In-Situ Aesthetics as Local Politics: Gilbert Simondon and the 21N Protest Movement

Abstract

One of the most common criteria to analyze protests is the relation between the body and public space. We can find this type of analysis in the brilliant work of Judith Butler (2015), who argues that protests are the place for precarious bodies to be seen and to show the poor conditions that diminish their existence. This exposure of bodies that otherwise would be constrained or invisibilized is a production of images vital to understanding protests. Images are often used to make a situation visible or to reverse an image that is socially accepted. In both cases, the constant exposure to new images creates a different mindset, a different view of the situation and, thus, new ways of acting.