Presence and Coherence
April 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie
From my notes:
Presence is a function of coherence. To be present is to maximally engaged in the specific activity to hand and to refrain from engaging in other, possibly conflicting activities.
Performance is an embodied activity in which the presence of the performer is articulated through the structured and organised use of the body. A corollary of this is that for a performance to appear coherent, convincing, attractive, intelligible, etc, the bodily actions of the performer must be similarly coherent. A performance in which the activity of the body is not coherent, but rather is fractured, disjointed, appearing to be engaged in multiple contradictory activities, is a performance that is itself experienced as incoherent and lacking in ‘presence’.
Non-conscious bodily activity is structured through the organisation of the proprioceptive sense, which allows for effective behaviour to be carried out holistically and appropriate to the demands of the particular environment. So, for example, the proprioceptive organisation which allows an effective swimming stroke to be executed (unconsciously and holistically) is different to that which allows for effective sprinting.
I can’t remember which panel this paper was part of, but it seems to link to the paper on Zhan Zhuang I reported on earlier.
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