Affect As Artifact: The (dis/re)Embodiment of Trauma

Natalie M. Leonard

I was a student representative during the design process of Georgia Tech’s student union. The position, as I was told, meant interviewing population segments of the student body, administering self-report assessments, and presenting our findings. During this process, I met Scout Schultz, the president of our campus’s Pride Alliance. Scout and I were planning on meeting towards the end of the month, brainstorming ideas for LGBTQ+ inclusive spaces.

Scout, the evening of September 16, 2017, was shot by a campus police officer. We never had the chance to talk.

Amidst rioting, amidst trauma, architecture demands the vocalization of our struggles and insecurities, dreams and desires, all through the complex language of design. Yet, as written by Judith Herman, “far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative, but as a symptom.” These symptoms may be just as telling as speaking, enabling the sharing of trauma through our body’s physiology, beyond spoken word.

Multimodally, this work is investigating representations of trauma which cannot and do not emerge from conversation, yet drastically influence the quality of testimony or self-report. Through embodying psychophysiology data and considering representations of the site of trauma, conclusions can be drawn about the remaining triggers a site might produce – understanding affect as an artifact continuously and non-linearly shaping our perception.

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