This presentation alternates between a talk and screening of a hypertext, "Beautopia." In this hypertext, I employ an analogy of the cosmetics makeover to the self and society, inventing a research method that draws on the heuretic method of Greg Ulmer. I discuss the implications of the method, and the way that electronic forms of textual production facilitate this way of performing "research." In the hypertext, I interrogate the language, imagery, and ideologies of cosmetics advertisements and related texts.

Hypertext as a form lends itself to unorthodox juxtapositions, particularly through linkages based on associative logic (e.g., metaphors, puns). In the hypertext that I show and explicate here, I invoke the feminist understanding that "the personal is political," combining autobiographical reflections with an analysis of the discourse and industry of cosmetics. The personal dimension includes elements from my unconscious (following in the Surrealist tradition of automatic writing). The political dimension includes an examination of the political economy of beauty. Both levels include many kinds of images, such as family photographs, cosmetics advertisements, images from cosmetics industry journals, and images from books on makeovers and modelling. These elements are juxtaposed, sometimes in conversation, sometimes in "collision," to borrow a term Sergei Eisenstein uses to describe his method of montage in film.

Not only do I approach my investigation of the relationships among subjectivity, media messages, and political economy directly through theoretical analysis, but I also seek to demonstrate the connections amongst these realms indirectly, through associative connections (reasoning through dream logic).The thematic focus of the work is rooted in my urge to rethink the social--I ask, through the construction of this polyvalent (hyper)text: can we begin to invent a materially grounded utopian vision through the lens of contemporary female beauty?

The full abstract of this talk can be found at: http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~sullivan/sullivan.html