Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[sally jane norman]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear Sue, all

Many thanks, yes, definitely grappling (though, this time, I didn't put
"slippery" in the title!) - caught up in extremis (imminent paper) working
on Kantor's "found" gestures (in "found spaces" executed by "found" or
"hired" actors in "poor room of the imagination" inhabited by objects of
the lowest rank of reality...), and there's something about corporeal -
temporal and spatial - moorings I'm trying to get at, so your insights will
be very useful.  Carrie Noland's and Sally Ann Ness's Migrations of Gesture
also keep springing to the fore, so many references in the crowded house of
my academic mind!

Apologies for "self" rant. Yes, Johannes, the "again" from "Play it again,
Sam" is a famously erroneous reference re Casablanca, though one might
also/ alternatively be referencing Milton Babbitt's viola piece. And while
we're talking about the price of fish, as Kantor said, "I Shall Never
Return" - title of his penultimate stage work - but then of course he did.
As a recording. Which he would have been anyway. Except that he'd have been
there physically, too. Along with his designated "self-portrait" double.
Ghosted to death and back to life and so it goes on.

all best, I think I'll go jump in the ocean...
sj






On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 3:21 PM, Sue Hawksley 
wrote:

> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear Sally Jane
>
> On 23 Jul 2014, at 18:35, sally jane norman <
> normansallyj...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> >  I'd love to hear more on your take on ghosts and haunting and
> resonance, Sue, as I'm also grappling with this stuff - something I've
> previously tried to articulate as "registers of presence"...
>
> I like your use of 'grappling': ghosts, haunting etc. are tricky words
> because they could seem to imply mystification of something that I'm trying
> to anchor in the bodily experience. Grappling is very active.
> You might be interested in this short article I wrote a couple of years
> ago about the making of a dancefim which explores kinaesthetic and kinetic
> processes of 'inhabiting' (and being inhabited by) the mnemonic traces of
> places. The article focuses mainly on the physical practices that we used
> to facilitate exploration of imaginatively created virtual spaces:  <
> http://theperipateticstudio.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/sue-hawksley-traces-of-places/
> >
>
> Also, in my previous post I referred to Elizabeth Dempster - I meant
> Elizabeth Behnke. Apologies to both Elizabeths.
> Behnke's piece, which you might find of interest  is: “Ghost Gestures:
> Phenomenological Investigations of Bodily Micromovements and Their
> Intercorporeal Implications, ” Human Studies 20, (1997), pp.181–201.
>
> all the best, Sue
>
>
>
> SUE HAWKSLEY
> independent dance artist
> s...@articulateanimal.org.uk
> http://www.articulateanimal.org.uk
>
>
>
>
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
___
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Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[Daniel Tércio]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Dear all

The reference to ghosts and haunting -- which certainly are, quoting
Sue, tricky words because they could seem to imply mystification of
something that should be anchored in the bodily experience -- pushed
my thoughts to another place. Could embodiment include the absent and
the invisible, granting a corporeal presence to both states? It seems
to me that absence is different from the invisible. Absence is
reciprocal (is it?), once I feel the absence of someone who is living
in London and she might feel the same on me, living in Lisbon.
“Saudade” is a Portuguese word referring to this particular feeling,
and “saudade” includes a physical experience. Therefore, absence is
embodied and, in a certain way, the Skype connection that I may use
every evening is not quashing the embodied absence of that particular
person but is adding the embodiment of another presence, the virtual
presence of that person. I mean, the absence is present as well as the
Skype connection is. Both are embodied.

The invisible is another story. Some years ago, a MA student that I
was supervising made an investigation about the masked dancers in the
Tchokwe linguistic group (mainly in Angola). Those full body masks
that were in straight contact with the community during the male
initiation rituals performed close the village as daimons, entities
connecting the gods realm with the human realm. They were not scary,
and danced in a very precise style; although, they certainly did not
seemed nice for the young boys being conducted to the process of
initiation (this process was supposedly rather physical intrusive).
Actually, the masked dancers belonged to a complex system of masks. At
the top of the hierarchy there are some other masks, conserved in a
kind of closet at the initiation house, that nobody could see. These
masks, that are really present, are also invisible to all the
community and in them lies the mostly scary effects. The student I am
following told me that nobody dared to wear these masks. Nobody
embodied these frightening presences, but on the other hand all the
community embodied them as shadows and fear.

