From Becoming-Woman to Becoming-Imperceptible: Tidsskrift.dk
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86 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019
From
Becoming-Woman
to Becoming-
Imperceptible:
Self-Styled Death and Virtual Female
Corpse in Digital Portraits of Cancer
BY KATJA HERGES
ABSTRACT
Contemporary textual and visual representations of cancer engage self-reflectively with death
and dying, yet they often rely on normative notion of death as the end of an individual life. This
article focuses on stylised cancer portraits of the young German Nana Stäcker which she took in
collaboration with her mother and professional photographers during her chemotherapy and un-
til her death. Intervening in the field of Queer Death Studies this article explores if and how
these images allow us to rethink normative Western notions of death. Drawing on Rosi Brai-
dotti’s posthuman theory of death and of female subjectivity, I argue that the photo shoots
recast Nana’s illness and dying as a gendered and creative process of subject formation beyond
individual death. Through creating aestheticised and eroticised camp images, Nana playfully per-
forms und subverts a range of iconic Western femininities and styles both life and death as a con-
stant becoming. Portraits of Nana as virtual female corpse further highlight this continuity of life
and death by reinserting death into life. While these images resist a necropolitical engagement
with cancer and dying, they suggest an impersonal and affirmative understanding of death that
opens up bioethical questions about contemporary cultures of longevity and health.
KEYWORDS
Cancer Photography, Cancer Aesthetics , Rosi Braidotti, Posthuman Death, Becoming-Imperceptible,
Becoming-Woman
Katja Herges is a physician at the Department of Psychiatry II, University of Ulm. She has a PhD in Ger-
man and Feminist Theory and Research from the University of California, Davis. Her research interests are
critical medical humanities, gender and sexuality studies, and German cultural studies.
FROM BECOMING-WOMAN TO BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE:
87
D eath Studies
engages with the religious and moral as-
tography, caregiver cancer memoir and
medical self-help books. The project con-
pects of mortality and with social practices sists of photoshoots involving mother,
of dying and mourning. Recently, Queer daughter and professional photographers,
Death Studies has been developed as a field Nana’s Facebook page with these portraits
that critically investigates and challenges and Stäcker’s memoir, written together
conventional normativities, assumptions with the journalist Dorothea Seitz after
and expectations in relation to death, dy- Nana’s death, entitled Nana… der Tod
ing, and mourning. The term ‘queer’ here trägt Pink: Der selbstbestimmte Umgang
is not limited to the way subjects and their einer jungen Frau mit dem Sterben (Nana…
relations are recognised but also refers to Death Wears Pink: The Self-Determined
the processes of going beyond given Handling of Death by a Young Woman).2
norms, normativities, and constraining con- The memoir includes Nana’s portraits in
ventions relating to death. Western narra- addition to a narrative of Nana’s illness
tives of death conceive of death mostly as through quotes by Nana, family members,
the end of an individual life. In the last friends and health care professionals. While
decades, textual and visual representations she was undergoing chemotherapy, Nana
of cancer and dying have gained public visi- participated in photo shoots with highly
bility in the West. Often such representa- stylised costumes and wigs, first with her
tions engage self-reflectively and critically mother, an amateur photographer, and
with questions of death and dying. For in- then with several professional photogra-
stance, autothanatographies, the writing of phers. She designed her outfits, reworked
one’s death in form of cancer memoirs, the pictures, uploaded them on her artistic
blogs and diaries, document the process of Facebook page Nana Sixx and received
dying and discuss issues of life, autonomy feedback from family members, friends and
and care (Herrndorf 2015; Kalanithi 2016; photographers.3 In June 2011, the non-
Ogien 2017). Familial caregivers have also profit organisation Lebensmut (Courage to
written accounts of the dying of a parent Live) that supports cancer patients pub-
(Diez 2009; Bidwell Smith 2010), a spouse lished an article with images of Nana. In
(Didion 2005; Bosshard 2010; Maynard addition, Nana started to collaborate with
2018), a sibling (Link 2014), a friend Sandra Kader, the founder of a cosmetic
(Kaiser 2006) or a child (Didion 2011), of- school in Munich, to develop her vision of
ten emphasising the gendered and emo- a project that provides cancer patients with
tional labour of care work and the mourn- make-up sessions and photo shoots free of
ing process. In addition to written mem- charge. Despite chemotherapy, radiation
oirs, several women, including fashion therapy and surgery, Nana’s tumour and
models, have published cancer portrait pain increased and in December 2011, she
photographs (Kohlman 2005; McDermott decided that she would not start another
2015) to subvert normative notions of cycle of chemotherapy. Nana left the hospi-
femininity and beauty. tal and returned home, supported by her
When the 19-year old German student family and a palliative care team and died
Nana Stäcker was diagnosed with Ewing on January 10, 2012. In the aftermath of
sarcoma in October 2010,1 Nana and her Nana’s death, her mother founded the
mother Barbara Stäcker created a collabora- non-profit organisation Recover your smile
tive project that is situated at the intersec- and wrote a collaborative memoir-eulogy
tion of social media portraits, fashion pho- based on the photographs. Both the pho-
88 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019
tography project and the memoir received ful in the nineteenth century. Conversely,
positive reviews in local newspapers and na- while the repression of sexuality gave rise to
tional boulevard media (Glas 2013; pornographic literature and images, the
Nazareska 2013; Schneider 2013; Wasser- suppression of death has resulted in a
mann 2013). Intervening in the field of graphic and violent “pornography of
Queer Death Studies, this article focuses on death” in the mass media which produce
Nana’s portraits and asks if and how they unrealistic representations of death (Gorer
allow us to rethink normative Western no- 1965, 174). In contrast, Gorer argues that
tions of death and femininity that fore- “we must give back to death – natural
ground individual death. In the following, death – its parade and publicity, readmit
I argue that the photo shoots recast Nana’s grief and mourning” (ibid., 175). While
illness and dying as a relational and creative Gorer attempts to destigmatise discourses
process of becoming beyond the individual. of death, he naturalises death and sets nor-
