DEEP FLOW: an embodied materiality of dance, technology, and bodily experience

In this research article, I argue that Deep Flow is an embodied materiality that may be experienced by exploring performative phenomenologies, entwining two different sets of research practice: phenomenological methodologies and artistic practice. In Deep Flow the practitioner entangles phenomenological methodologies, methods and research practices performatively such as embodied dance practice, the felt senses, drawings, verbal feedback and their analyses in relation to biometric data, from an embodied heart rate monitor. By looking inwardly, the practitioner experiences embodied phenomena and reveals these experiences in artistic practices in relation to the worlding in which they find themselves. These outcomes are considered as being differing materialities, flowing and converging through relational and phenomenological practice, Deep Flow and through this they become embodied by the practitioner, where new forms of embodied materialities emerge. I argue that in my practice, this is an experiential state, Deep Flow, where all human and non-human elements of the dance practice flow and course through the practitioner as an embodied materiality.

Not so hysterical now? Psychotherapy, menopause, and hysterectomy

In the context of the body, the essentially female; wombs, menstrual cycles, and concurrent hormones, have seen women ascribed madness, insatiability, untrustworthiness, and danger. Female bodies have been identified in selective parts, considered in abstract, or envisaged as having overwhelming power over the mind. “Hysteria”, the problematic neurosis of uterine origin was at the heart of early psychoanalysis. This diagnosis enshrines a slippage from the physical to the fantastical, and ultimately to the denial of the lived reality of women’s and girl’s bodies. In apparent collusion with patriarchy the neglect of some female bodily experience is perpetuated in contemporary psychoanalytic theory. Nowhere is this more evident than around menopause and hysterectomy (as experienced by either client or therapist). There has been little or no exploration of how practitioners might best support clients for whom menopause is significant, or how we might facilitate women before or after gynaecological surgery. It is as if removal and psychological loss of the same female body parts that our forebears used to so neatly differentiate, diagnose, and pathologise women are now not of note. I am interested as to how we as psychotherapists reclaim female body narratives from this outdated theoretical paradigm to best serve clients experiencing menopause, gynaecological surgery, and mid life in the twenty-first century.

The 9th Decade and Beyond: The Perils of the Narrative of Decline

Twenty-three participants ranging in age from 80-102 years living on remote islands in the Pacific Northwest, USA reported the privileges of their current years. The aim of the study was to explore lived bodily experience and its impact on social exclusion. Participants utilized a unique visual methodology by photographing their experiences which highlighted daily life. While acknowledging that their years ‘before’ were different, and that life going forward may present unwelcome challenges, life in the now brought new joys and self-determination, despite various bodily compromises. Their perceptions of their bodies defied the dominant narrative of decline. These important findings warrant further investigation of the ways in which this emerging cohort views the challenges of aging bodies and their ability to remain socially connected. The role the dominant narrative of decline plays in their lives may prove to misdirect supports.

Czy idąc prosto przed siebie, nie można zajść daleko?

Is It True that “If You Run Ahead of Yourself, You Cannot Go Very Far”? Image Schemata and Aphorisms The author uses a cognitive tool called image schemata to analyse aphorisms. The schemata originate from early bodily experience and are enable to ground the phenomenon of linguistic meaning there. The aphorism is defined not only as a linguistic fact but as a conceptual structure based on an axiological clash. The clash results from profiling opposite values in the used schemata. Considering the language-values relationship, the article adopts a cognitive linguistics approach which claims that valuation is an immanent part of symbolic language units and it mustn’t be relegated to the area of pragmatics. Following Krzeszowski’s concept, the author assumes that preconceptual schemata interact with the SCALE schema. The hearer/reader of the self-contradictory expression must reinterpret it using metaphorical meanings. These are easily available thanks to conceptual metaphors which include image schemata in their source domains.

Field of Intimacy: Explorations of interiority within the landscape

<p>Interior Architecture cannot be bound by the confines of a building, it is not the catalyst of architectural intervention, in fact we can have interior experiences within the landscape. As a discipline Interior Architecture tends to be quite insular, struggling to connect to the exterior context of a design, whereas landscape architecture tends to be so involved with the context at the large scale, that the finer details and experiences of space can be lost. Generally, engineered systems tend to be internalized and designed without regard for the social. There is an interesting connection between landscape and interior architecture, with landscapes being able to generate their own sense of interiority. I have defined “existential intimacy” to describe the haptic bodily experience of a space through which one gains an understanding of something bigger than themselves (whether it be a system, process, or just being more aware and connected with their direct surroundings). This research explores what happens when notions of “existential intimacy” are applied within a landscape. Water is used as an important device for establishing existential intimacy enhancing the ability to engage with larger systems. By applying existential intimacy to the Wellington context of Mount Victoria and engaging with stormwater systems in the city, a field of intimacy is created connecting with water detention to allow more intensified experiential inhabitation of the green belt. Designing with a focus on existential intimacy, an expansiveness across scales is created, meaning that the design cannot lose context or detail, but is forced to engage with both, to create spaces which are both functional (in an engineered sense) and experiential.</p>