Thus, is the invisible being embodied as a threatening presence?

regards
Daniel

2014-07-27 15:21 GMT+01:00 Sue Hawksley :
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear Sally Jane
>
> On 23 Jul 2014, at 18:35, sally jane norman  
> wrote:
>
>>  I'd love to hear more on your take on ghosts and haunting and resonance, 
>> Sue, as I'm also grappling with this stuff - something I've previously tried 
>> to articulate as "registers of presence"...
>
> I like your use of 'grappling': ghosts, haunting etc. are tricky words 
> because they could seem to imply mystification of something that I'm trying 
> to anchor in the bodily experience. Grappling is very active.
> You might be interested in this short article I wrote a couple of years ago 
> about the making of a dancefim which explores kinaesthetic and kinetic 
> processes of 'inhabiting' (and being inhabited by) the mnemonic traces of 
> places. The article focuses mainly on the physical practices that we used to 
> facilitate exploration of imaginatively created virtual spaces:  
> 
>
> Also, in my previous post I referred to Elizabeth Dempster - I meant 
> Elizabeth Behnke. Apologies to both Elizabeths.
> Behnke's piece, which you might find of interest  is: “Ghost Gestures: 
> Phenomenological Investigations of Bodily Micromovements and Their 
> Intercorporeal Implications, ” Human Studies 20, (1997), pp.181–201.
>
> all the best, Sue
>
>
>
> SUE HAWKSLEY
> independent dance artist
> s...@articulateanimal.org.uk
> http://www.articulateanimal.org.uk
>
>
>
>
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[Sue Hawksley]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Dear Sally Jane

On 23 Jul 2014, at 18:35, sally jane norman  
wrote:

>  I'd love to hear more on your take on ghosts and haunting and resonance, 
> Sue, as I'm also grappling with this stuff - something I've previously tried 
> to articulate as "registers of presence"...

I like your use of 'grappling': ghosts, haunting etc. are tricky words because 
they could seem to imply mystification of something that I'm trying to anchor 
in the bodily experience. Grappling is very active.
You might be interested in this short article I wrote a couple of years ago 
about the making of a dancefim which explores kinaesthetic and kinetic 
processes of 'inhabiting' (and being inhabited by) the mnemonic traces of 
places. The article focuses mainly on the physical practices that we used to 
facilitate exploration of imaginatively created virtual spaces:  


Also, in my previous post I referred to Elizabeth Dempster - I meant Elizabeth 
Behnke. Apologies to both Elizabeths.
Behnke's piece, which you might find of interest  is: “Ghost Gestures: 
Phenomenological Investigations of Bodily Micromovements and Their 
Intercorporeal Implications, ” Human Studies 20, (1997), pp.181–201.

all the best, Sue



SUE HAWKSLEY
independent dance artist
s...@articulateanimal.org.uk
http://www.articulateanimal.org.uk




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Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[John Hopkins]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--


Thanks, this is - for me! - useful and welcome; the language questions you
outline obviously espouse those I deal with in French, though I'm not aware
of "embodiment" being integrated as a solution - l'incorporation and
l'incarnation have tricky resonance, as you say. In the mystical vein,
"transsubstantiation" can perhaps interestingly (and translatably) get
closer to interim/ limbo zones some of the list's reflection about "virtual
embodiment" seems to touch on ("intertwinedness in-and-as-the system", as
per Sue's last posting). I'd love to hear more on your take on ghosts and
haunting and resonance, Sue, as I'm also grappling with this stuff -


If we are going in that direction, maybe a meditation on "hypostasis", then, 
while speaking of Self and Other at once:


"The Self will never share the same point-of-view as the Other. My eyes cannot 
be collocated with yours. I may exchange places with you, but when all is change 
along the arrow of time, what you experienced there and then, I cannot 
experience there and now. The interstitial chasm exists within constant change 
and flow and it exists as long as life is embodied. Some models of transcendence 
suggest a unification, an omniscient one-ness, after embodiment ends, but here 
and now we all face the challenge of hypostasis, that puzzling duality of 
existing in a transitory and substantial body now and yet connected with an 
apparently detachable spirit before and after."


