[-empyre-] whose "our systems" & body weather

[John Hopkins]

Johannes -

> I wondered though what happens to flow when screened off (behind the glass,
> on other side)? That was what I tried to ask John regarding his position on
> converting energy sources (attenuating some, amplifying others) - watching a
> storm or the revolution (as the actor called Hamlet does in "Hamletmachine")
> behind bullet proof glass is not the same as being in it  (Hemingway, i read
> somewhere, did it the same way as the actor during the spanish civil war).

What happens in a simple sense is that the energy flow that would otherwise be
impinging on your body-system is directed or available elsewhere (probably in
another 'form').

"In the moment that the embodied manifestation of flow presents itself, a
negation of flow also appears: attenuation, filtration, or blockage. Blockage is
the reciprocal of flow: the attenuation or seemingly absence of flow. Blockage
is to flow what cold is to heat. Blockage is the evidence of flow that is
drained away from one actual pathway to another potential pathway: a flow that
is elsewhere. It is a constant underlying condition of our embodied presence. It
reveals itself through the presence of more or less defined stricture or
directedness of (mediatory) flow pathways. The presence of a strictly defined
pathway suggests that outside of that pathway there are limited possibilities or
allowances for flow." (Hopkins, pp. 46)

[Hopkins, J., 2012. The Regime of Amplification. Bundoora, VIC, Australia: La
Trobe University.]

It is possible to protect ones self from flows trough a variety of means (skin
evolving a complex means to deal with UV radiation; putting a layer of fabric
over it; using a 'sunscreen') but each means of protection has consequences to
the environment 'outside' of where the attenuation is occurring -- (in the three
cases mentioned: the appearance of a 'different' skin color and a change in the
overall functioning of the organism; the energy of preparing a fabric (the whole
infrastructure necessary to make a fabric!); and a complex techno-social
structure necessary to research, develop, and produce a complex chemical
compound).  These are the more obvious effects, but there are always more and
more subtle effects as well.

Think of dancers in a room, breathing, the energized matter we call 'oxygen' and
'nitrogen' is being bodily exchanged between everyone in the room; infrared
radiation is radiating from one body; impinging on another, changing the base
metabolic situation (temperature). Our bodies are 'constructed' as a complex
system of protocols that direct energy in a variety of ways, each re-direction
of energy wastes a little bit (or more!) energy.

Maybe having the dancers in a room where there is no visible Light at all (an
underground mine comes to mind!), so that some of the other senses might be
awakened (the sound of the breathing, the heat of the body)...

Back to the issue of glass -- the existence of glass as a tiny window in a hut
in Iceland was a huge thing -- glass was tremendously energy-intensive product
to make (causes deforestation among other effects!). It had to be carried great
distances by ship (more energy used!), etc etc. One can 'reverse engineer' any
energy changing process and see how amplification (+/- gain) changes everything
around it.

Interestingly, conversion of energy from one 'form' to another is itself a
draining process -- it 'wastes' energy, always! This is one reason that complex
animals are 'warm blooded' -- they have so many complex energy conversion
processes going on to maintain their organismic order that the cumulative effect
is that they radiate waste infrared energy.

And regarding the effect of gesture -- in a quantum universe, any change
anywhere is experienced simultaneosly everywhere -- internal/external are only
bounded conditions (thanks, Mr. Descartes, et al) of a spent model.

A few morning thoughts before getting back as house-building... I'm burning up a
lot of life-energy to create an effective attenuation system to stay inside of...

Cheers,
John

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