Body Object
Teresa L Wang
Advisor: Sharon De La Cruz
Body Object explores the dual meanings of the word subject: to come into being as a subject and to be subjected to.
Abstract
My thesis research investigates human-adjacent and non-human materials to flesh out my fascination with the corporeal. My guiding question is a selfish one: How are our bodies coerced without our knowledge? My neck tenses when I receive an unpleasant email. I run and rush, rather than enjoy my stroll, when late for another arbitrary start to the work day, saving perhaps a minute or two. In what ways are we affected by external processes and systems? When do we see ourselves in non-human forms?
Taking these moments of disconnect from our bodies, I wonder how we might recognize ourselves outside of ourselves. How might objects, such as relics imbued with power or amulets worn for luck, have agency? How do we find, and/or impose, the distributed person in objects and materials, beyond the body-boundary? Activated by these questions, I began the process of trying to invert the traditional subject-object relationship through kinetic sculpture.

Technical Details
air pumps, silicone, physical computing, 3d printing

Research/Context
Mariona Berenguer’s sculpture About Desire and Mire Lee’s exhibit Black Sun guided my form, specifically their use of human body-adjacent materials and motors. Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency informed my conceptual grounding of the project. His notion of exuviae elaborates that personhood isn’t just solely ours but rather is distributed and extends outwards into the world through a variety of artifacts and technologies. Arnold H. Modell’s article “The Body in Psychoanalysis and the Origin of Fantasy'' illuminated that my interest was not purely centered on the body but also the psychic life of objects. This subtle shift untangled confusions I had regarding my fixation with using a more visceral form in my sculpture: physicality and the body provide the strong metaphorical understanding that our physical life draws upon for meaning-making. Showing the body provides easier access into a more abstract psychic life.