Affect in the Making expands earlier research expertise on subjectivity, embodiment and emotions, now focusing on the role of sensations in emotions from the viewpoint of phenomenology and affective science. The research project puts this expertise to the test at the following intersections of art, technology and politics:
- Art and emotional attachment to technology
Humans’ emotional attachment to (digital) technology is manifest in the rise of relationships with virtual others or the distress experienced in technology ‘dead zones’. The combined vantage point of phenomenology and (visual) art can meet the current need to better understand emotional attachment to contemporary technology and the degree in which this attachment is (dis-)embodied.
- Art under the skin
Art quite literally gets ‘under the skin’ and is not only in the mind but also in the body of the beholder and/or maker. We focus on the implicit, prereflective dimensions of art reception and production and the concomitant changes in subjectivity signaled by interoceptive processes, i.e. processes originating in the depths of our bodies.
- Art in emotional political times
In our overly emotional times, the importance of political emotions is mapped in the conjunction of art and politics. We start from a view on the nature, scope and effects of political emotions and explore how with the aid of art we can resist the shaping and/or exploiting of collective emotions, often to political or ideological ends.
