heroine, yet I intend to explore this element’s relationship to the conspicuous, public, and incredibly transitory nature of the ‘superstarlet’ of Saturday night, so-called ‘Prime Time’ television.

“The magic of primitive ritual creates harmonious worlds with ranked and ordered populations playing their appointed parts. So far from being meaningless, it is primitive magic which gives meaning to existence. This applies as much to the negative as to the positive rites. The prohibitions trace the cosmic outlines and the ideal social order.”
Mary Douglas: 'Purity and Danger - An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo', London, Routledge (1966)

One such ‘superstarlet’ is the young entertainer and subject of much Italian media attention, Valeria Marini. Appearing in such ‘Prime Time’ variety shows as ‘Champagne’ and ‘Luna di Miele’ (‘Honeymoon’), she is also particularly prevalent upon billboards, in magazines, and in general, the majority of Italian media. She typifies the traditional media stereotype of the ‘curvacious blonde’. However, Marini, going against recent trends of the ‘supermodel’ and subsequent ‘superwaif’ is a Post Modern return to the particular curves embodied in the 1950’s cinema of continental Europe, yet disturbingly with the aid of plastic surgery.

How, therefore, does the proposal of equation with the superhero come into play? In Scott Bukatman’s essay ‘X-Bodies: The Torment of the Mutant Superhero’, it is proposed as to how such characters from low-budget but widespread publications such as ‘The Uncanny X-Men’ might come to represent a wide range of social and political body issues. Bukatman suggests that hyper (and also super) real renderings of these fantastical depictions of what is only barely human reflects very real ‘body narratives, bodily fantasies, the corporate (incarnate) aggrandizement and anxiety, mastery and trauma’ with particular reference to the female’s depiction, he goes as far as to attempt to lay down a hypothetical set of criteria as to perhaps why these characters espouse these narratives, and in particular, in relation to their creators, the majority of which are still predominantly male.

Valeria Marini: Italian Media Superstarlet

“Hypermasculine fantasy is also revealed, with unabashed obviousness, in the approach to female superheroes. The spectacle of the female body in these titles is so insistent, and the fetishism of breast, thighs and hair so complete, that the comics seem to dare you to say anything about them that isn’t just redundant.

Of course the female form has absurdly exaggerated sexual characteristics;
Of course the costumes are skimpier than one could (or should) imagine;
Of course there’s no visible way these costumes could stay in place;
Of course these women represent simple adolescent masturbatory fantasies.”

Scott Bukatman: 'X-Bodies - The Torment of the Mutant Superhero' Uncontrollable Bodies, Bay Press Seattle (1994)

Valeria Marini perhaps walks the extremely fine line between the point where the real becomes the fantastical and vice versa. She is represented particularly by Bukatman’s list, but exists in the real world, and cannot hope to fulfill the expectations given by the superheroes within the same criteria.

In addition to this, it is perhaps problematic to ignore the issue of the abject and its subsequent departure from the body (its transgression through hypermuscular fantasy). In defining the ‘abject’, I am attempting to group together the bodily substances which ‘leave’ the body. This includes blood, faeces and urine, yet in relation to the ‘superbodies’ of Marini and the X-Bodies, this is particularly apt of the perhaps more sexual fluids, such as semen, sweat or saliva. However, it is not particularly important as to which substance transgresses, but as to the notion that these characters (however stereotypical they might be) are the embodiment of the idea of fluid leaving the body.

I will begin by exploring the particular discussions inherent in the proposed equation of Valeria Marini with the X-Bodies, and then focus upon specific actions or events which embody this idea of glamorous abject transgression.

