Axioms for an Imaginary Science of Performance

June 20th, 2006 Fred McVittie

An analysis of a range of techniques for the training of theatre performers reveals a high level of consistency and coherence in terminology. Although these techniques do not overtly claim to describe a world which differs from that of common sense or rational science, the paradigm and ’science’ of the physical world which is implied through this analysis is distinct in a number of ways. The axioms of an imaginary science of Performance might look something like this:

Space

• Space is not empty, but consists of an etheric liquid through which objects move and energy is transferred.
• Space is infinite and extends outward from the body of the performer in all directions.
• The body of the performer is therefore always at the centre of space.
• The central position occupied by the performer is also a fulcrum or axis around which the universe (space) is balanced
• Whilst the space of the universe may move, the centre of the performer is motionless
• Actions of the performer have an effect on the balance and properties of space.
• The form of the performer’s body, e.g. its lateral symmetry and horizontal asymmetry, affect the regions of space extended from these areas of the body. The space to the left of the performer is different from the space to the right for example.
• Part of the skill of optimal performance is the successful management of space.

Energy

• The performer has access to energy resources which are both physical and psychic.
• The energy controlled by the performer can affect the consistency and quality of the spatial ether.
• The energy controlled by the performer can affect objects in space, including other performers or non-performing beings.
• The energy controlled by the performer can be stored in or emitted from different parts of the performer’s body, or from locations outside of the performer’s body.
• The quality of the energy used by the performer can be vary in a number of ways; intensity, mood etc.
• The energy of the performer is a limited resource which can be depleted or replaced.
• The energy of the performer is part of an energy economy which includes other performers, and the audience.
• Part of the skill of optimal performance is the successful management of this energy.

Essence

• The performer has an individual essence, possibly corresponding with a ‘soul’ or ‘purpose’.
• The essence of the performer is the conduit for energy and the source for the application of will or intention.
• The essence of the performer is separate from any internal representation they may have of self, body-image, physical image-schema, etc.
• Part of the skill of optimal performance is the successful management of this essence.

Posted in Essence, Imagination, Metaphor, Performance, Poetics, Science, Theatre, Training | No Comments »

Language as an Organ of Sense

June 21st, 2006 Fred McVittie

We tend to associate the five (or six) senses; touch, smell, hearing, taste, sight, proprioception, with the physical external conduits through which they collect data; the nose, eyes, ears etc. However, it is more accurate to identify these senses with complex somatosensory systems involving mind, brain, and body. The visual sense for example, involves not only the eyes but a network of synaptic pathways and electrochemical activation sequences. The external organ of sight, the eye, is the simplest part of this system and could/will be easily replaced. No such replacement could be made for other parts of the visual system. In this understanding, a particular sensory experience, e.g. sight, is a type of awareness produced by a particular cognitive structure, and it is this cognitive structure which is, for the most part, the ’sense organ’.

This begs the question of whether it is worth considering other types of cognition, other cognitive structures, as sense organs, albeit ones without obvious external conduits for data. A candidate for this consideration is the faculty of language. Like the other senses language organises experience and allows us to categorise and analyse the objects of the world in a particular way. When we describe an object or event we are, in effect, running our words over the object as we might run our hands over it, picking out details and imperfections. We can name and classify an object with words as we might bunch flowers together in colours which our eyes tell us are complementary. We might ‘frame’ an object with our words in such a way that it acquires a repellant property, almost as if it smelled bad. We might write a hymn or a poem to the object so that it seems to sing.

Posted in Language, Poetics, Sense | No Comments »

Poetic Dualism

July 6th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Despite the best attempts by philosophy and science to deny the dualism which is such a part of folk science, a tendency unfairly attributed to Descartes, but actually deeply entrenched in the human psyche, such dualism still dominates much debate. As Paul Bloom suggests, we may be ‘natural born dualists’. Efforts to collapse this duality, whether it be termed as a duality of mind and body, or brain and mind, or matter and spirit, have tended not to provide an integrated model, but simply to deny the existence of one or other of the terms.

