This paper aims to analyze how collectively processed traumas such as structural racism, poor socioeconomic conditions, and cultural marginalization are expressed in the performing arts of these same communities through the use of materialities that are culturally, politically, or socially relevant to the play-makers to construct expanded bodies.
First, activities that use plastic materiality as an expanded body to express themselves are investigated. An expanded body is defined as one that is superimposed on the participant, composed of different materials and objects, natural or artificial. Thus a personal exoskeleton is created, an extra-body that becomes its own through action. These activities include performances, happenings, cultural and artistic traditions, and can be considered traditional native practices, cultural events, or artistic processes in the performing and visual arts.
Next, the aesthetics, materiality, and action in each of these activities are analyzed, relating them to the historical and sociological context in which these practices began to be performed. Both the materials used and the movements of the performer and the overall image compose a visual message to be communicated to the spectators. The image itself creates a story, which is developed by the performativity of the performer. The origins and signs of these materials, actions, and aesthetics are analyzed, to then delve deeper into the sociological scope of these practices. What story is being told? What were the historical events that marked that community? What scars does the society of that play-maker carry? What remains alive after these events? From these questions, the performances are closely related to possible social traumas intrinsic to that society, and I observe how such performative processes can present themselves as a form of resistance.
Finally, I apply this same reasoning to imagine utopias of these scenarios in the virtual realm, and how digital colonialism can affect these practices.
Keywords: social trauma, performance art, ritual, digital colonialism.
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