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Assessment Task One

Week Four: Harvey, J (2007) "Showing and Hiding: Equivocation in the
Relations of Body and Dress." in Fashion Theory: Journal of Dress,
Body and Culture, Vol.11, No.1. , pp. 65-94(30) & The Surrealists


This weeks class topic was the Rhetorical objects in which we explored the
idea of recognising the role of the unconscious. I really enjoyed this class, as
it was a lot more familiar to me as it was based round the Surrealist
Movement. The Surrealists are renowned for destabilising what we encounter
in the world ranging from identities to objects.

We discussed in this weeks class the way in which objects operate differently
depending on which contexts they are in. For the Surrealist, they were trying
to say that the idea of truth depended on one thing meaning the same thing
no matter where it is or what context it is in. The truth needed to be able to
move across contexts. The Surrealists also were interested in the idea of
play, the sense that things arent quite as they seem. To elaborate more so
that objects can enter into a kind of teasing relationship with the viewer. This
is one idea I found interesting and that was raised in this weeks article by
John Harvey. He explains that, The body shows itself off, but also it hides
behind clothes, in dwellings, within a rhetoric of euphemisms. The body
indeed is the centre of shyness; we are shy both of showing it and of speaking
it. We answer this shyness by clothing the body, and one subtle method for
studying the body may be to study our ways of veiling it. For, although clothes
conceal, they also may emphasize what they conceal.
1
Furthermore, that It
is clear that dress is ingenious in simultaneously covering, and thrusting to
attention, those parts of the body that are excessive, taboo, dangerous.
2
This
can further suggest that people like to project and use designed things in a
playful way whether intentionally or not.

The Surrealist liked to play with ideas of the unstable and the uncanny and
liked to introduce a play between different kinds of things. We spoke about in
class how objects suggest that we cannot get to the bottom of the world really
is. I really related to Andre Bretons quote that shown in class Man is Homo
fabricans, not homo sapiens, consequently we must learn to perceive not
reality, but the mechanisms by which we constitute a reality. It really
reinstates how as humans we are just fabricating and constructing constantly.
Oddly enough in Harveys article he raises how we as humans see the
border of the body is the skin, but the language we use, and figures of

1
Parvey, ! (2007) "Showlng and Pldlng: LqulvocaLlon ln Lhe 8elaLlons of 8ody and uress." ln lashlon 1heory: !ournal of uress,
8ody and CulLure, vol.11, no.1. , p. 66
2
Parvey, ! (2007) "Showlng and Pldlng: LqulvocaLlon ln Lhe 8elaLlons of 8ody and uress." ln lashlon 1heory: !ournal of uress,
8ody and CulLure, vol.11, no.1. , p. 66

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speech, often suggest that clothes too are a skin.
3
Erasmus cleverly called
clothing the bodys body.
4
This makes me think about the idea that even
within our skin we are constantly trying to reconstruct and fabricate
ourselves on a daily basis. We design tattoos for our skin to show off and
wear, we piercing our skin and insert things into our skin to create and morph
our outer self whether for personal pleasure or to appear a certain way to
society. It is also interesting how Our bodies can continue into people and
things. Our child can feel like part of our body it has been a part of its
mothers body. Our car can feel like part of our body. Our clothes can feel like
our own outer edge.
5
This is a way of challenging the boundaries between
bodies and things.

The relations between body and dress in general I feel will always be playing
with the boundaries of what is the body, what is fashionable and what is
acceptable. Designers constantly deal with surfaces, and notions of what is
shown and what is hidden. Designed things tend to suggest the way they
should be behaved with, perhaps even with hidden properties. Design as a
larger body of work shows different parts of us or hides others, for example
the way in which things decay beautiful, dentistry, garbage disposal,
poverty.














3
Parvey, ! (2007) "Showlng and Pldlng: LqulvocaLlon ln Lhe 8elaLlons of 8ody and uress." ln lashlon 1heory: !ournal of uress,
8ody and CulLure, vol.11, no.1. , p. 67
4
Parvey, ! (2007) "Showlng and Pldlng: LqulvocaLlon ln Lhe 8elaLlons of 8ody and uress." ln lashlon 1heory: !ournal of uress,
8ody and CulLure, vol.11, no.1. , p. 67
"
Parvey, ! (2007) "Showlng and Pldlng: LqulvocaLlon ln Lhe 8elaLlons of 8ody and uress." ln lashlon 1heory: !ournal of uress,
8ody and CulLure, vol.11, no.1. , p. 68