Drawing on Braidotti’s posthuman theory mative expectations of how it should be
of death and her notion of ‘becoming- represented. Drawing on Gorer, historian
imperceptible’ and ‘becoming-woman’, Philippe Ariès analyses how concepts of
Nana’s and her mother’s artistic expression death have changed over time by creating
and self-styling become a process of recon- conventional linear categories. By the 18th
ceptualising individual death into an imper- century, Ariès (1974, 58) argues, death was
sonal life-death continuum. seen as a break from ordinary life, similar to
First, I situate the project within studies sex. Rather than simply witnessing death
of death and dying and relate it to Braidot- socially and ritualistically, the survivors
ti’s posthuman framework of life and death. mourned it and were consoled by preserv-
Drawing on Braidotti, the article conceptu- ing the memory of the deceased (ibid., 67-
alises and illustrates a new gendered and re- 68). Beginning in the late nineteenth and
lational posthuman subject-formation be- early twentieth centuries, a “brutal revolu-
yond death. I show how Nana’s perfor- tion” occurred in Western attitudes toward
mances open up a creative process of be- death, in which death became both shame-
coming-woman that includes what Brai- ful and forbidden (ibid., 85). In the era of
dotti calls “self-styling of one’s death” “forbidden death,” Ariès suggests, death is
(2013, 135). The visual and textual repre- considered a failure of medicine rather than
sentations of her dying document how a normal or meaningful occurrence (ibid.),
Nana becomes a virtual corpse and thereby and people are more likely to die alone in a
reinsert death into life, creating a life-death hospital bed.
continuum. As a critical response to hegemonic
regimes of medicalised death, in the seven-
ties and eighties, cancer photography
QUEER POSTHUMAN DEATH: emerged as a documentary and political
BECOMING-WOMAN, practice accessible to amateurs. It was de-
BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE IN signed to increase visibility mostly of breast
CANCER PHOTOGRAPHY cancer patients and to urge the viewer to
Studies of death and dying have proliferat- witness and to rethink conventions of beau-
ed in the 20th century in different and of- ty, femininity, disease and dying.4 In addi-
ten problematic ways. Anthropologist tion to self-portraiture, beginning in the
Geoffrey Gorer claims that in contempo- late 1990s collaborative (fashion) photo-
rary Western society “natural death” is graphy by a photographer and multiple
“smothered in prudery” (1965, 173), subjects or photo-documentaries of one
much like sexuality was considered shame- woman’s experience by a chosen photogra-
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89
Figure 1. “Suspiria Snow White”, by Barbara Stäcker
pher and caretaker became more prevalent tive processes. Through this theory,
(Bell 2012).5 These postmodern photo- Braidotti attempts to develop a relational
narratives opened opportunities for reader- ethics of sustainability that counteracts the
viewers to become agents of witnessing and destructive or necropolitical aspects of the
commemoration which, in turn, lead to posthuman political economy, including
“transformational encounters” (DeShazer the effects of inhumane technology, digital-
2012; 2014). More recently, digital cancer isation, globalisation, militarisation, and so-
narratives in the form of selfies, blogs and cially enforced ideologies of fitness and
social media websites forge connectivity by health. In conversation with Giorgio
inspiring affective bonds (McCosker and Agamben’s ‘bare life’ and Achille Mbeme’s
Darcy 2013; Mahato 2011). contemporary ‘necro-politics’,6 Braidotti
Much like these collaborative and digital takes the vulnerability of human (and non-
photo projects, Nana’s photographic per- human) subjects into account but focuses
formances emerge in interrelation with her on an affirmative approach to life and
mother and other photographers and, in death. To be clear, Braidotti does not want
addition, open opportunities to rethink to deny horror and suffering, but to rework
death beyond normative categories of indi- them in order to “assert the vital powers of
vidual, natural or shameful death. In The healing and compassion” (2013, 132). To
Posthuman (2013), feminist philosopher do so, she suggests a distinction between
Rosi Braidotti proposes a theory of posthu- personal and impersonal death: While per-
man subjectivity that links life and death sonal death relates to the teleological desti-
and considers both materialist and genera- nation of a single human life which we all
90
Figure 2. “Garden of Serenity”, by Barbara Stäcker
WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019
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fear, impersonal death connects us “trans- tion and feminist politics based on a philos-
individually, trans-generationally and eco- ophy of sexual difference (2002): Unlike
philosophically” (2013, 135). Death in the the unified and rational subject of classical
latter understanding is the constitutive humanism or liberal individualism, the fe-
event that “structures our becoming-sub- male subject as it is defined in becoming-
jects, our capacity and powers of relations woman, is non-unitary, material, sexualised,
and the process of acquiring ethical aware- and embedded in relations of power and
ness. Being mortal, we all are ‘have beens’” care. Like becoming-imperceptible, becom-
(Braidotti 2013, 132). In other words, the ing-woman is defined as an affirmative pro-
immediacy of death does not open up a cess, of “creating, legitimating and repre-
transcendental realm but a radical imma- senting a multi-centred, internally differen-
nence of “just a life, here and now” (ibid.) tiated female feminist subjectivity, without
that connects life and death on a continu- falling into relativism or fragmentation”
um: Zoe as life beyond the ego-bound hu- (Braidotti 2002, 26). For Braidotti, the
man aims at self-perpetuation and then, af- goal of becoming-woman is to transform
ter it has achieved its aim, at dissolution. joyfully towards a feminist subjectivity that
Braidotti calls this process in which the in- destabilises the asymmetrical power rela-
dividual self dissolves into a productive and tions sustaining the socio-symbolic system
creative flow beyond representation, a ‘be- (ibid.). Just as the subject of becoming-
coming-imperceptible’: it woman is embodied and embedded in rela-
tions of power and desire, the posthuman
marks the point of evacuation or evanescence subject in becoming-imperceptible over-
of the bounded selves and their merger into flows with desire and is styled in and
the milieu, the middle grounds, the radical through “the immanence of his/her ex-
immanence of the earth itself and its cosmic pressions, acts and interactions with others
resonance. Becoming-imperceptible is the and by the powers of remembrance, or
event for which there is no representation, continuity in time” (Braidotti 2013, 137).