Field of Intimacy: Explorations of interiority within the landscape

<p>Interior Architecture cannot be bound by the confines of a building, it is not the catalyst of architectural intervention, in fact we can have interior experiences within the landscape. As a discipline Interior Architecture tends to be quite insular, struggling to connect to the exterior context of a design, whereas landscape architecture tends to be so involved with the context at the large scale, that the finer details and experiences of space can be lost. Generally, engineered systems tend to be internalized and designed without regard for the social. There is an interesting connection between landscape and interior architecture, with landscapes being able to generate their own sense of interiority. I have defined “existential intimacy” to describe the haptic bodily experience of a space through which one gains an understanding of something bigger than themselves (whether it be a system, process, or just being more aware and connected with their direct surroundings). This research explores what happens when notions of “existential intimacy” are applied within a landscape. Water is used as an important device for establishing existential intimacy enhancing the ability to engage with larger systems. By applying existential intimacy to the Wellington context of Mount Victoria and engaging with stormwater systems in the city, a field of intimacy is created connecting with water detention to allow more intensified experiential inhabitation of the green belt. Designing with a focus on existential intimacy, an expansiveness across scales is created, meaning that the design cannot lose context or detail, but is forced to engage with both, to create spaces which are both functional (in an engineered sense) and experiential.</p>

Interlocking: The Phenomenological Apartment

<p>New Zealand faces the need for more housing over the coming decades due to increasing population and a decreasing household size. An existing response is a trend of higher density apartment buildings within our inner cities. However these small standardized apartments have created a negative view toward urban apartments, commonly being described as ‘shoe-boxes’. Can urban inner-city higher density housing be better designed? This becomes the focus of this research in regards to quality of space in small apartments. A critique of existing ‘shoe-box’ apartments is developed, proving they lack spatial quality, have lost a crucial connection with the dweller and are largely irrelevant to their site. The research seeks to remedy the ‘shoe-box’ apartment by applying principles from the theory of phenomenology and an interlocking typology. Phenomenology is introduced as a key theory to help develop a grounding in specificity and re-instill the notion of bodily experience in space. This theoretical position, based on Steven Holl’s architectural interpretation of phenomenology, with a bodily emphasis, is applied through four strategies to integrate a spatial experience. Typologically, interlocking apartments provide a precedent, where by their very nature, the interlocking produces an interesting relationship between spaces. This precedent analysis provides seven techniques which are coupled with the strategies from Holl, and applied to the design. The resulting design is a successful mixed-use urban solution, with a focus on the outcome of interlocking apartments.</p>

Interlocking: The Phenomenological Apartment

<p>New Zealand faces the need for more housing over the coming decades due to increasing population and a decreasing household size. An existing response is a trend of higher density apartment buildings within our inner cities. However these small standardized apartments have created a negative view toward urban apartments, commonly being described as ‘shoe-boxes’. Can urban inner-city higher density housing be better designed? This becomes the focus of this research in regards to quality of space in small apartments. A critique of existing ‘shoe-box’ apartments is developed, proving they lack spatial quality, have lost a crucial connection with the dweller and are largely irrelevant to their site. The research seeks to remedy the ‘shoe-box’ apartment by applying principles from the theory of phenomenology and an interlocking typology. Phenomenology is introduced as a key theory to help develop a grounding in specificity and re-instill the notion of bodily experience in space. This theoretical position, based on Steven Holl’s architectural interpretation of phenomenology, with a bodily emphasis, is applied through four strategies to integrate a spatial experience. Typologically, interlocking apartments provide a precedent, where by their very nature, the interlocking produces an interesting relationship between spaces. This precedent analysis provides seven techniques which are coupled with the strategies from Holl, and applied to the design. The resulting design is a successful mixed-use urban solution, with a focus on the outcome of interlocking apartments.</p>

William Blake: Neo-Platonist and Sexual Radical?

William Blake’s prophetic works seem to present the reader with a puzzling contradiction. On the one hand Blake can be read as a prophet of sexual revolution with his attacks on puritanism and hypocritical chastity. On the other hand, in many passages he seems to express characteristically Platonic/Patristic skepticism concerning bodily experience. What is more he often portrays sexuality and indeed femininity as manipulative and cruel. Is there a coherent attitude to sexuality in Blake? This paper argues that Blake’s soteriology strongly implies that the ‘return’ to unity with the divine pivots on the incarnation which Blake even insists is the product of natural sexuality. To this extent there is a place for the sexualized body in the economy of salvation. This economy links Blake to a larger Platonist and Christian Platonist tradition that understands salvation in terms of an exitus/reditus pattern.