[-empyre-] Sense as space

[naxsmash]

Alexander

Moi aussi,  I am involved in glyphlike topologic drawings http://www.christinamcphee.net/category/drawing/ 
   in my shed /teorema series 2010. growing out of the 'tesserae of  
venus' attempt to model climate change as a personal/physical  
measurement of wonder.  I am reposting quotes from your post below to  
facebook and twitter.  very succinct.   thanks, and hi Sergio, as  
always-often we are in sync.



c


naxsmash
naxsmash at mac.com


christina mcphee

http://christinamcphee.net






On Oct 24, 2010, at 5:49 PM, sergio basbaum wrote:

> Alexander,
>
> Thank you for you beautiful message.
>
> Most of my work in the last years have been exploring different  
> aspects of the multiple meaning of the word "sense", as body  
> apparatus, direction and meaning, with a merleau-pontian inspiration.
>
> I'm happy to read what your doing, there's alot of common intuitions.
>
> best vibes from Brazil
> s
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 9:01 PM, Alexander Wilson <01ek at parabolikguerilla.com 
> > wrote:
> Hello Empyrecists,
>
> Thanks Renate for introducing me to the list. Though I have not yet  
> posted, I have been following the discussions for a couple of weeks  
> now.
>
>
>
> I'd like to write down a few thoughts, post Making Sense Colloquium,  
> and hope they may spark some new tangent discussions.
>
>
>
> A lot of my theatre and art work has dealt with the idea that sense  
> as in meaning and sense as in sensation, is inherently tied to a  
> third homonym, at least with the french word "sens" : sense as  
> direction or orientation. This lead me to conceptualize sense as  
> space, space which is not only physical and through which our bodies  
> move, but a heterogeneous space that also includes psychological  
> space, that is, spaces through which our minds move. Sense as  
> meaning and sense as sensation are etymologically derived from the  
> idea of earlier words meaning "to find ones way" or "to orient  
> oneself" (see proto indo-european base *sent-, which means "to go").  
> So spatiality is extremely important if we want to look at sense  
> holistically.
>
>
>
> If both are minds and our body are in sense, that is, if they orient  
> themselves within sense in a holistic manner, then we must think of  
> the mind and body as one entity. I have often used the term  
> “topological body” to refer to this, though it is somewhat  
> misleading. The idea comes from the topology of non-orientable forms  
> in topology, like the mobeius strip and the klein bottle, the  
> definitions of which give us a way of thinking how the outside,  
> physical world, could be continuous to the internal mental world. If  
> one were to stand on a gaint klein bottle's surface, one might get  
> the impression that the ground on which he stands has an other side,  
> below his feet, as it were, when in fact this “other side” is  
> continuous to the “side” he is standing on : the klein bottle only  
> has one side. Likewise, the topological body only has one side. The  
> inside mental space of the subjet extends continuously into the  
> physical world outside. The topological body is thus both mind and  
> body.
>
>
>
> In my work with Parabolik Guerilla Theatre, I have often treated the  
> question of the difference between “having sense”, that is, merely  
> being determined by the space in which the topological body is  
> embeded, and “making sense”, that is actively participating in the  
> constant reorganization of that space. Merleau-Ponty wrote about the  
> difference between parole parlée and parole parlante in this way.   
> It is possible to “use” language in a non creative way, whereas it  
> is also possible to create through language, to reveal through  
> language something other than what a word means on a merely semiotic  
> level. This creative use of language is poïesis. But this  
> distinction between having sense and making sense extends to areas  
> which we don’t usually call language : gestures also adhere to this  
> principle. The body is constantly involved in automatic gestures, it  
> relies on innumerable unconscious gestures that “make” no sense but  
> "have" sense, that is, the body is on constantly decoding sense  
> which is already there, inscribed in the repetitive processes which  
> make up our present, inherited from the past. However, there are  
> ways in which the body can attempt to become poïetic, and take part  
> in new encodings of sense, create new propagating processes,  
> revealing new meanings, new ways to move, new ways to interact with  
> the world (or be the world).
>
>
>
> In our practice with Parabolik Guerilla Theatre, Japanese Butoh has  
> been a huge inspiration, and from the very beginning was part of our  
> physical training regimen. Butoh deals with exactly this idea of  
> transcending the usual gestural and postural automatisms that are  
> only decodings of sense. It is and active attempt to not be  
> determined by sense, but actually take part in producing it. The  
> idea of a topological body and of sense as space also ties in with  
> butoh’s sense of the body and space, where the exterior and interior  
> are incessantly forced to exchange places. A common interpretation  
> of butoh is that in it’s practice, the body no longer moves through  
> space but that the reverse is happening, the space moves through the  
> body.
>
>
>
> I could go on and on about these ideas but I’m already rambling.  
> Renate said at Making Sense colloquium to try to keep our posts  
> short, so I’ll shut-up for now...
>
>
>
> thanks,
>
> alexander wilson
>
>
> -- 
> Alexander Wilson
> http://www.parabolikguerilla.com
> http://www.encodagesdeloubli.com
>
>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> -- Prof. Dr. Sérgio Roclaw Basbaum
> -- Coord. Tecnologia e Mídias Digitais 
> -- Pós-Graduação Tec.da Inteligência e Design Digital - TIDD (PUC-SP)
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