Affective Resonance & segmentation of the decentered-self?

Although feeling and affect are routinely used interchangeably, it is important not to confuse affect with feelings and emotions. As Brian Massumi’s definition of affect in his introduction to Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus makes clear, affect is not a personal feeling. Feelings are personal and biographical, emotions are social, and affects areprepersonal. In the remainder of this essay, I will attempt to unpack the previous sentence and provide some examples that will illustrate why the distinction I’ve made between feelings, emotions, and affects is more than pedantry.


This has to do with the second term in Massumi’s definitions of affect/affection.L’affection is the process whereby affect is transmitted between bodies. “The transmission of affect means that we are not self-contained in terms of our energies. There is no secure distinction between the ‘individual’ and the ‘environment’” (Brennan 6). Because affect is unformed and unstructured (unlike feelings and emotions) it can be transmitted between bodies. The importance of affect rests upon the fact that in many cases the message consciously received may be of less import to the receiver of that message than his or her non-conscious affective resonance with the source of the message.

Let me clarify that the transmission of affect does not mean that one person’s feelings become another’s. The transmission of affect is about the way that bodies affect one another. When your body infolds a context and another body (real or virtual) is expressing intensity in that context, one intensity is infolded into another. By resonating with the intensity of the contexts it infolds, the body attempts to ensure that it is prepared to respond appropriately to a given circumstance. Given the ubiquity of affect, it is important to take note that the power of many forms of media lies not so much in their ideological effects, but in their ability to create affective resonances independent of content or meaning.

http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php






Are there are different types of resonance?, natural resonance of water based life forms  and the resonance of solid state technology (mobile phones etc)... are some healthier (more inclusive) than others...?


Is it a possibility some of  the designed systems are or soon will be designed / evolve incidentally to enhance (via simplistic symbolic framing (Headly and Clark),  segmentation and reduction (Ahlander & Lahache, Bernays)) distance  mistrust, fear and conflict between common humanity by the automated  manipulation of online profiles etc, as these systems are mostly built with nothing but profit in mind. And  mistrust, fear and conflict happen to be profitable for certain powerful interest groups: security, arms, lawyers etc....

Does hope lies in the shared celebration (Delanda) that is not dependent on exclusive forms of consumption (reification) or ritual, and ensuring space for this...?

Ahlander & Lahache Complexities of lifestyle brand segmentation(2006 Masters Thesis)
Bernays, E. Engineering of consent (1955, contributor) (1928, Propaganda)
Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca: Cornell U. P., 2004.

Headly and Clark Debating anti war protests 2005

Massumi, Brian. “Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements.” In Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987
Parables for the Virtual. Durham: Duke UP, 2002.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html