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Collective Feelings, 2024
performance
60 min
photographs by Lucas Santana
performance
60 min
photographs by Lucas Santana
One can never attain a complete vision of the self in solitude; instead, our social existence functions as a panopticon—an external gaze that scrutinizes from every angle simultaneously. This form of vision constructs a geometry beyond the comprehension of the eye, that is, the chimera of perception. This visuality of wholeness generates an anxiety to continually perform a fully defined self, perpetually enacting the processes through which 'bodies surface.' Ahmed describes this as the 'recognition or interpretation of sensations that are responses to the impression of others, and the transformation of such sensations into emotions' (2004: 30). I see this as the individual’s repeated performance to align themselves with the vision imposed by the social panopticon. The interior communicates a specific vision projected from the surface towards bodily others and objects, one that is receptive to interrogation of an external vision which in turn informs that very surface. This movement is contingent upon the objects and others inhabiting specific situations. Building on Ahmed’s articulation of an intimate relationship between what Butler describes as ‘materialization’ (1993: 9) and ‘intensification,’ this argument adds the dimension of vision—that which engenders the very #uidity, unfixity of such movement.
“So what attaches us, what connects us to this or that other, such that we cannot stay removed from this other, is also what moves us, or what affects us such that we are no longer in the same place.” (2004: 27)
This investigation delves into this dialogue between movement and attachment, looking at the physicality of impressions made by others with an attention to the emotion of disgust. While the "rst performance was shaped by experiential research and focused on individual a!ective responses, this next iteration adopts an ethnographic approach, emphasizing collective embodied experience and its potential to reveal broader cultural structures. Beginning with material inquiry through a sculptural installation, the work evolves into wearable sculptures, activated in performance by three dancers in addition to myself. A larger audience is involved in an informed performance1, and the public is implicated in a natural setting in a further extension. As a research process still in progress, this study begins to push earlier investigation in asking further questions. This investigation focuses on the tangibility of skin surface as an accumulator of impressions left by others, and the extent to which it extends until reaching the exterior, questioning whether this distance can be pushed. Earlier exploration suggested that the surface of the skin is not "xed, a process in #ux imbued with histories of associations and in negotiation with happenings in the present and future. This undoing of the assumption that skin, as the bound that de"nes and con"nes the subject, is not “simply already there” (2004: 29) raises curiosity into the potential of ‘undoing skin’ in illustrating the contingency of attachment and movement.
Ahmed uses a chapter in The Cultural Politics of Emotion to examine the a!ectivity of disgust, an emotion rather pertinent to this visual exploration of skin. Anything bodily that is beyond the visible or normative slips quickly into a!ectivities of gruesomeness and disgust, and thus any deviant representation of skin works keenly in invoking such emotions. Again, beginning from a material standpoint, the physicality of ‘impression’ was found in the characteristics of memory foam, a viscoelastic material commonly used for mattresses due to its capacity to mold to a body’s form with bodily warmth and pressure. Reminiscent in its name, these characteristics also lend the material with a physical memory, in which any ‘impression’ made will linger for some time before the foam retracts to its original form. Pantyhose was then introduced as the secondary material to engage visually with the
bodily and functionally with the skin, and again, involving the haptic sensory as a utilitarian ‘second skin’. Due to its fragility and irreparability, this nylon weave is rarely found raw and only as readily constructed, introducing interesting restraints to the sculptural process as the only manipulation that can be enforced is within the bounds of stretching, containing, tearing, tying, while its e!ects manifest within the bounds of expansion, rupture, shriveling, and stretching—all characteristics that can attributed to human skin. Due to the pantyhose’s tubular form, its “skin color”, and its nature to compress, any object made will be rounded, resemble life-size, and inevitably allude to the body. The creation process raised questions regarding extension of the skin surface, the meaning in stretching and restraining of the skin, questions that the work also aims to evoke in viewers engaging with it. Through interviews with performers, I discovered that the guided framework of performance allowed me to share my earlier private revelations with others, highlighting its potential as a communicative medium through experiential public engagement.