aesthetics and body experiences in health care contents editorial: aesthetics and body experiences in health care 4 britta møller and falk heinrich articles: crafting atmospheres for healthcare design 8 esben bala skouboe and marie højlund breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films 30 outi hakola care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work 45 britta møller somaesthetics in early korean history: the educational scope of the hwarang 59 jiyun bae artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics contents editorial: artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 4 adam andrzejewski and falk heinrich articles: body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self 7 alessandro bertinetto healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors: 27 designing objects of soft fascination to move from fight and flight, to flow and flourish chloe cassidy handling digital reproductions of artworks 51 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design 72 monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski book reviews: ars erotica and scientia sexualis 84 alexander kremer a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence 90 else marie bukdahl meliorate meliorism: a review of 102 somaesthetics and the philosophy of culture: projects in japan (ed. higuchi, s.) kyo tamamura body, space, architecture contents editorial: body, space, architecture 4 aurosa alison articles: motion and emotion: understanding urban architecture 9 through diverse multisensorial engagements tenna d.o. tvedebrink, lars b. fich, elisabetta canepa, zakaria djebbara, asbjørn c. carstens, dylan chau huynh, and ole b. jensen aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city 30 lukáš makky somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: 44 encouraging inclusive architectural design mark tschaepe sensing the virtual: atmosphere and somaesthetics in virtual reality 57 jessica fiala essays: notes on the aural aspects of built environment 78 bálint veres architectural gestures in international relations 88 pradeep a. dhillon artistic statement: is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art 103 bartlomiej struzik unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self contents editorial: unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self 4 riikka perälä and max ryynänen articles: unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? 10 constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) irène delcourt the body is a soft machine: 32 the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs robert w. jones ii suicide, social bodies, and danger: 48 taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) heidi kosonen care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: 64 rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals henri hyvönen what the drug culture meant 82 crispin sartwell book reviews: urban aesthetics and soma-politics: 89 on bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life stefano marino vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian 97 somaesthetics and yogasūtra: a reading through films noora-helena korpelainen the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) editorial board editors in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) issue editors research assistant britta møller (denmark) professor falk heinrich (denmark) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) professor arto haapala (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor laura luise schultz (denmark) associate professor stefano marino (italy) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) editorial board editors in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) issue editors post.doc. riikka perälä (finland) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) professor arto haapala (finland) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) editorial board editors in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland), until 2021 post.doc anne tarvainen (finland), from 2022 issue editors assistant professor adam andrzejewski (poland) professor falk heinrich (denmark) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) professor arto haapala (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) editorial board editors in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) issue editors professor aurosa alison (italy) professor falk heinrich (denmark) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) professor arto haapala (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) associate professor laura luise schultz (denmark) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 4 editorial artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics adam andrzejewski, falk heinrich the relationship between the human body and cultural artifacts, such as design artifacts, artworks, and religious artifacts, is both fascinating and peculiar. for example, various art forms depict or use human and non-human bodies as a point of reference. however, philosophical aesthetics have neglected the material-energetic body of artifacts. until recently, artifacts have been mainly viewed as “parenthetical” objects transcending strictly corporal matters because of the dominant aspects of the western culture. artworks and religious objects are predominantly represented as intrinsic aesthetic values or spiritual ideas that negate their physical relationship with the human body. similarly, in addition to serving a functional purpose, design artifacts are also aesthetic objects that transcend their sensory and practical relationship with the user by focusing on the conveyance of narratives and ideas according to mainstream aesthetics. for example, the rise of minimal art, performance art, and body art in the contemporary art world during the middle of the last century has prompted us to reconsider the complex interconnections between human materials, body senses, and artifacts by granting the artwork an agential body of its own. fried (1997) classified minimal art as theater (rather than art) because the artifacts of minimal art create relationship situations with the onlooker. furthermore, danto (1999) claimed that artworks are representational entities that are marked by some sort of agency that is induced to the artwork because the onlooker is drawn into an interactional relationship with the artwork, which is now bestowed with subjectivity. however, the fact that artworks depend on human interaction does not mean that their “agency” can be taken away from them. hermeneutics has frequently been used to explain the significance and importance of art as culture-instigating and world-instigating artifacts (see, e.g., heidegger, 1950). it is unknown whether artworks and design artifacts become agential bodies that exhibit features that go beyond aesthetic forms and semiotic representations. advances in cognitive sciences (newman et al., 2014), philosophy of mind and language (muñoz-corcuera, 2016), and law (andina, 2017) have shown that art objects are more similar to us than we realize and that we tend to have serious intimate relationships with them. for instance, both humans and artworks retain their (ontological) identity over time even if they undergo various changes (e.g., growing old, being restored, or even being duplicated) and have legal rights that must be protected. further, humans have moral obligations toward artworks because of their status as cultural heritage artifacts and historical witnesses, as well as their inner “truth” and the incorporated energy and spirit of their creators. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 5 although artifacts cannot sense, feel, or act as agents, humans often use them as both objects and subjects in passionate relationships such as love or hate, which are traditionally reserved for the animated world. humans engage emotionally with art or design artifacts. the somaesthetic shift in the conceptualization of the human body and its affective, perceptual, agential, and emissive capabilities could be a promising starting point for reframing the bodily nature of artifacts and our embodied relationships with them. this is particularly evident when we consider artifacts that create experiential places via human interactions. places are not mere sites; a site refers to a geographically and geometrically understood space, while a place is characterized by existential and interbody dimensions. examples of such placeand bodyoriented artforms are architecture, gardens, land art, installation art, and participatory art. we believe that somaesthetics is a promising framework for investigating art or design artifacts as complex and relational “bodies” because the framework allows for practical, experiential dimensions to play a role in the analysis and theory development. hence, somaesthetics creates a multifaceted, investigatory space of appreciation and analysis by focusing on the somatic relationships between artifactual and human bodies. conversely, the concept of artifactual bodies as agential body anchors enhances and also questions the somatic dimensions of human existence. all contributions to this issue applied distinct aspects of somaesthetics when investigating the experiential significance of different cultural artifacts––their emotional appreciation, artistic value, function, and relationship with humans. the analyzed artifacts included artworks, manufactured design artifacts, and artifacts created by the author herself. in particular, all contributions used various approaches to emphasize the role these artifacts play in shaping the human sense of self because of their corporal existence. based on the identityshaping function of these artifacts, the somaesthetic relationship with seemingly silent and passive objects around us is illuminated and discussed. the volume opens with alessandro bertinetto’s highly theoretical contribution, which is fueled by personal experience. in his paper “body and soul… and the artifact. the aesthetically extended self,” he analyzes the phenomena of feeling sorry for the loss or destruction of specific cultural material artifacts, such as musical instruments, artworks, or bikes. it is argued that this specific type of feeling or attitude results from the fact that cultural artifacts, which gain personal significance through the process of habituation and skilled repetitive practice of using them, complement ourselves and aid in developing our personality. bertinetto argues that people become part of the virtual history of self through somaesthetic experiences with specific artifacts. “thanks to the assiduity of a somaesthetic relationship, these objects enlarge not only our body but also our mind or “soul.” they become parts of our extended body and soul,” the owner and user. thus, the loss or destruction of these objects causes us pain. chloe cassidy’s article entitled “healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors: designing objects of soft fascination to move from fight and flight to flow and flourish” discusses how somaesthetic research can help deal with issues of post-traumatic stress disorder by enriching the the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 6 overall quality of life. the author developed a method based on cultivating aesthetic appreciation and somaesthetic experiences that can straighten a sense of safety through mastered body consciousness in order to secure two trauma-informed care principles: safety and empowerment. cassidy presented self-designed and created artifacts that function as somaesthetic anchors that connect the subject to nature and the surrounding world on a sensory level. establishing a sensory connection aids in the development of a sense of safety and empowerment as well as the healing process. cassidy’s article convincingly demonstrates the pragmatic and practical dimensions of somaesthetics. “handling digital reproductions of artworks” is a contribution by christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie. the paper is based on empirical research into how people react to digital reproductions of visual artworks. in the experiment, onlookers were asked to “handle” (touch and hold) physical paintings as well as their two-dimensional (2d) and three-dimensional (3d) virtual representations. after a series of interviews with the viewers, careful analysis, and interpretation of the received data, the article concludes that by designing an aesthetic experience of digital reproductions of visual artworks that involves the body in a significant manner, we can bring back the somaesthetic dimensions of art experience that are currently lost in art galleries and museums, where onlookers are not allowed to touch and handle exhibited artworks. virtual interactive exhibition spaces can create/recreate the experience of touching and handling art objects, providing a sense of genuineness that is sometimes lacking in modern museums and galleries. the final contribution is “object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design” by monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski. the paper proposes a different interpretation of aesthetic appreciation of design artifacts. they claim that we appreciate and appraise design artifacts not only because of their functionality but also because of our physical reactions to them. favara-kurkowski and andrzejewski challenge the notion of being bodily entangled with a design object by pointing out that when we experience a design object, we evaluate not only the object but also our own body. in other words, a conglomerate of an object, a subject, and their relationship is what is valued in the aesthetic experience of design artifacts. this volume concluded with lengthy reviews of three books. alexander kremer reviewed richard shusterman’s ars erotica, and else marie bukdahl reviewed allie terry-fritsch’s book somaesthetic experiences and the viewer in medicean florence, renaissance, art and political. finally, kyo tamamura had a critical look at satochi higuchi’s recent book somaesthetics and the philosophy of culture: projects in japan. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 102 page 102–105kyo tamamura book review meliorate meliorism: a review of somaesthetics and the philosophy of culture: projects in japan (ed. higuchi, s.) kyo tamamura somaesthetics and the philosophy of culture: projects in japan serves as a guidebook on japanese somaesthetics. it was edited by satoshi higuchi—a leading theorist and researcher of aesthetics in japan—who introduced somaesthetics into the country. in this book, higuchi describes the history of somaesthetics in japan, its development (when and the circumstances under which it began and how it developed), and its current state. the book presents an overall picture of “japanese somaesthetics.” two questions will arise. is it possible to grasp the overall picture of japanese somaesthetics? if so, is it necessary? although not explicit, higuchi’s answer to both of these questions is yes. with regard to the first question, we should first examine whether somaesthetics can be found in japan. of course, somaesthetics was not originally present there. as is well known, somaesthetics was introduced at the end of the 20th century by richard shusterman, who wrote in the foreword of his book that he “first arrived at the idea of somaesthetics in 1996” (p. vii). higuchi arranged for him to come to japan in 2002. he subsequently served as visiting professor at hiroshima university for two years and introduced the concept of somaesthetics there. somaesthetics did not exist in japan prior to shusterman’s arrival, and it has not spread much since then. however, people have always been curious about the potentiality of the human body, akin to somaesthetic researchers in this century. this book illustrates how japan was a suitable, though not optimal, place for somaesthetics to take root. first, people in japan have always emphasized “praxis” over “theoria.” in other words, they have valued doing over just seeing and thinking. for instance, traditional japanese art, which includes paintings and music, is not merely viewed or heard, but is drawn and played. art is not a special activity performed only talented artists, but an everyday one. in addition, japan has a long tradition of emphasizing “acquisition” (taitoku in japanese)—a deep understanding obtained through bodily practice and actions, as opposed to a shallow understanding of the theory. the importance of bodily understanding is taught not only in zen monasteries, but also in common people’s houses. unfortunately, modern japanese “physical education” in schools does not properly inherit this tradition. in the latter half of the 20th century, there were some books related to body theory, but they were influenced by the western philosophical tradition that tends to disregard the body. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 103 meliorate meliorism: a review of somaesthetics and the philosophy of culture: projects in japan (ed. higuchi, s.) however, trust in bodily knowledge is sound in itself. in fact, significant philosophical research on the capability of the body has been conducted. books by hidemi ishida, yoichi yamada, and akeo okada are examples of such research. why did this happen in japan? it is likely that japanese people felt a sense of discomfort with the modern concept of “art” imported into japan in the late 19th century. bugei (martial arts and sports) were traditionally considered a form of art in japan, but they came to be excluded because they did not fit the western concept of “fine art.” since then, in a sense, people have regularly questioned what art truly is and whether sports can be considered art. this may have led to the maturation of the concepts of beauty, art, and sports. third, how to handle one’s body has always been a central topic in japanese school education. in japan, serious incidents have long occurred at school that have been related to the human body. higuchi provides two examples: “tsumekomi kyoiku” (rote learning; literally means “knowledge-stuffing education”) and corporal punishment. we should feel ashamed that such problems have frequently occurred in japanese schools. however, it can also be argued that such circumstances presented the opportunity to think about the body, which facilitated the maturation of the discussion about the somatic existence of human beings. regardless, is it useful to examine japanese somaesthetics? in recent years, the reformation of aesthetics has gained momentum worldwide, and aesthetic research appears to be entering a new stage. shusterman argued that western philosophy needs to be renewed and that japan and its ideological traditions offer hints for thinking about the future of philosophy. higuchi has also been working on renovating modern aesthetics, but his perspective is not necessarily the same as that of shusterman. looking back on their efforts to examine the problems encountered and how they overcame them will help us gain insight into future of aesthetics and philosophy. in fact, this book addresses topics that have rarely been touched upon in previous studies on somaesthetics. the topics include the relationship between physical and theoretical knowledge, the involvement of language in improving bodily capabilities, and the role of language in acquiring knowledge and trying to grasp meaning through the body. these issues are examined from a new perspective in this book, which refers to and introduces recent studies in japan (e.g., the study by masaki suwa). referring to such research is expected to deepen discussions on somaesthetics. some may argue that most of the content in this book merely consists of higuchi’s personal history. it does, in a sense. it would not be out of line to say that his career almost overlaps with the history of japanese somaesthetics itself. however, this does not mean that higuchi is the only person to practice somaesthetics in japan. researchers from various fields have made efforts that resonate with his inquiries (note that the subtitle of the book contains the pluralized term “projects”). additionally, the number of younger researchers in the field are growing. the second half of this book consists of articles by his young colleagues, which illustrates that japanese somaesthetics is being passed down to the next generation. japan can thus certainly play a part in the future of somaesthetics. before closing, i would like to express a possibly superfluous concern. there is no doubt that somaesthetics will help us to conceive “a better body.” it is no mistake to call it meliorism, as even shusterman defines somaesthetics as “the critical, meliorative study of the experience and use of one’s body” (p.xiii). however, what does it mean to make better use of one’s body? is there anyone who can do it in the truest sense? if there is, who is it? the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 104 kyo tamamura higuchi focuses on the somaesthetic experience of the sports performer in chapter 2. he possibly uses the word “sports performer” and not “athlete” because the latter tends to imply someone who is proficient in physical exercise. in other words, the latter term implies a professional sportsperson. this can be seen as a reflection of his anti-elitism. this is also reflected in chapter 3, where wolfgang welsh’s attempt to expand the object of aesthetics from traditional fine art to topics in daily life is introduced. on the other hand, higuchi also appears to be interested in the use of the expert’s body. in his previous work, he analyzed the body theory of yoshinori kono—a renowned researcher and practitioner of ko-bujutsu, a traditional japanese martial art (higuchi 2017, 2019). it is also well known that shusterman is an enthusiastic practitioner of the feldenkrais method and is a certified instructor who undertakes workshops and demonstrations that include practical exercises. we are thus prompted to think that paying attention to our body requires a proficient skill or a method that would be found outside our daily life. i recall that when i introduced the idea of somaesthetics to a student at my college, he said he was interested in the somatic experience of athletes. he wanted to study ichiro’s body use (ichiro—a major league player—is mentioned several times in this book, albeit in different contexts). this example may be too mundane, but it would be reasonable to admit that there is a danger that meliorism can bring back the elitism that higuchi and shusterman were trying to avoid (satoshi masuda (2000)—a japanese musicologist—once criticized somaesthetics’ elitist tendency by stating that shusterman’s meliorism failed to capture the true value of rap music. this criticism may appear a bit too harsh, yet i do not think it is completely off the mark). asa ito, a japanese aesthetician, published a series of studies concerning the body use of the disabled. she stated that “while we tend to think that the world we see is everything, there should be a world that you can grasp with your ears, hands, and so on” (ito 2015: p. 5). according to her, “the blind are the specialists who can sense ‘another face of the world’,” because “they perceive the direction of the floor mats with the feel of the soles of their feet, and they know whether or not the curtain is open by the echo of the sound” (ito 2015: p. 6). of course, here she uses the term “specialists” in a figurative sense. some researchers (including myself ) have started to study the behavior of amateurs in japanese traditional arts (e.g., pellecchia 2017). although amateurs do not have extraordinary talent or special skills, they know themselves and their bodies well. they always pay attention to their physical condition, because their relative incompetence encourages them to think about how to live with their own bodies and how to cope with their (im)possibilities. paying attention to groups such as amateurs and the disabled, who thus far may not necessarily have been the subject of philosophical research, will broaden the horizons of somesthetic research. “projects in japan” is still now going on. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 105 meliorate meliorism: a review of somaesthetics and the philosophy of culture: projects in japan (ed. higuchi, s.) references higuchi, s. (ed) (2017) kyoiku ni okeru shintai chi kenkyu josetsu [an introduction to the study of bodily knowing in education]. tokyo: sobun kikaku. (in japanese) higuchi, s. (2019) “archeology of the art of body movement: learning from japanese ko-bujutsu”. the journal of aesthetic education 53, pp. 97-105. ito, a. (2015) me no mienai hito wa sekai wo dou mite iru noka [how do the blind see the world?]. tokyo: kobunsha. (in japanese) masuda, s. (2000) “geijutsu tte sonna ni ii mono?: richard shusterman popular geijutsu no bigaku: pragmatism no tachiba kara [is “fine art” so fine?: richard shusterman’s kunst leben: die ästhetik des pragmatismus]”. exmusica 1, pp. 232-233. (in japanese) pellecchia, d. (2017) “noh creativity? the role of amateurs in japanese noh theatre”. contemporary theatre review 27, pp. 34-45. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 4 editorial aesthetics and body experiences in health care britta møller and falk heinrich studies in health and health care comprise a broad field encompassing medical treatment, prevention, and care for older and permanently sick people. the area includes many healthcare practices and practitioners: doctors, nurses, care workers, alternative practitioners, etc. thus, health studies are subject to a broad and interdisciplinary area that has different ways of understanding what health is and how health is studied (naidoo & wills, 2015). drawing on various scientific fields, discourses of biology, medicine, cultural studies, psychology, social policy, and sociology are all intermingled in health studies. traditionally derived from natural science, an objective biological construction of health has dominated health studies and health care in the west (naidoo & wills, 2015). here, the body is considered a collection of matterbased functions, where dysfunctional bodies can be restored by repairing or replacing broken parts. likewise, medicine dealing with physical and mental health aspects and dysfunctions relates to the body as a means—or obstacle—for performance. one of the consequences of the medical approach is that the body can never be strong and effective enough, as shown by the intricate relationship between medicine and elite sports. in this case, body work and bodily health are understood as performance machines, and the body’s training is valued as something done (aldridge, 2004). in health care, bodies are seen as targets of daily care in terms of personal hygiene, medical treatment, exercise, proper nutrition, and medication. bodies are treated as almost mechanical objects of care in the sense of concern and worry. this is considered lowranked and even dirty work performed as paid bodywork on the bodies of others (twigg, 2000). only recently have aesthetic artifacts and practices gained attention within health studies and health care. aesthetic dimensions are often seen in beautifying hospitals and nursing homes’ spatial interiors and surroundings (wall colors, mural art, posters, paintings, sculptures, recreational parks, etc.). likewise, the benevolent effect of aesthetics is seen with cultural experiences (theater, music, poetics, and narratives) and aesthetic experiences in and with nature. evidently, there are good reasons for this. however, we argue that the aesthetic dimensions of the lived body are an important and valuable addition and sometimes even a substantial means for a good or better life (shusterman, 1999), especially for people with permanent health conditions and older people. somaesthetic practices are also a means of healing. somaesthetics surpasses external beautification and aestheticization because it posits aesthetic attention within our somatic self as the center of healing and improvement. somaesthetic practices focusing on bodily awareness and experiences can be benevolent and supporting in health questions, and this has several reasons. first, somaesthetics questions aesthetics and body experiences in health care5 the predominant thinking that sees the body as an object to be manipulated and enhanced. in contrast, somaesthetics proposes the experiencing of one’s own body as an integral part of wellbeing and meaning-making. second, somaesthetics suggests a more fluid continuum between health and sickness that focuses on acceptance and improvement through somatic aesthetic practices and awareness. thus, somaesthetic practices can support healthcare by emphasizing the aesthetic experience and awareness of the situated body and its actions. likewise, the theoretical dimension of somaesthetics can contribute to an altered and ameliorative understanding of health, sickness, and situated well-being. this issue about aesthetics and body experiences in healthcare presents three articles that deal with different aspects of healthcare, attending to human lives from the cradle to the grave. the first article, ‘crafting atmospheres for healthcare design,’ is authored by esben skouboe (architect and researcher) and iben højholt (composer and sound studies researcher). it addresses the healing and empowering agency of a somaesthetic design of delivery rooms for both parents and midwives at work. the article sheds light on a design process that considers the aesthetic preferences and somatic associations of prospective users of the delivery room. the chosen methodology is reflected in the interactive components of a delivery room that offers various aesthetic atmospheres through visual projections and soundscapes. this allows users to create a very personal and aesthetically rich atmosphere as the context for one of the most critical situations in life. the second article, ‘breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films,’ is written by outi hakola and explores how cinematic narratives in documentaries represent death and the dying body. the somaesthetic focus is on breathing as life’s most basic sign and function. breathing is either hindered by medical technology or set free in a demedicalized natural death. the third article, ‘care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work,’ by britta møller, focuses on the somaesthetic communication between care workers and elderly people in nursing homes. the three articles study different care locations: a delivery room at a hospital (skouboe/ højlund), intensive care units and hospice units (hakola), and care practices in nursing homes (møller). all three articles stress that (medical, cinematic, and welfare) technologies have appeared as signs of modernity that standardize and make healthcare practice more efficient. this also heightens the status of the field as an essential part of a technologically advanced society. hakola describes how cinematic media has built an image of scientific technology as something with authority and sociopolitical importance. møller points to welfare technology as something that gives status by enabling a distanced position to the body in care work. skouboe and højlund stress that medical technologies in functional and institutionalized delivery rooms assimilate machine rooms to which patients are alienated. however, skouboe and højlund also stress that this type of technology is necessary and life-securing; new additional technologies to create a somaesthetic hospital room design might be considered “unserious hippie-like initiatives conducted by management.” the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 6 hakola finds that the medicalization of death and dying freezes embodied time, as it can prolong life and give time for relatives to make decisions about life and death. however, these technologies also override the agency and subjectivity of the patient. hakola argues that, at least temporarily, technology overtakes patients’ subjectivity, as patients are left unable to breathe for themselves. medical technologies create a blurred and unstable image of the person (hakola) and passive hospital patients (skouboe/højlund). medical instruments can dehumanize and isolate patients at the moment of death and force them to let go of their agency (hakola). in response to this situation, skouboe/højlund stresses that hospitals need to be conceived as more than just spaces for efficient and secure physical treatments; hospitals are also places for significant life events and memories for life, such as giving birth. hakola’s and skouboe/ højlund’s studies highlight the embodied process of dying and giving birth emphasized by demedicalization, and in skouboe/højlund’s case, enforced by a technological somaesthetic design of the delivery room. attention must be given to the embodied relations between human experience and technology. technology—medical and cinematic (hakola) and medical and atmosphere-generating instruments (skouboe/højlund)—can also create a potential for body awareness for the actors (viewers, parents, midwives) to experience various perspectives on the medicalization of death and dying (hakola) or empowerment, stress reduction, pain management and more active and self-reliant patients (skouboe/højlund). hakola and skouboe/højlund study desires and intentions to de-medicalize the acts of giving birth and dying. skouboe/ højlund emphasizes homelike decor and familiar local nature moods as positive distractions and downplays the functional and institutionalized things and sounds in the delivery room. hakola conducts studies of documentaries in hospice and palliative care, where the patient’s agency is related to breathing and where all traces of medicalization and technology are almost erased. the focus is on the dying body’s breathing movements and sounds, in contrast to the machine sounds and the after-death stillness. hakola stresses that the demedicalized cinematic focus in documentaries affects the viewer to respond to the on-screen representations effectively, as their bodies will mimic those of the breathing characters and hence potentially create a bodily awareness of the status of one’s own body. these embodied experiences of the breathing body create embodied knowledge of dying and death. a focus on rhythms is prominent in both hakola’s and møller’s studies. while hakola stems from the visual rhythm of breathing in and out as a form of engagement with the world, møller stresses a similar point related to the rhythm of interaction between caretaker and patient. both authors argue that, in each intake (of breath or impressions), people take something of the world into themselves. with each outgiving (of breath or expression), they release something of themselves with which they participate in a shared world. møller explores this rhythm as an aesthetic interaction based on impressions and expressions performed in relations between a care worker and an older person. based on a micro-situational analysis informed by dewey’s and shusterman’s concepts of aesthetic experience, møller zooms in on the somatically understood communication that forms the basis of a care relation. møller describes the bodywork in care practices as aesthetic co-creations, a communicative process where both actors and the practice are constantly shaped and reshaped. aesthetics and body experiences in health care7 the three articles present some somaesthetic perspectives on healthcare and care work. however, there is still more to understand about the somaesthetic perspective in healthcare practice and research. skouboe and højlund argue for a shift from evidence-based medical design to research-based design that includes aesthetics and experiential validation criteria and more diverse interdisciplinary theory and methodology, allowing alternative qualitative methods as part of clinical trials. hakola challenges the idealization of modern medicalization processes and argues that focusing on the stages of breathing can help overcome the sensory limitations of representing dying as a process. more could be known about the educational potential of care professionals in studying the embodied experience of breathing as an impression that resonates in and with the observer’s body. similarly, as stressed by møller, more knowledge is needed about how to learn to care and improve care practices through the aesthetics of interaction and dialogue. apart from the mentioned articles, which focus on the body’s function and significance in healthcare situations, this issue also contains a paper written by jiyun bae. it deals with the aesthetics and pedagogical purposes of hwarang, a system involving groups of young men in early korean history. the ideology and pedagogy of the hwarang are analyzed and interpreted in light of the philosophy of somaesthetics. however, the paper also shows that eastern practices and understandings inspire the ideas behind somaesthetics. the aesthetic practices of these groups of youngsters entailed singing, body practices, and entertainment aimed at experiences of joy and pleasure. core notions such as “play,” “travel,” and “self-cultivation” and their inner relationships serve as examples of pungryudo, the practice-based aesthetics of the hwarang. this aesthetic ideology concerns a specific part of life, such as art or entertainment, and has repercussions in all life domains, including ethics, politics, and sexuality. the paper shows that the hwarang promotes the insight that one’s intellectual and practical life is integrated into one’s lifestyle and that the lifestyle is very much based on somaesthetic experiences of different kinds of pleasures, including sensory, intellectual, spiritual, and practical pleasures. this seems very much forgotten by modern education and pedagogy, which focuses mainly on acquiring knowledge. page 97–101 unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self97 vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian, somaesthetics and yogasūtra: a reading through films vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian, somaesthetics and yogasūtra: a reading through films book review noora-helena korpelainen can somaesthetics bridge the eastern and western philosophical discourses and practices? this interesting question, i believe, motivates vinod balakrishnan’s and swathi elizabeth kurian’s somaesthetics and yogasūtra. the polarities are great in the book’s ambitious examination of the correspondences between a relatively recent, mainly anglophone philosophical spin-off from american pragmatist philosophy, and the ancient indian collection of tightly intertwined aphorisms in sanskrit. the book’s point of departure certainly excites a student of yoga and aesthetics, and i can only join in the chorus with the book’s general statement, that we need to value the lived body as the site of experience and development, the critique repeatedly argued by professor richard shusterman (e.g. 2012). the book focuses on shusterman’s and patañjali’s ideas about practice, performance, mindfulness, and cultivation, and it uses four characters from four feature films as leverage to claim that these counterparts have “a similar ideology” (p. 9). while the book’s contemporarily relevant, albeit ubiquitously affirmative elaboration does encourage the reader to retire into the gymnastic school of philosophy, the book should be read regardless of the title as a narrow survey. the book appears, by and large, unfamiliar with its own limitations. while being somaesthetically well-considered, the book doesn’t take into account the yogasūtra as an individual and well-discussed text. the book equates the yogasūtra, without justifying or spelling it out, with yoga teacher b. k. s. iyengar’s (1993) influential modern interpretation, which only the book’s third chapter hosts explicitly. especially based on this equation, i find the book’s analysis generally unsound. although somaesthetics may elucidate practicing yoga (korpelainen, 2019), the relationship between somaesthetics and the yogasūtra is, i believe, far more complex because of the relevance of isolation (kaivalya) in patañjali’s system. unfortunately, the book is not likely to shed much light on this complexity, since iyengar’s interpretation remains uncritically considered, and other treatises on the yogasūtra, such as modern yoga research (e.g. baier et al., 2018), are neglected. furthermore, yoga’s exhaustively numerous traditions and embodiments remain unregarded, except for a brief mention in the foreword by richard shusterman. in addition, somaesthetics is approached almost without any opposing critique, and the book beholds, without justifying it, only shusterman’s own works in somaesthetics. the book presents somaesthetics and yoga as solutions to our individual, social, political, and cultural problems that come from separating the mind and the body in both theory and practice. yet balakrishnan the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 98 noora-helena korpelainen and kurian situate the elaboration in the overall philosophical discourse mainly with secondary sources, such as shusterman’s own works and barry allen’s striking beauty (2015). confusion inevitably follows from the book’s ambiguous scope and because the book brings together, uncritically, concepts and ideas from the partially contrasting areas of kung fu, yoga, kāmasūtra, somaesthetics, political theory, and the films being analyzed. furthermore, the book’s main argument, that a yogi is a soma, raises doubts about their understanding of both patañjali’s and shusterman’s conceptions. the book’s upholding topic, the body, “is read as a site for humanistic improvability with perfectibility as an ideal” (p. 18). in the introduction, balakrishnan and kurian promote the ideas of yoga as profoundly based in bodily practice and practice as a means for cultivating the soma. the book’s four chapters explain the body’s progression through practice, empowerment, and mindfulness towards cultivated ability. the yogasūtra also forms four parts (pāda): samādhi (immersion), sādhana (practice), vibhūti (powers), and kaivalya (isolation). somaesthetics and yogasūtra is, however, structurally independent. it deals unsystematically though illustratively with the yogasūtra’s somaesthetically favorable concepts and sūtras. the result is that the yogasūtra seems to function much like the films, “as a subtext which convincingly argues for somaesthetics” (p. 35). the field of film studies is unmentioned in the book, and the reading of the selected positive psychology films (niemiec & wedding, 2014) remains uncontested. the book’s conclusion merely repeats the message that we need to pay (more) attention to everything we, as bodies, do in our everyday lives. i welcome this valuing of the everyday. “chapter one: body as a channel for empowerment” considers the nature and significance of practice by considering haṭha yoga and the kung fu film the karate kid (2010). the chapter interprets the protagonist dre’s development in performing everyday action to argue that shusterman’s conception of mindful repetition and patañjali’s conception of abhyāsa (practice) are characteristically and structurally similar. balakrishnan and kurian hold that both conceptions capture the dynamics of practice leading from repetition to mindful awareness and facilitating the simultaneous development of both the mind and the body. following iyengar’s interpretation of the yogasūtra, which can be read as contrasting patañjali’s conception, balakrishnan and kurian regard both the development in the practice and its goal as fundamentally based on the union of the body and the mind (and the soul). as broo (2010), among others, points out, for patañjali, the unquestionable purpose of all yoga practice is kaivalya, puruṣa’s isolation from prakṛti. these metaphysical concepts, which the yogasūtra shares with sākṃhya, are not explicitly discussed in the book with the result that, considering the book’s general topic, perhaps the most relevant patañjali’s conception, namely that of the body, remains ambiguous in the book. that being said, the elaboration in the first chapter is, however, developed. however, the book’s discussion about body consciousness is hardly convincing, because of the selective reading of the yogasūtra, which retains only a supportive role in “chapter two: body as a work of art.” the chapter presents shusterman’s work in line with the ideas from the ancient indian book of love, kāmasūtra. through reading the historic and erotic film kamasutra: a tale of love (1996) and its protagonist maya’s social empowerment (from being born to a king’s courtesan to being a king’s courtesan (!)), balakrishnan and kurian describe body consciousness as a means to cultivate aesthetic sensibility which is taken to influence one’s present experience as well as one’s life course. unfortunately, patañjali’s essential pairing of practice and non-attachment gains too little attention in the chapter, since the discussion of vairāgya (non-attachment) remains introductory, like the intriguing discussions of pratyāhāra (withdrawal of senses) and the guṇa theory. furthermore, considering the film and the discussion of empowerment, unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self99 the absence of both the concept of brahmacarya (chastity) and the discussion about siddhis (perfections) described in the vibhūti pāda is surprising. in addition, i find the argument of maya’s transformation into a yogini mainly disturbing. maya’s overall detachment after her beloved is killed can be read also, for example, as a sign of depression, especially since the film doesn’t explicitly consider maya a yogini. in using the same dialectics to both yogi and yogini, the book fails to regard maya on a par with a yogi and the other protagonists discussed in the book, as well as to address the relevant question of the female body. if the question of the body in the considered correspondence remains open, the question of the mind is left in the fog of interdisciplinarity since too many concepts, like self and citta, are treated ambiguously, especially in “chapter three: body as a self-expressive unit.” the chapter discusses mindfulness and the yogasūtra’s epistemology, which however seems to be mixed with the epistemology of advaita vedanta because they follow iyengar’s interpretation. the chapter claims to analyze the drama film the peaceful warrior (2006). however, a significant part of the analysis is based non-transparently on the book peaceful warrior: the graphic novel by dan millman (2010). still, the comparison of the bodily grounded mental ability of the film’s two main characters, gymnast dan and his mentor socrates, presents illustratively the disciple’s knowledge formation progress. it’s just that balakrishnan and kurian also read the progression described by patañjali uniquely by maintaining that dan becomes attached to his diet after reaching “the state of renewal” described in the sūtra 4:31 (p. 90). remembering that the finishing sūtras 4:29–34 of the whole yogasūtra regard the end of any practice and that non-attachment is related to a yogi’s character in the sūtra 4:7 (broo, 2010, pp. 215, 237–242), balakrishnan’s and kurian’s analysis is clearly untenable. not-surprisingly, the chapter concludes that a peaceful warrior is a yogi. the book takes the identification of a yogi even further in “chapter four: body as a weapon of protest,” which again gives yogasūtra only a supportive role. the chapter mingles political philosophy into the reading of the kung fu film the 36th chamber of shaolin (1978) and its protagonist san te’s somaesthetic training. the chapter identifies san te with giorgio agamben’s homo sacer, shusterman’s soma, and finally with patañjali’s yogi. balakrishnan and kurian use the idea of body politic to recognize the individual’s transformations explained in the yogasūtra (p. 109) as “related to the macro social level in terms of scale.” however, the reading of the progression of the transformations, described in the related sūtras 3:9–13 (pp. 109–110), is reversed (see. e.g. broo, 2010, pp. 151–155). in addition, the central question of volition is problematic in relation to the yogasūtra when it is not read through iyengar’s interpretation because in the progression of the practice all action ceases, including will. for balakrishnan and kurian, a somaesthetically cultivated ability to function for the good of others by both setting an example and acting efficiently marks the end of the body’s progress, the “full liberation.” this perspective, however, removes non-existence from patañjali’s system, politicizes the body’s progression, and explains a yogi uniquely as an everyday hero. interestingly, this questions the meaning of the everyday, and it calls for incorporating the discussions of everyday aesthetics. yogi’s powers, like the ability to take over another’s body (e.g. white, 2012), exceed the intuitive understanding of everyday actions. as regards the film, which ends to the teaching of martial arts to laymen, i would have hoped that the book’s elaboration of non-violence (ahimsa) would have been more developed. finally, in the foreword, shusterman describes “the soma (the living, sentient, purposive body) as the essential medium of our sensory perception and performance and as the vehicle of our self-expression and self-stylization, the site where our values and tastes are exemplified” (p. 1). thus, in arguing that a yogi, a cultivated being, is a soma, the book seems to undermine shusterman’s understanding of our everyday existence. vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian, somaesthetics and yogasūtra: a reading through films the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 100 noora-helena korpelainen though the comparison of somaesthetics and yoga philosophy is exciting and calls for further elaboration, in balakrishnan’s and kurian’s book, the consideration of these counterparts remains unbalanced, uncritical, and partially undeveloped. the book could have benefitted significantly from a more narrowly defined scope and aim, as in the separately published articles on the book’s content (balakrishnan and kurian 2017, 2018). although the book’s set-up is promising, the reading experience is unfortunately frustrating due to the negligent and nontransparent use of sources. acknowledgement the finalization of this review was done with the help of the north savo regional fund of finnish cultural foundation. i thank harri mäcklin, måns broo, marko a. a. mikkilä, and jussi sainio, as well as the editors of the journal of somaesthetics and the anonymous language reviewer. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self101 references allen, b. (2015). striking beauty: a philosophical look at the asian martial arts. columbia university press. baier, k., maas, p. a., & preisendanz k. (eds.) (2018). yoga in transformation. vienna university press: https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/downloads/openaccess/oa_978-38471-0862-7.pdf balakrishnan v. & kurian s. e. (2017). somaesthetic encounters with socrates: the peaceful warrior as yogi. journal of somaesthetics, 3(1), 117–132. https://doi.org/10.5278/ojs.jos. v3i1%20 &%202.1894 balakrishnan v., & kurian s. e. (2018). thinking through the body of maya: somaesthetic frames from mira nair’s kamasutra. in r. shusterman (ed.), aesthetic experience and somaesthetics. brill, studies in somaesthetics, vol. 1, pp. 197–216: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004361928_014 broo, m. (ed. and trans.) (2010). patañjalin yoga-sūtra: joogan filosofia. gaudeamus. chia–liang l. (director) and shaw brothers (producers) (1978). the 36th chamber of shaolin [film]. shaw brothers. iyengar, b. k. s. (1993). light on the yogasutras of patañjali. harper collins. larson, g. j. (2012). patañjala yoga in practice. in d. g. white (ed.). yoga in practice (pp. 73– 96). princeton university press. millman, d. (2010). peaceful warrior: the graphic novel. illustrated by andrew winegarner. h.j. kramer, new world. nair, m. (director) (1996). kamasutra: a tale of love [film]. ndf international. niemiec r. m., & wedding d. (2014). positive psychology at the movies 2: using films to build character strength and well-being (2nd ed.). hogrefe. korpelainen, n.–h. (2019). sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga. journal of somaesthetics, 5(1), 46–60. https://doi.org/10.5278/ojs.jos.v5i1.3320 salva, v. (director) (2006). the peaceful warrior [film]. dej productions. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge university press. zwart, h. (director) (2010). the karate kid [film]. columbia pictures. white, d. g. (2012). yoga, brief history of an idea. in d. g. white (ed.), yoga in practice (pp. 1–23). princeton university press. vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian, somaesthetics and yogasūtra: a reading through films the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 4 editorial body, space, architecture aurosa alison the relationship between body and architecture is substantial. it can be regarded as the principle according to which the design of habitability is connected to that of the body living and relating in space. the body moves in the surrounding space and, in addition to figuring itself as a biological and natural presence, it is configured to all those meanings that correspond to it. in fact, space, as well as being architectural, can be social, cultural, institutional, and political. and so can the body. about the involvement and reconnection of the body with architectural design, maurizio vitta, a historian and theorist of architecture and design, refers us to the principle of “habitability”: the dwelling tells the story of the inhabitant, draws the figure of the inhabitant, represents the inhabitant before others and for others to the extent that it is shaped by those who inhabit it. the way of shaping the architectural environment through the use of space, the distribution of furnishings, the choice of furniture and furnishings, the subtle hierarchy imposed on objects, the patterns of use of utensils, the laborious selection of images, are so many narratives of a personality that is inscribed, mostly unconsciously, in the domestic environment in order to be reflected in it. (vitta, 2008, p. 27) beginning with vitruvius, classical thought emphasized the correspondence between the body and the architectural complex as an example of beauty and harmony. the homo bene figuratus becomes a canon of perfection, in which the concepts of measure and proximity correspond. similarly, le corbusier’s modulor has affected modern culture not only in terms of the correspondence of the body’s distance in space but especially regarding the conception of a mode of measurement stemming from the body itself. the identity relationship between space and leib is consequential; architecture lends itself to the reasons of the living body, a body that is not reduced solely to physical presence but also includes a set of symbolic and pragmatic meanings: “very roughly speaking for the moment, körper denotes the physical body as object, while leib typically signifies the lived, feeling body or the body as intentionality or subject” (shusterman, 2010, p. 207). the pragmatic value of the body is reflected in its improvement, and in this regard, the distinction that richard shusterman introduces regarding soma and the body is evident: body, space, architecture5 somaesthetics can be provisionally defined as the critical, meliorative study of the experience and use of one’s body as a locus of sensory aesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning. it is therefore also devoted to the knowledge, discourses, practices, and bodily disciplines that structure such somatic care or can improve it. if we put aside traditional philosophical prejudice against the body and instead simply recall philosophy’s central aims of knowledge, self-knowledge, right action, and its quest for the good life, then the philosophical value of somaesthetics should become clear in several ways. (shusterman, 1999, p. 302) the key to understanding somaesthetics is in is in the enhanced quality of life that is achieved through the enhancement of valuing of the body. this dynamic, according to shusterman, also applies to the relationship between soma and architecture: “if architecture is the articulation of space for the purposes of enhancing our living, dwelling, and experience, then the soma provides the most basic tool for all spatial articulation by constituting the point from which space can be seen and articulated” (shusterman, 2011, p. 288). architecture, beginning with the soma, can be conceived as a necessary tool for the improvement of our lives—visual coordinates, depth, verticality, size, gestures, and the relationship with our surroundings are all features aimed at being able to improve the quality of habitability and thus of being (shusterman, 2011, pp. 288–290). in addition to these, there are real identifications in which soma is reflected in the structure of the building; in fact, to be qualitatively appreciable, a building must be appreciated for its beauty and function—must ideologically represent a space—and so must the body (shusterman, 2023). there is a correspondence between somatic conditions and architecture, and increasingly architects and designers are using this relationship to highlight people’s use of shared and private spaces. in recent years, discussion has developed about the somatic use and experience of spaces, particularly in the city, but also of objects and private spaces. in this regard, shusterman has often dwelt on these issues by addressing the issue of somaesthetics as a principle that can be used in design and architectural projects. at the international conference organized at the academy of fine arts in krakow in 2021, “body and public space,” he presented a lecture entitled “soma as and in space: public and private.” in 2022, he presented a lecture entitled “somaesthetics and design” at the cyprus university of technology (department of fine arts); and in 2023, he delivered a talk entitled “soma and space” at the international conference organized by the department of architecture of the university of bologna dedicated to “the historical city as a critical reference and role model for innovative urban and metropolitan development.” the interest on the part of engineers, architects, and planners in general has been increasingly directed toward this dialogue, in which the soma acquires a double value, as follows: 1) that of experience in relation to the perceived reality and 2) that of the pragmaticity in relation to the reality to be built. it is with this in mind that the idea of dedicating this issue to the relationship between the body, space, and architecture was born. indeed, the body and architecture dialogue through the concept of space, which is declined in increasingly transdisciplinary ways. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 6 indeed, in the contributions, we find many keywords such as city, experience, soma, gesture, relationship, urbanism, built, environment, and virtual. in fact, the distribution of articles is based on the multidisciplinary encounter and experimental reading of the relationship between soma and urban, private, and virtual spaces. the argument of the body as a relationship between emotional experience and architecture is the focus of the article “motion and emotion: understanding urban architecture through diverse multisensorial engagements” by tenna d. o. tvedebrink, lars b. fich, elisabetta canepa, zakaria djebbara, asbjørn c. carstens, dylan chau huynh, and ole b. jensen. the authors consider some experiences located in budolfi square in downtown aalborg in northern denmark. in addition to the livability of budolfi square, this paper addresses a very interesting proposal—that of using a body-centered approach to analyze the relationship between human body sensations and the urban context. the article also presents a discussion of the relationship between somaesthetics and architecture, in which the authors focus on the living body as theorized by shusterman and the elaboration of neuro-architecture —that is, the empathic experience—from a neurophysiological background. the moving body, in this way, becomes the object not only through the theorizing but also through the planning of living spaces. the experiential approach to architecture is at the center of the discussion. lukáš makky’s paper “aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city” emphasizes the somatic and aesthetic aspects of the experience of the city. in fact, makky argues, like shusterman, that architecture provides the framework for experience. the body is always the starting point, but in this case, the direct references are to john dewey and walter benjamin regarding an aesthetic sensibility capable of experiencing. all the inhabitants of a city can consider themselves involved in the aesthetic experience of the everyday. similarly, the experience of the city can be considered from the somatic point of view—that is, through the living body. makky, at the end of his argument, inserts the case study of alcazaba, the phoenician fortress in malaga on which the city’s strong identity—and consequently the experiences that could be created—depend. in addition to the topic of aesthetic experience, this issue makes apparent two other aspects— that of inclusive design and that of digital change in new conceptions of virtual reality (vr) spaces. in mark tschaepe’s essay “somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design,” the object of analysis is the body’s orientation within cities and public spaces, often directed by satellite navigators. tschaepe highlights the sense of discomfort and anxiety at the moment we lose our orientation in an unfamiliar place. in this regard, he uses discomfort as a starting point to be developed through somaesthetics, with a view to better orienting people in a city. that discomfort not only makes it possible to design, through somaesthetics, better spaces, such as hospitals, where discomfort is related to a physiological need or lack, and garages, as in the case of orientation. vr is another area showing the applicability of somaesthetics in the design and perceptual fields. in jessica fiala’s essay, “sensing the virtual: atmosphere and somaesthetics in vr,” body, space, architecture7 interest lies in the new avenues that virtual application offers to the realms of atmosphere and the body, moving simultaneously in both real and virtual space. indeed, the sensation of space amplifies our perceptions, bringing the place of the virtual closer to concreteness. in the studio projects of design i/o (https://www.design-io.com), fiala emphasizes the designers’ interest in creating a virtual environment capable of simultaneous interaction with the virtual body and the physical body. in this way, the proprioceptive aspects of somaesthetics are stimulated by two conditions—the programmed and the instantaneous. another very interesting example is the documentary munduruku: the fight to defend the heart of the amazon made by the munduruku community in 2017. with this film, the audience is immersed in the amazon basin via the reconstruction of the sensory elements of the amazon rainforest that are appreciable in different booths. here, the five senses are stimulated by smells, noises, lights, and materials that augment the virtual reality and vice versa. complementing these contributions are two essays and an artistic statement, which emphasize the importance of an artistic and pragmatist analysis of the relationship between somaesthetics and built, political, and design environments. the topics of these pieces are based on somaesthetic involvement, which is analyzed through specific contexts, including soundscape, design, and politics. in architecture, in fact, the importance of sound or silence is often argued ; the issue of hearing has been researched several times in the fields of atmosphere and architecture (zumthor, 2006). in this regard, the paper by bálint veres, “notes on the aural aspects of built environment,” connects the built environment with the acoustic dimension. here, the multisensory dimension of the kinesphere cannot be excluded in the design world. veres offers a reflection regarding our sensations and perceptions of architectural and artistic environments, capable of considering acoustics as a physical term. in this way, the art world has increasingly used the sphere of somaesthetics, and bartlomiej struzik offers an artistic statement exposing a new configuration of somactive art in his contribution “is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art.” the subject of his exposition is that of sculptural art connected to places, which together create and restore memory. moreover, the movement of the body in space amplifies the identity recognition of space. the materiality of sculpture, in this context, can do two things: in the case of the artist, one can recognize oneself in the act of creation; in the case of the audience, one can recognize the identity of what is created. in addition to artistic performativity and fruition, in built environments, some contexts relate back to somaesthetic involvement. for instance, gesture is a form of expression and communication but also a symbolization in political and social realms. pradeep a. dhillon, in architectural gestures in international relations, manages to provide a careful analysis of the gestural relationship with established forms of expression in the embassies of belgium and the united states in new delhi, india, and finland in canberra, australia. the somatic dimension of the wittgensteinian gesture is not only the signification of the architectural project but also of what happens somatically in the configuration of the project itself. dhillon’s reference to the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 8 wittgenstein is inspired by kantian transcendental idealism, in which the function of the body is no longer to be considered solely as a medium but also as a bonding element, a network capable of being the backdrop for our activities in the everyday, private, and public spheres. increasingly, somaesthetics is being taught and illustrated in schools of architecture and academies of fine arts in order to understand how the livability of places is rooted in a connective tissue that is within everyone’s reach. this democratic reading of the discipline helps us to understand how everyday life can also be improved through a new design reading of spaces and objects. i have had the good fortune of introducing the theory of somaesthetics on several academic occasions—the first time was in 2021 within a doctoral course, “philosophy of the architectural interior,” in the department of architecture and the department of humanistic studies at the federico ii university of naples, during a lecture entitled “somaesthetics. from architecture to design.” for a second time in the same year, i introduced this theory during a three-day workshop at the academy of fine arts in naples, entitled the living body: a multimedia experience. most recently, in 2022 in a lecture, entitled “from gestalt to somaesthetics” at the academy of fine arts in naples, i presented these ideas. simply from the titles of these contributions, the importance of the aesthetic discipline in many areas of performance and design is evident. even more so, from reading the rich contributions of this issue, what emerges is the openness of using somaesthetics in the development of architectural contexts, as well as design in virtual worlds and those of augmented reality. this means that resorting to primary sensations still remains a fundamental matrix of our knowledge. references shusterman, r. (1999). somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57(3; summer), 299–313. shusterman, r. (2010). soma and psyche. the journal of speculative philosophy, 24(3), 205–223. shusterman, r. (2011). somaesthetics and architecture: a critical option. in chair for theory and history of modern architecture bauhaus-university weimar (ed.), architecture in the age of empire, 11th international bauhaus colloquium. weimar: verlag der bauhaus-universität, pp. 282–300. shusterman, r. (2023). somaesthetics and architecture: a critical option [unpublished insight]. in chair for theory and history of modern architecture bauhaus–university weimar (ed.). architecture in the age of empire, 11th international bauhaus colloquium. weimar: verlag der bauhaus-universität, pp. 282–300. vitta, m. (2008). dell’a bitare. torino: einaudi. zumthor, p. (2006). atmospheres: architectural environments—surrounding objects. basel: birkhäuser verlag gmbh. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 84 page 84–89alexander kremer book review ars erotica and scientia sexualis alexander kremer if we are interested in sexuality, then we are lucky because richard shusterman has presented two recent writings for us to read. one of them is his book, ars erotica: sex and somaesthetics in the classical arts of love (2021), which will surely be a guide for future generations of scholars, since it has achieved much more than michel foucault’s the history of sexuality (1984). the other is an article by shusterman, “pragmatism and sex: an unfulfilled connection” (2021), which will be valuable for people who are interested in pragmatism and its hitherto unexplored connection to sex and erotic love. shusterman has explained why he initially steered away from devoting somaesthetic study to the topics of sex and food because those stereotypical fields of bodily pleasures would distract from his aim of showing the cognitive and spiritual dimensions of somaesthetics. but in recent years he has written about both these topics, while continuing to develop somaesthetics not merely as an aesthetic orientation but as a philosophy more generally.1 ars erotica is a book for everybody, but it is primarily directed to academic readers, and this can be deduced from two perspectives. on the one hand, it offers a very detailed and complex description of premodern cultures—from greco-roman, chinese, japanese, islamic and indian cultures to those of medieval and renaissance europe— that we cannot find in foucault’s abovementioned four-volume work. foucault confined himself to ancient greco-roman culture only before explaining the ancient christian epoch and modernity, including the emergence of scientia sexualis. on the other hand, the complexity of each chapter is also exemplary in shusterman’s book owing to his intention to approach the analysis of each ancient society with clear, unified principles and criteria. we can find these principles in the introductory part of the book, where shusterman shares his general, methodological presumptions with the reader. * * * shusterman’s ars erotica contains eight parts: 1. ars erotica and the question of aesthetics (which serves as an introduction); 2. dialectics of desire and virtue: aesthetics, power, and self-cultivation in grecoroman erotic theory; 1 see shusterman (2014) and kremer (2022). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 85 ars erotica and scientia sexualis 3. the biblical tradition: desire as a means of production; 4. chines qi erotics: the beauty of health and the passion for virtue; 5. lovemaking as aesthetic education: pleasure, play, and knowledge in indian erotic theory; 6. fragrance, veils, and violence: ars erotica in islamic culture; 7. from romantic refinement to courtesan connoisseurship: japanese ars erotica; 8. commingling, complexity, and conflict: erotic theory in medieval and renaissance europe. most people are curious about sexuality. while many could go to freud’s theories and how he exaggerated the role of sexuality in our lives, it is undeniable that sexuality has a significant influence in everyday life. freud’s scientific approach belongs to scientia sexualis, contrary to ars erotica. foucault formulated this opposition of the two different approaches to sexuality in his famous book, the history of sexuality. vol. i: an introduction (1984). it is worth quoting here a more extended passage from foucault to better understand this opposition: historically, there have been two great procedures for producing the truth of sex. on the one hand, the societies—and they are numerous: china, japan, india, rome, the arabo-moslem societies—which endowed themselves with an ars erotica. in the erotic art, truth is drawn from pleasure, understood as a practice and accumulated as experience; pleasure is not considered in relation to an absolute law of the permitted and the forbidden, nor by reference to a criterion of utility, but first and foremost in relation to itself; it is experienced as pleasure, evaluated in terms of its intensity, its specific quality, its duration, its reverberations in the body and the soul. moreover, this knowledge must be deflected back into the sexual practice itself, in order to shape it as though from within and amplify its effects. in this way, there is formed a knowledge that must remain secret, not because of an element of infamy that might attach to its object, but because of the need to hold it in the greatest reserve, since, according to tradition, it would lose its effectiveness and its virtue by being divulged. […] on the face of it at least, our civilization possesses no ars erotica. in return, it is undoubtedly the only civilization to practice a scientia sexualis; or rather, the only civilization to have developed over the centuries procedures for telling the truth of sex which are geared to a form of knowledge-power strictly opposed to the art of initiations and the masterful secret: i have in mind the confession. (1984, pp. 57-58) in contrast, it is clear that shusterman defends ars erotica, and he explores the classical cultures where he can find elements of this aesthetic approach to sexuality. shusterman already had this standpoint in 2012, when he published his book thinking through the body: if the painting of gerrit van honthorst (1592-1656), the steadfast philosopher, “reminds us of the familiar ancient quarrel between philosophy and the mimetic arts, it should also recall philosophy's traditional hostility and neglect regarding erotic arts, extending back to socrates' condemnation of sex as “a savage and tyrannical master,” and despite his provocative self-definition as “a master of erotics.” making a case for the aesthetic potential of lovemaking means the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 86 alexander kremer confronting the problem that modem western philosophy has tended to define aesthetic experience by contrast to sexual experience. (2012, p. 263) as he explains in the postscript, this difference between aesthetics and ars erotica became more pronounced after the work of kant, schopenhauer, and nietzsche: from plato through the renaissance, we find the familiar ladder of love that rises from the sexual desire for union with a beautiful body to more spiritual forms that desire spiritual union with beautiful souls or ideas and ultimately with the most beautiful and radiating source of all beauty (identified by monotheistic thinkers with god). today, the conceptual linkage between beauty and eros is no longer a philosophical commonplace. instead of defining beauty primarily through desire and love, we now conceive it in terms of the aesthetic, while the aesthetic is essentially defined in terms oppositional to desire and erotic love. the oxford handbook of aesthetics thus confidently claims that an acceptable definition of aesthetic experience should exclude “sexual experiences and drug experiences” because the notion of aesthetic pleasure “clearly does not apply to the pleasures of sex or drugs.” (p. 391) although shusterman admits his debt to foucault for his pioneering studies on sexuality, he intends his study of ars erotica to be a “complement” rather than a replacement of foucault’s history and sexuality, a complement from a broader cultural perspective but also from a different erotic orientation.2 it is clear that shusterman’s achievement is noteworthy, as his descriptions and analyses (the product of more than ten years of research), exceed foucault’s analyses in their cultural breadth and erotic detail. i am convinced that shusterman’s ars erotica will be a manual and a guide for future research for decades to come, since he not only approached his topic with a strict methodology but also carried it out in his brilliant analytic style. as he explains in the preface: the book is a blend of philosophy and cultural history of ideas because i think we cannot properly understand the philosophical meanings and arguments concerning ars erotica without setting them in their historical, cultural context, even if our viewpoint on that distant context is inextricably that of our own time. my immense debts to historians of philosophy and culture i register in the book’s bibliography. (p. xii) shusterman clarifies six criteria of his investigations in ars erotica in the book’s introductory chapter. without these criteria, he could not create a unified aesthetic approach toward a defense and nuanced exploration of ars erotica. shusterman introduces these criteria by asking: what are the general aesthetic principles that govern erotic arts? do they form a coherent system, or are there conflicting aesthetic principles in different genres, styles, or traditions of ars erotica? properly addressing such questions calls for an exploration of the culturally diverse theories of ars erotica. i offer here an introductory outline of some key aesthetic features that those theories display: 2 shusterman writes: “because my erotic experience has been mostly heterosexual, this book presents a somewhat different perspective than foucault’s, but one that hopes to complement rather than replace his impressive work.” (p. xii) artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 87 ars erotica and scientia sexualis 1. first is the “incorporation of fine arts and other paradigmatically aesthetic activities into the practice of ars erotica.” (poetry and music, culinary arts, arts of design, arts of fashion and grooming) (pp. 5–6) 2. “a second key aesthetic feature of ars erotica is its emphasis on beauty and pleasure rather than mere utility.” (p. 6) 3. the third key aesthetic feature of ars erotica is “its highlighting of form. what distinguishes a performance of erotic artistry from mere sexual performance is attention to formal and structural qualities.” (p. 6) 4. “beyond these formalist concerns is a fourth aesthetic feature: the drive for stylization. ars erotica is distinguished from mere sex by the careful attention it gives not simply to which erotic acts are performed – a kiss, caress, cuddle, or love moan – but to how one performs them.” (pp. 7–8) 5. “symbolic richness is a fifth aesthetic feature of ars erotica.” (p. 8) 6. “a sixth aesthetic aspect of ars erotica concerns its evaluative dimension: a concern with distinctive achievements of beauty, performative virtuosity, or superior taste that finds expression in critical judgments, connoisseurship, rankings, and competitions. in ars erotica we see this dimension in the classificatory rankings of different types of women and men in terms of their sexual desirability, but also in rankings of different pairings of men and women.” (p. 8) shusterman provides such a tremendous amount of knowledge to readers and researchers that it would be difficult to surpass. moreover, the complexity of the seven historical chapters is significant. each begins with a socio-historical overview of the given culture, followed by a narrower description of the main social layers and gender relations contained therein. only after presenting these descriptions of the socio-historical background does he begin to analyze the sexual life and customs of the chosen tradition. each chapter, however, is not an isolated unit. shusterman smartly orders them to draw connections and fruitful contrasts between the different ars erotica theories. this provides a thoughtful sampling of the complexity to be found in the examination of ars erotica from a global perspective. * * * for most europeans and myself, the most exciting parts were the descriptions of the sexual practices of the ancient, far-eastern societies. for example, in chinese ars erotica, where foucault had previously misunderstood it to involve a glorification of pleasure. shusterman provides evidence that, “pace foucault, chinese ars erotica was very deeply motivated by health issues and crucially concerned with medical matters and sexual science (albeit not in the dominant forms of modern western medicine)” (p. 155). the sexual culture of ancient indian society is also fascinating because the kamasutra is a familiar text to most westerners; however, most people do not know that this indian text contains not only sexual but also educational and artistic instruction: beyond social roles and practices, indian ars erotica demands and promotes psychological knowledge – proficiency in grasping the particularities of the individual person one seeks to win, please, and keep as one’s lover (or, instead, to the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 88 alexander kremer employ effectively as a go-between in one’s pursuit of love). india’s erotic theory (far more than china’s) focuses on knowing the beloved’s mind (with its anxieties as well as its desires and inclinations) rather than simply knowing the beloved’s bodily state of arousal and physiological sensations of pleasure. the artistic activities that initiate the play of lovemaking performance promote psychological insight by revealing (as they shape) the beloved’s aesthetic inclinations and mood so that the lover can harmonize with them before engaging in the more carnal harmonies of sexual arousal. (p. 242) however, shusterman, remarks the following in connection with ancient indian culture: while china’s sexual theory drew most heavily on medical texts and derived its concern for pleasure from the key medical aims of health and progeny, indian erotology drew most heavily on the fine arts and their sensuous aesthetic pleasures, especially the traditional indian art of drama, which was also an art of dance. nonetheless, indian sexual theory cannot fully support foucault’s sharp distinction between esoteric ars erotica and scientia sexualis because it defines itself in essentially scientific terms as providing knowledge about empirical matters based on observation. moreover, this knowledge was openly published in texts articulating principles and rules rather than focusing on recondite skills secretly transmitted by an expert master to carefully chosen pupils. (p. 202) a similarly precise but essential remark can be found in the evaluation of the ars erotica of japanese courtesan culture, which developed in the edo period (1603-1868) in comparison to the sublime and spiritual islamic sufi tradition: none of japan’s classical ways of love, however, attains the ethical uplift or spiritual sublimity of islam’s sufism. by comparison, they seem philosophically shallow, and their aesthetic apotheosis in edo courtesan culture ultimately rings hollow – with no real spiritual substance beneath the richness of ritual. such conclusions (provisional as they may be) suggest a provocative thesis: that an aesthetic education through lovemaking requires an animating spiritual, ethical dimension to inspire and guide its project of self-cultivation so that it does not degenerate into decadent connoisseurship or self-indulgent, tawdry sensuality. a dimension of ethical and spiritual uplift can render erotic culture more nobly and compellingly aesthetic. (p. 314) from shusterman’s comparative, interdisciplinary analysis, it becomes evident that he is much more gender-sensitive than foucault since he depicts the dialectical relationships between pleasure, sex, gender, politics etc. the ugly realities of misogyny and sexism in these ancient cultures, for instance, never escapes his study, and shusterman always maintains a nuanced and critical perspective regarding sexist practices. (pp. 33, 60, 112, 115, 217–219, etc.). * * * the “speculative postscript” was the most edifying part in the book for me. in shusterman’s opinion, beauty became detached from eros in european culture following the “flourishing union in renaissance neoplatonism and in reaction to the growing power of materialist philosophies artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 89 ars erotica and scientia sexualis in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” (p. 392) it is true that the role of scientia sexualis in contrast to ars erotica is dominant in european culture. shusterman cannot destroy or neglect the socio-historical tendencies that led to the birth of scientia sexualis in european culture. however, he hopes that by exploring the diverse ars erotica practices of ancient cultures worldwide, we can come to unify eros and beauty to the benefit of the study of aesthetics and, especially, an improved appreciation for sexual arts. to the extent that our modern philosophical tradition continues to define the aesthetic in opposition to the erotic, it will remain difficult to do proper justice to the beautiful aspects of sensual desire and to the rewarding arts of sexual fulfilment. a look at other cultures and other times can provide, as this book suggests, ample resources for a broader, deeper erotic vision to enrich the field of aesthetics and our art of living. (p. 396) references foucault, m. (1984). the history of sexuality. vol. i: an introduction. translated from the french by robert hurley. in: three volumes in one book of michel foucault. new york: pantheon books kremer, a. (2022). "richard shusterman's somaesthetics as philosophy." in: shusterman’s somaesthetics: from hip-hop philosophy to politics and performance art. ed. jerold j. abrams. leiden: brill, the expected release is february. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. new york: cambridge university press shusterman, r. (2014). "the invention of pragmatist aesthetics: genealogical reflections on a notion and a name." in practicing pragmatist aesthetics: critical perspectives on the arts. edited by wojciech malecki, 13–32. amsterdam: rodopi shusterman, r. (2021). ars erotica: sex and somaesthetics in the classical arts of love. cambridge university press shusterman, r. (2021). pragmatism and sex: an unfulfilled connection. transactions of the charles s. peirce society, 57(1), 1-31. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 4 editorial unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self the way aesthetics, the body, and lifestyles – or for this theme issue, unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – come together offers a lot to ponder. in this theme issue, we want to explore the possibilities of somaesthetics as a discourse and/or a platform to prompt discussion and produce novel ways to think about addiction and other unhealthy lifestyles. we have leaned on an idea that addiction, or any other disease or lifestyle that is risky for an individual, cannot be explained only through biology or psychology. rather, they are supported by, and they are part of, cultural patterns of thinking or social representations (moscovici 1984), that make our practices sensible (shelby 2016; lee 2012; hirschowitz-gertz 2011; barber 1994). what is more, they are also sources of pleasure, even if they are harmful, and that is what makes them so difficult to handle – both on the individual level and at the societal level (sulkunen 2009). the burden of disease (gbd) reports from the world health organization (who) provide data on mortality and loss of health as a result of diseases, injuries, and risk factors for all world regions. in who’s web pages it is stated that noncommunicable diseases (ncd), driven by e.g. unhealthy lifestyles or environmental factors, kill 41 million people each year, or 71% of all deaths globally. tobacco use, physical inactivity, the harmful use of alcohol, and unhealthy diets all increase the risk of dying from an ncd. sociologist pekka sulkunen (2009) has referred to this as a problem of lifestyle regulation by modern consumption societies. these societies accentuate individualism, authenticity, and self-control as key virtues of the individuals, but, at the same time, they lack the tools to control these individuals and their un-desirable lifestyle choices. (the on-going corona pandemic serves, of course, as a good example with people going to underground parties and refusing to wear a mask, even though they could spread a deadly virus in doing so). in this theme issue, we have, through and with the help of somaesthetics, endeavored to put a spotlight on the pleasures, dangers, and aesthetic experiences that are connected to unhealthy and dangerous life practices. our wish has been to to shed to new light on factors that drive these harmful lifestyles as well as to provide new ways to think about their role in the society and in the life of individuals. we see that there is considerable potential for somaesthetic thinking in finding solutions for curing and caring people who battle with addictions or other lifestyle related conditions (see also perälä 2018). people sometimes drive fast just for the thrill of speed. sometimes, we believe, this thrill is about feeling the speed in the stomach and getting goosebumps. sometimes, for sure, it is about environmental aesthetics – how landscapes move, how the hands feel the changing roadwork unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self5 editorial through the steering wheel, how the body seems to be “flying” through the environment. sometimes, this reflects behavioral models of certain subcultures or lifestyles to which the individual desires to belong. heli vaaranen (2004) writes about fast-driving young males in her study on the decadent romantic ethos of these communities, where being a bit crazy, “going all the way”, was considered the point. driving in their cars, young males built their identities and developed solidarity with each other, to the mutual benefit of all members of the community. rock music has traditionally been about excess and rebellion and heavy consumption of drugs and alcohol one its main components (oksanen 2012). “we learn to [w]e learn to drink, smoke, and take drugs because others show us not only how to do it but also how to enjoy it”, writes sociologist james barber (in shelby 2016). the articles of this theme issue view dangerous and unhealthy lifestyles as they occur in three areas of life that are hard – for the individuals and for society: addiction, suicide, and eating disorders. societies suffer both on the individual plane, as well as a whole, from all these phenomena. often, these practices are outside of semiosis, i.e., they lack “sense” and rationality, as sulkunen (1997) has written about addiction. often, we explain them with the term “disease” (barber 1994): if not biological, then at least, of “the will” (valverde 1998). as our articles show, however, these are also ways of thinking and habits of life that suck individuals into their maelstroms as well as provide them with communities, meaningful perspectives, as well as feelings of pleasure. some people, for example, train hard, apply extreme diets and eat growth-enhancing substances to look like statues. these are not just bodybuilders. practitioners of aerobics also endanger their own health through practices, that do not even make them look “good” in any mainstream way, but only to the others in their “tribes.” anorexia lurks as a side-track in this dangerous lifestyle. this problematics is in the center of henri hyvönen’s article “care of the self, somaesthetics and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals”, which is a study of six autobiographical narratives of eating disorders (ed) from the perspective of caring for the self. it is a theme the late michel foucault made visible in his history of sexuality. in his thought-provoking article, hyvönen focuses on the dangers of selfstylization by stressing the role of “local social groups” in the formation of men’s ed’s in his empirical data. as he shows in his analysis, for his informants, eating disorders were not a way to achieve some abstract “masculinity”, which is usually provided as an explanation, but a process through which they could be accepted in particular subcultures. pragmatic somaesthetics, for its part, could contribute to the establishment of local groups and communities that could provide young met with safer bodily self-care practices, according to hyvönen. different hobbies and professions, indeed, offer different tracks for unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and often in ways that are connected to aesthetic issues. skateboarders – the rolling parkour-practitioners that have roamed our streets since the 1970s – try the impossible, with style – and break bones while being filmed. rock stars are in constant danger of making alcohol the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 6 and drug consumption a dangerous habit, and the lifestyle that provides too little sleep but the excitement of life on the road has taken down many performers (oksanen 2012). one could, of course, also ask if there are artistic products or genres that are hard to understand deeply without using risky substances. anyone can understand on a basic level what jimi hendrix and the grateful dead are about, but is there another level of understanding, another way to interpret their music when one is “experienced”? we do not think that is the case, for example, with samuel taylor coleridge’s the rime of the ancient mariner (1797-1798), even though the bizarre story – one mariner kills an albatross, then sea monsters seize the ship – was written by an avid opium user. while coleridge used opium as a relaxant and an antidepressant and wrote kublai khan (1816) directly under its influence, it is hard to say if he used the drug as a creative enhancement. there was no culture to contextualize it or make it meaningful. in the wave of 1960s psychedelia, it was different, as the drugs were brought to the scene by psychologists like timothy leary. his “the psychedelic experience” (written with ralph metzner, 1964) was not based only on the aspiration to revolutionize perception and experience, but also to incite a political revolution with the help of substances. we try to understand original contexts in art, too, when we discuss the baroque and distant scenes where our favorite films come from. will people someday take substances when they try to understand 20th century popular music? some of the connections mentioned here are the background for robert jones’s article on the experimental drug use of william burroughs, “the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs.” in his text, jones goes beyond the analysis of poetry to examine the whole dangerous lifestyle of beat poets, with burroughs in the lead, along with his readings of, e.g., reich and jones’s notes on richard shusterman’s somaesthetics. jones uses the term “twisted somaesthetics” to describe burroughs endeavours to break free of societal control with the help of substances. the lifestyle does not offer physical well-being, but, nevertheless, serves for burroughs a way to find and explore new ways of being and criticize contemporary forms of how we experience and use our body. in the most extreme case, dangerous and unhealthy lifestyles might just be about death – one’s own or someone’s else. the key topic in heidi kosonen’s “suicide, social bodies and danger: taboo, biopower and parental worry” in films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018 is the radical act of denying life and the way this is presented in films. even though suicide is considered a taboo in western cultures, it is often handled in films. these films, in turn, are sometimes considered dangerous as e.g. portraying suicide is easily seen as risky and as an invitation to join in death. kosonen uses a biopolitical framework of michel foucault to understand what is going on in film representations of suicide. according to her, most anglophone films have adopted medical institutions’ views of suicide. they portray suicide in medical terms and frame suicide an anomaly of the mind “through diagnoses, stereotypical and even pejorative depictions of a variety of mental illnesses from depression to psychopathology”. on the other hand, suicide is editorial unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self7 editorial depicted as a force of nature, which is uncontrollable and understandable, as the victims are not there to explain themselves. both these frameworks are stereotypical and do not portray the heterogenous reality on the background of suicide. in the worst case they might enhance prejudices and make it harder for ones living with mental illness to seek medical assistance. at any rate, the main question for us editors, when we started to edit this issue, was: can a person use dangerous substances, and – against all prejudices – take care of himself/herself in such a way that aesthetic concepts like harmony or holistic pleasure would make sense? as we have shown so far, the answer is not straightforward. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles do give pleasure for individuals and, also, a way of life with friends and communities backing your lifestyle. however, at the same time, people often look for a way out these lifestyles. in her article “unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920),” irene delcourt studies the history of interpretations and cures for drug addiction. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries narcotic addiction was considered a lifestyle and the result of bad lifestyle choices of upper and middleclass people. it was also believed that, by “cleansing the body” and removing inappropriate surroundings and habits the compulsion towards intoxication would disappear. a concept of rehabilitation started to appear in late 19th century medical literature in connection to both narcotic abuse and alcoholism treatment strategies, as well as sanatoriums, predecessors of contemporary “rehabs”, as places where addiction was cured with the help of a residential setting, long-term therapy – several weeks to several months – and a mix of psychiatric and physical care. in the course of the 20th century, this comprehensive view was, slowly, replaced by a more pessimistic approach, according to delcourt. as faces of addiction became poorer, narcotic addiction was no longer considered to be a lifestyle, but rather an incurable disease, or a criminal proclivity that could not be controlled with treatment or rehabilitation, but, rather, incarceration. in the beginning of 21st century, we find more and more biomedical framing of addiction. from the point of view of somaesthetic it could be asked, was something missed in this process, and could we learn something from the holistic approaches of the 19th century? as delcourt writes, comprehensive rehabilitation still exists, but it is reserved mainly for “well-offs”, taking place in private addiction clinics. at the same time the majority of people suffering from addiction have to settle with state-sponsored treatment programs, which offer very little help or no help at all for their patients besides medication, not to mention a promotion of healthier lifestyles, ways to take care of one self or a groups one could belong and find new forms of existence (see also leppo & perälä 2016). crispin sartwell’s text “what the drug culture meant”, which ends our theme issue, is an autobiography of a political philosopher who has come a long way from being a juvenile delinquent to being one of the most read american philosophers of culture. sartwell says that he learned criticality through his years of marginalization, and he claims that his experience the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 8 with drugs has left a valuable trace on his philosophical work. from the point of view of this theme issue sartwell’s essay has three central points. firstly, drugs, particularly marijuana and psychedelics, had cultural and counter-cultural meaning and separated the youth who used them from their parents and teachers. drugs were also aesthetic and provided sartwell and his friends with music to hear and arts to consume, a whole lifestyle. finally, drugs were political, signaling anti-authoritarianism or an entire rejection of "the establishment.". “the whole thing” was not fun and great all the time, sartwell admits, but at the same time he misses part of this culture and the feelings it created. the question that arises is, what other “things” could offer same kind of a comprehensive world view and feelings of belonging to contemporary youths and young adults – or us adults – besides substances? are there available forms of resistance, which do not destroy those who want to resist? could somaesthetics as a discourse and/or a platform be helpful for raising discussions about the techniques of the care of the self in these respects? we hope that our compilation of essays offers insight on this. one of our central conclusion is that we easily forget that even those people who have, in one way or another, seem to have lost control over their lives – or at least some part of it – have and want to have meaning in their lives and being in control over their lives. for example, substance users and other addicts have hobbies, and they work hard on controlling and/or medicating their addictions through self-care. many have also succeeded, as the studies of natural recovery without treatment have shown (klingeman 2001). for many, art has been a central form of selfcare and a pathway out of addiction (we know the number of addicts in the history of arts and popular culture.) sport, too. people can also stop driving insanely – and they can quit smoking. in this theme issue, we have been interested in connecting social sciences (that have a connection to medicine) and the discussion on somaesthetics (the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of the body), with film studies, literature studies and gender studies. doing this, we have wanted to explore the possibilities of somaesthetics to provoke discussion and produce novel ways to think about addiction and other unhealthy lifestyles. we, at least, have learned a lot in our dialogue with the contributors. this issue also contains noora-helena korpelainen’s review of vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian’s somaesthetics and yogasūtra: a reading through films (2019) and stefano marini’s review of richard shusterman’s bodies in the street (2019), “urban aesthetics and soma-politics: on bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life.” riikka perälä and max ryynänen , issue editors editorial unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self9 editorial references barber, j.g. (1994). alcohol addiction: private trouble or social issue? social service review 68:4. hirschowitz-gertz, t. (2017). how finns perceive obstacles to recovery from various addictions. nordic studies on alcohol and drugs 30:1-2. klingemann, h. (2001). ”natural recovery from alcohol problems.” in n. heather & t.j. peters & t. stockwell. eds. international handbook of alcohol dependence and problems. london lee, j. (2012). introduction. in lee, j. (ed.). cultures of addiction. cambria press. leppo, a. & perälä, r. (2017). remains of care: opioid substitution treatment in the post-welfare state. sociology of health and illness 39:6. moscovici, s. (1984). the phenomenon of social representations. in: r. farr & s. moscovici (eds.). social representations. new york: cambridge university press. oksanen, a. (2012). to hell and back. excessive drug use, addiction, and the process of recovery in mainstream rock autobiographies. substance use & misuse 47:2. perälä, r. (2018). care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction: an exploration on approaching and treating problem drug use. journal of somaestethics: somaesthetics and its nordic aspects 4:1. shelby, j. (2016). the culture of addiction. in: addiction. palgrave macmillan, london. sulkunen, p. & törrönen, j. (1997). semioottisen sosiologian näkökulmia: sosiaalisen todellisuuden rakentuminen ja ymmärrettävyys. helsinki: gaudeamus. sulkunen, p. (2009). the saturated society. governing risk & lifestyles in consumer culture. thousand oak, ca: sage publishing. vaaranen, h. (2004) the emotional experience of class: interpreting working-class kids’ street racing in helsinki. the annals of american academy of political and social science 595:1. valverde, m. (1998). diseases of the will: alcohol and the dilemmas of freedom. cambridge studies in law and society. cambridge, new york, melbourne: cambridge university press. who (2018). noncommunicable diseases. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ noncommunicable-diseases page 89–96 unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self89 urban aesthetics and soma-politics: on bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life urban aesthetics and soma-politics: on bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life book review stefano marino bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life, published in august 2019, is the second book in the series edited by richard shusterman “studies in somaesthetics. embodied perspectives in philosophy, the arts and the human sciences,” published by brill publishers. the first volume, entitled aesthetic experience and somaesthetics (2018),1 represented a very interesting, although quite “classical,” contribution in somaesthetics. by this i mean it is a “classical” contribution to a “non-classical” and somehow “unconventional” (in a positive sense of these terms, of course) branch of contemporary aesthetics par excellence such as somaesthetics, about which shusterman had written in pragmatist aesthetics (1992¹; 2000²) that it is “best situated within an expanded discipline of aesthetics” capable of giving “more systematic attention to the body’s crucial roles in aesthetic perception and experience, including the aesthetic dimensions of body therapies, sports, martial arts, cosmetics, etc., that remain marginalized in academic aesthetic theory” (p. 283). therefore, “to incorporate somaesthetics’ practical dimension, the field of aesthetics must also expand its notion of disciplinary attention to actual, hands-on training in specific body practices that aim at somaesthetic improvement,” and while “[i]nclusion of such body work may make aesthetics more difficult to teach or practice in the standard university classroom, … it certainly [can] make the field more exciting and absorbing, as it comes to engage more of our embodied selves” (p. 283). with its 12 chapters articulated in 3 parts dedicated to “embodiment in philosophy and aesthetic experience,” “somaesthetic approaches to the fine arts” and “somaesthetics in the photographic arts and the art of living,” aesthetic experience and somaesthetics connected back to the question of aesthetic experience that has always played an important role in shusterman’s thought – at least since pragmatist aesthetics and his seminal paper “the end of aesthetic experience” (1997). in that first volume, shusterman expanded aesthetic experience in the direction of somaesthetic investigations of various aesthetic questions and topics, with connections to thinkers from the present and the past. now, in comparison to the very interesting but, as i said, somewhat more “classical” first book in the series “studies in somaesthetics,” bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life, represents a more original and stimulating work, offering a significant contribution in imposing 1 see my review of this volume on the online journal of aesthetics studi di estetica (http://mimesisedizioni.it/journals/index.php/studi-diestetica/article/view/635). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 90 stefano marino somaesthetics as one of the most open and pluralist fields in contemporary philosophy. the book advances shusterman’s philosophical investigation of various phenomena with a “critical study and meliorative cultivation of the body as the site not only of experienced subjectivity and sensory appreciation (aesthesis) that guides our action and performance but also of our creative self-fashioning through the ways we use, groom, and adorn our physical bodies to express our values and stylize ourselves” (p. 15) – following shusterman’s definition of somaesthetics. a simple look at the book’s table of contents clearly shows this. in the long and complex introduction, shusterman explains clearly and in detail the origin, general meaning, and structure of the book. this structure is articulated in four parts: “the soma, the city, and the weather,” “festival, revolution, and death,” “performances of resistance, gender, and crime,” and “bodies in the streets of literature and art”. the simple titles of the book’s four parts, and then the titles of the contributions gathered in each part, show how the general aim and, as it were, the very spirit of somaesthetics – as a philosophical discipline attentive to both theory and practice – is open, interdisciplinary and pluralist. at the same time, somaesthetics avoids the potential risk of falling into a variety of relativism thanks to its strong and coherent pragmatist background and thanks to its very clear and specific focus on the body, understood in its complexity and its irreducibility to simplistic patterns of explanation (be it philosophical, scientific, theological, etc.). as shusterman (2012) explained, his “aesthetic research… began to look beyond the analytic aesthetics paradigm (valuable as it is) to incorporate ideas from pragmatism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, post-structuralism, and east-asian thought:” “striving for some kind of new philosophical synthesis, a new remix (in rap terminology),” he would soon realize that “aesthetics can be more usefully pluralistic” than it has usually been. (pp. 105, 112). this plurality applied to both a plurality of complementary approaches and a plurality of objects of inquiry, neither excluding “the most elevated fine arts” nor devaluating “the most commonday everyday aesthetic practices and popular artistic forms” (p. 112). bodies in the streets bears clear traces of all this. it is a valid successor to shusterman’s previous books as author, his collections as editor, and the research in somaesthetics developed in recent times in the specifically dedicated journal, the journal of somaesthetics. at the same time, the book also extends and expands in a fascinating way the sense and scope of somaesthetic research, not limiting itself to inquiries into aesthetic subjects (no matter how broad, articulated, and complex is the concept of “aesthetic” assumed and used). rather, it broadens the horizon of somaesthetics to cover a variety of phenomena and subjects that range from the study of urban development and life, to ethics and politics, to the philosophical investigation of art, literature, and culture interand multi-cultural perspectives. the interand multi-cultural perspective is especially the case in the three interesting contributions included in the fourth part of bodies in the streets: “terrae incognitae: the somaesthetics of thomas de quincey’s psychogeography,” “the empty spaces you run into: the city as character and background in william s. burroughs’s junky, queer, and naked lunch,” and “the somaesthetic sublime: varanasi in modern and contemporary indian art,” authored by evy varsamopoulou, robert w. jones ii, and pradeep a. dhillon, respectively. the study of urban development and life is especially at the core of the three significant contributions in the first part of the book: “bodies in the streets: the soma, the city, and the art of living,” “the weather-worlds of urban bodies,” and “white on black: snow in the city, skiing in copenhagen,” authored by richard shusterman, mădălina diaconu, and henrik reeh, respectively. these six contributions are all of great interest, in general, and quite often original in the way in which they interpret from a somaesthetic perspective very different phenomena. diaconu unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self91 considers the relationship between “human settlements [and] physical atmosphere,” “urban ‘sensescapes’…, the practices through which, intentionally or not, urban spaces are experienced, appropriated, modified and produced,” and the many ways in which “atmospheric factors influence in a positive or negative way and in various degrees our human well-being, behavior and performance” (pp. 38–39). reeh reflects on the experience of “urban snow [in copenhagen] and skiing as a somaesthetic environment” (p. 62). yet varsamopoulou studies “the ways in which the body, dreaming, drifting and opium transform the cityscape in thomas de quincey’s confessions of an english opium eater” in light of “the recent reformulation, or redirection of aesthetics toward an awareness of the body and its cultivation in everyday life by somaesthetics [that] has opened new and wider lenses through which to read de quincey’s autobiographical narratives” (pp. 249, 252). jones attempts to combine “the theories of alfred korzybski, wilhelm reich, w. grey halter and vladimir gavreau” with “the theory of somaesthetics” to interpret “[william s.] burroughs’s intellectual and artistic interests, including a wide-ranging philosophy of the body, mind, language and control” and the depiction of life in the “mid-twentieth-century cities… portrayed in his novels” (p. 271). finally, dhillon examines the relationship between “burke’s conception of the sublime,” “the kantian treatment of the concept,” the “turn to the somatic” that we find in shusterman’s work on this topic, and “the use of examples of the body in the city drawn from indian modern and contemporary art” aimed at demonstrating that, “without a turn to somaesthetics, we could not reasonably extend the notion of the sublime to the social and political dimensions that postmodern thinkers like lyotard have sought to do,” i.e., “without the turn to somaesthetics, the sublime would be of little use in understanding the role of art in moral and civic education” (p. 312). shusterman’s long and rich essay “bodies in the streets: the soma, the city, and the art of living” plays a decisive role in the book because of its capacity to explain in general, and then investigate in detail, several fundamental aspects of the body/city/art-of-living relationship that also make it possible for the reader to understand the many connections present in the other essays. other essays in parts one and four seem at times to suffer from a certain heterogeneity and variegation that may disorient the reader and lead him/her to ask whether the relation to the basic somaesthetic framework of investigation is fully consistent or a little too vague. to be precise, this is not necessarily a problem or a deficiency in the book, because variety, openness, interor multi-disciplinarity, and pluralism correspond to essential and distinctive features of pragmatist aesthetics and somaesthetics as such. so, a problem may arise only if the heterogeneity crosses a certain line, so to speak, and causes the sensation of a loss of philosophical unity and consistency. this feeling, if it arises, clearly also depends on the reader’s experience, expectations, and interpretations. this possible problem of heterogeneity that might arise in some of the essays, surely does not apply to the chapter “bodies in the streets: the soma, the city, and the art of living” and the essays in parts two and three that powerfully link somaesthetics with politics. starting from a few “etymological connotations” of the english, german, and french terms for bodies, sidewalks, and streets, shusterman introduces the idea of “city streets [as] a theatre for dramatic action, a stage with multiple scenes for spectacles of performance in the art of living, an art necessarily performed with the soma (the sentient purposive body) and most typically performed in scenes involving other somatic selves or bodies in the streets” (p. 14). on this basis, shusterman then develops some important observations on the complexity of the human experience of the body and, in relation to the complexity of the soma “as both subject and object in the world,” also on the complexity of the human nature as such: as shusterman writes, “[o]ur experience and urban aesthetics and soma-politics: on bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 92 stefano marino behavior are far less genetically hardwired than in other animals. the soma reveals that human nature is always more than merely natural but instead deeply shaped by culture” (p. 15). in doing this, shusterman relies on some phenomenological-anthropological insights into the dual nature of our body experience as both körperhaben and leibsein, thus connecting in a fascinating way american pragmatism with 20th-century german philosophical traditions. shusterman offers a general presentation of the somaesthetic conception of the body as expressing “our ambivalent condition between power and frailty, dignity and brutishness, knowledge and ignorance” (p. 16) and as “a single, systematic unity that however contains a multiplicity of very different elements (including diverse organs) that have their own needs, ailments, and subsystems that frequently trouble the functioning unity of the somatic self as a whole” (p. 17). then he shows how this complexity “is also shared by the city, whose dynamic unity contains a diversity of neighborhoods, organizations, populations, activities, and interests that are often in tension and threaten to destabilize the city’s unity” (p. 17). in the remaining sections of the paper, shusterman goes into more detail about the body/city/art-of-living relationship through an elaboration in various steps of “the analogy of soma and city” (p. 17). drawing on reflections on the body, the city, and also the state (“the body politic”) from such thinkers as plato, aristotle, rousseau, poe, baudelaire, nietzsche, engels, simmel, and benjamin, and using them in a creative but not unfaithful way to create “a useful background for exploring the somaesthetics of city life” in its many features, shusterman introduces the reader to various “key characteristic[s] of the city that ha[ve] an analogy with the soma” (p. 22). those range from the dialectic of size and growth (p. 18) to the ambivalences of both the soma and the city as “site[s] of desire” (p. 20), to the condition of being defined by limits yet capable of extending beyond them (p. 22), to the fact of being sites of both freedom and constraints and dependencies (p. 22), to the dialectic of commonality and individuality (p. 23). finally, turning in a more explicit way to the somatic experience of the city in our times, shusterman offers some intriguing philosophical observations on the relationship between the crowd and the individual (pp. 24–29), on current phenomena of “intoxication and alienation from the city streets” (pp. 29–31), and on the significance of “drama, art of living and somaesthetic self-fashioning” in our globalized and aestheticized contemporary experience of the city through our bodies (pp. 31–35). shusterman especially focuses on the way in which this may also lead us to rethink our ideas on the relationship between aesthetics and politics today. as he explains indeed in a pragmatist and meliorist spirit, [t]he large presence of foreigners circulating in the city streets provides the metropolis with more possibilities for varied somaesthetic experience and an enriched aesthetic education in cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity. unfortunately, some citizens regard the introduction of such diversity as unwelcomely transforming the city’s (or nation’s) prior aesthetic “feel” and thus calling for solutions to this discomfort that are politically problematic. ghettos are a traditional response to this fear, as are expulsions and xenophobic violence. … cities, as musil remarked, have their distinctive aesthetic identities or particular qualitative “feels” that lovers of those cities cherish and do not want to see changed in any way. on the other hand, change and diversity are an essential part of the dynamism of development and innovation that defines city life and distinguishes it from the familiar steadiness and slow pace of village or country life. like the body, the city needs to balance change with constancy, harmonize stability with movement and growth, in a manner that is not unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self93 rigidly mechanical or prescribed by strict conformity to predetermined rules but instead sensitively flexible and adaptive. … how do the streets themselves contribute to this somaesthetic social drama where individuals develop and manifest their work of self-stylization in interactive engagement with others? one might specify three modes: as physical space, as structured social space, and as narrative space. … benjamin’s notion of “the streets [as] the dwelling place of the collective” in which the city’s many classes, cultures, and ethnicities move and mix suggests the promise of a dynamic, hybrid social group that can be politically potent but attractively open and comparatively free. its constitution can be flexibly voluntary, since the same streets can be used to walk away, not just to come together. a collective or crowd in the street need not deny free individual expression but can, as we argued earlier, even stimulate and nurture it. but despite such liberty, a collective can nonetheless manifest its commitment and its power by occupying the streets with its throng of communicating, dynamic, and sentient somas. such crowds are more lively and energizing than the mere virtual presence of texts and images shared through digital networks. bodies in the streets still matter, aesthetically and politically (pp. 30–31, 33, 35). the relationship between aesthetics and politics, which is at the core of the second and third parts of the book, is investigated in bodies in the streets from a somaesthetic perspective. this represents, in my view, one of the most intriguing, stimulating, and original characteristic of the book. in particular, i consider the connection of somaesthetics and feminism that emerges, powerfully and convincingly, in these parts as one of the most promising aspects of this new direction of somaesthetic research, also given the recent rise of a new wave of radical feminism, testified for example by arruzza et al. (2019).2 shusterman (2003) had already touched on the connection of pragmatist aesthetics and feminism. however, this new context might make it possible to intersect the somaesthetic examination of the body “in the street” (and hence the network of social relationships that play such an important role in determining, among other things, our body consciousness both at the individual and collective levels) with critical developments in contemporary feminism against the growing objectification, reification, and even commodification of human bodies (and most noticeably of women’s bodies) and how they are controlled. the second part of the book, entitled “festival, revolution, and death” includes the following contributions: “body politics: revolt and city celebration,” “bodies in the streets of eastern europe: rhetorical space and the somaesthetics of revolution,” and “from dancing to dying in the streets: somaesthetics of the cuban revolution in memories of underdevelopment and juan of the dead,” authored by matthew crippen, noemi marin, and marilyn g. miller, respectively. the third part, entitled “performances of resistance, gender, and crime,” has four chapters: “‘street’ is feminine in italian: feminine bodies and street spaces,” “bodies in alliance and new sites of resistance: performing the political in neoliberal public spaces,” “east end prostitution and the fear of contagion: on body consciousness of the ripper case,” and “toward a somaesthetic conception of culture in iran: somaesthetic performance as cultural praxis in tehran,” authored by ilaria serra, federica castelli, chung-jen chen, and alireza 2 on this ground-breaking contribution to the definition of a new form of radical feminism both in theory and practice, and also its connections to, for example, angela davis’s intersectional approach to feminism and social criticism, see the interviews with cinzia arruzza and nancy fraser available at http://mimesis-scenari.it/2018/05/31/donne-razza-e-classe-intervista-a-cinzia-arruzza and https://jacobinmag. com/2019/10/nancy-fraser-feminism-anti-capitalist-99-percent-majority. urban aesthetics and soma-politics: on bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 94 stefano marino fakhrkonandeh, respectively. it is impossible to do justice, in the limited space of a review essay, to the richness and depth of the ideas in these seven papers both from a strictly theoretical point of view and a transand multi-cultural perspective. the authors offer stimulating somaesthetic observations, originally intersecting aesthetics, politics, and feminism, with a focus on such different historical contexts and cultural events – as emphasized in the introduction by shusterman– as “the politically directed mandalay water festival that wildly floods the city streets and drenches those who use them [and] the streets surrounding cairo’s tahrir square during the arab spring protests of 2011” in crippen’s chapter (p. 4), the “spontaneous bodies-in-the-streets revolt [in romania] that sparked the revolution of 1989 and its execution of the communist despot nicolae ceasescu” in marin’s chapter (p. 4), “cuban films that… reveal the tensions between… castro’s revolutionary government’s… demands on the bodies of citizens (who are called to a self-sacrificing commitment to the government’s aims) and, in sharp contrast, the somaesthetic needs and desires of those bodies in the city of havana” in miller’s chapter (p. 5), and then “woman’s subjugation on the streets, focusing on italy” in serra’s and castelli’s chapters (pp. 5–6), the “viciousness of violence women suffer on the streets through an examination of the notorious case of jack the ripper” in chen’s chapter (p. 6), and finally “the complex history and multiple levels of body-shaping and city-shaping ideologies in contemporary iran” in fakhrkonandeh’s chapter (p. 7). it is important to emphasize the significance of such complex, brilliant, thought-provoking, and original contributions. it is also important to stress the role that such an opening of somaesthetic research toward a new connection of aesthetics and politics, with a focus on such relevant phenomena, may play for future developments of somaesthetic investigations. in recent decades, italian society and mentality have undoubtedly made great progress with regard to women’s rights. nevertheless, there persist sexist stereotypes and serious problems concerning the condition of women. (there has, in recent times, been widespread use of the term “femminicidio” [“feminicide”] in newscasts, newspapers and tv shows to call people’s attention to the emergency situation of too many italian women suffering from gendered violence and being killed by males). so, as a reader i was particularly impressed by serra’s and castelli’s chapters. the former starts from the etymological observation that, although “[t]he word ‘street’ – la strada – is a noun of feminine gender in the italian language,” “italian public spaces are historically places of misogyny” (p. 153). she then explains that her aim is to address “a watershed moment in italian history that opened a discussion on the somaesthetics of the street: the 1970 wave of feminist struggles,” emphatically defined by serra as “a time in which italian women took possession of italian streets as they intensely reflected on their bodily experience of such spaces. … in those years,” as serra further explains, “the street developed into a stage and even an instrument of the struggle, a walkable space that offered visibility but one that also became a matter of discussion involving bodies, actions, and sensations. the specific intersection of ‘soma-esthetics’ discussed in this article is one where soma is the feminine body and aesthesis is women’s sensorial perception of the city” (p. 153). serra’s contribution thus is to provide “a specific italian declension to richard shusterman’s proposition for a socially minded, pragmatic somaesthetics, capable of turning self-awareness into social action. … feminism was a turning point in women’s history that included a redesigning of the experience of city life for women,” and it also involved “a deep realization of the ‘somaesthetic dissonance or disharmony’ perceived by [women’s] bodies in the street that became a fierce refusal of their beleaguered state, a political unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self95 resistance to oppression” (pp. 153–154). next, castelli focuses on “the link between politics and urban space from a situated, embodied, gendered, intersectional, and feminist approach” (p. 177). she aims to offer a reflection “on bodies through a focus on embodied practices of performing in public space” and to explain, through a specific reference to the feminist movement, that “taking bodies into account means entering a political dimension that says something about our existence – as human beings – in the world” (p. 177). bodies, as castelli correctly points out, are not just something about which discussions can be held and knowledge can be produced, but they are means of political creation. … on one hand, the feminist intersectional approach allows me to take into account differences among embodied subjectivities in all their possible forms, and leads me toward an analysis of the processes of construction of identities and different modulations of the relationship between the individual and the collective. on the other hand, my embodied experience with feminist collectives and protests provides me with important interpretative tools (pp. 177–178). i found this way of connecting the study of embodied subjectivities and feminist activism through the use of one’s own body in the street to protest against persisting patriarchal structures, mentality, and values (or better, disvalues) to be quite original. not only is it an intriguing reinterpretation and further development of somaesthetics’ basic aim to be a discipline of both theory and practice (which here means political participation and praxis), but it is also a very promising path for new somaesthetic research in connection with, for example, angela davis’ intersectional approach to feminism, judith butler’s performative conception of assembly, and nancy fraser’s anti-capitalist feminism “for the 99%” (see marino et al., 2019). continuing to develop somaesthetics in the direction of connecting aesthetics and politics, i.e., exploring the role that an embodied aesthetic can play in political debates and struggles (with a particular focus on feminism, with its undeniable significance today and the specificities of the questions concerning women’s bodies in society), might lead to original, stimulating, and even surprising new acquisitions of somaesthetic knowledge. it would mean expanding our body consciousness in the broadest meaning of this term, thus encompassing both the individual and the social, the private and the public, and the theoretical and the practical. urban aesthetics and soma-politics: on bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 96 stefano marino references arruzza, c., bhattacharya, t., & fraser, n. (2019). feminism for the 99%: a manifesto, verso. marino, s., vitali, r., & volpi, a. (eds.). (2019) populismo, femminismo, popular culture. scenari. rivista semestrale di filosofia contemporanea, 11. shusterman, r. (1997). the end of aesthetic experience. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 55(1), 29–41. shusterman, r. (2000). pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art (2nd ed). rowman & littlefield publishers, inc. shusterman, r. (2003). somaesthetics and ‘the second sex’: a pragmatist reading of a feminist classic. hypatia, 18(4), 106–136. shusterman, r. (2012). back to the future: aesthetics today. the nordic journal of aesthetics, 43, 104-124. shusterman, r. (ed.). (2018). aesthetic experience and somaesthetics. brill. shusterman, r. (ed.). (2019). bodies in the streets: the somaesthetics of city life. brill. somaesthetics and phenomenology contents editorial: somaesthetics and phenomenology – a handful of notes 4 max ryynänen articles: corporeal landscapes: 15 can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? tonino griffero perceptual and bodily habits: 29 towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics nicole miglio and samuele sartori practical phenomenology: 45 does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? carsten friberg essays: getting dizzy: 59 a conversation between the artistic research of dizziness and somatic architecture ruth anderwald, leonhard grond, and maría auxiliadora gálvez pérez the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) editorial board editors in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) issue editors senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) professor arto haapala (finland) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 editorial board published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design zane cerpina with the generous support of the obel family foundation and the schmidt family foundation © the journal of somaesthetics (jos) 2015 © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. art & technology, aalborg university rendsburggade 14, 9000 denmark contact: somaestheticsjournal@gmail.com isbn: 978-87-7112-243-5 issn: 2246-8498 editors stahl stenslie (denmark) richard shusterman (us) else marie bukdahl (denmark) associate editor russell pryba (us) assistant editor carsten friberg (denmark) editorial board fred maus (us) paul taylor (us martin jay (us) mark johnson (us) orlan (france) bryan turner (us/australia) h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 82 page 82–88crispin sartwell what the drug culture meant crispin sartwell for american kids in the 1970s, the term "drugs" referred to more than chemical compounds or plant extracts, more than a disease or a relief. drugs, particularly marijuana and psychedelics, had cultural and counter-cultural meaning; they were, for us, symbols of the fact that we were different sorts of people than our parents and principals and political leaders: more open-minded, as it were, and more adventurous. drugs were aesthetic (they affected our music and design arts and our heads fundamentally) and they were political, signaling anti-authoritarianism or an entire rejection of "the establishment." the term 'drug culture' is a sensible representation of the scope of the symbolic and economic activity; the drug culture was our native land. it was a resistant ethos, with rituals and sacred texts (by abbie hoffman, timothy leary, and carlos castaneda, for example), an underground world featuring, let's say, a third of the american population. we staked way too much of our lives and identities on substance abuse, i admit, gave drugs a symbolic weight that they cannot and really should not bear. but the power of the drug culture was in large measure derived from the sheer fact of illegality. in being part of it, each of us was a criminal, and we were all criminals together. that what we were doing was illegal is part of what made it seem, for a time, like a form of resistance. i grew up in dc, just off connecticut avenue in upper nw, a leafy and lily-white neighborhood of detached early twentieth-century homes on the outskirts of "chocolate city." i and my circle of friends started smoking pot when we were thirteen or so, circa 1971. we accounted ourselves younger hippies, junior members of the counter-culture, baby revolutionaries. "boomers," of course, entered and left the 1960s at very different ages; it was quite different to be, say, 18 or even 16 in 1968–as the streets of chicago and paris exploded, and martin luther king, jr. was assassinated–than to be around 10, as i and my cohort were. neither i (at 11), nor my parents (in their forties) were going to head to woodstock in 1969. as we went on, kids around my age and demographic lived in and embodied, or maybe just were, the decline of '60s idealism and optimism. we lost our naiveté early and ended up punks; we were born into consciousness as the peace and civil rights movements lost momentum or disintegrated, for example. we embraced the values, but with distance or a touch of scathing irony. by '75, we were wised-up post-hippies. you weren't going to keep selling us "flower power," which looked like wishful thinking and also an overwhelming flow of merchandise. it just hadn't worked out, but did you really think flowers were a reasonable reply to napalm? as the decade and our teenagerhoods went on, hippiedom lost momentum, disco and punk replaced psychedelia, cocaine infiltrated the brains of potheads, and the peace and civil rights movements faded. we couldn't tell if "the youth movement" or "our generation" had emerged victorious or not. the us government kept muddling around in vietnam until it lost, but it lost partly because it realized that there was not domestic support for any sort of major unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self83 what the drug culture meant offensive. jim crow laws were gone, but it was hard not to see that dc was still segregated and in a continual condition of racial tension. maybe half-victories were all we could have reasonably expected, but the failures felt more salient; we started seeing hippie culture as something well over, the grateful dead as passé. young me had considerable sympathy for groups such as the weather underground; for at least a moment, it seemed like "the movement" could go further toward societal transformation only by violence. by the time weathermen were blowing themselves to smithereens, it had to occur to us (perhaps i should stick to 'me'; i'm not certain whom i'm speaking for, really) that the whole thing was over and that we had sort of missed it. being in "the counter-culture" started to lose its meaning; it really signified little but that we did drugs, of certain kinds on certain occasions (or perhaps all occasions). perhaps our parents poured cocktails at 5:00; we smoked dope all day. indeed, the drugs were partly, or allegedly, an expression of '60s idealism, but also had their role in its end; serious potheads, to say nothing of actual junkies, are unlikely to be effective revolutionaries. chevy chase dc seemed like a cliché version of what the hippies hated: a neighborhood of bungalows, suited to '50s-style cold war domestic bliss in a close-in, or street-car, suburb, infested by white, "nuclear" families. i was the older of the expected two kids, born in '58, my brother adam in '60. our parents split up when i was 10 or 11, and dad disappeared into the state hospital in virginia to dry out. mom re-married a year or two later, to a fellow high school teacher with two problematic sons a couple of years older than adam and me. jim, at 15, was already in and out of the sheppard-pratt "mental hospital" and juvenile detention facilities: rather a psychopath, as he frankly averred in later years. bobby was worse, really, if less criminally flamboyant, at least for a while. when our parents got together, the four of us had a meeting and resolved to refer to one another as "brothers" rather than "step-brothers." i continue to call them my brothers here. so, as we got into our mid-to-late teens, bobby and adam were dealers (jim too, maybe, but he was usually elsewhere). adam was better than bobby, because the latter did all the drugs before he could sell them. they were small-scale, relatively, but the person they usually bought from was just another high school kid who lived down on nevada avenue, with obscure but useful connections, able to wall off the chevy chase region with bricks of terrible mexican weed. early on (call it '72), we'd gather in bob's room in the attic, cast black light over a hendrix poster, listen to the jefferson airplane, and pass the joints around, taking ourselves to be having experiences, though the moment at which this was more than a ritualistic throwback or tribute had passed some years before. nevertheless, as desired, or as was already traditional, when the emphasis shifted to acid and mescaline, the experiences seemed to us to grow more profound: we saw through the whole pathetic conventionalized reality of our parents and of richard nixon. that last sentence is, i admit, unfair to my mother, now 95, who had plenty of progressive tendencies, but i'm talking about the cultural symbol-system in which 'parents' were the establishment, 'the man' in our very own houses. drug culture was, of course, characterized above all by its secrecy. it created two worlds, the surface world of conventional appearances, and the covert criminal underworld, in every neighborhood in the city. we delighted in a situation in which parents, school administrators, and so on had little idea of what was going on under their noses (though sometimes they picked up a little scent). by the time i was 16 or so, i was embedded in an alternative economy. people had jobs in it, were figuring out how to invest (or even bury) their money. it had its own laws, institutions, and values, the first commandment of which was "thou shalt not snitch." it's true that we more or less thought that someone who'd go to the authorities did not deserve to live, the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 84 crispin sartwell though at our low level we never physically harmed anyone, just issued dire threats. we took our extreme anti-police emphasis this to be a kind of anti-authoritarianism, our permutation of the peace movement or something. i got kicked out of the dc public school system at 16, not for drugs, but for what i deemed to be political activities, specifically for "disrupting" an assembly by seizing the microphone from an assistant principal to call for student liberation from compulsory attendance and grading. by then i had been suspended many times, for distributing an "underground" school newspaper and co-leading a student walkout; i was trying to be a real pain in the ass. and i was living in a whole anti-authoritarian youth culture. we were all felons, and that drove us toward anarchism, a dedication to evading and undermining authority that went well beyond the drugs. we were bourgeois white kids, and we were criminals, and we were proud of that. also, we were dc, where power and politics seem like the very air; no wonder we interpreted our criminality through that medium. indeed, in the extremely racially polarized dc of my youth, two of the few things that crossed the line were narcotics and fandom for the redskins (that is, black and white folks could agree on using a slur for a third group, which is really how you bring people together across racial and ethnic lines; the entity is known at the moment as the washington football team). black and white druggies and dealers definitely visited each others' neighborhoods, quite unusual at the time, though not entirely undangerous in either direction. alice deal junior high and woodrow wilson high school, where bobby, adam, and i were going in different grades, were in a bit of a race war, but dealers and potheads reached across the line. bob and adam both developed connections "downtown," the sort of thing that led to an influx of pcp and heroin into upper northwest, and maybe of cocaine and meth into southeast. post-expulsion, i ended up at a "free school" known as bonzo ragamuffin prep: 20-or-so "bonzos" above a storefront in the adams-morgan neighborhood. we were kids who couldn't make it in the public schools for a variety of reasons, including petty crimes, mental illness, being a chronic runaway, being gay, or, in several cases, being straight-up acid or pcp burnout cases. we came out on the other end with transcripts claiming that we'd taken classes, but the only ongoing programs were group therapy and drug use. the staff were potheads too, and the therapy was necessary for everyone involved. my "senior year" (in spring, '76) we took a class trip for three days to chincoteague island in virginia. we may have been kind of noisy. on our last night, at 3:00, twelve virginia state troopers stampeded in through front door. they made a pile of drugs in the middle of the living room (though they also included things like soap powder, asserting it was coke), and demanded that people say which was whose. we agreed among ourselves that we would, so that they wouldn't drag everyone off to jail simultaneously. i had managed to drop my vial of hash oil through a hole in the floor, so none of it was mine. but they did arrest the whole staff and a bunch of the kids including my girlfriend and her sister (who was bobby's girlfriend). they charged the kids with possession for sale and every member of the staff with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. they found the headmaster in bed with one of the students, for example, an arrangement that we all knew about and approved. (sometimes in later years i paused to reconsider how we were thinking about the sexual side of liberation; like, liberation for whom to do what to whom?) that was the end of my school. i took it merely as another sign of idiotic evil of the powers-that-be, which was pretty much my conclusion from any data set in that period. i moved out of the childhood home at 18, or was kicked out, and, maneuvered with some skill by my schoolteacher parents, started college at the university of maryland (unlike most unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self85 what the drug culture meant of my friends, and maybe unlike any of the other bonzos). i moved into a group house (not quite a commune; it was a year too late for that) out near the national institutes of health in bethesda, where bobby was already living. bob himself by this point was the sort of person who took a shot of jack daniels before he got out of bed in the morning. he conceived the dc region as a formula 1 race course, trying to set a new record every week for how fast he could get downtown through rock creek park in a karmann ghia or a mustang. the numbers he was reporting seemed fictive until i took the ride, one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. bobby had crapped out as dealer by that time, or was merely an assistant dealer: a delivery guy, for one thing. his job as a mechanic allowed him to obtain, rehabilitate, and then total cheap cars. for example, he managed to flip a blue chevy suburban up a tree on chevy chase circle (he claimed to have been doing 90 mph). the vehicle, bent like a banana, inhabited our driveway in bethesda for some years, and a decade later you could still see the scar on the tree, some ten feet up from street level. then there was carl, a mustachioed reactionary whose harley electroglide was always parked in front, and who entertained strippers in his room upstairs, sometimes two or three at a time. he was also a gun nut, and it was hard to say what he had up there, really. he didn't like the street light outside his window, so he kept shooting it out until they decided not fix it anymore. indeed, on several occasions he shot out lamps in his own room, not wanting to get out of bed to flip the switch. after it happened the second time, we had a house meeting and requested that he be more circumspect. but his mere presence, though liable to kill any of us on a bad night, also secured us against home invasion, which was indeed a concern. you'd have to think twice before invading carl's house. the penultimate guy bar me was a three-hundred pound bouncerish fellow named phil, who had worked in "collections" (repossessing cars, for example) but soon became rather useless securityand other-wise because debilitated by depression. he didn't leave his room for months on end, except to go to the bathroom. we brought him sandwiches. he lost a hundred pounds in a year and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. then there was me, living on the nominallyenclosed back porch, playing the blues harmonica and reading philosophy books. i seemed to myself and to my housemates to be the straightest and least interesting and macho of the bunch, and for a long time my self-understanding was perhaps tilted by comparison with my housemates at this era. how bad could i be, really? at any rate, the house was owned by its fifth resident, initials jt, who must have been one of the biggest coke dealers in bethesda. there was a constant stream of all sorts of people through that house: bikers and strippers, weird repo men, black and white dealers, hilarious party people and desperate coke addicts. we were worried about the bust moment by moment, of course, but jt seemed to have some sort of arrangement. that he was living in a bedroom in a house with four other guys and working every day as a car mechanic (he owned the shop where bobby worked on volkswagens) was part of the strategy: jt had a spot in the woods near his uncle's house where he stashed his own vintage cars and his boat. he had hundreds of thousands of dollars buried there too, or so he claimed. i believed him completely, because i saw the commerce and the extremely modest lifestyle (and the boat, from time to time). it was a very slick approach, really, and almost no major dealers have that kind of self-discipline. and really, jt, not me, was the quiet one in that house, just another post-hippie with a little blond ponytail, driving a bug. so we never did get busted, but that's not to say that there weren't problems. indeed, my drug culture went terribly terribly wrong. living in that house in bethesda, particularly after the freebasing started, got to be something of a nightmare: it seems that once you base you the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 86 crispin sartwell can never think about anything else again. pretty soon my brother adam, who lived over in hyattsville, was in the house every night; he stopped even saying hi. he favored bombay gin, as well, and by the time he was in his mid-twenties was being treated for pancreas problems. that was wickedly painful, and he went over to opiates. adam worked as a lab assistant at nih, and managed to steal thousands of demerol pills and process them into a giant jug of pure liquid demerol. jim told me later that they both shot up out of that bottle for years. by the early '80s, adam worked as a "new wave" deejay at a club called poseurs down in georgetown, and maybe as a heroin dealer as well. within a couple of years, he was writing bad checks from my parents' bank account, going in and out of rehab. he got a break from his last rehab for a court date, went down to 14th street and scored, shot up in my grandmother's apartment downtown, and died. i still don't know whether it was an accident or a suicide. my oldest brother jim, an inveterate heroin addict from an early age, did five years in the state pen in hagerstown for armed robbery in the mid-'70s. legend (recounted by himself ) had it that he robbed a hotel, then walked out front and hailed a cab for home. after a subsequent run as a crackhead (i spent a couple of extremely unedifying days long about '86 doing crack with him, the only time i ever smoked coke), he got sober, and was something of a 12-step activist and guru even through a series of relapses. jim died in 2004, in his early '50s, of the longterm effects of a number of addictions, with hepatitis, diabetes, lung and heart disease; i'm not even sure what killed him, really. the two packs a day of kools probably didn't help. my mother and step-father retired as teachers in 1984, and moved to rural virginia to set up as organic vegetable farmers. on a sunday in june, bobby was helping them move, and he brought a couple of friends with him to help haul furniture. i was in the caravan too, carrying some things in my own little datsun. in bob's panel truck on the two-hour drive, they were smoking pcp; they'd showed me their little canister of it before they left. when we got down to the new place, one of bobby's friends kind of freaked out (i was watching this from the driveway, having pulled in ahead of them) and demanded that they turn around and drive back to dc without unloading the furniture. bob refused, and his friend pulled out a gun (a .357 magnum, the police told me). they drove off, but we heard the shot a few seconds later. i ran out onto the road and saw bob's body slumped by the side of the road. i grabbed and lifted him; his chest was caved in, blood running from his mouth. he was...unnaturally relaxed. the shooter (a kid, really), wrapped bob's truck around a tree a mile or two up rock mills road, and died as well. myself, i got sober in '91 in 12-step programs, my basic problem being alcohol by that time. i relapsed in 2004 for a couple of years. you'd think that what happened to my brothers (and many other people i knew) would make it perfectly obvious that i'd better steer clear of all of this mess. but that's a complicated matter. by the time we were teenagers, my relationship with my brothers was centrally concerned with drugs and alcohol. stopping almost felt like a betrayal, and in the midst of grief and desperation, you can still express loyalty to the dead by imitating the people you've lost, even by imitating what killed them, which is, after all, sort of what they died for. and once drugs are conceived as a culture, as your own culture, they open up larger affiliations encompassing your friends and siblings, now the occasion of nostalgia. but though i was perhaps attracted to the drug culture initially as a cultural affiliation or a way to achieve a hippie identity, i didn't experience drugs, as i went on using them, primarily as a cultural or political phenomenon. drug use became for me an internal psychological and somatic condition. if my drug use was initially social and expressed some kind of public identity, affilation with a sub-culture, it wound up trapping me in my own head. it turned even us brothers into atoms: it is never beyond thinking that an addict will rip you off, not show up, unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self87 what the drug culture meant not love you as much as he loves opiates. the political and legal drama shifted scenes into our individual bodies, where it imposed internal self-divisions as well as divisions between groups or generations. one might well think that addicts are characterized by lack of self-control, and of course this is true in a fundamental way: to be addicted to x is to be unable to control your desire for x and unable to control even your ingestion: that is, you lose control of your body in a profound way, or lose the illusion of control of your body, at least with regard to the substance to which you're addicted. but for me at least, drug use has been an attempt to impose or reimpose control over my body. i experience myself – i think i have since i was a small child – as an a priori addict always awaiting a substance. at any given point in my life i've been a kind of congress of addictions: to caffeine, nicotine, sleep aids, thc, or whatever else might be in play at a given moment. or i could say that i've experienced my life as a kind of negotiation with my addictions: trying futilely to limit intake, or trying to find things to be addicted to that won't kill me, or that will kill me slowly rather than immediately (nicotine gum as opposed to cigarettes or dip, for example). largely, this drama has been internal; i try to keep it from leaking, even to the people i love. my addictions have driven me inward or imposed a little gap between me and everything and everyone else. but what drives it in my experience or in my case is not primarily the desire to abandon selfcontrol (which can indeed be a liberating experience), but to impose it. i want to wake up fully, instantaneously; it'll take a quick triple espresso. i want to go to sleep on demand and control how long i sleep. i want to be energetic sometimes and lazy sometimes, and i want to be able to impose that on my body by an intentional act. i want to be self-contained sometimes and able to "let myself go" at others. that is, i experience substance abuse as a kind iron imposition of will, the attempt to make my whole physical self intentional, or make it the result of intentional action. my addiction problems, in other words, place my self in relation to my body as a cartesian mind: the captain and navigator of my physical ship, and another thing i have been addicted to is exercise, trying to re-shape my body by impositions of will. the mutation of drugs from unevenly-produced-and-shipped farm products to standard-grade pharmaceuticals – from street heroin to oxycontin, homegrown pot to medical marijuana – enhances the controlled aspects of ingestion, or suggests, perhaps misleadingly, that one can control how one feels with a sort of perfect precision, down to the milliliter. it is not even ironic, i suppose, that the impulse to control one's own body perfectly is precisely what leads to the collapse of self-control, because we are just not the sorts of creatures who create ourselves or the conditions we face; fundamentally, we are going to be forced to accept our bodies, not transform them utterly and continually. if addiction shows anything, according to me, it is that the idea of us controlling our bodies is going to be futile and counterproductive in the long run. addiction separates you from your body in imagination: turns it, i.e. you, as you experience yourself, into a sort of external object you are trying to control. it suggests, if i could formulate this quickly, that we should try to re-merge with our bodies, or lose the false sense of separateness which alienates us from ourselves. i think that neither cocaine nor god will actually permit us to transcend embodiment. well, that is obvious in the cocaine case, where you are really doing nothing that is not biological, not aimed at your own body as lord and victim. i swore off alcohol again after my early-2000s relapse, but kept smoking pot, which seems to keep me a bit steadier than i am without it, even if it also detaches me slightly from my environment (well, that might be necessary too in some respects). now i've got my medical card, the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 88 crispin sartwell and i can be a pothead without being a criminal, without even really getting high, though there is thc and cbd in my bloodstream. i've settled into a pretty stable state: not entirely sober, and not entirely insane, still obsessed with controlling the way i feel, and still unable to. but i also feel remarkably staid, deeply boring. after that youth, i got sucked entirely into the establishment. what i'm doing now isn't even as bold as cocktails at 5: it's a doctor's prescription; it's healthcare. nothing quite like my youthful sub-culture can happen except in the context of demented authoritarianism of the sort that led to mass incarceration. the secretiveness, the inward-turning culture, the potent symbolism associated with drugs: these all depended fundamentally on their illegality and the brutality with which the laws were enforced in that era. it's no surprise that jim came out of prison more of an addict than when he went in, nor that his experience hovered in the background for his brothers. american authorities circa 1972 declared war on their own people, and made us into practical anarchists. even if we ended up doing the wrong drugs, we ended up believing the right politics. i guess we have the police to thank for that. but if the drug war is finally easing (still a question, of course), the drug culture is becoming impossible. one thing that hurt my head about all the death and destruction was that it more or less confirmed nixon's picture of drug abuse, which was used for decades after as a justification for the "war" on young people, black people, and so on. nevertheless, i'd be lying if i said that the whole thing was really fun and great; it definitely didn't end that way, not for hendrix and not for us. the whole disaster was collaborative, of course: the police and the dealers and the users accomplished it in together. the authorities' many achievements in this regard included thinking that prisons made reasonable treatment facilities, or just not giving a shit about what happened to the wrong sort of people. that made it doubly clear to us, the wrong sort of people, that we should try to do whatever those assholes were telling us not to do. but the whole thing ended up driving us each of us inwards, and all of us away from one another, and it killed a bunch of us; i'll just admit that drug use has been no solution to anything; it has done little to alter the social divisions or the internal divisions that we were trying to treat. but the drug culture nevertheless left me with some things i'm trying to hold on to. i'm still basically opposed to snitching, and to all hierarchies of power, and to prisons. i surprise myself, even now, by having an almost preternatural sensitivity to the proximity of police ('that's an unmarked car'), even though it's been some years, i think, since i committed a felony. i've tried, hard, to maintain the basic anti-authoritarian turn of mind—or really, of viscera—that the drug culture and the war on drugs gifted to me i feel that prescription adderall, anti-depressants, therapeutic microdosing, and medical hash oil don't have the same sort of meaning. the subcultures of now are on instagram, not hidden away in blacklit attics or coke houses. so for obvious reasons, i wouldn't want to go right back to '70s drug culture, but i think kids never lack good reasons to mistrust or despise authority, and i'm sure the little rebels are cooking along somewhere. i hope they, and the people they're rebelling against, are cooking up something less destructive this time round, however. i'm not sure how or why, but i've slowly come to accept that perfectly controlling my own body is not possible and not desirable, and even though i will never not be an addict, i take myself to have learned something important about all of us and to have found a measure of acceptance. or, through the experience of a sort of separation from myself and the people around me, i have learned to yearn across the gaps, or come to awareness of the illusions, personal and political, of the self and of the state, that i cannot even yet escape. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 20157 introduction to issue number 1: somaesthetics and visual art the body has long been an important theme in art, but in recent years somaesthetics has increasingly emerged not only as a way of understanding contemporary art forms (especially body art, performance, installation) but also as a perspective for enriching art-historical discourse and criticism in both western and asian cultures. by providing important insights into the embodied creative process and interaction between the viewer and artwork, somaesthetics can illuminate aspects of our artistic tradition whether of the renaissance and baroque periods or the classical asian forms of calligraphy and inkwash painting. when somaesthetics is introduced into the world of art and art scholarship, it opens up “the golden cage of autonomous art,” providing room for a wide and dynamic range of interdisciplinary perspectives and research approaches. many fine contributions have already discussed the somaesthetics of visual art (which somaesthetics shows to be more than merely visual), but there remain many important topics that require more study. this first issue of the journal of somaesthetics seeks to make a useful step in the systematic and collaborative study of the soma’s role in visual art. we hope that this will stimulate further contributions in this journal and elsewhere. h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 4 introduction to the journal of somaesthetics somaesthetics  is an interdisciplinary research project devoted to the critical study and meliorative cultivation of the experience and use of the living body (or soma) as a site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-stylization. an ameliorative discipline of both theory and practice, somaesthetics seeks to enrich not only our discursive knowledge of the body but also our lived somatic experience and performance; it aims to improve the meaning, understanding, efficacy, and beauty of our movements and of the environments to which our actions contribute and from which they also derive their energies and significance. to pursue these aims, somaesthetics is concerned with a wide diversity of knowledge forms, discourses, social practices and institutions, cultural traditions and values, and bodily disciplines that structure (or could improve) such somatic understanding and cultivation, and it is therefore an interdisciplinary project, in which theory and practice are closely connected and reciprocally nourish each other. it is not limited to one theoretical field, academic or professional vocabulary, cultural ideology, or particular set of bodily disciplines. rather it aims to provide an overarching theoretical structure and a set of basic and versatile conceptual tools to enable a more fruitful interaction and integration of the very diverse forms of somatic knowledge currently being practiced and pursued. there is an impressive, even overwhelming abundance of discourse about the body in many disciplines of contemporary theory and commercial enterprise. but such somatic discourse typically lacks two important features. first, a structuring overview or architectonic that could integrate their very different discourses into a more productively coherent or interrelated field. it would be useful to have a broad framework (which does not mean a unified, highly consistent system) that could connect, for example, the discourse of biopolitics to the therapies of bioenergetics, the neuroscience of hand gestures to their aesthetic meaning in nõ theatre. the second feature lacking in most academic discourse on embodiment is a clear pragmatic orientation — something that the individual can clearly employ or apply to his or her life in terms of disciplines of improved somatic practice. somaesthetics offers a way to address both these deficiencies. as an interdisciplinary project, somaesthetic research cannot fit neatly into the standard disciplinary journals of academic scholarship. it therefore requires a journal of its own in which somaesthetic research on different topics and from diverse disciplines can come together and find a common readership the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 20155 for productive, critical dialogue that will advance the somaesthetic project. the journal will begin by publishing two issues a year with each issue focusing on a specific topic. we have chosen an online format because this allows more freedom in the use of visual images and audiovisual clips. this first issue of the journal of somaesthetics deploys this freedom in its focus on somaesthetics and the visual arts. reflecting somaesthetics deep concern for practice and for a transcultural global perspective, this issue of the journal includes dialogues with three important contemporary artists whose practice is internationally renowned and who stem from three different continents. we hope you enjoy this first issue of the journal. we are grateful to aalborg university press for hosting the journal. if you are interested in participating further in the somaesthetics research project, you may wish to join the somaesthetics google group. to do so write to bodymindculture@fau.edu mailto:bodymindculture@fau.edu h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 78 page 78–87bálint veres essay notes on the aural aspects of built environment bálint veres abstract: aural architecture might seem at the first sight as some oddity, a deliberately unique niche genre, and an out-of-the-ordinary hue on the wide spectrum of built environments. in contrast, the essay overviews some of the most important aspects that foster a broader conceptualization of architecture conceived as substantially interlinked with the sonic realm. in comparison with the established discourse on soundscape, this writing does not start from fieldworks and empiricalbased terms with the goals of a general theorization but works the other way around: it arrives at the notion of soundscape in its conclusion by pointing out the unsatisfying nature of any conception of architecture that misses the aural aspects of architectural space, hence excluding a crucial somaesthetic dimension both from theoretical discourse and designer practice. keywords: architectural experience, aural architecture, soundscape, sound insulation, urban planning. 1. introduction in the last two decades, research on the arts has shown that the perspective provided by somaesthetics could greatly contribute to the efforts of rethinking artistic practices and the aesthetic experience in general (shusterman, 2014; journal of somaesthetics vol. 1-7). in addition, the somaesthetic perspective has also helped to re-conceptualize the social impacts art can and does exert (koczanowicz and liszka, 2014; ryynänen, 2015; shusterman, 2022), viewing those impacts from different angles than the ones provided by sociology of art (luhman, 2000), relational aesthetics (bourriaud, 2002), participation theories (bishop, 2012) or the anthropology of culture (pfeiffer, 2002). in an earlier study (veres, 2014), i contributed to the discourse of the somaesthetic theory of art proposing that we should take architecture as the best model for a somaesthetically oriented and historically founded scrutiny of the arts and conceive it as the paradigm throughout the aesthetic field. to make this proposition seriously, there is a need to ponder how architecture can be understood as an art form in the first place and how architecture can bridge what is considered art and non-art. in the present writing the body, space, architecture79 notes on the aural aspects of built environment cultural status and symbolic capacities of architecture are not discussed, instead approached only along its multisensory nature and prime somaesthetic relevance. however, an immediate objection might occur that needs an urgent response: aesthetic phenomena are countless and infinite, and one must admit that a somaesthetically founded model of art developed from architecture may seem less explanatory with regards to such intensely performative creative practices like dance, music, theatre, and all those vivid and engaging human activities, which are aesthetically relevant but do not have the status of art. this objection is fully admitted, but on the other side, it is worth noting that architecture should not be reduced to the scale, sensorial modality, and range of action it is identified in mainstream architectural discourse. one of the most crucial aspects of the architectural experience – in opposition to the common understanding of its visual primacy (pallasmaa, 2005) – is its kinaesthetic nature, which has to do with a deed, performativity. architecture is a verb – as the architect, sarah robinson insists (robinson, 2021). this has already been highlighted by goethe who likened the architectural experience to choreography (shusterman, 2012, p. 226), and also by gadamer (1993, p. 332) who identified the act of walking through the space (“durchschreiten”) as the primary way of the bodily understanding (“leiblich verstehen”) of the architectural work. to illuminate important performative, non-objectifiable inherent aspects of the built environment, my approach attempts to feature a phenomenon critically that connects architecture, understood usually through its static and lasting outcomes, with performative practices and their ephemeral phenomena – like the way stage and action (the greek proskenion and drama) are connected in a play. what directly connects architectural structures to the general lebenswelt in an encompassing experience is the dimension of audibility that comes with every kinesphere, regardless of whether it is understood as a site for actions or as the web of deeds. although every kinesphere is aural per se, from the perspective of somaesthetics, audibility is especially crucial in the built environment – the site of human residence, which takes on a wide range from urban tissues and public spaces to tiny rooms. the many kinds of sounds, noises, murmurs, and silences that fill these spaces awaken (or irritate) our sensibility, and thus, provided they are taken into account within the scope of meliorative pursuit, they offer the possibility to progress our discernment and sensual awareness. as a pioneer in the study of the aural aspects of architecture, michael southworth wrote in 1969 (p. 49): at a time when technological progress is bringing city sounds to the threshold of bedlam it is no longer sufficient to design environments that satisfy the eye alone. today’s city dweller is bombarded by a continuous stream of invisible but highly attention-demanding sounds, smells, and micro-climates. his experience of the city is a crazy quilt of sense impression, each of which contributes to the total picture. it is important to explore the consequences of this invasion of nonvisual sensations on the quality of city life and to ask how manipulation of them might improve that quality. these considerations, which include not only the aural but the tactile, the thermic, and the olfactory as well, could lead to decisions regarding the built environment that serve our best interests both on the personal level and on a societal one, perhaps including also the shared interests of other species in the living world. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 80 bálint veres 2. the omnipresent, sounding wallpaper before we get closer to the aural dimensions of architectural sites, for the sake of an illuminating analogy, let's take a detour and recall an example of the somaesthetic relevance of the direct visual environment. in charlotte gilman perkins’ 1892 short story, the yellow wallpaper, the narrator suffers from the oppressive atmosphere of a bedroom – although this should be the place that otherwise would provide intimacy, security, and utter “habitability” (cf. franco, 2019). although the protagonist-narrator arrives with her family seeking healing in the “ancestral halls” rented as a summer lodge, her emotional state remains gloomy, and her vitality and ability to act fade as the days pass by. a sinister atmosphere pervades the colonial mansion, and the room seems to hold her captive and drive her up the wall, literally. the woman with broken physical, mental, and emotional condition wastes her life in such a place, which simultaneously manifests itself as the embodiment of suffocating care and male objectification, as well as the intolerable lack of freedom in family life and social relations, along with the resulting frustration and helplessness (horowitz, 2010, pp. 175-187). in the focal point of the story, is a densely patterned wallpaper that can be interpreted not only as a manifestation of the overflown visual wealth of late victorian homes but even more so as a projection of an individual psychological state and a symptom of specific socio-psychological dynamics. the patterns of the yellow wallpaper of the room give rise to an aesthetic experience in which the taste judgment, which seems purely individual and contingent, is influenced and occupied by uncontrollable psychosocial energies, and the narrator desperately fights with her conflicting desires. these desires sometimes urge her to the destruction of the wallpaper, other times to cross the borders of reality and dwell in the “inner world” of the patterns. this double and centrifugal attraction paired with ambiguity is echoed also in the effects by which the narrator characterizes the wallpaper: “it is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study” (gilman, 2009, p. 168). analogous to what happens with the narrator in her affective life and her somatic condition as she is deeply influenced by her visual environment, in the acoustic dimension of the built environment, dizzying ambiguities loom large to millions of people everywhere around the world. after all, everything that lives also moves, and everything that moves also makes a sound, in a large proportion in the range perceptible to the human ear. and while at least the eyelid provides the last shield for the overwhelmed consciousness against the toxic powers of material imagery (cf. mitchell, 1996, pp. 71-82), it is impossible to escape from the audible: we have no ear-lid that can be lowered. wherever we retreat from the noisy world to the peace of the home, the solitude of the country house, the yawning silence of the wine cellar, the drowsy murmur of the water in the bathtub, all these can never be more than mere pauses, a transient suspension within the planetary-scale noise. quietness is unsustainable as a permanent state, because the world, either the outer or the inner one, shouts again and again into the silence and the acoustic calm of the withdrawing life. the neighbor rattles with something in the yard, the noise of a terrible quarrel seeps through the wall, a truck rumbles in front of the house, the dogs start to bark nervously nearby, the beats of a distant rock concert pulsate into the night, the ticking of the wall clock infiltrates the peace of siesta time with a feeling of alienation, the heating system makes a whistling noise, a moving vendor yells through the open window, and on the forest path, in the vicinity of the populated area, a bunch of youngsters sings aloud with a tint of nostalgia for the 80s glam-rock their apocalyptic expectations: “it’s the final countdown”. none of these examples can be reduced directly to architectural space; yet, none of these examples can be conceived and experienced without planned and constructed environments. body, space, architecture81 notes on the aural aspects of built environment researchers of acoustic ecology always resounded the elementary phenomenological insight: the sonic realm belongs to the object and its perception at once (brown et al, 2016, p. 7), and the experience is both acquired and generated. this cannot be avoided when conceptualizing architecture, either of its practice or its experience, on a broader level. 3. dreams of silence as desirable as it might be for many, a total acoustic pause proves impossible not only because of the millions of external effects of the environment but also because of the specific internal living conditions of the sentient being, our living, functioning, aspiring, and tormented soma. it is well known that john cage, the loudest twentieth-century propagandist of silence retreated to harvard university’s anechoic chamber only to realize that it was precisely due to the elementary life processes flowing within his own body that he had no chance of experiencing complete silence (cage, 1973, p. 8). in his famous experiment, he was only curious about the possibility of silence in the acoustic sense, even though through internal hearing and sonic memory – either voluntarily or involuntarily – the entire hearing range of human beings extends beyond the spectrum of the actual physical vibrations. either way, peace is certainly not brought about by silence, although the nostalgia for silence is stubbornly fixed in the structure of desire of the late modern citizen, who carries all the shocks of urbanization already in his genes. however, nostalgia, by its very nature, aims exactly at a state that was never available (trigg, 2006). for the architectural practice and the areas of the service industry that have adapted to the nostalgia for silence, the issue of acoustics essentially coincides with the problem of sound insulation (hopkins, 2007; mommertz, 2009; rindel, 2018). this strives for nearing the utopia of a spatial existence that is utterly stripped of any outer noise and provides total autonomy for undisturbed, self-referent action. in art, a similar but more complex nostalgia appears in ambivalent masterpieces such as joseph beuys’ late installation, plight (1985) which put on stage a grand piano exposed in a room full of felt which exerts a suffocating effect on the instrument and arouses tension on the visitors, as the latter experience an inner ambiguity regarding their acoustic expectations associated to the instrument. thus their general affection for calmness is once amplified and denied by the peculiar spatial-acoustic situation, which is characterized by a double bond that is directed simultaneously toward the dream of music and towards the dream of silence. in contrast to the perceptive, symbolic, and affective ambiguities and conflicts exposed in such multisensory artworks as beuys's plight, the aesthetic disputes on architecture and public space, no matter how overheated they are, have little to say about the non-visual aspects of the built environments. the sonic realm especially suffers from this neglect. thus, a crucial somaesthetic aspect remains hidden, which in turn has a decisive influence on the experience of the lived space (gehl, 2010).1 nevertheless, the scarcity of discerning attention towards the aural aspects of the built environment in architectural discourse is very understandable. if the lack of audible sound is portrayed as the optimum in spatial acoustics – a typical symptom of which is the idealization of architecture by cool and smooth images in coffee table magazines (cf. han 2018) –, then at the arrival into the actual sonic realm, architectural aesthetics should inevitably transfigure into anaesthetics: either as a poetic expression of the desire for calmness or a technical-methodological discourse on silence or as the practical need for sound attenuation. 1 the influential urban planner, jan gehl approaches the concept of a desirable and attractive city by applying a multisensory methodology (2010, p. 31-60), the aural aspects, however, lack more extensive scrutiny. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 82 bálint veres anaesthetics in the present sense can be primarily described as the discourse on the physical and mental reactions by which one seeks to reduce the spectrum of experience to protect one’s physical, emotional, and mental-well being as much as possible. however, this anaesthetic approach does not correspond in the least to the elementary experience of the spatial existence of a being who is ingrained in "the flesh of the world" – as merleau-ponty put it (1968). prenatal perception develops along touch and hearing: both attest to the directness of the world, the intimacy of it as a continuum between the sensed and the sentient being. through hearing, "inside" and "outside" merge. “our perception of sound is founded on the corporal perception of vibrations,” writes reznikoff (2004/2005). thus, from prenatal life on, we learn about the world as a pulsating, quivering, and vibrating entity that surrounds us and embraces us, but in addition to that, it is through hearing that we first come into contact with the language and the invisible too. the acoustic dimension is not some kind of extra that optimally slips unnoticed into the visual, haptic, proxemic, and climatic layers of the spatial environment, but appears directly at the origin of spatial perception (sheridan and van langen, 2003; blesser and salter, 2007). voice provides orientation; by voice, i navigate myself or give orientation to others. as reznikoff states (2004/2005): “the first consciousness of space is given by sound.” it is the most elementary, most “ready-to-hand” building material i can use to demarcate a slice from the physical and also from the psychical and imaginary space. sound translates our body and mind, our objects, and our buildings into loci of resonance. while one is dreaming of silence, the built environment reverberates the soft snoring of one's sleeping body. in turn, in the state of being woke, this reverberation and mutual resonance could lead to veritable transformation: a sound begets another sound, hearing brings about susceptibility, and something new can be born from this susceptibility. 4. sound that transforms this magic of transformation through sound, which is also a key to the powers of the moving image, was put on stage in a highly illuminating way in the performance piece titled i am sitting in a room (1969) by the fluxus artist, alvin lucier. in this work, he gradually managed to dissolve, at least for an imaginary period of life, the individual specificities of his speech into a spatial sound, hence subjecting his physical difficulty, stuttering, that significantly determined his whole life, into an “artistic” cure, in which the personal and impersonal aspects of the acoustic spectrum were mingled. the transformative power of sound is prevalent, however, within more prosaic everyday circumstances as well. it is enough to embark on a walk through the city with headphones and a music player: the space around us takes on new shades everywhere, and the bustling contingencies of everyday life become arranged in a mysterious choreography as if they would be resonating membranes of a single melody. as the architect, juhani pallasmaa (2005, p. 49) puts it: sight isolates, whereas sound incorporates; vision is directional, whereas sound is omni-directional. the sense of sight implies exteriority, but sound creates an experience of interiority. i regard an object, but sound approaches me; the eye reaches, but the ear receives. buildings do not react to our gaze, but they do return our sounds back to our ears. body, space, architecture83 notes on the aural aspects of built environment in a popular television show in 1960, performing his piece water walk (1959), john cage masterfully demonstrated how everyday sounds organized by a predetermined temporal structure can transfigure ordinary house activities – such as making toast, boiling water, flower care, and the like – into a mysterious choreography, the moves of which heighten everyday somatic routines up to the plane of some kind of dancing and a somewhat comic celebration. the way we glance at the visual appearance of an object, of course, plays a significant role in the experience of the thing, but sounds and reverberations from the environment shape the horizon of our experience even more intensely and inevitably than that. masters of horror movies have long learned this. however, sound cannot necessarily be understood only as a medium of immediacy. it is no coincidence that in antiquity, sound not any random sound, of course, but mathematically based sound phenomena has already been considered a mediator of cosmic order, which is beyond physics (mathiesen 2008). this idea of sounding order is fruitful even if we consider the concept of order to be acceptable only with an index of temporality or only as a regulative ideal. i mean it in a somewhat similar way to the one exemplified by deleuze-guattari’s brilliant metaphor about the singing child seeking a home in a dark, unknown, expansive space (1987, p. 311): i. a child in the dark, gripped with fear, comforts himself by singing under his breath. he walks and halts to his song. lost, he takes shelter, or orients himself with his little song as best he can. the song is like a rough sketch of a calming and stabilizing, calm and stable, center in the heart of chaos. perhaps the child skips as he sings, hastens or slows his pace. but the song itself is already a skip: it jumps from chaos to the beginnings of order in chaos and is in danger of breaking apart at any moment. only after the sound of the child’s song emerges, more precisely after a somaesthetic orientation by a sound leads to the formation of a temporary center and the arrangement of the unstructured space to be formed, only then can the actual “construction” begin: with signs, objects, and various physical entities. ii. now we are at home. but home does not preexist: it was necessary to draw a circle around that uncertain and fragile center, to organize a limited space. many, very diverse, components have a part in this, landmarks and marks of all kinds. this was already true of the previous case. but now the components are used for organizing a space, not for the momentary determination of a center. the forces of chaos are kept outside as much as possible, and the interior space protects the germinal forces of a task to fulfill or a deed to do. this involves an activity of selection, elimination and extraction, in order to prevent the interior forces of the earth from being submerged, to enable them to resist, or even to take something from chaos across the filter or sieve of the space that has been drawn. the acoustic dimension, however, has played a decisive role not only in the preparation to be at home but primarily in the actual dwelling experience. deleuze and guattari thus continue: sonorous or vocal components are very important: a wall of sound, or at least a wall with some sonic bricks in it. a child hums to summon the strength for the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 84 bálint veres the schoolwork she has to hand in. a housewife sings to herself, or listens to the radio, as she marshals the antichaos forces of her work. radios and television sets are like sound walls around every household and mark territories (the neighbor complains when it gets too loud). for sublime deeds like the foundation of a city or the fabrication of a golem, one draws a circle, or better yet walks in a circle as in a children's dance, combining rhythmic vowels and consonants that correspond to the interior forces of creation as to the differentiated parts of an organism. a mistake in speed, rhythm, or harmony would be catastrophic because it would bring back the forces of chaos, destroying both creator and creation. then again, structuredness and order – that filter out any outer noise – get gradually shifted towards receptivity for the unfamiliar. the dimension of audibility opens up again before the aural world would become a self-evident monotony. we have no ear-lids; our somatic being is on full alert towards the things to come. our immersion into the audible makes us the aptest to be oriented towards the future. iii. finally, one opens the circle a crack, opens it all the way, lets someone in, calls someone, or else goes out oneself, launches forth. one opens the circle not on the side where the old forces of chaos press against it but in another region, one created by the circle itself. as though the circle tended on its own to open onto a future, as a function of the working forces it shelters. this time, it is in order to join with the forces of the future, cosmic forces. one launches forth, hazards an improvisation. but to improvise is to join with the world, or meld with it. one ventures from home on the thread of a tune. along sonorous, gestural, motor lines that mark the customary path of a child and graft themselves onto or begin to bud "lines of drift" with different loops, knots, speeds, movements, gestures, and sonorities. in the discourses of modern and postmodern architecture and discussions on criticality (shusterman, 2012), we have learned a lot about architectural meanings (jencks, 1997), ideology (tafuri, 1976), history (frampton, 2020), technology (abel, 2004), access (imrie, 2006), justice (soja, 2010), representation (venturi, 1977), identity (lynch, 1960), and functionality (alexander, 1977). however, the constitutive role of the acoustic dimension in the experience of lived and embodied space is only sporadically recognized, mostly in some urban research or phenomenological studies. “aural architecture” (blesser and salter, 2007) in this perspective seems to be something special, a peculiar extension of a commonly conceived standard architecture that is crystallized in genres such as the concert hall, the sound studio, the cinema, and the like (bagenal, 1951; beranek, 1996). if we admit that architecture is one of the most defining components of everyday life and of social and individual well-being in physical, emotional, and mental terms alike – an observation confirmed also by sir winston churchill claiming in 1943 that “we shape our buildings, and afterward our buildings shape us” (see in brand, 1995)–; then we can also acknowledge that from the point of view of an individual equipped with a multi-directional acoustic sensitivity and also with an even finer and more extensive sensitivity of inner hearing, the audible qualities of the environment enjoy a privileged status with regards to the overall experience of spatial being. architecture that is ready to facilitate dwelling and “to open up a world,” to use heideggerian wording, ought to pay more attention to these qualities. acoustic space, which is intellectually homeless, and somaesthetically neglected, when unleashed, becomes an anonymous murmur of body, space, architecture85 notes on the aural aspects of built environment chaos or terrain for a complacent resounding of power. “it is thought-provoking – comments pallasmaa (2005, p. 49) – that the mental loss of the sense of centre in the contemporary world be attributed, at least in part, to the disappearance of the integrity of the audible world.” 5. summary our built environment – intentionally or unintentionally – creates, re-creates, transforms, and shapes inescapably a sonic and resounding environment for our individual and communal life forms. this can be very pleasant and harmonious but most often turns out to be painfully noisy and chaotic. if we acknowledge this as the unavoidable starting point for any endeavor that strives for better living conditions, then instead of cherishing a nostalgia for silence, it certainly seems more encouraging and fruitful to accept the challenges of shaping the environment and doing so in a way that could help us to surpass our all-too-well-known, discouraging everyday acoustic experiences. for, these ordinary experiences follow most often than not those patterns of the personal and collective soundscape that are “dull enough to confuse [us] …, [and] pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study” to appropriate again gilman. the lesson to be learned is not theoretical, but primarily practical: the constant and entrenching effects of the aural realms on our somatic life are not to be suffocated but to be channeled and taken into account as a formative endowment. garth paine (2017) enlisted several suggestions belonging to a possible action plan, which can foster the above goals. among these, his final proposition (2007, p. 4) seems to be the most important, stressing that only "long-term analysis of trends in the acoustic ecology of both conserved nature and urban environments could lead to insight into the vectors of change and subsequently provide new tools for environmental monitoring, land management, and urban design." keeping all these in mind, somaesthetically literate urban planning and a broadened practice of architecture should complement its range of action by incorporating refined planning of urban soundscapes, the study and creative practice of which was initiated by r. murray schafer (1977), barry truax (1984), and their followers in acoustic ecology (kang and schulte-fortkamp, 2016). in addition, theories of architecture should extend their scope too, embracing the consequences that are associated with the mutual dependence between the notions of planned space and kinesphere: these are the inherent performative, dynamic, and aural aspects of the built environments. a forward-looking example is the work of sarah robinson who rightly suggests substituting the all-too-visually determined and naturalized term “space” with the qualitative term "medium" which is more corporeal, engulfing, and resistant. a crucial aspect of such an understanding of space-medium is immersion. as robinson, providing directions both for future theoretical and designer activities writes (2021, p. 27): we are immersed in a medium, and it is very telling that a much more accurate indicator of space tends not to be our sense of vision but our sense of hearing. references abel, c. (2004). architecture, technology and process. oxford: architectural press. alexander, c. (1977). pattern language. new york: oxford university press. bagenal, h. (1951). musical taste and concert hall design. proceedings of the royal musical association, (78), 11–29. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 86 bálint veres beranek, l. (1996). concert halls and opera houses. music, acoustics, and architecture. new york: springer. bishop, c. (2012). artificial hells: participatory art and the politics of spectatorship. london: verso. blesser, b.; and salter. l-r. (2007). spaces speak, are you listening? experiencing aural architecture. cambridge ma: the mit press. bourriaud, n. (2002). relational aesthetics. dijon: les presses du réel. brand, s. (1995). how buildings learn: what happens after they're built. new york: penguin books. brown, a. l.; gjestland, t.; and dubois, d. (2016). acoustic environments and soundscapes. in j. kang and b. schulte-fortkamp (eds.), soundscape and the built environment (pp. 1-16). boca raton: crc press. cage, j. (1973). silence. middletown: wesleyan university press. deleuze, g.; and guattari, f. (1987). a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. frampton, k. (2020). modern architecture: a critical history. london: thames and hudson. franco, a. b. (2019). our everyday aesthetic evaluations of architecture. british journal of aesthetics, 59(4), 393-412. gadamer, h-g. (1993). über das lesen von bauten und bildern (1979). in gesammelte werke band 8: ästhetik und poetik i. kunst als aussage (pp. 331-338). tübingen: j. c. b. mohr. gehl, j. (2010). cities for people. washington: island press. gilman, c. p. (2009). the yellow-wallpaper, herland, and selected writings. london: penguin books. han, b-c. (2018). saving beauty. cambridge: polity press. hopkins, c. (2007). sound insulation. oxford: butterworth-heinemann. horowitz, h. l. (2010). wild unrest. charlotte perkins gilman and the making of “the yellow wall-paper”. oxford: oxford university press. imrie, r. (2006). accessible housing. quality, disability and design. new york: routledge. jencks, c. (1997). the architecture of the jumping universe. chichester: academy editions. kang, j. and schulte-fortkamp, b. (eds.). (2016). soundscape and the built environment. boca raton: crc press. koczanowicz, l. and liszka, k. (eds.). (2014). beauty, responsibility, and power. leiden: brill. luhman, n. (2000). art as a social system. stanford: stanford university press. lynch, k. (1960). the image of the city. cambridge, ma: the mit press. mathiesen, t. j. (2008). greek music theory. in thomas christensesn (ed.), the cambridge history of western music theory (pp. 107-135). cambridge: cambridge university press. merleau-ponty, m. (1968). the visible and the invisible. evanston: northwestern university press. body, space, architecture87 notes on the aural aspects of built environment mitchell, w. j. t. (1996). what do pictures really want? october 77, 71-82. mommertz, e. (2009). acoustics and sound insulation. principles, planning, examples. münchen: birkhäuser-edition detail. paine, g. (2017). acoustic ecology 2.0. contemporary music review, doi: 10.1080/07494467.2017.1395136 pallasmaa, j. (2005). the eyes of the skin: architecture and the senses. chichester: wiley. pfeiffer, k. l. (2002). the protoliterary: steps toward an anthropology of culture. stanford: stanford university press. reznikoff, i. (2004/2005). on primitive elements of musical meaning. journal of music and meaning 3, section 2, http://www.musicandmeaning.net/issues/showarticle.php?artid=3.2 rindel, j. h. (2018). sound insulation in buildings. boca raton: crc press. robinson, s. (2021). architecture is a verb. new york: routlegde. ryynänen, m. (2015). throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art. journal of somaesthetics i(1), 108-121. schafer, r. m. (1977). the soundscape: our sonic environment and the turning of the world. new york: knopf. sheridan, t. and van lengen, k. (2003). hearing architecture: exploring and designing the aural environment. journal of architectural education 57(2), 37–44. shusterman, r. (2012). somaesthetics and architecture: a critical option. in thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (pp. 219-238). cambridge: cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (ed.). (2014). aesthetic experience and somaesthetics. leiden: brill. shusterman, r. (2022). eros, art, and liberation: between pragmatism and critical theory. inaugural keynote address at the conference the promise of pragmatist aesthetics: looking forward after 30 years, moholy-nagy university of art&design, budapest, 25th may 2022, https://pae30.mome.hu/ soja, e. (2010). seeking spatial justice. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. southworth, m. (1969). the sonic environment of cities. environment and behavior 1(1), 49-70. tafuri, m. (1976). architecture and utopia. design and capitalist development. cambridge, ma: the mit press. trigg, d. (2006). the aesthetics of decay: nothingness, nostalgia, and the absence of reason. new york: peter lang. truax, b. (1984). acoustic communication. norwood, new jersey: ablex publishing corporation. venturi, r. (1977). learning from las vegas. cambridge, ma: the mit press. veres, b. (2014). rethinking aesthetics through architecture? in r. shusterman (ed.), aesthetic experience and somaesthetics (pp. 87-100). leiden: brill. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 103 page 103–113bartlomiej struzik artistic statement is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art bartlomiej struzik abstract: in the content of the paper, i refer to meetings with people whose reflections, general comments or even unspoken gestures have become a source of inspiration no less important to me than readings and theoretical study. at this point, i would like to particularly emphasize the role of my acquaintance with richard shusterman, whose concept of somaesthetics, growing from his talent, many years of honest philosophical work and solid theoretical foundations, is probably the most striking contrast of the research method in relation to the artistic intuitions proposed in my text and postulates resulting mostly from art practice. the concepts presented in this paper, especially the two key issues of somactive art and space recognizing as a form, will consequently have the character of an artistic supposition and represent a theoretical sketch, rather than a thoroughly researched, well-founded, and mature scientific hypothesis. introductory remarks my respect for the readers of a well-established scientific journal requires me to introduce more extensively my intentions and justify the reason for presenting the concepts of somactive art and space recognizing as a form. i am an artist and in my daily creative practice i use the sculpting workshop and design competences. the concepts presented in this paper, especially the two key issues of somactive art and space recognizing as a form, will consequently have the character of an artistic supposition and represent a theoretical sketch, rather than a thoroughly researched, well-founded, and mature scientific hypothesis. equally important is the assertion that the concept of systematizing my artistic intuitions and giving them the concise form of a scientific paper, as well as an attempt to embed them in a broader discourse, is a relatively new idea. however the above-mentioned intuitions regarding somactive art and the concept of space recognizing as a form have accompanied me for years and i use them profusely in an intuitive and often subconscious way in my daily creative practice. the presented text will often refer to the creative process, in particular to my series of large-format sculptural compositions entitled transitus. in the paper i will devote a lot of space to the transitus cycle which will probably body, space, architecture104 is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art not escape the reader’s notice becoming the main point of reference and a handy illustration of the theoretical issues presented in the text. although it may seem that too many personal threads and emotionally charged statements are included in the scientific discourse, i include descriptions of spaces and places whose atmosphere left indelible memories in me, becoming both a canvas and a medium for both proposed concepts: somactive art and space recognizing as a form. referring to my own artistic intuition, body memory, emotional experience and the poetics of language seems to be justified by the fact that i am looking for a theoretical context for my considerations in the field of somaesthetics, which is no stranger to treating the subject as a highly complex and constantly dynamic individuality. i am aware that as an artist i am entering unfamiliar territory and undertake a difficult task giving up the comfort of hiding in the shadow of my sculptural projects consisting in the most transparent formulation and convincing justification of a separate methodology of artistic creation called here somactive art. i believe, however, that such a proposal may in the future result in the inspiring discussion and development of a brand-new branch of the vitally growing tree of somaesthetics, supported by solid scientific roots and engaging art practice. for the clarity of the paper, two more used in the text semantically bound but obviously separate expressions, require a short explanation. these are the concepts of space-art and sculptural space. i will use these terms understanding space-art as a semantically roomier concept and covering the area of creativity in which elements of sculpture, sculptural installation, and architecture or landscape design are orchestrated and purposely combined. an example of what i define as space-art are for instance multi-element memorial compositions spaces of remembrance1 (vide: peter eisenmann: berlin memorial to the murdered jews of europe). in this way, it also defines the work of the israeli artist, dani karavan, whose memorial designs and projects in public spaces are a synthesis of disciplines and refer to a multi-sensory, intellectual and emotional dialogue with the recipient. (vide: monument to the negev brigade: near beersheba, israel, walter benjamin memorial: portbou, spain). sculptural space, on the other hand, is understood as the creation, in which purely sculptural qualities such as textures, materiality and expression of sculptural weights and dynamics of form become the dominant aspect of the created space. (vide: richard serra, the matter of time guggenheim museum bilbao). in the content of the paper, i refer to meetings with people whose reflections, general comments or even unspoken gestures have become a source of inspiration no less important to me than readings and theoretical study. at this point, i would like to particularly emphasize the role of my acquaintance with professor richard shusterman2, whose concept of somaesthetics, growing from his talent, many years of honest philosophical work and solid theoretical foundations, is probably the most striking contrast of the research method in relation to the artistic intuitions proposed in my text and postulates resulting mostly from art practice. nevertheless, it was my collaboration with professor richard shusterman that became the breakthrough impulse that emboldened me to write this article and embark on an intellectual adventure. the structure of the article has been built in such a way as to clearly indicate the role of creative experience as the basis of research (practice-based research). in this context, i would like to thank professor jürgen weidinger3 from berlin the tireless advocate of studio practice as 1 each time large-scale spaces of memory are mentioned, i will consistently use the term memorial rather than monument except when citing the official names of them. 2 richard shusterman, a pragmatist philosopher, dorothy f. schmidt eminent scholar in the humanities. director of the body, mind, and culture center at florida atlantic university. 3 jürgen weidinger, a landscape architect and director of weidinger landschaftsarchitekten berlin. professor and head of chair for landscape architecture at technische universität berlin. his research interests are theories of atmosphere and aesthetics in landscape architecture. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 105 bartlomiej struzik an indispensable and inseparable basis for formulating theories in the field of design. one of the greatest illuminations on my artistic way was friendly meetings with dani karavan4, with whom i first met in his studio in tel aviv. i remember the atmosphere of our last meeting, his bright, joyful eyes and firm handshake when we said goodbye to each other. it turned out to be our last handshake ever but i constantly feel his mysterious presence in my artistic life. the issues of somactive art and space recognizing as a form, discussed in turn, should be considered in parallel, with the assumption that somactive art applies to creators designers of public spaces, public art or space-art as mentioned above, and to artistic creation in general, while space recognizing as a form refers to the recipients who, in the cognitive, spatially active and spread-over-time process, have a chance for a deeper interaction with the space of the art work. i will present the significance and possible synthesis of these two concepts at the end of the paper. transitus: conceptual objectives and inspirations in this chapter i seek to present my inner imperatives and creative inspirations, to define the highlighted issue of space recognizing as a form and somactive art, as far as possible, to transfer these two elements to teaching space-art. many of the themes, especially those relating to teaching space-art, were partly discussed in the przestrzeń – czas – forma5 [eng. space – time – form], a monographic cycle published since 2011 and in a paper printed in the ethos quarterly in 2013. the conclusions made then remain up-to-date, blazing trails towards expressive and methodological autonomy of somactive art. the path of my creative and intellectual development was inspired primarily by my juvenile fascination in classical greek philosophy and by later trips to japan, followed by visits to china, and by the influence the cultures of these countries had on my perception of space as well as the role of body in space perception. the dialogue between the west and the culture of the east is undoubtedly the most characteristic feature and background of my considerations. in the first place, i should mention traditional japanese garden design as well as the historical achievements of the country’s architecture. for me, yoshinobu ashihara's book titled, exterior design in architecture6 is an example of simplicity and clarity of the argumentation accompanied by adequate illustrative material. i reach for it often and with great benefit. yi-fu tuan’s celebrated publication space and place and classic topophilia remain an inexhaustible source of inspiration for me. intellectually open and filled with mutual trust, my meetings with toshihiro hamano7, juhani pallasmaa8 (phenomenology of space) and svein hatloy9 (reception of oskar hansen’s open form theory) helped rationalize my creative intuitions and reinforce many of my views. my large-size space compositions from the transitus cycle look for the audience’s direct physical, intellectual and emotional contact with the sculptural space created (somactive art approach). objects and sculptural details are a springboard for, and invitation to, an intimate journey inside the conscious, the subconscious, and the realm of impressions, premonitions 4 dani karavan, a prominent israeli artist. born in 1930 in tel aviv. died in 2021. 5 przestrzeń, czas, forma. monographic cycle. scientific editor bartłomiej struzik. jan matejko academy of fine arts in kraków publishing house. kraków 2013 (vol. 2), 2016 (vol. 3), 2021 (vol. 4), 2023 (vol. 5 in progress) 6 yoshinobu ashihara, exterior design in architecture, revised edition. van nostrand reinhold company, new york 1981. 7 toshihiro hamano born in 1937. japanese artist and zen master. lives and works in kagawa prefecture, japan. 8 juhani pallasmaa born in 1936. finish architect and former professor of architecture and dean at the helsinki university of technology. 9 svein hatløy born in 1940, died in 2015. norwegian architect. founder and professor of bergen architekt skole (bas) in bergen, norway. body, space, architecture106 is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art and intuitions. transitus is a gate, an arbitrary borderline, or passage, yet at the same time a movement that exists tangibly and realizes itself in a symbolic space. a body is immersed in a sensual experience, and intuition takes the initiative. in this sense, the objects presented are not only to be viewed but instead acquire their fundamental sense in direct, intellectual and physical multi-sensory contact – in recognizing their emotional space. the objects, although unstripped of their deliberate formal and visual frame, acquire their essential form in the process of the recognizing of their space logic. i look for a more personal and fundamental experience of sculptural space through touch, smell, the strain of the muscles, the feeling of warmth or chill, emotional tension or intellectual reflection. as a creator – the first recipient and a critic of an artwork – i also have the experience of the creative process. each time a direct, intimate touch opens an individual path of interpretation, which leads further on towards sacrum humanum10, the space of our glooms, glows and illuminations, our doubts and hopes, elusive joys, sense of security, anxieties and phobias; towards intellectual liberation, moral credibility and humanistic condition up to eschatological pathos. i look at a small photograph of the temple of apollo in delphi. know yourself – γνῶθι σεαυτόν. the rumpled water surface disturbs the calm. where do i come from? who am i? where am i going to?11 i leave these notoriously recurring questions unanswered for now. constant movement and the inevitability of choosing a direction are relatively probable. transitus as a process – space recognizing as a form. body movement in space – space recognizing the experience of a dynamic or leisurely march; discovering the urban tissue with its space logic and fluid atmosphere. amsterdam, basel, luxembourg, zurich. what i am after is to feel the place and movement. florence, rome, nice. roaming the cities aimlessly for hours. like herbert12, i try to, so to say, go astray, to lose my bearings, so that later i can search for signposts and traits engraved in my memory and muscles to help me find the known trails back. remembering and space recognizing. vienna, stockholm, helsinki. i try to recall in my works the places and spaces i remember. i employ imagination where memory turns out imprecise. i set off intuition and make use of gesture and the memory of the body. i visit zen gardens in kyoto thoughtfully. the famous ryōan-ji. the kenrouken garden in kanazawa. the ritsurin garden in takamatsu, where i am showed around by zen master toshihiro hamano explaining to me the complex structure of japanese gardens. having studied a lot on the subject and met the master i seem to be getting the idea. i keep asking, looking for confirmations. the master cannot be consoled. after a several-hours-long walk through the tissues of the garden, with our exhausted bodies we start a tea ceremony. i give up. i am unable to put together all the bits of information into a logical structure. the master smiles: you got it? at last! the magic island of naoshima13, where the masters of impressionism found a safe harbor amongst the latest achievements of architectural design and contemporary art. this is where i 10 sacrum humanum expression used by my friend and preceptor, an artist bogusz salwiński to describe deepest dimension of human existence. 11 a reference to the existential character of the painting by the french artist paul gauguin titled: d'où venons-nous? que sommes-nous? où allons-nous? (museum of fine arts in boston, mass.) 12 zbigniew herbert a prominent polish poet, essayist, and drama writer. born in 1924, died in 1998. 13 naoshima an island in seto inland see in japan. a home of finest contemporary art museums and artists' residencies. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 107 bartlomiej struzik first see monet’s water lilies14, standing barefoot on a white marble floor that gently vibrates with its texture under my feet. dominated by the cognitive function, a western man’s space perception received a surprising tactile impulse. here too, on naoshima, i meet the great artist james turrell. we gaze together15 at the blue of the sky framed by the impossibly white skyscape. nearby, there is another fascinating object by turrell and tadao ando: a black pavilion where i see all that cannot be seen. the minimalist form of the object and the intriguing concept of the dark side of the moon make me revise my cognitive habits. i go back to europe, visit the merian garden in basel, which is like a oneirically perfect meadow created by a gardener’s hand. i relish the spectacle of fragrances in the heat of the afternoon sun, outdoors. when in the gardens of the viennese palace of schönbrunn i feel like the inside of a postcard, where the crunch of gravel under my feet responds to every step i make. in bergen, i am dumbed by the intensity of color of the painted walls of wooden architecture washed and sharpen by continuous rains. body gets wet, clothes stick to my skin. in the suburbs of bergen i visit svein hatløy’s black house that leans against a rock, where the open form of the building, its peaceful residents and the surrounding wildlife become one. fascinating. i walk through the house, from room to room, and keep wondering if i am already outside or still inside the building. open form! in the hazy scenery i follow the landscape path of the seven streams16 the chinese rulers of every dynasty strode so as to make their companions gasp with awe. light shower mist and fog along with the sounding landscape create the perfect atmosphere. i admire the sunset over the west lake in hangzhou17 and the ornamental venice: the light and the cityscape dissolve in the surface of the water. a par excellence sfumato piece. the coldly humid district of grund18 in luxembourg opens an interesting vista onto a proud skyline of the upper city built on a towering rock summit that appears with the blue sky as its backdrop. an atavistic element, or perhaps the genius loci, whispers to my reasonable mind: do not steal that atmosphere. go on. what i gain is priceless to me: the atmosphere of the place. my body gets immersed in a multi-sensory topographic collage. body and intimate memory the subject of memory i talked about with juhani pallasmaa is a recursive one. it is more than a world of facts recorded in my mind. it is also, or perhaps above all, the memory of our body, of our emotional and subconscious impulses. a 500 feet long, hornbeam lane which my grandfather once planted and which originally formed a low hedge, is now a lordly parkway lined with high trees. this is the way i remember it from my childhood too – a monumental form. each autumn, the lane overflows with golden leaves. gold rules unchallenged. as i wade through them, the cover of rustling leaves releases the camphor of melancholy and passing time. that lane has fascinated me ever since i was little. a linear space that offers a shadowy shelter in summer heat and turns into a rapidly flowing brook in the heavy rain. a space-and-time tunnel that ends with a rarely frequented local road. a window on the world and the beginning of my 14 oscar-claude monet a prominent french impressionist painter born in 1840, died in 1926. among others author of the water lilies paintings cycle. 15 i haven’t met james turrell in person and i am using the expression together to emphasize my deep understanding and appreciation to the artist’s concept of skyscape. 16 scenic walking path near hangzhou in zhejiang province, china. 17 a freshwater lake in hangzhou, zhejiang province. considered as a natural wonder, a source of inspirations for poets, painters and garden designers, reflecting harmonious fusion between nature and human being. 18 a part of the downtown in luxembourg city located in a deep valley and contrasting with the upper part of the city. body, space, architecture108 is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art dream about great journey19. on the other hand, a place of summer holiday playtime, a forester’s lodge in the midst of a wood, isolated from the entire world. transitus a form relatively recognized i use pinewood for creating the transitus cycle, charring its surface with a gas burner. each square feet means several hours of careful work. i do it gently and with precision to make sure that fire does not consume and destroy the structure. i have always been interested in the alchemy of executing an artwork in creative process. in my memory of space sculptural project white paraffin was the medium, which, when liquefied and poured into a mould, became a brittle material for a multi-element, symbolic non-monumental memorial. it was a rite, so to say, that involved a repeated act of pouring paraffin into the mould while fluid, uninterrupted movement had to be ensured to have the paraffin fill the matrix completely and create an even coating, as thin as parchment paper. transitus is my training in patience and humbleness. the high temperature of the process, the smoke and the dust swirling around my body make me learn the less friendly side of sculptural material. the textures that show on the surface of the charred wood are highly inspirational, stirring my interest in detail. the blackened vertical panel takes on new senses and new visual expressiveness. a charred crack turns into a symbolic space. somactive art, sculptural space and materiality of sculpture the belief that it is an inter-disciplinary process that embraces the domains such as sculpture, sculptural installation, architecture or landscaping underlies the concept of somactive art. at the same time, it is beyond any doubt that emotional, direct and individual experience of traditionally understood sculpture is the source element and the core of the creative process. somactive art draws on sculpture for conceptual foundation and formal depth. through its material aspect, as well as intellectual value and emotional tension, this direct experience of sculpture’s physicality gives the creative process a deeper dimension. as an adept of sculpting, i learned all traditional sculpting techniques: work in wood, stone, modeling in clay and wax, as well as spatial installations using mixed techniques. the sculptor’s thoughtful hand (pallasmaa) builds the formal structure of a work while reference to the materiality of the sculptural medium underlines its sensual dimension and asserts the creative intuition of the artist. the key elements of the design process are: freeing the body memory, the expressiveness and dynamics of the sculpture’s gesture and the disclosure of the semantic and expressive potential of the sculptural medium. with no sculptural experience gained through practice, without the experience of the sculptural medium in its multi-sensory dimension, in detachment from the physicality of the creative process and its conscious and subconscious gestures and creative intuitions, the idea of somactive art could not emerge at all. in this context, the space of the somatic memory is closer to the physicality of sculpture and its material significance. my affirmative attitude to the sculptural media directly associated with traditional sculpture technology, such as stone, wood, ceramics or bronze, results from their semantic saturation, rich symbolism and a variety of their cultural references and intellectual attractiveness. the non-standard approach to traditional sculptural materials and reaching for totally off-beat opportunities offered by advanced products of material engineering, unstripped of their semantic value, sensual quality and tactile allure 19 the author's personal reference to idyllic childhood spent in a secluded place, surrounded by a forest and untouched nature, and his later travels to the world's busiest metropolises and remote places on several continents. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 109 bartlomiej struzik prove an artist’s ongoing dialogue with matter and a deeply rooted need to rely on unmediated experience. equally important is the synthetic character of a visual sign that materializes in the concreteness of sculptural act. void where space recognizing becomes a form? the creative experience in somactive art sums up many others in proposals for memorials in which all the critical elements of the design process come to view, from the significance of the topic to the formal culture and compositional value that are determined by the personal creative potential, to the emotional experience and ethical aspects20. memorial designs obviously give physical shape not only to the aesthetic and functional objectives of the content but in their deepest and most significant dimension they reach to their ontological and ethical sense as their original ideological foundation. the understanding of contemporary memorials as space of engagement and space for contemplation finds support in the evolution of memorials from vertical and axial objects with inaccessible bronze statues located on imposing pedestals that dominated up to the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries to vast horizontal compositions that create void, a formal and emotional backdrop for individual experience and moral reflection (quentin stevens, karen a. franck21). in his classic book experiencing architecture, steen rasmussen points to free space or the void, as the discipline’s medium treated on a par with construction materials: instead of letting his imagination work with structural forms, with the solids of a building, the architect can work with the empty space — the cavity — between the solids, and consider the forming of that space as the real meaning of architecture.22 in contemporary memorials, the void carries a new significance. a crack in a road and a platform collapsing into the ground in the bełżec extermination camp memorial (memorial design team: andrzej sołyga, zdzisław pidek, marcin roszczyk), or the void space between boulders of dramatic texture that cover the expanses of the treblinka extermination camp memorial (memorial design team: adam haupt, franciszek duszeńko and franciszek strynkiewicz), take on a completely different meaning. the void seems to be the leading carrier of content, in dialogue with the internal sacrum humanum, and the medium that leads to intellectual liberation, disclosure of moral credibility and defining personal humanistic condition. memorials these are both urban-scale layouts using vast spatial compositions or intimate commemorative spaces. the multidimensional character of memorials links with the concept of sculptural space and its emotional experience. i understand the experience of sculptural space as a subjective, engagement-laden sphere of emotional experiences relating to the broadly-defined sculptural form in time and space. what makes this experience unique are, for example, internal tensions emerging out of dialogue with a chosen space of execution, intuition and reference to spatial and semantic context. no less important are individual sensitivity and visual imagination as well as the awareness of traditions, cultural contexts and private memory which, apart from 20 the issue of a significant void or the symbolic meaning of the lack of a monument in urban space is described by r. shusterman in his essay the urban aesthetic of absence: pragmatist reflections in berlin referring to the example of a city marked by a multidimensional absence. performing life. aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art. ithaca cornell, 2000. 21 quentin stevens, karen a. franck, memorials as spaces of engagement. design, use, and meaning. routledge 2015 22 s.e. rasmussen, odczuwanie architektury, kraków 2015, p. 51. body, space, architecture110 is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art mental memory, embraces body memory too. as a result, all these factors add up to a nucleus of individual visual concepts in sculptural space and are their indispensable components. somactive art: potential academic curriculum widening the field of sculpture the vast range of issues that surface in somactive art puts a strong emphasis on the interdisciplinary nature of this kind of creative work. the fundamental experience of sculpture and a search for formal determinants imposed by the spatial activity of the architecture and urban plan offer natural space for mutual references. deeper somactive art studies look to fine-tune the sociological aspects, and draw on anthropological reflection, proxemics and art-theoretical and philosophical, somaesthetic reflection. somactive art as a creative methodology, and autonomous language of visual arts that draws on interdisciplinary experience is an interesting area of further explorations, technical experimentations, including digital techniques, and a field for academic research and theoretical reflection. in a complex creative process, it merges individual emotional experiences of visual inspiration with a project-and-study method geared towards recognition of spatial relations and contexts, and, at the stage of creation and presentation, it engages a great number of competencies that build practical professional experience. that said, it becomes reasonable to try to promote the achievements and bolster the scholarly potential of somactive art, and ultimately to create a new academic curriculum in which conscious and responsible artists will hone their unique creative skills rooted in traditional field of sculpture. enhancing the interdisciplinary academic discourse that makes references to the experience of somactive art will help increase the technical contribution to the diagnoses of the potential of public art, shared spaces, their formal significance and role in shaping the atmosphere and character of contemporary cities. conclusion for me, somactive art is on the one hand based on fundamental body experience and on the other hand, it is a potentially new methodology in building the form of an artwork: first of all, in sculpture, sculptural installation, but also in memorial and public space design etc. space recognizing as a form is understood as a process (form as process) that covers a wide range of subjective sensory perceptions and emotional impulses, engages intellectual powers, and is aimed at objectivize reflection. the monumental compositions of the transitus cycle were presented at the centre of polish sculpture in orońsko open to interaction with the audience: they set off the process of space recognizing, which ultimately builds a multidimensional form of a somactive artwork and, apart from being visually and materially evident, is a constitutive component of it. all the characteristic aspects of the space recognizing process have vital roles in my didactic activity and are present in the syllabi i have formulated for teaching somactive art. the dialogue of my artistic work with my research activity is a two-directional flow of ideas, which, coupled with my intellectual inquisitiveness, makes me strive for a synthesis and look for existential milestones. a new somactive artwork titled the sense of balance is being currently designed, and will be exhibited soon. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 111 bartlomiej struzik closing remarks on somactive art and space recognizing as a form what is the purpose of the concepts introduced and elaborated above: somactive art and space recognizing as a form? what is the prospect of developing a new concept of creative methodology and understanding intentionally deconstructed form of work of art defined as a process spread over time rather than static object? the answer to this question again requires the formulation of two separate statements. now-days reality, the dynamically advancing digitization of all identifiable and most likely also unidentified areas of human life are an unprecedented opportunity for civilizational development. the digitization of the art creation and design process in architecture and landscaping, the area of digital art developing along with the progress of technology raise questions about the role of the cognitive apparatus and creative powers inherent in and assigned to the fundamental aspects of the human body. ultimately, the creator of public spaces, architectural objects or immersive digital art is an embodied individual also as a part of a team with the powers of sensual, intellectual and emotional perception. the proposal to found a creative methodology somactive art will therefore be an element of a broader anthropological perspective, in which understanding the role of the human body as an integrator of acts of artistic creation will play an important role in the development of digital creation tools. the personal perspective and attitude of an active art-creator also makes me defend the position of the artist as a subject that cannot be definitively and unequivocally defined, for whom emotional impulses and references to decisions inspired by an unconscious creative gesture indicate the important role of the human body in the process of creation. space recognizing as a form is, in turn, embedded in thinking about sculpture, sculptural installation, public space and the space-art, taking into account the question of changing the paradigm of man as a subject determining the surrounding reality, to the perspective of active human co-presence in a pluralistic universe. in this context, strengthening the processual aspect, increasing direct interaction with the space, sharpening cognitive powers while spreading perceptual impulses in time may be a path to deeper understanding and better integration with the environment in which a significant act of human existence takes place. sustainable development and climate threats, which have become the primary challenges of the contemporary world, create an additional context for the development of the concept of space recognizing as a form. a better understanding of the processes of nature and meeting the environmental challenges awaiting us can be facilitated by the concept of form as space recognition and shifting the emphasis from artistic interventions focused on an individual object (a form as an object and representation of power and landmarking) to spatiotemporal solutions integrating sensual, emotional and intellectual impressions (form as process and representation of empathy, coexistence and democracy). balancing purely aesthetic perception visual structure of the work can also become a leaven for a new, in-depth and individualized way of communing with art. the content of this article is dominated by references to illustrative material, classical footnotes remain marginal and serve as clarification of my discourse, however, in order to bring the reader closer to the territories of my theoretical research, i enclose the bibliography below, which became the main field of cognitive exploration and the theoretical leaven and reference point for the theses i formulated. body, space, architecture112 is space recognizing a form? a contributory study for the theory of somactive art references arnheim, r (1954). art and visual perception. berkley: the regents of the university of california. ashihara, y. (1981). exterior design in architecture. revised edition. new york: van nostrand reinhold company. böhme, g. (2017) atmospheric architectures: the aesthetics of felt spaces. london: bloomsbury publishing. gehl, j. (20016). life between buildings. danmark: danish architectural press. giedion, s. (1997). space, time and architecture. harvard: harvard university press. hall, e. t. (1966). the hidden dimension. new york: doubleday and co. hall, e. t. (1954).the silent language. new york: doubleday and co. hansen, o. (2005) zobaczyć świat. warszawa : akademia sztuk pięknych w warszawie, zachęta narodowa galeria sztuki. herbert, z. (2014). barbarzyńca w podróży. wydawnictwo zeszytów literackich. 2014. keane, m.p. (1997). japanese garden design. vermont: tuttle publishing. kędziorek, a. ronduda, l. (2014). oskar hansen. opening modernism. on open form, architecture, art, and didactics. museum of modern art in warsaw. malpas, j. (2018). place and experience: a philosophical topography. new york: routledge. nitschke, g. (2007). japanese gardens. colonia:taschen. pallasmaa, j. (2012). the eyes of the skin: architecture and the senses. new jersey: john wiley & sons. pallasmaa, j. (2009). the thinking hand. existential and embodied wisdom in architecture. new jersey: john wiley & sons. rasmussen, s. e. (1956). experiencing architecture. cambridge: technology press of the massachusetts institute of technology. rydiger, m., segev, h., bucholc, m. (2015). dani karavan. esencja miejsca. kraków :międzynarodowe centrum kultury. rykwert, j. (2004). the seduction of place: the history and future of cities. oxford: oxford university press. samuel, f. (2010). le corbusier and the architectural promenade. basilea: birkhäuser. sennett, r. (1996). flesh and stone. the body and the city in western civilization. new york: w.w. norton & company. shusterman, r. (2012). body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2000). performing life. aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art. new york: ithaca cornell university press. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2022). twórcza kreacja. atmosfera i owładnięcie. jan matejko academy of fine arts publishing house, kraków. stevens, q., franck, k. a. (2015) memorials as spaces of engagement. design, use, and meaning. london: routledge. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 113 bartlomiej struzik struzik, b. (2021) (ed. by). przestrzeń czas forma. vol. 4. jan matejko academy of fine arts publishing house, kraków. struzik, b. (2018). (ed. by). przestrzeń rozpoznana. jan matejko academy of fine arts publishing house, kraków. struzik, b. (2016) (ed. by). przestrzeń czas forma. vol. 3. jan matejko academy of fine arts publishing house, kraków. thoreau, h. d. (1966). walden, or life in the woods. new york: peter pauper press. thoreau, h. d. (2017). walking. atlanta: peachtree press. tuan, y. (1974). topophilia. a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values. new jersey: prentice-hall inc. engelwood cliffs. tuan, y. (1977). space and place: the perspective of experience. minnesota: university of minnesota press. weidinger, j. (2014). (ed. by). designing atmospheres. universitätverlag. berlin: tu berlin. wieder, a. j., zeyfang, f. (2014). open form: space, interaction, and the tradition of oskar hansen. london: sternberg press. wilkoszewska, k. (2003). sztuka jako rytm życia. rekonstrukcja filozofii sztuki johna deweya. kraków: universitas. zumthor, p. (2006). atmospheres: architectural environments, surrounding objects. basel: birkhäuser. zumthor, p. (2010). thinking architecture. basel: brikhäuser. basel. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 182 notes on contributors else marie bukdahl, d. phil., is an affiliated professor at the university of aalborg, denmark. she is former professor at the university of aarhus and the former president of the royal danish academy of fine arts (1985-2005) and a member of the royal danish and norwegian society of sciences and letters (1985and 2006 -). bukdahl is also an honored member of international who’s who and was selected as one of the leading educators of the world by international biographical centre. cambridge and is an officier des palmes académiques and chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres, paris. she has a long list of publications spanning from philosophy, aesthetics and literature to visual art and architecture, among others articles on somaesthetics and postmodern philosophy and books on art and architecture, e.g. the baroque. a recurrent inspiration (1998), the re-enchantment of nature and urban space. michael singer projects (2011). she has also been involved in exchanges programs with the academies and universities in china and the united arab emirates and jordan and has for example published a book about the exhibition of art works in xiamen from the royal danish academy of fine arts (2005) and the islamic golden age in spain (2006). olafur eliasson’s art is driven by his interests in perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self. he strives to make the concerns of art relevant to society at large. art, for him, is a crucial means for turning thinking into doing in the world. his diverse works – in sculpture, painting, photography, film, and installations – have been exhibited widely throughout the world, not only in museums and galleries, but also in the broader public sphere through architectural projects and interventions in civic space. his projects in public space include among others: green river, carried out in various cities between 1998 and 2001; the serpentine gallery pavilion, 2007, designed together with kjetil thorsen; the new york city waterfalls, 2008; your rainbow panorama at aros art museum in aarhus, denmark 2006-2011 and facades in collaboration with henning larsen architects to harpa reykjavik concert hall and conference centre. little sun (2012) was created together with engineer frederik ottesen. it is global project which provides clean, affordable light to communities without access to electricity and therefore raises global awareness of the need for equal access to energy and light (www.littlesun.com). as a professor at the berlin university of the arts, he led the institut für raumexperimente (institute for spatial experiments; 2009–14), a five-year experimental program in arts education located in the same building http://www.littlesun.com the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015183 as his studio in berlin. www.raumexperimente.net). eliasson lives and works in copenhagen and berlin. eva kit wah man got her ph. d from chinese university of hong kong. she is currently executive associate dean of the graduate school and professor of the department of humanities and creative writing of hong kong baptist university. her academic research areas include comparative aesthetics, neoconfucian philosophy, feminist aesthetics and philosophy, gender studies and cultural studies. she has published numerous refereed journal articles in journal of chinese philosophy, philosophy compass and contemporary aesthetics, creative prose writings and academic books in philosophy and aesthetics. she is also writing columns for hong kong economic journal on philosophy and art and hosting cultural programs for radio television hong kong. in 2004, she acted as a fulbright scholar at u c berkeley, u.s. she was appointed as the association of marquette university women (amuw) woman chair of marquette university, milwaukee, wisconsin in 2009-2010. she is an active member of the american society for aesthetics, international association of aesthetics and the chinese association of aesthetics. she has just edited two anthologies on the representation and identity politics of cantonese cultures in hong kong. pan gongkai is an internationally renowned artist, theoretician, and educator with honorary phds from the san francisco art institute (sfai) us and the university of glasgow, scotland. he is former president of the two top art academies in china, the china central academy of fine arts (cafa) in beijing (2001-2014), and the china academy of art (caa) in hangzhou (1996-2001). melt, his recent and large-scale digital installation, was featured at the 54th venice biennale (2011). pan’s ink paintings have been exhibited in paris unesco headquarter and major art museums in beijing, hong kong, macau, new york, san francisco, and tokyo. spiritually charged and widely acclaimed, pan’s ink paintings, and in particular large ones, embody not only the essence of traditional chinese literati painting but also modern aesthetics; as such, they exemplify the modern transformation of traditional chinese ink and wash painting. his exhibitions including solo exhibition withered lotus cast in iron: pan gongkai in frye art museum, seattle; and melt: pan gongkai, work gallery, ann arbor, michigan, us. pan is the author of many publications, which include: history of painting in china (2001), limit and exploration (2005), analysis of pan tianshou’s painting skill (1995) and http://www.raumexperimente.net the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 184 on pan tianshou’s life and art (1995). pan is also an active researcher. in the last ten years, he directed a comprehensive research project on modern chinese art, titled the road of chinese modern art, the results of which were published in 2012, and are now critically influencing chinese scholarship on the liberal arts. peng feng is professor of aesthetics and art criticism at peking university. he is also a playwright, freelance art critic and curator of exhibitions at the international level. he has curated over 200 art exhibitions including the china pavilion at the 54th international art exhibition of venice biennale 2011, the 1st international sculpture exhibition of datong biennale 2011, and the 1st international art exhibition of china xinjiang biennale. he has published 12 academic books including modern chinese aesthetics (nanjing: fenghuang press, 2013), pervasion: china pavilion at the 54th international art exhibition of la biennale di venezia (beijing: people’s art press, 2012), introduction to aesthetics (shanghai: fudan university, 2011) and return of beauty: 11 issues of contemporary aesthetics (beijing: peking university press, 2009). he has also translated 7 books including nelson goodman’s languages of art and richard shusterman’s pragmatist aesthetics and over 200 essays on aesthetics and contemporary art. recently, his musical the red lantern is traveling in china. a profile with the title “peng feng: professional professor, amateur curator” was published in art in america, july 2013. max ryynänen is the lecturer of visual culture and the head of the major studies in the ma program visual culture and contemporary art at aalto university finland. although he studied and spent time as a visitor at the universities of uppsala, pisa and temple university, studying aesthetics, philosophy and semiotics, he graduated (ma, licentiate, phd) from the university of helsinki. he is the president of the finnish society of aesthetics. ryynänen publishes in both academic journals (contemporary aesthetics, nordic journal of aesthetics) and art magazines (art pulse, flash art, kunstkritikk) and he is an active teacher of criticism and body philosophy at theatre and dance festivals in central and eastern europe. he has been a founding member of two alternative galleries in helsinki (ror, kallio kunsthalle). he is currently publishing the book aesthetics of popular culture that he has edited together with jozef kovalcik (slovart publishing). max ryynänen’s homepage: http://maxryynanen.net http://maxryynanen.net/ the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015185 richard shusterman is the dorothy f. schmidt eminent scholar in the humanities and director of the center for body, mind, and culture at florida atlantic university. his major authored books in english include thinking through the body; body consciousness; surface and depth; performing live; practicing philosophy; t.s. eliot and the philosophy of criticism, and pragmatist aesthetics (now published in fifteen languages). shusterman received his doctorate in philosophy from oxford and has held academic appointments in france, germany, norway, denmark, israel, and japan. the french government honored him as a chevalier de l’ordre des palmes académiques, and he was awarded research grants from the national endowment for the humanities, the fulbright commission, american council of learned societies, the humboldt foundation, and unesco. his research in somaesthetics is nourished by his training and professional practice in the feldenkrais method. stelarc is a performance artist who has visually probed and acoustically amplified his body. between 1976-1988 he completed 25 body suspension performances with hooks into the skin. he has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality systems, the internet and biotechnology to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body. in 1997 he was appointed honorary professor of art and robotics at carnegie mellon university, pittsburgh. in 2000 he was awarded an honorary degree of laws by monash university. he has been a visiting artist at the faculty of art and design at ohio state university in columbus in 2002, 2003 & 2004. he has been principal research fellow in the performance arts digital research unit and a visiting professor at the nottingham trent university, uk. between 2006 and 2011 he was senior research fellow and visiting artist at the marcs lab, university of western sydney, australia. he is currently chair in performance art, school of arts, brunel university, uxbridge, uk. in 2010 he has received a special projects grant from the australia council and was also awarded the ars electronica hybrid arts prize. in 2012 he was the recipient of the michael cook performance and body artist award. stelarc’s artwork is represented by the scott livesey galleries in melbourne. http://www.scottliveseygalleries.com/artist/stelarc the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 186 stahl stenslie works as an artist, curator and researcher specializing in experimental media art and interaction experiences. his aesthetic focus is on art and artistic expressions that challenge ordinary ways of perceiving the world. through his practice he asks the questions we tend to avoid – or where the answers lie in the shadows of existence. keywords of his practice are somaesthetics, unstable media, transgression and numinousness. the technological focus in his works is on the art of the recently possible – such as i) panhaptic communication on smartphones, ii) somatic and immersive soundspaces, and iii) discursive design of artistic weaponry, 3d printed in low-cost printers. he has a phd on touch and technologies  from  the school of architecture and design, oslo, norway. currently he is teaching and researching as a professor in  art &  technology  at aalborg university, denmark. zhou xian, is a yangzi river chair professor at nanjing university, china, where he was associate president, and is founding dean of institute for advanced studies and dean of art institute. he is vice president of china aesthetics association and vice president of china literary theory. his research focuses on aesthetics, literary theory, art theory, visual culture and so on. his books, published in chinese, include from literary discipline to cultural critique (2014), cultural representation and cultural studies (2014), the turn of visual culture (2008), critique of aesthetic modernity (2005). he has published many articles and book chapters in chinese and english journals and books. he is co-editor of series on humanities and journal of cultural studies in china. he was visiting professor of université d’artois (france, 2010), duke university (usa, 2006), soongsil university (south korea, 1994). he found several exchange and collaborative research programs with emory university, rice university, georg-august-university of göttingen, university of rochester, university of alberta, nice university and the like. https://stensliehome.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/symbioactive-interactivity/ https://stensliehome.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/symbioactive-interactivity/ http://www.aho.no/ http://www.art.aau.dk/ h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 72 page 72–83monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski abstract: in this paper, we examine the object of aesthetic appreciation in discourses on design. while this object is usually considered an external one, somaesthetics focuses on the body of the person doing the appreciating. based on this duality, we propose a general account of appreciation of the design object through an evaluation of the subject’s soma. we provide reasons and examples to explain why our thesis on somatic encounters with embodied designs is, to a high degree, intuitively based on the relational nature of such objects. we conclude by showing how our findings can inform both design theory and practice and potential implications for the latter. keywords: aesthetic appreciation, body, design, function, design aesthetics. 1. introduction in social reality, humans are constantly surrounded by various kinds of objects. desks and coffee machines are essential parts of most offices, armchairs and sofas make homes comfortable places, and smartphones and other advanced technological devices have become part and parcel of everyday life. in modern society, it is difficult to imagine living and managing without these objects (although every such object could be relatively easily replaced by a substitute). we treasure them for their functionality, stability, and ergonomic features. they make accomplishing our work, leisure activities, and domestic chores convenient, efficient, and straightforward. notably, most—if not all—of the abovementioned objects are designs.1 an effective design is commonly praised for its functionality; however, it is quite rare that such functionality is explicitly linked with design aesthetics. in fact, there is an allegedly strong tension between functionality and the aesthetic in design research, as the latter could somehow harm or distort the former (see, e.g., folkmann, 2010, p. 40, 2015). recently, there have been noble attempts to overcome this apparent dichotomy by showing how functionality 1 for the sake of simplicity, we limit our inquiry to design understood as a set of 3-d objects. the aesthetics of design is here invoked upon to investigate the aesthetic appreciation of those objects that we commonly discern from art, which are considered 1) non-utilitarian and requiring an informed hermeneutic analysis and 2) craft objects that are evidently handmade and unique for that reason. for a thorough analysis of this ontology, see forsey (2013, pp. 9–71. moreover, in this paper, the issue of design as a process or practice is intentionally left uninvestigated; nevertheless, we believe these findings can inform both design theory and design practice with valuable insights from contemporary aesthetics, following the proposals of several design scholars who emphasize the central role of a deep aesthetic sensibility in design methods, research, and practice (e.g., friberg, 2013; buwert, 2015; folkmann, 2010; höök, 2018; dixon, 2020). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 73 object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design and aesthetics go hand in hand (parsons & carlson, 2008; forsey, 2013; parsons, 2016; feige, 2018). however, although these theoretical views on design appreciation are very illuminating and theoretically ground-breaking, they lack a somatic perspective and localize the aesthetic in purely intellectual pleasure. defining aesthetic appreciation in psychological terms can undoubtedly capture essential factors for design theory, such as how to aesthetically code design objects, drive designer’s intentions, and test users’ competence in identifying the object’s function. however, daily encounters with functional objects often occur in more informal and somatically imbued ways, and understanding these factors is an equally valuable task. following in the footsteps of these novel attempts in the aesthetics of design and focusing on things in use, this article aims to provide a novel framework for the aesthetic appreciation of design, starting from the concept of the aesthetic understood as essentially embodied. one possible way to include this dimension in the aesthetic theory of design is to adopt the perspective of somaesthetics, which champions the body as the locus of aesthetic value. in doing so, we argue that we might need not only to reconsider how we appreciate design but also to reconsider what is actually appreciated. our thesis is as follows: when we aesthetically appreciate design, we also evaluate our body as using and responding to certain objects. in other words, we suggest that what is appreciated is, in fact, a specific conglomerate consisting of our body in relation to the body2 of the object, where the attention is turned both outwards and inwards. the goal is, therefore, to understand in terms by which we can define this inter-body relation as aesthetic. it is worth mentioning that the proposed thesis is not universal. we do not claim that every design must be evaluated in a certain way but rather that objects designed to have a relationship with our body are also evaluated based on this relationship at the moment in which this relationship is in place. the thesis here is rather a modest one, namely that we wish to point out that there are gradations of appreciation depending on what is addressed: there can be discrete appreciations directed to singular objects, but there are also complex appreciations directed to compound situations. we therefore aim to present a set of reasons explaining why it is worth adopting such an understanding of aesthetic appreciation (at least regarding a specific group of designs) and suggest how this might open up a new perspective for the aesthetics of design. the paper develops according to the following structure. in §2, we provide a basic overview on the philosophical debate on design to highlight the research gap into which our proposal fits. in §3, we provide reasons and examples to explain why our thesis on the somatic encounters with bodies of designs is highly intuitive. in §4, we address potential challenges to the thesis. finally, in §5, we draw several conclusions about the implications of our claims. 2. aesthetics and design numerous contributions have recently addressed the question of the relationship between philosophy and design. a debate involving different philosophical disciplines has originated from the opposing nuances that the notion of technology has assumed along its etymological journey that began with the greek term techne. on the one hand, techne refers to expertise: specific know-how that in contemporary discourse is linked to new technologies but, above all, to the cognitive involvement these technologies require. on the other hand, the greek word techne has acquired an artistic nuance in its latin translation (ars), which has opened up this historical area of interest to a precise set of practices known as the fine arts. this schism has 2 we do not intend to problematize the ontology of things in everyday life, but we assume that like any limited portion of matter, they possess a body that could come into sensuous contact with the human body. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 74 monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski conferred a particular advantage to the philosophy of technology over the debates on design because of the technical aspect behind the production of everyday objects. at the same time, with its focus on the fine arts, aesthetics has prejudiced design practice due to the latter’s historically anti-artistic conditions: its link with industry, the unlimited reproducibility of its products, but above all, its concreteness and functionality. as a direct consequence, philosophical aesthetics of the early twentieth century, apart from some sporadic writings,3 has dismissed the design object as lacking conceptual depth relative to the work of art. for this reason, before this dismissal by philosophical aesthetics, the cognitive sciences (norman, 1988, 2002, 2005) approached the category of design to investigate the mechanisms of the relationship between design objects and their users, highlighting how the communicative and emotional functions play a fundamental role in consumption. we can summarize by saying that at a meta-theoretical level, contemporary philosophy has explored the merits of design mainly within a technological (see, e.g., verbeek, 2005; vermaas, 2008; houkes & vermaas, 2010; galle & kroes, 2014) rather than an aesthetic model. the aesthetic perspective has here been assigned a secondary role due to a simplified understanding of its theoretical potential for design. the aesthetic in design theory, which is often reduced to a measure of how appealing a product appears,4 feeds fears that the same discourse will be directed toward the illusionistic space of marketing and advertising: in other words, toward the phenomenon of aestheticization. recently, however, scholars in the field have realized that the spectrum of aesthetic influence is not limited to formal refinement and taste. instead, aesthetic theory can assess how design shapes the world, validating that its aesthetic impact reaches further than institutional art renders possible. design is, as has been suggested by john heskett, “an essential determinant of the quality of human life” (heskett, 2002, p. 4). the recent debate around everyday life (so-called everyday aesthetics) provided a fundamental contribution to shifting aesthetics from art toward the object of use and the analysis of its mundane aesthetic impact (see, e.g., saito, 2007, 2017; naukkarinen, 2017). more generally, everyday aesthetics focuses on traditionally overlooked areas of life (such as food, fashion, gender, or aging, to name just a few) and researches these phenomena from the viewpoint of their regularity and relational character with respect to the everyday (naukkarinen, 2013; melchionne, 2013).5 it is worth mentioning two cases from the recent literature that focus specifically on the relationship between design and everyday life: daniel martin feige’s design (2018) and jane forsey’s the aesthetics of design (2013). both proposals highlight the aesthetic aspects of the performance of daily practices and objects’ functionality but assign them different roles in their respective theories. according to the recent hypothesis put forward by feige, functionality should be recognized as the aesthetic form of design objects and should become an aesthetic category in its own right. such a form of aestheticity is embedded in the processes of quotidian interaction with objects. in contrast with the contemplative attitude attributed to the experience of works of art and nature, 3 we have here in mind a series of articles investigating the mysteriousness lying behind the object of everyday use by georg simmel, ernst bloch, martin heidegger, and theodor w. adorno, collected for the first time by andrea pinotti (in their italian translation) under the title of la questione della brocca (the question of the pitcher). it is hazardous here to talk about design as we understand it today. still, it is undeniable that these writings have left a legacy of inquiry on which we draw today precisely to explain the phenomenon of design. 4 as folkmann notes, “the pervasive attention paid to aesthetics can be annoying to designers, as it implies that they work solely with artistic matters of surface, appearance, and styling as opposed to, for example, functionality” (folkmann, 2010, p. 40). this confirms the general tendency to equate the aesthetic with the artistic and, consequently, to find the aesthetic and the functional incompatible. 5 in this paper, we adopt the relation-oriented account of the everyday: it sees the everyday as a relational feature, which entails that any object or event can become ordinary and part of the everyday. this account treats the everyday as a relational concept that refers to the relation between the subject and her environment (see highmore, 2011). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 75 object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design this practical form (praxisformen) stands out as the aesthetic peculiarity of design objects. as feige observed, “design objects are aesthetic objects in that they are each singular embodiment of functions” (2020, p. 59).6 an alternative perspective is offered by forsey, who draws attention to the traditional category of the beautiful against the backdrop of martin heidegger’s notorious tool analysis. according to the heideggerian framework, in the horizon of our experience, the object of everyday use is apprehended in two modalities: disguised and transparent in its function or striking and noticeable in its malfunction.7 forsey rejects heidegger’s approach and claims that “it is not only when they break down that [tools, design objects] come to our attention” (forsey, 2013, p. 241), noting that they also become conspicuous when they perform their function excellently. she holds that [the design object’s] beauty comes to light only through everyday use, and only when it succeeds in performing its function to a degree that merits our approbation” (p. 242). by engaging with the kantian tradition,8 forsey maintains an understanding of pleasure prompted by beauty as a purely intellectual pleasure. feige also considers the aesthetic as purely mental and defines it as “a special exercise of our conceptual faculties that make us the living beings that we are” (feige, 2020, p. 58).9 in other words, both philosophers belong to the school of thought that does not consider hedonic pleasure to be aesthetic; therefore, within this framework, we are left with no clue about the aestheticity of such sensual experience. richard shusterman’s somaesthetics presents a viable alternative. it provides a more holistic theoretical approach to the “aesthetic,” reintegrating the original meaning expressed by the greek term aisthesis—sensual perception—into the debate. at the same time, with the prefix “soma-,” it endorses an embodied intentionality that denies the body/mind dichotomy. such a theoretical approach consolidates the intellectual with the sensual in “somaesthetic mindfulness.” in the next section, we formulate a set of reasons for asserting that the soma, endowed with sensual intentionality, enters into a direct relationship with the object’s body, creating a novel tangible compound object to be appreciated. 3. being together: soma and design in this section, we propose a general account of appreciation of the design object through a valuation of the recipient’s soma and put forward the thesis that what is appreciated is simultaneously the soma, the function, and the object. far from denying the availability of a critical aesthetic theory applicable to design, we intend to complement it. by paying particular attention to the somatic experience of designs, we might illuminate how we build “the amount of experience and knowledge brought to bear on the [aesthetic] judgement [of designs]” (forsey, 2013, p. 189). in other words, we believe that somaesthetic sensations and the resulting cognition contribute to our experience of the functional beauty of design, that is, the appreciation of 6 translation by the authors; emphasis omitted. 7 in heidegger’s theory, tools’ mode of being as present—vorhandenheit—is more complex. tools are revealed to us through un-usability but also through cognition and anxiety (angst). 8 in the debate on the proper methodology of everyday aesthetics, forsey defends the continuity thesis concerning the aesthetic tradition. for this reason, she refers back to kant rather than formulating new interpretative notions for the everyday. 9 translation by the authors. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 76 monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski design objects. the starting point of this proposal is the structure of somatic consciousness as understood by shusterman. as we have already mentioned, shusterman extends the aesthetic experience’s conscious aspect to the body intended as “a living, feeling, sentient body rather than a mere physical body that could be devoid of life and sensation” (shusterman, 2008, p. 1). the strength of such an approach is that it allows a theoretical transition from a transcendental subject to an embodied consciousness, which encourages, in turn, the possibility of investigating the inter-corporeality between the user and the design object. this is possible for two reasons. first, this theoretical approach reverses the starting point of the aesthetic analysis, giving body consciousness primacy in the relationship with an object but without losing sight of the object. as shusterman himself writes, “any acutely attentive somatic self-consciousness will always be conscious of more than the body itself ” (p. 8).10 secondly, in line with the phenomenological tradition and the thoughts of edmund husserl and maurice merleau-ponty, shusterman considers the sensation of one’s body as that experience which highlights the fundamental ambiguity of human beings, who not only have a body but are that same body. the body then emerges not only as “the transparent source of [our] perception or action” but also as “an object of exploration, . . . an object of awareness, . . . as something that i have and use” (p. 3). acknowledging this ambiguity leads us to see how we are both subjects experiencing the world and, at the same time, can perceive our body instrumentally11 as an object in this world. more generally, we experience our body as part of the world, and we experience that part of the world that we act upon. for example, we experience our body as sitting and the armchair we sit upon. in the scheme of the aesthetic experience of design, we can now introduce the third element of the compound: the function. in most theories, functionality is understood strictly as the identifying criterion of kinds of objects: e.g., those with proper function (parsons & carlson, 2008) or intentional function (forsey, 2013). however, the notion of functionality countenances the aesthetic theory of design to explore the practical aspect of interacting with the world more generally. for instance, in comparing her coffee pot to that of her friend bill, forsey provides the following reasons to justify appreciating a bialetti more than an alessi coffee pot. we believe these are compelling somaesthetic reasons not strictly related to the proper function: his coffee-pot, i want to claim, has flaws that are hidden behind that newness and shine, that detract from its beauty. first, brass conducts heat, and each time you reach for the handle, or put your finger on the lid, you burn yourself. bakelite remains cool. second, the sleek rounded design makes it very hard to unscrew the two halves, especially if you already have soapy hands. my octagonal pot turns as easily as a nut in a wrench, whether wet or dry. third, the conical shape of his means the opening of the top pot is too narrow to fit even a small hand in to clean it, whereas mine, as wide at the top as at the bottom, welcomes a quick scrub. these are perhaps minor quibbles: both pots make very good coffee and both perhaps do it equally well (if i hesitate here it is, i am sure, out of prejudice alone that i prefer mine). and his is, admittedly, better looking (forsey, 2013, pp. 181–182). 10 emphasis omitted. 11 it is not our intention to argue for or against such objectification of the body. we simply acknowledge that this instrumentalization occurs daily, for example, when we look in the mirror or take care of our body. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 77 object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design from our perspective, the “minor quibbles” forsey mentions assume primary importance. first of all, they introduce a range of possible interactions with the object not limited to its proper function (in this case, “making coffee”). secondly, these minor criticisms call attention to the somaesthetic dimension of the interaction. many of us are acquainted with the somatic sensations of impotence in the face of contact burns or a stubborn jar of jam. these are somatic perceptions that, after settling in our memory, inform the value of our judgment. if we do not consider all of these aesthetic factors as deserving our attention, we will end up getting our coffee at a coffee shop even if our alessi makes excellent coffee. from a somaesthetic perspective, the ease/difficulty of use described acquires the characteristics we would attribute to comfort/ discomfort in the sense of the object’s contribution to our pleasure (“the object is comfortable”).12 eventually, if cleaning that coffee pot is more of a nuisance than tasting its delicious coffee, we will abandon the coffee pot at the back of the shelf. another critical point to consider is the subject using the coffee pot. in this case, ease of use acquires the characteristics of an eased state of being (“i am comfortable”). in other words, the “minor quibbles” refer not only to something about the object but also something about the subject, about her state, which influences the appreciation/aversion toward interaction with particular objects. we can try to analyze a more immediate interaction: imagine you are sitting in an armchair. in a comfortable position, the attitude of the body and its parts produces an intimate joy through the distribution of muscle tone. technically, we say that the chair allows you to sit comfortably, but, as we have seen, comfort does not solely depend on the armchair but also on the body that occupies it. the same armchair can appear extremely uncomfortable to us if, for example, we have back pain. this is to say that such a negatively tinged experience does not exclusively depend on design errors that may emerge from using a given object. if we find it uncomfortable to sit in the armchair because we have back pain, we would not claim that the object is not performing its function well. indeed, we might resolve this pain by adding a pillow between the lower back and the backrest. in other words, we regularly monitor and adjust our bodies to maximize comfort in a given situation, where bodily comfort is intended as a somatic state of being that is contextual, local, and situated in space and time and, as such, might change over the course of a lifespan. we might look, for example, at the aesthetic explanations we give ourselves. after sitting, we might claim that the seat is too hard. the hardness of the seat, nevertheless, is not an absolute property of the armchair itself. the denotation “too hard” emerges from the relationship between one’s own body and the armchair. the same armchair might feel too soft for someone with a different bodyweight than ours, and even for ourselves 20 kilos ago. to stay on the same line of reasoning, we can ask ourselves if we achieve the same level of appreciation as would the children we once were or the seniors we will become. moreover, countenancing somatic experience from the overall interaction with designs (including appreciation) allows us to personalize our encounters with these objects. we are surrounded by objects that are hardly distinguishable from each other: we use the same-looking smartphones, cars, kitchen utensils, tables, lamps, or armchairs, to name just a few. the only thing that genuinely makes our interactions with them special and unique is our bodily response to them. for example, everyone has their particular way of sitting relative to their somatic subjectivity. as we have already noted, our relation with these objects (and assessment of them) 12 in a recent article, mark tschaepe (2021) outlines the various ways in which the idea of comfort is perceived in everyday discourse, referring to both the phenomenological and somaesthetic spheres. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 78 monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski is not temporally fixed: i like sitting in my armchair, being that i am about 34 years old and weigh 63 kg, but this might (and probably will) change as i age and experience other changes. what is changing here is not only the object in itself but also, and most importantly, my body and the relation i have with it. the question is now this: do we still appreciate the armchair, or is it that we appreciate ourselves sitting in the armchair? or, do we appreciate a compound consisting of two bodies held together by a relation (sitting)?13 to capture all these elements of the experience of human interactions with objects, we put forward the notion of “place.” this proposal is intended to shift the aesthetic attention from the identification of isolated objects to the object in association with its user, thus defining the smallest unit of place the user can experience as larger than the body alone. in other words, the category of place can designate what we intend by the compound of object and body involved in quotidian and familiar situations. it should be added that the binomial of place and familiarity draws upon arto haapala’s (2005) existential characterization of quotidian experiences and mundane objects in terms of familiarity bound to the notion of place. this binomial conveys how, by interacting with objects and getting acquainted with them in our day-to-day lived dimensions, we make the surrounding environment our own place (haapala, 2005, p. 45). this lived “placement” always starts with familiarization with simple elements, such as objects,14 and expands to larger-scale environments, such as rooms, buildings, cities, and regions. we would like to point out that what we are describing should not be understood as an extension of our body via the object like, for example, an armchair, but rather as bodily responsibility (and response-ability) toward the armchair. while we often think of our favorite armchair as the one upon which our traces are imprinted, we can think as well of sitting on that particular armchair as shaping our body, leaving its impression through bodily sensation. this double sedimentation of impressions creates a situation of use in which the two polarities do not imply division: the armchair is an object to sit together with. that is to say, our body and the body of the armchair are separate entities, yet, when we sit on it, we enter into a somatic relation with it; this tangle becomes a complex object of aesthetic appreciation. during use, objects can be appreciated as an integral part of an intimate situation with our body, which can be pleasant or unpleasant. in our opinion, an example of such a somaesthetic stance in design was put into practice by the university of the arts students in poznań (poland), who developed an age simulator imitating physical limitations related to old age. this tool helps young designers, by allowing them to literally walk in seniors’ shoes and identify with an older body, to familiarize themselves with somatic limitations that they would not consider if they used their own body as a reference point for the project. this case allows us to see how designers direct their attention to an object in use and their somatic response to understand and assimilate the old age somatic experience. in other words, to aesthetically experience the bodily discomfort that comes with old age, the attention must be directed to the compound. these experiences, in turn, become valuable know-how and, as mark tschaepe has suggested, “have the potential for contributing to moral imagination and tools that foster empathy in others” (tschaepe, 2021, p. 1). 13 this function is relational in nature since it consists of at least two components: the human body and the body of the design object. 14 for modern digital nomads, whom we can define by their locational independence and lack of a fixed place, we could identify the sense of familiarity advocated by haapala in their relationship with, for example, their laptop, as that relationship that creates the smallest unit of place. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 79 object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design 4. objections and replies as we have seen, kantian theory and somaesthetics differ in that the former, assuming a mindbody distinction, considers the aesthetic as predominantly psychological. kant’s distrust of sensible experience is well known from the critique of judgment, where he declares that “in order for me to say that an object is beautiful, and to prove that i have taste, what matters is what i do with this presentation within myself, and not the [respect] in which i depend on the object’s existence” (kant, 1987, p. 46). along these same lines is the charge jane forsey leveled at arto haapala’s idea of the familiar as the condition for everyday aesthetics, namely, that it lacks aesthetic significance. she traces this deficiency in the examples of quiet and familiar experiences provided by haapala. while they should act as guarantors of the aestheticity of the everyday, they instead highlight a confusion and conflation of aesthetic and bodily pleasure (forsey, 2013, p. 233). as we recall, for forsey, and, in general, for all judgment-based theories, the aesthetic pertains exclusively to the psychological sphere. however, this criticism loses its validity within the framework proposed by somaesthetics since its fundamental principle is the rejection of the mind-body dualism that underlies most of the western aesthetic tradition. somaesthetics does not discriminate between bodily and intellectual pleasure, giving ample space to the perceptual present that involves “not only the more familiar teleceptors or five traditional senses, but also more distinctively bodily senses such as those of proprioception and kinesthesia” (shusterman, 2012, p. 116), the latter referring to an awareness of one’s position in the world. however, we can draw a parallel between kantian theory and somaesthetics. both are “phenomenological” investigations that acknowledge the aesthetic mainly as humans’ response to the world. in other words, both theories involve an attentive aesthetic attitude as the standard feature of the aesthetic experience even if they involve the subject in diametrically opposing ways: disinterestedly in kant and somatically entangled in somaesthetics. forsey says: “form and function are symbiotically related in our judgements of design, and both contribute to a given object’s beauty” (2013, p. 184). we can reinforce this claim by adding that form and function are symbiotically related because they are related in reference to the soma. better still, the soma becomes the criterion for establishing a fruitful symbiosis between form and function since when we aesthetically appreciate certain design objects, we also evaluate our body as using and responding to these objects. an example clarifying this position is the difference between sleeping in a single versus king-size bed. although these objects are both beds and, let us say, even very similar in appearance, the qualification we will assign to our sleep will depend primarily on the somatic relation afforded by the given bed. if we are used to sleeping in the starfish position, we will not appreciate sleeping in a single bed, which will expose us to unrest. in other words, it is precisely because our attention is directed to the conglomerate that we can evaluate concrete activities with concrete objects. it is essential to remember that despite being characterized by a rich and complex perceptual involvement, the somatic subject can also experience itself as an object. in other words, to deploy the notion of soma as an experiential unit of bodily and mental pleasure does not imply flattening the distinction between perception and awareness of this perception. we can still talk of object-oriented appreciation because the attention is directed toward the objective dimension of the soma according to the precept: “i thus both am body and have a body” (shusterman, 2008, p. 3). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 80 monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski continuing with the list of potential criticisms stemming from “purely aesthetic” theories, one might argue that our proposal lacks universal validity and that in the absence of this fundamental criterion, we cannot speak of proper aesthetic appreciation. as mentioned above, these remarks, seen from the somaesthetic perspective, have less force. first of all, from our point of view, appreciating design is not a question of recognizing what everyone likes but what makes us feel good. however, in the specific case of the compound, we can argue that rather than referring to a shared understanding between individuals, we can instead refer to an inter-corporeal (between soma and object) validity that only our well-being can (intersubjectively) confirm. however, disagreements about design arise that we believe are based on the somaesthetic experiences that comprise the instrumentalized subjective element, which is inaccessible to others. we can also see how such disagreement works in reverse: if we disagree with someone about the experience of sitting in a particular chair, we have probably generalized their judgment without considering the other person as part of the compound rather than ourselves. in the end, we do not dispute that it is challenging to discuss somatic experiences theoretically; however, it seems difficult to deny that we ourselves are the experts on our somatic responses. 5. conclusions forsey, among others, has shown, against the prevailing post-kantian tradition, that there is no point in maintaining beauty’s independence from functionality. this provided the outlines of a systematized aesthetic theory of design that is normatively grounded in the situated knowledge of an experiencing subject. for its part, somaesthetics, intending the soma as a privileged place for appreciating aesthetic sensations, allows a pragmatic turn in the aesthetic theory of design. this turn configures the aesthetic potential of design objects on the user’s side and allows for clarifying the local conditions of experience, which builds the normative grounds for aesthetic judgments of design objects. we have brought to the reader’s attention that by their nature, everyday objects are designed to serve a function. in their use, our body is often involved. fashion is the clear exemplification of this somaesthetic relationship. however, as with fashion, this relationship can be seen as frivolous self-care and discarded as mere aestheticization. to the contrary, from a somaesthetic perspective, appreciating design implies a responsibility toward oneself, that is, a call to be responsive toward what one’s body feels and go beyond the mere visual appearance of objects. in fact, the experiencing subjects delineated by this approach are able to pass judgment on the practical success of objects and are aware of which artifacts improve the conditions of their life. they are (broadly speaking) responsible consumers. consequently, the so-called “user” (as, for example, in user-centered design methodology) ceases to be perceived as a sort of corporeal statistic. if such an approach were incorporated into design theory and practice, it could reveal unconventional challenges in setting novel standards of use and functional improvements; however, above all, it would extend the scope of design aesthetics beyond formal concerns or visual appeal. moreover, our proposal distances itself from questions of how formal and aesthetic properties affect the use of products from an ergonomic perspective, which provides quantified generalizations, and instead embraces how two bodies enter into relationships and the aesthetic (qualitative tone of the) experience that emerges from this encounter. such an approach, characterized by reference to a complete and intimate interconnection between bodies, is about not only usage but also the way we feel and think during usage. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 81 object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design with this article, we have provided an alternative reading of the aesthetic dimension of product design; what is at issue is a mode of aesthetic response to the body of objects by means of somatic contact. by emphasizing the decisive difference between an object-based and place-based aesthetic experience of design objects, we provide a novel framework for further analysis. future research could assess whether this notion of the compound as a place can be analyzed in architectural terms15 or even through the categories of ambiance and atmosphere proposed by gernot böhme (1993). for our part, we have shown that if aesthetic appreciation is addressed neither to the object nor to the soma but to the compound of object and soma, a prolific perspective opens up. on the one hand, the object’s body does not disappear from the perceptual horizon but rather co-constitutes the aesthetic experience; on the other, the soma benefits from participation with the external environment and the constellation of material objects that compose it. as we have seen, the operational modalities of a somaesthetic approach might be limiting for an aesthetic theory that aspires to a universal normativity of its precepts; however, they underline the physiological limits of the human16 that are fundamental for the appreciation of design objects, which, for their part, are conceived precisely to overcome such limitations. this aspect remains fundamental for an aesthetic theory of design that considers the anthropological foundations of design practice and the user experience as critical factors for the discipline. in conclusion, we would like to remind the reader that our thesis about the aesthetic appreciation of design is not a universal one in nature. that is, we have tried to show that at least with certain objects of design, it is plausible and potentially fruitful to think of their aesthetic appreciation as not solely related to their form and function. in other words, we claim that the somatic aspect of design might contribute to our understanding of design, but we do not claim that we always have to pay attention to this aspect: sometimes, we approach objects in a purely disinterested way. design is often enhanced in this way, for example, in advertising, shop windows, or museums, where objects are placed on pedestals to be appreciated from a distance.17 references bhatt, r. (ed.) (2013). rethinking aesthetics: the role of body in design. routledge. böhme, g. (1993). atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics. thesis eleven, (36), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/072551369303600107 buwert, p. m. (2015). an/aesth/ethics: the ethical potential of design. artifact, 3(3), 4.1-4.11. https://doi.org/10.14434/artifact.v3i3.3960 dixon, b. (2020). dewey and design: a pragmatist perspective for design research. springer. feige, d. (2018). ästhetik des designs. in design eine philosophische analyse (pp. 86–143). suhrkamp. feige, d. (2020). design als praxisform des ästhetischen. in o. ruf & s. neuhaus (eds.), 15 ritu bhatt (2013) has edited a collection of essays on the philosophy of embodied aesthetics, investigating the role of the body in architectural design. 16 there is a long anthropological tradition that sees the human being as a deficient being. for example, ref. gehlen, a. (1988). man, his nature and place in the world. new york: columbia university press. 17 we would like to thank marta maliszewska, mateusz salwa and iris vidmar jovanović for careful and helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper. special thanks go to falk heinrich for the very detailed discussion. the authors contributed to this work in the following way: concept (mfk, aa), first draft (mfk, aa), second draft (mfk), revisions (mfk, aa). monika favara-kurkowski’s contribution to the paper is 70 percent, whereas adam andrzejewski’s is 30 percent. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 82 monika favara-kurkowski and adam andrzejewski designästhetik: theorie und soziale praxis (pp. 51–62). transcript verlag. https://doi. org/10.14361/9783839447758-004 folkmann, m. n. (2010). evaluating aesthetics in design: a phenomenological approach. design issues, 26(1), 40–53. folkmann, m. n. 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(1988). man, his nature and place in the world. columbia university press. guyer, paul. (2013) monism and pluralism in the history of aesthetics. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 71(2), 133–143. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23597548 haapala, a. (2005). on the aesthetics of the everyday: familiarity, strangeness, and the meaning of place. in a. light & j. smith (eds.), the aesthetics of everyday life (pp. 39–55). columbia university press. heskett, j. (2002). toothpicks and logos: design in everyday life. oxford university press. highmore, b. (2011). ordinary lives: studies in the everyday. routledge. höök, k. (2018). designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design. mit press. houkes, w., & vermaas, p. (2010). technical functions: on the use and design of artefacts. springer. kant, i., & pluhar, w. (1987). critique of judgment. hackett publishing company. kolkaba, k. y., & kolkaba, r. j. (1991). an analysis of the concept of comfort. journal of advanced nursing, 16(11), 1301–1310. melchionne, k. (2013). the definition of everyday aesthetics. contemporary aesthetics, 15. naukkarinen, o. (2017). everyday aesthetics and everyday behaviour. contemporary aesthetics, 15. naukkarinen, o. (2013). what is ‘everyday’ in everyday aesthetics? contemporary aesthetics, 11. norman, donald a. (1988). the psychology of everyday things (1st ed.). basic books. norman, donald a. (2002). the design of everyday things. basic books. norman, donald a. (2005). emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. basic books. parsons, g., & carlson, a. (2008). functional beauty. oxford university press. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 83 object and soma: remarks on aesthetic appreciation of design parsons, g. (2016). the philosophy of design. polity press. saito, y. (2007). everyday aesthetics. oxford university press. saito, y. (2017). aesthetics of the familiar: everyday life and world-making. oxford university press shusterman, r. (2000). pragmatist aesthetics. living beauty, rethinking art. rowman & littlefield. shusterman, r. (2006). aesthetic experience: from analysis to eros. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 64(2), 217–229. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-8529.2006.00243.x shusterman, r. (2008). body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2012). back to the future: aesthetics today. the nordic journal of aesthetics, (43), 104–124. https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v23i43.7500 shusterman, r. (2013). everyday aesthetics of embodiment. in rethinking aesthetics: the role of body in design (pp. 13–35). routledge. simmel, g., bloch, e., heidegger, m., adorno, t., & pinotti, a. (2007). la questione della brocca. mimesis. tschaepe, m. (2021). somaesthetics of discomfort. european journal of pragmatism and american philosophy, 13(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.4000/ejpap.2264 vermaas, p., & vial, s. (2018). advancements in the philosophy of design. springer international publishing. vermaas, p. (2008). philosophy and design: from engineering to architecture. springer. verbeek, p. (2005). what things do: philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design. pennsylvania state university press. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 44 page 44–56mark tschaepe somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design mark tschaepe abstract: somaesthetics of discomfort facilitates intentionally inclusive designed spaces for wayfinding by accounting for individuals’ distinct navigational experiences. following the work of richard shusterman, somaesthetics of discomfort is a combination of somatic awareness and somaesthetic reflection centered around feeling ill-at-ease or out of place. the increased awareness of discomfort and reciprocal reflection upon feelings of discomfort enhances how activities and places are experienced, recognized, and categorized. how people experience difficult wayfinding is an element that is often missing from architectural planning and development. considering uncomfortable somatic experiences of navigation would provide designers with tools to conceptualize and create wayfinding affordances within various spaces. discomfort may be understood as a somatic affordance during wayfinding because it indicates that there is something problematic about the intersection of soma and environment. this paper describes wayfinding and somaesthetics as they pertain to architectural design. by using the examples of hospitals and parking garages, somaesthetics of discomfort is introduced as a tool that uses somatic appreciation and individual reflection about wayfinding experiences for improving how spaces are designed. 1. introduction in his classic work, the image of the city, kevin lynch wrote (lynch 1964, 5): to become completely lost is perhaps a rather rare experience for most people in the modern city. we are supported by the presence of others and by special way-finding devices: maps, street markers, route signs, bus placards. but let the mishap of disorientation once occur, and the sense of anxiety and even terror that accompanies it reveals to us how closely it is linked to our sense of balance and well-being. perhaps now more than ever, because of gps tracking systems, search engines, and social media platforms, one might think that the anxiety and terror of being lost has waned to the point of vanishing, but this is not the case. if we examine architectural spaces within the city, body, space, architecture45 somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design such as hospitals and parking garages, we might note a heightened sense of anxiety and terror, in part, because most people have become dependent upon way-finding devices that tend not to work well or at all within those spaces. often, structures are designed with wayfinding as an afterthought, and the tools that apply within one type of space prove insufficient or even confounding in other types of spaces. for instance, when traveling into a tunnel, satellite signals that provide directions are often lost instantly, creating a suddenly harrowing experience for navigators. structural design seldom accounts for persons’ anxiety or terror or their differences from one another as they attempt to navigate. how people experience difficult wayfinding is an element that is missing from planning and development of spaces that require people to find their way. following richard shusterman’s observation that “the soma is the crucial medium through which architecture is experienced and created,” the design and improvement of wayfinding spaces benefits from tools that include somaesthetics (2012a, 227). i argue that somaesthetics of discomfort facilitates accounting for experiences of disorientation and anxiety and is a useful tool for contributing to better designed spaces for wayfinding. first, i describe wayfinding as it pertains to architectural design. second, i provide a brief overview of somaesthetics and discuss its application to navigation. third, i explain somaesthetics regarding discomfort and how discomfort may be understood as a type of affordance for navigation. finally, i consider somaesthetics of discomfort for improving how spaces are designed. to elucidate this point, i consider hospitals and parking garages as traditionally problematic types of spaces for wayfinding that tend to neglect individuals’ somatic differences. 2. wayfinding when lynch wrote the image of the city, he defined wayfinding as “a consistent use and organization of definite sensory cues from the external environment” (lynch 1964, 3). for lynch, individuals use what he called an environmental image— “the generalized mental picture of the external physical world”—as a strategic tool for wayfinding. “this image is the product both of immediate sensation and of the memory of past experience, and it is used to interpret information and to guide action” (4). since the time of lynch’s book, wayfinding has been specified as an epistemological process that involves identifying one’s location and knowing the quickest and most effortless way to reach one’s destination. according to farr et al., there are three interrelated processes that comprise wayfinding: decision-making, decision-execution, and information-processing (farr et al. 2012, 716). wayfinding may be undirected or directed.1 in directed wayfinding, which is the focus here, an individual aims at reaching a particular goal (wiener, büchner, and hölscher 2009). two of the key elements to wayfinding are locomotion (e.g., steering) and spatial orientation (e.g., establishing one’s position in relation to direction). notably, much of the literature pertaining to wayfinding focuses on cognitive mapping, which often entails a dualistic perspective that splits the mind of the wayfinder from their environment (jamshidi and pati 2021). however, as james gibson noted, wayfinding entails no cognitive map separate from one’s environment. rather, perception, recalling, and knowing are active elements of the environment of which the individual is a part. these activities occur in real-time with movement and are inseparable from the experience of wayfinding (o’connor 2019, 17). inspired by pragmatism, gibson’s concept of wayfinding collapses the false division between individual and environment and highlights the body’s embeddedness within the navigational context. the 1 the phrase undirected wayfinding may seem like an oxymoron, but this is the type of wayfinding wherein one wanders without a predetermined course. examples include unplanned hikes in which the destination is what one happens upon without planning or the french situationist concept of dérive, in which a person or group wanders or drifts aimlessly. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 46 mark tschaepe body’s role as an active part of the environment is key to understanding how somaesthetics is a tool that suits questions concerning wayfinding. gibson’s ecological psychology has contributed substantially to understanding wayfinding and design and provides a useful bridge between studies of wayfinding and how somaesthetics of discomfort benefits the subject. ecological psychology follows the pragmatist rejection of the idea of the individual as a knower separated from environment. the individual is always already part of the context they are experiencing. as william james puts it, the person is “in the game, and not a looker on” (james 1878, 17). m.r. o’connor reiterates this point nicely when discussing the work of tim ingold, who was inspired by gibson. “we are not self-contained individuals confronting a world out there, but developing organisms in an environment, enmeshed in tangled relationships” (o’connor 2019, 212). harry heft, a student of gibson, highlights the relationship between wayfinding and the enmeshed nature of individuals. “perceivers cease to be viewed as stationary spectators of a world spread before them (“out there”) and instead are recognized to be actors who explore the environment and discover what it affords” (heft 2013, 164). as individuals navigate, they utilize previously acquired spatial skills with currently available tools within the environment to enhance their knowledge and, in cases of directed wayfinding, reach their destination. one of the most important concepts to this process that has developed in ecological psychology is that of affordances. the concept of affordances has been used widely with various—sometimes contradictory— meanings across disciplines. affordances are considered values, aspects, or properties of one’s environment that provide or limit an individual’s actions (crippen 2020; heft 2013). gibson provides a general definition that captures how affordances may be beneficial or detrimental. “the affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill” (gibson 1979, 127). when wayfinding in undesigned environments, such as snow-covered landscapes of the arctic, affordances may include specific types of snow drifts that are shaped by the wind in a particular way, which assists in navigation to persons versed in values of the snow and wind in that region (o’connor 2019). in a forest, wayfinding affordances may include patterns of foliage, rock formations, bodies of water, and other aspects of the environment that help or hinder an individual’s navigation. designed spaces usually include intentional affordances, such as signage, windows, and other indicators, to assist persons in wayfinding. these spaces also include unintentional affordances that may confuse navigators. for instance, dead ends, confusing signage or lack of signage, and unintuitive floor plans, can function as problematic affordances. some signage may operate as a beneficial affordance within some cultures, but as a confusing affordance for others. devlin uses the example of a teddy bear with a cross on its midsection as a symbol for the pediatric department in hospitals. although this symbol proves beneficial to many familiar with hospital symbols within north america, outside of the continent, the symbol lacks the same meaning (devlin 2014, 431). the design of spaces often depends heavily on signage as affordance, but neglects somatic experiences of navigators. this is especially true of feelings of discomfort within spaces like hospitals and parking garages. both types of spaces, among others, contribute to disorientation and anxiety for navigators, and somaesthetics supplies affordances from our somatic experiences to learn from these feelings and contribute to the architectural design of spaces in ways that diminish such discomfort. body, space, architecture47 somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design 3. somaesthetics according to richard shusterman, somaesthetics constitutes a broad framework of inquiry that is “concerned with the critical study and melioristic cultivation of how we experience and use the living body (or soma) as a site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative selffashioning” (shusterman 2008, 1). somaesthetics is an extension of pragmatic aesthetics and the idea of philosophy as an embodied art of living (shusterman 2015, 181). following the pragmatic tradition, somaesthetics collapses the false dichotomy between body and mind, and it highlights somatic experience as the root of understanding the world. somaesthetics also moves beyond the strictures of phenomenology by including pragmatic reflection upon the soma and its habits that is oriented toward improving experience (shusterman 2008, 75).2 combining theory and practice, pragmatic somaesthetics facilitates cultivating and enhancing experience by recognizing the soma and somatic practices. these practices include the representational (e.g., tattoos), the experiential (e.g., posture), and the performative (e.g., dance) (shusterman 2000, 142-143). these types of practices often overlap, depending upon the activities considered (mullis 2006). within this paper, wayfinding is considered primarily as an experiential somaesthetic practice applied to architectural design. by focusing on the everyday functioning of the body within designed spaces and paying special attention to discomfort experienced within those spaces, i am pursuing a way to improve upon how problematic spaces are designed by including somaesthetic reflection.3 recognition of soma as an acting, perceiving, and reflecting intentional agency provides ways of considering somatic experiences that shifts attention from the immediacy of feeling to reflection upon feeling that enhances the ability to discern feelings from one another and shift somatic habits to alter those feelings. additionally, somaesthetic reflection provides critical awareness to engagement with one’s environment, including how the environment and one’s soma fit or misfit, what is valued and valuable within the environment given different somatic experiences and habits, and how somatic transactions within a context affect and are affected by elements of experience, such as the soma and affordances within the environment. as shusterman states, “if the body is our primordial instrument in grasping the world, then we can learn more of the world by improving the conditions and use of this instrument” (shusterman 2008, 19). somaesthetics helps us focus on how we engage with our environments as lived experience. regarding designed spaces, shusterman notes that the “soma is thus what enables us to appreciate not only the visual effects and structural design features that rely on perceiving distance and depth, but also the multisensorial feelings of moving through space (with their kinaesthetic, tactile, proprioceptive qualities) that are crucial to the experience of living with, in, and through architecture” (shusterman 2012a, 224). a significant aspect of somatic engagement with architecture involves how we navigate through the variety of contexts in which we are positioned and how we feel while navigating these spaces. our soma is a primordial point that acts as our center and supplies direction and volume to space. as shusterman notes, most instances of navigation constitute basic modes of implicit memory and habit that involve utilizing unreflective perceptions of space (shusterman 2011). directional wayfinding is a somatic process of moving intentionally through space to reach a particular aim or goal. when we move through space, our experience of the environment is 2 somaesthetics includes the concepts of körper and leib as elements of the soma, thereby recognizing appearances and effects within the environment, not simply subjective feeling and perception (shusterman 2020). 3 somaesthetics of discomfort fits well with established somatic practices, such as the feldenkrais method and the alexander technique. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 48 mark tschaepe modulated through our feelings. how we emotionally, aesthetically, and ethically encounter a space affects the way we perceive, cognize, and move through that space (crippen and klement 2020, 469). because we tend not to engage in somaesthetic reflection about wayfinding, often our habits are rife with what shusterman calls everyday somaesthetic pathologies that remain unrecognized. although navigating is colored with tones of emotion and meaning, we do not recognize that these may be addressed when problematic (shusterman 2011). pathological reactions to wayfinding through certain environments and situations may entail undue stress and anxiety, but without somaesthetic reflection, there is often little we can do to identify and address the factors that lead to discomfort. regarding most wayfinding experiences within designed spaces, a generally accepted attitude follows an insight of bálint veres: many experiences with architecture are considered non-aesthetic. veres explains frequent neglect of aesthetic engagement within these spaces. “within the unconscious, dull, and fragmented everyday experience, architecture offers impulses for physical and mental collectedness, stimulates consciousness, and provides intensity. in the next moment, however, all these could lapse into habituation and everyday familiarity” (veres 2018, 95-96). being open to somaesthetic reflection about experiences with wayfinding entails recognizing dewey’s insight from which somaesthetics develops: there is continuity between aesthetic experience and everyday experience (dewey 2005). the familiar, mundane, and quotidian are potentially rich somaesthetic experiences if we are receptive to them. somaesthetics supplies a dimension to wayfinding wherein we reflect upon our somatic practices in relation to how we navigate through space and how it feels to navigate the space. we account for the lived experience of space as quality or atmosphere that affects how we engage within the space as we contribute to its meanings and values. (shusterman 2012a, 232-234). spaces may be open, confining, relaxing, freeing, tense, harrowing, dizzying, or a number of other qualities that constitute how the space feels to us. when somaesthetics is applied to wayfinding specifically, reflection includes sensory appreciation of the experience of decision-making, decision-executing, and information-processing regarding locomotion and spatial orientation. we do not simply reflect on where we are going, but how past experiences, feelings, thoughts, and values that accompany and moderate that process are embedded in our somatic habits and experiences associated with the environment. we recognize types of spaces, memories of similar spaces, how we feel about such spaces and how those spaces make us feel, and what those spaces mean to us. wayfinding becomes an object of transactional experiential inquiry. as shusterman explains, this type of inquiry is double-barreled in the sense that william james described experience. it entails what is experienced and how it is experienced (shusterman 2015, 181-182). we reflect on what we are doing and how it feels while doing it. inquiring into wayfinding in this way incorporates the practice of everyday navigation, involves the way that the environment is experienced, and transgresses the traditional separation of spatial design and somatic experience. the inquiry concerns what peirce called the deliberative formation of habits of feelings (cp.1.574). we not only question what navigation is, but how wayfinding is experienced and may be improved upon. in other words, we critically engage in assessing the feelings of wayfinding within spaces and situations as objects of thought. somatic perception—the unreflective feeling of wayfinding—is re-considered as an object of somaesthetic reflection. through the process of somaesthetic reflection, we enhance our ability to deliberate about our habits of wayfinding in ways that contribute to improving those habits. this falls within the domain of experiential somaesthetics. body, space, architecture49 somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design moving beyond self-improvement to architectural design, somaesthetics provides tools for considering how spaces are designed to improve wayfinding experiences. somaesthetic reflection entails the contexts and situations we experience, including kinesthetic and proprioceptive qualities of spaces in which we move (lee, youn-kyung, and shusterman 2014). following kristin höök’s use of somaesthetic appreciation as a strong concept that may be used to generate new or alternative designs, wayfinding may be considered as a somaesthetic practice that includes firstperson experiences of specific spaces for the sake of design considerations (höök et al. 2016; höök et al. 2018; höök 2018). by slowing down and intentionally engaging with wayfinding as a somatic practice, we are better able to re-cognize ourselves as both körper and leib while navigating. we are objective bodies navigating through space that are subjective, active, and intentional. somaesthetic reflection supplies the ability to discern movements, emotions, and linkages between the different parts of an experience of wayfinding (höök et al. 2018, 17). first-person, somaesthetic perspectives are not only useful for somatic self-cultivation, but also provide insights about how a space may be improved for better wayfinding. specifically, discomfort experienced during wayfinding may function as an affordance that indicates how elements of a designed space detract from one’s ability to navigate successfully.4 somaesthetics of discomfort provides tools for remedying detriments within architectural spaces that may be addressed by considering first-person perspectives. 4. discomfort somaesthetics of discomfort focuses on somatic experiences wherein we feel ill-at-ease or discontented. the aim of experience and reflection is of being at-odds-with the immediate environment and honing our awareness to feel what about our engagement with the environment is disruptive to our ease or contentment. in this sense, discomfort is a tool for scrutinizing engagement of our bodies with the environment to discern what is stress-inducing. feelings of discomfort become affordances for understanding what is problematic. by focusing on somatic experiences of discomfort, we develop the ability to identify and reflect on fine-grain feelings and understand how aspects of the environment are disruptive (tschaepe 2021). an example of discomfort is indigestion. initially, discomfort is only a tone of experience. in its immediacy, it overwhelms experience without being differentiated into specific feelings. without somaesthetic reflection, we may feel the pangs of indigestion but not the specificity of the feelings or how they relate to the way we have engaged with our environment. we may be cognizant of what we have consumed, but not how we have consumed it or how these feelings relate to other feelings. such feelings might slip into habituation when we are unreflective. we simply experience indigestion as a general feeling. through somaesthetic reflection, we may scrutinize a case of indigestion as a certain type with a specific tone, discern our feelings as akin to those we feel during moments of intense stress or fear, or we may note that these feelings align with feelings we have had previously after consuming a similar dish. alternatively, we may recognize that the feelings correspond to eating in haste or not masticating adequately. focusing on how the feeling relates to our context, we may discover that we tend to experience a particular type of indigestion when we are in a certain situation or environment. in each case, our discomfort is transformed from a mere feeling into an affordance for understanding our engagement with the environment. when 4 maría auxiliadora gálvez pérez has developed similar tools with somatic architecture (sa), where she considers somatic perspectives related to spatial navigation (anderwald, grond, and pérez 2021, 61; gálvez 2019). as somaesthetics of discomfort continues to develop, i imagine that it will utilize the work emerging from sa. the “platform of somatics for architecture and landscape” (psaap) provides photographs, sketches, and writings related to projects in sa (http://psaap.com/en/). the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 50 mark tschaepe we understand discomfort through somaesthetic reflection, we enhance our bodily awareness of discomfort and improve our ability to inquire about the feelings and causes of discomfort. optimally, we gain tools for preventing or curtailing similar discomforts in the future. what we gain from somaesthetics of discomfort is not only applicable to our own abilities to feel and understand our experiences of discomfort but is also applicable to improving upon designing spaces that tend to pose problems for wayfinding. shusterman argues that “heightening somatic consciousness could improve our architectural experience, both by improving the architect’s ability to design and by improving the people’s capacity to make informed judgments about architectural designs meant to serve them” (shusterman 2012b, 14). how a space allows or disallows wayfinding is an element of architectural design that benefits from heightening somatic consciousness. detection and reflection upon moments of discomfort during wayfinding are tools that are enhanced through somaesthetics and apply to architectural design. by coupling what höök calls somatic connoisseurship—expertise concerning somatic self-awareness, including the ability to observe, discern, analyze, synthesize, empathize, and focus—with first-person perspectives concerning discomfort during wayfinding, i propose developing a practical somaesthetic practice that is applicable to architectural design (höök et al. 2018, 18). somaesthetic appreciation and connoisseurship that höök and others have used successfully in designing objects, such as the soma mat and breathing light, are tools that architects may use to design better spaces for wayfinding (ståhl et al. 2022; ståhl et al. 2016). as maría auxiliadora gálvez pérez indicates, “disorientating spatial structures can be used as a tool to include bodies with different capacities as agents of design. in this manner, we challenge the everyday present conventions of ableism” (anderwald, grond, and pérez 2021, 62). somaesthetics of discomfort relates directly to soma design, architecture, and wayfinding because it helps indicate elements of design that are problematic to various persons’ navigational experiences but may not be detectible unless navigators have the somatic connoisseurship and tools necessary to share those experiences and architects are receptive to them while also having somatic tools to understand and implement those experiences into designs. 5. hospital design wayfinding is often an afterthought in architectural design (devlin 2014). when navigation is considered and incorporated into design, the focus tends to be on signage (mollerup 2009). structures and signs meant to assist in wayfinding usually are designed in tandem with a variety of considerations, including pedestrian and vehicular traffic flows, pedestrian patterns and needs, and operational requirements of a space. these may be developed following interviews, focusgroup meetings, and site surveys. given the type of space and the persons for whom the space is being designed, environmental considerations regarding wayfinding vary. for most spaces, pathways and decision points are the key elements that determine what wayfinding affordances are included intentionally in the design process (gibson 2009). even when these factors are regarded as part of the design process, specific spaces tend to trigger stress and anxiety during wayfinding. although carefully planned signage is developed and implemented in these spaces, they remain sources of navigational discomfort for many users and rarely account for the various capacities of different bodies. two of the common culprits that i consider are hospitals and parking garages. somaesthetics of discomfort provides tools that assist in the design to benefit wayfinding for differently abled persons in each space. hospitals are multilevel buildings that pose challenges for wayfinding, especially for those body, space, architecture51 somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design persons who are unaccustomed to navigating the space, including patients, visitors, staff, and suppliers. navigational confusion within hospitals accounts for significant losses of material resources and time devoted to care (devlin 2014; mollerup 2009; rooke 2013). each hospital has a unique floorplan, organization of decision points, and signage. per mollerup lists the following reasons people have problems wayfinding in hospitals: complicated floorplans; lack of familiarity with the space, including changes in the space between visits; epistemic challenges regarding unit names on signage; reduced capacities for navigation (e.g., illness; exhaustion; visual impairment); anxiety associated with the space (mollerup 2009). these issues are often complicated by complexities within the environment, such as number of rotations within stairways, confusing alterations between floor numbers (vertical incongruence of floors), arrangement of complex decision points and linking paths, and few affordances related to landmarks (hölscher et al. 2006). accessibility due to permissions or status is also a challenge to patients, visitors, and even staff: restricted areas are often confusing due to where they are placed within the structure. being forbidden from an area is often unclear until a person who is not permitted access accidentally wanders into a restricted space.5 this possibility contributes to stressful experiences of wayfinding in hospitals. although variables such as decision points, linking paths, availability of help desks, and signage may play a role in the design of hospitals, somatic experiences that contribute to navigational discomfort are neglected. there are tools, such as myway, that provide audio and visual assistance with navigation, but these do not enhance the structural design of hospitals to curtail wayfinding problems. rather, these assist users despite design flaws. as devlin explains, “myway is a mobile application produced by meridian to access hospital maps and locate the user within the facility through gps via smartphones, with turn-by-turn steps” (devlin 2014, 428). i do not mean to suggest that tools like myway are not useful. in fact, they are beneficial to users during moments of navigation, but they neglect to address overarching issues with hospital design that require somaesthetic reflection about discomforts that limit the ability for users to wayfind. usercentered design, which utilizes user sensing evaluation and works with wayfinders to help gather information about needs and limitations that is often unfamiliar to designers, is a methodology that could easily accommodate somaesthetic discomfort as a tool (de aboim borges and da silva 2015). for instance, sensors that collect haptic foot texture information and integration with visual orientation are being used to assist hospital visitors with wayfinding (de aboim borges 2019; 2020). collecting sensory data from navigators is an initial step that opens the way for further somatic tool development. somatic education principles and techniques, such as somatic ethnography, should be coupled with tools already used in ergonomics and soma design to assist in improving upon architectural design (anderwald, grond, and pérez 2021). were somaesthetic feedback available to architects, it may not only contribute to developing better navigational tools for users, but also to designing less problematic hospital spaces. because the soma is our primordial point of navigation, wayfinding issues within hospitals are somatic. additionally, the problems posed by architectural design to wayfinding in hospitals is rooted in feelings of discomfort. somaesthetics of discomfort addresses what the feelings of discomfort are and how individuals feel within the contexts of hospital navigation. such reflection accounts for environmental features, such as position and design of stairways, signage, and decision points, while adding somatic first-person perspectives to wayfinding experiences that entail these features. somaesthetic reflection includes discomfort that tends to adversely 5 this is an experience i have in medical spaces frequently. because of the labyrinth design of such spaces, i have suddenly found myself in rooms or wings in which i was not to be permitted but had accidentally wandered. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 52 mark tschaepe affect patients and visitors generally, such as exhaustion, symptoms of illness, and anxiety. by using somatic techniques that focus on feelings of discomfort during wayfinding, architects may utilize these perspectives to provide insight into how to design hospitals. tools like somatic ethnography provide individualized experiences that are important for designing hospital spaces that are inclusive. 6. parking garage design parking garages are another type of designed space notorious for posing wayfinding difficulties. wayfinding within parking garages is somatic in two distinct ways that are rooted in what shusterman calls performative or procedural memory, but that require focus and intentionality because of the difficulties presented by the space (shusterman 2011). first, drivers are required to navigate into, within, and out of parking garages with their vehicles, which act as mechanical extensions of their bodies. this introduces one set of somatic experiences for persons as drivers. second, drivers and passengers are required to navigate into, within, and out of parking garages as pedestrians. this introduces another set of somatic experiences for persons separate from their status as driver or passenger. each set of experiences supplies its own discomforts that provide insight into structural issues built into garages that are problematic for different users. although architects of parking garages account for wayfinding, the primary considerations are visibility, size of floor areas and number of floors, ramping and traffic circulation systems, and signage (rebora and monahah 2000). factors that pertain to pedestrian wayfinding directly include pedestrian-vehicular coordination and separation, walkway widths, ramps, stairways, escalators, moving walkways, and elevators, as well as lighting and signage (weant and levinson 1990). all these considerations are factors that contribute to drivers’ and pedestrians’ comfort and discomfort with navigating the space, but they stop short of somaesthetic discomfort wherein individual drivers and pedestrians with diverse needs, capabilities, and capacities are encouraged to reflect upon and share their somatic experiences to enhance wayfinding within parking garages. present considerations within parking garage design do not capture what people experience and how they experience moving within, as well as to and from vehicles in parking garages.6 historically, differences between drivers were considered as parking garages first developed. initially, navigating in parking garages was believed to require a certain expertise that only attendants possessed, providing them with a level of wayfinding comfort beyond that of car owners and passengers. as automobile design changed, garages were built to allow for easier entry and exit, ramps friendly to the size and height of newer automobiles, and more parking spaces. eventually, most garages became self-parking, and their design distinguished between skilled and unskilled drivers, attempting to accommodate both. most aesthetic considerations regarding parking garages are restricted to their outward appearance and how they fit with the external environment (mcdonald 2007; rebora and monahan 2000). in fact, this is a major theme for parking garage designers, whereas internal aesthetics are barely considered. affordances for drivers and pedestrians are created solely for functionality, but with little concern for diversity and inclusion (gregory 2009). accessibility 6 designers are aware of the disconnect between designed wayfinding paths and how pedestrians engage in wayfinding in parking garages. weant and levinson remark, “in most parking garages, pedestrian regulations are difficult to enforce. pedestrians tend to walk in a path representing the shortest distance, and they have a basic resistance to changing grades or following a prescribed path that is obviously circuitous to an alternative travel route” (1990, 198). somaesthetics of discomfort may help explain what and how pedestrians experience parking garages that motivates them to create their own alternative travel routes. this could contribute to altering designs of parking garages to accommodate the needs of the users. body, space, architecture53 somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design guidelines that are used in the design of parking garages account for numbers and locations of parking spaces, sizes of accessible parking spaces, accessible routes, and detectable signage for those who are visually impaired, but these are general guidelines that do not gauge the somatic experiences of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians (beebe and lew 2000). by adding somaesthetics of discomfort to the tools used by architects who design wayfinding routes within parking garages, accessibility would be increased for a greater number of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians, while improving aesthetic factors that would constitute beneficial affordances for persons with diverse navigational experiences, capabilities, and resources. somatic considerations that included experiences of driving, riding, and engaging as a pedestrian would contribute to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion for the users of garages by becoming part of the design. the use of somaesthetics of discomfort should not be limited to designing hospitals and parking garages. i have used these two types of wayfinding spaces because they tend to present somatic challenges for me, and i have discovered through discussions with others that i am not alone in feeling discomfort within these types of spaces.7 other spaces that contribute to somatic discomfort during wayfinding include airports, public transit stations, educational facilities, and government buildings, to name some of the most notorious.8 i imagine that the design of any wayfinding space benefits from somaesthetic considerations, including what discomforts people experience and how they experience those discomforts while navigating the space. 7. conclusion wayfinding is a somatic activity. our center is our soma, which intentionally and purposefully engages in attempting to find its way. within architecture, wayfinding is an essential process for those persons who will use the space, although often this activity has not been considered of primary importance during the design of most spaces. considering somatic experiences of navigation would benefit architects by providing them with tools to conceptualize and create wayfinding affordances within various spaces. discomfort may be understood as a somatic affordance during wayfinding because it indicates that there is something problematic about the intersection of soma and environment. we should develop and use somaesthetics of discomfort to understand what allows and disallows ease of movement within a space, as well as adjust how such space is designed to improve it. one of the most important factors for including somaesthetics of discomfort when designing architectural spaces is how it contributes to overcoming exclusion and accommodating different experiences of wayfinding. varieties of discomfort experienced while moving through a space may be utilized as affordances to facilitate improving upon the design of that space and future spaces that serve the same or similar functions. by developing somaesthetic tools and applying them to architectural considerations, spaces like hospitals and parking garages will become less harrowing for those who must navigate through them. additionally, we will develop greater 7 when discussing these issues, i use the texas medical center as exemplary because it captures somatic discomfort with wayfinding in both types of spaces. the medical campus spans over 2 square miles (more than 5 square km) in houston, texas, and consists of over 60 medical institutions. not only are the parking garages harrowing because of limiting affordances (confusing pathways, tight curves, dead ends, private parking, multiple security gates to enter or exit certain areas), but the medical facilities are also discomforting because of confusing layouts, inaccessible areas, public skywalks that are unclearly distinguished from personnel-only skywalks, and lack of continuity between buildings (this is especially stressful during extreme heat and heavy rain, both of which occur in houston frequently). 8 i have been on at least three university campuses in three different countries that included buildings that had floors that changed while one was moving horizontally without moving vertically (e.g., while walking north-south on the second floor, a person would be on the third floor suddenly and without warning). in all three cases, this caused somatic discomfort for conference attendees who were unfamiliar with wayfinding in the buildings. i have experienced similar design issues that affected wayfinding in government buildings. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 54 mark tschaepe somatic appreciation, connoisseurship, and empathy for our own and others’ experiences, as well as for design. acknowledgements first and foremost, i wish to thank richard shusterman for his overwhelming encouragement and counsel regarding this essay and related work in somaesthetics of discomfort. he is an unwavering source of inspiration. i also want to thank mike hunter at georgia institute of technology, who provided me with valuable resources pertaining to parking garages. finally, a heartfelt thank you to sirena laburn, who listened as i read through multiple rough drafts and provides much-needed insight and affection. this work was supported by prairie view a&m university’s mellon center for faculty excellence [mellon grant number: 1906-06895]. references “platform of somatic for architecture and landscape.” psaap, http://psaap.com/en/ anderwald, r., grond, l., & pérez, m. a. g. 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(2005). art as experience. penguin. farr, a. c., kleinschmidt, t., yarlagadda, p., & mengersen, k. (2012). wayfinding: a simple concept, a complex process. transport reviews, 32(6), 715-743. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144164 7.2012.712555 body, space, architecture55 somaesthetics of discomfort and wayfinding: encouraging inclusive architectural design gálvez, m.a. (2019). espacio somático. cuerpos múltiples. [somatic space. multiple bodies]. ediciones asimétricas. gibson, d. (2009). the wayfinding handbook: information design for public places. princeton architectural press. gibson, j.j. (1979). the ecological approach to visual perception. houghton mifflin harcourt. gregory, a. (2009). “the parking garage studio: challenging the language of everyday car culture.” changing identities: design culture technology – 2009 acsa southwest fall conference. 110-119. https://www.academia.edu/download/3575488/acsa_sw_paper.pdf heft, h. (2013). an ecological approach to psychology. review of general psychology, 17(2), 162167. https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0032928 hölscher, c., meilinger, t., vrachliotis, g., brösamle, m., & knauff, m. (2006). up the down staircase: wayfinding strategies in multi-level buildings. journal of environmental psychology, 26(4), 284-299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2006.09.002 höök, k. (2018). designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design. mit press. höök, k., caramiaux, b., erkut, c., forlizzi, j., hajinejad, n., haller, m., & tobiasson, h. (2018, february). embracing first-person perspectives in soma-based design. in informatics (vol. 5, no. 1, p. 8). mdpi. https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics5010008 höök, k., jonsson, m. p., ståhl, a., & mercurio, j. (2016, may). somaesthetic appreciation design. in proceedings of the 2016 chi conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 31313142). https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858583 james, w. (1878). remarks on spencer’s definition of mind as correspondence. journal of speculative philosophy, 12, 1–18. jamshidi, s., & pati, d. (2021). a narrative review of theories of wayfinding within the interior environment. herd: health environments research & design journal, 14(1), 290-303. https:// doi.org/10.1177%2f1937586720932276 lee, w., lim, y. k., & shusterman, r. (2014, june). practicing somaesthetics: exploring its impact on interactive product design ideation. in proceedings of the 2014 conference on designing interactive systems (pp. 1055-1064). https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598561 lynch, k. (1964). the image of the city. mit press. mcdonald, s.s. (2007). the parking garage: design and evolution of a modern urban form. urban land institute. mollerup, p. (2009). wayshowing in hospital. australasian medical journal (online), (10), 112. https://doi.org/10.4066/amj.2009.85 mullis, e. c. (2006). performative somaesthetics: principles and scope. journal of aesthetic education, 104-117. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4140211 o'connor, m. r. (2019). wayfinding: the science and mystery of how humans navigate the world. st. martin's press. peirce, c.s. (1931-58). collected papers of charles sanders peirce. 8 vols. vols. 1-6 ed. charles hartshorne and paul weiss. vols. 7-8 ed. arthur burks. cambridge: harvard university press. [citations such as "cp 1.600" indicate volume and paragraph number in this edition]. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 56 mark tschaepe rebora, s.j. and monahan, d.r. (2000). “wayfinding, signage, and graphics.” in the dimensions of parking, fourth edition, pp. 93-98. urban land institute. rooke, c. n. (2013). improving wayfinding in old and complex hospital environments. university of salford (united kingdom). proquest dissertations publishing, 28801567. shusterman, r. (2000). pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art. rowman & littlefield publishers. shusterman, r. (2008). body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2011). muscle memory and the somaesthetic pathologies of everyday life. human movement, 12(1), 4-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/v10038-011-0001-2 shusterman, r. (2012a). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2012b). body and the arts: the need for somaesthetics. diogenes, 59(1-2), 7-20. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0392192112469159 shusterman, r. (2015). transactional experiential inquiry: from pragmatism to somaesthetics. contemporary pragmatism, 12(1), 180-195. https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-01201010 shusterman, r. (2020). somaesthetics in context. kinesiology review, 9(3), 245-253. https://doi. org/10.1123/kr.2020-0019 ståhl, a., jonsson, m., mercurio, j., karlsson, a., höök, k., & banka johnson, e. c. (2016, may). the soma mat and breathing light. in proceedings of the 2016 chi conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (pp. 305-308). https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2889464 ståhl, a., balaam, m., comber, r., sanches, p., & höök, k. (2022, april). making new worlds– transformative becomings with soma design. in chi conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-17). https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502018 tschaepe, mark. (2021). "somaesthetics of discomfort. enhancing awareness and inquiry." european journal of pragmatism and american philosophy 13, no. xiii-1. https://doi.org/10.4000/ ejpap.2264 veres, b. (2018). rethinking aesthetics through architecture?. in aesthetic experience and somaesthetics (pp. 87-100). brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004361928_008 wiener, j. m., büchner, s. j., & hölscher, c. (2009). taxonomy of human wayfinding tasks: a knowledge-based approach. spatial cognition & computation, 9(2), 152-165. https://doi. org/10.1080/13875860902906496 the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 45 page 45–58carsten friberg practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? carsten friberg abstract: this article focuses on whether a practical phenomenology that is similar to practical somaesthetics can be found. phenomenology and somaesthetics both have an interest in the body as well as feelings, perceptions, and presence in the world. thus, the question here is whether this leads to practice suggestions in the former such as those in the latter. however, while the short answer is largely negative, there may prove to be more of a difference between them in terms of what can be expected from the practical dimension than an absence of practice in phenomenology. furthermore, i believe both disciplines provide insufficient answers regarding the practical dimension and should consequently now consider aesthetics. keywords: practical somaesthetics, phenomenology, body, self, aesthetics. practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? i will approach the difference between somaesthetics and phenomenology through what appears most significant—namely, the practical aspect where "practical" means implementing the discourses on the body into practice. this is an important aspect of somaesthetics, and my question is whether we find anything similar in phenomenology when considering the recent decades' leibphänomenologie—i.e., phenomenology of the body. here, "leib" implies an understanding of the body that is not apparent in the english word "body". in german, one differentiates between körper and leib. prusak (2006) suggests that "körper is the body as it is alive, leib is the body as it is alive to what is around it: reaching out beyond itself, encountering others, investigating and discovering what there is to be done and had" (p. 55, italics in original). however, despite the everyday use of leib and körper in german, the implications of their differentiation are not straightforward. according to schmitz (2009), leib is something that has an absolute place [ort] because we are the absolute center of our experiences while körper is something that has a relative place because it is located relative to other elements and positions (pp. 17 f.). waldenfels (2000) notes how the leib is a viewpoint, and something that we cannot distance ourselves from (p. 31). moreover, even though our viewpoint is located in physical space as the point from where we stand and have our view on things, this place of our spatially somaesthetics and phenomenology46 practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? located leib is to be understood in a different way than our körper—which is a physical object in space and determined by spatial coordinates. further, we find ourselves with a physical body, which qua leib exceeds the strict physical characteristics as we, qua sentient and feeling, fill the place and feel the place affecting us. in this context, schmitz (2009) mentiones that feelings are "islands" in our body that are voluminous without being three dimensional (pp. 15 f.). further, böhme (2019) referres to leib as an extended feeling (p. 46), which also implies an extension into our environment. this is somewhat similar to what we read in merleau-ponty (1945/2010, pp. 270 ff.). although the differences between leib and körper are complicated, i will only add one short note. waldenfels (2000, pp. 272, 280) and fuchs (2000, pp. 81 ff.) criticize schmitz for differentiating between leib and körper to the degree where he reintroduces a cartesian mindbody dualism within the body, between the felt islands and the physical body. instead, here, it is more illustrative to think of the bodily dynamics of exchange with the environment as breathing with the corresponding expanding and contracting of the body. moreover, both schmitz and fuchs will describe this exchange as centrifugal and centripetal dynamics for the centrality of the body (fuchs 2000, p. 120 ). consequently, breathing is not merely a mechanical operation; it relates to how we are present and how we feel present—for example, when feel calm or anxious. thus, the body is inseparable from our sentient, experiential, and thinking existence. regarding somaesthetics, it is important to note that it is not merely aesthetics with "soma" added. thus, a somaesthetic interest is a "critical, meliorative study of the experience and use of one's body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning" (shusterman 2000a, p. 267, italics in original). somaesthetics is about practicing care for one's somatic self-improvement (shusterman 2000a, p. 276), and is not a mere description of the body as it is an intervention into our bodily existence for the sake of improvements. this meliorative practice is the point of difference between somaesthetics and leibphänomenologie. moreover, somaesthetics is not about aesthetics for the sake of art; it is for the sake of living. even if this interest is not as explicitly expressed in phenomenology, i will argue it is, nevertheless, the case. aesthetics is a discipline with surprisingly little consensus as to its definitions. nonetheless, it involves a high degree of reciprocal expectation of one's understanding. in this text, aesthetics is considered as a discipline about how we come to sense, perceive, and exercise our faculty of judgement. i will not elaborate on this view on aesthetics but only suggest that consideration be given to the subtitle of perniola's (2013) book on 20th century aesthetics—"towards a theory of feeling" as well as the themes of its six chapters—life, form, knowledge, action, feeling, and culture. thus, aesthetics is about characterizing objects and situations that are present in intuitions; they are indeterminate yet we wish to determine them. further, it concerns the role of the body in terms of our presence as well as how and what we sense, feel, and perceive. i will begin with an example given by shusterman, demonstrating the importance of the practical approach. i will then proceed to the perspective on the body in leibphänomenologie to identify a possible practical perspective that is comparable to somaesthetics. here, a critical point that will be noted is the idea of meliorative practice. cultivation and self-improvement do not come as easy in phenomenology. next, the lack of hindrance to developing a practical phenomenology as such, and its probable benefits from somaesthetic experiences will be examined. here, i very briefly suggest that both would benefit from a more elaborate understanding of aesthetics as sensorial cognition. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 47 carsten friberg the question of practicality shusterman's aforementioned example concerns why hierarchies of power, such as gender oppression, are maintained and reproduced despite explicit desires to do differently. the answer is that such hierarchies become bodily habits and as such, escape our awareness as we see it when "the norm that women of a given culture should speak softly, eat dainty foods, sit with their knees close together, keep the head and eyes down while walking, and assume the passive role or lower position in copulation" (shusterman 2000b, p. 140; cf. 2012, p. 32). the example above addresses how perceptual skills are developed along with bodily training. we learn to perceive—i.e., to distinguish among impressions to filter out the irrelevant from what is considered relevant—after which we learn to act accordingly. hence, when training perceptual skills, we also acquire a world interpretation that determines what is considered irrelevant and relevant. however, because this training implies a bodily dimension, we must pay attention to how we embody and reproduce the social order we necessarily adopt and adapt to. the woman in the aforementioned example acts in accordance with explicit and implicit social expectations and rules. as long as we embody the implicit rules, we maintain the associated world interpretation, even though it is we explicitly speak against it. consequently, it is insufficient to only describe forms of bodily presence. we must modify them through practice and exercises. the example demonstrates how my physical presence as an individual cannot exclusively be characterized by spatial coordinates and metric specifications. although they are helpful in indicating someone's physical presence in, for example, a legal situation—who was present, where, and when—determining my physical presence does not to determine my presence as an individual person. i am not merely present in a room like an object. i am present to others who affect me like i affect them. the room itself is also not neutral; any room and location will present itself with an ambience or an atmosphere that affects those in it. thus, we are tuned (gestimmt) by rooms (böhme 1995, p. 15). we always find ourselves in both locations and emotional and mental states, for which heidegger's term "befindlichkeit"—variously translated to attunement or disposedness (slaby, 2021)—can be used. moreover, my presence—physically, emotionally, and perceptually—is affected by the physical environment as well as people and social norms. we spend entire lifetimes learning how to practice accordingly and exercise to embody the social rules we sense, including how to walk, sit, and eat. as sentient and bodily beings, we cannot perceive a room or a social situation without being subject to influences that affect how we perceive. consequently, we come to participate in and exercise the embedded structures of power. i will illustrate the aforementioned idea with a personal example. for years, i worked with dancers and actors who were involved in research and told me their encounters with academia were often uncomfortable. the unease was not about the language and format of academic work—such as the implicit references to theories one should apparently know—but rather a discomfort with the bodily codes of one's presence within academia. at first, i did not understand this. while i could relate to feeling uncomfortable about academics' "showing off," which is apparent in many academic settings, the bodily aspect of performing along with these codes was invisible to me. however, after years away from traditional philosophical meetings, on my return, i realized what they meant and could subsequently, experience these dancers' and actors' discomfort regarding their bodily presence among philosophers. unfortunately, this example may remain a mystery to some readers like it was to me. to provide a clearer picture, another example may help. a dancer, tiusainen explains how her somaesthetics and phenomenology48 practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? experimenting with slowing down her body during performance conflicts with spectators' expectations for getting what happens next "in order to move on to the next thing." when performers in "slow performances" do not move on, it can "frustrate the spectators as they [the performers] insist on staying with the activity that the spectator has already recognised," the spectator may, impatiently, think to herself "i get it. now what's next?" (tiusainen, 2010, p. 150). such episodes and experiences belong to everyday situations where we, upon entering a social setting, feel alien to it because we sense the difference between our and others' presences. we feel lost and like we are attracting undesired attention. here, situations can be rather banal, like entering a fast-food restaurant, where everyone is acting like they feel at home; subsequently, we feel that by entering, we are interrupting the flow of the space. on the other hand, situations of power are less banal, like a job interview, where we desire to perform according to the stipulated rules. meanwhile, it is most critical when we are not even aware of the powers that we function within, and thus, actively participate in maintaining them. this is what makes shusterman's example of the woman experiencing a conflict between explicit ideals of gender equality and the practice of submission interesting. his important point about becoming aware of how submission is reproduced is where bodily awareness and training proves crucial. in this context, "training" is the keyword. we learn to perceive in a process of socializing; hence, how and what we perceive depends on our educational and social background. however, this dependency does not imply relativism as the following example demonstrates. whether i read a text by heidegger while sitting in a metropolitan café or in the south german hills, the interpretation should be the same. further, heidegger could have written it in either place. the question is not whether his thinking would have been different if he had been a professor in berlin or working from his wooden hut in todtnauberg. the question is whether he would have been the heidegger we know. thus, the question is, would the sense i make of his text be the same had my life experiences been different. culturally formed perceptions enables a reader to acknowledge certain factors and ignore others, like the example of the dancers in academia. in this context, ahmed (2007) demonstrates this conflict in relation to "whiteness" when she considers "whiteness as a category of experience that disappears as a category through experience, and how this disappearance makes whiteness 'worldly'" (p. 150). more specifically, the idea of whiteness becomes an invisible category to classify perception and orientation, and while our focus is on what it is, we simultaneously become blind to what it does. learning to perceive is not merely to perceive something but to perceive through that something, and the difficulty is in seeing what that something does to our perceiving. thus, there is no discussion on relativism regarding perceived facts; instead, there is one on how the idea of something becoming factual is relative to the interpretation making it apparent. a culturally formed perception makes a distinction perceptible to one but imperceptible to another—a mathematical order is not relative to a cultural environment, but the significance that it has for a culture is. returning to the importance of becoming aware of how perceptual skills are developed along with bodily training, the act of reading can be considered. it is an activity where we are absorbed in mental work, for which we usually believe the body has little or no relevance. however, shusterman (2012) highlightes how readers can "improve their functioning as thinkers by improving their awareness and regulation of their somatic instrument of thought" (p. 37). moreover, we know that in physically stressful situations, it is difficult to fully absorb a text, and we thus request silence in library reading rooms. it is easy to believe that bad sitting habits cause tensions in the neck and that headaches are merely the annoying side effects of reading practice and irrelevant to the reading itself. however, this is not true, and it is important that we learn to the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 49 carsten friberg relax "certain muscle contractions that are not only unnecessary but distractive to thinking" as it will allow for "strengthen[ing] the focus of our mental concentration" (shusterman, 2012, p. 38). relaxation will not cause a different interpretation of heidegger, but it may help in concentration and reading more thoroughly, consequently allowing the reader to obtain a better interpretation. furthermore, as per shusterman's examples, we undertake both problematic habits as well as biases and discrimination despite the belief that we act differently because bodily schema works differently from our conscious awareness. this emphasizes the importance of the bodily training which constitutes the practical dimension of somaesthetics in addition to an analytical and pragmatic (shusterman, 2000a, pp. 271 ff.). in brief the analytical is descriptive; the pragmatic proposes methods for remaking the body and covers a wide field of disciplines; the practical requires us to do what we otherwise only say. here, the question to be asked is whether anything similar to that of practical somaesthetics exists in relation to leibphänomenologie. leibphänomenologie and practice? the interest in the body in leibphänomenologie is concerned with how perceiving and being bodily present is influenced by the environment and further, the impact of this influence on perceptual and bodily skills. this interest can be approached from gallagher's (1995) discussion of what he calls the "prenoetic," which is defined as "the body's nonconscious appropriation of habitual postures and movements, its incorporation of various significant parts of the environment into its own experiential organization" (p. 226). more specifically, a prenoetic factor is body schema—a notion that comes from psychology—that combines with body image, which is the perception, actual or at least potential, of one's body (gallagher, 1995, pp. 226, 229). however, the use of body schema and image is not entirely consistent in the literature. for instance, merleau-ponty uses body schema only to highlight the development from an understanding of "physiological representation" as a "focus of images" to it becoming "an attitude directed towards a certain existing or possible task" (merleau-ponty 1945/2010, pp. 114 f.). variations in definitions are not a concern here. shusterman asks, in his review of gallagher's book how the body shapes the mind —whether the distinction between body schema and image adds something new to the "more familiar 'folk psychology' distinctions such [as] conscious/ unconscious, personal/subpersonal, explicit/tacit, willed/automatic" (p. 153). so far, it can be recognized that the notions play a role in phenomenology as a point of reference, though they are not constitutive of discussions, and it can also be added here that there are parallels between these notions and the pragmatist approach as well (shusterman 2012, pp. 61 ff.). an important difference for gallagher is between body image, i.e. the phenomenal body that we are attentive to or aware of, and the body schema as unconscious. the latter "operates in a holistic, unified way" that allows us to move around objects without bumping into them. it is not something that can be singled out and perceived as a particular part of the body, hence, "the body image is not a veridical representation of the body schema" (gallagher, 1995, p. 230; see fuchs, 2000, pp. 111 ff., and 128 ff.). furthermore, the often excessive interest in the phenomenal body, the körper, as an object for training and exercises, can hide the leib (böhme 2003, p. 120 f.). gallagher (1995) suggests that the body schema is "selectively attuned to its environment" (p. 236). he exemplifies it with the various selective factors involved in catching a ball, such as the physical environment, the effects of one’s practice, and the rules of the game that will "define how i jump to make the catch" (gallagher 1995, p. 236). this can be related to the observation somaesthetics and phenomenology50 practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? of a gender-related difference in the throwing of objects that young (1980) discusses. more specifically, she rejects the idea that the difference between how girls and boys throw an object should be attributed to a "feminine essence," and alternatively suggests three modalities of feminine motility appearing in a specific cultural setting: "that feminine movement exhibits an ambiguous transcendence, an inhibited intentionality, and a discontinuous unity with its surroundings" (young 1980, p. 145). here, it is not her characterization that is interesting—as it can be challenged—but her suggestion that "there is a specific positive style of feminine body comportment and movement, which is learned as the girl comes to understand that she is a girl" (young 1980, p. 153). thus, a girl throws like a girl because of the acquisition of "bodily capacities, habits, and dispositions as they have developed in the course of one's life" that fuchs calls "body memory" (2012, p. 10). the girl has learned to act according to the specific cultural setting's expectations integrated into her body schema. thus, a girl throwing an object is not the way through which another person learns that she is a girl as she learns to make use of her body in the way she is expected to as a girl. she feels and perceives that she, through and through, is a girl. the question here is how she comes to appropriate the behavior of a specific cultural idea— like what it is to be a girl—to the extent where she feels it to be a natural thing to do. this question points at the relation between body, emotions, and acting. and whilst this is a point of agreement, it also highlights a difference regarding a possible meliorative practice between leibphänomenologie and somaesthetics. in this context, i believe compliance exists consistent with goldie's (2000) critique of views that over-intellectualize emotions to see them only as "added-on" (pp. 3 f.). it becomes more complicated to say, like slaby, that the body "as the feeling body [...] is the basis of our deep existential evaluations, and through this the very core of our being as persons" (slaby, 2008, p. 441). we come to discussions about an inner self that may be beyond a meliorative practice yet is essentially related to practice. according to ratcliffe (2005), being a sentient individual "does not simply consist in an experience of being an entity that occupies a spatial and temporal location, alongside a host of other entities. ways of finding oneself in a world are presupposed spaces of experiential possibility, which shape the various ways in which things can be experienced" (p. 47). he calls this background "an existential feeling." i believe this perspective emphasizes the relation of body and self and highlights why the inquiry regarding practical phenomenology is important, while also going beyond the ideals of a meliorative practice. the problem resembles a debate in phenomenology on the difference between a narrative and minimal self—i.e., "an embodied self of which we have a non-observational and non-objectifying awareness" (bortolan 2020, p. 74). perhaps a minimal self is a mere formal structure, in which case it does not influence our self-perception or could be seen as the source of a meliorative practice. additionally, bortolan (2020) argues that if a minimal self is more than a formal structure, it "is to be expected that changes occurring at the level of the narrative self, by impacting on various aspects of affective experience, may have the potential to modify also pre-reflective self-consciousness" (p. 82). meliorative practices in somaesthetics are about deliberately modifying bodily habits. in this context, the debate about a minimal self illustrates whether there is a limitation to the extent of such modifications. further, exercises to modify bodily habits make sense when we are made aware of them; however, it is a different matter when it concerns what is pre-reflective. our feelings and emotions are, as existential feelings, constitutive of our relations with ourselves and our environment, and these sentient aspects are acquired through our bodily existence. in this context, an illustrative example of emotions as constitutive in our relation to others is shame. shame makes us aware of ourselves, as well as our presence to others as we the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 51 carsten friberg sense our own physical reactions, such as turning red and sweating, which reveal our feelings of shame. however, shame is no mere feeling, as it is a matter of befindlichkeit, which affects our perceptions of ourselves, others, and our relations to them as well as our own bodily dispositions (böhme, 2001, pp. 81 ff.). here, the understanding of leib as a centrifugal and centripetal dynamic exchange with the environment in breathing is worth noting. more specifically, breath relates to how we are present and how we feel our own presence. thus, when emphasizing the fundamental character of body, feelings, and emotions in terms of presence, perception, and acting, it can be asked whether leibphänomenologie is only descriptive and falls within what shusterman calls "analytic somaesthetics." in this context, böhme (2003) speaks of leibphilosophie from a pragmatic point of view as the subtitle of his book leibsein als aufgabe is. however, what about the step from pragmatic to practical? if the way a girl throws an object is a consequence of a culturally informed training that forms her somatic appearance in the process to make her subject to ideologies of domination encoded in somatic norms, the obvious next step would be to provide guidance for awareness and intervention for the sake of changing such habits. thus, the question to be asked here is does leibphänomenologie offer such guidance. in search for a practical phenomenology an apparent difference between somaesthetics and leibphänomenologie is between the meliorative cultivation and somatic self-improvement of the former and the, apparently, largely descriptive character of the latter. shusterman (2008) states that "[d]isciplines of somaesthetic awareness are usually aimed not simply at knowing our bodily conditions and habits but at changing them" (p. 65, emphasis in original). in a discussion of merleau-ponty, shusterman calls it "an unfortunate conclusion" (2008, p. 74) when a philosopher makes an effort toward understanding the role of the body and then withdraws from actively engaging in exploring the body's significance and influence on perception and thinking. the problem with such a conclusion is further stressed upon by ratcliffe's (2005) idea of existential feelings as basic "ways of finding oneself in the world," which are importantly "bodily states which influence one's awareness" (p. 48). here, slaby's (2012) embodied sense of ability is worth noting in terms of "i can" and "i cannot" being one's way of feeling "relatedness to the world," which "shapes the way the world, others, and oneself are apprehended" (p. 153). consequently, it is clear why we should then actively seek to work with bodily presence. thus, if leibphänomenologie brings about the recognition of the importance of bodily exercises, similar to somaesthetics, the question is does the need for a practical dimension then resonate with leibphänomenologie. as i have suggested, the difference betrween somaesthetics and leibphänomenologie may be regarding the somatic self-improvement of somaesthetics rather than with the practice itself as such. however, here, it is important to first take a brief look at how shusterman presents practical somaesthetics before examining leibphänomenologie. a. i believe the meliorative cultivation and somatic self-improvement of somaesthetics concern both the art of living—i.e., physical well-being and presence to others—and the art of knowing—i.e., achieving knowledge. moreover, knowing how to be present in a social context requires instruction and training of the senses and the body. here, the pragmatic somaesthetics of describing practices and sharing related experiences is insufficient. instead, we need practical somaesthetics that instructs us on what to do and how to do it. however, currently, i find the literature on somaesthetics is not sufficient in this regard. in light of the aforementioned example somaesthetics and phenomenology52 practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? on embodied hierarchies of power, we should be offered suggestions on how to intervene and create changes. in a chapter on muscle memory, it is emphasized how "intersomatic memories […] can help explain why ethnic and racial prejudices prove extremely resistant to rational arguments of tolerance" (shusterman 2012, p. 97). the chapter is rich with concrete examples, but no guidance if we want to know how to prevent acting with prejudices against others because they are part of somatic presence and behavior. can i discover the prejudices by myself through a series of awareness-building exercises? or is it necessary for others to tell me? what exercises can i undertake in order to prevent myself from reproducing behavior that i wish to distance myself from? the most concrete chapter on this is probably "somaesthetics in the philosophy classroom" (shusterman 2012, pp. 112 ff.). it opens with an example of what a lesson in practical somaesthetics could sound like. still, it does not resemble what i can read about actors' training in which concrete exercises are done for specified purposes. for example, chekov enlists specific exercises in his on the technique of acting so why not a similar book on practical somaesthetics? i am sure it would be something of a challenge to the standard class in philosophy, and shusterman (2000a) expresses his skepticism about asking students to lie on the floor, lift weights, and perform yoga postures or even just sing and dance (p. 279). nevertheless, uncommon as it is, it is not impossible. i have, in my own teaching practice, asked university students to step out on the floor and do simple exercises. the purpose has been to make them experience a change in their awareness and perception in relation to performing simple tasks. of course, such small exercises only demonstrate my claim that bodily postures and actions affect perception. classroom exercises will not change a girl's way of throwing objects as it is not a matter of swinging the arm, but of embodying a cultural ideology. the matter is complex, and leibphänomenologie offers awareness of this complexity, not for the sake of self-improvement but to prevent self-improvement from becoming self-delusion. b. böhme speaks in terms of bodily existence, leibsein, from a pragmatic point of view because he sees the body as a task (aufgabe). we are not simply our bodies, but we are confronted by it in a practical and interpretive manner. moreover, we experience our bodies as independent— sometimes helping and otherwise resisting us (böhme, 2003, p. 34). our bodies are given to us in different ways, and very directly in responses such as pain; however, even pain is a matter of interpretation. while all probably feel it in a similar manner, some can explain it as meaningful tests coming from the creator, while others as functional signals in the biological organism (böhme, 2003, p. 107). böhme (2003) states that the body is the nature we ourselves are (p. 63). further, nature is not a pre-cultural phenomenon but is given to us when we differentiate between nature and culture. drawing on this opposition, the body is experienced as something external for us though it is something also present with us. the experience is one that we ourselves make as well as one that is of ourselves (böhme, 2003, p. 68; cf. waldenfels, 2000, p. 189). moreover, there seems to be an endless internal conflict between something given to us that is called nature and our subsequent interpretation of it that aims to conquer nature by making it ours, while we still experience it as something external. the endlessness of this conflict makes it a task—one that involves bringing our consciousness into existence rather than becoming conscious of our existence (böhme, 2003, p. 116). there is an interesting parallel to what the danish philosopher sørensen writes in the introduction to an edition of kierkegaard's begrebet angest (the concept of anxiety) about the fall and sin. whenever such a fall is experienced in our lives, a consequence of it is to the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 53 carsten friberg become aware of our sexuality and the beginning of doubts regarding what has been, until then, taken for granted. however, kierkegaard is not concerned with when it happens, but sørensen suggests that it may be in puberty, which, of course, is paradoxical because we then "fall for the temptation to perceive our fall which for kierkegaard is a manifestation of human freedom, as the most determined of all" (sørensen, 1960/1982, p. 19, my translation). however, freedom is not about acting despite given conditions—this is called defiance, and defiance is considered a sin in the christian tradition. instead, freedom is to interpret acts as self-inflicted. thus, the self can be interpreted to be in discord from the outside as a biologically determined development in an object, or from the inside as a psychologically inexplicable leap from innocence to guilt—i.e., when it is experienced as a subject (sørensen, 1960/1982, pp. 20 f., cf. böhme, 2003, pp. 320 ff.). even if kierkegaard is not writing about the body but the subject as spirit, which is a synthesis, a parallel can be drawn to the experience of struggling with synthesizing nature that we are despite also feeling that we are not. here, it is worth noting that böhme (2003) also acknowledges this parallel (p. 72). experiencing the bodily changes in puberty is an experience of our bodies that is still ours even though we feel alienated by it, and an interpretation is required to make it ours again. although this task does not require the help of god, like the spiritual drama does for kierkegaard, it is still a dramatic and life-long task. it is an experience of confrontation with the body formed through the influences of society, cultural norms, and education that we actively participate in. it is an experience where we come to feel it natural to feel and act as well as acquire a habitus, like we do: "the habitus becomes a second nature which effectively guides one's behaviour, all the more as it is not conscious as a habitus" (fuchs, 2016, p. 204, emphasis in original). the aforementioned example on shame can again exemplify the meeting point between the body and feelings, which are formed and intermediated by norms. considering shame briefly, it serves well to demonstrate how fundamentally social ideals leave traces in us, forming our world-relations beyond our conscious control. throughout our lives, we adopt and adapt to such ideals. thus, we undergo training that later may need practical somaesthetic adjustments to be corrected. this process of learning is not about acquiring instrumental competences to handle the world; instead, it is a type of learning through which we change our world-relation. here, it could be said that we take the world into possession (waldenfels, 2000, pp. 167 f.) and that "the body [leib] is the medium through which a world as such appears" (waldenfels, 2000, p. 249, my translation). however, what we do not take into possession but rather takes possession of us, is the other person. our response to the other is a "bodily resonance that feeds back into the feeling itself " where our "body is affected by the other's expression, and we experience the kinetics and intensity of his emotions through our own bodily kinaesthesia and sensation" (fuchs, 2016, p. 198). the other, waldenfels adds, appears as something i feel (spüre) in me (waldenfels 2000, p. 272), and the gaze of the other is not something in my world but what reveals and discloses my world to me (waldenfels, 2000, p. 384). a very banal but nevertheless fundamental observation here is that we do not know most of our own different gestures and facial expressions—we have never seen them ourselves, and we only know of them through others (waldenfels, 2000, p. 221). this importance of the other is recognized as being significant in more phenomenological analyses, perhaps best known is in the third part of jean-paul sartre's being and nothingness. waldenfels elaborates on it in relation to discussions of gender. with the examples of genderbiased hierarchies and girls throwing objects, the question of how these hierarchies form our bodily habits and perceptual skills should be kept in mind. the questions to be asked here are how they become embedded into our world-relation and how we can change them, which seems somaesthetics and phenomenology54 practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? an obvious consequence of examples like shusterman's about hierarchies of power. moreover, following waldenfels' (2000) work, we do not experience the particular character of ourselves before the other, but in relation to and as a response to the other (p. 340). gender and sexuality are inseparable and fundamental to any social role and essential for forming identities in the eyes of others. shame can again be considered an example of how this education and struggle with norms is inextricably bound to the body that can reveal insecurities about our positions in relation to social rules—or how they have been embodied and reveal a conflict between embodied conscience and intended acts. we find these interests and conflicts to appear in the body, leib, which waldenfels (2000) calls a web of different, multiple, gender relations and gender roles (p. 357). imitation is a fundamental element when learning how to throw an object, through which we can learn the best instrumental use of the body to avoid overstraining muscles and doing harm to ourselves. however, it is something different when we imitate power structures and through that imitation, also participate in them. the learning process also implies the forming of our body schema beyond enabling us to perform practical tasks. like that of our body schema, we likewise form sexual schema (waldenfels, 2000, p. 327). c. we do not, or so it seems, find something in phenomenology that directly answers the request for meliorative cultivation and somatic self-improvement. on the other hand, it seems that we do also not find that in somaesthetics either. nevertheless, while both ask for the awareness of the importance of practical somatic training for social beings who appropriate social norms, the idea of self-improvement in somaesthetics may fall short of the more complex aspect of the self as the examples of bodily alienation, shame, and sexuality ought to illustrate. more specifically, becoming aware of bad body posture while reading and writing—which causes pain in my neck and affects my concentration and, consequently, my intellectual work as i lose track of what i should focus on to perform well—is not comparable to becoming aware of socially embodied powers. shusterman addresses the latter and makes it clear that it is a matter of bodily awareness and training to intervene in such situations and perhaps, change them. however, there is a lack of suggestions that move beyond analytical and pragmatic somaesthetics to the practical. searching for a practical phenomenology that resembles a practical somaesthetics seems to be the wrong choice because the complexity of the bodily structures conditioning our presence in the world are not easily targeted in the quest for self-improvement and cultivation. further, a phenomenological approach is more cautious about what improvement means and is concerned about the danger of becoming blind to how somatic training is itself embedded in practices. additionally, bodily training is in danger of being directed towards the körper at the risk of forgetting the leib. in fact, forgetting the leib can sometimes be the condition for improvement of the körper (böhme, 2003, p. 121). when shusterman directs his critique at merleau-ponty for not taking an interest in changing bodily conditions and habits, he addresses the impression that phenomenology is a descriptive endeavor. above all, we get this impression from the widespread confusion of phenomenology with phenomenality—i.e., descriptions of phenomena. writers call such work "phenomenological," but phenomenology is no mere description and is instead a philosophical investigation of the origin and legitimacy of descriptions. furthermore, phenomenology is not exclusively descriptive. if the answer to whether we find a practical phenomenology that resembles practical somaesthetics is negative, that to a possible practical phenomenology is not. phenomenology the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 55 carsten friberg is often a partner to empirical and experimental work in other disciplines, and there is no hindrance for such work to proceed into practice. fuch's aforementioned concept of body memory forms a theoretical basis for investigating the influence of movements on cognition regarding the quality of memories (koch et al., 2014). this can inform studies of the impact of movement patterns on depression, where qi gong movements are used for experiments, and hence, it belongs to the pragmatic somaesthetic perspective (michalak, 2018). an obvious step further after learning about the impact of such exercises on depression is to develop concrete practices. another example is in relation to psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, where "a phenomenological perspective could be helpful not just in the understanding, but also in the treatment of similar pathologies. as a matter of fact, conceiving schizophrenia as a disturbance of the basic embodied self allows us to think about the possible development of new bodily and movement-oriented therapies" (bizzari, 2018, p. 50). finally, a last example is the use of phenomenology in relation to therapeutic empathy (bizzari et al., 2019; fernandez & zahavi, 2021). moreover, we must, of course, distinguish between different disciplines learning from and cooperating with phenomenology, but there is nothing to stop leibphänomenologie from developing a practical aspect. in comparison to somaesthetics, it will appear less ambitious regarding ideals of self-improvement, but a practical dimension will contribute to investigating and training somatic habits to gain awareness of elements constitutive of feelings and perceptions and to intervene into them and change them. we already do this, and it is how we come to adopt them in the first place. however, a clearer focus is needed with regard to our practices, including awareness of how to direct them towards our acquisition of concrete habits. thus, at this point, leibphänomenologie should move toward somaesthetics and aesthetics. a final note on aesthetics when asking for practices, the accompanying question is what should be asked for. perhaps, it is too much to ask for a concrete program of exercises, even if it could be said that it would be much appreciated as a means of addressing hierarchies of power in bodily habits. here, some may object that asking for concrete exercises is therapy and not philosophy. however, such objections can be rejected as they are made on the basis of the assumption that perceiving, interpreting, and thinking are performed independently from sensorial and bodily relations. however, we have established that this is not the case. during our lives, we do, in fact, practice multiple exercises to learn to perceive and socialize. these practices are often sensorial—i.e., aesthetic. here, two brief notes on aesthetics will be my concluding suggestion. aesthetics is a discipline of the "in between." as kant claimed, the starry heavens and moral law can fill our mind with wonder and awe, but in between the stars and the law, we stand as sensorial and bodily beings. the theoretical and practical knowledge bringing us to the heavens and the law are universal, yet we wish this knowledge to be at the disposal for us as concrete beings. the in between is about finding meaning in the concrete and making the universal meaningful for us; it is to ensure that knowledge, which is intense in its logical clarity but poor in its concrete presence, is complemented with something that is impure, yet rich in phenomenal presence. the intensity of concepts and the extension of phenomenal quality is what baumgarten calls "logic" and "aesthetics," respectively. in something concrete and present, we may feel the presence of something more, which we come to understand, even if it is, to some extent, different from somaesthetics and phenomenology56 practical phenomenology: does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology? conceptual understanding. this is why, as aristotle mentiones in his poetics, we enjoy looking at images (1448 b15). thus, aesthetics is a form of knowledge related to feelings, which leave an impact on us and form us. shusterman (2012) offers a wonderful reflection on somatic style that captures this double aspect of aesthetics that includes knowledge and education (pp. 315 ff.). the reflection appears as a conclusion to the importance of the body for education in the humanities, with which he opens his book. the style is not simply a style of writing and thinking as one may be tempted to think in relation to humanistic education. style is the full presence of the other person, where a somatic style can be one of gender (shusterman, 2012, p. 323). such a style is obviously not a superficial performance that can be randomly picked up and exchanged with other styles. it is one we exercise and appropriate; further, we make it ours. we exercise and perform because "somatic schemata of perception, action, and feeling should be central to one's personality rather than being a superficial adornment" (shusterman, 2012, p. 333). thus, when the style really becomes our personality, it starts to look natural. we exercise and perform because we want to be included in social groups and recognized by their members. however, we cannot always foresee what the outcome will be, and often, we do not even care because our primary concern is the recognition. and just as often, we are not even aware of the implications and consequences of what we do, such as participating in maintaining structures of power that we do not want to be part of or want to be existing. i believe this is a point of shared interests between somaesthetics and leibphänomenologie, where awareness of the need for a practical dimension is generated. however, i believe that both disciplines stop short of it. further, an inclusion of aesthetics as a philosophy of sensorial cognition—i.e., a theory of feeling—offers an awareness of practices that we, in fact, already engage in. thus, the request of practical somaesthetics or leibphänomenologie is perhaps more a matter of paying attention to what we already practice to increase awareness hereof, take possession of it, and exercise accordingly. acknowledgements i wish to thank liselotte hedegaard and nele kadastik for language suggestions and corrections. references ahmed, s. 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(1980). throwing like a girl: a phenomenology of feminine body comportment, motility and spatiality. human studies, 3, 137–156. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 30 page 30–43lukáš makky aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city lukáš makky abstract: the paper will deal with the notion of the experience (as a crucial term of aesthetic theory) of the city, especially the aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience. the understanding of experience will be based on john dewey (1980), richard shusterman (1999), maria bukdahl (2012), virgil c. aldrich (1963), and walter benjamin (1935 [1969]). in dialogue with richard shusterman, we will illustrate two levels of experience: a) the somatic (almost biological) level of experience and b) a second level of experience that requires some intellectual evaluation: interpretation. introduction it may sound paradoxical considering the expansion of a somaesthetics (based on experience) and the fact that aesthetic experience is a central notion of everyday aesthetics (in contrast to aesthetic of art); considering the position of aesthetic experience in general, but the notion of aesthetic experience was intensely challenged in previous decades. th past two years were, from the theoretical point of view, so extreme that they even questioned the very need (or even necessity1) of aesthetic experience and required some sort of revision.2 if we accept3 aesthetic experience as a crucial term of aesthetics theory, and at the same time, the most common tool for aesthetic appreciation, and any aesthetic evaluation of the human environment, fine art, everyday realities or the human body... the weakening of it is something that we need to be wary of. nevertheless, the new situation of the human environment that took shape over almost two years was, in the absence of possibilities and obvious aesthetic stimuli, theoretically interesting. 1 from welschian’s (1990) point of view, there can be the counter-argument that it was not the existence of aesthetic experience that was in danger, but we all grew ignorant, or overwhelmed by aesthetic impulses and stimuli, but in fact, the situation was different, because our reality changed and the aesthetic impulses have weakened or reduced in number, not by our own doing. 2 this need for revision was caused by the isolation (physical, aesthetic, personal…) of recipients and the absence of obvious aesthetic stimuli. i use the past tense because this need has appeared during the last two years, but it was never fulfilled, and the need to review, reexamine, and reformulate aesthetic experience is, in my opinion, still valid. we cannot deny that some structures and mechanisms of our everyday life and reality (including aesthetic experience) changed drastically. 3 a great part of the present paper could discuss the relevance and importance of aesthetic experience, but this sceptical approach would not be productive in any sense or way, and it would broaden the paper. if anybody (excluding john dewey as an obvious, but not contemporary, choice) needs to be mentioned, in the recent but systematic analysis of aesthetic experience, it is n. caroll (2002, 2012), a. h. goldman (2013), g. iseminger (2013), and r. shusterman (1997). caroll, goldman, and shusterman tried to redefine aesthetic experience and define the nature of aesthetic experience, but at the same time challenged the criticism of the given notion. for all the valid criticism, please see all of them. body, space, architecture31 aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city the most potent environment (at any time) that offer many possible aesthetic situations and objects (including fine art, which cannot be excluded), can be understood as a complex aesthetic phenomenon and is capable of stimulating the revision of aesthetic experience in any sense or form is the main issue of this paper: the city as a special environment; world in itself. however, even this kind of environment, or perception of this environment, has been challenged during the past two years.4 the city will be, in this paper, understood in the most general sense as an urban space inhabited by its dwellers (this is one of the most important aspects of understanding the city as an object of somaesthetic interaction and somaesthetic examination). composed of streets, alleys, squares, roads, different kinds of nature, etc., but especially of different architectural forms. architecture is a defining aspect of the shape and understanding of the city, a structure5/ skeleton of the city: the most important aspect, layer, dimension… of the city. architecture as a representation of space (zervan, 2022)6 creates the space of the city and creates visible boundaries of the urban environment. if we experience the city, we most often establish our experience on the reception of the buildings, and architectural objects, on their relation, connection, harmony, inconsistency or their urban placement and so on (structure and position in general). architecture gives us the frame for the experience (see shusterman, 2012b) and at the same time determines the urban situation that we are experiencing, because when we experience the city, we experience this situation that we are part of. urban situation is, therefore, a complex situation containing many processes when the aesthetic subject is no longer a distanced, nonparticipative recipient of the city, but becomes a part of the city, that he/she experiences by himself. he/she is not a passive element anymore, but becomes an active agent of the city. the issue of the recipient of the city, and dweller or inhabitant of the city, will be explored as an imperative part of the forthcoming analysis, because the participation of the recipient on a phenomenon or its distance is still an issue of discussion. what is crucial is that the somaesthetic and aesthetic aspects of the city (aspects that are dependent on a special type of attitude towards the objects) determines the character of the experience, and also modulates and specifies our perception of the urban situation. the understanding of experience will be based on john dewey (1980), richard shusterman (1999), maria bukdahl (2012), virgil c. aldrich (1963), and walter benjamin (1935 [1969]), but in opposition to shusterman’s understanding of experience as something more dominant, relevant, and important than interpretation. the position of interpretation will be more important, or at least equal to experience. although shusterman’s main goal was to "resurrect" interest in the body as a somatic tool of experience and, therefore, deny everything that can undermine a bodily interaction with aesthetic facts (see shusterman 1998, 2000, 2012), this 4 the way of experiencing the city and the human environment was also influenced. there was a time when the dwellers were afraid to walk freely in the street, and some paranoia from this period surely influenced our habits of experience in the city. john dewey (1980, p. 4) states that the city can be aesthetically interesting only in its relationship to the recipient, only if the city "becomes an experience for [a] human being". however, what happens when there is no inhabitant in the city? it may sound like some scene from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie, but we have all experienced this kind of situation at least once in the last two years. we were maybe living in a city where there was a lockdown or saw some images of these kinds of cities. however, first of all, the space that we were living in is also the part of environment. it was still our flat/ house, but at the same time, it was something very different. we were living in a space that resembled a prison and this claustrophobia of space began to influence our experience: urban, aesthetic, somaesthetic… at the same time, the existing place became a background or a "cover" for virtual reality, a virtual environment that we used to live in. the virtual environment even become more real than the real one and for some people it was difficult to distinguish between different realities, because they could, or must, access the theatre, work, shops… from their home: from the same spot sitting behind a computer. 5 structure is understood here in the structuralistic sense as something that has its layers in some structured manner, as something that is in constant dialectical relationship and every element is, in a dynamical sense, approaching other elements. in the case of architecture and the city, and its perception, this is a dynamic part of the experience (see for example: mukařovský, 1966; sériot, 2014) 6 r. shusterman (2012b) speaks about architecture as an articulation of the space. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 32 lukáš makky effort was motivated by the defense of popular art (suitable area for somaesthetic research), and his argumentation is defined by this motivation. shusterman based his advocacy on bodily experience that is, in his opinion, not something inferior to aesthetic experience of art, but something totally different, because the rationality (base for interpretation) is excluded from this intensive, somatic experience. in dialogue with shusterman, we can state a hypothesis which will be illustrated in the paper; there are always two levels7 of experience: a) a somatic (almost biological) level of experience and b) a second level of experience that requires some intellectual evaluation.8 it is necessary to note that these levels of experience are not something that distinguish the quality of experience nor something that can be hierarchized in any sense. yuriko saito (2017) indicates that even the (b) "second level of experience" could be something inferior to the (a) "somatic level" in the case of intensity. the paper will deal with the notion of aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city. all three experiences will not be understood as something different or hierarchized, but rather as different forms or concretizations of experience that are not in contradiction and even share some common ground (somatic level). even if their relation and connection will not be explained further in detail,9 we need to note that all of them are connected. somatic experience as a base for every experience (the body as an original receptor) can result in aesthetic, or somaesthetic experience. at the same time, it is a part of them both, because there is no experience without the body, and can dispose of aesthetic aspects. somatic experience is always the base, and aesthetic and somaesthetic experience are its complex extensions. urban experience, as a more general notion and more wholesome phenomena, will be understood as a complex experience of the city: an unspecified experience of the urban situation that includes all the other types and kinds of experiences specific for the city. the paper will be divided into three main parts. in the first chapter, the notion of (aesthetic) experience will be discussed in general, although we will use some "unorthodox" authors (as stated above), therefore the understanding of the nature of experience will slightly differ from the widespread understanding of experience.10 the dominant and central understanding of experience in this paper can be defined by categories of particularity, interaction, activity, and originality, with the emphasis on experiencing either the aesthetic or the somaesthetic level of reality. the second part of the paper will focus on the recipient/dweller of the city as a necessary condition for any kind of experience, and, at the same time, almost an ontological condition for the existence of the city as an environment. the question raised by our participation in city life: "when does the experience of the city start" will be the leitmotif for this analysis. even if we quite often use the notion of recipient as a typical notion of aesthetic theory, we need to emphasize that his/her participation and activity in the life of the city are necessary for the existence of any possible experience. if we are only perceiving something, we are not a part of the city, and we cannot experience it. the last part will review the specifics of urban experience (with the focus on aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience). therefore, the paper will claim that 7 i would like to speak about levels, or layers, because this levelling is applicable for different kinds of experience. yuriko saito (2017) speaks in a similar way about the degrees of aesthetic sensibility and argues that aesthetic experience is not only the experience that has the most aesthetic influence. even the less visible, or appreciative, aesthetic experience is good enough to be called aesthetic experience. therefore, aesthetic experience is not something that is related only to fine art, or to the most visible experience, or to the experience with the strongest effect. 