Chapter One: Bursting The Boundaries of the Body

“The mutant body is oxymoronic, rigidly protected but dangerously unstable. It its infinite malleability and overdetermined adolescent iconography, the mutant superhero is a locus of bodily ritual.”
Scott Bukatman: 'X-Bodies - The Torment of the Mutant Superhero' Uncontrollable Bodies, Bay Press Seattle (1994)

Perhaps the most obvious relation between the public persona of Valeria Marini, and the somewhat stereotypical depiction of the female superhero is the almost impossibly thin layer of clothing which covers their bodies. Every aspect of the body appears particularly well defined, yet, within this use of the thinnest layer of clothing possible, there is an instantly curious paradox of leaving everything, and yet nothing to the imagination. If they are covered by this layer, why don’t they look naked? This layer is therefore perhaps important in attempting to define a boundary between the real and the unreal (the superstarlet and the superhero).

The plasticized body of the Superhero, which is more colored than covered (Uncanny X-Men, Marvel)

Storm: Typical of the X-Bodies described by Scott Bukatman

In the case of the female superhero, the body is not so much covered as colored, with elements such as genitals, nipples, toes etc. becoming mere lumps of flesh which have either been reductively stylized, or else completely removed altogether. This stylizing of certain (predominantly sexual) parts of the body may be a vague attempt to desexualize an already hypermuscular and definitely gendered form. To reduce the content without losing the sense. The important functioning element would appear to be that one is able to see that it is the female form (yet only perhaps through the excessive rendering of the breasts) without drawing attention to the physical nature of the body itself, its actual daily functioning (the abject). Yet in doing this, there is the duality of producing hypermuscular images, sheathed in a reductive layer of clothing, yet with no attention drawn to physical process whatsoever.

In this I am attempting to suggest a difference between the rendering of internal and external in relation to the superhero’s body. What is external is the hypermuscular shell of the bulging flesh, perhaps implying the peak of ‘internal’ physical fitness, whereas the fluids of the body (the abject) contained within this shell, are only revealed as the ‘superpower’ of the character, for example, lightning bolts fired from their fingertips. What appears to be happening is the body is rendered into impossibly hyper-real terms, whereas the internal workings of the same body are drastically played down and reduced to either stylistic interpretation or even metaphor.

Their bodies do leak as in normality, but it is a different leakage of non-human matter and predominantly from parts of the body without orifices (hands, feet etc.). I feel as if it is perhaps to some extent this issue of leakage and the nature of their abject, coupled with the exterior / interior duality which is the separating element between the real and the fantastical within this arena. In discussing the element of the transitory nature of the superhero’s abject matter, it is perhaps important to note that I am only referring to those mutant superheroes whoe ‘power’ is in the form of some type of expulsion from the body (this excludes such infamous characters as Batman).

The very nature of the abject material almost uncategorically confirms the existence of the human body, and it is therefore perhaps one of the few elements which might be described as ‘common’ to human experience. However, in the case of the superhero, the abject no longer becomes a definable element of the body, and it is this complete unpredictability which I feel leads to the assumptive term of ‘mutant’. It is perhaps particularly similar to recent contemporary debate surrounding ‘difference’ between cultures and social sub-groups. Yet of course, it is purely hypothetical, as the actual characters do not exist in the real world, yet in saying this, the very demand for some hypermuscular escapism would appear to fulfill some form of adolescent male requirement (the age perhaps where the abject becomes particularly important in the body’s physical and mental development).

“The bodily torment of the mutant superhero expresses a desire, a need, to transcend the confines of the body, to exist as pure spirit. As usual, however, such desires are fraught with ambivalence, hence the heightened transgression of corporeal boundaries is accompanied by the hardening of the body.”
Scott Bukatman: 'X-Bodies - The Torment of the Mutant Superhero' Uncontrollable Bodies, Bay Press Seattle (1994)

How, therefore, can this discussion be transposed to the form of Valeria Marini? It could perhaps be suggested that Marini is an almost perfect corollary to the superhero, yet espouses all the shortcomings of its subsequent transposition into the ‘real’ world. This notion of bodily leakage, or the transgression of the abject would also seem to ring true of Marini, yet with all the ‘common’ elements instead of the fantastical ones being pushed to the fore. In saying this, she also seems to be strangely ‘hypermuscular’ (obviously in a far more different sense to the superhero) in the way that everything about her body has been externalized, and stylized (similar removal of specific parts as with the superhero) but the difference in the case of Marini is that we know that the metaphorical abject matter transgressing from her body (or as a representation of a prelude to adolescent transgression) is real and the same as ours. In the case of the superhero, there is a specific distancing because of this issue, yet with Marini, the interaction between image and viewer seems perversely closer.

