THE STUDY OF EMOTIONS

"We would think of ourselves continuous with the world if we did not have moods.

It is state-of-mind that discloses to us

(Heidegger claims) that we are beings that have been thrown into something else"

Anne Carson

Emotions constitute a significant part of our everyday experience. Seemingly undetachable from us, they engulf every moment of our existence. Yet, they are affective experiences, meaning they affect us rather than being produced by us. They present themselves rather as a force, or a medium that irreversibly alters our perception and our communication with the Other. In his Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger writes that emotions, or moods, “are not something merely at hand. They themselves are precisely a fundamental manner and fundamental way of Being, indeed of being-there, and this always directly includes being with one another”. Heidegger draws a comparison of emotions to atmospheres, an invisible medium we find ourselves in. Continuing this metaphoric sequence, we can also compare them to the atoms hitting molecules and simple organisms causing their chaotic braunian motion. The Buddhist practices that separate our emotions from our selves further prove the idea that subjectivity and fundamentality of our emotions is a mere illusion.

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Omar Torres’ study of emotions and it is hard to claim another name for it but study, presents the audience with an opportunity to contemplate emotions as this separable, distinct part of the world rather than of our selves. As a framework for his investigation, Torres chooses Plutchik’s wheel of emotions which allows him to achieve poignant representations of our emotional states. Continuing his creative path in lieu of object photography, with this project, Torres seems to move further into abstraction, yet never fully entering this realm.

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Including precision instruments in the pictorial space of his photographs, Torres assigns objecthood to the affective experiences. The suspended, or sometimes levitating state of polymers of different densities representing basic emotions makes them appear separated not only from whoever is experiencing them but also from any context, or possible triggers that caused them. Represented emotions exist only in the context of the study that Torres conducts, affecting their positions, folds, and creases, and thus reversing the roles, from being affected to being the one who affects.

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Torres’ Emotions, playful with illusions of materiality in pictorial space so frequently appearing in other works of the artist, create a safe distance for us to join his artistic investigation. Perhaps this separation, akin to scientific studies or meditation, is necessary if not to remove this Heideggerian filter from our perception, then to at least become more aware of it.

Anton Meshkov