8 at the conference the promise of pragmatist aesthetics: looking forward after 30 years, which took place on 25-28 may 2022 in budapest, r. shusterman stressed, in the discussion, that his own theory was always based on the assumption of the existence of two types of meaning: the articulable and the inarticulable 9 i challenged this distinction in the paper the soma and the city: a critical approach (makky, 2021). 10 for a contemporary viewpoint on aesthetic experience and for a different approach towards the nature of experience, see caroll, 2002. body, space, architecture33 aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city the quality and intensity of urban (including aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic) experience, as an experience of the city depends on the activity and participation of the city dweller and is modified by the information that we have at our disposal, and can be changed due to the interpretation and evaluation of the experience itself. 1. (aesthetic) experience: general understanding as a theoretical background john dewey (1980, p. 35) is convinced that: "experience occurs continuously, because the interaction of live creature and environing conditions is involved in the very process of living." every day, every moment, we are in the constant process of experiencing something, even if we do not realize it. this experience does not need to be really intense or aesthetic all the time (the possibility of aesthetic experience is enough: see mukařovsky, 1966 for eng. translation see mukařovský, 2015), but it is constantly present, and it offers a methodological frame for the examination of every aesthetic fact, object, or phenomenon. we acquire11 most of the information about the world through experience, and only because of it. we, as recipients do not choose to experience something; we are experiencing it. this constant process of experiencing could be understood as a place for a critique, because in its banality it does not distinguish anything, but at the same time it shows the range of perceptive abilities of man. naturally, we can ignore some aspect of our everyday life, and shift our focus onto something else, but if we decide so after gaining some information (after the interaction with phenomena that we choose to avoid), or, after first impressions, we cannot any longer ignore it as something that is not a part of our experience. if we already perceive something, it is part of our everydayness and our experience; we cannot delete it. another crucial fact is that even if the experience is a really broad and indistinguishable notion as such, we can identify practical, urban, every day, aesthetic, somatic, scientific… experience. therefore, all of them are still a kind of experience, but they have different characteristics, nature, and focus.12 the city is, from this point of view, nothing extraordinary, because as a dweller of a city, we experience it constantly, and even if we are just a visitor to another city, we cannot stop experiencing this new situation. however, at the same time, it does not matter if we experience something trivial, or something new. we experience even the city that we live in, and although we know it so well, the experience could or should be different every time. it is a never-ending loop of experience, even when the intensity and degree of experience fluctuate a lot. any experience is based on the interaction of a subject (recipient, participator, dweller) and the object, or environment that they perceive. richard shusterman (2007) emphasizes the somatic aspect (somatic naturalism) of this interaction, anticipated already by dewey (1980), and his methodology and approach resulted in somaesthetics. he put aesthetic experience and the human body, which serves as a mediator of all perception, action, and cognition in the center of his own theory, and he even puts the body, experience, and environment in direct connection. somaesthetics can also be, in this context, defined as "the critical […] study of the experience and the use of one´s body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation […]" (shusterman, 1999, p. 302). shusterman (2006) is convinced that we are actively undergoing aesthetic experience and accepting the situation as it influences us. he criticized the understanding and position of 11 i would like to emphasise the words: “to acquire” and “most of the information”. if we speak about experience, we acquire the information, but the understanding and critical evaluation of this information is not automatically a part of experience. therefore, if we need something more than information, we need to interpret it, to understand it, not just to experience it, and even if this experience can be aesthetically pregnant, we need some kind of evaluation. 12 the approach that we choose to take is the answer to how to distinguish between different kinds of experience (see: mukařovský, 1966). the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 34 lukáš makky aesthetic experience in the field of art, especially the most common conception of aesthetic experience as a valued experience. therefore, when somebody describes aesthetic experience (according to him) he basically suggested "that it is very likely to be valuable" (shusterman, 2006, p. 219). however, everyday aesthetics had shown us a couple of times that the aesthetic experience is not a guarantee of a real influential or significant value, but rather a revelation about the possibility of valuable aesthetic phenomena. shusterman (2000) criticized the notion of aesthetic experience as "value", because it was in direct contradiction to his appreciation of popular art based on experience, and it was partially responsible for the distinction of the categories of high and low art. therefore, he denies this axiological understanding of experience as its main characteristic and only "admits" its not-dominant existence. an important element of shusterman’s and even dewey’s thinking is the distinction and relationship between experience and interpretation. shusterman (1990) has consistently (even to the present day: see footnote 8) held the opinion that interpretation and understanding differ, or rather: are not the same. he searched for his answers in the field of everyday life, where the constant process of interpretation cannot exist, and some evaluations of the circumstances in which we find ourselves take place almost "instantaneously" and automatically (without any need for interpretation). even when we (according to him) do not interpret, we can reach understanding. it is this preference for understanding and knowledge that shusterman has a problem with, for as he argues (when criticizing the interpretation), "the goal of interpretation is not aesthetic richness per se, but truth or correctness…" (shusterman, 1988, p. 148). this demand of the truth or truth-like claims, building on a correspondence theory of truth and knowledge, is the source of shusterman’s critique of interpretation. interpretation, as a tool for revealing truth, is problematic for him, since he is convinced of the existence of non-articulative contents, or non-discursive knowledge, which the recipient attains quite often. (see shusterman 1998, 2000, 2012). shusterman’s critique of the interpretation is therefore based on different reasons: a) advocacy of popular art focused on the aesthetic experience, b) existence of non-discursive knowledge, c) prioritizing aesthetic analysis over aesthetic interpretation. at the same time, shusterman (2012a, p. 275) mentioned that experience and interpretation "should work together", and we can strongly agree, because recent years have shown us how irreplaceable the interpretation is in the evaluation/understanding of aesthetic experience. the czech pragmatist theoretician zděnka kalnická (2018) reminds us that pragmatism has arisen from the issue of interpretation, and, in a broader sense, we see that shusterman understands this fact. he accepted the meaning and justification of the interpretation, but at the same time, he needed to undermine the position of interpretation in order to defend popular art, and somatic based experience, that understand interpretation as something unnecessary. elsewhere, maria bukdahl (2012), in reaction to richard shusterman, made a valid remark: "the aesthetic experience is never passive; thus, an artwork is not complete until the viewer has experienced and interpreted its particular qualities." as we can see, the interpretation is understood as an integral part of experience. it is not necessary for experience to happen, but it is necessary to understand it. even if shusterman disagrees with this statement, we can find in his conclusions the need for interpretation if the process of aesthetic experience wants to be completed. virgil c. aldrich (1983) thought that aesthetic experience is a specific aesthetic sort of experience that occurs when man interacts with aesthetic objects, phenomena, or activities and therefore it is not something that could be mistaken for something else. it is something original that cannot be repeated. in this regard, we could discuss the possibility of auratic, in the sense of walter benjamin’s theory (1969), value of aesthetic experience: something that is defined by its body, space, architecture35 aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city time and space. aura as a notion of the criticism of reproductive art is bound to tradition but is defined by its creation on a specific time, on a specific moment, that is ephemeral, and eternal at the same time. the time of the creation of some artefact will never change, not even with the creation of a copy, because the copy has a different “time stamp”. the same logic is applied to a spatial aspect: not even the place (with its time relation and layers of meanings) cannot be recreated. all of this is also valid in the case of experience. the originality, non-repeatability, uniqueness of experience inclines to a special kind of aesthetic experience more typical for experiencing fine art, but according to the notion of aura conceived by benjamin, besides man-made artefacts, it could also be "illustrated with reference to […] natural objects " (benjamin, 1969, p. 5). any kind of experience of the urban situation is defined by these two conditions: time and space; the same exact experience cannot be repeated; therefore, any experience is an original. furthermore, experience is not a foreign concept to benjamin. in the critique of reproductive art, he analyzes the concept of aura in the context of tradition (method of the preservation of aura) and cult (the original way of concretization of aura in our world) the base line of which is the experience and participation of a recipient: in other words, no cult rite, can exist without the participation of its participants (active recipients). it almost seems as if aura could be understood as an ontological and perceptive (based on the experience of the subject) notion, or that the ontology of the object of aura could be based on the experience that takes on the characteristics of time and space. according to the above-mentioned approaches, we can distinguish between the following features of aesthetic experience: 1) particularity13: aesthetic experience differs from all other forms of experience with something unspecific14. 2) interaction: experience of the aesthetic object is dependent on the interaction between recipient and object. 3) activity: if the recipient experiences aesthetic experience and is the participant in an aesthetic situation, at that moment he/she is aware of it and actively participates in the experience, activity or event which can later initiate aesthetic interpretation. 4) originality: aesthetic experience is always in some sense original, not-repeatable, and auratic, because we cannot experience the same aesthetic experience again. to participate in an aesthetic experience means to be part of a transformative process, not to be part of something static and permanent. the city with all its alleys, streets, trees, buildings, and parks is a complex environment that requires active recipients; therefore, the dwellers, to interact with it. every day they experience the city, but they always experience something different because the city is in a constant process of changing and the experience is therefore always original: this is realization of the auratic 13 “particularity” is a little bit problematic. according to aldrich (1968), the aesthetic experience differs from all other kinds of experience, but according to dewey (1980), arnold berleant (1986), and nathalie blanc (2013), we should not think in relation of opposition and difference but we should speak about general experience. it looks like we are contradicting each other, but in reality, this conclusion does not create any discrepancy, because we can declare that the aesthetic experience is something special that cannot be replaced by any other kind of experience, maybe with the exception of somaesthetic experience. anyway, this claim does not mean that the other types or kinds of experience are in some way inferior. 14 vlastimil zuska (2002) also declared this position when he spoke about aesthetic distance. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 36 lukáš makky aspect of the experience. they interact with the evanescent aura that proves the originality of the experience because it cannot be replicated, and even if all the stimuli of the city were the same, the mood or psychological state of the recipient would be different, and it will influence or determine the experience as such. the city or its structure cannot be ignored, because if it is, the dweller would be not able to perceive the environment that he/she is living in, he/she is therefore an active agent of the urban experience. all these characteristics of aesthetic experience will be looked at from a different point of view in the next part: the recipient/participant (dweller) as a crucial element of the city will be analysed. 2. the place of the (participative/nonparticipative) recipient in the city: the issue of city dweller a specific aspect of urban aesthetics is the very fact that a recipient is not only an impartial observer but participates in the life of the city themselves: he/she is a part (or one of the aspects) of the city. he/she cannot separate themself from the city or the urban situation that is known to him/her. every action that he/she takes in the city becomes a piece of the city itself, because recipient creates the city at the same time he/she is experiencing it. if you take a photo, take out the trash, smell or plant a flower, walk through the street, socialize with people… you perceive and partly create the city. imagine that you are doing your laundry, and you let it dry on the balcony. with this simple act, which is really banal, mundane, and, from the perspective of the recipient, really irrelevant, you can change the aesthetic effect of the building that you are living in. with this act, the facade of the building will change its colours and some alternation (even short-term) to the city would be made. however, this example does not end here, because if nobody sees your colourful laundry, the alternation of the visual aspect of your buildings is not recognised and, in this case, irrelevant, therefore imagine that some dweller (at this point a valid recipient) is passing by your building and sees the laundry. maybe they just disliked your building, but for some reason, and they do not know why, they feel different today. it is possible that the colourful clothes that you chose to put on the balcony changed everything, because they liked this change, without even knowing it. any aesthetic experience and subsequent aesthetic reflection of the city struggles with this participation (co-creation) on analysed phenomena (creating or perceiving one’s favourite music in the street, pretty colours on the building, nice flowers beside the street, intriguing smells of food/perfume in front of the building) and inability to take the aesthetic distance that is, to some extent, necessary in formulating any rational conclusions (zuska, 2002) or interpretation. on the other hand, with this kind of situation, aesthetic interest and enthusiasm as such arise, which can bring a more intense aesthetic experience (elkins, 2001), and raises the argument of a disinterested approach towards aesthetic objects. according to james elkins, the more critically you approach some aesthetic object (in his analysis, he was speaking about fine art, particularly paintings), the more you lose the authentic and emotional value in the experience. in other words, if you encounter any aesthetic object with some “reservation” or distance towards it, you may not be able to appreciate the object adequately. at the end of elkins’ book pictures and tears: a history of people who have cried in front of paintings (2001) the reader is not really certain if the "ability to cry" in front of a painting (to show some disturbing and extreme emotions) is something that we should strive for, or not. in this line of thinking, elkins does not give us any explicit clues for aesthetically experiencing the city because he distinguishes between people that are able to cry in front of paintings and those that are not, therefore he focuses on the art. he makes the difference body, space, architecture37 aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city between art critics/theoreticians and "common" recipients, and in some sense, he mourns for the times when he was able to (maybe just metaphorically speaking) cry in front of a painting. it is maybe something that is no longer approachable for theorists. having said that, his approach is not totally inapplicable to our issue (otherwise we would not mention it). this distinction of recipients that are able to experience everything in an intense emotional state (tendency towards somaesthetic) and (not always) theoreticians that tend to use "cold" "calculating" intellect is universal in every field of aesthetics. there is a difference between somebody who can look at the streets, on the wall of some old building and feel (not just experience, but feel) something, and somebody who just sees architectural, and historical facts carved in stone. from another methodological point of view, "we can ask" theodor w. adorno (1998), what to do. he also spoke about the situation when empirical experience and knowledge enter into a relationship with artistic/aesthetic experience. he concludes that too much information and empirical knowledge disturbs our aesthetic experience of fine art and the same can be said in application to architecture and the city. what happens if somebody is experiencing a renaissance building in the centre of a modern city? probably he/she will sooner or later ask themself why is there only one historical building and will confront the visible reality or maybe question the age of the building, because either the building is the only survivor of the old city (what is almost unbelievable), therefore something must have happened with the city in the past, or this building is a copy, or some modern, pseudo-historical monument. in this situation, we can appreciate the building, the structure of it, the colour, some ornaments, etc., but our understanding, and maybe the intensity of our experience will be different. in the first case, we implement the information in the experience of the city, and the understanding of the building as a monument of the past (the last survivor), will change our view on the whole city, its atmosphere and it will modulate our experience to be more sentimental. in the second case, we just understand and experience the building as a beautiful piece of architecture, in a modern city that stands up. these two possibilities show us the difference between valuable experiencing of a building, and therefore the city, and between experiencing some ordinary aspects of the building that gives us some aesthetic satisfaction. from both examples, we can read a theoretical tendency, or need to choose between subjective and objective positions, and maybe the dilemma if we need to take a distance from the object of our experience. however, this problem lies maybe in a wrong understanding of the notion of aesthetic distance. vlastimil zuska (2002) pointed out that even if we need distance to some extent and for some reason, in the process of aesthetic distance, we are distancing ourselves from something. that means that we decide what the subject of that distance will be, and what not, or what will the object of our aesthetic apperception be, and what not. in short, aesthetic distance (in extreme circumstances) is not a tool for being objective, and scientifically clear but it is another misleading way of making aesthetic interaction more complicated and less complex. aleksandra lukaszewicz alcaraz (2017, p. 3) speaks in similar way in her analysis of arnold berleant’s approach. she explains that our involvement and participation is "always an involvement in a certain environment" with which we are in constant connection. to sum up, every time we need to decide something from some point of view, we are bound to this position, to this point, and our decision is made according to it. this is the limit of every interaction, experience, and every examination and it does not matter if we are personally involved in the experienced process or not. it is logical to participate, or to be involved in the city that we are living in. to borrow a part of r. shusterman´s (2000) conclusions of defending popular art; what is wrong with the aesthetic phenomena that give us so much pleasure? if we like a building, and the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 38 lukáš makky in response, also the whole street or city, just because a building is in our favourite colour, or because it is from our favourite historical period or artistic style, why should we take a distance in our experience. it is likely that we have good reasons to like this concrete building, or artistic style. moreover, if we accept the comments of elkins and adorno, we can implement the right amount of information in this kind of participatory experience, and set up our distance, and vice versa. if we combine the right amount of information, with our personal feelings or preferences, it will make the interpretation of experience more valid, and more complex. however, partial conclusions will sound more valid after arnold berleant’s (1986, 2017) comments on the notion of disinterestedness. 3. (aesthetic and somaesthetic) experience and the city arnold berleant (1986) expressed, in the paper, cultivating and urban aestehtics, two crucial facts about urban aesthetic: 1) we need to analyse the experience of the city; in detail, all the aspects that the subject can identify and experience and knowingly define from the interaction with the city, and 2) the position or significance of the human body (“bodily consciousness”15) in such an experience. berleant did not exclude personal feelings, or any kind of intimate interaction with the city, from his research, because he was aware that even this kind of interaction is a part of the urban experience. he latter evaluated it in the concept of disinterestedness when he argues that it does not mean a lack of interest but “rather not having appreciation distracted by outside interests” (berleant, 2017, p. 10). the common notion of the opposition of disinterestedness and involvement/interestedness is not valid, and the dialectical relationship between those two notions is not really that simple. the recipient can experience some aesthetic phenomena either in engagement with the phenomena or in a disinterested state of mind, where he is focused only on the aesthetic phenomena or object. thomas leddy argues that disinterestedness can open “one to new perspective[s]”. he even discusses the possibility that “[a] disinterested perception can contribute to engagement with an aesthetic object" (leddy, 2017, p. 74). berleant introduced, in this regard, the concept of aesthetic engagement. an alternative to aesthetic disinterestedness, that originated in the notion "to engage" (in the aesthetic sense) with something, and not just research or observe something. this engagement is in some sense more personal and intimate. "to be engaged in a relation of resonance means to feel addressed (angesprochen) by something valuable that affects me and to respond to it by acting adequately" (diaconu, 2017, p. 43). aesthetic engagement rejects the dualism of subject and object, where aesthetic experience is understood as the subjective appreciation of an object and rather underlines the "contextual character of aesthetic appreciation" (berleant, 2013). berleant solves the theoretical issue when he suggests that the object and subject of aesthetic interaction do not have to be separated and introduced the theory of aesthetical field(s) (diaconu, 2017), based on four principal components: appreciator, the object, activity or event, and factor that activates the field of situation (berleant, 2017).16 to be able to experience the city, we need to be part of this (urban) situation and engage with the city, and at the same time, we need to experience the city in a context, which means that we implement gained information in the experience and another interpretation at the same time. the contextualization of the information that is needed for a more valid and complex experience is necessary and this combination of experience, interpretation of them, and implementing them to another experience is a never-ending loop. 15 he explain this bodily consciousness as "thoughtful, perceiving organism" (berleant, 1986). 16 in the aesthetic field, "there is no separation between the components, but a continuous exchange in which they act on each other" (berleant, 2017, p. 10). body, space, architecture39 aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city the other aspect of berlant’s understanding of urban aesthetics, human body, is from the somaesthetic point of view, explained as a receptive tool that helps us gain any information about our environment, our reality that we need even if something needs to be done with this information. r. shusterman (2012b, p. 223) even understands the body (soma) as a "composite structure through which we live." berleant (1986) was convinced that in the process of experiencing the city, cultural and historical meaning, and data of sensory awareness fuse together in a "medium of sensibility". in this notion of sensibility, he tries to combine senses and meaning (berleant, 1986), so in the analysing of urban aesthetics he demands a part of experience based on bodily interaction, and another part that can only be the outcome of an interpretation. in his understanding of urban experience, we can see the connection with the soma, because the body is at the centre of it all. all the senses that we usually use can increase our sensitivity of all the aspects of the city, and strengthen our interaction and connection with the environment that we are living in. in this kind of understanding, we can agree with mirza turšič’s (2019) thoughts about the engagement of individuals in a "particular sort of imaginative play" when the past, "latent reality", and perceived reality combine. this combination and also cooperation of past and present are crucial for any kind of experience and interpretation. from the somaesthetic point of view, in agreement with berleant, we understand bodily reactions as natural components of our existence. we cannot interact with the city without our body and biological receptors: we can experience only what we see, what we smell, what we touch, and what we hear. therefore, everything is bound to our senses. it is clear that, in somaesthetic experience, the body is a source, and also, central tool of sensory examination of the realities and had its dominant position, but we cannot deny that a similar significance and emphasis also lies on the body in aesthetic experience, especially in the issue of urban aesthetics: the body is important for aesthetic and for somaesthetic experience to the same extent. if the body is a tool to gain information about our environment, it cannot be bound only to one kind of experience, or only to urban experience as a complex kind of experience. the somatic experience, as a first level of experience, is, therefore, a general level of every experience. we gain the necessary perceptive information through our senses and because of our body, only one thing that changes (from this perspective) is the focus, motivation, and approach that we choose in the realisation of the second level of experience. in the dialogue between berleant and shusterman, we need to make one statement: interpretation and experience is not something different, but a practice that needs to cooperate, or fuse together to create a complex experience: an urban experience per se. interpretation helps us to understand all the implications and nuances of our experience, and experience gives us new opportunities to interpret more. let’s imagine that we are walking on the streets of a city from the middle ages, and we are used to seeing, in this type of city, some castle or fortress. the most basic impulse of a recipient is to look up and try to find this kind of building or monument on a hill. our experience of the city is limited by this movement of our body and with this kind of focus, because our experience cannot be free until find this fortress. we can miss a lot of the city, until we find the castle. afterwards, we can experience this kind of city as a typical medieval city and we will maybe come to the belief that this building has been a monument in this city for centuries. our movement and experiencing of the city will be defined by this one crucial reality, and it will frame our experience and understanding of the city although what will happen with the experience of the city if we discovered that the appearance of the city is not a matter of centuries, but just relatively recent changes or urban structure? the city of malaga (spain) is this kind of city, the kind of city that gives you the impression that you are visiting another medieval city in andalusia. everything is there: narrow streets, alleys, trees, the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 40 lukáš makky a castle (alcazaba, figure 1) and even a fortress (gibralfaro), but the experience changes when you realize that alcazaba was, nearly seventy years ago, full of low-class houses and did not look like a castle (figure 2) even if it is a medieval castle. you cannot experience this information, you can only implement it into the experience, but you need to interpret it, and evaluate what does it mean for your experience and for the city. the current appearance of the city is bound to this reconstruction motivated by the effort to create an authentic andalusian city. when we focus our experience on this one fact, we can miss other aspects of the city that are present in the experience like the smell of salt from the sea, the breeze, the sound of the sidewalks when we are walking on them, and so on. therefore, our experience of the city radically changes when we implement all the necessary information and interpret the whole situation. we can ignore the information, and just enjoy the city as we see, smell, and touch it, and we can also include the information, and the interpretation of them into the experience and experience our emotions and information in a symbiosis. both approaches give us a different experience, but neither one of them is better or worse. however, we will definitely experience a different city without this gained information, which needs to be interpreted and implemented into the experience process. figure 1 alcazaba, malaga, spain (author of photography: lukáš makky) body, space, architecture41 aesthetic, somatic, and somaesthetic experience of the city figure 2 alcazaba in year 1910, malaga, spain. source: https://www.malaga.us/attractions/alcazaba-malaga/ conclusion the aim of this paper was not to analyse the difference between somatic, somaesthetic, and aesthetic experience, but merely to comment on all three of them in the context of the city, as the main form of urban experience. the focus of the analysis was on aesthetic aspects of experience and the emphasis was on the fact that even the somatic, and somaesthetic experience has, or can have, aesthetic nature. the analysis of the experience was based on the theory of john dewey (1980), richard shusterman (1999), maria bukdahl (2012), virgil c. aldrich (1963), and walter benjamin (1969) resulting in the distinguishing of the four features of aesthetic experience: particularity (aesthetic experience differs from all other forms of experience), interaction (experience of aesthetic object is dependent on the interaction between recipient and object), activity (recipient is aware of the participation on aesthetic experience) and originality (aesthetic experience is always in some sense original). the emphasis of the paper was made on the need for interpretation of the experience: experience is not enough for appreciation of the city because we need to implement (not ignore) the contextual information that we gain about the city, or the concreate aesthetic situation which we experience. the need for interpretation is most visible in the distinction of experience on two levels: a) somatic level of experience and b) a second level of experience. the first level is not typical only for the somaesthetic experience, as everybody might think, but for every kind of experience, because the body is the main and dominant tool for gaining any information about our daily lives. interpretation, as a process of evaluating the gained information is necessary, because it can change the quality of our experience, but this relationship between experience the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 42 lukáš makky and interpretation is a continuing, or cyclic relationship. every experience can improve our ability and touch for interpretation, and every interpretation can improve our sensibility for experience. it is not about 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years. european journal of pragmatism and american philosophy, 4(1), 267–276. https://doi.org/10.4000/ejpap.796 shusterman, r., (2012b) somaesthetics and architecture: a critical option. in r. shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (1st ed.). oxford: oxford university press. tursič, m., (2019) the city as an aesthetic space. city: analysis of urban change, theory, action, 23(2), 205–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2019.1615762 zervan, m., (2022) možnosti architektonickej reprezentácie a reprezentácie v architektúre. in m. šedík (ed.) problém reprezentácie. banská bystrica, sk: belianum, 42–56. zuska, v., (2002) mimésis – fikce – distance: k estetice xx. století (1st ed.). praha, cz: triton. welsch, w., (1990) ästhetisches denken (1st edition). stuttgard, de: reclam. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 88 page 88–102pradeep a. dhillon essay architectural gestures in international relations pradeep a. dhillon abstract: somaesthetics helps us think about how buildings gesture. analysis and interpretation of three embassies – the belgian and u.s. embassies in new delhi, india and the finnish embassy in canberra, australia, offer insight into the nature of architectural gestures. methodologically, attention to soma serves to reconcile the normative sweep of kant’s political thought with the attention to granularity demanded by wittgenstein. this essay concerns a question that rightly belongs in international ethics but often remains unasked. namely, how do buildings as sites for international diplomacycooperation, and competition-mean (goodman 1985; whyte 2006)? somaesthetics, by way of kant’s idea of political friendship and wittgenstein’s examination of the role of gestures in communication, provides an analytic lens that helps address the question. an embassy building is the material site of international interaction; the body is its locus. in these buildings, bodies of visitors and personnel seek and receive hospitality, conduct commercial negotiations, and promote cultural exchange and understanding, among other necessary activities, all conducted within international legal and deliberative frameworks. these interactions tied to the ideals of international cooperation, dialogue, and peaceful conflict resolution raise the question of their material expression in the buildings, landscapes, and urban contexts that provide the stage for their realization. further, under what conditions, we may ask, would placing ethical limits on these interactions be legitimate, and whether buildings can help support, even advance, these concerns? motivated by demands on individual states to further their interests and well-being, limits-achieved through diplomacysupport peaceful engagement with others within the international sphere. the alternative is war. analysis and interpretation of three embassies – the belgian and u.s. embassies in new delhi, india, and the finnish embassy in canberra, australia, offer insight into the nature of architectural gestures. furthermore, it clarifies the role architecture can and does play in international relations. relying on somaesthetics as an analytic tool, i propose that the debates around architectural meaning, largely dependent on contested views regarding the relationship between language and architecture, can find resolution through attention to the soma. the strong thesis among these views argues that architecture is a language with its lexicon and distinct body, space, architecture89 architectural gestures in international relations syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic structures. on the other hand, the weak thesis suggests that the relationship between architecture and language is analogical or metaphorical. following wittgenstein and shusterman, it could be argued that a gesture– hence, architectural gesture-is better approached as embodied, material communication. this exploration should contribute more broadly to the emerging theoretical position that brings kantian transcendental idealism and wittgensteinian contextualism and pragmatism into accord. thus, in le differend, jeanfrancois lyotard suggests the need for such a détente ((lyotard, 1989). the challenge is to account for the particularity of experience without abandoning overarching directive ideals within an ever more densely engaged world. while much of stanley cavell’s philosophical writings reflect extensively on wittgenstein, kantian thought is pervasive. in other words, cavell gestures towards kant’s norms even though he does not undertake systematic engagement with him (teufel, 2020). that such thinking offers democratic thought and practice as a way of life is noted and extended nationally and internationally by shusterman (1997). his somaesthetic approach offers a cross-disciplinary analytic approach across both the humanistic and scientific domains of research. also, james risser, relating kant to baumgarten’s aesthetics, makes a strong case for the place of sensible knowing in kantian thought. for baumgarten, risser claims much of the sensible, rich in its granularity, is inevitably lost in attempts to posit something universal. “…. he (kant) recognizes along with baumgarten that aesthetics belongs to human life as the way of travelling from “night to noon.” he too sees the need for understanding the connection among things in a way that pure reason cannot itself produce (risser 2015, 426).” this movement from the particular to broader claims is not linear. in the kantian view, the dialectic of reason constantly moves between the empirical and the universal but is responsibly mediated by transcendental critique. this mediation protects reason from its tendencies toward dogmatism and scepticism (dwyer, 2004). the somaesthetic approach supports this theoretical development. significantly, a focus on the soma directs our attention to the embodied nature of all thought. in turn, it deepens our engagement with some philosophers and reorients our interpretation of others (shusterman, 2012). similar arguments for the dialectic of thought and experience are also found in other disciplines, as in the debates between sartre and levi-strauss in anthropology (dhillon, 2011). diplomacy is an institutionalized form of friendship between states. it can be seen as extending aristotle’s discussion on the necessity of friendship in human affairs by recognizing the value of friendship in the international realm. “friendship,” according to aristotle (2014), is “a bond that holds communities together, and lawgivers seem to attach more importance to it than to justice; because concord seems to be something like friendship, and concord is their primary object-that and eliminating faction, which is enmity.” however, aristotle is also supposed to have said, “o my friends; there is no friend.” derrida (1988), in reflection on this quote, writes at length about the politics of friendshipany friendship. besides derrida, montaigne, kant, and nietzsche, in their writings on friendship, all ascribe this quote to aristotle. more recently, this ascription has been doubted (agamben, 2009). regardless, we have here recognition of the importance of the virtue of international friendship along with pragmatic demands placed on states with interests-convergent and divergentthat lie at the heart of diplomatic relations. aristotle admits to friendships of many kinds. diplomacy is a political form of friendship. in this view, the politics of international friendship that ensues is not one where a collective organized as a state exists in recognition of an existential enemy. instead, this diplomatic the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 90 pradeep a. dhillon ideal organizes around principles of rationality and autonomy. in sum, ideal diplomacy in the international sphere–at least in its contemporary incarnationis fueled by a kantian worldview rather than the more bounded anarchical and conflict-predicting views of carl schmitt and samuel huntington. andrew hurrell (1990), reflecting on kant’s continuing significance in international relations, notes that global anarchy would be unacceptable to kant even as any efforts at global governance that ignore local loyalties and cultural affiliations would quickly degenerate into “universal oppression.” in hurrell’s words (1990, p.204), “any solution between the two would have to be based on a tenuous and problematic balance between the reality of state sovereignty and the need to provide a firmer basis for those institutions and obligations that work to curb the excesses of that sovereignty.” as noted in the universal declaration of human rights preamble, it is the work of diplomacy (and education)-and, by extension, embassies to negotiate such a balance. furthermore, embassies work towards limiting the pursuit of raw power by certain states and the conflicts-sometimes armed-that arise. several additional concerns shape the nature of the friendship between states. the ideal of friendship in international relations is aspirational as relationships between states play out in the murkier realms of human affairs. in the “doctrine of virtues,” kant held that friendship is the coming together of two persons in equality and mutual respect, both necessary in normative commitment and struggled for in practice. through extension, states are obliged to friendship with others in the international sphere even as they pursue their respective interests. keeping both in view, through diplomacy, they navigate the shifting intentions and interests of all the other states with rights and obligations to do the same. thus, it could be argued and historically demonstrated that asymmetrical positions held by various states within the international system undermine the balance between affinity, benevolence, and respect that ideal friendship requires. for example, historical ties of cultural affinities can and often lead to unconditional commitments to another state. these, in turn, could lead to the weakening of respect between thema necessary component of friendship. benevolence expressed over long periods due to asymmetrical economic relations could, and often does, lead to a decrease in respect and the arousal of resentment among beneficiary states. even if these states maintain diplomatic relations, the quality of the relations is not maintained in friendship and eventually wears thin. most importantly, even if states can effectively establish and maintain a balanced friendship, there are limits to the degree of openness they must extend to each other. these limits serve to facilitate the realization of their legitimate interests. in other words, while openness is valued-pursued and encouragedin international cooperation, it would be naïve to expect complete transparency for pragmatic reasons. ideally, in the kantian view, prudent protection of one’s privacy is vital to maintaining self-respect, even under circumstances of great affinity. with these preliminary remarks on diplomacy as the politics of friendship in the international sphere, let us now consider whether and how states express this friendship in embassy architecture. aurorarosa alison (2012), in her discussion of the role of both science and poetry in gaston bachelard, too draws out the dialectical movement from the minutia of everyday life to the broader themes that motivate us. she does so by focusing on the body and the spaces it inhabits and moves through. the guiding thought here is that soma is present in the design and use of even the most functional buildings. hence, it is unsurprising that architects, philosophers, and historians are interested in the messages signalled by buildings. the communicative aspect of a building somatically designed by its creators and ‘read’ by its users is what wittgenstein, richard shusterman, and others call architectural expression. in body, space, architecture91 architectural gestures in international relations his essay, ‘somaesthetics and architecture,” shusterman (2012, p.225)) says that “despite its non-discursive materiality (which suggests mute dumbness),” he says, “architecture, as artistic design, is expressive.” as he notes this observation, he notes, this is nothing new. we can find references to architecture as an expression from vitruvius to venturi. in 1745 germain boffrand (whyte 2007, 155), for example, held that “an edifice, by its composition, expresses as on a stage that the scene is pastoral or tragic, that it is a temple, or a palace, a public building destined for a specific use, or a private house. these different edifices, through their disposition, their structure, and how they are decorated, should announce their purpose to the spectator.” boffrand goes on to suggest that “the profiles of moldings and other parts which compose a building are to architecture what words are to speech.” interpretations of architecture often rely on theories of language. however, as william whyte points out, there is no single correct understanding on offer. he argues that different theories of language yield different architectural meanings. furthermore, the meaning of a building can change over time. he says architecture is not “an artifact that can simply be described, but a multifaceted construct capable of multiple interpretations” (whyte 2021, 177).” inspired by bakhtin, whyte provides a rich account for thinking about the complexity of how architecture conveys meanings-not meaning, as he is quick to point out. despite his impatience with various linguistic approaches brought to the interpretation of architecture, he reluctantly submits that architectural analyses and interpretations must remain within linguistic, discursive confines. however, architecture is not linguistic, and yet it bears meaning. shusterman’s essay “somaesthetics and architecture” indicates a possible way out of this impasse. “the soma’s nondiscursive expressivity,” he tells us, “through gesture provides a central model for architecture (shusterman, 2012, p. 225, emphasis mine).” in emphasizing the centrality of gesture in architecture, shusterman opens possibilities for further research into what and how buildings mean. he could, however, develop his insight into the somatic dimension of wittgenstein’s cryptic and cautionary remarks about architectural gestures. reminiscent of dewey’s remarks in his chapter on “the live creature,” in art as experience,” shusterman quickly turns his attention to the relationship between architectural design and the environment: “the soma further provides a basic model for the relationship of architectural design to the environment. an architecturally successful building must both fit in and stand out as a distinctive achievement, just as a soma must do to survive and flourish, performing a balancing act of absorbing and relying on the wider natural and social environmental framing, so we cannot feel the body alone independent of its wider umwelt (2012, p. 226).” reading this passage in isolation, it might seem that shusterman is setting up the body and architecture in an analogical relationship. later in the essay, however, he relates the soma directly to architecture. here he underscores the importance of appropriate points to the importance of a building’s appropriate relationship to the body, and its embeddedness within the built and natural environments while maintaining its unique identity. any building that fails to embed itself within the “wider natural and social environmental framing” is unsuccessful. for example, le corbusier’s design of the city and government buildings of chandigarh, india, has faced significant criticism on this point (bharne, 2011). the buildings, it is charged, are not architecturally successful because corbusier did not sufficiently consider the social and natural environments. (dhillon, 2015, p.133). their monumentality is itself an affront to a nation the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 92 pradeep a. dhillon emerging as a democracy out of a crippling colonial experience. furthermore, given the arid conditions in the upper plains of punjab, the buildings present significant physical challenges to the bodies that use them. corbusier’s buildings in france and switzerland were very successful, leading to his appointment as the chandigarh project’s chief architect and urban planner. culturally and historically, his modernist buildings fit the environment in europe. however, his buildings in chandigarh did not. let us now expand on architecture as a gesture and consider how suitability to the environment plays into purpose-built embassies. these are successful to the extent that they support the political friendships sending states and host countries and admit to the degrees entailed by the very idea of political friendships. david macarthur opens his essay “reflections on “architecture is a gesture” (wittgenstein),” by noting the similarities between philosophical reflection and architecture (macarthur, 2014, p.?). in this, he follows wittgenstein, umberto eco, and others, including shusterman, whose essay on the soma and architecture draws out the role of criticality in philosophy and architecture. macarthur tells us that philosophy and architecture ask the socratic question: “how should one live?” in addition, they both suffer “from an embarrassment of their status (macarthur 2014, 89).” macarthur tells us that, following quine, the first is due to attempts to assimilate philosophy into scientific naturalism. similarly, architectecture is often assimilated to civil engineering. in macarthur’s view, wittgenstein attempts to save architecture and philosophy from this status anxiety. for wittgenstein, philosophy and architecture aim for the status of art and “attempt to capture the world sub specie aeterni (macarthur 2014, 89).” furthermore, macarthur (2014, p.90) quotes wittgensteinian as saying that architecture “immortalizes and glorifies something due to its relative permanence. hence there can be no architecture where there is nothing to glorify […] architecture glorifies something (because it endures). it glorifies its purpose (macarthur 2014, 90).” in macarthur’s reading, gestures for wittgenstein are distinct from other expressive movements. unlike facial expressions and like a shrug or a salute, for example, “they must be produced for a suitable duration, to be readily identified as a gesture; that is, a legible movement or positioning of the body parts whose purpose is the communication of an idea or meaning (macarthur 2014, 103).” by analogy, macarthur argues (2014,104), buildings -immobile and not designed to express by way of movement“intentionally expresses an idea or thought as akin to the intentional expression of a human body through the posture.” even though macarthur takes us beyond the strictly linguistic and limiting analyses of architecture noted by whyte and sets up a relationship between the body and architecture, he does so by analogy. shusterman, on the other hand, places them in a direct relationship. locating himself within the pragmatist tradition, shusterman reminds us that “all action (artistic or political) requires the body, our tool of tools (2012, p.3).” it frees us from architectural history and criticism that is either subsumed under the philosophy of language or read by analogy through it. if intentionality is an essential aspect of gestures, buildings are certainly intentional, even if only built or used for specific functional reasons. to state the banal, bodies express intention, create, engage, evaluate, and use buildings. second, if gestures are part of a comprehensive communicative system that expresses through verbal and non-verbal means, then architectural gestures are placed directly under the concept of gesture. they are not like bodily gestures but gestures in themselves, albeit of a different kind. embassy architecture is a gesture of international political friendship. not surprisingly, these buildings, their interior design, and landscaping all reflect the normative values of a state. through its material presence, a sending state signals its values and the quality of the interactionthe level of friendship -they can or wish to extend towards the host country. embassies are often, body, space, architecture93 architectural gestures in international relations but not always, purpose-built by sending states on land acquired from the host nation either by purchase, lease or as a gift. typically, an embassy consists of a chancellery -the offices conducting the business between the two states and other member states of the international system and the ambassador’s residence. the buildings facilitate the interaction between those in high office and ordinary citizens of the host country and embassy personnel. however, not all embassies are purpose-built. immediately following independence from british colonial rule in 1947, for example, prime minister nehru sought to establish diplomatic relations with other nations of the world. he invested heavily in architecture to declare india a sovereign, modern nation on the world stage. his most well-known project was the development of chandigarh –its urban layout and its government buildingsby a team of indian architects under the leadership of the swiss modernist architect le corbusier. in new delhi, a large tract of land near the presidential and parliament complexestablished in 1911 by the british-imperial delhiunder the leadership of the architect of edward luytenswas set aside for a diplomatic enclave named chanakyapuri (metcalf & metcalf, 2006). parcels of land were leased or sold to sending states for purpose-built embassies. some within the international community, like the united states and the united kingdom, purchased the land and initiated and completed purpose-built embassies quite quickly. others were insufficiently politically or economically motivated or unable to undertake such costly architectural projects. belgium, for example, leased land in new delhi’s diplomatic enclave at the nominal rate of one rupee as early as 1954 but did not build on it. however, it finally initiated and built an embassy between 1979 and 1983 (de maeyer, flore, and morel, 2021). in the meantime, its offices and the ambassador’s residence were housed in rented buildings in residential neighbourhoods within luytens’s delhi, which, to a large extent, still is one of the most prestigious neighbourhoods of delhi. as the architectural historians de maeyer et al. (2021) tell us, the buildings rented by the belgian government bore a brass plaque with the belgian coat of arms at the gate. they flew the belgian flag distinguishing them from the other residential buildings in the neighbourhood. these buildings were functional in support of indo-belgian relations but, at that time, showed no sign of committed long-term diplomatic relations. contrary to the idea that a purely functional building is not architecture because it does not gesture through artistic design, these rented buildings did gesture the tenuousness of indo-belgian relations through their emphasis on functionality. however, in wittgenstein’s view, they still needed to meet additional criteria for buildings to qualify as architecture. these rented buildings were not permanent, purpose-built structures and did not glorify indo-belgian friendship. the lack of permanent embassy buildings gestures towards political and cultural changes internal to belgium and shifting political, cultural, and economic relations with india. these changes played a role in the degree and nature of engagement-the political friendshipbetween belgium and india. the decolonization of belgian-held territories in africa by 1962 and the ensuing restructuring of belgium’s economy and cultural identifications brought changes to its presence in india. as belgium restructured internally and its relations with india intensified, its embassy moved to ever more prestigious locations within luytens’s delhi until it finally moved to its new home in 1983. the lack of permanence gestures changes internal to belgium and its changing political, cultural, and economic relations with india. these changes played a role in the degree and nature of engagement-the political friendshipbetween belgium and india. as relations between the two countries strengthened, belgium initiated the building of its embassy and completed in 1983. the belgian ambassador, on moving from a rented home in luytens’ delhi to the new purpose-built embassy, nostalgically said he was “leaving a charming colonial house in tilak marg to move, in some way, from british old days to modern india (de maeyer et al., 2021) the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 94 pradeep a. dhillon as already discussed, the transition from rented to permanent embassy buildings gestures shifts in indo-belgian relations and belgium’s relationship with its colonizing past. in other words, the new embassy gestured towards the increasingly strong indo-belgian relations as the embassy moved from rented buildings to inhabiting the embassy complex in chanakyapuri. the belgian government and diplomatic staff were aware of the political implications of building its embassy with insufficient historical insensitivity by an erstwhile colonizing country in one that had recently emerged from its experience of suffering colonialism. by the late 1970s, cultural sensitivities around colonialism were still high on both sides. an indian artist, satish gujral, was selected to design this new embassy. having made his mark as a sculptor, painter and muralist, gujral was awarded a scholarship to palacio nacional de artes mexico city, in 1952. here he met frida kahlo, diego rivera, and frank llyod wright. under their influence, especially wright’s, whose interest in pre-columbian architecture often brought him to mexico, gujral’s interest shifted towards architecture. frustrated with art, he often said he would have done better as an architect. he was well-known in delhi’s elite circles and was invited to design a house and a hotel in the city. despite this limited experience, and given his lack of credentials, it is surprising that he was appointed the architect for the new embassy. in the view of de maeyer et al. (2021, p.7), “it was likely a combination of gujral’s prominent position in indian society and his ties that brought him into contact with the belgian ministry of foreign affairs.” the gujral family was affiliated with the congress party of india. satish gujral was on social terms with roland bunny, who then served as the chancellor of the belgian embassy. “for writers like john carter and john britton, writing in the 1780s and 1810s, the architectural style was presumed to be indicative of social and intellectual development. it was also strongly linked to national culture (quoted in whyte, p.160).” gujral, of a generation that fought for freedom from british rule and with other intellectuals of his time, sought to find a design vocabulary that was distinctively indian yet modern (dhillon, 2013). it is important to stress that the use of local architectural vocabulary in modern architecture has long been in practice, even though it was only in the 1980’s that the term “critical regionalism” was coined (bagha & raheja, 2018). for the belgian embassy in new delhi, gujral chose brick as the primary building material, as is traditional in much of south asia. for example, brick was used significantly by louis kahn in the public buildings he designed in south asia. furthermore, brick directly contrasts with the concrete used in le corbusier’s modernist chandigarh project. furthermore, seeking to decolonize architectural aesthetics, gujral also turned to classical indian forms borrowed from hindu temples, mughal palaces and forts, and the ancient indian sites of harappa and mohenjodaro in his design. in so doing, gujral signalled his nationalism and celebrated the diversity of indian culture at a time when northern india was in considerable political upheaval around issues of religion. this turn to regional architectural forms ensured the legibility of the building for the host country’s population and fed into its pride in its hard-won position within the international system of independence from colonial rule. gujral’s design fully articulated the building within the context of india’s built environment. its embassy signalled the quality and degree of political friendship it sought to establish with india. the building is often referred to as “an indian nest for belgian birds” by embassy personnel. it is one of the most visited embassies by indians for aesthetic and other non-functional reasons (de maeyer et al., 2021). these shifts in architectural gestures from simple functionality to full-blown respect for the sending or the host country admit to degrees in political friendships and changes in global politics. suzanna harris-brandts and david sichinava (2021) offer a telling example of this dynamic in their case study on the body, space, architecture95 architectural gestures in international relations shifting cultural policy in tbilsi, georgia, after the end of the cold war. furthermore, macarthur reminds us that the success of a gesture, in wittgenstein’s view, is not a response to the building in words, even if one can articulate it. “remember the impression made by good architecture, that it expresses a thought. one would like to respond to it too with a gesture.” to indian visitors, this building continues to offer such a non-verbal, embodied gesture of appreciation. most embassies are built for functionality, to express friendship towards the host country, and also to declare the sending country’s cultural achievements. however, there was nothing particularly belgian about the belgian embassy in new delhi. hence, it remains an anomaly within embassy architecture. deeply appreciated though it is, it would only be considered partially successful. in shusterman’s words: “an architectural building must both fit in and stand out, just as a soma must do, to survive and flourish, performing a balancing act of absorbing and relying on the wider natural and social resources of its environment but at the same time asserting its distinctive individuality (2021, 226).” embassy buildings need to be functional, a gesture of friendship towards the host country and also display the cultural accomplishments of the sending country. the belgian embassy was not able to materially signal its own cultural identity. interestingly, until the publication of de maeyer et al.’s article in 2021, the embassy was relatively ignored by architectural historians and critics in belgium. arguably, the building signalled aspects of belgian identity-its openness and respect for other culturesby the very absence of material representation of its own culture. however, given belgium’s colonial policies and the controversial choice of gujral as the architect for the project, this aspect warrants further research. regardless, it did not find the balance demanded of political friendship that a successful embassy building needs to achieve. let us turn to a building that explicitly sought to achieve such a balance: the embassy of the united states in chanakyapuri, delhi. an architectural historian, jane c. loeffler (2011), placed embassy architecture at the heart of diplomacy in her book the architecture of diplomacy: building american embassies. in an earlier article, she quotes the diplomatic historian harold nicholson as saying, “the worst kind of diplomatists (sic) are missionaries, fanatics, and lawyers.” loeffler (1990, p.251) then asks: “given the chance to serve a diplomatic role, could architects establish a language of discourse through which american architecture might speak to the world of american hopes and american strength? could they create a dialogue of mutual trust and respect with people of different cultures and sensibilities? or would they simply make grand or empty gestures incomprehensible to all but their peers in the united states and abroad—statements resented like the intrusions of missionaries, flamboyant like the work of fanatics, or dull like the timid efforts of legal experts whose ultimate aim is compromise?” for the united states, india’s non-alignment foreign policy during the cold war spurred interest in building an embassy in delhi to counter the presence of the soviet union. despite considerable resistance to establishing robust relations with any country that was not overtly the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 96 pradeep a. dhillon anti-communist, president truman initiated an aid program to india in 1949, and official american presence became substantial in new delhi. chester bowles was appointed ambassador responsible for developing and consolidating american regional interests in south asia. bowles, a businessman and a liberal, encouraged the americans in india to travel around the country to know it better and urged his staff to learn hindi. back home in america, he put his efforts into acquainting americans with india and its economic and strategic importance. with other voices, including those of the economist john kenneth galbraith and first lady jaqueline kennedy joining in these efforts, there was a growing awareness of the importance of india. despite some resistance in the u.s. state department, it was decided to build an “embassy in india that would be worthwhile, a credit to us, and a credit to india. (loeffler, 2011, p. 185) with mutual awareness proliferating in both india and the united states, and despite nehru’s non-alignment policy perceived as unstable and vacillating by washington, new delhi gained top priority for the department of foreign building operations (fbo). thirteen acres of land, later expanded to twenty-eight, was acquired in chanakyapuri. edward durrell stone, whose career as an architect was controversial, loeffler tells us, seemed to have hit a rough patch. despite this, he was selected as the architect to design the chancery of the embassy. the director of the fbo, nelson kenworthy, knew stone from past projects and did not feel he was suitable. he turned the final decision over to the newly appointed american architectural committee. stone, who had friends on that committee, was selected. loeffler tells us that stone had visited the pan american union building in washington d.c. when he was eighteen. taken by its garden court, “lush with tropical vegetation, birds, fountains and brilliant coloured tile,” he decided to become an architect (loeffler, 202, p. 226). the mughal palaces stone visited in northern india resonated strongly with this early encounter. their slim colonnades running along the sides of rigorously geometrical buildings, with rooms hidden behind them, were often arranged around a central courtyard. the meticulously carved stone screens, jaalis, of sandstone or marble, provided privacy and shade, allowing breezes to blow through the buildings. rectangular pools with lotus plants, and open pavilions with channels of water running through them, moved him to design a building that incorporated these indian architectural design elements. his earlier experience in panama city, when working on the el panama hotel project, had also made him sensitive to the value of these elements in an environment where heat and glare provided considerable challenges. stone submitted a design inspired by the taj mahal. it was a low rectangular white building with deep overhangs held up by slim columns running along all the sides reminiscent of mughal columns and overhangs. it is interesting to note that even though modern architecture was european in origin, by the 1950s, mainly through the work of architects like mies van de rohe in chicago, it came to be associated with american architecture. despite being influenced by mughal architectural forms, the embassy was a modern american building. behind the slender columns supporting a portico that ran along the perimeter of the structure, the entire building, wrapped in glass curtain walls, gestured towards the material and style of american architecture par excellence. the walls clad, in turn, in traditional marble and concrete jaalis gave the building an airy look, incorporating american and indian architectural styles. the main entrance to the building was at the short end of the rectangle facing the chief avenue, shantipath, that ran through chankyapuri. on entering the gates from shantipath, a serene pool ran the width of the building, behind which were shallow steps that led to the recessed entry with the great seal of the united states set above the door. the elevation was modern and american, with glass, clean low lines, slim columns, jaalis, and the pool, yet reminiscent of the india-mughal-garden pavilions. body, space, architecture97 architectural gestures in international relations figure 1 u.s. embassy in new dehli, 1954 an inner court had two umbrella roofs to reduce heat gain and promote air circulation. shaded by an aluminium screen, they were to deflect the sun and direct rainwater to the pool. (loeffler, 2021, pp. 183-191). the screen, running the entire length and breadth of the inner court, created an ample, airy space, awash in filtered light and further softened by lotuses and other tropical plantings in the pool. the offices arranged around this inner court were airconditioned. however, the court was not. the contrast in temperature, particularly in the hot summer months, caused significant discomfort to the personnel and visitors to the embassy. on its dedication on 3 january 1959, the building met with an enthusiastic reception in the united states and india. frank lloyd wright hailed it as the most beautiful building in the last 100 years. loeffler (2021. p.189) reports: “the new york times informed its readers that the new embassy was “probably the most elegant in the world,” and that prime minister nehru hailed the building and its american architect. “i was enchanted by the building,” nehru reportedly said. “i think it is a very beautiful structure and a very attractive combination of typically india motifs and [the] latest modern technology.” stone was widely praised for his skilful blending of mughal and contemporary american architecture. the state department was applauded for its “enlightened new design policy, which recognized how important it was for american buildings overseas “to be in harmony with the cultural, architectural and climatic conditions.” (loeffler, 2021, p.189).” when jacqueline kennedy visited india in 1962, she was so taken with the embassy that she selected stone to design the kennedy center in washington, d.c. as a communicative act, the chancery of the u.s. embassy in new delhi was legible to both indians and americans. the gesture was reciprocated by appreciation expressed by all who visited the embassy and those driving by on shantipath. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 98 pradeep a. dhillon stone’s chancery was an architectural gesture of kantian political friendship based on equality and mutual respect even as the two countries pursued their interests. it was a glorious gesture towards a refusal of the east/west divide settling around the globe. in passing, it is interesting to note that philosophy, too, sought to resist such settling. john dewey (1951) explicitly questions this settling by calling for a global extension of pragmatism. the architect and philosopher were diplomats. the building meets shusterman’s criterion “of absorbing and relying on the wider natural and social resources of its environmental framing but at the same time asserting its distinctive individuality (2012, p.226).” it failed, however, because the building did not meet shusterman’s criteria of somaesthetic functionality. built without sufficient attention to the natural environment, an essential element in the balance required for successful architecture, the building failed. while lovely, the inner courtyard becomes a sauna in delhi’s relentless summer. a somaesthetic approach brings this failing into focus. it compels us to rethink wittgenstein’s aphoristic claim, often uncritically quoted, that architectural gestures are more than the functionality of a building. the embassy building meets shusterman’s first criterion for successful architecture; it fits in and stands out, “performing a balancing act of absorbing and relying on wider natural and social resources of its environmental framing.” however, it does not meet shusterman’s somatic criterion of seamless articulation between the body and architectureits “wider umwelt (2012, p. 226).” the bodies using this enduringly beautiful building are under stress to thrive and flourish. many personnel, for example, said they fell ill from constantly moving between their air-conditioned offices and the steaming courtyard. the building, for all the received accolades, is flawed from a somaesthetic perspective. moreover, the u.s. embassy gestured democratic values through its use of indian and american architectural materials but was not fully democratic in conception. given that the promotion of democracy in the region was the prime motivation behind the political friendship extended towards india, the turn to the royal mughal mausoleumthe taj mahalis surprising. the embassy reflects an ambivalence between the need to establish a democratic international friendship and a commitment to gesturing towards the power of the united states by choosing decidedly un-democratic indian architectural motifs. this ambivalence dogged the american program of building embassies around the globe from the very inception of the american embassy association (aea) in 1909. the association torn between demonstrating democratic principles and the desire to showcase its growing importance on the international stage led to fierce debates during meetings for establishing building policies. arguments in favour of signifying power won the day. for example, an article published by the aea in 1910 lays out the position for signifying power: “all men, rich or poor, cultivated or uncultivated, are impressed by appearances. foreigners necessarily judge us by what they see of us in their own country… we pride ourselves on being the richest people on earth and declare loudly that nothing is too good for us. and yet we are content to cheapen ourselves among the nations of the earth by the shabby showing we make among them in respect to our embassies. we feel ashamed at appearing poverty-stricken in the eyes of the inhabitants of other countries and of placing ourselves below the third or even fourth-rate powers (loeffler 2011, 252).” furthermore, in the wake of attacks on u.s. embassies in many parts of the world, a great wall was built around the u.s. embassy. the building is no longer visible to the people walking or driving down shantipath. once open to view, the embassy building has become an enigma to body, space, architecture99 architectural gestures in international relations the local population. understandably, the need for security now plays a crucial role in developing and implementing plans for the design of new embassies or the renovation or extension of existing ones. as relations between india and the u.s. strengthen, a prolonged expansion and renovation of the more than sixty-year-old compound are underway. an open and transparent competition selected the firm weiss/manfredi of new york for the project. their architectural philosophy is to design by taking the entire environment-built and natural-into consideration. in their words, “a new tree-lined central green offers shade connects functional zones across the campus and introduces reciprocal relationships between the buildings and gardens. inspired by india’s enduring tradition of weaving together architecture and landscape, a series of cast stone screens, canopies, and garden walls introduce a resilient, integrated design language that brings the campus into the twenty-first century. nearly sixty years after the opening of the edward durrell stone-designed embassy, the rejuvenated embassy compound expresses the symbolic values of american diplomacy through environmental stewardship and gives measure to america’s democratic presence in india (weissman/fredi, 2022).” the expansion will take ten years to complete. through its use of walled gardens, pavilions, and architectural elements borrowed from the mughal period’s elite architecture-forts and palaces, the building will once again be legible to indians. evaluation of its success has to wait. if, following wittgenstein, we claim that “architecture immortalizes, and glorifies something,” then for an embassy that gestures democracy, let us turn to the finnish embassy in canberra, australia. built in 2002, the embassy was designed by finnish architect vesa huttunen of the firm hirvonen and huttunen (2022), who won the commission in an open competition in 1997. given the increasing significance of transparency in democratic thinking, the selection of the architect for the project stands in contrast to the selection of satish gujral and edward stone. the new building is an annexe to the existing finnish embassy and now houses the chancery and a residence for the counsellor. the old building now serves as the residence of the ambassador. the embassy is often lauded as a “courageous” building because it boldly and transparently affirms finland’s democratic commitments despite its delicate geography and relatively small size. it is named ilmarinen in commemoration of the finnish flagship that fired several times on an airfield in the soviet union but ultimately sank during world war ii. the ship itself was named after ilmarinen, the blacksmith and inventor-hero of the finnish mythological epic, kalevala, capable of creating anything. the name refers directly to finland’s cultural heritage of creativity and its steely resistance, first to the values of the soviet union and now to expansionist russia.1 the embassy gestures this transparency of affiliation to a set of political values. furthermore, its architectural design expresses transparency as a critical political and democratic value. one aspect of the façade of this modernist building is glass which allows you to see right into the offices from the outside. a different aspect, a curved wall of concrete, and the interior of the building invoke the atmosphere of a ship, a gesture to the ilmarinen and hence to finland’s culture and history of innovation and brave independence. the offices lined along the outside walls like cabins have a walkway that runs along them. from the walkway, the atrium and the beams supporting the higher levels of the building render a significant part of the interior visible. 1 https://media3.architecturemedia.net/site_media/media/cache/6d/74/6d744362b91e72e5b45e6b8e1704378b.jpg the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 2 (2022) 100 pradeep a. dhillon the overhang is of eucalyptus, and its outside decks and stair treads of reclaimed jarrah; are both timbers native to the australian landscape. moreover, the jarrah was sourced from old sheep stations. thus, the building gestures towards the natural and cultural resources of the host and sending countries. furthermore, the partitions between the offices are open at the top and bottom to allow aural access to ongoing conversations and negotiations. however, it is worth noting that despite the building being so open, some mechanisms allow for security from the broad to the subtle. these mechanisms place material limitsalbeit subtle-on a building. thus, even though the walls between offices are aurally permeable, some mechanisms allow dampening or elimination of sound when needed. while the building is boldly transparent, it has provisions that enable privacy and security. architecturally, it “glorifies” democracy and exemplifies a relatively high level of political friendship. it could safely be said that the finnish embassy at canberra “expresses a thought” and “glorifies something…it glorifies its purpose.” wittgenstein would have appreciated it, and kant too. it will be years before we have enough data and information to comment on its functionality. this essay focuses on exploring the ideas of embassy architecture as a gesture of political friendship from a somaesthetic perspective. methodologically, i sought to diminish, if not erase, the distinction between theory and experience. somatic attention places verbal and non-verbal communication, linguistic and non-linguistic forms of representation, on a continuum rather than in opposition. finally, shusterman’s somaesthetic approach reconciles the broad normative sweep of kant’s political thought with the attention to granularity demanded by wittgenstein. references agamben, g. 2009. the friend. in what is an apparatus. kishik, d. and pedatalla, s. 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(1998). culture and value. blackwell. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 45 page 45–58britta møller care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work britta møller abstract: drawing on dewey’s theory of aesthetics, shusterman’s notion of somaesthetics, and an elaboration of the notion of co-creation, this study analyzes care practices as aesthetic co-creations, that is, inquiries of impressions and expressions through which actors and practices are co-created. a care situation from elderly care serves to analyze the body as a locus of sensory aesthetic appreciation and the potential process of somaesthetic experience and learning. how to learn to appreciate the somaesthetic dimensions and the importance of somaesthetic attention for subtle forms of power in care situations are discussed. introduction care work is described as bodywork through which care workers handle the bodies of others (twigg, 2000). care work is often defined as “dirty work” (dahle, 2005; twigg, 2000) because of its intimate contact with human bodies and their fluids and waste; with dirt, disgust, nakedness, touch, and intimacy; and with bodies’ sicknesses, decay, and death. care workers have to go beyond bodily boundaries that are considered strictly private (dahle, 2005) and perform intimate bodywork tucked away in bedrooms and lavatories and behind the scenes in nursing homes. to avoid confrontation with human decay and impermanence, care work is performed in the shadows of society: fundamentally, care work is hidden work, ‘dirty work’, because it deals with aspects of life that society, especially modern secular society with its ethic of material success and its emphasis on youth and glamour, does not want to think about: decay, dirt, death, decline, failure. (twigg, 2000, p. 406) in the literature, attention to the older body is scarce. the body is mostly studied as a locus of pleasure and consumption (twigg, 2000) and as an instrument of self-presentation (dahle, 2005). the body, then, is omitted in humanistic studies (shusterman, 2006), and the aging body in particular is socially marginalized (hansen & grosen, 2019). care work is mostly performed by low-educated groups and (female) care workers. moreover, care work studies often sideline bodywork: “though bathing, washing and other forms of personal care are central to the day-to-day realities of care work, they have received little attention.” (twigg, 2000, p. aesthetics and body experiences in health care46 care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work 394). status in this field is emphasized by distancing the bodily aspects and attending to the body as a territory of bio-medicine (twigg, 2000). moreover, welfare technologies have enabled bodily distance and “hands-off ” care (hansen & grosen, 2019). the distanced position to the elderly body recognizes a privileged, professional approach that ignores the embodied sensible knowing in care work, which is collectively deployed through aesthetic interactions (gherardi & rodeschini, 2016). the bio-medical approach and political administration enhance efficiency, standards of competence, and an evidence-based rationality that assimilates healthcare with any other “industry,” and as a result, there is a risk of rationalizing care and losing sight of the ethics of care (gherardi & rodeschini, 2016). consequently, the central characteristics of care work are overlooked. however, one cannot fully understand care if its embodied dimensions are unattended (hamington, 2004). as care work requires the endurance of physical nearness to other people, taking care of their bodies requires the enactment of aesthetic sensibility in an embodied presence and the adjustment to care relations and situations. drawing on john dewey’s theory of aesthetics (1934), shusterman’s further elaboration of somaesthetics (1994, 1999, 2006), and the notion of co-creation as my add-on, this study explores bodywork in care work, which is defined as aesthetic inquiries of impressions and expressions through which the involved actors and care practices are co-created. inspired by dewey’s view on aesthetics, the actors’ expressions are analyzed as artifacts that make impressions and give shape to care practice. acknowledging the body as a locus of sensory aesthetic appreciation (shusterman, 2006) draws attention to care workers’ capacity to tune in and act intuitively to the emerging and spontaneous character of care situations. based on these considerations, this study raises the question of how care practices can be seen as aesthetic co-creations and thus as processes of somaesthetic experience and learning. in the following section, the study and analytical methods are introduced. the theoretical perspectives of aesthetics, somaesthetics, and aesthetic co-creation are then outlined. a microcommunicative analysis is conducted on a singular care situation from elderly care that examines the body in care work as a locus of sensory aesthetic appreciation and, thus, care practice as a potential process of somaesthetic experience and learning. this study also discusses how care workers can come to learn and appreciate the somaesthetic dimension of care work and how this pragmatic understanding of aesthetics differs from existential wonder-driven understandings as an “embodied art of living” (shusterman, 2006). how somaesthetic attention is crucial for the awareness of subtle forms of power in care communication is also discussed. setting and method for studying the body in care work this study draws on an empirical doctoral study of learning in elderly care performed in denmark from 2018 to 2021. the study involved various participants from elderly care (i.e., care workers, trainees, supervisors, elderly people, managers, and different organizational consultants). fieldwork was conducted using the shadowing method (czarniawska, 2007; mcdonald & simpson, 2014) to study care work at nursing homes. the focus was to recognize the potentials for learning within the work itself and in the interactions between the care workers, the elderly, and the work tasks. shadowing as a method gives researchers the possibility to study the work of people who move from place to place as they work, rather than staying in one place (czarniawska, 2007). therefore, shadowing offers the possibility of gaining rich insights into everyday practices and processes as they unfold in various places and paces at microlevels throughout an observed timespan (mcdonald & simpson, 2014). the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 47 britta møller while shadowing can be a method of following individual actors (czarniawska, 2007), the object of shadowing can also be a phenomenon in the unfolding of situations (buchan & simpson, 2020). in this case, the studied object is the phenomenon of learning as it unfolds in the organizational practices of elderly care. drawing on dewey’s philosophy of learning (dewey, 1916), the study shows the embodied practice of care work as a situated site for learning, defined as both the process of experiencing and the result of richer experiences. the analysis of care relations reveals how learning potentials unfold in close relation to the emerging bodily, discursive, and non-discursive interactions between care workers and the elderly. however, bodily aspects are not the initial focus, and empirical experiences foster insights into the aesthetic and sensory aspects of care work and communication. to further elaborate on the empirical experience, i found inspiration in dewey’s pragmatism and shusterman’s notion of somaesthetics, which developed and critically added to dewey’s philosophy of experience and aesthetics. by focusing on the phenomenon of learning from an embodied perspective, the data took the form of experienced, responsive data (st. pierre, 1997) and were stumbled upon instead of collected (brinkmann, 2014). this study contributes to pragmatism-informed research that emphasizes making available future experiences of high quality (rosiek, 2013). the ameliorative ideal is the transformation of insight that creates the possibility of new experiences of bodywork in care work as processes of co-creation and learning. this is aligned with shusterman’s (2006) intention to enrich both discursive knowledge and lived somatic experience about the body and mind. the goal is not knowledge per se but improved experience and, in relation, concepts that serve us better (shusterman, 2006). for this reason, this study presents an analysis that intends to make impressions and produce new insights into learning (as a process and a result) in care work. to conduct a fine-grained micro-analysis, this study presents a single empirical care situation, a ‘small story’ (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008) constructed from extended fieldwork in everyday care work. inspired by the pragmatist theory of knowledge, the intention is to give an illustrative example that helps to analyze the “breath” of experience and the potentials for learning that unfold within experiences. the criteria for the selection are two-fold. first, the situation should have a certain quality of experience that made an impression on the researcher. inspired by dewey (1934), i describe this as an aesthetic quality that has a certain expressiveness. second, the expressiveness of the situation should have the quality to trigger the reflexivity of the researcher. accordingly, the selected situation was an experience, as dewey (1934) calls it, of a situation that steps out of the stream of the experiences made, in this case, of care situations in nursing homes. the reliance on an experience is trust in the aesthetic quality, the expressiveness (dewey, 1934) of a situation that makes impressions noticeable, open, and undetermined, and in the fostering of a situation that ignites reflexivity and critical analysis. therefore, the situation triggers the construction of a mystery (alvesson & kärreman, 2007), of something experienced but not yet understandable with the theory at hand. to this expense, the construction of a mystery from the base of a situation makes it possible to know more (alvesson & kärreman, 2007) of the qualities needed in attending the body in care work as a locus for aesthetic appreciation and to open the potentials for learning in and of care work by acknowledging and fostering this attention. however, drawing on a single situation for analysis requires some considerations of why and how the situation is chosen, as it deviates from the ideals of the representations of objective entities given in reality that we might have learned as “golden standards” in qualitative research (revsbæk & simpson, 2022). the study is driven by an effort to grasp the fluid and ever-changing aesthetics and body experiences in health care48 care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work dynamics of living experience (in this case, in care relations) and the subtleties (of communication and learning) that are fragile, vulnerable, and unnoticed (revsbæk & simpson, 2022). certainly, it centers the researcher as an observer, and the narrative “i”, from a privileged position, can point to and select an experience. this position generates the need for reflexivity and transparency in the researcher’s way of knowing. however, as a productive alternative, jackson and mazzei (2008) suggest a re-imagination of the subjective “i” as a performative becoming. this means that not only is the narrative constructed, but the researcher is also changed by what is happening in the situation through aesthetic appreciation. through the act of narration, experience also produces the researcher’s “i.” for the researcher, it calls for ethical attention to think of events from different perspectives and to give a voice to aspects that are silenced or less noticed (jackson & mazzei, 2008). moreover, it requires attention to how one story is presented as if it is a defined entity, even though, when experienced, it does not have a clear beginning and ending. the idea is not to represent a reality of care work but to bypass the ideal of an objective description and enable the possibilities of enriching future experiences about the body as a locus of aesthetic appreciation in care work (rosiek, 2013; shusterman, 2006). aligned with shusterman (1999), the current study shows the potential utility of the concept of somaesthetics, not the radical novelty of the idea of care work as bodywork. in the following, i outline how shusterman understands the somaesthetic perspective and how he, with this term, is inspired by and differs from dewey’s view of experience and aesthetics. moreover, i contribute with the notion of co-creation, inspired by dewey, to emphasize the radical social foundation of experiences. the body as a locus of aesthetic appreciation care work entails a fine-grained attunement to often vague and unspecific expressions of the elderly and to situations in which the elderly’s verbal responses are scarce. to this subtle communication, the notion of somaesthetics can serve as a useful analytic perspective for understanding the fine lines of bodywork. the elderly’s responses may be a sigh or a moan uttered to express discomfort, a gaze that is undetermined, or a hint of a movement that indicates an uncertain intention. the folded and unopened newspaper or a coffee cup that is untouched can be signs of the elderly’s mental status. a pause in words or a certain intonation of a word can express a feeling that is unspoken. to notice fine lines like these in communication entails bodily attention, in which the body functions as a sensory apparatus that takes in and is moved by the expressiveness of a situation (dewey, 1934). shusterman (1999) claims that we can gain a better mastery of the actual workings of our actions and our will’s application in behavior if we explore our bodily experiences more deeply through somaesthetic attention. he defines somaesthetics “as the critical, meliorative study of the experience and use of one’s body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning” (shusterman, 1999, p. 302). this comprehension has a normative and prescriptive character that is uncommon in a more descriptive and analytic aesthetic (shusterman, 1999). the pragmatic claim is that our knowledge about the world is improved by enhancing our awareness of our bodily states and feelings and by perfecting our bodily senses, not by denying them (shusterman, 1999). it is about cultivating our bodily habits: to improve our bodily habits and psycho-somatic integration we need to bring our somatic functioning and its attendant feelings into greater consciousness, so we can learn both to detect subtly different modalities of posture and movement and to assess the quality of their coordination and their attendant affectivity (shusterman, 1994, s. 138). the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 49 britta møller in his masterpiece on aesthetics called “art as experience,” which inspired shusterman’s development of somaesthetics, dewey writes poetically that “experiencing like breathing is a rhythm of intakings and outgivings” (1934, p. 58). experience, then, is the continuous process of taking in the world and giving out responses, and through this process, man and the world are created (shusterman, 1999). in the context of this paper, these considerations can help us understand how care practices and the actors involved are created and re-created (and co-created, as i will argue) through continuous intakings and outgivings. therefore, dewey and shusterman point to the double status of humans as both objects and subjects—as objects of materiality taking form as something in the world and as subjects of sensibility that experience, feel, and act in the world (shusterman, 2006). as highlighted by shusterman (2006), we both are bodies and have bodies, and this fundamental ambiguity in human lives constructs the body as a source of perception and action and as an object of awareness. therefore, perceiving vague expressions as valuable signs in communication requires care workers to recognize that their experienced impressions of a care situation are not merely private or individual but are resonances of something going on in a shared situation (dewey, 1934). this means that sensory and emotional experiences should be analyzed in close interactions with the situations in which the impressions are experienced as indicators of something that is possible to experience in the situation. therefore, the impressions carry valuable information about the situation, the elderly, and the care workers themselves. an important point raised by shusterman (2006) is that somaesthetic attention “needs to be primarily directed not to the inner feelings of our embodied self but to the objects of our environment in relation to which we must act and react” (p. 11). this means that feelings are part of somaesthetic attention, but they are not handled as inner representations of internal aspects but as a result of the interaction with the environment—in this case, the care situation. metaphorically, shusterman (2006) writes that our eyes are naturally looking out toward the world, not into our innerness. somaesthetic awareness involves seriously taking the impressions of a (care) situation and perceiving bodily reactions without devaluating these impressions. however, it is challenging, as shusterman (2006) claims, that we tend to cultivate moral rationality against the “brute flesh of the body.” dewey (1934) points out the following: we undergo sensations as mechanical stimuli or as irritated stimulations, without having a sense of the reality that is in them and behind them…. we see without feeling; we hear, but only a second-hand report, second hand because not reinforced by vision. we touch, but the contact remains tangential because it does not fuse with qualities of senses that go beyond the surface. we use the senses to arouse passion but not to fulfill the interest of insight. (p. 21) “the interest of insight” is the potential to go beyond the surface, but this is not understood as a psychodynamic or subconscious surface. dewey discusses the value of exploring the potentials in aesthetic experiences to give insights into what is going on in a shared situation. this means going beyond the surface of an impression of a situation and taking seriously the impulse that triggers aesthetic appreciation (shusterman, 1999). it is the inward part of experiencing, the intaking and impression that resonates with our individual (and shared) world of experiences. “taking in” is having an experience, the passive, surrendering, or undergoing of an experience, while “giving out” is the active process of doing and expressing. therefore, expressing is a word for the outward consequence: the outgiving (dewey, 1934). this perception centers the body as the basic, yet necessary, instrument of human performance, perception, action, and thought–a tool of tools (shusterman, 2006). aesthetics and body experiences in health care50 care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work somaesthetic attunement as an offset for reflection and co-creation however, even though shusterman builds the notion of somaesthetics on dewey’s theory of experience and aesthetics, he also raises criticisms of parts of dewey’s understanding. one part regards the emphasis dewey places on the non-discursive and immediate quality of experience as unifying and fundamental in itself for our thinking. instead, shusterman (1994) emphasizes the role of the immediate experience, not as the foundation but as a means for the reorganization of experience and for thinking. the controlling criterion is how the quality of the immediate experience functions to bring into consideration what can be thought about and done in a situation to create better coordination and integration (shusterman, 1994). in other words, shusterman’s critique of dewey is that the immediate experience is not, by its mere appearance, the foundation of thinking but rather that it works as a trigger for reflection. it is through noticing the experiential quality and consciously reflecting on it that thinking is improved (shusterman, 1994). aesthetic quality gives the immediate experiences a degree of expressiveness (as an experience) (dewey, 1934) that can create impressions for the experiencing actor, the receiver. the expression then forms a materiality (an expressive object) (dewey, 1934) that the receiver aesthetically can appreciate and that, if fostered, can initiate reflexivity. however, it needs to be cultivated, a point that shusterman (1994) seems to believe is understated by dewey. through my reading of “art as experience,” i have noticed a part of dewey’s theory of aesthetics that i, by now, still have not found to be well elaborated by dewey scholars. my concern is to understand the notion of “co-creation” that i find underlying and often implicit in much of dewey’s work. from this point, i will argue for somaesthetic attunement as an offset for co-creation, that is, joint creation, elaboration, and, if taken seriously, inquiry of somaesthetic experiences. i agree with shusterman’s critiques that dewey elsewhere (e.g., in his works “how we think” and “logics”) downplays the function of aesthetics in experience as a trigger for reflection. however, inspired by the way dewey (1934) describes the subtle social and artful process of creation and re-creation entangled in experience, i apply the notion of “co-creation.” the idea is to understand more of the transformative entanglement of impressions and expressions in experiences—in this case, in care work experiences. the notion of co-creation underlines that individuals and practices are not final, definite constructions but that they are created in continuous social processes as artifacts by creators and receivers (dewey, 1934). care workers must ask themselves what elements experienced in the care situation resonate with their experiences. in undergoing the expressiveness of the situation, in other words, by establishing a reflexive standing to it, the situation and relation are merged into a continuous whole. as dewey (1934) points out, this is an “intertwined interaction that reorganizes our prior experience while it as well reorganizes the expressiveness of the object” (p. 108). the entangled interaction gives rise to something that is more than the interacting actors in isolation. the fine texture in interactions is the result of the co-creation of creators and receivers of the practices that function as expressive objects (dewey, 1934). in this creative process, the care worker and elderly take turns acting as the creator of expressions that serve as impressions for the other and as the receiver that carefully appreciates the expressions of the other. it is a joint accomplishment in which they share an interest in securing the flow of communication (dewey, 1934). the co-creation of care work requires, on the one hand, the capacity to contribute with adequate expressions and, on the other hand, to take in and appreciate the impressions made: “constant observation is, of course, necessary for the maker while he is producing.” (dewey, 1934, p. 49). in care work, care workers (as the makers/creators) embody the attitudes of the elderly (the receiver) while they work (produce care responses), and vice versa. as i will now analyze, departing from a small the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 51 britta møller care work narrative, this entails that care workers pose themselves as recipients and appreciate how their expressions can be experienced. the narrative: a care situation in the care situation, i followed anne, a care worker in a nursing home. i had previously met anne as she took part in a series of workshops with stakeholders of elderly care i had held as part of my doctoral study. this morning, anne was working with two colleagues on the second floor of the nursing home, which houses eight elderly residents. she was about to begin her third visit this morning at karen’s place. karen needed help getting through her morning routine before taking her breakfast in the common dining room. there was, in fact, nothing extraordinary about this situation. however, it met the criteria of the study’s analytic strategy because it had the ability to foster impressions and reflections about the embodied nature of care work and, specifically, about the body in care work as a locus for aesthetic appreciation, making it possible to analyze care practice as aesthetic co-creation. the narrative is as follows: anne knocks on the door at karen’s place. “good morning, karen,” she says as she enters karen’s bedroom. karen is still in bed. “have you slept well? you are sleeping in such a fine blouse,” anne continues. karen points toward the wardrobe. “there are…,” she says, without completing the sentence. anne follows with her eyes the direction of karen’s hand movements, which seem to fulfill her expression. “yes, i did the laundry yesterday. you have plenty of clean clothes. there are clean panties and all. they probably haven’t arrived from the laundry room yet.” karen sighs, “oh, how lovely.” anne goes to the bathroom next door. the sliding doors are open. as she walks in, she says out loud, “i will get the things ready. will you be having a bath today?” karen replies, “yes, i will.” anne places a transfer tower in front of karen and says, “now, you have to move your legs out.” karen sighs heavily and tries to move her body. anne supports her legs as karen manages to swing her legs off the edge of the bed. anne says, “good. now, you need to place your left arm on the platform. i will raise the bed a bit.” karen sighs and pulls herself up slowly in a standing position, leaning on the transfer tower for a while. anne helps karen undress. she pushes a bathing chair in position behind karen and asks her to sit. karen sinks heavily into the chair, and anne moves the chair to the shower. she turns on the shower and wets karen’s hair and body. “now, tell me if the water is too cold or hot.” karen sighs. anne washes her hair. “it foams well. you will only need one lap.” karen sighs, “oh, how lovely,” and closes her eyes. anne washes her body. karen helps by raising her arms one by one. anne says, “this is good teamwork, karen.” karen sighs. anne says, “i need to get you a new bag [stoma] and a new bandage for your hip wound.” this narrative illustrates an everyday care situation in which the care worker and the elderly need to cooperate and communicate with the elderly to get out of bed and be ready for breakfast. the situation shows a care situation in which the professional care worker supports the elderly. for the care worker, it is a work task, and for the elderly, it is a daily life accomplishment that she previously managed on her own. it is an ordinary care situation that positions the elderly as care recipients and the care worker as caregivers. however, a micro-communicative analysis with emphasis on bodily communication illustrates that the actors are not maintained in positions aesthetics and body experiences in health care52 care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work exclusively as caregivers and care receivers because they fluently shift positions as creators and receivers several times during the course of action in a co-creative and bodily aesthetic process. this perspective makes possible an analysis of the interaction between the care worker, the elderly, their bodies, and the morning routine as an aesthetic co-creative inquiry and helps to understand more the dimensions of sensuousness, imagination, and reflection, which are at stake in the care situation. the morning task—getting up, having a bath, and getting dressed—is a concrete task to deal with in collaboration with anne, the care worker, and karen, the elderly. handling this task is not merely a cognitive and intellectual affair but is also a sensuous, emotionally, creative, and imaginative affair (dewey, 1934). therefore, the situation requires more than practical and technical skills. anne needs more than knowledge of how to transfer a body to different positions; she also needs to know how to communicate bodily and emotionally with karen in order for her to participate in the processes of the body’s transfer. anne takes the position of karen to help her move her leg out of bed and get up standing. how would karen experience it? how can anne support karen’s response? the impressions that the situation creates are decisive for the outcome of the situation and for the quality of the task solution. taking in the appropriate impressions requires anne to be profoundly present in the situation. however, there is a lot for anne to be attentive to if she is to succeed with the bath. what is the current state of the elderly mentally and in terms of their health status? how was her sleep? is she awake and ready for the day? will she collaborate mentally and physically in getting out of bed? will she understand her guidance? will she agree on the terms of the tasks? this situation shows that karen’s verbal abilities are limited. she answers with one-syllable words, sounds, simple and short sentences, and gestures. as most of the communication is based on sounds, glances, and touching, anne is left with very little verbal response to guide her (re) actions. shusterman (2006) gives the following example of how the body’s position and status are at work and, thus, how delicate communication is: i need to be aware of my own body positioning and breathing, the tension in my hands and other body parts, and the quality of contact my feet have with the floor in order to be in the best condition to assess the client’s body tension, muscle tonus, and ease of movement and to move him in the most effective way. otherwise, when i touch him, i will be passing on to him my feelings of somatic tension and unease (p. 15). the care worker’s assessment of the status of both the elderly and herself provides her with data to analyze how to react adequately. anne must practice this subtle and highly bodily-based means of communication for her to attend to karen’s needs and communicative intentions and to her own bodily resonance. therefore, if karen is to experience herself as a part of the communication, anne must communicate in a language other than strictly verbal. the art for anne is to expand her bodily responsiveness and ability to listen to the body in a sensitive and slower bodily presence, which is called forth by the specific situation. anne has to listen well to act adequately. aesthetic appreciation is a here-and-now matter. anne cannot prepare for what will happen as the somaesthetic meeting emerges in an instant in care work. to meet karen, anne has to seize the present moment, which emerges as an opportunity. she needs to experiment with how she can somaesthetically support karen’s participation and the fulfillment of the work task by means of the body as a locus of aesthetic appreciation (shusterman, 2006) of karen’s expressions and her own impressions. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 53 britta møller the co-creative practice is also about the production of expressions, as it is about impressions: “to define an impression signifies a good deal more than just to utter it. impressions, total qualitative unanalyzed effects that things and events make upon us, are the antecedents and beginning of all judgments” (dewey, 1934, p. 317). dewey’s point is that available data are signs to appreciate, analyze, and value to form adequate responses to a situation—in this case, the performance of “caring care.” appreciation entails the capacity to take in the immediate experience and reflect the impression to give out in adequate ways that ensure the enrichment of experiences (dewey, 1934; shusterman, 2006). through their communication, the situation takes the form of a joint social matter—they need to work together to get out of bed and complete the bath. communication is a bodily and sensuous—somaesthetic—matter (shusterman, 2006), in which they need to adjust themselves to each other’s bodily reactions. karen utters a short, interrupted sentence, “there are...,” which does not say much. however, aligned with karen’s bodily gesture as she points toward the closet, anne seems to fulfill the sentence in her head and to understand the intention: “there are no more clean clothes in the closet.” taking karen’s perspective, the care worker learns how to interpret karen’s verbal and bodily expressions into impressions and how to transform and give back these impressions in adequate outgivings (dewey, 1934) that align or challenge karen’s capacity to participate and communicate. rather than rejecting the body as unreliable because of its sensory grounding, the somatic awareness of the care worker is cultivated, and the functional performance of the senses is improved (shusterman, 2006). the situation shows anne the potential to improve how to register the elderly’s communicative intentions and how to communicate in order for karen to participate. anne has the choice to highlight and reinforce karen’s bodily expressions or to ignore and prevent herself from being understandable. therefore, taking care of a care situation sees the need for an appreciative action in which the care worker analyzes the available data, her own impressions, and the situation as a whole and takes actions on behalf of this analysis (dewey, 1934). the care worker takes the available data seriously as potential resources to learn more about the elderly, herself, the care situation, and her course of actions within it. conversely, karen can learn how she—with her available resources—can make her wishes and needs perceptible and how she can take in—or reject—the care worker’s attempts to assist her. these back and forth switches illustrate the social and experimental processes i describe as co-creation that i see unfolding in everyday care practices, with the actors as creators of expressions and perceivers of impressions. by analyzing karen’s movement with her hand and her half-sentence as an expression of “no more clothes,” anne recreates her impression dramatically to a new representation as an expressive object (dewey, 1934). karen’s uttering forms an expressive object that anne recreates into another representation based on karen’s expression and re-created into a new form (an expressive object) to which karen, again, can react. through these means, anne opens up an active and creative interaction with what is and what is about to happen in the situation (dewey, 1934). anne’s somaesthetic experience of the embodied nuances and qualities of the situation expands her interpretation of the world, which, as shusterman (2006) points out, is karen’s needs and experiences and how anne can support and steer the care situation in a fruitful direction. for a moment, anne acts as a receiver who analyzes the situation (nice blouse, hand, closet) to determine the missing laundry and karen’s need for clean clothes. aesthetic appreciation creates a potential co-creative space for learning in which both can act as creators and receivers (dewey, 1934)—in this case, “the good bath.” however, anne has to try out actions to analyze from karen’s reactions what impression her actions make. karen seems satisfied with anne’s representation, and the morning routine can continue. however, the bodily sensation may have been too vague for anne to acknowledge or for her to use as a material for interpretation, and karen could have also rejected anne’s representation. aesthetics and body experiences in health care54 care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work discussion this study analyzes a single care situation as an aesthetic co-creative inquiry that takes the form of the interactions between two involved actors and the task joining them. in the following, i will discuss aesthetic co-creative inquiry as a potential process of learning, how somaesthetic capacity must be developed as part of a caring habit, and how attention to the body as a locus for aesthetic appreciation is crucial for care workers to acknowledge subtle forms of power within care situations. i reflect on how this pragmatic approach differs and brings in other aspects to consider, aside from the phenomenological perspective on the body in care work. finally, i discuss the strengths and weaknesses of my study. learning how to care as stated in the introduction that care cannot be fully understood if the embodied dimensions are unattended (hamington, 2004) and that learning how to care is a highly somatic affair (twigg, 2000), this study stresses that somaesthetic attention can function as a means for reflection, a trigger for learning. this attention can enhance the embodied sensible knowing in care work that is collectively deployed (gherardi & rodeschini, 2016). like any knowledge, caring can be developed into an embodied capacity to practice the body’s caring knowledge into caring habits (hamington, 2004). it is imperative for the quality of care work that care workers learn to undergo the sense of uncertainty they experience in emerging care situations about how to interpret (take in impressions) and react (give out expressions) appropriately. noddings (2012) defines the ethics of care as the mutual recognition and appreciation of responses that serve to further construct a caring relation in receptive attention and empathy. emphasizing responsiveness and receptiveness in caring helps to acknowledge the kinds of bodywork that draw attention to central aspects, often overlooked and understudied, in care relations and communication. the sense of uncertainty turns the perspective of learning from one focusing on solving problems (e.g., learning how to help the elderly with their morning bath) to another focusing on how the care worker is experientially (bodily, emotionally, and intellectually) entangled with the life of the elderly and the care work. focusing on the uncertainty—or the “mystery” of the entanglement (gherardi, 1999)—helps to acknowledge care workers as integrally connected with others as co-constructors (and co-appreciators) of the narratives of life (and care work). this perspective of learning (in entangled somaesthetic experiences) helps to question the contributions of the care worker to the development of shared activities in a material world of increasing interdependence (gherardi, 1999). this means that acknowledging the dimensions of the body as the locus of aesthetic appreciation is a matter of attending to how the (re)actions of the care worker are part of a greater whole (gherardi, 1999), involving the quality of life of the elderly and of the work of the care worker. these considerations are derived from socio-material and pragmatic stances that differ from an existential–phenomenological stance to the body in care work (e.g., van manen, 1998; herholdt-lomholdt, 2019). these approaches distinguish themselves from pragmatism by arguing an understanding of aesthetics not as a way of knowing but as a way of being and seeing what is beyond everyday experiences and within it as a surplus of meaning (herholdt‐ lomholdt, 2019). the set-offs are similar: care workers and the elderly are under a shared impression of an unfolding phenomenon and together share an experience. however, how the care workers’ reflection of the situation is triggered (i.e., how they learn from it) differs depending on whether the stand is pragmatic or existential. from a pragmatic standpoint, i the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 55 britta møller argue for an offset in the uncertainty caused by the enactment in a care situation, whereas the existential–phenomenological viewpoint argues for a wonder-driven approach to ethical and existential dimensions (herholdt-lomholdt & hansen, 2016). emphasizing ontological-based meaningfulness, existential philosophy criticizes the pragmatic epistemology of practice for being driven by problem solving. however, somaesthetics requires aesthetic reflexivity (shusterman, 1999), not just cognitive problem-solving skills (gherardi, 1999). the way shusterman and dewey see aesthetic philosophical practice can be used as a way of qualifying care practice as aesthetic co-creation. dealing with the uncertainty that is emerging in the interactions in care situations, in which doubt, hope, power, and vulnerability are at stake, is to train people to become more caring and aesthetically attentive to the embodied situations in care work and in life in general. based on this pragmatic perspective, somaesthetics is about experiencing, reflecting, expressing, and enacting what is known and experienced. symbolic power and caring culture if the somaesthetic dimensions of care work are left unattended, there is a risk of not taking into consideration the expressions of power in care work. the power that is entangled in care work is embedded symbolically and is invisible in the caregivers’ helping actions toward the elderly (järvinen & mortensen, 2002). as a consequence, symbolic power is seldom acknowledged as power. for most, help is given with goodwill. however, for this reason, it can be difficult for the receiver to reject help. the receiver has to show gratitude lest she be considered rude and ungrateful, even though the help may not be what she wished for (järvinen & mortensen, 2002). the power is in a twilight zone, where it is challenging to get a hold of because it is interwoven in help and goodwill (järvinen & mortensen, 2002). the power is to define, declare, and decide on behalf of the elderly and to act and react to impressions. the care worker may think that she knows what the elderly feel and how to react to the needs of the elderly, but if the person’s experience of what happens differs from the care worker’s intention, then the intention is to be suspended in favor of the experience of the elderly (van manen, 1998). to acknowledge the symbolic power in care work is to attend to the fine-lined somaesthetic appreciation, in which the wishes and needs of the elderly are interpreted (or not), and the (re)actions of help are shaped. moreover, attention must be paid to structural power in the ways care services are organized and the degree to which care workers are offered spaces and tools to learn how to appreciate the bodily aspects of care work. (organizational) learning is inherent in the process of creating and using knowledge while organizing (gherardi, 1999). therefore, if care practice is organized in ways that restrict the co-creative inquiry, the somaesthetic aspects will remain silent, the symbolic power will be invisible, and the care workers’ ability to support the participation and wellbeing of the elderly will be limited. attention must then be paid to organizational structures and caring cultures that enable language, values, social institutions, and artistic media for the actors to think, act, and express themselves aesthetically (shusterman, 2006). a care culture requires somaesthetic awareness and reflexivity, spaces, and tools to consider the body as a central locus for aesthetic appreciation. strengths and weaknesses of the study shadowing the phenomenon of learning in this study did not initially entail a specific focus on bodywork in care work. this dimension became apparent through the analysis of the shadowing activities. consequently, and in accordance with mystery-driven research (alvesson aesthetics and body experiences in health care56 care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work & kärreman, 2007), the empirical data qualified the theoretical development, as the analysis stressed the importance of somaesthetics in care work and learning. however, as this analysis was conducted after i left the field, the study did not realize the full potential of shadowing as an in situ analytic method in which care workers take part in in-the-moment interpretations (buchan & simpson, 2020). this can be considered an inconsistency of the study, as the findings of the analysis are not validated or qualified in practice. this study’s micro-narrative focus on a singular care situation has strengths and weaknesses. one strength is the possibility of conducting an in-depth analysis of a “small story” (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008), which helps to understand more of the subtle somaesthetic dimensions in care work. one weakness is that a singular situation as a small sample can never represent care work in all its variations as an organizational practice consisting of myriads of care situations related to organizational structures. another consideration is how the situation is selected and constructed as a narrative (czarniawska, 2004). the situation is not a story told by a care worker or collected by a researcher. instead, it is expressed by a researcher as it made an impression while experienced and in order to show a certain theoretical thesis—care work is bodywork in more subtle forms than just being “dirty” bodywork with fluids and decay. this study shows that bodywork is about the art of communication. one can question whether the narrative is a correct presentation of reality. however, from a pragmatic standpoint, there is no correct version of reality to present. from the theoretical stand of this paper, there is a somaesthetic appreciation of any perceiver, but if handled reflexively, these impressions can be shaped into figurations that say something about what is going on in the world and the nature of experience (dewey, 1934). conclusion this study approaches the study of care work as bodywork using an analytical lens with emphasis on the somaesthetic dimension of the body as a locus for aesthetic appreciation and thus for communication and learning between care workers and the elderly. drawing on dewey’s theory of aesthetics, shusterman’s notion of somaesthetics, and the added notion of co-creation in a micro-analysis of an everyday care situation from elderly care, this study shows how care workers and the elderly act as creators and receivers in an aesthetic co-creative process. to secure the future quality of care situations with hopefully richer experiences, the care worker must step in a position as a receiver who sensibly and aesthetically appreciates what is at stake and what happens as a result of actions. therefore, this study stresses the importance of establishing a caring culture that emphasizes somaesthetic awareness and reflexivity and enables spaces and tools to deal with uncertainty in care work. this entails analyzing the subtle forms of power that are at stake in care relations and organizational structures. acknowledgments the study was supported and financed by the aarhus municipality, department of health and care, the social and health care college, sosu-østjylland, and aalborg university, denmark. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 57 britta møller references alvesson, m., & kärreman, d. 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(2002). det magtfulde møde mellem system og klient teoretiske perspektiver. in järvinen, larsen & mortensen (eds.), det magtfulde møde mellem system og klient (pp. 9–27). aarhus university press. aesthetics and body experiences in health care58 care practice as aesthetic co-creation: a somaesthetic perspective on care work mcdonald, s., & simpson, b. (2014). shadowing research in organizations: the methodological debates. qualitative research in organizations and management: an international journal, 9(1), 3–20. noddings, n. (2012). the language of care ethics. knowledge quest, 40(4), 52–56. revsbæk, l., & simpson, b. (2022). why does process research require us to notice differently? in b. simpson, & l. revsbæk (eds.), doing process research in organizations: noticing differently (pp. 1–15). oxford university press. rosiek, j. l. (2013). pragmatism and post-qualitative futures. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 26(6), 692–705. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.788758 shusterman, r. (1994). dewey on experience: foundation or reconstruction? philosophical forum, 26(2), 127–148. shusterman, r. (1999). somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57(3), 299–313. shusterman, r. (2006). thinking through the body, educating for the humanities: a plea for somaesthetics. journal of aesthetic education, 40(1), 1–21. st. pierre, e. a. (1997). methodology in the fold and the irruption of transgressive data. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 10(2), 175–189. twigg, j. (2000). carework as a form of bodywork. ageing and society, 20(4), 389–411. 10.1017/ s0144686x99007801 van manen, m. (1998). modalities of body experience in illness and health. qualitative health research, 8(1), 7–24. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 30 page 30–44outi hakola breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films outi hakola abstract: the 20th century saw a strengthening of medicalization processes, which included a medicalization of death where dying and death came to be handled primarily as medical challenges. for their part, cinematic technologies participated in this by utilizing film technology to standardize medical processes, by using films for educational purposes, and by representing medical technology and knowledge in an authoritative sociocultural manner in film narrations. as a side effect, cinematic narratives have often portrayed death as a medical failure that people can and need to be saved from. toward the end of the 20th century, criticism toward medicalization has increased among healthcare personnel and hospice and palliative care movements, for example. at the same time, as documentary films have continued to try to capture and understand the dying processes, in at least those films dealing with so-called natural death (due to aging or terminal illness), their tone has started to emphasize demedicalization aspects. i argue that this change in tone is recognizable in how the cinematic technology represents and utilizes breathing in the films’ narratives. breathing—and particularly difficulty breathing—audibly and visibly embodies the fragility of the human body before death. at the same time, it conveys a sense of agency: are you able to breath on your own? is medical technology needed to do breathing for you? and how is the use of technology for dying individuals justified or not? i analyze the documentary films dying at grace (2003), frontline: facing death (2010), love in our own time (2011), extremis (2016), island (2018), and covidland (2021), and through them i argue that 21st-century documentary films are joining in the efforts to demedicalize death and, as such, they are shifting the long relationship between cinematic and medical technologies. introduction cinematic technology has explored whether a camera can reveal and document what death is, as an event (medically speaking) and as an experience. yet, the recording of death has proven to be problematic. the medium has limits on how to reach beyond cinematic representation, and death refuses to be fully communicated through narrative, aesthetics, and the affective options that cinema offers (malkowski, 2017; sobchack, 1984). despite the limitations of the medium, aesthetics and body experiences in health care31 breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films filmmakers have continued their attempts to capture the moment of death and, in this process, breathing has become an important narrative tool for both cinematic and medical purposes. an absence of breathing and a heartbeat (or respiratory and circulatory arrest) served as the medical definition of death well into the 20th century (saeed, 2018). since the 1950s, the invention of mechanical respirators and other life-supporting technologies has led to the current practices of measuring brain function to define death (maguire, 2019; saeed, 2018). yet, changes in breathing, such as difficulty breathing and lack of breath, continue to serve as diagnostic tools in several illnesses and the moment of impending death, and these can be perceived as image and sound by film audiences. closer to death, difficulty breathing can shift to agonal breathing, where the automated process of breathing becomes difficult and a conscious effort, a medical sign that the person is getting weaker (fletcher, 2018). finally, the final stage of dying can often be detected by a death rattle, which can develop during the last hours of life when the patient is too weak to swallow and the airway secretions produce gasps in breathing (campbell, 2019; wee et al., 2006). these stages of breathing communicate the medical conditions of the patients, and in documentaries they can be used as ways to overcome the sensory limitations of representing dying as a process. in medical research, breathing has been discussed in relation to diagnostics, several longterm and acute illnesses, and life support and death (bausewein et al., 2007; dorman et al., 2007; hutchinson et al., 2017). while part of this research focuses on symptoms and treatments, the research has also placed importance on the experiences of breathlessness. research has shown that people experiencing difficulty breathing can feel failure or an otherness of their bodies, which affects their sensations, thoughts, feelings, and behavior (malpass et al., 2019). breathlessness not only limits their lives physically, but also socially, psychologically and existentially, and it can create a sense of loss or hopelessness and an awareness of mortality and the temporality of life (górska, 2016; hutchinson et al., 2018; macnaughton & carel, 2016; malpass et al., 2019; malpass & penny, 2019). thus, while breathing serves as a medical diagnostic and observational tool, it also puts the focus on the patients, their experience of loss, and an oft-related fear of death—an affective experience that cinematic media and storytelling are capable of conveying for viewers. after all, cinematic experience can transform the viewers’ understanding of issues they have not experienced themselves, for example, to give insight into death and dying. yet, in film studies, breathing has received limited attention. quinlivan (2012) argues that breathing can be a powerful instrument for narration, visual and audio effects, meaning-making, and embodied experiences. when made the focus of a film, breathing has intense emotional and visceral impact, not least because of viewers’ tendency to respond to on-screen representations mimetically or affectively. thus, in moments where breathing is the focus of narration, viewers not only become sensitive to the on-screen breathing bodies, but their own bodies can start to mimic those of the breathing characters, creating an embodied experience and bodily awareness (fahd, 2019; r. gibson, 2013; quinlivan, 2012). this potential for bodily self-awareness and an embodied connection with dying people invites viewers into affective experiences of the dying process in a way that can overcome the limitations of cinematic (and medical) technology. in this article, i discuss how health-related documentaries with a focus on end of life utilize breathing as narrative and an embodied tool to explore the potential and limits of communicating death and dying through cinema. the discussion is related to my research project on end-of-life documentary films. after watching over fifty documentaries on the topic, i started to notice the role of breathing as a signifier of dying. for this article, i chose examples that give prominence to this narrative solution and highlight the complexity of meanings that are embedded to this the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 32 outi hakola signifier. my analysis will show that breathing as a signifier of death has also cultural and political goals. when the documentaries represent a contrast between independent breathing and breathing with respiratory devices, they discuss the practices of medicalization of death, where death and dying have become defined and handled primarily as medical challenges (conrad, 2007; sadler et al., 2009; tabernero, 2018). both medical and cinematic technologies have appeared as signs of modernity from the beginning of the 20th century. medical professionals have used film technology to document and standardize medical procedures and to serve for educational or verification purposes within the field (dijck, 2005; ostherr, 2013). in addition, the cinematic media has eagerly participated in building images of scientific technology as something that should have authority and sociopolitical importance (tabernero, 2018). both documentary and fictional film and television representations of the medical field have imagined and conceptualized medical knowledge and technology as a kind of salvation, and consequently, they have portrayed death from natural causes as a (medical) failure that people need to be rescued from (dijck, 2005, pp. 14, 33–34; hetzler & dugdale, 2018, p. 767; ostherr, 2013, pp. 168–169). however, when it comes to mediating death as a transformative moment in human life, cinematic expressions have faced difficulties in capturing the totality of the dying experience. these difficulties are similar to those of the medical field, where definitions of death remain controversial, for example due to coma and brain death. similarly, no matter how much the images of the dying process are slowed down in cinematic representations, realizing the exact moment that could be studied for modern (medical) gaze can remain out of reach. in recent documentaries of natural death occurring due to age or illness, the cinematic medium continues in its attempts to mediate death as an experience, but instead of medicalization purposes, these tend to aim to demedicalize death, to define it as a normal part of life in a way that highlights the person, not the medical issues or death as a failure. in particular, i pay attention to how breathing narratives help to justify the demedicalization of death. with a combination of cinematic and medical perspectives, i illustrate the twofold connections that on-screen dying bodies have with technology. both medical technology, such as ventilators, and cinematic technology, such as cameras, create the embodied potential for viewers to gain perspectives on the medicalization of death and dying in contemporary societies. while cinematic technology has added to the medicalization processes in the 20th century, i argue that documentary films of the 21st century challenge the idealization of modern medicalization processes. narrative aspects of intensive care and hospice care documentaries i approach the role of breathing in demedicalization narratives through theoretical and methodological practices of narratology, which studies structures and functions of narratives. specifically, i focus on two constitutive building blocks for both stories and human experiences: space and time. the narrative events take place in various environments and locations, whether real or imagined, and they enable contextual and metaphorical depth for stories (ryan, 2012). similarly, narration takes place in a temporal setting that gives the stories a sense of direction and tempo (parker, 2018). together, space and time situate both the characters and the viewers in the stories. two different care locations define the end-of-life documentaries that i analyze in this article. first, i study medical documentaries about intensive care units (icus), which provide critical care, life support, and constant surveillance for patients whose lives are at immediate risk. aesthetics and body experiences in health care33 breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films i study the hour-long television documentary frontline: facing death (navasky & o’connor, 2010), the netflix documentary extremis (krauss, 2016), and a topical short documentary covidland (teitler, 2021). second, i analyze documentaries about hospice and palliative care where the focus is on comfort care and the experiences of the dying patients. the following three documentaries also include the last breaths of the dying people: dying at grace (king, 2003), love in our own time (murray & hetherton, 2011), and island (eastwood, 2018). both icus and hospice spaces provide spatial frames with patients in their hospital beds, surrounded by staff and family members. yet, medical (and cinematic) technologies play different roles in these spaces. in the icu, the medical technology, particularly ventilators, occupies a key spatial role, and the film camera maintains some distance from the patient. in comparison, the home-like environment of hospices marginalizes medical technology and brings film cameras close to the patient. differences in settings bring forward differences in the medical and sociocultural contexts of care. the medicalization of death has been connected to highly technologized intensive care, even when many icu professionals (and others) have raised concerns about the dehumanizing aspects of the overmedicalization of dying (hetzler & dugdale, 2018, p. 767). overmedicalization includes an aggressive aim to prolong life through medical interventions, such as ventilators, which arguably turns patients into isolated medical objects, whose individual autonomy and social and emotional wellbeing are marginalized (field, 1994; l. k. hall, 2017; hetzler & dugdale, 2018; zimmermann & rodin, 2004). in comparison, the rise of hospice movements appears as an alternative for medicalized death and as a transition toward demedicalized dying (l. k. hall, 2017, p. 235). hospice care and palliative care focus on holistic end-of-life care, where medical care treats symptoms and aims for comfort care (instead of a cure), and which is complemented with psychological, social and spiritual care to increase the level of quality of life (loscalzo, 2008; radbruch et al., 2020). similarly, in the documentaries, the icu films give the central role to the medical technology, whereas the hospice films tend to avoid technological aspects and focus on the patients’ experiences. in addition to setting, the framing of images adds spatial aspects to film narration. the framing defines which elements, such as breathing, are given focus and visibility on screen. quinlivan (2012) has observed that breathing shows itself through cinematic place—it is something that is made visible (and heard) particularly through breathing bodies on screen. because documentaries about natural death put special focus on the breathing of the dying main characters, who are either breathing independently or with a ventilator, these films also construct the spatial potential for an embodied connection. thus, by looking into the images and sounds of breathing, i analyze how viewers are invited to pay attention to breathing, and how this direction of attention can challenge medicalization processes. time serves as another important motivation, both in the narratives and in end-of-life care. medicalization, with its medical interventions and technology, aims to either prevent or slow down dying and to increase one’s lifespan. the demedicalized death is often embraced if there is no longer hope for other results. thus, the ethical dilemmas of end-of-life care lie in the uncertainty of the prognosis: the best course of care decisions—curative versus palliative care— can often be realized only in hindsight. thus, the ambivalence of temporality of life muddies the waters for medical staff, patients, and their families. in contrast, documentaries have a built-in hindsight to evaluate medicalization of death due to the editing and post-production practices where filmed events are turned into a narrative. heidegger’s metaphysics of “being-toward-death,” according to which death gives perspective to the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 34 outi hakola all experiences and guides our (temporal) way of being in the world (heidegger, 1978), serves as a starting point for ricoeur, who argues that the temporal structure of human experience is comparable to the temporality of narrative, where events are both projected toward a certain future and informed by the past. this structure of “having-been, coming-forth, and makingpresent” gives the narrative a circular form where the end is anticipated in the beginning, and the beginning is included in the end (ricoeur, 1980, p. 181). in end-of-life documentaries, the viewer is aware of impending death from the beginning, and thus the narration is burdened with anticipation of death, a strong attitude of “being-toward-death.” breathing, changes in breathing, and lack of breathing mark this anticipation, the passing time, and progressing dying process. along with the passing of universal time, breathing marks the embodied time in these documentaries. instead of universal (or clock) time, embodied time refers to the experience of time, and its importance is recognized by both the medical and cinematic fields. studies of hospice and palliative care have emphasized the patients’ experience of time becoming embodied: terminally ill people mark outer universal time as less important than their inner time, and their end of life is defined by changes in their bodily functions and lived experiences (lindqvist et al., 2008), where “it is not the clock that stops ticking, but the heart that stops beating, when lifetime is ended” (ellingsen et al., 2013, p. 170). similarly, in phenomenological philosophy, time is often seen as a “dimension of our being” instead of a universal object (merleau-ponty, 2002, p. 438), and in film theory, deleuze has argued that while images move within a certain time, they can relate to time also indirectly or virtually in ways that underline experienced, not universal time (deleuze, 1985, pp. 24–44). when on-screen breathing characters experience time through their bodies, they mediate an embodied potential for the viewer to connect with their experiences. in addition, “being-toward-death,” or anticipation of death, creates non-linearity in the narration, making the experience of time fluid. the fluidity of time that is connected to lived body experiences gives depth to the cinematic expression. according to sobchack (2004, p. 121), temporal simultaneity also expands the space of presented images, and as such, the temporal aspect of the images includes and affects the spatial and material bodies in them. in the following analysis, i utilize this idea that the spatial and temporal aspects related to breathing serve as narrative tools to visualize and embody dying processes in a way that can reveal these documentaries’ relationship to ideas of (de)medicalization. i start the analysis with the icu documentaries before discussing the hospice and palliative care documentaries. breathing and agency in intensive care documentaries the contemporary medical documentaries that narrate the daily lives of intensive care units are influenced by the traditions of cinma vrit and observational documentaries, where events take place in front of viewers with no voice-over commentary, added music or sound effects, often being filmed with a hand-held camera as if to emphasize a “real” feeling (j. hall, 1991; macdougall, 2018, pp. 1–2; nichols, 2017, pp. 132–135). this style was eagerly utilized in early medical documentaries, where viewers were invited to witness hospital life behind the scenes; ambient sounds, such as beeping and machine sounds, as well as images of medical technologies, such as a dialysis machine, ventilators, and heart monitors, provided an impression of unmediated reality, and the institutional feeling of rushing doctors gave a sense of authenticity (ostherr, 2013, p. 157). all three icu documentaries—facing death, extremis, and covidland—utilize this tradition at least partially by highlighting the sense of being present, aesthetics and body experiences in health care35 breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films offering observation, and witnessing the practices, potential and limitations of intensive care. by placing the care practices under scrutiny, the contemporary films also turn a critical gaze toward the medicalization of death. in extremis, a short documentary that depicts the icu of highland hospital in the u.s., the challenges related to medicalization of death become visible through two patients, selena and donna. in both cases, their families face a conflict about whether they should be maintained on a ventilator or allowed to die by being removed from life support. in the end, donna’s family decides to remove the tubes, and donna says goodbye to her family before passing away a day later. selena is surgically attached to the ventilator until her death about six months later. because selena is unable to communicate or respond to stimuli, the family needs to make care decisions for her. consequently, there is very limited on-screen time for the patient, and the narrative focus is on the family, which is struggling with a sense of loss and care choices. for them, the high-tech medical technology equals life, the decision to remove the ventilator equals murder, and death equals failure in medical care. thus, medicalization provides hope and a prolongation of life (and time); the roots for these kinds of expectations have been sought from media narratives. medical programming, where trauma patients can be “fixed” and life-sustaining treatments are emphasized at the expense of long-term outcomes of medical interventions or benefits of palliative care, has been argued as giving families misguided expectations of icu care (hetzler & dugdale, 2018; houben et al., 2016). although selena’s family’s (unrealistic) sense of hope is merely observed, not openly criticized, the choice to leave the patient as part of the background, not the central focus, questions whether the medicalization of death is in the interest of the family, not the patient. the desire for demedicalization is further highlighted with donna. the viewer is introduced to her when she is strapped to a hospital bed and breathing with the help of the ventilator. the beeping sound of the ekg machine and the whooshing sound of the ventilator make the medical technology spatially present through audio and visual imagery. this introduction highlights the role of medical technology, and mechanical breathing seems to replace donna’s agency. the sounds diminish when her husband starts talking to her soothingly. the husband even confesses being worried that the ventilator is the only functioning thing. later on, donna is able to respond to the doctors and her family, and she signals that she wants to have the breathing tube removed. her part of the film finishes with her own words, when after the removal of the tube she smiles and tells everybody to calm down. she regains her own breathing, and her own voice, and she and her family choose to accept the impending death. the medical treatments or technology no longer intervene in the goodbyes and communication. at the same time, her death is not portrayed as failure, but as a rite of passage. in subtle ways, the documentary compares these two end-of-life care choices in a way where mechanical breathing prolongs life yet also relieves the patient from agency. the connection between agency and breathing is highlighted in the public broadcasting service’s documentary frontline: facing death, which features an emergency care unit at mount sinai hospital in new york city. the film introduces doctors dealing with intensive care and aggressive medical interventions, and patients and their families who are dealing with various terminal diagnoses. here, too, the focus is on care choices, and the documentary discusses conflicts between the hopes related to medicalization and the fears of overmedicalization, where invasive and aggressive treatments can affect quality of life and sometimes even shorten life. while the filmmakers seemingly present both sides of the argument, the spatial and temporal narration challenges the outcomes of overmedicalization. spatially, the dependence on medical the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 36 outi hakola technology becomes a focal point. mechanical ventilation plays a particularly significant role, as it assists or replaces the breathing of the patients. the ventilators also marginalize the patients, who become almost unrecognizable beneath tubes attached to medical devices. for example, one scene starts with a close-up of the illuminated screen of the medical device that measures oxygen levels and breathing. slowly the camera pans to the breathing tube and follows its movements in the regulated rhythm of breath. the camera focuses on this movement in an almost hypnotic way. the rhythm of breathing in and out is also a form of engagement—with each intake of breath, people take something of the world into themselves, and when breathing out they release something out of themselves and participate in the shared world (quinlivan, 2012, pp. 104–105). thus, when patients are unable to breathe for themselves, technology, at least temporarily, overtakes their subjectivity. in facing death, where the patients die despite medical interventions, the visual allegory of borrowed breathing asks whether the medical options provide meaningful life. in this scene, the image continues to refocus, from the breathing tube to giving a glimpse of the patient at the end of the tube. even here, their face remains out of focus, unrecognizable. this image contrasts with the medical technology, the breathing mask, and its timely and precise movements, which are in focus, with the blurred and unstable image of the person. while the spatial aspect of breathing questions the limits of human agency in connection to medicalized death, temporal aspects raise questions of being-toward-death. respiratory machines give time for families to make decisions about end-of-life care and to come to terms with loss. the medical staff highlights that this treatment should be temporary, but for many families it is hard to decide when to stop it, as intensive care can give false hope that modern technology could prevent dying. in many ways, medical technology freezes embodied time, yet by extension it also freezes the agency and subjectivity of the patient. in facing death, none of the patients get better, and at the end of the documentary, only one patient—who is permanently hooked to a breathing machine—continues to live. the question whether the patients can breathe on their own gives narrative structure and tension to the film, and the removal of the breathing technology becomes the closing scene of the documentary. this implies that unless you can breathe yourself, you have neither agency nor meaningful life, and the question raised is how the relatives are going to deal with this loss. whereas extremis and facing death question the suitability of medicalized icu care for terminally ill patients at the end of their lives, the covid-19 pandemic discusses impending death in the context of acute illness—the primary function of icu care—where difficulty breathing is a sudden, and unwelcome, reminder of mortality. covidland, where icu doctor megan panico cares for covid-19 patients at hartford hospital, witnesses how covid emergency care affects both healthcare personnel and the patients. while emotional strain comes to the fore, medical technology represents hope to save lives amidst the pandemic. as a respiratory disease, covid-19 affects lungs, and in severe cases coronavirus can cause acute respiratory distress syndrome, a life-threatening lung injury, where oxygen cannot get into the body, and which often requires intensive care with oxygen or a ventilator (world health organization, 2020). the care aims to support the patient so that the body has time to heal. in covidland, medical technology is presented as an option to freeze embodied time. this short documentary also starts with images from an icu corridor filled with monitors and medical technology. mechanical beeping sounds and close-ups of blood pressure monitors and iv therapy bags surround the staff as they put on their personal protective equipment. while the contextual images highlight the need for medical technology for life support, the images aesthetics and body experiences in health care37 breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films of the staff reference the threat of infection. here, breathing acquires dangerous undertones. participation in the world through breathing becomes both a blessing and a curse, when every intake of breath can expose one to a virus, and every outbreath can cause danger to others. in this context, breathing carries both positive and negative connotations. the opening ends with the staff members looking into a patient’s room through a glass window. thus, before the viewer is allowed to meet the patients, the need for protection is introduced, highlighting the isolation of patients. the short film tells the story of a patient, brian, who according to the closing credits died from covid. he is introduced through medical technology: the camera pans from the machines by the bedside to brian, whose face is hidden beneath an oxygen mask. similarly to other icu films, the image does not linger on brian, but cuts to the staff ’s discussion of his medical status. when the camera finds brian again, the only movement is his chest, as he struggles to breathe even with the mask. the medical technology hums in the background. later on, when brian is involved with discussion of his care, the medical technology—both visual and auditory spatial cues—also fades into the background, and low-key background music is introduced. it covers the sound of the machines and gives priority to the agencies of both the patient and the caretaker. when dr. panico discusses brian’s views on having to be intubated, and potentially dying with a breathing tube, distress and the inability to decide are visible in brian’s facial expressions. at the same time, his difficulty breathing highlights his deterioration. the doctor explains for the viewer that it is heartbreaking to lose people, and while medical technology can provide hope, aggressive interventions, such as sedation due to intubation, can also dehumanize and further isolate the patient at the moment of their death. in the last image we see of brian, he states: “whatever will be… it’s okay” (teitler, 2021). these last words can hint at his desire to avoid a medicalized death, but just as well to his trust in healthcare professionals to make the right choice, and such, these words can also hint to willingness of letting go of agency. while covidland brings forward how icu technology has helped to save patients from acute illness, even these kinds of covid-19 documentaries include critical views toward medicalization of death. similarly to extremis and facing death, covidland refuses to turn to the trope of heroic recovery stories; instead, medicalization processes appear in all these icu stories as temporary for patients with the potential to get through aggressive care, not as something that can eliminate death. the films’ “being-toward-death” orientation represents deaths of patients as inevitable, even when stories include insights into challenges of making (right) care choices. thus, the benefit of hindsight invites viewers to criticize medicalized practices, and in many cases, ventilators appear as a dehumanizing option for person-oriented care at the end-of-life. hospice documentaries and the last breath documentaries about hospice and palliative care erase almost all traces of medicalization. occasionally these films show how patients are provided with medication or additional oxygen—but high-tech machines, such as ventilators, are missing from the narratives. in these films, agency is connected to breathing, yet the question is what time is left, not what a machine can provide. in the context of hospice, time arguably has special meaning because comfort care aims to appreciate the time that is left when one is faced with the lack of a future (pasveer, 2019). in the australian documentary love in our own time, the family of jutta (the dying patient) talks about her breathing. her daughter wonders: “she is lying there, breathing, but who the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 38 outi hakola is she, where is her personality?” here, the patient’s weakening consciousness and presence are connected to bodily functions, such as breathing, and while it anticipates the imminent loss, it is also comforting, as the husband confirms: “the only movement is the breathing … that is a good sound” (murray & hetherton, 2011). here, the role of breathing is directly connected to the dying process. in these films, breathing is used to give updates on how each character is doing. for example, in the canadian documentary dying at grace, situated in the palliative care unit at toronto grace health centre, the camera peeks into the patients’ rooms to show and listen to them still breathing. carmilla is the first patient to die, and her death is shown in a sequence at night. she is surrounded by concerned family, who witness her labored breathing, while a lightweight nasal cannula helps to increase oxygen flow. after the family leaves, the camera visits carmilla’s bedside a few times, together with nurses who are doing their rounds. the first time, a medium shot shows carmilla’s chest moving with the rhythm of each hard breath. the second time, a close-up of her hollow face cuts to an extreme close-up of her hand resting on her moving chest before returning to a close-up of her terminal breathing. the last scene of carmilla is after her death. in the middle of the night, in a medium-long shot, the camera shows two nurses entering the room. they check her breathing, and when they cannot detect it, they take away the tubes and caress her skin. with one last close-up of her now immobile face, a voiceover shares a nurse calling carmilla’s daughter and telling about her very peaceful death. in this sequence, the troubled sound of breathing and the close-ups of the breathing body communicate aliveness as a contrast to the stillness and quietness at the end. also, close-ups invite the viewer near to the dying person, creating a visceral impact. in the hospice documentaries, the spatial aspects of breathing are empathetically visceral. the breathing bodies evoke embodied connections to the materiality of dying bodies, and because the embodied breathing invites consciousness of mortality (fahd, 2019; quinlivan, 2012), these moments invite viewers to experience the temporality of life. the sections of the films where the main characters’ breathing is easier tend to include medium shots and medium-long shots that introduce the hospice space and people in it. when main characters’ breathing gets difficult, the camera comes closer. in the deathbed scenes, the filmmakers tend to use medium close-ups and close-ups of dying people, creating a sense of intimacy. by bringing the camera, sometimes even a handheld camera, close to the dying person, the films leave no escape route and give no potential for distancing oneself from the moment of death. particularly when there is no medical technology that stands in the way of gazing at the dying person, the access is immediate and affective. affectivity is emphasized in dying at grace’s closing scene, where eda dies in front of the camera. the scene lasts for almost three minutes with a hand-held camera shooting a close-up of her face resting on the pillow. her eyes are half-closed, her every breath difficult, gasping, almost as if it were an automatic, unwanted action. the breathing is visible through her slightly open mouth, movements of the cheeks, a slight bobbing of the head, and often difficult swallows. the sound of her difficulty breathing, or the death rattle, diminishes all other sounds. breathing as the main visible and audible element in the scene invites the viewer to become aware of their own breathing, to compare their body with the dying body. this consciousness makes the viewer pay attention to the automated process of breathing, its rhythm, and its necessity for the lived experience and for continuation of inner, embodied time. the long-shot duration, hand-held yet rather immobile camera, and close-up of eda’s difficulty breathing emphasize the witnessing of the delicate moment of the last breath. during the scene, the gasps and gaps between breaths aesthetics and body experiences in health care39 breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films increase, interspersed with silence, until there are no further breaths. when eda stops breathing, the sound of the background noises returns, and the beeping sound from medical technology can be heard; yet at the moment of death, the focus is on the person, eda. in other deathbed scenes, the role of the last breath and the absence of medical technology are similar, highlighting the embodied, even natural process of dying. in love in our own time, the sound of dying is mixed with labored breathing from childbirth. in the montage, two women in labor use different breathing techniques to help with the pain, and these sounds are edited together with the death rattle of jutta. the sound comparison continues even after the women have given birth and jutta has died. from the sound of the new mothers crying with happiness, the film shifts to the sounds of desperate crying; soon viewers are shown how jutta’s family is crying around her deathbed. as greene (2016) reminds, the sound of breathing draws attention and this conscious choice in cinematic narration always carries cultural meanings. in the case of love in our own time, the comparison between the defining moments of birth and death reflects the cyclical pattern of life. the first and last breaths become the same, yet different, highlighting individual experiences as part of nature, marking death as a natural instead of medical phenomenon. while hospice documentaries focus on the person and the natural aspects of dying, the narration turns away from the promises of medical technology and the medicalization of death. however, at the same time, another aspect of technology comes to the fore—the role of cinematic technology. the ethics of filming the last moments of people highlights the camera’s role as a witness, the filmmaker’s and viewer’s motivation to see death, and the medium-related relationship between the viewer and the dying individual (m. gibson, 2001; sobchack, 2004). sobchack argues that the typical cinematic choices in deathbed scenes—the carefully framed, focused, long, slow, immobile, and intimate images used in eda’s deathbed scene— indicate planning and permission to film death, and as such they serve as a promise of the “humane gaze” (sobchack, 2004, pp. 189–191). instead of peeking quickly from the door, the camera stays with the dying person, allowing the viewer to see the dying process in detail. while these moments highlight the responsibility of watching and permission to see, it also relates back to the questions of modernization and technology, where film technology is used to visualize, or even standardize, different situations in the medical field. the humane gaze creates expectations of what dying looks like, even if these often represent calm and peaceful deaths, and thus marginalize other experiences. in addition to questions of spatial framing, time adds another level to the filming of deathbed scenes. island, a british documentary about mountbatten hospice on the isle of wight, includes an immobile seven-minute-long take of alan’s death. grønstad (2016, pp. 119– 135) argues that similarly to intimate images, a long take also emphasizes films’ ethical potential because it minimizes dramatization, emphasizes hyperrealism, prioritizes atmosphere over action or speech, and spatializes duration by visualizing the passing of time. indeed, because slow, or sometimes still, images contradict the cinematic preference for movement, they are powerful moments (remes, 2012, pp. 259–261). when deathbed scenes slow the tempo and rhythm of a film, they highlight the importance of the moment and ethical connection with the dying person. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 40 outi hakola figure 1 death scene of alan in island (steven eastwood, hakawati, 2018). similarly to eda, small movements record alan’s breathing and gasps in breathing. many times, he appears to have taken his last breath, just before he gasps for more oxygen. alan’s last breath finishes his participation in the world, even though it is difficult to pinpoint the definite moment of death. the viewer keeps waiting for the next breath, and the moment of death can only be recognized after it has already happened. this makes both embodied time and life fluid, as presence mixes with having-been and coming-forth. after alan’s last breath, when his gasps stop, only non-movement and silence remain. the image and the body stay still until the nurse comes into the room and notices that he has died. this combination, silence and non-movement, pinpoints not only the death of a person but also a transformation in embodied time. when both movement and sound stop in the image, the film does not end. the frames continue to roll even if nothing changes. in these moments, the film makes a spectacle out of stasis, non-movement where only time continues. this use of stasis emphasizes time as an essential element of embodied film, and as remes argues, perhaps even more so than movement, because even if nothing apparently happens in the image, the viewer witnesses as time goes by and this witnessing creates a constantly evolving experience (remes, 2012, pp. 263–267). in alan’s case, the long take by his deathbed invites embodied connection, and after his death, the continued use of stasis helps the viewer to recognize the loss. this recognition redirects the awareness of alan’s embodied time to the viewer’s embodied time. during the moments when the viewer realizes that alan has died, the viewer also recognizes the continuation of life around him. universal time moves on, and when the nurse enters the room, and action re-starts, the focus readjusts to those who remain, to the world and to the viewer that reacts to the death of alan. this highlights how film moves on and time continues for others. the moment of death can be challenging for an embodied connection to film. sobchack argues that cinema has difficulties to reach the transgressive moment of death because embodiment takes place between lived-body subjects. the corpse, which is an inanimate nonaesthetics and body experiences in health care41 breathing in mortality: demedicalization of death in documentary films being, cannot invite this kind of active embodied connection, and as such, the humane gaze for so-called natural death “does not so much represent death as it represents the living of the process of dying” (sobchack, 2004, p. 189). thus, according to her, death as an event remains unreachable for cinematic technology. however, i argue that because of the ambiguity of the moment of death and the difficulty to pinpoint the exact end of (alan’s) embodied time, there is also fluidity in the viewer’s embodied connection to the dying person. thus, the subtle use of breathing can potentially transcend the limits between being and non-being in film narration. the viewer is allowed to co-experience the situation, if not death itself, and as such, breathing provides unique potential for cinematic technology to connect the viewer not only to what death is as a (medical) process but to what it might be as an embodied experience. conclusion while the totality of the multisensory dying experience remains out of reach of the cinematic apparatus, breathing is one way of narrating mortality. in the end-of-life documentaries, breathing addresses a sense of mortality not only through space, where the breathing bodies are given attention and various images and sounds of breathing repetitiously fill the screen, but also through time. “being-toward-death” and the temporal fluidity of images of breathing (and non-breathing) characters highlight the sense of mortality and the embodiment of mortality. consequently, this embodiment becomes connected not only to a breathing body as a spatial or material element but also a body as a temporal element in the narration. in the icu films, medical technology and its criticism come to the fore. the spatial marginalization of the patients and borrowing time through medical devices override or reduce the agency of the patients and dehumanize their dying. in the hospice and palliative care films, being-toward-death is embraced, and the embodied time of the dying people provides potential for an intimate connection with the dying person, which in turn serves to humanize the dying process. in these documentaries, breathing exceeds the sensory limitations of the cinematic narration and creates a powerful death-related experience. thus, breathing becomes more than a physical or medical means to observe dying as a process; it can have a significant cinematic function to create embodied narratives about mortality. the represented images and sounds can affect viewers, and consequently, our bodies and understandings of bodies become altered by cinematic reproduction. the viewer can use the representations of dying bodies to gather knowledge and experiences of dying and death, including questions of the medicalization of death. through criticism of overusing medical technology and by providing intimate connections with natural deaths, the 21st-century documentary films have challenged cinema’s tradition of supporting modern medicalization processes and goals. references bausewein, c., farquhar, m., booth, s., gysels, m., & higginson, i. j. 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(2008). palliative care: an historical perspective. hematology, 2008(1), 465. https://doi.org/10.1182/asheducation-2008.1.465 macdougall, d. (2018). observational cinema. in the international encyclopedia of anthropology (pp. 1–10). john wiley & sons, ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1535 macnaughton, j., & carel, h. (2016). breathing and breathlessness in clinic and culture: using critical medical humanities to bridge an epistemic gap. in the edinburgh companion to the critical medical humanities (edited by a. whitehead and a. woods, pp. 294–309). edinburgh university press. maguire, a. (2019). towards a holistic definition of death: the biological, philosophical and social deficiencies of brain stem death criteria. the new bioethics, 25(2), 172–184. https://doi.or g/10.1080/20502877.2019.1606148 malkowski, j. (2017). dying in full detail: mortality and digital documentary. duke university press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822373414 malpass, a., dodd, j., feder, g., macnaughton, j., rose, a., walker, o., williams, t., & carel, h. (2019). disrupted breath, songlines of breathlessness: an interdisciplinary response. medical humanities, 45(3), 294–303. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2018-011631 malpass, a., & penny, e. (2019). invisible breath. storytelling, self, society, 15(1), 43. https://doi. org/10.13110/storselfsoci.15.1.0043 merleau-ponty, m. (2002). phenomenology of perception (a. l. donald, trans.; 1945th ed.). routledge classics. murray, t., & hetherton, m. (2011). love in our own time. tarpaulin productions. navasky, m., & o’connor, k. (2010). frontline: facing death. pbs. nichols, b. (2017). introduction to documentary, third edition: vol. third edition. indiana university press. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xww&an=147 8201&site=ehost-live&scope=site ostherr, k. (2013). medical visions: producing the patient through film, television, and imaging technologies (illustrated edition). oxford university press. parker, j. (2018). what we talk about when we talk about space and narrative (and why we’re not done talking about it). frontiers of narrative studies, 4(2), 178–196. https://doi.org/10.1515/fns2018-0017 the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 44 outi hakola pasveer, b. (2019). deadlines: doing times in (dutch) hospice. mortality, 24(3), 319–332. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2018.1461817 quinlivan, d. (2012). the place of breath in cinema. edinburgh university press. https:// edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-place-of-breath-in-cinema.html radbruch, l., de lima, l., knaul, f., wenk, r., ali, z., bhatnaghar, s., blanchard, c., bruera, e., buitrago, r., burla, c., callaway, m., munyoro, e. c., centeno, c., cleary, j., connor, s., davaasuren, o., downing, j., foley, k., goh, c., … pastrana, t. (2020). redefining palliative care—a new consensus-based definition. journal of pain and symptom management, 60(4), 754–764. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.04.027 remes, j. (2012). motion(less) pictures: the cinema of stasis. the british journal of aesthetics, 52(3), 257–270. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ays021 ricoeur, p. (1980). narrative time. critical inquiry, 7(1,), 169–190. ryan, m.-l. (2012). space. in p. hühn, j. c. meister, j. pier, & w. schmid (eds.), the living handbook of narratology. hamburg university. https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/55.html sadler, j. z., jotterand, f., lee, s. c., & inrig, s. (2009). can medicalization be good? situating medicalization within bioethics. theoretical medicine and bioethics, 30(6), 411–425. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11017-009-9122-4 saeed, s. (2018). the definition of death: past, present & future. journal of forensic medicine and toxicology, 35(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.5958/0974-4568.2018.00005.4 sobchack, v. (1984). inscribing ethical space: ten propositions on death, representation, and documentary. quarterly review of film studies, 9(4), 283–300. https://doi. org/10.1080/10509208409361220 sobchack, v. (2004). carnal thoughts: embodiment and moving image culture. university of california press. tabernero, c. (2018). the changing nature of modernization discourses in documentary films. science in context, 31(1), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0269889718000066 teitler, j. b. (2021). covidland. medscape, hartford healthcare and envision films. wee, b. l., coleman, p., hillier, r., & holgate, s. (2006). the sound of death rattle i: are relatives distressed by hearing this sound? palliative medicine, 20(3), 171–175. https://doi. org/10.1191/0269216306pm1137oa world health organization. (2020). who covid-19 case definition (who/2019-ncov/ surveillance_case_definition/2020.1). world health organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/ handle/10665/333912 zimmermann, c., & rodin, g. (2004). the denial of death thesis: sociological critique and implications for palliative care. palliative medicine, 18(2), 121–128. https://doi. org/10.1191/0269216304pm858oa the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 15 page 15–28tonino griffero corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? tonino griffero abstract: the paper compares shusterman's somaesthetics and schmitz's new phenomenology in terms of the central theme of the lived body for the first time. it shows, first, that the criticisms made by the former on the latter (which only would aim at revealing the alleged primordial, foundational, and universal embodied dimension, as well as merely describing its essence) do not fully capture the neo-phenomenological approach, which is much more rooted in the life-world and proprioceptive praxis of traditional phenomenology. although starting from very different languages, philosophical assumptions, and relations to the natural sciences—without ignoring the difference between a phenomenological return to "things themselves" and a pragmatist melioristic aesthetics—the following can be shown: both theories transgress disciplinary boundaries; oppose the western repression of the (especially lived) body and exclude a disembodied conception of consciousness; oppose the thesis of performative forgetfulness of the body and pay original attention to intercorporeality as well as the bodily styles of individuals, groups, and epochs (even in an atmospheric sense); aim not only at better explaining our experiences, but also improving it by somatic training (not with the same intensity and confidence for both of course) based in the conviction that philosophy can be an art of life or, at least, an attempt to change one's life through the awareness of how one feels affectively-bodily in the world. however, these unexpected and, at least, partial convergences certainly do not eliminate a different global attitude towards philosophical research and confidence in the potential of meliorism. nevertheless, they do suggest the possibility of a fruitful dialogue in the name of the lived body and the critique of the excesses—both spiritualistic and materialistic—of western culture. keywords: phenomenology, somaesthetics, richard shusterman, hermann schmitz, new phenomenology. this paper is dedicated to hermann schmitz, founder of the new phenomenology, who passed away a few months ago and whose reflections, always radical and against the current, i will miss. * * * somaesthetics and phenomenology16 corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? it is rather strange that the most body-oriented philosophy of the twentieth century, hermann schmitz's new phenomenology (hereafter: np), and the most body-oriented aesthetics of the last thirty years, namely richard shusterman's somaesthetics (hereafter: sa), have never yet been compared and contrasted with each other.1 of course, it is easy to understand the reason for that if one does not only read a few occasional pages but widens one's gaze to the broader theoretical-existential context. on the one hand, in fact, there is a wide-ranging philosophical system, filled with themes of continental philosophy and available almost exclusively in german.2 on the other hand, there is a pragmatist path promising extra-disciplinary applications (science, morals, politics, religion, history, and design technology) but essentially limited to the aesthetic horizon (although in a broad sense). this seemingly irreducible difference—certainly also due to the crucial but often overlooked role that moods play in philosophical thought—explains why my attempt to sketch a tentative comparison between these two philosophical proposals3 must be restricted to their approach to the body, which is understood as the soma or lived body. undoubtedly, working together as border crossers and transgressors of disciplinary boundaries—analytic philosophy for shusterman and orthodox german phenomenology for schmitz—these two philosophers consider the body as the biggest repressed topic of a western intellectual culture that is triumphantly driven towards scientist reductionism. further, both place the body at the center of their research and more generally, at the heart of our beingin-the-world. more specifically, from 1964, schmitz constructed a vast philosophical system around the body, based on affective, situative, and involuntary life experiences. additionally, he also developed a first-person phenomenology of felt space, whose original condition is the "primitive present/presence" as irrefutable proof of that which concerns us personally. meanwhile, shusterman advocated for a theoretical as well as practical meliorism by virtue of which an enhanced awareness of corporeality and art experience should lead to far-reaching ethical consequences and genuine well-being. however, given that schmitz and schusterman were never in personal contact—which would have helped them understand each other better4—i certainly cannot compare sa and np in general (let alone, sa and the phenomenological philosophy in a general sense). thus, i can only identify that which seems really worth comparing in these two approaches to bodily life. 1. rectifying a millenary repression the first and more general point that these two paradigms have in common is surely the critique of the western intellectual tradition and the forms of life that are derived from it. in fact, both np and sa aim at rectifying the body-negating philosophical-theological tradition, but they do so in different ways. np traces this repression back to the platonic introjectionist and dualist (body/soul) 1 to avoid being repetitive, i chose not to provide any textual citations here. the texts which i will constantly refer to and sometimes even paraphrase, limited in number for the same purpose, are the following: schmitz (1965, 1966, 1969, 1992, 2011, 2019) and shusterman (2000, 2008, 2012). 2 for a wide-ranging introduction to schmitz's neo-phenomenological theory, see griffero (2019a, pp. 45–65; 2019b). 3 for a comparison between shusterman's sa and my pathic aesthetics—focusing more on the themes of aesthetics but also inevitably anticipating some of the topics that will follow—see griffero (2021). 4 this is a general requirement for a real philosophical understanding, which shusterman emphasises following the work of william james. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 17 tonino griffero metaphysics in particular—which is largely dominant in our culture—and promotes an aggressive campaign of depsychologization of the emotional sphere and externalization of feelings. these should be understood not as interior affects projected outside but as environmental constraints that, like climate conditions, modulate the lived and predimensional space and resonate through their authority in our felt body. moreover, against the dominant "psychologistic-reductionistintrojectionist paradigm"—required by the pedagogical-instrumental need to make human beings more rationally autonomous from the otherwise uncontrollable felt-bodily resonance of a transcendent affective sphere—schmitz suggested reconsidering the archaic perspective of feltbodily dynamism. this view was common until extrapersonal feelings (thymos as overwhelming daimons) were relegated to a fictional private psychic sphere (psyché) and recognized that the felt body, irreducible to the unitary-physical body, not only makes an active contribution to all phenomena but may also be a perfect seismograph of one's own emotional situation. on the other hand, while criticizing the same tradition and the socially-physiologically conditioned ways we use our soma in perception, performance, and self-fashioning, sa is instead more focused on developing an improved somatic understanding and mastery (i will return to this several times in this paper). both approaches undoubtedly think that culture and history shape (the quality of ) our bodily appearance, behavior and experience. however, np—by investigating how a person and even an entire historical climate is determined by the kind of bodily resonance that motor suggestions and synaesthetic characters find in individuals5—aims above all to present a view of the world entirely alternative to the dominant rationalist-scientist one. meanwhile, sa—being much less averse to the natural sciences—traces the cultural anti-somatic bias back to the desire to avoid the fundamental existential ambiguity6 and instrumentality (mistakenly equated with inferiority) that the body reveals, without attempting to construct a systematic philosophical vision based on principles entirely alternative to the dominant ones. at the center of both approaches, a redefinition of the body, conceived as leib (np) and soma (sa), can be seen. this is a means to focus the attention on a lived-experienced dimension of the body as opposed to the physical-anatomical one? however, the question to be asked is: do leib and soma really mean the same thing. the answer is that in many ways, they certainly do. for schmitz, the "felt body" (leib) is what one experiences subjectively, without drawing on the five senses (in particular, sight and touch) or the perceptual body schema; it has a predimensionalsurfaceless voluminosity that is not spatially-physiologically delimited within the boundaries of the material body (körper). it is indeed very close to what shusterman calls "soma" (or shintai in japanese), meaning the living, sentient, and purposive (not merely physical) body one experiences from within as the indispensable medium for all perception. yet, shusterman conceives the soma also as an intelligent corporeality involving both the intentional mind (the spiritual) and the external-physical body, in order to improve and render both dimensions more aesthetically satisfying (somatic intelligence results in gracefulness, which goes hand-in-hand with physical-bodily efficacy). whereas, schmitz strongly denies that phenomenology can/ should deal with the material-organic body. 5 about the current debate on resonance, see griffero (2016, 2017c, 2020). the convincing somaesthetic analysis of our perception of architecture, for example, seems to me perfectly in tune (apart from the different lexicon, of course) with the analysis that np offers on the architectural lived space. 6 the body, in fact (as shusterman claims), is always caught between power and fragility, dignity and brutishness, etc.; it is something we are but also something we have (that is, something objective-subjective) and a symbol of both freedom and unfreedom and vulnerability; it is universal but also irreducibly individual; it is the condition of possibility of all knowledge but it simultaneously offers knowledge that is always limited and perspectival; it is a primal and indispensable tool, but because of the humanistic prejudice against instrumentality, it seems to be inferior to the mind, just as mechanical means are believed to be inferior to more noble (i.e., spiritual) ends. somaesthetics and phenomenology18 corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? in general terms, this leads to a number of rather significant differences. in fact, np embraces a clearly anti-scientific lifewordly essentialism, focused on a bodily experience that is completely different from any sensory-organic performance and that can interact with it only in exceptional cases. meanwhile, the pragmatist sa instead ecumenically attempts to bring together lifewordly experience and scientific research, highlighting that even neuroscience increasingly refers to the bodily senses other the traditional ones: feelings of skin (touch), proprioception, kinaesthesia, bodily temperature, balance, pain, etc. both approaches fight against the dangerous uniformity with which we think of the body and do justice to the diversity of its everyday experience (including gender, age, and ethnicity). however, whereas shusterman conceives the soma as a unity of mind and body (a real "body-mind" whole), which also deserves to be investigated by the natural sciences, schmitz sees the mind and the psyche as artificial (post-platonic) constructs, whose only purpose is a better scientific-pedagogic-prognostic (rationalistic) control of involuntary bodily-affective life. these differences concerning the role of physiology (basically accepted by sa and radically excluded by np), must certainly be noted, but ought not to be exaggerated, if only because shusterman sometimes seems to consider some "reflections" (sense of rhythm, sense of balance, etc.) as physiological that schmitz would easily rather consider to be full-fledged felt-bodily reflections. however, this does not change the fact that sa places inner-nonreflective somatic experience and external-cognitive somatic representations on the same level. instead, for np, the radical distinction between lived body and physical body implies an equally radical distinction between a first-person phenomenological investigation of our involuntary felt-bodily life experiences and a more artificial third-person scientific-experimental research on the body, thus considered as an externally perceptible material object. this is indeed an irremediable theoretical difference. 2. being aware (dramatically or not) a somaesthetic project so inclusive as to take into account both the lived body and the physical body must necessarily also view the body both as an object and as a subject. for this reason, shusterman identifies four levels of consciousness: a) unconscious consciousness (one does something intentionally while asleep); b) awakened but unreflective, unthematized perception (one does something absentmindedly, that is, without focusing on it); c) explicit awareness (one does something attending carefully to it), and d) consciousness of how (and that) one is conscious of what one is doing (one's attention to an object also transforms it, so to speak). here, an example dear to shusterman can be cited: one might inexplicitly be conscious of breathing, be explicitly conscious of breathing without focusing on one's different tasks, be consciously focused on one's breathing, and finally be conscious of one's breathing to the point of influencing and possibly improving it. meanwhile, np certainly lacks such a brilliant and articulated theory of consciousness. thus, while admitting that there are a thousand shades, it only clearly distinguishes between the awareness of the "primitive present-presence"—triggered by a pathic, immediate, overwhelming "catastrophic" event (think of a fright, laughing, and crying)—and the consciousness of the unfolded present-presence. here, for the former, one must sometimes regress to for personal re-subjectivization, while the latter by (even propositional) singularization explicates worldly situations marked by internally and holistically diffuse, chaotic-manifold significance. however, it must be kept in mind that, for schmitz, one is alive and self-conscious only if one is not the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 19 tonino griffero completely emancipated from (and can still access) the primitive present/presence. the unfolded (linguistic-singularizing) present-presence, in fact, is just a labile stage and "fortunately" that is never acquired once and for all, so that a person never ceases to be a chaotic and ambivalent phenomenon infinitely oscillating between personality and prepersonality. however, one's substantial profile depends on one's inability to ever detach oneself from the indisputable and urgent "subjective facts" that reveal that what happens concerns, indeed, oneself. for the same reason, one can never truly be detached from atmospheric spatial feelings, which contribute to these subjective facts.7 moreover, it is difficult to compare np and sa in terms of the theory of consciousness, given their very different philosophical assumptions, which mean that their convergence cannot go beyond the fact that they both exclude an overly cognitive and disembodied conception of consciousness. here, it is necessary to simply address the first questions that come to mind: why does shusterman de-dramatize self-awareness and avoid the most intense affective expositions that could prove it? is the personal regression promoted by schmitz something that happens anyway and should simply not be repressed, or is it something that should even be favored, with the pain of a flat and depersonalized existence? thus, it is important to now see whether the comparison between np and sa becomes more fruitful on a different level—namely, when dealing with the thorny question of the so-called "absent body." 3. forgetting the body or making it increasingly aware? as is well known, the more traditional (sartre's and merleau-ponty's) phenomenology of corporeality assumed that the lived body functions better, the more it is absent—i.e., the more it remains in the background and is not focused on as such by consciousness. this also fits with husserl's pioneering theory that one's own body is the invariant point of view through which one perceives and experiences any other thing, and exactly for this reason one simply cannot perceive it in the absence of an additional and external perspective. in this context, while starting from different assumptions, both np and sa oppose the thesis of performative forgetfulness of the body (already proposed by kant and james, according to shusterman, perhaps as a product of their avowed hypochondria) by instead claiming the possibility of a reflection on the lived body that does not automatically hinder its fluidity and effectiveness. here, i will explore their premises. np assumes that, for a phenomenological philosophy, it is essential to be able to, in principle, observe and describe a pre-reflective phenomenon without modifying it. if it were not possible to describe the lived body due to the fact that it is an extra-linguistic phenomenon, then (applying the principle of adeaquatio to the letter), the most adequate expression of a feltbodily pre-reflective behavior (of pain, for example) would only be a gestural one (for instance, a cry to express pain). thus, one would be forced, paradoxically, to speak exclusively of linguistic entities, de facto excluding the lived body on grounds that it is "too marvelous for words!" (as an old song goes). additionally, np does not seem to view the possible discrepancy between feltbodily introspective experience and reflection on it as a problem—all the more so as schmitz's approach goes beyond both body performances and genetic-causal explanations of the felt7 the primitive present-presence is the fusion point of five elements (here, now, being, this, and i) and, through a felt-bodily resonance, it ensures an awareness whose certainty is not about one's self-attributed and slightly abstract properties or the real nature of what appears, but only about one's being emotionally concerns as a subject. through the five-fold unfolded present, human beings (unlike animals) doubtlessly go beyond the present situation, but it is only due to the collapse of their personal emancipation and the resulting regression to their primitive present-presence (personal regression) that they feel and know with certainty that they exist. in other words, only when meanings suddenly fall back into their internally diffuse significance, do the subjects have full confidence in reality and fully experience it. somaesthetics and phenomenology20 corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? bodily phenomena one experiences. meanwhile, sa goes much further and questions the supposed fluidity of our body habits. first, it recognizes that a skillful performance of bodily action—which is so free-flowing and natural that it seems miraculous—does not rely much on too reflective somatic awareness, but rather on a non-cognitive self-monitoring established through sensorimotor schemata8 and habits. second, and above all, it claims that this bodily spontaneity as product of habit could sometimes even be completely inaccurate and dysfunctional. hence, it follows that it would be best to integrate unreflective and reflective bodily consciousness (the latter for a limited time)— as various disciplines of body training and even daoist texts aim to do—in order to correct bad habits and improve our self-perception and self-use (including the plasticity and efficiency of the brain's neural networks, for some reason!). this crucial defense of the usefulness of reflective awareness of soma behavior relies on the important distinction between two aspects. on the one hand, there is a (bad) reflection that interferes with the fluidity of bodily performance without being a clear somatic sense of self. it is conceived as a ruminative introspection and neurotic self-attentiveness inclined to depression, and is obscured by anxiety (of failing or making a bad impression). on the other hand, there is a (good) reflection usually trained to undertake the multitasking that our everyday experience testifies to (one is usually able to drive a car while listening to the news, for example). following dewey's claim that bad habits can be amended, and that true bodily freedom necessarily means having control over one's bad habits, sa, nevertheless, underestimates an important fact: when one surrenders (cum grano salis) to what happens and "accepts" a certain smooth somatic habit—which is the starting point of my pathic aesthetics9—even a not-so-good habit is less oppressive when one does not paranoidly resist it and try to transform it. while being well aware that complete transparency is nothing but a harmful cognitive illusion, sa, therefore, seems to consider the thesis of an operating "absent body" as only apparently founded on real experience. it further postulates a two-stage process, whereby the early phases of learning a sensorimotor skill actually need careful and critical bodily attention, but then give way to a new and successful spontaneous body habit. additionally, sa also notes, in fact, that critical self-attention to our somatic behavior is also needed after the end of the learning process, as the latter is never entirely complete. this means, of course, that a fully spontaneous-unreflective bodily behavior cannot (must not) ever exist; it is given only partially and momentarily, for example, when one focuses only on the ends of action and not on the somatic means for attaining them. however, other problems arise here. the very fact that what someone experiences as a fluid behavior appears to someone else as bad might imply that the best judge of a "good" bodily habit is not the person who experiences it, but an external observer—be it a master of bodily training or even oneself through mirror self-observation. moreover, in this case, shusterman tried to avoid too rigid positions: a) a somatic selfexamination is not always achievable, and it is worth achieving only in appropriate circumstances; b) a somatic self-examination does not necessarily interfere with smooth behavior for two reasons—b1) "muscle memory" (or "procedural memory", "motor memory") is not mindless at all, provided that the mind should not be identified with a deliberate-focused awareness; and b2) a critical self-awareness as a decentered perspective acquired accidentally or through 8 as opposed to the perceptual body schema (the habitual conception of one's own body) that modern psychology derives from sensorial experiences, schmitz proposed a felt-bodily motor schema based on irreversible directions of vital impulse and on the swaying of diffuse feltbodily isles (see below). 