Po­lit­i­cal Emo­tions, Art and Af­fect: From Psy­cho­log­i­cal Pros­thet­ics to Liv­ing Con­di­tion


Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Emotion Studies in a Contemporary Art Debate

Presentation Title:
  • Po­lit­i­cal Emo­tions, Art and Af­fect: From Psy­cho­log­i­cal Pros­thet­ics to Liv­ing Con­di­tion

Presenter(s):


Venue(s):


Abstract:

  • Panel: Emotion Studies in a Contemporary Art Debate

    At a time when “pol­i­tics” evokes feel­ings of alien­ation, pas­siv­ity or abuse of power and per­cep­tions are that in­di­vid­ual needs and griev­ances are sim­ply ig­nored, artists Dee Hi­b­bert-Jones and Nomi Tal­is­man ap­proach vi­sual art as a set of ex­per­i­ments to an­swer ques­tions such as: Can hope­less­ness be trans­formed? Is there any­thing use­ful about guilt? Can anx­i­ety fuel our de­sires for a bet­ter fu­ture? Can a be­lief in utopia be res­cued and if so how? Hi­b­bert-Jones and Tal­is­man will pre­sent four cur­rent col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­jects ex­plor­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween af­fect and po­lit­i­cal feel­ings in com­mu­ni­ties and in pub­lic space. Each pro­ject in­ves­ti­gates so­cial con­nect­ed­ness, emo­tional well­be­ing, meth­ods of cop­ing and iso­la­tion.

    In Psy­cho­log­i­cal Pros­thet­ics, (“Help­ing You Han­dle Your Emo­tional Bag­gage in Po­lit­i­cal Times”) the artists uti­lize the per­sona of a cor­po­rate pro­fes­sional to offer a line of self-help prod­ucts and ser­vices to the pub­lic.  While of­fer­ing to mea­sure in­se­cu­rity, over­come anx­i­ety, and help to lit­er­ally, con­sume fear, the pro­ject en­gages the au­di­ence in dis­cus­sion, cri­tique and com­men­tary on no­tions of con­for­mity, co­er­cion and re­sis­tance. At the other end of these ex­per­i­ments the artists pro­duced Liv­ing Con­di­tion, a short an­i­mated film that ex­plores the trauma faced by fam­i­lies of pris­on­ers on death row. Col­lab­o­ra­tions with fam­ily mem­bers re­sult in an an­i­mated short film based en­tirely on their sto­ries. Each pro­ject will be pre­sented through short video clips, im­ages and de­scrip­tions of the­o­ret­i­cal in­tent, con­cep­tual ap­proach, meth­ods of ex­e­cu­tion and most im­por­tantly the re­sponses from the pub­lic.

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