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Body004


Embodiment and hyperaesthetic utopia 
Convenors:
Petar Bagarić (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research)
Hrvoje Čargonja (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb)
Stream:
Body/Embodiment
Location:
A214
Sessions:
Wednesday 24 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Zagreb

Short Abstract:

The consumerist environment keeps individual subjects in a state of hyperaesthesia - enhanced sensitivity to the sensory stimuli. Such affordances of hyperaesthticised postindustrial environment are conditioning hyperaesthetic embodiment of individual subjects along with its specific utopia.

Long Abstract:

The consumerist environment of Western neoliberal capitalism, according to Howes (2005), keeps individual subjects in a state of suspended hyperaesthesia, a state of enhanced sensitivity to the sensory stimuli. This increase in subject's sensitivity is demanded by neoliberal economies in order to accommodate for the progressive increase in the varieties and degrees of stimulation. In other words, the affordances of hyperaesthticised postindustrial environment are conditioning hyperaesthetic embodiment of individual subjects.

This vantage point, where, as Livingston (1998) asserts, stimuli tend to be decontextualized and purposeless, opens up a question of postindustrial metaphysics and utopian (or perhaps dystopian) vision of such hyperaesthecised reality. Although utopian visions are usually associated with transcendental intellectual projects, according to Johnson (2003), there are embodied roots of utopian tendencies wrought in the very architecture of our consciousness.

Having in mind these main points of departure for this panel, we propose further discussion along the lines of the following questions: What are lived aspects of hyperaesthetic utopia or, in other words, what configurations of our sensations, feelings, emotions and other bodily dispositions correspond to the affordances of hyper-stimulating environment of Western economies? Is hyperaesthetic utopia a metaphysical asymptote of free-market capitalism? What are ethical, social and psychological implications of such situation? What are the conditions for such hypeaesthetic experience?

We would like to invite speakers with various methodological and thematic orientations to participate with their case studies, theoretical insights, and other perspectives on this issue.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Wednesday 24 June, 2015, -