9 see griffero (2019a) in particular. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 21 tonino griffero exercise does not require being entirely outside the situation being critically examined—this is the most relevant philosophical point for me. thus, somatic awareness can promote good body performance because, on the one hand, the unreflective behavior is not entirely mindless and, on the other, the somatic reflection is not entirely disembodied. further, it goes without saying that this suggestive proposal by sa gives far too much preference (from a phenomenological point of view) to the external postural appearance and its efficiency in relation to external goals. we actually feel our felt-bodily behavior even when not acting or performing tasks! however, claiming that a foreground (self-monitoring) cannot do without a background (absent body) and proposing to consider this distinction as simply functional and flexible is something that even np could accept. nevertheless, the latter could never adopt the principle that the involuntary background is something a) always perfectible and b) that may gradually come to the fore. this is just as it could never accept the idea that language plays a decisive role in body awareness. np would not only criticize linguistic essentialism—as shusterman also does when talking about rorty, recognizing the importance of the nondiscursive dimension of experience. it would also criticize shusterman's idea that language—which for schmitz is basically a strategy necessary for personal emancipation, but a seriously reductionist option compared to the manifold-chaotic qualitative reality of the situations we inhabit—can improve our perception of what we feel and enhance our body habits. 4. felt-bodily interaction perhaps, the most counterintuitive idea proposed by np is that our felt body constantly generates a ubiquitous embodied communication10 (or interaction) with the outside world thanks to bridging qualities (motor suggestions and synesthetic qualities) that we can experience in our own felt body as well as in forms we encounter—whether at rest or in motion, and be they animate or inanimate. according to this theory, an experiencer felt-bodily communicates with everything that is other in the sense that they experience the other's presence-present through their own felt-bodily presentness—that is, through a resonance understood as one of many possibilities contained in the interand intra-corporeal economy of contraction (incorporation, extending up to narrowness) and expansion (excorporation, extending up to vastness). by virtue of this simultaneous presence of communication partners—and regardless of whether the subject thus embodies something or is disembodied into something—everyday experiences (walking down a street, contemplating a landscape, waiting for the train, and even feeling our own heartbeat) seem to mainly consist in generating and feeling the whole felt body ad hoc, each time. furthermore, even this conception—which goes far beyond today's all-too-trendy theories of embodiment—is not entirely foreign to sa. in fact, for shusterman, the implicit somaticaffective memory is the feeling of one's own identity-location in time or space, but also the feeling of the intercorporeal relationship with other bodies (excluding inanimate objects) or of the right bodily attitudes one incorporates according to one's social role. this means that even when we ignore the organic senses and have a pure feeling of our body as such, we also always feel something of the external world—if only the surface on which we are lying or the force of gravity acting on our organs. this suggestion—due to which sa can also refute any accusations of (even social and political) solipsism—seems to be a very promising starting point for a theory 10 i have explained and somewhat adapted this theory by schmitz elsewhere (griffero, 2017b). somaesthetics and phenomenology22 corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? of embodiment that would further unite sa and np.11 nevertheless, sa's correct statement on embodied aesthetics that is not obsessed by (postkantian) distance and animated by a bias in favor of active engagement seems to misunderstand that a distanced (even contemplative) relationship with the environment does not exclude an embodied interaction at all. it is only different, of course, from the one triggered by a direct and close involvement. further, sa doubtlessly comes much closer to np's theory of felt-bodily communication when shusterman acknowledges that we are always able to proprioceptively and/or empathetically perceive the somatic styles of others and thus experience them or react to them emotionally (even if there is no need to invoke the testimony of mirror neurons as shusterman does). in fact, what sa refers to as proprioceptive and motor-affective imitation of others' movements can easily fall under what schmitz instead defines as "motor suggestions" and "synesthetic characters." this especially applies when shusterman mentions—as an alternative to the neuronal explanation to a minor extent—an adequate affective appreciation of the others' somatic styles, and even of their special auras. 5. somatic meliorism and felt-bodily style this paper cannot exclude the fact that the greatest difference between the two approaches is sa's melioristic approach, which is very unusual in (especially continental) philosophy. sa is actually a body-respecting, experience-oriented theory but above all a melioristic enterprise. it is based on methods that may vary but are always aimed not only at better explaining our experience but also improving it by somatic training—not least in order to cope with the rapid changes imposed by the technological society.12 the hoped-for improvement would be achieved on a more theoretical level by overcoming the fatal body/mind and materialist/spiritual schisms of our culture and cultivating the soma in its integrating material, mental, and spiritual dimensions. on a more practical and pragmatic level, betterment is achieved by acquiring a more liberating and rewarding sense of who we are and what matters to us. this would also provide social hope, given that an enhanced bodily awareness is never only a private, selfish affair, aimed at generating greater perceptual sensitivity and powers of action, but always also essentially environmental— something that can sensitize us to improved social relations to which we bodily contribute and from which we draw our significance. np would have little to object to some important consequences of somaesthetic meliorism— for example, to the contribution to tolerance that can be derived from overcoming the somaticvisceral prejudices that exist even when we reject them at a cognitive level, or the re-evaluation of the means used to achieve an end, which are normally considered to be something inferior (all the more so after the ruthless condemnation of the instrumental reason by critical theory). besides, np would fully agree that only a new body philosophy can criticize the troubling ways in which all bodily dimensions have been distorted, exploited, and abused in the superficially estheticized contemporary culture. and perhaps, np would also welcome sa's campaign to overcome the predominantly bookish nature of philosophy, which it rather conceives as an art of living (even as an ars erotica) aimed at enriching the perceptual awareness of everyday meanings, feelings, and potentials without resorting to supernatural aids. further, both sa and 11 think of the interesting and almost perfectly neo-phenomenological somaesthetic interpretation of our articulated bodily interaction with photography (shusterman, 2012). 12 shusterman, for example, mentions both chronic excessive tension in the neck and orientational bias as everyday somaesthetic pathologies. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 23 tonino griffero np are independently convinced that they contribute to living better lives. meanwhile, the idea that art performance and experience can benefit (in terms of gracefulness or appreciative skills, for example) from an improved somaesthetic knowledge is certainly alien to np. and yet, when reflecting on the connection between artistic style and corporeality, np goes potentially further than sa. being less interested than sa in refined aesthetic perception and the subtle gymnastics necessary for (among the others) sports, sex, rap, and dance music, np aims at extensively examining how the felt-bodily disposition (or style, in a broad sense) of a certain era acts as a bridge-quality linking an artist and their creations to the intended audience, who are already somehow attuned to it (schmitz, 1966). however, it is on a different (not strictly artistic) idea of style that schmitz and shusterman could agree. the latter especially focuses on the creative self-stylizations merging body schemata and various aspects that are both generic and personal (genreor ageand ethnic-based movement, dressing style, music, ways of speaking, eating habits, etc.), deliberate and spontaneous as well as sedimented, and also can be appreciated through our five traditional senses and in a transmodal, proprioceptive, and kinesthetic way. this idea of a somatic style as the not-necessarily-ephemeral tendency to behave or look a certain way is very close to np's concept of inner attitude (innere haltung), if it were not for a) shusterman viewing this somatic style as a sedimentation of the body schema, whose role schmitz instead downsizes in favor of the motor schema; b) for his appealing to the somatic style's intentionality—a concept that the german philosopher considers misleading and replaces with a dynamic-gestaltic relationship between anchor point and zone of condensation of affective states (see griffero, 2019a, pp. 45–55); c) and for his considering "style" as the equivalent of what is traditionally called a person's "spirit," while this notion is totally absent from neophenomenological externalism and is fully rethought of in terms of "personal situation." for np, "style" is therefore nothing but a formal-creative objectification of the feltbodily resonance to environmental expressive qualities arousing impressions due to a specific felt-bodily communication. but here we need to go a little deeper. schmitz aims at explaining the history of styles (in a broad sense) without resorting to the traditional psychological-spiritual perspective, which is, as such, too intentionalistic and confusingly cartesian in its inevitably psychosomatic approach. the historical becoming of vision or perception, kunstwollen, worldviews, or an indeterminate bodily feeling, in fact, would never adequately explain, for example, the coexistence of different styles in contemporary artists or the rapid stylistic change in the same artist as well as the ornamental analogies between completely unrelated peoples or the stylistic diversity in authors who share the same worldview. moreover, for schmitz, a sort of zeitleib—that is, the historicity of the leib's involuntary dispositions—explains the collective imposition of a style. thus, art would precisely be the outcome of an encounter between the felt body's specific "gestures" and the feelings, which are, however, understood anti-introjectively as objective powers effused atmospherically in a lived space. neophenomenologically speaking, it is then the felt-bodily disposition that, acting as tertium comparationis between a cultural sphere (in a broad sense) and artistic style should be considered as the origin of every stylistic change. of course, at stake here is not the körper—as such physiologically unchanged for millions of years—but the leiblich feeling in the framework of a process that is neither teleological nor oculocentric or autonomously formal (as posited instead by the mature wölfflin, for example)— which is important to keep in mind. in other words, the felt-bodily disposition, by ensuring a structural analogy between the formal processes embodied in the perceived (also artistic) somaesthetics and phenomenology24 corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? figures and the felt-bodily feeling of the percipient, can explain, also by virtue of a finite number of variables, every stylistic innovation (in a broad sense). however, it can also account for the analogies between styles that are heterogeneous and far away in time, as well as the unpredictable and involuntary reappearance—which is in this sense very "climatic"—of a style even in the absence of an attestable tradition. using three fundamental dimensions, such as linear, angular, and rounded, in a hierarchically different way, while interweaving them with felt-bodily factors (narrowness and vastness, contraction and dilation, direction, intensity and rhythm, protopathic and epicritic tendencies), schmitz uses the felt-bodily arrangement as a fluid criterion. this means that the prevalence of a certain arrangement in a given style does not at all mean that the subordinate arrangement does not also play a significant role in it. it follows that, in the dynamic processes of an artistic form, one never perceives absolute contraction and expansion. it is more likely, to give a few examples, that one experiences the following: an intense and rhythmic competition of tension and expansion (as in baroque buildings); a protopathic tendency with a strong felt-bodily intensity combined with the relevant and mostly predominant role of tension (romanesque); an epicritical-contractive tendency that loses its oppressive character due to a directionality that is nevertheless oriented towards privative expansion (gothic); or the alternation of contraction-narrowness and protopathic expansion in spiral-shaped decorative elements. in these and many other examples, schmitz aimed to prove that even beauty, far from being heaven-sent, would be nothing but the historically contingent solution of a competition between antithetical tendencies immanent to the mentioned felt-bodily disposition. however, it must be noted that this approach raises epistemological difficulties, such as those normally afflicting all historicist theories (temporal demarcations, geographical limits, relevance of exceptions, etc.), which also somewhat invalidate (or at least weaken) the neophenomenological perspective. nevertheless, tracing styles back to the felt-bodily feeling rather than to the so-called scopic regimes seem really promising, provided, of course, that this method is not to be brandished as an omni-explicative monolith. for this reason, schmitz preferred to compare his tentative approach to a "polyphonic concert" and a constellation in which all the categories of lived bodiliness, albeit with different and variable relevance, are implicated and interacting. to sum up, given the very different extent of the reflections that np and sa have devoted to the examination of (personal and collective) bodily style, i can content myself with noting that both agree in considering somatic style that which—underlying people's felt-bodily and bodily dimensions of sensory appearance and helping define their personality—animates the various ways persons and groups act, feel, think, and desire. here, only a comparison referred to a concrete case (impossible here)—e.g., to winckelmann's ekphrasis—could better clarify whether this convergence is really promising or an only apparent line of development. 6. different (philosophical) moods proving that very different philosophers also have very different philosophical approaches is not a very surprising discovery. yet, in this case, given their apparently convergent purpose (a philosophy of the body), even a simple reflection on their different contexts (theoretical but also existential) and findings might not be entirely useless. taking a look at his extensive bibliography as well as his book titles, schmitz might first appear as a theory-focused "philosophy professor," against whom shusterman would set "real philosophers," who truly embody their thought and live according to it. however, this is a the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 25 tonino griffero wrong impression. it is true that, by integrating theory and practice through disciplined somatic training, sa certainly insists more than np on the link with praxis, and is not at all content with affirming the (attested from a phenomenological, analytical-philosophical and sociological point of view) central role of the embodied background.13 indeed, sa leads philosophy in a (post-puritan) melioristic-pragmatic direction, thus actualizing the (especially) late-ancient idea of philosophy as an art of living rather than a mere discursive-abstract theory, and merging it with asian philosophical traditions based on (ritual-artistic) bodily self-cultivation. moreover, philosophy's traditional goals of knowledge, self-knowledge, virtue, happiness, and justice are promoted together here with the aim of enhancing the experience and the use of one's body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning. nonetheless, as an anti-platonist philosophy taking the non-anatomical body seriously, np also aims to be more than a purely academic practice, as shown by the numerous applications of its lived body theory: from architecture (theory of dwelling, interior spaces, and urban environments) and geography (designed spaces) to medicine (chronic conditions, e.g. diabetes; orthopedics), from phonetics (conversations as embodied communication) to gestalt-psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy (personality and embodiment disorders, e.g. schizophrenia). other potential fields of application include pedagogy (situations and atmospheres in education, e.g., classrooms), nursing (the felt body, embodied communication, emotions as atmospheres) (see griffero, 2014, 2019a, 2021), sinology (the chinese view of man), applied theology, aesthetics (gernot böhme's aisthetics14 as well as my own pathic aesthetics), and even law (brought back to its primary affective-corporeal situations). moreover, shusterman justified the difference between his sa and phenomenology by claiming that, unlike the latter, sa does not aim to reveal an alleged primordial, foundational, and universal embodied consciousness, or merely describe our somatic consciousness and practice, but instead is focused on improving them, also through practical training. however, while these arguments might certainly be valid for traditional phenomenology, they do not apply to np, which, as such, is as opposed as sa to the fetishism of disinterested knowledge. here, it is also true that np does not delve too deeply into a critical-comparative evaluation of practical methodologies designed to improve our body in a representational, experiential, and performative way—that is, what shusterman calls "pragmatic somaesthetics," including diets, meditative, martial, and erotic arts as well as even bodybuilding and psychosomatic (both selfdirected and other-directed) disciplines. however, schmitz was also unafraid to make references to yoga, meditative practices, and autogenic training, although he leaves the details to others. the most crucial difference is then that np hardly pays any attention to the external bodily aspect, in which sa instead sees at least a means for spiritual ends, thus vindicating the coexistence and interaction between inner and outer self-sculpting. here, too, the difference is due to the different cultural backgrounds. while np is committed to identifying an eternal "alphabet of corporeality" beneath its obviously different historical and cultural declinations (whose "letters" include: angst, vastity, contraction, expansion, direction, tension, dilation, intensity, rhythm, privative expansion, privative contraction, protopathic tendency, epicritic tendency, felt-bodily isle formation, and felt-bodily isle decrease), this inevitably somewhat essentialist approach "seems" to be absent from (or at least not investigated by) sa's theoretical branch. analytic 13 in the case of analytical philosophy, shusterman's recognition seems to me as far too generous, since wittgenstein's and searle's reflections are, in fact, very circumscribed and, in any case, limited to its causal-biological dimension. instead, the revival of bourdieu's notion of habitus as a set of social (also bodily) embedded thoughts and lifeforms is certainly far more promising. 14 see böhme (2001, 2017a, 2017b). somaesthetics and phenomenology26 corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? sa, in fact, does not go beyond the first and (as such insufficient) qualitative-phenomenal description of the unintentional-pervasive bodily background of mental life. besides, it takes into greater account sociological-cultural studies and shows how bodily behavior and values reflect and sustain social conditions to a greater extent than philosophical ones, focusing more on "bad" and perfectible habits—if they can always be improved, they may always be kind of bad—than "good" and fulfilling ones. additionally, yet, despite all these undoubted differences, sa's and np's approaches could be found to also be similar in underlining the centrality of proprioception. more specifically, sa's idea of a body scan or introspection—based not on visual perception but proprioceptive perception and focused on feelings of different body parts or areas—could easily be reconciled with np's theory of multiple felt body isles.15 the latter are voluminous, yet surfaceless quasithings (on this topic, cf. griffero, 2017a) that we perceive as the sources of our impulses, and which should not be identified with the discrete parts examined within a naturalistic analysis. as they incarnate an existential and symbolic salience, which in part is also culturally and historically variable, such isles are sometimes relatively stable (oral cavity, anal zone, chest, back, belly, genitals, soles, etc.), while at other times, they can come forward or dissolve on the basis of excitement (itch, palpitation, burst of heat, ache, etc.), or can even be subsumed in general movements (vigor, prostration, pleasure, and uneasiness). these isles are perfectly revealed in strictly phenomenal experiences or when we verify what we feel about our own selves and our surroundings, while leaving the five senses aside and exceeding the physical-cutaneous boundaries. it is precisely in this context that, for instance, our chest—as a felt-bodily isle in which emotional involvement resonates—becomes other than the organs thereby located, etc. the only difference with respect to this proprioception of non-organic bodily areas is perhaps that schmitz's thesis seems to promise a better understanding of how such isles—irreducible to strictly physical-anatomical parts (actually not so strictly excluded by shusterman)—are aroused or extinguished (i.e., resonate in this or that way) in relation to a person's affective involvement in externally diffused feelings (or atmospheres). anti-essentialistic perfectionism, an optimistic drive to transform and improve situations, flexibilization of excessively rigid distinctions, strategies to phase analysis and practice, a disavowal of any necessary (existentialist) link between self-reflection and melancholia (explained as the outcome of an illusory presumption of perfection to which human beings are not entitled), and the moderate use of any instrument and practice (too much of any good thing can be bad!) are part of the pragmatist toolbox enacted by shusterman. it seems frontally opposed to schmitz's continental-existentialist (in a broad sense) background, which in principle rejects neuroscience and neurophysiology, which are understood as third-person perspectives, in which experimentation aims at artificial evidence and reductionist constructs of exclusively statistical-prognostic value.16 further, np appears more focused on the dramatic forms of affective-bodily involvement, starting from the basic idea that the world is given to us first and foremost pathically—that is, mostly in the form of a resistance and an obstacle to our natural and unidirectional expansive impulse (thus, proving to be truly real after all). even if they do not mean exactly the same thing with the term "borderline-experiences," it is nevertheless crucial that schmitz saw them as an essential certification of a subjective-involved existence, while for shusterman as the risk of reducing the power to perceive and appreciate 15 a central notion in schmitz's work (since 1965). 16 it remains inexplicable as to why sa's oft-repeated thesis that the soma is inner subjectivity as well as outer form still needs notions such as mind, spirit, and neurons. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 27 tonino griffero smaller sensory differences. upon examining shusterman's interesting objections to burke's (1998) physiological aesthetics (shusterman 2012), one might imagine that they also apply to schmitz's "alphabet" of the felt body, which is accused of compensating for rationalistic reductionism through a different but not better somatic reductionistic naturalist essentialism. as already mentioned, schmitz, however, never underestimated the individual (and historical) differences of "feltbodily disposition," but certainly does not require a "more accurate physiology" (as shusterman does) for a better approach to it. even the concepts shusterman uses to criticize rorty's rejection of a preand extra-linguistic experience—"contingent necessities" or "historicized essences"— seem to me to also express (at least partially) sa's need for some "essentialism." the same can also be said of some key points of american transcendentalism (emerson and thoreau), much appreciated by sa: simplicity, slowness, and the "here and now," in fact, could actually turn out to be relatively convergent with a neo-phenomenology ("slow" in its investigations and strongly focused on bodily and affective exemplifications), in which every stage of unfolded presence must occasionally stop and regress to primitive presence (where "here" and "now" are integrated by "being," "this," and "i"). to sum up, the intention of this paper is not to ignore the differences between a phenomenological return to "things themselves" (certainly elemental, pristine, and universally shared through perception and involuntary life experiences) and a pragmatist melioristic aesthetics, according to which all our experiences are significantly shaped and changed by the cultures and environments we inhabit and should be transfigured into a more intensified perceptual experience by virtue of a better appreciative awareness (which however implies, again, that ordinary experience is in itself devoid of "sufficient" beauty and value!). ultimately, for a philosophy of the lived body (or soma) to be able to reject the excesses of western rationalism and the naturalistic reductionism leading to real body-phobia, both np's most radical frontal attacks on the foundations of millenary intellectual culture and sa's most mitigated lateral attacks on a daily life schizophrenically split between the rejection of corporeality with its pleasures and its consumerist-superficial exploitation because of an inadequate (and perfectible) somatic awareness, could really be useful and potentially able to interact fruitfully. finally, one might guess that sa has broader aims than np, which, however, does not aspire to an impossible regression to a pre-introjectionist way of life but simply to a healthy rebalancing of the predominant ontology. however, here, one should also mitigate the somaesthetic optimism by recalling that, despite the explicit intent to revive the late antique and oriental attitude to philosophical thought as an art of living, by following the ideals of a melioristic self-monitoring, this optimism seems to be largely subordinate to what is at the heart of that modern western rationalism, from which sa aims at distinguishing itself. in fact, for sloterdijk—a philosopher who is not always right, but neither always wrong—the program of modernity consists essentially in "making the implicit" (i.e., what were previously simply living conditions) "even more explicit." here, the question to be asked is: are we sure we want to inadvertently accept this modern diktat. in this context, the great american songbook contains many sermon-like upbeat standards like "ac-cent-tu-ate the positive17: "you got to accentuate the positive / eliminate the negative / latch on to the affirmative / don't mess with mister in-between", etc. again, the questions to consider here are as follows: do we really want to follow such optimistic lessons? is it not this "in-between" that a critical philosophy should actually deal with? 17 this is an example of popular music (arlen/mercer, 1944) aimed at helping people in the midst of world war ii to focus on something other than the war, and is one that shusterman, always attentive to the values of popular music, should not underestimate. somaesthetics and phenomenology28 corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together? references böhme, g. (2001). aisthetik: vorlesungen über ästhetik als allgemeine wahrnehmungslehre. münchen: fink. böhme, g. (2017a). the aesthetics of atmospheres. london – new york: routledge. böhme, g. (2017b). atmospheric architectures. the aesthetics of felt spaces. new york: bloomsbury. burke, e. (1998). a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1757). london – new york: penguin. griffero, t. (2014). atmospheres. aesthetics of emotional spaces. london – new york: routledge. griffero, t. (2016). atmospheres and felt-bodily resonances. studi di estetica, 44(1), 1–41. griffero, t. (2017a). quasi-things. the paradigm of atmospheres. new york: suny. griffero, t. (2017b). felt-bodily communication: a neophenomenological approach to embodied affects. studi di estetica, 45(2), 71–86. griffero, t. (2017c). felt-bodily resonances. towards a pathic aesthetics. yearbook for eastern and western philosophy, 2, 149–164. griffero, t. (2019a). places, affordances, atmospheres. a pathic aesthetics. london – new york: routledge. griffero, t. (2019b). introduction. how do you find yourself in your environment? hermann schmitz’s new phenomenology. in h. schmitz (ed.), new phenomenology. a brief introduction (pp. 9–41). milan – udine: mimesis international. griffero, t. (2020). better be in tune. between resonance and responsivity. studi di estetica, 48(2), 90–115. griffero, t. (2021). the atmospherical “we”: moods and collective feelings. milan – udine: mimesis international. griffero, t. (in press). somaesthetics and pathic aesthetics. schmitz, h. (1965). system der philosophie, bd. ii: 1. teil: der leib. bonn: bouvier. schmitz, h. (1966). system der philosophie, bd. ii: 2. teil: der leib im spiegel der kunst. bonn: bouvier. schmitz, h. (1969). system der philosophie: band 3. teil 2: der gefühlsraum. bonn: bouvier. schmitz, h. (1992). leib und gefühl. materialien zu einer philosophischen therapeutik. paderborn: junfermann. schmitz, h. (2011). der leib. boston – beijing – basel – vienna – warsaw – munich: de gruyter. schmitz, h. (2019). new phenomenology. a brief introduction. milan – udine: mimesis international. shusterman, r. (2000). pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art. 2nd edition. lanham: rowman and littlefield. shusterman, r. (2008). body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. the journal of somaesthetics volume 9, number 1 (2023) 1 page 1–16suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo yoga an auxiliary tool in students’ lives: creating and re-creating balance in mindful bodies suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo abstract: student mental health is a global public health issue. this study was carried out on the premise that yoga constitutes a low barrier health-promoting activity of relevance for students. data was generated through individual interviews with five students, aged 20-27, participating in a 12-week yoga program. informed by phenomenology and somaesthetics the findings show how practicing yoga involves learning and establishing new habits across several dimensions. the findings shed light on the broader significance of yoga as a self-care practice with the potential to promote young people’s health, well-being and equilibrium in life. keywords: students, yoga, phenomenology, somaesthetics, health introduction and background in this article we examine how university students in norway attending a 12-week yoga1 program (involving twice weekly sessions) experience performing yoga as part of their student life. the article presents findings from a qualitative, interview-based study conducted within the framework of a larger norwegian research project. the point of departure for the larger project is the view, supported by research, that a young person’s transition to university coincides with a critical developmental stage: that of individuation, separation from family, development of new social connections, and increased autonomy and responsibility (patton et al., 2016). thus, the student years represent a critical period in life, one of rapid change and high levels of personal, financial, and social pressure (duffy et al., 2019; kessler et al., 2007). brain development, accelerating in this period, is sensitive to risk, to which students are particularly exposed by virtue of their age (chung & hudziak, 2017). most lifetime mental disorders have their onset before the age of 25 (sæther, sivertsen, & bjerkeset, 2021), and university and college students have been found to be more vulnerable to such health problems than the general population (nerdrum, rustøen, & rønnestad, 2006). 1 while there are many definitions of what yoga is and many different yoga traditions, in this article yoga is defined as a practice that consists of physical positions (asanas) based on ashtanga vinyasa, breathing techniques (pranayama), meditation (dhyana) and yoga philosophy. yoga provides training for taking control of body and mind (elstad et al., 2020). 2 yoga an auxiliary tool in students’ lives: creating and re-creating balance in mindful bodies distress levels among university students, already rising rapidly over the past decade, increased exponentially during the covid-19 pandemic (sivertsen, 2021, p. 38). students’ lived experience of the pandemic, like that of people in general, has included uncertainty, a sense of endangerment, fear, misery and grief (stanley, zanin, avalos, tracy, & town, 2021). there is general agreement that adverse symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety, commonly referred to as distress (viertiö et al., 2021), pose a threat to students’ health (auerbach et al., 2018), suggesting that students’ health needs should be given a greater priority (qin et al., 2021). early intervention is seen as crucial if the adverse effects of distress, among them lower academic achievement, higher dropout rates, and enhanced risk of suicide (eisenberg, speer, & hunt, 2012), are to be avoided . of significance in this context is a tendency for mental disorders emerging during early adulthood to remain untreated for long periods of time (kessler et al., 2007). such lack of treatment can contribute to the development of more complex disorders (hawton, saunders, & o'connor, 2012; mcgorry, purcell, goldstone, & amminger, 2011; sæther et al., 2021). therefore, investing in the mental health of young people is likely to yield both short-term and long-term health-related and economic benefits (patton et al., 2016; eisenberg et al., 2012). however, research has found that young people with depression and anxiety symptoms seldom (18-34 %) seek professional help (gulliver, griffiths, & christensen, 2010), even in countries where many mental health services are provided free of charge (zachrisson, rödje, & mykletun, 2006). young people are more likely to seek help from informal sources such as friends and family (rickwood, deane, wilson, & ciarrochi, 2005). known barriers to helpseeking include fear of stigmatization, embarrassment, negative attitudes (including towards seeking professional help), difficulties recognizing symptoms, lack of emotional competence, and a preference for self-reliance (eisenberg et al., 2012; gulliver et al., 2010; rickwood et al., 2005). all of the above suggests that students in places of higher education require low-barrier activities that promote their mental health (winzer, lindberg, guldbrandsson, & sidorchuk, 2018). one such activity is yoga, which has become increasingly popular over recent decades (elstad et al., 2020). although research on the impact of yoga remains limited, two studies have suggested that yoga may be an effective intervention to alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety (elstad et al., 2020; falsafi, 2016). this finding is in line with the results of one-to-one cognitive therapy and other mental health interventions among university students (bailey, hetrick, rosenbaum, purcell, & parker, 2018; cuijpers et al., 2016; de vibe et al., 2017; harrer et al., 2019; winzer et al., 2018). as part of a wider public health effort to improve student mental health, calls have been made for more research, including qualitative studies, into students’ experiences of yoga (hagen & nayar, 2014; jeitler et al., 2020; taylor, gibson, & conley, 2019; wang, hagins, & qidwai, 2017). while a number of studies have explored the experiences of yoga among pre-school, primary and secondary schoolchildren (butzer et al., 2017; conboy, noggle, frey, kudesia, & khalsa, 2013; hagen & nayar, 2014; jeitler et al., 2020; wang et al., 2017), little is as yet known about how university students experience practicing yoga and how these experiences might be understood to relate to health, mental health and well-being. qualitative research in this area is particularly thin on the ground. one qualitative study, which sought to assess the impact on university students of an mbsr (mindfulness-based stress reduction), drew its participants from a borderline clinical population whose members self-referred to the student counselling service (hjeltnes, binder, moltu, & dundas, 2015). the journal of somaesthetics volume 9, number 1 (2023) 3 suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo another qualitative study highlighted yoga’s positive effects on physical and mental health and well-being, but only in relation to adults (taylor et al., 2019). further research has explored the impact of yoga on a clinical population in primary healthcare, highlighting yoga’s role in deepening participants’ sense of identity and capacity for self-reflection (anderzén-carlsson, persson lundholm, köhn, & westerdahl, 2014). other yoga-based studies have examined further important health-related aspects of practicing of yoga. these include an exploration of yoga as an aesthetic practice (korpelainen, 2019), and research highlighting the intimacy of the yoga mat and its space in everyday life (lemermeyer, 2017). to our knowledge, however, there has as yet been no qualitative study on how students without a mental health diagnosis experience practicing yoga. to address this gap in the literature, our study seeks to examine young university students' lived experience of practicing yoga as part of their everyday student lives. methodology the main inspiration for our study is phenomenology, a philosophy and method which focuses on how things (phenomena) appear and are experienced. as a method, phenomenology implies a way of seeing, a methodological guided way of seeing (gallagher, 2012): in the case of our research, a way of understanding students’ lived experiences of practicing yoga as part of their student lives and the significance these experiences may have for their health and well-being. theoretical framework we are particularly inspired by the phenomenology of merleau-ponty (1962/ 2002), and his view that being a situated body-subject is what constitutes our total existence, so that the body is the site of all our experiences and, knowledge. another source of inspiration is somaesthetics, an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that seeks to integrate the theoretical, empirical, and practical disciplines related to bodily perception, performance, and presentation. the term, coined by richard shusterman in 1996, derives from the concept of soma as the living, feeling, sentient, purposive body, implying the essential union of body-mind (shusterman, 2012, p. 188). somaesthetics recognizes the cultivation of the body through the integration of the material, mental and spiritual dimensions of human life (shusterman, 2012, p. 189). rather than a single theory or method, somaesthetics is an open field for “collaborative, interdisciplinary, and transcultural inquiry” (shusterman, 2012, p. 8). sources of inspiration for the development of somaesthetics (shusterman, 2012, p. 11) have included yoga, a traditional asian somatic practice, and contemporary western counterparts such as the alexander technique and the feldenkrais method. shusterman (2005) contends that somaesthetics explicitly contributes to self-conscious awareness (the ability to recognize what one feels in one's own body), an insight of particular relevance to this study. as we see it, this insight into how bodily feelings and experiences are not simply silent background knowledge but also something one focuses on, listens to and applies complements and enriches merleau-ponty's earlier insights into the body's fundamental role in our existence. shusterman argues that somaesthetics goes beyond the tacit level of bodily consciousness, which merleau-ponty regarded as primary consciousness and described as the life of unreflected consciousness (shusterman, 2005, p. 157). referring to merleau-ponty's insights regarding the habit body and the problematic fact that we can develop bad as well as good habits, shusterman notes that the philosopher may have been less concerned with the development of bad habits, so that his theory contributes fewer insights here: 4 yoga an auxiliary tool in students’ lives: creating and re-creating balance in mindful bodies lacking in merleau-ponty’s superb advocacy of the body’s philosophical importance is a robust sense of the real body as a site for practical disciplines of conscious reflection that aim at reconstructing somatic perception and performance to achieve a more rewarding experience and action (shusterman, 2005, p. 177) in contrast, somaesthetics focuses explicitly on the need for, and usefulness of, conscious reflection on one's own body. this becomes a way of being able to work with oneself and one's bodily habits, towards the possibility of making beneficial changes. combining somatic theory with merleau-ponty’s phenomenology, argues shusterman, is made possible by the latter’s pragmatic flavor, including its insistence that consciousness is primarily an “i can”, rather than an “i think”. in addition, the combination is facilitated by merleau-ponty’s understanding of philosophy not simply as theory but also as a personal way of life (shusterman, 2005, p. 177). following shusterman’s suggestion, we have attempted to combine the two approaches for the purposes of this research. in addition, we have adopted an understanding of health as explained and described by hans georg gadamer: the notion that health is something which manifests itself by virtue of escaping our attention, so that the mystery of health lies in its hidden character (gadamer, 1996). to be healthy is about being involved with the world, being together with one`s fellow human beings; it’s about active and rewarding engagement with one`s everyday tasks (gadamer, 1996 / 2004, p. 113). health encompasses a totality in which body and mind are as one; the mind or soul is the living power of the body itself (gadamer, 1996, p. 173). method in pursuit of our goal of exploring how students experience practicing yoga, along with the significance this activity may have for their health and well-being, we opted to ground our study in hermeneutic phenomenology: the reflective study of pre-reflective experience (van manen, 1997). according to van manen (1997, p. 346), this means focusing not simply on what is said in the transcribed text (its semantic, linguistic meaning and significance) but also on how the text speaks: how it divines and inspires our understanding of the spoken words. in hermeneutic phenomenological studies, both these forms of meaning are of critical methodological importance. in human science research of this type, the emphasis is on adopting a phenomenological attitude or orientation rather than on employing a specific methodology (gallagher, 2012). the phenomenological attitude requires researchers to bracket their natural attitudes and to suspend or put aside their beliefs, judgments, opinions and theories (gallagher, 2012, p. 43). the yoga program the participating students attended was based on ashtanga vinyasa and consisted of asanas (yoga postures), pranayama (breathing exercises), and dhyana (meditation). physical exercises were designed to promote strength, flexibility, stamina, and balance. the students were also introduced to yoga philosophy and ways to apply yoga to their everyday life (elstad et al., 2020). this is in line with yoga classes conducted in other settings (both clinical and non-clinical), which usually include asanas, pranayama, meditation and yoga philosophy (brems et al., 2015) in an effort to train both mind and body towards the goal of emotional balance (hagen & nayar, 2014). all three authors of this article have personal experience of practicing yoga. the first author (who also conducted the interviews) is a trained yoga teacher, but played no role in shaping the yoga program at the center of our research. the second author, also a trained yoga teacher, the journal of somaesthetics volume 9, number 1 (2023) 5 suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo has been involved in designing both the yoga program and the larger research project. the last author has only limited experience of practicing yoga and has not been involved in either the design or implementation of the program. recruitment of participants all participants were selected from students assigned to the intervention group within the larger project. participants were to have no serious mental health diagnosis, no recent major life crises, and no experience of systematic yoga practice in the preceding six months. a total of 62 students met the inclusion criteria and an email was sent to them all. the first five who responded by accepting the offer were included in the study. the participants, four of whom were women, were all university or college students aged 20-27, living in the oslo area. the study was approved in june 2017 by the regional committee for medical research ethics in norway (2016/1751). written consent was obtained from all participants prior to their inclusion in the study. data generation research data was gathered through individual interviews with five students. all interviews were conducted by the first author at the yoga intervention location over a 4-month period (october 2017january 2018). each interview lasted 45-60 minutes and was audio recorded with the participant’s permission. an interview guide was developed, based on the following two thematic open questions: what is it like for you to do yoga? how was it for you to participate in the yoga program? the aim of these thematic questions was to facilitate a conversation where the participants felt free to share their experiences in their own words. the interviewer asked follow-up questions and made sure to keep the conversation within the study's topic. while some participants had completed the yoga program when interviewed, others were halfway through it. some participants had previous yoga experience, and some had started to integrate yoga into their everyday life after completing the yoga course. when talking about yoga, participants also included experiences from their lives outside the course. the data therefore includes experiences of yoga in general, experiences from the specific yoga program and episodes from participants’ individual lives. all interviews were transcribed verbatim by the first author shortly after each interview. analysis our reading and analysis of interview transcripts involved the application of a phenomenological research method inspired by van manen (2014, p. 320). each text was read through several times by all three authors. as we read, we posed the question: what statement(s) or phrase(s) seem particularly essential or revealing about the phenomenon of practicing yoga as described by the participants? the text was then coded inductively and analyzed, guided by hermeneutic reflection to uncover meanings rather than facts (van manen, 1997). following van manen (1997), this involved phenomenological reduction and reflection in respect of four lifeworld existential dimensions: lived body, lived time, lived space and lived relation. on this basis a number of experiential themes emerged. “theme” in this context involves a focus: that of a meaning, a point or a “punctum” in the described experiences (van manen, 2014, p. 320). phenomenological themes draw attention to the eidos of the experience; they represent possible fragments of experiences that are unique but also in a human sense shared as they may bear similarity with the experiences of others. in other words, analysis involved identifying 6 yoga an auxiliary tool in students’ lives: creating and re-creating balance in mindful bodies meaning structures (van manen, 1990, p. 87) in participants’ descriptions of their experiences with practicing yoga. this process involved reflective writing, re-writing and tightening the text to reveal the meaning of the various experiences. however, experiential descriptions are not easy to distinguish from descriptions that include opinions, views, and interpretations, suggesting that even the most evocative experiential description is unlikely to capture the fullness and subtleties of participants’ actual experiences, as felt in the moment (van manen, 2014, p. 54). despite the difficulties in describing lived experiences, we have sought throughout both to invoke and to explain participants’ experiences of doing yoga, as expressed in their own words. findings we present the themes that emerged from our analysis in the form of processed excerpts from interviews, followed by our subsequent interpretations and analysis. processed excerpts are set in italics, while our subsequent analysis appears in plain text. practicing yoga is to adapt to space and atmosphere when i entered the door, the atmosphere was very calm. i was forced to be quiet. then i found it easier to get into the right mood to do yoga. entering the yoga class is a step into serenity. the calm atmosphere in the room is experienced by the student as a forceful invitation to be quiet. being required to be quiet is then experienced as helpful to getting into a mood they perceive as appropriate and in which doing yoga feels possible and good. this reflects that we, as bodily subjects, are not only in the world but are also part of it (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 94). when we enter a room, an environment, or a situation, we are always influenced by the prevailing mood or atmosphere. we will also, without necessarily consciously thinking about it, adapt or not adapt to the situation we now inhabit. “to be a body is to be tied to a certain world,” observed merleau-ponty (1962/ 2002, p. 171), highlighting our inter-relational, reciprocal and interconnected way of being in the world. “our body is not primarily in space” but part of it. practicing yoga is looking for an atmosphere of presence in oneself i am looking for some kind of tranquility and try to imagine my mind as a blue sky. then there will be dark clouds in the sky. the clouds might represent a to-do list or worries such as studying for an exam, calling my boyfriend, washing the dishes and so on. my goal is to blow away all the clouds, so the sky becomes clearer. the sky should be as blue as possible when i am in yoga class. as if i am trying to breathe away the dark clouds in my head. the student describes yoga as about seeking to achieve a calm and peaceful existence. to do so, it is important to leave behind the problems of daily life for a while. still, thoughts arise about things one must do. yoga is about using one's breath, about (as the student says) ‘blowing’ distracting thoughts away so that existence under a blue sky is restored. our existence is always in the present. as bodily beings we combine, include, and belong to both time and space (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 162). but while our existence is always the journal of somaesthetics volume 9, number 1 (2023) 7 suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo in present time and space, we also belong to the future and to the past; the present holds a past and a future within its “thickness” (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 321). the present is in a broad sense the horizon of past and future, and a zone in which being and consciousness coincide (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 487). the practice of yoga seems to involve an effort, if not to stop time, then at least to maintain the present, the “fresh” present, for a definite period. practitioners use their breath to take control of their consciousness and flow of thoughts and thereby achieve a felt bodily tranquility. practicing yoga is to adopt and adapt a non-competitive attitude towards oneself the most helpful benefit of yoga is realizing that it’s not me against the world (...). after all, there is competition in almost everything in life, right? clothes, hair, academic performance, relationships and how many fancy pictures you have on social media. we came here to the class and the instructor said: “there is no competition here, it is only you and your body.” this student experiences yoga as an activity that encourages practitioners to focus on their own experience, without fear of being rated by others. as both personal and relational beings, we are in constant exchange with our surroundings. merleau-ponty (1962/ 2002, p. 121-122) explains that there are two views of oneself and one’s body: “my body for me and my body for others”. he continues: "it is indeed not enough to say that the objective body belongs to the realm of ‘for others’, and my phenomenal body to that of ‘for me’, since the ‘for me’, and the ‘for others’ co-exist in one and the same world…" yoga therefore can be understood to be about directing attention to oneself as a phenomenological body, rather than as an objective body for inspection and observation, not by only others but also by oneself. our intertwined position of being personal and at the same time always in relation to our world is an embodied position of continuous shift between being directed inside-out and outside-in. we are always both subject and object, never either/or (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002). the experience of practicing yoga can be understood as one of being invited to discipline one’s directness, to focus attention on one’s own subjective experience of own body and movement, and let the outside world just be for a while. attending to oneself as a phenomenological body is to perceive one’s existential and phenomenological bodily being in the world. this is what shusterman (shusterman, 2000, 2008, 2012) calls somaesthetic awareness. by disciplining our somaesthetic awareness, the aim is not simply to know our body and habits, but to change them (shusterman, 2008, p. 65). yoga can thus be understood as a practice which enables practitioners to refine or change some of their habits. practicing yoga is to kindly take care of oneself about just a year ago i went through a really hard time. every day when i got up in the morning, i would tell myself things like ‘you are so big, you are fat’ and stuff like that. but now i rarely say such mean things to myself. i may still be dissatisfied with my body, but now me and my body are friends. so, i think i got a really precious gift… a yoga course for free where my head and body became friends. 8 yoga an auxiliary tool in students’ lives: creating and re-creating balance in mindful bodies by practicing yoga, this student experienced body and head (mind) becoming friends, no longer fighting against or devaluing each other. as social beings we always notice how we are seen by others. if we constantly turn this gaze of others (the socio-cultural gaze) towards ourselves, we risk over-objectifying ourselves. the attention we devote to being and living as the bodies we are can then fade into the background, overshadowed by an evaluating, sometimes critical gaze directed at ourselves. when merleau-ponty (1962/ 2002, p. 122) points out that we are what others think of us and what our world is, he draws attention to something very significant for all humans, and especially so for those who in various ways do not comply (or are perceived as not complying) with societal norms; for example, humans whose bodies are judged fat or disabled. here, practicing yoga becomes a way to be more friendly and accepting towards one’s self. in the same way that working with the surface and appearance of the body can lead to beauty, working on turning the attention inwards towards bodily consciousness can render the body — the experiential dimension of one’s body — more beautiful (shusterman, 2012, p. 337). practicing yoga promotes a sense of gratitude towards one’s own body i remember we had a yoga class with [name of the yoga instructor] where she told us: ‘feel your toes, feel the soles of your feet…’ and then she said: ‘thank your toes, feet and legs for carrying your body’. then i started to think like... i have never been grateful for my toes and my legs. never been grateful for this (...). there were many little things that i became aware of, through focusing on different body parts. this student describes experiences while practicing yoga that encourage realization of how little awareness one has of one’s body. in our day-to-day life, our body is mostly absent from our consciousness; it passes in and out of our awareness. this lack of consciousness is an integral part of our ability to engage with the world around us, and to carry out many routine actions (leder, 1990, p. 69). usually, our body is only brought to our attention during moments of dysfunction or pain. this means that we take our body for granted when it is functioning as usual. yoga, however, challenges us to pay attention to the body, a unique and important experience. practicing yoga as described by the student seems to raise a deep bodily awareness of gratitude for being the body one is. this sense of gratitude to one’s own body might relate to yoga’s propensity to encourage us to cultivate our own body, both in terms of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and of creative selffashioning of the body, a process that might be understood to relate to the aesthetic of the body’s external representations and also to the body’s perceptual inner experience: in this instance, a perceptual inner experience where cultivation of improved aesthesis means feeling better in the sense of enjoying better feelings while also perceiving what we experience more accurately (shusterman, 2012, p. 111). practicing yoga is to put everyday life on hold it is fantastic to have yoga in my everyday life. having time where i can focus on being present, breathing and exercising my body. a time where i can let go of worries about my academic performance and stress. where i can take time out to distance myself from the world for a little while. the journal of somaesthetics volume 9, number 1 (2023) 9 suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo practicing yoga through breathing and moving seems to allow practitioners to be present in the here and now. it functions as a shelter or sanctuary, one in which everyday worries can be placed on hold. being present in the moment also seems to be about receiving and creating what some participants called an ‘atmosphere’ or mood within oneself. atmosphere, according to shusterman (2012, p. 234) can best be understood as an experienced, bodily felt quality of a situation emerging from and pervading the situation one is part of. the yoga room, the yoga setting with its atmosphere and distinct environment: all this taken together seems to offer participants the possibility for certain kinds of actions, behaviors or ways of being in the world (gallagher, 2012, p. 71). practicing yoga is to find belongingness yoga is like a religious place where i can find my inner peace and where i belong. i think it's strange, but at the same time very pleasant, to suddenly feel that i fit into a place where i previously thought that i didn't fit in. this sense that practicing yoga has a religious dimension appears in tune with johnson’s (2008) description of embodied human spirituality and the human experience of transcendence. johnson describes two forms of transcendence. in its vertical form, transcendence involves something high above one’s embodied situation. this can be compared to a religious experience that elevates our existence to something beyond our bodily existence, mortality, and finitude. but transcendence can also take a horizontal direction, a spiritual transcendence “that recognizes the inescapability of human finitude and is compatible with the embodiment of meaning, mind, and personal identity” (johnson, 2008, p. 281). for johnson, horizontal transcendence consists of our ability to “go beyond” our present situation through transformative acts that can change both our world and us. in line with this, nancy (2008, p. 69) argues that being a body also means being a body of spirit. in situations where the practice of yoga resembles a religious experience, this could reflect the fact that the practitioner has made contact with their (shusterman, 2012) own body of spirit. in doing so, they reveal an ability to transcend the present and therefore change their experience of both self and the world. practicing yoga seems to raise the possibility of getting in touch with one's own bodily spirit and by that means achieving a new sense of belonging: both to oneself and to the world in general. working with getting in contact with one`s own spiritual life may even render the body more beautiful (shusterman, 2012, p. 337). in an interview, shusterman elaborates on the concept of beauty related to aesthetics and to the notion of “living beauty”, explaining that he has chosen this notion due to its semantic richness and embrace of two distinct meanings: one that refers to beauty as lively, vivid and/or energetic and the other to the idea of living one’s life as an aesthetic project and as an art of living a beautiful life (heinrich & marino, 2020, p. 6). practicing yoga is to let go – dare to let go after all, i find meditation difficult (...). it becomes difficult when i have a lot of things in my head that i need to do. what should i eat? what should i do tomorrow? then you have to put all the thoughts away, and this won’t happen without effort. i really have to work with myself and my head to be present. 10 yoga an auxiliary tool in students’ lives: creating and re-creating balance in mindful bodies as this participant notes, not letting yourself be distracted by thoughts when meditating involves hard work. clearing one’s mind of disturbing thoughts does not come easy. the focused concentration needed in meditation is described as an “ alert attentiveness” that might be very tiring for beginners (shusterman, 2012, p. 307). breathing is always in the here and now. as a result, a focused attention on breathing during meditation may help break the habit of letting thoughts of past events and future projects distract us (shusterman, 2012, p. 312). the ‘hard work’ referred to by the student can be understood to be about focusing on one's own breathing in order to control and discipline one's flood of thoughts. practicing yoga is to become aware of hidden emotions and habits i think it's [meditation] a little scary. just sitting there thinking or not thinking. it's hard to put aside the things i think i might do then... like sending messages to my friends. yes, letting go of all the things i might need to do. this student experiences meditation as difficult and a bit scary. the scariness may derive from the strangeness of focusing on own breathing. in everyday life we rarely notice the breaths we draw. however, our way of breathing -its rhythm and depth – can provide us with rapid and reliable evidence of our emotional state. focusing our consciousness on our own breathing can therefore make us aware of our emotional state, of which we otherwise might have remained unaware (shusterman, 2008, p. 20). becoming aware of our own felt emotions could well be a bit scary. increased bodily consciousness of our own breathing can also make us aware of our unconscious habits: for instance, holding our breath, or breathing fast. practicing yoga encourages body-mind harmony when i do yoga, i focus on how i breathe. i do it before i go to bed... i think it's sort of a way to get the brain and the body to communicate. this student reflects on how breathing during the practice of yoga may help overcome what we might call a body-mind split. practicing yoga and breathing is something the student does before falling asleep, because it seems ‘a sort of way’ for body and mind to communicate. this body-mind communication might be understood as body-mind harmony, a state in which the individual is freed from evaluating either their thoughts or their body. merleau-ponty argues that we must acknowledge the unity of the mental, physical, and spiritual as inherent in our existence: “the union of soul and body is not an amalgamation between two mutually external terms, subject and object, brought about by arbitrary decree. it is enacted at every instant in the movement of existence” (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 102). for merleau-ponty, unity of body and mind is something that must at every moment be created and restored as part of our existence. the experience described by this student indicates that practicing yoga can contribute to just this. it is interesting that the word yoga means binding together and uniting (strauss, 2020), and that a common understanding is that yoga refers to the association of the individual self with the universal self. this reveals interesting similarities between yoga philosophy and phenomenology. somaesthetic lack of awareness (that is to say, inadequate perception of our the journal of somaesthetics volume 9, number 1 (2023) 11 suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo somatic comportment and feelings) can lead to minor everyday problems. one example could be finding it difficult to fall asleep because of lack of awareness that one`s breathing is too shallow or one`s body too tensely held to induce a sleep-inducing state of repose (shusterman 2012, p 101). in yoga, focusing one's attention on one’s own breathing, body and bodily reactions seems to help raise awareness of one's own habits, thereby opening up the possibility of changing them. practicing yoga provides strength and courage on social media i have unfollowed a lot of yoga ladies who typically show totally crazy poses that we never did here in class (...). i’ve protected myself from these fancy yoga ladies who really just made me scared and nervous about never being good enough. for this student, yoga as ‘dis-played’ and performed on social media is something unattainable, something at odds with one’s perception of one’s own body. the positions and movements shown are seen as out of reach and impossible to perform. to protect their own self-esteem and self-image, the student has chosen not to follow such ‘yogis’. participating in the project's yoga program seems to have given the student the strength and courage to rely on their own body, with its possibilities and limitations. as social and relational beings we engage with others, even when the other is on a screen, in ways that are linked with our embodied sensorimotor processes, and with the physical and social affordance the other presents us with (gallagher, 2012, p.78). in other words, when we perceive something, we perceive it as actionable -as something we too can reach and perform, or not. the action of others therefore shapes how we perceive the world and our own possibilities for action (gallagher, 2012, p. 114). intercorporeity means that in-between individuals there is a reciprocal and dynamic response to the other’s action in which such action can be taken as an affordance for own action and interaction (gallagher, 2012, p. 200). participation in the yoga program seems to have strengthened the student’s determination not to strive for the unattainable. practicing yoga encourages the cultivation of new skills and habits now i can master yoga poses and breathing without thinking too much. then i feel like i can just totally calm down... it feels like a pause button in life. for this student, yoga has made it possible to master new poses and breathing techniques without having to think about it. when something is learned, the body has understood and incorporated it into its world (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 160.161). for this participant, the learned poses and breathing have become habitual. for merleau-ponty, habit is “knowledge in the hands, which is forthcoming only when bodily efforts is made, and cannot be formulated in detachment from that effort” (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 166). when an action has become habitual, it has been incorporated into our own body. this capacity expresses the power we have to shape our way of being-in-the-world by learning new skills and habits. the phenomenon of habit prompts us to see that to understand is to experience the harmony between intention, performance and our bodily anchorage in the world (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 167). it is when new skills have been learned and habits cultivated that the body has understood and significant new meaning has been absorbed (merleau-ponty, 1962/ 2002, p. 169). practicing yoga seems to involve learning and establishing new habits across several dimensions. this requires practice, courage, and perseverance. on the way to greater mastery, students experience yoga as difficult and a little scary, but also as a gift and a ‘pause button in life’. 12 yoga an auxiliary tool in students’ lives: creating and re-creating balance in mindful bodies discussion and final remarks – yoga and health the findings of our inquiry touch upon some of the ways in which yoga may promote young people’s health and well-being. paying disciplined attention to body and mind through yoga movements, postures and breathing requires practice and endurance. practitioners learn to be present in the here and now, and to kindle an appreciative attitude towards self and body. all the same, practicing yoga can also be experienced as difficult and a little scary. these findings suggest that present-moment awareness may partly be about what shusterman (2008) calls “reflective awareness”, something that never stops at our skin since we cannot experience our body as separate from our environmental context (shusterman, 2008, p. 215). indeed, our findings reveal the environment in which yoga is practiced to be highly relevant to how the practice is experienced. the atmosphere that yoga teachers create and facilitate must therefore be understood as important for how the practitioner experiences doing yoga. the yoga environment itself may contribute to practitioners acquiring an attentive presence and reflective awareness of their embodied being. running like a thread through our findings is how participants found their practice of yoga contributing moments of felt peace in body and mind. in the context of gadamer’s (1996) description of health as a state of equilibrium, of experienced weightlessness in which different forces balance each other out, the experiences of calmness and peace the students describe can be understood as expressions of felt health. at the same time, this felt calmness — this harmony between body and mind — does not come easy; achieving it requires effort and hard work. for shusterman (2012, p. 337), such labor can have aesthetic results: working on one’s inner spiritual virtues can render the body more beautiful. perceived health can perhaps be understood to be related to perceived beauty in the form of gratitude towards one's own body. in disciplines of somatic education, such as yoga, exercises are deployed to treat the possible misuse of our bodies in our spontaneous and habitual way of being. the explicit bodily attention characteristic of such disciplines is geared not simply at improving our bodily knowledge but also at promoting change (shusterman, 2005, p. 166-167). the way we, as bodies, handle life with its various challenges can lead to bad as well as good habits when it comes to taking care of ourselves and our well-being. the findings presented here suggest that yoga has the potential to support practitioners towards greater insight into their body and its possibilities and limitations: into what the body-subject can, or can almost, or cannot do. such insight is essential for the achievement of change. to the extent that yoga practitioners strive for change, yoga seems to have the capacity to promote good health and prevent ill health. nowadays, exercising our bodies is generally understood as an important pathway to health. however, we may or may not find such exercise enjoyable. shusterman highlights that health itself is enjoyed not just as a means to achieve other ends but also as an end in itself (shusterman 2012, p. 46). being healthy means having the ability to enjoy life. it is the rhythm of life as a permanent process of establishing and re-establishing equilibrium that constitutes health (gadamer, 1996, p. 114). in other words, health is something we have to create and re-create throughout our lives. we can never gain full control over the rhythmic functions taking place within ourselves. rather, health is a state of equilibrium, a process in which different forces balance each other out. if that equilibrium becomes disturbed or disrupted, its restoration requires effort and counterforces. our findings suggest that yoga can serve as an auxiliary tool, or a counterforce, to re-create balance in our mindful bodies. the journal of somaesthetics volume 9, number 1 (2023) 13 suki phengphan, tiril elstad and wenche schrøder bjorbækmo we consider our study to be a small but useful contribution to understanding yoga’s potential, especially in relation to the mental health and well-being of students passing through a particularly stressful and challenging stage of life. further qualitative research is required to explore the various dimensions of yoga 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(1997). from meaning to method. qualitative health research, 7(3), 345-369. retrieved from http://qhr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/3/345 viertiö, s., kiviruusu, o., piirtola, m., kaprio, j., korhonen, t., marttunen, m., & suvisaari, j. (2021). factors contributing to psychological distress in the working population, with a special reference to gender difference. bmc public health, 21(1), 1-17. wang, d., hagins, m., & qidwai, w. (2017). perceived benefits of yoga among urban school students: a qualitative analysis. journal of the australian-traditional medicine society, 23(1), 46. winzer, r., lindberg, l., guldbrandsson, k., & sidorchuk, a. (2018). effects of mental health interventions for students in higher education are sustainable over time: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. peerj, 6, e4598. retrieved from https://peerj.com/ articles/4598/ zachrisson, h. d., rödje, k., & mykletun, a. (2006). utilization of health services in relation to mental health problems in adolescents: a population based survey. bmc public health, 6(1), 1-7. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) editorial board published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design zane cerpina with the generous support of the obel family foundation and the schmidt family foundation © the journal of somaesthetics (jos) 2017 © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. art & technology, aalborg university rendsburggade 14, 9000 denmark issn: 2246-8498 the authors have attempted to locate all licensees in connection with the illustrations used in this book. should there be individual instances where this has not been successful, the licensees will be compensated if they contact the publishing house, aalborg university. editors else marie bukdahl (denmark) falk heinrich (denmark) richard shusterman (usa) editorial board yanping gao (china) mathias girel (france) kristina höök (sweden) leszek koczanowicz (poland) fred maus (usa) max ryynnänen (finland) dag svanaes (norway) introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 29 page 29–44nicole miglio and samuele sartori perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics nicole miglio and samuele sartori abstract: the aim of this paper is to examine synergies between somaesthetics and phenomenology by investigating the concept of habit in lived experience. the first section will compare the notion of habit in john dewey’s aesthetic philosophicalpedagogical project with maurice merleau-ponty’s phenomenology. the second section will demonstrate this link through a comparison between critical phenomenology and richard shusterman’s somaesthetics, showing a synergy in their respective understanding of the transformative dimension of bodily habits. keywords: somaesthetics, phenomenology, habit, john dewey, maurice merleauponty. perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics 1. introduction the concept of habit is a central topic within philosophical tradition. in this context, carlisle (2014) argued that in the western philosophical tradition, there are widely diverging views on habit. different thinkers conceive of habits as indispensable guides both to knowledge and action, but also highlight how habits may also represent obstacles to overcome. for example, she stated that “aristotle thinks that habit lies at the heart of moral life. spinoza argues that it leads us astray and prevents us from perceiving the deep intelligibility of nature. hume regards custom as ‘the great guide of human life’, since it helps to make our world orderly and predictable. kant suggests that it undermines our innate moral worth, making us ‘ridiculous’ and machine-like” (carlisle, 2014, p. 3). further, she mentioned that habits are like plato’s pharmakon: “both a poison and a cure” (p. 5). even though it is important to be aware of the long history of this concept, in this article, we are mostly interested in perceptual and bodily habits and their related ethical implications. moreover, a rather recent theory that emerged in american pragmatist philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century, following its popularization in europe, was that by bergson, “who first attempted to distinguish ‘habit memory’ from ‘image memory’” (casey, 2013, p. 196). however, in this article, we will focus on merleau-ponty and not bergson. this decision is due to his notable perspective that “habit has its abode neither in thought nor in the objective body, but in somaesthetics and phenomenology30 perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics the body as mediator of a world” (merleau-ponty, 2002/1945, p. 167). thus, for merleau-ponty, the focus is not, as it is with bergson, on the distinction between different kinds of memory; it is instead on the vital activity and capacity of the body to perform, learn, and teach habits. however, a preliminary conceptual clarification that is crucial to understanding the concept of the performative body is required here: of it is evident that perceptual and bodily habits can be learned and taught, what does it mean that they are performed? in this context, in merleauponty’s and dewey’s theoretical framework, the flesh is not simply a substantialized ontological thing within its boundary, but is instead a relational entity that interacts with the world due to its perceptual and agentive abilities. based on this perspective, we will argue that the performativity of a body is its power to perceive, feel, and act, reflexively and pre-reflexively, in a specific environment. thus, the body is performative because it is always open to learn and embody new attitudes and practices. in this sense, every kind of biological determinism is firmly rejected. furthermore, this performative dimension is sensitive to the very situatedness of the embodied subject—namely, the phenomenological being-in-the-world of the self.1 given this foreword, in the second section of the article, we will compare the concept of perceptual and bodily habits in dewey’s and merleau-ponty’s respective philosophies. even though some comparisons between the two have already been made (shusterman, 2008; dreon, 2007), they do not adequately focus on the problem of habits. more specifically, dreon mainly analyzed the aesthetic, bodily, and evolutionary emergence of human language in terms of the aforementioned authors. meanwhile, shusterman (2008) criticized merleau-ponty’s theoretical position on the body as a pre-reflexive, silent, and speechless space (pp. 49–50). additionally, he also argued that dewey is a better representative of somatic reflection due to his idea of continuity between the body and mind, as indicated by the latter’s compound term “body-mind.” as will be shown in the first section, we think that this comparison between merleau-ponty and dewey is required at least for three reasons. first, they share a common background—i.e., the critique of behaviorism—at the basis of their re-elaboration of the concept of body. second, this common target of criticism will lead merleau-ponty and dewey to share a relational epistemology and ontology. precisely because these two philosophers never met each other, nor was dewey ever cited by merleau-ponty in any of his studies and lectures, they each developed original concepts on perceptual and bodily habits with synergies that are still largely unexplored. third, we will show the fruitfulness of this comparison for somaesthetics by allowing the latter to embody merleau-ponty’s perspective on these habits, their transformations, and the ways in which such habits shape the body. on the subject of the transformative openness of bodily performance, in the third section, we will explore contemporary synergies between phenomenology—especially in the declension of critical phenomenology—and somaesthetics, through shusterman’s attention to the analytical premises of bodily transformation. this section, thus, aims to open up a space of mutual connection and dialogue. in particular, we will show that critical phenomenology conceives of processes of marginalization and discrimination as primarily performed and experienced within the corporeal dimension. this allows us to highlight that both approaches take the body seriously and recognize the epistemic value of lived experience. at this point, the notion of habit discloses the entirety of its critical potential: as performative ways of living our own corporeality, our habits are always open to further adjustments through learning, teaching, and reframing. this awareness helps us rethink the racialized and gendered body in a new way: it recognizes 1 for a rigorous panorama of the concept of performativity within phenomenology, see rentsch and guidi (2020). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 31 nicole miglio and samuele sartori that racialization is not only a social phenomenon, but is also constituted at the level of lived experience (e.g., fanon, 1967/1952); it also attends to the fact that gendered impositions over one’s body are always modifiable and strictly contingent (e.g., young, 2005). the somaesthetic focus on the transformative power of somatic experience may then offer powerful strategies to become aware of and eventually imagine new possibilities of being-in-the-world. 2. dewey and merleau-ponty: the experience and body in perceptual and performative habits in this paper, we argue that the concept of habit is developed along a somatic axis within both dewey’s and merleau-ponty’s thought processes. the aim of this section is then to show how the ideas of these thinkers are comparable, since both focus their analysis on the genesis and transformation of perceptual and performative habits, taking lived bodily experience as the primary locus of investigation. by doing so, they approach this issue from an aesthetic perspective or better, from a somaesthetic one. moreover, while the issue of performative and perceptive bodies has been neglected since baumgarten, and by kant, hegel, and schopenhauer thereafter, this topic is the main focus in shusterman’s (2007) analysis (p. 137). more specifically, somaesthetics is not only the study of categories of taste, but rather it is the inquiry into bodies and their affective spheres, within their social, perceptual, and practical transformations. thus, from this perspective, it is the effort to define the processes by which human beings modify themselves, their feelings, forms, and futures (both reflexively and pre-reflexively); it also addresses the agentive potential of environments over human beings. therefore, one of the main research topics of somaesthetics is understanding the body as a social, anthropological, and ongoing production, through an understanding of perceptual and performative habits. first, it is crucial to understand the common theoretical framework from which dewey and merleau-ponty thematized perception and action of bodies as a continuum. the former developed this idea in his critical assessment of the reflex arc concept. this notion had interested dewey since his reading of james’ book the principles of psychology (1890)2 and consequently, in 1892, at the university of michigan, his spring class was focused on behaviorism (dewey, 1969/1892). however, only after four years of elaboration and research, he published the article the reflex arc concept in psychology (dewey, 1896)—a cornerstone for his philosophical conception of habit. in this article, the stimulus-response model is understood and criticized as a replacement of the sensation-idea dualism. here, dewey (1896) argued that in behaviorism a new polarity is established: peripheral functions and central structures are presented as opposing each other, reproposing the old dualism between body and soul in the distinction between stimulus and response (pp. 357–358). the artificial division therefore consists in separating the sensory stimulus, the intellectual elaboration, and finally, the physical movement into three separate and autonomous entities, whose individual existence is independent and characterization takes place in radically discontinuous terms. according to this model, sensation is an ambiguous element. it is a blur between body and soul, physical and psychic, or the intellectual elaboration and movement of the body. within this framework, stimulus is mainly characterized by passive features. moreover, such a framework does not consider perceptual-relational activity and instead takes it as an uncritically substantiated given that mechanical input—to the first psychological 2 there is evidence that dewey developed his reflex arc concept idea from this book: while he was in close collaboration with james, dewey took an example from principle of psychology, which is cited in the reflex arc concept in psychology, and in this essay, he tried to solve an issue already underlined in james’ theoretical proposal: it “probably makes the lower centres too machine-like and the hemispheres non quite machine-like enough” (james, 1983, p. 39). somaesthetics and phenomenology32 perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics and then physical process—will autonomously lead to a response. dewey’s starting point for criticizing and overcoming behaviorism is the concept of “coordination”. this idea appears first in his course at the university of michigan in 1892 and then, is more fully formulated in the article the theory of emotion, the significance of emotions (1895). here, coordination is defined as follows: […] the mode of behavior is the primary thing, and […] the idea and the emotional excitation are constituted at one and the same time; that, indeed, they represent the tension of stimulus and response within the coordination which makes up the mode of behavior (dewey, 1895, pp. 18–19). this concept is, therefore, fundamental for describing and reimagining the way our body, in its perceptive and performative capacities, interacts with the world. here, coordination does not simply work as a bridge between perceptual and motor moment, but rather it innervates and constitutes the sensori-motor circuit. only sensori-motor coordination can facilitate a natural and organic link between the double activity of perceiving and acting, and can direct both towards a teleological end. at the same time, it is important to remember that, in dewey’s view, perception and action cannot be split, and moreover, they cannot even be substantiated as apart. this is because, in their pragmatic function, perception and action respond to each other; the continuum between them is, thus, established through a concept that is not substantial, but pragmatic and relational—i.e., that of coordination (dewey, 1896). in the reflex arc concept in psychology (1896), the concept of coordination is further explored: it does not only involve perceptual and performative abilities, but also intimately constitutes the relationship between the individual and the environment. as bredo (1998) pointed out, the relationship between perception and reality can be described “like a dance with a partner that acts back, then like conforming to a fixed thing, or forcing to conform to oneself ” (p. 458). this circular mutual modeling involves the continuous rearticulation of perception and the world. hence, experience underlies a psycho-physical situated activity, which cannot be reduced to physicalist, idealistic, or substantialist terms. furthermore, the concept of situated bodily activity was also developed in dewey’s philosophy. more specifically, in his logic: the theory of inquiry (dewey, 1938) “situation is not equivalent to the environment – it also always includes the agent in such a way that agent and environment are co-defined” (gallagher, 2020, p. 13). this holistic concept of situation steers away from a new dualism, such as a strict distinction between subject and environment. in the situated framework, it is impossible for any agent in a given situation to escape it without also transforming it, and this is because all possible bodily movements involve the situation itself (gallagher, 2020, p. 13). merleau-ponty’s book the structure of behavior (1942) similarly regarded the perceptive and agentive capacities of the body as a unitary and active process in a situated environment. his main critical point relates closely to that forwarded by dewey: behaviorism is an atomist, objectivist, consequentialist, and determinist perspective. they both contended that, for these reasons, behaviorism is unable to account for the complex relationship that is established in the human situation. in particular, in the first section of the volume, merleau-ponty explicitly engaged with supporters of the theory of the reflex arc, showing how this model raises major critical issues. further, he required that behaviorist psychologists have a radical change in perspective based on a scientific principle: the economy of explanation. the principle adopted by behaviorists— the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 33 nicole miglio and samuele sartori especially by charles scott sherrington—is as follows: to overcome the charge of unidirectionality stimulus-response, they are limited to increase—both theoretically and experimentally— the number of the ranges through which the stimulus is determined, while maintaining the consequential relationship between this and the response (merleau-ponty, 1967/1942, pp. 16– 26). instead, merleau-ponty further developed gestaltpsychologie’s concept of form. this psychological movement regarded form mainly as a concept able to describe the object of perception and how it is synthesized by humans. therefore, it focuses on the exosomatic sphere which, due to the concept of form, appears as an organized and structured whole. here, it is worth considering the renewed proposition of a dualistic structure: the human law of perceptual organization versus exterior environmental space. merleau-ponty was looking for the lowest common denominator to avoid this dualism. he found it in the concept of form [forme], which is able to describe not only perception but also the body and psychophysical activities. thus, bodies are forms, which are organized and structured within their specific ontogenetic ability. such shifting from an exosomatic perspective to an endosomatic one is crucial because it allowed merleau-ponty and phenomenology to find a common background for both the perceptualperformative body and the environment. even if “vital forms” and “physical forms” are comparable, thanks to the common denominator described briefly above, they also have specific ontological characteristics. in particular, in vital form, the virtual and pragmatic possibilities of interaction with the environment are presented as essential for maintaining life. these are given through a dialectic relationship: aided by the notion of structure or form, we have arrived at the conclusion that both mechanism and finalism should be rejected and that the ‘physical’, the ‘vital’ and the ‘mental’ do not represent three powers of being, but three dialectics. physical nature in man is not subordinated to a vital principle, the organism does not conspire to actualize an idea, and the mental is not a motor principle in the body; but what we call nature is already consciousness of nature, what we call life is already consciousness of life and what we call mental is still an object vis-a-vis consciousness (merleau-ponty, 1967/1942, p. 184). thus, form, as a dialectic between the physical, vital and mental, introduced merleau-ponty’s philosophical work on the body. it plays active roles in the dialectic with the environment— the body structures fields of forces and is plastically formed by them (malabou, 2009/2004, 2012/2009). however, not all life forms have the same agency. in this context, merleau-ponty recognized that when going up in the evolutionary chain, behavior becomes more and more differentiated. this means that the most complex organisms, within their bodies, are able to structure a greater number of dialectical relations with the situation, and so exhibit different behaviors as compared to less complex organisms. moreover, human habits are distinguished from the behavior of other animals by more than just the linguistic break.3 the difference is more specifically traceable in the plasticity of our bodies’ interactions—i.e., the ability to modify our form and radically transform the pragmatic dialectic between us and our situation. further, such an idea of form is developed in another key 3 in this continuous perspective, there is no linguistic break, but only more or less complex behavior. even becoming a speaker is enabled by our capacity to embody and perform habits; the letters feedback and constitute other, different, and new behaviours. somaesthetics and phenomenology34 perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics concept of merleau-ponty’s philosophy: “body schema” (schéma corporel),4 which is a pragmatic knowledge that allows us to perceive our body and its actions at a pre-reflexive level (merleauponty, 2002/1945, p. 113). for example, i can grasp the glass of water on the desk without thinking about the action my body is taking, nor do i have to focus my gaze on the glass or on my hand. i know this because while i am drinking, i am simultaneously looking at the computer, reading, and correcting this paper. i know where my body is, its peripersonal space, its movements, and its possibilities through the habits that i perform in such situations. however, this description of the body schema may lead to a misunderstanding: it seems to assume biological form as a transcendental a-priori— the condition of possibility for any kind of experience. this idea is bypassed in merleau-ponty’s phenomenology of perception (1945). if the form of the body is the body schema, then a different “form […] is a new type of existence” (merleau-ponty, 2002/1945, p. 114). this new existence could be created by different kind of incorporations, such as the embodiment of a plumed hat by someone who is used to wearing it, the pre-reflexive knowledge of a car’s size for an expert driver, and, famously, the blind man who uses a cane as an extension of his own perceptive body. all these examples show that the body schema is not simply a biologically given, but is created by situated, specific, and cultural interactions with technological objects that surround us. however, mostly, these examples show that this process of embodiment is possible only due to constant practice, which allows “the acquisition of habits as a rearrangement and renewal of the corporeal schema” (merleau-ponty, 2002/1945, p. 164). moreover, the interaction between the human body and technologies is currently taken into consideration by post-phenomenology. this interaction is not read only in instrumental terms, but also according to the generative abilities and unprecedented experiences and practices that technologies have created (rosenberger & verbeek, 2015). since the seventies, ihde put how human intentionality is shaped by inorganic tools at the core of his research. nevertheless, in the first section of techniques and praxis (1979), he described a phenomenological model where he rejected the husserlian “consciousness of ---” version of intentionality for the more existential heideggerian “‘analytic of dasein’ which has ‘being-in-the-world’” as its interpretation of intentionality. he enriched this with the idea that experiences and intentionality with machines themselves are diverse and not simply reducible to any single conceptual modelling (ihde, 1979, p. 4). by connecting phenomenology and pragmatism, ihde (1979) defined four different ways in which technology affects intentionality: embodiment (pp. 6–11), hermeneutic (pp. 11–13), background (pp. 13–15), and alterity relations (1990, pp. 97–108).5 in all these instances, technologies are media: they stand between body and world, actively modelling the situation. further, each set of human-technology interactions models relational ontology. technologies transform our experience of the world, our intentionality, and consequently, our perceptions and interpretations of our world. human beings, in turn, become transformed in this same 4 although, in the translation of phenomenology of perception that we used, schéma corporel is translated to “body image”, we think it is more appropriate in this paper to replace it with “body schema.” this is not only to remain more faithful to the original french text, but mainly because body schema and body image are distinguished in postand critical phenomenology. 5 a brief definition is in order: “we embody technologies (producing ‘embodiment relations’) when they extend or amplify our basic perceptual capacities [...]. by contrast, when we use technologies like clocks and dashboard speedometers we pay attention to the technologies themselves, which represent the world through readouts or other symbolic displays. since they require us to engage in interpretive work, ihde terms these ‘hermeneutic relations’. in other cases, we relate to technologies as though they are quasi-human, such as when we ask questions of virtual assistants like apple’s siri or microsoft’s cortana. these ihde calls ‘alterity relations’. and finally, some technologies operate wholly out of sight, without soliciting any interactions from users. our relations to technologies like air conditioners and the electric grid ihde calls ‘background relations’” (susser, 2017, pp. 32–33). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 35 nicole miglio and samuele sartori situated process through the material history of things.6 if merleau-ponty and after post-phenomenology had mainly considered habits from an endosomatic perspective, dewey approached habits from an exosomatic one due to his concept of experience. in experience and nature (1925), habits are presented as a force that shapes experience—i.e., the mutual dialectic between a human body and the situation (dewey, 1929/1925, pp. 279-280). they are not fixed, rather they are defined as follows: habit is formed in view of possible future changes and does not harden so readily. […] each habit demands appropriate conditions for its exercise and when habits are numerous and complex, as with the human organism, to find these conditions involves search and experimentation; the organism is compelled to make variations, and exposed to error and disappointment. by a seeming paradox, increased power of forming habits means increased susceptibility, sensitiveness, responsiveness (dewey, 1929/1925, p. 281). moreover, habits look like vital forms. they change through time to fit better with the social, political, economic, and biological situations. this characteristic—i.e., the plasticity of habits—is something that emerges only through their pragmatic application. habits open the door to new habits, possibilities, and virtual experiences as well as practices, performances, and perceptions. the human body is, in this regard, like an art object in its classical kantian definition: an object “that is purposive in itself and, though without an end” (kant, 2007/1790, § 44), and that is always in a process of genesis. furthermore, both the authors being discussed account for perceptual and bodily habits in two different ways: dewey from the exosomatic point of view and merleau-ponty from the endosomatic, but both from a dialectic perspective. further, the perceptual and bodily habits raise, for both, a new philosophical interest: they become key concepts in analyzing and demonstrating the plasticity of body perception and practices. in doing so, they also rethink the agency of experience, situation, technology, and social language. this perspective is exactly the common ground where somaesthetics, our comparison, and our further analyses have their epistemological value. somaesthetics, due to its closeness to dewey’s thought, is mainly focused on what has been defined here as the exosomatic perspective7—i.e., how sociocultural habits are embodied in practical everyday life. this framework on perceptual and performative habits may be enriched by some concepts taken from phenomenology and post-phenomenology: form and body-schema, transparency and proprioception as well as intentionality and mediaintentionality are powerful conceptual tools that may help constitute a new idea of the bodily and situated subject. finally, this analysis could allow us to distinguish, in somaesthetics, habits that positively implement emotional and agentive possibilities for the body, rather than annihilate them. if the analyses carried out in this section are fundamentally related to somaesthetics’ analytical project,8 they also lead to a guiding principle able to determine an ethical boundary between 6 “things” may seem a generic term, but on this occasion, it is based on ian hodder’s definition: “thing is an entity that has presence by which i mean it has a configuration that endures, however briefly. but this is also true of all entities and objects. i have been using the word ‘thing’ so far, but why not use the word ‘object’? [...] the term ‘object’ is very tied up in a long history which opposes subject and object, mind and matter, self and other.” (hodder, 2012, p. 7). 7 in somaesthetics, there is a particular focus on education (shusterman, 2004), pop culture such as rap (shusterman, 2000/1992, pp. 201– 236), and chinese and japanese techniques (shusterman, 2017). so far, this discipline has mostly inquired into how different sociocultural and environmental (i.e., exosomatic situations) feeds back and shapes human beings. 8 shusterman defined it as follows: “analytic somaesthetics describes the basic nature of our perception and practices, and their function in somaesthetics and phenomenology36 perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics practices that enrich embodiments and those that are underdeveloped in these processes (issues inquired in pragmatic and practical somaesthetics).9 it is in fact a matter of preserving, in the application of habits, the virtuality and the genesis of experiences. however, this is not to make our possibilities of movement, action, and thought unidirectional. this project, far from being solely focused on merleau-ponty and dewey, is resumed, re-articulated, and discussed by critical phenomenologists. this discipline will be central in the next section as it examines the reciprocal transformations between material, scientific, and social technologies and bodies. 3. bodily habits today: towards transformative tools of theory and praxis in merleau-ponty’s phenomenological project, habits are our pre-personal ways of living and navigating the world through our lived body (corps propre). they are constructed and reinforced via the sedimentation of actions to which we become accustomed and which become part of our body schema. as crossley (2013) pointed out, habits are properly “structures of behaviour, attaching the embodied actor to their world which take shape and are reshaped (and sometimes extinguished) in the dynamic and always ongoing process of interaction between actor and world” (p. 147). in this context, merleau-ponty’s definition of body schema can be considered as intrinsically related to motility and spatiality—namely as a way of expressing that our bodies are in the world (2002/1945), and that they move and perceive (2003/1995). according to him: we grasp external space through our bodily situation. a ‘corporeal or postural schema’ gives us at every moment a global, practical, and implicit notion of the relation between our body and things, of our hold on them. a system of possible movements, or ‘motor projects’ radiates from us to our environment. [...]. for us the body is much more than an instrument or a means; it is our expression in the world, the visible form of our intentions (merleau-ponty, 1964, p. 5). by regarding the body as our primary way of being in the world and interacting with the (natural, social, historical) environment, the merleau-pontinian account of corporeality refuses to view the body in a reductionist way, recognizing instead the (imperfect) continuity between our intentions, desires, objectives, and the expression of such structures. here, we suggest complementing merleau-ponty’s traditional account by turning to critical engagement with issues of gender and race. from there, we will conclude by highlighting how critical phenomenology and somaesthetics are similarly concerned with the process of transforming and re-signifying our being in the world. perceptual habits are deeply informed by complex and multi-layered structural conditions that are quasi-transcendental as per guenther (2019). according to her analysis, there are some structures which are not a priori “in the sense of being absolutely prior to experience and operating in the same way regardless of context,” but otherwise that they have a key role in constitution our experience of ourselves, others, and the world and “in shaping the meaning and the manner of our experience” (guenther, 2019, p. 11). patriarchy, white supremacy, and heteronormativity, our knowledge and construction and reality” (1997, p. 37). 9 “pragmatic somaesthetics is the dimension concerned with methods of somatic improvement and their comparative critique” and it is divided into “representational”, “experimental”, and “performative” methodologies of practice. “representational somaesthetics emphasizes the body external appearance while experiencial disciplines focus not on how the body looks from the outside but on the aesthetic quality of its experience [...] performative somaesthetics could be introduced to group methodologies that focus primarily on building strength, health of skill” (shusterman, 1997, p. 38). these distinctions for shusterman (1997) are not rigidly exclusive. then “practical somaesthetics [...] is about physically engaging in such care not by pushing words but by moving limbs” (p. 39). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 37 nicole miglio and samuele sartori for instance, are “ways of seeing” that actively inform our natural attitude and shape the quality of our experiences, and that become ways of “making the world” (guenther, 2019, p. 12). these structures shape our bodily experiences, often in insidious ways, but accounting for these can reveal the power relations and socio-political structures at play (weiss et al., 2019). within the constitution of habits, these structures inform intercorporeal and intersubjective encounters with others, which are lived through in a multi-sensorial way, more specifically through the gaze of an (oppressive) other. we would like to highlight the following: the constitution of habits is not neutral in terms of one’s particular embodiment in a given social, historical, and cultural circumstance. classical phenomenology has paved the way for recognizing that some traits of one’s embodiment are particularly salient in intersubjective encounters: the cases of gendered and racialized embodiments will be briefly noted here. this is done, first, because of the historical legacy that phenomenology has with these analyses (see in particular beauvoir, 1949 and fanon, 1967/1952). second, the contemporary urgency calls phenomenologists to engage with these bodily experiences, which are too often marginalized and underrepresented in academic reflections. as classical phenomenological investigations have shown, an objectifying gaze prevents the self from moving freely and from being in tune with the environment. a locus classicus is fanon’s analysis of the interrupted intentionality and disturbed body schema in a racist context. here, he assumed that racial objectification is a form of “amputation […] that spattered my whole body [...] they objectively cut away slices of my reality” (fanon, 1967/1952, p. 85). further, in white masks, black skin, he carried out an analysis of the racial embodiment moving from the sartrean ontological framework, describing the sense of objectification due to the (white) others’ gaze, as “nonbeing” or alternately “being through others” (fanon, 1967/1952, p. 137). in this context, the other’s gaze objectified the racialized subject insofar as it grasped the skin as the element which defines, in a univocal sense, the whole subject. in doing so, the person is merely reduced to their skin color, which entails a loss of their bodily integrity: below the corporeal schema, i had sketched a historic-racial schema. the elements that i used had been provided for me… by the other, the white man, who had woven me out of a thousand details, anecdotes, stories… i could no longer laugh, because i already knew that there were legends, stories, history, and above all historicity… (fanon, 1967/1952, pp. 111–112). these fundamental insights show how our bodily being in the world is not neutral, but instead built via intersubjective relationships with the others. further, contemporary frameworks have applied fanon’s insights to racialized embodiment, highlighting that the lived experience of racism is inscribed into one’s body schema, and problematically, can become an unconscious way to navigate reality. the embodied racism is then a form of habitual perception as ngo (2017) outlined: “[…] racist gestures and responses can become inscribed on the level of the body schema through habits and habituated bodily orientation” (p. 25). thus, the racialization of others starts basically within the visual register, and it is expressed through the sedimentation of routine acts against racialized groups.10 phenomenologists of race have also reframed the merleau-pontinian idea that the body is simultaneously natural and cultural, by highlighting that our ways of perceiving should be grasped as culturally and historically situated habits. relatedly, fielding (2019) noted that this 10 see, for e.g., yancy (2016). somaesthetics and phenomenology38 perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics strategy is compelling for unveiling presuppositions tacitly implied by our gestures, as well as the responsibility this entails: ways of perceiving are also habits at a cultural and historical level—new ways of perceiving are instituted, and these institutions found new ways of moving and hence understanding, becoming part of the background against which things, people, and relations appear. analyzing racialization as just such a cultural habit of perception, for example, allows us to understand why its structure recedes into the background, making it appear natural, but nonetheless shapes the ways in which we respond to one another (p. 156). the central idea is that “i can” relies both on our biological body (the body-object of phenomenological investigation) and situation. in this context, our body schema is built through sedimentation and stylization of gestures, attitudes, and stances, which are themselves subject to social and cultural dynamics. further, the so-called quasi-transcendental structures make some postures possible or impossible to acquire, and some acts possible or impossible to perform. in other words, it means that our bodily intentionalities, as well as our performative agentive potentials, are molded on an endosomatic level. feminist phenomenology has also worked in this direction, from its very origin as an epistemic field: young (2005) showed how women’s movements in a patriarchal society (specifically in the us in the eighties) are basically limited by social environment and education, giving life to peculiar bodily schemas, defining “typically ‘feminine’ styles of body comportment and movement” (p. 28). consequently, “women often approach a physical engagement with things with timidity, uncertainty, and hesitancy,” which is symptomatic of a general lack of trust in their own bodies (p. 34). relying on merleau-ponty phenomenology, young also noted the following: the possibilities that are opened up in the world depend on the mode and limits of the bodily “i can”. feminine existence, however, often does not enter bodily relation to possibilities by its own comportment toward its surroundings in an unambiguous and confident ‘i can’. […] typically, the feminine body underuses its real capacity, both as potentiality of its physical size and strength and as the real skills and coordination that are available to it (p. 36). however, it is important to note that these are gendered limitations and not sex differences. young made it clear that education and social milieu are key in shaping women’s style of movement as interrupted: the body schema is then influenced by one’s gender and by how this gender role is performed in a given society. moreover, the main finding of her analysis entails an explicit acknowledgement of how one’s overall situatedness reinforces certain styles of movement. there are some similarities between young’s account of gendered body schema and fanon’s attention to racialized embodiment: both show that our body schema is not neutral, by engaging with traditional phenomenological accounts (in particular with merleau-ponty’s phenomenology), where differences of gender and race are not extensively considered salient in the definition of one’s body schema. critical phenomenology has pushed this investigation further, following crenshaw (1991), by assuming an intersectional attitude towards people’s lived experiences and recognizing that the axes of privilege and marginalization work together in molding one’s experience. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 39 nicole miglio and samuele sartori these classical accounts are central because they consider the constitution of bodily habits as intrinsically intersubjective, open to further adjustments, and possibly moldable through education and adjustment. further, the surreptitious naturality of our bodily habits is disclosed as deeply cultural and historically-related. this means that, in principle, it is possible to become aware of our gestures, be educated in changing them, and inaugurate processes of teaching. we will now try to show that somaesthetics and contemporary instances of critical phenomenology share a space of dialogue in two ways: first, somaesthetics may provide critical phenomenology with crucial insights into the formation of habits, thus supporting practices of conscious self-knowledge; second, critical phenomenology brings a radically transformative agenda to somaesthetics through awareness of how structural conditions as well as social, political, and cultural phenomena often serve to maintain the status quo, and also by showing how sedimented habits must be changed on the micro-political level. somaesthetics and critical phenomenology share the awareness that bodily habits are flexible and potentially transformative, precisely because they are learnt, sedimented, and changeable. thus, since habits are learned and taught, they are open to transformation. cuffari (2011) examined this point by arguing that it is not only doable but also advisable to actively engage in transformative practice. in particular, she stressed that embodied habits are “rooted in the past and open to alteration in the future” (cuffari, 2011, p. 536). that means that a certain habit may be acquired through temporal repetition and continuous performance. moreover, it is not fixed or immutable, but rather modifiable through new bodily acts: “if habits are experienced as lived ambiguities capable of ameliorative transformation, then conscious habit cultivation offers a situated practice of resistance to stagnation” (cuffari, 2011, p. 536). the process of becoming-conscious of our bodily habits is therefore a practice of resistance and simultaneously of responsibility in facing our being in the world as embodied subjects. from this point of view, shusterman (2003) recognized “the productive power of pragmatic somaesthetics for woman’s liberation” (p. 115). the hermeneutical lens with which he read the second sex (beauvoir, 1949) may be fruitfully added to the epistemic toolkit of the critical phenomenology. moreover, somaesthetics as discipline and practice has many declensions, whose combination aims to take seriously western theory and praxis “devoted to the knowledge, discourses, and disciplines that structure such somatic care or can improve it” (shusterman, 2000, p. 533). more specifically, in a concise but explanatory sentence, somaesthetics is “the critical, meliorative study of the experience and the use of one’s body as a locus of sensoryaesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning” (shusterman, 2000, p. 532). to discover the unexplored continuity between somaesthetics and critical phenomenology, a primary common ground is given by the explicit recognition that the structures of power are active in an insidious and capillary way, often not easily identifiable as noxious and dangerous (in this context, see: weiss et al. 2019; guenther, 2019; stanier & miglio, 2021). furthermore, in dialogue with beauvoir, shusterman (2003) argued that “[...] entire ideologies of domination can be covertly materialized and preserved by encoding them in somatic norms that, as bodily habits, get typically taken for granted and so escape critical consciousness” (p. 111). in recognizing and challenging the “taken-for-granted” nature of our bodily habits, somaesthetics is perfectly compatible with the question of our “natural attitude” and with taking a position towards others’ assumptions and our own implicit, automatic, and unconscious habits.11 no differently from 11 “however it is construed, this phenomenological intentional consciousness is not easy to come by; it is an achievement a radical alteration of everyday and theoretical consciousness. our most common ways of understanding are motivated by biases and habits that can originate individually or culturally. phenomenology is, as the name implies, an account of appearances, and it begins as a reflection upon experiences as we live them. lived experience (erlebnis) is transient, fleeting, and not intrinsically reliable as a form of understanding. yet somaesthetics and phenomenology40 perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics somaesthetics, critical phenomenology conceives philosophical practice as primarily embodied, an exercise in skeptism, and the progressive acquisition of an attitude towards reality. this emphasis on the plasticity of bodily habits allows us to question and re-imagine the norms of our communal living—for instance, by providing concrete alternatives to historicallylegitimated praxis of domination and marginalization. oppressive relations inform bodily habits and the subjective “i can,” and they do so primarily through the body as the very site of these practices of domination. in this regard, the somatic dimension of our subjectivity is not only expressed in quasi-transcendental structures (à la guenther, 2019), but also in the possible site of liberation and renegotiation. as shusterman (2003) noted: the norms that women of a given culture should speak softly, eat daintily, sit with closed legs, and walk with bowed heads and lowered eyes both embody and reinforce such gender oppression. however, just as oppressive power relations are encoded in our bodies, so they can be challenged by alternative somatic practices (p. 111) moreover, the call for “alternative somatic practices” starts from the awareness of the centrality of our bodily and perceptual habits in making the world and ourselves. the preliminary work shared by critical phenomenology and analytical somaesthetics is then to recognize such habits and to focus on the somatic aspects of our being in the world. in this context, shusterman (2008) insisted on the relevance of the neglected dimension of bodily lived experience, instead of attending only to the “body’s external form or representation” (p. 533). moreover, he argued that somaesthetics may lead to practices of social action stating the following: “somaesthetics is helping to initiate a change here, suggesting how sensitizing, consciousness-raising somatic training can deal with issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, and violence” (shusterman, 2014, p. 10). similarly, critical phenomenology engages with the lived experience of marginalization and oppression as lived through one’s flesh. moreover, critical phenomenology and somaesthetics not only share some theoretical premises—as partially considered in the first section of this paper—but also some toolkits for actively resisting bodily normalization and reimagining the oppressive dimension of some habits. 4. conclusion in this paper, our primary goal has been to explore the synergies between somaesthetics and phenomenology along two parallel paths: historical and epistemic. the first line of investigation was deployed in the second section. our thesis is that traditional phenomenological accounts and pragmatic projects have some substantial continuities in understanding the epistemic and existential roles of experiences. here, we compared the perspectives of merleau-ponty and dewey, putting into dialogue their respective understandings of habit by disclosing the continuities and specificities of their respective approaches. this analysis showed how both authors have a specific conception of the lived body as open to transformation, plastic, and positively renegotiable, but that they differ in their discussion of the dialectic relationship between human beings and their situated environment. more specifically, we showed that merleau-ponty took an endosomatic perspective, while dewey and somaesthetics this is the kind of understanding that prevails in our everyday ways of acting and interacting in the world. husserl’s name for this uncritical affirmation of the world is the natural standpoint, to which he contrasts the phenomenological standpoint. phenomenology involves a radical alteration of consciousness—a complete shift in attitude toward what appears that involves a suspension of the natural attitude” (davis, 2019, p. 4). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 41 nicole miglio and samuele sartori are instead interested in the exosomatic. however, they both argue for a third way to understand the human subject—one that profitably avoids the intrinsic aporias of attitudes like physicalism and mentalism. this definition of the subject as embodied, and of bodily potentials as malleable, allowed us to investigate a contemporary relationship between somaesthetics and critical phenomenology. from there, we showed that the relationship between somaesthetics and phenomenology may be also understood under the sign of an epistemic continuity. on a theoretical level, these approaches value bodily experience as a central concept for understanding human beings, recognizing the power-knowledge nexus that informs our corporeal behavior. in this regard, the notion of habit is particularly appropriate, since it discloses the intrinsic possibility to imagine new ways to conceive ourselves, our being in the world as well as our interactions with others (human, non-human, things). moreover, critical phenomenology is particularly involved in the explicit recognition that our bodily habits are core elements of our and others’ experience of the self. this is done by highlighting that axes of marginalization and discriminatory attitudes are both perpetrated and lived through in bodily experience. this central awareness has compelling social and political goals, and aims specifically to imagine alternative forms of resistance. in this context, taking up our role in the world as embodied subjects is the first step for developing more sustainable, more respectful, and less discriminatory practices. here, we strongly believe that somaesthetics’ call to take somatic experiences seriously is central to this step. in fact, shusterman himself has read phenomenological texts through a somaestethic lens: while his analysis of merleau-ponty (1945) is focused on other topics (shusterman, 2005), his reading of beauvoir’s (1949) is completely in line with the theoretical approach we proposed in this paper (shusterman, 2003). thus, the plasticity of our bodily habits, and the potential to reframe them through bodily practices, along with the awareness that our embodiment is not neutral, but instead shaped by social, cultural, historical circumstances, open up a space for thinking about and examining the bodily performative in all its political potentials. acknowledgments we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, as well as the editor of this special issue. we are very grateful to our research group pis – performing identities seminar (università degli studi di milano) for the enlightening discussion on the notion of performativity. parts of the insights developed in this paper has been previously discussed there. author's note we contributed equally as authors to this paper. in particular, nicole miglio worked on §3, while samuele sartori wrote §2. we conceived the main ideas of this paper 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(2019). 50 concepts for a critical phenomenology. evanston: northwestern university press. bodies of belief / bodies of care contents volume 3, numbers 1 and 2: bodies of belief/bodies of care 4 introduction: bodies of belief/bodies of care richard shusterman dialogues: orlan: 6 hybridity, creativity, and emancipatory critique in the somaesthetic art of orlan in dialog with else marie bukdahl articles: art and religious belief: 25 lessons for contemporary theory from renaissance and baroque painting else marie bukdahl occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture 44 karen j. leader vulnerable from within: autoimmunity and bodily boundaries 58 karmen mackendrick the art of being elsewhere: neoliberal institutions of care 68 natasha lushetich lygia clark’s practices of care 85 luciana mourão arslan the painter’s knife: representations of fragmented bodies in painting 93 efrat biberman as fragile as tissue and as strong: 105 toward a lacanian somaesthetic literary theory diane richard-allerdyce somaesthetic encounters with socrates: the peaceful warrior as yogi 117 vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano 133 elizabeth m. cruz petersen notes on contributors 144 introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 6 page 6-12conversation with carolyn korsmeyer discussing taste: a conversation with carolyn korsmeyer carolyn korsmeyer’s 1999 book “making sense of taste” is a recent watershed in the philosophy of food and necessary reading for anyone interested in the rehabilitation of food and taste as subjects for philosophical inquiry. unlike previous writers who engaged with food philosophically, korsmeyer takes the representational power of food seriously. although she was not influenced by somaesthetics at the time, her work shares many central themes with somaesthetics. as an early proponent of the “bodily turn” in philosophy, korsmeyer’s work helped to prepare the ground for the recent explosion of academic interest in the aesthetic dimensions of eating. the following interview, conducted via skype and email in september 2015, explores her interest in food as a philosophical topic, the relation of her work to somaesthetics, and her more recent writings on disgust. russell pryba (rp): although there were sporadic forays into the philosophy of food prior to your book making sense of taste (hereafter mst), i think it is fair to say that your book is foundational for the subsequent explosion of interest in food-related topics by philosophers, particularly for those whose primary focus is the aesthetics of food, rather than ethical issues. since food was not traditionally an object of philosophical reflection, how did you come to be interested in food as a philosophical topic? did your earlier work on hume and taste, and/or your work in feminist philosophy contribute to your interest in food? carolyn korsmeyer (ck): both did in fact. my interest in eighteenth century aesthetic theory and the rise of the philosophical examination of taste was longstanding, though it took years for me to begin to question the assumption that gustatory taste stood outside the realm of what was designated ‘aesthetic.’ hume, of course, opens a window to permit literal taste an aesthetic standing with his famous example of the wine-tasters and the key in the barrel; other theorists are far more exclusionary and explicitly limit aesthetic attention to objects of vision and hearing. anyhow, making sense of taste began with the idea that a reexamination of the gustatory sense of taste would provide the thin edge of a critical wedge that could be inserted into the foundational discourse of modern aesthetics. feminist perspectives were provocative in another way, because second wave academic feminism opened up all sorts of critiques of traditional disciplines. in philosophy, areas of interest that hitherto were considered simply ‘unphilosophical’ began to be incorporated into theoretical approaches. bodily experience and identity figure here, and since the sense of taste is traditionally considered a ‘bodily’ sense, attention to the experience of eating and drinking gains an entry from this approach as well. rp: making sense of taste and richard shusterman’s disciplinary proposal for somaesthetics both appeared in 1999. presumably then, you developed your theory of food independently of somaesthetics. were you aware of somaesthetics at the time you were writing mst and did it play any role in your thinking about food at that time? conversation with carolyn korsmeyer discussing taste somaesthetics and food7 discussing taste ck: no, i didn’t become aware of it until later. remember that it takes years to write a book, and also a fair amount of time to put an article together. so i think the fact that these works were published in the same year was just a coincidence of timing, although i suppose you could hypothesize that the time was right to start thinking about bodily experiences philosophically. i was aware of richard’s work in pragmatism, but i was more concerned with critiquing the traditions of the field that influenced my own education. rp: given that you weren’t aware of somaesthetics when you wrote mst, if you were to revisit mst now, how might somaesthetics feature in your thinking about the philosophy of food, if at all? ck: well, i would certainly include references to it. i’m not sure if i would adopt the practical implications that richard attends to in his work, not because i disagree with them but because that is less my own orientation. i think that richard and i have much in common in the direction of our interests. but his work includes a sort of program of advice for how to live that is part of somaesthetics. my approach focuses more on reflective criticism and speculation, less engaged with practice. less melioristic, one could say. one of the points that richard likes to stress with somaesthetics is being present to your own senses, not just being inattentive and letting habit take over. the pertinence to food is a recommendation not just to chew and swallow but to take time truly to experience what one is doing. this is one thing that might make eating ‘somaesthetic.’ but i’ll leave advice about mindful eating to him. rp: so one way to amplify your response might be to say that somaesthetics helps to conceptualize the difference between the merely gustatory and the aesthetic. you have to mark off the distinction between gustatory aesthetics and mere gustation in some way, and one approach might be to focus on the added attention to the body incorporated into the practical elements of somaesthetics. having said that, how do you understand what somaesthetics is? is it a subfield of aesthetics that focuses on the body, or do you see it as an interdisciplinary field or methodology? does it represent or codify disparate theorizing about the body into a single discipline? ck: i’m not sure i can address that question confidently, so let me say a few things about my impressions of somaesthetics that are generally related. although ‘aesthetics’ is embedded in the term, somaesthetics is really a philosophy of living. i like the fact that the ‘aesthetic’ part isn’t separated from everything else, because as you know aesthetics is often overlooked within the discipline of philosophy. this is a persistent aggravation to those of us in the field. the somaesthetic approach seems to avoid fragmentation both in theory and in practice. and of course, somaesthetics aims at a practical dimension that most philosophical theory does not possess. there is a great deal of theorizing about the body these days in multiple disciplines, so i doubt that any one approach can “codify disparate theorizing about the body into a single discipline,” as you put it. i’m thinking, for example, of the social critiques of gender, sexuality, race, etc. or of analyses of disability and medical practice, and many other phenomena that are now grouped under theories of ‘the body.’ feminists, critical race theorists, queer theorists, and other frameworks that have developed from those starting points all have had something to say about the body in one way or another. those approaches fall outside somaesthetics, and how the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 8 conversation with carolyn korsmeyer could they not? life is too complex and messy for one perspective to address all questions. rp: i think that as shusterman conceives of it, somaesthetics does incorporate some of the types of theorizing about the body you mention—especially questions about the body and health, ageing and disability. one avenue of growth for somaesthetics is bringing the practical dimension you point out to bear on some of these areas of theorizing about the body. that is to say that somaesthetics doesn’t have an exclusively academic target audience but seeks to offer a framework where the sort of theorizing we are discussing can be unified with the practical project of improving bodily awareness and health for the sake of living well. ck: some aspects maybe, though it is important to notice what any single approach might overlook. at any rate, it is good to see that a number of people outside of academic philosophy read this sort of work—on the body, on food and drink. this wide readership indicates not only an increased interest in the senses, but a tremendous rise in interest in everything that has to do with the culinary world. for a good two years after i published mst the people who told me they had read it were waiters and people who worked in kitchens, chefs. they were not philosophers and i took that to be really interesting. rp: so do you think that the waiter or chef got something from reading a philosophical approach to their craft? ck: i hope so. i was very flattered. it pleases me when people who are not in my small niche can read something that i have written and like it. much academic prose can be rather off-putting. a lot of people who write excellent, even brilliant scholarship clog up what they are doing by not being good self-editors. so if my work reaches a general audience, i find it especially gratifying. rp: i think that it is great that mst is read outside of academia as well, but suppose you were starting your career as a professional philosopher now, would you still write about food and taste? ck: i think it is very difficult to retrofit your own history to a different time. i myself could not have written mst coming out of graduate school because i think i had to digest the tradition for a very long time before i had the tools to challenge it, and to challenge it in ways that were intelligent and appreciative of what it offered and not just rejection. perhaps insofar as work on food represents an innovative way to think philosophically, it had to begin among people who were already swimming in the right pond, so to speak; that is, who understood the tradition. a critique can be so superficial unless you’ve got your teeth into something that you know more thoroughly and that has very deep roots. i expect that richard shusterman would say this about somaesthetics too. he didn’t dream up somaesthetics out of graduate school, he did a lot of other work first. i think people can rush into critiquing something without understanding it. the thinkers of the past who have influenced our own thinking, of course, have gotten many things wrong. and often they betray a social perspective that now appears quite obnoxious, which is certainly the case with issues of race, for example. but if they weren’t insightful about certain things we wouldn’t still be reading them. my worry about wholesale critiques of tradition is that they are not always appreciative of what the tradition itself affords in terms of the tools used in critique. somaesthetics and food9 discussing taste rp: to shift focus a bit, i did have another question that i have been curious about for a long time, about the relationship of your work to somaesthetics. i am wondering if you might think that this formulation is fair. insofar as you follow goodman, a lot of your thinking about food is cognitivist, irreducibly so i think. shusterman, at least in the debates about various types of pragmatism, especially his disagreements with rorty about concepts and language, has advocated for non-linguistic experience. so i am wondering if the cognitivist element of your work and the emphasis of somaesthetics on non-cognitive, bodily experience is a key difference between your two approaches. is it fair to say that you don’t allow as much room for non-cognitivist elements in your approach to thinking about food as perhaps somaesthetics would? ck: that is an interesting set of questions. i think that you raise some very important and elusive points about types of cognition and experience that are rather difficult to address. let me talk about two things. first of all, goodman. if i rewrote mst, i would probably downplay the references to goodman. i used him so heavily in making my case for the aesthetic standing of food because i was looking for a solid foundation from which to combat the idea that the aesthetic dimension of food resides mainly in taste sensations and the pleasures they afford. my goal in emphasizing the cognitive aspect of experience was because i find the pleasure/displeasure continuum to be inadequate to characterize what is aesthetically significant about almost anything, including works of art. (i make a similar point in the later book on disgust, that you can’t use a pleasure criterion to understand those times when audiences are drawn to disgusting aspects of art.) goodman’s writing about symbol systems has a deceptively bloodless tone. i don’t think he was that way personally, but his theory sounds that way when you just examine his different classes of symbols. nonetheless, i thought it had a heuristic value insofar as one could examine the aesthetic without recourse to talk about pleasure, without falling into what he whimsically refers to as the “tingle-immersion theory of aesthetics.” so, that is a reason why i stressed cognition in the aesthetic dimensions of food and drink. now with regard to second question about somaesthetics and the sort of bodily, nonconceptual experience (maybe we could use the word acquaintance) that it advances—whether that distinguishes somaesthetics from what it was i did. maybe it does. but let me try this out. what i might say instead is that what seems to me to be distinctively aesthetic about an encounter (which i prefer to the word ‘experience’) is that it often has the characteristic of being quite singular and unique but at the same time being embedded in a more general insight. when i talk about cognition i don’t mean you can paraphrase some lesson from art, can necessarily put it into words or attach a clear concept to it. that would be like saying you could paraphrase a poem, which you can’t. by referring to the cognitive element of aesthetic encounters i mean a sort of flash of understanding, a moment of insight or acquaintance that can often escape precise language. but i don’t think it is necessarily non-conceptual. maybe that view is closer to a somaesthetic approach, or maybe not. i am just not sure because it is very difficult to theorize about that kind of a thing, since by putting it in conceptual terms and theorizing about it you kind of empty it of what one is trying to capture. so i like to use a lot of examples and say “it is this.” but that relies on the reader sharing that “thisness” and seeing the point. i wish i could be more articulate about this matter, because i have thought about it in relation to many different subjects, not just food, and i think it is quite hard to pin down. of course, i am only describing one particular type of aesthetic encounter. there are others that don’t face that moment of inarticulateness. there is usually a way of putting something into words. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 10 conversation with carolyn korsmeyer rp: this is related to something you said a moment ago—the pleasure criterion. you might say the same thing about food. would it be fair to say that the delicious/disgusting dichotomy prevents one from really trying to capture what is aesthetic about gustatory experiences? ck: no, no, far from it. i would say rather that if you start with “delicious” it seems like you are talking about “yummy,” pleasure, whose opposite would be a simple “yuck” of rejection. but if you consider what seems at first disgusting with foods that challenge your sensibilities, then you may learn to like them, or you may learn to understand them in a new way, or you may learn that they have a certain role in a cuisine or a ritual. the result is that disgusting is not just “yuck.” it actually becomes something very complex beyond simple distaste. there is, i think, usually a covert understanding that goes into our experience of food. it is often so underground and tacit that we lose sight of it and it just comes to the surface as “yum” or “yuck.” i try to make that point in the essay “delightful, delicious, disgusting” which came out after mst and was incorporated into the book that followed. although i have to admit that now i think i was a bit guilty of overstating that case. most of the time appreciating food really does involve enjoying the food, though it doesn’t have to be superficial enjoyment. it can be very thoughtful, perhaps even overcoming a moment of not being quite sure that you are eating something you should. so, i think that it would be incorrect to take pleasure off the table, as it were. but, to make it equal to aesthetic gustatory experience is to reduce that experience to something more trivial than is adequate to the encounter. and it also reduces the kinds of food that you pay attention to, because i don’t want gustatory aesthetics to become focused only on gourmet dishes that aim at extraordinary taste sensations. rp: but we could also say that the “yummy” or delicious response often fails to become aesthetic because of the way that people conceptualize what deliciousness is, or fail to understand its complexity. ck: yes, right. rp: one way to think about your work on disgust is a roundabout way to rehabilitate the covertness of deliciousness as well. ck: could be. rp: since mst your work has focused on disgust as we’ve touched upon, and more recently on artifacts and historical authenticity. how do you understand the relationship between this work and mst? do you have any plans to revisit or expand your work on the aesthetics of food? ck: the relation of disgust to the work on taste is pretty direct, since in one sense a disgust reaction is the opposite of a pleasurable taste reaction, though in this context ‘distaste’ is really the more apt turn. but i became interested in differences of taste preferences, which in their extreme form become a gustatory liking vs. gustatory disgust—as for example with foods like snails, to which some people have a ‘yum’ response and others a ‘yuck.’ once i started to think about the complexities of disgust regarding aspects of cuisine, my interest expanded to considering other aesthetic responses that employ disgust, including many, many works of art. this eventuated in the book savoring disgust: the foul and the fair in aesthetics (2011). the connection with artifacts and authenticity is more remote. the main point of connection somaesthetics and food11 discussing taste is with another so-called bodily sense: touch. as you know, i make a case for taste being a peculiarly intimate sense in mst, and that point of view can be extended to touch— either in the role of this sense in actual bodily contact or in mere proximity to objects. in this recent work, i try to make a case for the aesthetic aspect of encounters with old things—real things, authentic things, genuine things—when one is within touching distance. in this kind of case, touch does not deliver a sensible experience per se, because there is no sensation of genuineness, which is itself a nonperceptible property. therefore, i have to spend time speculating about an implicit role for touch in the experience of ancient or historically special artifacts. rp: on a different note, as a philosopher who works on food, do you find that there is an expectation amongst your peers that you are some sort of gourmand, or an excellent cook, with a particularly sophisticated sense of taste? has this resulted in any interesting or humorous exchanges at conferences? ck: sometimes. people might turn to me with a wine list as if i know some secret. and while i do like to cook some things and some kinds of dinners (such as those for holidays) i am not much of a foodie myself. i’m not sure what accounts for this apparent disconnection between philosophical interest and practical life, though i occasionally joke about theory over practice. rp: how do you see the current place of the philosophy of food in relation to the profession as a whole? is the philosophical profession at large still skeptical of this kind of theorizing? ck: i would not have anticipated it, but it seems to me that philosophical work on eating and drinking has more or less achieved a foothold in the profession, or at least a toehold. it has also spurred the trend towards interdisciplinary work, as of course there is lots of research about food outside of philosophy as well. it seems to me that scholars writing on this subject are pretty attentive to research in fields other than their own. this includes practical culinary fields. i learned that a cross-disciplinary anthology i edited, the taste culture reader: experiencing food and drink, is sometimes assigned in culinary programs. i think this is great. insights about complex topics like cuisines come from many directions, both theoretical and practical, and need to be shared. rp: a lot of the interest in food stems from ethical rather than aesthetic concerns. was your work on the aesthetics of food criticized for not addressing the ethical issues surrounding food and eating? more generally, how do you understand the relationship between the ethical issues concerning food and aesthetic enjoyment? ck: i have not received that sort of criticism, and maybe that’s because of my stress on the cognitive elements of the aesthetics of eating and drinking. that is to say, awareness not only of taste sensations but of what those sensations are of. i believe there is a strong connection between ethical responses to what we eat and drink and aesthetic responses, and when those are broken we simply are not paying attention. i wrote an essay about this that i rather like called “ethical gourmandism,” which is in david kaplan’s collection, the philosophy of food. this subject gives me an opening to mention something about food that is seldom called to attention: there is something horrifying about eating, no matter what the substance ingested. there is a section in making sense of taste where i discuss the theme of eating in melville’s novel moby dick. one can read that book as a disquisition on a terrible and unavoidable paradox: the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 12 conversation with carolyn korsmeyer to sustain life one must destroy other life. some substances are less disturbing than others to eat, but if you think about it, there is something rather awful about the way that nature is put together, and there is little we can do about it other than be mindful about what we eat and how it comes to be on our plates. once one thinks of this aspect of eating, there are, inevitably, ethical echoes that resonate alongside the aesthetic aspects of food and drink. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 90 page 90–101else marie bukdahl book review a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence else marie bukdahl in her research, dr. allie terry-fritsch has focused primarily on different forms of cross-cultural and multidisciplinary exploration with a somaesthetic perspective. uncovering the embodied creation and perception in significant aspects of art history and analysing different modes of viewership has been one of her key endeavours. she is particularly interested in describing how the medieval and early modern communities acted as participants and interpreters of events and how they imbued these events with new meaning. she has published many articles and several books with original, stimulating and significant contributions to this topic. in collaboration with erin felicia labbie she has—among others—been both editor and contributor to the impressive book beholding violence in medieval and early modern europe (2016), where the concept of beholding and the experiences of individual and collective observers of violence during the two periods are explored in new ways. in her research, however, she has primarily been interested in the viewer's embodied and performative experience of both art and architecture in fifteenthand sixteenth-century florence and in other parts of northern italy. particularly the analysis of the political significance of embodiment in the viewers’ perception of, and engagement with art has a central place in her investigations of these two periods. another important publication in this field is fra angelico's public: renaissance art, medici patronage, and the library of san marco (2012). in this book, she interprets fra angelico's frescoes at san marco from the viewpoint of the humanist community that once lived at the observant dominican convent during the time of cosimo de' medici, between the 1430s and 1460s. she reveals the physical pathways—what she calls ”a “humanist itinerary”—for the secular users of the library. somaesthetic experience and the viewer in medicean florence her latest book, somaesthetic experience and the viewer in medicean florence, renaissance art and political persuasion, 1459-1580. (2020), provides not only a very nuanced interpretation of the theme indicated in the title, but also has a detailed account of the various philosophers’ and renaissance scholars’ concepts of embodiment as a valuable source for shedding new light on the florentine renaissance. she shows how the body's epistemology and the embodied experience have gradually occupied an increasingly prominent place in renaissance research. in introducing her book, she starts by narrating two small, dynamic events that show the reader how art in the modern era has evoked a powerful experience in the viewer's mind and body. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 91 a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence she relates an incident that took place during a visit to the uffizi gallery in florence with a group of her students. one of her students, who had been looking at masolino’s and masaccio’s expressive altarpiece of saint anne, was so moved that she fainted. she also quotes the renowned french novelist stendhal’s account of a very emotional encounter in santa croce in florence with the powerful interpretation of sibyl by baldassare franceschini, also known as il volterrano. stendhal described this encounter as follows: i had attained to that supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intimations of art merge with the impassioned sensuality of emotion.1 these two sensory narratives serve as a stimulating prelude to the book itself and arouse the curiosity of readers. 1. somaesthetics as a methodological practice in renaissance art she has organised her book in such a way that the overall theoretical considerations and the central aspects of her four interpretations of the embodied experience of medicean artworks and the essay about live experience in the digital world are presented in the introductory chapter entitled activating renaissance viewer: art and somaesthetic experience. she rightly notes that "a comprehensive study of renaissance somaesthetics is beyond the scope" of her book.2 it would have been helpful to readers if her own aims, the theoretical discussions and the short useful presentation of the content of her book had been separated a bit more. they are presented as a result of the discussions of the art theoretical and art historical methods she uses and of the short presentation of the book's five rather original case studies. but this approach, in turn, provides readers with a nuanced insight into the origins and developments of the book’s always precisely formulated theses. the detailed presentation of her interpretation of somaesthetics both as a philosophical and art-historical methodological practice is placed first in this chapter. one of her central views is that during the renaissance, which was surrounded by culturally-established boundaries, “viewers were encouraged to forge connections between their physical and affective states, when they experienced art”. they were stimulated by both visual art and architecture on an almost daily basis. she thus focuses mainly on an in-depth analysis of “how viewers in medicean florence were self-consciously cultivated in somaesthetic experience.” she alludes here to richard shusterman’s somaesthetics, which is without a doubt one of her most important philosophical foundations (a.t., 22-23). this is particularly true of his concept of “the soma as a living, purposive, sentient, perceptive body” and of the embodied experience. she is also inspired by one of the basic concepts of his somaesthetics: “somaesthetics offers a way of integrating the discursive and nondiscursive, the reflective and the immediate, thought and feeling, in the quest of providing greater range, harmony, and clarity to the soma – the body-mind whose union is an ontological given but whose most satisfying units of performance are both a personal and cultural achievement.”3 1 m. de stendhal, rome, naples et florence en 1817, paris: deluna, 1817, 302. 2 allie terry-fritsch somaesthetic experience and viewer in medicean florence 2020, hereinafter abbreviated at., 29 3 se richard shusterman, thinking through the body. essays in somaesthetics,new york: cambridge university press: 2012, p. 141 and ”somaesthetics and the revival of aesthetics”, filozofski vestnik , volume, letniks xxviii number/stevilka 2, 2007, p. 149. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 92 else marie bukdahl and like shusterman, she has a vital focus on lived experience and its influence on selfknowledge. she also interprets, in her own way, his perception of the aesthetic experience never being passive, which means that an artwork cannot be completed until the viewer has experienced and interpreted its particular qualities.4 this is why it is important for her that there is always an intense interaction between the artwork and the viewer and the viewing experience. this means that art as experience requires both the artist and the person experiencing the works to operate on an open platform with a high level of visibility. and her thinking through aesthetic experience “as an active and self-reflective practice (..) draws attention to the dynamic interplay between the self, sensory stimuli and societal conditions and aspirations” (a.t, 23). by providing these important insights into the embodied creative process, she has been able to reveal new aspects of florentine renaissance artworks and to focus on new values of aesthetic experience and interdisciplinary perspectives. in constructing her somaesthetic methodological practice for renaissance art history, she has also been inspired by the theory and practice of contemporary performance art. this especially true of the fruitful collaboration with contemporary performance artist and theorist scott magelssen. she learned a great deal about the production and use of space in the interpretation of visual art through a cross-listed art history and performance studies seminar on visual culture and social justice at the bowling green state university in ohio in fall 2011. this knowledge and practice was deepened through the collaboration with the very experienced site-specific installation artist leigh ann. in collaboration with her, she has inspired a group of students to work with large-scale immersive installations with bodily and emotional engagements. in doing so, allie terry-fritsch has gained first-hand knowledge of the process of performing in all its details. she also gained an insight into how performance artists often challenge the audience to think in new and unconventional ways and disrupt the conventions of traditional art in many surprising ways. this insight also resulted in her being able to uncover new aspects of the somaesthetic experience in the florentine renaissance. or in her own words: “her book draws on scholarship from the fields of ritual and performance studies to consider embodiment as both ´an act of doing’ and a way of ‘knowing’. she quotes j.l. austins’s famous dictum ‘saying is doing’”(at., 25-26). however, the somaesthetic experience of art during the renaissance does not factor in worldviews of shusterman or the performing artists. the study of the relation of the body and mind has, however, always been—and continues to be—a prominent theme for generations of renaissance scholars such as michael baxandal and ernst gombrich, among other outstanding researchers. these researchers do not always use the word "somaesthetic", but terry-fritsch chooses to apply it to their interpretations of the body-mind relation because these interpretations contain so many of the features characteristic of somaesthetics. this includes the concept of art that is rooted in various ways in an embodied and interdisciplinary experience and focuses on interactive dialogue with viewers and their surroundings. the general aim of her book is to provide a critical analysis of a select group of works in medicean florence that were activated by the performative participation of the viewer. it is through a very precise analysis of the ”environments in which somaesthetic experience occurred 4 shusterman, richard, ”intellectualism and the field of aesthetics. the return of the repressed?“ revue internationale de philosophie, 220, 2002, p. 331. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 93 a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence and reconstruction of embodied scenarios of viewer engagements took place herein”, that the book is able to consider “art through embodiment and suggests an art-historical somaesthetic of style” (at, 29). in addition, the somaesthetic experience that she analyzes in her book is not spontaneous, but carefully developed by both the patron and the artist. she thus seeks to show how “certain renaissance patrons tapped into the performative potential of art” and uses “the somaesthetic experience as a means of constructing political communities in medicean florence”(at, 29). therefore, the body-mind is not only reinserted into the historical process of viewing, but highlights at the same time the various persuasive strategies that renaissance patrons used. she has chosen to analyse four somaesthetic experiences of works of art in renaissance florence. they are “arranged chronologically to provide a broad view of patronage tactics in medicean florence between the mid-fifteenth century and the end of the sixteenth century” (at, 40). and precisely this focus on the somaesthetic experience of renaissance viewers and the consistency in medici patronage means that she has been given the opportunity to present new interpretations of several of the famous renaissance projects in or in the proximity of florence. 2. somaesthetic experience in the chapel of the magi her first new interpretation of the somaesthetic experience in medicean florence emerges clearly in her analysis of the chapel of the magi. this chapel was created by michelozzo inside the palazzo medici and decorated lavishly by benozzo gozzoli and fra filippo lippi in the 1450s. although the amount of detail in her new interpretation of the chapel of the magi is overwhelming, she has nevertheless managed to recreate the historical context it was once a part of, but which has so far been rather overlooked. she reveals the often surprising connection between the decorations of the floor, the ceiling and the walls and cosimo de’ medici’s political appropriation of the cult of the magi in florence together with his highlighting of the ideals of the city and the supreme place and authority of his own family. she has revealed previously rather hidden relationships between patronage and style in all the decorations in the chapel. this includes her nuanced analysis of the eastern wall of benozzo gozzoli's painted cycle of the sumptuous procession of the magi. it visualises the processional drama, staged in florence on the 6th of january to honor the manifestation of christ to the gentiles as represented by the magi, also called the three holy kings, the wise men (matthew 2:1–12) or the florentine epiphany celebrations. in this part of the cycle, the mighty cosimo de´ medici (1389-1464) appears as the pious and righteous ruler, riding in the foreground of the picture on a brown mule (figure 1). it is obvious that “the brilliance of the shimmering surfaces of the breastplate and bridle signals” him as the most important of the citizens behind the magi. he is the key to the decorative and dynastic program and is surrounded by his family, government officials and holy men. they are dressed in costumes of costly material and the inclusion of gold draws the eye of the beholder to the important part of the narrative. it is not only the medici’s wealth and power on display here, but also their dedication to the ideals of the city-state, religious piety, their pride over their victory, over tyranny and their resultant freedom. it is another example of the way the somaesthetic experience of the visitor functions as a strategy for political persuasion. the three holy kings, also called the magi, wear glittering costumes and precious crowns on their heads. they ride majestically on the right side in the foreground of the picture. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 94 else marie bukdahl figure 1 benozzo gozzoli. view of the eastern wall of the painted cycle of the procession of the magi. 1459. mixed media. chapel of the magi, palazzo medici riccardi, florence. the unity of the artistic decoration in the chapel has emerged first and foremost because it was designed in every detail with the somaesthetic experience of visitors in mind (at, 5758). the visitors, who came mostly from the upper classes, are key players in the sensory and embodied experience of the artistic interpretation of the magi procession and the other elements of the decoration of the chapel. the sumptuous floor tiles function as standing markers for the visitors and guide their movements through the chapel’s space. they are encouraged to walk the same path as the medici. allie terry-fritsch’s unveiling of the coordination of the serpentine composition of the wall paintings with the movement of the viewers, which actually inspired them to follow the very powerful procession in fictional reality, is an original observation. this observation stands in contrast to many interpretations of the “renaissance spectator, who is given spectral dominance over a spatial continuum from a fixed position”(at, 94). through the epiphany rituals represented on the walls – for example in the procession of the magi – the visitors get both an intense religious experience and a sensuous understanding of the medici family and its power and authority, but also of its ethical and social values. the medici colours of red, white and green supplemented by layers of gold create an intense impression of vibrant life, which also appeals strongly to the visitor’s mind and body and strengthens their perception of the ideals of florentine civic humanism. this secular point of view is the very well-documented and largely original main theme in allie terry-fritsch’s interpretation of the decorations in the chapel. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 95 a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence her analyses of the religious aspect of the somaesthetic experience is especially linked to her description of the rituals first and foremost in the procession of the magi in the piazza of san marco with about seven hundred participants and which appears as a kinetic drama. but the actual content of the contemporary understanding of christianity is only included in short form. marsilio ficino and his attempts to connect neoplatonic and augustinian theology could possibly be part of the medicean concept of christianity. cosimo de’ medici supported marsilio ficino’s tolerant, and humanized christianity. “plato was introduced as a gateway to st. paul.”5 and many renaissance artists, including titian, were influenced by ficino’s theology, particularly his concept of the relation between celestial and terrestrial love.6 titian visualises the “neoplatonic belief that love, a principle of cosmic ‘mixture’, acts as an intermediary between heaven and earth.”7 the unity in not only the procession of the magi, but in all the other decorations on the walls and on the floor in the chapel has emerged first and foremost because it was designed in every detail with the somaesthetic experience of visitors in mind. allie terry-fritsch’s nuanced descriptions of how visitors’ bodies and minds are activated by the decorations in the chapel are inspired not only by her studies in the various theoretical and case studies in somaesthetics experience in art, but also by her engagement in contemporary installation art. donatello’s bronze sculpture entitled judith (1457-1464), was centrally located in the garden of the medici palace on via larga (fig. 2) during their period of government. allie terry-fritsch’s somaesthetic interpretation of judith is more tightly structured and has therefore a clearer profile than her analysis of the procession of the magi. the statue was raised on a column, which had two inscriptions. historians have traditionally interpreted the statue of judith as a symbol of cosimo de’ medici and his son piero’s efforts to highlight their political identity in the 1450s and 1460s. judith proudly swinging the lethal sword over holofernes’s head to deal the final blow, has consequently been understood as “the embodiment of mal medici political power” (at, 117). such an interpretation may be correct, but the sculpture contains several layers of meaning. allie terry-fritsch uncovers one of these and she manages to find a new analysis of both the statue of judith and its many visual connections with the surroundings – both in the present and in the future. she takes her starting point in the interpretation of the jewish heroine suggested by lucrezia tornabuoni de’ medici. she was the mother of lorenzo de´ medici and was both a poet and a prominent intellectual and administrator, who her son described as being “an instrument that took great many hardships away from me” (at, 119). several scholars have – albeit briefly -– pointed out that there is a connection between donatello's statue of judith and lucrezia's description of the jewish heroine in the story of judith, hebrew widow, written in the 1470s. however, through a closer analysis of lucrezia's sacred narrative of judith, allie terryfritsch succeeds in presenting a new interpretation of donatello's sculptural interpretation of judith. she perceives it as “an embodiment of female medici political power and a tool for the construction of political communications through somaesthetic cultivation” (at, 120). lucrezia's description of judith has a performative and visual character and appeals directly to the senses and the romantic imagination of readers or listeners. it was probably read aloud 5 fenlon, dermot, heresy and obedience in tridentine italy: cardinal pole and the counter reformation, cambridge university press 1972, p. 2. on ficino’s theology generally see: marsilio ficino: his theology, his philosophy, his legacy, ed. m. j.b. allen and v. r. rees, leiden boston cologne 2002 6 gabrio pieranti, il neoplatonismo nell'arte rinascimentale, in «arte e artisti», vol. 2, cap. 3, istituto italiano edizioni atlas, 2011, pp. 2-11. 7 panofsky, erwin, studies in iconology. humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance (1939) torchbook edition, 1962, pp. 151-152) and else marie bukdahl, “art and religious belief: 25 lessons for contemporary theory from renaissance and baroque painting, the journal of somaesthetics ,volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017), p. 36-39. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 96 else marie bukdahl in the garden of the palazzo medici where it activated the audience and revealed new aspects of donatello's statue, which could be seen from several angles and therefore revealed different sides of the new interpretation. figure 2 donatello. judith and holofernes. 1464. bronze. located between mid 1460 and 1495 in the garden of palazzo medici, today in the sala dei gigli, palazzo vecchio, florence. by placing donatello's statue of judith in the garden of the medici, which symbolised their power and influence, and by incorporating lucretia's narrative of her courageous action for her country, judith becomes an “agent of civic authority” and an embodiment of justice and liberty in medicean florence. in the interplay between lucretia's verbal and donatello’s sculptural interpretation, the active engagement of the audience was stimulated and they were able to see a connection between past and present. judith's struggle for the liberation of israel also became a artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 97 a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence symbol of the medici's efforts to maintain power in florence and to ensure peace and justice. but it is now a woman who is exalted as a symbol of these ideals. through lucretia's performative text, donatello's judith is enlivened as a heroine who possesses nothing less than what lucrezia calls “a manly heart”, but who at the same time uses her feminine strengths, particularly her beauty, in her fight for justice, which “inspires a form of collective witnessing that would reinforce communal values”(at, 149). she is therefore an early and courageous example of the “crossing of normative gender boundaries” (at, 141). this correct view deserves a more detailed analysis. 3. somaesthetics and holy land devotion at san vivaldo somaesthetic experience as a strategy for political persuasion has played a central role in the interpretations of the chapel of the magi and of judith by donatello. but in the analyses of the somaesthetic experience of the new jerusalem of san vivaldo, the religious aspect is highlighted and the understanding of performative renaissance culture is therefore expanded. throughout the fifteenth century the concept of the "new jerusalem" focused on the celebration of the three magi, the three holy kings. and there was also a close spiritual and political relation between the holy land and the medici family. a “new jerusalem” was, however, not constructed by the medici family. in 1494 the medici were deprived of power and girolamo savonarola became the new ruler. he made florence "the literal site of the new jerusalem" and relegated the pope and rome to the background. the pope was angered and in 1498 savonarola was convicted as a heretic and burned at the stake. in the years that followed, florence gradually lost its influence. it was only when the medici again regained power that its influence was restored. however, the dream of founding a "new jerusalem" was already in progress in 1499. franciscan friars led by fra cherubino da firenze began building a pilgrimage site of a “new jerusalem” in the dense forest of camporena, located about 30 miles southwest of florence at this time. allie terry-fritsch has succeeded in creating a finely structured analysis of this monumental project. in particular, she has managed to portray in a nuanced and original way the pilgrims' diverse and often very strong somaesthetic experiences during the encounter with the holy sites and works of art that the “new jerusalem” comprised. the franciscan founders of the “new jerusalem of san vivaldo” had both visited and carefully studied the topography of the holy sites of the real jerusalem. during these studies, they experienced both bodily exertion and mental strain, which have always been highlighted as important components of a pilgrim's participatory devotional practices. but the franciscans recreated the holy sites in ancient jerusalem in an improved version, characterized by local stylistic features and materials. these interactive and contemplative spaces, which contained lifesize wooden or terracotta sculptures of biblical figures, were incorporated into the local romantic tuscan landscape. in four of the chapels located on mount calvary, the local renaissance features emerge clearly. these are the frontispiece in the chapel of pie donne, the framed portici in the oratorio of the madonna dello spasimo (the fainting madonna) and the semicircles over the doors in the chapel of andante al calvario (figure 3).the “new jerusalem” was therefore also imbued with a local character and was completed in 1516. only seventeen of the original thirty-four holy sites still exist, but archeological excavations have made it possible to get an impression of the remaining sites. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 98 else marie bukdahl figure 3 to the left the chapel of pie donne, in the middle oratory of the madonna dello spasimo (fainting madonna). far right capella dell’andante al calvario (for the pedestrian to mount calvary). san vivaldo. the franciscans had the task of guiding the pilgrims through the sacred sites in the “new jerusalem” in the same order as their counterparts in the ancient jerusalem. in her meticulous descriptions of the pilgrims' encounter with the architecture and the works of art in the individual holy sites, allie terry-fritsch succeeds in portraying their vivid, sensual and very intense experiences in such a committed and visual way that the reader becomes almost as moved as the pilgrims and feels as if they are almost physically present in the artwork. this is due to the fact that artworks such as the sculpture group, thomas and the disciples (doubting thomas) were designed precisely “to foster somaesthetic experiences that heightened awareness of the pilgrims as a participant of the event” (figure 4) (at, 178). however, a more nuanced explanation is missing regarding the aspects of christianity that not only this sculpture but also the other works of art in the “new jerusalem” visualised. this is the aspect of the theology of the franciscan friars, who at that time, despite discussions about the correct christian goals, focused on poverty, humility, charity, prayer, simple living and following in the footsteps of christ. it was precisely through the intense experiences of these pilgrims in their encounters with the many holy places and the works of art that were placed there, that these ideals and requirements became a living and demanding reality. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 99 a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence figure 4 agnolo di polo. attr. ad. thomas and the disciples (doubting thomas). groupe with lifesized terracotta sculptures. mount zion. san vivaldo. to provide the reader with a contemporary impression of the very complex forms of active experiences that the pilgrim was afforded during meditations on the works of art in the ”new jerusalem”, allie terry-fritsch creates parallels with the sensory immediacy and physical participation inherent in contemporary installation art. she quotes claire bishop's description of the key aspects of the somaesthetic experience that installation art can create: installation art creates a situation into which the viewer physically enters, and (..) addresses the viewer directly as a literal presence in the space (..) installation art presupposes an embodied viewer whose senses of touch, smell, and sound are as heightened as their sense of vision (at, 189). allie terry-fritsch also reveals very compellingly how the mental and physical meditation in the holy sites of the “new jerusalem'' provided pilgrims with a somaesthetic experience that was even more powerful than the one they had the opportunity to encounter in the actual holy land. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 100 else marie bukdahl 4. the game calcio as a cultural artefact of somaesthetic experience she chooses to conclude her thorough analysis of the somaesthetic experience and the viewer in medicean florence with a description of calcio, which functioned as a performative game in the social world of the medici and in society as a whole. it was a ball game, which was an early version of football. it started in the piazza croce in florence, which has always been its most famous playground, but it was also played in piazza santa maria novella (figure 5). the basic objective of the game was to find a way to score a caccia, which was achieved by kicking the ball across the goal line of the opposing team (at, 218). figure 5 giovanni stradano. view of a calcio match in piazza santa maria novella. 1561-1562. fresco. sala del gualdrada, palazzo vecchio, florence. i her interpretation of this game is mainly based on the description that giovanni de bardi has presented in the discorso sopra il giuoco del calcio fiorentino (discourse on the game of florentine calcio) (1589). she is the first to present an in-depth analysis of bardi's treatise and the imagery associated with it. through this interpretation, readers are provided with not only a very nuanced depiction of the ball game, but also an accurate description of how it was used to highlight the ducal authority and ideals and the influence of the nobility in the sixteenth century in northern italy. the book thus functions as a sort of performative space for the reader and an interactive tool. a central premise of aliceterry-fritsch's analysis of the ball game calcio is her emphasis on bardi's highlighting of its close connection with the archetypes of the ancient games in athens and rome, where precisely the bodily and mental dimensions of human beings were inseparable and where the goal was to improve the quality of our lives. according to bardi, the game of calcio is based on the same body-mind relation and the same goals. it stimulated full-bodied, mindful viewer engagement that conveyed “an image and function of the well-ordered state”, embodied the grand duke’s noble authority and “inspires a love of patria” ( at, 235, 261). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 101 a new somaesthetic approach to renaissance art in florence through the detailed analyses of bardi's descriptions of the game of calcio, allie terryfritsch uncovers another aspect of the relationship between the viewers’ somaesthetic experience and the political persuasion in medicean florence. 5. renaissance somaesthetics in a digital world in the epilogue to this book, allie terry-fritsch changes track. she leaves the vivid historical space and enters the digital world, where she finds “a somaesthetic turn in contemporary, pedagogical tools”, which can be used to interpret the renaissance and engage virtual viewers (at, 273). she is convinced that digital media have the remarkable capacity to represent – and render present – the parts of the art world that are not immediately accessible to the human eye. the digital media produce images in the context of more or less shared visual regimes that direct the gaze of the beholder, shape sensation, and create presence. she discovered the special capacity of digital media during the study of the often extremely poor conditions of viewing original artworks for example mona lisa in the louvre, where masses of individuals are gathered waiting to get some glimpses of the original painting. first-hand somaesthetic experience of art is, of course, always preferable, but when the chances of realising these are so low, highly developed virtual technologies can create high-quality digital versions that can animate both works of art, the environment in which they are situated, as well as the people who go there, in many surprising ways. such digital recreations of the original works can “offer viewers a time-based, sensuous understanding of the work of art that is streamlined and personalized” (at, 283). allie terryfritsch adds: “ironically, twenty-first century digital applications have the capacity to enable viewers to access a sensory driven understanding of these works that more closely resembles renaissance experience than a visit to the real thing” (at, 287). this is due to the ability of digital projects to transport the viewer to surprising and alternative positions within the space both in the artwork and its surroundings. she opens up a fruitful new discussion about the original works and the digital recreations. conclusion it is impossible to do justice, in the limited space of a review essay, to the richness and depth of the ideas in this book. but i have tried to highlight and interpret some of the main themes and make some critical and also more in-depth observations. but the majority of allie terry-fritsch’s methodological considerations and her interpretations of the complex interplay in medicean florence between the artworks, the viewer and the surroundings, emerges very powerfully and convincingly. this also applies to her analyses of the renaissance somaesthetic in the digital world. i thank wikipedia.org for the publishing rights to figures 1-5. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 51 page 51–71christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie handling digital reproductions of artworks christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie abstract: the senses are finding their way back into the art museum, but the way paintings are displayed is still constrained by their fragility. we explore whether it would be helpful to use the capabilities of digital technologies to create meaningful somaesthetic experiences with digital reproductions. we conducted an experiment with 19 participants, letting them handle physical paintings and 2d and 3d digital reproductions, while ranking them according to their personal preference. to discover which cultural qualities participants ascribe to artworks in light of their somaesthetic experience, we interviewed participants regarding their experience of ranking three setups. we found that participants regarded the 3d reproductions as having certain material qualities. we argue that by designing the somaesthetic experience of digital reproductions, it might be possible to bring back dimensions of the art experience that were lost with the development of the modern museum. keywords: somaesthetics, art experience, digital reproductions, post-phenomenology. 1. introduction in the 17th and 18th centuries, museum visitors were typically allowed to handle the objects exhibited in museums. indeed, handling and touching were seen as an important part of the museum experience that could enhance learning and enjoyment and create a more intimate connection to the artists (howes, 2014). however, this practice was later replaced by a focus on contemplation and rigid bodily constraints in the museum space (leahy, 2012). for many years, the white cube paradigm has dominated the way we look at art in museums. the script of the museum mediates our engagement with the art and puts the museum in the role of an authority, defining the right way to appreciate it (duncan, 2005). more recently, museum research has been shifting toward a more interpretative or constructivist paradigm, where the museum design is recognized as part of shaping the visitor experience and the visitor as an active part in the learning process (macdonald, 2007). nevertheless, the physical configuration of art museums remains largely the same, and the shift seems to be more evident in the way museum experiences are discussed and analyzed than in the way art is displayed. this is especially true of exhibitions of classical paintings. this is not only a question of culture but also of practicalities. the originals on display are fragile, unique, and artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 52 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors expensive, and only specially trained personnel can handle them (howes, 2014; leahy, 2012). this severely limits the way painting exhibitions can be shaped. however, technology allows us to break free of these limitations. with digital technologies, we can enable new bodily relations with the paintings that are not constrained by the risk of damaging the originals. in a merge between the classical artworld and the technologically immersive, some venues such as the lumières venues by culturespaces1 and “van gogh alive” by grande experiences2 are exhibiting classical paintings through room-sized digital projections. through technology, they are pushing the spatial relationship between visitor and painting. the paintings are bigger, cropped in new ways, and wrapped around walls and on the floor, and sometimes details or whole paintings are animated and moving around. however, they reproduce the role of paintings as something hanging on a wall that we view from a couple of meters distance—as an image, not an object. is it possible to use the capabilities of digital technologies to create meaningful somaesthetic experiences with paintings? our bodily actions and relations to paintings and the context in which paintings are met are shaping our experience of them (dewey, 1934/2005). to explore the design potential of using digitized reproductions to create somaesthetic experiences with paintings, we created an experiment that compares the act of handling paintings in three different setups. we asked 19 participants to look at and consider paintings in the following three formats: physical paintings, paintings represented digitally in 2d, and paintings represented digitally in a virtual 3d environment. the participants were asked to rank them according to what they would like to have in their own home in order to make them focus on their own aesthetic experience. this was followed by a phenomenological interview, where participants were asked to elaborate on their experience and to compare their experience of the three setups. we discuss how the technological mediation and the somaesthetic qualities of each setup are described by the participants and what this can tell us about the design space for technological experiences containing digital reproductions of artworks. 2. art experience and technology john dewey argues in his 1934 book “art as experience” that philosophical aesthetics has wrongly removed art from its situatedness in the everyday experience. according to dewey, art needs to be considered through its relation to the body and the context in which it appears. in our time, art is increasingly being seen on screens, in part because digital media makes it possible for audiences who cannot travel to the museum to view artworks (a very urgent consideration at the time of writing, in 2021, due to restrictions during the ongoing covid-19 pandemic). the literature on technology-mediated experiences in museums often reveals a concern among museum scholars and professionals (as well as the wider public) that technology may come to stand in the way of visitors’ direct encounters with physical artifacts. sometimes this concern is referred to as the “heads-down phenomenon”—evoking the image of (young) visitors walking around the museum with their heads pointed down toward their smartphone screens, oblivious to the treasured artifacts on exhibit around them (hsi, 2003; lyons, 2009; petrelli et al., 2013; walter, 1996; wessel & mayr, 2007; woodruff et al., 2001). 1 https://www.culturespaces.com/ 2 https://grande-experiences.com/van-gogh-alive/ the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 53 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie alternatively, research on human computer interaction (hci) and interaction design has long explored how interaction with technological systems may form part of the aesthetic experience. both dewey (1934/2005) and the ecological psychology of gibson (1979) have been significant influences in this line of research and in the broader humanistic turn in hci (bardzell & bardzell, 2015). the implications of dewey’s view on the art experience extends beyond the domain of art and has formed part of the theoretical foundations for hci’s focus on experiences with technology (mccarthy & wright, 2004). somaesthetics has received much attention in hci (höök et al., 2016; höök et al., 2015; lee et al., 2014; shusterman, 2014). however, there is little work connecting somaestethics to the art experience—although occasionally the results of design projects are themselves exhibited as artworks (e.g., schiphorst, 2009). more broadly, experiences with technology in museums is a large topic in hci research (hornecker & ciolfi, 2019; vermeeren et al., 2018), and research has explored how to use embodied interactions to enhance art experiences (alexander et al., 2017; steier, 2014). for example, ryding and fritsch (2020) present a game for visitors to art museums in which one player controls the movements of another player as a way to challenge the ritualized nature of the museum visit and intensify the visitors’ affective encounters with the art. the interactive art installation “thresholds” (tennent et al., 2020) sets up an experience with some similarity to the experiment presented here. aiming to explore the role of technology in our perception of the world, the installation recreates a 170-year-old photography exhibition inside a virtual space, which is mapped onto a physical space in such a way that visitors donning customized vr equipment have the experience of walking around inside a virtual exhibition gallery that can be explored through touch and other senses. the system allows visitors to virtually select photographs out of the exhibition vitrines using hand gestures to lift the images up for closer inspection. the fact that this feature created significant difficulty for both the creators of the installation and the users—in an otherwise ambitious and highly successful installation— speaks much about the difficulty involved when attempting to facilitate experiences of handling digital artwork. 3. handling in the museum according to howes (2014), museums in the 17th and 18th centuries were hands-on sites, where visitors were expected to touch and handle artifacts. touching was seen as important for four reasons, as follows: visitors would be able to learn more through touching, touch was seen as enhancing the enjoyment of art objects, touch allowed for a sense of intimacy with the original creators of the artifacts, and, finally, some rare and exotic objects were believed to have special healing powers. by the middle of the 19th century, the practice of touching in museums had ceased as the reasons mentioned above were no longer considered valid (howes, 2014). instead, as described by leahy (2012), correct aesthetic appreciation became part of a codified bodily practice of walking, sitting, standing, looking, and speaking. guides were even created that described how to maintain the correct distance from the object that was to be contemplated. since the late 20th century, touching and handling have been returning to the museum, first in children’s and science museums but later also in art museums. as howes sums it up: in the museum of the twenty-first century, the senses are making a comeback. didactic instruction has increasingly come to be supplemented by multimodal artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 54 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors approaches to learning, disinterested contemplation has been offset by affective participation, and the authority to interpret objects has been redistributed. (howes, 2014, pp. 264–265) in a case study exploring the role of touch in relation to sculptures, the authors note that “when allowed to touch, we observed that groups moved, viewed, described, and discussed the works in more diverse ways than when viewing only, and that touch fostered longer and deeper object-related inquiries” (christidou & pierroux, 2019, p. 111). physical sculptures carry their meaning in their shape and form and are often robust. paintings, however, are primarily visual artworks and are vulnerable to touch. thus, inviting visitors to touch or handle valuable paintings is obviously not possible. however, the development of new immersive technologies and interaction formats offer interesting opportunities to consider bodily experiences with digital reproductions of artworks. this in turn raises questions about the role of reproductions in art experiences. 