History of Masks

A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes. They are usually worn on the face, although they may also be positioned for effect elsewhere on the wearer's body, so in parts of Australia giant totem masks cover the body, whilst Inuit women use finger masks during storytelling and dancing.


Masks in Performance
Throughout the world masks are used for their expressive power as a feature of masked performance - both ritually and in various theatre traditions. The ritual and theatrical definitions of mask usage frequently overlap and merge but still provide a useful basis for categorisation. The image of juxtaposed Comedy and Tragedy masks are widely used to represent the Performing Arts, and specifically Drama.


Ritual Masks
Ritual masks occur throughout the world, and although they tend to share many characteristics, highly distinctive forms have developed. The function of the masks may be magical or religious; they may appear in rites of passage or as a make-up for a form of theatre. Equally masks may disguise a penitent or preside over important ceremonies; they may help mediate with spirits, or offer a protective role to the society who utilise their power.


Masks in Theatre
Masks play a key part within world theatre traditions, particularly non-western theatre forms. They also continue to be a vital force within contemporary theatre, and their usage takes a variety of forms.


Contemporary Theatre
Masks and puppets were often incorporated into the theatre work of European avant-garde artists from the turn of the nineteenth century. Alfred Jarry, Pablo Picasso, Oskar Schlemmer and other artists of the Bauhaus School, as well as surrealists and Dadaists, experimented with theatre forms and masks in their work.


Functional Masks
Masks are also familiar as pieces of kit associated with practical functions, usually protective. There has been a proliferation of such masks recently but there is a long history of protective armour and even medical masks to ward off plague. The contrast with performance masks is not always clear-cut. Ritual and theatrical masks themselves can be considered to be practical, and protective masks in a sports context in particular are often designed to enhance the appearance of the wearer.
Used in such areas as: medical, protective, occupational, sports, disguise, punitive, fashion and in horror films.

Edits

I took some initial photographs so I could play around with effects that I might use.

Covering With Paint

Played around with covering my face with paint. Here I took inspiration from Paul Kindersley as he uses makeup to hide himself can change the reality.

Some of my images are really interesting as the self timer on the camera captured moments where I was in motion and unaware of the timing.

The images could been seen as intruding into someones privacy, almost being the other side of the mirror as I apply my makeup in the morning. Even though I am seen to be applying cover to my face, the images show a naivety and bareness within my empty expressions.

Paul Kindersley

http://www.paulkindersley.co.uk/

Pornography and Objectification

"A concern with the power of images, already established in contemporary Western cultures and newly significant in the feminist cultural politics of the 1980s, has also underscored pornography’s apparent importance for an understanding of the connections between representation and reality. Pornography has become “overburdened with significance” (Segal 1992, p. 65), as a culturally established way for speaking about sex, power, and regulation, as a kind of shorthand for women’s discontents, as an emblem of misogyny and as a symbol of the power of the image. It is partly for these reasons that the anti-pornography feminist position still retains its power for many feminists, and indeed for many women who do not otherwiseassociate themselves with feminism. For them, developments within the pornography debate may not provide a satisfactory or persuasive resolution to the claim that pornography harms and humiliates women, either by providing a template for male sexual behaviour, or as a representative cultural statement of woman’s purpose as a ‘thing’ for men. "

FEONA ATTWOOD

John Coplands

I really like these photographs as the male form is placed in unsexual positions, and also headless which would have usually sexually objectified the form.