Atmosferas midiatizadas e corpos gordos no Movimento Corpo Livre: dinâmicas organizacionais modernas no/do contemporâneo

Abstract

The thesis seeks to investigate how fat bodies, appearing within mediatized atmospheres, reveal modern organizational dynamics within the contemporary landscape. More specifically, by proposing an understanding of mediatized atmospheres as communicative phenomena emerging from the intensification of the human-machine relationship, the thesis examines fat bodies in the context of the Corpo Livre Movement – a 2018 initiative aimed at fostering acceptance and proposing new horizons for fat people, primarily within mediatized contexts. In developing a methodological approach to understand the appearance of such bodies within these emerging mediatized atmospheres—and in relation to the Corpo Livre Movement – the thesis draws upon an "indicial" perspective, combining contributions from Braga (2008) with Gumbrecht’s (2010b) concepts regarding the materialities of communication, to construct a methodology rooted in the concept of atmosphere. The first section, comprising the initial three chapters, utilizes theoretical contributions from Koselleck (2006), Kittler (2013), Braga (2017; 2020), Gumbrecht (2010a; 2014; 2015), Benjamin (1987a; 1987b; 2000), Arendt (2007), Taylor (2011), Rancière (2010), Agamben (2009), Mafra (2022), and Pelbart (2008) to propose an understanding of mediatized atmospheres based on three key axes: a) they result from interactional apparatuses and are triggered by the tension between the "space of experience" and the "horizon of expectation"; b) in contemporary times, they are produced through a series of intensifications in "human-machine relations"; and c) when intersected by the public appearance of differences, they tend to be subjected to attempts at capture by modern organizational dynamics. The second section comprises the three remaining chapters, which focus on the thesis's methodological and analytical procedures, namely: i) the fourth chapter develops an approach for grasping mediatized atmospheres; ii) the fifth chapter investigates the contexts in which mediatized atmospheres emerge and circulate, taking the Corpo Livre Movement as its starting point, and reveals that the phenomenon is permeated at its very inception by a “will to organize” (Baldissera, 2022); and iii) the sixth chapter examines the forces exerted upon these atmospheres – particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic – and concludes by identifying a landscape of ruins and the fraying of possibilities for the public existence of these bodies in contemporary times.