4. reproductions and genuineness in psychological aesthetics one of the factors that makes it difficult for museums to allow visitors to handle artworks is also arguably one of the main reasons visitors are attracted to museums—the ability to view invaluable (but fragile) artworks in their authentic, original form. for example, walter benjamin famously argued that the aura of classical artworks such as paintings and sculptures is bound to their cultural and physical properties, which are lacking in reproducible media such as photography. how important is it for the art experience that one is in fact viewing an original and not just a reproduction? several empirical studies have tried to understand the influence of the genuineness of a piece of artwork on the art experience (locher et al., 1999, 2001; locher & dolese, 2004; brieber et al., 2014; brieber et al., 2015). these studies find that viewing original artworks in a museum is rated higher than viewing reproductions in a laboratory in terms of parameters such as being immediate, pleasant, interesting, surprising, liked, and understood (see pelowski et al., 2017 for a full overview). considering the medium of reproduction, three of the studies hypothesize that if art viewers can look past the medium, they will evaluate the same image similarly when seen in various media, measured through quantitative and qualitative components of the information content of the images—a phenomenon they call facsimile accommodation (locher et al., 1999, 2001; locher & dolese, 2004). however, in these studies, the role of the context is not clear as the originals are viewed in the setting of a museum or art gallery, and the reproductions are viewed in a lab setting. brieber, leder et al. (2015) try to detangle this effect in a study that compares both context and genuineness; however, in the study, neither the context nor the genuineness was found to enhance the participants’ evaluation of the artworks. this was attempted again by grüner et al. (2019), who did find that artworks viewed in a museum are liked more and rated as more interesting when presented in a museum rather than in a laboratory. genuineness is not found to have this effect. pelowski et al. (2017) expand on the comparison of laboratory vs. museum as a factor in art appreciation by presenting a large range of factors that influence the art experience. these factors pertain to the artworks, the museum space, and the visitor. among the factors related to the artwork itself are texture, immediacy, physical presence, and size (pelowski et al., 2017). the authors also mention the hanging style as having an influence on the art experience. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 55 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie across the studies described above, reproductions take the form of images on computer screens, slide-projections, or even postcard-sized printed images. bertamini and blakemore (2019) present two studies in which they asked participants to evaluate hypothetical scenarios of viewing three types of artwork reproductions. the hypothetical reproductions were a painting viewed through a closed-circuit video camera monitor, a painting viewed through a mirror, and a physical reproduction of the painting. they found a large variation in the participants’ opinions on the three types of reproduction. in general, the physical copy was preferred over viewing the original indirectly, and a mirror reflection was found to be better than a video image. these empirical studies seem to indicate that the museum context is important for the aesthetic experience, whereas the importance of viewing an original vs. a reproduction is less clear. some of the studies indicate that the specific format of the reproduction seems to matter. however, all of these studies were limited to the experience of passively viewing artworks on a wall or in a display. in this article we continue to explore this question from a design perspective, offering an exploration of the design space for digital reproductions that can be virtually handled by the viewer. 5. handling reproductions: a somaesthetic perspective dewey argues that substance and form are central to the art experience: “what is said and how it is said” (dewey, 1934/2005, p. 106, emphasis in original). replicating a piece of artwork in digital media changes its form and subsequently its substance. to understand form with regard to digital media, the literature from the field of interaction design provides a compelling model. vallgårda (2014) argues that in interaction design practice, three form elements are closely interconnected: the physical form, the temporal form, and the interaction gestalt. the physical form is the shape and appearance of the system as perceived through our sensory apparatus. the temporal form is the change of states in the system over time. the interaction gestalt is the movement the user performs in relation to the system. these movements have qualities, such as being fast, smooth, or abrupt, and take place in a doing and undergoing relationship with the system. the user acts on the system, and the system shapes the acting. to better understand how form shapes experience, we turn to post-phenomenology. a postphenomenological approach implies a particular interest in the relation between participants and paintings and how this relation is being mediated by the technologies used in each setup (rosenberger & verbeek, 2015). in this study, we are investigating how the technologies employed reshape the experience of the paintings. human-technology relations are in the postphenomenological view characterized by a magnification/reduction structure (rosenberger & verbeek, 2015). according to kiran (2015), this structure is divided into four dimensions of technological mediation: ontological, epistemological, practical, and ethical. these dimensions serve as a helpful framework for analyzing the mediation aspects in the experiment. the assumption behind this experiment is that the technological representation chosen will shape the experience of the artworks in how it reveals and conceals aspects of the artworks, how it magnifies or reduces the knowledge available about the artwork, how it enables or constrains certain practical actions, and in turn how that involves or alienates the participants from what is considered ethical practice around artworks. within this perspective, we find it relevant to pay specific attention to the aesthetics of interaction, including the perception of performance. lim et al. (2007) present the concept of interaction gestalt as the shape of interaction: the movements the user makes while engaging with artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 56 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors an interactive system. lenz et al. (2017) describe the qualities of these movements as interaction attributes and find that they are related to experiential qualities. dalsgaard and hansen emphasize the social aspect of performance, suggesting that the user of a system continuously acts out the three roles of operator, performer, and spectator (2008). applied to our experiment, this means that our participants will simultaneously be operating the systems we have put in place while also perceiving the relation between themselves and the paintings and being aware that these actions are a performance for the experiment facilitator and the recording equipment. as dalsgaard and hansen (2008) argue, this performance of perception is an integral part of the aesthetics of interaction. 6. method the experiment presented in this article bears similarities to the approach of concept-driven interaction design research (stolterman & wiberg, 2010) in the sense that we are conducting practice-based design research with the aim of exploring a theoretical issue rather than designing new products. furthermore, our approach is inspired by a constructive design research approach (koskinen et al., 2011), which means that the construction of design artifacts is central to knowledge creation. in our way of setting up this experiment, we lean on the tradition of performing design experiments in the lab (koskinen et al., 2011). contrary to the more common use of experiments as vehicles for deductive reasoning, this experiment is inductive in nature. we are looking for patterns in a design space, not trying to prove them. an important difference between our experiment and those presented by koskinen et al. (2011) is that the three designs used in our experiment are not made as proposals for future designs. instead, they are created in order to explore the impact of these different formats on aesthetic experience. we are not primarily interested in the particular designs but rather in the comparison of participants’ interactions. in this way, the designs used here are more research instruments than design proposals. experiment procedure the experiment was conducted with 19 participants recruited at our university from the 30th of november to the 4th of december 2020. fourteen of the participants were master’s students or recent graduates in the field of digital design or games, four were faculty within digital design, and one was enrolled in vocational education in the health sector. ten identified as female and nine as male. the age of the participants ranged between 22 and 36. sixteen participants said “yes” to being interested or somewhat interested in art, while three did not see themselves as interested in art. all but one had visited an art museum or gallery within the last year, with an average of three visits in the last year. this number should be viewed in light of the covid-19 situation, where many such places were closed for long periods during the previous year. the experiment was divided into three different setups. in each setup, the test participants were invited to experience artworks in one of three different formats: framed physical paintings, digital reproductions of paintings displayed as 2d images, and digital reproductions of paintings presented as 3d objects. for each of these setups, the users were invited to pick up the paintings— physically or virtually—in order to get a closer look. the participants were told that they would be entering a room with three pieces of artwork. they were asked to look at the artworks and rank them according to which they would most like to have in their own home. the rationale for giving the participants this task was to prevent the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 57 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie participants from judging the artworks according to some external ideal and to rather focus on their own aesthetic experience of the artworks. after making their decision, participants exited the experiment room and were interviewed about their experience. this was repeated for each of the three setups. the sequence of the three setups was changed so that participants went through them in a different order each time. the experiment used nine different artworks, presented below. the artworks were deliberately chosen for being ordinary, non-famous artworks of the type that one might buy in a secondhand store (and indeed, the three physical paintings are “thrift store” paintings). the images represented various visual styles to accommodate a variety of aesthetic preferences. the participants were given no information about the artworks other than what they could see for themselves. note that it was necessary to use different artworks for the three different setups (rather than repeating the same three images) in order to make the task of choosing an artwork meaningful for the participants for each of the three iterations. in all three setups, the paintings were partially hidden from sight as the participant entered the room, either due to their placement or the image size. this was done to prompt participants to handle the paintings in order to get a closer look at them. after each setup, the participants were interviewed about their experience and asked to compare their experience with the other setups. the interview was conducted as a phenomenological interview (thompson et al., 1989). the 19 interviews were transcribed verbatim. statements describing the qualities of each of the three setups were separated and then organized thematically using affinity clustering. physical setup in the physical setup, the participants were presented with three physical artworks bought in secondhand stores around copenhagen (see figure 1). the paintings were chosen to represent a variation of styles. the three paintings were placed in a rack where the paintings were easily accessible, but each partly obscured by the other. the rack was placed on a tall table (see figure 2). figure 1 the physical artworks bought from different secondhand stores. the print on the left is signed line thimm. the painting in the middle is unsigned. the painting on the right is signed s. engelbrecht. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 58 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors figure 2 in the physical setup, the paintings are placed in a rack on a tall table. the first and second image are video stills from the experiment. the third image is a staged closeup. digital 2d setup in the digital 2d setup, participants were presented with three paintings projected next to each other on the wall of the experiment room (see figures 3 and 4). the paintings by bea mahan and manjiri were found on their flickr accounts where they promote their art. the third one is a study by the danish artist niels bjerre. it was found in the database of the danish national gallery. the paintings were chosen to represent a variation of styles. the interface for this setup was created in touchdesigner in a simple 2d environment (see figure 4). frames were added digitally to the paintings. in the middle of the room was a table with a wireless mouse. the paintings were projected in a size that made them too small to view comfortably from the table with the mouse both due to the distance and the resolution of the projector. the participants were made aware that they should use the mouse. when hovering the cursor over the image, it would grow slightly in size, and upon clicking, it would grow to a large size. if the participants clicked outside the scaled-up image, it would shrink to its initial size, and if the click was placed on another image, that one would scale up instead. figure 3 the 2d images with added frames (from left to right: mahan, n.d.; manjiri, n.d.; bjerre, 1934). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 59 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie figure 4 in the 2d setup, a wireless mouse is placed on a tall table. the participants use the mouse to increase the size of the painting they want to look at. the first two images are video stills from the experiment. the third image is a staged closeup. digital 3d setup in this setup, the participants were presented with three paintings in a virtual 3d environment (see figure 6). the painting by layers was found on pixabay.com, a stock image site where the artist offers their art for free use. the painting by miguel àngel pintanel was found on his flickr account where he promotes his art. the painting by mogens ballin was found in the database of the danish national gallery. again, the paintings were chosen to represent a variation of styles (see figure 5). figure 5 the 3d images with added frames (from left to right: ballin, 1890; layers, n.d.; pintanel, n.d.). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 60 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors figure 6 in the 3d setup, the participant uses a smartphone to control a cursor on the screen. it can be used to pick up, move, and tilt the virtual paintings. the first two images are video stills from the experiment. the third is a staged closeup. the 3d environment was projected in 2d on the wall of the experiment room in a forced perspective that corresponded with the position where the interviewer would tell the participant to stand when entering the room. the paintings were shown lying on a (virtual) wooden table. on the projection was a white cube acting as a cursor hovering over the paintings. the participants were given a smartphone and instructions on how to use the smartphone to interact with the paintings. the smartphone could be used in a manner similar to a laser pointer: when pointing the top of the smartphone toward the projection, the white cube would follow the movements of the phone. by pressing with their thumb on the screen, participants could “pick up” a nearby painting, which would attach itself to the white cube. pointing the phone upward would move both the white cube and the painting closer to the virtual camera so that the painting could be inspected more closely. the orientation of the painting would map to the orientation of the phone, allowing the participant to tilt and rotate the painting to allow for examination from various angles. if the participant removed their thumb from the screen, the painting would fall down. if the image fell toward the ground, it would disappear outside of the projection and reappear on the table. in this setup, the frames and canvases were 3d-modeled, and the paintings were added as textures to the 3d models. this interface was also created in touchdesigner as a 3d environment with a bulletsolver engine to simulate gravity and other forces. the smartphone interface was based on the google xy-fi project (uglow et al., 2017). the smartphone ran a website that records device orientation and touch events and passed it via socket.io to the webserver that forwarded it to the touchdesigner instance running the simulation. the “pick up” mode is not a part of the original xy-fi project but was programmed by the first author, extending the original javascript program. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 61 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie 7. results we now present our observations and insights from presenting the study participants with each of the three setups. physical setup as the participants entered the room for the physical setup the experimenter would give the following instruction: “please have a look at the artworks and rank them according to what you would like to have in your own home. let me know when you have made your choice.” the participants moved to the rack, many hesitating a bit before picking up the artworks. almost all participants asked the experimenter whether it was okay for them to touch the artworks, either right before or right after taking one from the rack. most participants then proceeded to pick up the artworks one by one, studying each one for five to 15 seconds before putting it back in the rack. others held a painting in each hand next to the one left in the rack, comparing all three at once. a few participants picked up some of the artworks a second time. one participant held the artworks against the wall of the experiment room. from the video recordings, it can be seen that the participants spent between 25 to 90 seconds (median: 54) before indicating that they had made their choice. in the interviews, most of the participants brought up the physical qualities of the artworks. they mentioned weight, texture, tactility or tangibility, materiality, and the ability to feel the paintings as qualities that were significant. one participant expressed it like this: i like that i was able to pick up the paintings and feel it, and look at it in the light, and look at it pretty close and study some of the details, and then be like: “that was nice to see.” it gives you something, when you are far away and close to paintings, i think. (participant 11) in addition to holding the artworks up close, participants mentioned the options of turning them around and moving them back and forth, and one highlighted the feeling of having control of the handling of the paintings. a few participants mentioned that it was difficult to handle the paintings in this setup, “[…] because i could only hold two at once, it was hard to see all three at the same time. so, i had to remember to hold one in my mind and then look at the others” (participant 17). another participant mentioned being anxious about accidentally breaking the artworks. as compared to the other setups, half of the participants mentioned that only the physical setup gave them the full impression of the painting, especially with regard to colors: “i prefer having them physical because then i can just see more and i can trust my perception more, because if it’s like i’m shopping in an online shop, i don’t actually see the color. if i’m checking it out in real life, then i know exactly what i will get” (participant 15). in this setup, some participants talked about the importance of the frame for making their choice: “for me it’s very important how the frame looks on the paintings, so i also investigate how old they are, and whether they are worn, if they are new, and how much they look like they have just been printed on laser printer and put in a black frame. but i am sure none of these are” (participant 13). another participant found a specific frame enticing, “it weighed heavily in my decision of what i wanted, that there was a name i could recognize [s. engelbrecht, ed.], but also that it was a nice painting, and that it was heavy and a nice frame” (participant 10). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 62 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors several participants made comparisons with the act of browsing through artifacts in commercial settings, such as posters in an art museum gift shop, paintings at a flea market, or records in a record store. for some, this was a positive, fun experience: it’s like crate digging in a record shop. you’re kind of fiddling through them. you can look, you can stand it. you know, it feels more like you’re kind of taking a cultural artifact in a different kind of mode. that’s sort of exciting. you know, there’s joy to holding a painting. it’s something almost naughty. (participant 19) however, others felt unease when handling the physical paintings. one participant mentioned that it devaluated the artworks being presented in this way: i felt that it was like when exiting a museum, and then there’s this thing where you browse through the posters. my immediate experience was that i really felt that i was in the gift shop of a museum. i also think, that in relation to other things, this took away much of the feeling of quality. (participant 2) in general, participants found that this setup gave them the best impression of the paintings. the paintings were evaluated for more than their pictorial content, such as the frames and their weight, yet the presentation was unfamiliar, causing a level of unease. digital 2d setup upon entering the room for the 2d setup, the experimenter gave the same task instructions as for the physical setup, but this time added: “you may use the mouse on the table.” with no further instructions, almost all participants would walk to the mouse and start clicking, figuring out by themselves how to enlarge the paintings. participants spent 19–160 seconds (median: 40) before they indicated that they had made their choice. all participants went through the images at least once, spending 1–7 seconds looking at each enlarged picture for the first time. most participants looked at the enlarged images multiple times. most participants said that this setup was easy and straightforward and felt like an everyday interaction: “it was easier because everything was just lined up, instead of having to make that somewhat cumbersome movement of lifting the paintings up. […] so, it was a faster decision to decide what you like, but with less opportunity for investigation” (participant 13). one participant noted that the ability to see the three images at the same time made it easier: “even if the paintings weren’t that big [when not enlarged], i already kind of saw what they were portraying” (participant 15). many participants talked about how it was easier to get an overview or compare the images in this setup. participants also said that it was more efficient and had less distractions than the other setups, and some remarked that it was easier to investigate details in this setup. several compared this setup to an online image experience, such as google image search. in contrast, a few participants said that it was difficult or even impossible to make a proper decision in this setup because necessary information was missing from the presentation of the paintings. over half of the participants talked about missing information aspects, such as the physical dimensions of the paintings, texture, and the exact colors. curiously, four participants furthermore stated that the images in this setup did not have frames (even though frames had in fact been added digitally, as described above). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 63 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie one participant said this setup was just like images hanging on a wall. another compared it to a slideshow: i felt it was like a slideshow that i had to click through, and it pulled me out of the world where i am supposed to be immersed in the art. you feel that you have a mission and that is to be done with it. you kind of have to see it to the end, and then proceed with the next instead of immersing yourself. (participant 12) in general, the participants seemed less enthusiastic about this setup than the other two. some participants said it was boring, others used the term static, and a few used the term distanced in comparison with the other setups. the task was solved quickly and efficiently, but the images in this condition were not talked about as having any sort of physical or spatial properties. digital 3d setup when entering the 3d setup, the experimenter would hand the participant a smartphone and ask the participant to stand in the middle of the room in front of the projected image. then, the experimenter would help the participant to calibrate the phone interface and explain the functionality: “you can move the white cursor around by pointing the phone. you can press on the screen to grab a painting, and if you point the phone toward the ceiling, the painting you have picked up will come toward you. you can then tilt the phone to orient the painting you have picked up.” then, the experimenter would repeat the task and step back to let the participant use the interface on their own while answering any clarifying questions. in this setup, participants spent between 62 to 250 (median: 94) seconds after entering the room before they indicated that they had made up their mind. the instruction and calibration phase took 23–46 seconds. the participants would pick up the paintings one after the other and tilt the phone to make it come closer. the participants kept standing in the same place while holding the phone in one hand extended from the body. they spent between 4 and 26 seconds looking at a picture zoomed in when looking at it for the first time. some participants picked up one of the paintings one more time before revealing their choice. one participant played around with the paintings for another two minutes after explaining his choice. at the beginning of their interaction with the setup, many of the participants experienced chaotic interactions. participants often accidentally dropped the paintings, knocked them off the table or sent them flying out of the screen: you had to get used to it and find out how to maneuver the painting. [...] sometimes the painting moved a bit fast and ended in the top right corner. it was a bit hard to keep the painting in focus, which made it difficult to analyze the painting you were looking at. but it was a fun way of doing it. (participant 10) many participants said that this was a different or novel way of interacting with art, but many also remarked that the interface involved a learning curve since they needed to learn how to use the tool before they could focus on the paintings. about half of the participants used the word fun about this setup, and a few more talked about it as being playful. one participant, however, found the interaction difficult, making it a “stressful” and somewhat “humiliating” experience (participant 16). some also experienced a certain unease about handling the paintings in this setup: “i felt that i was treating the art a bit badly by accidentally throwing it around and by artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 64 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors rotating it. in any case, i would find it awkward if i ended up doing that with [the artworks in] my own hands” (participant 7). another participant had a similar experience but appreciated that the artwork had lost a bit of its authority: there were some times when you dropped the precious paintings and those kinds of things. and then you go like, it’s not normal to be out looking at art, holding some priceless artwork and then, whoops, dropping it or it flying away. but i actually think that gave it a really cool playful approach, that you dare more to look at it and do something with it. you don’t dare that when you’re in a museum, then you just go: okay, i can look at things […] maybe it makes the art less authoritarian [sic] that you can throw it around like that. but i actually think that’s very cool. (participant 11) some participants talked about this setup being playful or like a game. while being playful and fun, one participant found that it was “just feeling like a gamified distraction from the task at hand” (participant 16). participant 8 also felt this way: “for a long time, i had much focus on just controlling it, and i found it fun, and that was where my focus was. i forgot the task a bit.” an additional two participants mentioned this. similar to the 2d setup, a few participants said that they found it hard or impossible to complete the task because the digital image of the paintings did not give them all the information they needed. a few participants talked about a missing materiality or tangibility; however, others talked about this setup being more material, tangible, or physical than the 2d setup. other factors that were mentioned as missing were weight, real size, and exact colors. one participant talked about this setup being a tradeoff between the two others: [the 3d setup] seems like it’s sort of awkwardly in the middle. there’s something that’s material that’s happening there that is nice, but it’s also fiddly and it’s also occluded in some sort of image sense. [...] it’s harder to see, but it does kind of give you a sense that you’re semi-present, which i don’t know if that’s a good trade off yet. (participant 19) in this setup, the participants also talked about frames. one participant said that the frame did not play a role, “[…] because you could not feel the image in the same way, even though there is a frame” (participant 10). on the other hand, another participant said: […] it really did do something, that there were frames on. […] it gave me more the feeling that they were actually paintings existing in real life, instead of just being a google image you had downloaded and put into the same system. here, i have a feeling that these paintings exist somewhere. (participant 6) several participants found that the 3d setup did have some qualities to it that the 2d setup lacked. three participants said that this was more like holding a real painting than the 2d setup. one said that it had “objectness” (participant 1), and another that it was easier to imagine it on a wall. another three participants talked about the 3d interface as a room, implying a sense of spatiality. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 65 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie 8. discussion remarks made by the participants seem to indicate that the 3d setup did succeed to some degree at facilitating an experience that afforded a sense of handling the artworks. participants also noticed the frames of the paintings more in 3d than in 2d. it is particularly interesting to note the unease felt by some participants in not being able to treat 3d artworks with appropriate care. however, participants still noted a lack of materiality, and problems with the 3d interface and image quality seem to have reduced the vividness of the experience for some. to explore how the 3d setup affects the aesthetic experience of the artworks, we will consider the insights from the experiment in relation to kiran’s (2015) four suggested dimensions of technological mediation: practical, ontological, epistemological, and ethical. for each of these dimensions, we offer some thoughts on how designers might further explore the experience of virtually handling digitized artworks. in each setup, the form of the artworks afforded different practical ways for the participants to handle them. the three setups demanded three very different ways of bodily engagement, from the careful handling of a heavy physical painting, to the fine flicks of the wrist when using a mouse, to the somewhat unfamiliar movements needed to control the smartphone interface. the movements in the 3d setup land somewhere in between those of the 2d and the physical setups: the participants were lifting, pulling, placing, and tilting the paintings, although it was done via a tool for remote control and with much smaller and lighter movements than in the physical setup. these affordances allowed the participants’ bodies to play a role in the art experience. in future work, designers might explore how to further prompt and enhance the affordances for practical handling to extend the ways bodily movement might affect aesthetic experience. designers might explore (at least) two different aspects of this design space: the control interface and the type of display. regarding control, one might experiment with interfaces that facilitate more natural movements, thus mapping more closely to the handling of physical artworks. for instance, one might create a tangible interface with a form like that of a physical painting that could be mapped to the digital image to allow participants to use natural movements to lift and turn the digital image. to bring the experience even closer to the physical, one might move away from the digital projection on the wall and instead simply use a tablet computer embedded in a frame. however, this would require that the images be reduced drastically in size and adapted to the aspect ratio of the tablet display, which would run against the artistic intentions of many artworks in which size is an important aesthetic factor. a different solution might be to move the experience into a substitutional reality environment in which a virtual reality environment is combined with physical props to facilitate the experience of handling objects physically, as demonstrated in tennent et al. (2020). furthermore, designers and artists might be interested in experimenting with interfaces that offer types of interaction that do not match closely to the experience of handling a physical painting, such as introducing elements of discomfort (see benford et al., 2012), for example, through sensory misalignment (see marshall et al., 2019). one might also consider the degree to which the participants should control the experience—perhaps experimenting with degrees of contested or negotiated control (see benford et al., 2021). considering the ontological dimension, both the 2d and the 3d versions of the artworks are virtual representations, but participants felt that the handling of virtual 3d has more qualities associated with physical objects. when going from the physical to the 2d setup, the experience of “objectness” seems to disappear. the participants called the physical paintings “the real thing,” artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 66 healing, reverie and somaesthetic anchors whereas the 2d paintings seem to be treated more as a reference to an object existing in some other realm. interestingly, when encountering the 3d paintings, a level of “objectness” seemed to return as some participants said that the experience of engaging virtual space is a bit like handling real paintings. designers might explore designs that would enhance the experience of “objectness” in relation to the digitized artworks. in the past, museums have experimented with ways to facilitate more personal encounters with artworks, such as through cooper-hewitt’s “the pen,” which allowed visitors to digitally collect objects that interested them in the museum (chan & cope, 2015). in blast theory’s design “gift”, museum visitors are invited to collect objects digitally and to use them to craft gifts for their loved ones (spence et al., 2019), setting up an experience that is “interpersonalized” (ryding et al., 2021). petrelli et al. (2017) introduced the concept of “tangible data souvenirs,” which are created on the basis of data collected during a museum visit and that serve as a connection between a physical and a digital experience. benford et al. (forthcoming) used a similar approach in a design in which emotion-capture techniques were used to craft personalized experiences based on the visitors’ emotional responses to artworks in the munch museum in oslo, norway. at the end of the experience, visitors were given a postcard showing the painting that had prompted their strongest emotional response, with their own emotion data printed on the back. future designers might build on such approaches to further experiment with ways of turning digitized artworks into “objects.” considering the epistemological dimension, it is notable that the physical artworks seem to contain important information that becomes unavailable in the two digital setups. some of this loss—blurry images, low resolution—is due to inefficient display technologies and might easily be mitigated using a screen or a better projector. in fact, by using high-resolution images such as the “gigapixel” images created by the google cultural institute (st. john, 2016), one may display an even larger and sharper representation of the paintings than can be seen directly on the physical canvas. information about physical size can also be communicated digitally. in the 2d display, it is easy to imagine scaling the images 1:1 to their physical counterparts. with the 3d interface, this is less trivial since scale is determined by the distance to the virtual camera lens as it moves back and forth. other information, such as weight, is simply lost due to the nature of digital representations. the 3d version, however, does convey the sense of being an object since participants can look at it from the front, sides, and back. using better display technologies, it might even be possible to see the artificial light bouncing off the texture of the 3d canvas. considering the ethical dimension, it is worth noting that participants drew parallels to experiences that have similar interactional qualities. the physical setup was likened to the act of browsing posters in a gift shop, the 2d setup was compared to browsing images on the web, and the 3d setup reminded participants of the nintendo wii controller. these three examples are very different in their cultural status and refer to contexts in which artworks are given very different roles. posters in a gift shop are commercial products, stereotypical examples of art as a commodity. in contrast, images that appear in google searches are deprived of their monetary value (other than the indirect monetization of the platform enterprise). meanwhile, in the 3d setup, paintings regain some of their “objectness,” but they tend to lose their status as art, becoming instead merely quasi-physical objects that get tossed around like toys. the change in form also affects the social status of the artworks and even devaluates them. an important question for further research would be to search for ways to present the digitized artworks that do not devaluate them. one possibility would be to design an interface that to a large degree affords careful treatment of the paintings, simulating the care and respect that the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 67 christian sivertsen and anders sundnes løvlie such physical objects require. for instance, the physics of the simulation could be constrained so that all movements would be slow and smooth and that the paintings would find their way back on the table when let go. another approach could be to integrate consequences of actions in the software. if the artworks were to break or disappear for good when dropped, this artificial fragility might affect the role of the paintings in the participants’ perception. alternatively, the reckless treatment of paintings could instead be turned into a theme for the experience and explored further in the design, using the experience of unease to explore the role of digitized artworks. 9. concluding remarks can the experience of handling digitized artworks be used to enrich the art experience? the experiment presented here did not aim to offer a viable prototype for such an experience, and indeed the participants’ responses indicate that the setup would need to be further developed to be experienced as appropriate for an art-viewing experience. however, the experiment did demonstrate that there is potential for facilitating art experiences that afford a dimension of “objectness” to digitized paintings. while the digitalization of artworks may seem to lead to art experiences that are immaterial and disconnected from the physical reality of our bodies, this also makes it possible to bring back a dimension of the art experience that was lost with the development of modern museums such that spectators can experience artworks by holding them, tilting them, turning them around, lifting them up, and even throw them away. this opens up new avenues for further research in the intersection of somaesthetics, hci, and sensory museology. references alexander, j., wienke, l., & tiongson, p. 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(2001). electronic guidebooks and visitor attention. proceedings of the international conference on cultural heritage and technologies in the third millennium, 437–454. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) editorial board published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design zane cerpina with the generous support of the obel family foundation and the schmidt family foundation © the journal of somaesthetics (jos) 2017 © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. art & technology, aalborg university rendsburggade 14, 9000 denmark issn: 2246-8498 the authors have attempted to locate all licensees in connection with the illustrations used in this book. should there be individual instances where this has not been successful, the licensees will be compensated if they contact the publishing house, aalborg university. editors else marie bukdahl (denmark) falk heinrich (denmark) richard shusterman (usa) editorial board yanping gao (china) mathias girel (france) kristina höök (sweden) leszek koczanowicz (poland) fred maus (usa) max ryynnänen (finland) dag svanaes (norway) introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 32 page 32–47robert w. jones ii the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs robert w. jones ii abstract: this article explores the role of the body in william s. burroughs's novels junky (1959), the soft machine (1961, revised 1966 and 1968), the ticket that exploded (1962, revised 1967), and nova express (1964), of which the latter three comprise the nova or cut-up trilogy. the links between burroughs's work and the fringe sciences and philosophies which he pursued for much of his life, are clear within his oeuvre. the fringe areas he studied most ardently include alfred korzybski's general semantics, wilhelm reich's orgone theory, and the scientology of l. ron hubbard, all of which examine control mechanisms of body and mind. this article shows that burroughs's texts stand up not only as avant-garde literature but also as philosophical texts that outline a system to break free from control systems by exploiting the body/mind relationship. as such, this paper makes use of the tenets of richard shusterman's somaesthetics to provide a critical matrix with which to explore burroughs's unique methods of investigating the body's role in achieving transcendence. keywords: somaesthetics, beat literature, general semantics, orgone theory, william s. burroughs. american avant-garde author william s. burroughs's fiction, non-fiction, and audio-visual works set a clear course for a soma centered path towards breaking free of societal control. this vast interdisciplinary program took inspiration from the work of alfred korzybski, w. grey walter, and wilhelm reich among many others, in order to create an oeuvre that pushes the boundaries of the arts and genres they were created in. this forms the basis for a philosophical program in line with mid-century philosophies of the body and functions as a continuation of the american pragmatist tradition. this article examines burroughs's work, and places him firmly within the american philosophical tradition by linking his program to richard shusterman's somaesthetics as well as within the larger cultural zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s surrounding the role of the body and language. to be clear burroughs did not seek the high-minded ideals that shusterman espouses nor did burroughs consider his project in any way a physically healthy endeavor. as such, burroughs eschewed a straightforward approach to the soma/body-mind nexus and, as i propose, he engaged in what might best be described as a "twisted somesthetic" program. to build the connection from burroughs to shusterman, it is wise to consider the brief unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self33 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs definition of somaesthetics as, "the critical study and meliorative cultivation of how we experience and use the living body (or soma) as a site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning" (shusterman, 2008, p. 1). this definition can be applied to burroughs's entire oeuvre. as noted, burroughs's primary concern was liberation in the form of freedom from control; however, due to his psychonautical exploits with drugs and other means of altering consciousness he created a bodily centered approach to freedom. burroughs articulated his thoughts on the body in "journey through time and space", chapter one of the job, his book of interviews with daniel odier. burroughs states, "i would say that free men don't exist on this planet at this time, because they don't exist in human bodies, by the mere fact of being in a human body you're controlled by all sorts of biologic and environmental necessities" (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 22). on the surface this suggests that the body is a limiting factor in the pursuit of true freedom; however, what burroughs is working towards is a version of ascetic practice that allows the practitioner to work with the body as a primary tool for freedom as he states, "silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing" (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 22). these two phrases are essential to an understanding of burroughs's approach to the body and his desire to illustrate a path out of the mechanisms that dominate modern life. this path and the aestheticism that burroughs appears to espouse, align with many of the theories of buddhism as well as those of western philosophers such as michel foucault. "silence," in the way burroughs uses it, is the primary tool for transcendence. many religious orders and traditions have practices based on silence, and burroughs's antagonism towards "compulsively verbalizing" is directly related to his ideas that the word, and language itself, is a virus. turning again to the job, burroughs writes, "my basic theory is that the written word was actually a virus that made the spoken word possible" (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 6). by aligning verbalization with a virus, burroughs is highlighting the key importance of silent concentration and contemplation. as noted, these tools are important in many philosophies and religions as a means of achieving enlightenment or transcendence. silence then becomes golden in the alchemical sense of the word. burroughs was asking his readers to silence their inner dialogue and to use that silence to transmute the lead of human existence into the gold of a higher existence. in many contemplative traditions there is an admonition to relax. buddha once explained the path of mediation to one of his monks (shrona) and likened mediation to playing a vina (a stringed instrument similar to a lute): "weren't you an excellent vina player when you were still in the householder's life?" "yes, lord." "when the strings of your vina were tuned too tight, did they sound good?" "no, lord. they were squeaky and harsh and hard to work with the fingers." "when they were too loose, how did they sound then?" "not good then either, lord. slack and dull." "was it when the strings were neither too tight nor too loose that they responded well to your fingers and made beautiful music? is that right, shrona?" "yes, lord that is just the case." "it is the same in meditation, shrona." (kohn & chödzin, 2000, pp. 113-114) the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 34 robert w. jones ii burroughs had a passing familiarity with the tradition of dzogchen (a special system of mediation popular in tibet) due to his friendships with allen ginsberg, brion gysin, and john giorno in addition to his own retreat in 1975 at karmê chöling, a center founded by tibetan lama chögyam trungpa. in this system practitioners are similarly told to relax into the nature of their mind. to be clear, neither of these meditation instructions asks the practitioner to aim for total silence, they are however tasked with not grasping on to their internal verbalization. relaxation then for burroughs becomes a desirable state. this led to his early and lifelong interest in altered states of consciousness. to be certain, burroughs was interested in almost any means of transcending the normative perception of reality; however, his primary intoxicants were opiates, cannabis, and alcohol, all of which serve (at least temporarily) to relax the body and perhaps depress the central nervous system. when describing a shot of junk, burroughs writes, "the shot was a long-time taking effect. it hit slowly at first, then with mounting force. i lay back on the bed like i was in a warm bath" (burroughs, 2012, p. 112). this description and the imagery of the "warm bath" shows the reader that, for lee opiates are a tool for relaxation. burroughs (and his characters) are often at their most effective when they are relaxed. for burroughs, his addiction to opiates created a state of discomfort during withdrawal which causes an experience that is the exact opposite of a relaxed natural state. thus burroughs's characters (and the author himself ) would induce a state of dis-ease that when alleviated by the introduction of opiates would create a false relaxation, allowing for greater introspection and body consciousness. much of the somatic consciousness in burroughs's earlier works is centered on the ways in which stimuli (namely drugs or sex) are processed in different parts of the body. for example, in junky a group of patients at the lexington narcotics farm are spending time speaking about various drugs when one of the inmates notes, "sure you can shoot cocaine in the skin. it hits you right in the stomach" (burroughs, 2012, p. 65). in this way a drug (cocaine), which is often thought of as a central nervous system stimulant, is felt not within that system but in the stomach. the attention that one must pay to the body and its processes in order to sense what organ(s) and systems are affected first is staggering. the stomach and digestion play a key role in the attention to the self throughout junky. once lee, the protagonist and fictionalized version of burroughs, moved to new orleans he is picked up by a local man. as they were walking through the streets, lee states, "he was leading the way in the direction of his hotel, so he said. i could feel my stomach knot up like i was about to take a shot after being off the junk a long time. i should have been more alert, of course, but i never could mix vigilance and sex" (burroughs, 2012, p. 74). here we see again that the stomach and digestive organs are the center of lee's somatic focus, not due to the stimulation of cocaine, or any other drug, but due to the excitement and stimulation caused by the promise of sex. also, the somatic sensation in the stomach over the excitement for sex is compared to taking a shot of opiates. many of us are familiar with the sensation of anticipation that rises in our midsection, and biology tells us that this is due to a surge of adrenaline. the beauty of burroughs's prose in these instances is the central role he places on the embodied experience of his characters. the fact that these characters exist primarily in the mind of the reader and wield a visceral influence, is startling and serves to suggest that burroughs is aware of the body-mind relationship and he intentionally exploits this for effect as well as to transmit his message more powerfully and completely. aside from the sense of anticipation that one feels in the gut, burroughs also noted the physiological connection between opiate use and digestion. in two different sections of junky, burroughs mentions constipation. early in the novel he is speaking about bill gains, his friend and opium dealing partner in new york. lee was somewhat enthralled by gains unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self35 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs and their partnership proved fruitful for a time. however, in junky lee notes that, "one of bill's most distasteful conversation routines consisted of detailed bulletins on the state of his bowels. ‘sometimes it gets so i have to reach my fingers in and pull it out. hard as porcelain, you understand. the pain is terrible'" and lee notes, "there was no stopping him. when people start talking about their bowel movements they are as inexorable as the processes of which they speak" (burroughs, 2012, p. 49). here via the character of gains we get a sense that the junkies that lee is in contact with, and lee himself are developing a deep somatic awareness. in this way, they are perhaps more attuned to their bodies than the average non addicted person. the constant states of addiction, withdrawal, expectation, anxiety, and pleasure that the characters (and no doubt many real-life addicts) experience puts them at a somatic advantage when it comes to focus. the addition of opiates into the system sets up a dependency and the addict will often note subtle changes in their soma that are indicative of withdrawal or stasis. the idea of psychedelics, various mind-altering substances, and mental training is not new to burroughs. in fact, many religions have techniques that involve the practitioner getting into an altered state of consciousness. one can consider sufi whirling, fasting, physical yogas, or even sleep deprivation as some of the religious practices that are vital to altering consciousness and achieving a closer relation with the sacred. these techniques are given credence within the broad category of somaesthetics and the use of psychedelic drugs is explored in the work of ken tupper as footnoted in body consciousness, where shusterman cautions, "i should note that my views on somaesthetics have in fact been deployed to recommend using strong mind-altering drugs, though in moderation and in carefully controlled contexts, to promote insights in education" (shusterman, 2008, p. 39). of course, both shusterman and tupper are considering the educational applications of entheogens. throughout his life burroughs often eschewed the role of teacher; however, his texts are in many ways instruction manuals for his readers, as links from burroughs's thoughts on the body-mind and language, to psychedelia and entheogenic substances are common. aside from referencing burroughs's work with ayahuasca (yáge), author and psychonaut terrence mckenna sounds practically burroughsian when he writes, "from the point of view of the psychedelic shaman, the world appears to be more in the nature of an utterance or a tale than in any way related to the leptons and baryons or charge and spin that our high priests, the physicists, speak of " (mckenna, 1993, p. 7). the tale or utterance of mckenna, is however, more insidious in the work of burroughs. for burroughs, if the word or language is a virus then it stands to reason that one must "rub out the word" (burroughs, 1992c, p. 164). this act, for burroughs, erases the entirety of controlled existence. language and the body some of burroughs's earliest thoughts on language are codified in a 1966 interview with john calder, where he states that words "can stand in the way of the nonbody experience" (burroughs & gysin, 1982, p. 2). this statement raises a natural question of authorial intent in the respect that burroughs's writing is so deeply laden with images of the body (and of incredibly vivid descriptions of bodily processes, be they drug use and abuse, sexual imagery, or executions performed for the voyeuristic pleasure of an audience) that we must confront what, precisely, he meant by "nonbody." it seems that burroughs as an author was, at the very least, interested in the body as the subjective site of cultural norms and practices, even if burroughs the philosopher was (at this stage in his career) ready to "leave the body behind" (burroughs & gysin, 1982, p. 2). relating to his concept of "nonbody", burroughs cites a difference between his writing and that of samuel beckett: "beckett wants to go inward ... i am aimed in the other direction: outward" the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 36 robert w. jones ii (burroughs & gysin, 1982, p. 2). this idea places beckett and burroughs as the two heads of janus, joined together yet focused in opposite directions. one way to rectify the disparity between these two points of view is to consider that burroughs was driving at a new way of presenting a holistic view of the body-mind dichotomy. while it seems in these quotations that burroughs privileges the mind over the body, his statements on aristotelian philosophy (in the same interview) reveal that he was not so ready to accept the concept of a mind that is distinct from the body. burroughs notes that "either-or thinking is just not accurate thinking ... i feel the aristotelian construct is one of the greatest shackles of western civilization" (burroughs & gysin, 1982, pp. 5-6). hence, burroughs must be struggling against the construct of body or mind in separation from one another. in a sense, when burroughs suggests that he is working towards a "nonbody" experience, what he is actually moving toward (in an anti-'either-or' construct) is a recognition of the unification of the body and the mind in a way that subverts the role of language as a control mechanism. this also begs the question of the cultural construction of the body and of language, shusterman notes that "whether we speak of the body-mind or body and mind, we are dealing with what is fundamentally shaped by culture" (shusterman, 2012, p. 27). in that way burroughs himself is working to both destroy and employ culture as a means of attaining freedom as he challenges "languages, values, social institutions, and artistic media" in the service of his battle with the forces of control (shusterman, 2012, p. 27). this linguistic subversion allows the subject/reader to break free of conditioning and lead a truly fulfilled life. further, korzybski himself had very specific notions on the prefix non, "non-, mind you, does not mean anti-! nobody has more admiration for aristotle than i have" and he continues, stating that "non-euclidean geometries were a revolution. non-euclidean geometry, which did not deny euclid, just made an alteration, a change in the premises, and the endless results followed" (korzybski, 1990, p. 679). thus, the idea of "nonbody" for burroughs, following the korzybskian model, would be to have a body (or a discussion about the body) which does not deny the body, and by implication does not deny its importance in the body-mind continuum. rather, what burroughs (drawing on korzybski) is setting up is the idea of an alteration that is brought about via visceral communication and produces an aesthetic response in the audience or reader. this is a key element missing from other scholarship on burroughs, specifically the work of douglas kahn author of noise water meat (2001). while kahn makes several connections and observations regarding burroughs and korzybski that are profound and, on some level, deeply esoteric, he misses this simple linguistic relationship. when we consider that burroughs not only read korzybski but attended his lessons while living in chicago and promoted his works to everyone in his inner circle, it is clear that when burroughs uses the prefix "non" he must be using it in this uniquely korzybskian fashion. hence, we must consider the cited work from kahn and others in this light. burroughs's unique perspective on the body-mind-language problem and the underlying issue of control was informed by a lifelong interest in what would (during the mid-twentieth century) be referred to as fringe science: namely the work of wilhelm reich on orgone energy, w. grey walter's cybernetics, and alfred korzybski's general semantics. reich's work enlightened burroughs to the dual nature of orgone energy. as first postulated by reich the orgone is a life energy, however, there also exists deadly orgone radiation (dor), which works to destroy rather than nurture. burroughs's earliest experiences with orgones involve the sexual nature of the energy. in 1949 burroughs and kells elvins (a longtime friend) built an orgone accumulator; of the experience burroughs notes, "the orgone box does have a definite sexual effect ... one day i got into the big accumulator and held the little one over my joint and came right off " (miles, unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self37 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs 1993, p. 54). in the late 1960s and early 1970s burroughs began to clearly articulate some of the danger and promise of the converse side of orgone energy by pointing to experiments reich conducted: "one experimenter nearly died as a result of exposure" (odier & burroughs, 1989). however, like many of burroughs's interests, he also noted that the use of small amounts of dor could lead to immunity to radiation sickness (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 65). finally, burroughs noted that reich's experiments with orgones with their sexual nature and inherent power pointed towards a way that different types of orgasms could be distinguished, "reich started studies with electrodes attached to the penis, and found that actual electrical impulses were given off and that these could be graphed, and that pleasurable orgasms would show a different graph than unpleasant ones" allowing the individual to better understand their sexual desires in order to subvert societal controls (burroughs, 1999, p. 47). burroughs felt that this last piece of information could be used to liberate people from unsatisfying sex lives, thus eliminating one of the major mechanisms of control that society wields over its citizenry. in this way, burroughs was utilizing and subverting the control mechanism of sexual desire as a way to help instruct his readership about possible solutions. by helping individuals live a more fulfilling sex life he felt that society might take a great step forward. burroughs and biofeedback along with burroughs's aforementioned pursuits into various means of subverting control, he became interested in the body-mind nexus and the ways in which one could use the body to retrain the mind. his interest in korzybski and the latter's approach to an embodied cognition is summarized in the maxim, "you think as much with your big toe as you do with your brain…and a whole lot more effectively", showing that despite the clear linguistic trajectory of korzybski's general semantics, the body holds a deeper role in every facet of the cognitive process (burroughs, 2013, p. 97). as part of burroughs's exploration into the manipulation of the body, he explored concepts of biofeedback and autonomic shaping in depth as a doorway to unlocking human potential which, according to burroughs is stifled by the many faces of control. these techniques hold great potential, and biofeedback could hold great value in the linking of burroughs's somatic theories with shusterman's somaesthetics. both rely on a heightened or attenuated focus on the various processes of the body in order to gain mastery or even control over them. burroughs speaks of biofeedback and the necessity for dreaming in a 1982 interview with jennie skerl. he states that warm blooded animals must dream, or they will die (burroughs, 1999, p. 126). the importance of dreams is also linked to burroughs's interest in scientology, or rather, his interest in scientology is recorded in burroughs's dreams. for example, in late 1969 burroughs decided not to be bound by the gregorian calendar and instead created a dream calendar. a few days after beginning this new date system, burroughs recorded a dream where he tells l. ron hubbard, "you can't date yourself. time is the presence of another being" (wills, 2013, p. 159). in this way, somatic consciousness, the rejection of time, and the dreams themselves are all linked to transcendence and it is burroughs's use of various biofeedback practices that unlocks these ideas. this interest in biofeedback techniques is, no doubt, connected to burroughs's early interest in scientology. the primary technology for auditing (or even self-auditing) is the electropsychometer or e-meter. the e-meter is a device that measures the electrical conductivity of the user's skin and is a key tool (or as the scientologists call it "a religious artifact") for a person to understand how various images or thought forms can control or effect the physical body. burroughs was an early adherent and promoter of scientology and spent a great deal of the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 38 robert w. jones ii time performing self-audits as a method to uncover the many ways in which he (and as he felt, all of humanity) was being controlled and manipulated. in interpreting l. ron hubbard's (the founder of scientology) methods, burroughs notes that, "the reactive mind consists of goals so repulsive or frightening to the subject that he compulsively reacts against them and it is precisely this reaction that keeps these negative goals in operation. negative goals are implanted by fear" (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 25). to burroughs's credit, he generally applied his keen analytical mind to issues such as the e-meter (e.g. orgones, infrasound, flicker) with a predisposition toward believing that the device or technique worked. the "reactive mind" (also written as rm) according to hubbard, stores engrams or images that contain pain threats and recordings of past trauma (wills, 2013, p. 59). additionally, the reactive mind works in direct opposition to the "analytical mind", which hubbard likens to the conscious mind. it is this tension that allegedly creates the physical responses measured by the e-meter. the subject of the audit can than zero in on buried trauma that is encoded within the engram, and by repeated exposure can then drain the power that this trauma or fear has to control aspects of the subject's mind. this open approach to fringe ideas allowed burroughs to chronicle his experiences without prejudice. his view that a good writer is a recording device, allowed him to weave his experiences with fringe body practices into his essays, interviews, fiction writing, and multimedia work. regarding the e-meter and the reactive mind (rm) burroughs notes, "techniques exist to erase the reactive mind and achieve a complete freedom from past conditioning and immunity against such conditioning in the future. scientology processing accomplishes this" (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 28). in vouching for the efficacy of the method, he notes, "it may be necessary to run the entire r.m. hundreds of times to effect complete erasure. but it will erase. the method works. i can testify to that through my own experience" (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 28). what burroughs presents to his audience is a method of measuring the connection of the body and mind. the galvanic responses registered via the e-meter are (according to scientology) a somatic response to this tension or opposition. burroughs's idea of complete erasure manifests through the works of the nova trilogy (also known as the cut-up trilogy). for example, burroughs writes in nova express, —record for ten minutes on a tape recorder—now run the tape back without playing and cut in other words at random—where you have cut in and re-recorded words are wiped off the tape and new words in their place—you have turned time back ten minutes and wiped electromagnetic word patterns off the tape and substituted other patterns—you can do the same with mind tape after working with the tape recorder—(this takes some experimentation)—the old mind tapes can be wiped clean—magnetic word dust falling from old patterns—. (burroughs, 1992a, p. 74) the use of the tape as a metaphor for the mind is directly correlated to the techniques of scientology, thus when burroughs writes about "words wiped off tape" and suggests that "the old mind tapes can be wiped clean" he is clearly referring to the concept of "becoming clear" in scientology parlance (scientology, church of ). for burroughs, his desire to rub out the word and erase the tapes was mediated through the body-mind continuum and assessed via tools that are clearly linked to the body. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self39 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs exploiting the body-mind continuum in the cut-up in earlier work i make the case for the ritual like aspect of consuming heroin as one way in which burroughs is using twisted ideas to effect real change within his soma. drugs, psychedelics or entheogens continue their central role throughout much of his oeuvre. with regards to all of burroughs's output it is clear that his prose, poetry, interviews, and multimedia compositions are user manuals for the revolution. this revolutionary track, while present in his earlier work is most dramatic in the nova trilogy (also known as the cut-up trilogy), the first novels (in addition to two books of cut-up poetry that were published between the release of naked lunch (1959) and the soft machine (1961)) he published after the completion of naked lunch. the first novel in this trilogy, titled the soft machine is, from the title itself deeply connected to burroughs's ideas around the importance of the soma in resisting control and achieving a state of transcendence. also, this text leads off the trilogy and is largely made up of material that was part of the "word hoard" of leftover text that he could not use in naked lunch. as these are the first long form published cut-up works that burroughs wrote, it is just as important to examine the links between the cut-up technique, the nova trilogy, and burroughs's somatic philosophy as it is to view these works as the convergence of burroughs's personal intellectual history and philosophy, culminating in the ideal presentation to educate the reader. partly as a response to this formulation (that humanity is being controlled and the word virus is one mechanism of that control), the nova trilogy is burroughs's most explicit literary treatment of the cut-up as an artistic medium. in addition, the name of the first book in the series the soft machine (originally published in 1961 and substantially revised and republished in 1966) is another name for the human body; as such, this naming sets up a main focus of the trilogy, the body-mind and language-control relationships. the routines or sections of the text cover many areas familiar to burroughs, including opiates and the body's need for them once addicted, as well as sexual scenarios that are taken to an extreme. for example, in the section "trak trak trak" burroughs uses language to approximate film (a medium he was exploring as a natural cut-up) when he writes, flash bulb monster crawling inexorably from old fred flash--the orgasm in a 1920 movie...flapping genitals in the wind--explosion of the throat from peeled noon drifting sheets of male flesh...flapping genitals of carrion--our drained countess passed on a hideous leather body. (burroughs, 1992b, p. 36) the first image we see is of a "flash bulb." since flash bulbs are of the same intensity as the stroboscopic lights used in flicker experiments we can sense that this is the beginning of a textual flicker experiment. the intersections that burroughs places within this passage would seem to suggest deliberate breaks, thus creating a rhythm that would be akin to the reader's alpha brain wave pattern if this were indeed a flicker session. hence, we now start this passage under the influence (so to speak) of stroboscopic flash and its potential for consciousness expansion or perhaps evolutionary breakthroughs. burroughs is repeating certain motifs "flapping genitals" within a heavily cut-up page, the "--" indicate the intersection points of the source material. these intersections are noted by burroughs in the job to be both "very important" and not random. this lack of randomness would then indicate that the placement of these points of intersection is a deliberate effort to dislodge the reader from the body-mind-language issue in order to generate a type of askesis that the reader can utilize to transcend the shackles of aristotelian thought (odier & burroughs, 1989, p. 32). this repetition is also analogous to the the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 40 robert w. jones ii first repeated image sequence as reported by many flicker subjects. by creating intersection points that bring attention to the words "flapping genitals" burroughs is drawing the reader's attention to this image, which in turn instinctively causes the reader to focus on his or her genitalia. as he changes the text (and subsequent points of intersection) from the benign image of "flapping genitals in the wind" to the much more ominous "flapping genitals of carrion" burroughs connects the reader viscerally to the text and, in this way, he deliberately attempts to create an abject response in his readers. burroughs and the "nonbody" somaesthetic abjection for julia kristeva is both a "process of becoming an other at the expense of [one's] own death" and a "place where meaning collapses" which for burroughs's audience can then be transmuted into an experience (if the reader is sufficiently in touch with their body-mind) where the reader's corpus connects directly with the text via unclean or transgressive imagery (kristeva, 1982, 2-3). this sort of interoceptive response is described by oliver cameron as "the ability of visceral afferent information to either reach awareness and/or to directly or indirectly affect behavior" (cameron, 2002, p. 3). as such, with regards to interoception, when the viscera are influenced by external stimuli, their reaction to said stimulation reaches the level of consciousness in the experiencer. hence, by becoming attuned to our bodies, internal processes and cognition, a person can have access to an enhanced field of experience and intuition. by expanding a subject's frame of reference and making them keenly aware of their body, burroughs can attempt to communicate at a level that – for the receiver – may be beyond words (cameron, 2002, p. 3). cameron expands his definition to make clear that "methods to determine the occurrence of visceral sensory impulses that do not depend on indicators of awareness (such as verbal report in humans) will need to be developed" (cameron, 2002, p. 5). when i examine the "mayan caper" section of tsm later in this article, interoception becomes an important tool to explore the transference of memory. an abject and interoceptive response to burroughs's text aligns with the notion of limit-experience and transcendence developed by michel foucault who writes, "however boring, however erudite my books may be, i've always conceived of them as direct experiences aimed at pulling myself free of myself, at preventing me from being the same" (foucault, 2001, 241-242). in this way, language, writing , and reading can wrest an author and their reader out of their normative subject position. further, cameron's assertion that nonverbal (or perhaps extra verbal) means of determination could be read to indicate that interoceptive responses are at the root of the burroughsian "nonbody" experience (cameron, 2002, p. 5). this rests upon a reading of burroughs's utterance of "nonbody" as a unified way of viewing the relationship between mind and body. this idea may be thought of as not only anti-aristotelian, but also as in opposition to cartesian dualism in its holistic conception of human behavior and experience. regarding the propriety of using interoception in this theoretical frame, i suggest that if methods can be developed to measure sensory impulses in a group of subjects to a certain set of stimuli, it may be possible to utilize those findings to create a means of communication that is both not word based and "nonbody." regarding the intersection of body and language in the text, it is important to note that burroughs often returns to the use of flicker sequences and reichian thought as a point of embarkation in the nova trilogy. "the case for celluloid kali" section of tsm, for example, is densely packed with allusions to reich's theories and deliberate flicker imagery. burroughs briefly departs from his use of the flash bulb as a flicker signifier in order to utilize a more natural image, that of the "flickering northern lights" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 69). however, the unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self41 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs northern lights in this instance are not, strictly speaking, the product of any natural phenomena; rather, they are the by-product of a pair of flickering goggles (burroughs, 1992b, p. 69). by creating flicker (which is itself a natural phenomenon, as explained by grey walter in 1953) with artificial means, burroughs links the natural with the manufactured in a way that suggests that man-made flicker can lead to a higher consciousness. this flicker sequence is followed by an explicit reference to the fact that johnny yen, a gender fluid performer in the text, was also a reichian analyst (burroughs, 1992b, p. 70). by framing this event in terms of flicker imagery burroughs ties together two of his primary influences: stroboscopic flicker and reichian theory. he turns to a more direct commingling of flicker and orgone theory when he writes, "in the flash bulb of orgasm i see that fucking clerk has stuck his head through the transom for a refill" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 77). burroughs uses the "flash bulb" to indicate a subject that is undergoing a flicker experience while simultaneously informing the reader, through the use of the word "orgasm", that the subject is being influenced by orgonic energy. this image directly addresses the need for sexual gratification to achieve a burroughsian transcendence. through elucidation of his orgone theory, reich laid the groundwork for much of burroughs's thinking on this matter. reich writes, "freud...held the view that they [various manifestations of neurosis and neurasthenia] were direct manifestations of dammed-up sexuality" (reich, 1986, p. 88). the sexual imagery that burroughs uses throughout these texts is clearly an effort to show the reader that sexual liberation is one of the key ingredients for subverting society's control mechanisms. further, reich concludes that, "it is not possible, nor is it admissible, to separate psychic and somatic processes" (reich, 1986, p. 379). this is a key point where burroughs's anti-aristotelian philosophy finds a unique connection to shusterman's somaesthetics. by linking the psychic and the somatic, reich and shusterman can provide some informed analysis of the role of the body in burroughs's texts. burroughs is subtly suggesting that his reader should investigate these areas of fringe science and also that his readers should look closely at the images that society generates for passive consumption. additionally, shusterman writes of the value of sexual practice as a part of his somaesthetic program suggesting that "we can think of the ars erotica as art in a truly aesthetic sense" as opposed to "the meaning of the word 'art' as any organized expertise, skill or branch of learning" (shusterman, 2012, pp. 265-266). this reimagining of the role and value of the erotic could serve to break down the walls of separation between the artist and the audience or as shusterman notes this will lead to, "challenging the presumption that art must be distinguished from performances in 'real life'" (shusterman, 2012, p. 266). as burroughs moved away from providing a straightforward, broadly linear, narrative in his texts he was fracturing the separation between himself and his readers and finding points of connection with them. thus, when he writes about orgones and sexual practices, burroughs is working to bring this knowledge directly to the public in order to challenge the ideas around the potential uses for such energy. the colonized body and time travel in "the mayan caper" section of the soft machine the main character discovers a way to travel through time and space. the concept of time travel, as burroughs envisions it, is a highly somatic endeavor that involves all aspects of the fringe science that fascinated him during this time. as burroughs is utilizing the medium of a novel to expound and conceptualize his philosophical outlook, it is no surprise that this chapter deals with these interests. burroughs starts the section by connecting the body to the text when he writes: "i started my trip to the morgue with old newspapers, folding in today with yesterday and typing out composites" (burroughs, 1992b, the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 42 robert w. jones ii p. 81). this quote places the practice of the cut-up (or fold in) in a setting (the morgue) that is most often associated with the body and the cessation of the relationship between body and mind. this quotation serves a dual purpose: the first is simply instructive in that he is telling his reader how to perform fold-ins with texts; the second is performing a linking maneuver between texts (old newspapers), the body (morgue), and time travel. in fact, burroughs writes that "when i read yesterday's paper, that is traveling back in time to yesterday" and "i learned to talk and think backward on all levels--this was done by running film and soundtrack backwards" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 82). here, burroughs suggests that backwards time travel is as simple as reading yesterday's news; this idea sets the stage for the function of texts and body in the time travel sequence in this section of the text. second, burroughs mingles the idea that systems and mechanisms of control that are functioning at any given time cannot be just altered or upended, but actually erased from the fabric of time. this is important because if someone were to simply dismantle the control machine it would still leave imprints on the psyche of the current population. hence, it could be reactivated from memory and regain its status as a controlling entity. burroughs also shows how entrenched the idea of a somatically based transcendence is when he notes that: "i must put aside all sexual prudery and reticence ... sex was perhaps the heaviest anchor holding one in present time" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 82). in this way, burroughs is bringing the theories of reich into a discussion about the destruction, or erasure, of the reality script. since it seems that burroughs constructs a time travel scenario that is both corporeal and cerebral, he is adhering to reich's admonition that one cannot separate the psychic and the somatic (reich, 1986, p. 379). if the protagonist of this section is to successfully travel in time via a psychosomatic process, then the ideal candidate will be free of any sexual repression. the experience of time travel becomes the perfect vehicle to convey burroughs's philosophical postulates and interests. for example, his interest in flicker as a tool for radically altering one's consciousness and outlook is developed within this section in the shape of "the best transfer artist in the industry" that is characterized as "a thin grey man who flickered in and out like an old film" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 84). by placing the transfer artist in a flicker experience, burroughs demonstrates that someone who has mastered time travel has also been subjected to flicker experiments, hence expanding his mind and allowing him to perform a very delicate procedure. further connecting this idea to grey walter, is the fact that the mayan boy who the protagonist uses to undergo time travel is epileptic. epilepsy is a condition that can be aggravated by stroboscopic flicker and was a condition that fascinated walter, who also suggested that a flicker event might have been the catalyst for cognitive evolution in humanity's distant past. burroughs also merges his cut-up technique with the concept of flicker when he describes the preliminary preparations for time travel: "he posed us naked in erection and orgasm, cutting the images in together down the middle line of our bodies" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 86). by joining photos of two separate entities together, the transfer agent creates a living cutup on both a corporeal and psychic level. moreover, since the bodies of these two individuals are fused together, a commingling of the viscera of the two is highly likely. when considering the performative and somaesthetic qualities inherent in the art of photography, shusterman suggests that "photography's dimension of somatic, dramatic, performative process…is occluded by our one-sided concentration on the photograph itself " (shusterman, 2012, p. 241). in this way shusterman states that the process of creating a photograph is as much a piece of art or an artistic expression as the object created. by focusing not simply on the subject of the photograph but on the process and, crucially, the photographer, burroughs is drawing attention to "the larger complex of elements that constitutes photography as an activity and as an art" (shusterman, 2012, p. 241). this level of detail around the process of taking photographs in order to create the unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self43 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs mold from which the new entity will be cast, helps the reader to gain a different perspective on the meaning and purpose of photography as a somatically imbued process that calls for great care and precise movements of all the bodies involved. the idea of photography as central to the entire process of time travel is integral to this section. this is demonstrated by the doctor/ transfer artist's key assistant "jimmy the take" who is a photographer and took incredible care to get the photographs just right, having the subjects come to him "three times a week" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 86). further, the photographer is described as a meticulous practitioner of his craft as "he looked through rolls of film his eyes intense, cold, impersonal" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 86). this aligns with shusterman's concept of the great somatic care that one must possess in order to create an artistic photograph with skills such as, "steadying the camera in one's hands … one's own bodily position, posture and balance" (shusterman, 2012, p. 244). by linking the art of photography to the more dangerous process of time travel, burroughs is telling his reader that film and photographic images are in fact tools of transcendence, freedom, and rebellion. consequently, this would lead back to the idea of interoception and perhaps suggest that the organs of the two individuals contain intelligence and perhaps memory. the use of a young man of mayan ancestry for this time travel project leads to a complication regarding burroughs's ideas of transcendence; we have a character from an oppressed minority population whose body and memories are colonized to facilitate time travel. because the mayan boy is never named and his interests are not addressed, we can see some evidence that burroughs's somatic project (and his philosophy in general) is open to the criticism that it is self-centered, colonialist, and perhaps even imperialist. these concerns, with respect to the narrative, should take into account the mission of the time traveler – to dismantle the system of control that was in place in ancient mayan civilizations in order to free future generations. in this way, burroughs suggests that it is not morally objectionable to sacrifice one being in the service of the greater good, provided that the particular good being served is the destruction of a given society's power over its citizens. this in no way excuses the links of imperialism and colonialism to the story, it serves only to provide context with respect to the scope of this article. the fate of the young mayan is not clearly revealed in the text and one can only surmise that he died, particularly as the protagonist notes: "i could see the doctor separate the two halves of our bodies and fitting together a composite being" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 86). this serves as an apt metaphor for the genocide of indigenous people at the hands of european colonizers. perhaps, since the time traveler's body is to be preserved "intact in deepfreeze" and he is told that he can, if he returns, have his body back, the same opportunity may have been afforded to the mayan boy, although this is not clearly addressed (burroughs, 1992b, p. 85). however, the repurposing of the bodily tissue from the mayan boy should not be confused with the character's death. this is precisely because the protagonist mentions, "i came back in other flesh the lookout different, thoughts and memories of the young mayan drifting through my brain" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 86). for burroughs it would seem that a person's memories are connected with the body rather than simply residing in the brain. in this way, he is playing with some of the core principals of western thought. many of the physical and medical sciences would advocate that our memories are stored in numerous parts of our brain. while it is possible that part of the mayan boy's brain was co-mingled with the protagonist, given the description it seems highly unlikely. hence, we must look to another source for the mayan boy's memories: within the protagonist's combined soma. thus, the mayan boy's character is, at minimum, subsumed by the protagonist. shusterman's theory that the body is the "locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning" can be utilized as one way of understanding what was happening to the time traveler in this section of the novel ("somaesthetics and the body media issue" 34). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 44 robert w. jones ii shusterman also notes that "any acutely attentive somatic self-consciousness will always be conscious of more than the body itself ". in relation to burroughs's somatic project of time travel, the days and weeks of being photographed naked and in various states of arousal would lead the subjects to a heightened consciousness of themselves and thus become "conscious of more than the body itself " (shusterman, 2008, p. 8). by blending the flesh and tissue of two subjects into one new composite being, the transfer agent is facilitating an interoceptive response in the time traveler. this would then create the conditions for the muscle memory of the two subjects to mingle in a way that would reflect shusterman's somaesthetic theory. regarding muscle memory he writes, "muscle memory also makes manifest the mind's embodied nature and the body's crucial role in memory and cognition"(shusterman, 2012, p. 92). this indicates that not only is muscle memory (or motor memory) important for day to day movements of the body, but that the body is central both in creating and retaining memories as well as for thinking and cognition. shusterman also links muscle memory to the very concept of personal identity writing, "the most basic implicit memory is that of oneself, the implicit sense of continuing personal identity" he further states that when he awakes in the morning he has "an implicit memory (as an implicit feeling) of being the same person that went to sleep the night before" (shusterman, 2012, p. 92). hence when the time traveler awakens and has thoughts from the mayan boy the "implicit sense of personal identity" would likely be complicated and perhaps challenging for this new persona. this then changes the "narrative ground" for the character which plays out not only in his actions, but how the character shifts perspectives during the remaining pages of this section (shusterman, 2012, p. 92). returning to the link between photographic process and somaesthetics, the character is now armed with a "vibrating camera gun…a small tape recorder and a transistor radio" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 87). these items, especially the camera, are utilized because the traveler needs "not only the sound track of control but the image track as well before i could take definitive action" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 91). thus, the traveler is a composite of a person who has been somatically manipulated and someone who (as a photographer) has the knowledge and skill required to wield the equipment to its full capability in order to complete his mission. thus, as the bodies are being brought together for the purpose of time travel, the somatic conditioning that each participant has undertaken is magnified by the effort of the other party via the retention of memory and cognition in their muscles and viscera (shusterman, 2012, p. 91). additionally, the photographic process is redeployed, both as a means of preparing the traveler for his eventual re-molding into a new person, but also as a primary weapon that needs to be carefully put to use so that the mission will be successful. the person wielding the camera gun is constantly cautioning himself to be careful, almost as if the narrative ground and implicit identity that he once possessed are altered into a being that has new and perhaps conflicting motives. in order for this process to be successful, the body must be sentient and receptive to its very core; the flesh must be conscious. the interoceptive and erotic body interoception, as it involves the response of the bodily organs to external stimuli, was first postulated and codified (along with the related terms exteroception and proprioception) by charles sherrington in the early twentieth century. scientific discoveries that would lead to these neuroscience breakthroughs occurred as early as 1860 when "nerves were identified running with the carotid artery" (cameron, 2002, p. 4). it would be a stretch to suggest that burroughs was consciously writing in an interoceptive fashion, however he did attend medical school in vienna for a short time and – as can be seen in his continued use of the virus as metaphor – he unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self45 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs was not shy about drawing on his reading knowledge in various sciences to make his writing more effective and incisive. cameron further ties interoception to consciousness when he writes "it appears, however, that a great deal of processing of the sensory information is necessary before awareness occurs ... neural activity occurs outside of consciousness" and "processes that are potentially directly associated with interoception include classical conditioning and emotional learning" (cameron, 2002, p. 265). what is important for a study of burroughs is the connection between conditioning and interoception; this is mostly due to the very nature and message of his core philosophical and literary concerns: to show that "the human body itself is a very complex machine ... which is occupied by someone in the capacity of a very incompetent pilot" and to explore how "vested interests ... make sex difficult to obtain. in that way, they keep people always thinking about it, always worrying about it, and it keeps them from causing trouble" (odier & burroughs, 1989, pp. 115-116). burroughs was very aware of the ways that society (and the vested interests in control) utilizes sex and sexuality to keep the masses placated. this theory is similar to foucault's views on the body and sexuality and their links to transcendence. foucault realized that a "country had to be populated if it hoped to be rich and powerful" and that its "future and fortunes were tied not only to the number and uprightness of its citizens ... but to the manner each individual made use of his sex" (foucault, 1990, p. 26). this is an important aspect in the study of burroughs's work as a whole, and specifically for the works that he created during his cut-up period. he knew that those in control of society were aware that reproduction leads to economic production, which in turn creates wealth and continuous power for those at the top of the social strata. that is to say, that by privileging heterosexual intercourse over any other means of experiencing pleasure, those in control were ensuring that there would always be an abundance of workers that would toil their lives away in order to create wealth for those at the top. it is possible that burroughs viewed his own sexuality as a way to resist the programming that society was attempting to foist upon him. while he may have been writing about male/male sexual relations (because that was his primary orientation) it is also possible that burroughs (who had occasional relations with women) was attempting to place homosexuality (and specifically male homosexuality) at the nexus of his somatic program. however, unlike foucault, who constructed a reasoned academic argument for his position, burroughs approached this facet of his somatic philosophy through the use of exaggerated imagery and satire in the tradition of jonathan swift. burroughs constructed routines in his text that showed extreme examples of homosexuality much in the same way that foucault engaged in homosexual bdsm in pursuit of his philosophical aims. foucault felt that by engaging in certain practices one could achieve transcendence. he describes his notion of asceticism as, "not in the sense of abnegation but that of an exercise of self upon self by which one tries to work out, to transform one's self and to attain a certain mode of being" (fornet-betancourt, becker, gomez-müller, & gauthier, 1987, p. 113). burroughs uses his cut-ups and word collages to explain that his textual images are both representations of the reader, as well as the reader themself when he writes "hurry up see?-those pictures are yourself " (burroughs, 1992b, p. 36). by creating a place in the text where burroughs tells his readers that they are looking at themselves, the reader is directed to perform an "exercise of self upon self " to begin the work of transcending beyond social constructs and norms. this places the reader squarely within the disjointed narrative and creates a further bond between text, reader, and author. it is through these bonds that burroughs hopes to destabilize the relationships of power between the individual and society and, more broadly, within society at large. for foucault, these ascetic exercises took a myriad of shapes and forms. most famous was his the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 46 robert w. jones ii experimentation with homosexual bdsm. however, not unlike burroughs before him, foucault engaged in these practices as a means to a philosophical end. considering shusterman's reading of foucault in which he notes "foucault's declared aim is...to break our obsession with sex as the key to all pleasure" and foucault's own ideas around de-privileging sexually based pleasure, specifically his notion that "the idea that bodily pleasure should always come from sexual pleasure as the root of all our possible pleasure--i think that's something quite wrong" (foucault, 1994, p. 165). referencing non-genital based pleasure, he states, "that we can produce pleasure with very odd things, very strange parts of our bodies" we can further place burroughs's intentions within these contexts. while much of his work is focused on male genitals and homosexual contact, it is undeniable that his advocacy of consciousness-expanding drugs and a focus on deriving pleasure from "very strange parts of our bodies" fits the same mold as foucault (foucault, 1994, p. 165). we see that burroughs, through his own struggle with his sexuality, was oftentimes critical of women in general and male/female sexual relations because he saw love as "a con put down by the female sex", a sex which he further claimed was "a basic mistake, and the whole dualistic universe evolved from this error" (odier & burroughs, 1989, pp. 97,116). these ideas play out in tsm with the frequent references to male homosexuality and in one of the few places that women appear in the text they are conniving, cannibalistic, and not to be trusted. while burroughs envisions a war between the sexes in the "gongs of violence" section he also notes that the differing sides must come together in the "baby and semen market" in order "to exchange the basic commodity which is known as 'the property'" (burroughs, 1992b, p. 153). the clear implication here is that if the sexes were to only interact in the interest of exchanging semen and ovum, there would be less of a need to seek heterosexual sex for pleasure thus de-privileging female/male sexual intercourse as the primary means of pleasure. once this de-privileging occurs, at least in a burroughs-constructed universe, men and women can enjoy authentic existences, thus freeing themselves from both societal and biological mechanisms of control. conclusion the connections between the works of william s. burroughs and richard shusterman's somaesthetics are clear. burroughs's work, as explained in this article, is a product of the numerous philosophers, scientists, and charlatans that inspired him. the cultural zeitgeist of the mid twentieth century also lead to a great deal of exploration and experimentation for wide swaths of the population. these explorations in the arts and sciences as well as on the fringes of various disciplines provided fertile ground for burroughs to forge his views of the body-mind as well as ample territory for his experiments. in much the same way, shusterman synthesizes ideas from both eastern and western philosophical schools and draws on the work of diverse thinkers from across the knowledge spectrum. thinkers, such as moshe feldenkrais and wilhelm reich, have demonstrable connections to both burroughs's project and shusterman's somaesthetics. this comes as no surprise as the body has always held a central role in western philosophy, as shusterman notes, "philosophy in ancient times was practiced as a distinctly embodied way of life in which somatic disciplines frequently formed an important part" (shusterman, 2008, p. ix). additionally, both burroughs and shusterman are unbound by the constraints of their given fields. this freedom gives rise to borderless texts that draw upon, and have relevance across, a vast swath of disciplines thus making a somaesthetic interpretation of burroughs's work and intellectual history not only feasible but, quite natural. in so doing, they illuminate the continued practice and need to disrupt systems of control via a somaesthetic approach, twisted, or otherwise. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self47 the body is a soft machine: the twisted somaesthetic of william s. burroughs references burroughs, w. s. 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(1987). the ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom. philosophy & social criticism, 12(2-3), 112-131. doi:10.1177/019145378701200202 foucault, m. (1990). the history of sexuality: an introduction. new york: vintage. foucault, m. (1994). ethics: subjectivity and truth (r. hurley, trans.). new york: the new press. kohn, s. c., & chödzin, s. (2000). the awakened one. boston: shambhala publications. korzybski, a. (1990). alfred korzybski: collected writings, 1920-1950. brooklyn: institute of general semantics. kristeva, j. (1982). powers of horror: an essay on abjection (l. s. roudiez, trans.). new york: columbia university press. mckenna, t. k. (1993). food of the gods. new york: bantam. miles, b. (1993). william burroughs el hombre invisible: a portrait. new york: hyperion books. odier, d., & burroughs, w. s. (1989). the job: interviews with william s. burroughs (reissue ed.). new york: penguin books. reich, w. (1986). the function of the orgasm. new york: macmillan. shusterman, r. (2008). body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics (1 ed.). new york: cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (1 ed.). new york: cambridge university press. wills, d. s. (2013). scientologist: william s. burroughs and the weird cult. beatdom books. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 4 introduction to volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) bodies of belief / bodies of care this double-issue on bodies of belief and bodies of care originated in two conferences held at the center for body, mind, and culture, respectively january 2015 and january 2016. only a few papers from those conferences, however, have found their way into this volume; the others collected here came from independent submissions to the journal. we should begin by explaining the underlying logic that motivated the topics of these conferences and the papers of this double issue? with respect to the question of belief, human bodies are shaped not only by their genetic endowment but also by the belief systems of the cultures in which they develop and function. such belief systems vary from unarticulated background assumptions to ritualized practices and explicit doctrines or even to formulated laws enacted and enforced by social institutions. the beliefs that the human soma embodies and expresses are not confined to established social norms; they also include items of faith and commitment that are individualistic, nonconformist, or even antagonistic to the cultural mainstream. more than a mere instrument of compliance or worship, the soma is also a site and weapon of protest against beliefs we reject and find oppressive. as to the issue of care, bodies are obviously the targets of one’s daily care in terms of personal hygiene, grooming, exercise, and proper nourishment. they are also objects of care in the sense of worry or concern, since we all suffer illness and death through our bodies. however, the sentient, purposive, active body or soma is also a subjectivity that examines and cares for the body as object, whether it be one’s own body or the bodies of others who one wants to help or comfort. we all need such curative help or comfort at some point in our lives; and some people devote their professional and personal lives to giving such care. bodies need and give care in many ways and for many reasons: to overcome illness and disability, to address and alleviate dependence, to learn new skills and remedy bad habits, to inspire greater confidence for personal flourishing and greater social betterment. initially, it might seem surprising to group the topics of bodies of belief and care together. however, if we consider the matter more closely, we see a deep and substantive connection between them. in the first place, beliefs are what make care possible. because beliefs are our essential guides of action, they are therefore indispensable for guiding our actions of caring for ourselves and others. beliefs about the body – for example, beliefs about what foods, medicines, habits, exercises, etc. promote somatic health, well-being, and pleasure -thus govern our practices of care for the body. issues of belief and care are also linked in the reverse direction. the fact that we care for our bodies, both in the sense of practically acting to care for them and in the sense of worrying about how to care for them, prompts us to search for the best beliefs to guide such care. as the pragmatist c.s. peirce argued, inquiry is inspired by the irritation of doubt, and it seeks to remove such doubt by establishing beliefs that resolve the particular doubt in question. our doubts and worries about somatic health and various problems in the functioning and appearances of our bodies promote countless inquiries to attain beliefs that will guide practices to remove or at least mitigate those worries. the things that we care for thus bodies of belief / bodies of care5 introduction to volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) inspire more attention and efforts to acquire correct and helpful beliefs. although most of our beliefs are items that we simply take for granted and that guide our actions without our giving explicit focused attention to these beliefs, we tend to give more explicit attention to beliefs about things we care about most. our bodily condition – how we feel, look, and function somatically – is an abiding center of care and concern and thus forms the focus of some of our most explicit and critically examined beliefs. the following papers examine diverse issues of bodily belief and care from different perspectives. topics range from autoimmunity and psychological therapy to religious belief, tattoos, and neoliberal institutions of health care. most of the papers adopt an artistic somaesthetic perspective, examining their topics through the methods of literary theory, art history, and theatre studies. the present issue continues the journal’s tradition of including an interview with a distinguished specialist whose expertise relates to the issue’s topic. on this occasion we are very happy to include an interview with orlan, specially commissioned for this issue and introduced by else marie bukdahl. the interview was conducted in french, and we provide an english translation along with the original french. richard shusterman introduction to volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 93-104 bodies of belief / bodies of care93 the painter’s knife the painter’s knife representations of fragmented bodies in painting prof. efrat biberman abstract: many artworks, historical as well as contemporary, represent fragmented bodies, detached organs or dissected corpses. how may we read art’s intense attraction to images of body pieces? how did so many incidences of cuts and beheadings find their way into painting? is it mere coincidence that the painter’s essential tool, alongside his brushes, is none other than a painter’s knife? these types of questions have provoked the attention of art theorists and scholars such as linda nochlin and julia kristeva. this essay offers a critical reading of the views of these two thinkers on the dissected body in art and suggests an alternative solution from a lacanian perspective. basing my thesis on jacques lacan’s concept of the cedeable object, i argue that a painting is a product of an object that must be lost for representation to take place. cutting away the object is exactly what makes painting possible, whether what is cut is manifested in the painting in the form of an image of a severed organ, or in any other way. it thus follows that the images of the fragmented body are intrinsic to painting. keywords: painting, linda nochlin, julia kristeva, george bataille, psychoanalysis, jacques lacan, jacques alain miller, desire, cedable object. decapitated heads, bodies without organs, eyes disjoined from their sockets – art history supplies countless examples of fragmented human bodies, bodies split into pieces, bodies missing organs, or bodies hollowed wide open. each one of these cases seems to be justified by a certain narrative: martyrs like saint lucia or saint agatha, who lost body organs, protagonists and villains like john the baptist, holofernes or louis xvi, whose heads have been decapitated, doctors providing anatomy lessons, and still life paintings with human skulls. in some cases, the narratives the paintings refer to do not involve a body being severed, yet the images in the painting still consist of a dismembered body or organs without a body, such as a head without a context as we may see in the copious images of veronica’s cloth imprinted with the portrait of suffering jesus, or even in the broken classical sculptures and their drawings, which frequently appear on the art scene. yet, images of fragmented bodies are not the sole property of the past; contemporary art, after all, provides us with recurring and ample examples of encounters with dismembered and severed human bodies: georg baselitz’s early paintings, bruce nauman’s from hand to mouth, maurizio cattelan’s spermini, which consists of dozens of tiny portraits of the artist, are only a few in many more examples. efrat biberman the painter’s knife the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 94 efrat biberman francisco de zurbarán. saint agathe. 1630-1633. 127 x 60 cm. oil on canvas. musée fabre. surprisingly, in many cases throughout history and today the severed organ is none other than the artist’s own body. carravagio, for instance, paints his own head as goliath’s severed head, while mark quin casts his own blood into his self-portrait and then freezes it. how may we read art’s intense attraction to images of the fragmented body? how did so many incidences of cuts and beheadings find their way into painting? do the severed bodies necessarily signify horror, or is there another way to understand them? and finally, is it mere coincidence that the painter’s essential tool, alongside his brushes, is none other than a painter’s knife? these types of questions have provoked other art theoreticians as well. in the body in pieces: the fragment as a metaphor of modernity, for instance, linda nochlin, a feminist art historian, explores the representations of fragmented body parts in art.1 nochlin claims that the fragmented human body is a metaphor for modernity. she explores many instances in visual arts, from representations of severed heads during the french revolution, through the impressionist’s trend to cut the picture frame in a snap shot manner, to artworks from the late twentieth century, which engage with fragmented body images such as the works of cindy sherman and robert mapplethorpe. despite the various interpretations given to any cluster of artworks, all of these works are eventually subjected to the same heading. thus, for example, nochlin explains that the many representations of severed heads by the guillotine do not necessarily directly describe actual horrific scenes, but rather present an ideological point of view. according to this point 1 linda nochlin, the body in pieces: the fragment as a metaphor of modernity (new york: thames and hudson, 1994). bodies of belief / bodies of care95 the painter’s knife of view, states nochlin, destroying the past or using its vandalized parts to recycle it, manifest revolutionary strategies: “the imagery – and the enactment – of destruction, dismemberment and fragmentation remained powerful elements of revolutionary ideology.”2 nochlin offers another reference to dismembered body parts in her analysis of the paintings of theodor géricault. according to nochlin, géricault organizes severed body parts into an aesthetical composition, which he then dramatically lights, so that the final painting is simultaneously elegant and appalling.3 this, claims nochlin, is also the case with his paintings of severed heads. she states that very horizontal positioning of the head in the painting contributes to the objectifying attitude of the painter to the fragmented body organ, when he lays the most significant human body part as if it was a lifeless piece of meat on the butcher counter. yet, she writes, “even more disturbingly, the heads have been arranged for maximum effect by the controlling artist: géricault’s project here is an aesthetic one, involving formal intervention.”4 théodore géricault, severed heads, 1818. nochlin later discusses impressionist painting. these paintings, she argues, take on different levels of dismantling, from distinguished brush strokes to framing, like photographic images, 2 ibid., 10. 3 ibid., 18. 4 ibid., 22. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 96 efrat biberman which occasionally exclude parts of the body. in order to theorize the dismantling aspect of impressionist painting, nochlin turns to marx’s communist manifesto, and charles baudelaire’s the painter of modern life. marx, she claims, assumes that “dynamic destructiveness and selfdisintegration [are] inherent in the capitalist system and bourgeois society.”5 baudelaire perceives the painter of modern life as someone “who concentrates his energy on its fashions, its morals, its emotions, on ‘the passing moment and all the suggestions of eternity that it contains’.”6 according to baudelaire the modern life painter is situated in the crowed, in its constant yet transient movement. nochlin uses marx’s and baudelaire’s theories, whose points of departure are radically antagonistic, to construct a thesis according to which the representation of the fragmented human body is interlaced with modernist conceptions. nochlin turns to van gogh’s paintings to explore another aspect in the conceptualization of the fragmented body. she opens with a painting from 1887 still life with a rose, two books and a plaster cast of a female torso in which the statuette appears without arms and a head.7 nochlin presents the possibility to view his interest in the fragmented body as a metaphor for sacrifice, which preludes in two years the real dismemberment van gogh will conduct on his own body, when he will cut part of his ear. nochlin refers to george bataille’s article about van gogh and other artists who have literally disfigured their body. she shows that while art historians tend to skip over van gogh’s act, bataille’s interpretation considers this act of self-mutilation as an inspiring act, inseparable from his art.8 according to nochlin, bataille bases his interpretation of van gogh on the supposition that “art is born of a wound that does not heal.” nochlin, then, refers to three manifestations of the fragmented body in art, which she knots together: fragmentation stemming from the pictorial narrative, such as the severed head of the king of france; fragmentation emanating from cutting the frame, like in the paintings of manet and degas; and a real dismemberment of a body part, such as the case of van gogh. may we indeed locate a common denominator for such different types of fragmented bodies? although it seems that they are completely distinct forms of cutting, we can indeed mark a certain relation between them, albeit in a different manner. nochlin knots the representation of a dismembered body with an actual mutilation of the living body. bataille’s article, from which she quotes, revolves around real dismemberment and presents extremely gruesome clinical cases. these cases may teach us about psychosis, yet can we relate them to painting? van gogh, it seems, did not consider his act of self-mutilation as art, and indeed – his portrait with the bandaged ear outlines the veil, not the bleeding wound. in other words, artists such as géricault, who fervently engaged with the representation of fragmented body parts, remained, despite their shocking paintings, within the safe and relaxing confines of representation. van gogh, on the other hand, who crossed this safe limit twice, both when he cut off part of his ear and when he committed suicide – veils this horror and represents the missing organ under a veil. in this sense, i would like to disagree with nochlin and place a clear line of separation between representations of a mutilated body and an action beyond representations. nevertheless, as i will later show, the psychoanalytic path to understanding the representations of a mutilated body brushes against this limit and challenges it. it seems as though there is no real relation between the other two aspects of cutting nochlin ties together –a fragmented body and cutting the frame, a cut which we commonly ascribe to the birth of photography and the representational conventions, which literally derived from the photographic frame. for our 5 ibid., 24. 6 ibid. 7 ibid., 47. 8 ibid., 53. bodies of belief / bodies of care97 the painter’s knife eyes, which have become so accustomed to the cut of the frame, this is not dismemberment but a metonymic image, whose represented part assumes the whole body. every painting, after all, cuts a certain, abstract or concrete piece of reality, even the ones which do not involve an actual cut in the body. vincent van gogh, self-portrait with bandaged ear, 1889. at this point, the paintings of two israeli artists make it possible to illuminate from a different angle the somewhat haphazard connection nochlin makes. the first artist, yitzhak livneh, engages with the intersection between representation of dismemberment, cutting the frame, and real cutting in his series of painting from recent years. thus, the series visually embodies the relation between dismemberment and cuttings from different orders. these paintings were made on the bases of photographed images of pairs of lovers, whose organs are interlaced, yet the male figure was cut out from the shared photograph, and only parts of it, mainly arms and palms – appear in the picture. the act of cutting seemingly refers to a common place narrative of cutting the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 98 efrat biberman the lover, who has failed the woman, out of the family album; yet at the same time it also points towards an archaic belief that one can operate on the world through the image, or the thought of the magical power of the visual image. and here it seems that nochlin’s connection between the representation of a cut body, a cut of the body stemming from the cut of the frame, and real cutting now takes on meaning and validation: the cut at stake in livneh’s paintings can only be made on a photographic image, and the painterly repetition of the act of cutting constitutes a second generation of representation. the very act of painting emphasizes the pictorial past of the amputation, while turning both the act of cutting and the gap between photographic cutting and the actual cutting into the subject of the painting. since the creation of the image is necessarily interlaced with an actual cut of a represented image, the painting conjugates these two distinct operations. and indeed, in one of the paintings from the series, the character in the painting, the one who supposedly cut the image of the lover who disappointed her out of the picture, holds a knife in her hand and cuts a salad. furthermore, the series of paintings revolves around the relation between presence and absence, and the continuous visibility of the one who was banished from the photographs, while the palms of his hands continue to bustle within it, like bizarre creatures with a life of their own. yitzhak livneh, 2009. bodies of belief / bodies of care99 the painter’s knife yitzhak livneh, 2009. the second artist is michal na’aman, the most prominent artist of cutting, whose early works present an assortment of knifes, penknives, as well as cuts that generate impossible combinations. in one of her works from the nineties, she draws the outline of a shaving knife at the very center. she then draws the image of the wolf man’s dream, as it was painted by freud’s famous patient into the outline of the shaving knife. without dwelling on every detail of this complex painting, the detail that relates to our concern is the dual use na’aman makes of the image of the knife: the one that appears in the painting as an image, and the one that cuts the frame and which reflects the scene of the tree with the wolves. that is, na’aman shows how the cut of the frame and the cut of the knife are of the same order, while both are immanent to painting. michal n’aaman, 1991. the wolf man tree with jewish profiles. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 100 efrat biberman while nochlin’s theoretical debate knots together three essentially distinct types of amputation in a contrived manner, na’aman and livneh’s paintings show, albeit in extremely different ways, the complex relation between the three types but also their essential relation as it surfaces from the painting itself rather than from theory. this point, then, raises a question: how may we be able to conceptualize this relation? in what follows i will offer a theoretical conceptualization from a psychoanalytic position, which will explain both the ubiquitous manifestations of amputated bodies in art and the complex conjugation between different types of cutting. however, before i turn to psychoanalysis, i would like to examine another theoretical discussion: julia kristeva’s debate of the fragmented body and its manifestations, with an accent on the severed head.9 unlike nochlin, who identifies the representations of the fragmented body with modernity, kristeva claims that the fragmented body and its representations have circulated since the birth of culture. kristeva’s point of departure for the severed head is not the horror it exudes, but rather a comforting memory: her mother’s miraculous talent for drawing, which she used to demonstrate the possibility to transport an idea to its realization, in the speed of a blink of an eye. one drawing was etched in her memory. in this drawing her mother painted a snowman whose head was on the brink of toppling over because the sun had melted it. the drawing was meant to demonstrate the idea that “only speed of thought can exceed the speed of bodies.”10 this drawing, claims kristeva, conjures the power and ability of thought and does not only visually demonstrate it.11 kristeva states that there is a fundamental relation between the severed head in culture and the act of drawing. drawing is “proof of a maximal concentration through which the most subjective intelligence, the most intense abstraction, makes something exterior visible... the drawing: crucial evidence of humanity’s subtle mastery of the exterior and the other.”12 kristeva supposes an imaginary moment in the history of visibility, a moment wherein human creatures were no longer satisfied in copying the world around them, and turned their attention and ability to think and represent the invisible, “make visible that subjective intimacy itself.”13 to reach this place, they had to begin by representing the loss of visibility, the loss of the physical framework. assuming that the representation of thought is the fundamental image that humanity created for itself, may we not assume, asks kristeva, that this representation would pass through “an obsession with the head as symbol of the thinking living being”?14 kristeva, then, supposes that the act of drawing embodies a contemplative reflection, which it thinks and formalizes. the locus in which this observation takes place is the head. it is in this place that kristeva locates the great interest of drawers and painters in the severed head, since it is a crystalized embodiment of human thought. kristeva follows with a survey which begins from archeological worship objects involving different types of skulls and cave paintings representing parts of the human body. according to her, worshiping skulls and devouring heads are two common phenomena in the dawn of human culture.15 the severed head, she writes, is also present in modern social events, as the expression “to lose your head” during an especially good party reveals.16 9 julia kristeva, the severed head: capital visions. translated by jody gladding (new york: columbia university press, 2011). 10 ibid., 3. 11 ibid., 1-2. 12 ibid., 1-2. 13 ibid., 4. 14 ibid. 15 ibid., 10. 16 ibid., 20. bodies of belief / bodies of care101 the painter’s knife like nochlin, kristeva also marks a transition from cutting to cutting on a different level, one which is not purely narratological or descriptive. this cut is immanent to painting; although it remains within the confines of art, it grazes the real cut. while nochlin knots between two essentially antagonistic forms of cutting – kristeva focuses on the one cut, on the cut that is not narratological, and does not represent, in the common sense of the word, even if its pictorial manifestation stems from the represented narrative. this cut originates from amputation or separation. this is not a cluster of random private cases, but rather an overall underlying form, immanent to the human being. the very cause of this representation touches upon the constitution of the subject. kristeva also points to the complexity of the relation between the dismembered organ and the whole: at first she relates to the severed head as a manifestation of the self-reflexive thought. this means that every drawing of a severed head necessarily relates to a thought or consciousness of the artist who draws himself, while the severed head is not distinguished from the one who draws or paints it. if in the beginning of this article i stated that quite a few artists painted their own decapitated head, kristeva shows how this activity takes place even when the artist’s features are not overtly identified in the severed head’s face. another aspect of the complex relation between the representation of the severed organ and the artist who creates this representation surfaces later, when kristeva uses freud’s totem and taboo to mark the ambivalent position in culture to the act of decapitation: on the one hand a violent and annihilating act, while on the other an internalization of the opponent’s strength, for instance by eating the remains of his skull. thus, she emphasizes anew that the severed head is both external and internal to the subject. who then, does the cutting, and who is being cut? i would like to suggest that a different painting by michal na’aman may direct us towards a possible answer. at the center of a painting from 2008 appear the words “i am the knife and i am the wound,” and at the bottom the sentence “this is my blood.” the words appear on a background, which has become the hallmark of her paintings from the last twenty years, of dripping paint dripping beyond layers of masking tape. the painting might not represent a decapitated organ on the register of the visual image, yet by fashioning the painting, the complexity of the layers of masking tape that cover the paint dripping through them, na’aman explicitly refers to an act of cutting, whose result is melting, pasting, or bandaging over dripping paint. the combination between the way in which the painting is manufactured and the words on its surface, makes it possible to illuminate the conceptualization i wish to unfold. the words themselves are borrowed from a poem by baudelaire, with a small change. baudelaire writes: “je suis la plaie et le couteau!” (i am the wound and the knife). that is, the passive action, or result, precedes the causing action. these words echo the statement nochlin attributes to bataille, according to which the origin of art lies in a wound. for baudelaire, who precedes bataille, not only does art originate from a wound, but the artist is simultaneously the wound and the knife that inflicted the wound. for na’aman the order is reverse: the cut is the primal act, the artistic object as its wound is its product – and they both emanate from the artist and constitute an inseparable part of her. and indeed, in a lecture she recently gave at an art-school, michal na’aman stated that the “history of the western painting is invested in the theology of the wound (of the holy wounds), and each wound consists of a cut and bleeding, leaking.” hence the line and the stain: the two formal elements of painting, the line is the cut, the stain – the bleeding wound. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 102 efrat biberman michal n’aaman, i am the knife and i am the wound, 2008 unlike nochlin, who considers the fragmented body as a metaphor for modernity, or kristeva, who reduces the fragmented body to the severed head, this formulation shows that the act of cutting is a necessary act for painting, whose manifestations are as versatile as the number of artists embodying it. yet, how may we theorize the necessary relation between cutting, painting, and representations of the fragmented body? psychoanalysis allocates extensive space to the image of the body, as it is reflected for the subject through the mirror or the eyes of those surrounding him. this is the imaginary body: a supposed body image given to the subject from the exteriority, and yet, it is essential for the subject in order for him to grasp himself. as lacan shows in his seminal article on the mirror stage, there is always a gap between the way in which the subject experiences his body and the body image as whole, which is given to her from the exteriority. this gap is a manifestation of the split of the subject, between an ego as an imaginary, coherent conception of the body, and the unknown unconscious.17 17 jacques lacan, “the mirror stage as formative of the function of the i as revealed in psychoanalytic experience.” in écrits: a selection. translated by a. sheridan (new york and london: norton and company, 1977 [1949]), pp.1-7. bodies of belief / bodies of care103 the painter’s knife later in his teaching, lacan claims that alongside the reflections of the mirror, there is also something that can never be represented by it, which he calls objet petit a, object cause of desire. the concept of desire refers to the subject’s driving force, which is libidinally charged yet distinguished from sexual passion. the object cause of desire is essentially an object of lack; it is not present in a concrete manner but rather appears at the moment of its loss, and is hence the cause of desirethat which in its lack drives desire. the objet petit a is a cedable object, and the way to grasp it, states lacan, is as part of a body which is external and internal to the subject.18 unlike the common assumption that at the moment of birth the baby is completely separated from his mother and from hence forth functions as an independent creature, lacan shows that the separation between the mother and the baby is not univocal, and does not necessarily take place at the moment of birth, that is, at the moment in which the umbilical cord is severed, it can, for instance, take place when the mother’s breast falls out of the baby’s mouth.19 beyond the implication that the boundaries of the body do not necessarily correspond with anatomy, this also means that the human creature sustains a complex relation with an object that is both external and internal to it. as jacques alain miller states: “the object petite a is characterized by what is most myself from the outside, since it is cut from me.”20 lacan explains this relation, which is both internal and external, connected and disconnected, through the biblical significance of the hebrew adjective “arel” (foreskin), during the circumcision. the word, says lacan, does not concern the piece of skin that is removed, but signifies a separation from a part of the body, a sort of appendix, whose relation to the body is symbolic and alienating, and is essential to the subject.21 the separation from the ceded object, such as the foreskin or the breast, operates as the condition for the possibility of representation in the unconscious, that is, for the constitution of the subject as a speaking or painting being. the term “cedable object” receives an additional significance in light of one of lacan’s breathtaking insights regarding desire. in his seventh seminar on the ethics of psychoanalysis, lacan states that the only thing a subject may be guilty of is in ceding on his own desire. 22 the interesting point is that in both cases, both in relation to the cedability of the object and in relation to ceding on desire, lacan makes use of the verb “to cede” (in french: céder). as richard boothby claims, the subject cedes on the object but does not cede on the empty space it leaves in its wake, that is, on desire. 23 these two lacanian concepts of ceding, and the way boothby interprets them, shed new light on the horrific paintings discussed so far, or at least on some of them. in terms of psychoanalysis, any object of art is in a way ceded from the body of the artist who had to renounce something in order to make representation happen. in other words, any representation of any sort necessarily involves departing from what precedes it, and it is this renunciation that guarantees desire, essential for any subjective activity such as art making. the pictorial manifestation of the objet petit a, the object cause of desire, is the gaze, something present and absent that surfaces from the painting in it relation to the one looking at it, the one who seeks to locate in the painting what is held from him. at the same time, the painting makes present the desire of the painter, a desire particular to the painter, which drives him to keep painting, to invent the painting anew. the painting, then, is a product of an object 18 jacques-allain miller. introduction to reading jacques lacan’s seminar on anxiety. (in hebrew, 2007 [2005].). 19 jacques lacan, seminar x: anxiety. translated by a. r. price. (cambridge: polity press, 2014 [1962-1963]), pp. 233-234. 20 miller, p. 94. 21 lacan, seminar x, p. 213. 22 jacques lacan, seminar vii: the ethics of psychoanalysis. translated by dennis porter. (new york: norton, 2014 [1962-1963]), p. 319. 23 richard boothby, freud as philosopher. (new york and london: routledge, 2001), p. 248. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 104 efrat biberman that must be ceded for representation to take place – and it is this object that drives a desire, which ethically cannot be ceded. cutting the object is exactly what makes the painting possible, whether what is cut is manifested in the painting in the form of a severed organ or not, one cannot cede on this cut without also ceding on desire. it thus follows that the images of the fragmented body are intrinsic to painting, be it if they appear in it on the level of the pictorial image, or if they are present in it in the form of a stain or a line, or any other act of art. in what sense then could one find any remedy for the act of ceding, and its consequences, if any? one of the early descriptions of the practice of psychoanalysis was “a talking cure.”24 in this sense, we can look at these severed bodies in terms of remedy and resolution; that is to say, psychoanalysis resists offering promises for harmony, salvation and integration, promises that in the psychoanalytic view are mere imaginary illusions. yet, one of the ways in which the “talking cure” functions is by returning to the subject her own desire, and hence reduce her suffering. the fragmented body parts, perceived as embodiment of the essential act of the desiring subject in action, can be conceived as a subjective way of keeping up with desire, continuing to create, to reinvent art and to take part in its discourse. acknowledgments i thank wikimedia commons (fig 1), wikipedia public domain (fig 2) national museum, stockholm (fig 3) and the artists yitzhak livneh (fig 4-5) and michal n’aaman (fig 6-7) for having given me the permission to publish their photos. references boothby, richard. 2001. freud as philosopher. new york: routledge. breuer, josef, and freud, sigmund. 2001. “case histories,” in the standard edition of the complete psychological works of sigmund freud ii (1893-1895): studies on hysteria. new york, ny: vintage. kristeva, julia. 2011. the severed head: capital visions. translated by jody gladding. new york: columbia university press. lacan, jacques. 1977. “the mirror stage as formative of the function of the i as revealed in psychoanalytic experience,” in écrits: a selection. translated by a. sheridan. new york: norton and company. lacan, jacques. 2014. seminar vii: the ethics of psychoanalysis. translated by dennis porter. new york: norton. lacan, jacques. 2014. seminar x: anxiety. translated by a. r. price. cambridge: polity press. miller, jacques-allan. 2007. introduction to reading jacques lacan’s seminar on anxiety. translated by russell grigg. new york, ny: w. w. norton. nochlin, linda. 1994. the body in pieces: the fragment as a metaphor of modernity. new york: thames and hudson. 24 josef breuer and sigmund freud, 2001[1893-1895]. “case histories.” the standard edition of the complete psychological works of sigmund freud, volume ii (1893-1895): studies on hysteria, p. 30. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 144 the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 page 144-159 representation and visual politics of the extreme body zhou xian abstract: the beautiful human body has perennially occupied a central space in art. both art and aesthetics maintain the beauty of the human body as the focal point of artistic expression and philosophical thought. however, modern art has thoroughly overturned the idea of the beautiful body and the aesthetic principles of its expression, creating a completely new form of representing the body—the extreme body. the extreme body has become a mainstream image eagerly embraced by modern artists. transgressed representations, visual discomfort, and the body becoming a goal in and of itself, has dramatically altered the paradigm of the body in modern art. keywords: body, beautiful body, extreme body, modern art, aesthetics. art is always tied to the human beings residing at the heart of artistic expression. therefore, the human body has always been a center of expression in terms of visual art. especially today, a highly developed visual culture has already pushed the body to the forefront of the cultural stage; not only does aesthetic and art theory deal heavily with the body, but philosophy, sociology, literature, history, and anthropology all consider questions of the body. some sociologists feel that “the rise of a body society” necessitates that all important political and spiritual questions be explained through the body. sociologists have suggested an assortment of different body forms to consider, such as the “five bodies” proposed by o’neill: the world’s body, social bodies, the body politic, consumer bodies, and medical bodies.1 shilling proposes yet another method of categorization: classical bodies, contemporary bodies, working bodies, sporting bodies, musical bodies, sociable 1 john o’neill, five bodies: re-figuring relationships (london: sage, 2004). zhou xian politics of the extreme body the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015145 politics of the extreme body bodies, and technological bodies.2 the body has also become a popular topic in the field of aesthetics. richard shusterman goes so far as to suggest a branch of aesthetics called “somaesthetics.” he writes: for the moment, we can briefly describe somaesthetics as concerned with the critical study and meliorative cultivation of how we experience and use the living body (or soma) as a site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning. somaesthetics is thus a discipline that comprises both theory and practice (the latter clearly implied in its idea of meliorative cultivation). the term “soma” indicates a living, feeling, sentient body rather than a mere physical body that could be devoid of life and sensation, while the “aesthetic” in somaesthetics has the dual role of emphasizing the soma’s perceptual role (whose embodied intentionality contradicts the body/mind dichotomy) and its aesthetic uses both in stylizing one’s self and in appreciating the aesthetic qualities of other selves and things.3 shusterman’s statement focuses on the significance of the body in aesthetics, which has positive implications for contemporary body studies. in my opinion, using the body as an approach to the examination of art can be a unique and productive perspective. through the body, we can see the evolution of various methods of artistic representation and their paradigms, gain a better sense of the development of artistic thought on the human body through different historical periods, and even gain a deeper understanding of different artists’ unique views on the body. this paper attempts to combine visual culture, social theory, and aesthetics into a “fusion of horizons.” it will examine the evolution of paradigms of artistic representation regarding the body from traditional art to modernist art, and then proceed to analyze how the body, as a cultural issue, has changed along with society. the presentation of the body: from beauty to extreme by using the divide between traditional and modern, we can separate art’s long history into the two general categories of “traditional” and “modern” art, where “modern” primarily refers to “modernism.” the art of these two periods have markedly different paradigms in their depictions of the body. here, i use roman jakobson’s concept of “the dominant” to define the difference in paradigm of the 2 chris shilling, body in culture, technology and society (london: sage, 2005). 3 richard shusterman, body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2009), 1. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 146 zhou xian body between traditional and modernist art. as a champion of russian formalism, jakobson defines the “concept of the dominant” as the “focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines, and transforms the remaining components. it is the dominant which guarantees the integrity of the structure.” the dominant “specifies the work.” 4 he further notes the historical significance of the “concept of the dominant” and suggests that changes in the dominant determine the changes in artistic style during different periods. jakobson argues that a dominant is “not only in the poetic work of an individual artist and not only in the poetic canon, the set of norms of a given poetic school, but also in the art of a particular epoch, viewed as a particular whole.” for example, during the renaissance, the “visual arts” were dominant and accordingly shaped the poetry of the period. on the other hand, “romantic poetry oriented itself toward music: its verse is musically focused; its verse intonation imitates musical melody.” 5 examining different paradigms of the body in the history of art from this perspective, it is not difficult to see that traditional and modernist art each has its own body forms. considering art history from the perspective of the dominant, we have reason to believe that beauty is the dominant in traditional art’s representation and paradigm of the body, and beauty is naturally the core category of traditional aesthetics.6 other categories of aesthetics (such as the sublime, the ugly, the grotesque) clearly fall below the beautiful in terms of significance. thus it can be said that traditional art and aesthetics keep the beautiful body at the center of its artistic representation and thought; the beautiful body is thus the dominant in traditional art. for example, in traditional chinese painting, there is much discourse on the creation of beauty including a great deal of methods, rules, and theories regarding the depiction of human bodies. there is a large body of classical chinese paintings of people from buddhist images to court ladies to monarchs to scholars. examples such as gu hongzhong’s night revels of han xizai, wu daozi’s presentation of buddha, zhou fang’s court ladies adorning their hair with flowers, and the cave paintings at dunhuang have many features modeled after the ideal of buddhist saints and fairies. in the west, the traditional paradigm of human beauty is rooted in models of the nude. due to western scientific and rational enquiry, there are numerous experiments and studies of human body-beauty: from the proportion in ancient greece, through the renaissance application of the golden ratio to human figures, 4 roman jakobson, poetry of grammar and grammar of poetry (the hague: mouton, 1981), 751. 5 ibid., 752. 6 the traditional art and classical art mentioned here reflects a broad concept of periodization referring to the art before the mid-nineteenth century whereas art following this period will be referred to as modernist art. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015147 politics of the extreme body to contemporary scientific aesthetic studies and experiments on face-beauty. throughout the history of western art, artists have not only been enamored with the beauty of the real human body but have pursued even further a kind of ideal beauty. kenneth clark writes that the concept of beauty, from the ancient greek tradition to the renaissance down to the modern era, is a myth as well as a model. he says: “it is no accident that the formalized body of the ‘perfect man’ became the supreme symbol of european belief.” 7 if one but looks at western art history, one sees that the beautiful body is the most basic subject of western painting and sculpture. from greek sculptures such as hermes and the infant dionysus or the venus de milo; to the works of the three renaissance masters such as da vinci’s mona lisa and the virgin of the rocks, michaelangelo’s creation of adam and david, and raphael’s three graces and sistine madonna; to the period of neoclassicism and formalism with works such as ingres’ the source and la grande odalisque as well as courbet’s the source and woman with a parrot—it is not difficult to find the expression of and the quest for the ideal of human beauty running through these works. since the mid-nineteenth century, however, with the rise of modernism, representation of the body in art has radically shifted. the “first principle” of art, expressing the beauty of the body, was challenged and paradigms of the human form underwent dramatic changes. modernist artists started experimenting with new paradigms of the body: the strange, the alien, the vague and revolutionary body. this was a completely new image of the body and the evolution of this style continues to this day. if we wish to encapsulate this concept in one word, we can call it the “extreme body.” this is a form of the body that is not beautiful, opposed to beauty, and overturns beauty. abandoning the beautiful body for the extreme body has become the dominant of modernist representations of the body, becoming deeply and widely distributed among different fields such as painting, sculpture, installation art, and performance art. although ugly and grotesque bodies existed long before modernist art, the latter has made the extreme body its dominant, and the extreme body has now become the basic form of representing the body. a traditional style dominated by beauty has been gradually replaced by a radical, modernist style in which the concept of the unbeautiful and anti-beautiful is the mainstream. this trend is consistent with the general trend of modern art that rejects and disdains beauty.8 nevertheless, one point that must be especially noted is that the extreme body is not ugly; unbeautiful and anti-beautiful do not mean ugly. some scholars of aesthetics like to divide beauty and ugliness into binary opposites 7 kenneth clark, the nude: a study in ideal form (new york: doubleday anchor, 1959), 54. 8 see wendy steiner, venus in exile: the rejection of beauty in 20th-century art (new york: free, 2001). the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 148 zhou xian to explain art, but this approach is problematic when one attempts to explain the historical shifts in styles of depicting the body. one cannot simplistically say that traditional art has the beautiful body as its dominant while modernist art has the ugly body as its dominant. the extreme body and its meanings are more complex than that of the ugly body; it is also different from the aesthetic categories of the grotesque and the absurd. as new artistic discourse developed to explain modern art’s creation of the extreme body image, modernist aesthetics has surpassed traditional aesthetics on a central paradigm by transitioning to a more open, varied, and complex interpretation. iconology of the extreme body the extreme body is a concept difficult to define; inherent in its definition is a bias toward a certain body type in modernist art. although the image of the body in modernist art is varied and complex, one finds that this body image abandons traditional art’s method of representing the beautiful body, overturns the aesthetic principles of traditional visual art, and portrays a body with which we are not familiar. the spanish philosopher josé ortega y gasset discovered after the first world war that there was a tendency toward “dehumanization” among the neo-art in western countries. in ortega y gasset’s writings on the “dehumanization,” he notes that contemporary youths can fall in love with the mona lisa but not picasso’s girl before a mirror. what exactly is the great change that has taken place here? from the mona lisa to the girl before a mirror one can see the transition from the humanized to the dehumanized in the representation of the body. according to ortega y gasset, dehumanization works through distortion and abstraction, turning what is familiar into that which is strange, turning the human body into an unrecognizable entity. he writes: “by divesting them of their aspect of ‘lived’ realty the artist has blown up the bridge and burned the ships that could have taken us back to our daily world. he leaves us locked up in an abstruse universe, surrounded by objects with which human dealings are inconceivable, and thus compels us to improvise other forms of intercourse completely distinct from our ordinary ways with things. we must invent unheard-of gestures to fit those singular figures.”9 the extreme body in modernist art is, to a certain degree, a “dehumanization” of the body. of course, this dehumanization is not merely the abstraction and distortion noted by ortega y gasset but is much more complex. if we must define 9 josé ortega y gasset, “the dehumanization of art,” in criticism: the major texts, ed. walter j. bate (new york: harcourt brace jovanovich, 1970), 662. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015149 politics of the extreme body the extreme body, then we can say that it is a kind of unfamiliar, strange, deviant, and novel representation of the body. here it would be helpful to consider what jean-françois lyotard said concerning the avant-garde. he wrote: “modern painters discover that they have to form images that photography cannot present … avant-garde paintings escape ex hypothesi from the aesthetics of the beautiful, its works do not call for the ‘common sense’ of a shared pleasure. these works appear to the public of taste to be ‘monsters’, ‘formless’ objects, purely ‘negative’ entities.” 10 an overall survey of modernist art will find a varied range of extreme body types. from perspective of iconology, i can summarize them into at least the few kinds of extreme body representation paradigms outlined below. the strange body the strange body is clearly a form of the dehumanized body. it deviates from the human figure or hints at the human form, but is completely different from a regular body. examples of this include salvador dalí’s soft construction with boiled beans (premonition of civil war) in which heads and arms relocate and recombine in a fantastical way (fig. 1); francis bacon’s painting with its monstrous, phantom-like human shape; and willem de kooning’s woman i, a painting that is shocking to viewers. 1. salvador dali. soft construction with boiled beans (premonition of civil war). 1936. philadelphia museum of art. 10 jean-francois lyotard, the inhuman: reflections on time (stanford: stanford university press, 1991), 124-25. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 150 zhou xian the strange body either departs from the human form or dramatically alters and rearranges it. it deliberately exaggerates certain body parts or dismantles them into bizarre, new, fragmentary arrangements. the strange body wavers between the human and the inhuman, giving people an entirely new construct of the human body. the tension clearly contained therein gives the body a “negative” and “explosive” visual effect. the appearance of various kinds of strange bodies in modernist art has taken experiments in body image to great heights. to some extent, these experiments delve into the frailty of the human body, revealing two aspect of the body. first, the body’s complex relationship with society serves as a symbol. the body cannot withstand the harsh blows of a great society and the powers of nature; its weakness is readily apparent. second, the strange body reveals various hidden desires of the body, even its dark side. in bacon’s painting, for instance, the blood-stained figure and the butchered animal in the background comprise a relationship that betokens the darkness which drives man to start wars and destroy lives.11 the strange body poses an antithesis to beauty. it shows through form and style a rejection of all rules. the beautiful body is an embodiment of rules and standards. whether adhering to the golden ratio or some other principle, representation of the beautiful body is based on the rules. the strange body, however, represents a different path, reacting against every rule and standard of beauty. in this respect, it is somewhat akin to kant’s analysis of the sublime as the formless.12 if one considers the beautiful body as leaning toward a standard pattern of beauty, then one could say that the strange body is formless, thus retaining limitless possibilities of form. from this perspective, the legitimization of the strange body in the art world can be seen as a sort of liberation of artistic expression. because of this we encounter all kinds of experiments and innovations in the representation of the body in modernist art where it can be said that nothing is too bizarre. on matters of composition, the paradigm of representing the strange body is often a combination of elements with characteristics; it combines unrelated elements of an image in fantastical ways, thereby creating a unique and strange figure form. this is especially prominent in dalí’s premonition of civil war (fig.1). chimerical arms and bodies assemble together with a face contorted in pain, the 11 kleiner points out that “painting by british artist francis bacon (1910–1992) is an indictment of humanity and a reflection of war’s butchery. the painting is a compelling and revolting image of a powerful, stocky man with a gaping mouth and a vivid red stain on his upper lip, as if he were a carnivore devouring the raw meat sitting on the railing surrounding him. …‘[a]n attempt to remake the violence of reality itself,’ as bacon often described his art, based on what he referred to as ‘the brutality of fact’.” see fred s. kleiner, gardner’s art through the ages (boston: wadsworth, 2010), 747. 12 see immanuel kant, critique of judgment (new york: hafner, 1951), 82-105. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015151 politics of the extreme body resulting image bursting with imagination, giving viewers a strong visual assault. the deformed body if the strange body is a complete overturning of the body’s image, then the deformed body is a transformation of it, with the exaggeration of regular human features into abnormal features as its primary characteristic. although deformation as an artistic technique existed before, as seen in el greco’s many religious paintings featuring elongated figures, it was only after the post-impressionists (van gogh, cézanne) that modernist art saw the widespread, deliberate use of deformation. later, art historians would say, “there is a tendency toward deformation in modern art which is essentially negative. the artist deforms an object not in order to reveal it but to deny the normal and to disappoint expectations.”13 deformation of the body has great allure for artists because it is a bold exploration and experiment of the plasticity of the human form. there are many convincing examples of this, including amedeo modigliani’s reclining nude, which stretches the human figure beyond normal proportions, creating a peculiar image (fig. 2). 2. amedeo modigliani: reclining nude. 1917. the metropolitan of art. some art historians have pointed out that in the neoclassical painter jean auguste 13 karsten harries, meaning of modern art (evanston: northwestern university press, 1968), 63. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 152 zhou xian dominique ingres’s la grande odalisque, he elongates the figure to express the graceful slenderness of the female back and was castigated for violating the principles of realistic portrayal. in modigliani’s rendering of the deformed figure, however, there is another interpretation, the interpretation of body deformation as a new method of representation. because deformation had become the new aesthetic principle in modernist art, not only would it avoid criticism but would receive significant attention from artists and critics alike. alberto giacometti’s man pointing is even more dramatic, elongating the body completely out of proportion. the lanky, emaciated figure is extremely symbolic, producing a vivid example of the existentialist view of contemporary life. while modigliani’s and giacometti’s portrayal of the human figure is a deformation toward the vertical and slender, picasso’s women running on the beach exaggerates in the opposite direction, horizontally stretching the human figure, making it thick and solid. awkward and thick bodies and limbs run blindly along the beach, illustrating the body’s inexhaustible energy. attempting to interpret these deformed bodies, one can sense complex internal meanings. perhaps giacometti’s and picasso’s completely opposite representations of the body can be seen as a sort of symbol of modern human existence. giacometti’s long, thin bodies represent the weak, lonely state of modern man while picasso’s robust images are a parable of the obesity epidemic brought by modern consumer lifestyles. in my opinion, deformation of body is not so much a change in the state of the subject as it is a shift in the way the artist observes the body. in the early 20th century, the french painter maurice denis proposed the theory of “double deformation” of artistic expression. he believed that there existed two kinds of deformation in modern art: subjective deformation of nature seen through a temperament and objective deformation to make their imagination comply with the eternal laws of decor.14 in reality both these kinds of deformation comply with artists’ perceptions of humans. deformation signifies that the traditional concept of expressing the body as it originally is has become ineffective. replacing the traditional are various new ways of looking at the body. modern art’s exploration of body deformation shows an imagination of the body’s possibilities. just as einstein’s theory of relativity shows that space and time can be bent, so can any body in the experimental space of modernism become deformed in previously unimaginable ways. through deformation, artists express the body’s most minute and intricate meanings. 14 maurice denis, “subjective and objective deformation,” in theories of modern art: a source book by artists and critics, eds. herschel b. chipp and peter h. selz (berkeley: university of california press, 1968), 106. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015153 politics of the extreme body the abstract body abstract art is one of the great inventions of modernism. both european abstract artists (such as kandinsky, malevich, and picasso) and american abstract artists (such as pollock and de kooning) represent modernist art’s tremendous change in methods of visual representation. in clement greenberg’s opinion as summarized by timothy quiqley, “modernism reasserts the two-dimensionality of the picture surface. it forces the viewer to see the painting first as a painted surface, and only later as a picture.”15 in other words, modernist painting returns to the two-dimensional flatness of the picture surface through abstraction, allowing the art to be criticized for itself.16 abstract art traces its origins to the post-impressionist painter paul cézanne’s abstract landscapes, and later developed into the abstract treatment of the human figure in the cubism of georges braque and pablo picasso. abstract techniques have thoroughly changed the world with which we are familiar, with abstract bodies becoming a hallmark of modern art. cubism turns the human figure into an abstract conglomeration of geometric shapes, changing the concrete and identifiable into the unrecognizable and abstract, thus “dehumanizing” the familiar people and objects of daily life. picasso’s three musicians features no concrete human figures but rather creates new bodies from various geometric shapes. paul klee’s brother and sister uses a group of intersecting lines to form two connected images (fig. 3). 15 ( http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf ) 16 clement greenberg, “modernist painting,” in art in theory 1900-2000: an anthology of changing ideas, eds. charles harrison and paul wood (oxford: blackwell, 2003), 773-779. http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/greenberg-mp_sum.pdf the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 154 zhou xian 3.paul klee. brother and sister. 1930. braque’s female figure reduces the human body into even simpler geometric shapes and lines. abstract art is a method of observing and representing the body. its appearance stems from deep social and cultural reasons. some art historians believe that abstract art is uniquely modern in the sense that it represents the particular acceptances and rejections of men living under the conditions of modern the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015155 politics of the extreme body times.17 according to a popular view, modernism is a movement that pursues the autonomy of art, so abstract art and the flatness of painting are the inevitable result of such a pursuit, which is to say that de-emphasizing the people and objects one sees in daily life can give prominence to artistic media, form, and style.18 simply stated, this downplays what is expressed to emphasize how it is expressed. i think, however, in terms of the artistic representation of the body, there seems to be even more complex reasons behind abstract art. making the body artistically abstract gives artists the chance to bid farewell to traditional, imitative renderings of the body and provides a new path of exploring the body as artistic expressions of the subject. in abstract art, the human body can be changed and transformed. as abstract depictions of the body hide the familiar, it recreates an unfamiliar body; as it remolds viewers’ visual understanding, it manifests the oft-ignored features of the normal body. furthermore, the abstract body reveals artists’ rich imaginations as well as how they have visually transformed the concrete world. this transformation of the body reflects the deep influence of machine age science and technology on art, and also serves as a metaphor for external societal forces molding the body, signifying how disciplining the body is not only possible but also realistic. various contemporary societal powers collude with body knowledge, disciplining diverse body types into a mechanical, cold, stiff image, into the type of body society needs, what michel foucault called the “docile body.” interestingly, while cubism enjoyed its height from 1907 to 1914, some people ascribe its abrupt conclusion to the effects of world war i. the use of new weapons and technology inflicted unprecedented damage on mankind, destroying artists’ awe for technology and machines in but a moment, extinguishing the desire to geometrize the abstract body. thus, cubism, which employed abstract imagery as its basic technique, met its end.19 through the above three types of extreme bodies, we have discussed how this modernist invention has undermined the traditional beautiful body, its principles of expression, and concepts, as well as how modernist artists bursting with imagination are wildly experimenting the extreme body. in short, the human body in modernist art is like an opened pandora’s box; to many modernist artists, only representations of the extreme body have allure. 17 robert motherwell, “what abstract art means to me,” in theories of modern art, ed. herschell b. chipp, (berkeley: university of california press, 1968), 563. 18 see clement greenberg, “modernist painting,” charles harrison and paul wood, eds., art in theory 1900-2000 (oxford: blackwell, 2003). 19 see geoff dyer, ed., john berger: selected essays (london: bloomsbury, 2001), 77-78. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 156 zhou xian the visual politics of representation of the extreme body as the dominant of modernist art, the extreme body thoroughly transformed the state of the body in art. at the very least, the extreme body has posed a serious challenge to aesthetics in the three following ways. first, the appearance of the extreme body was a type of “transgressed representation.” for many centuries, the beautiful body historically occupied a key space in chinese and western art, developing many aesthetic principles and paradigms of representation. the beautiful body was an idol revered and adored in art. the extreme body favored in modernist art, to some extent, fostered a movement of fierce “de-idolization”; as it abandoned the principles of the beautiful body, it created a series of transgressed representations of the extreme body. as noted earlier, representation of the extreme body has no form and is formless. it is an overturning of all rules (especially the rules of classical beauty). lack of rules and opposition to rules are its rule, for this is what makes possible the creation of various kinds of extraordinary bodies. in classical paintings, perspectives and body positions must be formulaic and structured to achieve the standard of perfection; as seen in chinese paintings of courtly ladies or western paintings of nude goddesses, these must all follow a prescribed pattern of production. modernist art, on the other hand, radically transforms the shape of the human body, imposing no limits on the body’s shape, lines, tones, or poses, but rather tends toward the strange, dramatic, and extreme. not only has the principle of beautiful bodies been broken, but even more principles of classical beauty have lost their influence. in terms of visual perspective, portrait art typically uses either an eye level or low angle. a level view conveys a sense of equality and intimacy while a low angle view reflects a reverent or even awed perspective. in modernist art, however, even these principles of perspective have been overturned, making all kinds of visual angles and relationships possible. not only is modernist western art like this, but chinese contemporary art is also this way. for example, in the contemporary chinese artist mao yan’s my poet, the perspective is that of one looking down at the subject, a view not often seen in traditional portraiture. from the angle of social relationships, looking down when examining the subject conveys a feeling of condescension for the artist or viewer. it distances the viewer from the subject of the portrait, emphasizing the superiority of the artist and viewer while placing the subject in a passive state of being looked at, judged, and diminished. another example is the contemporary chinese artist yue minjun’s repetitive large-mouthed, laughing man, which completely goes against the rules of portraiture. somewhere the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015157 politics of the extreme body between poster, advertisement, and portrait the same limitlessly repeatable image is structurally arranged, creating a startling visual effect on viewers. clearly, the body in modernist and contemporary art has broken away from traditional principles of aesthetic expression. their creation now adopts the philosophy of “anything goes.” second, representation of the extreme body has led to “visual discomfort” (or “visual offense”). while the former characteristic concentrates on the relationship between the artist and the representation of the body, the latter focuses on the relation between the representation of the extreme body and viewers’ visual psychology. as the representation of deviant bodies discards the beautiful figure, it leads to the appearance of various forms of the extreme body. when viewers look at the extreme body, they feel a sense of strangeness, novelty, and alienation. also present might be a feeling of “visual discomfort,” “visual unpleasantness,” or even “visual offense.” this is completely different from the experience of viewing classical paintings of body beauty. when admiring the splendid masterpieces of the human figure, the viewer often sinks into contemplation, forgetting oneself before the beautiful object, the distance between viewer and artwork seemingly vanished. viewing the extreme bodies of modernist art, by contrast, is often joyless, accompanied by a feeling of rejection and despair. in the words of walter benjamin, the visual effect of the extreme body is “shock” in which viewers are not drawn to the artwork but rather distanced from it. the beautiful body allows the viewer to forget the self while the extreme body strengthens the viewer’s sense of self along with a sense of visual shock. therefore we can conclude that the beautiful figure represents the characteristic of normalcy, without revealing the peculiarity or inner meaning of the body discovered by and interesting to the artist. today, artists are captivated by the idiosyncratic and extreme representations of the body. from an aesthetic perspective, the beautiful body and its expressions allow viewers to forget themselves in delight while immersing in the artwork while the visual discomfort, joylessness, and even offensiveness of the extreme body stirs one’s emotions and stimulates introspection. in this regard, the ability of the extreme body to visually shock and touch people is perhaps more deeply penetrating and thought-provoking than the visual longing induced by the beautiful body, just as we try to diagnose our symptoms when our bodies are feeling ill but tend to ignore our bodies when we are feeling fine. it is the extreme body and its representation that distinguishes the hidden and turns viewers from the familiar and uninteresting to that which shocks the senses. contemporary chinese artist zhang xiaogang, the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 158 zhou xian when explaining his works, writes: what looks like a drawing of a photograph is actually a deliberate “hand-drawn ‘sense of deviation’ to create a feeling of illusory, detached coldness and distance.”20 it is precisely this sense of “coldness” and “distance” that pushes people to reflect upon the bodily issues they usually ignore. lastly, the extreme body makes the body the ultimate goal of artistic representation. in traditional art, the beautiful body often serves as a utilitarian symbol through which established concepts and ideals of beauty are conveyed, thus making it difficult to prevent the beautiful from becoming typical and common. modernist art strives for an unbeautiful and anti-beautiful image, leading to a deep shift that turns the body from a means into an end in and of itself. here, it is helpful to borrow a saying of jacques derrida which states, “[a]s if with the help of a new optical device one could finally see sight, could not only view the natural landscape, the city, the bridge, and the abyss, but could ‘view’ viewing.”21 what derrida means is that, with the help of some device, we could not only see an object, but we could see sight itself. similarly we can say here that the beautiful body, because it pleases viewers and allows them to submerge themselves in a state of static admiration, easily eliminates viewers’ desire to reflect and probe their thoughts. the extreme body, by contrast, often creates a sense of discomfort and distance for the viewer, using unconventional or even extreme methods to illustrate the body, thus distinguishing the body’s essence and stimulating viewers’ thoughts and questions. in other words, the commonly occurring beautiful body obstructs viewers’ contemplations about the body itself whereas the extreme body, like a kind of device that allows one to view viewing itself, lets viewers see “the body itself.” if the beautiful body is meant to evoke people’s admiration, reverence, and yearning, then the extreme body is meant to help people reflect, explore, and question. therefore, unlike traditional artists who hold the body in sacred reverence, modernist artists view the body as an object that needs reconstruction and deformation to push the limits; this passes through the beautiful body’s outward appearance to directly reach the body’s most basic level. perhaps we have reason to say that the beautiful body is self-explanatory, clear, and natural while the extreme body is always a formless, obscure, unknown, and uncertain world of possibility. it is precisely this characteristic uncertainty that draws artists to explore this direction. thus, unlike the categorical, stiff, and standardized beautiful body; the extreme body tends toward diversity and singularity, thereby approaching the 20 huang zhuan and zhang xiaogang, “experience, identity, and cultural judgments—an interview.” accessed februry 27, 2014. <http://www.china001.com/show_hdr.php?xname=ppddmv0&dname=8p2q541&xpos=56> 21 jacques derrida, eyes of the university: right to philosophy (stanford: stanford university press, 2004), 154. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015159 politics of the extreme body authenticity of the body which—along with identifying markers such as gender, ethnicity, and class—reflects different ways to look at the body. endnotes photo credits: salvador dalí, gala-salvador dali foundation/billedkunst.dk 2014 (1), metropolitan of art (2), permission free (3). contact: zhou xian zhouxian@nju.edu.cn http://billedkunst.dk/ http://billedkunst.dk/ http://billedkunst.dk/ h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 4 editorial somaesthetics and phenomenology – a handful of notes max ryynänen “what is the difference of somaesthetics and phenomenology?” this is the question a teacher of body philosophy encounters when s/he presents somaesthetics, the less known of these two approaches to the philosophy of the body. the answer might look simple. phenomenology, when focused on the body, has been the main academic tradition of philosophical body-consciousness. phenomenologists have mainly aspired to stay academic and theoretical with an epistemological objective and the approach has not originally been established for practical use. somaesthetics, a much later concept, has been right from the beginning fueled by an aspiration to lead theory and bodily practices into a dialogue – where both could enhance their (for the body often just tacit) knowledge with the help of the other. and if phenomenology, although later actively adapted in e.g. japan and south korea, is very (broadly speaking) central european by its nature, somaesthetics, with roots in the pragmatist philosophy that developed in the united states, has right from its very beginnings, in the early 2000s, encouraged dialogue between different philosophical traditions, both ‘western’ and ‘non-western’. however, the issue becomes complicated when looking at the communities working on and with the approaches. some phenomenologists today are actually dancers, karateka and/or yogi, others apply phenomenology to e.g. robotics and interface and interaction design, and so actually put phenomenology into practice in a way somaesthetics has made programmatic for itself. contrary, many who write about somaesthetics are actually classical academic philosophers in the sense that their main bodily practice is to sit behind a desk and drink (too much) coffee. both traditions take pride in their roots, phenomenology in the philosophical springs of the brentano-husserl connection (without forgetting the threads of reflections that have made e.g. rené descartes a central figure in the corpus), and somaesthetics in dewey’s philosophy of experience and his moderately experimental attitude (without forgetting the way already peirce and james built approaches to the body). practically, many who are into phenomenology have not actually much looked at its very beginnings (although the interest in husserl is somehow rising in importance again), and they start from merleau-ponty or heidegger. the same way, for example dewey’s original life work is for many somaestheticians known only through the work of later thinkers of pragmatism, most notably of course richard shusterman, the initiator of the discussion of somaesthetics. what could a comparative and/or critical and/or synthetizing inquiry into the relationship of these two approaches bring forth? what are the key differences (historical sources, practical writing, applications) – and could somaesthetics and phenomenology profit from having more philosophical dialogue? what about their very origins? pragmatism could historically be seen as an offspring of earlier continental philosophy that was imported to the new world through european diaspora. dewey also went to china for a period and applied some of his eastern learnings to his philosophy of art and phenomenology had already in husserl an asian somaesthetics and phenomenology5 editorial (japanese) connection that became stronger with heidegger (who, besides his dialogues with japanese thinkers, started to translate tao te ching). has asian thinking shaped the emergence of both philosophies in a way that unites them in some respect already quite early – and to what extent? the same could be asked about the continental european philosophies that were imported to harvard, the birthplace of pragmatism, but served also as a background to the evolution of phenomenology. peirce attacked cartesians that dominated harvard’s philosophical atmosphere, but husserl engaged in reinterpreting descartes. still the source is the same. one of the original main sources for the birth and early development of phenomenology, the work (i.e. teaching and research) of psychologist and philosopher franz brentano, featured intense reflection on the unity of consciousness (see, e.g. brentano 1995, see, e.g. 57). this same awe about the way we are able to keep focus and to feel mentally centralized, despite all fragmentation, despite being bombarded with random impulses, thoughts and multi-faceted stimulation – in other words, these ‘problems of oneness and unity occupied [edmund] husserl throughout all the phases of his philosophical development’ (sawicki 2001). husserl, like sigmund freud (another theorist of the mind), was brentano’s student, and the philosopher who appropriated brentano’s term ‘phenomenology’, which was originally reserved for descriptive psychology. husserl used it for his new take on scientific thinking by adapting brentano’s view that being is intentional – and, e.g., challenging his students and readers to take up a new craft of philosophy by systematically dropping perceptional prejudices through reduction (see e.g. husserl 1990), i.e. through taking away all uncertainties from our accounts of what we sense (which could of course also be read as also one new way to gain more focus for perception and experience). according to daniel dennett, unity of consciousness is needed for survival. unity of consciousness is, though, still over-emphasized, according to dennett, as we are not as much in control of our consciousness as we might think, and nor are we even able to grasp it strongly enough to claim possession of it (see e.g. dennett 1991). it might be that dennett’s comment to the phenomenologists is true, and that (to make a banal point) those who were able to focus better were more often able to pass their genes to the next generation, but, still, the way ‘things’ sometimes just ‘come together’ into focus, in a way that also feels remarkable, has perhaps been a key experience that has fueled the active, systematic introspection of both brentano and husserl. a pragmatist reader might also easily think that it shares some key components with dewey’s idea of an experience. the way we are able, with all our fragmented impulses, thoughts and multi-faceted stimulation, to sometimes intensify and build focused experience, feeling not just mentally centralized but also somatically centralized, is a main tenet in dewey’s aspiration to theorize moments when all our fragmentated memories, impulses, and mental and sensuous stimuli come together in an experience (dewey 1980). he simply left the narrow intellect behind, and went for a broader unity, but also drags in the organic rhythms of the body – and accentuates memories, (aesthetic) skills and the active construction of the experience. one cannot of course equate consciousness and experience, but both threads of thinking share the same interest in mental focus. both phenomenology and pragmatism have mainly worked without empirical data, and they have focused on philosophical descriptions (and introspection), argumentation and speculation (which i have nothing against). if (the significantly later) dewey described activities as different the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 6 as cleaning the house and gazing at paintings to make his point, while never particularly detailing the organic rhythms of the body that he mentioned several times, and not being interested in working out taxonomies of holistic experience, brentano worked only, and restrictively, in the sphere of the mind. the body, though, gained increasingly focus in the work of the line of phenomenologists that starts from edmund husserl. from descartes’s masonry heater to heidegger’s hammer although the soma is not just ‘bubbling under’ in the life work of edmund husserl – the body as the ‘lived here’, a locus of sensations, embodiment and situatedness is already actively present in, e.g., his 1913 ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy (1983) – in my personal reading of phenomenology, the body has always stood out in a remarkable manner first and foremost in martin heidegger’s being and time [sein und zeit] 1927, in the philosopher’s description of the tool/equipment [zeug]: the less we just stare at the hammer-thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is – as equipment. the hammering itself uncovers the specific ‘manipulability’ of the hammer. the kind of being which equipment possesses – in which it manifests itself in its own right – we call ‘readiness-to-hand’. (heidegger 1962, 98) heidegger’s tool/equipment is something that other philosophers like to mention when they present his lifework (gianni vattimo seems to pay most attention to it: see vattimo 1973, 2325), but the concept itself has not attracted analysis that would open up its somatic potential. it is not that heidegger would in any way hint upon the bodily side of the example he started lecturing about in 1919, and which then became an integral part of being and time (1927). heidegger’s issue is not the use of any single tool. he discusses the whole cultural network of reliable tools. ‘taken strictly, there “is” no such thing as an equipment. to the being of any equipment there always belongs a totality of equipment, in which it can be this equipment that it is,’ he writes (heidegger 1962, 97). using tools, one is not attitude-wise vis-à-vis the world of ‘objects.’ in use, the hammer becomes ‘transparent’. we notice the role/meaning of it when it is, e.g., broken. the act of using the hammer is of course a somatic practice (although heidegger does not underline this) – and it is polarized against the horizon of works of art, which heidegger paints with sort of radical conservative (idealist) brushstrokes, reserving ‘art’ (aesthetically heretically) for works that have only a constitutive role in the local (greek, german) culture, and which pull us out from our everyday to an unsafe position, to meet our existential ‘abyss’ (heidegger 1971). while art might sometimes bring materials like stone in the spotlight of experience (heidegger mentions barlach’s sculptures), it looks like there would be no somatic side to the appreciation of it, and in this sense heidegger’s art does not depart from e.g. kantian ideals of disinterestedness. but the use of equipment does, although heidegger does not work on it. human beings have used hammers for at least 3.3 million years (harmand & lewis 2015) and even the nailing hammer was created 3000 years ago. by using a tool that is so very much downto-earth, is easy to use (not requiring much reflection) and insignificant, though important, and culturally ancient (i guess this is part of the point), one’s cultural modality goes ‘hands on’ ineditorial somaesthetics and phenomenology7 editorial depth when using it. the bodily engagement with a cultural product that transmits historicity takes one to the core and base of culture itself, and we can here think of culture in broad, shared terms: heidegger’s thinking was still, at this early phase of being and time, intended to explain dasein without the restricted ethno-nationalism that marked the origin of the work of art. heidegger polarized presence-at-hand (vorhandenheit) and readiness-to-hand (zuhandenheit), and meant with the former concept phenomena in consciousness, but with the latter term he referred, for example, to tools (i.e. equipment, zeug), like the hammer mentioned above. it is not that one could not mention heidegger’s list of tools which appear in his later work, i.e. ‘equipment for writing, sewing, working, transportation, measurement’ (heidegger 1962, 97). the hammer just happens to be the most somatically laden of all of them and he chose it to represent the whole network of tools. a pen (in heidegger’s list) would have been the classical philosophical example (‘i sit here in my office and look at my pen’). a needle would restrict the soma to very small movements and to the fingers only. but grabbing tools, e.g. a hammer – this major motoric action – is central for us and for monkeys. even simply seeing someone grabbing a hammer activates our mirror neurons, whether we were to see it ‘live’ or on film (see e.g. lankinen, smeds, tikka, pihko, hari & koskinen 2016 or ghazanfar & shepherd 2011). the example is even, in a sense, a good example of cultural reduction, if one desires to look at it from that perspective. when one hammers, one mainly just hammers – and through that somatic act one dives under the surface of culture, both to the historicity of the tool as a part of a whole network of tools, that we rely on, a safe haven of pragma, and (this is something that husserl the wannabe scientist would have liked) then also through the cultural layers, not to our existential abyss, but our biological roots. husserl, though, wrote about something that could be considered to be close to tools in his “renewal: its problem and method” (1923-1924), where he discussed e.g. commodities (gut) (husserl 1988). for husserl man’s interest in building houses and producing commodities was about becoming immortal, which is, of course, a very different stance regarding heidegger’s in a sense down-to-earth discourse on the tool/equipment. husserl was more, though, into discussing perception. one of the sources of husserl’s at first quite lonely auto-wrestling with the issue of reduction is the work of rené descartes, whose 1637 discourse on the method (descartes 2006) featured dreadful doubts about the existence of the body and ‘outer reality.’ (in his later work, descartes, famously, also discussed in a practical spirit the way the mind and the body connect, but his early work really fed dualistic thinking.) descartes’s dysfunctional body-relationship – he enjoyed meditating in a masonry heater (or some kind of oven) but doubted dreadfully the existence of his body – led to a (neurotic) systematic questioning of what he saw. for example, he asked if he saw a house or just a facade, when he walked by (ibid.). husserl turned this epistemological experimentalism – at least descartes himself talks about all those years that he spend going beyond facades to really see what he saw (a whole house or just a façade) – into an initiative for a scientific method, where reducing transcendentalism and understanding critically that we ‘fill in’ the reality we perceive with our imagination (e.g. i am now taking it for granted that the cup on my right side is whole, and not just a (from the other side) broken one that my eye just cannot conceive) would make our scientific work clearer and better based. the phainomenon, things appearing to view, had, according to husserl, to be understood as things in themselves so that we could arrive at a greater clarity about reality. heidegger, in husserl’s footsteps, with his example of the hammer turned phenomenology upside down in a sense to what lay beyond cultural perception. his ‘reduction’ was probably not consciously about our biological base, which i mentioned above, but in some sense about the the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 8 way we are ‘being culture’ through the act of using a tool. with this neologism i desire to apply the ‘being body’ and ‘having a body’ framework of husserl to the use of the tool presented by heidegger, and the way one connects in-depth and ‘loses oneself ’ to culture through somatic action (not reflection, i.e. ‘having a culture’). as the tool seems to fascinate those philosophers who walk in heidegger’s footsteps, but is virtually never applied or reflected upon further, one can speculate on whether the icebergs of somatic practice, and our primal sense of empathy that is connected to grabbing and seizing, have somehow made it lucrative, although it might be hard to build anything new on this idea. phenomenology, of course, found its body, more famously and in a more dominant manner in the work of maurice merleau-ponty, who, richard shusterman writes (an quotes) in thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (shusterman 2012), “powerfully foregrounds the body’s value while intriguingly explaining the body as silent, structuring, concealed background: ‘bodily space… is the darkness needed in the theatre to show up the performance, the background of somnolence or reserve of vague power against which the gesture and its aim stand out.’” in merleau-ponty’s sensitive, reflective inquiries, some of today’s ways of thinking about the body – e.g. seeing clothes as its extension – find their first expression. merleau-ponty also writes (i continue quoting shusterman as he gives merleau-ponty a major role in building some of the fundamental thoughts that today define also somaesthetics): “the body is also mysterious as a locus of “impersonal” existence, beneath and hidden from normal selfhood. it is “the place where life hides away” from the world, where i retreat from my interest in observing or acting in the world “lose myself in some pleasure or pain, and shut myself up in this anonymous life which subtends my personal one. but precisely because my body can shut itself off from the world, it is also what opens me out upon the world and places me in a situation there” (ibid.). merleau-ponty’s work explored the dialogue of the lived body and the world, where the body was not just a source of tacit knowledge but now also the locus of consciousness. he was followed by, e.g., luce irigaray and jean-luc nancy, who took philosophizing through the body to new levels, exploring breathing, forgotten somatic potentials and morphologies of gender (irigaray) and touch (nancy), among many other issues. these names have made phenomenology, at least in the western world, the philosophy of the body, although many phenomenologists have not accentuated the body at all. from peirce’s pragmatist reading of descartes to the global nature of somaesthetics another reading of descartes stimulated the birth of pragmatism. the presbyterian circles at harvard and its environs added to the somatic skepticism of descartes so much that the founder of pragmatism, charles saunders peirce turned his gaze aggressively against the local (religiously laden) rationalists, and said to his students that upon meeting a cartesian they should go and punch him in the face – and then ask if he still doubted the existence of his body (for more see menand 2001). peirce explored the body as, e.g., firstness, secondness and thirdness, firstness being the spontaneous, automatized level of bodily experience and thirdness, the other end of the triad, just reflection (for an introduction to this, see e.g. mittelberg 2019). in his footsteps, william james conceived vital energy as one central particle in his view on religious experience. but only dewey made the body present also through practice – as he trained in the alexander technique – and then, various authors from joseph kupfer (kupfer 1983) to arnold berleant (berleant 1991) left traces (of e.g. sport and environmental thinking) in the holistic vision of editorial somaesthetics and phenomenology9 editorial bodily life in pragmatism, all focusing in a way or another on dewey’s ‘an experience’, before richard shusterman created the concept and practice of somaesthetics, where both practice and theory had a major role. interestingly, not many have taken shusterman’s practical call so seriously that they have come out with their own practices – and only theoretical debate has flourished in his footsteps, even that often only lightly connected to dewey. on the other hand, practically engaged phenomenology has recently been emerging, for example, in artistic research (see e.g. the experimental work of esa kirkkopelto, e.g. 2017) and in connection with disabilities and robotics1. it might be, though, that both phenomenologists and pragmatists have taken too much for granted that the dualism of the mind and the body is the fault of descartes. as daniel dennett writes, “if we look carefully at the ideology of folk psychology, we find it pretty much cartesian – dualist through and through” (dennett 1998, 84) and one can ask if this would have been the case even without descartes. whether one would live a holistic life or not, or aim at holistic harmony, there are also strong moments of experience for all of us, moments when we experience the split. these moments, reflected upon in the first part of the ‘having a body’ and ‘being a body’ division of phenomenology, are often perhaps less conceived of as pleasant, as most people who aim for well-being work through yoga, food practices and sport to experience the body-mind creature as a whole. on the other hand, while commenting on folk psychology (and folk physics), dennett also reminds the reader that people’s reflective ideas on their beliefs and practices do not mirror the practices and experiences always particularly well, so that one should not take the discourse too seriously (ibid. 85). somaesthetics kicked off with richard shusterman’s attempt and model of combining bodily practice with philosophy, so that one could, through an interaction of these practices, make them learn from each other. of course, in some sense, this is not news in china, japan or india, where philosophical reflection has always consciously been a part of holistic systems of art, health and religion – but one must remember that academic (western) philosophy is another issue. one could perhaps say that combining academic philosophy with practical exercises is truly news. although thoughts on the body and philosophy had in many, sometimes very somaesthetic ways, already appeared earlier in the work of shusterman, the original manifestoesque text, somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal was published in 1999 and set out a challenge, asking whether theoretical american thinking could produce a tandem with practical exercises, and what a pragmatist body philosophy could be like. it set the tenet for basing a new philosophical practice and practical form of philosophy on john dewey’s pragmatist legacy, which shusterman re-popularized in aesthetics (it never ceased to be a living classic in art education) with his 1992 pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art. this book brought aesthetic experience (back) into the center of anglo-american academic aesthetics. as shusterman was very global in his approach, not just taking part in philosophical debates in germany and france, but also studying and learning in japan and china, the landscape of the new debate became immediately very much a global phenomenon. this definitely makes somaesthetics a different plane of thinking (and doing) from phenomenology. although there are interesting combinations of, e.g., phenomenological thinking and buddhism (see parkes 1987), the old “main ingredient”, a product of the central european scholarly scene, remains quite unmixed with these friendly approaches. 