I always felt like that when doing networked performances over the years...

jh


--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
___
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Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[John Hopkins]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--


Let me quote one of the Oswald d’Andrade aphorisms:

The mind refuses to conceive the mind without the body.


This seems to have no meaning unless one treats the mind & body as two separable 
'things' -- many systems do not do this at all, and in them the philosphical 
dilemma is nullified, or becomes a non-issue ... or something non-sensical to 
lived experience...


I definitely was wondering about your translation of "carne" as 'chair' as I was 
sitting eating a 'carne asada' the other day... ;-)


jh

--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++

___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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Re: [-empyre-] body 'chair' language / El Colgado

[Johannes Birringer]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
dear all

Daniel, I am finding your response on colonial history not at all distracting 
from the discussion...

(and thanks to Sue's earlier posting in which she is, perhaps understandably, 
critical of my scepticism and my proposing the term 'slapstick' for defenseless 
encounters with interactive dispositifs or artificial intelligence machines -- 
and incidentally, Sue, I had a similar hilarious accident some years ago in 
Switzerland during my first skying outing going up on the "chair" lift 
[english, not french] and failing to understand/know the jump off technique at 
the summit and getting entangled in the lift mechanism to the extent that they 
had to stop the whole machine as I virtually hung upside down like an 'angel 
caido' or, to use a better image (following tarot cards) like El Colgado, a man 
hanging upside down from one foot 'who is unable to move or make any 
decisions... without the power to give form or direction to his life...')..

I guess the Colgado experience stuck with me and I am cautious about what Sue 
calls the "amazing potential to understand the intertwinedness of one's own 
experience in-and-as the system, through spending time in-and-as some amazing 
interactive environments..."

(In fact, do we not spend much of our life in interactions, with shopping 
malls, schools, banks, streets, social places, institutions, playing fields, 
forests, festivals, libraries, etc?)

so now it (the colonial history and antropófago) makes me wonder whether we can 
revisit "porosity" as well, a term that was used repeatedly by some of you as 
if it were a positive valuation of embodied experience.
What if it were not? 

And perhaps, Daniel, the distractions need to go further, what if we indeed for 
a moment looked at language and mis/translations or porosities that are, 
politically very highly charged?

(As to Brasilian modernism and then the 60s/70s, I do remember that Hélio 
Oticica's work was incredibly inspiring for us in the DAP-Lab, and Michèle 
Danjoux and I – as we began to work on wearables and constructing
wearable instruments – looked to Oiticica's parangolés and the exuberant 
experiences the wearers had when dancing with/through the colorful cloth (I 
wrote a small piece, "Bodies of Color," Performing Arts Journal 87 (2007), 
35-45,
available here:  
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/pajj.2007.29.3.35))

The word that I came across today is "Surzhyk" (originally it meant flour or 
bread made from mixed grains, e.g., wheat with rye) (Cyrillic: су́ржик) 
denoting a range of mixed sociolects of Ukrainian and Russian languages used in 
certain regions of Ukraine and adjacent lands, and a cultural ethnographer 
(cited in the German FAZ newspaper) discussed the problems in today's political 
crisis in the Ukraine (the postcolonial Ukraine) where some or most people in 
Western  Ukraine speak Ukrainian whereas many in Eastern Ukraine speak Russian 
and many, especially in the countryside, speak Surzhyk and that can be 
dangerous either in the East or the West; in fact the choice of a language (and 
I assume for a moment that dialects are grown and culturally evolved and thus 
embodied) at the moment reflects the huge dangers of polarization as well as 
mingling.

