ART AS A MIRROR OF CORPOREALITY.

POETICS OF CORPOREAL
ESTRANGEMENT-INTEGRATION

Romero Martn

by Jos David Romero Martn

As a meditating Ego, I can clearly distinguish from myself

the world and things, since I certainly do not exist in the way
in which things exist.
Merleau-Ponty, 1945

1. INTRODUCTION
7KH TXHVWLRQ RI WKH ERG\ QGV FOHDU URRWV LQ SKHQRPHQRORJLFDO
approaches (Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Waldenfels, among other authors),
DOWKRXJKWKHFRPSOH[LW\RIWKLVGLPHQVLRQLVUHHFWHGLQPDQ\RWKHU
HOGVVXFKDVQHXURORJ\DQWKURSRORJ\SV\FKRORJ\DQGDUW7KHDLP
of this paper is to explore a few questions related to the perception of
our own body, particularly in relation to the dialectical experiences of
HVWUDQJHPHQWLQWHJUDWLRQ DV WKH\ DSSHDU LQ WKH DUWLVWLF HOG$PRQJ
others, the concepts of cultural estrangement, prosthesis and the
phenomenon of phantom limb are particularly relevant in this analysis.
Starting from the hypothesis that art can have a role as a mirror of
these processes, I will develop two big blocks of content:
1) The state-of-the-art will raise the special problematic in the
conception of our own body that is manifested as a complex
and an ambiguous topic. I will revise the implications of the
notion estrangement, in the sense of Waldenfels (2011), and
I will develop what I have called the corporeal estrangementintegration dialectic, drawing on parallelisms with the mentioned
GLIIHUHQWHOGV
2) I will then revise some case-studies to explain how art addresses
the issue of the body, analyzing the relationship between artists
and their bodies through artistic proposals. To accomplish this
task, I will offer a tentative model based in four categories: (1)
External-autoscopic; (2) Indicial; (3) Internal-autoscopic; and
(4) Relational.
2. PROBLEM
I have observed how different artistic proposals, through different
means, especially from the middle of the 20th century to the last
decades, several artists seem to share a special interest in the body as
a complex dimension from which they tackle different concepts and
issues. In many cases, there is a use or reference to the artists own
ERG\DVSHFLDOSHUVSHFWLYHWKDWLPSOLHVDVHULHVRIUHHFWLRQVWKDWFDQ
go unnoticed because of the rest of the independent implications and
discourses of each artistic proposal.
The source of the problem of this proposal arises from the questions
these artworks may trigger, inquiries related to the conscience of
our existence, our own individuality, tied to our corporeal condition,
D SDUWLFXODU UHHFWLRQ RQ WKH 6HOI +HQFH WKH SUREOHP VHHPV WR EH
rooted in the issue of self-bodily perception, an essential subject
widely referred in the phenomenological tradition, frequently through
different dialectical relationships between sets of concepts, such
79

ART AS A MIRROR OF CORPOREALITY.

POETICS OF CORPOREAL ESTRANGEMENT-INTEGRATION

as Krper-Leib, familiar-strange (Husserl 1960),

body-for-itself and body-for-others (Sartre 1992),
Heimlich-Unheimlich (Freud 1919) absence-presence
(Leder 1990), Selfhood-Otherness (Waldenfels 2011),
among others.
All these references seem to always point to
irresolvable dialectical relationships, in a sort of
reconsideration of Cartesian dualism that Waldenfels
(2011) considers necessary to understand that
rather than a dualistic scheme, we should refer to a
noncoincidence between the body that perceives
and the body that is perceived, which characterizes our
own body. In any case, these dialectical relationships
seem always to raise a certain split or rupture in
bodily experience, a conception that is in many cases
translated as estrangement, which usually stands
in the dialectical side that splits, breaks or turns the
subject into object in order to be perceived.
As a synthesis of all these notions, I pose the
conception of estrangement-integration to refer to
this sort of dialectical relationship that appears to be
an essential feature of the corporeal condition.
3. STATE-OF-THE-ART
The experience of our own body has been described
by different authors from several disciplines, from
ZKLFKWKHERG\KDVUHFHLYHGTXDOLHUVOLNHXWRSLF
)RXFDXOW  LQGHQDEOH 5iEDGH 
uncertain (Ortega 2010) or enigmatic (Waldenfels
2011). Therefore Rbade points out the semantic
ambiguity of the term corporeality (2003, p. 462),
as a word of rich semantic contours. 1
,Q PDQ\ FDVHV WKHUH HPHUJHV WKH JXUH RI WKH
Other, the alien, or the foreign, when it comes to
referring to our own body. In psychoanalysis (Freud,
Lacan) and phenomenology (Merleau-ponty, Sartre,
/HGHU WKH JXUH RI WKH 2WKHU KDV EHHQ DGGUHVVHG
as a basic question that stems from the need for
perceiving ourselves from outside, to distance or
separate, become estranged from ourselves.
As a constituent of self-bodily perception and for
its relationship with the dialectic I have raised before,
the concept of estrangement is thus one of the central
notions of this proposal. In a close sense, Waldenfels
(2011) proposes a thorough analysis of the term
aliennes, from its etymological roots, accounting
for the complexity and multiple senses and references
of the term. It its German root, fremd refers to three
ideas: (1) that what remains out of the own; (2) the
80

