The Mediated Body

Taking Vivian Sobchack’s idea of the digital morph as not only a digital practice but also a metaphor for a culture obsessed with the idea of bodily changes, of reversibility and metamorphoses, the article takes a closer look at the visual construction of the body as a site of transformation, modification, and improvement in both television, film and fashion photography. The article focuses on the two reality programmes /Extreme Makeover/ (ABC) and /The Swan/ (FOX), the American drama-series /Nip/Tuck/ and an extended series of fashion photographs from /Italian Vogue/ July 2005 by American photographer Steven Meisel titled /Makeover Madness/. The article argues that this modifiable body is today’s /natural body /and it concludes that even though the modified body, digital or not, is noticable everywhere in contemporary visual culture it may, primarily, point out what our culture wants to deny.