We’ve cut the cord! e.i.i.i. is now a newborn, out in the world with a navel to show for it. Still close to our chests, still forming, just starting to become aware of its own image. We are happy to have you along for the ride, happy to have you here at the start, to invite you to take a stroll in our fresh and fruitful navel.
Navel gazing does not have a positive connotation per se. We have become unsure why. After all it is not just a study of the self, but rather a study of the origins that make the self. As such it may be futile—we can never go all the way back, trace our roots to the very beginning. The navel will always keep some secrets. But isn’t it the mystery that in the end, remains interesting above all?
So gaze away! Take the plunge! In our navelscape we have assembled various interpretations of the navel for you to enjoy. We hope it inspires you to think in turn about what the navel means to you.
a handy 3-step guide to help you “enter” the navelscape:
turn on optional ethereal soundtrack in top right corner
float around! make yourself at home! rearrange islands!*
* we work on mobile but better on desktop!
issue #1 includes work by the following artists, writers, and researchers (we thank them all!):
Jeroen van Dijk, Sybren Dallinga, Mohamed Tonsy, Alex Blanco, Linda Zhengová, Deborah Mora, Hanna Steenbergen-Cockerton, Rob Dunn, Angelo Castiglioni, Elspeth Reilly, Merel Gerretsen
🕳 barbie's belly button, a short exposé
In the history of human evolution, the year 2000 marked a pretty out-of-this-world event: Barbie, the famous fashion doll by Mattel Inc., received her very first belly button. Striking, since Barbie was a middle-aged woman at the time.
Arguably, Barbie is hardly known for her realistic depiction of the female physique. But can we just say that the absence of a belly button we find particularly fishy? Perhaps our growing up as teenagers in the noughties, with an abundance of belly buttons flung at us from above chick flick low-waist jeans and album cover crop tops, explains our sensitivity to the topic. “Tuck in your shirt” soon became the go-to phrase of our parents, as belly buttons fashioned themselves into the pinnacle of zeros street style. Barbie, of course, could hardly stay behind.
Overshadowed by the many other controversies surrounding Barbie’s body, the absence and sudden appearance of this tiny little button remains alarmingly unscrutinised. What exactly happened here? 🤨
Throughout the 20th century, in the valleyed area between Barbie’s featureless crotch and her twist-and-turn waist, we find… absolutely nothing. Nothing but a smooth, toned midriff. In her aspiration to be the most idealised version of our future female selves (of course whose ‘ideal’ remains highly disputable), Barbie actually turned out to be suspiciously un-human: she had erased her primary mark of existence, completely. Or perhaps, she had never received this confirmation of in utero existence in the first place.*
* (most) mammals feed their fetus via an umbilical cord which leaves the navel scar postpartum. Reptiles, amphibians and fish on the other hand, do not carry navels, since they hatch from eggs. 🦎
This detachment from the ordinary sequence of life has allowed Barbie to place herself outside of the ongoing and highly sexualised discussion about belly buttons in Western culture. For most of Barbie’s existence, female belly buttons were banned for obscenity from popular culture as they suggested an ‘upward displacement of the vagina’. According to various Hollywood Codes, no navel could be shown in film or television. Even if bellies were bare, little pieces of fabric or jewellery had to cover the female umbilicus. Although this rule was soon dropped by the film industry, it stayed in place in television for many years, and even outside of pop culture it was used to scrutinize women’s bodies: only in 1985 did the city of New York lift the ban on women publicly displaying their belly buttons.
Barbie, however, cleverly circumvented these restrictions, allowing herself to expose her bare midriff without facing public scrutiny, simply because she lacked a navel altogether. At the same time, this caused Barbie to exist in a reproductive void: we do not know her ancestry nor will we ever know her offspring. Researchers in Finland found out that Barbie’s anatomy is completely unfit for a menstrual cycle, effectively leaving her barren. Added to the fact that she bears no proof of being born as an ordinary human baby, these factors strangely isolate Barbie from what is considered the ‘normal course of life’: birth, childhood, puberty, fertility, ageing, and all accompanying physical changes… Barbie seems unaffected by major life events, placing herself outside of the space-time continuum in an almost eerie way.
Whilst Barbie remained otherwise frozen in time, in the early 2000s a little dimple appeared in her flawless physique. We don’t know exactly what motivated Barbie to grow a navel at that particular moment in time, but we suspect it had something to do with her waking up to realize that her body was hardly a reflection of a normal human one.
Sadly though for Barbie, the marking of her birth some 40 years after the fact came at a price: her new Ever-Flex waist, replacing the navel-less Twist-And-Turn waist and made of a rubbery bit connecting her upper- and lower body, had such a fragile inner joint that no pilates could ever save her belly-buttoned core—often leaving Barbie with severe spinal fractures (which may or may not have something to do with her sudden split from Ken in 2004).
Barbie herself continues to play the ignorant card. Having been openly in possession of a belly button for many years now, she still acts birdbrained by its abrupt appearance. Upon being asked when she first got her belly button in Barbie: Life in The Dreamhouse (2015), Barbie not only allegedly ‘could not remember it’ but also let her best friend ask: ‘what… is a belly button?’
(and she never replied…)
🫒 e.i.i.i. of the (bi-)month: fly agaric egg
if you are the egg-eating* type here is a recipe to consider for the holidays (any holidays really, but especially appropriate during mushroom season).
you need:
egg a person
tomato a person
mayonnaise (at your own discretion)
you:
boil the egg (not too soft)
cut the butt off the egg
put the egg on its freshly cut butt
cut the tomato into two halves
scoop out the pulp from the tomato
take your tomato cap and put it on your egg
decorate with white mayonnaise** spots
* we recommend kiwi, as an excellent egg-substitute 🥝
** we used truffle mayonnaise, for that bit of extra.
thank you for reading e.i.i.i.’s first newsletter, eternal incoming information items.
before you go, we have a last fun announcement for you. Keep an eye on our website and/or instagram page (@e.i.i.i.zine), because on ✨january 1st✨ while nursing a hangover, we will announce our ~ issue #2 theme and open up for submissions!
also, you can support us (and our contributors) via our patreon page ~ if you have a dime to spare!
wishing all a happy 2022 ☃️,
love,
e.i.i.i. 🛀