%0 Conference Paper
%A Bertelli, Linda
%B Fourteenth International Domitor Conference "Viscera, Skin, and Physical Form:  Corporeality and Early Cinema"
%C Stockholm, Sweden
%F eprints:3803
%T Towards an Economy of the Body. Fourteenth International Domitor Conference "Viscera, Skin, and Physical Form:   Corporeality and Early Cinema", Stockholm, Sweden 14-17 June 2016.
%U http://eprints.imtlucca.it/3803/
%X This paper focuses on two main cases: Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904) and the Gilbreths (Frank B. Gilbreth, 1868-1924 and Lillian M. Gilbreth, 1878-1972), and their respective studies of movement.   More specifically, it investigates Marey’s experiments with fix plate chronophotography (1883-1886) focused on human locomotion, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth’s work on the cyclograph (as expounded in "Fatigue Study" and "Applied Motion Study").  Firstly, the paper analyzes the three different procedural protocols of these experiments in order to identify their similarities and differences and to understand what, if any, experimental model they give rise to. It scrutinizes in particular: a) the position of the scientist’s body in the experimental field and its role in theory (the training of the observer’s/scientist’s body); b) the preparation of the body of the subjects to be analyzed (before the experiments) and the way these bodies were posed in the experimental field (during the experiments); c) the status of the camera’s mechanical body.  Secondly and finally, the paper aims to show how all these regulatory norms serve and enable a certain economy of the body in two interconnected senses: a) economy as a form of reduction. The paper analyzes different ways the body inside the experimental field is isolated/deleted depending on whether it is the scientist’s body, the subject’s body under analysis or the body of the camera; b) economy as a system of efficiency. Beginning from M. Mauss’s notion of “techniques du corps” as a general theoretical framework as well as specific examples of disciplining effects on individuals, this paper seeks to outline the historical role played by the abovementioned studies of the body in developing efficiency (and its relationship with work) as an object of knowledge.