because it rests on the disappearance of the Reading Nana’s collaborative project
individuated self. Writing as if already gone, from an affirmative and posthuman per-
or thinking beyond the bounded self, is the spective allows us to conceptualise and il-
ultimate gesture of defamiliarization. This lustrate a new gendered and relational
process actualizes virtual possibilities in the posthuman subject-formation beyond
present, in a time sequence that is somewhere death. Specifically, I connect Braidotti’s
between the no longer and the not yet, mix- concepts of becoming-imperceptible and
ing past, present and future into the critical becoming-woman to show how photogra-
mass of an event. The vital energy that pro- phy projects such as Nana’s allow a becom-
pels the transmutation of values into affirma- ing in a life-death continuum.
tion is the potential of life as perpetual be-
coming that expresses itself through the
chaotic and generative void of positivity. BECOMING-WOMAN:
(Braidotti 2013, 137) STYLISED DEATH, CAMP, AND
FEMININITY IN COLLABORATIVE
Like Braidotti’s earlier concept of becom- PORTRAIT CANCER PHOTOGRAPHY
ing-woman this theory of becoming-imper- Several of Nana’s portraits draw on tradi-
ceptible is based on Gilles Deleuze’s and tional performances of femininity and aes-
Félix Guattari’s (1980) theory of radical theticise the tragedy of a beautiful woman
immanence and becoming. In becoming- who is dying, yet at the same time the prac-
woman, Braidotti theorises subject forma- tice of the photo shoots and the resulting
92 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 Figure 3. “Welcome to the Tea Party,” by Frank Jagow portraits express a creative process of be- up and refuses to take family photographs coming-woman and a desire to self-style even though taking photos has a long tradi- one’s death. Nana’s initial response to her tion in the Stäcker family (Stäcker and Seitz diagnosis is not fear of dying, but concern 2013). This changes after her mother takes that she will lose her hair. In the next a picture on Christmas Eve: “On Christmas months, following the painful loss of all Eve 2010, Nana and I took the first step body hair, Nana has no interest in dressing into our creative future. After three months
FROM BECOMING-WOMAN TO BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE:
93
between chemotherapy sessions. Since
Nana rarely wears wigs in daily life (mostly
she covers her head with a wool cap or a
scarf) and does not use them to hide her
bald head, colourful wigs become requisites
specifically for her photo shoots. Nana,
who is interested in fashion and gothic cul-
ture, draws different motifs, takes notes, as-
sembles jewellery, accessories, shoes, and
tries wigs and clothes for the photo shoots.
The resulting visual performances playfully
map and ironically subvert different pop
culture femininities and sexualities ranging
from the innocent virginal elf and the sexy
seductive Snow White to the rape victim
and the androgynous tomboy.
In two photography series, Suspiria
Snow White and Garden of Serenity, both
shot by her mother, Nana performs seduc-
tive variations of virginal fairy-tale feminini-
ty (see figs. 1 and 2). As Snow White, she
wears bright red lipstick and nails, a black
and red velvet dress with cleavage, and a
wig of straight black hair, and touches her
body, hair, lips and neck voluptuously in a
reclining pose. As elf, Nana wears tradition-
ally feminine colours and accessories, in-
cluding a pinkish orchid in her blond curly
hair with pink curls, pink lipstick and make-
up and a childish colourful paper dress, and
displays an innocent childish look with a se-
ductive smile.
These representations confirm traditional
feminine performances of virginity, eroti-
cism and death to some degree: They large-
ly hide her sickness by restoring her hairless
and sick body and turn her into an idealised
and beautiful object of the viewer’s gaze.