This leads me to the particular notion of the mediation of Marini’s image. Marini is obviously (in sculptural terms) a particularly specific style of three dimensional form. Therefore, it seems curious to photograph her when this has the sole purpose / result of ‘flattening’ her out into a two dimensional form. Of course, modern technology prevents such specific mediation, yet it is perhaps a curious duality that we are now able to ‘know the form’ from the one angle, and at the same time know very little as to the actual roundness of her figure. Television perhaps mediates the image better than photography (as it presents the illusion of motion) but we still are only seeing the ‘flat’ image.

“It is precisely this indefiniteness, this non-fixedness, that inevitably seduces us - and seduction inevitably leads to restlessness even though we may not realize it.”
Marco Meneguzzo: 'Giovanni Rizzoli' Alberto Weber Gallery, Turin (1991)

It is therefore perhaps true to suggest Marini’s close relationship with Bukatman’s X-Bodies, although what appears to become particularly apparent are the shortcomings of the real world in transposing fantastical characters. The low-budget comics fulfill an adolescent need which therefore cannot be catered for in the real world, only touched upon and supplemented by performers who use similar imagery.

Chapter Two: Debased Children’s Playthings

“Dolls represent such an idealized notion of the child, when you see a dirty one, you think of a fouled child. And you think of a dysfunctional family. In actuality, that’s a misreading, because the doll itself is a dysfunctional picture of a child. It’s a picture of a dead child, an impossible deal produced by a corporate notion of a family. To parents, the doll represents a perfect picture of the child - it’s clean, it’s cuddly, it’s sexless, but as soon as the object is worn at all, it’s dysfunctional. It begins to take on characteristics of the child itself - it smells like the child and becomes torn and dirty like real things do. It then becomes a frightening object because it starts to represent the human in a real way, and that’s when it’s taken from the child and thrown away.

In our culture, a stuffed animal is really the most obvious thing that portrays the image of idealization. All commodities are such images, but the doll pictures the person as a commodity more than most. By virtue of that, it’s also the most loaded in regard to the politics of wear and tear.”

Mike Kelley: In conversation with Ralph Rugoff in 'Dirty Toys' 21st Century (Winter 1991/2)

How could this notion of the abject therefore be placed in a more widely social and cultural sense? If we assume the abject th denote bodily dirt, then Mike Kelley’s explorations into the significance, relevance and utter perversity of debased children’s toys would perhaps throw some light onto this incredibly problematic issue.

In his large installation work entitled ‘Craft Morphology Flow Chart’ (1991) Kelley proposes the dirty, thrown away stuffed animal as a stylized picture of the corporate notion of the child itself. Dis-proportionate (the head far too big for the body, therefore resembling the proportions of a baby), fat and plush, the stuffed animal has perversely become one of the social and cultural icons in terms of a child’s development. It is perhaps true to say that everyone in their lifetime has owned one of these objects. However, I do feel that they are not that distant from my existing debate as to superheroes and Valeria Marini. For example, the superheroes and the stuffed animals have both been neutered and are concerned with the notions of innocence, especially in terms of the abject. Both personify this idea of ‘dirt’ in that one is the personification of its transgression and the other of its cultural implications concerning corporate business (i.e. when the animal is thrown away is it actually starts to resemble the child).

Mike Kelley: Craft Morphology Flow Chart (1991)

Installation view at The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Thirteen groups of tables with 113 stuffed animals and 60 black and white photographs

Returning to Kelley’s theories on stuffed animals, I feel as if he uses them as a form of ‘substituted readymade’, in this I am suggesting that he proposes them as actual metaphors for dirtied human beings (the human has always been treated with some perversity in Kelley’s work). What is being drawn attention to is the particular parallels which cultural and political society has attached to these objects, yet without acknowledging their relation to the abject (it is almost to the point of fear). No-one wants to know about dirtied toys, this is why they’re thrown out. Therefore, by the very fact that the abject is being ignored or ‘covered up’ as culturally significant (the animals are safe connotations of the same idea) then perhaps it is also shown to be of a particularly silent power in society. The notion of ‘everybody does it but no-one ever talks about it’. This is the issue which appears to fascinate Kelley and, as an American, this notion of dirt within culture is felt particularly apparent.

