Ensayo sobre la ceguera: arte y violencia bajo una mirada transdisciplinaria

Abstract

This article offers a transdisciplinary understanding of the ways in which art intervenes in the face of state violence, trauma, and memory, focusing on the Chilean context following the social uprising of October 2019. Drawing from diverse expressions that emerged in urban spaces, the study explores ocular trauma as a symbol of a repression policy aimed at silencing dissent. In this context, “blindness” refers not only to physical injury but also to an institutional imposition of trauma through enforced oblivion and the neutralization of collective sensibility. The concept of “violent white noise” is introduced as a means to understand how power operates through layers of sonic and visual invisibilization. The article is organized into four sections: First, ocular trauma is discussed as a form of state violence; second, sound and silence are examined as political territories; third, autoethnographic experiences that traverse image and sound are explored; and finally, the therapeutic, affective, and territorial potential of art is considered from a critical and transdisciplinary perspective. It is argued that such artistic practices not only reemerge and reconfigure themselves in times of crisis but also testify to lived experiences and contribute to recomposing fractured social and communal fabrics.