In Over Her Dead Body (1992), Elisabeth
Bronfen engages in a psychoanalytic read-
ing of the female dead body in Western cul-
of Nana conceiving of herself as sick and ture. She argues that both death and female
unattractive, she now saw a slim, but pretty sexuality mark instability and ambivalence
young woman in the picture” (Stäcker and and their eradication in representations
Seitz 2013, 24). After she switches to a less produces a return to stability. For instance,
aggressive chemotherapy, Nana is able to Snow White by the Brothers Grimm offers
explore her interest in photography and an image of a beautiful dead woman that
modelling and to schedule photo shoots in elicits an “aesthetic viewing” since her dead
94
Fig.ure 4. Nana Stäcker, by Michael Brik
WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019
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95
body resembles an art object displayed in The series Welcome to the Tea Party en-
the labelled frame of the glass coffin (Bron- gages even more with the excessive and
fen 1992, 100). As such, the representation ironic elements of camp aesthetics: Shot by
represses death by fetishising it into an ide- photographer Frank Jagow in a garage set-
alised figure, and by localising it away from ting, the images are inspired by Carroll
the self at the body of a beautiful woman. Lewis’ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Medical anthropologist Lochlain Jain offers (1865) (see fig. 3). In the mad tea party
a similar critique of contemporary cancer scene in Carroll’s work, Alice joins March
culture: Drawing on Gorer’s claim that Hare and Hatter to have tea. However, in
modern representations of death are Nana’s version, Nana plays the Cheshire
pornographic, Jain claims that medical and Cat: She wears a large eccentric pink and
popular images of young women with white wig with white feathers and flowers
breast cancer in sexualised poses constitute that look like fur and sits at a table together
a sort of “pornography of death” that sen- with a pink chocolate Easter bunny as
timentalises tragic personal stories, in par- March Hare. The table is dressed with ob-
ticular “in the case of the very beautiful” jects reminiscent of the novel, a cake, a
(Jain 2007, 525). Consequently, Jain re- teapot, a three-armed candle holder with
jects comforting cancer aesthetics and the red candles, a gramophone and a mirror. In
sentimental politics of the Pink Ribbon some of the pictures Nana is screaming and
campaign that invoke a playful, calming laughing excessively, imitating the iconic
and seemingly healthful tone in marketing grin of the Cheshire Cat, but here too
pink (but often carcinogenic) cosmetic seemingly making fun of cancer. Nana’s gi-
products and restore a lost normative femi- gantic head with the wig costume and the
ninity. Specifically, she critiques the hyper- scream is disproportionate to her small
designed quality of the mastectomy pho- body, much like the Cat whose body disap-
tographs by commercial model Lynn pears from time to time while her grin re-
Kohlman that showcase her beautiful body mains visible. In her essay Notes on Camp
with aestheticised scars but do not invoke (1964), Susan Sontag emphasises artifice,
cancer (Jain 2007, 524). By recognising frivolity, playfulness, middle-class affluence
cancer as a gift, Jain argues, Kohlman at- and shocking excess and extravagance as
tempts to conform to a feminised norm of key elements of camp aesthetics. For Son-
redemption, leading to an “aesthetic of the tag camp is not about beauty, content or
beautiful death” (ibid.). Interestingly, politics but about the “degree of artifice, of
Nana’s eroticised costumes, the title stylization” (1964, 2) and the exaggeration
(Nana… der Tod trägt Pink) and the pink of “sexual characteristics and personality
design of the memoir reference the Pink mannerisms” (ibid., 4). In a photoshoot of
Ribbon campaign: they focus on encour- Nana by photographer Michael Brik, the
agement, make-up, and the colour pink, playfulness and exaggeration of camp is
and aestheticise and sexualise her sick body linked to sexual roleplaying in an imagined
in staged images while giving little space BDSM scene which foregrounds issues of
for grief and mourning of her illness and power and desire (see fig. 4). The idea for
looming death. At the same time, Nana’s the performance came from Nana and her
female figurations exaggerate and comment mother and it was her mother who applied
ironically on stereotyped features of virginal black tape around Nana’s chest. Her moth-
femininity, such as fragility, seductiveness, er and Brik then take the pictures outside
and open emotionality, seemingly in an at- in an underpass: Nana leans against a white
tempt to undermine the credibility of those wall, seemingly naked (the pictures render
preconceptions. her upper body visible but cut off her lower96 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 Figure 5. “Damaged,” by Barbara Stäcker half at the belly bottom). Her breasts are relationship leads to an exchange of power completely flattened with layers of tape from the dominant to the submissive. (like a mini bra), her hair is very short and These photo shoots allow Nana to ex- her hands are up in the air as though she plore new femininities beyond traditional was hand-cuffed, alluding to a bondage performances as daughter, girlfriend- scene in which she performs the submissive fiancée or docile cancer patient, including role. The interaction with the photogra- camp queen, virginal elf or androgynous pher and her mother opens a double read- sub. Nana expresses the potential for exper- ing of her androgynous and eroticised imentation, provocation and creativity in- breastless body: it turns Nana into a child herent in such shoots and notes that she that her mother can protect again, while at enjoyed the “playful transformation” the same time the flattened breast and (Stäcker and Seitz 2013, 49): “I thought it eroticised hand gesture queer her female looked cool because I was suddenly such a body as androgynous and open her hetero- different person! Not like before with hair, sexuality to the often-stigmatised practice but also not as sick anymore” (ibid., 24). of bondage and submission. While she sub- For instance, rather than imitating her for- mits to a dominant partner like her mother, mer self with a wig that resembles her old the photographer, a lover or even cancer, hair, Nana wanted to look different from her strong look also foregrounds how the before: “flashier… more extreme, attract
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97
attention” in order to highlight that “she is BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE:
a completely different type now” (ibid., THE (VIRTUAL) FEMALE CORPSE
50). In Nana’s photo shoots and in camp, IN VISUAL AND TEXTUAL
life becomes theatre; “Being as playing a REPRESENTATIONS OF
role” (Sontag 1964, 4). Nana’s mother de- DEATH AND DYING
scribes how Nana concentrates on her cre- In addition to these playful and ironic im-
ative work; “to a large extent, her environ- ages, Nana published some photographs
ment experienced a motivated, happy and either bald or with costumes or gestures
inspired Nana, whose thoughts focused on that allude to illness and death. While she
the next photo shoot rather than the next wanted to avoid being stereotyped as “the
hospital stay” (Stäcker and Seitz 2013, 61). cancer-stricken model” (Stäcker and Seitz
Drawing on Braidotti’s concept of becom- 2013, 31), she does not hide her illness and
ing-woman, Nana’s performances illustrate looming death in her images completely.
