Final image Ideas

To get my idea across about the body clock and the pressures of this clock ticking for women, i am going to combine a burnt image of the abdomen, with the inner working of a clock. Through my trials and errors through experimentation i found that women i asked about there body clock, that the pressures of conceiving and the time in which to do so was a big part of it.

When shown the beginnings of this final idea i asked the people that saw it what idea did they think i was trying to show. And all of them said either fertility and the womb, the body clock, or the pressure of time and conceiving.

Bearing this in mind i began to gather all my ideas and go with one strong image. Just like before with the burnt images in response to Douglas Gordon, i began to combine the abdomen with the inner working of a clock. The response this gained when shown to an audience was quite successful as people could identify my ideas behind it. 

What Is the “Biological Clock”, Anyway?

The term “biological clock” is often used to describe a woman’s fertility. But what in the world does it really mean? Essentially, it’s important to understand that it refers, basically, to the diminishing amount of viable eggs that she has in her body.

When a female is born, she has about two million eggs. That number never increases, so what she has is what her body will one day use to potentially conceive a child. But when a woman begins to menstruate, her number of eggs has already dropped by about four-fifths to 400,000 total eggs.

As the months and years progress, she will lose about 12,000 eggs annually. At that rate, she will have no eggs within 33 years or so from the onset of menses, which is the point where menopause takes over.

Of course, other factors are involved in what happens to her eggs. Illnesses and medical conditions can affect the strength and health of the eggs over time, sometimes leaving them unavailable for fertilization. For instance, chemotherapy and radiation for cancer can create female fertility issues. (This is why some women free their eggs prior to undergoing such types of treatments.)

Getting back to the “biological clock”, though, it’s critical for all women to realize that there’s no set time period. The aforementioned figures are only generalizations and statistics. That’s why it’s important not to make assumptions without medical assistance to back up theories.

At The Reproductive Science Institute (RSI) of Suburban Philadelphia, we’re here to answer any questions related to female fertility or other similar concerns. Give us a call today and set up an appointment to learn more about your personal situation.

Doctors can stop biological clock

By EMMA MORTON, Health and Science Editor

Published: 15 Sep 2010

A BREAKTHROUGH fertility technique could allow women to have babies well into their fifties and sixties.

The treatment — which uses injections of stem cells to restore egg production — could herald the end of the "biological clock".

Oldest mum in Britain ... Elizabeth Adeney

Geoff Robinson

It "kick-starts" the ovaries, potentially allowing those struggling to conceive to have a child of their own without using IVF or adopting.

And it could particularly benefit women under 40 who suffer Premature Ovarian Failure or "early menopause".

Britain's oldest mum is Elizabeth Adeney, pictured above cradling the boy she controversially gave birth to in May last year using IVF aged 66.

The new treatment will be unveiled at the World Congress of Fertility and Sterility conference in Munich, Germany.

It was developed by Egyptian fertility pioneer Professor Osama Azmy.

The technique has proved safe in animal trials and on lab rats and is set to be tested on women for the first time.

Scientists have already developed treatments such as ovarian tissue transplants to kick-start egg production in women who have been through the menopause. But these can be costly and painful.

Stem cells are the body's building blocks and have a unique ability to cling on to and repair damaged tissue.

They have already been used in small trials to treat heart and bone fracture patients.

But this is the first time they have been presented as a potential fertility treatment. Prof Azmy used stem cells from rats, testing them on mature female rodents.

He said: "This work shows stem cells can restore ovarian function. The treated ovaries returned to producing eggs."

But the treatment is controversial as it uses stem cells taken from embryos.

In humans, these would be taken from aborted foetuses, or potentially in the future, embryos cultivated in a lab for this sole purpose.

Campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics has branded this type of research "unethical".

A BRAIN chemical that regulates the body clock could hold the key to improving fertility treatment, scientists said at the Munich conference.

