Presentación de resultados

This chapter explains how viewers’ receptions of the body fragments presented in De

Bruyckere’s sculptures are particularly related to an embodied form of perception, evoking a multitude of physical and emotional reactions. In fact, De Bruyckere’s representations of vulnerable and fragmented human bodies seem to be based on compassionate empathy, which heightens intra-subjective awareness through affective knowledge. However, while endorsing the ‘affective turn’ in making sense of artwork beyond psychoanalytical accounts, I will contend that a combination of both the psychoanalytical and the affective model may help to overcome the limits of both theories by introducing sense perception into the psychological interpretation, and the concept of repression into the affective one (Marks, L. U. 2013: 146).

What I wish to explore in this chapter, by focusing on De Bruyckere’s sculptures, which combine wax emulating human skin and flesh with soft materials, is the way in which the representation of the body, particularly in sculptural practice, may be seen as playing on the viewers’ knowledge of their own body and the memory of the senses. Embodiment and sense perception have become an integral part of the way we look at and interpret sculptures

(Sobchack, V. 2004, Marks, L. 2000, 2013; Bennett, J. 2005; Blackmann, L. & Venn, C.

2010). Scholars such as Vivian Sobchack, Laura Marks and Jill Bennett have highlighted the power of the ‘haptic’ to evoke known sensations that were previously experienced through other senses. I will devote particular attention to the way in which the ‘whole sensorium’, rather than just visuality, influences the reception and interpretation of sculptures of body parts. These multisensory reactions call upon memories of the senses in order to produce an

embodied experience. The theoretical concept of ‘haptic visuality’³, will be used as a tool to suggest that vision can also be tactile. The study of affect will be of particular relevance in this chapter, helping to determine the role played by empathy in the spectators’ bodily and

intellectual engagement with Berlinde De Bruyckere’s sculptures.⁴ Support for the importance of materiality to the embodied experience of the artwork will be gained by examining the relationship between materiality and the body, both in the way the spectator’s body is engaged by materials and how materials themselves can be used as bodily metaphors. It will be argued that the materials employed to create these representations of body parts, such as wax, plaster, human hair or horse skin, are important elements in the construction of meaning. I will

highlight the way in which Berlinde De Bruckyere’s sculptures, through form, materiality and sculptural techniques, create connections between the body of the spectator and the body represented. Additionally, the process of casting will not be dismissed as just a traditional sculptural technique, but will be invested with the role of ‘meaning-making’ in the finished artwork. De Bruyckere’s casts, although indexical, contradict the perfect likeness inherent in the casting process as her sculptures are created through the combination of several slightly different casts of the same body parts.

Berlinde De Bruckyere’s sculptures can be seen as exceeding visuality, not only

provoking a chain of sensory reactions but also acting as a catalyst for our attention through an overstimulation of the senses. Subject matter, process and materials in her art, can all be understood as contributing to the enhancement of the spectators’ bodily involvement, as well as igniting cognitive responses, such as memory and identification. Her sculptures invite personal memories, not only through bodily similarities, but also through non-visual and embodied knowledge. Previous knowledge acquired through the senses, such as touch, taste and smell, play an important role in the way in which the spectator engages with the artwork.

As Marks maintains, “when verbal and visual representation is saturated, meaning seeps into bodily and other dense, seemingly silent registers” (Marks, L. 2000: 5). However, I will assert that in the case of Berlinde De Bruckyere’s representations of fragmented bodies, these

‘seemingly silent registers’ are always already present alongside the visual. Of course every

3 For Laura Marks haptic visuality is a multi-sensory embodied experience of an image, where the emphasis lies in the spectator’s capacity “to perceive” (Marks, L. 2000: 162). As she contends, “while optical perception privileges the representational power of the image, haptic perception privileges the material presence of the image. Drawing from other forms of sense experience, primarily touch and kinaesthetic, haptic visuality involves the body more than is the case with optical visuality” (Mark, L. 2000: 163).

4 See also Sullivan, S. (2001). Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism.

Blumington, Indiana: University Press. Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Manning, E. (2009). Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

viewer will experience the displayed dismembered body differently, as body knowledge and the way of experiencing the senses is always a very subjective experience.

