Thoughts on sensation

There are several aspects that I would like to develop, elements that need being mentioned because they feel quite important to me in relation to our process. Although I think that writing about these elements might help our reader(s) get a better idea of our work, they aren't quite articulate in my mind to really write a full note about each of them (but I will soon).

First, I was particularly interested in the different ways we approach objects (this can relate to the note on ways of investigation). We noticed in our second week of our January session that we approached objects slightly differently, not in our choice of tool (though there are some differences here too) but more generally in the relationship we created with the object to interrogate it. I found myself being more passive as Janine appeared more active. (My intention here isn't to privilege one over the other but rather to introduce tendencies that once acknowledged become extra tools available to both of us.)

An active approach would be inquisitive, meeting the object, exploring it from all possible angles as if to discover its hidden secrets. I have the feeling that an active approach attempts to get as much information about the object as possible. On the other hand, a passive approach involves, stepping back, letting the object come to us from a certain distance. The passive approach therefore gains a broader, but not necessarily less precise, sense of what the object.

During our exploration, I drew a link between the latter approach and an area that particularly interests me: sensation. Stepping back during the interrogation of the object I let the object unlock areas of sensation, that is to say a certain amount of physical response in my flesh, my bones, my skin, my guts ... As a response, sensation appears quite irrational yet very tangible.

After experiencing sensation in relation to a an object, the method (our processing machine) allows us to distil the raw information until it slowly becomes clearer. The understanding of the sensation becomes deeper but also easier to express, and perhaps even to describe verbally.

There were many questions in relation to sensation as the information that is distilled isn't the essence of the object itself but that of the essence of the sensation.

However, I feel that sensation could be a basis for classification, sorting objects by the sensation they triggered or by the nature of the sensation itself.

Working with sensation could also be a first element to explore relationships between ourselves and the objects, an aspect of the work we wish to study in our future session.

In any case, I found that sensation gave to my improvisation a certain density that I found quite surprising, challenging and exciting. I felt I could really explore the density of the object within my own body.

Elodie