Part of the distinction between these terms, and which is used in the suppression of supporters of the one by supporters of the other, is the language which is used to talk about the concepts which form each part of the dualism. There is a perceived difference in the type of discourse which represents the brain, for example, and that which represents the mind. The former is objective, noumenal, scientific, whereas the latter is subjective, phenomenal, poetic.

Recent developments in the study of cognition, however, suggests that this distinction is largely unsupportable.Work carried out by Lakoff, Johnson, etc indicates that the only epistemological distinction to be made is between concepts which are concrete and those which are abstract, not between those concepts which are objective and those which are subjective. Concrete concepts are those which are directly available to the senses, which have tangible and physical attributes. Abstract concepts, which make up most of our thoughts and language, are not available to the senses and can therefore only be represented in cognition through a process of metaphorical mapping.Given that most conceptualisation about both the brain and the mind is necessarily abstract, the mind not being directly available to the senses, then all discourses on the subject of the mind are necessarily structured through metaphor.

Any integration between discourses, if such integration is desirable, must start with a recognition that both objective and subjective discourses around abstract concepts are ultimately poetic.

Posted in Bloom, Paul, Brain, Dualism, Johnson, Mark, Lakoff, George, Metaphor, Mind, Poetics | No Comments »

Levels of Metaphor

August 8th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Although all abstract concepts are rendered comprehensible through the use of embodied metaphor, there is no clear division between the concrete and the abstract. It is more useful to consider metaphor operating at various levels of remove.

• Functional and operational actions performed by the body are clearly not metaphorical and are the most ‘concrete’
• Gestures and words which ’stand in’ for these concrete actions are similarly concrete, although there may be an element of metonymy in their isolation of a particular element of a concrete action.
• Words for concepts or entities which have no physically experienced properties can only be rendered linguistically by using reference to concrete actions/objects, i.e. metaphor.
• Non-natural languages can be developed to discuss certain abstract concepts based on the systematisation of concrete embodied metaphors, e.g. Mathematics, poetry.

Posted in Abstract, Embodiment, Gesture, Mathematics, Metaphor, Poetics | No Comments »

The Poetic Imagination

March 23rd, 2007 Fred McVittie

The functioning of the mind as described by the theories of Embodied Cognition are radically different from that associated with more blandly ‘computational’ models. The idea that cognition is merely, or even only, the wielding of symbols and the arithmetic calculation of weightings across connectionist networks is replaced by a view that looks out across the mind as a landscape of poetic imagination, not dissimilar to that explored by Bachelard in ‘The Poetics of Space’ and other works. The structure of thought, even the most banal or apparently rational, is underpinned by the methods of poetry and art; metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche are essential elements in the grammar of cognition.

Posted in Cognition, Imagination, Metaphor, Poetics, Space | No Comments »

The Alchemical Marriage

July 30th, 2007 Fred McVittie

This blog is written in a range of styles (tones, colours, ductus), some objective and some more subjective. It is hoped that the common ground of poetic cognition out of which all expression exudes and of which metaphor is a part, regardless of its status as objective or subjective, personal or interpersonal, scientific or artistic, provides a space in which all of these expressive forms can be considered. I make reference to widely different bodies of thought and the works of writers and artists who operate in very different traditions, as well as engaging in more free-form and hermetic writing. Because of the range of such referencing and style I will, from necessity, be obliged to treat such works with much less than the depth of analysis they undoubtedly deserve. For example, some of the works of Wittgenstein and of Heidegger are cited, occupying screen space alongside Beckett, Ron Athey, and Merleau-Ponty, and it is inevitable that in such cases I am, to an extent, playing fast and loose with ideas that deserve better. In terms of the territory/argument that I am attempting to construct here however, my dalliances with these characters and their work has an ambition other than a full and complete marriage (alchemical or otherwise); our names will not be joined, we will not move in together and I seriously doubt the likelihood of memetically-bonded offspring. Rather I am approaching these bodies of knowing with a one-track mind, to take what I need and leave the rest.

Posted in Alchemy, Blog, Poetics | No Comments »