The female body is being attacked throughout time, from its commercialization in advertising to its objectification in the metaverse where everything is possible and everything is for consumption, in a false world made of illusions and immaterial humans that coexist. The metaverse increasingly promotes the abolition of human corporeality. The corporeality of women in Christianity is given a different meaning through the presence of the Virgin Mary who sanctifies every female body. The Virgin Mary becomes a place (chora) of the uncontainable (achoritou) that contains the inconceivable, the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human. Also, the free acceptance of the Virgin Mary to contain the divine miracle in her body makes her part of the divine economy. Another example cited in this paper is that of the Old Testament and more specifically that of the "Song of Songs", where the significance of every feminine detail that the human body carries becomes apparent. The poetic photographic glance of the British photographer Bill Brandt (1904-1983) searches for the woman in a fragmentary way, bringing her from darkness to light. In his work "Perspective of Nudes" (1950) we can find female pictures that focus on specific parts of the female body and that resemble the poetic words of the "Song of Songs". So, this paper combines comparatively the apocalyptic way of theology and photography as a chance to speak anew for the importance of the female human body and its matter in contrast to the immaterial future of the metaverse.

Authors:
Vasiliki Rouska, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

About the Presenter(s)
Dr.Vasiliki Rouska is theologian in Deutsche Schule Thessaloniki. She completed her postdoctoral research entitled “From the unfamiliar to the familiar. Theological reflections on photography” in the Department of Theology in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She continues her research with aesthetics in new aspects and dialectics.

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