Thinking with an Agentic Assemblage in Posthuman Inquiry

Abstract

During the autumn of 2014, a 50-pound standard-issue dormitory mattress made its way across various spaces on the campus of Columbia University in New York. At times, the dark blue foam mattress was carried by one woman, Emma Sulkowicz — a senior visual arts major at Columbia. At other times, Sulkowicz was joined by others on campus (friends and strangers) in a collective carry to share the burden of movement. These solitary and participatory carries were not merely acts of taking one ordinary object from one place to another. Rather, the thing — the mattress — is the focal point of a performance piece, Carry That Weight: the senior art thesis conceived by Sulkowicz as a protest against Columbia University’s mishandling of her complaint of sexual assault. Sulkowicz has asserted that, two years earlier on the first day of her sophomore year, she had been anally raped in her dorm room by a fellow student with whom she had previously had consensual sex. A university hearing found the accused ‘not responsible’, a decision that she appealed, yet was upheld.