workings of a range of phenomena, including ideology, governance, self-cultivation,
and even resistance but often in highly speculative ways that posit a kind of
performative energetics but without usually specifying what the source or content
or form of that energy might consist of. But there is no need for this (often
convenient) opacity, as I hope to show in this section through a more detailed
examination of the grip of affect.
Let me begin by summarizing what we have gleaned about affect so far. To
begin with, that means understanding affect as in large part a biological phenom-
enon, involving embodiment^21 in its many incarnations, but a phenomenon that
is not easily captured via specular-theatrical theories of representation (Brennan
2004 ). It brings together a mix of a hormonal flux, body language, shared rhythms,
and other forms of entrainment (Parkes and Thrift 1980) to produce an encounter
between the body (understood in a broad sense) and the particular event. Then,
affect is generally semiconscious, something not that far from William Harvey’s
‘certain sense or form of touch’, sensation that is registered but not necessarily
considered in that thin band of consciousness we now call cognition (Blakemore
2005).^22 Further on again, affect is understood as a set of flows moving through
the bodies of human and other beings, not least because bodies are not primarily
centred repositories of knowledge – originators – but rather receivers and trans-
mitters, ceaselessly moving messages of various kinds on; the human being
is primarily ‘a receiver and interpreter of feelings, affects, attentive energy’ (Brennan
2004 : 8 7 ).
In turn, this depiction points to one more important aspect of affect, namely
space, understood as a series of conditioning environments that both prime and
‘cook’ affect. Such environments depend upon pre-discursive ways of proceeding
which both produce and allow changes in bodily state to occur (Thrift 2006b).
Changes in bodily state require understanding that essentially autonomic hormonal
and muscular reactions are continually transferring between people (and things)
in ways that are often difficult to track. At the same time, they challenge the idea
that the body is a fixed component of humanity. It might be more accurate to
liken humans to schools of fish briefly stabilized by particular spaces, temporary
solidifications which pulse with particular affects, most especially as devices like
books, screens and the internet act as new kinds of neural pathway, transmitting
faces and stances as well as discourse,^23 and providing myriad opportunities to
forge new reflexes. Thus, concentrating on affect requires a cartographic imagi-
nation in order to map out the movement between corporeal states of being which
is simultaneously a change in connectivity. Only a very limited range of spatial
models currently exist which can understand flows of imitation/suggestion, mainly
familiar cartographic motifs from diffusion studies, certain very general metaphors
that have arisen from the recent emphasis in social theory on mobility, a range of
models of the staging of space that can be found in performance studies (which
are usually excellent at showing how affect is conducted in intimate situations but
often tail off when it comes to mediated contexts), a set of artistic experiments
with sites of affective imitation that have often used the possibilities of modern
electronic media, and various kinds of conversation maps (Abrams and Hall 2006).
236 Part III