The Body Artist. An Experience of the Sur-Real in the Context of the Embodied and Aesthetic Abnormality

Alexander Kozin

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.2.2.08

Authors

Alexander Kozin Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.2.2.08

Keywords:

body, abnormality, phenomenology, surrealism

Abstract

In this essay I explore a possibility of experiential synthesis of an abnormal body of a Contergan person with an aesthetic image of the visual body. For a method, the essay uses phenomenology; I therefore lean in on the studies of embodiment conducted by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In turn, Max Ernst introduces an aesthetic modality of the artistic body. A personal narrative about meeting sur-real bodies serves as a frame for theorizing abnormality. The study reveals how the encounter with the abnormal ways of constitution suspends normality toward producing sur-real effects.

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Author Biography

Alexander Kozin, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany

Alexander Kozin (PhD) is a Research Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. His interests reside at the juncture of phenomenology, semiotics, and social interactionism. He published in the areas of phenomenology, semiotics, psychology, and communication. His current work is located in the sociolegal field, where, as a member of international project “Comparative Microsociology of Criminal Defence,” he examines criminal defence casework in the legal context of the United States.

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