foreign, the alien; (3) the strange or unfamiliar,

what refers to other category. In this last meaning,
referring to the subject of strangeness, the term
seems to trigger a sort of perplexity or astonishment
towards reality, a concept proposed by Fink (1995)
concerning the perceived reality, as part of the split
in the process of phenomenological reduction, or in
a close sense to the idea of ecstatic breakheart in
Zambrano (1996, p. 16) 2, considered as the origin of
philosophy and poetry.
The alien, in the dialectical character that it
VHHPV WR WULJJHU LV DOVR GHQHG DV RSSRVHG WR WKH
own, an idea also close to the complex notion of
unheimlich (uncanny) discussed by Freud (1919),
as the sensation produced by a displacement of the
perception from that what is familiar to us (Heimlich),
to the unfamiliar (Unheimlich), a split towards
that which we are supposed to be familiar with, that
suddenly emerges as unknown.
As it happens with the body, the anthropologist
faces a problem when it comes to analyze his or
KHURZQFXOWXUHWKDWKDVWREHREMHFWLHGWKURXJKD
method of estrangement or defamiliarization, This
method allows him or her to take perspective and
distance. As Buscarini refers, this parallelism of the
understanding of our own culture with the body is
also pointed out by Husserl. According to Husserls
notions on the familiar and the strange, Buscarini
(2008, p. 124-125) mentions 3: Sometimes we have
faced up to a mirror image with which we never
coincide. All those are types of self-estrangement.
:KDW FDQ EH H[HPSOLHG DFFRUGLQJ WR WKH SHUVRQDO
experience will also apply to cultural theories.
Regarding this consideration related to the notion of
estrangement as an anthropological method, I should
also highlight the notion, coming from philosophical
anthropology, of eccentric positionality of the
subject, proposed by Plessner (1975), as an essential
category that allows us to distance from ourselves.
The complexity of bodily dimension is also a
theme with special consideration for neurology and
cognitive sciences. There are certain references to
dysfunction (Leder 1990), pain (Le Breton 1995), or
psychiatric pathologies (Gonzlez 2012), as situations
that lead to thematize the limits of the body, or that
make the subject aware of them, in experiences that
include processes of estrangement from his or her
RZQ ERG\ 7KLV NLQG RI H[SHULHQFHV QGV RQH RI
its main paradigms in the phenomenon of phantom

ART AS A MIRROR OF CORPOREALITY.

