Flesh to Metal

ISBN-13: 9780801441530 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 240 str.

Rolf Hellebust

Opis

In the Soviet Union, it seems, armouring oneself against the world did not suffice - it was best to become metal itself. In this text, Rolf Hellebust explores the aesthetic and ideological function of the metallization of the revolutionary body as revealed in Soviet literature, art and politics. His book shows how the significance of this modern myth goes far beyond the immediate issue of the enthusiasm with which the Bolsheviks welcomed such a symbolic transfiguration and that of our own uneasy attraction to the images of metal flesh and machine-men. Zhivago) to the forgotten (early Soviet proletarian poets). To these he adds a mix of non-Russian references, from creation myths to comic book superheroes and medieval alchemy to Moby-Dick. He includes readings of posters, sculpture and political discourse as well as cross-cultural comparisons to revolutionary France, industrial-age America and Nazi Germany. The result is an insightful portrait of the ultimate symbols of dehumanizing modernity, as refracted through the prism of utopian humanism.