“Im sure all cultures have something that takes the place of dirt in ours - of the repressed thing. That’s part of the machinery of culture. But in America, there also seems to be an intense fear of death and anything that shows the body as a machine that has waste products of that wears down.”
Mike Kelley: In conversation with Ralph Rugoff in 'Dirty Toys' 21st Century (Winter 1991/2)

In applying Kelley’s stuffed animal theories to the ‘idea’ of Valeria Marini, it is particularly important to look at a recent advertising campaign for IP Garages in Italy, which featured these two elements together. Displayed on an overwhelmingly huge scale, the images of Marini with ‘Max’ (the bear already associated as a logo of the garages) demonstrate a somewhat odd duality.

As I have suggested before, the stuffed animals are rendered sexless, yet there they are displayed as incredibly sexual objects, due to the juxtapositioning with Marini. In one image, the bear looks set to pounce upon her, a prelude to sexual activity, although due to Marini’s posturing and the slogan ‘Come and pick me up at IP’, the sexual arena is hardly surprising. However, in returning sexuality to the neutered object, Marini is toying with the idea that animals, particularly wild ones, have always been associated with a strong sense of sexuality (Alina Reyes’ ‘Lucie’s Long Voyage’ being an excellent example of this). It is almost a similar playing with libido as the emergence from the Champagne bottle (of which I will discuss later), yet for some unknown reason, perhaps due to the scale of the work, making her goddess-like, Marini is always the one in control, and is morphing her body to raise points of social and cultural relevance. However, it could also easily be down to corporate exploitation of her plasticized form.

Finally, it is impossible to ignore the issues of sort toys, the abject, the superspecies and corporate business without mentioning the other Italian famous (or perhaps infamous) for using such notions, Ilona Staller, a.k.a. La Cicciolina. Running parallel to Marini’s practice (although with the added hard-core pornography overtones from her previous career), Cicciolina is particularly well known for using soft animals in her pornographic films and her political career that followed. These trademarks of hers were later remade as hard-edged, polished sculptures through her association with Jeff Koons. The animals in Cicciolina’s films functioned in much the same way as they do in Marini’s IP campaign. For example, in both instances, it is always unclear as to who is going to sexually toy with whom. In the sense of a ‘trademark’, their association with these objects heightens the sense of innocence which already surrounds them. It is a child-like innocence of the discovery of sexuality, a model or arena whereby adults can use a form of regressed sexuality to tap into the most basic and fundamental elements of human desire.

Therefore, the issue of stuffed animals is particularly relevant in symbolizing the personification of a (predominantly male), neutered individuality. Through this, the innocent and naive plasticized female (they are both idealized forms) can sexually play in relative safety, free from the existing burdens of their own and the male’s libido. It is this return to a child-like, regressed sexuality which proves to be the strength of such an individual’s influence and appeal.

Ilona Staller, aka Cicciolina with Jeff Koons: ‘Made In Heaven’ (1990)

Chapter Three: Mental Gymnasia

“Nowadays the preference is towards declaring one’s choice concerning the linguistic sub-group in which one intends to operate... so that dangerous misunderstandings, useless loss of time, and destabilizing compulsions to think of linguistic territories that may not be those that have been codified, and are easily recognizable, can be avoided. The result is often the boring security of a terribly complicated mechanical toy whose sole movement and function are the secure repetition ad infinitum of the same gesture. We instead are searching for a virus. I want to be destabilized.”
Marco Meneguzzo: 'Giovanni Rizzoli' Alberto Weber Gallery, Turin (1991)

In perhaps further exploring the somewhat curious and hypothetical relationship between the Italian superstarlet, Valeria Marini, and her parallel proximity to the (possibly mutant) female superhero, it would appear that both parties are actively engaged in performances which induce this metaphorical state which transcends the body. This is perhaps literally translated during the opening sequence of the variety show ‘Champagne’ (of which Marini is the focus of attention, although not the lead performer). She is seen to burst out of (or through) a huge paper champagne bottle, whereby a song begins and therefore also the show. It is this initial and simplistic act of the superstarlet’s introduction which I intend to explore here in some depth.