Melatonin doubles the success rate of IVF therapy in women with poor-quality eggs — one of the main problems for those who can't conceive.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/health/health/3138399/Doctors-can-stop-womens-biological-clock.html

As women {especially some of us Liminas women!} we often attribute the illogical need baby nowfeeling to our fertility declining with our age and to some extent science can back us up on that.  As we reach the age of 27, our fertility begins to gradually decline, and at the age of 35, it dramatically drops (Scientific American).  A study at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences studied 782 couples and found that 50 percent of women between the ages of 19 and 26 had a chance of becoming pregnant during any one menstrual cycle if they have intercourse two days prior to ovulation.  This percentage dropped as the woman’s age increased: 40 percent for women between the ages of 27 and 34 and 30 percent for women over the age of 35.  Our declining fertility seems like the perfect rationale for the seemingly incessant ticking of our biological clock.

I have always had the perception that this all-encompassing longing that started for me around the age of 25 was due to evolution and the necessity for women to have children at a certain age before the decline of fertility. Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection has led us to believe that throughout human civilization women who have waited until over the age of 30 to have children probably did not pass on their genes as successfully as those that had children at a younger age.  And I’m not the only one who thinks like this—I’ve asked other  women my age and I’ve found that many others believe that the biological clock is a real thing.

So is this ticking biological clock real or is it only in our minds? After doing some research on the subject, I found that contrary to popular belief, there is actually very little evidence to suggest that the ticking female biological clock is an automatic psychological and physical response that starts around the decline of fertility.  This strong emotion we feel to have a baby, may be just that, an emotion.

In an academic article entitled What is “baby fever”? Contrasting evolutionary explanations of proceptive behavior, Anna Rotkirch defined baby fever as, “A conscious wish for children that is connected with persistent, bodily emotion and reoccurring, spontaneous thoughts…”

Ok, so that sounds about right!  I definitely can relate to that persistent bodily emotion that I can’t seem to shake after seeing or playing with a child.  But what I want to know is, is this baby fever biological or social?   Rotkirch notes that there have been a few theories put forth regarding baby fever and it’s cause.  One of the big theories is that it is actually a socially constructed clock and that there is no biological basis for wanting a child.

As social constructionism became dominant in Western social sciences in the 1980s, a view emerged where the “biological clock” was seen as a purely social phenomenon. The lay perception of an innate desire for children was rejected. As one women’s studies textbook puts it: “This /maternal/ ‘instinct’ is characterized by two desires: to have children, and to care for them. (…) However, it has become increasingly clear that this ‘instinct’ is a socially constructed myth.” (Nicolson 1997, 383).

Childbearing until recently was not presented as a choice.   Our grandparents and great-grandparents became mothers whether they wanted children or not, but now women have much more control over their fertility and as a result those women in developed countries that do not want to have children simply don’t.

So it seems that the environmental and sociological pressures cause the onset of the irrational and uncontrollable I want a baby now! sentiment.  The sociological pressure to settle down and have children as our parents did in the past, the pressure of our surrounding environment and watching a large number of friends in their late twenties and early thirties get married and begin their own families, the burden of feeling the rush to get motherhood “taken care of” sooner rather than later with the knowledge that the risks of health complications increase the older we get, and the terrifying notion that our fertility {and our chances of actually having a child} drastically drops at the age of 35 may be the unconscious drivers to that ticking biological clock constantly ringing in your ears.

So take your time {because you have it} and hit the snooze button the next time you hear your biological clock ringing!

Signs that may cause you to think that your biological clock is ticking:

• Pictures of newborn babies bring tears to your eyes.
• There’s a crying baby on the plane behind you and instead of feeling anger, you feel a twinge of sorrow that you can’t console the baby yourself.
• You look at pregnant bellies and feel pangs of jealousy.
• You find that you’re almost disappointed when your period arrives on time. Not that you were “trying”, but…
• You think all men with babies are hot….without even checking out what they look like
• You find yourself wandering into baby stores despite the fact that you don’t know a single person with a baby.
• You feel wistfulness when thinking about your babysitting days and are actually considering nannying as a new career.