Now, refering to the political crisis in the Occupied Territories and Gaza, an 
interview with mathematician/logic/computer scientist Helmut Veith in last 
weekend's Sueddeutsche Zeitung struck my attention as the talk centered on 
algorithms and artificial intelligence dispositifs, and Mr Veith at some point 
ventured to say that logic is used to draw insights and consequences about the 
world, and that artificial intelligence software simulates how machine learning 
can be effective (for example fuzzy logics dealing with ambiguities of 
translations of language); then he says, asked about drone strikes carried out 
by machine intelligence, that "es wäre im eigentlichen Sinn des Wortes 
unmenschlich, Entscheidungen über Leben und Tod dem Computer zu überlassen. Es 
sei denn, zwei Drohnen erschiessen sich gegenseitig, das wäre mir 
sympathisch."  
[trans:  "it would be in the true sense of the word inhuman to leave decisions 
about life and death to the computer. Unless two drones shoot each other, that 
would be sympathetic to me . "

Could one argue that "virtual embodiment" is a parochial media arts concern or 
academic research area? Thus of little consequence for most people except that 
affordances, say, Google's private buses in San Francisco, or other corporate 
conglomerates' machinations (ebay now also working with Sotheby, I heard, to 
enlarge auction customer base virtually speaking), will draw defenses and 
protests, or make you question where your sympathies lie when the drone hits 
your house.  (Sorry, this last thought needs more thinking through, but friends 
who are/were in Palestinia and are writing me make me anxious). 

rega

Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[sally jane norman]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear all, Daniel

Thanks, this is - for me! - useful and welcome; the language questions you
outline obviously espouse those I deal with in French, though I'm not aware
of "embodiment" being integrated as a solution - l'incorporation and
l'incarnation have tricky resonance, as you say. In the mystical vein,
"transsubstantiation" can perhaps interestingly (and translatably) get
closer to interim/ limbo zones some of the list's reflection about "virtual
embodiment" seems to touch on ("intertwinedness in-and-as-the system", as
per Sue's last posting). I'd love to hear more on your take on ghosts and
haunting and resonance, Sue, as I'm also grappling with this stuff -
something I've previously tried to articulate as "registers of presence"
where this allows for slippage, movement across (translation), etc. Notions
of kinesthetic/ kinetic melody are exciting - as is Lefebvre's rhythmicity
(?).  Etienne Souriau's "modes d'existence", makes a claim for the equal
and concurrent viability of multiple (infinite) "species" of existence,
where memories, fictive personalities or absent beings may be construed as
just as, or more present, than those physically around us. Souriau
emphasises as fundamentally dynamic, the proxemics and positioning of and
between these different modes of existence, potential for movement between
them, more than any inherent dynamics they may respectively manifest.

I do like your skiing, pillion-riding account, Sue - hitching a ride on
someone's physical skills negotiating a particular kind of space. A
beautiful example of physical enjoyment not-quite-by-proxy. Our kinesthetic
pleasure at the soaring of the trapezist is procured somewhere else along
the gradient you mention, to which I thoroughly adhere. And yes to
entanglements of embodiments and technologies. Co-implications of being and
environment (Varela et al...). Pierre Rabardel differentiates metaphors
associated with the black box with those of the glass box, looking at
issues of functional/ operational and cognitive transparency; maybe his
thinking, which goes back a couple of decades, lets us imagine an evolving
gradient between opacity and transparency in our design and use of our
different corporeal/ interactive extensions and counterparts?

best from sunny Brighton, where it's currently a delight to rove across
embodiment and milieu models with plunges into the brine

sj


On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 10:30 PM, Daniel Tércio 
wrote:

> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear all
>
> Sorry for being absent during the last days/weeks. Traveling and
> answering urgent posts put me out of the empire list.
>
> It seems to me that the term embodiment is definitively a milestone in
> our discussion. In the last posts, I have been particularly sensitive
> to the Garth Paine’s conceptualization of the three sub dimensions of
> the Experience and Embodiment.
> However, even before (re)visiting the triad of
> porosity-perception-presence, let me return naively to the use of the
> term embodiment in different languages. And let me use the experience
> of Portuguese language that adopted this term, at the same time
> questioning its adequacy and its translation. Two points arise on
> this: in Portuguese one may find the term “carne” (chain). Embodiment
> = “encarnação”? This sounds very mystical when one thinks in Crist as
> the incarnation of God. The other term is “corpo”… Embodiment =
> incorporação? This could sound very much economically, as an
> enterprises’ issue, like a firm incorporating other firm, or medical,
> when someone incorporates a chemical substance. Both terms are not
> normally adopted in the arts field, and that’s why the term embodiment
> is being adopted into the Portuguese language. Nevertheless, the
> terminological issue allows rethinking the articulation between
> incarnation, incorporation and embodiment.
> My point is that embodiment should be considered as a process in two
> directions. I mean: we are not just embodying technologies; the
> technologies are embodying the human behavior.
> A third question arises from this: the absolute necessity of the
> interface. Is the interface the “box” (the black box) that mediates
> and connects and articulates the human, the device and the happening?
> I imagine that a black box of an airplane should record the pilot
> actions, the instruments behavior and (in case of a catastrophe) the
> context/situation. The interface is a machine in Deleuze/Guatari
> terms.
> In past posts, I found the concept of dispositive, which is
> articulated with the concept of machine. Maybe we could return to this
> issue.
>
> (By the moment this is my small contribution to the empire list,
> hoping that I am not interrupting other argumentation line)
>
> best regards
>
> Daniel Tercio
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[Daniel Tércio]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hi Sue, thanks for the correction of “carne” to flesh (not chair).
That’s right. Thanks also to Johannes for his remarks and
contributions.

I hope that my mistake could also contribute to rethink the internal
gaps and holes on the webabel. May we consider the loosing translation
as opportunities to go further on the analysis of the surface? As
doors or mines to find out alter dimensions. I am putting this on
table because the idea of embodiment should be articulated with a
certain profundity and a certain immersion into the alterity.

Thus, let me return to the cultural cannibalism or cultural
anthropophagy, which combines the political, the aesthetical and the
ethnographical.

Cultural anthropophagy was and is in fact a very attractive idea,
coined (as Johannes remembered) by Oswald Andrade, who was related to
the Brazilian modernism. As far as I know, afterwards the 1930’s, this
concept have been simultaneously criticized and recuperated by
Brazilian intellectuals. Nevertheless, I am sure that the concept is
still very useful to think a complex early post-colonial situation
(the independence from the kingdom of Portugal was fulfilled in 1822,
with the resignation of the Portuguese king to become the first
Emperor of Brazil). On the other hand maybe it is important to
reconsider the conceptual borders of the colonial, once the colonial
paradigm continued in Brazil even after its independence, and at the
same time Portugal paradoxically became a colonial State and a
colonized nation (“between Caliban and Prospero”, quoting Boaventura
de Sousa Santos). Sorry for these thoughts about history and
sociology, which maybe are not so fashionable in current times,
neither very adequate to our discussion.

Moving on to the main point, the question is to know if embodiment may
be also be considered a kind of anthropophagy and if so, who or what
is the eater and who or what is the eaten. A note and a correction:
the Oswald Andrade’s term was “deglutir”, which could be translated as
swallowing, as Hellen noted in a past post. I would prefer to consider
this as a first phase of digestion. Thus, this term, although all the
political problems correlated, may also help to unfold the term
embodiment.

Let me quote one of the Oswald d’Andrade aphorisms:

The mind refuses to conceive the mind without the body.
Anthropomorphism. Necessity of cannibalistic vaccine. To balance
against the religions of the meridian. And outside the inquisitions.
(“Manifesto antropófago”, Revista de Antropofagia, Ano 1, N. 1, maio
de 1928).

Moving on: at this precise moment I’m evolved in a project with
Santiago do Chile and Salvador da Bahia. This project was conceived by
the Brazilian researcher Ivani Santana under the title of “EMBODIED IN
VARIOS DARMSTADT 58. ARTE EM REDE: DANÇA E MÚSICA TELEMÁTICA”.
Basically we are looking for embodiment experiences at a scale of
Portuguese-Spanish language in multi-cultural frames.

