Feel Tank Chicago

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Feel Tank Chicago is a queer feminist group of theorists, artists and activists that has been organizing performances and exhibitions since 2002.

Members

Founding members of the group include Laurent Berlant , a literary scholar at the University of Chicago ; Vanalyne Green, Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Leeds ; Debbie Gould, sociologist for political feelings at Santa Cruz University of California ; Mary Patten , writer and video artist at the Art Institute of Chicago ; and Rebecca Zorach, art historian at the University of Chicago.

history

Feel Tank Chicago emerged from the Feminism Unfinished project initiated by the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Arizona. a. was sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin. The group structure of the Feel Tank is intended as a transferable open source format, over time it grew via Chicago to other cities such as B. Austin out. There, too, artists and activists organized various campaigns under the name Feel Tank . In the Feel Tanks , the participants tried to deal with the question of the relationship between politics, emotionality and affectivity using different strategies and in different formats. Her main concern was to explore the intensities of "political feelings". They were particularly interested in the political potential of “bad feelings” such as hopelessness, apathy, fear, fear, drowsiness, despair and ambiguity.

The different groups saw themselves as adjoining, decentralized reference groups with disparate approaches. The Feel tanks should affective counterpart to the so-called think tanks be, the American US since the late 20th century in its role as pool of ideas for policy have become a symbol of moral clarity and hyper rationality. Her interest in the politicity of collective states of mind and the resistive potential of "bad feelings" also reflects the populist instrumentalization of emotions and affects on the part of politicians. Contrary to the supposed contradiction between thinking and feeling, those involved tried in their Feel Tanks to engage in dissenting practices of gathering opinions, fears but also hopes for a better coexistence and the (re) formulation of utopian visions of the future.

Projects

Depressed-ins

Assuming that public areas are affective worlds and do not fit seamlessly into the rationalistic-moralistic canon of values ​​co-shaped by institutions and governments, Feel Tank began to organize so-called depressed-ins . An Annual International Parade of the Politically Depressed took place in 2003, 2004 and 2007 . At the demonstration-like gatherings, the participants were invited to appear in their bathrobes, dark circles under the eyes and antidepressants in their luggage. In these parades, the group was not concerned with the mere display of political disaffection. B. poor voter turnout should not be understood as turning away from the citizens. Rather, Feel Tank wanted to emphasize political apathy and renunciation as a form of attachment and reference to critical perspectives in the supposedly politically depressed America of the Bush era.

reception

Hua Hsu wrote in an article about Laurent Berlant from the Feel Tanks as a way of making theatrical aspects visible in political life. He also noted that the affective practices of the feel tank can gain importance in the light of new affect politics. Grit Schorch emphasized, "[t] he high degree of theoretical follow-up potential that the current research projects on 'public feeling', 'political feeling', etc. around Laurent Berlant at the University of Chicago offer here".

Exhibitions

  • Pathogeographies , Gallery 400 Chicago 2007.
  • The Alphabet of Feeling Bad & An Unhappy Archive , Badischer Kunstverein 2014.

literature

  • Lauren Berlant: "CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Feel Tank." Sexualities in Education: A Reader. Counterpoints. Volume 367, 2012, pp. 340-343.
  • Lauren Berlant: Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press, Durham and London 2011.
  • Anne Cvetkovich: Depression: a public feeling . Duke University Press, 2012.
  • Carrie Golus: "Barthrobe Warriors" in Chicago Reader, 2003: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/bathrobe-warriors/Content?oid=912006

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Feel Tank Chicago - EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki. Retrieved September 17, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Carrie Golus: Bathrobe Warriors. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Cvetkovich, Ann, 1957-: Depression: a public feeling . Duke University Press, Durham, NC 2012, ISBN 978-0-8223-5223-5 .
  4. ↑ Who We Are. February 5, 2012, accessed September 17, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b Tobias Bärtsch: Ecologies of Care . Vienna, ISBN 978-3-903046-13-9 .
  6. ^ Mary Patten: Parades of the Politically Depressed. March 26, 2012, accessed September 17, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Manifests - Feel Tank Chicago. Retrieved September 17, 2019 (American English).
  8. ↑ Hua Hsu: Affect Theory and the New Age of Anxiety. In: The New Yorker. March 18, 2019, accessed September 18, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Grit Schorch: Moses Mendelssohn's language policy . de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-027562-9 , p. 138-139 .
  10. ↑ pathogeographies. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .
  11. ^ Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe: Badischer Kunstverein program. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .