Affective Corporeality: Contemplations on the Body in the Postmodern Context

This thesis looks at the role of the body in the contemporary context. I discuss Affect Theory through the lens of Brian Massumi and Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection as a means to reveal postmodern humanity as fragmented and socially schizophrenic, in the Lacanian sense. By delving primarily into the theories of Massumi, Kristeva, Kristine Stiles, and Gilles Deleuze, I suggest that the current condition of humanity is that of the traumatized. Through this argument, I support my visual thesis also entitled Affective Corporeality, which offers a fragmented and abstracted sculptural enviornment intended to be interacted with. Through using visual iterations of affect and the abject, I instill in the viewer the heightened sense of empathy and/ or trauma. This affect intends to counteract the epidemic of apathy that has taken hold on our contemporary society.