the “internally differentiated feminine” Even though she attempts to connect her-
(2002, 26) that women must think and self to traditional notions of heterosexuali-
represent in their own terms in an active ty, at times, the images subvert normative
process of becoming. Through the perfor- femininity and sexuality, and insert death in
mances, Nana expresses her desire to play- life. By representing what Braidotti calls a
fully self-style her looming death in life: “virtual corpse” (2013, 136), the images
“What humans most deeply aspire to is not create a life-death continuum.
so much to disappear, but rather to do so In one photo series, entitled “Dam-
in the space of our own life and in our own aged,” Nana and her mother engage with
way. It is as if each of us wishes to die in questions of motherhood, sexuality, medi-
our own fashion. Our innermost desire is cal power and death. Shot with her mother
for a self-fashioned, a self-styled death” in a forest, Nana carries her “damaged”
(Braidotti 2013, 135). As a result, Braidotti childhood doll in her arms (see fig. 5 and
considers life a creative becoming or a vir- 6). Her own clothes are destroyed and par-
tual suicide: tially cut off, she has bruised eyes and lips
(through the obvious effect of red and grey
Self-styling one’s death is an act of affirma- make-up), wears a red wig with two braid-
tion because it means cultivating an ap- ed ponytails on the sides which give her a
proach, a ‘style’ of life that progressively and girlish look. Her eyes are wide open staring
continuously fixes the modalities and the into the camera, expressive of fear. The
stage for the final act, leaving nothing un-at- photo evokes a staged rape or child abuse
tended. Pursuing a sort of seduction into im- scene, perhaps an allusion to the fact that
mortality, the ethical life is life as virtual sui- medical treatment impacted Nana’s ability
cide. Life as virtual suicide is life as constant to have a baby. Her mother comments in
creation. Life lived so as to break the cycles of the memoir that having a husband, family
inert repetition that usher in banality. and children was an elementary part of
(Braidotti 2013, 135) Nana’s vision for life. While Nana does not
comment extensively on her photos, ac-
Through the practice of creating aestheti- cording to her mother, the announcement
cised and eroticised camp images, Nana of her potential infertility due to
playfully performs different femininities and chemotherapy and later her unavoidable
expresses her desire to style her life and death confronted Nana “with a broken im-
death in a process of becoming-woman. age of her femininity: without hair – and
probably soon infertile” (Stäcker and Seitz
2013, 32). In No Future (2004), Lee Edel-98 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 man theorises the heteronormative concept orientation and veil connects the figure of a of “reproductive futurism”: It implies that bride with a virginal female corpse. Bronfen we can make a better future with “unques- discusses the interchangeability of bridal tioned value and purpose” which is em- and death rituals in relation to a painting blematised by the Child (2004, 4). We are, by Gustave Courbet: studies have shown in Edelman’s words, always “fighting for that the depicted dead female body in the our children” (2004, 4). The sterilising painting was “ressurected” by “redressing” treatment of chemo and radiation therapy the nude corpse with a corset and a skirt, thus queers Nana’s body as a virtual corpse, thus turning her into a bride (the image as always already closer to death than life has been entitled either La toilette de la through the lost ability to reproduce and mariée or La toilette de la morte) (1992, hence a lost connection to the future. 259). For Bronfen “the bride is only un- While destabilising the genetic link to re- cannily animate, with the dead body shin- production, Nana adopts a God-child dur- ing through its beautified disguise to dis- ing chemotherapy and later asks her moth- close not only once again that beauty hides er “to inherit” him after her death in an at- death but also that inanimation is inherent tempt to reinstall her proximity to The to all representation. (...) The deanimated Child, its futurism and to life (Stäcker and corpse implicitly shines through the Seitz 2013, 119). The Christian tradition clothed body as its double” (1992, 260). of the God-child further reinforces a repro- As in this palimpsest, in Nana’s wedding ductive logic based on creating a future for image her pale and mortal body ‘shines our children beyond the parents’ death. In through’ and shows her as a (virtual) ca- addition, Nana’s intention to give a gift to daver. Yet, in both images, femininity is sta- her boyfriend’s future wife and children as bilised by dressing the bride and putting a a sign that she approves of such relation- protecting bridal dress over the sexual fe- ships constitutes another way to reconnect male body. Interestingly, the memoir juxta- herself with the future. poses Nana’s last bridal image with an im- In addition to her dream of mother- age of her boyfriend Chris as tattooed and hood, Nana’s plan for a traditional hetero- melancholic gothic groom, taken after sexual marriage does not come through. Nana’s death, and creates a virtual wedding Yet, just when she decides to discontinue image that transgresses her death (see fig. medical treatment and to die, her boyfriend 8). proposes to her and they exchange rings. In another shoot that casts Nana as a vir- While there is no image of this engage- tual corpse, Nana is shown with nose pierc- ment, her mother previously takes a ‘wed- ing and black leather jacket but without ding image’ that references female virginity wig and positioned next to a bald man- but also reinserts death. Nana is dressed nequin (see fig. 8). Her facial expression is like a traditional heterosexual bride with direct and confident but she has a slightly veil, white dress and wig with long hair (see weary look in her eyes. Nana links the im- fig. 7). At the same time, the wedding im- age to moments of suffering and pain but age is virtual, and its conventions are sub- also expresses acceptance of the queering of verted: the bridal veil is an old curtain her body without hair: “Of course I like (from Stäcker’s tissue collection and previ- the photograph because it is a striking im- ously her grandmother’s table runner); age! But the photograph looks hard. You there is no groom in the picture and her recognize that I have a disease. The image pale face is directed strangely upward rather is linked to many negative memories of this than beaming with the expected bridal time” (Stäcker and Seitz 2013, 52). Her smile. This ghostly figure with an upward mother reflects on the juxtaposition of
FROM BECOMING-WOMAN TO BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE:
99
Figure 6. Wedding images, by Barbara Stäcker100 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019
mannequin and Nana’s dying body: “Nana marks the transgression of gendered norms
and the mannequin are fragile, pale, as of care: rather than positioning and objecti-
though made of marble. Like antique fying her female body by taking pictures
sculptures. Will Nana soon be cold and stiff the male photographer desires to provide
as well? Only present as representation? care and comfort. By emphasising affect
Nana’s portrait, kept for eternity. Living – and death, the image counteracts the con-
and yet moribund” (Stäcker and Seitz temporary medicalisation of death and re-
2013, 52). The representational, stiff na- turns to a death culture that Ariès calls “thy
ture of the mannequin reinserts death into death” (1974, 67). By the 18th century,
life and thus foreshadows Nana’s dead Ariès argues, survivors mourned and were
body, turning her into an aestheticised vir- consoled by preserving the memory of the
tual corpse. deceased.
