Karine Matsakyan’s ‘Half-Hourly Difference’: What does discipline look like?
Image Description: The painting is divided into three rows and four columns. Each row contains nearly identical replications of what is being depicted across it. In the first row, the image of an upper body with a semi-sheer white bra is reproduced. In the second row, the lower body, which is shown wearing a skirt, is reproduced. In the third row, the image of half a woman’s front profile is reproduced.
In Sandra Lee Bartky’s “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power,” she poses the question: “Who are the disciplinarians?” As I play the role of the viewer of Karine Matsakyan’s “Half-Hourly Difference” (1985–1986), I search for any differences between the women pictured, trying to search for any discrepancies between them. And I wonder if in doing this, I become a disciplinarian.
In “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power,” Bartky examines how the construction of the patriarchy subjects women to disciplinary practices. Using Foucault’s theory, she argues that modern discipline has become so hidden and private, to the extent that one consents to it because it is not recognized as such, but is instead believed as a practice that is adhered to out of one’s own volition.This consent involves self-imposed discipline without having to be entirely cognizant of it. Bartky categorizes the discipline that facilitates the production of these “docile bodies” — the embodiment of the feminized and subservient form — into three: body size, movement and spatiality (e.g. posture, body language) and the body as presentation (e.g. makeup, clothes).
In Half-Hourly Difference, all three elements come into play.
The body of the woman pictured is thin and svelte, a consequence of the “tyranny of slenderness,” a term introduced by Kim Chernin in “The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness.” Bartky elaborates on how the ideal feminine body is considered to be “taut, small-breasted, narrow-hipped, and of a slimness bordering on emaciation; it is a silhouette that seems more appropriate to an adolescent boy or a newly pubescent girl than to an adult woman.” From what we see of her body, her chest and legs, the pictured woman appears to fit this bill. Her form is neither voluptuous nor curvaceous, no threat of her breasts spilling from her brassiere, nor her skirts not fitting over her hips. Her thighs are thin, no signs of any “excess skin.” There is a visible line that runs down the center of the abdomen, perhaps suggesting a consequence of dieting or exercise, which Bartky names as the practices that contribute to the discipline of body size.
There are only slight indications of movement in the iterations of the woman. Her chest remains erect, upright, her face restricted to her steely smile. It is only in the positioning of her legs that there appears to be any change. Even then, each movement is quite small. The positioning of her legs almost appears to indicate that she is posing. Would she be posing in front of a mirror, watching herself? To make sure her clothing is working with her, not against her, in every position she takes?
Her expression, or lack thereof, is consistent. Her almost-robotic gaze penetrates, her eyebrow is still and the corners of her lips are upturned, suggesting a smile; However, it is unable to reach her eyes. Her face is “trained to the expression of deference.” She fixes a smile on her face, “whatever her inner state.”
The clothing she wears does not seem all that comfortable. The brassiere she contains herself with, which seemingly does not alter in its iterations, simply looks uncomfortable. The sheer material of the brassiere does not look comfortable or practical, seemingly designed for the sole purpose of presentation, of display. Imagining the texture of that material on bare skin seems like quite the nightmare to me. The skirts seem adequate, as determined by the different positions; they don’t seem to restrict much movement. On her legs, there are no stretch marks, no cellulite, but instead polished skin that resembles a plastic doll. Her skin is “soft, supple, hairless, and smooth,” fitting Bartky’s description of what is expected of a woman’s skin. She has no hair on her legs and thighs, a result that is inorganically reached by “shaving, buffing with fine sandpaper, or applying foul-smelling depilatories.”
Bartky explains how “painting the face is not like painting a picture; at best, it might be described as painting the same picture over and over again with minor variations.” Looking at her face, her face(s), I find myself in the trap of becoming the surveiller, the disciplinarian, for the sign of any sort of deviation. After many careful inspections, I can only note these minute points of variation.
Her eyebrows seem only slightly different in each iteration. From the left, in the first iteration her eyebrow appears more straight, the second and third iterations a bit more angled, while the tail of the third iteration’s eyebrow is a bit sharper, and in the fourth iteration the tail of the eyebrow is the sharpest while the color of her brows appears less bold. Her eyeliner and mascara also seem to exhibit these minute variations, eye shapes slightly different each time (presumably from the effects of the makeup). The exposure of the eyelid appears the most limited in the first and fourth iterations, while it appears that the third iteration has the most mascara, with the bottom eyelashes being the most obvious in this iteration compared to the others.
Even with these minute inconsistencies, her makeup undergoes even less change than her legwear. Her skirts are different in each iteration, along with what looks like the color of her pantyhose, but even then, they are all inoffensive choices, skirts of mute grays and blacks paired with pantyhose that only vary slightly from her skin tone. Still, the amount of change is drastic when compared to each variation of her makeup. She does not experiment with different types of makeup: her lashes are barely lengthened, her eyelids appear bare, her lipstick the same pink that would not veer from the color of the natural flush of the skin. She abstains from bright colors, any sort of eccentric design, to complete a sort of artificial imitation of the natural, artificial in order to “improve” the organic. This abstinence supports Bartky’s argument of how makeup is idealistically considered “as an aesthetic activity in which a woman can express her individuality” but culminates in reality as “a highly stylized activity that gives little rein to self-expression.” Her form is an ornamental surface, strictly restricted to reflect the prototype of the “docile body.”
“Half-Hourly Difference” is the perfect visual for what Bartky expounds. The reproductions of what appears to be the same woman invite skepticism from its viewer. Are they all the same woman? Are they all trying to be the same woman? In looking for some solution, we slide into the role of the disciplinarian, looking closely at any “error” within each iteration to see where one iteration may “fall short” in an attempt to seek out differences. Which iteration dares to be different?
As Sandra Lee Bartky explains, “The disciplinarian is everyone and yet no one in particular.”