POETICS OF CORPOREAL ESTRANGEMENT-INTEGRATION

limb. Mentioned by Merleau-Ponty (2005, p.94),

the experience of perceiving amputated limbs is
described as a paradigmatic experience of Being-inthe-world. The case of phantom limb seems to group
some of the considerations around the corporeal
estrangement-integration dialectic, corporeally
implying both a rupture or dismemberment, and a
psychoanalytic tendency to integration or fusion,
in terms of Waldenfels (2011). In the therapeutic
solution of the mirror box that the neurologist
Ramachandran (1999) proposes, he makes use of the
mirror as a catalyst of the dialectic of estrangement
of the subject from his own body, whose symmetric
UHHFWLRQDOORZVKLPWRREWDLQDJOREDOSHUFHSWLRQRI
his body.
4. RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESIS
Coming back to the artistic sphere, and considering
the issues pointed out above, my research question is:
How does the corporeal estrangement-integration
dialectic process appear in artworks in which artists
use their own bodies?
As I have mentioned, the fact that artists propose
their own bodies as starting points for their proposals,
seems to propound a dialogue between the artist and
the works, in a way that approximates the dialectic
of corporeal estrangement-integration. This dialogue
can be transferred to the relationship between the
artistic proposal and the spectators own body. In this
sense I raise the hypothesis that art can function as a
mirror in the process of self-perception, something
that implies the art to be considered a catalyst of
this corporeal estrangement-integration relationship
between the object (artwork) and the subject (artist
or spectator).

Fig. 1. Scheme that synthesizes the main concepts

involved in the hypothesis of the function of art as a
mirror with regard to self-perception
81

5. ART AS A MIRROR OF CORPOREALITY

In order to answer the questions I have posed about
the corporeal estrangement-integration dialectic,
I offer a tour through different artworks from the
decade of 50s to the present day. In all of them we
can observe the reference, presence, representation
RU UHHFWLRQ RQ WKH DUWLVWV RZQ ERG\ RU UDWKHU WKH
individual experience of self-perception. Thus, I
establish four paradigms to analyze the different
case-studies. These categories are not established
ZLWKWKHDLPRI[LQJFDWHJRULHVEXWUDWKHUDVDZD\
of classifying and organizing the different ideas
implied.
Paradigm 1: External-autoscopic
The psychiatric term autoscopy 4 refers to a
particular phenomenon of perception of the subjects
own body, according to which, a person suffers the
hallucination of perceiving himself, as if he were
observing himself in the mirror. In the case of
external autoscopy, it refers to an out-of the body
experience. Therefore, this paradigm refers to those
cases in which the artistic manifestation proposes
a way of estrangement triggered by the Double, the
alter ego. In this way, I consider that, in this case, the
UROH RI DUW LV WR GLVWDQFH DQG UHHFW WKH DUWLVWV RZQ
body. Precisely Freud (1919) poses the phenomenon
of the double as one of the experiences in which the
dimension of the Unheimlich as unfamiliar, referring
to ourselves, would emerge.
In this way I refer to artworks like the corporeal
fragments made from casts of his own body, by
Robert Gobert, developed between the end of the 80s
and the beginning of the 90s, as well as the series
called Awkward objects by Alina Szapocznikow
(1971). I also refer to the fragmented self-portrait
of the series Self-portrait by John Coplans (19842000), the photographic series Closed Contact, by
Jenny Saville (1995-1996), or the series Estranged
Self, from the series Domestic Exiles by Kinga
Araya (2004).

ART AS A MIRROR OF CORPOREALITY.

POETICS OF CORPOREAL ESTRANGEMENT-INTEGRATION

artist and researcher Braddock, under his conception

of the artist as a donor (2008), with which he
stresses the embodied dimension that these processes
of contact can manifest.
Artworks as Self by Marc Quinn (1991), a series
of self-portraits made from casts of his head, an
OOHG ZLWK KLV RZQ EORRG RU WKH H[SHULPHQWV ZLWK
WLVVXHVIURPWKHDUWLVWVRZQ'1$LQWKHVHULHV7KH
HSKHPHUDOHVKE\$OLFLD.LQJFDQDOVREH
considered under the perspective of this paradigm.

