The Body Artist. An Experience of the Sur-Real in the Context of the Embodied and Aesthetic Abnormality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.2.2.08Keywords:
body, abnormality, phenomenology, surrealismAbstract
In this essay I explore a possibility of experiential synthesis of an abnormal body of a Contergan person with an aesthetic image of the visual body. For a method, the essay uses phenomenology; I therefore lean in on the studies of embodiment conducted by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In turn, Max Ernst introduces an aesthetic modality of the artistic body. A personal narrative about meeting sur-real bodies serves as a frame for theorizing abnormality. The study reveals how the encounter with the abnormal ways of constitution suspends normality toward producing sur-real effects.
Downloads
References
Behnke, Elizabeth (2004) “Edmund Husserl’s Contribution to Phenomenology of the Body in Ideas II.” Pp. 235-264 in Phenomenology. Critical Concepts in Philosophy, Vol. II, edited by D. Moran and L. Embree. London: Routledge.
Bernet, Rudolf (1998) “Encounter with the Stranger: Two Interpretations of the Vulnerability of the Skin.” Phänomenologische Forschungen 5: 89-111.
Breton, André (1934) “What is surrealism?” Pp. 1-15 in Surrealismus, edited by J. Dothy. London: Routledge.
Butler, Judith (1993) Bodies that matter. London: Routledge.
Dali, Salvador (1932) Le quartier. Arto: Paris.
Deleuze, Gilles (1990) The logic of sense. Translated by M. Lester. London: Continuum.
Depraz, Natalie (2001) “The Husserlian Theory of Intersubjectivity as Alterology.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (5-7): 169-78.
Dillon, Martin C. (2004) “Merleau-Ponty and the Reversibility Thesis.” Pp. 294-315 in Phenomenology. Critical Concepts in Philosophy, Vol. II, edited by D. Moran and L. Embree. London: Routledge.
Gallagher, Shaun (1986) “Lived Body as Environment.” Research in Phenomenology 16: 139-170. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/156916486X00103
Husserl, Edmund (1931) Ideas. General introduction to pure phenomenology. Translated by W. R. Gibson. New York: Collier Books.
Husserl, Edmund (1940) “Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of Spatiality of Nature.” Pp. 305-25 in Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, edited by M. Farber. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Husserl, Edmund (1989) Ideas pertaining to pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the phenomenology of constitution. Translated by R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Kant, Emmanuel (1998) Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. Translated by M. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511809590
Kristeva, Julia (1982) Powers of horror. An essay on abjection. Translated by L. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kearney, Richard (2003) Strangers, gods, and monsters. London: Routledge.
Lacan, Jacques (2004) Ecrits: A selection. Translated by B. Fink. London: W.W. Norton and Co.
Levin, David (1999) A responsive voice: Language without the modern subject. Memphis: University of Memphis Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/chiasmi1999125
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1962) Phenomenology of perception. Translated by P. Kegan. London: Routledge.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1968) The visible and the invisible. Translated by A. Lingis. London: Routledge.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1973) The prose of the world. Translated by J. O’Neill. London: Routledge.
Schutz, Alfred (1970) On phenomenology and social relations. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Steinbock, Anthony (1995). Home and beyond. Generative phenomenology after Husserl. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01324160
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