regards
daniel

2014-07-23 8:09 GMT+01:00 Sue Hawksley :
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear Daniel et al.
>
> On 23 Jul 2014, at 07:00, Daniel Tércio  wrote:
>> However, even before (re)visiting the triad of porosity-perception-presence, 
>> let me return naively to the use of the
>> term embodiment in different languages. And let me use the experience of 
>> Portuguese language that adopted this term, at the same time
>> questioning its adequacy and its translation. Two points arise on this: in 
>> Portuguese one may find the term “carne” (chain). Embodiment
>> = “encarnação”? This sounds very mystical when one thinks in Crist as the 
>> incarnation of God.
>
> Thanks Daniel for reminding us of the chasms we are all trying to deal with, 
> not just between experience and language, but between languages. Just to 
> clarify and check - I thought 'carne' in Portuguese would mean 'meat' or 
> 'flesh' in English? 'Chair' is the French word for flesh. However, in 
> English, chair is something to sit on, which in bodily-terms is our backside 
> - in Portuguese = traseiro.
> I was at an International conference on gesture in Frankfurt Oder a couple of 
> years ago, and presentations were being signed for any participants with 
> hearing difficulties. I don't sign , but it seemed that the concept "Embodied 
> Cognition" was interpreted by a combination of spelling out the words, 
> together with a gesture to the head - so (if I understood it correctly) 
> 'thinking' was situated in the head, which really complicates grasping the 
> notion of situating thinking in all of the body.
>
> Now to go back to Johannes' question a couple of days ago -
> On 21 Jul 2014, at 07:28, Johannes Birringer 
>  wrote
>
>> Most likely I cannot speak for the participants, although I also tried the 
>> system (MotionComposer has 6 environments of different sounds that can be 
>> triggered) and failed to enjoy it; the participants with disabilities 
>> laughed and 

Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[Sue Hawksley]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Dear Daniel et al.

On 23 Jul 2014, at 07:00, Daniel Tércio  wrote:
> However, even before (re)visiting the triad of porosity-perception-presence, 
> let me return naively to the use of the
> term embodiment in different languages. And let me use the experience of 
> Portuguese language that adopted this term, at the same time
> questioning its adequacy and its translation. Two points arise on this: in 
> Portuguese one may find the term “carne” (chain). Embodiment
> = “encarnação”? This sounds very mystical when one thinks in Crist as the 
> incarnation of God. 

Thanks Daniel for reminding us of the chasms we are all trying to deal with, 
not just between experience and language, but between languages. Just to 
clarify and check - I thought 'carne' in Portuguese would mean 'meat' or 
'flesh' in English? 'Chair' is the French word for flesh. However, in English, 
chair is something to sit on, which in bodily-terms is our backside - in 
Portuguese = traseiro.
I was at an International conference on gesture in Frankfurt Oder a couple of 
years ago, and presentations were being signed for any participants with 
hearing difficulties. I don't sign , but it seemed that the concept "Embodied 
Cognition" was interpreted by a combination of spelling out the words, together 
with a gesture to the head - so (if I understood it correctly) 'thinking' was 
situated in the head, which really complicates grasping the notion of situating 
thinking in all of the body. 

Now to go back to Johannes' question a couple of days ago - 
On 21 Jul 2014, at 07:28, Johannes Birringer  
wrote

> Most likely I cannot speak for the participants, although I also tried the 
> system (MotionComposer has 6 environments of different sounds that can be 
> triggered) and failed to enjoy it; the participants with disabilities laughed 
> and cheered it, so they must have felt their movements mattered . yet I 
> was worried that it didn't  (and perhaps Sue has some experience on this?).

I haven't done much work specifically with people with dis-abilities, so I 
can't comment on that particular question. I have however worked with some 
people who have very different body-experience to my own, being survivors of 
torture. This really emphasised for me the notion of body as archive (Lepecki) 
and being haunted by 'ghosts'. (I'm trying to link up questions of ghosts and 
hauntings and resonances from the last few posts) I feel there is something 
about the traces of these ghosts' gestures, rendered visible as micro-movements 
or "ghost-gestures" (Elizabeth Dempster) which pattern the 
rhythms-resonances-melodies that lend distinctiveness to the 'movement 
signature' of the individual. This signature, what Shets-Johnstone refers to as 
kinaesthetic/kinetic melody, seems to me to be quite subtle, something that I 
for one become more attuned to when engaging in somatic or bodily practices, 
and through the extension of self in virtual spaces  (whether that virtual is 
computationally or imaginitively generated). 