The last shoot with photographer Ron In addition to the portraits that allude to
Maass offers a more vulnerable, fearful, and Nana as a virtual corpse, the memoir de-
“authentic” Nana, in her own clothes and scribes touchingly Nana’s actual death in a
with short, regrown hair (see fig. 9). Here, palliative setting at home. After Nana is put
death is present during the photo shoots to under palliative sedation because of her ex-
the point that it no longer seems possible cruciating pain, her mother narrates in de-
to continue the shoot as a practice of be- tail her perception of Nana’s immediate
coming.7 Nana herself acknowledges that process of dying in which her daughter’s
she wanted these images to show that there dead body transforms into an impersonal
are moments of fear when she does not corpse:
want to be looked at. Maass explains that,
during these shoots, he witnessed Nana’s It was good for everybody that Nana could
death through the camera and recognised stay with us for such a long time after her
her as a virtual corpse: death. It was a decisive phase of farewell. Just
to literally grasp death with your own hands:
I looked through the objective and saw her How Nana gradually became cold, lost all her
fear, the suffering that she had to bear. And softness, until she looked and felt like marble.
the approaching death. That gave me the I liked to hold her hands intermittently, as
creeps, my hair stood on end. I felt coldness long as there was some warmth in her. And
around my heart, as if somebody were grab- when she was cold and therefore completely a
bing me with an icy grip. (Stäcker and Seitz corpse and no longer Nana, we could let go
2013, 58) of her shell. For all of us, it was enriching and
important that Nana could stay with us up to
Interestingly, although Maass attempted to this point. (Stäcker and Seitz 2013, 69)
represent and memorialise Nana’s death, he
acknowledged that such representations Barbara’s description of Nana as “com-
cannot fully grasp death. When he recog- pletely a corpse and no longer Nana” ex-
nised Nana’s imminent death during their presses the transition between personal
photo shoot, he wanted to stop: “Then I body and impersonal corpse and relates to
didn’t want to take Nana’s pictures any Braidotti’s concept of becoming-impercep-
longer, but rather take her in my arms” tible. Braidotti describes the moment of
(Stäcker and Seitz 2013, 58). In Braidotti’s death as the “moment of ascetic dissolution
view this is the moment of becoming-im- of the subject; the moment of its merging
perceptible for which there is no represen- with the web of non-human forces that
tation because it rests on the disappearance frame him/her, the cosmos as a whole”
of the individuated self. This scene also (2013, 136). In other words, in the mo-FROM BECOMING-WOMAN TO BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE:
101
Figure 7. Wedding images, by Barbara Stäcker102 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019
Figure 8. Wedding images, by Barbara StäckerFROM BECOMING-WOMAN TO BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE:
103
ment of individual death we completely Barbara uses a butterfly mantra to say
merge with our body in becoming and goodbye and to encourage her daughter to
transform into the virtual corpse that we let go of life: “Fly my butterfly, fly. Fly into
have always been (2013, 136). Like the the light!” (Stäcker and Seitz 2013, 148).
corpse in Courbet’s painting, Nana as While this metaphor also alludes to tran-
corpse is caringly prepared, dressed and scendence, it leaves space for the concept of
adorned with make-up and jewellery based becoming-imperceptible, of merging with
on her wishes; this last step of styling her air, light and other cosmic forces.
death creates connections between life and
death through material objects. The last
photographs of ‘Nana’ in the memoir thus CONCLUSION
show her adorned black and pink coffin Nana’s performative images oscillate be-
and grave.8 tween aestheticising camp, sentimental pink
For her mother, the images constitute ribbon cancer narratives, postmodern fash-
Nana’s “life’s work” (Stäcker and Seitz ion photography, gothic representations of
2013, 33) and “heritage” (ibid., 61) that female corpses and social media self-styling.
she passes on to other patients and her fam- By creating portraits in collaboration with
ily beyond her death. Barbara describes different photographers Nana engages pri-
how Nana conveys her story affectively marily aesthetically with cancer, femininity
through images, also by touching hearts and death: In doing so, she reasserts agency
and inserting herself in other’s lives and fu- and styles her death by exploring different
tures: “She found her language through femininities that subvert a range of iconic
images. Some wild and frisky, others in- Western female performances. The photo
finitely sad and profound. Nana managed shoots illustrate a process that draws on
to tell her story without words in a univer- Braidotti’s concepts of becoming-women
sal language that touches the heart. And and becoming-imperceptible: The nuanced
which you won’t forget” (Stäcker and Seitz images convey a posthuman understanding
2013, 33). For Barbara, the writing of the of female subject formation that includes
memoir seems an opportunity not only to the process of dying. Like the formation of
mourn the loss of her own reproductive fu- a female subjectivity in life, death becomes
turism through the death of her child but an embodied transition embedded in rela-
also to reinsert and materialise memories of tions of power and desire with others.
