Visceral Theory: Affect and Embodiment
"How can we think or write theory in the wake of poststructuralism? For a number of recent thinkers, one possible answer arrives in the often slippery category of affect, in the attempt to return theoretical attention not only to material conditions but specifically to the body and the intensities that traverse it. Such theorists are critical of the elevation of language over visceral, lived experience and interested in the ways that affects circulate publicly or are transmitted contagiously. 'The skin,' writes Brian Massumi, 'is faster than the word.' In different ways, they theorize affect–which they distinguish from emotion or feeling–as a per–personal and pre–linguistic entity about which they nonetheless attempt to speak. This class will constitute a joint experiment in how to think, write, and deploy the concept or concepts of affect. Readings will include selections from Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Brian Massumi, Kathleen Stewart, Teresa Brennan, Lauren Berlant, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and others. No prior reading will be assumed, but a willingness to struggle with and through nonlinear and experimental writing (both alone and with the group) will be an absolute necessity."
(Abby Kluchin)
CONTRIBUTOR
Liam BirtlesSHARE
Lucy McRae: body architect and synthetic biologist
"Lucy creates provocative and often grotesquely beautiful imagery that suggests a new breed existing in an alternate world.
Trained as a classical ballerina and architect her work inherently fascinates with the human body. The media call her inventor, friends call her a trailblazer. Either way, she relies on instinct to evolve an extraordinary visual path that is powerful, primal and uniquely Lucy McRae."
(Lucy McRae)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Theory building through DNA visualisation
Drew "Berry's animations function as a tool for representing activities occurring within our bodies that could otherwise only be seen at a magnification of 100 million times. What distinguishes these works in the context of the moving image art form is the creation of a visual landscape that is extraordinary, strange and other–worldly, even though viewers are armed with the knowledge that they are scientifically exact. To follow the virtual camera through this strange world reminds them of the constant energetic presence of their own seething, pulsing, cellular functions. Watching these works, viewers become strangers in their own skin, inhabitants of a foreign landscape. Berry uses this synthesis of scientific and digital technology to create a holistic sense of the world beneath people's skin, sending a ripple across the viewers' bodies as they interact with the work, enlivened with the knowledge of their organic relation to the alien world on screen."
(Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Australia)
Fig.1 Drew Berry (2003). 'Body Code' 3D computer animation displayed as single–channel DVD projection; stereo audio. 8:34 mins; colour. Sound design: Franc Tétaz. Collection: Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Courtesy: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) and the artist.
[These animations demonstrate the potential of design practice for revealing insight that might not otherwise be revealed. In this way preoccupations with visual fidelity and scientific accuracy must recognised as being only peripherally important.]
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
School Photos Digitally 'fixed'
"The class of 2006 will be the best lookers yet, with parents getting the option to digitally remove pimples and marks from their teenagers' school photos... For AUD$8, the company will remove obvious pimples, scratches or other blemishes, even going the extra mile for children suffering severe skin problems... 'We often open eyes by swapping eyes from one photo of a student to another photo of the same student . . . if they've blinked in one we'll swap the eyes over,' Mr [Peter] Gillahan said. It's the same in the class photos . . . we'll combine a number of photos to make it the best one we can. Pull the socks up, plant a tree in the background if a car has pulled up when it shouldn't have."
(Danny Buttler 04 August 2006, The Australian)
CONTRIBUTOR
Mia ThorntonSHARE
Organic networked computer: the drummers
"He could see the nanosites in his skin. But for all he knew, he might have a million more living in his brain now, piggybacking on axons and dendrites, sending data to one another in flashes of light. A second brain intermingled with his own."
(Stephenson p.250)
Fig.1 Pascale Beroujon.
2). Neal stephenson (1995) 'The Diamond Age', Spectra
[Stephenson's character John Percival Hackworth, spends 10 years in an underwater world called 'the drummers'. The community live in a constant trance–like, orgying state sharing millions of nanobots called 'nanosites' embedded in their skin. The whole community acts like a single 'organic computer'.]
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