Fig. 2. Untitled, Robert Gobert, 1990

Paradigm 2: Indicial
In the second paradigm, I propose a specular
role of art addressed to register the body, creating a
SDUWLFXODUFRUSRUHDOUHHFWLRQEDVHGRQLQGH[LFDOLW\
which implies the adoption of technical processes
that allow a way of obtaining different registers of
the body, such as casts or traces. I refer to artistic
proposals such as Silhouette, by Ana Mendieta
 D VHULHV RI UHJLVWUDWLRQV RI WKH DUWLVWV ERG\
on the earth, obtaining a trace that allows us to
observe the contact process between the body and
the material. Huberman (2000) proposes the concept
excavation to refer to the process through which the
artist Giuseppe Penone puts his own body in touch
with different materials such as clay or mud (Breath
5, 1978), obtaining a particular inversion of the
corporeal shapes. Huberman also points out the term
anamnesis or memory of the material. In a similar
ZD\ZHFDQQGDFOHDUSUHFHGHQWLQWKHVHULHVHURWLF
objects, developed by Duchamp between the 50s
and the 60s, works obtained from the negative of
a corporeal cast. These and other proposals lately
developed by artist through processes similar to
casts (With my tongue in my cheek Duchamp,
1960; From hand to mouth by Bruce Nauman,
1967; Mirror for departure, by Marina Abramovic,
1994), manifest the sense of a process intimately
connected with the corporeal dimension, as sculptor
6]DSRFNQLNRZ DIUPV WKLV FRQWDFW EHWZHHQ D
matrix and the formless matter creates a replica that
cannot be determined abstract, ideal nor inventively,
but corporeally (Filipovic and Mytkowska 2001, p.
70-71).
The indexical question is also considered by the
82

Paradigm 3: Internal-autoscopic
With this paradigm I refer to the other autoscopic
variety: internal autoscopy, which is described as the
process of perception of our own inner body, in terms
of viscerality. The specular role of art is in this case
manifested by going inside the body and allowing
us to obtain a particular perception of the inner. In
a parallelism with anatomical drawings and models,
I refer to artistic manifestations that seem to dissect
and going through the tissues of the body.
In most of the artistic cases I propose for this
paradigm, the perception of the inner body is
carried out by means of the use of medical imaging
technologies, perception to what we wouldnt
otherwise have access. In this way, I refer to artistic
proposals which are the result of techniques such as
endoscopy, in the case of Corps tranger, by Mona
Hatoum (1996); and Stomach Sculpture by Stelarc
(1993), virtual simulation from real body data in the
project Dancing with the virtual Dervish, by Diane
Gromala and Yacov Sharir (1994-2003) ; images
obtained through X-Rays in Cogito ergo Sum I by
Susan Aldworth (2001); or magnetic resonance in
7$&V E\ xLJR %LOEDR  $UWLVWLF SURSRVDOV
that manifest this internal dimension called as
Ontological ambivalence of viscerality by Ortega
(2010).
Paradigm 4: Relational
With this last paradigm I want to refer to the
implications of those artistic manifestations that, in
UHODWLRQWRWKHERG\SURSRXQGDPRGLFDWLRQRIRXU
bodily perception, through the use of the art which, in
this case, functions as an element that interacts with
WKHERG\WRSURYRNHWKLVPRGLFDWLRQ7KHLQWHUDFWLYH
dimension to which I refer has to do with the inclusion
of systems or mechanisms that respond to the notion
of prosthesis.

ART AS A MIRROR OF CORPOREALITY.

POETICS OF CORPOREAL ESTRANGEMENT-INTEGRATION

In this way, this paradigm is based on the idea of

technology as a change and dialogue system with the
body through the use of prosthetic elements. This notion
is based on the fundamental perspective proposed
by McLuhan (1994) of technology as an extension
RI WKH VHQVHV 7KLV PRGLFDWLRQ RI WKH FRUSRUHDO
perception is related with a process of incorporation
and absorption of the prosthetic element. In this way,
the dialectic of corporeal estrangement-integration is
transferred to the change in the perception of our own
body. A phenomenon referred by many authors as
phenomenological osmosis (Leder 1990); the limits
between the prosthesis and the body (Sartre 1992); or
the paradigmatic case of the relationship between the
blind man and his stick (Merleau-Ponty 2005 p. 176).
In this sense I establish connections with artistic
proposals that adopt the prosthesis, such as in
Unicorn (1970) and Fingergloves (1973) by
Rebecca Horn; or the series of so-called Relational
objects, by Lygia Clark between the decades of 70s
and 80s, through which she provokes some changes
in perception in order to trigger what the artist
calls nostalgia of the body. Other examples to be
considered should be the radical proposals based
on the concepts of prosthesis (Third Hand), and
implant (Ear on Arm, 2007) by the artist Stelarc.
)LQDOO\ , ZRXOG OLNH WR EULH\ KLJKOLJKW WKH
proposals of the experimental design group Revital
Cohen, especially the project Phantom Limb
Recorder (2010) 6, a complex simulation device
to control pain experiences triggered by phantom
limbs in amputated pationes; or the intersubjective
LPSOLFDWLRQV RI WKH SURSRVDOV 6<65H5
3L*(417 by Mathieu Briand (2009); a series
of devices based on cameras to interchange recorded
points of view among the users; or the project The
Machine to be Another (2014), by BeAnotherLab 8,
also based on the use of virtual reality and recording
so as to literally interchange points of view, allowing
us to have experiences such as gender swap or
dancing for paralyzed people. All things considered,
those last artistic manifestations seem to enable us
to empathize with experiences between the Self and
the Other.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Through this proposal I have attempted an inquiry
into the relationships that art, from a concern rooted
in phenomenology, poses with other disciplines, in
83

