Description
Book SynopsisDawn Woolley is an artist and research fellow at Leeds Arts University examining consumer culture, social media, and gender. She completed an MA in Photography (2008) and PhD by project in Fine Art (2017) at the Royal College of Art. Her artwork is a feminist critique of consumer culture, encompassing photography, video, installation, and performance to draw attention issues of sexualisation, objectification, and idealisation. Recent solo exhibitions include; Consumed: Stilled Lives', Perth Centre for Photography, Australia (2021) and Dance for Good & Exercise Your Rights' in collaboration with Davin Watne, Public Space One gallery, Iowa City (2020).
Trade ReviewA brilliant analysis of consumerism exposing how we are manipulated by capitalism seeking to turn our subjectivity into an object for corporate profit. By drilling into the shiny surface of corporate deceit
Consuming the Body uncovers ways to resist the deceptions foisted on us. * Peter Kennard, Professor of Political Art, Royal College of Art, UK *
What are we to do with the idealised mirror-images that capitalism beams at us through social media, making us all fetishists and hysterics?
Consuming the Body is written urgently but elegantly, finally offering ways of thinking outside this dangerous box. * Professor Naomi Segal, Honorary Fellow, Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London, UK *
This book is a fascinating take on selfie culture and beyond, taking up classic feminist psychoanalytic discussions of the fetishistic gaze to think about the impact of social networks, cosmetic surgery, health surveillance and the ‘sadistic commands’ of capitalist consumer culture. Focusing on the increasingly blurred lines between neoliberal self-surveillance and neurosis, the book explores how hysteria, anorexia and bulimia share much with contemporary online imperatives around fitness, health and beauty. Offering some solace through activist work on social networks, the book proposes that selfie culture needs a new set of rules for it to become a space of empowerment and to loosen the disciplinary control that it exerts. * Catherine Grant, Senior Lecturer, Art and Visual Cultures department, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK *
Selfies and social media have an image problem - in more ways than one. In this compelling book, Dawn Woolley challenges the narrow stereotypes criticising how bodies are portrayed in these digital media. She elucidates their complex meanings, practices and politics, and in doing so, recuperates their value, particularly for women with non-normative bodies. * Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, Australia *
Dawn Woolley offers up an exciting and eloquent exploration of the often sadistic ways that contemporary capitalism compels us to consume. Importantly Woolley gives us valuable insight into radical self-presentation approaches on social media that glitch and refuse the ‘ideal’ in order to empower a body’s presence. * Dr. Jacki Willson, Associate Professor in Performance and Gender, School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Sadistic Commands 2 The Fetishistic Gaze 3 Hystericized Insistent Presence 4 Self(ie) Discipline 5 The Hysteria Economy 6 The Clinical Fetishistic Gaze 7 Anti-Consumers and the Fetishistic Gaze 8 The Bulimic Economy 9 Empowering Presence Conclusion
Bibliography Glossary Index
