Abstract

This dissertation analyzes a series of live, time-based artistic events that subvert the logic of using biosensors as instruments of emotion recognition4associated with the field of affective computing4by repurposing them to structure affective atmospheres. The project focuses on how biosensing technologies, when removed from their intended function, can contribute to making the intensity of migration and exile felt by considering their capacity to mediate encounters between audiences, bodies, and media forms. To this end, Resonant Atmospheres
relies on the ways that biosensor data can be transformed into sound and visuals that reveal and conceal the context of exiled migration. Alongside the atmospheric conditions of each space, these elements create possibilities for incommunication4non-narrative style ways of exchange in which meaning is not clearly transmitted or resolved but feeling the affective charge is foregrounded. The first experiment, Breathless, foregrounds me as the performer and audience as onlookers who experience the intensity of the sound affected by my biosensor readings along with snippets of videos relevant to my experience of migration, revealing limitations in its ability to generate relational engagement. In response, Curves & Reverbs I-III introduces participation, testing how contributing to the construction of the atmosphere can shape a distributed affective experience across bodies. By analyzing these experiments and their unfolding, this dissertation contributes to a novel understanding of how the conglomeration of the technical, the artistic, and the socio-political can create situated scenarios beyond the limitations of each approach.