the issue of self-bodily perception. In this sense I

consider that art manifests a role of catalyst of what
I have called the corporeal estrangement-integration
dialectic, acting as a mirror through the artworks, that
allow different ways of estrangement of the artist with
respect to his or her own body. This role, that I have
tried to explain through the four posed paradigms,
is developed by means of processes that have been
compared with the psychiatric case of autoscopy, both
in the externally (External-autoscopic paradigm),
and internally (Internal-autoscopic paradigm). This
role of art is also manifested through processes that
HQDEOHWKHFRQJXUDWLRQRIFRUSRUDOUHHFWLRQVLQDQ
indicial way (Indicial paradigm), as well as through
the use of prosthetic elements that trigger changes in
the perception of our own body, as well as interaction
effects of intersubjective character (Relational
paradigm).
I have also proposed the relationship of the term
estrangement as a present element in these artistic
cases, in their capacity to thematize the body and
make us conscious of the limits and implications
in the problem of self-bodily perception. A type of
UHHFWLRQ RQ FRUSRUHDOLW\ WKDW WKHVH SURSRVDOV PD\
trigger, the rupture in the everyday experience in the
relationship with our own body.
WORKS CITED
Blanke Olaf, et al. Out-of-body experience and
autoscopy of neurological origin. Brain. A
journal of neurology, vol. 127, 2003: 243-258.
Oxford journals.
Braddock, Christopher G. The artist will be present.
Performing partial objects and subjects,
Auckland University of Technology: 2008.
Publisehd PhD thesis. Web. 20 June 2013
%XVFDULQL /DV VLJQLFDFLRQHV HQ HO PXQGR
IDPLOLDU\HQHOH[WUDxRAndamios. Revista de
Investigacin social, vol. 4, n. 8. 2008 : 113-133.
Directory of Open Access Journals.
Clark, Lygia. Lygia Clark. Fundacin Antoni Tpies.
Barcelona: 1998. Exhibition catalogue. Print.
Didi-Huberman, Georges. WUHFUkQH/LHXFRQWDFW
pense, sculpture. Minuit: Paris, 2000. Print.
Filipovic, Elena, and Mytkowska, Joana. Alina
Szapocznikow : sculpture undone, 1955-1972.
Museum of Modern Art: New York, 2011. Print.
Fink, Eugen. Grundphnomene des menschlichen
Daseins. Karl Albert: Freiburg, 1995. Print.

ART AS A MIRROR OF CORPOREALITY.

POETICS OF CORPOREAL ESTRANGEMENT-INTEGRATION

NOTES
1 Translation by the author
2 Translation by the author
3 Translation by the author
4 For further information on the term, see Blanke
Olaf et al. 2003
5 For further information on this project, see the
web: http://www.sfu.ca/~dgromala/VR/
6 For further information on the project, see the web:
http://www.cohenvanbalen.com/
7 For further information on the project, see Jones
Caroline A. 2006
8 For further information on the project, see the web:
http://www.themachinetobeanother.org/

Foucault, Michel. Les htrotopies, le corps utopique.

1966. Lignes: Fcamp, 2009. Print
Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. The Standard
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Gonzlez, Jos. Vivir lo extrao. Universidad Rovira
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Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations. 1931.Trans.
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Jones, Caroline A., et al. Embodied experience,
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Marcel.
Phenomenology
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CSIC: Madrid, 2010. Print.
Plessner, Helmuth. Die Stufen des Organischen und
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Rbade, Sergio. El conocer humano 1. Obras I.
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Ramachandran, Vilayanur S. and Blakeslee, Sandra.
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