Dear Jamie, I agree completely. Claiming the relational is key in our culture of separations. Thank you for putting this so well and simply. One reason I continue to practice and teach yoga is that is means unification. As you probably know, yoga, means unity: unity with all that is. I call the somatics techniques I teach at Eastwest: Shin Somatics. Shin is Japanese (of course, I'm biased) for the relational oneness of Body/Mind/Spirit/Core/Tree Trunk and more.
My butoh teacher and friend Yoshito Ohno, son of Kazuo and his dance partner, calls Shin - a slow growing orchid - and "the patience of not starting." I decided on Shin to represent my work after learning about Shin from Yoshito. I also asked him to marry me, and he said he would. He is one year older than I, just right. Shin brings attention to what is already one. So in a sense I am already married to Yoshito. Best, Sondra On Oct 25, 2011, at 8:29 PM, Jaime del Val wrote: > dear Sondra, thanks so much for your reply, > > your might be interested in this: www.metahumanism.eu, the metahumanist > Manifesto, a brief text where myself and colleague philosopher Stefan Sorgner > summarize some of these issues. > > I am certainly interested in Butoh, though unfortunately I haven't deepened > into it's practice yet and my knowledge of it is very superficial, I hope > though to get to know this relational practice/methuman technology better > soon. > > I believe there are several significant metaformitve/metahumanist practicies > going on out there... I think that claiming the relational is a key issue in > our cartesian culture of separations, exteriorities and distances, a major > political issue... > > warmest regards > Jaime > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Sondra Fraleigh > To: soft_skinned_space > Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 5:25 PM > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] METAFORMANCE - Redefining Relationality > ---continuation - POST 3 > > Dear Jamie and all, > Jamie, you speak of inbetween-ness. The Japanese have a word for it "Ma," > the space between. It is alive. It is also a Zen word, and many of its > aspects are ineffable. Ma is a guiding aesthetic in butoh, but you probably > know this. Endo Tadashi has a wonderful dance called simply MA. (To be a > little phenomenological) When I dance, I feel the interspaces and the > inter-timings between myself and others, myself and my environment. Finally I > just dissolve into the dance of it all. This relationality is the reason I > dance. > > I especially like the following from you: > > The metabody is the relational body, one that is not located here or there, > but is constantly moving in the relationality of forces and affects. Reality > is thus an unquantifiable field of metabodies in changing and constitutive > relation with one another. > > This is what I see, feel, when I watch a dance or listen to music - > electronic or traditional. My body is there in all senses, connected with > what I'm sensing. > > Now my buzzer is ringing, and I have to go teach yoga to 80 seniors. I love > teaching them. They are so receptive and able. All in all, its a metaformance > when we work and play together. "Higher than actuality is possibility" > Heidegger so aptly catapults us toward our possible-selves. > > Thank you for this informative, provoking post. I'm saving it. > > Sondra > On Oct 25, 2011, at 4:29 AM, Jaime del Val wrote: > >> >> METAFORMANCE - Redefining Relationality >> Genealogies of perception: from proprioception to otherception >> [continuation - POST 3] >> >> >> Anatomy and control >> Cartographies of the body have, within the best of humanistic traditions, >> fulfilled a number of reductionisms in our embodied experience. >> It is stryking for instance that such broadly overwhleming and oppressive >> frameworks as sexual identities are derived from the reductionism and >> measurement of genital anatomies in the new born, which leads to the >> assignation of a binary sex or an intersexual status, whereby genitalia are >> classified according to their functionality within normative reproductive >> heterosexuality. >> This gives us just a faint idea how strongy human(istic) anatomy is shaping >> the social body, as theories on the Body Politic suggest. >> In order to map the body one must have an exterior perspective to it. What >> happens if we abolish that condition? What happens if in our experience the >> body becomes amorphous, and yet is still moving, alive and present? >> Presence vs. identity >> Presence is not to be confounded with identity, much as though in >> information society it is. We may produce accounts of presence that do not >> rely on identity whatsoever. Indeed in our daily experience we go through >> many moments in which we don't operate through identity, we don't assume an >> exterior position. When we sit in front of the sea, or of a sunset, or >> wonder in the woods we don't identify, we get lost in the endless and >> amorphous movement of waves and clouds and leaves. (Unless we are an >> expeditionary scientist from some of our imperialistc journeys of discovery >> and conquest). >> The relational body in metahumanism - metabodies >> Metahumanism proposes an approach to embodied experiences in terms of their >> relationality, their inbetweenness, to understand reality and ouserlves, not >> as two independent entities, but as mutually contitutive and transformative >> relational processes, thus emphasising the meaning of "in betweenness" that >> the prefix Meta also had in ancient greek. In proposing the Metahumanist >> Manifesto, both Stefan Sorgner and I felt that this prefix was more to the >> point than the prefix post- since our point is in the relational, or starts >> there, leading into the amorphous. >> Every technology is a relational technology, is articulating or setting to >> motion of modes of relationality. We have seen what modes of relationality >> cartesian technologies of information society puts into motion: >> exteriorities and borders hidden behind façades and rethorics of >> conectivity, that are the condition of possibility of identification and >> form as instruments of control. >> The metabody is the relational body, one that is not located here or there, >> but is constantly moving in the relationality of forces and affects. Reality >> is thus an unquantifiable field of metabodies in changing and constitutive >> relation with one another. >> Metamedia Metaformance - relational technologies >> If we intervene in the modes of relationality being aware that this will >> transform us and that to which we relate - it will displace and eventually >> dissolve the identifying border -, we may work thorugh all of the given >> anatomies, cartographies and forms through which we usually structure our >> experience. >> This includes or starts with a reworking of our sensory apparatuses, the >> relational technologies par excellance. >> The process of reworking relationalities at different levels is what I call >> a metaformance, which exceeds the dualisms of spectacular control society, >> and goes beyond perspectivism to introduce immanentism: we are never >> exterior to that to which we relate, we are never exterior to the >> relationality itself. >> Arguably some of the artworks that have been called performances could be >> understood in terms of metaformance, since they were reworking >> relationalities at different levels (of the body in its capabilities and >> potentials, of the relation to the audience, etc). Even the most apparently >> non-procedural works of art can be reviewed under this light. It is tragic >> in this sense that the notion of artistic object, so suitable to markets, >> has pervaded discourses on art for so long, while I am almost certain than >> many painters, for instance, have experienced their work as a neverending >> relational process. >> Metaformance puts the relationailty in the forefront of investigation, >> though we could say, like Picasso, "Je ne cherche pas, je trouve", since the >> contingencies in metadiciplinary work are so great that we are often more >> imbricated in openning us a way amidst the jungle of things we encounter and >> have little time to look for other. >> Metaformance is metamedia, since it operates in the conditions of >> possibility of media themselves not trying to define another fixed sensory >> anatomy, but in an endless amorphogenesis, where new potential media emerge. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> empyre forum >> [email protected] >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre > > > > _______________________________________________ > empyre forum > [email protected] > http://www.subtle.net/empyre > _______________________________________________ > empyre forum > [email protected] > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
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