Let me imagine a locus for myself; a place that is both real and phantasmic... I will move through this memory terrain whilst writing, drawing from the memorized places the images I have placed on them (Hammergren, 1996, p. 54).
This is the starting point from which I have thus been focussing — questions around bodies as vessels of knowledge and the memories of our lived bodies. I’m interested in interacting with shadows, glimpses and memories as dancing bodies. What do these memories become? Perhaps they become glimpses of the Unconscious, Past and Present time intermingling.
What is distinctive about the human memory? Memory is the basis of all culture. One of the major social movements of recent times has been the ongoing shift from a culture based on memory to one based on retention. Memory plays out in physical networks, where different parts of the brain move as in a synchronised dance. Every time we recall a memory, they say, the hippocampus is involved and ‘overwrites’ the original memory, each time with a slightly new interpretation or reconstruction. There are some cells in the hippocampus that are active only when we sit on a certain chair and not another chair — even in the same room.
If one tries to enter a particular space, one must adjust one’s body to that space but also yield to recollections springing from a bodily memory that is theirs and also belonged to strangers. How is this possible? How does my body react while entering that particular space? What bodily sensations do I get? How does it feel to touch an object, to adjust to a normative bodily code, to sit in a chair, to look out over a landscape, to move in a particular dress, to compare “this” body to “that” body? (Hammergren, 1996, p. 55-56).
In this sense, the kinesthetic discourse is a strategy which we perform with ourselves as tools, with the possibility of embracing all kinds of ‘source material.’ As a result we would privilege the bodily experience of wind, furniture, picking up objects, over their visual appearance. We would sense them before we visualize them, or at least use sight merely as a mediating sense. In privileging this bodily experience we call up memory associations, that is, we activate an artificial bodily memory (Hammergren, 1996, p. 56).
My question is though are they really artificial? Perhaps there is a kind of authenticity to our lived memories and the process of recollection?
Are you watching your inner film screen? Recall the memory and feel the sensations it contains. You can feel things like the water hitting your body as you dive into the sea. All these sensations flutter about our brains as we remember.
Between our temples most of us are equipped with our own private memory theatre, which continually stages performances, always with slightly new interpretations — and now and then with different actors (p. 27)
Improvisation tasks based on Authenticity & Memory
Improvisation task around body manipulation —> participants manipulate the one person’s body and limbs, the participant then improvises from the remembrance of that information
Improvisation task in pairs —> person A sends impetus through different body parts of person B using touch, person B responds to the movement by going towards the touch, halfway through this improvisation person B closes their eyes, still responding to the touch… person A moves away, allowing person B to respond to this information and move from the remembrance of the information
Improvisation task of being aware and unaware of the body at the same time —> interacting with infinite number of selves frozen —> leaving traces and coming back to where the last trace/piece image was (can also be done by taking inspiration from other participants positions in space… imagining a statue garden of memories)
Questions that emerge from these tasks:
What is authentic?
What is your movement vocabulary and what belongs to others?
Is it me or is it not me?
Are we unable to delete knowledge?
When do we start 'curating' movement and body language?
Is vulnerability different to authenticity? To be vulnerable is intrinsic to being able to perform, is vulnerability key to authenticity?
How can one be present, available and authentic to the self?
When do we actually authentically move the body? I may think that I am moving a limb but actually I may be moving from a different point. It's important to remember that the body is a trunk with limbs attached.
How does the experience of the improvisation change/shift with the eyes closed? (Maybe it feels as if you are underwater, you’re unsure where you are in space)
What parts of the body is your partner neglecting?
How does it feel to move from the remembrance of the touches?
Are these memory traces meaningless?
Memory Synonyms/related terms:
Remembrance
Mental images
Impressions
Reminiscence
Recall
Retention
Evocation
Reminders
Echoes
mnemonic (memory devices, techniques for memory retention and retrieval) - mnemonics make use of elaborate encoding, retrieval cues and imagery tools to encode any given information in a way that allows for storage and retrieval
References:
Hammergren, L. (1996). The re-turn of the flâneuse In Susan Leigh Foster (Eds.) Corporealities : dancing, knowledge, culture, and power (pp. 54-71). London: Routledge.
