In Breathing Aesthetics Jean-Thomas Tremblay argues that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing contamination, weaponization, and monetization of air. Tremblay shows how biopolitical and necropolitical forces tied to the continuation of extractive capitalism, imperialism, and structural racism are embodied and experienced through respiration. They identify responses to the crisis in breathing in aesthetic practices ranging from the film work of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta to the disability diaries of Bob Flanagan, to the Black queer speculative fiction of Renee Gladman. In readings of these and other minoritarian works of experimental film, endurance performance, ecopoetics, and cinema-vérité, Tremblay contends that articulations of survival now depend on the management and dispersal of respiratory hazards. In so doing, they reveal how an aesthetic attention to breathing generates historically, culturally, and environmentally situated tactics and strategies for living under precarity.
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Ao examinar a respiração como índice de risco, Tremblay mostra como a contaminação, a militarização e a monetização do ar expõem desigualdades ligadas ao capitalismo extrativo, ao imperialismo e ao racismo estrutural. Tremblay recorre a práticas estéticas específicas — do cinema experimental e do cinema-vérité às performances de resistência e à ecopoética — para mapear respostas à crise respiratória. A análise destaca obras de Ana Mendieta, Bob Flanagan e Renee Gladman. Leituras de filmes experimentais, diários de deficiência e ficções especulativas negras apontam táticas históricas e culturais para gerir perigos respiratórios e modos de sobrevivência em situações de precariedade.
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