~Lauren Isobel

So, what do you think?  Is the biological clock a real thing?

http://www.liminas.com/is-your-biological-clock-really-ticking-2/

Why Egg Freezing

Lucia Vazquez works in sales and marketing for a pioneering biomedical company.  She enjoys her current position because it enables her to learn about new advances in medicine, and then distribute products that utilize those advances to consumers who can benefit from them.  Lucia had the foresight to freeze her eggs while still in her early thirties because she was not ready for children and wanted to increase her options to have a biological child at some future point.  She froze her eggs with Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, Extend Fertility’s partner center in NY.  She says, “Egg freezing was definitely a great choice allowing me to take better control of my fertility options.” 

About Extend Fertility

Extend Fertility is dedicated to enriching women’s lives through revolutionary egg freezing science that gives women the option to effectively slow down the biological clock. The company brings together industry-leading science, medical care and storage facilities. By combining these critical elements with our outstanding educational resources and client services, Extend Fertility offers women the leading egg freezing experience available today.

For more information, visit www.extendfertility.com.

Alan Copperman, MD. is Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai Medical Center and Co-medical director of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York,  the reproductive endocrinology and infertility division of Mount Sinai Medical Center and has been caring for patients in the midtown Manhattan location since 2001, with additional locations in Westchester and Long Island.  RMA of New York is a full-service fertility center that focuses on fertility preservation and family building treatment options. RMA of New York consistently achieves high live birth rates, while maintaining low rates of triplet pregnancies.  Highly individualized patient care is offered through seven reproductive endocrinologists, a urologist, a complementary care team of a clinical psychologist and a licensed clinical social worker, and well-trained team of health care professionals.  For more information, please call 212.756.5777 or visit www.rmany.com

Photoshop Experimentation - The internal Body clock

I began by taking an image of a woman, then i went in with Photoshop and began to take our things such as moles and scars with the spot healing tool to get an even skin tone.

I then began to paint over such areas as the breasts and genitals to create a smooth mannequin effect.

Then i blurred the models body to create smooth skin and blur out the edges of where i had been painting over the skin.

Then i chose my mechanism that i wanted as my body clock:

 And then selected the area i thought would best fit into my image: 

And then created a mask layer to combine the two: 

After this i considered creating shadow to make the two layers seem 3D and more compatible: 

This has been the main technique i have used when experimenting with this technique.

Zsofia Jilling

Here is an extras from Zsofia Jillings website explaining the body of work:

http://zsofiajilling.com/exhibitions/html/zsofia01alt02.html

Mona Hatoum, Corps Etranger

         

Mona Hatoum’s early works explore the world beneath the flesh.This is best illustrated in her ‘Corps etranger’ (literally ‘foreign body’) – a video featuring the use of two routinely used invasive medical imaging processes: endoscopy in which fibre optics scan the upper part of the digestive system, and coloscopy for the colon and intestines.

‘The viewing chamber is a pure white cylinder pierced by two slender apertures through which the viewer enters. A narrow margin between [the circular floor-mounted] screen and wall allows the viewer to stand at the perimeter of the image, back facing the wall, in the classic pose of a victim. Movement is severely restricted, and communal proximity to other viewers also complicates the experience of intimacy. ‘

This sense of overwhelming intimacy is further heightened by a soundtrack of her own breath and heartbeat that accompanies the video through the soft black acoustic fabric lining. She invites the viewer to a close up view of her own body – from the dry landscape that is her skin to the timeless, primitive, and unchanged glistening cavernous world beneath. Every orifice of this virgin territory is explored in turn by the camera’s ‘imperialistic’ eye.

http://annasadler.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/mona-hatoum-corps-etranger/

Group feedback 4

I found this feedback very helpful because i gained a clear view of the visuals i wanted to go with.