To take this act of bursting out of a champagne bottle (although of course it is not literally this), its metaphorical corollary would also have to be the somewhat obvious act of opening a champagne bottle, thus denoting the start of a celebration ‘with a bang’. However, in terms of this common vocabulary of the abject, this act is also incredibly erotic, the white, foamy spray emerging from an obviously phallic-shaped container. In short, the transcendence of sperm from the male body. Therefore, with Marini’s superficially simplistic act of bursting through a champagne-bottle-shaped piece of paper, its metaphorical corollary is perhaps the process of ejaculation itself. This incredibly obvious masturbatory metaphor (possibly even as far as a literal translation of what is particularly only a male substance’s departure from the body), produces a curious duality of an almost marginalized body, which is inducing a state of semi-adolescent masturbatory frenzy, yet paradoxically, it is rendered (the act) particularly impotent, with the ejaculation perhaps too premature, occurring simultaneously with her appearance on the screen.

Marini is therefore perhaps representing an act similar to instantly rendering the supposedly ‘male audience’ (I don’t wish to use the problematic term of ‘gaze’) impotent through an excessive metaphorical use of their own libido. It is at this point also particularly noteworthy that the show ‘Champagne’ is performed by males, with Marini as the only exception. It is a satirical show in the vein of ‘Saturday night family entertainment’, yet for the sketches which include females, these are all performed by the males (in ridiculous drag with incredibly high voices, whereas Marini only ever plays herself). This recalls other such instances of one woman being surrounded by males in the context of ‘show business’, such as Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ re-interpretation of the original Marilyn Monroe performance (Marini has already been dubbed a ‘Marilyn for the Nineties’), Gracie Fields or Vera Lynne entertaining the troops in the Second World War, or Dolly Parton’s role in the Gulf War ( as was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair’). The kernel of this argument is, even whilst surrounded by somewhat of an excess of masculinity (the males are ‘usually’ the stereotypical cast of the ‘rugged bronzed male’), the females play out their respective roles as incredibly attractive, whereas the males (outnumbering them) play the other side of the paradoxical and anti-traditionalist duality, and are completely passive.

The males therefore in one sense almost become the ‘dominant’ female’s playthings, and seem completely within her power. This environment of sexual politics is particularly reminiscent of Camille Paglia’s forecast of the eventual fusion of Princess Diana and Madonna into a great Hindu goddess. (‘Maddiana’) who would be worshipped by all men atop a huge mountain.

“What is the role of the uncanny in a culture of the simulated uncanny, the manufactured uncanny, the uncanny of consumer desire? In a theme-park world, how does one identify the return of the ‘real’ repressed?”
Ralph Rugoff 'Deviations on a theme' Artforum, October 1994

It is also perhaps true to suggest that, the absolute mediocrity of the usual TV programming which Marini represents (so-called ‘Prime Time’) produces in the context of this discussion, a kind of ‘banal sublime’ as ‘the pursuit of stupid experiences has become our treasured national pastime’ (Joshua Decter ‘Stupidity as destiny - American idiot culture’ Flash Art No.178, October 1994). It also produces a split within the body, with either, again as Joshua Decter terms it, the ‘head chuckle’ or the ‘belly laugh’ being induced, due to the specific set of perceptual criteria on the part of the viewer.