3-1: Berlinde De Bruyckere, The Pillow, 2010, wax, epoxy, iron, wool, cotton, wood 90 x 70 x 60 cm

Berlinde De Bruckyere’s sculpture The Pillow (2010) (image 3-1) is a cast of a human body, moulded from wax, tightly embracing a soft fabric cushion and merging into it. Only one of the figure’s legs can be seen and the other one has already merged with the soft material. The coming together of the realistic representation of the human form with the spectator’s

corporeal presence, renders her work not only visual but also positions The Pillow, in what Marks calls, “haptic visuality”. Haptic means touch and haptic visuality invites the viewer to use vision as though it were the sense of touch (Mark, L. 2000: 2 and 127). Marks proposes a way of looking that involves all the senses. For her, haptic visuality is a multi-sensory bodily experience that “emphasises the viewer’s inclination to perceive” (ibid: 162). In this multi-sensory model of perception, the body takes centre stage.

3.1.1 Compassionate Empathy

As will be discussed in chapter five, the representation of the body as fragmented and in a state of transformation, may cause conflicting and abject emotions in the viewer. Indeed, when we are confronted with De Bruyckere’s sculptures, we decode them through the knowledge acquired through our own living body. Realising the ‘incorrectness’ of the representation of distorted bodies, the spectator may experience overwhelming sensations and emotions, which could lead to discomfort and anxiety.

Even though, the artwork will always remain a lifeless object, a mere representation of the body, the question of why some viewers emotionally invest in this type of artwork, seems to be pertinent at this point. This of course, reactivates the debate about the ‘im/possibility’ of sharing and penetrating somebody else’s experiences, especially if the person has a very different background and belongs to a different culture, language, race, or gender. Is it at all possible to experience similar feelings as another person, to identify with the ‘other’ through empathy? Recent scientific studies seem to contend that there is a convergence of bodily experiences through the senses. New research in cognitive science has detected a combination of neural and social factors that form or influence human thought and understanding.⁵ This type of research has given scientific credibility to visual and media studies postulating that in seeing, embodiment and empathy come together in the perception of artifacts.

Empathy plays an enormous role in the understanding and perception of De Bruyckere’s artwork.⁶ It is in particular, the similarity between the ‘real’ human body and De Bruyckere’s sculptures that contributes to the viewers’ identification, facilitating the projection of their sense of self.

Griselda Pollock takes on Bracha Ettinger’s term ‘fascinance’, to describe the spectators’

emotional investments in memories and traumatic events, which are mediated by artifacts, media or literature, and not experienced personally by the viewer (Pollock, G. 2013a: 35). In a way, ‘fascinance’ draws attention to a parallel instability of boundaries represented in De Bruyckere’s artwork; on one side, the blurring of boundaries between the spectator and the

5 For a further discussion see Di Dio C. and Gallese V. (2009). Neuroaesthetics: a ‘Review’, Current Opinion in

Neurobiology, 19, p.682-687. Freedberg, D. and Galles, V. (2007). Motion, Emotion and Empathy in Aesthetic Experience.

Trends in Cognitive Science, 11(5), 197-203.

6 De Bruyckere’s fragmented figures function simultaneously as ‘real’ physical objects and as an extension of the imagination.

The spectator’s perception of the fragmented body may move between her sculptures as being simply objects, and the possibility of them having implicit emotional and existential meaning. This shift in the viewer’s perception and the ‘ability’ of the artwork to ignite this ‘transference’, is what allows the viewer to experience “emotional content in a lifeless object”

(Morrell, M. E. 2010: 41). Essentially, experiencing emotional content in a work of art cannot be separated from this shift of perception.

‘pain of other’, and on the other side, the blurring of boundaries between soft material, branches or animals and the human body. This instability of boundaries, may shift the perception of “what is Me and what is Not-me”, emphasising in this way what Pollock terms

“the liquid quality of subjectivity” (Pollock, G. 2013a: 35). In fact, for her, “humanising compassion and responsibility towards the other”, is indispensable in order for aesthetic and ethic to come together in a work of art representing traumatic events (Pollock, G. 2013a: 36).

As Ettinger contends, empathy devoid of compassion can slip into a means to satisfy the narcissistic tendency of the viewer. In differentiating between empathy and compassion, she highlights the superiority of compassion as a term with which to describe the joint

involvement of victims and viewers (Pollock, G. 2013a: 35). My aim, therefore, is to explore if and how De Bruyckere’s artwork engages the audience through ‘compassionate empathy’

and succeeds in conveying the suffering of the other.

3.2. Getting in Touch with the World