Episteme, techne and phronesis: life modelling part 1

I am going to talk about something that has been on my mind for a while and which came up in some Facebook exchanges this morning. But first let me update you about the Dove Real Beauty campaign. I heard on the grapevine that Dove is relaunching it - apparently the same models as in 2005 will be photographed, however this time it will not be by Rankin. Dove has launched a competition  among photography students and the best one among them will do the shoot, no retouching whatsoever  allowed. I did my shoot with Elina from LCF who was preparing to enter this competition and asked me to test with her and I got the images a couple of days ago, completely unretouched. I quite like them, see for yourselves. The shoot was quite eventful as I ended up having a nasty accident with a brush that got stuck in my hair, I had to tear my hair from it, fortunately only a strand. I was not pleased at all and from now on I shall watch like a hawk anyone who does my hair on shoots. I have heard that Yasmina's hair was burnt by hair straighteners and she had to cut off a good few inches. That's horrid.

My hair is what makes me unique, as a casting agent recently told me, my success as a photographic model is totally linked to it, there are few models of my age with hair as long as mine and in an industry that values quirkiness and a distinctive look this is a great asset, so I am really going to look after my hair!
But let me go back to the FB discussion. I belong to a closed group for life models only, I am also a life model, as you know. I constantly hear from some life models that they see themselves as artists. A great many people, it seems, want that label attached to them.
I view this desire for artistic status and artistic recognition with some suspicion. I do not wish to romanticise life modelling and to me invoking art at every turn is problematic. Life modelling is a skill and at best it can also be a know-how, a savoir faire, in line with what Aristotle called phronesis, the virtue of practical wisdom, the 'other type of knowledge' that comes from experience, not based on speculation. In more recent years, the Aristotelian notion of phronesis has enjoyed a renaissance in relation to professional knowledge and professional practice, particularly as phronesis involves reflection:  intentional cognitive reflection, embodied or tacit reflection, and critical reflexivity.  Life modelling seems to fit well in the professional practice category.

Portrait of me, Kathy Barker's  studio

Earlier I described life modelling as a set of skills. In doing this I relate it to the knowledge Aristotle called techne (think here of the English cognate words technology and technique): context dependent, pragmatic, variable craft knowledge, oriented towards a conscious goal. The third type of knowledge discussed by Aristotle is episteme. I presume we all agree that life modelling is not an epistemology: I have been practising it for many years and if it has epistemic connotations, I have been totally unaware of them, so please, those among you who believe this is the case, enlighten me, just as you have tried to do by pointing out that life modelling is art.
(Of course, I am aware of the link that some people have tried to make between art and epistemology, claiming that art is epistemic but I will not go there today, precisely because I do not believe life modelling is art).
Life modelling is certainly a creative practice but this is not enough to regard it as art, and definitely not Art! I am not an advocate of postmodernism, now thankfully dead, but we owe a couple of  good things to postmodern thinkers and to Lyotard in particular: the dismantling of Grand Theories and the understanding that there is no such a thing as Art, but a more modest art, fully inscribed in its socio-cultural, socio-political and,I would add, socio-economic context.
Now you will have to wait for part 2 of this post, where I shall marshal some good arguments to support my view that life modelling is not art, pace those who firmly believe it is - the world used to be divided between those who believe in God and those who don't, but it seems that now it is a case of those who believe in Art and those who don't. Oh, there are also agnostics. But wait for  part 2.
And, on a completely different note, I am proud to share the new 'fashion film' made by Marie Schuller, with me and Natalia modelling Saloni's A/W 2013 collection. Enjoy! And let me ask you: is a 'fashion film' art?

(All photos modelled by Alex B)