Oct 14, 2014_Embodied (differences)_Reading Response

The readings for this week once again push the parameters that grounded my educational standpoint. And changing this standpoint allowed me to different sides of disability studies and how it disrupts the process of coding, marking, and normalizing by extending the limits of “thinkability.”

South Korean artist Lee Bul’s recent work deals with notions of self-reflection. In relation to her work, she states: "I sometimes have these thoughts nowadays that what we think or believe is ourselves, is actually a reflection of ourselves that we accept without hesitation. I wonder how we saw ourselves before we had mirrors in front of us." 

We should also think about embodied differences outside the framework of institutional archiving and catalog subjects, but should bring myriad pieces of mirrors to project and reflect diverse spaces within disability studies. The readings provoke me to look beyond the physical surface of the body and regard body as a site that “reject[s] the dominant binary division of the world into able-bodied and disabled or normal and abnormal.” Here, the objective singular medical gaze transforms into a subjectively experienced multiple perspectives. This aligns with how Erevelle points out that “knowledge of bodies is a social and not just a clinical event where all bodies are in a state of renewal and adjustment in changing physical and environmental contexts making bodies intensely aware, not just of their being but also of their mutual becomings in the world.” Like the fragmented mirrors in Lee Bul's work reflect different aspects of self, the focus of examining difference should focus on “exploring the subjectivities of lived experience replete with unanticipated meanings.”