In returning to the discussion of Marini’s emergence from the, as I have termed it ‘champagne bottle’ (although it is obviously only a weak representation of one), I feel as if it is also perhaps worth noting that, in the actions following the hypothetical ‘transcendence’, Marini is seen to descend the steps in a fashion not dissimilar to, somewhat ridiculously, the pose of the crucifixion, with arms outstretched and feet almost always together. This stance, however, perhaps only tenuously linked to a biblical vocabulary, is nonetheless linked, but is is a debasement of this somewhat sacred language, and I feel that this is perhaps due to the unlikely marriage (through the existence of Marini) of it with the notion of the abject which Marini personifies. Indeed, the biblical sense of crucifixion is perhaps one of the most widley known of all depictions of the transgression of the abject from the body, with Christ giving up his ‘body and blood’ for the ‘sins of humanity’.

“And while they were still at table, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying Take this; this is my body. Then he took a cup, and offered thank, and gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said, This is my blood of the new testament, shed for many.”
The Gospel according to Mark, 14.22/25

The equation of the wine with the champagne is now also apparent. Therefore, in the somewhat superficially simplistic act of emerging from a champagne bottle, Marini, through a vocabulary of metaphorical body fluids (the Italian press are also keen to play on the equation of her with he bubbly fluid), is perhaps representing a far deeper set of criteria, concerned with such aspects as transgression, passivity, religion or the equation of women with products in the media, yet it is the specific playing out of dualities, one thing against another, which is particularly exploited in this situation (however conscious it might be).

Conclusion

“A kind of biblical penalty for vanity, but one could also view its plasticized woman as a new species, freed of the burden of a female body. Her capacity for pleasure is traded for safety and lack of restraint. No rape, no pregnancy; she is svelte and built for speed. She might be a cyber-comic book hero were she not so unheroic.”
Collier Schorr 'Inez van Lamsweerde' Art Forum (October 1994)

To suggest a metaphorical marriage between two so-called ‘super’ species, would perhaps at first appear to be full of contradictions. Yet I feel as if the somewhat ‘hybridian’ existence of these hypermuscular and ‘plasticized’ women (as explored and depicted in the work of Inez van Lamsweerde) is a greater reflection upon cosmetics in general. It is now perhaps widely known that the body is able to be shaped in any way whatsoever (due to the construction techniques of sanding, buffing, rebuffing, implanting, stripping or reassembling), yet away from the somewhat extraneous details of surface (it is obvious they are ‘hyper’ forms), the transgression of the abject matter of bodily fluids away from the body leads to a vocabulary which would appear to fragment the notion of the historically ‘common’ experience. the idea of the sensory excitement required in producing a fluid overload which has to be freed (as opposed to the traditional notion of ‘restrained’) relates back to the Ancient greek sense of the word hybrid as ‘hubris’, a description of a state of violence, excess and outrageousness. This, in a perhaps candid manner, would certainly appear to be true of Valeria Marini.

Therefore, returning to the initial quotation pertaining to the semioticization of the body, this is perhaps true of such ‘super’ species, with the hybridian element within them almost impossible to ignore, and this therefore produces questions and sets of criteria for analyzing inherent discourse. It is virtually impossible to conceive of transcending the confines of the body completely (perhaps pointing to the religious sense of the soul somewhere within the body), but in saying this, these new and plasticized super species are using the confines of their bodies in a far more fluid sense than was traditionally accepted as ‘possible’. Yet the shortcomings of such a fantastical transgression are also demonstrated by Marini, with the notion of the ‘real’ removing the ‘hypothetical’ (she obviously cannot transcend her body other than through the expulsion of abject matter). It would appear to be this bodily debasement which separates the real and conceivably possible from the hypothetical and/or fantastical.

Therefore, this confusion between media images and actual embodied experience is demonstrated as unfulfilled desire in the ‘form’ of Valeria Marini. The dissipation and reassemblage of bodily narratives in relation to superspecies would appear to be shown as only perhaps on the metaphorical fringes of the perception of self. It is conceivably impossible to split the body into a set of disparate potentials which freely complete with each other, as this would perhaps fragment the supposed ‘unity’ of the self and reverse the role of the abject into a permanently insular rather than a transgressively exterior substance of bodily experience.

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