Nana into her life. Like Braidotti’s philosophy, Nana’s im-
As another marker of material continuity ages do not focus on biopolitics or necrop-
beyond death, Nana chooses a butterfly olitics of cancer and medicine (for instance
motive for her artistic project and her dy- questions of access and privilege). Rather,
ing. Just like the larva dies and metamor- they aestheticise and memorialise the fe-
phoses into a new material existence, life is male body and corpse and only allude to
matter in a continual process of becoming the uncontrollable and ugly materiality of
and death another transition of life. The cancer. In this way, Nana’s images stand in
butterfly motive becomes the model for the contrast to earlier documentary and politi-
tattoos that Chris not only draws on her cal cancer photography that focuses on the
corpse, but that he and the family members daily materiality of cancer, suffering and
get after Nana’s death. This “Nanagram” medical power relations. Unlike Nana’s im-
becomes the label for the make-up project ages, the memoir reintroduces materiality
that she initiated and that decorates every and biology into the narrative to some de-
page of the memoir (Stäcker and Seitz gree; for instance, medical information on
2013, 142). In the last hours of her dying, the type of cancer, palliative care, and pal-104 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 Figure 9-10. Nana Stäcker, by Conny Stein Photodesign (above) and Ron Maass (below)
FROM BECOMING-WOMAN TO BECOMING-IMPERCEPTIBLE:
105
liative sedation is presented, even if in sepa- founder and bassplayer of the metal band Mötley
rate boxes as ‘expert’ knowledge. Her Crüe, “Nikki Sixx”.
mother’s detailed narrative of Nana’s last 4. In the 1980s, British photographer Jo Spence
depicts her breasts during mammography and ex-
days indeed describes her intense pain, suf-
presses rage and feelings of powerlessness in a sex-
fering and steps of the dying itself. Yet, ist patriarchal society and medical culture that ta-
while the different quotes and perspectives kes bodies as objects (Bell 2002, 24). Similarly, the
of family members, friends and health care German photographers Renate Zeun and Natalie
staff give a multi-faceted perspective, the Kriwy document their daily life with breast cancer
third person narrator of the memoir creates as a counter-discourse to medical imagery of can-
a somewhat impersonal perspective of this cer (Zeun 1985; Kriwy 2016).
5. Collaborative book projects feature images of
experience.
women of varied ages, races, ethnicities, and body
Even though the engagement with the types, identified by name and accompanied by
materiality and biopolitics of suffering re- commentary, often the women’s own words (see
mains limited through the construction of Myers 2009; Brodsky and Byram 2003; Jay 2011).
an aestheticised and redemptive narrative, In Caring for Cynthia, the photographer and nur-
the images engage affirmatively with death se Amy Blackburn offers a visual and verbal narra-
and foreground its vitality beyond Nana’s tive of the illness of her best friend, Cynthia Og-
individual life and death. This suggested den (see Blackburn 2008).
6. Drawing on Foucauldian biopolitics Mbembe
impersonal understanding of death chal- extends the focus on technologies of control and
lenges us to rethink the bioethics of con- discipline to the administration of death in orche-
temporary neoliberal cultures of longevity, strated massacres: He defines necro-politics as “the
fitness and health, including the medicalisa- generalized instrumentalization of human existen-
tion at the end of life, individual autonomy ce and the material destruction of human bodies
in dying, or the pathologising of experi- and populations” (Mbembe 2003, 19). This relies
ences of melancholia and mourning. As on the logic of opportunistic exploitation of life
beyond the individual and includes, for instance,
such, the project might be a practice of
new forms of posthuman warfare with industrial
Braidotti’s relational ethics and care that weapons and humiliated human bodies.
aims to counteract the destructive aspects 7. Nana chooses Maass’ image as a ‘Sterbebild’
of our posthuman political economy. (memorial card photo) for her funeral and another
of Maass’ photographs becomes the cover of Bar-
bara’s memoir. ‘Sterbebild’ stands in a predomi-
nantly Catholic tradition and includes a picture of
the deceased, brief biographical dates and a biblical
NOTES or spiritual quote, distributed during the funeral
ceremony.
1. Ewing sarcoma is a very rare but aggressive can-
8. The memoir relates to the Ars Moriendi, two
cer mostly of the bones in young adults. Upon
popular and related Medieval Latin texts that cons-
Nana’s diagnosis, medical exams revealed a prima-
titute the first in the Western literary tradition of
ry tumour in the right femur and metastasis in her
guides about how ‘to die well” and that contain
pelvis and spine (with a broken vertebra).
pictures with staged scenes. While the Ars Morien-
2. Based on the experience with this project and
di shows woodcut images of skeletons or corpses,
interviews with cancer patients and health care
the memoir includes an image of Nana’s decorated
professionals, Barbara Stäcker co-published two
coffin and grave.
other ‘self-help’ books: One about issues of beau-
ty, relationships and sexuality for young women
with cancer, and the other together with the physi-
cian Bernd Feddersen about palliative care, depres-
sion and other topics related to dying (see Stäcker,
Seitz and Kader 2014; Feddersen, Seitz and
Stäcker 2015).
