The Myth
of normality.
The
Superhuman exhibition at the Wellcome Trust Museum is highly sinister and
thought provoking. One enters the dimly lit room to a silhouette of Icarus.
This is projected from a tiny statue showing Icarus with his self-made wings. From
the start this exhibition is inviting us to question; are human enhancements a
means of advancement? Or a shallow endeavour which can only lead to self-destruction.
 |
| Figure of Icarus flying first to third century CE. The British Museum , London |
Matthew
Barney’s ‘Manowar Legs’ from his ‘Cremaster’ series are highly intricate
prosthetic forms. The screening of his video shows double amputee and athlete
Aimee Mullins transforming when she wears these metamorphic prostheses. This
performance piece perhaps highlights society’s needs for aesthetic ‘normalcy’,
as the Manowar legs are far from functional, they are merely an ornament. I
feel that the message behind Barney’s works resonates throughout the exhibition;
society’s discomfort with missing limbs has led to an attempt to ‘normalise’.
 |
| Matthew Barney, Monowar Legs |
This notion
is explored further when one reaches the display of prosthetic limbs designed
to aid those children affected by the thalidomide drug. As an attempt for a
solution to the deformities the making of these prostheses was funded, however
many children did not need/ want to use these artificial limbs as they were
often too heavy or uncomfortable. These children adapted to other methods of
mobility in their day to day life which served their individual needs. These
limbs were more likely designed as a kind of mask to this tragedy, their way of
saying; ‘look these children can now function like you or me’. This desire for
normality, for uniformity leads me to question what is normal? Does the normal
lie in the majority? Or is each individual’s ‘normal’ different?
 |
| Terry Wiles footage from the films of Dr Ian Fletcher, c1965, Wellcome Library. This video shows a child affected by the thalidomide drug, he is entrapped in a mechanical contraption which is supposed to help his everyday movement, I found this video slightly disturbing. |
‘’we are all
outsiders, we are all making our own unusual way through a wilderness of
normality
that is just a myth.”
― Anne Rice,
Exit to Eden
A quote from
Anne Rice’s novel Exit To Eden reflects on normality as a myth, it does not
exist. In some ways I agree with this analysis, however I feel we each have our
individual norms; we are individually normal.
The Manowar
Legs and in fact the whole exhibition remind me of a film piece by artist
Robert Morgan. ‘The Separation’ is a short video in which two conjoined twins
awake to find they have been separated. In this heart wrenching film, we see
their attempt to function in their everyday life as ‘normal’ individuals, their
existence is lonely and miserable. This perhaps reflects on the point that one person’s
normal can be highly different to the next person’s, as being joined together
was their world, how they had lived. The video concludes with their attempt to
re-join themselves in an effort to be happy and this ultimately leads to their
own destruction. Does this film comment on society on a wider scale, is it
necessary that all our bodies look the same? Is our preoccupation with
aesthetics and normality a path to misery and self-destruction?
''And, burned
because I beauty loved,
I shall not
know the highest bliss,
And give my
name to the abyss
Which waits
to claim me as its own.”
― Charles
Baudelaire, Laments of an Icarus
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