I found out about some new artists such as:

• Mona Hatoum
• Zsosifia Jilling

The concept of fertility and the brutal aspect of trying to reverse time and control the body. 
Also the idea of controlling the flesh, such as self harm and anorexia, which gives the feeling of having control of an aspect of your body when around you you have lost control.
Discipline was also connected to these aspects of the female body.


The main things i got from the feedback was that i should concentrate on the brutal and groteque aspect of physically trying to control our bodies and the biological clock we all possess.


The main images that were successful were: 

               

What had been found to be successful were if i merge the burning technique with the abdominal section of a woman, much like what i did here: 

             

Type I, II, III Civilizations (An excerpt from the book of Michio Kaku)

This book by Michio Kaku was suggested to me as a reference to looking to the future of technology and advancing our kind. I found it interesting on the level of our development and progression to shaping out own bodies.

Our civilization, by contrast, can be categorized as a Type 0 civilization, one that is just beginning to tap planetary resources, but does not have the technology and resources to control them. A Type 0 civilization like ours derives its energy from fossil fuels like oil and coal and, in much of the Third World, from raw human labor. Our largest computers can- not even predict the weather, let alone control it. Viewed from this larger perspective, we as a civilization are like a newborn infant.


Although one might guess that the slow march from a Type 0 civilization to a Type III civilization might take millions of years, the extraordinary fact about this classification scheme is that this climb is an exponential one and hence proceeds much faster than anything we can readily conceive.


With all these qualifications, we can still make educated guesses about when our civilization will reach these milestones. Given the rate at which our civilization is growing, we might expect to reach Type I status within a few centuries.
For example, the largest energy source available to our Type 0 civilization is the hydrogen bomb. Our technology is so primitive that we can unleash the power of hydrogen fusion only by detonating a bomb, rather than controlling it in a power generator. However, a simple hurricane generates the power of hundreds of hydrogen bombs. Thus weather control, which is one feature of Type I civilizations, is at least a century away from today's technology.


Similarly, a Type I civilization has already colonized most of its solar system. By contrast, milestones in today's development of space travel are painfully measured on the scale of decades, and therefore qualitative leaps such as space colonization must be measured in centuries. For example, the earliest date for NASA's manned landing on the planet Mars is 2020. Therefore, the colonization of Mars may take place 40 to 50 years after that, and the colonization of the solar system within a century.


By contrast, the transition from a Type I to a Type II civilization may take only 1,000 years. Given the exponential growth of civilization, we may expect that within 1,000 years the energy needs of a civilization will become so large that it must begin to mine the sun to energize its machines.


http://www.angelfire.com/sd/occultic/civili.html

Pictured: The moment a human egg emerged from its ovary 

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:55 AM on 12th June 2008

Rare and startling film has been captured of a human egg emerging from the ovary.

Fertile women release one or more eggs every month, but until now, only fuzzy images had been recorded.

The new images were taken by accident by gynaecologist Jacques Donnez while carrying out a partial hysterectomy on a 45-year-old woman.

                                      

The egg emerged from the ovary over 15 minutes

The release of an egg was thought to be a sudden event, but the pictures published in New Scientist magazine show it takes over 15 minutes for the translucent yellow sphere to emerge.

“The release of the oocyte (immature egg cell) from the ovary is a crucial event in human reproduction. These pictures are clearly important to better understand the mechanism,” Donnez, from the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, said.

Shortly before the egg is released, enzymes break down the tissue in a fluid-filled sac on the surface of the ovary that contains the egg. A reddish protrusion forms and then a hole appears from which the egg emerges.

The egg is surrounded by supporting cells, which protect it as it enters the Fallopian tube on its way to the uterus.

Professor Alan McNeilly, from the Medical Research Council's Human Reproduction Unit in Edinburgh, told the BBC: "It really is a fascinating insight into ovulation, and to see it in real life is an incredibly rare occurrence.

"It really is a pivotal moment in the whole process, the beginnings of life in a way."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1025956/Pictured-The-moment-human-egg-emerged-ovary.html