The desire to be affected

In this article, the author connects affects with Lygia Clark's resonant body, with a story about Suely Rolnik and with the performing art piece Fissure no. 3: txoriak by Basque artist Idoia Zabaleta. In these three vignettes, the three authors and creators activate affects in a double movement: centripetal and centrifugal. To affect somebody, we first affect ourselves. And by doing so we change and alter others, according to Brian Massumi's theory of affects as something transindividual that goes beyond us. In this twofold movement, we can also make the familiar strange and the strange familiar, a condition that Kaja Silverman believes to be essential in creative work that considers itself political in today's context.