essay
by MATILDA LIN BERKE
An exoskeleton is the outer covering of a body: typically rigid but not always, composed of calcium carbonate (a constituent element of limestone and marble) or chitin (a complex network of sugars). It functions as both structure and interface: the essential form, the mode of protection, and the signaling mechanism by which a creature encounters the world. Think of the shell of the snail, the carapace of the beetle, or the armor of the crab. There are all kinds of functional and decorative containers. Glamour is an exoskeleton for the extravagant human self: a framework, a tectonic shell built from the inside out. Like its parallel biological forms, it defines the soft flesh it surrounds and protects.
Though some exoskeletons are routinely shed, others grow via the addition of consecutive layers: the accretive experience of the subject. The lips of geisha are painted increasingly red…