THESIS revised

Bodily movement is the most primitive language which is important if we want to understand who we are and where we come from. Through bodily movement, inner attitudes leave our insides and are shared with the outer part of the world.

Bodily movement is perceived in two ways: a common way, and an uncommon way.

The common way of perceiving bodily movement is when one observes the body in movement, changing position in the world. Often, one is distracted with the body's physical form, and ignores what the body communicates and forms when it moves.

The uncommon way of perceiving bodily movement is when one observes the forms of space which the body in movement generates in the world(1). Observing the forms of space which the body in movement generates is a direct way of studying the movement itself.

I am concerned with observing and studying the body in movement AND the space forms which the body in movement generates. With an Infra Red imager, I filmed a visual image representing temperature, of the human skin surface, and made "visible" the space forms which the body in movement generates. As the human skin surface moves through the world, the Infra Red camera captures this movement, via the physiological condition of skin heat.

This way, I saw two things : the temporal heat patterns a body in movement generates in the world, and the temporal space forms a body in movement generates in the world.

I produced a film of a contemporary dance solo, filmed with an Infra Red imager. The performer of the piece was Rebecca Kay Lewis, a professional dancer from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The piece is entitled "A Song for You".

Bodily movement is limited to the dimensions of the body in movement. This means no matter where a body is in the world, its movement is dependent, of course, on the bodies physical capabilities and material form. Now, I mentioned the body in movement generates 'space-forms'. This term is uncommon, and studied by Rudolf Laban. Space forms are forms of space that the body generates when it moves. There must be movement to make space. Without movement, there is no space.

The first misconception about space is we often think space is a stillness, or rather, a body only existing in one condition: inclosed by or open from another body {ex. "This space is inside (something). This space is outside (something)". } (footnote 1) Space is a body with temporality just like other bodies. Indeed it moves! For example, we are in a room, and we think its inside has many instances of stillness, and some occasional movement. The inside of the room is actually in constant movement. Our eyes can only perceive movement in fragments so we have the perception of instances of 'stillness' (2). The constant movement in the inside of the room is space.

The second misconception of space, is, we often think space is a 'void'; (perhaps from a mistranslation of the 2D drawing concept of positive and negative space, or in the 3D drawing concept of the solid and the void? - In both theories, movement is not a precondition.) Space is not a negative of something positive, or a void of something solid. Immaterial in nature, space is something and therefore not 'nothing'. It is a body in some sort of form, which is generated by movement. It exists in form under the condition that there is a movement which generates it. Space is a form that the body generates when it moves. Space forms and the bodies which generate them are the theoretical focuse of my thesis.




Footnote 1. There is no 'Outside' (3). When I say I am outside, do I mean I am not in anything? I am always in my body, am I not? And I am always in my surrounding world. In fact, there is no determinant 'Inside' either.. because we are constantly inside of something and outside of something else. I am in my body and outside of my outside. }


(1) Laban, Choreutics.

(2) Laban, Choreutics.

(3) Sloterdijk. Mobilization of the Planet from the Spirit of Self-Intensification