So, re: snake-oil,  slapstick' engagement, and 'fake' embodiment.: of course I 
think uber skepticism is useful; almost everything  is mediated through 
marketing-speak, and funded projects must be seen to approach their stated 
outcome(s), so the writing about the potential experience can seem to promise 
more than some people feel they get. We should always be wary of snake-oiliness 
- especially when the merchant is Facebook - but I agree with Hellen about the 
amazing potential to understand the intertwinedness of one's own experience 
in-and-as the system, through spending time in-and-as some amazing interactive 
environments. Of course we cannot presuppose to acheive the same effect/affect 
for every participant. 
A lot more has been said since you raised this point. so this repeats a bit. Of 
course if  time and context limit how long people will spend in an environment, 
so the interface design might need to have a fast and easily digested 
interaction, resulting in some people acting in rather basic ways. But this 
problem isn't unique to "interactive environments". I have only tried skiing 
once, and was terrible at it, got my feet in a tangle and fell over a lot. I 
then had a pillion ride with a friend who is an excellent skier. It was 
amazing!  So I got a fast, cheap & dirty (slapstick/fake?) version of something 
experienced by  a proficient skier who has invested huge amounts of the time 
and effort.  For me it was still worth it. Surely interaction and the 
experience of it occurs along a gradient, its not all either slapstick or 
metaphysical.

best, Sue



SUE HAWKSLEY
independent dance artist
s...@articulateanimal.org.uk
http://www.articulateanimal.org.uk




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Re: [-empyre-] body chair language

[Johannes Birringer]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
dear all, dear Daniel

"body chair language"?  

well your introduction of the language problem
(for the Portuguese) is of course fascinating and perhaps links to my final
post and the question about decolonizaton I raised (the notion of an 
"embodiment"
clearly a Euro-American academic term forced upon the discourse), or about
Hellen's borrowing from the Brazilian concept of anthropopagy (Oswald de 
Andrade).

Porosity, in relation to an "absolute necessity of the interface" (blackbox), 
however, 
makes me uncomfortable, and I do not think I am incarnated or incorporated by
a system, or dispositif. 

Hearing you speak of the black box I cannot help thinking of the one they have 
now found
in the Ukraine after the civilian plane was shot down. What does the "device" 
record?

Regarding interactive or 3D virtual environments in the performing or media 
arts, that were
mentioned in our debates, your point then refers to how (or whether) 
"technologies are embodying the human behavior"?

My point about slapstick was that they don't. In fact, one might even argue 
(and I am not thinking of british soccer commentators
accusing the Brasilian world cup team's defense against Germany (1:7) as 
slapstick) that the visitor to an interactive
camera-vision dispositif is defenseless, and at the same time tries, if so 
inclined,  to enact gestures to sort out, feel out or trace the
reaction behavior or the "artificial intelligence" of the system that wants her 
to move around and do things. In the case
of Very Nervous System and later systems (Eycon, designed by Frieder Weiss, the 
precursor of MotionComposer, or similar
systems installed for user interaction and performance selfies). 
More about dispostifs could now be said, regarding the social etiquette that 
comes into play, etc.  Perhaps we can return to it

But reading you, I could also not help remembering my disappointment last week 
in Madrid when I visited the exhibition 
(Colección 3) "De la revuelta a la posmodernidad (1962-1982)" at the Reina 
Sofia, noting the sheer inability, I thought, of
the curators to draw a close connection between political revolutions / 
societal changes (after Cuba, Algeria, Chile, and the
68 protest movements in the West) and art practices (they showed paintings, 
sculptures, and work of minimalism, arte povera,
light art (Dan Flavin !), a tiny weird section on feminist art,  Judson Dance 
Theatre (Trio A), 60s electronic dada music in Spain, and a particularly odd, 
weak 
Tropicalismo installation (a penetrável) by Hélio Oiticia where we could watch 
3 birds on a swing and walk on sand.  Maybe i misunderstood a 
supreme form of irony, the postmodern as feeble slapstick? software swing? 

Well, the black box there was a disaster, I felt. 
Encarnó, nada.


regards

Johannes Birringer


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