'My body is my art' - Cosmetic surgery as feminist utopia?

Cosmetic surgery seems - at first glance - to represent the epitome of the colonization and victimization of women through their bodies. In recent years however, postmodern feminist scholars have begun to explore the possibilities of the technologized female body as a site for feminist action. Through deliberate mimicry, alternative valorization, or hyperbolic appropriation, repressive meanings attached to the surgical alteration of women's bodies in the name of beauty can be destabilized and transformed to feminist ends. One example of such a strategy is the French performance artist Orlan who has designed a face for herself and had it surgically constructed in a series of video-taped operation/performances. Her art - or so she claims - is both a radical critique of feminine beauty and of the practice of cosmetic surgery. This article explores the possibilities and pitfalls of such dys(u)topian performances as a critical response to women's involvement in cosmetic surgery and, more generally, their usefulness for envisioning an alternative, feminist body/politics.