1 see e.g. some of the names and (titles of ) presentations at the phenomenology of changing life-worlds conference in konstanz in 2018 (organized by yvonne förster). young phenomenologists seem to be quite open-minded for practical applications: phenomenology_program_ förster3.pdf (yvonnefoerster.com). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 10 editorial there are some noteworthy offsprings of shusterman’s work to mention in somaesthetics, in this sense, such as the 2020 somaesthetics and yogasutra by vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian (see also fiala and banerjee, 2020, for a great take on indian dance tradition), without forgetting richard shusterman’s (ed) bodies in the street: the somaesthetics of city life (2019), which includes witty articles by noteworthy philosophers and art educators like pradeep dhillon (who writes about somatic religious rituals in varanasi; see dhillon 2019), and others such as takes on somatic performance in iran (fakhrkonandeh 2019). it is not that phenomenology would not have been applied globally, but that the tenet has been more open to other approaches, i.e. other theoretical roots and cultural realities, in somaesthetics. catherine f. botha’s (ed.) african somaesthetics: cultures, feminisms, politics (2020) has also rapidly taken somaesthetics as a frame and a partner in dialogue to africa, a continent that is seldom a visible entrant to the world of academic philosophy. in phenomenology one does not usually see phenomenology happen in a sense or another in another traditions, but in somaesthetics this is a typical way of thinking. traditions shaking hands some phenomenologists have taken the opportunity to publish through the platform offered by the community that has gathered under the multi-disciplinary umbrella of somaesthetics. authors such as madalina diaconu (diaconu 2019), and the work of tonino griffero (who also has a text in this special issue); see also e.g. the work of timo klemola (klemola 2004), whose mix of phenomenology and artistic research has been also open for somaesthetics) exemplify how easy it is to come in from the ‘other side’, and this also remains one of the differences: phenomenology has never created a space for discussing just the issues, like somaesthetics. even though they are sometimes about the same thing, i.e. the phenomenology of the body is relatively often about the same issues as somaesthetics (the latter has of course learned much from the former), the way phenomenology has a strong exegetic tenet makes it mostly impenetrable for most people, who do not have a rigid philosophical education. in somaesthetics, maybe at least partly following the way most scholars who use the tag do not really dive deep into its deweyan roots, but also following the very basic idea of staying down-to-earth and learning from all traditions that has always marked pragmatism, it is all the opposite. this school of thought has been able to transform into a relatively global platform of discussion for anyone who is ready to enter its looser, but also more multi-disciplinary, discourse. authors in somaesthetics mostly come from different backgrounds. in this sense, it would not be totally wrong to answer those students who ask what is the difference between phenomenology and somaesthetics by saying that somaesthetics is a platform and phenomenology is a rigid school of thinking. there are less scholars in somaestehtics who study in depth its deweyan roots. phenomenology is sometimes a tag word too, of course – one that brings together different approaches. i recall throughout my years of study that there were people writing about a variety of issues, always adding that they worked in the phenomenological tradition, though their work had little to do with any roots of the school of thinking. these were often and still are often of course ignored by the strong exegetical wing of phenomenology that dominates the atmosphere in phenomenology to an unfruitful extent in many universities. this type of a purist margin is lacking in somaesthetics. the accent on aesthetics, the arts, and experience in some sense marginalizes somaesthetics in the broad field of philosophy, where phenomenology roams just as much in the territories of epistemology and philosophy of science. (this might of course change.) artists have actively somaesthetics and phenomenology11 editorial taken part in building the discussion of somaesthetics (jean-francois paquay, sue spaid, olafur eliasson), and this is something that perhaps institutionally separates it again from the phenomenology of the body, and the same can be said of the way different themes lead, through the basic research done, to practical bodily reflection, not the husserl archives. as phenomenology often seems just to dig deeper into its textual origins, to the extent that joining the discussion craves for years of reading, somaesthetics might, in my opinion, have actually use of more and deeper discussion about its theoretical base. for example, the way dewey reflected on the organic rhythms of the body and the way the body took part in experience (and especially an experience) is something that could offer more on the topic, than what we have seen so far, but most commentators have not really delved into the roots of what originally constituted dewey’s pre-somaesthetics. as phenomenology has mainly stayed as a (broadly speaking) central european tradition that sometimes has dialogue with ‘others’, somaesthetics has, like already mentioned, in reality become something substantially global, and also something that has as its main purpose to be applied to new issues all the time. in shusterman’s thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (2012) he discusses the roots of today’s body philosophies (and aesthetic practices) not just in europe, but in asia, e.g. china and japan, which have an immense tradition of philosophical thought and practice on the issue. although the tradition of phenomenology has had a great many fantastic body thinkers, such as maurice merleauy-ponty and luce irigaray, in reality it took decades before it started to have effects through applications that we can see today (see, e.g., the already mentioned work in artistic research by esa kirkkopelto, or in fashion studies by yvonne förster, see e.g. förster 2018). as already noted on the practical side of somaesthetics, interestingly, testing out different body practices has been something notable in some seminars and artistic acts, but reflection on practical somaesthetics has stayed in the background, at least until now. that is probably partly due to the fact that not many have taken part in shusterman’s practical somaesthetics sessions, which might leave students of the discipline thinking that they have not really mastered the basics, even though there seems to be no tight formula attached to it. concluding the discourse i hope the notes made here shed light on some of the shared origins of the traditions and classics (e.g. descartes) that form the base and root of the phenomenology of the body (and its applications) and somaesthetics, and i have attempted to sketch out the way these two approaches work on a multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary and theory vs. practice (or an attempt to mix the polarity) scale. as a personal note i could add, that although i read more phenomenology, for myself i have found somaesthetics a better working philosophical environment, as i am more interested in applications of philosophy and global interests, but the text corpus of the tradition is still quite narrow in scope, partly due to the fact that it is still very much new in comparison to the over a century old tradition of phenomenology. the development of phenomenology is not, at the moment, as fast as the development of somaesthetics, which seems to cross lines both in relation to philosophical schools (somaesthetics has been intertwined recently with, e.g., marxism and patanjali alike) and finds followers in a variety of disciplines, who will take its learnings to the practical challenges of, e.g., tech, cooking and martial arts – and this happens much faster than it ever happened in the much more introverted and exegetic tradition of phenomenology. on the other hand, phenomenology is a deep, and already very detailed and broad theoretical base, the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 12 editorial which somaesthetics cannot ignore, and some of its main learnings come from the tradition. time will show how the interaction, distance and mashing-up of these approaches and platforms will continue to develop. i am not really interested in keeping them differentiated, and i myself would never ‘support’ either of them alone, but simply find them clusters of routes, communities and methods for understanding the body, which keeps perplexing me both as a locus and as a site of knowledge and experience. the authors of this issue seem to share my view, at least to some respect. tonino griffero compares hermann schmitz’s new phenomenology and richard shusterman’s somaesthetics in his “corporeal landscapes: can somaesthetics and new phenomenology come together?”. griffero notes that both approaches transgress disciplinary boundaries and take a critical stance towards western ideas of the body. griffero compares shusterman's somaesthetics and schmitz's new phenomenology in terms of the central theme of the lived body. he writes, e.g., that both approaches share to some extent an idea of intercorporeality and bodily styles. carsten friberg’s “practical phenomenology? does practical somaesthetics have a parallel in phenomenology?” asks if we can find a practical phenomenology which would be analogous to practical somaesthetics? friberg’s answer is mainly negative, though he writes that “it may prove to be more of a difference in what we can expect from the practical dimension between them than an absence of practice in phenomenology”. he also claims, that both traditions have insufficient descriptions/answers to what is “practical”. nicole miglio and samuele sartori write in their “perceptual and bodily habits: towards a dialogue between phenomenology and somaesthetics” about the synergies of the traditions based upon their notions of “habit”. the authors reflect on the nature of habit in the work of merleau-ponty and dewey, and then attempt to compare critical phenomenology and shusterman’s somaesthetics, and to find analogies in their ways of discussing the transformational dimension of habits. the issue features also ruth anderwald’s, leonhard grond’s and maria auxiliadora gálvez pérez’s dialogical essay “getting dizzy: a conversation between the artistic research of dizziness and somatic architecture”, where the authors, inspired by somaesthetics, discuss (aesthetic) dizziness (taumel) as a concept together with what they call “somatic architecture”. many practical and theoretical points emerge in the discussion. i hope the issue as a whole stimulates thoughts about synergies of philosophical traditions, which have, throughout history, stayed unrewardingly differentiated for political, geographical and stylistic reasons. references balakrishnan, vinod & kurian, swathi elizabeth. (2020). somaesthetics and yogasutra: a reading through films. new delhi: vishvanatha kaviraja institute. berleant, arnold. (1991). art and engagement. philadelphia: temple university press. brentano, franz. (1995 [1874]). psychology from an empirical standpoint. london: routledge dennett, daniel c. (1991). consciousness explained. new york: little, brown & co. dennett, daniel c. (1998). two contrasts: craft versus folk science, and belief versus an opinion, in brainchildren: essays on designing minds. london: penguin books. 81-94. descartes, rené. (2006). discourse on the method. oxford: oxford classics. dewey, john. (1980). art as experience. new york: pedigree books. dhillon, pradeep. (2019). the somaesthetic sublime: varanasi in modern and contemporary somaesthetics and phenomenology13 editorial indian art. in richard shusterman (ed), bodies in the street: somaesthetics and street life, 294314. leiden: brill. diaconu, madalina. (2019). the weather-worlds of urban bodies. in richard shusterman (ed), bodies in the street: the somaesthetics of street life. leiden: brill. fiala, jessica & banerjee, suparna. (2020). performative somaesthetics: interconnections of dancers, audiences, and sites. the journal of somaesthetics, 1, vol 5, 91-111. förster, yvonne. (2018). from digital skins to digital flesh: understanding technology through fashion. popular inquiry: the journal of the aesthetics of kitsch, camp and mass culture, vol 2, 2018: 1, 32-44. gallese, vittorio, guerra, michele & anderson, frances. (2019). the empathic screen: cinema and neuroscience. oxford: oxford university press. ghazanfar, asif & shepherd, stephen. (2011). monkeys at the movies: what evolutionary cinematics tells us about film. projections. 5. 1-25. 10.3167/proj.2011.050202. harmand, sonya & lewis, jason. (2015). 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from lomekwi 3, west turkana, kenya. nature 521 (7552), 310-315. heidegger, martin. (1962). being and time. oxford: blackwell. heidegger, martin. (1971). poetry, language, thought. new york: harper & row. husserl, edmund. (1983). ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. the hague – boston – lancaster: martinus nijhoff publishers. husserl, edmund. (1970). the crisis of european sciences and transcendental phenomenology. evanston: northwestern university press. husserl, edmun. (1988). erneuerung als individualethisches problem, in aufsätze und vorträge (1922-1937), husserliana gesammelte werke, band xxvii, edited by t. neoon and h.r. sepp, 20-43. haag: kluwer academic publishers. kirkkopelto, esa. (2017). species-beings, human animals, and new neighbors: non-human and inhuman in contemporary performance. performance research 22: 87-96. klemola, timo. (2004). taidon filosofia. tampere: tampere university press. kupfer, joseph. (1983). experience as art. albany: state university of new york press. lankinen, kaisu; smeds, eero; tikka, pia; pihko, elina; hari, riitta & koskinen, miikka. (2016). haptic contents of a movie dynamically engage the spectator’s sensorimotor cortex. human brain mapping 37 (2016), 4061-4068. menand, louis. (2001). the metaphysical club: a story of ideas in america. new york: farrar, strauss and giroux. mittelberg, irene. (2019). peirce’s universal categories: on their potential for gesture theory and multimodal analysis. semiotica, vol 228: 193-222. parkes, graham. (1987). heidegger and asian thought. honolulu: uh press. ryynänen, max. (2019.) sending chills up my spine: somatic films and the care of the self, in kevin tavin, mira kallio-tavin & max ryynänen (eds), art, excess, and education historical and discursive contexts. new york: palgrave, 183-197. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 1 (2021) 14 sawicki, marianne. (2001). edmund husserl. internet encyclopedia of philosophy. https://iep. utm.edu/husserl/ shusterman, richard. (1992). pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art. london: blackwell. shusterman, richard. (1999). somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, vol 57, no. 3, summer 1999: 299-313. shusterman, richard. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. shusterman, richard. (2018). aesthetic experience and somaesthetics. leiden / boston: brill. shusterman, richard. (2019). bodies in the street: the somaesthetics of city life. leiden / boston: brill. shusterman, richard. (2021). ars erotica. cambridge: cambridge university press. vattimo, gianni. (1971). introduzione a heidegger. milano: laterza. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 30 marius presterud’s pearl diving project pearl diving for the fabled artist: an interview with marius presterud by oslo apiary´s eco-philosophical radio station abstract: in this interview with oslo apiary eco-philosophical radio channel, marius presterud (artist, poet, cand. psychol.) describes the process of making the first part of the work series pearl diving. in pearl diving, swallowed pearls are located and extracted from the artist’s body. presterud describes the production procedure, how the work was inspired by his interdisciplinary background, and offers his reflections on somaesthetics. interview took place in oslo, 11.09.2015 keywords: pearl diving, somaesthetics, embodied art, immersed articipation, cross-disciplinary art, videoart, health, psychology, gastroscopy, oslo apiary this interview took place via chat between marius presterud (artist, poet, cand. psychol.) and mikkel dagestad, september 2015. it was construed as a pilot for oslo apiary´s ecophilosophical radio channel, a social oriented art practice run by the duo. in the interview, presterud describes his experience from the process of making part one of the work series pearl diving, where swallowed pearls are located and extracted from the artist’s body. presterud describes the procedure, how the work was inspired by his interdisciplinary background, and offers his reflections on somaesthetics from the perspective of a clinical psychologist. oslo apiary (oa): welcome new listeners. today we will be talking about pearls. presterud: “culture pearls!” that is to say, they are freshwater pearls from oysters that have been cultivated to develop pearls by having small grains of sand force-fed into their shell. traditionally, pearls were harvested from oyster banks, but for the last hundred years, culture pearls have flooded the market, making it hard to economically justify harvesting them patiently from the sea. they’re still surprisingly expensive though. oa: you’ve told me the first question everyone asks, is how did you get this done? marius presterud (mp): i had the procedure done at the gastrolab at oslo university hospital, ullevål. oa: did you just ask them? mp: basically. i sent them an e-mail. but of course, that they knew i was a health professional doing an art project and that must´ve given me some good-will. oa: were you scared? mp: oh, i was worried. there is always a risk of complications; stomachs have been punctured marius presterud’s pearl diving project oslo apiary´s eco-philosophical radio station page 30-35 somaesthetics and food31 oslo apiary´s eco-philosophical radio station by cam sticks in the past. and that the gastrolab answered “yes” without much hassle, also made me contemplative. but the doctor and his assistant nurse gave off a good presence and you could tell they had obviously done similar procedures on drug smugglers an innumerable amount of times, so that kept me calm. i had a photographer with me as well, margit selsjord, who had worked as an assistant at a gastrolab during her studies, so i had a chance to talk through the whole séance with her before arriving. she brought a simple looking analogue camera so as to not stress the doctor and nurse. i´d say it was well prepared. what i wasn’t prepared for though, was how unpleasant it would be. it’s not as much a tube, as a cane, that you are asked to swallow. a cane with a bulbous fish lens at the end that goes down your throat, and once it’s in, you’re supposed to keep breathing, which you can, because nothing’s blocking your windpipe, only your stomach tract. it was surprisingly disturbing. oa: so this is your stomach. did it need to be a human stomach? could it have been a pig’s stomach or someone else’s for it to work conceptually? mp: my dad owns a swine. and no, not for me. as both viewer and participator, my own experience of the procedure was an inseparable part of the work for me. i was being presented live images of my own insides and you don’t get to experience that that often in depth and in lengthy dosages. there is a lot going on in there. an engulfment in me, bubbling with activity, with pulsating muscles, writhing tubes, bile filled, acid filled, violent, dark, ever churning. and literally through my outer appearance contained. we have little control of what’s going on inside of us most of the time, and since we place high value on self-control and self-containment, we spend time covering these things up. we hide our sweat-stains, wipe away our tears and feel ashamed when our stomach growls. the body humbles us. and with our intestines especially, we are confronted with our pitiful interdependence on the world and its messiness. so let’s dive inside, you know? i attempted to make room for some of that vulnerability as i let parts of myself that was beyond my control and projected identity be filmed. i had no idea if it would go well, how it would look down there, where the pearls had landed. i had given the doctor next to no narrative to work with, knew little about the equipment or quality of the film, and was unable to instruct during filming, making the authorship of the raw material somewhat open-ended.1 oa: what was it like seeing yourself from the inside? mp: in appearance, my stomach has an aspect of the abject2 to it. it has shapelessness and disorder as its form language. it’s something i have a hard time recognizing as myself, but that i am forced to recognize. my insides are both subject and object at the same time, and i’m still not quite sure if anyone else should see it or not? it feels private, even though it’s just a continuation of my mouth, maybe because i can’t control the look of the parts that are being exposed. i’m still kind of shameful every time the camera passes my pyloric valve. and i take an illogical amount of pride in how healthy pink my stomach lining looks. i automatically take responsibility for things that are contextual in origin. these introspections supplemented my understanding and further analysis of the imagery produced. and there, lying in my rampaging midst, the pearl with its radiant beauty, perfection and circular integrity. mirroring me mockingly. oa: it is both extremely disgusting and fascinating at the same time. 1 note, the video has been edited for presentation and sound has been added. 2 kristeva j., (1982). powers of horrors: an essay on abjection. new york, columbia university press. descriptive link: https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61009.pdf the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 32 marius presterud’s pearl diving project mp: don’t you think i’m beautiful? oa: i´ve seen you describe pearl diving, part 1 as a somaesthetic exploration of a contemporary, western model of selfhood. what is somaesthetics, and how is your work a somaesthetic exploration? mp: yeah. i may have appropriated the term somewhat haphazardly at this point, but why be so academic about it. i adopted it from a lecture held by richard shusterman at kunstnernes hus this spring,3 seeing it as a fitting term for describing strivings at moving past verbal language and signs as a way of understanding and appreciating art’s irreducibility, relying on the inseparability of our cerebral and bodily register in an attempt to match this irreducibility. was that coherent? i found the term snug for describing pd#1 after reading journal of somaesthetics (vol:1, nbr:1, 2015). which, to my delight, also introduced me to stelarc’s “stomach sculpture” from 1993. oa: i think it would help if you were a bit more concrete. mp: for me, somaesthetics’s most interesting and useful contribution comes through shusterman´s distinction between representational foregrounding and experimental foregrounding. as i´ve understood it, the latter becomes relevant to the degree that an artwork requires the self-directed perception on the part of the recipient for aesthetic appreciation. this suggests that experimental foregrounding may be mediated in at least two ways: one, by the degree that a work evokes or relies upon engagement on the part of the perceptive recipient. two, by the recipient’s personal receptivity. which raises the topic of how different people can be differently receptacle to experience art, depending on their relationship to their own body and ability to be present. i was certainly a perceptive soma during the making of pd#1. but it can also be argued that you are as a viewer too, because of our bodily commonality and your empathic response many people hold their breath as the camera goes down my throat. while the act of making yoghurt using one’s own vaginal bacteria culture,4 on the other hand, would be an example of an art experience that may not be available to you and me, ´because we are not in possession of the corporal starting point for the self-directed perception to begin with. we can sympathize, but not empathize. oa: that´s a pity. mp: but by the commonality of our embodied selves, analytical somaesthetics should also offer vocabulary, and thereby, legitimacy to certain social oriented practices.5 oa: which is our kind of thing, so that sounds good. at the same time something makes you sceptical of eastern influences being put to work in a western, neoliberalist context? mp: shusterman unquestionably deserves credit for his work at revitalizing the epistemological status of the body, through his proposed field of analytical somaesthetics. when it comes to somaesthetics´ pragmatic and practical side though, i predict growing scepticism from my contemporaries6. if the suggestion is that solitary exercises and mind-body practices will service the world by giving people the means to mesh art, life and philosophy, i would argue that at this 3 richard shusterman: pragmatism, somaesthetics, and contemporary art, kunstnernes hus, (20.04.2015). 4 vaghurt, (27-29.06.2015). http://fugt.org/ 5 see f.ex. flatbread society´s bakehouse project at bjørvika, oslo, where the physical presence, labour and eating, seems to be at the center of the project. http://www.fbs.com 6 see f.ex. madsen, o., j., (2014). det er innover vi må gå en kulturpsykologisk studio av selvhjelp. universitetsforlaget. https://vimeo.com/123026083 https://vimeo.com/123026083 http://stelarc.org/video/?videoid=20300 http://stelarc.org/video/?videoid=20300 http://stelarc.org/video/?videoid=20300 http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://fugt.org/ http://www.fbs.com http://www.fbs.com http://www.fbs.com http://www.fbs.com http://www.fbs.com http://www.fbs.com http://www.fbs.com somaesthetics and food33 oslo apiary´s eco-philosophical radio station point in time, in this part of the world, self-cultivation isn’t something that seems to be lacking in our lives. there is already considerable mythology surrounding the use, health and training of our body and mind, how our individual potential can be grown, harvested, directed, how to find solutions to life’s challenges within ourselves. and as a clinician, i´m certainly invested in things like inner processes thoughts, feelings, pleasures, traumas, fantasies, embodied habits and schematas and in empowering people through self-awareness and self-leadership. but what is helpful to an individual in a clinical setting, isn´t necessary good for society as an imperative trend. in our current context, i have the impression that more often than not, self-knowledge and self-creation with the aim of improved living, becomes a lonely project. a project of autonomy and self-care suspiciously fitting contemporary demands of adaptability and personal agency (and personal responsibility) of western man. people like shusterman and health professionals like myself, may unintentionally be sustaining this development through our respective practices. shusterman is familiar with criticism along similar lines.7 so at first glance, i have a hard time locating the social oriented practice that goes with somaesthetics. research into the lives of people we perceive as privileged, reports that being self-sustained, self-indulged, non-dependent and unobligated to the everyday operations of society around you, can lead to very unsatisfying, pacifying and estranged lives.8,9,10,11 through examples from the art world, i´d like to see the link made between practical somaesthetics, art production and the deepening of commitment to friends, loved one’s, family or community. given the bodily commonalities that bind us together, this should be a productive topic for somaesthetics to delve into. i hope to see later editions of jos be devoted to the subject. oa: so putting you to the same challenge, what does the work, pd#1, have to offer me? mp: as a viewer, right. well, i have to leave that partially to you. but we do share figures of speech and i think there is an obvious metaphor in plain sight; we find a treasure inside the artist. what’s it like to have a thing of value inside of you? what is this popular idea that “we all harbour beautiful things in our depths” that only needs to be fished out? shouldn’t it then be fished out? what are you supposed to feel it you can’t find it? how long should you keep looking? should you seek help to find it? here we are at the heart of the questions that inspired the imagery of pd#1. the idea of the minable individual that we have this inner, unlocked potential to turn to is in its pure form, a critique worthy internalization. it can lead to a neglect of the lifelong relational aspect of human development. it can lead to an idealization of the potential of the individual and an underestimating of the resistance in the system. individualizing that, which might be contextual, is a deeply moralizing discourse. the belief in the unlocked potential of the individual goes hand in hand with the mythologization of the lone, genius artist, too. a very cherished fable. contemplating instead how bound we are to our body, this earthly, self-determined mess, how dependent we are on other human and non-human entities for our sense of separateness, relatedness and even physicality at a cellular level, can birth a whole bunch of everyday ethical, political and practical reconsiderations that could potentially force forth a new/old humility concerning our position in this world. 7 shusterman, r., (1999). somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, vol 57, no.3, 299-313. 8 blouin, b., gibson, k., & kierstad m. (1995). the legacy of inherited welt interview with heirs.trio press. 9 o´neill, j., h. (1997). the golden ghetto the psychology of affluence. library of congress cataloging-in-publication data. 10 schervish, p., g., coutsoukis, p., e., & lewis, e. (1994). gospels of wealth how the rich portray their lives. praeger publishers. 11 willis, t., c., (2003). navigating the dark side of wealth a life guide for inheritors. new concord press. http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/somaesthetics.pdf http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/somaesthetics.pdf http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/somaesthetics.pdf http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/somaesthetics.pdf http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/somaesthetics.pdf http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/somaesthetics.pdf http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/somaesthetics.pdf the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 34 marius presterud’s pearl diving project no need to worry about that though, because in contrast to everyday life spent searching, in this film, we actually find “it!” hurray! or, actually, we find a placeholder, i couldn’t locate “it.” but good enough for a pedagogical study. we knew that it was in there somewhere! oa: bliss. mp: but the climax also gives way to an inversion, as our eyes stray from the prize and on to other things. what is the clam doing? what’s that like? who cultivates these pearls? what do we do when it’s out? what else have we been swallowing? who sent us here to look for it? what ideological purpose does this innard-looking and searching serve? how´s the water? oa: does being a clinician automatically make the work interdisciplinary? mp: i have a multidisciplinary background, which among other things includes working as a clinician with people struggling with eating, one-to-one and in art-therapy groups. it can be called interdisciplinary in the sense that the film was originally inspired by this work and envisioned as a happy-ending, spin-off on theories on eating disorders. in medical conditions where people have trouble eating, one lead understanding is that what causes problems is an inability to verbalize feelings and sensations at the level of thought abstractly. in lack of language, we attempt to control inner turmoil through the concrete the body. by not taking in food, sensations stemming from inside are dampened, and so are interconnected feelings. people who wilfully don`t eat, can in a very non-abstract way be saying “no” to what is the world has to offer them. or, at the other end of the pool, strong bodily sensations, like hunger pains, self-mutilation or eating until your stomach hurts, can be used to drown out or change the state of feeling. we all do these thing to a some degree of course the slap on the cheek to wake up without it becoming a problem for our everyday functioning. oa: speaking of eating, i haven’t had breakfast today. mp: what people who eat too little or too much often have in common though, is that when bodily sensations are numbed down or jacked-up instrumentally, inward-looking becomes an unreliable source of information about oneself. without the means to look inward for reference, the need to look to others grows. this can lead to becoming over-invested in others people’s impressions, competing and comparing oneself to others. conversely, in the video my insides are presented as a gem-filled horn of plenty, which is then explored and harvested. quite a foreign imagery to many people who struggle on a daily basis, i wager. oa: in this transition from having a private practice to mainly doing art, you still seem oriented towards the relational. alas, i can’t say your video helped me build an appetite. mp: no, of course not. it is disturbing on several levels. what i have done, is that i have taken this hope, this belief we have, that if we only chisel away at ourselves long enough, our potential and this inner beauty will finally appear i´ve taken that belief, that is so dominant in our culture, but also the cornerstone in the attitude of someone who uses eating instrumentally i´ve taken that, and i have played it out for its improbable finality to blossom and flower before our eyes. and i haven’t done this through language my preferred tool but by using my concrete body. it is an attempted empathic reach-out to the languagelessness in us all. which reminds me of a passage in the book papillion12, where pearls are chewed and swallowed as a sign of matrimony. but i digress. yes, i put my trust in human relationships, rather than the 12 henri charrière (1969). papillion. j. w. cappellens forlag as. somaesthetics and food35 oslo apiary´s eco-philosophical radio station isolated individual. oa: how did you finally get the pearls out? mp: uhm... with patience. one was netted, the others came out through traditional methods. oa: how many did you swallow? p: three. two white, one metallic black. fished one up, let two pass. it took one day for the white pearl to pass and three days for the black one, strangely enough. it´s really fascinating to see how they’ve taken color from the process, taken color from the labour of my body, unbeknownst to me. the white one has turned slightly pink, the metallic black one looks slightly rusty now. they were temporarily a part of me, and were transformed by this. i´ve become their “pater perlum” father of pearl, of sorts. oa: this is a work series, so there will be other works? mp: yes. pearl diving will be a set of works that revolve around the longing for personal cohesiveness and uniqueness, and fumbling attempts at reaching this state. related terms are separateness, boundaries, perforation, dissolution, embodied meetings, interrelatedness, belonging, inclusivity, exclusivity, love, loneliness, success, failure and translucency. next in the series will be a jewellery set, a dinner, a book of poetry, private performances, a set of sculptures and installations, and some wall writing, in no particular order. oa: is the sound on the video the original sound? mp: no, then you would have heard me heaving. the breathing on the vid is the sound of me wheezing after a self-enhancing jog. notes title: the production of pearl diving, part 1 a work series by marius presterud. material: freshwater pearls, stomach sack technique: gastrological examination video length: approximately 2 min 30 sec min when: november, 2014 where: ullevål hospital, oslo filming: ullevål hospital gastrolab, oslo cutting and editing: marius presterud more information www.facebook.com/osloapiary www.facebook.com/mariuspres www.osloapiary.com photo credits gastrolab margit selsjord. selfie marius presterud contact information e-mail: marius.presterud@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/mariuspres https://www.facebook.com/mariuspres https://www.facebook.com/mariuspres https://www.facebook.com/mariuspres https://www.facebook.com/mariuspres https://www.facebook.com/mariuspres https://www.facebook.com/mariuspres http://osloapiary.com/ http://osloapiary.com/ http://osloapiary.com/ introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 108 the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 page 108-121 throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art max ryynänen abstract: thinking about the body in contemporary art leads easily to an exaggerated focus on extremities and excess. beginning from pier paolo pasolini’s violently radical life, and ending up in martin jay’s critique of richard shusterman’s somaesthetics, the first part of this article discusses different conceptions regarding the role of the body in art. i aspire to show the need to rearticulate the role of the body in contemporary art. in the second part of the article i will turn the focus to rather small or moderate acts of political art, where artists put themselves and their bodies at stake. my aspiration is to bridge somaesthetics to one of the major trends in contemporary art, the practice of political and social work. through its interest in the golden mean and everyday life, somaesthetics provides a resonate philosophical frame for discussing performances and events typical for e.g. community art and political activist art, where the body, i claim, has an important, though quite unnoticed role. keywords: pasolini, body art, political art, performance, art theory. 1 from time to time, pier paolo pasolini’s poetic expression “i want to express myself by throwing my body into the fight” finds its way back to art talk. as an excerpt from the posthumously published poem poeta delle ceneri (1966), it has inspired artists and art theorists already for decades.1 pasolini himself was a poet, filmmaker, playwright and theorist whose art always had a political agenda. he 1 see e.g. patrick steffen in his and alma ruiz’s interview with lynda benglish in flash art international novemberdecember 2011 (“lynda benglish”). the most famous artist to use pasolini’s expression has been raimund hoghe. hoghe has used it as a one-sentence manifesto in performances where he exhibits his physically challenged body and ‘writes’ (as he says) with it by e.g. performing static gestures. see http://www.raimundhoghe.com/. max ryynänen throwing the body into the fight the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015109 throwing the body into the fight kept his distance from political trends, though. fascists were an obvious target for any italian intellectual of the 1960s and 1970s, but pasolini attacked the left, as well, for its intolerance towards sexual minorities. he criticized student revolutionaries of bourgeois origin for their arrogance towards the police force that consisted of ‘boys from poor families.’ and he attacked the school system for its alliance with television in the destruction of dialects and cultural diversity – which is something he claimed mussolini’s fascist regime never managed to accomplish.2 and the body? it was always there. it was an object of a sadistic political allegory in the scandalous film salò, or the 120 days of sodom (1975) and a virile agent of experimental sexuality in the trilogy of life (1971-1974).3 but pasolini also risked and sacrificed his own body by exploring and displaying openly the boundaries of life, art and politics. his queer life, which he celebrated in poems, essays and films, provoked dangerously conservative catholic moralists. and as one of his last artistic acts pasolini accused powerful politicians for having connections to organized crime. in venice, during his last visit to the film festival, he was attacked by people who were later to become members of the red brigades. five months before his death pasolini participated in fabio mauri’s body art performance.4 for him it was just one new way to work with the body and to debate the role of the body in art and politics. with his body and his cinematic and poetic explorations of bodily life he had already provoked all sides. though it came as a shock, it was logical that pasolini was, in the end, murdered. his dead body was found lying on a beach in ostia (rome) november 2, 1976. the fight was over, and it still remains a mystery who murdered him. though one must admire pasolini’s fanatic criticism of italian and western society, the extremist tenets of his life need not to be celebrated. especially young male artists attach themselves easily to mythical (male) figures with a dark side to them. the work and life of yukio mishima, antonin artaud and jean genet cannot but be found fascinating, but as the role of the self-destructive ‘outlaw’ too often becomes over-accentuated, one might ask if aestheticians and art theorists should 2 for a good presentation of pasolini’s life and work, see e.g. the chapter on pasolini in christian braad-thomsen’s de uforsonlige (copenhagen: amadeus, 1988) or enzo siciliano’s book vita di pasolini (milano: rizzoli, 1978). 3 in salò, pasolini provoked disgust in the audience by showing torture and humiliation. the film was an allegorical interpretation of marquis de sade’s libertine novel 120 days of sodom, which, here, portrayed the horrors of fascism. the film was attacked by fascists, who even physically attacked people outside the movie theaters that were showing it. the three films of the trilogy, il decameron (1971), canterbury tales (1972) and il fiore delle mille e una note (1974) expressed, on the other hand, pasolini’s idealistic aspiration to produce a ‘vulgar’ type of erotic, bodily film. sadly, the films became sucked into the maelstrom of the video porn wave, and so they are not often taken as seriously as they would have deserved. see braadthomsen 1988 for more on these themes. 4 stefano casi. “pasolini, il corpo intellettuale.” in alessandro guidi & pierluigi sassetti (eds), l’eredità di pier paolo pasolini. milano: mimesis edizioni, 2009. pp. 39-48. (performance note on page 47.) . the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 110 max ryynänen give a helping hand to the less sensational artists to rise from their shadows.5 besides extreme lives, extreme works of art leave a mark in history more easily than moderate ones. by changing the narrative or the interpretation of art history, or, by bringing in something visibly new to it – by e.g. crossing a boundary – one connects to the aspirations of aestheticians, art theorists and art historians, who textually map out what art is.6 the theoretical aspiration to describe boundaries leads easily to accentuating the margins at the cost of forgetting that most artists are not interested in producing anything new nor are they into breaking boundaries. stories about works of art that test human and cultural limits have a sensational value too. this makes them a seductive topic for not just the mass media. they also provide material for the mythologies of the art world, which often reproduce media scandals quite uncritically. therefore one way to speed up the career of an artist is to make his/her work an object of a scandal. like in rock music or film, ‘fans’ and critics like to discuss ‘nasty’, weird, scary or extreme stories. we often think that the role of art is to provoke public discussion. but when art gets discussed publicly in the mass media, which most of us conceive of as our contemporary agora, it is mostly just following its scandalous value. late ‘hits’ in the northern european art sphere (where i am based) include the publication of pictures of prophet muhammad in sweden, dragging a giant vagina on wheels in helsinki, surprising st. petersburg police officers with a kiss (then getting beaten) and organizing a punk performance in an orthodox church which led to the artists’ imprisonment. the artists behind the aforementioned acts, lars vilks, mimosa pale, and the groups voina and pussy riot are intellectual, critical and interesting. it is, therefore, not that ‘bad artists’ would get the attention. it just seems that public discussion sees art interesting only as a source for scandals. art here, though, does not suffer from anything else than the common logic of media. in northern europe, for example, we get news from africa or south america only when there is negative news like wars to report on, and the same destiny seems to haunt art. but back to body limits: though i admire werner herzog and stuart brisley, herzog’s winter walk from munich to paris (see the book vom gehen im eis, 1978) 5 another typical niche of contemporary art discussed in theoretical and philosophical literature – more typical for academic aesthetics – is the line of classics in conceptual art and pop art, extending from duchamp to warhol and then e.g. rauschenberg. i will return to this later in my article. 6 as this article focuses on bringing in new thoughts concerning richard shusterman’s work, one could say that his critique of ‘wrapper definitions’ and way of offering deweyan experience-centered thinking as an alternative way to think about art, has been a witty and important contribution to the anglo-american debates concerning the nature of art. see pragmatist aesthetics: rethinking beauty, living art, especially chapter 2, “art and theory between experience and practice”, 39-40 (second edition, lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2000). the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015111 throwing the body into the fight and brisley’s ten day (two hours a day) bathtub marathon in putrefied matter (and for today, nothing, 1972) do not for me represent the most interesting side of the dialogue of contemporary art and the body, however much these works stimulate reflection on my own boundaries. and though i cannot but be touched by yang zhichao’s (yáng zhìchâo, 楊志超) performance planting grass (2000), where he gets grass planted in his back (the act is famously featured in alison klayman’s documentary ai weiwei: never sorry, 2012) and so cuts deep in a variety of themes central for humanity, from biopolitics to the relationship of culture and nature, i think the discourse on contemporary arts deals too much with excess. seminal books on contemporary art, like claire bishop’s artificial hells (2012) and brian o’doherty’s inside the white cube (1999),7 offer broad and heterogeneous historical narratives on the development of participatory art and experimentation with gallery space (where exhibiting the (often naked) body has for long been a standard provocation). aesthetics and art theory, though, maybe following their interest to define the boundaries of art, humanity and culture, and, so to verbally map out and then question their boundaries and milestones, have been more keen to discuss shocks, endurance tests and other borderline issues in arts. the good effect of this tendency, which can clearly be seen in classics like gilles deleuze’s essay on henry bacon’s paintings (francis bacon: logique de la sensation, 1981) and later works like mario perniola’s l’arte e la sua ombra (2000), is the fact that it creates equilibrium in the field of the philosophy of art by establishing a counterpart to the analysis of the line marcel duchamp – andy warhol, which (especially anglo-american and northern european) philosophers have fancied for decades.8 it probably comes as no surprise that the type of art – the role of which i have been critically framing here – is also central for martin jay’s article “somaesthetics and democracy: dewey and contemporary body art” (2002),9 where jay first shows favorable respect for richard shusterman’s somaesthetics, but then criticizes shusterman for not taking body art sufficiently into account.10 7 bishop, claire. artificial hells. london: verso, 2012. o’doherty, brian. inside the white cube. the ideology of the gallery space. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 1999. 8 deleuze, gilles ***. perniola, mario. l’arte e la sua ombra. torino: einaudi, 2000. a difference to this dominant tendency to discuss abject art (perniola) or the duchamp-warhol line has, though, been made in discussions on environmental aesthetics and everyday aesthetics, where often moderate works of art with a harmonizing or ameliorating touch are used as examples. not coincidentally, these topics are quite dominantly deweyan. 9 jay, martin. “somaesthetics and democracy: dewey and contemporary body art.” journal of aesthetic education, vol. 36, no. 4, winter 2002. pp. 55-69. 10 jay’s use of dewey as an adherent for body art is highly problematic, not following the fact that contemporary conceptions of art and body art were not yet a commonplace in dewey’s time, but because dewey seems to be highly suspicious towards highbrow art, where he is not able to really differentiate experimental, marginal and alternative art from the public sphere of art dominated by museums and other art services. applying his thinking to radical artistic practices would call for a more sensitive articulation, as dewey in the end is quite moderate in his ‘taste’. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 112 max ryynänen jay’s highbrow reading of shusterman’s work leads us neatly to the core issue. he claims misleadingly that shusterman’s interest in lowbrow and somaesthetics would be two sides of the same project.11 to show why shusterman should turn to highbrow art, instead of popular culture, jay attacks rap music, which was one of the topics shusterman rode to fame with at the beginning of the 1990s.12 jay says that rap music is often misogynic and homophobic. though jay is originally a new yorker (now famously a berkeley thinker), he does not remind us about the unequal, bourgeois and capitalist logics of greedy collectors, the posh 5th avenue galleries and the conservative bourgeois culture supporting the ‘high arts’.13 as i work in the arts, i am often surprised how idealistically philosophers look at the world of art, but the truth might be that they actually mostly know about it by reading books or by visiting the ‘main street shop windows’ or ‘final disposal sites’ of art, i.e. public art services like big museums. public art services build their pedagogical programs with care, so that few would get offended and so that the institutional problems of art would not get highlighted too much.14 this way the visitors can rather have a possibility to get rid of old prejudices than to adopt new ones. most professionals and enthusiasts in the scene where i work go to alternative galleries (which are the mainstream ones for professionals), screenings and openings at grass root exhibition spaces, and virtually never to museums or fancy sales galleries, so one could say that the artworld today is quite divided (one end being very critical towards the other). the same polarization has been a commonplace in rap music as well, and it is weird that jay does not take notice of shusterman’s well-chosen examples. by discussing groups like gang starr and public enemy, which were political acts, though quite mainstream at the turn of the 1990s, shusterman clearly shows his sympathy for the more critically orientated side of the music industry. these groups show interest in bodily issues as well, touching on topics like (the ethics 11 jay 2002, 57-58. shusterman himself criticizes jay for this in “somaesthetics and the revival of aesthetics”, filozovski vestnik vol. xxxviii, 2007: 2, 135-149 (p. 7). 12 see e.g. chapter 7 “form and funk: the aesthetic challenge of popular art” (published originally in british journal of aesthetics 33 (1991): 203-213) and chapter 8 “the fine art of rap” (new literary history 22, 1991, 613-622) in pragmatist aesthetics. 13 new york, i believe, is the capital of this type of an art world, which forms quite an oppositional example to e.g. berlin. i present ‘high art’ in quotation marks in my text because i think the concept is in the need of a careful rethinking. it might be better to think about the concept as referring to cultivated bourgeois culture, as popular museums, middlebrow opera houses and book fairs are far away from most ‘avant-garde’ art circles at the same time as mass culture is not. the connection between middlebrow and high culture ideals should be analyzed in depth. this bourgeois sphere of art stands as well for a high vs. low attitude, which can be hard to find in a discussion in the berlin biennale or in an art journal (where lady gaga is a commonplace). 14 there are, of course, museums that have a constructive role in the professional sphere as well. i have here been referring to the mainstream of museum work in the arts, which, still, as i will show in the end of the text, has a great value also to the topic of this article. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015113 throwing the body into the fight of ) vegetarianism and the danger and inferiority that the white american middle class associates with the body marked by a darker skin. rap music is here not the beef, though. jay’s critique shows how the metaphysics of high and low still affects scholars, but more importantly, after this, and building on it, jay claims that body art, rather than popular culture, should become an object of discussion in somaesthetics. the tradition of body art is very broad and strong in today’s art world, but jay’s examples seem to lead to the kind of art i discussed earlier as suitable for scandals. they are interesting per se and their role in art history cannot be contested, but still: why the following choices? jay rolls out the carpet for ‘abject artists’.15 one is carolee schneeman, who’s meat joy (1964), “an orgiastic happening in which male and female performers grappled with one another and a variety of fleshy, messy materials”, might, for sure, have increased our understanding of our moral, aesthetic and social cage. then we have vito acconci who “pulled at each of his nipples to produce women’s breasts, burned off his body hair and hid his penis between legs in order to subvert his masculinity.” like this would not be enough, we find jay celebrating stelarc and orlan – experimental aesthetic surgery and body piercing – and, in the end, the vienna actionists, who’s “orgies-mysteries theater” at schloss prinzdorf “accommodated large numbers of performers and spectators for a three-day long dionysiac orgy of blood and gore. (…) activities included ritual disembowelment of bulls and sheep, stuffing entrails back into hacked-open carcasses, the treading of huge vats of grapes mixed with entrails, blood and wine, blood-letting on to actors representing christ and oedipus, and nighttime processions around the castle with pigs, goats, sheep, horses, dogs and cattle and actors bearing flaming torches.”16 i am not criticizing explorations of this kind. our relation to western sexual metaphysics and austria’s dark history might have been in the need of them. the works cited are also neither kitsch nor infiltrated with easy populism, and they might have had an important role in raising awareness of the possibility to discuss and analyze political issues with the help of art. but i believe that it is important to point out that body art or the body in art is a much broader enterprise than it looks like when one narrows the gaze in a sensationalist manner. the use of the body has a key role in many moderate works of art which have significance for both the art world and our (political) everyday life, even if the concept of body art would not, usually, be used to refer to them. my interest here is to discuss works of art where artists perform as examples, models for political action. but to get the most 15 see perniola 2000. 16 jay 2002, 59-61. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 114 max ryynänen out of the analysis of this phenomena we need to turn to shusterman’s thinking on the philosophy of life, somaesthetics, and then some illuminative examples of everyday political art. it is also fruitful to turn back to pasolini. 2 in an essay published in practicing philosophy (1997),17 shusterman ventures into the (lives and) philosophies of life of michel foucault, ludwig wittgenstein and john dewey. here, some of the seeds of somaesthetics can already be found. shusterman criticizes western philosophy for romanticizing the lives of ‘geniuses’. i believe this is somewhat analogous to what i just hinted at as a romanticization of the lives of artists. foucault and wittgenstein embody the properties of the myth (of the genius) by being sexually marginalized, complex and challenging personalities, males – of course – and somehow ‘virtuosos’ in their own fields of expertise.18 in dewey’s case, shusterman notes, his life actually provides us with a better example. it is so much more useful to think about dewey than, for example, the overtly neurotic and eccentric wittgenstein, when we search for a model for developing our own lives. dewey lived a moderate life, and he lived it holistically, harmonically and moderately (as much as we know) – the way most of us like to live, however much we would fantasize about transgression and adventure. one does not need to venture into sadomasochist sex like foucault to understand more about one’s own bodily identity. as shusterman claims, it can be transgressive to try to hug one’s father for the first time,19 and this shift to everyday issues is far more than welcome in the philosophical discourse. somaesthetics is a series of leaps into the same subject (life), but with an emphasis on the relationship of body and mind. the manifesto-like root article, “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal” (1999), which was originally published in journal of aesthetics and art criticism,20 but is today mostly read as the last chapter of the second edition of pragmatist aesthetics: living art, rethinking beauty (2000, first edition 1992), has produced a following in a variety of books and article publications, ending up in the 2012 thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics, which recollects the debate so far and adds texts on eastern thinking, cognitive issues and hands-on exercises to the corpus. now, here the 17 see the first chapter in practicing philosophy: pragmatism and the philosophical life. new york: routledge, 1997. 18 christine battersby’s gender and genius. towards a feminist aesthetics (london: the women’s press, 1989) analyzes sharply the properties associated with genius throughout history. 19 this example was a key trigger for good discussion on shusterman’s lectures at helsinki university in 1998. 20 shusterman, richard. “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal”, journal of aesthetics and art criticism 1999 vol 57, 03 summer, 299-313. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015115 throwing the body into the fight main example has been shusterman himself. although the extremities of contemporary art could, together with extreme sports or excessive drug use, teach us a (dangerous) lesson or two about our body-mind set, moderate practices like good nutrition, yoga or meditation are far more rewarding for living, having safe long-term effects on our bodies and bodily thinking. by discussing the history of the relationship of philosophy and the body, by experimenting with what it means to get these two to interact in a fruitful way, and most importantly by stressing the moderate over the excessive, shusterman’s project has marked a new beginning for applied aesthetics, which here shakes hands with perennial body traditions. it is not just about applying aesthetic theory to the (bodily) everyday life. it is about changing our mind and body mindset for the better. the agenda is meliorist. the most radical idea here is that the connection of body, mind and culture can be studied with the help of philosophy, and that the dialogue between practical exercises and philosophical analysis can benefit both polarities when developed systematically. and shusterman the philosopher has used his own body for experimentation, exploration and presentation of ideas, to be an example. we don’t need only standpoint theorists, but people who – like foucault or walter benjamin21 – use themselves and their body as instruments for exploring and embodying philosophical issues. as his predecessors, shusterman has described and analyzed intimate procedures. his contributions to the tradition where philosophy is built upon and developed out from descriptions of personal experience have included presentations on the (somatic) deconstruction of his body trained to be a machine in the israeli army and the learning process leading to the mastery of feldenkrais technique.22 the project is distantly analogous to the way many contemporary artists use their body. and tiny, thoughtful and moderate political acts which are executed in or with the help of the framework of contemporary art are for me the most interesting side of the use of the body in arts today – not the extreme examples mentioned earlier. i would say that the body is often needed as an example, the living artist as a model for thinking and action. together with a good documentation and discourse on the experiments this helps us to grab the political problem or 21 benjamin’s experimental attitude is famous. he went to screenings to understand the film culture of the people, he tested cannabis together with jazz (and thought the effect was against his upbringing) and he roamed on the streets to understand the change of urban life in modernity. see especially texts in the unfinished the arcades project (1927-1940). ed. rolf tiedemann. cambridge ma: harvard university press, 2002. 22 shusterman’s philosophical self-descriptions have been analyzed in detail by wojciech małecki in his “challenging the taboo of the autobiographical”, in wojciech małecki’s and dorota koczanowicz (eds) shusterman’s pragmatism. between literature and somaesthetics (amsterdam: rodopi, 2012). see also embodying pragmatism. richard shusterman’s philosophy and literary theory (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2010). the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 116 max ryynänen perspective at stake, and to learn from it. when a swiss afro-european artist (sasha huber) climbs the alpine peak agassizhorn (3946 meters high), named after a local, racist 19th century character (louis agassiz), and drags her own flag to the top, thereby giving the peak a new name after a congolese-born slave renty (so transforming it to rentyhorn, 2008), this gives the conceptual idea weight and depth. as only an idea the political point would embody only words, and so not be very effective – if not written into a literary form by a splendid writer. in the 1990s minna heikinaho offered free breakfast for strangers – many of them homeless people or addicts – in her push firma beige, a gallery in the then still shady housing area of kallio in helsinki. one can easily imagine the physical presence, performance and social skills (starting from body language) needed in this practice. a robot, even one controlled by an artist, could never give these political and ethical acts the ‘depth’ and ‘weight’ needed to make them interesting and meaningful for us. a robot could, though, be used for social work or dragging a flag up on the top of a mountain, but not to evoke the associations, memories and feelings needed in these art works. artists traveling to problem suburbs to work out a window performance with the inhabitants (so bringing them together, making them a community), helping people to claim their legal rights (filling in forms) and, to take up a classic, the social work in n.y.c. conducted by the living theatre (the whole theater was, in antonin artaud’s spirit, a tool for enhancing community life as an alternative to competitive culture) – these all need the artist and his/her body to not just make a difference in the society, but to concretize the political idea and spirit in our minds.23 the type of works cited is not aesthetic by nature. a ‘dry’ documentation of the acts is usually the only form of dramatization included the works. art here means that these acts are not just acts of humanity and small scale political activism, but presentations of an idea, performances executed with care by using the realm of art as a site and instrument for communication. the artists here produce not merely symbolical acts, but also examples that can raise thinking and action regarding what one can do in society. and the body really needs to be there. by giving an example, and by presenting not just a thought but an act, a presence, a real life and body (not fiction), the conceptual turns into flesh. this is why i started by talking about ‘throwing the body into fight’. 23 i have here been referring to the work of many great artists, but as the most inspiring examples which have led to these thoughts i’d like to thank the artists ange taggart, anne salmela and anna turunen for their highly original and illuminative work. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015117 throwing the body into the fight we need to return to pasolini. it is hard to miss his idea on exemplification: vorrei esprimermi con gli esempi. gettare il mio corpo nella lotta. the exact meaning of this in english is (philosophical (not poetic) translation): ‘i want to express myself with examples. to throw my body into the fight.’ as a part of a long poem which tells the story of the author, his artistic work as much as his private life, this cannot but mark an appreciation of lived life – and the production of examples, food for thought.24 to make ideas live one needs to get things done, not just imagined, and this is a lot to be said by a poet, although in pasolini’s case we know that he threw himself into challenging situations often and with force. the classical idea that you ought to live as you preach is connected to this issue. deep talk about humanity goes all down the drain if the person talking for it treats people in a cold and calculating manner. mahatma gandhi and nelson mandela have been important for many people because they embodied their own spiritual and political beliefs in their lives. working with political art, one can find that the broad public might not be very interested in what the artist does, but still, why would affecting 300 gallery visitors with new models on how to act for the better not be meaningful? most of us cannot and do not want to live the life of nelson mandela, but we can (do a performance or) change our societal habits. after this discourse on the nature of these political works of art where the body is needed to connect the idea deep into our mind, we might still want to ask: what is this ‘weight’ and ‘depth’ which i claim that art gains from the way artists put themselves and their bodies at stake? weight and depth are maybe not central features of (aesthetic) experience. but sometimes we feel that a work is too ‘light’ or that it lacks ‘depth.’ often we associate the terms with the quality of the work. but here we could think of a cluster of factors backing up the experience of the type of works of art we are thinking about. there is, for sure, often something close to kinesthetic response at stake. we witness artistic acts (where the body is at stake) emphatically and we mirror ourselves (and our bodies) to the performing subjects (and their bodies). the fact that we know that an artist and his/her body is or has been ‘out there’ might also produce an experience of ‘authenticity.’ the concept of authenticity has become problematic especially in cultural studies, but here it does not have to refer to something as being original, ‘roots-based’ or existentially ‘right.’ it could here plainly refer to the more serious way we relate 24 casi (2009, 46) sees the body of the poem as a body where poetry acts, but i am more here stressing the philosophical and political sides of it. “poetry in action” (poesia in azione) is one expression casi uses as well wittily to describe pasolini’s way of working (ibid.). the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 118 max ryynänen to real stories (nothing lacanian about this). ‘weight’ and ‘depth’ could here, all and all, mark the essential difference we experience when we witness real and not imagined / fictional events. besides the way we feel disgust and grief when we face artists challenging themselves in horrifying and transgressive ways, we get the philosophical and political implications of their work more strongly when we encounter a well-embodied execution. so, if montaigne was interested in the “aesthetic functioning” of the body, “its potential for beauty,”25 we can here say that we are discussing the ‘artistic functioning’ of the body, its potential to embody artistic and political ideas. the field of art i am discussing here can easily also bring to mind the work of michel foucault, which is mentioned in “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal”: michel foucault’s seminal vision of the body as a docile, malleable site for inscribing social power reveals the crucial role somatics can play for political philosophy. together with self-styling and dance this is a form of representational somaesthetic practice, where the body is in the center of the action.26 the central role of the body in the political order, presented to us by foucault in discipline and punish (surveiller et punir, 1975) and the history of sexuality (histoire de la sexualité, vol. 1-3, 1976-1984), finds its active, artistic response and critical following in the use of the body in political art. (contemporary artists are often well read in and inspired by foucault’s work.) to get back to jay’s text, it includes a great comment on dewey’s philosophy: his vision of democracy necessitated a robust commitment not only to an open-ended process of unimpeded free inquiry, which emulated that of the scientific community, but also to the self-realization that came through active participation in the public sphere. the model of that self-realization he saw best expressed in the sensually mediated, organically consummated, formally molded activity that was aesthetic experience.27 dewey’s (like shusterman’s) idea of (aesthetic) experience covers all sides of life from cleaning to hunting, but jay is definitely right in his claim that pragmatism must not forget the importance of self-realization through active participation in the public sphere. and this is definitely something that community artists aspire to fuel and accomplish. jay’s (and dewey’s) dream really becomes embodied in contemporary art. 25 shusterman 2000, 262. 26 ibid. 270. 27 jay 2000, 55. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015119 throwing the body into the fight but i’d go even further and claim that contemporary art might in the end be more in the need of pragmatist aesthetics than the other way around. like jay, i am fascinated by obscure and rogue french philosophers and authors from georges bataille to maurice blanchot and gilles deleuze who dominate the discourse in contemporary art today. but the work of these names has not yet provided an initiative for scholars and artists to take enough note of the value of moderate acts. pragmatist aesthetics, following its interest in meliorism, democracy, everyday life and our possibility to change (societal) habits – a track opened by dewey and followed by holistic philosophers like joseph kupfer, arnold berleant and, here most importantly shusterman – might offer a theoretical mirror which contemporary arts can yet only dream of, and where theory is not that much anchored to boundaries and excess. throwing the body into fight might, in a more pragmatist future of art talk, thus, refer to fulfilling one of the most important roles an artist can have in today’s society: to be an applicable model of political and societal action – not necessarily a role model, but illuminative exemplification of a critical citizen testing the limits of orders, experimenting with crossing tracks and performing societal patterns reflectively. contemporary artist dan graham has said: “all artists are alike. they dream of doing something that’s more social, more collaborative, and more real than art.”28 i would say that this happens, from time to time, and when it does, the ideas have been executed with a good embodiment. after taking part in the performances of the barcelona-based community artist mireia saladrigues’ acts, which force the audience to face themes like depression, nutrition and our need for a community, i have found it easier to change my eating habits. a carnevalist artist performing as a nurse, who insists that her audience eats raw chocolate because it is healthier than ordinary chocolate and because it has a good impact on mental health might be banal, but it still works better than most of the pedagogy offered by professionals in health care. as contemporary art seems to float more and more into the everyday, and the trend to teach artistic methods (like performance) to people who are not professional artists, this practice will, i hope, become even broader, stronger and more anchored to scientific knowledge and expertise. philosophy and the contemporary, conscious use of the body mix here with a long tradition where artists have systematically been using themselves and their bodies to debate, to provide perspectives and to show models for the production of new habits and action. since the 1960s, community artists and performance artists have been actively systematizing their social work. today this aspiration gets 28 in bishop 2012, 1. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 120 max ryynänen more and more embodied and developed in the relatively new and still evolving discipline of artistic research. artistic research has been widely misunderstood as an “anything goes” practice where art and theory meet. i cannot go into details on the pros and cons of this discipline, but i will mention what is most interesting for me in it. it is a good question to ask (and one which is central for many working in this territory of art and theory) how we can more systematically use artistic methods to produce knowledge, deepen our understanding of, discuss and analyze issues. philosophy traditionally works through words, and artists experiment, but in artistic research at its best these two sides are combined and in balance, and i believe pragmatist aesthetics, when it does not just provide an escape tunnel for disillusioned analytic philosophers or an overtly academic enterprise, can be one of the best partners for future development in this respect. we might have to ask, though, if philosophy (in shusterman’s case) and contemporary art are productive and fruitful ways to test and embody ideas on issues like health, society and politics, and if they are, why – and to what extent? the answer to these questions lies outside of the scope of this paper, and creating one would require a new text. but if nothing else, contemporary art (philosophy sadly not) already has quite a broad audience consisting not just of people working or educated in arts, but, thanks to art education in museums, ‘common people’ who are interested, in one way or another, in what artists do. they are not just open for new ideas. the reason why they come to see contemporary art and to meet contemporary artists is often motivated precisely by a hunger for a change of perspectives. this is one of the reasons why political art is effective. in the end all this talk is meaningful only if we believe that the role of art and philosophy is not just to exhibit and analyze, but to change society. there is no need to argue for this in contemporary art, where political activism is ‘mainstream’, and besides the feminist and marxist sections of philosophy, the same applies to pragmatist aesthetics.29 pragmatist aesthetics does not offer a dramatization of the everyday through a provocative literary transgression typical for many of today’s trendy philosophers, so if one is in the need of escapism – this is what i think many readings of french theory (including my own) are about – it does not reward the reader. as shusterman says in his answer to richard rorty’s critique, which connects somaesthetics to “the body practices championed by foucault, bataille, 29 most english language discourse on pragmatism is text-based and often just endless analysis on how analytic philosophers could rethink their relation to classical boundaries of their school of philosophy. what strikes as different is the way pragmatist aesthetics, most radically through shusterman’s work, has taken steps towards systematic engagement with e.g. the body. on somaesthetics and feminist theory from this point of view (interaction of theory and practice), see monica bokiniec’s article “somaesthetics and feminism”, in małecki and koczanowicz 2012, pp. 163-172. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015121 throwing the body into the fight and deleuze that celebrate irrational dionysian access”: somaesthetics provides “precisely a critique and an alternative to such philosophies that reduce the value of somatic experience to irrational extremes of passion and pleasure.”30 together with its pragmatic (meliorist) agenda of changing the world this makes pragmatism a powerhouse in rethinking and working for a better society, where the most, as in art, happens between the extreme ends. if it worked hand in hand with contemporary art i believe it could be even more effective. together with the artistic tools, experience, experiential impact and the well-educated and openminded audience of contemporary art, somaesthetics could find new ways to embody philosophical ideas and problems, new escape routes from the intellectual slums of philistine academics. i have here provided an initiative to develop this dialogue. let’s hope it is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship. contact: max ryynänen max.ryynanen@aalto.fi 30 shusterman 2007, 147. i wouldn’t myself say that the work of these french philosophers would reduce the thinking of the body, but rather talk about the way the body gets thought of in a certain way following their choices of perspectives, even more the way their followers have been interpreting them. about escapism: i believe that many readings of philosophy are escapist, but this does not necessarily mean that the readings in question would be unintellectual or that they couldn’t be philosophically productive – just think about heidegger’s readings of greek classics, which have often quite a fantasmatic role in his work. h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 122 the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 page 122-143 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting eva kit wah man abstract: this paper will address two main questions: how should we understand modern chinese ink art and its many possibilities, when we agree that this has a great bearing on how the traditional medium of ink is being internationally recognized? is there anything essential about ink art? the discussion begins with a recent ink art exhibition entitled, “new ink art: innovation and beyond”, which shapes new ink art under its various social and cultural contexts. with the controversies on the modernization issues of ink painting, this paper is devoted to reviewing some of the essentialist views of ink painting discussed in the chinese tradition, and the observations on new ink art from some developmental perspectives, with particular regard to the problems of technique, visuality and metaphysics. the aesthetical references in the confucian and the taoist contexts will be revisited, with the example of the theories and the work of shih tao, the great chinese ink painter. the discussion will then be compared and contrasted with the western kantian model and merleau-ponty’s aesthetics. the metaphysical beliefs will be emphasized in the comparative revelation when the focus is on the understanding of art, visuality and corporeality implied in the media. keywords: new ink art, technique, visuality, metaphysics, confucian, taoist. eva kit wah man metaphysics, corporeality and visuality the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015123 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality introduction: new ink art and the question of “what is ink painting”? how should we understand modern ink art and its many possibilities, when we agree that this has a great bearing on how the traditional medium of ink is being internationally recognized? is there anything essential about ink art? or should we see it in an open form or in something like wittgenstein’s notion of “family resemblance”? it should be revealing to review the developing art form in the context of technovisuality and cultural re-enhancement. in an exhibition at the hong kong museum of art in the fall of 2008 entitled “new ink art: innovation and beyond”, the curator, king, quoted the tang dynasty literati wang wei’s words on ink painting in her foreword: in the art of painting, works in ink surpass all. they stem from nature, and fulfill the functions of the universe. (ng, chow, mac & richard 2008, 14) it has been emphasized that traditional chinese ink painting, from its ancient beginnings in decorating neolithic pots, has evolved and flourished in the hands of great masters from different dynasties, and has been shaped by the social, economic and cultural values of the times. it has come full circle as some artists have sought to expand beyond the two-dimensional confines of ink on paper or silk, and the continuous re-interpretation links ink art to our present-day society and keeps it alive (ng, chow, mac & richard 2008, 14). this exhibition is a good point of departure for the above discussion, as it aims at raising the question of how ink art, with over 3000 years of history, has evolved through time in terms of artistic form and language to become an art form that corresponds to contemporary cultural issues. the modifications involved are innovative departures from its traditional form and constraints. the curator, as many contemporary ink art exhibition curators have done, claims “to understand “ink” in its broadest sense, seeing it not merely as a selected medium but rather a necessary reference central to chinese culture” (ng, chow, mac & richard 2008, 14). the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 124 eva kit wah man to better understand the different facets of ink art, the exhibits are divided into several themes, though at the same time, the categorizations seem to be in excess. it exhibits a few masterpieces of hong kong forerunners like lui shoukwan and luis chan. it explores modern interpretations of traditional subject matter such as the landscape paintings by other hong kong painters liu guosong and wucius wong. it demonstrates the attempts of contemporary chinese artists like gu wenda who deconstructed and reconstructed chinese calligraphy in innovative ways. it shows daring artists like another local painter kwok mang-ho who freely transcend the traditional boundaries of ink art to develop their own visual vocabulary. it even refers to artworks that seemingly have nothing to do with the ink brush tradition, but utilize media such as organic installation, acrylic on canvas, and digital art. some of the exhibited new ink art presents hong kong artists’ views of the city with a focus on social and cultural concerns intertwined with urban references. (ng, chow, mac & richard 2008, 15-16) it is interesting to see in the following discussion how hong kong has become a center for the development of new ink painting in the late 20th century when china was under its socialist regime, and how it is the first city in the region to emerge as a center of new ink art. it is noted that for political reasons, it was only much later when such creative leaps of imagination took place in the mainland towards the end of the 1970s. the rapid development of the art form leads to the final question raised at the exhibition: is it ink art? one would confront this question easily when stepping out of the exhibition exit, when one sees the installation of the tree branches in ming fay’s 2006 lyrical organic, three-dimensional installation “floating reeds,” which is an artificial landscape of images with brush painting (fig. 1). the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015125 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality 1. fei mingjie (ming fay). floating reeds. 2006. installation. mixed media. variable size. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 126 eva kit wah man its content is about life, growth, decay, order, and spontaneity (ng, chow, mac & richard 2008, 17). it can be agreed that this exhibition and others of its type suggests the timeliness of ink art that always speaks to the living conditions through changes and developments in style and artistic language. the curator liu xiaochun of the new ink exhibition shuimo today held in beijing’s new art space songzhuang in 2006 did not refer the term contemporary ink painting to a concept of time, but to artistic conceptions similar to “experimental” and “verge,” meaning marginal. its contemporary relevance is related to the new ink works’ rebellion against chinese ink tradition and the related criticism. (liu 2006, 7) according to the group of new ink artists in the mainland, contemporary shuimo (meaning ink art), is a kind of art phenomenon affected by western modern and contemporary art, and the western trends of thought adapted by innovative chinese painters xu beihong and lin fengmian in the early 20th century. liu argues that: every artist is seeking for combination with tradition unconsciously, so the essence of the western trend is that the east combines with the west and utilizes the west to strengthen itself... in the western main-stream art’s opinion, chinese contemporary shuimo art is not really contemporary, because it has no modern significance, and in chinese mainstream’s opinion, chinese contemporary shuimo art is following the west, and hence there is a lack of cultural independence. therefore chinese contemporary shuimo art is doubly exiled, at the edge of both traditions (liu 2006, 7). he further points out that since ink painting has a close relation with daoist metaphysics, it is the most outstanding representative of chinese visual culture, and so it is not for the western art circle to comment, as it is a special issue in the development of chinese contemporary art. the concern is thus to show the new vitality and creativity of ink painting, and to turn it into an important part of chinese contemporary art. (liu 2006, 7) with all these hopes and wishes for cultural identities, and the simultaneous controversies on the modernization issues of ink painting, it should be revealing to review some of the essentialist fervors of ink painting discussed in the tradition, and the related observations on new ink art from some developmental perspectives, with particular regards to the problems of technique, visuality and metaphysics. here i would like to turn to shih tao, a great chinese ink painter, for the discussion. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015127 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality traditional discourse on ink painting: the case of “oneness” of stroke suggested by shih tao shih tao (16421707), the influential painter in the late ming and early qing period, is not only well known as an ink painter, but also as a prominent art theorist. his surviving notes on ink painting, hua-pu (treatise on the philosophy of painting), is regarded as one of the most important daoist philosophical reflections on the art form. the treatise begins with the concept of the “oneness of brush strokes.” shih writes: in remote, ancient days there were no principles. the primordial p’o (or state of uncarved block) had not been dispersed. as soon as the primordial p’o was dispersed, principles emerged. how did these principles emerge? they were founded upon the oneness of strokes. this oneness of strokes is the origin of all beings, the root of myriad forms. it is revealed through spiritual reality, and is innate in man (coleman 1978, 35-36). the oneness obviously refers to the daoist meaning of nature and the ultimate reality. it is important to reach at the realm of the dao, to access the artistic creativity and the aesthetic experience. the daoists believe that the metaphysical realm of the dao is the origin of the truth, beauty and goodness, and it is the ideal state of art. it will be helpful to understand the daoist notion of aesthetic experience through a discussion of the neo-confucian scholars who addressed the subject, and from there to grasp shih tao’s discourse on the aesthetics of ink painting. despite a general comment made by scholars who work on comparative philosophy that systematic aesthetics is absent in traditional confucian and daoist philosophies, neo-confucian scholars have reconstructed theories of human primal experience according to traditional confucianism and daoism that allude to aesthetic experience. for example, the late writings of mou zongzan (19091995), the prominent neo-confucian philosopher who resided in hong kong since 1950s, argues that daoist theory is aesthetic in nature. firstly, he points out that the “subjective principle” of daoism is “wu wei” (no action), which refers to the effort of the human subject’s mind to transcend all kinds of human epistemological functions and move towards the realm of a more metaphysical dao (mou 1974, 208-211). daoist philosophy promotes the annulments of subjective activity and knowledge to recover the presentation of nature in itself which has been hidden and distorted by the self ’s understanding, perception and conception. according to daoism, to know is to be “not knowing,” to be wise is to be ignorant, so that only the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 128 eva kit wah man the so called fools are able to grasp the truth of nature. mou said in the realm of the dao, when the human mind has stopped “knowing” and travels with the basic universal element chi, it is able to perceive things in their original nature. these are not “phenomena” in the kantian sense of epistemology, but the original nature of things which can only be understood after the abolition of the dominant scheme of subject-object relations exerted by the knowing subject. it is said that the state of “intellectual intuition” of the mind in the daoist sense corresponds with the “calmness of mind” described by zhuangzi’s “xin jai” as described by the representing and original daoist: do not be the master of knowledge (to manipulate things). personally realize the infinite to the highest degree and travel in the realm of which there is no sign. exercise fully what you have received from nature without any subjective viewpoint. in one word, be absolutely vacuous (hsu). the mind of the perfect man is like a mirror. it does not lean forward or backward in its response to things. it responds to things but conceals nothing of its own. therefore it is able to deal with things without injury to (its reality) (chan 1963, 207). with “calmness of mind,” there are no differentiations of mind and body, form and matter, or subject and object but the emergence of all things (including the mind) in themselves. they are juxtaposed with each other without being known. it is thus a disinterested, non-intentional and non-regulative state, and is therefore, aesthetic in nature. mou’s elaboration of the state is as follows: the state of mind of xin jai is the termination, tranquility, emptiness, and nothingness that follow the abolition of the quest and dependency on learning and knowing. the wu wei of the above necessarily implies a certain kind of creativity, whose form is so special that it can be named as negative creativity...that in the light of the tranquil state..., things present themselves in the way that they are...not as an object, but as an ideal state...and this is the static ‘intellectual intuition’ (mou 1974, 208-211). in the transcendental realm of the dao, a thing is not an object but an “ideal state,” a form in itself, appreciation of which is capable only with daoist wisdom, in which the sense of beauty and aesthetic pleasure, the real form of freedom, spring up in tranquility. achievement of this state requires an effort of transcendence of all human epistemological constraints or judgments, as kant’s aesthetics prescribes, and engagement in the metaphysical realm of the dao. this explains the criteria and aesthetic categories in daoist aesthetics, e.g. lao tze’s “chi,” “wei,” “miao” and the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015129 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality “xu,” which refer to the activities and characters of the realm and are applied in the evaluation of chinese ink painting and calligraphy. according to neo-confucian scholars, objectification of the mind takes place only after the primal experience has happened in the realm of the dao from which comes the division of subject and object. functions and activities including epistemological and artistic ones then begin to exert their influences and judgments, or manifesting the metaphysical experiences through artistic media. (tang 1987, 187) activities can be divided into those that are related to the cognitive (the truth), the perceptive or the aesthetic (the beautiful) and the willful (the good) and are undertaken according to the subject’s state of mind. yet the origin of aesthetic experience is in the transcendental state. this explains shih tao’s saying that the art of painting is a manifestation of truth. as he writes in hua pu: with regard to the delicate arrangement of mountains, streams, and human figures, or the natural characteristics of birds, animals, grass, and trees, or the proportions of ponds, pavilions, towers, and terraces, if one’s mind cannot deeply penetrate into their reality and subtly express their appearance, one has not yet understood the fundamental meaning of the oneness of strokes…hence, oneness of strokes embraces all strokes before their differentiation. myriad brush stokes and ink wash all derive and diminish here. merely rely upon the grasp of men. a single stroke which identifies with universality can clearly reveal the idea of man and fully penetrate all things (coleman 1978, 37-38). in this sense, does the transcendence of the mind mean total cancellation of bodily perception? what is the place for corporeality and visuality if the ideal ink painting is to manifest the aesthetic experience in the realm of the dao, which only the pure mind can grasp? one can easily argue that it is the visuality of the mind that “sees” the truth, ultimate beauty and goodness, but it is also the artistic manifestation of the vision via the eye that requires a certain kind of sensibility and visuality. the functions and the meanings of the physical techniques including those conducted by the hands and the eye of the painter and the relation between them and the origin of art (“the oneness of stroke”) as suggested by shih tao require more attention and discussion. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 130 eva kit wah man the oneness of stroke and the meaning of technology in traditional ink painting shih tao’s saying that the “oneness of strokes embraces all strokes before their differentiation” reminds us of heidegger’s discussion of the essence of technology in his work the question concerning technology (heidegger 1977). it is more meaningful to turn our attention from technique to heidegger’s discussion of technology as he said we shall never experience our relationship to the essence of technology if we merely conceive and put forward the technological. technology is not mere means or instrument but is that whereby something is effected and thus attained (heidegger 1977, 4). he laid out the cause and effect relation and referred to the four causes in the aristotelian doctrine when he discusses the instrumentality of technology, while his question is actually about what unites these causes from the beginning and the primal meaning of causality. technology, according to heidegger’s sayings, is basically responsible for letting something come forth or bring forth into presencing (an-wesen) and into its complete arrival. heidegger asked, “how does bringing-forth happen, be it in nature or in handwork and art?” (heidegger 1977, 8-11). shih tao did not inquire about the cause and effect relation nor the question of bringing forth, but he did point out that the one stroke grasped by the ink painter was the origin of art. his saying that the single stroke “which identifies with universality can clearly reveal the idea of man and fully penetrate all things” presupposes the artist’s reach to and understanding of the metaphysical realm. heidegger further elaborates that technology is about bringing-forth, “brings out of concealment into unconcealment” and that the essence of technology is to arrive at revealing everything. he refers this to “truth” and understands it as “correctness of representation.” he said: the possibility of all productive manufacturing lies in revealing. technology is therefore no mere means. technology is a way of revealing. if we give heed to this, then another whole realm for the essence of technology will open itself up to us. it is the realm of revealing, i.e., of truth. ... that technē is the name not only for the activities and skills of the craftsman, but also for the arts of the mind and the fine arts. technē belongs to bringing-forth, to poiēsis, it is something poetic (heidegger 1977, 12-13). i will agree here to some parallel readings between shih tao and heidegger. the meaning of the “one stroke” suggested by shih tao may refer to what heidegger describes as the “utmost importance” to think of bringing-forth in its full scope. it the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015131 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality is the origin of art and the truth and it happens before the many strokes that come after for artistic representation. his sayings echo that of heidegger: the art of painting is a manifestation of truth. with regard to the delicate arrangement of mountains, streams, and human figures, or the natural characteristics of birds, animals, grass, and trees, or the proportions of ponds, pavilions, towers, and terraces, if one’s mind cannot deeply penetrate into their reality and subtly express their appearance, one has not yet understood the fundamental meaning of the oneness of strokes” (coleman 1978, 37). heidegger said that the bringing-forth is not only handicraft manufacture, artistic and poetical bringing into appearance and concrete imagery. the artistic techniques, skills and visuality in all the freedom and constraints of the physical movements of an artist happen in the bringing-forth process in which the growing things of nature, as well as whatever is completed through the crafts and the arts, come at any given time to their appearance, and this coming or revealing rests and moves freely (heidegger 1977, 10-11). this reminds one of mou’s saying that when one’s being is engaged in the realm of the metaphysical dao, “things present themselves in the way that they are...not as an object, but as an ideal state” (mou 1974, 208-211). one finds more resemblances when trying to differentiate the metaphysical implications of the dao in traditional chinese philosophy from the ontological meaning of heidegger’s reading. when the essence of the technological part of art is understood through the heideggerian notions of truth and revealing of “everything” (heidegger 1977, 12), a question is raised here of how the artistic process leads the painter to an awareness of the self, and what one would find in the intersection with nature, as the daoists emphasize, as well as the meaning of the term technovisuality, which is suggested to be understood in the heideggerian sense of the essence of technology instead of the “technological.” visuality: the case of merleau-ponty i want to argue that the new ink works are traces of the painter’s awareness of a whole of visibility that is essential to the painter’s own sense of self as present and actual. after reviewing heidegger’s suggestion of the essence of technology as a process of bringing-forth and truth revealing, it would be appropriate to turn to the theory of another phenomenologist, merleau-ponty, for comparison and discussion. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 132 eva kit wah man at a preliminary level, it can be agreed that ink painters must take notice of paper or silk as a visible whole in order to make a brush stroke, and also to make artistic judgment. merleau-ponty’s notion of the ‘flesh of the world” has provided this a contemporary discussion, as he has shown how the painter enters a visible space where the self and nature intersect in his work the visible and the invisible. merleau-ponty used the term “visibility” to name a corporeal element of the painter’s own body which experiences objects in nature and which is aware of the whole of the visible where the self meets nature (merleau-ponty 1968, 245). we may say that when a painter continually suspends the visual experience of natural objects and appearances during the process for transcendental request, greater intimacy and closeness with nature in the realm of the dao is actually achieved as neo-confucian scholars implied. it is at this point that, not only the barrier of conception is absent, but the painter’s own self will become part of nature, and nature will become part of the painter’s self. merleau-ponty has also focused on the intersection of the nature of the body and its senses but at a different level. this must be differentiated from kantian epistemology as well. kant suggests governance of sensation by the a priori conceptual scheme of the understanding, while merleau-ponty stresses that the painter is aware of an intersection with nature through what is given by sensibility before sensibility is conceptualized and experienced in the form of appearances or objects (merleau-ponty 1968, 217). let’s remember that for merleau-ponty, perception is primary, whereas for kant, reason and cognition are primary. the revelation of merleau-ponty’s discussion of gestalt psychology is that when a painter produces a line, it must be on the paper as a visible space that is the context for all possible lines (merleau-ponty 1968, 207-208). one may compare this reading with the implication in shih tao’s remarks on “one stroke” painting when he says that: when the wrist seizes reality, it moves the brush with a revolving movement enriches the strokes by rolling the brush hairs, and leaves them unbounded by any limitations… all of these movements…are natural and are free from the slightest artificiality. all of these actions possess a lively spirit and their methods are always integrated. all things become real and their manner is vividly and fully expressed. this is because when…the principle of oneness of strokes emerged, ten thousand things were manifested (coleman 1978, 39-40). for shih tao, the “one-stroke” in ink painting should be both a visible event and a metaphysical concept. he does not deny that the ink painter contemplates and the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015133 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality looks intently at the visible silk or paper during the process of making a stroke, though he has not elaborated on this. in fact, this might have been assumed in his theory of the “one stroke” painting, as it is the point of departure towards the metaphysical intersection of self and nature. one can find numerous evidences in hua po in which he stresses the transcendental origin of aesthetic experience when he mentions that the art of painting is a manifestation of truth, and with regard to all the things represented, one’s mind has to deeply penetrate into their reality to understand the fundamental meaning of “the oneness of strokes” (coleman 1978, 37). the penetration into the dao or the metaphysical nature requires a transcendental leap, which may take continuing efforts, both spiritually and physically, as he said: to both travel far and ascend heights, one’s step begins with a single inch near at hand…a single stroke which identifies with universality can clearly reveal the idea of man and fully penetrate all things…thus the wrist seizes reality (coleman 1978, 38). yet the emphasizing point is still the spiritual capacity of the “one stroke” as he said the splashing of the ink onto the brush is to done with spirit (coleman 1978, 56). but the corporeal act and visuality are necessary for artistic manifestation, as shih described that the substance and function, forms and power, bowing and standing, squatting and leaping of ink strokes fully reveal the spirituality of things (coleman 1978, 59). they attribute to continuing artistic and physical practices, as he said: the vitality of the ink depends upon catching the absolute moment; the action of grasping the moment requires continuity of execution. among those who know how to control movement, their brush work is inwardly real and outwardly transparent (coleman 1978, 79). one is reminded here of the famous daoist story of butcher ding in zhuangzi’s writing. it was said that when the butcher moves his knife through the body of a cow, it was as if he were dancing. the act and the interaction along with the animal body and going right through its physical form and structure, lead to the butcher’s experience of nature, where all things travel together and encounter one another. the butcher’s departure from his corporeality, and the visibility of both his act and the object of his act, including his grasp of the cow’s physical nature when he dismembers the cow, is just like an ink painter departing from the visible whole of his strokes on the paper. the painter enters into the metaphysical realm and the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 134 eva kit wah man executes from there. shih said: when he grasps the brush, it is as if he were doing nothing (coleman 1978, 102). in the visible and the invisible, merleau-ponty uses the terms “flesh” and “visible” to designate an inward element of corporeality that has not been named in preceding philosophies. he suggests that the inwardness of the individual person includes an element of flesh that is composed of “the visible” and “the tangible” parts which cannot be placed over the other (merleauponty 1968, 134). as he puts it: since the same body sees and touches, visible and tangible belong to the same world… there is double and crossed situating of the visible in the tangible and of the tangible in the visible; the two maps are complete, and yet they do not merge into one. the two parts are total parts and yet are not superposable…it is that the thickness of flesh between the seer and the thing is constitutive for the thing of its visibility as for the seer of his corporeity; it is not an obstacle between them, it is their means of communication (merleauponty 1968, 134-135). with the term the “total visible,” merleau-ponty refers inwardly to the individual painter’s own corporeal context, which is a sustaining whole and stable pivot for all the experiencing, and the vital part of the revealing or the bringing-forth process discussed above. this may supplement the presupposition of the corporeal departure of shih tao’s “one stroke” painting that enters into the intersection of the self with nature. shih said it all: the vitality of the ink depends upon catching the absolute moment; the action of grasping the moment requires continuity of execution. among those who know how to control movement, their brush work is inwardly real and outwardly transparent…therefore, the ancients hit the proper measure between emptiness and reality; inwardly and outwardly there was fit control; their method of painting was completely perfected…without flaws or defects, they obtained the spirit of evasive concealment and the spirit of movement… with regard to those who face a wall, dust covered and obstructed by things, how can they avoid hatred from the creator (nature)? (coleman 1978, 79-80). here one may need to note the difference between merleau-ponty’s reading and that of shih tao. the obstruction suggested by shih may refer to the kantian notion of cognition, where the subject and the object dichotomy is operating. merleauponty has also suggested that the term “visible” may be used to name the sensible context within which cognitive thinking temporarily discriminates particular the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015135 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality forms (merleau-ponty 1968, 130). he adds that there is never a complete merging of vision and this porous visible context; for if there were then vision would vanish due to the “disappearance of the seer or of the visible” (merleau-ponty 1968, 131). one can see here that merleau-ponty is still discussing empirical vision, while shih refers this kind of vision to a form of metaphysical departure, for the real artistic scene should only spring up after the disappearance of the seer or the sensible subject, who is replaced by a transcendental subject. in brief, the ink painting subject will absorb the empirical vision and reach the transcendental vision, while the process of the entrance to and the exit from the transcendental realm is the dancing of the ink strokes on paper. on the other hand, merleau-ponty’s notions of the “flesh” or the “visible” also has a strong metaphysical flavor, as they designate a non-objective domain of corporeality, which refers to an inward dimension of the body and cannot be experienced as an object or material condition that conforms to empirically determined laws of scientific knowledge, though visibility is also an element essential to our own sense of corporeality (merleau-ponty 1968, 205-206). according to merleau-ponty, the “pure” artistic subject is not traveling in any metaphysical realm, but is a suspending self or an innate whole of visibility free from cognitive judgments. in this way, this contemporary development of the reading of artistic process cannot be translated into the traditional chinese discourse on ink painting like that of shih tao, for there exist two different paradigms of metaphysical beliefs. the importance of pointing out the differences between the two modalities is to suggest the proper way of reading shih tao’s theory of ink painting as a representing daoist aesthetics, and to avoid misunderstanding initiated by an easy adoption of a western model. this will also explain the different positions of visuality implied. merleau-ponty says that the painter switches from judge to pupil, as the seeing painter stays within the innate corporeal element of the whole of the visible and repeats and affirms what is seen in the manifestation process. this is the way merleau-ponty reads cezanne’s saying that “nature is on the inside” (merleauponty 1968, 125). the traditional chinese ink painters believe in traveling in the metaphysical nature and that the artistic bodily act is an automatic execution or manifestation of that experience, like shih tao’s suggestion of the “one stroke.” this is clearly implied in this shih’s words: because men grasp the power of evasive concealment and vitality, mountains, streams and the myriad things offer their spirit to man. if it is not the case, how could one enable brush strokes and ink washes, within the ink, to create embryonic and structured forms, openness and closeness? (coleman 1978, 58). the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 136 eva kit wah man the painter is thus an “enlightened” wise man, as he said: because he (the painter) is wise, he transforms; because he is enlightened, he is free. when confronted by things, he is undisturbed. when he deals with forms, he leaves no traces…when he moves the ink, it is as if the work were already finished…when he grasps the brush, it is as if he were doing nothing (coleman 1978, 101-102). merleau-ponty’s painters are interested in the sensible whole of visibility that is an inward root of embodiment within nature, and it is in this sense that the painter is closer to nature. though this contemporary interpretation of innate corporeality cannot explain the daoist metaphysical claims as it does not presuppose the metaphysical realm of the dao, it may still become a good reference of what the new ink painters are doing now and what ink painting has developed into. the suggestion also returns to the argument stated at the beginning of this section that the new ink works are traces of the painter’s awareness of a whole of visibility that is essential to the painter’s own sense of self as present and actual. to be enriched by heidegger’s suggestion, the technovisuality in the sense of the essence of technology and the visual experience involved, is an unconcealment and a bringing-forth of the truth of one’s total existence. the “expansion” of new ink art in contemporary discourses of visuality, it is said that there is no innocent perceiving eye or ideal observer (hurley 1985, 54-97). visuality is always contextual, social, cultural and political. the visual is extending and transforming indigenous cultural forms of seeing and looking. this is especially true of chinese modernity, in which modernity is seen as spectacle, and that the excessiveness of spectacle captivated modern chinese subjects to the extent that they are actively involved in it, as suggested by pang laikwan. pang suggests that through visuality, modern chinese subjects face not only the passing of the past and the looking forward to a pluralistic future, but they also have come to terms with their own modern selves and new identities. chinese modernity is in fact constantly renewed through the interactions between subjects and their rapidly changing cultural environment (pang, 2007). the new ink movement in hong kong in the 1960s, for instance, has demonstrated the quest for cultural and artistic identities. pioneers like lui shoukwan have explicitly extended their concerns from artistic tradition to existential situation; that is, from metaphysical encounter to social concerns. the new ink the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015137 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality art exhibition mentioned at the beginning of this paper has selected lui’s works as exhibits, showing the changes and concerns. lui promoted modernization of traditional ink painting and related it to hong kong cultural identity. his ink paintings addressed an existential crisis in the british colony – a crisis that became more serious when political tension finally grew into riots and street demonstrations in 1967 as hong kong’s leftists protested against british colonial rule. during the riot, the radical political tensions that emerged between the british government and chinese leftists in the colony in the 60’s were initiated by a group of factory workers on strike in san po kong. thousands of workers joined in the riot which led to injuries. the riot was read as a local rebellion against the colonial government. after the riot, localization policies were promoted by the colonial government to build up a sense of belonging and local awareness among hong kong citizens (t. lui & chiu 1999, 105). lui then absorbed western ideas into chinese tradition in his ink work to meet the quest for a new cultural identity. lui’s desire for individual expression caused him to become an experimentalist in what may be termed “chinese art with a western approach” (lee 1963, 14). lui mixed his experimental ideas with ink painting, which eventually led him to zen painting, the style for which he was most famous in his later development. 2. lui shou-kwan. zen painting i. 1974. ink and color on paper. h. 70 x w. 139 cm. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 138 eva kit wah man on the one hand, he thought that the spirit of new ink painting offered a mental balance to people living in a colony that was overrun with material and technological advancements. it is note worthy that the international art community was more interested in a new genre of work that grew out of local cultural innovations, though lui and his followers are not after an international income stream. he was more interested in demonstrating or bring-forth his existential situation and adaptability of living in a colonial city as an ink painter through innovative ideas of art. lui further classified modern ideas combined with tradition as “adaptation” which should not be separated from the “root” or foundation, which, in traditional chinese aesthetics, is the spiritual cultivation of the artist (lui 1972, 31-33). lui drew on these teachings to urge artists to return to the “root” – that is, to the inner self – and to nourish it, to find the wisdom to incorporate new forms of painting. by returning to the root, painters could find their own style which would reveal their own personality and ways of existence. lui’s views on “adaptation” were reflected in the work of young artists who mixed ink with fluorescent colors or printing oil and utilized ink with concepts of western design, while leaving their return to the “root” as an enigma. lui’s follower, wucius wong, succeeds in combining ink with western design ideas and produces landscape in distinguished style. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015139 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality 3. wucius wong. purification. no.2. 1979. ink and color on paper. h 183.4 x w 89.2 cm. lui’s contemporary, luis chan, is famous in using ink to develop liberal, imaginative and free style modern painting. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 140 eva kit wah man 4. luis chan, landscape. 1970. ink and color on paper. h 75 x w 43.5 cm. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015141 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality the recent experiments in ink paining in mainland china are also telling their stories. in the exhibition notes on contemporary chinese ink experiments, sun xiaofeng, an active art critic in china, argued that as contemporary art is strongly expanding its range of expression, the mingling of all kinds of techniques and media must nevertheless follow certain concepts and is subject to the recent cultural pertinence, strategy and speculation, and this applies equally to chinese ink painting. sun xiaofeng is typical of contemporary ink art curators: the unique spirit and the specific cultural connotations of chinese ink painting that were formerly concealed by the contemporary may now be implemented as a kind of accessory or special flavor of the contemporary and thus compromise with current aesthetics. to define its position within a pluralist and multicultural context, we have to introduce western artistic grammar into the context of ink painting, with a strategy that aims at producing diversified models of a contemporary quality. only through such a process of continuous exchange can the factors participating in it successfully participate in cultural negotiations. …one of the tasks of the contemporary ink experiment is to rediscover the cultural functions and spiritual implications of ink and to revive ink as an artistic language, as well as for the actual grammar and rhetoric of this particular language (sun 2007, 10, original version in english). it is clear that new ink painting has to fulfill a number of functions: as spiritual revival and as functional as culturally identifier. that is why the curator raised such a question: “is it correct to say ink makes a sacrifice to obtain a contemporary identity?” (sun 2007, 10). we are reminded to avoid the illusion of the existence of a privileged domain of ink, and that there is neither a definite conclusion nor the declaration of the establishment of other norms for ink painting. it is said that there are only possibilities of ink painting as inspired by new experiments (sun 2007, 11). the contribution of the ink experiment lies in the fact that it preserves a text of the practice of the evolution of the concepts in the field of contemporary art and culture; and it provides a valuable experience in what concerns the appropriate strategy of an autochthonous culture effected by the drive of globalization. but what about metaphysics, if even “spiritual resonance” as the first principal of painting in the chinese tradition was now only regarded as an act for mental balance in the life of an international city? the relevance of shih tao’s writing remains as an echo informing contemporary ink painters: those who know the subtle manifestation, but forget the origin of the fundamental principle of oneness of brush strokes, are like children who forget their ancestors if one the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 142 eva kit wah man knows that ancient and modern works never perish, yet forgets that their achievement of merit is not limited to men, this is the same as the ten thousand things losing what is given by nature. heaven can give man a method, but cannot give him skill… ancient and modern works of calligraphy and painting originated from heaven and were completed by man (coleman 1978, 104105). one may detect technology from the term “method” that shih tao suggested in his treatise on ink painting. yet it is the “skill” of bringing-forth or unconcealment of truth or the essence of technology that he implied in his philosophy of art. endnotes: acknowledgment the author would like to give acknowledgment to professor helen grace who gave editorial advice and english editing to this article. work cited: v. ng et al., new ink art: innovation and beyond (hong kong: hku space, 2008). xiaochun liu, “contemporary shuimo art being at the edge of art,” in shuimo today. ed., liu xiaochun (beijing: shuimo union of songzhuang, 2006). (english translation provided in the article originally). earle j. coleman, philosophy of painting by shih t’ao (the hague: mouton publishers, 1978). zongzan mou, intellectual intuition and chinese philosophy (taipei: commercial press, 1974). wing-tsit chan (trans. and compiled), a source book in chinese philosophy (new jersey: princeton university press, 1963). chuni tang, spiritual values of chinese culture (taipei: ching chung, 1987). martin heidegger, the question concerning technology and other essays, trans. lovitt, w (new york: harper & row, publishers, inc., 1977). m. merleau-ponty, the visible and the invisible, trans. alphonso lingis (evanston: northwestern university press, 1968). s.l. hurley, “objectivity and disagreement.” in morality and objectivity, ed. ted http://honderich http://honderich the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015143 metaphysics, corporeality and visuality honderich (london: routledge & kegan paul, 1985). laikwan pang, the distorting mirror: visual modernity in china (hawaii: university of hawaii press, 2007). tai-lok lui and stephen w. k. chiu, “social movements and public discourse on politics,” in hong kong’s history: state and society under colonial rule, ed. ngo, tak-wing (london and new york: routledge, 1999). ying ho lee (ed.), modern edition, hong kong: hong kong modern literature and art association, no.4. (1963). shou-kwan lui, sui mo hua jiang (hong kong: notes of lui’s lectures recorded by a group of his students and published by them, 1972). xiaofeng sun, infiltration-idylls and visions (he bei: he bei mei shu chu ban she, 2007). photo credits: hong kong museum of art (1, 2, 3, 4). contact: eva kit wah man evaman@hkbu.edu.hk http://honderich h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 10 page 10–31irene delcourt unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) irene delcourt abstract: the nature and management of narcotic addiction, and by extension, the nature and management of those who struggle with it, are not recent issues in the united states. despite the current opioid epidemics and the apparent discovery of prescription-drug addiction, medical treatment of opioid dependence is already more than 100 years old. is compulsive drug consumption a vice? a disease? a lifestyle? how does it affect the minds and bodies of those who suffer from it? how can they be cured? in the 1870s, physicians were already struggling with such questions when they pioneered what would become known as “addictology” in the 20th century. this article first endeavors to retrace the emergence of the conceptualization and perception of opiate addiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. from “imported vice” to “unhealthy lifestyle” and finally “nervous disease”, narcotic dependence became an increasingly important source of concern for turn-of-the-century physicians, precipitating a rapid and sometimes dangerously disjointed medicalization. this study then explores the different facets of early addiction treatments, their philosophies, their views on “addicted bodies” (particularly through the lens of lifestyle and heredity), and their impact on the evolution of addiction management programs. god seems to help a man in getting out of every difficulty but opium. there you have to claw your way out over red-hot coals on your hands and knees and drag yourself by main strength through the burning dungeon-bars… now, such a man is a proper subject, not for reproof, but for medical treatment. (ludlow as day, 1868, pp. 259-260). * * * in the mid-1860s, fitz h. ludlow, a science journalist, explorer, and amateur physician, became one of the first americans to address the issue of opiate addiction. he voiced his conviction that this new and bizarre affliction had to be attended to with great urgency, lest it wreaked further havoc on his generation and his country. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self11 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) while opium use was not quite novel in the united states in the mid-nineteenth century, it was hardly identified as an issue before the civil war and the appearance of what historians came to call “the army disease”–a first generation of opium addicts, many of whom were veterans who had contracted their drug habit from prolonged exposure to medicinal morphine on the battlefield.1 over the last three decades of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century, however, opiate addiction–that is, the sustained, compulsive need for narcotics, both physical and psychological, despite adverse consequences–became an object of concern. throughout the years, addiction would undergo a long and complex transformation in the eyes of the american public, from personal vice, to unhealthy lifestyle, to dangerous disease.2 whether narcotic consumption and dependence should be regarded as a “lifestyle” or as a pathology–and consequently, whether “addicts”3 are sick victims or potentially criminal hedonists–seems to be an extremely recent debate, given the “opioid epidemics” currently unfolding in the united states. however, the controversy surrounding the nature of addiction, the responsibility of drug users, and the appropriate social, political, and medical responses is almost 150 years old. while the history of addiction treatment in america has been a specific area of interest of several recent studies, particularly william white’s slaying the dragon (2014) and nancy campbell’s discovering addiction (2007), much remains to be uncovered. the present study endeavors to contribute to the crucial and growing field of addiction studies by offering a historical perspective on societal views of addicted bodies and minds, particularly through the lens of medical discourse and practices, and physicians’ perpetually renewed desire to correct those bodies, psyches, and habits–sometimes against individuals’ wishes. this article first attempts to retrace the emergence and evolution of americans’ initial perception of addiction (1870-1920) from simple vice to medical condition. using max weber and alfred adler’s lebensstil theories, it also aims to demonstrate how connecting the concept of “unhealthy lifestyle” with narcotic consumption, while seemingly debunked by early addictologists, continued to play a major role in the management and even in the medicalization of drug dependence. 1 for further discussion of the impact of the civil war on opiate addiction and its medical visibility, see lewy (2014) and courtwright (1978). 2 opioid addiction is most frequently regarded as a chronic, relapsing brain disease by the medical community today, according to the national institute on drug abuse paradigm, but there still is no real consensus on the exact nature of the condition. 3 most of the recent body of historical addiction studies still refer to people struggling with drug abuse as “addicts.” this idiom had been used, without intended stigma (but necessarily without actual stigmatization) by the medical community and legislative bodies in the u.s. throughout the 20th century. david musto and david courtwright, in their seminal histories of narcotic addiction in america in the 1970s and 1980s, have chosen to use that specific term, as have many historians of the 21st century, such as timothy hickman, nancy campbell, or caroline jean acker. the word echoes, first and foremost, the societal reality of its historical period – people addicted to narcotics were referred to – and often referred to themselves – as addicts. they are not merely drug users, but people who are physically and psychologically dependent on regular narcotic intake. however, this term has come to be viewed as problematic, as it tends to essentialize the disease of addiction as the primary feature of those who suffer from it. while the word “addict” appears in this study in its historical context, especially when referring to the archetype of the “morphine addict,” the author has elected to use less stigmatizing, if somewhat heavier nomenclature elsewhere. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 12 irene delcourt 1. the making of narcotic addiction in 19th century america: from harmful lifestyle to nervous disease opium smoking: an unhealthy lifestyle defining what is meant by “lifestyle” here and how it relates to the conceptual framing of drug addiction in the 19th century is an essential first step. in common parlance, the term can be broadly defined as “the particular way a person or a group lives, and the values and ideas supported by that person or group,” (cambridge dictionary, n.d.,) however it has been viewed as a complex and intricate notion and a key concept in behavioral sociology and psychology through the second half of the 20th century. although it seems to have appeared in the english language in the last decade of the 19th century, in american economist thorstein veblen’s treatise the theory of the leisure class (1899), the concept was more formally defined in the early 1920s by max weber, who built his theory of “lifestyle” or “style of life” (lebensstil) around two distinct components: firstly, lebensführung or “life conduct,” which referred to the choices people face and the decisions they made regarding their lives, and secondly lebenschancen, which related to their social context and the probability of achieving their goals.4 however, our modern understanding of the term also owes much to viennese physician alfred adler, one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy. he also introduced lebensstil (more frequently translated as “style of life” in psychotherapeutic writings) as one of the main constructs of personality. in essence, it referred to an individual’s own distinctive responses to their life choices, difficulties, interpersonal relationships, and social circumstances, as well as their sense of self and representation of the world (adler, 1927). none of these theories, of course, was on the radar of late 19th or early 20th century american medical professionals. nonetheless, both weber’s and adler’s definitions, however posterior, shed light on our understanding of the way narcotic addiction was conceived of by many early observers in the united states. both underlined the importance of interactions between the individual and the collective and the importance of intimate and social circumstances, and both put forth the notion of personal choice, either conscious or unconscious, and its consequences, intended and unintended, as significant elements in the construction of a “lifestyle.” when opioid addiction was first truly identified in america, shortly after the civil war, it was effectively described and approached as a lifestyle–a set of deliberate, individual actions, more or less freely carried out, which eventually came to shape narcotic users’ lives, usually for the worse. in the early 1870s, a few elite specialists became interested in what they termed “the disease of inebriety”–a pathological compulsion to consume intoxicants and the subsequent inability to function normally without them–(american association for the cure of inebriates, 1870, pp. 3-4).5 however, most 19th century observers saw habitual narcotic consumption (especially opium) first as a minor vice, then, increasingly, as an unhealthy way of life, threatening both the physical and moral integrity of habitués6 – or hop fiends as the press would start to call them in the 1880s – and, more ominously, the fundamental values of american society. opium dens, 4 for further discussion of weber’s theory see abel, cockerham and lüschen (1993). 5 founded in 1870, the american association for the cure of inebriates (later the american association for the study and cure of inebriety or aasci) was the very first medical society devoted to the scientific study and treatment of addictions. it dominated the specialty of both alcoholism and narcotic addiction treatment until the 1910s, when the field collapsed because of prohibitive legal measures against both drug users and their physicians and the aasci was disbanded. for more on the history of the association, see weiner and white (2007) and blumberg (1978). 6 from french “person with a habit,” the term was often used to describe regular, addicted narcotic users in late 19th and early 20th medical literature. addiction was also referred to as “the habit” as a euphemism. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self13 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) brought to the east and west coasts by recent chinese immigrants, began to accept white patrons in the late 1860s (kane, 1882, pp. 1-3.) this prompted the formation of what could be described as the first american drug subculture. coincidentally, it also led to the first categorization of regular narcotic use not merely as personal depravity but as a “dangerous lifestyle.” it was an evil that pertained not only to individuals, but to a greater, cohesive collectivity–foreign in origin– and it could, therefore, endanger society at large. “it is a vice of the vilest kind: an imported vice,” declared a new york reporter investigating recreational opium smoking in the late 1890s (beck, 1898, p. 156). indeed, close association between smoking opium, which briefly became fashionable in large metropolises such as san francisco and new york city in the 1870s, and chinese immigration, the “yellow peril,” led swiftly to heaping opprobrium on the decidedly disreputable practice. in the early 1880s, chinatown opium dens became the target of relentless campaigns by cohorts of moral entrepreneurs throughout the country–religious missionaries, social hygiene advocates, temperance crusaders, city officials, anti-chinese groups, and editorialists.7 opium smoking was seen as a dangerous habit, one that mentally and physically degraded its practitioners: “disinclination to mental effort, weakening of willpower, wavering in decision and loss of memory” were listed among the first symptoms by a an early investigator, harry hubbell kane (kane, 1882, p. 84.) those signs were soon to be followed by a generalized corruption of morals and sanity, “a tendency to falsify for no reason” and “bouts of dementia and acute mania” (p. 86, 88). more generally, both the drug itself and the den–a place where men and women, chinese and whites, would mingle in relative insouciance and with little sense of 19th century, protestant propriety–were associated with loose morals, promiscuity, criminality, and social decline (byrnes, 1886, p. 381). fiends were, at best, depicted as “wretched creatures” fallen victims to a foreign vice (campbell et al., 1900, pp. 571-74). at worst, they were willing agents in their own slow destruction, actively choosing a life of leisure revolving around sating their dark appetites. “[t]he smoker of opium becomes such through wantonness of desire,” wrote william cobbe, a recovering morphinist, in his memoirs. he is a creature given over to his own lusts walking after the flesh and has no desire to get out of a slavery that brings him no sense of degradation. […] he is absolutely devoid of moral sense, has no strength of purpose and no thought of disgrace. (cobbe, pp. 124-126) thus, the opium user was frequently perceived, at the very least, as complacent, and quite possibly complicit, in his or her downfall and apparent inability to commit to sobriety, no matter the social and personal costs of the habit. 7 the new york times alone devoted some 50 articles to opium dens between 1870 and 1890, usually when a raid or an arrest took place, and rarely missed an opportunity to dwell on the “deplorable” state of the place and the customers. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 14 irene delcourt the narcomaniac diathesis:8 the “secret leprosy of modern times” opium addiction is a disease, a well-marked functional neurosis, and deserving recognition as such to a greater degree than it has hitherto received. in the vast majority of cases the vice theory of its origin is incorrect, so that, with few exceptions, the term “opium habit” is a misnomer, implying, as it wrongly does, that opiateusing is under individual control. (mattison, 1885, p. 2) * * * the certainty that seemingly irrepressible, chronic opiate intoxication was solely a “habit,” a style of life, a choice made out of pure hedonism and utter disregard for the negative impact that repeated use could have on the mind, body, and social life of the addicted person, was not shared by everyone in the late 19th century. the risks of morphine poisoning and “morphinism” or “morphinomania”–in essence, the development of a chemical dependence to the morphine alkaloid that pushed its victims to consume the narcotic on a regular basis and often in increasing quantities–had been regularly pointed out by medical professionals, both in the u.s. and in europe, since the 1860s. physicians’ and pharmacists’ growing interest in the potency of opiates, especially for the treatment of nervous pathologies and in pain management, had made it legally and readily available, as well as highly sought after. between 1850 and 1880, opium consumption per capita–mainly for medical use–had increased at least threefold (calkins, 1871, p. 37, courtwright, 2001, pp. 21-22). at the same time, addiction to opiates was on the rise, especially among middle-aged and middle-class women in rural areas, who were frequently prescribed morphine (and, less frequently, cocaine) for a wide range of “female troubles.” these respectable patients hardly fit the profile of the “loose women” who frequented dens (often described as prostitutes, although little evidence of that subsists in reliable sources) or of the lascivious, irresponsibly carefree, urban opium smoker. consequently, many physicians started to wonder if opium “inebriety” could be a pathology rather than a moral failing or a harmful lifestyle, pursued only by those they viewed as pleasure-seekers. their assumptions, of course, were hardly demonstrable: 19th century medical sciences could present precious little hard evidence of the lasting neurological effects of opiates on regular users. in addition, american physicians’ own accountability in accidentally spreading chemical dependence through the indiscriminate and often ill-advised administration of morphine was quite certainly a factor in their silence. it explained general practitioners’ long-standing disinterest for, or even blunt denial of, the pathological nature of narcotic addiction–a condition that required treatment rather than reproof.9 thus, until the turn of the century, reform-minded activists far outnumbered health professionals when it came to identifying the potential dangers of the narcotic habit. in the prior 20 years, however, things began to shift: individual life and the way it was affected by the increasingly collective and demanding organization of a rapidly industrializing society–and, in turn, the way individual life affected society–became an evergrowing source of concern for medical men. concurrently, there were new discoveries about the biology of the human body and new scientific theories emerged, offering much more convincing frames for the “disease theory of inebriety.” 8 in medical terminology, diathesis is a hereditary or constitutional predisposition to a certain group of diseases. 9 indeed, physicians were often accused of having induced, through negligence or malice, a “iatrogenic addiction” in their patients – that is, a dependence contracted in the course of a long medical treatment (the equivalent of today’s prescription drug addiction, one of the main reasons for america’s current “opioid epidemics”). for more on this subject see delcourt (2018). unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self15 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) the industrial and scientific revolutions that unfolded during reconstruction (1865–1877) and the gilded age (1870–1900) hailed an era of great innovations and progress, but they also transformed the way americans perceived the interconnectedness of the modern world, in both positive and negative ways. between 1860 and 1910, there was an unprecedented increase in the country’s population (nearly 200%), especially in urban centers. first railroads, then cars and planes were introduced to the public; telephones and telegraphs proliferated; urban centers boomed. intellectual, social, and sensory stimulations were at a peak. while modern society was full of new opportunities, the ensuing agitation was also extremely taxing for american citizens, at least according to the newly minted medical specialty called “neurology.” that turmoil also contributed to society’s penchant for narcotics. in the 1890s, another recovering morphine addict blamed industrialization and capitalism, an inherently unhealthy way of life, for the increase of drug use in america: “our mechanical inventions; the spread of our commerce and every department of business; … our mad race for speedy wealth, which entails feverish excitements … all this is a growth so rapid, and in some respects so abnormal, that in many directions the mental strain has been too much for the physical system to bear; … there has been far too little time given to eating properly, to sleep, to recreation and healthful amusements; till finally the overworked body and the overtaxed brain needs find rest in the repeated use of opium or morphine.” (cole, 1894, pp. 7-8) while many physicians deemed this explanation a poor excuse, others wholeheartedly agreed. “have we lived too fast?” a preeminent neurologist of his time, dr. silas weir mitchell, wondered in his 1871 book wear and tear, or hints for the overworked. “the new and exacting habits of business, the racing speed which the telegraph and railway have introduced into commercial life, … and the overeducation and overstraining of our young people, have brought about some great and growing evils” (p. 7). inebriety, according to him, was among those “evils,” especially when coupled with another brand-new medical diagnosis: neurasthenia. the name and specific etiology of this “disease of modern times” were put forth by another neurologist, george miller beard (1881). neurasthenia or “nervous exhaustion”, according to beard, was the pathological manifestation of “general nerve sensitiveness,” one that could be inherited, but also developed because of an exhausting lifestyle. the genesis of the disease could be traced to a total depletion of energy in the nervous system, caused by physical or psychological factors; the patient would then suffer a “nervous breakdown” and remain in that state until it was somehow replenished, lest the condition devolved into inebriety, epilepsy or even insanity.10 indeed, the heightened sensitivity of the neurasthenic patient made for “an increased susceptibility for stimulants and narcotics” (beard, 1881, pp. 26-32). as such, inebriety was thought to be a part of the nervous diathesis, a symptom or a particular manifestation of the “nervousness” that plagued so many modern americans. leslie keeley (1890), an early addictologist and entrepreneur, went so far as to dub opiate addiction the “secret leprosy” of modernity (p. 23). in addition, many started to believe that the propensity to use opiates and develop narcomania11 was almost 10 both mitchell and beard, along with many of their contemporaries, saw neurasthenia as a direct consequence of modern life and of the modern american biological constitution, to the point that the disease was nicknamed americanitis. they believed many environmental factors, including climate, the quality of water and food, as well as more intangible elements such as freedom and democracy, had enabled the american people to evolve, as a race, beyond the rest of the world – making for a smarter, more attractive, and more sensitive people. the downside of this remarkable evolution was that, as they were more refined, more complex, they were also more prone to breakdowns (beard, 1881, pp. 142-173). for more on the history of this disease, see schuster (2011). 11 the term, which loosely refers to compulsive narcotic consumption in general, was coined by a british neurologist, norman kerr, in the late 1880s and frequently used by american addictologists between 1890 and 1910. see for example kerr (1890) and crothers (1902). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 16 irene delcourt certainly hereditary. this meant that habitués could not be held responsible for their behavior, as their compulsion was not a choice, but an illness (quarterly journal of inebriety, 1888, pp. 351-362). it also meant that narcomania could be classified as a neurological disease, along with such diverse ailments as hysteria, insomnia, anxiety, migraines, and epilepsy (beard, 1881, p. 1) and that, ideally, medical care should be provided. this new paradigm allowed for an interesting reversal: narcotic addiction was no longer to be seen as an unhealthy lifestyle per se, one defined by actual choices and decisions, since the illness robbed the sufferers of their willpower and they often longed to be free of it. rather, it was progressively regarded as a disease born out of an unhealthy lifestyle–one that had been forcefully imposed on many unsuspecting americans through the unmeetable demands and frenzy of the modern world. 2. golden cures for the black drop12: purging the body un-poisoning the body: battling withdrawal symptoms although there was no consensus over the exact nature or status of narcotic addiction at the turn of the century, the “disease theory” of inebriety progressively gained in popularity between 1890 and 1915. if addicted people were indeed compelled to take opiates by genetics or nervousness rather than choice, if their “habit” was neither an indulgence nor a vice but a disease, there lay a true revolution in the social perception of opiate users. it was also an unprecedented opportunity for the budding medical profession in the united states. the end of the 19th century saw the rise of medical “specialism” or specialization, especially in large urban centers where habitual drug users were numerous. a new disease meant a new, untapped market, with thousands of potential paying patients–many of whom, at the time, were white, upper middle-class men and women (courtwright, 2001, p. 37). soon, the first inebriety specialists–they would not call themselves addictologists until the mid-20th century–started to appear. they had a wide array of treatments which would soon save the unfortunate victims of morphine, opium, and cocaine and restore them to health–or so they claimed. in effect, addicted bodies, after being targets of criticism and rebuttal, would become a field for medical and pharmaceutical experimentation. not all physicians sought to instrumentalize the sufferings of compulsive narcotic consumers, of course.–many genuinely believed they could put an end to them. nevertheless, transforming social outcasts into paying customers was never going to be a solely humanitarian enterprise. “patientizing” addicts was therefore an essential first step. aside from the intoxication and the cravings, both chronic opium use and its unsupervised discontinuation had many easily identifiable, undesirable side-effects. these were “habits that handicapped,” as charles b. towns, a new york inebriety specialist, famously put it (towns, 1915), and they actively interfered with the ability of most “addicts” to live what physicians considered to be normal, healthy lives. leslie keeley described early on the first symptoms of the disease: it is usually the case that those permanent changes in the physical appearance give the victim of opium or its alkaloid morphia his diseased and often repulsive appearance. … and all who observe closely recognize the fact that he is no longer a physically sound man, while those who have learned to know the signs of it, see that he is suffering from the opium disease. … there is a distaste for physical exertion, 12 the “black drop” was a patented medicine in the 19th century, mainly made of opium and vinegar. the term was sometimes used to refer to opium preparations in general. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self17 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) and the body often becomes fat and gross because there is so little waste of tissue— that is, because of persistent indolence. (keeley, 1897, pp. 22-24) memory loss, listlessness, disturbed digestion, constipation, dizzy spells, suicidal thoughts, nausea, and narcosis were also listed as side-effects, and they were often among the reasons why patients eventually sought to get rid of their drug problem (crothers, 1902, p. 48). despite these symptoms, convincing large numbers of opium-eaters and so-called “morphinomaniacs” to seek medical treatment was not as easy a feat as some of the young specialists had anticipated. the euphoria provoked by the trance-state was difficult to renounce, and greater still were the shame they felt regarding their condition and the distrust they held toward physicians. this was not uncommon in the late 19th century, as the medical profession was largely unregulated and brimming with quacks and charlatans, so distrust made many addicted people reluctant to ask for professional help. moreover, specialists discovered early on that the apprehension of what would later be known as “withdrawal symptoms” played a major part in people’s unwillingness to discontinue their habit.13 initially regarded as “theatrics” meant to attract attention or sympathy, withdrawal was described as “true torture” for patients in the early 20th century–vomiting, stomach pains, hallucinations, severe dehydration, and insomnia were among the most frequently observed symptoms (bishop, 1921, pp. 72-73). the management of this painful ordeal is still one of the main challenges of detoxification programs, although it is now inseparable from a long-term continuum of care, since addiction is considered a chronic disease. in the 19th and early 20th centuries, detoxification was often regarded as the most crucial stage of treatment–to the point that detoxification and recovery were sometimes thought to be one and the same. once people were “clean” (physically drug-free), they were considered cured. as such, most of the first efforts to “cure” opiate addiction were focused on alleviating withdrawal pains and cleansing the body of all traces of opiates, disregarding the long-term neurological and psychological repercussions of the illness that would so often cause people to relapse. in the 1880s and 1890s, a few specialists, many general practitioners, and an increasing number of “home cures” bought in pharmacies or sent through the mail, promised to do that in just a few days, thanks to more or less secret formulas, either ingested or hypodermically injected. those “cures” usually fell in one of three categories: first was the rare, innocuous, but ineffective remedy. several investigations by medical professionals found that they were essentially made from water, whiskey, aloe, quinine, ginger, and traces of strychnine.14 second was the soughtafter but insidious substitution formula, one that usually contained large quantities of narcotics and which we will discuss in the next part (bradner, 1890, pp. 28-30). both types of remedies were largely hoaxes; their manufacturers usually had no medical training, and the consequences for the consumers would vary from naught to dire. finally, there were the dreaded withdrawal cocktails, which interpreted the “purging” of the body literally. they were usually recommended by more seasoned specialists, inspired by german pioneer eduard levinstein’s seminal book on “demorphinization” (1878, pp. 109-124). they contained potent ingredients thought to induce 13 withdrawing the drug is, logically, the first step of detoxification. however, doing so can cause serious physical troubles. opiates decrease the electrical activity of noradrenergic neurons by overstimulating specific receptors in the brain. withdrawal, in turn, triggers an intense physical reaction (tremors, pain, diarrhea, vomiting sweating, etc.) related to the abrupt cessation of the excessive stimulation of opiate receptors. these adverse symptoms can be extremely violent, and they are often cited by both users and doctors as one of the main obstacles to detoxification. 14 before it became mandatory to label pharmaceutical products in 1906, a few activists belonging to the american association for the study and cure of inebriety regularly conducted tests on a series of antidotes. the results were frequently published in the quarterly journal of inebriety, the main organ of the association. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 18 irene delcourt catharsis. first there were sedatives, such as codeine, atropine, hyoscine, bromide, or chloral hydrate, to compensate for the opiate withdrawal. second were emetics and purgatives such as antimony tartrate (also known as emetic tartar) and apomorphine, to be consumed with large quantities of water. those were excruciating for the already exhausted body of morphinomaniacs, but they were prized for their cleansing effect. finally, many recipes included tonics or stimulants, which were lauded for their invigorating virtues. however, they but often resulted in dangerous combinations of belladonna, strychnine, and digitalis, three potentially deadly plants. also found in these decoctions were cannabis, capsicum pepper, quinine, cocaine, coffee and, more anecdotally, whiskey and beef brain. according to the physicians who subscribed to the neurasthenic diathesis, they could “revive the nervous system” (crothers, 1902a, pp. 156158). those remedies, however, had to be taken under the supervision of a medical professional, ideally in a private institution–which was considerably more costly than home cures and other antidotes. the specialist would then monitor the habitué’s reaction and change the formula accordingly. this practice, which was no less than human experimentation, was commonplace in the late 19th century, the addicted body reduced to a mere vessel for scientific progress. it was not unheard of for patients to die from the treatment. antidotes and gold cures: “addiction under a new name”15 however, self-proclaimed addiction specialists understood early on that pain was the enemy when it came to conceiving profitable remedies to manage opiate dependency. actual efficiency was hardly an issue, since no one seemed to be able to design the “magic bullet” that would target and destroy the source of the disease.16 marketability, however, was a key element for many aspiring addictologists. various professionals and quacks soon began to develop nostrums and “specifics,”17 hoping to suppress the cravings of “addicts,” relieve their physical pain, and rejuvenate their nervous system. some would administer the drugs in their practices, but many of them were not actual doctors.–(they had not completed medical school or joined a medical society following an apprenticeship–.) rather, they preferred to sell their elixirs to potential patients without offering any kind of supervision. self-medication was still its heyday in the 1880s to 1900s, and it continued to prevail until the early 1920s. this was despite federal regulations, notably the creation in 1906 of the food and drug administration, which began policing the manufacture of drugs and gradually eliminated the most questionable products from pharmacy shelves (young, 1967). indeed, “home cures” for all possible and imaginable ills had a lasting appeal, especially to those whose means were limited and who could not afford long stays in sanitaria. this is discussed in the last part of this article. in that context, it was not surprising that seemingly magical (and discreet) cures for “the secret leprosy of modern times” started to multiply in the 1880s, as the disease theory of inebriety was gaining momentum. their main appeal was perhaps their comparative availability: although 15 this expression, referring to fake opium “antidotes,” was first used by dr jensen b. mattison (1887, p. 25). 16 the reference to a “magic bullet” is sometimes used by historians, starting with h. wayne morgan (1981) and nancy campbell (2011), in relation to the search for a panacea in the treatment of addiction – a drug that could rid the patient of his or her sufferings permanently and painlessly. the term originated in the work of german physician paul ehrlich (1854-1915), one of the founders of immunology. in 1900, he formulated the idea of an antibiotic therapy which, with the help of a specific agent, could locate and destroy a particular microbe without affecting the rest of the body. it was like a bullet that would hit only its target. 17 a “nostrum” was typically a medicine of secret composition recommended by its inventor but generally without scientific proof of effectiveness. “specifics,” which were quite like nostrums, included remedies and drugs that were said to target a particular ailment rather than general symptoms. both terms were frequently used with a negative connotation by inebriety specialists, who generally warned against their use. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self19 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) they were not always cheap, they were cheaper than sanatorium cures, and they could be easily procured at the apothecary shop or ordered through the mail–. second was the seemingly nonintrusive aspect of the treatment, which could be taken in the secrecy of one’s home, unlike institutional therapies. those miracle cures generally came in the form of large boxes filled with small vials, to be taken over several days or several weeks, each dose dutifully numbered to convey the impression of a progressive treatment. in actuality, tests conducted on a series of elixirs revealed that every bottle in a batch presented a similar content (bradner, 1890; mattison, 1887; ama, 1911). marketing strategies were cleverly devised: the first home remedies often emanated from individuals who did not claim to be physicians, but rather recovering narcotic addicts themselves, inducing a sense of solidarity among struggling, misunderstood “morphinists”. in the 1890s, however, as scientific medicine solidified and grew in popularity, it became necessary to convey an impression of medical authority. this usually meant the massive use of the words “doctor,” “laboratory,” and “professor” on labels and adverts (e.g., dr. meeker’s cure, professor waterman’s antidote, dr. mcmunn’s elixir). these antidotes usually vowed to cure habitués with little discomfort and great efficacy, putting forth outrageous claims and fanciful statistics, such as a 90% success rate and a “painless” and “vomit-free” recovery, or even a sudden improvement in sexual performance (white, 2014, pp. 90-91). one of the most famous examples of this trend was leslie keeley’s “gold cure” for inebriety.18 designed in 1880, this secret remedy was said to contain “double gold chloride,” a universal, miraculous remedy for addiction: the double chloride of gold treatment for opium is equally effective in the cure of other toxic habits, such as cocaine, chloral, hashish, atropia, strychnia, … the remedy reaching any and all of these addictions as potently and quickly as that of the king of narcotics. nor is age or sex any bar to the curative value of the treatment. (keeley, 1897, p. 91) “after four days, the habit will be completely under control,” wrote dr. hargreaves, keeley’s partner in 1880. “after a week, the desire to become intoxicated will have disappeared, after nine days, the slightest drop of alcohol or morphine will be rejected by the body” (hargreaves, 1880, p. 26). keeley developed a booming mail order business in the 1880s and early 1890s, sending his miracle cure to homes all over the country and making many an enemy among his peers in the medical community. keeley’s aggressive methods were deemed unethical, but the principal issue, as it turned out, was that there was no such thing as “gold chloride” and that the elixir itself contained no trace of gold whatsoever, although the presence of strychnine, scopolamine, aloe, ammonia, ginger, willow bark, and more rarely coca and morphine, could be asserted (chapman, 1893). despite this sizeable problem, the “gold scheme,” as the aasci referred to it, seemed efficient enough. keeley had many competitors and imitators–monroe’s gold cure, the baker-rose gold cure, or the national bi-chloride of gold company, to name a few. the most dangerous side of these miracle cures, however, was not the blatant fabrications and dishonest claims made by their patent holders. it lay in their actual composition. as early as 1877, a physician tried to warn his peers about the high opiate content of many nostrums, 18 keeley became a major, if controversial, figure of early addiction treatment. he made his fortune with his secret franchised formula and his worldwide network of institutions. in the mid-1890s, over 118 keeley institutes for alcoholism and narcotic addiction had opened in the us, but also in denmark, england, and sweden. his claims would however be largely disproved and, after being accused of fraud, he died in relative ignominy in the early 20th century. for more on this fascinating character and his franchise, see barclay (1964) and hickman (2018). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 20 irene delcourt including those that were supposedly designed to cure opiate dependence (mcfarland, 1877). it was, all things considered, unsurprising. the easiest way to achieve a painless (and much appreciated) withdrawal was to not actually withdraw the drug. habitués were understandably impressed with the efficiency of the antidote when they found that their cravings were indeed under control, unaware that they were still consuming opiates. ten years later, dr. mattison (1887) published another paper on these same antidotes, still generously laden with opium and morphine. “the habitué thus only continues his addiction under a new name,” he concluded (p. 25). in 1890, the quarterly journal of inebriety published a list of tests conducted on drugs that supposedly combatted opium addiction. it was compiled by an officer of the massachusetts state board of health. of 21 remedies, only one–the famous keeley double chloride of gold–did not contain opium in one form or another– (bradner, 1890). these “golden cures” were not merely inefficient when it came to treating addicted americans; they were actively nurturing, and may even have contributed to spreading narcotic dependence in a directly profitable form. the experiment on addicted bodies thus became not merely a scientific endeavor, but a capitalist one.–sustaining or kindling addiction in opiate users under the guise of curing them was indisputably an efficient commercial scheme, as opium-based inebriety cures were among the best-selling products at the turn of the century. the irony of the situation was not lost on specialists: thomas crothers, one of the founding fathers of american addictology, repeatedly warned against such antidotes. “this is not curative in any sense; it is simply drug restraint, and masking of symptoms which break out with greater force when the restraint is removed,” (crothers, 1902b, p. 48). it was not until 1905, however, that the hunt for charlatans truly began. progressivism led to a long and vigorous crusade against dangerous patented drugs; it came to fruition with the “anti-nostrums” provisions of the pure food and drug act.19 this relentless search for “specifics” to cure addiction, for a miracle in a bottle, was not the only option available to regular narcotic users at the turn of the century, however. those who could afford longer, more expensive therapies had other alternatives. indeed, many specialists, particularly those who had begun their careers as neurologists or, more rarely, psychiatrists, believed that merely detoxifying the body was insufficient. as one of them put it in 1910: “the patient must not be considered cured simply because he has been taken off the drug and brought to a condition in which he no longer wants or requires it. discreet supervision during the period of convalescence is essential to the permanency of the cure,” (pettey, 1910, p. 1596). withdrawal had to be followed by a long period of nerve restoration and, ideally, personal rehabilitation, which should be performed in a sanitarium. indeed, if addiction was the result of an unhealthy, modern life, then the cure must lie, at least partially, in substantially transforming that lifestyle. that meant altering not only the chemistry of addicted bodies, but their daily habits. 19 progressivism was a political doctrine in early 20th century america (1890–1920). it was a reform-oriented movement and a response to the challenges brought by modernization and capitalism. it was, among other things, invested in fighting corruption, regulating markets, and spreading social hygiene. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self21 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) 3. rehabilitation through institutionalization: toward a healthier lifestyle? the sanitarium for habitués: a peaceful retreat much like today, treatment options available to well-off patients were different from those destined to lower-class citizens. while many had to contend with unscrupulous peddlers and dangerous nostrums, others could afford more pleasant (and perhaps more effective) stays in specialized institutions – a dichotomy that is not unlike the current two-tier treatment of people struggling with opiate addiction: state-sponsored methadone maintenance clinics for the underprivileged, mostly non-white users, and access to less invasive buprenorphine treatment and private “rehab” centers for wealthier–or better insured–americans.20 in the late 19th century, a stark contrast in treatment philosophies was already starting to emerge. withdrawing the drug, gradually or abruptly, and using stimulants, tonics, and/ or anesthetics was almost universally accepted as the first step in treating habitués. however, inebriety specialists, especially those who were enrolled in the renowned aasci, believed in a more holistic approach. truly curing addiction, in their eyes, meant “rehabilitating” both body and mind. this rehabilitation–a word that started to appear in late 19th century medical literature in connection with treatment strategies for both narcotic abuse and alcoholism–was better implemented in remote, medicalized but welcoming institutions, part hospital, part retreat: the newly popular sanitarium (see figure 1). today the term, modern “rehabs,” is widely used to refer to addiction treatment programs involving a residential setting, long-term therapy (several weeks to several months), and a mix of psychiatric and physical care. these institutions were closely modeled after these early sanitaria for nervous diseases. “the most important treatment,” crothers (1902b) wrote, “is a change of surroundings and conditions of living” (p. 48). like many of his fellow aasci specialists, crothers firmly believed that a tendency toward inebriety could be inherited and, as such, it could require lifelong treatment. however, dormant opiate cravings and subsequent intoxication and dependence were triggered by “irritating” or “exciting causes” (aasci, 1893). these were minor exterior factors that would inflame the nervous system and provoke an intense, physiological need for narcotics. a stressful, urban environment was very high on the list of exciting causes and, therefore, physically removing the “addict” from his or her unhealthy surroundings was a priority–as was placing them under the direct and constant supervision of the specialist so they could be controlled (crothers, 1902a, pp. 150-154). in sanitaria, addicted patients should ideally become objects to be watched and managed, “docile bodies,” to borrow michel foucault’s terminology, meant to be subjected, used, transformed, and improved (foucault, 1975). the idea that such cases had to be treated in an institution was not new, the asylum movement, which had pleaded for public psychiatric facilities to be built to accommodate mental illness cases all over the unites states, had begun in the 1840s and developed considerably in the 1890s (rothman, 1990). a few inebriety specialists intended to emulate this experiment as early as the 1860s, when the new york state inebriate asylum, the very first treatment facility in the world devoted to addiction, was founded in the “delightful” town of binghamton. its purpose was to “awaken and educate public sentiment on the view that inebriety is a disease” (turner, 1888, p. 19). located on the outskirts of new york city, the hospital opened in 1864 and, for fifteen years, would welcome thousands of patients for an unprecedented experiment: attempting to cure alcohol and narcotic addictions by mixing physical, moral, and psychiatric 20 for more on current addiction management strategies see novak et al. (2015) and white (2014). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 22 irene delcourt therapies. with its remote situation, hundreds of acres of lawn, thousands of trees, and great expanses of farmable lands, the nysia, despite its untimely demise, inspired dozens of small and large institutions for decades. in 1870, there were only six medicalized institutions devoted to treating “addicts” in the country, all of them intended primarily for alcoholics. at the turn of the century, there were more than a hundred sanitaria specializing in the treatment of narcotic inebriety (baumohl, 1987). figure 1 promotional pamphlet for the kings county inebriates’ home in fort hamilton (1888) recharging the body if modern life and unfortunate heredity had, as neurologists believed, depleted nervous energy and facilitated opiate addiction, then both mind and body had to be revived and strengthened to fight chemical dependence. a healthy, strong body made for a much better prognosis. once again, many addictologists were visibly inspired by neurologists, especially the “rest cure,” designed for neurasthenic patients (mitchell, 1879). it promoted isolation, rest, and feeding to increase the body’s supply of “fat and blood,” which were thought to be necessary to restore the nervous system. almost all medical sources describing sanitarium cures, and even in the first correctional hospital treatments, stressed the importance of sleep and plentiful, healthy unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self23 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) food.21 what would appear today as common sense was carefully rationalized in promotional pamphlets and medical treatises british physician and temperance titan norman kerr (1894), for example, thought that “simple, non-stimulating” food would bring “health, longevity and temperate living” (p. 323). in institutions for habitués, a three-meals-a-day routine, mostly fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs, dairies, and clean water, was advertised not only as a comforting feature of the institution, but as part of the cure itself. eating too little contributed to the reduction of nerve vitality, and too much meat, bread and spirits could increase the production of harmful toxins and slow down the detoxification process (kings county inebriates’ home, 1879, dr. barnes’s sanitarium, 1900, walnut lodge hospital, 1895). a healthy diet and a good night’s sleep, however, were hardly the only therapies promoted by institutions. habitual opiate users also needed to “recharge” their nervous system in more assertive ways. at a time when the boundaries between science, superstition, and traditional medicine were still blurry, this metaphorical injunction was interpreted quite literally in most sanitaria: electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, and phototherapy were the most common physiological treatments for restoring patients to health. “the vibratory action of electricity possesses the power to eliminate toxins and can restore deteriorated cells,” wrote a specialist in 1910. “no drug is as promising as this treatment for addicts” (quarterly journal of inebriety, 1910, p. 178). such enthusiasm might baffle a modern reader.–the use of electricity to treat drug cases summons up rather sinister images of electroconvulsive or electroshock therapy, a violent and poorly mastered technique, which would become commonplace in the mid-twentieth century in the management of mental patients. however, a much less invasive version of electrotherapy became fashionable at the end of the 19th century. it was most commonly applied to nervous or “insane” patients, particularly to treat hysteria, neurasthenia, and epilepsy. it was believed that the local application of light electric shocks, or “galvanization,” had the power to directly reload muscle energy, thus accelerating the physiological restoration of patients. “tonic electrotherapy is indicated and is generally applied by me for its systemic effects, applied with a large pad over the abdominal region and the other electrode to the nape of the neck and spinal column,” wrote another addictologist in 1905 (pope, 1905, p. 138). he went on to recommend an “electrical baths faradization,” which consisted in immersing the patient in a bath of warm water in which one of the electrodes of the faradic device was immersed. the other was applied to the neck or held by hand, out of the water (zervas, 1888, p. 15). these methods were usually supplemented by phototherapy. some specialists believed that opiate intoxication caused tissues to break down, while light exposure “by allowing reoxygenation of hemoglobin, [was] able to reverse almost all metabolic perversions,” (quarterly journal of inebriety, 1907, p. 131). most sanitaria had a solarium where patients could rest and “recharge” after treatments, taking advantage of natural sunlight. “electric light baths” also were in vogue. this strange apparatus evokes contemporary tanning beds, which were modeled after it. patients sat or lay down inside the machine, a cylinder filled with light bulbs, which bombarded them with light for 20 to 30 minutes (bennett, 1907, p. 187), reversing, or so it was believed, cell degeneration (figure 2). 21 the resident physician at the new york correctional hospital on rikers island, opened in 1919, recommended that addicted inmates eat at least 4000 calories a day (hamilton, 1922, p. 125). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 24 irene delcourt figure 2 electric light bath (bennett, 1907, p. 187) finally, hydrotherapy, or hydropathy, another much-sought-after treatment in the 19th century, was almost always prescribed during demorphinization. as light and electricity seemed to hold the mysterious, part scientific, part magic power to restore energy, water could help purify and regenerate cells. leading authorities in the field recommended treating morphine addicts with hydropathy for four to five weeks after the drug was withdrawn. the treatment consisted in several showers a day, starting with hot water jets that were gradually reduced in temperature until the water was ice cold. many specialists were convinced that the shock produced on the skin acted as a tonic and revived blood circulation, while promoting the elimination of toxins (crothers, 1902a, p. 178). sweating in hot turkish baths also was considered useful for cleansing the body of the drug, and many hot springs, around which several sanitaria had been erected, were said to have quasi-miraculous properties (quarterly journal of inebriety, 1907, p. 127). hydropathic treatment was especially welcome following withdrawal, when it could help with stress, aches, and fever: “nothing soothes the patient more completely and is more likely to contribute to his comfort and well-being than a neutral bath. … this will often aid materially in securing a good night’s rest and in restoring the nervous system of the patient” (pettey, 1913, p. 195). unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self25 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) figure 3 hydrotherapeutic installation in a sanatorium, (dr. bond’s house, 1901) thus, habitués’ bodies were in turn purged and recharged, revived and soothed, shocked into rejecting the drug and coaxed into relaxing. the flesh, however, was not the sole focus of early addictologists. while few of them had a psychiatric background, the influence of 19th century alienists was palpable in many aspects of sanitarium treatment. cleansing the mind ultimately, a healthier, cleaner lifestyle could not be limited to changes in the patients’ physical form. the “leprosy of modern days” was an ailment of the mind as much as a disease of the nervous system, and the addicted persons’ spirits had to be healed as well, lest they fell back into bad habits once they were released from the hospital. this aspect of treatment rarely involved anything resembling the “talking cure” theorized by freud and implemented by alcoholics anonymous in the 20th century, or modern psychotherapy. those methods, which started permeating the united states in the 1910s, were rarely used on patients with drug problems before the 1950s. the approach was, however, heavily inspired by french alienist philippe pinel’s “moral treatment,” which had been emulated in many american “lunatic” asylums in the 1880s and 1890s.22 indeed, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, mental reconstruction has been thought to play an important role in continued sobriety. sustained contact with nature, away from the corrupting, pathological influence of cities, physical exercise and healthy hobbies were prescribed as part of the cure. they were the foundation upon which healthy living and selfdiscipline could be built, and cravings controlled. fresh mountain air, a mild climate, mineral water, and the proximity of the sea were frequently cited as important curative elements in the process of detoxification. they helped to purify both mind and body of nefarious and 22 pinel’s moral treatment, developed in the early 19th century, emerged against the inhuman handling of mental patients in late 18th century europe. pinel insisted on the importance of kindness, communication, moral self-discipline, routines, exercise, fresh air, and a sense of productivity in the management and potential healing of mental alienation. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 26 irene delcourt exhausting influences. almost all sanitaria and asylums had large, private parks, forests, ponds, and rivers. some even advertised regular contact with animals, notably horses and birds, as a way to reconnect with nature.23 regularity and routine were also key to strengthening the will and reasserting the power of mind over flesh–. a daily rhythm and rituals would help recovering addicts return to a healthier lifestyle and facilitate their reintegration into active life after they leave the institution. every day, patients had to observe a similar schedule scrupulously: get up and go to bed at the same time, exercise, socialize with other patients, eat three meals, and practice beneficial occupations–particularly reading, playing and listening to music, drawing and taking a walk outside (crothers, 1902b, kings county inebriates’ home, 1879, dr. barnes’s sanitarium, 1900, walnut lodge hospital, 1895). sanitaria typically had libraries, billiard rooms, chapels and even music and drawing rooms. silent, creative, and intellectual–but not stressful–activities were thought to quiet the mind and soothe the inflammation of the brain and nerves (beard, 1879). while actual art therapy would not become a staple of recovery programs in the united states before it was introduced in lexington’s narcotic farm in the 1960s (campbell, 2008, pp. 145-146), cultivating patients’ artistic and literary inclinations was seen as extremely beneficial. by the late 1910s, when moreadvanced mental therapy and psychoanalysis started to make their way into the institutions, they were actively linked to the practice of the arts. indeed, singing, painting, drawing and other crafts were regarded as ways to both address and sublimate the “abnormal libido” of “addicts,” so they were strongly encouraged during treatment: the reclamation of the addict will depend on the power he will have, under guidance, to direct this libido into higher thought and emotional levels. … the pain of the world can be expressed in music; the longing of the world in marble, in painting, and in other creative forms (report of the committee on the narcotic drug situation, 1920, p. 1328). whether it was to soothe the soul or to exorcize inner demons, artistic expression strengthened the spirit, and it was therefore a milestone on the road to a healthier lifestyle and continued sobriety. conclusion whether it was perceived as a harmful way of life or a debilitating medical condition caused by an unhealthy environment, narcotic addiction was linked early on, in its genesis and expression, to a certain lifestyle. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was believed that, by cleansing the body, removing inappropriate surroundings, or promoting “healthier” habits–the nature of which would greatly vary over time–the compulsion toward intoxication would disappear, and patients would be freed from their ailment. turn-of-the-century miracle cures and sanitaria, however, both failed to solve the problem of addiction. in fact, most of the 20th century would turn out to be a dark period for people suffering from addiction and its related. the vast majority of american treatment facilities specializing in addiction recovery disappeared in the 1910s and would not re-emerge until the 1960s. first the harrison act (1914) made both selling and using opiates–even in the course of a medical treatment–extremely difficult. then the volstead act (1919) established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. that marked a decisive shift toward criminalizing the consumption of narcotic substances. 23 “equine therapy,” while sometimes denounced as a hoax, is still practiced in some rehab centers in the 21st century. see cody et al. (2011). unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self27 unhealthy lifestyle or modern disease? constructing narcotic addiction and its treatments in the united states (1870-1920) concurrently, as the risks of opiate habituation became more widely recognized and accepted within the medical community and narcotics more heavily regulated, iatrogenic addiction in upperand middle-class patients declined, making way for younger and poorer users, who became increasingly associated with the criminal underworld. the apparent failure to heal most opiate habitués from their disorder discouraged younger physicians from pursuing a career in the field. moreover, new diagnoses surrounding the narcomaniac diathesis, especially that of hereditary psychopathy, which became fashionable in the 1920s, made these patients less and less attractive to physicians–they had fewer means, were habitually reluctant (treatments were often court-ordered by then) and, since the prevailing theory was that addiction was caused by a genetic, mental disability, their prognosis was poor. the “disease theory” did not disappear, but specialists’ enthusiasm for finding a cure considerably waned in the face of this “undesirable” clientele. narcotic addiction was no longer considered to be a lifestyle or even the result of one: it was increasingly regarded either as an incurable disease or a criminal proclivity, one that did not warrant medicalization, but incarceration. late 19th century and early 20th century experimentation in treating addicted bodies and minds, however, was not entirely set aside and wiped away: since the reemergence of medical care for addicted people in the 1960s, it has become clear that it left long-lasting marks in the ways we manage drug dependence. contemporary forms of treatment, such as rehabs, owe much to the “inebriates’ sanitaria” of the turn of the century in both the philosophies of care and actual therapies. on the other hand, resilient dichotomies in the approaches to the issue that were devised in the 19th century (such as the vice/disease paradigm), have endured well into the 21st century. they have continued to propagate new forms of stigma that still weigh on opiate users today: they are either bad or sick, and their lifestyle must be urgently amended, regardless of their own feelings on the matter. the 19th century approaches have also helped to perpetuate the fallacy that some drug users are worthy (of social compassion, of medical help) while others are not, making them de facto incurable. finally, early experiments in attempting to medicalize addiction have entrenched the notion that patients had to undergo painful, invasive, and lengthy treatments, willingly or not, where surveillance and control were described as a necessity. the legacy of the first addictologists, however, is not entirely negative. throughout the 20th century, they inspired many therapeutic efforts to improve the lives of people struggling with addiction and minimize the adverse consequences that substance abuse could have on their lives. addiction medicine and addiction programs, including harm-reduction plans, have flourished in the last four decades, despite the absence of the long-awaited “magic bullet,” repeated drawbacks, a generally hostile political climate, and the dangerous growth of a deregulated pharmaceutical industry. in the words of addictologist george vaillant, “if you want to treat an illness that has no easy cure, first of all, treat it with hope” (macy, 2018, p. 269). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 28 irene delcourt references primary sources american association for the cure of inebriates. 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(1967). the medical messiahs: a social history of medical quackery in 20th century america. princeton university press. somaesthetics and its nordic aspects contents introduction to volume 4, number 1: somaesthetics and its nordic aspects 4 falk heinrich articles: philosophizing as an esthetic experience: 6 a deweyan conception martin ejsing christensen care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction: 23 an exploration on approaching and treating problem drug use riikka perala suspension 40 rasmus ölme into the woods with heidegger 53 reflections about an artistic-academic experiment falk heinrich singularities in the streets: 73 bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect ronald shusterman the sound of somaesthetics: ken ueno’s jericho mouth 86 martin jay the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) editorial board editor in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) senior lecturer max ryynnanen (finland) professor arto happala (finland) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design joana monteiro cabral the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. page 13-27 somaesthetics and food13 crossmodal cooking crossmodal cooking: an interview with charles michel charles michel is a classically trained french-colombian cook and scientist who has worked in michelin starred restaurants in france and italy. in addition to this experience, michel worked as a private chef in his native colombia where he advocated for the use indigenous ingredients and experimented with creating immersive dining experiences with a group of artists and musicians. he is currently the chef-in-residence at the crossmodal research laboratory at oxford university where he works with the experimental psychologist charles spence, exploring the relationship between plating, visual aesthetics, and multisensory flavor perception. russell pryba (rp): it might be useful to start with some background about yourself and your culinary training. where did you go to culinary school? charles michel (cm): i started in 2005 at the institut paul bocuse in lyon, france, certainly a capital of gastronomy in france, and a definitely a very traditional school. there the culinary philosophy was building upon nouvelle cuisine, which was really focused on rigor and respect for traditions but also had a touch of modernity in terms of thinking about the wellness of the client and the pleasure elicited by food. for instance, not cooking with too much fat, or too much sugar. that is something that the chefs of the nouvelle cuisine in the 60’s and 70’s started to think about. but, now that i think back to it, there was also an important component of novelty and creativity at the institut. after that background in learning culinary skills, which was more focused on techniques than on sensibility, i went to italy. there, the approach to cooking and the organization of the kitchen was completely different, which was what i wanted. i went to work with nadia santini, who has had three michelin stars for about 20 years, at a very traditional restaurant that has been around for about 80 years now and is really one of the pinnacles of the high end italian culinary tradition. this is in the north of italy and we had the nonna (granny) bruna cooking with us in the kitchen. no one would be able to touch the risotto apart from her, she would show you how to do it, tell you all the secrets and even let you try it, but you would not be able to touch it. it was the same with the pasta; only the family members could touch the pasta. the craft, the seasoning, the cooking, everything had to be approved by one of the family members. nadia [santini] is very sensible and she really wants people to be happy. she is not only about the technical performance; not only about making it beautiful, making it delicious. at ‘dal pescatore’ it is really about reading the customer to enhance their enjoyment, knowing where the guests came from for instance, trying to please them with surprises that were basically not in the book. for example, if someone was from verona, nadia would turn the kitchen upside down to prepare this small amuse-bouche that none of us knew how to prepare, because she wanted that particular guest to have a very specific flavor that she knew they would recognize (“madeleine de proust” effect), and that they would be flattered by her preparing this specific morsel of food. it was beautiful. she used to say that we didn’t have 5 senses but that we had 7 an interview with charles michel crossmodal cooking the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 14 an interview with charles michel senses. a sixth sense she would define as psychological well-being, and a seventh one of physical or digestive wellness; that was really important for her. that triggered my curiosity as a cook to think about cooking for more than five senses. this led me to be curious about the senses and psychology and to think about the philosophy behind cooking, not only the performance of cooking. sometimes chefs get drawn into thinking that it is only about the performance, that it is only about making it beautiful and complex and unique without thinking that maybe it is just about getting to people’s hearts. rp: how did you get involved with charles spence and the crossmodal research lab? cm: i met charles spence in 2010, and that changed a lot of things. i was in london and a friend of mine introduced me to him. we were having lunch at somerville college at oxford and for about an hour i went on about my passion for food, and my passion for the potential of south american and colombian ingredients, and how unpleased i was that no one wanted the local ingredients, everyone wanted french or italian cuisine. what now is evident is that the most beautiful south american potential is about the local ingredients. we see peruvian cuisine flowering, we see that colombian cuisine is now becoming something. but at that time no one wanted colombian ingredients. it would be very hard for me as a cook to put a tropical fruit into one of my menus, or a wild herb, because clients would completely distrust those ingredients. so i told him [spence] all about this and he understood the problem and my frustration because he is married to a colombian, and he had been to colombia several times, he understood the colombian potential, and knew what i was talking about. then it was spence’s turn to talk, and he told me about the potential of using sensory and psychological science to infuse culinary thinking, to enhance culinary experience. he told me about his experience with heston blumenthal when he created the “sounds of the sea” dish, and made me understand the potential of doing research with a blend of culinary knowledge and psychological science, and i was really inspired by that. for about a year after that encounter he would send me papers on the emerging science of crossmodal food perception, and i started using some of those ideas in the events that i was doing. so my friends and i began creating immersive experiences where we would, for instance, change the light and the sound and make the flavor of the food congruent to the sourness of the music. it was very fun and we realized that there was something there. now you see everybody doing multisensory events, it has become kind of mainstream. i think that charles spence’s work has played an important role in bringing this about. back in 2012, we ended up doing an experiential talk, spence, two friends working in neuromarketing, and myself, about innovation through understanding our senses. we created a tasting menu where each dish was designed with a focus on only one sensory modality. for the visual dish i decided to create a visual art-inspired presentation of food. i was inspired by a painting by kandinsky that i had seen a couple of months before, and that was where charles spence told me he had never come across something like that (a kandinsky-inspired dish), and invited me to do research at the crossmodal lab in oxford. six months later i was in oxford doing research with spence on this kandinsky salad idea, an experiment to assess the impact of the visual aesthetic presentation of food on flavor perception. now i have been there for three years, spence has been a mentor and patron, helping me to get into scientific research. somaesthetics and food15 crossmodal cooking figure 1 plating a salad on canvas rp: it is interesting how you speak about the shift away from people wanting to eat french or italian food because that was seen as the high water mark of gastronomic culture to now wanting the more traditional or indigenous cuisines of south america. it seems fair to say that food culture has been more instrumental in bringing about this change than say the visual arts. cm: i like the perspective that you are taking: that cuisine may be a more direct way to communicate cultural identity, or the history of a region, and ultimately effecting some kind of knowledge in people’s minds. one of the best things about culinary arts right now is that they are evolving, but i am not sure how much the guys serving ceviche in new york actually communicate the real story behind ceviche, the fact that the coastal indigenous cultures of south america were preparing it several thousand years ago. ceviche is not new. it is actually an old preserving technique for fish, in the same way that cooking in a plantain leaf is a form of preservation. there is a microbiology that makes it work and taste amazing naturally, without the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 16 an interview with charles michel artifices. i am really fascinated at the moment by ancestral cooking. recently, i was preparing a clambake with some friends in mayo, northern ireland, using seaweed and hot stones to cook seafood, meats and sausages. i had never tried such a juicy chicken in my whole life. even though i have cooked with ovens that can tell you the exact temperature at the center of the flesh, sous vide techniques, the ‘best’ technology, both very energy consuming and expensive that in theory can give you the perfect texture, the perfect aesthetic in textural and olfactory components, better preservation, yet nothing compared to this [chicken] in terms of the juiciness, of the flavor, of the deliciousness. i am not sure what part of it is purely technical, happening at the molecular and physical level, of having the stones slowly releasing temperature and creating a vapor of seawater that somehow maintains the juiciness in the flesh, and what part of it is purely psychological. but everything was perfectly cooked. the chicken was perfectly cooked, and the lobsters that were just on top were also perfectly cooked. that goes against everything that i had been taught at school. the clambake just erased all that. we have been living, cooking for a few thousand years this way, it is easy, and it is delicious. peruvians also have a way of doing this cooking into the earth; they call it pachamanca. this is tradition in ecuador as well, in colombia, in hawaii, in new zealand, and many more places. it is a universal cooking technique in a way (much more effective and real than a $10,000 combi-steamer oven), universal since we see this technique in cultures across the globe even nowadays, and it works. it is about cooking with the elements. in the end, we evolved to like this kind of cooking: it means proximity to resources of water, of plants, to food, to home. to me, thinking about this as the future of cooking is the most exciting perspective. rp: i suspect that even if you were to scientifically determine the exact salinity of the salt water and recreate it in a professional kitchen that you wouldn’t have had the same phenomenological experience of the deliciousness of that chicken. cm: right. as i said before – the psychological implications of the context that is required to cook a clambake, lighting a fire, the people around, the ritual, all play an essential role in creating a memorable experience. the term clambake does not define a cooking technique; it’s a social gathering. deliciousness is clearly a drive of evolution (all life forms seek the pleasure of energy absorption), and it’s clearly not only determined by the content of the white plate – what happens around the plate (the meal, the place, the time, the social context) might matter even more. i am not sure if contemporary chefs all agree with this, but it seems to be true, and it’s one of the core ideas in the research we do on food at the crossmodal lab in oxford, and what we explore by integrating different artistic disciplines with crossmodalism. rp: it seems to me that in the experimental work that you are doing that there is perhaps a clash between the necessities of the experimental setup and the immersive nature of the cooking environment that you just described, in that it might not yield to scientific analysis. we might not be able to pin down experimentally why that experience is so much more meaningful because in order to do the science you lose the immersive experience of “being there.” so, i am trying to get at the limits of the scientific or experimental approach for understanding the meaning, or even the gustatory values--the deliciousness, of those types of experiences. cm: i completely agree with you. the scientific method can point us to the right direction, give us precious hints, but everything cannot be measured. it’s the dichotomy of controlled tests somaesthetics and food17 crossmodal cooking and ‘naturalistic’ experiments. but it’s not only about understanding how things happen, but why, and what for. science and art inspire philosophy, hence wisdom (we sometimes forget that philosophy means “the love of wisdom”). i think a big part of the enjoyment [of the clambake] is the ritual. we were all surrounding the fire and when i took out the first lobster claw and broke it and it was perfectly cooked everybody went “wow, that is going to be delicious. this is a great moment.” it was a memorable communion; a unique shared memory. right now i am working with rodrigo pacheco, a friend in ecuador who studied with me at the institut paul bocuse. he is directing a hospitality project on the pacific coast called “las tanusas.” more than a restaurant; he has a unique hospitality concept. he is kind of like the ecuadorian rene redzepi, in the way that he is applying the philosophy of the new nordic cuisine manifesto (2004), to cook in tune with everything that the surrounding nature provides. i am not saying he is inspired by the nordics, but there is a parallel because he is getting inspired by the indigenous and the ancestral ways of cooking here in south america, finding better ways to ‘use’ the flavors of a certain natural landscape. so, of course, there is a lot of hand picking, there is a lot of fishing in his cuisine. we’ve been creating unique experiences for the guests at the hotel; one of the most meaningful experiences takes place on a reef about 5 km away from the hotel. when they arrive at the reef it is a surprise, using the idea of “positive disconfirmation of expectations” (spence & piqueras-fiszman, 2014): they see that there are a few tables set up on the reef and a small kitchen with the cooks waiting for them. all the cooks are local fishermen that were trained from scratch. they greet the guests and teach them how to spot oysters on the reef, pick them and open them which is easier said than done, it requires a lot of skill. guests are often barefoot, walking on the reef at low tide, in a landscape of incredible beauty, a tip of land in the sea. after each guest has picked one or two oysters, cracked them open, and had a first taste of the sea... we ask them to sit down at the table and we serve them a chilled chilean white wine, and an oyster ceviche. now that the guests are aware of the effort required to find and open one oyster, it is a luxury to be served 15 in one go. a mouthful of sea flavor. each table gets served by one of the cooks/fisherman this is not only taking the ‘chef ’ out of the kitchen, it is taking him out of the restaurant. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 18 an interview with charles michel figure 2 las tanusas if you think about it, we have evolved to enjoy multi-sensory experiences by nature. nature itself has given us that kind of liking for congruent sensory stimulations. that means having the sights being connected to the sounds, being connected with the flavors, being connected to the tactile experience. it is as if our bodies, our sensorium, are designed to tell us when all the elements are there for all the senses. that is when the food is fresh, when it is good for you. eating ‘at the source’ is more enjoyable partly because we intuit it is safe. nowadays we have become disconnected from the nature of food harvesting, living in artificial abundance. nowadays there seems to be a trend in designing multisensory experiences, tapping into more senses, to more blunt effect, to surprise and sell more… but it should come as no surprise if i say that it should be about reconnecting with nature. i think we will come back to natural cooking, out of the restaurant, maybe. somaesthetics and food19 crossmodal cooking rp: as you were describing this wonderful experience, and i have to admit i am a little jealous of those who have had the good fortune to experience this event, i was thinking that this type of immersive experience obliterates the front-of-the-house/back-of-the-house distinction of the restaurant. that the institution of the restaurant itself evolved in such a way, perhaps unintentionally, to divorce the diner from these types of crossmodal experiences of eating. it is curious in a way then that it is culinary professionals who are leading the way in reviving a lost human inheritance---the pleasures of eating in these immersive ways. yet, these experiences are still cost prohibitive for the majority of people. for instance, you couldn’t have that same experience you described at the reefs with twenty covers--it has to be small to be meaningful. so i am wondering if you see a connection between these sorts of crossmodal culinary experiments, if you will, and how an average person eats. do you think there will be a sort of trickle down effect for diners who don’t have the means, or perhaps even the interest, to have these sorts of very beautiful experiences that you just described? in some sense many of us are either socially, economically or culturally precluded from having the sorts of experiences you are creating. cm: that is a very interesting point. i don’t know where to start. the first thing that comes to my mind is that the restaurant concept is a very young institution. if you think about the scale of human evolution or human culture, and if you think about the importance that the restaurant has in modern life--most of us eat at least once of week in a restaurant and some of us eat 90% of their meals, let’s not even say in a restaurant but just someone else cooking for you--it has become ubiquitous. you really need someone else cooking for you otherwise you don’t have time for your busy, computerized, digital activities. you know, it is that “let’s get this done quickly, food is fuel” mentality, neglecting the pleasures and meanings of food. so, food in general and the food system have become so big and centralized around the commodification of ingredients (nature), the supermarket, and the restaurant. it has only been 200 years, more or less, that the restaurant has existed, it still has to evolve, and especially, adapt to new human needs. i’m not sure why the best human experiences should be expensive. if you think about it, ‘luxury’ could be defined as uniqueness, and awareness. it is should not only depend on purchasing power. if you have money you certainly have a shortcut to very expensive food, but maybe you don’t have the knowledge to really enjoy it to its full potential. perhaps you don’t know what it takes to produce a kilo of caviar, or you don’t know what it takes to cultivate and harvest that particular spice, make it travel overseas, to ‘garnish’ the top of your lunch. so if you don’t know that, you are not appreciating it to its full potential. i think the restaurant concept has to evolve, and my intuition tells me that the true culinary art will not only happen in restaurants. restaurants are a place where you go to get your fix of energy and that is one thing (from restaurare, in latin). now, high-end restaurants, the ‘pinnacle’ of gastronomy, are different because the food is aimed at making you think. if you go to eat at redzepi’s, or humm’s, or bottura’s restaurants, you are going to be challenged, you will be surprised and you’ll come out changed if you really understand their creative universe. it is storytelling in a way. you are going to hear stories about how they sourced and prepared these incredible things for you, and some poetry. yes, of course it is expensive. it is also rarely sustainable (both in economic and ecological terms). even the most expensive restaurants do not make money. rp: right, i think in the first decade of the 21st century we saw the high water mark modernist cuisine, and its decline has shown that that kind of cooking is unsustainable as a movement. but that has no impact whatsoever on the aesthetic value of what was or is happening in those sorts of restaurants and how it opened up avenues of exploration for other chefs to think about the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 20 an interview with charles michel food as narrative. narrative was one of the things that traditional aesthetic theory has always precluded from pertaining to eating because food was always seen to be a minor art, if an art at all, because it lacked the complexity to engage in narrative. i think we would both agree that this is just false. that narrative is what is important, and that having the ability to understand that narrative has nothing to do with one’s economic status. cm: yes, exactly. one other thing that came to mind while you were asking the last question was charles spence’s book the perfect meal, which is an incredibly complete review of everything that has been done on food perception and psychology. there are a large amount of factors that go into making an experience pleasurable. there is a lot of thought that goes into the experience’s architecture, every single detail counts. now, if you ask charles spence about his best food experience, he will tell you about a surprising experience, to say the least. his best memory of a food experience would be a ceviche that he bought in the streets of cartagena on the caribbean coast of colombia served in a plastic container, with a plastic spoon. no table, no expensive decoration, no waiters, no storytelling apart from the present moment. while waiting, you sit on a plastic chair, and you might be given a cold beer. the weather is warm and humid, heavy traffic streams by, and when that ceviche finally arrives, it is an incredible flavor experience. he once mentioned in a talk that this ceviche was his most memorable flavor experience, his most delicious memory. eating out of plastic containers with a plastic spoon is exactly the opposite of what the science of deliciousness advocates. in theory you have to think about the weight of the cutlery, the shape of the plate, its color, the atmosphere, etc. of course, both from an experimental and experiential standpoint, context is everything (think restaurant vs. street food, vs., say, an art gallery), but expectations play a larger role than we might think. a street food experience can be perfect. so what makes the perfect meal? i think there is a huge element of surprise (positive disconfirmation of expectations), and through surprise also uniqueness, the feeling that something cannot be repeated. some of the most important experiences in life come together with food, and importantly, sharing with people you love most. again, the ritual and the relational aesthetics might matter more than the molecular or physical properties of the food – what seems to be the main focus of most ‘food designers’. rp: i was hoping we might go back a little and discuss the kandinsky salad again as a way to address your research. you had mentioned that the origin of that salad was the idea of preparing a dish for each sense modality, and i was wondering if that might be in some sense in tension with the crossmodalism that you advocate. when one looks at the presentation of the kandinsky salad alongside a traditional presentation, there might be a gustatory reason to prefer the traditional plating of that salad rather than the kandinsky inspired artistic presentation. i wonder if as a chef, thinking about how to plate things, if one overplays the visual element to present something beautiful--even if that corroborated by the psychological research about increase in willingness to pay, and increased enjoyment and liking that is attended by more artistic presentations--that this is some ways might be undermining the idea of developing a language of gustatory aesthetics except through analogy with the visual. so, as a chef would there be a compelling culinary reason to prefer the non-artistic plating? perhaps plating might be a cue for how one should eat something that might be lost in the artistic plating. it becomes more difficult to approach how one should eat it. somaesthetics and food21 crossmodal cooking figure 3 the kandinsky salad the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 22 an interview with charles michel cm: there are quite a few things to go over here. first, in regards to the relation between plating and the liking of food, i think that there is no pure conclusion but something that all chefs know intuitively: we eat with our eyes first. that is kind of an easy aphorism. i am particularly inspired by the philosopher denis dutton and how he argues that “the value of an artwork is rooted in the assumptions of the effort underlying its creation.” i find it fascinating that we can perceive effort and skill in implicit cues of an experience. experimental aesthetics have put forward the importance of visual balance for instance. thinking about the kandinsky salad experiment, there are several reasons why people may have enjoyed the art-inspired presentation of the salad more. one is that we perceive the effort of the cook, neatness is an indicator of skill, and the complexity of color might indicate to our primal brains that a broader array of nutrients are going to be consumed, hence the enhanced liking. when complexity meets visual balance and neatness, there is both skill and effort. another way of seeing the enhanced perceived flavor of a visually pleasing dish of food might not only be visual. indeed, the change in display might lead us to have a different approach to the eating experience. in the traditional plating, you might eat everything in two mouthfuls. you get an intense, complex flavor sensation, but it doesn’t last very long. it is very difficult to capture the nuance of all the different culinary elements. if the salad has an intricate, detailed presentation, there is a change in eating dynamics, we pay more attention to the diversity of ingredients and their complexity: “what’s that red sauce?... and then the black sauce, that’s something i’ve never tried, ... oh, what is this red cube? it’s different from the red sauce…” and then you might pay attention to the crunchiness... the quality of the olive oil, the quality of seasoning… we end up being able to discriminate the complexity of the food better, if it is visually presented in a complex but neat manner. also, something that i think is very important is the surface area that is covered on the plate. i think it has an effect on how much you want to eat, so on perceived or expected satiety that changes how much you end up eating. one thing we were discussing with the fat duck experimental kitchen is how do we drive, through visual cues, people to try a certain bite, and then to go to the second, and then to go to the third. so that we can kind of implicitly guide the experience of eating. that is something that is really interesting because you can create a flavor journey instead of just a flavor sensation. coming back to your point – here we study the impact of vision, but really it’s not only ‘vision’ – food is always a crossmodal experience… rp: right, and that is how you can create a narrative. cm: exactly. rp: you can have self-referential cues within the sequence of the flavors that you have developed and that you are leading diners to experience in the sequence that is intended by the chef. i think you explained the point quite well that the traditional plating of the salad undermines the complexity of the dish. i think there are 17 components of that dish and to not have that complexity visually represented leaves all that work to the tongue and you won’t actually slow down enough to experience that complexity. cm: exactly. rp: but also with some of the more artistically inspired plating or avant-garde plating, it seems like it leaves the possibility open to the diner to complete the intention in a way that a chef might not want to give this level of control over to the diner. so it could work out that the visual cues somaesthetics and food23 crossmodal cooking lead to a certain flavor sequence that is intended because the chef wants the diner to have an experience that makes some conceptual point, or aesthetic point, or to construct a narrative but it also leaves the diner open to close the work off if you will. it is common theme in the philosophy of interpretation, following arthur danto, that works are completed if and only if they are interpreted. a work becomes an open system of interpretation. i wonder if that strikes you as chef, or the chefs that you know, as a level of control that chefs worry about giving up or if they are excited about that possibility. that eating might become a more communicative experience between a chef and a diner where a dish might taste completely different based on the way that a diner ends up eating it than the chef intend it to be, or even than a different diner might experience the same dish. that, in turn, could end up creating something interesting or surprising. cm: sometimes chefs are too focused on the ego side of creation-that i want the guest to taste my palate, to taste what i like, my ‘flavor inventions’, my ‘cuisine.’ i really like what you said. duchamp said that the artwork is not completed if the viewer is not there. i would say when you are cooking something for someone, you cannot be 100% sure that the person is going to like it, because you don’t know that person’s past or cultural background, etc. more than that, we all have different amounts of taste buds on our tongues, which changes how we perceive taste, and we might even experience things differently according to how hungry we are. the dish is completed by the palate that is experiencing the food. now, the narrative is something important and it is not only about telling the story, but it is about a story that each person will go and discover, gastronomy can be an imaginative experience. it is like drawing a landscape and letting the viewer run in the direction that they want to run, to enjoy the landscape in their favorite manner. some will jump on a tree, some will dive into the lake, some will go and gaze at the animals that are there. experiencing art is completely free, completely free for interpretation. that said, it seems that the modern ‘table manners’ and the ‘restaurant box’ might be taking us away from the imaginary power of culinary creation. we need to break certain rules. the paper the taste of kandinsky was only focused on the visual aspects of the dish, but the inspiration behind this dish really was born watching the painting at moma in new york, where i was struck not only by the visual balance and beauty of this artwork, but by the label text, that quoted kandinsky’s “concerning the spiritual in art.” inspired by what he wrote, i had the epiphany that food was an incredible matter with which to play with sound, with visuals, with taste, with olfaction and with tactile components – sensory complexity and narrative can touch someone’s deep emotions. it’s not easy to get there though. it might be even more complex than creating a beautiful painting. it is not about passive contemplation. the first time that i had the courage to try the kandinsky-salad idea was with spence at the innovation talk i mentioned before. then i started reproducing it and going a bit further and refining the visual presentation. because i wanted the kandinsky inspiration to be explicit, i tried to replicate the painting as much as possible. but the concept of the “kandinsky salad” is to be served after a plating performance, where wagner inspiration for kandinsky’s paintings, given that the latter was a synaesthete and also fascinated by the ideal of gesamtkunstwerk would be playing in the background, and people would have to eat with hands, or with a paintbrush… the salad is served during a multisensory performance. so i would establish a context for the imagination to wander around those flavors. some people would not recognize any of the ingredients that were there. they could see salad, they could see mushroom, and then the rest was like “what was that?” carrots, beetroots, peppers, cauliflower, only very common ingredients. i know that just studying visuals is only one element of the food experience (and maybe the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 24 an interview with charles michel not a ‘substantial’ one) but there is a visual primacy, in science, arts, and in everyday human behavior. 100 years ago, william james, the father of modern psychology, said there is little to be learned by studying the proximal senses (taste, olfaction, and touch). and actually, it’s not easy to study them. touch might be very closely related to sound, and the chemical senses are extremely complex, taste is not only about 5 ‘basic tastants’, and olfaction is. light and sound are measurable, there is a ‘spectrum’ that is easy to refer to, but take the chemical and physical complexity of food and smells… and how about the gut? does it taste? what do we ‘sense’ in our bellies? rp: it is interesting to me that you bring up james here because my training is in american pragmatism, starting with james, but especially the work of john dewey. dewey certainly undermines james’s original and earlier dualistic thinking is say, the principles of psychology. later, this becomes one motivation for thinkers like richard shusterman to think about the body as an integrated site where aesthetic enjoyment takes place. aesthetic experience is both in and of the body in some sense but it is of a total body, not a body that is divided into distinct, compartmentalized sense modalities. that is not how lived experience happens. we don’t experience things discretely as either visual, or auditory, or olfactory, or gustatory. so, somaesthetics is trying to rehabilitate some of these themes about the body that are obvious to practitioners like yourself who work with the senses in a different way than philosophers who try to conceptualize them. so, would you consider the work that you are doing as both a researcher and a chef convergent with or congenial to a somaesthetical approach to philosophical thinking as opposed to traditional philosophical views about the senses or bodily experience which were more often pejorative? how might you locate your various activities within a philosophical landscape? cm: i am really into thinking about the unity of the senses, rather than looking at how to separate them from one another. there has to be a unity between body and mind when we think about designing human experiences. having a somaesthetic approach is the mindset in which we should think. when i got into research i realized that it is hard looking at a very, very narrow aspects of the human experience. sometimes when looking so closely you can forget about the big picture -in science, or art, or anything. why do choose to investigate one thing over the other? is it for human well being? how is it going to increase people’s happiness? this is one of the things we should all strive for. when i think about designing experiences in the broadest sense, i think we should always be thinking about the wholeness of the experience, designing for all the senses not about just one or two. that is at the heart of the crossmodalist approach. it may sound very abstract at the moment, but there is certitude that in thinking about the unity of the senses and human experience, that we can get somewhere meaningful. somaesthetics and food25 crossmodal cooking figure 4 a crossmodal event rp: is that the intention of your crossmodalist group? to have a platform where you can experiment across a broad spectrum of human experience without having to be confined to one discipline? cm: exactly, that is the whole point. it really is about having a science-inspired approach as much as an artistic, sensible approach. thinking about all the inspiration that is out there, from objectivism, to gesamtkunstwerk, to dada, surrealism, futurism-all created out of extremely interesting points. in the same way, the science of the senses is telling us how much all the senses are interconnected and how one perception in one sensory modality can affect the perception in another sense, that our brains are wired somehow to perceive things as one whole and not to discriminate between sensory modalities. food is where all the senses come together, and research on food aesthetics is a great tool to understand how our mind perceives pleasure, and how we define our preferences. today, it the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 26 an interview with charles michel seems essential to study how we perceive ‘beauty’ on all senses, given the impact that what we consider beautiful and rightful has on how we consume, and given the impact our consumptions have on the natural environment, touching on some of the biggest challenges facing our species, how we relate to nature, and the impact our species, as a collective, is having on the planet. rp: in general, what place do you think philosophy has in your work? cm: essential. philosophy is about loving wisdom, right? i really want to be involved in thinking through why we do the things we do. if you think about some of the pressing issues of our time, we might need more philosophers to inspire action, from the president of a country to the guy who sees waste as a resource. with food, there is a huge opportunity to act on some of the biggest challenges, for instance, climate change is directly related to the way we cultivate, gather, transport and transform our most essential energy source: food. if, on a daily basis, we can change something very small about our food consumption behaviors, we can contribute to make a wider change. we are currently eating the planet with our mouths, and we sometimes disregard the fact that every time we consume food, we vote for a certain organization of the food system. i’m currently collaborating with andreas fabian, designer, on how to create eating tools (cutlery) designing utensils that can change your eating manners, affecting the way you enjoy food, and change how much you end up eating. the key is to design foods and food experiences that are pleasurable, healthy, and sustainable both economically and ecologically. some of the healthiest people that i know almost have a very precise style of eating, and it is an informed, clever style of eating. feeding yourself can also be an art. it is definitely important for well-being. rp: it is interesting that you said that feeding yourself well could be an art because that is very consistent with somaesthetics and recovering the original greek conception of philosophy as an art of living and of living well. there is an art of living that is to live philosophically, or to eat philosophically and when you say that eating can be an art it is exactly in line with what a somaesthetics of food is trying to achieve. there is an ameliorative aspect to philosophy as a way of life that suggests that we can improve ourselves and our world through deeper reflection and engagement. eating mindfully, or eating artistically is perhaps the first step to solving larger problems that are tied into the way that we, as a society, eat mindlessly. there is an idea that what philosophers interested in food are developing is really a “gastrosophy,” or the wisdom of the stomach, and this seems to be exactly what you pointing to here. i was hoping you might reflect on what you think a gastrosophy might amount to. cm: i think it is absolutely essential to think “philosophically” in order to design better foods and better food interfaces of the future. i have been pondering about how to make the best of the opportunities that i have at the moment, and together with spence and several collaborators we have come up with two fields of action that embody the knowledge we’re working on which are in tune with what you call gastrosophy. one is the art of designing experiences, which would be crossmodalism. we are currently writing a manifesto with some artists and the idea is about bridging experience design and crossmodal science. on the other hand we have been really inspired, together with other scientists and chefs, to think about gastrophysics which would be in a way going a bit further into understanding the physical and molecular properties of foods, but crucially, to think about how perception is essential to our understanding of the physical and chemical world. it is also about a holistic science and art approach to sensory education, somaesthetics and food27 crossmodal cooking and food education. gastrosophy would be between these two in a way--it would be within each of those things. and i think it is exactly what i want to be doing. to get people to develop their wisdom of eating, making them more intelligent consumers. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 4 introduction to volume 4, number 1 (2018) somaesthetics and its nordic aspects in my introduction, i want to focus on two aspects of this issue of the journal of somaesthetics: first, to describe the picture an open issue paints of the current field of somaesthetics, and secondly, to discuss the nordic component of this issue. the first issue of 2018 is an open issue without any thematic focus except that the articles have to position themselves within the theoretical or pragmatic field of somaesthetics. it is based on an open call with the intent to explore the field of somaesthetics from various angles. the majority of contributions in one way or another deal with art. of course, this should not come as a surprise, because aesthetics has been connected to art reception since the modern rise of aesthetics as a scholarly field coincided with the modern rise of the autonomy of art. more recent developments in contemporary aesthetics have sought to bring aesthetics back to its original broader conception as concerned with sense-making and appreciation that finds expression in all of life’s domains. this development, however, has mainly been analyzed through objects – art and design artefacts, and seldomly by tracing human sense-perception and anthropological research. in this context, the concept of somaesthetics proves important, because it focuses on the aesthetic experience of the soma, the living, perceiving, purposive body, as an integrated aspect of aesthetic experience and a medium of research. concurrently, the field of artistic research and arts-informed academic inquiry is rapidly expanding, yielding novel approaches and a renewed debate about how we should understand the notion of knowledge in aesthetics, in its academic and artistic ramifications. the vocabulary of somaesthetics seems to be able to embrace and facilitate this novel demand to aesthetics and knowledge. in addition to this expansion of the aesthetic field, there can be seen another closely related development. as art increasingly embraces audience activation converting audiences from contemplating onlookers to participants and co-creators, so the field of aesthetics must consider the active participant as intrinsic part of the work of art transforming art into events of experience and consumption in line with other cultural artefacts and events. seen in this light, aesthetics has to enlarge its methodical tool box towards a thinking through and with the soma as a perceptual and sense-making ‘organ’ in order to be able to capture the experiential, creative, and ameliorative dimension – not only of art making and art perception, but also of other cultural fields that rely on aesthetic perception. the second point i wish to mention is that the journal of somaesthetics, founded from the outset in aalborg university, denmark, is now in a period of reorganization to emphasize its nordic dimension by establishing a predominately nordic editorial board. we hope this will strengthen the journal’s contribution to presenting nordic approaches to the many topics and applications of somaesthetics, but we aim to do so by also engaging with and publishing the best research in somaesthetics from scholars in the wider international research community. although it is hard to generalize, nordic research has a distinctive take on questions concerning somaesthetics because of certain features of nordic culture and nordic academic histories, practices, and aims. noticeable is the interest for letting somaesthetic theory and concrete somaesthetics and its nordic aspects5 introduction to volume 4, number 1 (2018) somatic practices permeate each other. the idea here is not simply practice as a mechanical application of somaesthetic ideas and concepts, but rather an academic research from within framed and observed, but always experienced practices. practice should here be understood as either the investigatory measurements and activities of distinct professions and fields of research and/or the compassionate but analytical observation of and interaction with professional or everyday actions of distinct social groups. it is not surprising that in recent years there have been a significant number of research-oriented practical workshops in somaesthetics in nordic countries. one of this issue’s authors write from within the field of art and art research: rasmus ölme, a dancer and researcher, writes in his article “suspension” about his practice-based research on the materiality and immateriality of movement, thereby investigating the performative relationship between the cognitive and sensory, movement and space, and artistic experience and academic theoretical conceptualization. my own article, “into the woods with heidegger” can be categorized as arts-informed, academic research in that it is a reflection on an autoethnographic project documenting my encounter with some passages of heidegger’s essay “the origin of the artwork” while helping an artist constructing a land-art piece. the project’s aim was to find common grounds between art theoretical and artist-practical work. the encounter has led me to the question, whether the soma harbors inherently ameliorable capacities via bodily self-reflections or whether the body merely is a performative machine for very disparate ideological content. in her article “care of the self, somaesthetics and drug addiction: an exploration of approaching and treating problematic use in non-coercive settings”, riikka perala reflects on her work with drug addicts in the context of the finnish social system. she proposes a somaesthetic understanding of drug addicts as full members of our societies and of everyday life. by shifting from the idea of drug addiction as an illness towards drug addiction as a (hopefully temporary) life condition, she suggests that harm reduction measurements can be seen in a foucauldian light of “care of the self ” and that somaesthetic awareness can occasion more positive ways of living and better tackle the addiction. we also find in this issue nordic contributions that take on more traditional topics of aesthetics. martin ejsing christensen’s article analyzes dewey’s idea of doing philosophy as an aesthetic, experiential practice by comparing it with richard shusterman’s idea of somaesthetics, and he implicitly transforms his writing of the article into an aesthetic experience. finally, martin jay and ronald shusterman use ideas from somaesthetics as tools in analyzing various musical and visual art works. in a short article, martin jay describes ken ueno’s work jericho mouth with barthes’ distinction between phenoand geno-song, the former being in the service of representation and communication, the latter as somaesthetic performance from a pre-subjective depth. ronald shusterman’s looks at the deterritorializing ambition and effect of a selection of urban artworks that disturb the familiarity of and expectations of shared social space and urban order. he argues for a metaethical effect of these works, because their perception constitutes a transitional passage because expected orders are momentarily annulled, the emerging void asks for an altered view and another perception of urban spaces. these moments of singularities are like jokes and laughter, opening an abys. falk heinrich, editor-in-chief somaesthetics and technology contents editorial 4 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl articles: conceptual design for intimal: 6 a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening ximena alarcón díaz incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics 25 in an embodied interaction course cumhur erkut and sofia dahl ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter: 40 non-anthropocentric design of responsive-media environments garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson, and xin wei sha what allows us to kinesthetically empathize 52 with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? kensho miyoshi essay: action, body, technology: a study of cave, “the man who” and hands 68 monica yadav interview: designing with the body. interview with kristina höök 79 dag svanæs review: a handful of takes on the body 96 a review of shusterman, r. (ed) aesthetic experience and somaesthetics max ryynänen the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) editorial board editor in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) senior lecturer max ryynnanen (finland) professor arto happala (finland) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design joana monteiro cabral the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund danmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 4 editorial somaesthetics and technology this special issue of the journal of somaesthetics contains articles that deal with the aesthetic relationship between technology and the soma. special focus was intended on the applications of somaesthetic theories and practices on the design and evaluation of technology, and their comparison to other theoretical frameworks. instead, we have mostly received contributions that are discovering somaesthetics. regular and invited submissions went through a peer review, combined with editorial suggestions. we hoped the submissions would focus on the theory and practice of somaesthetics. what the articles have in common is their focus on the techno-social materials and themes. migration, for example, is an important socio-dynamical construct. in the artistic work intimal, ximena alarcón díaz explores the soma expressions of colombian migrant women in telematic sonic improvisatory performance work. the design of the system has been informed by several interdisciplinary practices including embodied music cognition and deep listening, as well as an oral archive with testimonials from colombian migrants. alarcón presents data from field work with migrant women and two experiments with groups improvising to the oral archive, while being recorded with optical motion capture and sensors for breathing and muscle activity. based on the results, alarcón presents the design of the system. recently, virtual, augmented, and mixed reality had tremendous momentum. it is widely accepted that soma-based experiences will be an important design goal for these technosocial extended realities. we (erkut and dahl) present an approach of teaching virtual reality interactions, as used in our embodied interaction course for master’s students at aalborg university. in order to help the students to develop the designer skills necessary for successful development of virtual interactions, the course includes theory on soma-based design, movement exercises with focus on first-person experiences, and a practical workshop jointly with students at the danish national school of performing arts. we present four student projects from the course and discuss them in relation to experiential somaesthetics. two invited papers aim to highlight new voices in the field. the doctoral committee papers from the 2018 movement and computing conference were invited, revised, and organized by the guest editors. they together expand the bounds between body, brain, and environment to inanimate objects and matter in the environment. kensho miyoshi highlights the potential use of kinesthetic empathy in the context of design. can the designers feel kinesthetic empathy to objects as much as they feel towards people? beyond their function, could the quality of object movements evoke feelings useful for design? the author applies kinesthetic empathy to the perception of kinetic objects, with the aim of revealing the relationship between object movements and our embodied and empathic somaesthetics and technology5 editorial reactions. kinesthetic empathy could open a new perspective on our embodied and visceral response to dynamic objects and environments, in relation to somaesthetics. in the second doctoral work summary, garrett laroy johnson and his colleagues focus on techno-social construction of ensembles in designing responsive media. within their work lanterns, they show how people and augmented pendant lamps together form an ensemble and how people are entrained with the lanterns. based on the concept of ensembles, the authors summarize their design tactics and investigations, which provide insights about the embodied experience with respect to technicity. the highly speculative essay by monica yadav combines the diverse fields of neuroscience, philosophy, and theatre into a techno-social bound between body, brain, and environment. specifically, technology, seen as a surface, produces in reflection an encounter of the triadic relation of body-brain-environment with itself. the author proposes that the triad is in both a material and virtual relation, where material and virtual are allelic pairs. this issue includes an insightful interview with kia höök on her new book designing with the body, conducted by dag svanæs. not only did höök “shop for” and transfer somaesthetics into actionable research in somaesthetic interaction design, but she also produced and documented beautiful soma design exemplars and literally “moved” an international research community with her effort. svanæs, another strong mover on the importance of the body in interaction design, brings out fine details of the book in the interview. both the book and the interview are highly recommended readings in soma-based design of the current and future technologies that shape us. the last contribution is a book review. max ryynänen critically assesses the anthology aesthetic experience and somaesthetics edited by richard shusterman containing thirteen articles. ryynänen discusses a selection of them concluding that the notion of somaesthetics, on the one hand, offers an accessible and necessary conceptual platform for thinking and practicing with and through the body, but that, on the other hand, the contributions are in danger of losing philosophical rigor and depth that could be regained by connecting to the field’s philosophical foundations as elaborated by dewey and shusterman. compared to the first call for papers, the issue clearly is very different than we the editors have first imagined. the contributions challenged our disciplinary competences, indicated many future directions, and took us to reach out for reviewers in many different fields. we hope that they will have the same effects on you, including slowing down a bit and feel the fundamental question of interaction design with your entire soma: “what if …”. cumhur erkut and sofia dahl, issue editors page 133-143 bodies of belief / bodies of care133 new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano elizabeth m. cruz petersen abstract: treatises on acting appeared on the spanish scene in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, especially due to the development of the dramatic genre known as the nueva comedia—a new style of play where both tragedy and comedy coexisted. spanish rhetoricians, such as félix lope de vega and alonso lópez pinciano, believed the actor’s inner actions or state of mind easily influenced the outward form of the body, manifesting the same body-mind relation of richard shusterman’s somaesthetics. from a somaesthetics perspective, these early modern acting treatises provide an innovative performance method on the art of bodily care, synthesizing physical movements with those of experience as a means for dynamic action. keywords: lópez pinciano, lope de vega, comedia, spain, theater, actor, actress, gesture. treatises on acting appeared on the spanish scene in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, especially due to the development of the dramatic genre known as the nueva comedia—a new style of play where both tragedy and comedy coexisted. spanish rhetoricians, such as félix lope de vega and alonso lópez pinciano, believed the actor’s inner actions or state of mind easily influenced the outward form of the body, manifesting the same body-mind relation of richard shusterman’s somaesthetics. lope de vega’s arte nuevo de hacer comedias en nuestro tiempo (1609; new art of making plays in our time), a treatise written in the form of a performance piece, continues the advice first revealed in his saints play lo fingido verdadero (1608; the true deceiver). lope experiments with acting techniques that underscore how an artist’s lived experiences and emotions unite in the interpretation of art. on the other hand, lópez pinciano’s philosophía antigua poetica (1596; philosophy of the ancient style of poetry), a manual on the art of acting, advocates proper exercises that build upon the actor’s somatic skills when preparing for a role. from a somaesthetics perspective, these early modern acting treatises provide an innovative performance method on the art of bodily care, synthesizing physical movements with those of experience as a means for dynamic action. pragmatic somaesthetics richard shusterman’s somaesthetics, the first systematic framework structured for mindfulsomatic enhancement, proves useful in examining how seventeenth-century spanish actors might have conditioned their bodies in an effort to prepare for a role. pragmatic somaesthetics, in particular, offers practical means to improve embodied experiences and somatic awareness, thereby functioning as a tool to explain how an artist’s lived experiences and emotions unite in the interpretation of art. its objectives are threefold: the desire to improve the function of the body; self-knowledge of one’s somatic habits and lived experiences that affect one’s moods and elizabeth m. cruz petersen new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 134 elizabeth m. cruz petersen attitudes; and an “effective will” to act on the self-knowledge.32 in theater, an actor must draw from her inner emotions or experiences in order to control or change a particular ingrained movement or gesture that prevents her from effectively performing. the three dimensions of pragmatic somaesthetics (representational, experiential, and performative) with their various technical methods work to improve the actor’s appearance, experience, and performance on the stage – and beyond. all three dimensions work toward a freedom of movement through somatic sensibility, which can be associated with the acting techniques found in lope de vega’s manifesto. the new art of acting in their time félix lope de vega y carpio, one of the most prolific playwrights from the seventeenth century, promoted a pragmatic approach to acting in arte nuevo de hacer comedias en nuestro tiempo. lope expounds on dramatic theory and practice, offering a specific formula for writing and performing plays that depart from neo-aristotelian precepts. for example, he rejects the three famous unities found in aristotle’s poetics: the unity of time, place, and action. lope prefers representing life as nature intended, uniting tragedy with comedy for a more realistic and entertaining new comedia: “lo trágico y lo cómico mezclado,/ ... que aquesta variedad deleita mucho. /buen ejemplo nos da naturaleza, que por tal variedad tiene belleza”33 (tragedy mixed with comedy ... for this variety causes much delight. nature gives us good example, for through such variety it is beautiful).34 edward h. friedman describes it perfectly when he states that lope “seems to intuit that the humanist shift from logic to rhetoric makes sense for the theater, which is both art and craft.”35 furthermore, lope defends the value of modern spanish theater with the actor center stage: “oye atento, y del arte no disputes/que en la comedia se hallará modo/ que, oyéndola, se puede saber todo” (let one hear with attention, and dispute not of the art; for in [a play] everything will be found of such a sort that in listening to it everything becomes evident).36 he appreciates the actors’ commitment to the plays and their ability to embody their roles, something fundamentally paramount to the comedia’s success. in arte nuevo, lope suggests a form of pragmatic somaesthetics when he instructs the playwright to create dynamic characters that transform the actors. his instructions, “describa los amantes con afectos/que muevan con extremo a quien escucha; / los soliloquios pinte de manera/ que se transforme todo el recitante y, con mudarse a sí, mude al oyente” (describe lovers with those passions which greatly move whoever listens to them; manage soliloquies in such a manner that the [actor] is quite transformed, and in changing himself, changes the listener),37 reflects the experiential dimension of somaesthetics, which “refuses to exteriorize the body as an alienated thing distinct from the active spirit of human experience.”38 this reasoning applies to actors as well. lope interconnects the performative form with one’s inner feelings in his dramatic interpretation of the saint ginés. in the comedia lo fingido verdadero, a roman actor named ginés experiences a religious 32 richard shusterman, performing live, (london: cornell up, 2000), 138-39. 33 lope de vega, arte nuevo, (madrid: espasa-calpe, s.a., 1967), vv. 174. 34 lope de vega, the new art of writing plays in our time, trans. william t. brewster (new york: dramatic museum of columbia u, 1914). all translations of lope de vega’s arte nuevo are brewster’s translations unless otherwise noted. 35 edward h. friedman, “resisting theory: rhetoric and reason in lope de vega’s ‘arte nuevo’,” neophilologus 75, no. 1, 1991), 92. 36 lope de vega, arte nuevo, vv. 387-89. 37 ibid., vv. 272-76. 38 richard shusterman, “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal,” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57:3 (1999), 306. bodies of belief / bodies of care135 new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano conversion before the emperor diocleciano while preparing for the role of a christian. through the voice of his protagonist, lope advises that, in order to realistically “imitate a lover,” the actor must tap into his lived experiences, “una ausencia, unos celos, un agravio, un desdén riguroso y otras cosas que son de amor tiernísimos efectos, harálos, si los siente, tiernamente; mas no los sabrá hacer si no los siente”39 (the pain of absence, jealously, the flaring of violence and hate, these are the feelings which we live, the stock in trade of the actor’s art).40 lope focuses on the qualities inherent to experiential somaesthetics with the belief that the emotions of pain, envy, violence and hate reside in the interior depth of a person’s somatic as well as psychological memory. only when the actor calls on his own experience can he realize the full potential of his character, endowing it with human depth. the actor’s experiential somaesthetics fills in the gaps left by the play’s text, providing meaning through representation and interpretation. in turn, the actors’ embodiment of the characters actively engages the spectators, who experience a transformation of their own. lope de vega, well aware of the power that the popular classes had over the success of the actor and ultimately of the comedia, emphasized the importance of playing to them, especially since they were the bulk of the paying audience in the playhouses. spectators, who were active participants in the world of early modern theater, responded to the actors’ performances through physical awareness, employing somaesthetic practices that empowered them.41 for example, audience members, especially those from the plebeian class who made up a good portion of the playgoers, expressed their disapproval of a performance by verbally and physically attacking actors on stage with “a torrent of insults, rotten fruit, and any other objects on hand.”42 friedman affirms that “the pragmatics of the stage—the need to keep the people happy—and the overwhelming response to the comedia nueva make it worth lope’s while to stress the significance of reception, to blend means with end, the popular with the cultured, lo justo with el gusto.”43 lope knew that pleasing the audience hinged on the actor’s skill; consequently, he instructed the actor to practice representational and experiential performance techniques in order to develop their acting skills. in order to prevent gross errors in a characterization, lope first encourages actors to practice forms of representational-performative somaesthetics on stage: “let not ladies disregard their character, and if they change costumes, let it be in such wise that it may be excused.”44 audiences of all types found the “male disguise very pleasing.” the use of male costumes, or mujer vestida de hombre (women dressed as a man), was a common trope frequently employed by playwrights. spectators’ sensorial perception of the characters increased when actors played roles that represented genders other than their own, especially women who dressed in men’s attire. the masculine woman or mujer varonil adopts various forms. historian melveena mckendrick explains that the mujer varonil represents the woman “who shuns love and marriage, the learned woman, the career woman, the female bandit, the female leader and warrior, the usurper of man’s social role, the woman who wears masculine dress or the woman who indulges in 39 lope de vega, “lo fingido verdadero,” (barcelona: editorial iberia, 1967), 232. 40 lope de vega, the great pretenders and the gentleman from olmedo, trans. david johnston (london: oberon books, 1993), 48-49. 41 for an in-depth discussion on early modern spanish audience embodiment, see my article “a mindful audience: embodied spectatorship in early modern madrid.” 42 jodi campbell, monarchy, political culture, and drama in seventeenth-century madrid: theater of negotiation (burlington, v.t.: ashgate, 2006), 40. 43 edward h. friedman, “resisting theory,” 89. 44 lope de vega, the new art. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 136 elizabeth m. cruz petersen masculine pursuits.”45 just as in somaesthetics, the practice of self-stylization goes beyond the aesthetic changing of the body; it becomes the locus for which the individual exhibits her style or identity.46 illustrating the interconnectedness of representational and experiential somaesthetics, theater theorist patrice pavis asserts, “a body is ‘worn’ and ‘carried’ by a costume as much as the costume is worn and carried by the body. actors develop their character and refine their underscore while exploring their costume; one helps the other find its identity.”47 in other words, it is not enough to dress the part; the actor must also feel the part. audience members responded with pleasure to actors who embodied their characters, especially those who played transgender roles. therefore, many playwrights incorporated these types of personas in their plays. in fact, at least one hundred of lope’s plays included female and male gender-bending characters. in the process of creating a role, lope’s arte nuevo declares that one should “be on his guard against impossible things, for it is of the chiefest importance that only the likeness of truth should be represented.” however, from shannon sullivan’s standpoint, “when considering the truth of a claim, one is not asking whether it mirrors reality, but whether it satisfies various desires and needs.”48 in somaesthetics, exercises intensify emotions and thoughts that lead to heightened insight and clarity. for that reason, “rather than relying on a priori principles or seeking necessary truths, the pragmatist works from experience, trying to clarify its meaning so that its present quality and its consequences for future experience might be improved,”49 much like the professional actor who builds on her own training and experience to master her craft. seventeenth-century spanish actors subscribed to lope’s instructions in art nuevo, which connect the actors’ inner emotions with their physical actions. for instance, the manifesto coaches actors to tap into their experiential somaesthetics when developing a role: “if the king should speak, imitate as much as possible the gravity of a king; if the sage speaks, observe a sententious modesty.” as isabella torres submits, lope “credited actors with the ability to delve into the depths of their ‘type’ and to draw their audience into the play’s deceitful hall of mirrors.”50 evident in the character diocletian’s proclamation: “mas pienso que es artificio / deste gran representante, / porque turbarse un amante / fue siempre el mayor indicio” 51 (i think it’s the artifice of this great actor, because being upset is always the best sign that someone’s in love).52 actors oftentimes led peripatetic lives, traveling from city to city and performing as many as 44 shows a month. therefore, actors who neglected to cultivate appropriate somaesthetic habits would find themselves unable to sustain these intense schedules, let alone highly emotional characters. moreover, ineffectual somaesthetic awareness could result in the development of “highly neurotic actors,” a fear expressed by early modern critics. according to joseph r. roach: the desperate prejudice against actors in the seventeenth century was motivated in part by superstitious fears of their unnatural practices on the audience ... however, the principal danger was to the actor himself. the same physiological model that explained his powers 45 melveena mckendrick, woman and society in the spanish drama of the golden age; a study of the mujer varonil (london: cambridge up, 1974) ix. 46 richard shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (cambridge: cambridge up, 2012), 27. 47 patrice pavis, analyzing performance: theater, dance, and film, trans. david williams (ann arbor: u of michigan p, 2006), 175. 48 shannon sullivan, living across and through skins: transactional bodies, pragmatism, and feminism (bloomington: indiana up, 2001), 142. 49 shusterman, performing live, 96. 50 isabella torres, “introduction to the great pretenders and the gentleman from olmedo, by lope de vega, trans. david johnston (london: oberon books, 1993), 10. 51 lope de vega, “lo fingido,” 243. 52 lope de vega, acting is believing, trans. michael d. mcgaha (san antonio: trinity up, 1986), 76. bodies of belief / bodies of care137 new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano of bodily self-transformation also demonstrated his acute vulnerability to the forces that he summoned.53 it was common practice for performers to focus on emotion rather than on the message to persuade their audience (28). well aware of this custom, lope de vega creates a scene in which the protagonist envisions how he would gesticulate his emotions: ¿cómo haré yo que parezca que soy el mismo cristiano cuando al tormento me ofrezca? ¿con/qué acción, qué rostro y mano en que alabanza merezca?54 how shall i do to convince them that i am that very christian when they lead me off to be tortured? how shall i move, what kind of facial expressions, what gestures shall i use to win their praise?55 initially, ginés contemplates adopting the cliché mannerisms of a ‘christian’: derribaré con furor/los ídolos que desaman./quiérome sentar aquí como que en un gran tormento/me tienen puesto, y que vi que se abría el firmamento, /que ellos lo dicen así. y que/algún mártir me hablaba, o que yo hablaba con él: ¡bravo paso, industria brava! llamaré al/césar cruel, como que a mi lado estaba. perro, tirano sangriento (bien voy, bien le muestro furia); ... ¡qué bien levanto la voz!56 i’ll furiously knock down the idols they hate. i’ll just make believe that i’m being cruelly tortured and that i see the firmament open, for that’s what they all say, and that some previous martyr is talking to me, or that i’m talking to him. oh, what a clever idea, what a great scene! i’ll call caesar cruel, right to his very face. “you dog, you bloody tyrant!” oh, this is good! i’m really getting mad! ... i sound terrific when i shout!57 this monologue exposes the pitfalls of inadequate somaesthetic practices that succumb to “highly neurotic” acting. by relying on stereotypical gestures that lead to ‘overacting’ as he begins to shout, ginés’s character “lacks the sincerity of nature,” in the words of roman rhetorician quintilian. in order for an actor to build a character that lives through him, quintilian advises one “to excite the appropriate feeling in oneself, to form a mental picture of the facts, and to 53 joseph r. roach, the player’s passion: studies in the science of acting (ann harbor: u of michigan p, 1993), 27-28. 54 lope de vega, “lo fingido,” 264-65. 55 mcgaha, acting is believing, 90. 56 lope, “lo fingido,” 265. 57 mcgaha, acting is believing, 90. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 138 elizabeth m. cruz petersen exhibit an emotion that cannot be distinguished from the truth.”58 in rejecting conventional acting practices that contrast with the comedia nueva’s form and style, lope interweaves somatic techniques that connect experiential and representational forms. his protagonist discovers the need for somatic sensibility in order to make his performance effective without weakening his will to perform. in a moment of clarity, ginés acknowledges that only by intimately connecting the mind and body does the character come to life. he considers how the “ears play the part of a deaf man ... eyes play a blind man ... smell is like those people who, according to many writers, live off the fragrance of flowers ... because it is fated to be frustrated rather than bear fruit ... touch plays the part of a madman who tries to touch heaven with his vain thoughts,” and taste, “the greatest and best actor of all, now plays the part of a lover who persists in his mistaken path.”59 subsequently, failure to will one’s body to perform the simple physical functions such as breathing could result in a poor performance, which would be devastating to an actor’s career. the practice of physical exercise stems from the school of ancient philosophers who advocated, in shusterman’s viewpoint, corporeal training, “since fit bodies provide sharper perceptions and more discipline and versatility for adapting oneself in thought.”60 somaesthetic practices can “reveal and improve somatic malfunctionings that normally go undetected even though they impair our well-being and performance” (303). quintilian endorsed a strict regimen of “walking, rubbing-down with oil, abstinence from sexual intercourse, an easy digestion” when training for a performance. he illustrates how even hidden “somatic malfunctions” can deter actors from genuinely portraying their characters on stage: “if gesture and the expression of the face are out of harmony with the speech, if we look cheerful when our words are sad, or shake our heads when making a positive assertion, our words will not only lack weight, but will fail to carry conviction. gesture and movement are also productive of grace.”61 quintilian suggests the actor adopt techniques similar to ancient greek orators, “it was for this reason that demosthenes used to practise his delivery in front of a large mirror, since, in spite of the greek that its reflexions are reversed, he trusted his eyes to enable him to judge accurately the effect produced” (11.3.67-68). the practice of using mirrors to improve one’s physical behavior was seen in seventeenth-century theater as well. speaking through his character betterton in the life of mr. thomas betterton (1710), charles gildon (1665-1724) suggests the same exercise as demosthenes’, recommending “extensive practice before a mirror to perfect ‘the whole body likewise in all its postures and motions’.”62 the italian singer and actor cavaliere nicolini grimaldi (1673-1732), also known as nicolino, prepared himself for a performance by exercising daily in front of a mirror “to practice deportment and gesture” (68). by active observation, the actor becomes aware of his posture, movement, and changes in equilibrium, and hence “should be able to infer from his proprioceptive feelings what his posture from the back would look like in actual performance (without using any mirrors), even though he does not strictly see himself from the back.”63 consequently, lope de vega endorsed a form of performative somaesthetics, recognizing the 58 quintilian, institutes of oratory, ed. lee honeycutt, trans. john selby watson (iowa state, 2006), 11.3.61-62. 59 mcgaha, acting is believing, 70. 60 shusterman, “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal” (the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 57, no. 3, 1999), 302. 61 quintilian, institutes of oratory, 11.3.67-68. 62 roach, the player’s passion, 55. 63 shusterman, “body and the arts: the need for somaesthetics” (diogenes, 2014), 141; in “proprioception as an aesthetic sense,” barbara montero defines proprioception as “the sense by which we acquire information about the positions and movements of our own bodies, via receptors in the joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and skin.” she claims “that proprioception is an aesthetic sense and that one can make aesthetic judgments based on proprioceptive experience” (231). bodies of belief / bodies of care139 new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano importance of the actor’s continued refinement of his craft. some ten years after writing arte nuevo, lope emphasizes the actor’s skill and its impact on the success of the comedia in his dozena parte, an anthology of some of his works published: “i know that in reading them you will remember the deeds of those who served this body of work, for the movement of the figures alone will grace you with pleasure.”64 it makes sense that lope would dedicate much of his treatise to the method of acting, since actors ultimately brought the plays to life, a point also made in alonso lópez pinciano’s philosophía antigua poetica. a somatic philosophy on the art of acting lópez pinciano’s philosophía antigua poética, the first major spanish work on the art of poetry, comprises 13 epístolas or letters dealing with the distinctions among the poetic genres. the treatise, written in three-person dialogues, dedicates the thirteenth letter to the art of acting. lópez pinciano focuses mostly on the somatic components of acting, declaring that the actor, through the manifestation of his character, gives force to the playwright’s words.65 in emphasizing qualities inherent to representational and experiential somaesthetics, lópez pinciano advises the actor to study the physical movements of the person he wishes to imitate, “conuiene, pues, que el actor mire la persona que va a imitar y de tal manera se transforme en ella, que a todos parezca no imitación, sino propiedad” (in order to transform himself into the person he wishes to imitate, in a manner that will not seem an imitation, but rather the person himself ” (502). furthermore, lópez pinciano challenges cartesian dualism by affirming, like somaesthetics, that the human self thinks, acts, and exists as a soma – a unified body-mind. the rhetorician believes “que no la ánima anda, ni come, ni bebe, ni discurre, consulta y elige, sino el hombre, que es decir, ánima y cuerpo unidos, andan, comen, beben, discurren, consultan y eligen ... las acciones dramáticas y de representantes tienen mucho más de lo sutil y espiritual que no las de los volteadores” (that the soul neither walks nor eats, nor drinks, nor runs, nor consults and chooses, but man, that is, soul and body together, walk, eat, drink, run, consult and choose . . [and that] dramatic actions and actors are much more delicate and soulful than those of acrobats) (496). in other words, acting consists of more than mere physical imitation since both body and mind compose man. the actor who practiced experiential and representational somaesthetics enhanced her performative skills, empowering her to better embody her character. in order to achieve total embodiment, lópez pinciano, like lope de vega, insists that the character develop from the actor’s inner and outer actions “porque las personas graves y trágicas se mueven muy lentamente, las comunes y cómicas con más ligereza, los viejos más pesadamente, los mozos menos, y los niños no saben estar quietos” (because serious and tragic people move very slowly, the common and comic folk more lightly, the old more heavily, the young men less, and children do not know how to stay still) (504). lópez pinciano describes how natural gestures vary from person to person, depending on the individual: “los cuales vemos mueven diferentemente los pies, las manos, la boca, los ojos y la cabeza, según la pasión de que están ocupados; que el tímido retira los pies y el osado acomete, y el que tropieza pasa adelante contra su voluntad” (those who, as we can see, move their feet, their hands, their mouths, their eyes, and their heads differently, according to their mood; the shy draw back their feet and the bold move forward, and the one that stumbles advances against his will” (504). focusing his attention 64 victor dixon, “manuel vallejo: un actor se prepara: un comediante del siglo de oro ante un texto (el castigo sin venganza),” (actor y técnica de representación del teatro clásico español: madrid, 17-19 de mayo de 1988, edited by josé maría, díez borque, london: tamesis, 1989), 74. 65 alonso lópez pinciano, philosophía antigua poética, ed. peña p. muñoz (valladolid: impr. y libreria nacional y extranjera de hijos de rodriguez, 1894), 504. all of translations of lópez pinciano are my own. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 140 elizabeth m. cruz petersen on the hands, lópez pinciano connects experiential somaesthetics to representational forms, directing the actor in the process: si es grave, puede jugar de mano, según y cómo es lo que trata, porque si esta desapasionado puede mover la mano con blandura, agora alzándola, agora declinándola, agora moviéndola al uno y al otro lado; y si está indignado la moverá más desordenadamente, apartando el dedo vecino al pulgar, llamada índice, de los demás como quien amenaza. (505) if he [the person the actor is emulating] is serious, you can use your hands to play him, according to the situation; because if he is dispassionate, you can move the hand with gentleness, raising it now, dropping it now, moving it now from side to side; and if the mood is outraged, moving it more wildly, pressing the thumb to the forefinger, called the index finger, in a threatening manner. lópez pinciano further advises exercising the technique of observation, especially since those mentioned in his gestural exposition “sean unos ejemplos pocos de lo mucho que hay que considerar en esta parte, que son casi infinitos” (are just a few examples of the many, which are nearly infinite, that should be considered) (505). by exploring such methods, the actor pulls from experience or self-knowledge of lived experiences to create an awareness of human behavior, giving the character depth without losing her own sense of identity. eric mullis explains, “in order for technique to be authentic, practitioners must take the pervasive power of daily technique and cliché into account and explore various methods of modifying them, that is, of walking a path that avoids their limitations and strives to move beyond them.”66 early modern spanish actors incorporated into their characters the movements and behavior found in everyday functions of the people they observed in society, such as hand gestures or facial expressions of people who frequented public spaces. to illustrate this idea, many performances integrated dance and fencing pieces into their productions, which, according to lynn matluck brooks, reflected the “austerity of spanish etiquette and movement in general.”67 early modern spanish actors, some of whom were trained in dance and stage combat, practiced the exercise of cultivating habits of certain individuals or groups of people found in manuals such as juan de esquivel navarro’s discursos sobre el arte del danzado (1642; discourses on the art of the dance) and luis pacheco de narváez’s libro de las grandezas de la espada (1600). for example, skilled actors danced with an upright carriage, as instructed by esquivel navarro, “ha de ir el cuerpo danzando bien derecho sin artificio, con mucho descuido,”68 a stance that resembled the posture and attitude of aristocrats. pacheco de narváez’s handbook focuses on the actor’s proprioceptive feelings to develop somatic habits appropriate for stage combat specific to the spaniards. in addition to geometric diagrams, the author provides precise instructions on the proper body posture for swordplay: “han de tener primeramente, la cabeza derecha, los ojos vivos, despiertos, la voz gruessa, el pecho alto” (first of all, one must maintain the head straight; the eyes alive, awake; the voice coarse; the chest high).69 laura vidler, author of “bourdieu, boswell and the baroque body: cultural choreography 66 eric c. mullis, “performative somaesthetics: principles and scope,” (the journal of aesthetic education 40, no. 4, 2006), 111. 67 lynn matluck brooks, the art of dancing in seventeenth-century spain: juan de esquivel navarro and his world (lewisburg, p.a.: bucknell up, 2003), 90. 68 juan de esquivel navarro, discursos sobre el arte del danzado, (lewisburg, p.a.: bucknell up, 2003), f. 20. 69 luis pacheco de narváez, libro de las grandezas de la espada (madrid: por los herederos de j. iñiguez de lequerica, 1600), f. 6v. translation of pacheco de narváez is my own. bodies of belief / bodies of care141 new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano in fuenteovejuna,” explains that these tactics “are a direct result of the principles of euclidean geometry used to develop the spanish combat style ... the most effective thrust was accomplished with the sword at a right angle to the body as the radius drawn by such an angle has the farthest reach relative to the opponent’s position,” see figure 1.70 narváez cautions the swordsperson not to “draw back” since “el que se hace atrás, además de no ser tan largo, va con menos certeza. y lo que es mas de considerar, que cualquier movimiento que se hace, echando pie atrás, que no es para herir (siendo el tal movimiento desde el medio de proporción) de lo cual os resultará tener mas lugar para ir adelante” (one who draws back, in addition to not going far, goes with less certainty. another thing to consider is that any move you make where you fling your foot back without the intention to hurt (being that such a move is proportionately made) will result in you having more room to go forward).71 narváez’s advice is analogous to lópez pinciano’s, who states, “el tímido retira los pies y el osado acomete, y el que tropieza pasa adelante contra su voluntad” (the shy draw back their feet and the bold move forward, and the one that stumbles advances against his will).72 a skilled actor connects with her audience by consciously attending to the gestures, voice inflections, or physical movements indicative of her character. therefore, in addition to merging her own inner spirit or experiences with representational forms adopted from people she observed in society, an actor must continue to build her somatic skills by following the acting and movement directives found in the aforementioned treatises, which seek to “refine and magnify the body’s gestures, movements, and vocalizations.”73 figure 1: proper posture and sword position. libro de las grandezas de la espada (f. 40r). 70 laura vidler, “bourdieu, boswell and the baroque body: cultural choreography in fuenteovejuna” (comedia performance 9, no. 1, 2012), 46. 71 pacheco de narváez, libro, f. 52r. 72 lópez pinciano, philosophía, 504. 73 mullis, “performative somaesthetics,” 6. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 142 elizabeth m. cruz petersen conclusion lope de vega’s arte nuevo de hacer comedias and lópez pinciano’s philosophía antigua poética, when viewed from a somaesthetics lens, assists one in understanding the intricate process of building a character in early modern spanish theater. lope de vega and lópez pinciano coach the actor on the importance of somatic awareness to develop internal and external performance techniques. the rhetoricians insist that art is not a mere copy or mimesis, as plato’s republic proposes, but an interpretation of experiences put forth by the artist that is further interpreted by the receiver. for this reason, the actor’s portrayal of events or actions that ring true to reallife lends an empirical credence to the comedia, further enhancing the audience’s embodied aesthetic experience. as a playwright, lope desired that his plays experience life through actors on stage; therefore, he experimented with somaesthetic techniques in his new form of comedias. through his protagonist ginés in lo fingido verdadero, lope demonstrates the importance of developing a role through exercises that enhanced the actor’s internal and external gestural language, an essential practice for a successful play. moreover, in publishing his plays, lope had hoped scholars, present and future, would read them in the spirit in which they were written— comedias for live performances in the spanish playhouses.74 references brooks, lynn matluck. 2003. the art of dancing in seventeenth-century spain: juan de esquivel navarro and his world. lewisburg, pa: bucknell university press. campbell, jodi. 2006. monarchy, political culture, and drama in seventeenth-century madrid: theater of negotiation. burlington, vt: ashgate. cruz petersen, elizabeth m. 2016. “a mindful audience: embodied spectatorship in early modern madrid,” in cognitive approaches to early modern spanish literature. edited by isabel jaén portillos and julien simon, oxford: oxford university press, pp. 111-27. dixon, victor. 1989. “manuel vallejo: un actor se prepara: un comediante del siglo de oro ante un texto (el castigo sin venganza),” in actor y técnica de representación del teatro clásico español: madrid, 17-19 de mayo de 1988. edited by josé maría díez borque (madrid: tamesis), pp. 55-74. esquivel navarro, juan de. 2003. “discursos sobre el arte del danzado (1642),” in the art of dancing in seventeenth-century spain: juan de esquivel navarro and his world. translated by lynn matluck brooks lewisburg, pa: bucknell university press. friedman, edward h. 1991. “resisting theory: rhetoric and reason in lope de vega’s ‘arte nuevo,’” neophilologus 75.1: 86-93. http://ezproxy.fau.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/ docview/1301899209?accountid=10902. lópez pinciano, a., and peña p. muñoz. 1894. philosophía antigua poética, valladolid: impr. y libreria nacional y extranjera de hijos de rodriguez. mckendrick, melveena. 1974. woman and society in the spanish drama of the golden age; a study of the mujer varonil. london: cambridge university press. montero, barbara. 2006. “proprioception as an aesthetic sense.” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 64.2: 231-42. mullis, eric c. 2006. “performative somaesthetics: principles and scope.” the journal of aesthetic education 40.4: 104-117. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4140211. pacheco de narváez, luis. 1600. libro de las grandezas de la espada. madrid: por los herederos de j. iñiguez 74 dixon, “manuel vallejo,” 74. bodies of belief / bodies of care143 new art of bodily care in the works of lope de vega and lópez pinciano de lequerica. https://books.google.com/books?id=dn48aaaacaaj&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. pavis, patrice. 2006. analyzing performance: theater, dance, and film. translated by david williams. ann arbor: u of michigan press. quintilian. 2006. institutes of oratory, ed. lee honeycutt. translated by john selby watson. iowa state. <http://rhetoric.eserver.org/quintilian/>. roach, joseph r. 1993. the player’s passion: studies in the science of acting. ann harbor: university of michigan press. shusterman, richard. 2014. “body and the arts: the need for somaesthetics.” diogenes: 1-14. http:// journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.fau.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0392192112469159. ---. 2000. performing live. london: cornell university press. ---. 2000. pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art. lanham, md: rowman & littlefield press. ---. 1999. “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal.” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 57.3: 299313. www.jstor.org/stable/432196. ---. 2012. thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. sullivan, shannon. 2001. living across and through skins: transactional bodies, pragmatism, and feminism. bloomington: indiana university press. torres, isabel. 1993. “introduction,” in the great pretenders and the gentleman from olmedo, by lope de vega. translated by david johnston. london: oberon books, pp. 5-12. vega, felix lope de. 1986. acting is believing: a tragicomedy in three acts by lope de vega (c1607-1608). translated by michael d. mcgaha. san antonio: trinity university press. ---. 1967. arte nuevo de hacer comedias. madrid: espasa-calpe, s.a. ---. 1967. lo fingido verdadero. barcelona: editorial iberia. ---. 1993. the great pretenders and the gentleman from olmedo. translated by david johnston. london: oberon books. ---. 1914. the new art of writing plays. translated by william t. brewster. new york: dramatic museum of columbia university. http://www.archive.org/stream/newartofwritingp00vegauoft/ newartofwritingp00vegauoft_djvu.txt. vidler, laura. 2012. “bourdieu, boswell and the baroque body: cultural choreography in fuenteovejuna.” comedia performance 9.1: 38-64. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 73-85 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects73 singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect ronald shusterman 1. incongruity, philosophy and humour it is no doubt a sad commentary on our society to note that a google search with the terms “bodies in the streets” yields results connected to violence and massacres, terrorist attacks and war. thankfully, the “spaces, rhythms and logics of city life” – to quote the call for papers – can sometimes be more irenic, and the physical interaction of our bodies with urban spaces can play a more positive role. though i do not wish to deny the reality of urban suffering, i intend to turn to lighter matters in order to examine connections between urban art, humor, and the notion of singularity that i will explain shortly. as argued in a recent french volume devoted to the art of the city and the city as art, an urban environment can itself be conceived of as a body, a gestalt functioning either in an organic and healthy manner, or perhaps “dysfunctioning” because of errors and disharmonies in its conception and construction.1 my goal in this paper is to examine a certain number of projects that explicitly or implicitly aim to challenge the routine organization of the experience of the city via the injection of radical incongruity into the urban landscape. some of the projects evoked are quite official; others are more clandestine or even subversive in their aims and operations. but all of them can be seen to have a similar purpose – that of provoking a renewed consciousness of the place of the body in the city and thus the place of the individual in society. this renewed consciousness can be seen to occur via the perception of incongruity in an otherwise ordinary urban situation. i will link this concept of incongruity to a general notion of singularity that i borrow from the hard sciences, showing how these “singularities” in the streets produce what i call the metaethical effect of the work of art. my reflections here are part of a work in progress on the connections between art, sensorial experience, humor and this concept of singularity that i intend to apply to æsthetics via what nelson goodman would call a “transfer of symbol schemata”. obviously, at some point i will need to confront the famous arguments formulated by sokal and bricmont against the illicit metaphorical use of scientific models in the humanities.2 and i would also like to add that, as an ardent supporter of pluralism, i wish to avoid any implication of essentialism that might attach 1 see l’art des villes, figures de l’art 31, juin, 2016, and more particularly, cécile croce, “avant-propos : l’art des villes”, figures de l’art 31 (juin, 2016), p. 15 2 alan sokal & jean bricmont, impostures intellectuelles, (paris: odile jacob, 1997) the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 74 ronald shusterman itself to the term: i use the term singularity in the plural, and this singularity that i see at the heart of many contemporary artistic practices is not to be conceived of as a substantial or formal essence of art but rather as a recurrent yet unpredictable pragmatic feature of the operation of our current artworld. in astrophysics, the notion of singularity designates that moment or spatial location where the laws of physics no longer apply, notably at the heart of a black hole, beyond the edge of what is called the “event horizon”. obviously, this phenomenon is quite complex, and my aim is not to apply all of the mathematical or physical implications of this theory to the realm of art. i simply wish to argue that the transfer of schema here can be illuminating. my study will examine four separate theses, the first of which is far from revolutionary: it claims simply that the work of art is a singularity in a purely metaphorical sense of the term, since it often involves a rupture with previous forms and practices. the second thesis is more ambitious – it argues that certain works of art attempt to produce singularities in a sense that is not merely metaphorical. i have in mind works that endeavor to disorient perception, negate the laws of physics, or challenge our current epistemology. the third thesis argues that such works are at least analogous, or perhaps identical, to those moments in philosophy and the hard sciences where radical new paradigms are formulated. the fourth and final thesis uses this notion of singularity to enhance certain contemporary theories of humor and argues that humor often plays a deep philosophical role. here i will be following up on a famous comment attributed to wittgenstein who claimed that “a serious and good philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes”.3 over the centuries, there have been various theories of humor and laughter, many of which have been based on the body. for example, somatic and psychological considerations are close to the heart of the theories of hobbes, bergson or freud. but a psycho-physiological explanation of laughter is not the same thing as a philosophical analysis of why we laugh, of how humor functions, and i find that the most promising general answer to this question is provided by the notion of incongruity. contemporary proponents of the notion include john morreall, noël carroll, simon critchley and others, but the idea goes back at least to kant who argued that humor arose “from the sudden transformation of a heightened expectation into nothing.”4 as a pluralist, i am eager to recognize different forms of humor, and i do not wish to establish incongruity as the essential condition of all forms. but i do think that the concept is useful when dealing with humor in the visual arts. indeed, the concept helps me link humor to the idea of singularity that i am trying to explore. to quote simon critchley, “jokes tear holes in our usual predictions about the empirical world.”5 it is to this extent that a joke can indeed be philosophical, and i interpret wittgenstein’s remark in this light. but to go a bit further than wittgenstein, i would like to argue that these moments of rupture provoke a consciousness of the form and nature of both perception and judgment. this is what i mean by the “metaethical effect” of the singularities produced by works of art. i will return to this point later in the paper, notably when discussing olafur eliasson. like a work of art, a joke by definition seeks an audience. just as there is no such thing as a private language (at least according to wittgenstein), there is no such thing as a joke that is eternally and intrinsically solipsistic. in her introduction to the volume on art in the city, cécile croce argues that the urban landscape itself can be seen as a collective work of art (18). if all 3 “it is worth noting that wittgenstein once said that a serious and good philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes”, see norman malcolm, ludwig wittgenstein: a memoir (new york: oxford univ. press, 1984), pp. 27-28 4 immanuel kant, critique of judgment, james creed meredith, trans. (oxford, oup, 1952), p. 199 5 see simon critchley on humour (london, routledge, 2002), p. 1 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects75 singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect works of art seek an audience, then city dwellers, by definition, as bodies in a public space, are both potential spectators and potential actors in this collective work. of course, a city is not a museum – one goes to a museum with certain expectations, with a certain somatic disposition, whereas the city is a more varied, unpredictable or even “rhizomatic” space. but indeed, this varied and unpredictable dimension can make the effect of incongruity even greater. one goes to a museum expecting to contemplate; the city is the scene of countless other actions, and the body can thus be brought to interact in unforeseen ways. 2. urban singularities in the work of mark jenkins i will take as my main example of urban incongruity several pieces by the american artist mark jenkins. in quite a literal way, jenkins tears holes in our predictions about the empirical world. jenkins is a street artist whose installations are situated in the midst of routine urban landscapes. the two series entitled “storker” and “embed bodies” are particularly good instances of how incongruity can produce both urban singularities and social interaction. the body occupies a central position in jenkins’ work. one typical piece is kicked painting: figure 1: kicked painting (2012) by mark jenkins artists hate it when you compare their work to other contemporary figures, but this particular piece is not far from some familiar items by robert gober: the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 76 ronald shusterman figure 2: untitled leg (1989-90) by robert gober there are also aspects of jenkins’ art that recall the work of maurizio cattelan or ron mueck. but unlike gober, cattelan and mueck, jenkins is less famous for museum pieces and better known for his surprising and ostensibly facetious interventions in urban situations. in the storker series, jenkins surreptitiously places plastic infants in unusual and amusing public contexts: figure 3: kfc, storker series here the familiar kitsch figure of colonel sanders is transformed into the loving if somewhat absent-minded grandfather of one of these plastic babies. in a french study of the work of jenkins, frédéric-charles baitinger links these transparent, scotch-tape babies to the traditional notion of the trickster, a mischievous character playing tricks, disrupting routine and undermining the habitual social order.6 the babies do seem to be having their share of fun in incongruous contexts, turning a handrail into a sliding board, fiddling with a fire hydrant or or turning a lamppost into a seesaw: 6 frédéric-charles baitinger, mark jenkins : la rue mise en scène (grenoble, critères, 2013) somaesthetics and its nordic aspects77 singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect figure 4: canarias, storker series figure 5: fire hidrant, storker series figure 6: see-saw, storker series but the real trickster is of course jenkins himself. baitinger sees him as a “sculptor of events”, and goes on to argue that the urban setting becomes a “space of events” a “performative” the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 78 ronald shusterman form of art that seeks to “question, shock, or, at least provoke reflection.” for baitinger, jenkins’ interventions in urban settings, often the object of police scrutiny, confront “the physical, legal and moral limits of a culture.”7 baitinger borrows this notion of the event from greil marcus, himself inspired by guy debord and situationism. in the appropriate context, for marcus: “each situation would be an “ambient milieu” for a “game of events”; each would change its setting, and allow itself to be changed by it. the city would no longer be experienced as a scrim of commodities and power; it would be felt as a field of “psychogeography,” and this would be an epistemology of everyday time and space…”8 these joyful babies turn the stark urban setting into an unlimited playground, undermining the usual play of power and order. baitinger also links jenkins to what roland barthes called “le texte de jouissance” – the type of work that provokes unease or crisis via a destabilizing experience (13). one can well understand the concern of the police in cases such as the following unauthorized installations: figure 7: malmö 7 baitinger, mark jenkins, p. 9 8 marcus, lipstick traces (london, faber, 2011), p. 164 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects79 singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect figure 8: roofgirl figure 9: blonde 101 figure 10: biker the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 80 ronald shusterman figure 11: head above the rest figure 12: hangers the following installation is no doubt less potentially threatening or unsettling, but it remains, paradoxically, both vaguely disturbing and yet irreverently funny: somaesthetics and its nordic aspects81 singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect figure 13: walker one ideal of western art has often been to make all of the details in the work converge to form a complex and powerful message, and jenkins must certainly have chosen intentionally to install his walker in front of a shoe store. and his picture of the installation does indeed provide us with an urban walker who seems to be intrigued by the incongruous object in his field of vision. 3. the metaethical effect jenkins might be seen as creating heterotopia in the sense defined by michel foucault. it seems indeed that these surprising and incongruous urban landscapes provoke “a communal effect based on the lived and shared experience obtained via an active approach to the environment.”9 i’m quoting another of the authors from the french volume i mentioned at the outset, but instead of exploring the foucauldian notion, i’d like to connect this idea to my own concept of the metaethical effect of the work of art as developed in a certain number of my publications.10 many theorists have underlined the social or relational nature of art, the idea that the work of art engages not only a personal but also a social reaction. quite obviously, works of art in public spaces provoke not only contemplation but also consciousness of a shared necessity for interpretation. my theory of the metaethical effect tries to explain the actual process of this interaction. briefly put, the idea is that the perception of incongruity in a shared public space pushes us even more efficiently to a consciousness of the need for interpretation and to an awareness of its nature. this point needs some clarification. it is useful to introduce a distinction between the “ethical” and the “metaethical” that is roughly analogous to the difference between praxis and theory. the distinction is basically between a reflective or philosophical discipline (metaethics) that analyses the way our moral concepts and values work, and a practical human endeavor 9 on this see claire azéma, « l’hétérotopie des lieux possibles : quand les pratiques ‘utopisées’ de l’espace urbain renouvellent les usages de la ville, » in l’art des villes, figures de l’art 31 (juin, 2016), pp. 231-243 10 see (for example) my articles “theory as solidarity: the ethical dimension of fictional and theoretical reading,” in herbert grabes & wolfgang viereck (eds.), the wider scope of english, frankfurt, peter lang, 2006, 205-219; and “less than greek art, perfection and metaethics (on berys gaut)”, proceedings of the european society for aesthetics, vol. 5, 2013, 407-423 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 82 ronald shusterman (ethics) that applies these values to particular human problems. whatever else it is, æsthetic reception always involves a metaethical effect. in other words, æsthetic reception is a sphere of activity where the form or the process of judgment is taught, experienced or analyzed. this does not necessarily involve making any specific decisions as to the application of these forms to concrete praxis. my argument, very briefly, is that all works of art involve an activity – a form of life – that fosters this awareness of the nature of interpretation and choice. i might go even further to defend what has been called utopianism by noël carroll.11 this is the doctrine that holds that any work of art has at least one positive social effect: by its very existence it shows us that new ideas can be formulated, new perceptions organized, new solutions perhaps found. in other words, art shows that the human world can be changed. one can indeed get this fundamental idea from a work by yves klein or james turrell, even if such works do not express explicit moral values. now my point here is that the urban walker, when faced with a work by jenkins, is subtly aware of the necessity of interpreting both the work itself and its place in a shared social environment. but the surprised pedestrian does not only think about the work, does not only think about what other people may be thinking about the same object. more profoundly, he becomes conscious of this need for shared interpretation. he becomes conscious of interpretation itself. what i am saying may have much to do with eco’s idea of the “open work” or barthes’ concept of “l’oeuvre scriptible”, but my argument goes a bit further in claiming that anytime we play the language game of æsthetic contemplation, interpretation and judgment, we are both aware of the game itself, aware of the “rules” of the game, and aware of the fact that the other people playing the game with us are also aware of these rules and structures. one might want to import a bit of john searle here, and set up some sort of formula along of lines of his revision of grice’s model of linguistic understanding as formulated in speech acts: s utters t and (a) s intends (ii) the utterance u of t to produce in h the knowledge (recognition, awareness) that the states of affairs specified by (certain of ) the rules of t obtain. (call this effect the illocutionary effect, ie) (b) s intends u to produce ie by means of the recognition of i-i. (c) s intends that ii will be recognized in virtue of (by means of ) i-!’s knowledge of (certain of ) the rules governing (the elements of ) t.12 but, in our case, in the case of art, one would have to redefine the notion of “rules” in a rather exotic way, and i believe it would suffice to say that the urban walkers are mutually aware both of the necessity of interpretation and of their mutual, interactive awareness of this very necessity. just to provide a random counterexample, i could point out digestion as something we may do together at the same time, with greater or less success, but my own digestive process in no way interacts with yours, and none of us need to be aware of any shared rules, practices or contexts in this particular case. yet the body in the street, when faced with a singular installation, when faced with an apparently lifeless or endangered fellow body, automatically experiences both the implicit or explicit socio-political content of the work and the form of judgement and interpretation itself. 11 noël carroll, “art, narrative, and moral understanding,” in jerrold levinson, aesthetics and ethics: essays at the intersection (cambridge, cup, 1998, 2001), p. 127 12 john searle, speech acts (cambridge, cup, 1969), pp. 49-50 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects83 singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect on the event, baitinger also quotes the french philosopher mehdi belhaj kacem: “at whatever scale in which it occurs, the event is that which brings a system of representation to its breaking point” (in baitinger, 34). it is this idea of a breaking point that brings me back to the notion of singularity. the installations of artists such as jenkins are singular in many senses of the term, and they often question our epistemology in subtle and implicit ways. but, to take a further example, the work of olafur eliasson explicitly attempts to modify our epistemological standpoint. we all have in mind many of his famous pieces, pieces that illustrate his slogan “see yourself sensing”,13 a project which is quite obviously a somaesthetic quest, so i will limit myself to quoting a particularly significant passage from a preface to one of his books: “the artworks in this book are mostly models for space, defined by movement. they are world-makers. they love transformation. they make time their tool. […] many of the artworks [included in this volume] are installed outside, in public space. i like to think of them as urban gestures, insisting on the inclusion of passers-by, visitors, city inhabitants. […] [my work] is an investigation into colour, theory, movement, and generosity. to me, these spaces are not utopian, but defined through their atmosphere and agency. one of the challenges that drives me when i am making a new work is the desire to create structures that acknowledge the visitors and respond to their physical presence. […]”14 in countless works and installations, eliasson shatters our perceptual expectations, ostensibly defies gravity or freezes time, asking us to renew our physical interaction with the world. to that extent, his work does indeed attempt to create singularity in a quasi-scientific sense of the term but in eliasson’s vision of art, these singularities also have a social and moral dimension: a renewed vision of our place in both the physical world and the urban setting can change our lives profoundly. 4. space, time and eternity… no other artist ever made this claim as dramatically as the conceptual architects arakawa and gins. in reversible destiny: we have decided not to die and in architectural body, they declared solemnly that revising architecture in public and private spaces could eventually lead to the elimination of death.15 bodies in the streets of their ideal city would achieve eternity via the very structure of the public spaces. curiously enough, a similar idea of achieving eternity via a reconfiguration of space and time was imagined in a whimsical story entitled “mimsy were the borogoves”.16 henry kuttner and c.l. moore collaborated in 1943 to write this rather philosophical tale about the capacity of objects to change our consciousness and to reverse our destinies. the authors imagine a being of another dimension who accidentally sends a number of what we might call educational toys back in time, first to oxford in the 19th century, and 13 on eliasson, see my articles “olafur eliasson et la métaéthique de l’art,” nouvelle revue d’esthétique n°6, 2010, 101-112 and “notion motion : l’image-mouvement d’olafur eliasson et la métaéthique du sensible”, écrans 2015-1, n°3, expanded cinéma, paris, garnier, 2015, 191-205. 14 olafur eliasson, unspoken spaces (london, thames & hudson, 2016). this quote is available online at http://olafureliasson.net/archive/ publication/mda118343/studio-olafur-eliasson-unspoken-spaces 15 see arakawa and gins, reversible destiny – we have decided not to die (new york: guggenheim museum & harry abrams, 1997) and architectural body (tuscaloosa, u of alabama p, 2002) 16 lewis padgett, “mimsy were the borogoves,” in robert silverberg, the science fiction hall of fame, vol. 1 (ny, avon, 1971), pp. 181-210 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 84 ronald shusterman then to contemporary america.17 the first recipient of the toys is a certain alice liddell, who unfortunately is already too old to be able to be shaped by these paradoxical and otherworldly objects. she does manage, however, to get an adult friend of hers to transcribe a certain number of instructions that the toys have communicated to her, as well as other details and stories that she has grasped while playing with these trans-dimensional objects. the second recipients of these mind-shaping toys are much younger, and the two children’s destinies are altered as they are slowly molded by the objects, learning first how to digest their food in a special way so that they needn’t eat so much, figuring out trans-dimensional puzzles and eventually passing into another space-time continuum where death has no dominion. “twas brillig” turns out to be a design for escape, that is, the beginning of the formula for leaving the mortality and constraints of our euclidean prison. or, as the alice character puts it when asked what the stanza means by her adult friend, “it’s the way out, i think,” the girl said doubtfully. “i’m not sure yet. my magic toys told me” (padgett 1943: 207). in the vocabulary of arakawa and gins, these toys are procedural tools for profoundly modifying our landing sites in order to achieve a reversed destiny. now i don’t really believe that visual artists can actually defy gravity, create black holes or singularities, but some of them certainly see this physical and epistemological revolution as an ideal to be pursued. and i also doubt that any future modification of urban or private architecture might enable us to decide not to die. but it is reasonable to claim that our bodies can achieve greater awareness and fulfilment, greater shared awareness and fulfilment, via the singularities of urban art. references the works by mark jenkins are available on the following website: www.xmarkjenkinsx.com arakawa and gins, madeleine. 1997. reversible destiny – we have decided not to die, new york: guggenheim museum & harry abrams. arakawa and gins, madeleine. 2002. architectural body, tuscaloosa, u of alabama p. azéma, claire. 2016. « l’hétérotopie des lieux possibles : quand les pratiques ‘utopisées’ de l’espace urbain renouvellent les usages de la ville, » in l’art des villes, figures de l’art 31 (juin, 2016), pp. 231-243. baitinger, frédéric-charles. 2013. mark jenkins : la rue mise en scène, grenoble, critères. bourriaud, nicolas. 2002. relational aesthetics, paris, presses du réel. carroll, noël. 1998. “art, narrative, and moral understanding,” in jerrold levinson, aesthetics and ethics: essays at the intersection (cambridge, cup, 1998, 2001). critchley, simon. 2002. on humour, london, routledge. croce, cécile. 2016. “avant-propos : l’art des villes”, figures de l’art 31 (juin, 2016). eliasson, olafur. 2016. unspoken spaces (london, thames & hudson, 2016). online at http:// olafureliasson.net/archive/publication/mda118343/studio-olafur-eliasson-unspoken-spaces kant, immanuel. 1790. critique of judgment, james creed meredith, trans. (oxford, oup, 1952). 17 actually, to the america of 1943, when the story was published. somaesthetics and its nordic aspects85 singularities in the streets: bodies, incongruity and the metaethical effect malcolm, norman. 1984. ludwig wittgenstein: a memoir, new york: oup. marcus, greil. 2011. lipstick traces, london, faber. padgett, lewis. 1943, 1971. “mimsy were the borogoves,” in robert silverberg, the science fiction hall of fame, vol. 1 (ny, avon, 1971), pp. 181-210. searle, john. 1969. speech acts, cambridge, cup, 1969. shusterman, ronald. 2006. “theory as solidarity: the ethical dimension of fictional and theoretical reading,” in herbert grabes & wolfgang viereck (eds.), the wider scope of english, frankfurt, peter lang, 2006, 205-219. shusterman, ronald. 2010. “olafur eliasson et la métaéthique de l’art,”, nouvelle revue d’esthétique n°6, 2010, 101-112. shusterman, ronald. 2013. “less than greek art, perfection and metaethics (on berys gaut)”, proceedings of the european society for aesthetics, vol. 5, 2013, 407-423. shusterman, ronald. 2015. “notion motion : l’image-mouvement d’olafur eliasson et la métaéthique du sensible”, écrans 2015-1, n°3, expanded cinéma, paris, garnier, 2015, 191-205. sokal, alain & jean bricmont. 1997. impostures intellectuelles, paris: odile jacob. page 85-101 somaesthetics and food85 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics else marie bukdahl abstract: in his somaesthetics, richard shusterman emphasizes, to a much greater degree than other contemporary pragmatists, the importance of corporality for all aspects of human existence. he focuses particularly on “the critical study and cultivation of how the living body (or soma) is used as the site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-stylization.”1 somaesthetics is grounded as an interdisciplinary project of theory and practice. many in the academic field have asked richard shusterman why he has not included “the art of eating” in his somaesthetics. he recently decided to do this and he has held lectures on this subject in italy with the title the art of eating. l’art di mangiare at the conference food, philosophy and art cibo, filosofia e arte, convergence pollenzo, april 4-5, 2013 in collaboration with students from the university of gastronomic sciences. he has opened a new field, which is discussed in this article. the main subject of this article on visual art and eating will be a presentation of the internationally renowned thai artist rirkrit tiravanija, who has created many surprising installations in thailand, other countries in the east, europe and particularly the us, where he resides and is professor at columbia university. his installations often take the form of stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading and playing music. the architecture or other structures he uses always form the framework for different social events. his work is fundamentally about bringing people together. also a project rikrit tiravanija created with his danish friends in the group superflex will be described. i will also analyse the projects of other artists who have worked with the relationship between art and the art of eating or food, such as the korean artist yeonju sung, the chinese artist song dongand, the english artist prudence emma staite and the swissgerman artist dieter roth. keywords: somaesthetics, interdisciplinary, corporality, the art of eating, meliorist goal, performing art, relational orientation, community, fluxus in his somaesthetics, richard shusterman highlights far more than other contemporary pragmatists the importance of corporality for all aspects of human existence. in both philosophy and art, he aims for the realization of “the aesthetic experience of collaborative creation, and even the cognitive gains from exploring new practices that provoke new sensations, spur new energies and attitudes, and thus probe one’s current limits and perhaps transcend them to transform the self.”2 the notion of holism is central to his aesthetics. it is “an orientation toward seeing things in terms of continuities rather than dualisms. we have already noted continuities between body 1 richard shusterman, performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art. ithaca: cornell university press, 2000, p. 144. 2 see the catalogue for the exhibition aesthetic transactions. pragmatist philosophy through art and life, curated by richard shusterman, galerie michel journiac. paris, may 24 to june 6, 2012, p. 29. else marie bukdahl art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 86 else marie bukdahl and mind, nature and culture, theory and practice. but the continuities of common sense and scientific inquiry, science and art, thought and feeling, ethics and aesthetics are also salient in pragmatism.”3 shusterman has always focused on social practice and political experimentation, emphasizing that truth must be relative to specific social contexts and practices. he is also convinced that philosophy can and must solve practical and social problems. realizing this goal has always been a leitmotif in the development of his pragmatist aesthetics.4 somaesthetics is not just a particular field of study, it is also a methodical physical exercise grounded in an ever-expanding interdisciplinary project of theory and praxis. shusterman never neglects to work with new challenges and engage with trans-disciplinary projects. the notion of transactional experience is particularly central for him, because “it connotes the idea of experiments in transcending disciplinary boundaries, transgressing entrenched dichotomies and transforming established concepts or topics, together with the idea that these transactions can succeed in advancing both theory and practice through the experiences and lessons that experiments induce.”5 in recent years, the visual arts have achieved increasing importance in his somaesthetic optic and this has been one of the new challenges he has accepted. growing numbers of our most prominent artists have been inspired by aspects of his aesthetics and incorporated them into their artistic practices. they have been stimulated to immerse themselves further in his theoretical and practical practice in the art world by reading his works. this has resulted in an increase in requests from artists to contribute to their exhibition catalogues or to them contacting him in other contexts. richard shusterman has also encountered new challenges. many in the academic field have asked him why he has not included “the art of eating” in his somaesthetics. he recently decided to do this and held a lecture on the subject in italy with the title, the art of eating. l’arte di mangiare at the food, philosophy and art conference cibo, filosofia e arte, convergence pollenzo, april 4-5, 2013 in collaboration with students from the university of gastronomic sciences. the conference leader described the general aims of the conference as follows: “the complex relationship between food and art is a topic that has been explored by philosophers since the time of plato. this discussion is more relevant than ever with the rising interest in gastronomy and cuisine, as well as new perspectives on the artistic capacity of chefs, the significance of art in the context of rapid technological advancement, and the strong influence of imagery and aesthetics on our daily lives. (..) how do ethics and aesthetics interact in gastronomy? what is the relationship between image, sound, and taste? is a somaesthetics of food possible? for the first time, such questions will be explored in depth at an international convergence of chefs, philosophers, semiologists, students, artists, researchers, and passionate individuals from all walks of life.” 3 richard shusterman, “what pragmatism means to me: ten principles”, revue française d’études américaines, no 124, 2e trimester 2010, p. 64. 4 richard shusterman, “pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty”, rethinking art, 2. ed., new york 2000, p. 45. 5 see richard shusterman’s catalogue essay to the exhibition, aesthetic transactions. pragmatist philosophy through art and life, galleries michel journal, may 24 through june 6, 2012, pp. 10-11. v somaesthetics and food87 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics 1. rirkrit tiravanija. untitled (free/still).shown in 1992, 1995, 2007/2011. part of the moma collection, new york. fluxus, with roots in experimental music, emerged in the united states and europe in the early 1960s. fluxus artists, with their emphasis on performance and play, wanted to bring art and life together. they severed the traditional divisions between the different art forms and placed collaboration and audience participation at the center of the art world. they used food in a variety of imaginative ways in their performances and creative activities. in the years that followed, this development continued, but it has only really found a prominent niche in the art of this century. the prominent thai artist rirkrit tiravanija has created meals as exhibitions for over 20 years and presented wonderful thai food in surprising installations in thailand, europe and in the usa, his country of residence. he has subsequently repeated his cookingas-art sculpture all over the world. for him, “art is what you eat.” he is particularly known for creating projects that are to be used, are socially grounded and in which the viewer is always a very active participant. the participatory and performance aspects of tiravanija’s art echo elements seen in work by joseph beuys in the 1970s, which defined ‘social sculpture’ as an art form in which dialogue and ideas are an artist’s primary tools. tiravanija’s installations often take the form of stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading and playing music. the architecture or other structures he uses always form the framework for a variety of social events, such as in the installation untitled (free) (1992) (fig. 1), which was also shown in 1995, 2007 and 2011. tiravanija originally created this at 303 gallery in new york and it now belongs to moma. glenn lowry, the director of moma points out that tiravanija was “interested in exploring the possibility of creating congenial social spaces in places usually reserved for the quiet contemplation of art.” he “transferred everything from the gallery’s back office even the dealer and her staff to the exhibition space. he then converted the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 88 else marie bukdahl the empty office space into a kind of restaurant, where he cooked curry and rice, serving it to visitors free of charge.”6 tiravanija’s artistic goal is also realized in a very impressive way in the project he developed for secession in vienna (2002) in which he took rudolf schindler’s kings road house in los angeles as his conceptual starting point. rirkrit tiravanija’s project is based on rudolf schindler’s house and the visions behind it, which are significant not only for architecture, but also for art and the destruction of the false barrier between art and action, that often – as richard shusterman remarks – “trivializes art and robs its power of positive praxis. for art’s highest aim is not to make a few admirable objects in a world filled with misery, but to create a better world through the work such objects can generate.”7 rirkrit tiravanija created a reconstruction of the studio tract of the so-called schindler house in the main room of the secession and used this as a stage for a variety of activities that provided visitors to the exhibition with new inspiration and revealed new layers of meaning in our daily lives. thus: “tiravanija’s interest focuses less on a faithful architectural facsimile than on ‘animating’ rudolf schindler’s world of ideas, his concept of inside and outside in relation to the conditions of private and public spaces. to this tiravanija adds his own ideas on relationships and communities, his characteristic conception of art as an investigation and implementation of “living well” where the art of eating has a central place. throughout the duration of the exhibition, the installation was used as a venue for a multimedia program offered by tiravanija and various guests, with features such as film screenings, concerts, presentations and lectures.”8 time to eat wonderful thai meals is also part of the activities in the rebuilt schindler house (fig. 2). another example of this sort of installation, where eating is in focus, is fear eats the soul at gavin brown’s enterprise in which his assistant served bowls of soup every thursday, friday, and saturday from 5 march 16 april 2011 (fig. 3). the title is taken from fassbinder’s film of the same name. tiravanija “set up areas for communal eating and opened the gallery to the street, thereby collapsing public and private space.” this is another example of “his (ongoing) effort to create and widen channels of communications.”9 6 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 7 richard shusterman, a house divided, from the documenta x (1997) catalogue on the work of rosemarie trockel and carsten höller. 8 see rirkrit tiravanija, secession in vienna. july 5-sept. 1, 2002. www.secession.at/ art/2002_tiravanija_e.html 9 nicole j. caruth “gastro-vision on soup” http://bit.ly/bukdahl4 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=147206 http://www.secession.at/ http://www.secession.at/ http://www.secession.at/ http://www.secession.at/ http://www.secession.at/ http://www.secession.at/ http://www.secession.at/ http://www.secession.at/ somaesthetics and food89 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics 2. rirkrit tiravanija. time to eat meals in “schindler house.” exhibition view. secession, vienna 2002. 3. rirkrit tiravanija. fear eats the soul (soup kitchen). gavin brown’s enterprise. new york, april 2011. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 90 else marie bukdahl 4. rirkrit tiravanija. cooking and drawing event. art 42 basel. june 17, 2011. he describes his interactive artistic intentions with focus on food’s ability to build community as follows: “the situation is not about looking at art. it is about being in the space, participating in an activity. the nature of the visit has shifted to emphasize the gallery as a space for social interaction. the transfer of such activities as cooking, eating or sleeping into the realm of the exhibition space puts visitors into very intimate if unexpected contact; the displacement creates an acute awareness of the notion of public and private, the installations function like scientific experiments: the displacement becomes a tool and exposes the way scientific thought processes are constructed. the visitor becomes a participant in that experiment.”10 in shusterman’s aforementioned lecture in pollenzo, he emphasized that “human eating is a social event” and that “eating is a performing art” the precise characteristics that tiravanija visualizes in his installations. and this is why, as shusterman stresses, “a meal” can be regarded as “an artwork.” in cooking and drawing event, art 42 basel (june 17, 2011) (fig. 4) tiravanija appealed to viewers in a very immediate and sensuous way, not only because they ate together, but also because warm new relationships were created between them. in the gallery you encountered a booth full of cooking pots and all the implements of curry making. and you saw tiravanija working at cooking a wonderful thai meal. his gallerist told visitors that “anyone who wanted to could pick up a piece of charcoal and make drawings on the booth’s wall about the recent protests in that region. behind the artist was a drawing of egyptian protesters carrying a sign that read ‘mubarak you are retired.’”11 in this work he again uses strategies of hospitality and 10 john perreault, rirkrit tiravanija: “fear eats the soul”, see http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/2011/04/rirkrit_tiravanija_ fear_eats_t_1.html 11 http://observer.com/2011/06/hold-the-fish-sauce-rirkrit-tiravan http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/2011/04/rirkrit_tiravanija_fear_eats_t_1.html http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/2011/04/rirkrit_tiravanija_fear_eats_t_1.html 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international political issues. in his installations, where meals are integrated, tiravanija always creates new relationships between people and breaks down barriers between societal groups and conventional ways of thinking. it is precisely this liberating process that is one of the main themes in shusterman’s somaesthetics and which tiravanija interprets in many surprising and artistic ways in his installations where meals play a central role. richard shusterman remarked in an interview with aude launay on biological aesthetics that he admires some european artists of “relational orientation” such as rirkrit tiravanija. he met tiravanija at an art and experience event organized by the italian art critic maurizio bartolotti in venice in 2004. tiravanija works in the same interactive manner as carsten höller and the other artists that shusterman has worked with or presented in different contexts.12 5. superflex, rirkrit tiravanija and tobias rehberger, superportagasfloorkitchen without building, shown in the exhibition “more works about buildings & food” in oeiras, portugal, 10. november 2000. the three danish visual artists bjørnstjerne christiansen, jakob fenger and rasmus nielsen formed a project group in 1993 that they called superflex. they have already gained international recognition for their projects, which are based on new technology but also use networking and social processes such as making food as their working material. they define their goals as follows: “we are interested in using our position as artists to explore the contribution that the field of art can make to social, political and economic change.” 12 “biological aesthetics. richard shusterman”, an interview by aude launay in 02. revue d’art contemporain trimestrielle et gratuite 2008, no 48 with english texts. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 92 else marie bukdahl to achieve this goal they have worked together with tiravanija on several occasions and included cooking as a part of their attempts to create new communities and help impoverished populations that cannot afford to buy oil and electricity such as those in thailand. they worked with engineers to create a simple super gas biogas system which runs exclusively on organic materials such as human and animal stools. superflex created a work in collaboration with rirkrit tiravanija and tobias rehberger for the exhibition “more works about buildings & food”(fig. 5) in oeiras, portugal, 10 november 2000. after the exhibition the project was dispatched to the land in chiang mai in thailand, where so many innovative projects have been installed. this project created a cheap method of cooking, but also new relations among people. the “project presented ideas on how to integrate the biogas system into a domestic kitchen environment later to be used in the country in chiang mai. it consisted of a 1:1 model landscape of the environment including a floor (8 x 12 metres) that uses the weight of people standing on it to create the pressure needed to supply gas for cooking purposes. the model comprised: one biogas system / mattress / gas storage / wooden floor / kitchen / camping.”13 there are some clear parallels between the aims of superflex and one of the keywords in shusterman’s original development of pragmatism. this concerns what he calls “community” and which he characterizes as “an indispensable medium for the pursuit of better beliefs, knowledge, and even for the realization of meaning through language and the arts.” he is convinced that “community is not only a cognitive theme in pragmatism but also an aesthetic, ethical, and political one, and it contributes to pragmatism’s fundamentally democratic orientation. pragmatists have offered cognitive, ethical, and aesthetic arguments for democracy.” shusterman’s concept of sensory perception in somaesthetics also provides a better understanding of both the aesthetic dimensions of eating as well as its ability to create new relations between people, thereby improving the lives of underprivileged societies. and the surprising environment and setting enrich the embodied experience of gustatory taste and the inviting smell. 13 http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ buildings_-_food/image/2#g http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ http://www.superflex.net/activities/2000/11/10/supergas_-_more_works_about_ somaesthetics and food93 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics 6. song dong. eating the city. installation, london, february, 2006. song dong is one of china’s leading experimental artists. he has been active in sculpture, performance, photography and video. he uses food as building materials in his installations to get the viewer to eat them in new ways, thereby creating a different understanding of their tastes and smells. this is particularly true of his series of edible installations titled eating the city which were exhibited from 2003-2006 in barcelona, beijing, hong kong, london, oxford and shanghai. he also visualizes the dramatic transformations that these cities have undergone. he describes his goal as follows: “the purpose (..) is for the city i build to be destroyed ... as the cities in asia grow, old buildings are knocked down and new ones built, almost every day (...). my city is tempting and delicious. when we are eating the city we are using our desire to taste it, but at the same time we are demolishing the city and turning it into a ruin.”14 a very impressive example is the large installation eating the city, london, february 2006 (fig. 6), which was constructed out of different kinds of biscuits and stimulated two senses: smell and sight. working with a team of very gifted food artists, he used wafers, biscuits, cookies and candy to create edible models of the most famous landmarks in shanghai. this installation was shown in shanghai on 25 december 2010. viewers got a new and more tangible impression of the city and were inspired to eat in a new more leisurely manner which provided them with the opportunity to enjoy the special tastes of the different cakes. edible penjing, which was shown from april 1 to july 1, 2000 in the artist’s open studio at gasworks consists of british ingredients including mashed potato, salmon, carrot, mincemeat 14 a b c d “song dong: waste not”. london, barbican centre. 20 december 2011. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 94 else marie bukdahl and broccoli. penjing can best be described as an artistic composition, including miniaturized trees, rocks, water and other natural elements. it is also a famous chinese cultural signifier. in edible penjing, song dong visualizes with irony and humor the relationship between art and life and between western and eastern cultures. many chinese people who visited song dong’s studio and tasted the edible penjing thought it was delicious even though they were not normally partial to british food. when food is put into a creative context, it becomes appetizing in a new way. in meat mountain, 2009 it is the construction of a mountain of meat that is in focus and the serving of it is highlighted in a special way. but there are also symbolic layers to the work. these are “song’s broader emphasis on ephemerality, drawn from zen buddhism, which points to the transience of bodily needs and desires, even as he aims to fulfill them.”15 the encounter with this work also creates a sense of what it is to be a “cultural consumer.” in the video a blot on the landscape, which consists of four video works, the same theme is developed in a different and very surprising way and with a more dramatic optic. the visitors who saw this work agreed that the “most impressive of them was the one with blue lagoon and a boulder made of some form of meat hanging precipitously over ‘the water’.” but they soon discover that “action creeps into the frames. a lone hand holding a cleaver descends from the sky over the lagoon, demolishing the boulder and its surroundings into unrecognizable pieces, while scissors savagely snip the broccoli and peppers into bite-size chunks.”16 by using food as building materials, song dong has succeeded in visualizing the destruction of food and the mass production of food as well as the inevitability of natural forces in an innovative and provocative manner. in the fluxus artist dieter roth we see several roots for the experiments of subsequent artists with food as creative building materials. his portrait of the artist as a vogelfutterbüste (birdseed bust) consisting of multiple layers of chocolate and birdseed (1968) (fig. 7), is a good example of his ironic attitude to existence. 15 see gastronomica: end of preview of the article “edible landscape. song dong”, the journal of food and culture, vol. 10, no 3, summer 2010, p. 10. 16 song dong at pace gallery offers food for thoughtbeijing beijing blogs blog, city weekend guide, 16 november 2010. somaesthetics and food95 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics 7. dieter roth. portrait of the artist as a vogelfutterbüste (birdseed bust) 1968, multiple of chocolate and birdseed. dieter roth foundation. hamburg to achieve maximum impact for his social criticism and his rebellion against traditional notions of art, he created artist’s books, using a variety of foodstuffs as his preferred artistic strategies. literature sausage (1969), is an artist’s book made of gelatin, lard and spices in a natural casing. it expresses the hope of forging a path to a new world. the book entitled big sunset (1968) was created by pressing a sausage on card in a plastic cover. dieter roth’s works are instantly captivating. it has been remarked that “they embrace decay while enduring into the present.” the korean artist yeonju sung creates dresses primarily out of vegetables. she has created elegant evening dresses out of tomatoes and lotus roots (2010) (fig. 8.) “for a brief moment they existed, but for far longer they inspire with their amazing creativity, brilliant hues and seductive forms. in many ways they aren’t far in nature from a wedding dress, worn once and captured in photographic memory of the occasion… savored and remembered, never to be worn again.”17 all of the aforementioned artists have used foods in different and imaginative ways. but none of them have been particularly interested in visualizing the particular power of fascination that the different aromatic scents many of the plants and various fluids create. this is also true of the foodstuffs that we use on a daily basis. 17 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journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 96 else marie bukdahl 8. yeonju sung. tomato dress. 2010. for the venice biennale in 2011, the renowned chinese curator peng feng selected several artists who worked with this theme in very poetic and surprising ways. in an interview with peng feng, shusterman pointed out the special talent that chinese artists have in “defining art in terms of beauty and pleasure” and interpreting them “in a distinctively sensory, sensual way as opposed to a dominantly cognitive pleasure of intellectual form” characteristic of western culture: somaesthetics and food97 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics “your pavilion conception pervasion explains art in terms of beauty and then treats beauty in terms of flavors or smells senses that the western tradition considers least aesthetically valid because the least cognitive and clear. your five installations involve clouds with tea fragrance; dripping pipes of wine, beer, and spirits; fragrant porcelain pots of herb medicine; fog of incense; and lotus-scented virtual snow. you explain this emphasis on beauty and flavor as a distinctively chinese perspective.” an example of this kind of artwork is cai zhisong’s installation, clouds with tea which is built up out of many elements like tea leaves, cotton, balloons, helium (fig. 9) creating a poetic atmosphere with different odors which appeals powerfully to our sense of smell. peng feng told us that his contribution to venice biennale represents a chinese perspective, because body consciousness has always played an important role in traditional chinese art and aesthetics. but he adds that he has only really become aware of it since studying shusterman’s somaesthetics.18 9. cai zhisong. sculptures of clouds with tea and yoan gong. fog. installation. venice art biennale the innovative danish artist ib monrad has worked mostly with creating large projects dealing with very large interpretations of cosmic space. in the construction of these large-scale works he has used western painting techniques as well as chinese ink painting. shusterman emphasized in his aforementioned lecture in pollenzo that there is also “a tactile experience of eating.” he is thinking in particular of the tools that we use when we eat and which we seldom look at. artists have often been capable of visualizing expressively the many things that we rush past in our goal18 chine commissaire peng feng” art press supplément venise 2011, pavillons nationaux, p. 25 the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 98 else marie bukdahl oriented world. one example is ib monrad’s nature morte (2013)(fig. 10), in which the spoon is imbued with a particular power of fascination, because it is removed from the anonymous daily context in which it is usually locate. 10. ib monrad. nature morte. 2013. the austrian artist erwin wurm, who has made a significant impact on the international art scene, creates humorous and provocative “food art” like sausage sculptures. using red frankfurters, he conjures forth five impressive situations, full of irony and unexpected forms. we encounter a sweet dog (fig. 11), an inviting door, a warm kiss, a thin pole and a fascinating buddhist stupa.19 19 see else marie bukdahl, “surprising sculptures enabling us to think and create in new ways. about erwin wurm’ sculptures which reveal new aspects of our daily life” in the catalogue to the exhibition the discipline of subjectivity. erwin wurm, tonson gallery, 14 nov 2013 5. jan. 2014 somaesthetics and food99 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics 11. erwin wurm, dog. the outstanding danish performance and conceptual artist, søren dahlgaard uses surprising strategies and humor in artworks like the dough warrior (2008) (fig. 12). this work appeals very intensely to our intellect, emotions and imagination. it is a “landscape painting performance” in which søren dahlgaard is transformed into a comical, hard-working painter covered from top to toe in baguettes. the transformation imbues the project with surprising force and an astonishing tactility. the artist throws himself into the painting process with an almost warlike intensity. traditional landscape painting is transformed into an exciting performance. the performance demonstrates søren dahlgaard’s ability to work intuitively and reflectively and reveals new aspects of the often unpredictable creative process and drawing us into his dynamic artistic universe.20 søren dahlgaard’s artworks stimulate the viewer to experience them with their entire body and all its senses. this is precisely the embodied perception and experience of art that shusterman highlights.21 20 else marie bukdahl, “new challenges for art and society”, article in the catalogue for the exhibition søren dahlgaard , kunsthallen brænderigården, viborg, denmark. june 9 august 12 2012, pp. 6869. 21 shusterman, intellectualism and the field of aesthetics: the return of the repressed, revue internationale de philosophie 220, 2002, p. 331. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 100 else marie bukdahl 12. søren dahlgard, the dough warrior, 2008. for shusterman it is important that “somaesthetics can help not only explain but also improve aesthetic experience.”22 knowledge of somaesthetics deepens our insight into how the surprising and imaginative use of different foodstuffs as building materials by artists can create a renewed understanding of their uniqueness. we see aspects of these foods which we might not otherwise have noticed. this contributes to an improvement in our sensory experience and the way we use our bodies. in addition, many of the works that the artist has built out of foods, have a particular sensuality and in many instances also alluring scents which create a singularly intense expressive force. in many respects, these artworks can create this “powerful aesthetic experience” which shusterman believes is necessary for art to elicit a response from “the general public.”23 this intense effect is something that song dong, dieter roth, yeonju sung, cai zhisong and erwin wurm have succeeded in generating. but foods and eating utensils produced in an attentive manner can also have this effect. this is true of, for example, ib monrad’s drawing. different artists, especially rirkrit tiravanija, song dong and superflex have created, in their own respective expressive ways, performances and projects in which they have prepared very inviting meals. “eating” in their vision becomes, in a very significant and different way, what shusterman calls a “collaborative experience.” new communities are also created through these performances, which are characterized by “the meliorist goal of making things better,” something shusterman regards as “a key and distinctive pragmatist orientation.”24 22 richard shusterman, “somaesthetics and burke’s sublime”, british journal of aesthetics, vol. 45, no 4, october 2005, p. 341. 23 “interviewing richard shusterman” part in action, criticism and theory for music education, april 2002, vol 1, p. 5. 24 richard shusterman, “what pragmatism means to me: ten principles”, revue française d’études américaines, no. 124, 2e trimestre 2010, p. 64 somaesthetics and food101 art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics notes photographic credits: wikimedia commons, the free media repository (6) dieter roth foundation, hamburg (7). image courtesy: studio tiravanija (1 4), superflex (5), peng feng (9),ib monrad (10), erwin wurm (11), søren dahlgaard (12). contact information: else marie bukdahl e-mail: mail@em-bukdahl.dk introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 49-58 somaesthetics and food49 eating out as eating in eating out as eating in: the intimate call of the contemporary restaurant scene laura t. di summa-knoop abstract: anthropology, sociology, and more recently philosophy have produced a number of accounts of food and eating based on the idea that food is essentially, and fundamentally, a cognitive and experiential activity. mindful of the body and the mind, while aware of social and economic environments, these accounts range from the emotional experience of food, to the many and multifaceted contrasts intrinsic to the nature of food (life and death, raw and cooked, exotic and familiar), and can also incorporate the social and economic dichotomies associated with the selection and consumption of food. this paper stems from the same analytical tradition, but aims at a target that, at least in the academia, is still not sufficiently explored: the experience of fine dining. specifically, i am interested in the attention that renowned chefs and exclusive restaurant environments are paying to the cognitive, perceptual, and social features of food and eating that are traditionally associated with more modest, familiar, and affordable eating practices. i begin with an analysis of the practical, but also emotional and experiential differences between “eating in” and “eating out.” i then consider three concepts: terroir, home, and kitchen and how they have been appropriated and shaped by the contemporary restaurant scene. it is largely incorrect, i conclude, to regard fine restaurants and cuisine as exclusive, exceptional, or eccentric experiences. one of the current and leading goals of high scale dining is to recall the intimate and familiar dimensions of food and its consumption. furthermore, i maintain that in addition to recalling the experience of intimacy and familiarity, fine dining is able to “re-invent” it. keywords: philosophy of food, haute cuisine, social aesthetics, terroir, aesthetic experience despite food and eating practices being two central arguments of discussion in disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, philosophical studies of food, albeit not sparse, have often been dismissed, or at least looked at with a certain hesitation. with the exception of ethicists, who have long been concerned with questions such as the status of animals and environmental sustainability, almost every philosopher seems to feel the urge to begin a paper on food with some sort of a justification. these justifications tend to involve a brief history of the reasons why food, an essential part of our lives, has not been a central topic of philosophical analysis, and a discussion of why these reasons are either invalid or not valid anymore. when we narrow the discussion from the philosophy of food to the aesthetics of food, one of the guiding threads of this paper, there are at least three main obstacles to consider. first, the belief that food is an inferior subject because of its relation to the body rather than the mind; second, the predilection for vision and hearing and the dismissal of smell and taste; and, lastly, the “interested” and practical dimension of food which radically separates it from the laura t. di summa-knoop eating out as eating in the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 50 laura t. di summa-knoop imaginative and disinterested activity that, according to kant and kantian1 followers, should characterize aesthetic experience. as a response, philosophers contend that a kantian notion of aesthetic experience is too limiting and at odds with the aesthetic practices we encounter in everyday life; that, as studies in proprioception and somaesthetics tell us, the mind and the body are not only related, but also inform each other, and that, as emily brady, among others, eloquently shows, smell and taste are neither as primitive as philosophers have often thought, nor are they significantly dissimilar from their “nobler” cousins, vision and hearing.2 in joining the ranks of those who believe in the philosophical analysis of food, i am going to bypass most of the aforementioned discussion, and accept its fundamental conclusion. food is worthy of philosophical study; in fact, with david kaplan,3 i also believe that food is conquering its own philosophical niche, and that philosophy of food might be on the cusp of becoming a prominent philosophical branch. in this essay, i will consider a number of issues related to the aesthetics of food and, more broadly, to social aesthetics and environmental aesthetics. specifically, i am interested in the analysis of haute cuisine and fine dining, and of the experience thereby provided. contrary to the commonly held beliefs associating fine dining with luxury, elite practices, and with the idea of foreign, unique, or special occasions, i propose an interpretation of fine dining based on intimacy. to explain what i imply by intimacy, i will analyze contemporary culinary movements, restaurants, and renowned chefs under the conceptual triad of “terroir,” “home,” and “kitchen.” despite not exhausting the many nuances of fine dining, these three terms evoke the sense of familiarity and closeness that characterizes both the duo of home and traditional cuisine and, as i will attempt to demonstrate, haute cuisine. more provocatively, i maintain that haute cuisine has not only adopted these concepts, it has “re-created” and empowered them. from food as art to its experience: a few approaches to the aesthetics of food it is possible to distinguish two branches in the aesthetic analysis of food. on the one hand, we find discussions of whether food can acquire the status of art and be regarded on par, or at least similarly, to higher arts. elisabeth telfer,4 to mention only one of the authors concerned with this question, analyzes some of the limits hindering the recognition of food as art, and responds that such limits are less motivated than we might think and that food and dishes should be regarded as art. however, her verdict does not truly settle the debate. despite defending food as art, telfer regards it as a minor art, and is careful to add a series of cautionary remarks on treating food on par with other arts. telfer’s hesitation is neither her fault, nor is it entirely objectionable. food evades many of the issues we tend to relate to art and art criticism, and adjusting a given definition of artworks as to include food might not be the most pressing issue. in this respect, i agree with aaron meskin 1 in kant, food fails to be an object of aesthetic contemplation is at least three ways. first, our physiological need of food is a mark of interest, and interest in the object of contemplation, rather than a pure contemplation of its presentation, is banned by kantian aesthetics. second, food tastes are, according to him, exclusively subjective: food can only be regarded as “agreeable,” and our food preferences, it follows, can never act as an indicator of the beautiful. lastly, food triggers immediate, hedonic reactions that hinder the reflective contemplation that characterizes the kantian notion of imaginative experience. 2 brady, emily. “smells, tastes, and everyday aesthetics” in the philosophy of food, david m. kaplan (ed.) 2012. berkeley: university of california press: 69-86. 3 kaplan, david m. “the philosophy of food” in the philosophy of food, david m. kaplan (ed.) 2012. berkeley: university of california press: 1-23. 4 telfer, elisabeth. “food as art” in arguing about art: contemporary philosophical debates. 2nd edition. alex neill & aaron ridley (eds.) 2002. london : routledge: 9-27. somaesthetics and food51 eating out as eating in who, despite believing in food as art,5 invites philosophers, foodies, and the like, to “make the case for the value of food as food and not worry so much about its aesthetic and artistic status.”6 on the other hand, as an alternative to the definition, or justification, of food as art, the literature counts several contributions that analyze food in a deweyan fashion, namely by looking at the experience of food and eating. the main pillar sustaining the edifice of ‘everyday aesthetics,’ dewey’s thought is central to the understanding of food and eating practices. framing the analysis of food within the concepts expressed by dewey, from experience, to emotional significance, to the idea of “transaction” – the latter evoking the exchange, dialogue, and discovery that food implies – is likely to lead to constructive and cognitively interesting results, results than might shed a light on the complexity of the aesthetic (as opposed to the more ambitious “artistic”) experience that food and eating practices afford. connotations of food as an aesthetic experience cover a large spectrum of sensorial and cultural stimuli and intuitions, too many and too nuanced in their nature to be listed here. yet, looking ahead to the direction this essay will take, it won’t be mistaken, i believe, to see food as simultaneously the embodiment and the symbol of something not only capable, but also directly engaged in the shaping of subjectivity. deborah lupton,7 who abides to this view, points to how the emotions generated by the encounter with food function as an indicator of who we are as persons within culture, while simultaneously putting us in sync with our own body tasting food and reacting to such tastes. it is, she argues, this “embodied” sense of cultural recognition that further leads to the somewhat proustian transformation of the food-related physical stimuli into memories. memory, the loyal companion of subjectivity, is in turn a leading topic of discussion in the philosophy of food. in “synesthesia, memory, and the taste of home,”8 david e. sutton considers the experience and reactions of greek students studying at oxford when they received food from home. the experience is characterized as “returning to the whole,” as a physical and mental restoration of “integrity.” individual integrity is restored because, sutton explains: “… the food event evokes a whole world of family, agricultural associations, place names and other ‘local knowledge’” that was, up to the encounter with, in this case, local greek food, too distant to be fully embraced. not necessarily at odds with the kind of food philosophy focusing on subjectivity and memory i briefly hinted at, but nevertheless methodologically, and often conceptually, distinct is the analysis of the dichotomies and contrasts that characterize the experience of food. this approach, to which i subscribe, finds immediate justification in the nature of food and eating practices, a nature that, arguably, has as its essence the art of contrast and combination. cooking, table arrangements, the order of courses, the presentation of dishes, etc. are guided by the recognition of the complex alchemy underlying the quality and variety of food and possible preparations. explaining the cognitive effects and unfolding the emotions, but also concepts and ideas that are generated and triggered by such contrasts and combinations is, i believe, one the most promising way to approach food from a philosophical standpoint. carolyn korsmeyer immensely acute works in the aesthetics of food is a case in point. in 5 specifically, meskin believes in the classification of certain dishes and a certain kinds of cuisine (most prominently ferra adrià’s molecular and deconstructed cuisine) as forms of “hybrid arts.” 6 meskin, aaron. “the art and aesthetics of food” in the philosoper’s magazine issue 61, 2nd quarter 2013. fake barn country: pages 81-86. 7 lupton, deborah. “food and emotion” in the taste culture reader. experiencing food and drink. carolyn korsmeyer (ed.) 2005. oxford: berg: 317-324. 8 sutton, david e. “synesthesia, memory, and the taste of home” in the taste culture reader. experiencing food and drink. carolyn korsmeyer (ed.) 2005. oxford: berg: 304-316. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 52 laura t. di summa-knoop her essay “delightful, delicious, disgusting,”9 and in her book savoring disgust: the foul and the fair in aesthetics,10 korsmeyer analyzes the “compressed symbolic recognition” that is involved in our cognitive responses to food and eating – whether pleasurable or disgusting. the contrast and combination of revolting and delicious is at the core of cuisine, but it is also the “compressed” symbolization of something else. certain cooking practices and certain foods remind us, she highlights, of the alternation of life and death; they pressure us to reflect on it, and to realize that we belong to the very same cycle. a further dichotomy often associated with food, and one on which i will, if only tangentially, return is the one between “authentic” and “inauthentic.” interestingly, as lisa heldke11 points out, the question here is whether the contrast exists at all. the authenticity of food, she observes, is a matter of transaction and contamination of traditions. it is also, prominently, a transaction between the dish and the eater. when approaching new cuisines – when we travel, or when we simply have the desire to try a restaurant serving “authentic” food from a region we are not familiar with – we inevitably add our own status of “foreigners” to the dishes we try, an interaction that might be thought to “corrupt” the authenticity of a meal. and yet, no meal would be authentic without the very presence of eaters, local and knowledgeable of the dishes, or foreign, and in search of a new culinary adventure. the concept of authentic food is an evolving concept, a concept in which eaters are to be regarded as active participants. lastly, it is impossible not to highlight how contrasts in food and eating practices are often the vehicle for analyses of sociological and economic nature. a prime example here is pierre bordieu’s distinction between “taste of luxury” as representative of the bourgeois freedom, and “taste of necessity” which instead characterizes the working class. food choices and eating practices embody the separation, social and economic, of classes; they represent a conflict that goes much beyond the savoring of a given food item. in fact, bordieu goes as far as claiming that food practices, and especially the “formality” of bourgeois eating, are symbolizations of the “invisible censorship of living,” and “a way of denying the meaning and primary function of consumption, which are essentially common, by making the meal a social ceremony, an affirmation of ethical tone and aesthetic refinement.”12 of all the arguments i listed in this short and, admittedly, very incomplete survey, bourdieu’s is the one i am least sympathetic to. this is not to say that i deny the relation between classes and food, rather, i disagree with the idea that social practices, whether bourgeois or of other nature, strip food off the “primary function of consumption.” bordieu, i believe, is guilty of looking at the consumption of food as a separate biological and physiological act, an act that is being (unfortunately, he implies) adulterated by social practices. differently put, his mistake resides, i contend, in the framing of food as a “two-steps” process that inevitably separates fulfilling hunger from social aspects of consumption. such practices can instead be seen relationally, as interwoven experiences contributing together to the hedonic experience of food. my hesitance in accepting bordieu’s argument, together with the objection mentioned above, can also be seen as the standpoint from which to develop an analysis of haute cuisine and fine dining. as some of the authors listed in this section, i am also interested in the contrasts, 9 korsmeyer, carolyn. “delightful, delicious, disgusting” in the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, vol. 60 no. 3 (summer, 2002): 217-225. 10 korsmeyer, carolyn. (2011). savoring disgust: the foul and the fair in aesthetics. oxford: oxford university press. 11 heldke, lisa. “but is it authentic? culinary travel and the search for the ‘genuine article’” in in the taste culture reader. experiencing food and drink. carolyn korsmeyer (ed.) 2005. oxford: berg: 385-394. 12 bordieu, pierre. “taste of luxury, taste of necessity” in the taste culture reader. experiencing food and drink. carolyn korsmeyer (ed.) 2005. oxford: berg: 77. somaesthetics and food53 eating out as eating in dichotomies, and combinations that belong to food and eating. specifically, the conflict i aim to consider is the one between “eating in” and “eating out.” these two terms, which taken by themselves are rather vague and hard to define, encompass a set of associated concepts that i will divide into the three aforementioned headings of “terroir,” “home,” and “kitchen.” what i find interesting about these terms is that they are often associated with eating experiences that are radically different from the highly sophisticated and glamorous descriptions characterizing haute cuisine. and yet, i hope to show, the sense of familiarity, intimacy, and comfort evoked by these terms might be precisely what is at stake in contemporary haute cuisine. terroir terroir is a complex term; a term one might want to dedicate to more than a short section in an article. yet, for my purposes, the concept of terroir is probably the easiest to analyze. traditionally associated with the french culinary tradition, terroir’s meaning is related to both a specific geographical location and to how such a location is felt, recognized, and remembered by the people inhabiting it. the relationship between the land and the local population is, in this sense, the starting point for the creation of the sensual and practical connotations characterizing the products of terroir. in her analysis of terroir, amy trubek traces the origin of the “goût du terroir,” the specific combination of taste and tradition (or of tasting the tradition) described above, to two sources. on the one hand, terroir is directly and somewhat literally linked to the roots of someone’s history and to the very soil of a region. in this sense, the goût is interpreted as the taste that the soil can give to a product. on the other hand, the concept of terroir and the idea of a goût du terroir are instead seen as largely cultural, if not economic, constructions. as trubek writes: …beginning in the early 1900s, a group of people began to organize around this naturalized connection of taste and place, for they say the potential benefits of a foodview celebrating the agrarian and rural way of life. french taste-makers – journalists, cookbook writers, chefs – and taste producers –cheese-makers, wine-makers, bakers, cooks – have long been allied in an effort to shape taste perceptions. taste producers and taste makers intervened in an everyday occurrence, eating and drinking, and these advocates guided the french toward a certain relationship between the soil and taste, le goût du terroir.13 [emphasis in the text] these two sides, one linked to nature, location, and a sense of origin, the other to the inventiveness of culture and following enterprises (commercial and not) seamlessly cooperate, in the best of cases, in channeling the attention to the protection and preservation of the lands, techniques, and traditions that risk to be forgotten or wiped out by the mass and low quality production that often impinges upon the food industry. furthermore, and most importantly for our purposes, terroir has been able to connect the respect for a specific environment and its products to a sense of identity. the products of terroir are not only local, they are also “authentic” in their ability to signal and enforce identity. the goût du terroir is thus better understood as the synesthetic feeling that connects a product to the cultural and social history surrounding it. while defining a culinary tradition, terroir becomes a way of characterizing the identity of the people inhabiting a specific place. it is precisely this latter, more complex feeling combining taste, identity, and authenticity 13 trubek, amy. “place matters” in the taste culture reader. experiencing food and drink. carolyn korsmeyer (ed.) 2005. oxford: berg: 263. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 54 laura t. di summa-knoop that has been embraced by haute cuisine. as mentioned at the beginning of this section, the concept of terroir is one of the easiest to observe within fine dining. terroir relies on localism, on simple, authentic flavors, and on the sense of being familiar with a region or land, tied to it, belonging to it. these concepts are essential to the contemporary food scene. an obvious example is the restaurant noma in copenhagen. rené redzepi, chef and owner, engineers his nine course menu around ingredients from the immediate surroundings of the restaurant. redzepi’s creative power is borne out of the recognition of the potential of terroir, and it is propelled by the difficulty of limiting the menu to what is locally available. since 2010, noma has been voted three times number one in the world’s 50 best restaurants list; it is featured in a number of cooking show (including david chang’s the mind of a chef), and, after being at the center of several documentaries, is now the main topic of noma, the perfect storm, which recently premiered at berlin film festival. less grandiose, but nonetheless significant, is the number of chefs leaving buzzing urban centers and food capitals such as new york to open “farm to table” restaurants in rural towns. in “an upriver current”14 published in the new york times in the summer of 2013, julia moskin chronicles the journey of renowned city chefs to the hudson valley, which is, one may say, becoming to new yorkers what napa and sonoma are to san franciscans. new yorkers are, in other words, starting to enjoy and to identify themselves with products of new york, from the immense success of brooklyn-made products and markets like smorgasburg,15 to the farms of the hudson valley. these and other forms of localism, whether in the form of markets, restaurants, or through the initiative of both communities and farmers are, because of their connection to notion such as terroir, creating a new sense of intimacy, identity, and familiarity. historically, new yorkers have long emphasized and preserved their respective “terroirs;” a city composed largely of immigrants, new york is a mecca of local, authentic products, and it comes to no surprise that “eataly,” the enormously successful store selling fine italian food, has opened its american branch here, a block from the flatiron building. yet, with the exception of the products immigrants have historically brought with them and added to the culinary landscape of the city, new york relies on a much less sophisticated list of local foods: hot dogs, new york pizza, and bagels. this is, i believe, changing. the haute cuisine of new york is creating new gustatory experiences by combining the local reality of present new york with neighborhood traditions. new american restaurants such as cesar ramirez’s chef ’s table at brooklyn fare (on which i will soon return), have inaugurated a new phase that, while superb in its attention to technique, quality, and presentation, is largely focused on the recreation of a sense of intimacy and familiarity with food and its “terroir.” the grocery store located above the restaurant claims: our goal is to be a centerpiece of the brooklyn community and your 21st century neighborhood grocer. a place you and your family will come back to again and again for gourmet groceries, delicious prepared meals and more. a place where you’ll find the prices and processes of a modern day supermarket, with the perks and service of an old-school neighborhood grocer.16 as a term, terroir has been associated with a specific past and its related traditions. haute cuisine, as in ramirez and redzepi’s case, has proven how the idea of terroir can be introduced through 14 moskin, julia. “an upriver current” new york times, accessed january 27, 2015, http://www.nytimes. com/2013/08/14/dining/city-chefs-head-to-the-hudson-valley-lured-by-fresh-ingredients.html?pagewanted=all 15 http://www.smorgasburg.com/ accessed january 27, 2015 16 http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about accessed january 27, 2015 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/dining/city-chefs-head-to-the-hudson-valley-lured-by-fresh-ingredients.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/dining/city-chefs-head-to-the-hudson-valley-lured-by-fresh-ingredients.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/dining/city-chefs-head-to-the-hudson-valley-lured-by-fresh-ingredients.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/dining/city-chefs-head-to-the-hudson-valley-lured-by-fresh-ingredients.html?pagewanted=all 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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/dining/city-chefs-head-to-the-hudson-valley-lured-by-fresh-ingredients.html?pagewanted=all http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.smorgasburg.com/ http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about http://www.brooklynfare.com/pages/about somaesthetics and food55 eating out as eating in the discovery of “potential terroirs” such as copenhagen or brooklyn. noma and chef ’s table at brooklyn fare are incredible restaurants because they have re-interpreted the concept of terroir and brought it to different centers and locations. they have donated an intimate gustatory past to the people of copenhagen and brooklyn. home the second concept we find associated with the notion of food and eating as familiar and intimate practices is what i simply summarized with the term “home.” by “home” i mean, of course, the dinner table, but also the idea of entering a specific environment, a home, as either its owner or guest. home dinners, and the food served at such dinners, have been topoi of the literary tradition since antiquity. take, for instance, petronius’ satyricon. petronius’ book xv, “dinner at trimalchio,” is a satirical, immensely character oriented, rendition of a fabulous feast held by the vulgar and boisterous trimalchio at his home. petronius alternates three descriptions: the house, the dinner, and a portrait of trimalchio; the descriptions overlap, they complete each other, and they highlight how a home and a dinner can be indicators of the person who is hosting it. trimalchio’s home is trimalchio, as his dinner is a manifestation of his personality: both aspects that, needless to say, advance the readings and interpretations offered by the satyricon. dinners set at home are also widely present in film. la grande bouffe (ferreri, 1973) features a group of friends, and foodies, who retire in a villa with the goal of indulging in a vast array of sexual and culinary pleasures (of hardly hidden morbid nature) until their eventual death. sardonic and grotesque, the film is a stellar example of the relation (some may say conflict) between transgression and desire in the consumption of food “at home.” the highly elaborate dinners cooked, and the “excess of delicacies” are a reflection of the persons they are, or have become: persons whose narrative arc, in its peculiar aesthetic and moral qualities, can only unfold in a confined environment where excesses, but also weaknesses and wickedness can fully develop. at the opposite end of the moral spectrum we find films such as eat, drink, man and woman (ang lee, 1994), a touching portrait of the life of an aging chef and his three daughters. the four of them sit together around the table where, while eating the father’s dinners (a famous chef ), they bring up novelties and secrets in their lives. the dinner table is here the channel through which all what happens in the house is revealed. in eat, drink, man and woman, food is seen in its most delicate and suiting light, as a vehicle for family conversations and as the means through which families express a feeling of intimacy and community. dining at home is in this sense related to the disclosure of who we are as persons, of our secrets, habits, and character features, together with the presentation of the conflicts and difficulties that surround us. lastly, when focusing on the symbolic value of dining at home, it is impossible not to mention the function of home dinners as one of the leading aspects of hospitality. being invited to dinner is very different from eating out. to start with, an invitation implies some kind of acquaintance with the host; acquaintance might in turn be related to close friendship or, as it often happens at dinner parties, to a certain curiosity – the desire, to put it simply, to know someone. home dinners can be formal, a display of fine china, crystal glasses, and polished silver cutlery, but they also allow for the exact opposite. after all, guests are typically asked to “make themselves at home,” to relax, and to close an eye on a service that, like any service in any family, is unlikely to be perfect. finally, home dinners rarely have a menu and they rely instead on what the cook (and frequently also the host) decides to make. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 56 laura t. di summa-knoop this series of combinations and the intertwined dynamics of families, persons, and the codes – formal and not – of hospitality are also, to a large extent, at the core of craig thornton’s work. thornton is a young, successful chef working in los angeles. in the past years he has become famous for an underground event, wolvesmouth, held at wolvesden – his loft in downtown los angeles. dining at wolvesden is not easy; you are asked to sign up to a list and “when it happens” you might be contacted via email and invited to one of the dinners. a dinner at wolvesmouth puts together sixteen strangers – picked (sometimes) according to their affinities and (sometimes) according to their diversity. a menu features nine to twelve elaborate courses, courses that are forever experimental – thornton never adopts the same recipe twice, and he hardly tastes his creations. thornton’s dishes, presented quite crudely through a list of their ingredients, follow a specific aesthetic. meat is hand-torn and sauces and reductions in bright colors cut through the dishes unevenly. there is something savage about them, but also the impression of a newfound balance. differently from the harmonious compositions of formal dining, his dishes come alive on the plate, they invite reflection, if not the very need of reconstruction. diners are able to trace back the origin of a dish to its ingredients, and to gaze at thornton’s intervention. a skinny young cook with a cascade of long hair tucked up in a makeshift chignon, thornton chooses his home to let the food disclose his personality. dining at wolvesden is an experiment in aesthetics and ethics. the hypersensitive quality of his food and of the apartment in which the courses are served suggest a new dimension of dining and of what it means to dine at home. in a world that constantly dines out, wolvesmouth is an intrusion. you go out to walk back in and, by doing it, you become conscious of the implications of having to share food with other persons and personalities, a food that, in its unique quality and presentation, is meant to interrogate all the diners. they will talk about it as a group, or, perhaps, as a new family. kitchen the last component of our triad, kitchen, brings our reflection to an end, or closure, by narrowing the focus to what can be metaphorically understood as an intimacy of food itself: the moment and stage in which food, before becoming a meal, “gets dressed.” kitchens are deeply experiential and highly synesthetic environments. the smell, look, and sound of a kitchen are often tied to vivid memories belonging to intimate and familiar aspects of our daily life. before kitchen islands took over, most of us ate in the kitchen, right next to boiling pots, knifes, and to the uncooked food that was to become our meal. we cleared the table and remained there, using the kitchen as a little, cozier living room reserved for family members and close friends: imperfection and comfort underlining the familiar aspects of kitchens while highlighting their uniqueness. cooks, professionals and not, recognize the importance of kitchens in their culinary education. yotam ottolenghi, who is largely responsible, with his column in the guardian, for changing the way english people think of food and approach food at home,17 fondly remembers the small kitchen in amsterdam where, as a young student of philosophy, he cooked for a steady group of friends.18 massimo bottura, the chef and creator of the three stars michelin restaurant osteria francescana, which revolutionized the culinary tradition of emilia romagna and most 17 http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi accessed january 22, 2015 18 kramer, jane. “the philosopher chef ” in the new yorker, december 3, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi http://www.theguardian.com/profile/yotamottolenghi somaesthetics and food57 eating out as eating in of italy’s northern regions, spent his childhood under the kitchen table.19 the seeds of bottura’s culinary sophistication, and of dishes that are capable of flirting with eccentric flavors as well as avant garde art – as the dishes offered in his menu “sensations” – were planted in a kitchen that loved traditional ingredients, laborious, but simple preparations, and the occasional 3 a.m. pasta “aglio, olio e peperoncino.” in the case of ottolenghi and bottura, kitchens have become fragments of memory; they embody a sense of origin and intimacy, an origin that symbolizes their initiation, more or less conscious, to the world of fine cuisine. but kitchens are not just the training camp of master chefs. we are today beginning to observe a reconfiguration of the dynamics related to kitchens and to a re-conceptualization of the role of kitchens in the overall process of a meal. restaurants such as the aforementioned chef ’s table at brooklyn fare, or blanca, opened in 2012 by chef carlo mirarchi in brooklyn’s last rediscovered neighborhood, bushwick, are aesthetically, as well as practically, functioning kitchens. a stainless steel counter is, it seems, good enough to be a table, and no guest is truly supposed to be bothered by the presence of a severed pig’s head – as long as it is part of the menu. the vicinity to ingredients, stoves, and plates “in composition” provides the guests with a more complete dining experience. diners at chef ’s table at brooklyn fare sit close together, they share their opinions on food; they actively participate in each step of the preparation. this is, fundamentally, a twofold activity. on the one hand, they are learning to see food for what it is, and they are, with the chef, allowing for its transformation. on the other hand, they become conscious of a process, eating, that involves, as active performers, chefs and eaters alike. one might have the feeling, while dining at chef ’s table, of doing more than eating; and yet, eating is exactly what everyone is doing. what changes is the recognition that eating is never passive and that we are, as diners, working and experiencing a kitchen with the chef – and with all those memories and feelings that kitchens personally inspire in each of us. conclusions and assessment in this essay, i proposed an interpretation of contemporary haute cuisine based not on its highend and elite features, but on its ability to evoke, shape, and re-invent the sense of intimacy and familiarity given by traditional or home cuisine. to prove my point, i relied on how a number of chefs and restaurants have embraced the ideas of familiarity and intimacy through the concepts of terroir, home, and kitchen. while showing how wide and nuanced the world of contemporary cuisine is, the examples provided invite us to consider, with constantly renewed attention, the cognitive, experiential, and philosophical questions that fine cuisine is proposing to a growing public. haute cuisine should not solely be regarded as an aesthetic spectacle for the few, but as a way of changing the very nature of culinary experience. the changes i highlighted in this paper are based on haute cuisine’s ability to reinterpret and appropriate concepts that are typically associated with much more traditional eating practices and milieus, concepts that are in turn challenged in such a compelling variety of ways that calls, i believe, for the attention of philosophers. in the case of terroir, haute cuisine has shown how authenticity can be created anew through the investigation of undiscovered, potential terroirs that include urban environments, such as brooklyn and copenhagen, as well as new regions, such as the hudson valley, that are effectively claiming the status of terroirs. haute cuisine is, in this sense, a first step into the creation of what 19 kramer, jane. “post-modena. italy’s food is bound by tradition. its most famous chef isn’t” in the new yorker, nov. 4, 2013. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 58 laura t. di summa-knoop are bound to become gustatory traditions. the notion of “home” brought us from the creation of traditions to their reinterpretation. a meal at wolvesden is indeed a meal served at home, but it compels its guests with a savage presentation of ingredients, with the encounter of other, non-familiar patrons that are, however, asked to dine together. craig thornton plays with the notion of a familiar environment only to carefully dismantle it. as a result, we are left with the task of reconfiguring notions, the notion of home and dining at home, but also the very emotions that we had previously associated with them. the change is sociological and cognitive at once, it acts on a personal and on a collective level; a dinner at wolvesden can alter the security of homes and of the home food we have been trained to rely on. but dissonance and challenge are not the only ways in which haute cuisine plays with more traditional concepts. serving a meal where the meal is prepared and allowing the patrons to watch each step of its preparation is likely to empower them. from passive consumers, the guests are given an active role, the one of participants and observers. as in the case of performance art, the audience is engaged to a higher degree, thus becoming more profoundly aware of the experience of food, an experience that goes beyond savoring a dish. a further observation emphasizes the importance of the experience described. “chef ’s tables” are becoming increasingly popular in urban centers where a large portion of the population ignores, or hardly remembers what it means to eat in the kitchen. they do not know, in other words, what it truly means to “eat in.” in cities where the adopted practice is to eat out and order in, dining out while dining at a kitchen table is a way of, somewhat oxymoronically, re-enacting a “forgotten” experience in a contemporary key. in my introduction, i specified how, rather than making the question of whether food is an art our priority, we should be concerned with its experiential value. i am now willing to admit that, when it comes to the examples provided in this paper, the equation of food with art might not be mistaken. great art explores and challenges the way we perceive; it allows for the discovery of what perception is capable of while elaborating on ideas and concepts that are crucial for us as human beings. haute cuisine is, i believe, very close to this goal. contact information: laura t. di summa knoop assistant professor of the practice of philosophy fairfield university e-mail: eirenelaura@gmail.com introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 96 page 96-99max ryynänen a handful of takes on the body max ryynänen in 2019, 20 years after the publication of “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal”, one can say that somaesthetics has become the low-threshold platform for discussing the philosophy of the body. it has likewise become the most multicultural philosophical discourse on the soma when one thinks about its roots, where no philosophical traditions are absent. i keep on meeting people who criticise the somaesthetics discussion for lacking philosophical rigour and depth. as rigour and depth for many professionals of philosophy mean that the discussion craves heavy background studies, and that all discourse has to come with long footnotes on the history of philosophy, i have started to think that the “lack of rigour and depth” is the strength of the discussion. it provides a window into philosophies of the body for those who are not that deep into the discipline. in this way, it has also become an interdisciplinary platform. what i conceive as the philosophical ground of the debate, i.e. john dewey’s philosophy of the body and experience, and richard shusterman’s contemporary reading and application of it, does have rigour and depth, anyway. interestingly i often find that discussions on somaesthetics somehow lack a connection to this base, which could reward more attention. the problem is also visible in the fresh aesthetic experience and somaesthetics (ed. richard shusterman), where 13 authors discuss somaesthetics and the progenitor of the theoretical movement, richard shusterman, comments on the texts in the introduction. the book is based on a four-day conference held in budapest in june 2014, but has been expanded later with new authors. shusterman, in his introduction for the book, addresses somaesthetics to be “the critical study and meliorative cultivation of the body as the site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning. a field that seeks to integrate theory and practice, somaesthetics argues that our sensory perceptions (…) can be improved by cultivating one’s somatic capacities that include both sensorimotor skills and powers of body consciousness.” (p. 1) he accentuates that behind the whole debate and practice we find the philosophical analysis of aesthetic experience. most art has a somatic side, but olafur eliasson’s art is definitely a special case with its optic (use of glass and colours), ambience-based nature. else marie bukdahl, the artist’s former teacher, interviews eliasson in “olafur eliasson, art as embodied and interdisciplinary experience”. it is sheer enjoyment to read the dialogue, especially the parts where the two discuss for example ice blocks or the praxis of art as concrete learning and doing (pp. 68-69). the discussion about passive consuming and the way artists have wanted to activate the audience (p. 62) also includes many fresh takes, although i must say, that i myself am for a “leave the audience alone too” type of approach, as the majority of artists today, at least in my territory, want to “wake up” and somaesthetics and technology97 a handful of takes on the body “activate” people. there are, though, passages which made me raise my eyebrows, and which i hope the two could go back to rethink. at one point (p. 64), eliasson says that the body has not been much discussed in the art world. i am astonished. i hear and see body talk everywhere, not just when i work with dancers and choreographers, but also when i meet people from the visual arts. where does eliasson’s experience come from? is it real, or is it an echo of an art world which we have already surpassed? are eliasson’s networks and the scenes where he works so different? when the two discuss the issue of experience economy versus art’s “lost and found” attitude (p. 67), by hierarchically putting the experience economy below art, my own note would be that eliasson’s career partly stems from the way in which his work also functions well in the experience economy. one can digest his work with all the might of sensitivity, attitude and focus gained from artistic education, but most “fans” probably seek an “erlebnis” or something to post on instagram/facebook. the selfie success of aarhus’ art museum (aros), where eliasson has worked out a colourful glass corridor on the roof, shows this. could one use the term “bilateral art” (ted cohen) here, as might work well in both contexts? yanping gao’s unorthodox text on the central european founder of european antiquity, johann winckelmann, takes the body into a discourse about gazing and glancing. gao points out that winckelmann clearly made a difference between glancing, which is more of an eyething, and the gaze (p. 72), where the eyes become “quiet”, and the encountered aesthetic object overcomes the ego (this reminds me of indian rasa theory where the bliss of art overcomes the ego through the strong senses of sight and sound). according to gao, winckelmann attended the lectures of baumgarten, the founder of the discipline of aesthetics. gao claims, though, that baumgarten was antisomatic, and this is a passage i have a hard time digesting, as baumgarten worked so much on the optic, instrumental side of how we can and should approach art. as winckelmann’s somaesthetic passages are an issue even in the manifesto of the discussion, “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal”, i think gao should have somehow explained his view. the news is anyway grand: the fact that winckelmann was actually working on a somatic framework in his discourse on the gaze, as this way of looking, he thought, engages the whole body. herder wrote (according to gao, p. 77) that eye turned into hand in winckelmann’s work, and winckelmann himself wrote of some statues, like the apollo, that they are “tactile” (78), so actually overcoming the visual. gao also makes interesting notes on the way winckelmann writes about sensuality, for example hair in statues (81-82). here one could have asked, could a small leap into dewey’s and shusterman’s thoughts on engagement have provided a theoretical framework for gao? i.e. was winckelmann’s gaze a form of deweyan engagement, and if so, in what way? and, what is the cash value of gazing in winckelmann’s way? elisabetta di stefano, who is one of the foremost philosophers of the everyday in europe today, discusses cosmetic practices, neatly following the problematics gao touches upon in her article. she studies well the strain of philosophical notes classical authors in central and southern europe have been making on the issue. in “cosmetic practices: the intersection with aesthetics and medicine”, beautification becomes an idea of historical matters. the text starts, though, with a take on seminal contemporary artists such as mona hatoum, stelarc and orlan. why? i am not sure if this in the end helps in understanding the very everyday-centred notions on looks di stefano works out in her article. could it have been more productive to pick up experimental everyday pioneers like the human barbies and kens, to the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 98 max ryynänen pinpoint the weight of the historical journey di stefano lays out? di stefano’s approach is fresh, and it shows how we often do not think enough of the historical depth of surface matters. makeup and hair from xenophon to contemporary times is also a textual issue. di stefano presents an interesting historical work, trotula de ruggiero’s women’s cosmetics (11th century), the first cosmetic treatise, and i will definitely at some point opt for reading it. she also writes about the way popular culture focuses a great deal on the body as a locus of self-fashioning. philosophically speaking i am lacking, in di stefano’s concluding remarks, the philosophical spearhead of what we learned from the classics and how to continue on the chosen path so wittily examined by this palermo-based philosopher. and thinking about dewey/shusterman, and the theme of aesthetic experience, one could have asked, could a paragraph on aesthetic experience and its pragmatist theory been a helpful aid for grasping the issue when we anyway experience both when we beautify ourselves and when we see others beautified? éva antal’s “spectral absence and bodily presence: performative writings on photography” discusses, for example, jacques derrida’s book demeure, athènes. in the book derrida wrestles with the moment of taking a photo, the theme of death and photography, and the way in which the remains of everyday life continue their life in photos. she continues by discussing the role of being and becoming an object/subject in photos, touching of course also on shusterman’s work with yann thoma, where the philosopher adventures in a golden suit in a performative manner. as experience was the topic of the book, i was again wondering whether dewey’s thoughts would have helped here. are moments when photos are taken or looked at moments of fulfilment? does the endless flood of photos today, where we (philosophers and non-philosophers) are often subjects and objects at the same time (selfies), just add to the fragmentation of experience? what is needed to gather our fragmented field of experience today? and is this something which happens in a more reflective performative act like shusterman’s? anne tarvainen presents an interesting practice of singing and reflecting on it from a bodyphilosophical point of view in her text “singing, listening, proprioceiving: some reflections on vocal somaesthetics”. the end, which claims that there could be a lot to learn just when one discusses talking as a bodily activity, is just stunning, but otherwise i cannot but think that tarvainen’s way of carefully analysing in pornographic detail a practice like singing is definitely one bright future for the somaesthetics discussion. still, i would ask: could a stronger reflection on the deweyan framework of experience have been helpful here? as dewey was himself a practitioner of alexander technique, i am sure it would have been possible to conduct an analysis from that perspective. singing, for sure, channels organic energies. what could we learn from it in connection to dewey? alexander kremer’s work on gadamer and his relationship to somaesthetic thoughts and experience (related to pragmatism) is a great exegetic work. truth and scientific method were at odds with each other for gadamer, and thinking of him as a “philosophical relative” to dewey is a good topic for understanding the history of the 20th century philosophy of art and culture. béla bacsó’s “experience and aesthetics” also does good basic work in mapping out ideas on experience in relationship to the deweyan approach, picking up themes such as the openness of art and how it gets finished in interpretation. these historical texts on ideas balance the book well with basic philosophical matters. vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian write in length about mira nair’s in tantric circles already classical kamasutra (1996). “thinking through the body of maya: somaesthetic frames from mira nair’s kamasutra” is quite a pedantic reading of what happens in nair’s film somaesthetics and technology99 a handful of takes on the body from massage to sexual education. as the film is situated in a world not yet inhabited by the central european art system, which through colonialisation and diaspora overshadowed the kala system and the broad variety of aesthetic practices of india, i myself started thinking that it could have been interesting to ask how differently all these practices of ars erotica (shusterman’s ongoing writing project) would have been framed (as this word was even used) in the system which now no longer exists. it is anyway a fact that many practices were developed in another kind of context, and that theories of aesthetic experience were also developed in a context differing from today’s postcolonial one. for example, theories of rasa could have given insight here, not just for the practices discussed, but also for the filmic interpretation of the story. ars erotica also had a role in the kala system. at the end of the article i was also asking for an outcome of the analysis. maybe one could reframe it: what could one learn from a movie focusing on someone’s aesthetic and erotic education? all in all, aesthetics and somaesthetics is an engaging, well-written and well-edited book. (i am not discussing all of the texts, but have concentrated on what has touched me.) while its variety of approaches show the broad nature of the discussion on somaesthetics, one feels, though, even more now, inclined to think that the connection to the basis of the discussion (dewey’s and shusterman’s theories of aesthetic experience) must somehow be re-established. as the theories seem to still hang around as regulative horizons for thinking – no one is really working out an alternative – this could probably be the next step. following dewey’s thinking, the book, for me, offered moments when the fragmented energies of my body, my memories, my skills acquired in differing contexts, and my intellect came, from time to time, together, and made me enter “an experience”. like a beaver building a dam, which in the end just picks branches and moves them around a bit, i was left touching the pages and sniffing the book (it smelled like glue as it was fresh), finishing my fulfilment as somatically as i could. i can recommend the book to anyone interested in the philosophy of the body, not just somaesthetics. here, somaesthetics has anyway showed its potential for being the philosophical discourse of the body for a long time to come. richard shusterman (ed), aesthetic experience and somaesthetics (leiden – boston: brill, 2018). incl. texts by richard shusterman, catherine f. botha, béla bacsó, alexander kremer, else marie bukdahl, yanping gao, bálint veres, john golden, anne tarvainen, éva antal, elisabetta di stefano, nóra horváth, vinod balakrishnan and swathi elizabeth kurian. page 41–51 somaesthetics and sound41 the somaesthetics of musicians: rethinking the body in musical practice the somaesthetics of musicians: rethinking the body in musical practice jungmin grace han abstract: motor skill acquisition is a key element of playing western classical music. musicians’ repetitive practice demands instrument-specific skilled movement that results in automatic and habitual routines after achieving a certain level of techniques. professional musicians as a consequence tend to shift their attention to cultivating abstract musical ideas, less thinking about their performing body. this narrative study explores through two musicians’ somaesthetic reflections how the awareness of the sentient body influences their lifelong musical development. it demonstrates that the body itself becomes a malleable musical entity, in which technique and musicality are simultaneously achieved. the study challenges the conventional division between “low” bodily technique and “high” artistic thinking which has been pervaded in the current theory and practice of musical performance, enlivening the somaesthetic concepts through lived musical experience. keywords: body awareness, instrumental education, lifelong learning, mind-body, musical capacity, music education, music performance, musical practice, selfawareness, somaesthetics, transformation. prologue the idea of body-mind dualism has been pervasive in western philosophy. in dominant strands of ancient greek and cartesian dualism, the body is conceived as being physical and ephemeral, and the mind as a permanent entity. as a result, the mind has often been valued over and above the body (merleau-ponty, 1964; johnson, 1987). richard shusterman (1999), who first coined the term “somaesthetics”, challenged a key issue permeating philosophy and aesthetics. he argued that despite our embodied nature, the notion of the body is mostly neglected, and the body itself is considered to be “a mere physical object for artistic representation or a mere instrument for artistic production” (shusterman, 2012, p. 1). this notion applies to more than just philosophy and aesthetics. despite the idea that the body is an essential element in the creation of music and art, western classical music performance has long been influenced by this dichotomized concept of body and mind, which involves the binary conceptions of bodily technique and musical thinking in the theory and practice of music performance. