Extraction

Images from Nové Domácí Léčení, date unknown

Feather

From Lanvin's Fall 2009 Ready-To-Wear Collection

Full Frontal

images from Illustrated Medical and Health Encyclopedia, ABD-COM

Morris Fishbein, M.D. editor, 1957

Fantastic Voyage

Thanks to John Hanlon for sending these groovy medical illustrations from his private collection. They remind me of the 1960s film Fantastic Voyage.

Duality

From Gareth Pugh's Spring 2009 Ready-To-Wear Collection

Optical

MacKay Ray Figure

Notice the chrysanthemum effect while viewing the image. Fixate for ten seconds on the center of the figure, then transfer gaze to a blank fixation and notice the streaming circular effects in the blank area, roughly orthogonal to the orientation of the rays.

Masquerade

William Klein's 1966 film Who Are You Polly Magoo? is a brilliant and scathing look at fashion, media, and identity. The film opens with an avant-garde fashion show featuring dangerously sharp, sheet metal haute coture. One model shrieks "I'm wounded" as she is sliced open by her rigid costume. The designer, who is lauded for "recreating woman" doesn't flinch as he orders assistants to cover her cut with pancake makeup. The women in the film are interchangeable props engaged in a skin-game of continuous masquerade. 

Supermodel, Polly Magoo is singled out by a TV crew shooting a reality documentary series called "Who Are You?" The mostly male production team dictates and directs a story which portrays Polly as a vapid Cinderella, despite their claims to want a "self-portrait." The main interviewer Grégoire Pecque, probes and prods Polly through a battery of psychological tests and diagnoses her as both frigid and narcissistic. She is manipulated by the crew as well as the designers and photographers who want to shape her image. She is a creation of male fantasy and the director of the TV show even doubts her existence.

In her own defense, Polly says " You want to know who I am. Sometimes I wonder. They take my picture every day and every way. They've taken millions of pictures, and every time they take one there's a little less of me left. So what'll I have left when they're done?"