3. The name Nana Sixx is based on the name of106 WOMEN, GENDER & RESEARCH NO. 3-4 2019 REFERENCES · Lebensmut. 2011. Mein Weg: Es ist so wie es ist. · Ariès, P. 1974. Western Attitudes Toward Death Leben mit Krebs: Ein Magazin für Mitglieder und from the Middle Ages to the Present. Baltimore: Freunde. 1. [Accessed on 24 November 2018]. Johns Hopkins UP. Available from: https://www.lebensmut.org/wp- · Bell, S. 2002. Photo Images: Jo Spence’s Narra- content/uploads/2013/12/Magazin-2011- tives of Living with Illness. Health: An Interdisci- 01.pdf. plinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Ill- · Link, C. 2014. Sechs Jahre: Der Abschied von ness and Medicine. 6 (1), 5-30. meiner Schwester. Munich: Blanvalet. · Bidwell Smith, C. 2012. The Rules of Inheritance: · Mahato, M. Virtuous Community: Online Story- A Memoir. Penguin. telling in Leroy Sievers’s My Cancer. Storytelling, · Bosshard, B. 2010. Den Himmel berühren: Meine Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Story- Geschichte von Trauer und erneutem Glück. Gock- telling Studies. 7 (3), 211-228. hausen: Wörterseh. · Maynard, J. 2018. The Best of Us: A Memoir. · Braidotti, R. 2002. Metamorphoses: Towards a Bloomsbury. Materialist Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity · McCosker, A. and R. Darcy. 2013. Living with Press. Cancer: Affective Labour, Self-expression and The · Braidotti, R. 2013. The Posthuman. 2013. Cam- Utility of Blogs. Information, Communication & bridge: Polity Press. Society. 16 (8), 1266-1285. · Bronfen, E. 1997. Over Her Dead Body: Death, · McDermott, J. 2015. Canadian Model Elizaveta Femininity and the Aesthetic. Manchester: Manch- Bulokhova Stuns in First Photo Shoot since Los- ester UP. ing Her Jaw to Cancer. The Huffington Post Cana- · Carroll, L. 1865. Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- da. [Online]. 8 June. [Accessed on 19 November land. Macmillan. 2018]. Available from: https://www.huffington- · Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. 1980 [1987] A post.ca/2015/08/06/model-elizaveta-bulokho- Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. va-cancer_n_7942184.html. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. · Nazarewska, B. 2013. Eine junge Frau zwischen · DeShazer, M. 2012. Postmillennial Breast Cancer Krankheit und Tod: ... Weil diese Geschichte Photo-Narratives: Technologized Terrain. Social erzählt werden muss. Münchner Merkur. [Online]. Semiotics 22 (1), 13-30. DOI: 26 Feb. [Accessed November 19 2018]. Available 10.1080/10350330.2012.639568 from: · DeShazer, M. 2014. Documenting Women’s https://www.recoveryoursmile.org/blog/presse- Postoperative Bodies: Knowing Stephanie and Re- rueckblick.html?ref_page=media. membering Stephanie as Collaborative Cancer · Ogien, R. 2017. Mes mille et une nuits: La mala- Narratives. Bioethical Inquiry. 11, 445–454. die comme drame et comme comédie. Paris: Albin · Diez, G. 2009. Der Tod meiner Mutter. Cologne: Michel. Kiepenheuer & Witsch. · Schneider, K. 2013. Diagnose Krebs: Bitte · Edelman, L. 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and lächeln sagte der Tod. Bild. [Online]. 24 Feb. [Ac- the Death Drive. Durham: Duke UP. cessed November 19 2018]. Available from: · Glas, A. 2013. Das letzte Shooting. Süddeutsche https://www.bild.de/ratgeber/2013/krebs/bitte Zeitung. [Online]. 2 March. [Accessed November -laecheln-sagte-der-tod-29233938.bild.html. 18 2018]. · Stäcker, B. and Seitz, D. 2013. Nana …. Der · Gorer, G. 1965. The Pornography of Death. In Tod trägt Pink. Der selbstbestimmte Umgang einer Death, Grief, and Mourning in Contemporary jungen Frau mit dem Sterben. Munich: Irisana. Britain. New York: Doubleday, 169-175. · Stäcker, N. Nana Sixx. Facebook. [Online]. [Ac- · Herrndorf, W. 2015. Arbeit und Struktur. Ham- cessed November 19 2018]. Available from: burg: Rowohlt. https://www. facebook.com/pg/SixxNana/pho- · Jain, L.S. 2007. Cancer Butch. Cultural Anthro- tos. pology. 22 (4), 501-538. · Wassermann, L. 2013. “Diagnose Krebs – Nanas · Kaiser, H. 2006. Schlussakkord: Die letzten Abschied vom Leben in Pink.” Welt. [Online]. 1 Monate mit Katja. Vienna: Paul Zsolnay. March. [Accessed 19 November 2018]. Available · Kalanithi, P. 2016. When Breath Becomes Air. from: New York: Random House. https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article114029 · Kohlmann, L. 2005. Lynn Front to Back. New 006/Diagnose-Krebs-Nanas-Abschied-vom-Le- York: Assouline. ben-in-Pink.html.
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