Speaking Through Surrogates: A Body in Pain

Abstract

The title of this thesis is derived from an exploration of how bodily representation, isolated between channels of language, sound, or image, can uniquely objectify expressions of pain. The first exercise was to represent the presence of a human body through the medium-specific constraints of each channel. Building from Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain and phenomenological studies on pain, this exercise was informed by three concepts: (1) a paradox of signs, (2) pain and imagination, and (3) pain and memory. Second, by toggling between the channels and finding the unique communicative potential within their structural constraints, I created opportunities to objectify aspects of pain so as to create a presence for an experience that is inherently invisible and absent outside of oneself. I will demonstrate this through three works of art: The Language of Flowers, video, 2019; Untitled, video, 2020; Untitled, mixed-media installation, 2020