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 42 jungmin grace han professional musicians, as a consequence, tend to shift their attention to cultivating abstract musicality, as if they do not need to concentrate on their skilled movements after achieving a certain level of technical skill which most likely results in the habitual unconscious routines of performance. john toner and others (2016) have similarly discussed the notion of habitual routines in performing arts, saying, “we are told that skilled performers do not need to think about their actions” (p. 50). this elucidates the corollary myth that outstanding musicians are born talented, as if there is a predetermined level not attainable by every musician. this misguided conception hinders the true musical potential of individuals and overlooks the essential role of the body as a transformative subject, that is capable of creating and actualizing an artistic ideal into living sound. conversely, rediscovering one’s bodily capacity allows the enlargement and rediscovery of one’s musical capacity. shusterman (1999; 2004; 2009; 2012) have developed an understanding of the body as the key to understanding oneself and the world. he has discussed how experiential bodily awareness helps us re-educate and expand ourselves. he suggested that “from this somaesthetic perspective, knowledge of the world is improved, not by denying our bodily senses, but by perfecting them” (1999, p. 302). he also argued how our bodies exist as the essential agent of lived experience, for example, by improving awareness of our bodily states and feelings beyond the body’s external representation. shusterman (2008), in his book, body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics, described how four different levels of consciousness are involved in the practice of somaesthetics (pp.53–56). the four levels are: level 1: corporeal intentionality – sleep; a primitive mode of grasping without conscious awareness level 2: primary consciousness – emotion invoked by background music, a reaction of the body to dancing, but not being explicitly aware of our actions: conscious perception without explicit awareness level 3: somaesthetic perception – explicit bodily awareness; playing an instrument involving a focus on the activity, rather than the consciousness of the situation without analytic reflection level 4: somaesthetic reflection or self-consciousness – a focus on self-awareness; an analytical reflection requiring awareness of one’s own awareness while professional musicians have undoubtedly reached the third of these four levels of consciousness: the somaesthetic perception of the specific motor skill acquisition necessary to play an instrument, the level beyond the somaesthetic perception—what shusterman calls somaesthetic reflection or self-consciousness—has often been overlooked in conventional musical practice. such a tendency has hindered potential of musicians to transform and grow. based on my own transformative experience as a musician, i specifically conceptualize how increased experiential awareness of the performing body enables musicians to renew their capacity for the sound emanating from their instruments. the recovered sound ultimately enhances the capacity for musical expression, eventually restoring musical capacity and capability, as per the sequential phases herein described: somaesthetics and sound43 the somaesthetics of musicians: rethinking the body in musical practice phase 1: newly discovered performing body phase 2: rebuilt relationship between the musician and the instrument phase 3: expanded sound capacity phase 4: recovered freedom of musical expression phase 5: restored malleable musical capacity and capability in this narrative study, i explore the perspectives and knowledge of the performing body as an essential element for musical transformation and growth. based on the narrative inquiry (clandinin & connelly, 2000; clandinin & rosiek, 2007; clandinin, 2013), this article explores the experience of two musician-teachers, with the aim of discovering the meaning of somaesthetics beyond the theoretical perspective. it directs attention to the potential influence of the lived experience by understanding the musical growth and transformation rendered through the voices of musicians. i have borrowed shusterman’s term “somaesthetics,” which refers to the “sentient lived body, rather than merely to the physical body in appreciation of aesthetics” (2012, p. 5). for this study, i developed the semi-structured interview protocol with the three themes: the performing body-mind, musical performance, and education. the interview questions included “what is your daily practice like?”, “if there is a true or ultimate level of performance, what would it be like in your mind?” and “do you have any memories of becoming aware of your body?” the criterion for participation in the study was that musicians and educators must have had experience of musical and educational growth through bodily awareness as musicians and teachers at the time of the study. two college professors of the cello in musical performance were recruited; david and julia (pseudonyms) have respectively 46and 25-years’ experience in performing and teaching in the united states. two separate initial interviews with david and julia took two hours and one hour, respectively. after 25 hours of work transcribing the interviews, a one-hour follow-up interview with david was further conducted to revisit some of his ideas from the initial meeting. their somaesthetic narratives were all analyzed and reconstructed in their first-person voice to call forth their experiences as the fundamental source of knowledge about the body in the context of music performance. i then reinterpreted their narratives according to two categories; body in the musical self and body in musical practice. the narratives david’s narratives “in 1994, i did not know i would reach a turning point in my life until i went to see my chiropractor to release my back pain as usual. surprisingly, after the treatment, my neck began to hurt, and even worse, i ended up not being able to move my left arm for eight months due to the neck injury. my doctor kept insisting that there was no option but a major operation to my neck. he told me i would be paralyzed otherwise. instead, i chose to heal myself by adopting new bodily habits. not only am i now in much better shape than i was before, but i also became a better musician and teacher. every morning, i reacquaint myself with the cello, recreating the relationship between the cello and myself; myself and the cello. i do this in many different ways, letting me feel, for the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 44 jungmin grace han instance, how i am experiencing my weight today; how i must organize myself to get ready to play what i’m about to play; how fluid and fluent things are within me. i believe the cello also feels different every day. the relationship between us therefore needs to be rebuilt daily. i get back to basics to find out how we (the cello and i) are doing today before starting to work on different things. for example, when i get up and my lower back feels stiff or my left shoulder blade is stuck for some reason compared to yesterday, the outcome on the fingerboard of the instrument will be audible. my entire approach to the cello depends on my daily feelings and finding out how we (the cello and i) relate to each other at that present moment. this requires consistent, ongoing awareness of how i feel every time. i therefore relate to the cello and search for fluency and fluidity in my body. the fluency and fluidity are then directed to the music that i’m creating. i cannot separate the music i’m creating from what i’m feeling within my own body. if i look for fluidity or phrases in the music without feeling it in my body, i sense a conflict between my body and the music that i want to create. when i play musical phrases, the musically sensitive audience is especially able to sense whether i am struggling with something in my body that makes me feel uncomfortable. even though i manage to play the phrase well, despite the discomfort in my body, i cannot fully express my musical ideal in sounds because of the battle between my body and the instrument. all the musically sensitive ears listen to every little struggle that i go through. for me, musical phrases always start within my own body. i have an image of a phrase in my head, and then through my movements, the image is translated and transferred into my movements with the cello and into the sound at the end. if you want these things to flow, your body needs to organize itself appropriately to anticipate the change in movement. for example, for a bow change on a string instrument, your upper arm is already in a new direction, and then it takes over before you get to the tip of the bow; not only your arm but also the rest of your body needs to know what is happening in your arm. the fluency and fluidity can easily be blocked somewhere in your body unless you pay attention and open channels and create new sensations with your bodily sensitivity. this is something that i always learn and develop every time i play music. you play, not to maintain what you have already learned, but to discover new things. we can learn as long as we live. the primary catalyst for this somatic journey is the music i am creating. i am always looking for better music. the ultimate goal of exploring my performing body is to achieve sound and music, which will then lead to the mellifluous freedom of creating and phrasing certain sounds that i ultimately want to express. in general, western society values the intelligent cognition functioning at the front of the brain highly. the sensory part, the other part in us, is widely neglected in our society. however, the sensory, kinesthetic component in us can teach us much more than the intellectual, cognitive part, providing we learn how to become open to our sensual perceptivity and pay attention to what it is telling us. i believe this should be cultivated more in our education. our body tells us so many different things, distinct from a cognitive way of thinking, which entails monolithic and mechanical guidance of certain rules in a linear, sequential, and abstract mode. for example, your teacher tells you what to do: ‘play an open g string with a down-bow. anticipate the bow change and then put your second finger on e flat on the g string.’ the sensuality, in contrast, guides you to feel how this open string feels to you when it is just open; how my arm feels when it’s on the down-bow, and how it feels different from the upbow, and so on. once you’re open and aware of all these subtle mixed feelings in relation to the movement, you can guide yourself by getting immersed in those bodily sensations in response somaesthetics and sound45 the somaesthetics of musicians: rethinking the body in musical practice to your music. i want my students to experience all those different little sensations with their bodies, as this will immensely enrich their music. i learned that exploration is key to true learning and teaching, rather than dictating what should be done and how it should be done. exploration, in contrast to the end result, offers the opportunity for learners to embark on their own journey in search of their own musical ideals, and their own answers about what is best for them. i am not there to provide them with the facts. i am there to facilitate an environment for their musical and personal growth by encouraging them to keep on exploring and looking for things. i’m there to challenge them to open up and see where they are, and what else is there of which they’re not yet aware. the world does not need another me. the world needs someone unique. you stay unique if you understand yourself more. we all have habitual routines when using our bodies. once you realize what your habits are, you’re then exposed to other ways of applying yourself. and you will then provide the system with fresh ideas. this sequence enhances your ability to move, leading to increased possibilities for the creation of different sounds within your body and from the instrument.” julia’s narratives “when i became older, i could feel i was in a place where i wasn’t free. i felt that my playing had become dull and painful. and then i was hungry to be free. somehow, i had never quite got into the very fundamental technique of the cello, especially the right path of my arm over the whole bow. my college teacher opened up my experience. he was able to get me to play more freely than i could on my own. yet, i could not do it again when i went back to the practice room by myself. i then realized the importance of knowing how my performing body was working with the instrument and how it was engaging with the mental side of my body. it was indeed a humbling experience to refigure the path of my arm on the bow. it shifted my whole paradigm. i believe that nothing is complicated now. the power is returning to the beginning levels of music, and i can play it more freely. in both my music practicing and teaching, i explore what it means to balance and be aware of all the elements of playing. for example, there is a lot going on when breathing between the tension and release of our energy; regular contraction and expansion. awareness of what we’re doing liberates us in a way that unfolds the complexity of what we’re doing in music playing. in elements of playing, i consider integrating and balancing the left and right sides of my body, both the physical and mental release of tension in any place on both sides and full expression. my awareness of my performing body is interconnected with these elements of playing. for example, i ask myself, “is this issue related to what’s happening in my left side?” “what is happening in my right arm?” and “does it cross strings or change bow?” my consciousness in integrating and balancing my two sides ultimately helps me experience the full expression of music. for example, one of my practice routines of slurring with every note offers me a sense of whether i should shift what’s happening in my right arm and left hand. i also experience sounds in relation to my pulse. sounds are always connected to what is happening in my pulse. i started to move my feet back and forth while i’m playing, thus forming a new habit. therefore, my musical capacity is still a work in progress without limitations. to me, love really matters in my playing. i sang my 12-year-old son a lullaby for seven years because he couldn’t go to sleep without me singing to him, despite my terrible voice. if you listen to a recording of my singing, you would think, ‘how could a baby fall asleep to that kind of voice?’ but what was there, every time, was love. i’ve thought about how i can bring the intimacy the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 46 jungmin grace han of playing the cello more directly to love since i have realized the power of love as a mother. it is not about how impressive my playing is. you aren’t trying to impress when you sing a lullaby to soothe a four-year-old with fever. it is impossible to let your ego govern you when you are in this kind of situation. music isn’t about me. music speaks most powerfully when my ego fades away. my definition of true performance is when the musician is out of the picture and the piece of music has a life on its own.” the somaesthetics of musicians the body in the musical self david interchangeably used “my body” and “myself ” or “me” quite frequently. for example, he said, “every morning, i reacquaint myself with the cello … how fluid and fluent things are within me … search for fluency and fluidity in my body … if i look for fluidity or phrases in the music without feeling it in my body, i sense a conflict between my body and the music that i want to create.” david also mentioned, “knowing how to apply oneself ” a considerable number of times during the interview, as the equivalent of being aware of how to use and apply one’s body. his notion of the body as the musical self indicates that bodily awareness is a pathway to selfimprovement, and self-improvement is achieved through the exploration of different sensations and feelings embedded in bodily movement. in other words, david believes that the process of developing bodily awareness enables an inward gaze and awareness of the self. david’s perception of the body as “a large system that constitutes emotional and physical parts with different layers,” is indicative of possible preexisting “layers” in the body’s system, which can be rediscovered through the elimination of former bodily habits and the exploration of new bodily movements. he views the body as a system within which layers are latent and can continue to be cultivated. the system of the body is, in other words, the retainer of thoughts and feelings beyond its interconnection with the mental state. thus, david’s concepts of “feelings” and “thoughts” appear to be indispensable to attaining a holistic experience of the body. he suggests that deepening bodily sensitivity or a sensory/kinesthetic experience leads to new sensations that ultimately create a new system. in other words, musical transformation and growth can be achieved and completed by changing the state of bodily movement, so that the understanding of bodily awareness becomes an ongoing process that leads to the achievement of self-rediscovery. based on david’s experiential knowledge, i developed a visual conceptualization, depicted in figure 1. as you can see from the picture below, david’s experiential knowledge tells us that the system of the body can be renewed by heightening bodily sensitivity through the exploration of bodily movements and feelings, ultimately leading to self-rediscovery. julia’s account provides further evidence that increased bodily awareness during a musical performance is a pathway to physical, mental, and emotional liberation. according to her experiential knowledge and practice, “full expression” is actualized by performing bodily awareness, with optimal integration and balancing of the body in particular. it seems that bodily awareness in her practice has been developed through a process of becoming aware of contraction and expansion, or the tension and release of power in the body. based on her principal knowledge of bodily awareness, she advocates that musical capacity is a work in progress, “as bodily sensitivity has no ultimate end,” she said. her reflection comes from her belief that the ‘ideal’ sound is first created from your ‘inner ear,’ or imagination. imagining sounds that are based on the “inner ear” cultivates bodily sensitivity in order to meet somaesthetics and sound47 the somaesthetics of musicians: rethinking the body in musical practice the musical ideal of living sound. julia’s understanding of bodily awareness as a work in progress is depicted in figure 2, in which experiential knowledge points to a specific suggestion about the use of the body that ultimately leads to the full expression and freedom in performing music. figure 1: from bodily awareness to self-rediscovery figure 2: from disruption of “entangled” bodily habits to full expression and freedom the body in musical practice david’s perspective on musical practice indicates that the way in which a musician organizes and coordinates their body with the instrument actively crafts certain sounds as the outcome. he said, “the sound, phrasing, and everything that we channel directly into the instrument relies on our freedom of movement because our movement is what elicits the sound.” he viewed the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 48 jungmin grace han musical sounds as another agent of the self, and what it genuinely wishes to communicate to others: “the more genuine you are to yourself, the more your music touches others’ souls ... it is dangerous to impress or please others with fast fingers because you don’t know what you’re sacrificing.” david frequently used the term “exploration” when referring to his musical and teaching practice. his notion of exploration speaks to searching and improving oneself, a concept that relates to his educational philosophy that the sheer value of music is closely tied with selfawareness. his statement that “we can improve legato (‘smooth’) as long as we live,” powerfully informs us that the development of bodily sensory experiences leads to new daily discoveries. his musical practice is in line with his perspective that the process of cultivating lived sounds depends on his understanding of his performing body (figure 3). this finding turns out to elaborate my own understanding of enhancing musical capacity through body awareness, as previously described. figure 3: the process of sound cultivation within the performing body the process can be summed up as david: • reacquainting himself with himself and his cello every day (he explained that they both felt different every morning); • exploring fluency and fluidity in his body at a “sensory” and “kinesthetic” level; • gaining access to the “new system” in his body; • searching for fluency and fluidity in sounds as an actual outcome; • consulting himself as to whether or not the actual musical sounds were the ones somaesthetics and sound49 the somaesthetics of musicians: rethinking the body in musical practice he had sought in his imagination and/or whether the musical ideal had been reflected, and therefore achieved, in the sounds; and • reverting to the beginning and repeating the sequential process until he was able to discover a new system in his body and the sound possibilities that met his musical ideal of living sounds. julia’s approach to bodily awareness as a musician and as a teacher is somewhat more explicit: • release the left side of the body, • release the right side of the body, • integrate and balance the two sides of the body • leads to full expression of music julia’s ultimate goal as a teacher, similar to david’s, was to help her students to become aware of themselves and understand what they are capable of and who they are. what remains distinctive about her approach, in comparison to david’s, is her idea that self-awareness is tied to the concepts of loving others, creating music that is connected to the heart, and releasing ego. she supported this idea by providing an example of her personal experience singing lullabies to her child. loving others decentralizes the innate power of the ego, rending it unnecessary, and results in a connection to the heart of others. epilogue the most predominant theme identified in the two musicians’ narratives was the value of “selfawareness” as the ultimate purpose of musical performance and education. they both also believed that music is a vehicle to self-understanding and a belief in the world, and that the sole purpose of playing music should not be pleasing others but rather be expressing what it truly means to oneself. the role of imagination in musical expression was also revealed in david and julia’s somaesthetic reflections. in relation to what they perceived to be ideal musical phrases and sounds, imagination was essential to challenging habitual musical thoughts and movements and to recovering the bodily sensitivities of their musical practices. their somaesthetic reflections, what shusterman considers to be the highest level of consciousness, were distinctive in that the idea of bodily exploration was key to david’s somaesthetics, while julia focused on the mind of the musician. david believed that heightening bodily awareness through feeling and exploring bodily movements was an important means of achieving self-awareness as a musician and educator. david’s exploration of his bodily knowledge and practice as a musician and teacher was evident. in other words, his exploration and cultivation of different feelings in his body informed his lifelong learning as a musician. the concept of exploration in david’s musical practice transferred to his pedagogy, in that he guides learners in exploring themselves by posing them questions, rather than providing the definite “how-to” answers that he has acquired from his own musical practice. the idea of exploration in his musical and educational practices recalls shusterman’s (2004) argument that “[e]ducation is not so much a matter of working on particular emotions or movements, but of reorganizing or retraining habits of feeling and movement and habits of conduct to which the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 50 jungmin grace han feeling and movement contribute” (p. 57). this is compatible with david’s belief that bodily awareness leads to lifelong musical learning and growth. by contrast, julia contemplated self-awareness in the abstract, particularly the relationship between ego and love, based on her dual identity as a mother and professional musician. she believes that one can obtain liberation from integrating performing bodily movements and increasing bodily awareness. conversely, from david’s perspective, freedom principally means the ownership that he had come to possess as a musician and teacher rather than musical playing itself. his concept of freedom as ownership is also manifested in his teaching practice of giving his students choices by which to explore different ways of playing music, either as independent musicians or, possibly, as teachers later in their development. while the approaches that these two musicians take to somaesthetic reflections are distinctive, their experiential knowledge is lived through maxine greene’s (1975) contemplation of the true meaning of education: the chain of daily gestures must be broken. the habitual rhythm of experience must be interrupted … freedom may indeed be thought of in terms of beginnings and interruptions, even as it is thought of in connection with being reflective and self aware. the person chooses to break the chain of causes and effects, of probabilities, in which he normally feels himself to be entangled. he breaks it in part by asking “why?”, by perceiving the habitual itself to be an obstacle to his growing, his pursuit of meaning, his interpreting and naming of his world … the individual, aware of being blocked in some way, must posit the situation as one in which there are alternatives, as well as obstacles, to be overcome. to do this, he must have the capacity—or enabled to gain the capacity—to reflect upon the situation in its concreteness (p. 7). self-awareness is key to self-transformation. the somaesthetic reflections of the two musicians demonstrate that the performing body itself can be a pathway to a malleable musical capacity if we can break, what maxine greene calls “the chain of daily gestures” in musical practice. through this recovered musical capacity, the ideal technique and musicality are simultaneously achieved, leading to a musician’s lifelong learning and growth. by bridging theory into the practice of somaesthetics, this study advocates the potential influence of the lived musical experience on academic studies. it is essential for future studies, to continue exploring lived experiences as foundational knowledge of the body and musical practice. references clandinin, d. j. & connelly, f. (2000). narrative inquiry. new york, ny: jossey-bass, wiley. clandinin, d. j. & rosiek, j. (2007). mapping a landscape of narrative inquiry: borderland spaces and tensions. in clandinin, d. j. (ed.), handbook of narrative inquiry: mapping a methodology (p. 35–75). california: sage publications, inc. clandinin, d. j. (2013). engaging in narrative inquiry. new york: taylor & francis. greene, m. (1975). education, freedom, possibility. new york, ny: teachers college columbia university lecture note. johnson, m. (1987). the body in the mind. london, uk: the university of chicago press. merleau-ponty, m. (1964). the primacy of perception: and other essays on phenomenological somaesthetics and sound51 the somaesthetics of musicians: rethinking the body in musical practice psychology, the philosophy of art, history and politics. evanston, il: northwestern university press. shusterman, r. (1999). somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57(3), 299–313. shusterman, r. (2004). somaesthetics and education: exploring the terrain. in l. bresler (ed.), knowing bodies moving minds: towards embodied teaching and learning (pp. 51–61). dordrecht, the netherlands: kluwer academic. shusterman, r. (2008) body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. new york, ny: cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2009). body consciousness and performance: somaesthetics east and west. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 67(2), 133–145. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. new york, ny: cambridge university press. toner, j., jones, l., & moran, a. (2016). bodily crises in skilled performance considering the need for artistic habit. performance enhancement & health, 4(1–2), 50–57. introduction to issue number 1: page 59-71 somaesthetics and food59 the 0 km movement the 0 km movement: everyday eaters enjoying edible environments jean-françois paquay and sue spaid abstract: despite somaesthetics’ primary focus on producers’ roles, we’ve notice that when it comes to food, somaesthetics tends to jump sides, shifting its loyalties to consumers, as they discuss eaters, while neglecting farmers. since most of the world’s citizens, as well as its philosophers, inhabit cities, we thus propose urban farming as a somaesthetics case study. to analyze whether urban farming suits somaesthetics, we begin with a discussion of urban farming’s absence from aesthetics, even as food remains de rigeur. we next demonstrate how aesthetic experiences associated with urban farming collapse artistic and esthetic distinctions. after debating whether somaesthetics should be considered a subset of everyday aesthetic practice, we finish by analyzing whether urban farming’s capacity for well-being makes it a potential somaesthetic enterprise. one explanation for urban farming’s absence from somaesthetics is that its success is due more to luck than the disciplined will that guides successful somaesthetic practices. for urban farming to work as a somaesthetic practice, we believe it would require raising the “foodies’ bar”! that is, for fields like farming, which are largely unpredictable, yet are no less somaesthetically dynamic, somaesthetic practitioners must adopt unconventional ways to reward their penchant for hedonic highs, so that they can continue to push themselves higher and higher. keywords: urban farming, well-being, foodies, producers, consumers, everyday aesthetics, insouciance, o km movement, somaesthetic practices, organic farming i. introducing philosophy’s food dilemma1 in this essay, we offer several explanations for the lack of attention given to food within the field of somaesthetics. despite somaesthetics’ primary focus on producers’ roles, we’ve notice that when it comes to food, somaesthetics tends to jump sides, shifting its loyalties to consumers, as they discuss eaters, while neglecting farmers. everybody eats, yet hardly anyone produces food, so focusing on the role of eaters is not entirely surprising. were farming not so unmanageable, one imagines the achievement-oriented field of somaesthetics being better suited to production than consumption. when it comes to somaesthetic practices, however, one easily recognizes the potential for food consumption to boost somatic efficacy, which we describe in greater detail below. if one does a little digging through the philosophical literature, one soon realizes that food production remains a relatively uncultivated aspect of philosophical inquiry, so it’s hardly alarming that somaesthetics has yet to make inroads in this field. not one of philosophy’s three food tomes (food for thought: philosophy and food (1996), making sense of taste: philosophy of food (2002) or les nourritures: philosophie du corps politique (2015)) addresses food production 1 michael pollan first used “food dilemma” in his october 17, 2004 editorial to the new york times, where he introduced the now famous “omnivore’s dilemma.” we use “food dilemma” to describe the false dilemma posed by philosophy’s obsession with eating. divorced as it is from farming makes it seem as though food consumption can be discussed independently of its production. but, as they say, “you are what you eat!” jean-françois paquay and sue spaid the 0 km movement the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 60 jean-françois paquay and sue spaid in any substantial way. philosophers seem more focused on whether food counts as a major or minor art, arguing for a duty (or not) to feed the whole planet, reappraising the gustatory sense of taste; or explaining how food, unlike most activities, connects human beings around the world (what corine pelluchon terms vivre de (or living from)). since most of the world’s citizens, as well as its philosophers, inhabit cities, we thus propose urban farming as a somaesthetics case study. to analyze whether urban farming suits somaesthetics, we begin with a discussion of urban farming’s absence from aesthetics, where food remains de rigeur. we next demonstrate how aesthetic experiences associated with urban farming collapse artistic and esthetic distinctions. after debating whether somaesthetics should be considered a subset of everyday aesthetic practice, we finish by analyzing whether urban farming’s capacity for well-being makes it a potential somaesthetic enterprise. one explanation for urban farming’s absence from somaesthetics is that its success is due more to luck than a disciplined will, which guides somaesthetic practices. we thus conclude that urban farming could work as a somaesthetic practice, but it would require raising the “foodies’ bar”! for fields like farming, which are entirely unpredictable, yet are no less somaesthetically pleasurable, somaesthetic practitioners must find alternative ways to reward their penchant for striving to push themselves higher and higher. ii. urban farming’s absence from aesthetics over the past few years, there has been a burgeoning “0 km” food movement, first in spain and more recently in italy, focused on the significance of truly local food that originates less than one kilometer from where it is sold or served. it might seem that such an opportunity, however positive its contribution towards reduced transportation costs, self-sufficiency, food security, and vitamin-rich food remains out of reach for most of the world’s inhabitants. not only does half of the world’s population inhabit cities, but few climates support food production required to meet community needs year round. moreover, the percentage of the world’s population inhabiting cities is expected to reach 70% by 2050, making the “0 km movement” seem an even more distant prospect. with this paper, we explain why the “0 km” movement is not just for elite eaters keen to splurge on rarities like antique varietals or artisanal charcuterie. in fact, cities like rosario, argentina, which has had a booming urban farm movement since its economy collapsed in 2001, prove that supportive city policies can grow 800 farms in just two years, while engaging 1800 people in meaningful work, however part-time. rosario’s urban farms have secured enough food to feed 40,000 people, lifting 250 urban farmers’ families out of poverty.2 of course, cities with populations of 4 million or 40 million would require locating space for 80,000 and 800,000 similarly-sized plots, respectively, numbers that numb the senses with every new census. in addition to the many practical benefits already mentioned, edible environments tender aesthetic experiences that philosophers of food, aestheticians, and agricultural ethicists have overlooked. we can say this with some degree of confidence since urban farming is nowhere discussed on the remarkable website the philosophy of food project.3 of 237 food-related papers chosen for springer’s massive (1860 pp.) 2014 encyclopedia of food and agricultural ethics, the single entry addressing urban agriculture was co-written by a geographer and environmental scientist.4 to be clear, most people employ “farm” to convey scale, but we use 2 http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/greenercities/en/ggclac/rosario.html 3 http://www.food.unt.edu/ 4 m. njenga and c. gallaher (2014). somaesthetics and food61 the 0 km movement it to convey the cultivation of comestibles, reserving the practice of gardening for inedible plants.5 more specifically, we mean organic farming practices, whether biodynamic, biointensive or permaculture, since these approaches connect farmers to their environment in ways that commercial schemes that require purchasing equipment, soil, fertilizer, pesticides, etc. avoid. aestheticians have only recently begun to work on gardens, so perhaps the philosophy of farming is coming down the pike.6 since philosophy of garden books tend to totally ignore food, our tying gardening to inedible plants is consistent with the philosophical practice to date. still, philosophers prefer hard problems. everybody eats, so what’s the problem? of course, everybody doesn’t eat, which has given rise to food and agricultural ethics, as a subset of bioethics. one obvious explanation for philosophers’ perpetual oversight is that some still consider urban farming more a renegade activity, if not sheer fantasy, than a viable model worth defending or in need of critique. urban farming just isn’t ripe for philosophical debate the way nature, taste, disgust, authenticity, and co-authorship are. yet, these routine aesthetic topics are also urban farming issues, if one recognizes farms as nature, preferences as taste, soil as disgusting, organic farming as more authentic and farming as co-authored activities. that said, so long as philosophers of food and food ethicists rank taste, food safety, and food insecurity over food production, esthetes and foodies will merit greater philosophical ink than community gardeners, horticulturalists and farmers who labor to sustain our interests, as well as our plates. in our opinion, urban farming offers aesthetic experiences on par with those discussed by philosophers contributing to the fields of everyday aesthetic practices and somaesthetics. although urban farming’s primary goal is practical (growing food to be eaten), its success as an aesthetic experience is independent of food yields. urban farming provides numerous aesthetic opportunities as participants: heighten their awareness of their environment, attune themselves to seasonal changes and intra-species variation, and gain an appreciation of chronological time, as seeds develop and plants evolve into harvestable comestibles. one could compare an urban farm to an opera with its unidentifiable background sounds, desperate protagonists, costume changes, striking sets, erratic tempos, and peaks of excitement. finally, urban farming is one of the rare forms of cultivation that requires producers to combine approaches typically considered at odds (practical/aesthetic, order/chaos, artistic/esthetic, convivial/tedious, impulse/discipline) in indeterminate combinations. unlike ordinary self-improvement schemes, one’s having a strong will, good eye, and systematic approach prove insufficient to guarantee an abundant harvest down the road. and in fact, the plethora of indeterminate, external factors (climate, weather, soil, pests, water, eaters’ demanding preferences) lends urban farming its dramatic edge over most kinds of aesthetic activities. that said, it is even more surprising that somaesthetics, which arose to affirm aesthetic attention to the body and admittedly cherishes fitness and exercise, has overlooked the basic nourishment that energizes those very same bodies undergoing training and grounds what richard shusterman terms “somatic efficacy.”7 somaesthetic primers like shusterman’s pragmatist aesthetics and performing live implicate, though never specify nourishment, despite his remarking that “the senses surely belong to the body and are deeply influenced by its condition [emphasis ours]. our sensory perception thus depends on how the body feels and functions; what it desires, does, and suffers.”8 from the get-go, shusterman predicted that the 5 s. spaid (2012), p. 42. 6 recent philosophy of garden books include stephanie ross’s what gardens mean (1998) and david e. cooper’s a philosophy of gardens (2006). 7 r. shusterman (2000a), p. 269. 8 r. shusterman (2000a), p. 265. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 62 jean-françois paquay and sue spaid plurality of tastes would be one of somaesthetics’ greatest challenges.9 philosophical discussions regarding fitting diets pose an even steeper hurdle, since diet, with its vast array of divergent opinions, contrary beliefs, and localized customs; is probably the world’s most pluralistic and divisive topic, despite the mountains of hard evidence concerning nutrition. a potentially fatal medical ailment is more likely to persuade eaters to adopt diets that maximize somatic efficacy than sound philosophical argument. even so, nourishment requires the freshest food possible, originally inspiring the “0 km” movement. iii. collapsing the artistic  esthetic distinction nearly eighty years ago, john dewey employed the term “esthetic” to denote “the consumer’s rather than the producer’s [artistic] standpoint. it is gusto, taste; and, as with cooking, overt skillful action is on the side of the cook who prepares, while taste is on the side of the consumer, as in gardening there is a distinction between the gardener who plants and tills and the householder who enjoys the finished product.”10 rather than separating production and consumption, he sought to show how these roles flip flop. one day we farm, then we cook, and a few days later, someone else serves us something to eat. even if only a small fraction of eaters (5% in rosario) are involved in the food production (artistic), most people regularly prepare food, and nearly everyone is a food appreciator (esthetic); and especially when they’ve had a hand in its production. urban farming thus collapses the artistic/esthetic divide, since it compels public engagement and outside involvement in ways that activities tied to cultural production rarely do. even if the delight or appreciation associated with gardening non-edible plants or decorating one’s bodies with tattoos is generally magnified when shared with others, the producer’s satisfaction doesn’t depend on consumers. the tango genius or sartorial whiz enjoys his/her own efforts, even when no one else notices. absent eager eaters, the ingénue farmer’s heirloom wonders are wasted. in contrast to gardening, farming for one makes little or no sense. whether a single household or a neighborhood plot, the community of eaters influences what’s to be grown, just as what’s ready to be harvested determines what to expect for dinner! with urban farming, artistic production and esthetic appreciation go hand in hand. because urban farming connects eaters to food production, it poses an interesting activity for philosophers interested in heightened aesthetic experiences, as well as those seeking a greater awareness of our world. in this paper, we articulate the philosophical relevance of urban farming in light of everyday aesthetic practices and somaesthetics. our findings shed a little light on urban farming’s role for environmental aesthetics and food and agricultural ethics, which we discuss in the conclusion. while city inhabitants routinely use a city’s roads, sewer and watermanagement systems, one imagines a smaller proportion engaging its parks, public space, public transportation, or schools, yet all have equal access to these public resources should they want them. in light of the potential for urban farming to enhance well-being, citizenship, connectedness, and feelings of ownership, as discussed below, it’s difficult to grasp why communities, especially cities, remain reluctant to integrate urban farming into their topologies. urban farms not only heighten well-being among participants, but they offer public goods on par with roads, public transit, public space, sewers, water management, and schools; and aesthetic experiences on par with public monuments, green space, and commercial centers.11 9 r. shusterman (2000a), p. 263 and 282-283. 10 j. dewey (2005), p. 49. 11 artist-farmers frequently cite well-being as a reason for taking up farming. s. spaid (2012), pp. 34, 121, 181 and 227. somaesthetics and food63 the 0 km movement one explanation for city planners’ reluctance to incorporate urban farms is that urban farming has typically been initiated at the grass roots level, leaving agriculture experts to focus on large-scale rural farming. others worry that farm-runoff and wastes pollute, rendering urban farms, however small, more blight than delight. we suspect that there are not (yet) enough experts to guide city planners in the arena of urban farm design, the way consultants steer the implementation of new public works. alternatively, urban farms modeled on systems like jeanfrançois paquay’s portager® could find easy implementation without requiring city planners to become urban farming experts or to bulldoze buildings to make more space. portagers (portable potager (french for kitchen garden)) present numerous advantages for people, whether city dwellers or apartment renters, who lack access to land for subsistence-farming purposes. portagers (each container is 30cm x 30cm) can be sited anywhere one finds small pockets of well-lighted empty space -alongside railroad tracks, creeping up sidewalks, edging buildings, populating gardens, outlining driveways, trailing freeways, bridging parks, enlivening seventiesera concrete parks, encircling aughties-era skate parks, or on roofs, terraces, and balconies. like ordinary farm rows, portagers require plant rotations, yet their portability reduces land insecurity, since farmers can readily move and store them, as new sites become available or old ones change hands. moreover, each container can easily be repositioned to reflect weather changes (too much sun, not enough shade, too much wind, not enough water...) or quickly replanted should some plants die off, while others fail to take root. portagers offer especially low maintenance solutions for urban farmers forced to make quick decisions or lacking in long-term contingency plans. finally, portagers offer park-like dining arenas, situating everyday eaters amidst edible environments that encourage conviviality, while granting endless opportunities for creative self-styling, socializing, and dwelling modification. although this paper addresses urban farming in general, we offer paquay’s portagers as a viable model, thus grounding this paper’s theoretical content in an actual solution. iv. everyday aesthetic practice vs. somaesthetic enterprises those who worry that somaesthetic discourse has overlooked food and drink may be relieved to know that aestheticians focused on everyday aesthetic practices (everyday practices for short) routinely debate the merits and philosophical relevance of home-cooked meals, dining rituals, peeling oranges, packaging leftovers, packing picnics, gardens, homemade beer, and japanese tea ceremonies.12 like most somaestheticians, everyday aestheticians find inspiration in dewey’s seminal text art as experience (1934) and focus more on actively-engaged doers than appreciative consumers. citing dewey’s “doctrine of meliorism,” somaestheticians privilege popular activities that cultivate beauty, require mindfulness, and encourage practitioners to push through to ever higher distinctions and fulfillment levels. it’s important to remember that shusterman’s move to defend popular pastimes like t’ai chi, akido, feldenkrais method, and myriad other body-fitness activities actually arose as an argument to counter richard rorty’s valorization of the “aesthetic life,” whereby free individuals who have escaped inherited selfdescriptions reconstitute themselves in “a ‘new’ language the past never knew.” shusterman responded, “but why can’t our autonomy be expressed in the freedom to define ourselves through an already existing life-style or language?”13 thus was born somaesthetics’ focus on accredited 12 japanese-born philosopher yuriko saito brings to life the way japanese culture gives place (and time) to tea ceremonies, orange peeling, gift wrapping, and trash packing, thus elevating routine endeavors to creative activities (saito, 2013, p. 172). carolyn korsmeyer discusses similar activities in making sense of taste: philosophy of food (2002) 13 r. shusterman (2000a), p. 254. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 64 jean-françois paquay and sue spaid enterprises that foster self-transformation as a progressive plan and place physique secondary to enhanced awareness of felt experiences, while eschewing herculean strength. in restating his alternative to rorty’s “aesthete,” shusterman poses: “[b]y addressing enterprises not typically taken as aesthetic –not only martial arts, sports, meditative practices, and psychosomatic therapies, but the core philosophical tasks of self-knowledge and self-mastery, somaesthetics threatens to burst the bounds of a narrowly aesthetic discipline.”14 in rereading somaesthetics texts some ten years after having first studied them, this field seems particularly accomplishment or achievement-driven, which is a good, since being goaloriented serves to distinguish its aims from those of everyday practices. to be sure, somaesthetics values self-improvement over sheer competition, as in beating competitors for the sake of winning. by contrast, everyday practices seem, well, fundamentally ordinary, primarily focused on ongoing, common activities, even those that are not particularly aesthetic. one imagines somaestheticians appreciating chef-wizards, or even cooks appearing on tv contests that reward some combination of innovation and classic skills, while everyday aestheticians applaud a memorable homemade, chicken-noodle soup. somaesthetics seems to have found inspiration in classically greek notions of arête (excellence) and agathos (goodness), which guides its identification of the beauty inherent in nonart practices. having distinguished somaesthetics as primarily focused on achievement-oriented enterprises that facilitate personal growth, we next analyze urban farming, however seasonal (as opposed to everyday), in light of everyday aesthetics, before discussing how urban farming suits somaesthetics. v. urban farming and well-being according to kevin melchionne, being an ordinary object or having the everyday as an artwork’s content does not make it part of everyday life. “it is the regular morning coffee, the acknowledgement of the evening sunset, or the mere raising of a blind after waking that imparts everyday aesthetic value to the window.”15 he restricts “everyday aesthetics to the aspects of our lives marked by widely shared daily routines or patterns to which we tend to impart an aesthetic character.” he identifies five particular areas where the dual features of everyday pervasiveness and aesthetic character coincide –food, dwelling, conviviality, going out, and wardrobe. one can imagine urban farming intersecting all five daily spheres. donned in their outdoor get-ups and specialized gear, urban farmers connect with others in particular locales, where food is grown and eventually harvested for shared meals. melchionne notes that it “is the ongoing nature of the practice, not the genre of the object, say, folk or mass-produced, that makes for the everyday.” echoing dewey’s appraisal of food’s esthetic significance, he remarks that “[we] prepare meals and appreciate the meals made for us with respect to aesthetic features.” melchionne remarks that everyday aesthetic practices include common, ongoing activities that don’t necessarily have aesthetic components, thus qualifying edible environments as everyday aesthetic practices. for those who counter that urban farming is too uncommon to count as an everyday aesthetic practice, we would argue that its rarity reflects its unavailability. were it available, parents might opt to organize farming outings for kids, the way suburbanites encounter corn mazes.16 fortunately, his characterization avoids polarizing debates –aesthetic vs. nonaesthetic, art vs. nonart, or practical vs. useless– that might otherwise disqualify urban farming as exemplary of 14 r. shusterman (2000a), p. 278. 15 k. melchionne (2013). 16 it sounds crazy that corn mazes arose as a money-making scheme to generate profits from cornfields. kim severson, “farmers find path out of hardship with corn mazes,,” new york times, october 29, 2012. http:// www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/us/corn-mazes-help-farmers-make-ends-meet.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 somaesthetics and food65 the 0 km movement everyday aesthetic practices. as already noted, urban farming collapses the gap between producers and consumers, since these roles are interchangeable. even if very few people readily admit to having green thumbs, the activity of growing food, however seasonal, in portable farms like portagers, can hardly be considered esoteric or overly rare. with a little supervision and encouragement, most people would at least try to grow some food for home consumption, whether enough salad for one or two summer meals, or a massive quantity once one gets the knack. one can easily imagine the sense of accomplishment felt by hosts who announce that their salad was grown on the premises. one anticipates them feeling an overwhelming sense of pride in not only growing, but selecting, picking, sorting, washing, preparing, and serving locally-grown lettuce leaves. one also envisions hosts feeling a sense of self-sufficiency, camaraderie with fellow farmers, and connection to place, even though their vegetables were not grown directly in the ground. portagers trailing along train tracks, winding along sidewalks or skirting the bases of buildings, proffer a sense of place, no differently than seeds planted in one’s backyard. this sense of place reflects neither one’s ownership of one’s edible environment nor mastery over its domain, but attention to and kinship with an overall environment that includes birds, rodents, insects, micro-organisms, and adjacent plants. in fact, portagers work best when they are densely planted, giving users and observers special awareness of the efficacy of soil, biodiversity, and companion plants. as time goes on, and urban farmers gain confidence using their portagers to grow food in situ, one imagines producers continuously replanting portagers all year long (using makeshift greenhouses), owing to their capacity for continuous food production. portagers help to attune human beings to kinship, since one’s food supply and meal plans are “hitched” to events with unpredictable cycles and inexplicable time spans, far beyond the cook’s control. one might even be inspired to exchange one’s bounty or expertise with other urban farmers, gardeners, and cooks, thus reviving ever more classical kinship models, based on mutual interdependencies. melchionne especially appreciates everyday practices’ distinctive capacity to promote well-being. urban farming fosters three features that he identifies as especially conducive to well-being –autonomy, flexibility, and insouciance. although somaesthetics shares everyday aesthetics’ twin goals to ameliorate ordinary activities and facilitate well-being, it’s difficult to imagine somaestheticians praising insouciance (indifference) with such elan, as they simultaneously strive for excellence. he considers “everyday life [as] marked by an economy of effort, a minimum of planning, and the easy integration of the aesthetic into routines with amendments and variations along the way.” his focusing on ongoing activities excludes holiday feasts and home decoration, while his focus on common activities prohibits the pianist’s finger exercises and the japanese tea ceremony, though he acknowledges tea ceremonies’ role in elevating “the everyday to a ceremonial occasion,” even if it is not part of everyday life. in his attempt to grasp the value of everyday aesthetic life, melchionne wonders whether “everyday aesthetic practices are too ephemeral or superficial to have an impact,” even worse, so common that they prove inconsequential in the long run. alternatively, fine art objects “merit our attention because they reflect skill and insight,” while their complexity and richness sustains critics and audiences. moreover, everyday aesthetic practices tend to be “pursued in private and, when there is public conversation, it is largely consumerist.”17 he thus worries that everyday practices merit our attention only when they occur in the context of fine arts, where public access engenders reflective judgments. 17 k. melchionne (2014). the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 66 jean-françois paquay and sue spaid melchionne considers subjective well-being to arise when individuals: 1) enjoy positive feelings, 2) have few negative ones, 3) are satisfied in their main pursuits, and 4) give their lives positive evaluations. because positive emotions tend to engender ever more positive emotions, he views well-being as occupying a dynamic equilibrium (range varies over time, but doesn’t stay long at extremes), whose factors typically correlate with happiness, as positive emotions compound into an upward spiral.18 to make an impact, “positive emotions must be ongoing, generating further positive emotions, lifting us consistently to the higher end of our hedonic range.” “negative states, on the other hand, like anxiety and depression, tend to narrow attention, decrease effectiveness and lower subjective well-being.”19 melchionne’s description of the hedonic treadmill (what humans do to maintain their highs) seems better suited to somaesthetics than everyday aesthetics, whose insouciance, economy of effort, and a minimum of planning afford easy integration of the aesthetic into daily routines. for him, “[h]edonic regulation can involve, for instance, selecting the situations we put ourselves in, modifying them, determining the strength and nature of our attention, controlling responses, and determining our attitudes.”20 all of this “hedonic talk” recalls shusterman’s earliest account of a body undergoing aesthetic functioning as a “beautiful experience of one’s own body from within –the endorphin-enhanced glow of high-level cardiovascular functioning, the slow savory awareness of improved, deeper breathing, the tingling thrill of feeling into new parts of one’s spine.”21 similarly, melchionne’s linking emotional intelligence to one’s ability to self-regulate moods befits somaesthetic practitioners exercising their willpower, though not necessarily everyday aesthetic practitioners, whose notably low-key attitudes both reflect and ensure their continued well-being. urban farmers who employ portagers, or similarly flexible systems, routinely encounter indeterminate factors (climate, infestation, pests, disease) that lie beyond their control, making it a less than an ideal activity for those seeking to achieve, let alone boost or sustain hedonic highs. several related activities, like operating a food stand or writing a food blog, seem better suited for achieving desired outcomes. psychologists have observed that well-being increases in response to work, relationships, living arrangements, and finances. sustaining hedonic upticks is not so easy. what remains (post-hedonic high) is “what we do on an everyday basis.” melchionne recognizes that those who regularly modify their everyday practices, so as to avoid routine, nurture both their personal identity and life’s meaning. even “[t]he distressed benefit from the positive emotions generated from self-controlled and self-concordant activity. although the activities themselves may not solve problems, they reduce anxiety and depression while increasing focus and efficacy.”22 if by “self-controlled and self-concordant” activities, he means intended, purposeful, or desired actions, then we can imagine everyday aesthetic practices, such as urban farming, reducing anxiety and depression. we doubt, however, that those who exercise self-control by attempting to outsmart external factors like food yields, consumer satisfaction, or efficiency of time spent coursing the hedonic treadmill, will alleviate their distress. fortunately, most of urban farming’s rewards are not tied to the success of food production. melchionne rightly views self-generating activities like varying one’s practices as “stand[ing] a much better chance of influencing well-being than the occasional encounter of high or popular 18 barbara fredrickson and thomas joiner, “positive emotions,” psy science, march (2002). 19 k. melchionne (2014). 20 k. melchionne (2014). 21 r. shusterman (2000a), p. 262. 22 k. melchionne (2014). somaesthetics and food67 the 0 km movement art, such as attending museums or concerts from time to time,” since fine art activities are rather intermittent, and are entirely consumerist. he remarks, “when well-being is brought to the foreground, everyday aesthetic practices turn out to be rich in possibilities while the fine arts seem challenged as a framework for human flourishing, except perhaps for the artists themselves.” still, “practices that challenge yet still permit mastery are more likely to generate well-being than practices that are too easy to engage us or are so difficult they lead only to frustration.”23 for melchionne, aesthetic competence requires knowing which activities sustain one’s hedonic highs. from the standpoint of subjective well-being, one’s traversing the hedonic range adds aesthetic value. there thus seems to be a fine balance between everyday practices that challenge individuals and offer growth opportunities, and fine-art practices like painting that require decades to master and remain out of reach. so long as the goal is neither perfection nor all-out mastery, everyday aesthetics suggests that urban farmers could enhance their well-being without having to win blue ribbons at the “urban-farm fair”. creative acts deeply and positively influence makers’ well-being, which is why everyone involved in urban farming benefits, even those who lack the knack or are really not interested to secure food for their tables. although melchionne worries that some might view his position as advocating “art therapy” or privileging “happiness over social injustice” (the latter led some feminists to reject the riot grrrls’ overtly non-political strategy), it seems a fitting outcome of everyday aesthetics. as soon as social scientists recognized that participation trumps political change, the academic field of “happiness studies” arose to explain why neither greater income, nor higher living standards significantly improved well-being. “research shifted from external to internal factors or, in other words, how dispositions, inner resources, and coping tendencies support, well-being [emphasis ours].”24 if non-political factors do reliably improve people’s lives, as the case of the mid-nineties riot grrrls movement proved, one can imagine urban farming making a huge difference, especially since nothing sustains “inner resources” like locally-produced vegetables. it should be noted that well-being enhancers like autonomy (“i will”) and self-sufficiency (“i can”) recall political philosopher hannah arendt’s definition of freedom as being where the “i can” and “i will” intersect. freedom is yet another source of happiness that stems from inner resources. pinpointing exactly how everyday aesthetic activities engender well-being is hard, yet one easily imagines urban farming eliciting positive feelings. so long as one finds ways to keep the activity low-key, flexible, autonomous, interesting, and enjoyable as an activity in itself, and freed from external factors such as harvest yields, outside competitors, economic reward, public recognition, attention, and especially sustained hedonic highs, urban farming stands to enhance the well-being of producers and consumers alike. what we’ve thus far discussed hints at one possible reason why somaesthetic discourse has overlooked food production, whether urban farming, gardening, or exquisite cuisine. despite their practical aims and necessity for daily life, such activities are largely unpredictable, are willpower-independent, and don’t necessarily engender progressive results. after years of successful tomato and potato harvests, they sometimes inexplicably don’t arrive, despite the farmer’s expertise and historic luck. 23 k. melchionne (2013). 24 k. melchionne (2013). the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 68 jean-françois paquay and sue spaid vi. raising the foodies’ bar unlike gardening or home-cooking, urban farming is mostly a group endeavor whose success can be assessed (e.g. in terms of annual tonnage), though it is rarely so competitive, save the occasional farm fair. by contrast, we imagine somaesthetic practitioners jogging along the hedonic treadmill, mastering karate belt after karate belt, a string of alexander technique positions, yoga’s increasingly difficult poses, and more. somaesthetics primarily concerns producers, yet as we shall see, when somaestheticians discuss food, they strangely adopt the foodies’ consumerist standpoint. absent an ascending bar for appreciative foodies to leap over, while demonstrating and testing their mastery of discriminating taste, it’s no wonder somaesthetics has failed to accommodate this crucial aspect of the “art of living.” urban farming might provide foodies just the bar they need to become food producers, pushing themselves to ever greater hedonic heights. given everyday aesthetics’ fairly general account, it might seem tempting to categorize somaesthetics as a subset of everyday aesthetic practices. were somaesthetic practitioners not so darn achievement-oriented, we’d be inclined to recommend doing this. achievement, self-improvement, and the hedonic treadmill (their primary path toward well-being) play such important roles for somaesthetics that these features rather distinguish somaesthetic enterprises from everyday aesthetic practices, whose path to well-being alternatively traverses insouciance, flexibility, economy of effort, and minimal planning. as already mentioned, neither somaesthetic enterprises nor everyday aesthetic practices necessarily requires consumers. in the absence of appreciative audiences, practitioners over-achieve (break records) or under-achieve (go unnoticed) all by their lonesome, yet they still come out on top (they’re sufficiently satisfied to enhance well-being). our introducing urban-farming as potentially exemplary of both approaches forces two otherwise distinctive approaches to overlap, requiring everyday aesthetic practices to be more group-oriented (rather than individualistic), while inviting somaesthetic practitioners to reward themselves with a rather capricious bar, in lieu of belts, certificates, and plaques that ordinarily compel progress. even though urban farming actively challenges participants’ skills, no one receives special credit for particular outcomes. urban farmers rather regard any success, whether improved yields, beneficial solutions, or production efficiencies, as gifts from the sky. as already discussed, the somaesthetic pursuit of hedonic highs unwittingly enhances well-being. early on, shusterman defined somaesthetics as the “critical, meliorative study of one’s experience and use of one’s body as the locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciations (aisthesis) and self-fashioning. it is therefore devoted to the knowledge, discourses, practices, and bodily disciplines that structure such somatic care or can improve it.”25 unlikely melchionne, shusterman seems untroubled by those who consider somaesthetics a form of therapy. in fact, he remarks that ameliorative therapies “improve acuity, health and control of our mind and sense by cultivating heightened attention and mastery of their somatic functioning, while also freeing us from bodily habits and defects that tend to impair cognitive performance.”26 for those who consider the urban farmer’s body’s primary function to be labor in the service of routine tasks, it is little wonder that somaesthetics skips food production and climbs the hedonic ladder to greet esthetes eating tasty bites. but of course, the urban farmer’s body does more than labor, since he/she must also be methodically attuned to his/her edible environment, recording every nuanced change (dryness, over-watering, wilting, predators, color changes, too much sunlight, not enough shade, etc). moreover, urban farms offer both farmers and non-farmers myriad 25 shusterman (2000b), p. 138. 26 shusterman (2000b), p. 139. somaesthetics and food69 the 0 km movement opportunities for enhanced felt experiences. in thinking through the body (2012), shusterman expresses his worry that those whose experiences go unsavored must eat or drink more in order to achieve satisfaction. he blames a lack of satisfaction, unfulfilled hope, and inattentive eating habits on our fast-food and rapidconsumption societies. we rather blame eaters’ dissatisfactions on their total disconnect from food production. those engaged in food production most likely experience more during food consumption. for shusterman, the “failure of gustatory and hedonic appreciation constitutes in itself a regrettable somaesthetic pathology of everyday life.”27 we worry that any obsession with gustatory and hedonic appreciation that is disconnected from food’s production remains a somaesthetic pathology of everyday life! in addition to lived experiences offering: self-knowledge, an improved awareness of our feelings, and insight into moods and attitudes, shusterman claims that somaesthetics fosters discipline. he thus recommends that we explore and refine our bodily experience, in order to gain a practical grasp of the actual workings of effective volition, a better mastery of the will’s concrete application in behavior. he adds, “knowing and desiring the right action will not avail if we cannot will our bodies [emphasis ours] to perform it; and our surprising inability to perform the most simple bodily tasks is matched only by our astounding blindness to this ability, these failures arising from inadequate somaesthetic awareness.”28 despite their not being the outcomes of effective volition, both urban farming and eating in edible environments enhance somaesthetic awareness. shusterman, who describes “everyday dining [as a] challenging dramatic performance of mindful grace in movement of aesthetics,” seems to agree here.29 somaesthetic practitioners, especially foodies searching for ever new bars to mount, so as to reach new hedonic highs, might be persuaded to engage activities that improve skills and foster refinement, even though their outcomes are indeterminate. in contrast to most somaesthetic enterprises, urban farming affords everyone, even those lacking in willpower, an opportunity to achieve intensified awareness within the first twenty minutes of their arrival.30 urban farming’s possibilities reflect food producer’s inquisitive passions, which is why foodies seeking hedonic highs might especially appreciate an opportunity to grow otherwise unavailable, antique varietals. somaesthetics may claim to cultivate the “proper attitude of mindfulness (rather than blind desire), allow[ing] us to sustain our purity while nourishing the body and inspiring the soul,” but proper attitude, sustained purity and nourished bodies begin with locally-sourced produce. vii. conclusion everyday dining, especially as performed by urban farmers planting and harvesting food for their community’s enjoyment is nothing but mindful. what urban farmers experience, let alone achieve, is likely beyond their control and gains nothing from sheer discipline, let alone pursuing hedonic highs. still, no one is more aware than urban farmers of the efforts that have been expended to ensure that dining experiences can be savored as mindfully as possible. moreover, everyday eating amidst edible environments reminds everyone of what is available to be eaten at that particular moment in time. urban farmers have the additional benefit of knowing that their efforts save: energy, packaging materials, import duties and transportation costs; create jobs; 27 shusterman (2012), p. 110. 28 shusterman (2000a), p. 269. 29 shusterman (2012), p. 311. 30 shusterman (2012), p. 301. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 70 jean-françois paquay and sue spaid and maximize eaters’ nutritional intake since food is most nutritious when served soon after it’s been harvested. urban farmers thus experience additional pleasures as a result of their doing the right thing, a pleasure that typically exceeds the pleasures of homegrown tastes. most important, urban farmers revitalize lost agricultural land, which completely fed city dwellers until rural farming took over. as recently as the 19th century, parisian farmers were so good at intensive farming that they managed to fill the local markets and export excess crops to england. imagine how convenient it once was to transform transportation waste into vital fertilizer. the arrival of the car, which reduced the manure supply, and the post wwi chemical industry, which availed chemical fertilizers, conspired to purge cities of their urban farms.31 inexplicably, urban farming has escaped environmental aesthetics, whose biggest philosophical problem concerns how to get people to respect, cherish, and care for natural environments as they do man-made treasures. the primary strategy thus far has been to persuade people to recognize the value of natural environments from which they have become so disconnected, due partly to modern technology’s capacity to displace nature from our daily lives. environmental aestheticians have thus attempted various tacks, including arguing for: the beauty of nature, human beings’ connection to place, a duty to protect nature, as well as the link between nature’s conservation and the survival of our own species. in spite of philosophers’ herculean efforts, none has focused on urban farming. it thus seems that urban farming is the elephant in the room. this is not to say that cities are full of abandoned lots that could easily be converted into community farms. in fact, most cities are over-crowded and lack sufficient resources to run schools, let alone feed people. still, inserting cities with urban farming projects, however small, would go miles to connect city dwellers with nature, forging vital links that were severed more than a century ago. moreover, society already recognizes the capacity for urban farms to connect citizens to nature, otherwise elementary schools would not be such likely urban farm hosts. in the absence of philosophical defenses of urban farming, which stand to reduce food imports, air pollution, roof runoff, and food waste that produce methane in landfills; discussions by food ethicists who are particularly concerned by food security seem particularly disingenuous. as we’ve tried to stress, urban farming offers a practical way to engage people in nature. not only do edible environments invite participants to respect nature (even if a rainstorm carries off their crops), but they also encourage people to develop observational skills that foster greater appreciation. to make a distinctive contribution to eating, somaesthetics must remain on the producer’s side, where it has always flourished. we thus recommend raising the foodies’ bar higher, to join the “0 km” movement as food producers, otherwise it will fail to inspire truly mindful eaters. 31 http://grist.org/article/food-the-history-of-urban-agriculture-should-inspire-its-future/full/ somaesthetics and food71 the 0 km movement notes bibliography frans brom (2000), “agriculture and food ethics from consumer concerns to professional ethics,” italian journal of food science, 12:4, pp. 395-401 john dewey (2005), art as experience, new york: penguin books. carolyn korsmeyer (2002), making sense of taste: philosophy and food. ithaca: cornell university press. kevin melchionne (january 7, 2013) “the definition of everyday aesthetics,” contemporary aesthetics. kevin melchionne (may 5, 2014) “the point of everyday aesthetics,” contemporary aesthetics. m. njenga and c. gallaher (2014), “urban agriculture,” eds. paul b. thompson and d. kaplan, encyclopedia of food and agricultural ethics, new york: springer publishing. corine pelluchon (2015), les nourritures: philosophie du corps politique, paris : editions du seuil. yuriko saito (2008), everyday aesthetics, oxford: oxford university press. yuriko saito (2013), “the moral dimension of japanese aesthetics,” ed. ritu bhatt, rethinking aesthetics: the role of body in design, london: taylor & francis. richard shusterman (2000a), pragmatic aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art, new york: rowman & littlefield press. richard shusterman (2000b), performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art, ithaca: cornell university press. richard shusterman (2012), thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics, cambridge: cambridge university press. sue spaid (2012), green acres: artists farming fields, greenhouses and abandoned lots, cincinnati, ohio. elizabeth telfer (1996), food for thought: philosophy and food, london: routledge press. contact information: jean-françois paquay catholic university in louvain-la-neuve e-mail: jean-francois.paquay@uclouvain.be sue spaid independent scholar e-mail: suespaid@gmail.com introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 7 page 7–26alessandro bertinetto body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self alessandro bertinetto abstract: by thinking on my personal (som)aesthetic experience as a would-be jazz saxophonist, i will argue that the relationship between musician and instrument can exemplify the “extended self ” thesis in the artistic/aesthetic realm. as can happen with a human partner, a special affective relationship may arise between human being and instrument and, through repeated practice, the instrument can become an indispensable element of the aesthetic habits by virtue of which we interact with the environment, thus becoming part of the (extended) self. as i will suggest, this special bodily and affective relationship is due to the affordances offered by the instrumental partner and to the expressive experiences that this encounter makes possible. this affective relationship is one of the reasons behind the regret we feel for the destruction or loss of artifacts. thanks to the assiduity of a somaesthetic relationship, it happens that these objects become extensions not only of the body but also of the mind or “soul.” keywords: artifactual agency, extended self, affective scaffolding, aesthetic habits, arts of action, artifact-human entanglement. 1. artifacts as agentive extensions of the self the philosophical inquiry i intend to develop in this article can be introduced by raising the following question: how is it that we feel such respect for material cultural artifacts that we feel sorry if they are damaged or lost and even find it morally wrong to damage or destroy them? the material cultural artifacts that i have in mind here include not only books, artworks, songs, and technological artifacts such as computers and smartphones but also, for example, pieces of furniture, clothes, jewelry, and toys. i also consider means of transportation (e.g., cars and bikes), as well as musical instruments; the latter two types of artifacts, in particular, will be the focus of the present article. thus, the specific question driving the discussion in this article can be spelled out as follows: why do we generally respect musical instruments and many find it sad, hideous, offensive, and morally wrong to damage or destroy them? according to davies (2003, pp. 108–118), we (should) respect musical instruments because they are “honorary persons,” whereas according to ravasio (2016), our revulsion toward artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 8 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self damaging or destroying musical instruments stems from the fact that unlike other tools, musical instruments are like artworks. my own view is that despite how incompatible these perspectives may seem, their difference does not seem to be crucial. indeed, following joseph margolis (1974, 1999), it could be argued that artworks are like persons. therefore, if a musical instrument is like an artwork, then it may turn out, as i shall defend, that it is also like a person, or, in a sense (and i will clarify in this article), a part of a person. more precisely, my point is this: our relationship with musical instruments is like our relationship with artworks since these artifacts both shape, extend, and intensify our experiences. artifacts, including those of which we take loving care (such as racing or mountain bikes, cars, jewelry, toys, clothes, or pieces of furniture), are like people we care for and people who take care of us: they become part of our “extended self ” in the sense that they allow us to broaden, deepen, and enhance our experiences of the world.1 in particular, musical instruments—and especially our own musical instruments that we habitually use to make music—are like artworks in that they extend our self by means of generating aesthetic experiences. the peculiarity of musical instruments is that—like other tools, such as a racing bike—they generate aesthetic experiences above all through the use we make of them (i say “above all” because mere contemplation of them as material and cultural artifacts and as symbolic objects can also result in rewarding aesthetic experiences). even more precisely, in this paper, i argue the following. musical instruments (as well as other artifacts we deal with in our daily occupations) are like artworks in that they can possess an agentivity of their own—as has been theorized in different ways in relation to technological artifacts (see mitcham, 2014, for a critical survey).2 artifacts, including artworks and other material cultural objects, are not inert. as outcomes and effects of active shaping production, they incorporate and often display in their own material body the agency that forged them, signaling its purpose, function, and meaning—or so some argue (cf., e.g., gell, 1998). through the different ways in which this embodied agency can be detected (e.g., by abducting it through perception and imagination), artifacts can produce affective and cognitive effects, exercise power, and establish relationships with human beings (as well as with other artifacts; however, i will not explore this theme here). put succinctly, cultural material artifacts are endowed with values tied to ends and meanings of human agency, and they variously influence human behavior, change the way human beings perceive and understand the world, as well as modify the way they mutually (inter)act in the world. in a sense, cultural material artifacts are involved as partners in the distributed agency that characterizes our inhabiting the world as human beings—to such an 1 a clarification of terminology is in order here. the term “mind” is related to the cognitive sphere in general, whereas the term “self ” seems to indicate a reference to consciousness and self-consciousness. however, in this article, i will use the two terms indiscriminately, particularly because i am interested in discussing one aspect of the theory of the “extended mind” or “extended self.” in other words, “extended self ” and “extended mind” are interchangeable notions, at least for the purposes of this article. moreover, by “personality,” i mean not only the state and status of being a person with self-awareness and potential responsibility for one’s own actions (this could be encompassed by the notion of “personhood”), but also the particular array of characteristic emotional, mental, and physical responses to life situations that builds and manifests human beings’ individuality. in this sense, on the one hand, it is possible to attribute personality to an artifact if it manifests (to someone) a specific individuality or a particular character, while on the other hand, human beings’ individual personality is always extended, in the sense of being built from different experiences arising thanks to cognitive and affective interaction with other people, objects, and, more generally, the environment. the extension of the personality is therefore a question of degree, and the experiences we have also contribute to extending our personality in the sense of consolidating and deepening it. 2 the topics of artifactual and material agency are complex, being studied from different research perspectives and featuring very different aspects. without any pretense of completeness, i present some of them here. an important current debate concerns the moral responsibility of the socio-material agency of technological artifacts (kroes & verbeek, 2014). another topic of discussion is the (affective, emotional, and symbolic) power of images and pictures (freedberg, 1989; mitchell, 2005), on the one hand, and of sounds and music (cochrane et al., 2013; juslin, 2019), on the other. still another question, of an ontological sort, regards the personal status of artworks (margolis, 1974, 1999). last but not least, key research issues include those of material engagement (malafouris, 2013), entanglement between human beings and things (hodder, 2012), and non-anthropocentric approaches to distributed agency and creativity (knappett & malafouris, 2008; enfield & kockelman, 2017; clarke & doffman, 2017). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 9 alessandro bertinetto extent that a kind of personality can be attributed to them. consequently, an intimate relationship can develop between the self and given artifacts, and a specific modality of extension of the self can follow from this relationship. artifacts that are dear to us by virtue of the experiences they offer may be seen—and felt—not only as persons with whom we interact but also as parts of our personality (i.e., as elements of our extended self). artifacts—as well as other persons (e.g., caregivers for newborns)—extend the self and become a part of it since the reciprocally integrated relationship between artifacts and users is responsible for particular actions and experiences that feed and shape the self ’s life. artifacts are not passive tools; rather, they too are agents, not least because they afford interactions (cf. malafouris, 2013).3 the relationship with artifacts is structural in that it structures the self by means of inviting human beings to (inter)act. artifacts thereby help to constitute the behavioral habits that rhythmically shape the individual and social life and regulate the interaction between human beings and the natural and social environment(s) in which they (inter)act. in this sense, artifacts may be seen and felt not only as other persons but as extensions of the self. this is analogous to what can happen with people of whom we are fond: on the one hand, artifacts, like other people, are physically embodied in bodies different from our own; on the other hand, they are part of our extended self in that they constitute and extend our personality in terms of knowledge, affects, and experience. consequently, artifacts affording aesthetic and artistic experiences can be perceived and felt as aesthetic and artistic extensions of the self. the way a musical instrument extends the self aesthetically is analogous to how other artifacts that we deeply appreciate as key elements of the most satisfying practices of our lives extend the self by means of making possible explorative experiences of the world, including aesthetic experiences. for instance, we may consider a racing bike to be also an indispensable partner for an aesthetic sporting experience that we particularly appreciate, thus inviting it to become a part of our extended self. in other words, the musical instrument may not simply resemble a person we interact with momentarily. rather, like people (we feel to be) indispensable to our life (because they have helped shape it as it is or, better, shape it as it comes into being through our experiences), the musical instrument we are used to playing becomes a kind of dear friend we particularly trust; moreover, like people (such as caretakers, partners, and friends) with and thanks to whom we experience the world aesthetically, the musical instrument becomes our partner in our aesthetic experience of the world. thus, musical instruments make possible a specific kind of agency, becoming elements of (our) “extended” or “composite” agency (hanson, 2014). moreover, musical instruments are capable of broadening and intensifying our experience. just as persons of our intimate personal sphere who can be considered—at least at some stages of life—parts of our extended self, instruments can become part of (our) extended self, of (our) distributed personality. for the sake of clarity, i insist on the following point. this is not only true of musical instruments: artifacts of different kinds can be elements of a composite agency, thereby becoming parts of a distributed and extended personality; moreover, many kinds of artifacts are particularly significant because of the entanglement—between human being and the artifact— produced through the affective investment deriving from the gratification elicited by the aesthetic 3 there are different views regarding the nature of artifacts’ agency and their degree of autonomy. the two opposite positions are the instrument position, according to which artifacts are “mere instruments of human agency,” and the agency position, according to which “artifacts are on a par with goal-directed autonomous human agents” (illies & meijers, 2014, pp. 160–161). here, i take a reasonable intermediate position according to which artifacts have a degree of agentive autonomy that depends on the kind of artifact, the kind of practice, the specific circumstances of the action, and the user. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 10 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self experiences made possible by correspondence with the object. in my personal case, i guess that in different ways, my personality has been extended thanks to the different aesthetic experiences afforded by my selmer mark vi tenor saxophone and my carrera racing bike. like artworks, musical instruments make aesthetic experiences possible in terms of artistic explorations of the world; however, the artistic exploration of the world afforded by the musical instruments we play involves us as agents rather than as spectators. this is not to say that the aesthetic experience of artworks is merely contemplative and passive.4 the point is rather that in playing an instrument as, for instance, in riding a bike, we are the performers, while in viewing a movie, listening to a song, or contemplating a painting, we are enjoying—actively, in many ways, of course—the outcomes of the artists’ activity. playing my saxophone during my daily practice, i experience the music that i produce through and thanks to the instrument. moreover, i feel and savor my physical and (som)aesthetic contact with it: i sense the tactile feeling of embracing the instrument, feeling its weight through the collar, and touching the keys with my fingers, which, in turn, are stimulated by the object, its shapes, and its body. this body enters into an aesthetic interplay relationship with my body not only due to the sounds we make together but also by virtue of its physical quality and presence. i consequently become entangled with the instrument bodily and mentally. i appreciate the way it extends my expressive powers, inviting me to respond to its sensory offerings of a tactile, visual, and obviously sonic nature and to aesthetically explore the sonic world. this can happen even when the music i produce does not work as i would like. better still, sometimes the sax makes me acknowledge that the way in which i would like the sounds to work is simply not good. so, i modify my expressive expectations thanks to the collaboration with the instrument that guides my musical actions; in turn, this experience affectively shapes my body and my time. analogously, when riding my carrera racing bike, through the sensation of bodily entanglement with the vehicle, i feel the road running under me in contact with the wheels; clinging to the handlebars, i push on the pedals, appreciating the energy produced and the profuse effort and enjoying the environment i am traveling across and exploring. i trust the bike, and it is as if it trusts me too; and when i fall (fortunately, this rarely happens!), it is as if i have betrayed its trust. i drive and let myself be driven by the bike, following its requests. sensing the air that i cleave while pedaling, i feel at one with the bike and enjoy the activity, which articulates my freedom. in short, i consider it an indispensable companion in an activity that enriches my own experience of myself in the world. of course, in both cases, it is repeated practice that shapes the characteristics of a relationship that becomes an important aspect—which is emotionally and aesthetically rewarding—of the habits that model and structure my self ’s life. hence, the interaction with an artifact—indeed, the correspondence to an artifact—makes possible the realization of aesthetic experiences that shape and express the self and allow one to acquire aesthetic habits that extend the self and one’s own personality. musical instruments—and, analogously, bikes and other cherished artifacts— are more than simply tools through which we produce actions, develop embodied skills, and extend our self. musical instruments, like particular beloved individuals, artworks of which we are fond, and other affective objects with which we interact (or “correspond” to and “resonate” with) scaffold our ecological niche aesthetically (matteucci, 2019; portera, 2020), thereby shaping our “aesthetic self ” and extending it artistically. this is the reason an artifact can become dear to us to the point that we are sorry if it is damaged or destroyed: indeed, we may find such 4 see bertinetto 2021 for a discussion of aesthetic experience as (en)active and engaged. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 11 alessandro bertinetto occurrences nearly unbearable. not only is it like an artwork and like a person: it is (a part of ) us, because it extends our personality—by losing it, our individual identity changes because that which is lost is a part of ourselves in terms of possible experiences, affections, and knowledge. 2. extended self (and extended agency) from this section onward, the task of this article will be to articulate and explain the thesis that we take care of artifacts, such as musical instruments, because they are, or rather become (parts of ) us. the view implicit in the proposal i have sketched so far is the idea that the mind is not an entity hidden in the skull of a human being.5 instead, the mind is a process (rather than an entity) grounded in the body and extended through the experiences that the human being has w hile/by interacting in the environment with other subjects and with/by virtue of objects and artifacts. the mind, or the self, is rooted in the body, is not reducible to the self-awareness of the ego, and has many different components, such as embodied, experiential, intersubjective narrative, and situative aspects (gallagher, 2005, 2013). the self is extended by emotions and affects—which are essentially generated by patterns of bodily processes—as well as shaped by relationships with other persons and even things, including cultural objects and artifacts (both of the ideal kind, such as musical works, and of the concrete material kind, just like a particular piece of clothing, jewelry, or a bike or musical instrument). the extended mind hypothesis has been famously argued by clark and chalmers (1998). accordingly, the mind is not limited to spiritual faculties located inside the skull but is rather extended and distributed in the environment with which the self interacts. for instance, the stick the blind man uses to test the ground around him is a n extension of his perceptual faculties, thereby extending his mind (the example is famously made by merleau-ponty, 1945, pp. 165 f.); the notebooks on which forgetful people jot down information allow them to retrieve this information for use at the appropriate time, thus enhancing t heir cognitive abilities and extending their minds (as in the example offered by clark and chalmer, 1998). this proposal has radical and soft versions (cf. sutton, 2010). the radical version works on the basis of the parity principle. the objects that extend the mind, and through which the mind is distributed, acquire mental faculties equivalent to those of t he mind traditionally considered the mark of a human being’s conscious and intentional agency. mentality is the same property both when it is attributed to the object and to the subject. the soft version operates on the basis of the complementarity principle. objects extend the mind not because the property of mentality is attributed to them in the same way as to the subject; rather, the objects through which the mind is distributed extend cognitive—and also emotional, affective, as well as aesthetic—powers of the self, whose center remains the self-conscious subject. it is difficult to defend the radical version of the extended mind proposal. it does not seem appropriate to hold that the artifact and the subject are coupled in such a way as to form one single entity (or “system”).6 moreover, the radical version falls into the “causal-constitution fallacy” (adams & aizawa, 2001) because it misconceives the causal role of the environment for our cognitive functions as constitutive within the ontological structure of the mind. the self is extended not because the environment is an ontological part of it but rather due to the 5 this view was already supported by william james (1890). it has been recently taken up by damasio (2010; cf. meini, 2012) and appears in new trends in the philosophy of mind and in the cognitive sciences (see, e.g., noë, 2009). 6 two systems are coupled when “they reciprocally influence and constrain their behavior over time, such that they can be modeled as one system” (colombetti, 2013, p. 55). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 12 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self interaction with the environment in which it is embedded. reciprocally, it is through experience and use that a self-conscious subject makes of the artifact that the latter incarnates mental and agentive powers: the self is extended through its relationship of engagement and entanglement with the object. by itself, a stick may simply be “a woody piece or part of a tree or shrub”;7 it can, of course, be used in many ways, but it is not part of an extension of the self. however, as it enters into a relationship with a self-conscious organism, their interaction is seen as a “composite agency,” such as perceptually exploring the environment or music playing. indeed, it could be argued that the artifact (e.g., a notebook, a musical instrument, or a vehicle) is produced to perform the function of extending the self by virtue of making possible perceptual and cognitive experiences as well as other interactions. the artifact incarnates agency in terms of purposes and ends for which it was produced. one may even attribute (a material form of ) intentionality to artifacts (cf. verbeek, 2005). however, being produced for a specific purpose and manifesting intentionality are not yet exerting intentionality and performing the function for which the artifact was produced. the artifact affords a kind of agency on the users’ part if and when it enters into a relationship with them. of course, some objects (for example, a well-crafted notebook or, indeed, a selmer mark vi tenor saxophone or carrera racing bicycle) are born with excellent potential to contribute to the experiential extension of their users’ self. they are configured to elicit specific experiences of interaction between the self and the environment that may be particularly rewarding for the users. however, this potential is not, in itself, sufficient to extend the self. this experiential potential is not yet actual experience, although the object bears the “mark of the mental” (jacob, 2019), because it is an already embodied expression of human mind intentionality (as a material trace of the agency of its producers and as a tool suggesting specific functions and uses). in any case, the user-instrument experiential extension does not seem to involve a rigid ontological reduction, based on the principle of parity, of the two components to a single system. just as the blind man can use another stick to orient himself in the environment and the forgetful person can use another notebook to reconstruct a memory, the musician can play other instruments, and the cyclist can ride other bicycles. the extension of the self at issue here is therefore one based on the principle of complementarity.8 the soft version of the extended mind proposal based on the complementary principle, which explains the composite agency realized by the interaction between humans and artifacts, can be well explained in terms of the “scaffolded mind thesis” derived from the “niche construction theory” (sterelny, 2010). essentially, the thesis posits that the human being exploits the environment on an evolutionary scale to better interact with it by structuring environmental resources in such a way as to support its own cognitive transactions with the environment. the environmental resources on which human beings depend and by which they are transformed are, in turn, adopted, shaped, and transformed to improve human beings’ capacities and possibilities. the construction of societies is a part of this process. this idea has 7 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stick (accessed on june 2, 2021). 8 it could be argued that this also applies to parts of the body whose replacement seems to constitutively modify the identity of the self. does the artificial prosthesis that replaces the amputated hand become part of the identity of the self on the basis of the complementarity or of the parity principle? i suspect the issue leads us to the lockean paradox of personal identity as the ship of theseus, whose material pieces can all be replaced over time and held together only by self-aware memory (cf. locke, 1790, pp. ii, xxiv-xxvi). to get around the difficulty, one could understand the difference between the soft and the radical versions as a matter of degree. although new technologies of implementation of the body are making more and more plausible the idea that an instrument can radically extend the self by becoming part of a single connected system, i take as intuitively plausible the assumption that the bicycle and the saxophone i use “extend the self ” in a complementary way without rigidly constituting with it a single entity. i will come back to this in section 4. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 13 alessandro bertinetto several advantages: in particular, while acknowledging the contribution of the environment to cognition, it nicely avoids the “causal-constitution fallacy.” moreover, the scaffolded mind thesis can also be applied to the way in which individuals, in interactions with other individuals and by manipulating/building/using objects of different kinds, scaffold their body-mind system by building their ecological niche through the plastic shaping of habits capable of rhythmically regulating their transactions with the environment. habits shape and guide the exercise of a practice and, in turn, are constituted and plastically (trans)formed by that exercise. through its transactions with the environment, the self builds habits that regulate and facilitate those transactions, continuously and plastically changing precisely through those transactions (see caruana & testa, 2020; bertinetto & bertram, 2020). fortunately, defending the radical version of the extended mind proposal based on the parity principle is not necessary for the argument i am developing in this article, which is as follows: we find it abhorrent when cultural material artifacts (e.g., musical instruments, bikes) are damaged or destroyed because when entering into a relationship with their users, they become (complementary) parts of their extended self by means of offering affordances enabling perceptual, cognitive, affective, and aesthetic experiences. artifacts and their users thereby enact an “extended” or “composite agency,” that is, “agencies consisting of both human and nonhuman components” (hanson, 2014, p. 62). the philosophical literature on the notion of “affordance” is growing rapidly, and for considerations of space, i will not dwell on it in this article. nevertheless, it is worth noting that affordances are not simply environmental opportunities but rather the emerging products— neither exclusively objective nor solely subjective (gibson, 1979)—of changing and dynamic relationships between objects, organisms, and the environment. in other words, they are “relations between abilities of organisms and features of the environment” (chemero, 2003, p. 181). this means that an organism’s abilities and habits are functions of the specific relationships shaped between that organism and the objects they interact with and respond to within the environment. importantly, specific affordances are the “complements” offered by cultural material artifacts to the capacity of the self to perform “expressive aesthetic experiences.” with this notion, i mean to express experiences of an appreciative sort in which, through a progressive integration of doing and undergoing, a felt, energetic, perceptual, explorative, and both savoring and savored interpenetration between the self and the world is accomplished, which results in what dewey called “an experience.”9 of course, the aesthetic experience happens in many ways and degrees. it can be more or less intentionally driven and can ensue from the attention to the perceptive, formal, and narrative qualities of an object (as happens in the case of a spectator of a film, the listener of a piece of music, or the viewer of a painting) or from the introspective attention of the 9 see dewey (1980). if space were available, i could argue that this idea of aesthetic experience can accommodate at least some of the features of kantian aesthetics. in particular, it accepts the view that experiencing aesthetically means turning attention to and engaging oneself in the affective/appreciative dimension of one’s relationship with the world. by no means solely idiosyncratic, this particular relationship expresses the wonder at an unexpected encounter, not entirely controllable by the subject, with the perceptive qualities of objects that, in this sense, are considered “for their own sake.” as i will suggest later on in this paper (see section 5), not in spite of but rather for this very reason, the encountered objects are integrated into the experience of successful self-fulfillment due to a felicitous interplay and attunement between the self and the world. in the wake of dewey, some recent proposals have tried to articulate the notion of aesthetic experience through the concept of “rhythm” (see, e.g., vara sanchez, 2021), and in the course of this article, i will use this notion too (see bertinetto, 2020, for a quick conceptual overview of the notion of rhythm in a morphological framework). still, i am skeptical that the concept of rhythm alone can do the work of clarifying the notion of aesthetic experience. this clarification also requires the adoption of other categories. remaining in the context of notions usually adopted in the musical field, for instance, the concept of “harmony” could be well applied to aesthetic experience. importantly, “harmony” not only conveys the idea of a dynamic and progressive organization and integration of parts into a whole but also that of the encounter with and of the possible overcoming of discrepancies and conflicting moments in the dynamic relationship between the self and the world. however, the literature on the notion of aesthetic experience cannot be surveyed here. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 14 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self agents toward their own activity, as in the case of dancers or musicians absorbed in their own performative experience (see gallagher, 2021; vara sanchez, 2021; and for the musical case, høffding, 2018). cultural material artifacts afford aesthetic experiences in many different ways and degrees. in the case of musical instruments, the realization of expressive aesthetic experiences occurs, in particular,10 through artistic performances. in this sense, musical instruments, like artworks, are capable of doing more than simply becoming partners for the aesthetic exploration of the world through the production of aesthetic experiences; they also complement the self while and by extending its aesthetic range of action through a composite or extended agency. 3. affective scaffolding and artifact-incorporation: the expressive extension of the self the scaffolding process has a constitutive affective and emotional dimension. importantly, the ecological niche we organize and engineer through our interactions with the world is not only cognitive but also affective. in general, understanding which aspects of the surroundings are relevant to the subject’s action and well-being involves the affective dimension of bodily attunement (slaby, 2008). as argued by michelle maiese (2016, p. 3), “[b]odily affectivity permeates our interpretations and patterns of attention and thereby enables us to make sense of the world.” bodily feelings open up the horizon of possibilities in which things are experienced in their relationship with the subject. the environment not only causally elicits affective experiences but “rather offers action-possibilities in the forms of emotions” (candiotto & dreon, 2021, p. 3). therefore, affective scaffolding (i.e., the shaping of affective niches made up of behavioral habits) is not only the outcome of passively undergoing emotional experiences; it depends on human beings’ active engagement due to targeted and intentional behavior and even, and, in fact, most often, to dealings repeated every day with people and artifacts. through active interventions, human beings modify the environment, thereby regulating their own affective conditions. moreover, human beings model or scaffold their “affective environment,” thereby affectively extending the self (candiotto & piredda, 2019) in many ways: “our affective states are environmentally supported by items of material culture, other people, and their interplay” (colombetti & krueger, 2014, p. 1172). in other words, the environment has “the power to shape and modulate individual affective styles” (candiotto & dreon, 2021, p. 9) or “affective habits” that scaffold our feelings: while and though interacting with(in) the environment, which affords emotions as patterns of bodily processes, individuals develop habits. these habits are affective as well as cognitive and regulate individuals’ behavior and feelings. as argued by candiotto and dreon (2021), the affective scaffolding of (the habits of ) the self is embodied (in that it concerns bodily processes), social (because it is shaped through our interactions with other people and organisms), and objective (because it also concerns the material culture in which we are embedded and interactions with objects and artifacts). through repeated involvement with people and artifacts, a condition of trust as well as a condition of individualization or entrenchment (sterelny, 2010, pp. 475-477; colombetti & krueger, 2014, p. 1161), develop to the point that they can be considered elements of our affective extended self. not only can material artifacts perform their functions in ecological niches that they themselves contribute to shaping,11 but they also “help humans regulate affectivity” (candiotto 10 i wrote “in particular” because, for example, everyone, even non-musicians, can aesthetically appreciate the formal and perceptual qualities of an instrument as an object of contemplation. 11 for a philosophical discussion of artifacts’ functions, see eaton (2020). the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 15 alessandro bertinetto & dreon, 2021, p. 3) by means of building their aesthetic niche in terms of aesthetic habits of behavior. the entanglement and material engagement with an artifact, such as a musical instrument, through which aesthetic experiences repeatedly take place, make key contributions to the affective (as well as cognitive) scaffolding of the self. they provide the self with affordances for extending the expressive qualities, range, and possibilities of its experience. while referring to merleau-ponty (1945), giovanna colombetti introduces, in this regard, the important notion of “affective incorporation.” “incorporation” means, in general, “the acquisition of a variety of habitual bodily skills;” however, more specifically, it refers to “the integration of material objects into habitual bodily skills” (colombetti, 2016, p. 232). accordingly, the second acquisition process (“object-incorporation”) is a form, or a part, of the broader first acquisition process (“habit-incorporation”). we acquire embodied habits, thereby expanding the self, by integrating material objects in our “body schemas” (colombetti, 2016, p. 234), that is, in the patterns of actions of the lived body: the body as felt, from the first-person perspective, as a subject of awareness. hence, in repeatedly interacting with artifacts, we “incorporate” them into our habits. significantly, this incorporation of habits and artifacts not only concerns the acquisition of technical and practical sensorimotor skills but also, i insist, has a constitutively affective dimension in that it scaffolds and extends our affective self. 4. performer/instrument mediation however, the acquisition of habits in interaction with objects is often understood as the learning of embodied skills that allow the user to carry out actions automatically. in this way, for example, many understand the incorporation of the musical instrument into the musician’s action habits in terms of the acquisition of techniques and expertise. of course, this is an important aspect of the “composite agency” shaped by the interaction between the self and an artifact. the trained and targeted relation with the instrument shapes particular sensorimotor schemes for the precise prediction of expressive musical actions and their outcomes. according to marc leman (2016), this can happen in two ways: through the “dialogue-mediation” mode or the "prosthesismediation" mode. the first type of mediation “occurs when a tool is experienced as part of the environment, such that the tool acts as a device that necessitates a dialogue” (leman, 2016, p. 151). it is the kind of situated interaction between human performers and material tools such as musical instruments that happens when inexperienced performers deal with the affordances provided by the instrument. this maintains its own autonomy as a material artifact—in comparison with actions performed by integrating parts of the musician’s body, such as the hands and mouth— thereby expressing its proper material intentionality (or “material will”; cf. leman, 2016, p. 151). instead, “[t]he prosthesis mode of mediation occurs when the tool is experienced as a natural extension of the human body, such as a music instrument which becomes a part of the human body and transparent” (leman, 2016, p. 151). “transparency” means that musicians control the instrument in the same way they control their hands and mouth. the prosthesis mode is the typical way of interacting with the musical instrument proper to the professional musician, and in particular to virtuosi, who master the instrument, dominate its “material will,” and use it for their own expressive purposes. as such, the “prosthesis-mediation” is an application of the radical version of the extended mind proposal, according to which material parts of the environment are ontologically coupled together with the self and completely under its control. accordingly, as claimed by tom cochrane (2008), objects outside the body, such as artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 16 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self musical instruments, can be combined with the self ’s actions and brain state in such a way as to “physically realize an extended cognitive system”: “the instrument is part of an extended loop between the musician’s brain, the muscles of his hands or lips and the keys of the instrument” (cochrane, 2008, pp. 332 f.). hence, the ideal of the technically skilled musician is modeled on the radical version of the extended mind proposal based on the parity principle, while the dialogue mediation mode is understood as a sort of attempt to achieve this complete integration between instrument and musician achieved with the prosthesis-mediation mode. two objections can be raised against this view. the first objection (explicitly addressed by nannicelli, 2019, to cochrane, 2008) is as follows. the prolonged and repeated use of an artifact, such as a musical instrument, can shape the instrument as well as the body and soul of the musician to the point of rendering them more and more suitable for each other, and the musician may view the instrument as indispensable to her own musical practice. still, they nevertheless remain distinguishable and separate entities, although—over time—more and more “made for each other.” the scaffolding hypothesis also works better than the radical version of the extended mind hypothesis in its application to the intertwining of musician and instrument. the second objection is based on the fact that the instrument cannot have its own bodily feelings, and obviously so. accordingly, the dialogue-mediation mode arguably better respects the idea that the instrument is part of a composite agency articulated by habits incorporated into the musician’s scaffolded self, rather than a piece of a single ontological entity. moreover, this mediation is not only a matter of acquiring technical skills. the point is not only how well and robustly a musician becomes able, by virtue of repeated training and performances, to integrate the physical entanglement relationship with the instrument into her sensorimotor skills. the key point here is the role of expressive affectivity in human/artifact aesthetic agency. following the aforementioned research concerning affective scaffolding (colombetti & krueger, 2104; colombetti, 2016; maiese, 2016; candiotto & piredda, 2019; candiotto & dreon, 2021), i suggest expanding the musician/instrument mediation—and the human being/ artifact relationship in general—also to the embodied affective dimension, understanding it as a contribution to the affective scaffolding of the self ’s aesthetic niche. the emphasis should thus be shifted from the technical skills of the professional musician and from the uncertainties of the musical student to the role that performative practices play in the configuration of affectively connoted aesthetic experiences, which expressively orient interaction between the self and the world in both cases. in other words, the instrument/musician mediation is a clear case of affective objectincorporation that, as i will suggest, extends the self expressively by scaffolding affective and aesthetic habits. giovanna colombetti (2016, p. 242) is correct in observing the following: the instrument is experienced as that through which a certain affective state is realized, created, or even better “articulated” in the performance. in this process, the instrument is not taken as an intentional object, but neither is it incorporated only into the musician’s sensorimotor schema . . . . while performing . . . , the musician is affectively touched by what she plays, and she is also motivated to play in a certain affective way (a way that will strike her as so or so). while interacting with the instrument, not only motor intentionality but also “affective intentionality” is in play. in other words, the (repeated) process of interacting with/through the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 17 alessandro bertinetto the instrument is the way affective scaffolding develops by means of arousing affective states, articulating them during the performance,12 and exploring them expressively. while perceiving the effects of the entrenched entanglement with the instruments (e.g., the sounds played), musicians also experience their bodies as they undergo affective changes due to the performative activity. instruments are felt as partners in the articulation of the produced affective states, thereby extending the self in a complementary way: “the instrument, like the body, is experienced as that through which the musician can let herself ‘go through’ a certain affective process” (colombetti, 2016, p. 243). performing the expressive art of playing music through interaction with the instrument, the self undergoes the process of affective scaffolding through which trust toward the (correspondence with the) instrument and entrenchment of the instrument within our personality grow. as both an experience of world-exploration and of aesthetic self-knowledge, this process expands the self, developing the performer’s personality and “sense of self ” (colombetti, 2016, p. 244). 5. aesthetic experiences through artistic extended agency interaction with objects participates in affective scaffolding. bicycles, cars, furniture, clothes, and musical instruments produce effects on our personality: these kinds of interaction constitute and extend our personality because they expand and enrich the sphere of our cognitive and affective experiences. they produce affordances that move us to explore the world, thereby becoming parts of our extended self. however, clarification might be in order here. note that i am not arguing that the self or the mind are constitutively made up of the objects with which we interact. rather, they are extended in a complementary way by those objects with which we interact in our experiencing of the world (see section 2). although we can conceptually distinguish a notion of self (or mind) abstracted from the relationship with the objects with which we interact in the world, actually, since the very first interactions between infant and caregiver, the self is cognitively and, importantly, affectively scaffolded (see section 3). an important aspect of this scaffolding is its aesthetic dimension, and for this aspect, entanglement with artifacts is often crucial. interaction with artifacts discloses a dimension of “participatory sense-making” (fuchs & de jaegher, 2009) that also has a creative dimension: lambros malafouris (2014) called it “creative thinging.” the corresponding interaction with objects is certainly embedded in habits that affectively scaffold the self, but the very process of this correspondence between human beings and artifacts is a creative entanglement, “discovered or constructed in moment-tomoment, improvisational thinking inside the world” (malafouris, 2014, p. 145). the creative dimension of the bodily entanglement between the self and the artifact is an important aspect of the aesthetic experience that the interaction with the instrument performs by virtue of object-incorporation and affective scaffolding. a specific feature of artifacts such as musical instruments and bikes is that they allow even non-professional artists and cyclists (most people) to aesthetically explore the world through performative artistic experiences that are potentially satisfying for the performers (even when there is no audience). performers have an experience that they themselves set in motion through their engaged entanglement with the artifacts. playing a musical instrument (i.e., making music together with or through the musical instrument), as well as riding a bike (thereby admiring the environment of the route and proprioceptively savoring one’s own effort and fatigue but also one’s movement and speed 12 i mean not only or mainly a performance (possibly with fellow musicians) in front of an audience, but also a training performance. artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 18 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self in harmony with the vehicle) are thus, at the same time, types of agency that take place through interaction with a cultural material artifact that extends the agentive and experiential possibilities of the self as well as typical “arts of action.” according to thi nguyen, “arts of action” are aesthetic/artistic practices enjoyed by the performers themselves through the way they act and perform. they are artistic practices “marked by distinctively self-reflective aesthetic appreciation”: “the focus of the appreciator’s aesthetic attention is on the aesthetic qualities of their own actions” (nguyen, 2020, p. 2). “the enactors experience aesthetic properties in their own actions” (nguyen, 2020, p. 10). the activity producing the enactors’ or performers’ aesthetic experience results, notably, from the composite agency generated by the interaction between the self and an artifact (e.g., a musical instrument or a bike). in other words, the complementary extension of the self, accomplished through material engagement, elicits the aesthetic experience of the enactors’ own inter-activity with the artifact. thus, the aesthetic self-appreciating activity depends on the artifact because “the precise aesthetic character of that activity is dependent on its being evoked by that particular artifact” (nguyen, 2020, p. 23). yet, the relevant aesthetic properties concern not only, and not even primarily, the outcomes of the (inter)activity but also, and mainly, the ways performers enact their entangled correspondence with the artifact. however, an art of action, such as playing a musical instrument (or riding a bike), does not (usually, at least) resolve into a single performance. rather, it requires consolidation into a practice through incorporating behavioral habits. at issue is the habitualized enactment of an art of action that produces, in an exploratory way, aesthetic experiences through repeated interactions with an artifact. the entanglement with the artifact expands the sensory powers of our body and can arouse new representations of the world we inhabit, shaping our actions and our experiences, that is, our selves (cf. verbeek, 2005; ilies & meijers, 2014). thus, the self, while expressing itself through the practice of expressive arts, is also aesthetically scaffolded through the modulation of its “habits of attention, engagement, and response” (maiese, 2016, p. 5) afforded by corresponding with the instrument. playing a musical instrument and riding a bike are cases of practices shaped through repeated exercise so as to produce aesthetic action habits and cognitive/affective experiences that, in turn, shape the self, and by virtue of which the self expressively navigates the world. the repeated aesthetic/artistic interaction of entanglement with the artifact scaffolds the self by generating its aesthetic habits and, more generally, its aesthetic niche (portera, 2020). the self is aesthetically extended through artistic interaction with the musical instrument (or with the bike or other objects). hence, in reference to my (and others’) practice of playing an instrument (and riding a bike), the point is this: since the incorporation of habits contributes to shaping personal affective but also creative, expressive, and poetic styles (i.e., aesthetic styles), the incorporation of artifacts into personal expressive aesthetic practices of “arts of actions” also contributes to extending (even in an intensive sense) the aesthetic expressiveness of the self. as rightly remarked by richard shusterman (2011, p. 157), style is “an integral part of one’s own being, so that changing one’s style means in some way changing one’s self ” (shusterman, 2011, p. 157). an “aesthetic style,” i contend, is a kind of “affective style” (colombetti & krueger, 2014), a notion that, in turn, enriches that of “somatic style” introduced by shusterman (2011). while a somatic style is due to the multifarious and variable sensory aspects of a personal bodily style in terms of visual, tactile, sonic, gestural, and other types of appearances and experiences,13 an affective style also involves 13 yet, as observed by shusterman (2011), somatic style may also be generic and indicate the bodily style of groups or classes of persons. the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 19 alessandro bertinetto reference to the affective, emotional, and expressive dimensions in play through the sensory aspects of the aesthetic habits of the self. an aesthetic personal style is the particular mode of aesthetic scaffolding of the self, developed through entangled (embodied and embodying) interactions with artifacts and other people of whom we are fond. the aesthetic habits we develop through interacting with artifacts and incorporating them in the course of the repeated exercise of arts of actions we enjoy as enactors shape and guide our perceptual and expressive experiences and are (trans)formed by the enactment of our perceptual and expressive experiences. hence, each instance of the art of action consisting in playing a musical instrument (or in riding a bike) contributes to generating aesthetic experiences consisting of expressive enactments of sonic and tactile perceptions that consolidate into habits that, in turn, feed the aesthetic experience back. the (trans)formation of the aesthetic habit of playing the instrument thereby shapes and intensifies the affective and emotional bond with the instrument through and together with which those aesthetic experiences are made and those habits are developed. the self invests in the artifact an affective and emotional charge analogous to that which it experiences with the people closest to it, that is, the individuals thanks to whom it enacts its experiential orientation in the world.14 practical training and exercise (in my specific case, the exercise of playing my mark vi selmer tenor saxophone) model the body-mind system cognitively, affectively, and aesthetically. through this practice, embodied habits develop that retroact on the relationship of entanglement and engagement with the artifact. the instrument becomes part of a living expressive-creative composite agency of aesthetic exploration of the world. moreover, it becomes a constitutive and (felt as) irreplaceable element of an engaged relationship by virtue of which the self shapes itself through that aesthetic exploration. musical instruments, but also bikes, clothes, artworks, and other cultural-material artifacts, are entangled with the user as affordances for modeling the expressiveness of the relationship between subject and environment through an affective scaffolding that permeates the aesthetic experience. the specific instrument, i claim, is charged with affective value. it is indeed this specific artifact, as an individual item with its specific history linked to the vital history of the performer, that creates a particular affective atmosphere (which is often non-thematic and implicit, especially for the involved player).15 on the one hand, the artifact has a symbolic value due to the kind of object it is and, possibly, to its trademark: a symbolic value endowed with charm that is capable, in itself, of expressively scaffolding the experience of those who use it (which is, of course, the case with my selmer mark vi tenor sax, which is the sax once played by famous jazzmen such as john coltrane and sonny rollins). on the other hand, it is the repeated interaction with the artifact in the practice of an expressive art of action that generates aesthetic habits that shape a specific intimate, expressive relationship. the bodily relation with a musical instrument may be a powerful instance of affective and aesthetic scaffolding in that it can contribute to shaping affective and expressive styles (i.e., aesthetic habits of behavior that, in turn, regulate the enactment of aesthetic experiences). in this regard, as argued by merleau-ponty (1945, p. 168), the instrument and the musician become the medium for the correspondence relationship responsible for the (habit of ) musical production, that is, for the engineering of a specific aesthetic niche. 14 something like this also happens with the affective investment toward artists and public figures who, due to their works and their lives, not only acquire a strong symbolic value and meaning for many people but become elements of the affective organization of the daily aesthetic experience of the self. the death of a famous singer, for example, can elicit an emotional impact similar to mourning for a loved one. 15 cf. griffero (2014). artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 20 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self of course, professional musicians (or professional cyclists) are more able than nonprofessionals to establish a valid expressive relationship even with difficult or not entirely functional artifacts. that is, they are able to discover affordances for a satisfying expressive experience even in instruments that others will instead experience as recalcitrant in character and as obstacles to their expressive performance. in other words, highly trained and skilled professional musicians (or cyclists) have developed behavioral and aesthetic habits so solid and, at the same time, so creatively plastic that they can find affective affordances for expressiveness even in unusual, unfamiliar, and “recalcitrant” artifacts. in the famous example offered by merleau-ponty (1945, pp. 167 ff.), an experienced organist is able, in a short time, to make use of an organ he does not know, incorporating it into his own body and expressive schemes, that is, acquiring with it quickly a relationship of trust. unlike these professionals, average practitioners (who are, on average, passionate about what they do) are instead tied to a particular artifact with which, due to how it was crafted as well as its material and functional qualities, they develop a specific affective relationship; consequently, they have more difficulty achieving the same level of trust with other artifacts of the same kind. being incorporated into these amateurs’ practice in a way that molds their self in a powerful relation of affective entrenchment, the artifact becomes almost irreplaceable: it is this particular artifact that affords the expressive explorations of the world that affectively and aesthetically scaffold the self, producing its specific affective and aesthetic style. the replacement of the artifact would involve a disorienting transformation of the self. this happens when individuals encounters an artifact with which they enter into an empathic symbiosis, such that they pour themself into the relationship with the object, indeed into the object itself. the instrument gradually “becomes entrenched not just in the musician’s motoric repertoire, but also in the musician’s repertoire of expression and feeling” (colombetti & krueger, 2014, p. 1164). the regularly repeated and habitual relationship with the instrument is, i think (and here i differ with colombetti and krueger), even in the case of non-professional musicians, responsible for the increasing entrenchment of the instrument “into the corporeal schema” (i.e., it is incorporated pre-reflexively and experienced as a part of our self ) and “into the body image” (that is, into our sense of the appearance of our body to others). moreover, it is noteworthy that through repeated practice, a kind of “performative entrenchment” also develops. the instrument is not solely incorporated in such a way that something is perceived through it while the instrument remains unnoticed. moreover, it is not only a matter of acquiring sensorimotor automatisms and automatized performing skills. instead, the “performative body” (legrand, 2007, pp. 500–502) is characterized by a condition between entire self-transparency and intentional self-attentiveness. although one is not intentionally focused on the activities of one’s body, one is proprioceptively and pre-reflexively aware of one’s movements and positions: as suggested by colombetti and krueger (2014, p. 1166), the instrument is incorporated (entrenched) into the performative body, being “neither entirely transparent nor explicitly attended to, but is nevertheless experienced as a present instrument of performance and expression.” yet, it is not simply a matter of “motoric mastery over the instrument” (colombetti & krueger, 2014, p. 1164) but rather of creative exploration of expressive affordances and possibilities. therefore, as i contend, performative entrenchment happens not only to professional musicians but also to amateurs like me, who, in fact, love to dedicate themselves to a practical aesthetic experience—to an art of action involving intimate and repeated interaction with an artifact. then, the specific artifact becomes a special partner for the user: since the primary aim is not to achieve high performative results but to explore the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 21 alessandro bertinetto aesthetically one’s interaction with the world, the specific artifact becomes a part (felt as) irreplaceable of the aesthetic-affective habits developed. please note that it is not only the music i play that reorganizes the physical, social, and, importantly, affective and aesthetic space i occupy during the corresponding entrenched interaction with the instrument. it is not only the music i play that affectively and aesthetically scaffolds my self and my world: i do not only delegate the task of regulating my affectivity to music (krueger, 2019). moreover, in this case, i do more than just “actively select specific activities and interactions with the material world” (colombetti & krueger, 2014, p. 1163); rather, i directly intervene in the environment, acting together with and through the material artifact. it is my playing (with) the saxophone—thereby playing music and exploring the environment sonically —that affectively and aesthetically scaffolds my self and my world through the aesthetic exploration of my musical sensitivity and expressiveness. i am at the same time attuned to the music i am making and pre-reflexively self-aware of my (inter)action with the saxophone (cf. gallagher, 2021, p. 136). the entrenched entanglement with the instrument provides us with aesthetic affordances, namely, opportunities for exploring our felt body and its dynamic affective and expressive relation with the environment through a sensory medium. this is a powerful way to gain and structure our self-awareness, both in a non-thematic and pre-reflexive way, as well as in a thematic and conscious way. the aesthetic experience provided to the self by musical practice through the organism/instrument dynamic and multi-layered relation is a sensory exploration of the environment that, at the same time, is an auto-exploration of the (extended) self. my point is that the repeated practical, performative, attentive, and devoted relationship with an object capable of shaping one’s aesthetic niche is a case of affective incorporation that extends the self. therefore, it makes possible those specific expressive aesthetic experiences that articulate its individual vital history. aesthetic experience causes us to live and explore intensively the conditions of experience as an affective enactive transaction between organism and environment, which includes the “incorporation” of artifacts (cf. bertinetto, 2021). in this regard, aesthetic experience, as mark johnson (2018, p. 2) observes, encompasses “all the processes by which we enact meaning through perception, bodily movement, feeling, and imagination” and is a participative and affectively engaged experience of resonance with the world (cf. berleant, 2013) that intensifies our ordinary experience. when appreciated aesthetically, then, the ordinary also becomes extraordinary. ordinary things and experiences become aesthetically extraordinary when perceived in such a way as to bring out the wonder of habit, intensifying one’s own bodily awareness of existence into a personal “art of living” (shusterman, 2013). this is the reason we care about developing aesthetic habits that extend our self. the way we organize habits that offer a rhythm to our usual correspondences with the world we inhabit and the way we savor these daily occupations affectively scaffold the self, shaping the expressive qualities of life. it is not only daily practices such as, for example, cooking, taking care of the furnishing of one’s room, or sports practices that become important ways of giving meaning to one’s life through an affectively and expressively satisfying organization of the relationship with the world; even personal artistic practices, such as playing an instrument, become powerful modalities of potentially fulfilling everyday aesthetic experiences. the expenditure of energy and resources (in terms of time, physical and mental fatigue, money, etc.) can be rewarded by the satisfaction and enjoyment that the self can feel as a result of its own making. this satisfaction, in turn, is due to the extension and intensification of one’s experience through the sensory, affective, emotional, and cognitive exploration of the world and of the self, which, at the same time, organizes one’s artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 22 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self own existence and responds to the contingency of what happens in sense-making ways. by enacting expressive creativity in sensory dimensions linked to different media, the self realizes a vital rhythm capable of possibly taming and exorcising, through the expressive responses it receives through its aesthetic exploration of the environment, the anxiety that permeates human existence (cometa, 2017). in this context, the affective incorporation of an artifact becomes a structural part of the expressive organization of the experience (i.e., the particular way we integrate our personality into the experiences we undergo), in particular when the affective incorporation becomes a special condition for the success of the performance of an art of action. the incorporated artifact becomes a constitutive element of the affective and expressive style that aesthetically extends the self through the enactment of an artistic practice. thus, what is particularly relevant for the aesthetic (and also the narrative) organization of the self is not above all (or even to a large degree) the achievement of extraordinary artistic skills but rather the ordinariness of an expressive practice that becomes, owing to habit, an indispensable extension of the self. in this ordinary aesthetic habit, extraordinarily creative qualities can then unexpectedly emerge, which help to reward the efforts made (especially initially) to give life and momentum to the practice and to sustain it. therefore, the artifacts with which the self, as a performer of “arts of action,” is involved become a condition for the generation of the vital rhythm through which the self forms and transforms its aesthetic identity. our engagement with artworks as well as with artifacts that we incorporate into our aesthetic practices and our performing body can be understood as a “second-person relation characterized by openness and curiosity” (brinck, 2018, p. 211) through which we express ourselves, (trans)forming routine practices and habits and savoring them aesthetically. the artifacts we particularly cherish (e.g., a musical instrument or a bicycle) are, in this respect, like artworks. art extends the possibilities of human meanings and values: “the arts enact basic ways for us to inhabit our world” (johnson, 2018, p. 203), making sense of “the structures, qualities, and felt direction of our embodied experience” (johnson, 2018, p. 210). artworks are artifacts that express and embody the multifarious ways in which human beings manifest their lived engagement with the world, offering affordances for interactive experiences of sense-making (i.e., of enactive perception or perceptualization: matteucci, 2019) of the world. therefore, artworks are like persons (margolis, 1974) in that they afford our active perceptual and imaginative interaction, eliciting intense affective participation in a process of joint sensemaking. the same goes, i have argued in this paper, for cherished artifacts: artifacts through and with which we enact “arts of actions” that extend the self, thereby allowing the self a vivid and intense experience of perceptive, imaginative, and emotional exploration of the world, which, in turn, affectively scaffolds the self. these artifacts are like artworks and, consequently, like persons as well. however, the affective entanglement with artifacts is not just a relationship with a person with whom the self merely enters into a short dialogue, only to see the person disappear after the dialogue ends. this can happen with artworks that are experienced one time only, typically during a brief visit to a museum, that then disappear from our life. instead, a cherished artifact is like a person with whom one organizes one’s life over an extended period of time, like those artworks (or those authors and artists) that we experience repeatedly (perhaps also thanks to reproductions) and that aesthetically shape the mobile identity of the self, being incorporated in its aesthetic habits. indeed, a good bike or a good sax (and similar objects) in which we trust the journal of somaesthetics volume 7, number 2 (2021) 23 alessandro bertinetto and for which we care are good travel companions, and, as with a life partner, it is difficult to tear ourselves away from them (and when we do, it is sad and painful). 6. conclusion: why we do not want to destroy saxophones, artworks, or bikes here, at the end of this paper, i return to the question with which i started. why are we sorry if an artifact we deal with in our experiences is lost, ruined, or destroyed? (here, i would add: aside from any financial loss.) i think davies (2003) and ravasio (2016) are both correct after all. damage inflicted on a musical instrument is affectively felt in a way analogous to that visited upon a person (as davies asserts) or artwork (as ravasio argues). the musical instrument that allows us to aesthetically explore the world, shaping aesthetic habits capable of scaffolding our aesthetic niche, is like a beloved person who is part of our extended self precisely because she complements the self by contributing to its ecological and aesthetic niche. the same goes for artworks, primarily those with which we establish an everyday affective and emotional relationship: artworks with whose meaning but also with whose corporeal dimension (see andrzejewski, 2019) we are engaged, intertwined, and entangled to such an extent that they extend, aesthetically and artistically, our selves, bodies, and souls. the objection could be raised that this view is misleading. indeed, one may reason that we also feel discomfort and disgust for the damage and destruction of musical instruments and artworks that do not belong to us and with which we do not have an intimate and aesthetically operative relationship of the kind we have with our own musical instruments, bicycles, and artworks. however, this objection is a weak one. when we learn that someone has lost a loved one, we can—obviously, depending on the circumstances—empathize with that individual. we can emotionally understand that this loss is a blow to the identity of the extended self of the bereaved, a disruption of this person’s affective, cognitive, and ecological niche. the same goes for artworks, musical instruments, and other material cultural artifacts that do not belong to us and to which we do not belong. the discomfort that we can empathically feel with those who are suffering from the damage, destruction, or disappearance of such objects is the basis of our moral condemnation of acts that lead to such consequences. in fact, we are personally familiar with how much the flourishing of our self owes to the aesthetic experiences that can be accomplished owing to the self-extension that their “incorporation” in our habits makes possible. this experiential knowledge and this empathic feeling are grounds for the normative attitude that generally binds us to respect, as much as possible, the obligation not to damage artifacts: it is thus not solely nor even primarily for economic and legal reasons. of course, such reasons cannot be neglected either; however, i think it is sound to argue that those reasons too are ultimately based on the affective scaffolding of the interaction with artifacts, which is capable of aesthetically extending the self. in conclusion, in this article, i have suggested that the reason we feel sorry and disgusted about the loss and destruction of cultural material artifacts, such as saxophones or bicycles, is that they become parts of us. indeed, they complement our self by making possible a distribution of agency that allows for valuable (som)aesthetic experiences and by scaffolding our affective environment. the artifact is incorporated not only into our sensorimotor skills but also becomes entangled in our affective and aesthetic niche. in doing so, it helps to develop our personality. this is particularly evident and relevant in the relationships between human beings and artifacts that make possible a particular kind of distributed agency, that of the “arts of action”: aesthetic artifacts, bodies, and aesthetics 24 body and soul . . . and the artifact: the aesthetically extended self practices in which agents aesthetically experience the properties of their own actions. the habituation of these practices scaffolds aesthetic niches that extend the self by virtue of shaping somatic, affective, and aesthetic styles. thus, the artifact becomes charged with affective value and becomes part of the vital history of the self: the self enters into an empathic symbiosis with the artifact that organizes the everyday expressive correspondences with the world it inhabits, making sense of it. this explains why it is sad and painful to break away from particular cultural material artifacts and morally reprehensible to destroy them: we share with them our body and soul.16 references adams, f., & aizawa, k. 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(2005). what things do. philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design. pennsylvania state university press. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 72 page 72-84kima cargill overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet: how somaesthetics can help psychology and nutrition kima cargill abstract: the clinical disciplines of psychology and nutrition have both arguably failed to prevent or curtail widespread obesity and overeating.  one reason for that may be that the bifurcation of the two disciplines as part of a broader cartesian tradition, discouraging body consciousness and ultimately undermining personal well-being and public health.  somaesthetics has much to offer in reconciling the two disciplines into a unified philosophy and practice of body-mind awareness, in that it speaks to the biological, cognitive, and health sciences as fluently as it does to the humanities.  somaesthetics as a translational bridge between these two applied disciplines promises an approach in which body, mind, and culture are thoroughly integrated. keywords: psychology, nutrition, overeating, public health psychology and nutrition have both arguably failed to prevent or curtail widespread obesity and overeating. how can this be when both disciplines have devoted vast resources and intellect to the understanding and promotion of well-being? i argue here that it is the bifurcation of the two disciplines as part of a broader cartesian tradition that has discouraged body consciousness and ultimately undermined personal well-being and public health. somaesthetics has much to offer in reconciling the two disciplines into a unified philosophy and practice of body-mind awareness. from its beginnings, psychology has danced and twirled around mind-body dualism, culminating in a contemporary discipline and applied practice which elevates both brain and mind above body. applied clinical psychology in particular has followed the platonic tradition of devaluing the body as a negative presence and has effectively relegated somatic experience to the trash heap of psychopathology. this configuration of the self comes at a heavy price. it is both an agent and beneficiary of consumer culture, leading to a fraught and disconnected experience of the body which has ultimately invited in the trojan horse of industrial foods or “edible commodities” (winson, 2013), leading to widespread overeating and a vast and troubling public health crisis. consumption of such industrial foods creates a cycle of consumerism that reinforces mindbody dualism because the ills of overeating and overweight are then “treated” through other consumer products such as pills and diets, serving to even further distance us from an integrated mind-body experience. big food, big pharma, and the so-called “fitness industrial complex” (new body ethic, 2014) are all bedfellows with psychology in the disavowal of meaningful somatic experience, perpetuating both mindless consumption and the desire to control the body as an object to be viewed and tamed. much as somaesthetics has offered philosophy an integrated model of self in which the body is a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation and creative selfkima cargill overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet somaesthetics and food73 overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet fashioning, it stands to offer the disciplines of psychology and nutrition a means to bridge the phenomenological disconnect between subjective mental life and the lived body. richard schusterman has argued that the term body-mind ought not to speak to two different entities, but should more aptly express “their essential union, which still leaves room for pragmatically distinguishing between mental and physical aspects of behavior and also for the project of increasing their experiential unity”(2006, p. 2). yet the fragmenting of psychology and nutrition into separate disciplines has arguably prevented such an essential union, particularly because of the widespread practice of talk therapy we see today, in which the central focus is on cultivating the introspective, highly verbalized cognitive self. not only does somaesthetics offer a compelling paradigm in which to unify psychology and nutrition, but it is also in the spirit of the somaesthetics movement to advance an interdisciplinary, integrative research and practice which recognizes that mind, body and culture are deeply codependent. of course the challenge in advancing such a unified model of psychology and nutrition is that the dominant paradigms which have split mind and body are now deeply entrenched into the collective unconscious and reinforced culturally and commercially. i shall argue that psychology’s complicated relationship with somatic experience has ultimately conspired with consumer culture to detach us from the body by elevating mind and brain, pathologizing somatic experience, promoting consumerism, and creating a terrain in which big food and edible commodities have become ubiquitous. allow me to illustrate with a clinical case study: for the past several years i’ve worked with a patient whom i’ll call sarah. formerly a competitive athlete, sarah slowly put on about fifty pounds after getting married, then suffered a serious bout of clinical depression, and finally discovered a treacherous infidelity that resulted in her husband leaving her for one of her friends. when sarah first came to me she described herself as someone suffering from a serotonin imbalance. she perceives this imbalance as the cause for her depression and views her weight gain as a symptom or secondary effect of depression. in addition to meeting with me for psychotherapy, she meets with a dietitian and personal trainer weekly and she sees a psychiatrist monthly for prescription anti-depressants. although i have made her aware that i specialize in nutrition and overeating, sarah consistently rejects any help i offer in the domain of diet. in these rejections she usually states that it is the dietitian’s role to help her with food and that she wants to allocate our time toward “understanding herself.” this notion that a psychologist ought not to meddle in the domain of the body is a belief i’ve repeatedly encountered among my clinical patients. a second, but related challenge is that many of the nutritional interventions i have to offer sarah are nothing more than old-fashioned wisdoms like “eat less food”, which fall flat in the consumer marketplace of flashy diets with prices and packaging that promise magic to those seeking consumer seduction. sarah purchases countless nutritional supplements in the form of pills, drinks, bars, gummies, powdered shakes and elixirs. when she talks about these products she describes them as able to speed up her metabolism, burn fat, increase muscle mass, suppress appetite, increase energy, improve skin and even increase pheromone production (in spite of the fact that scientists have never proven that humans even have pheromones (wysocki & preti, 2004)). it seems that the more expensive these products are, the more likely sarah is to buy them — likely because the price tag enhances the fantasy of change through magic. these products tell beautiful lies, but lies they are. unsurprisingly, sarah has not lost weight, nor has she become less depressed, nor improved her well-being. to the contrary, she is more miserable than ever. looking at this clinical picture, we can see the problematic way in which she has assigned the body to the domain of dietitian and personal trainer and assigned mind to the domain of psychiatry and psychology, further bifurcating lived experience and neurochemistry the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 74 kima cargill into mind and brain. these multiple bifurcations not only prevent her from improving, but i believe that it is this very fragmentation of her corporeal and conscious selves that has been a cause for her depression and overeating. further reinforcing her thinking is the surrounding economic and cultural framework that has turned the practices of nutrition and psychotherapy into marketplace enterprises with regulation favoring consumerism over well-being. i. psychology and the body while a history of psychology’s relationship to the body is outside the scope of this article, it is safe to say that it has been a fraught one. with the exception of the existential-phenomenological tradition influenced by husserl, american psychology has largely promoted a highly cognitive form of introspection and treatment. this originated in freud’s model of the self characterized by unconscious pre-verbal instinctual drives in conflict with the conscious control and adaptations of the verbal ego. freud’s model was also likely influenced by what shusterman refers to as the hypochondriacal kantian-jamesian rejection of somatic introspection in which somatic reflection was thought to harm both mind and body with the conclusion that it was better to ignore the physical sensations of the body (2008). taken together, these forces have shaped the research and practice of clinical psychology and in particular the historic relegation of hysteria and neurasthenia into lower-order “primitive” disorders, compared to the higher order ruminative disorders of the educated worried well. this split persists today in the current psychiatric diagnostic manual in which conditions like depression are defined principally as cognitive and affective experiences characterized by subjective feelings of sadness and thoughts of worthlessness and guilt; whereas accompanying somatic experiences such as sleeplessness and lack of appetite are viewed as secondary symptoms (american psychiatriac association, 2013). in contrast to westerners; however, many cultures in the world experience depression more saliently through the body rather than through the verbalized subjectivities of the mind (tseng & streltzer, 1997; watters, 2010). it was during the rise of american psychology in the post-wwii period that the highly individualized, bounded masterful self became the focus of attention and treatment. in his article why the self is empty (1990), phillip cushman argued that westerners have what is a historically unprecedented notion of ourselves as individuals. it was “during the beginnings of the modern era in the 16th century, the western world began to shift from a religious to a scientific frame of production, from a rural to an urban setting, and from a communal to an individual subject” (p. 600). he noted that we have come to view ourselves as self-contained and highly individualized beings, characterized by free will and mastery over the environment, rather than as a small part of a collective entity with perhaps a predetermined destiny. it is quite difficult for us to see that our notion of ourselves – of what it means to be human – is so culturally and historically specific. our very proximity to ourselves creates a blind spot. it feels as though people might have always thought of themselves as having free will, as being highly individualized and unique, but this is a relatively new development in the course of human history. in just the past century or less, “….americans have slowly changed from a victorian people who had a deeply felt need to save money and restrict their sexual and aggressive impulses….to a people who have a deeply felt need to spend money and indulge their impulses” (p. 600). social theorist zygmunt bauman further argues that the protestant work ethic which gave rise to industrialism has now been displaced by a ‘consumer ethic’ in which “consumption, not only expands to fill the identity vacuum left by the decline of the work ethic, but it assumes the same structural significance that somaesthetics and food75 overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet work enjoyed at the high noon of modernity” (gabriel & lang, 2006, p.84). we can think of the empty self then as embedded in and caused by a capitalist, consumer-driven society which encourages impulsivity and indulgence, while at the same time discouraging self-regulation, discipline, and thrift. the emergence of the empty self coincided with two other phenomena: the rise of cognitive psychology and the emergence of the culture of narcissism (lasch, 1980), both further elevating a highly verbalized, cognitive self characterized by consumerism, self-interest, and detachment from somatic experience. contrary to the reigning biological explanations for overeating and obesity, if we begin with this philosophical approach in understanding the configuration of selves and how we imagine our own selves in this specific place and time, we then have a more nuanced tableau to understand our relationship with food, material culture, nature, technology, and other living beings. in other words, this historic shift in the western self-concept to that of maximizing one’s individual needs and desires was a key element in paving the way for the heightened consumption of food and material goods that typifies the age of affluence. “the postworld war ii self thus yearns to acquire and consume as an unconscious way of compensating for what has been lost: it is empty” (p. 600). that we can experience these cultural ills, such as loss of community or shared meaning, as individual deficiencies, such as anxiety or depression, is one of the prerequisites for widespread overconsumption. as we increasingly have come to believe that our problems, ranging from clinical disorders to more diffuse feelings of emptiness, are housed within our bounded selves, we have turned toward the individual consumption of pills, consumer goods, and food to “treat” those ills. this is in essence the western, industrialized, urbanized self which is held up today as an ideal by american psychology and is increasingly becoming a globalized self exported far and wide. on the one hand, the practice of psychotherapy emerged to treat this empty self, but we could also argue that it had just as much a hand in creating it. as the empty self became the culturally codified self of the american consumer middle class, it was inevitable that several industries would emerge in response (cushman, 1990), including the diet business, cosmetic industry, self-help gurus, and the enterprises of psychology and nutrition. in particular, it is the widespread practice and sale of psychotherapy that has further constructed a highly verbalized, disembodied self in which mental preoccupation and introspection is exalted as cathartic, therapeutic, and self-actualized. as various forms of cognitive and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies have elevated the verbalized self, they have meanwhile relegated so called “mind-body treatments” to the fringe, largely because they do not have a large body of supporting empirical validation and are therefore not “evidence-based” treatments reimbursable by insurance companies. while there are many good reasons to advance (and reimburse) empirically validated treatments, validation itself begets its own momentum through the system of research funding and academic tenure and promotion, such that cognitive talk therapy is now nearly the only game in town. the danger; however, in allowing cognitive psychology to prevail unchallenged as the dominant therapeutic model is that the logical corollary is that the true self must be the mind alone. as shusterman argues, “once we accept that the true self must be the mind or soul alone, consequently that self-knowledge and self-cultivation have nothing to do with cultivating bodily knowledge and consciousness” (shusterman, 2008). anecdotally i can say that the vast majority of my psychotherapy patients over the years posses limited body consciousness. most attention to the body is often organized through commercial and cosmetic messages focused on slenderness and muscularity as performative outcomes. more recently, neuropsychology, the other reining dogma of the discipline has further elevated the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 76 kima cargill brain above mind. disavowing its humanistic roots, the american psychological association for example, launched a campaign promoting psychology as a science and declaring the 2000’s as the decade of the brain (fowler, 2000). psychiatry too has jumped on this bandwagon and sought to neurologize all human suffering in its diagnostic manual. this has served to not only further disembody brain and mind, but has created the terrain for the pharmaceutical industry to promote the myth of the chemical imbalance — an explanatory model for psychopathology which places the locus of emotional regulation in neurotransmitters, leading the general public to believe that pills are the only mechanism for neurochemical alteration. allowing big pharma an intellectual monopoly over neurotransmitter regulation has obscured the fact that we ourselves are incredible agents of control over our own neurotransmitter activity, through exercise, sunlight, sex, and aesthetic experience. when cushman first hypothesized the empty self in 1990 he surely could not have imagined the boundless emptiness awaiting us in the form of social media and technology. i might describe this “new empty self ” model as one characterized by the ruminative, discursive mind engaged in speculative self-consciousness mediated by technology and digital interactions. what i mean by this is that as people increasingly define and experience themselves online and through social media, this two-dimensionalized digital self serves as a further means to disembody lived experience and create a highly ruminative inner world. in fact, over the past fifteen plus years of practicing clinical psychotherapy with a wide variety of folks presenting an equally wide variety of complaints, a single word emerges with striking frequency: rumination. i’ve come to think of rumination as the ultimate prison of the mind. it is an experience that most people describe as a low grade, inescapable torment and i believe that it is the inevitable consequence of mind-body dualism and the disavowal of the body. while a tendency toward rumination is probably part of the human condition, i have a hunch that that the forces of our culture and the configuration of the self i have described have together exacerbated our tendency toward rumination. of course the irony here is that philosophy’s disavowal of the body was largely rooted in the belief that corporeality was a prison or distraction, or at the very least an unpleasant reminder of one’s finitude. yet in its disavowal of corporeality, philosophy was complicit in creating this prison of mind we now know as rumination. the ruminative mind as we currently know it is then an inevitable consequence of the self created by western philosophy, further sustained by american psychology, and compounded by media and technology. in clinical parlance, it is rumination that fuels the highly verbalized pathologies of the dsm, namely the widely diagnosed mood and anxiety disorders. contrary to the jamesian belief that somatic self-consciousness causes depression; however, contemporary research has shown the opposite: that cognitive rumination is a cause of anxiety and depression (nolenhoeksema, 2000). it is this configuration of the ruminative empty self residing in the culture of consumerism, knowledge work, technology, and urbanization which taken together, disconnect us from food sources, the use of tools, nature, and the use of the body for transit, aesthetic experience, and self-awareness. with that in mind, let us now turn to food. ii. mindless eating as failure of body consciousness the elevation of the verbalized, cognitive self and the devaluation of the body as an object to be managed and tamed together created the perfect conditions for the trojan horse of industrial foods or “edible commodities”. in fact, the rise of consumer culture and the emergence of the empty self were part of the same cultural forces that also resulted in developments in food science somaesthetics and food77 overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet which profoundly changed the composition of the american diet. just as psychology began to promote an increasingly verbalized self focused on introspection, pleasure and happiness; food scientists began offering delicious convenience foods which divorced the labor of cooking from the enjoyment of eating. early food science and marketing began in earnest in the post-second world war era. it was just after the war that the food industry began developing convenience foods, and in 1954 swanson tv dinners fulfilled two post-war trends: the lure of time-saving modern appliances and the fascination with a growing innovation: the television. more than 10 million tv dinners were sold during the first year of swanson’s national distribution (smith, 2009). looking at tv dinners and then later at fast food, it is clear that these new food habits expressed a changing sense of self that prioritized mobility, efficiency and increased individualism. while these culinary developments reflected cultural and economic changes, they also became antecedents for decreased body consciousness, further distance from food sources, depersonalization of food preparation, and ultimately: overeating, overweight and obesity. as the american consumer responded enthusiastically to convenience foods, the food scientists who invented them quickly realized that they were sitting on a goldmine. initially these scientists were focused more on food preservation, food safety, and the development of timesaving options such as instant pudding and frozen dinners, but there was a later shift toward improving favor quality and palatability. this eventually evolved into a highly competitive industry chasing the newest flavor discoveries for the hungry and wealthy american public. today many food scientists are locked in a fierce battle, referred to as the great flavor rush (khatchadourian, 2009) in which they are trying to predict and create the next big flavor. while certainly there were branded foods dating back to the better part of the 19th century, there was not the extensive library of manufactured flavors on grocery store shelves as there is today. nowadays much of our food is created in laboratories such as givaudan, where food scientists carefully develop and test flavors, colors, and brand names. this highly processed industrial food is such a dominant part of the food landscape that it is virtually impossible to disentangle it from the culture of consumerism. while certainly the enjoyment of food can and should be part of healthy body consciousness, these foods of the global industrial diet arguably undermine body consciousness. in fact, it is safe to say that much of food science is devoting to disabling body consciousness. these edible commodities distance us from an authentic somatic experience of food because they are engineered to be essentially pre-digested. not only that, but by offering cheap and rapid hedonic reward they make us want more. consumer culture and technology then conspire against body consciousness in that these foods keep us from feeling satisfied and therefore ultimately serve to increase consumption. by design they create a disturbed overstimulation which we can see most clearly in conditions like the life-threatening metabolic dysregulation of diabetes. yet the food industry must constantly convince people to eat more in order to satisfy its stockholders (nestle, 2002), but unlike other industries which enjoy the benefits of unlimited consumer desire, the food industry has always faced the problem of finite desire due to the bodily limitations of satiety. to overcome this limitation, they invest enormous resources into manufacturing irresistible foods that never fill us up. they disable body consciousness in order to sell more. specifically, they do this by increasing palatability, undermining satiety, and providing a staggering array of variety and convenience. a thorough discussion of all of these techniques is outside the scope of this article, but a brief overview is important for providing the context and mechanisms which have lead to a culture-wide failure in body consciousness, and the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 78 kima cargill consequently overweight and obesity. palatability. palatability refers to the pleasure or “hedonic reward” provided by foods or fluids and it is the strongest predictor of food choice (aikman, min, & graham, 2006; drichoutis, lazaridis, & nayga jr, 2006). related to the concept of palatability is “bliss point”, a construct developed by experimental psychologist howard moskowitz. moskowitz optimizes the flavors of foods through sophisticated taste tests and mathematical modeling and has discovered that desirable tastes like sugar have a threshold or tipping point for most people, after which point continuing to add more of that ingredient diminishes the food’s palatability (1981). with his market research and modeling techniques, moskowitz is able to determine the exact point at which sugar, salt, and fat reach the ideal convergence of hedonic reward, which he has termed “bliss point”. using the incredibly sophisticated science of bliss point, food scientists now devote their professional lives to creating the irresistible flavors and mouthfeel of chips, ice creams, chicken nuggets, and energy drinks. this is of course why so many food commercials use slogans such as “i can’t believe i ate the whole thing!” usually when we can’t believe we ate the whole thing it’s because we saw a portion size that looked too big, but once we started eating the bliss point was activated and we consumed more than imaginable. eating the whole thing also usually means that we never willingly stopped eating — we stopped because the food was gone, suggesting that it never made us feel full or that it tasted so good we didn’t care that we were full. historically nearly all tasty foods were delivered with high fiber thereby slowing down gastric absorption of sugar. today; however, industrial foods and beverages like cookies and fruit juice are processed by removing the fiber, making them more fattening since the body is unable to use the highly concentrated load of fructose for immediate energy needs and therefore stores the rapidly absorbed excess energy as fat. sweets, fast food, and refined breads are rapidly digested and absorbed causing spikes in blood glucose with levels falling to below what they were before eating shortly after digestion, thereby causing increased hunger (lennerz et al., 2013). in other words, these finely designed foods that activate bliss point are nearly always foods that lead to overeating, not only because they taste so good, but because we never feel full on them. even after eating, we think we are still hungry so we keep eating. more recently, the newer term hyperpalatability has been used to refer to the high sugar, high fat, and often high salt foods manufactured by the food industry (graham, 2013) which inevitably makes us eat more foods high in sugar, fat, and salt (kessler, 2009). variety. not only do these manufactured foods taste really good, but there are so many to choose from. choice is one of the key contextual factors in overeating. people eat less when they have fewer food choices due to ‘sensory specific satiety’, that is when our senses become numbed after continuous exposure to the same stimuli (inman, 2001). to put it in the parlance of somaesthetics, sensory specific satiety is a critical experience of body awareness that is in fact a bridge between somatic and cognitive subjectivities, i.e., the sensory perception of taste creates the thought, “i don’t want any more of that.” not only do we eat more when we have more choices, but we do that even when those choices differ only visually and not in actual flavor. for example, dr. barbara rolls’ team at penn state showed that if people are offered an assortment of yogurt with three different flavors, they’re likely to consume an average of 23 percent more than if offered only one flavor (rolls et al., 1981). similarly, brian wansink and his colleagues found that when people have more m&m colors to choose from they will eat more, even though all m&m’s are the same flavor (kahn somaesthetics and food79 overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet & wansink, 2004). needless to say, the proliferation of packaged foods provides a staggering variety of choices, colors, and flavors, with the average grocery store now carrying over 43,000 items (food marketing institute, 2012). in other words, grocers, advertisers, and food scientists increase consumption by undermining the power of sensory-specific satiety in their offering of so much variety. convenience. another factor that makes us eat more is our sense of time scarcity. along with reconfiguring our sense of selves, modernization and industrialization have resulted in powerful changes in our concept of time. shusterman argues that “too many of our ordinary somatic pleasures are taken hurriedly, distractedly, and almost as unconsciously as the pleasures of sleep. if this dearth of somaesthetic sensitivity helps explain our culture’s growing dependence on increasing stimulation through the sensationalism of mass-media entertainments and far more radical means of thrill taking, then such a diet of artificial excitements can conversely explain how our habits of perception (and even our sensorimotor nervous system) are transformed in ways that elevate the stimulus threshold for perceptibility and satisfaction while diminishing our capacities for tranquil, steady, and sustained attention” (shusterman, 2008). of course buffets, fast food, and packaged convenience foods respond to and sustain the myth that there is no time. researchers in the recent life at home in the 21st century project found that in spite of minimal time dining together american families’ buying habits strongly reflect an urge to save time (arnold, 2012). families stockpiled food, often in huge packages of drinks, soups, snacks, and ice cream from warehouse stores such as costco and sam’s club, often requiring second refrigerators to store. contrary to the families’ belief that these foods saved time, on average they reduced evening meal preparation time by only five minutes, a statistically insignificant savings. in other words, families’ anxiety that they had no time was expressed through buying more things and needing more storage (consuming), yet those behaviors did not have the intended consequence of saving time. in a self-defeating cycle, the families turned toward increased consumerism, i.e. buying convenience foods as a solution to a problem that is caused by consumerism, i.e. the sense of having no time. in his essay on american cuisine, anthropologist sidney mintz argues that americans do not, and likely will not, have a cuisine of our own in the traditional sense of the term, largely because of our notion of time (1996). he argues that americans are repeatedly told (and strongly believe) that they are so busy that they have little or no time to spare. in turn, this serves to increase aggregate consumption with the astonishing variety of time-saving products and foods. “most convenience food,” he writes “is successful because of prior conceptions about time. but most such food would not succeed if americans cared more about how and what they ate” (p. 121). today the average american spends only 27 minutes a day on food preparation (pollan, 2009, p. 3) and harvard economist and obama health adviser david cutler found that we eat more when we don’t cook the food ourselves. “as the amount of time americans spend cooking has dropped by about half, the number of meals americans eat in a day has climbed; since 1977, we’ve added approximately half a meal to our daily intake” (pollan, 2009, p. 7). interestingly, cutler and his colleagues surveyed cooking patterns across several cultures and found that obesity rates are inversely correlated with the amount of time spent on food preparation (cutler, glaeser, & shapiro, 2003). although it might seem like more time in the kitchen would yield a higher caloric intake, home-cooked food seems to mediate caloric intake, probably because of the simple fact that cooking at home is unlikely to produce hyperpalatable foods or the increased variety implicated in overeating. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 80 kima cargill iii. overeating and the culture of consumerism even putting effort into good nutrition as a means of better health and body awareness provides no guarantees. while it’s easy to think that shopping at natural food stores and buying organic foods are straightforward strategies toward better health, we are easily tricked by the branding, marketing, and advertising that goes into these products as well. one such area of confusion is with products labeled ‘natural’ — a term that is largely unregulated such that food manufacturers can use it freely to mean whatever they want (food and drug law institute, 2014). consumer research has found that consumers mistakenly believe that products labeled as natural have no artificial ingredients, pesticides, or genetically modified ingredients and are willing to pay more for such foods (batte, hooker, haab, & beaverson, 2007; silverglade & heller, 2010; thompson, 1998). in fact, there has paradoxically been a tremendous increase in the number of claims made on food labels as rates of obesity have increased in the united states, likely because consumers who want to lose weight are seeking healthier foods (urala & lähteenmäki, 2007). it is this desire to simultaneously consume more and consume less that makes such nutrition claims highly profitable. the health philosophy on the website for whole foods market states that they “provide food and nutritional products that support health and well-being”, that they are “committed to foods that are fresh, wholesome and safe to eat”, and that they “define quality by evaluating the ingredients, freshness, safety, taste, nutritive value and appearance” of all of the products they carry. however, a visit to any whole foods market reveals extraordinary amounts of luxury junk food such as candy coated nuts, kettle chips, and chocolate covered pretzels. in fact, i would argue that the very name whole foods has become a misnomer, given the large quantities of processed and refined foods they now sell. the sales of many of the foods at places like whole foods market often invoke an explicit health claim on their label, or simply mention a trendy ingredient perceived to be healthy, such as acai berry, green tea, or quinoa. yet whole foods market was recently accused of falsely advertising baked goods such as banana muffins, chocolate chip cookies and apple pie as “all natural,” when the products actually contained synthetic chemical ingredients such as sodium acid pyrophosphate and maltodextrin (garrison v. whole foods market inc., 2013). while certainly whole foods does sell many healthy items, and very importantly they screen their products for unsafe ingredients, they are just as guilty as any other grocer of promoting the hyperpalatable foods that make us fat. by contrast, encouraging people to eat actual whole foods would serve to decrease overall consumption, something no store wants, simply because by eating whole foods we feel full sooner and have fewer cravings. in fact, stores that only sold fresh fish, meats, produce, dairy, and few packaged foods would have trouble competing with these luxury “natural food” stores. that is essentially what farmers’ markets are and they certainly come nowhere near the level of profitability that the luxury supermarkets do. instead, whole foods market along with most of the food industry, uses sophisticated and clever packaging, marketing, language, and advertising to manipulate people into consuming more discouraging body awareness. any food in a package is the product of consumer culture and with the exception of few foods such as legumes, nuts, and canned or frozen fruits and vegetables, most packaged foods will never be as healthy as the whole foods that do not require packages. in other words, they operate within the paradigm of consumer culture, perpetuating the “eat more” and “consume more” message, just through a different type of marketing message. pro-health marketing is marketing nonetheless, and it reinforces our trust and reliance on labels, slogans, and advertising. somaesthetics and food81 overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet a label describing a food as “healthy” is inherently misleading because the food is only healthy relative to other packaged foods, if at all. the ills of overeating and overweight are usually “treated” through other consumer products, such as pills and diets, serving to further distance us from an integrated mind-body experience. in many cases, the pills of western medicine are incredibly similar to the packaged, branded foods of the global industrial diet. consumption of these chimeras always involves fantasy, longing and distortion in which we feel like we are doing something healthy, but the science points otherwise. not only do the food and pharmaceutical industries use many of the same techniques to market their products and generate demand, but they also enjoy a symbiotic relationship in which they supply each other with demand. for example, many medications are used to treat the effects of overeating, overweight and obesity, but such use may actually perpetuate overeating in the promise to undo or counteract overconsumption. ultimately, nearly everyone struggling with overeating becomes a potential consumer for diets, diet foods, personal trainers, dietitians, commercial weight loss products, books, exercise videos, and gym memberships. the food industry itself is one of the biggest beneficiaries of overweight and obesity because of the enormous market for new foods which promise weight loss and better health. brands such as skinny cow, fiberone, whoknew, glutino, popchips, and skinny girl cocktails are all highly profitable brands responding to consumers’ desperate attempts to avoid the ill-effects of overeating. many food companies are now also in the weight loss business through their subsidiaries. nestlé for example, reaps huge profits in its sales of the jenny craig weight-loss program. the simplest diet of eating less food is lost in the fray; however, perhaps because it is obvious and free, and therefore an unsatisfying “product” in the culture of consumerism in which high-dollar promises have more psychological currency than low-cost common sense. consuming pills and food represents complex wish fulfillment, desire and identity, mediating both who we are and who we want to become. if we think about increased consumption as a defense mechanism used to respond to the loss of body consciousness, feelings of alienation, malaise, and loss of community; then it follows that both pills and food would serve as a means of self-medication. yet addressing these existential ills with products of consumer culture amounts to treating the disease with the same pathogen that infected us in the first place. the current configuration of the self as empty; however, points us toward these pseudo-solutions because we experience distress of the body and mind as separate. this experience is then reinforced by the prevailing biological and neurochemical models promoted by psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry, which locate disorder and distress inside the brain. iv. somaesthetics, nutrition and psychology like our entire culture, sarah is at a crossroads. she overeats and is at war with herself. her separation of mind, brain, and body fuel this conflict and lead to the empty pursuit of consumer products and services to treat her distress. over time these foods, drinks, pills, and consumer products have come to populate her internal world, yet they fail to deliver purpose or meaning. because the failure is experienced as a failure of the self, she turns to other forms of consumption to solve the ensuing hopelessness and dysphoria. this is the modern hedonism of desire which ultimately creates a self bloated by sugar, fat, salt and toxins; in which the body is seen as a mysterious machine which must be decoded in order to effectively tame and control it. shusterman posed the question: “if philosophy is likewise committed to the goal of selfimprovement and self-care, could enhanced skills of somatic awareness enable better ways of the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 82 kima cargill monitoring and directing our behavior, managing or diminishing our pain, and more fruitfully multiplying our pleasures?”(2008). this is the question we must pose of psychology and nutrition too. certainly many individual researchers have been successful in their understanding and treatment of overeating, but have arguably been lost in the inchoate mass of disconnected empiricism that is contemporary psychological science, or what lowe characterized as the bourgeois perception of objectifying and quantifying everything (1982). there is no doubt that psychological and nutritional sciences have made enormous strides in understanding the mechanisms and desires of hunger, consumption, and satiety. the failure; however, is in meaningfully unifying these results into a cohesive philosophy and practice. here is where somaesthetics stands to advance a meaningful answer to the question: how shall we care for ourselves and experience our bodies in this hailstorm of edible poison? if too many of our ordinary somatic pleasures are taken hurriedly and distractedly through a diet of artificial excitements then how do we create and encourage a “refined, intelligent habit” (shusterman, 2008) of nutritional well-being? the mindful eating movement for example, has produced a modest literature on just such a tranquil and reflective practice of eating whole foods (albers, 2009; bays, 2009; loring, 2010; somov, 2010; thich nhat hanh & cheung, 2011). yet i have recommended many books from this literature to patients and friends and can anecdotally say that this approach does not resonate for those who are not familiar with the buddhist or meditative tradition from which it emerges. somaesthetics by contrast, offers a more secular and theoretically-rooted approach to developing increased somatic and nutritional awareness. more importantly, it is not just mindfulness or awareness that is the aim of somaesthetics, but aesthetic self-stylization too. rejecting these industrial foods and edible commodities as a means of cultivation stands to offer us a different standard of ethical and aesthetic beauty. that is, the sensual and virtuous body is one that is liberated from engineered foods and is instead plentified by foods that are pure or real, insofar as they are experienced as such by the eater/inhabitant. we should expect that this feeling of authenticity however that is defined or experienced phenomenologically would lead to more experiential unity between mind and body, “greater perceptual sensitivity and powers of action” (shusterman, 2006), or in more psychological terms: improved subjective well-being. in addition to such practical somaesthetics as a meliorative individual practice of nutrition, i should like to see somaesthetics advance further into psychology and nutrition, unifying them at the disciplinary level. this in my view is the great promise of the somaesthetics movement -that it speaks to the biological, cognitive, and health sciences as fluently as it does to the humanities. just as schusterman has plead for the body to be recognized as a crucial topic of humanistic study and experiential learning (2006), perhaps we should now plea for the biological, social, and health sciences to embrace a similar approach in which body, mind, and culture are thoroughly integrated. endnotes bibliography aikman, s. n., min, k. e., & graham, d. 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(2010). crazy like us: the globalization of the american psyche. simon and schuster. winson, a. (2013). the industrial diet: the degradation of food and the struggle for healthy eating. vancouver: ubc press. wysocki, c. j., & preti, g. (2004). facts, fallacies, fears, and frustrations with human pheromones. anat rec a discov mol cell evol biol, 281(1), 1201-1211. doi: 10.1002/ar.a.20125 contact information: kima cargill associate professor, psychology interdisciplinary arts and sciences program university of washington, tacoma e-mail: kcargill@uw.edu http://newbodyethic.com/the-fitness-industrial-complex-is-deceiving-you-were-trying-to-change-that/ http://newbodyethic.com/the-fitness-industrial-complex-is-deceiving-you-were-trying-to-change-that/ http://newbodyethic.com/the-fitness-industrial-complex-is-deceiving-you-were-trying-to-change-that/ http://newbodyethic.com/the-fitness-industrial-complex-is-deceiving-you-were-trying-to-change-that/ http://newbodyethic.com/the-fitness-industrial-complex-is-deceiving-you-were-trying-to-change-that/ http://newbodyethic.com/the-fitness-industrial-complex-is-deceiving-you-were-trying-to-change-that/ 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h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 36 page 36-48barbara formis sexual politics of milk barbara formis abstract: in this paper, i set out on a feminist philosophical investigation of the ancient greek approach to food and its contemporary avatars. focusing on milk, the aim of the investigation is to unsettle and overcome the classical dualisms and cultural stereotypes that frame european thinking about food. using a methodology inspired by somaesthetics, two qualities of eating food and drinking milk immediately emerge: non-visual embodiment and performativity. the first section of the paper develops the idea of non-visual embodiment through an analysis of food as animating energy rather than inert matter. in the second part of the paper, called “milk as a performative and sexual metaphor for knowledge,” the analysis is orientated towards breast-feeding as a dual relation between two vulnerable beings. the sexual and political aspects of breast-feeding are examined via aristotle’s and plato’s writings as well as socrates’ idea of knowledge as maieutics. the third and final section of the paper, entitled “the self, virility and cannibalism,” focuses on the links between meat-eating and masculine power. this link is anchored to ancient cannibalistic figures and mythological stories that identify meat-eating with ritual sacrifices. the phallocentric aspect of meat-eating has recently been analysed by derrida through his idea of “eating well” which addresses the question of the indiscernability of activity and passivity in the process of eating. keywords: feminism, performativity, knowledge, breast-feeding, cannibalism food for thought. a philosophical investigation that takes “food for thought,” food as thought, can be characterized by its drive to reach a plane of immanence that disrupts some of the most persistent dualisms of the western philosophical tradition: contemplation versus action, theory versus practice, facts versus values, mind versus body, art versus life. to take “food for thought” is to go back to the reality of bodily impressions and needs. coming back to the philosophical analysis of the basic activity of alimentation allows us to build a philosophy of necessity, an ethics of needs and a materialistic aesthetics. to begin with we can define the experience of eating as non-visual embodiment. this definition allows us to grasp the continuity between art and life in that eating involves a complex ritual of gestures and behaviours that discloses the aesthetic qualities of everyday activity. one aliment that enjoys a special place in the continuities between everyday life, art and thinking is milk. within the interweaving of eating and thinking, milk is the primary food of the newborn, the element that nourishes and quenches thirst before any other type of food assimilated by the body. milk is a symbol of pleasure and ecstasy yet, precisely because of its primary function, it has remained unmarked as both a political and performative tool. barbara formis sexual politics of milk somaesthetics and food37 sexual politics of milk eating as somaesthetics pragmatist aesthetics in general, and somaesthetics in particular, are methods for empowering body consciousness by means of the disruption of classical dualisms (body and mind, image and object, facts and values, theory and practice...). if such an empowering disruption is possible, one may ask if it could be obtained by food. when we think about food something strange can happen. food easily appears before our eyes, it materializes itself as an image. we immediately visualize a plate of risotto, or an ice-cream, or a slice of bread – often depending on our physical state, and whether we are hungry or not. in contrast to other kinds of object, food appears with much more organic and tasty details. if i say the word “pen,” “window” or “statue,” those words do not call up an entire experience of smell and vivid colour, as the word “bread” or “chocolate” might. as the perceptual impression of food arises from our imagination and memory it reveals a series of experiences of cooking and eating that carry with them a complex revivification of the senses. the reason for this difference is that food is an animated element. we can think of it as an object, which of course it is, but – as a memorable series of dutch paintings and still life paintings have expressed magnificently – food is not only an inert materiality, it is a vibrant and lively element that exceeds the constraints of materiality. one could claim that food is for somaesthetics what the body in general is for pragmatist aesthetics and phenomenology: a pivotal point that articulates a series of entangled relationships between living beings. food exemplifies the body by exposing the vital energy of materiality. this is particularly true of the experience of eating rather than the activity of cooking. even if the culinary experience of preparing food is evidently interdependent with the act of eating, it is possible to separate these two practices in a simple manner: if cooking deals with the appropriation, the arrangement and the transformation of food, eating deals with the actual experience of the relationship with it, and such an experience is only possible if food as an object is destroyed in order to become an aliment. cooking relates to food as matter, eating relates to food as energy. another way to understand this difference is through a comparison with the art world: cooking is like creating a work of art, eating is like experiencing that same work. as a matter of fact, the process of art creation shares several steps with the preparation of a dish. we must first think about the project or recipe, then procure the ingredients (whether real or ideal). we must dispose of an adequate amount of time and possess the necessary equipment; but above all, we must pay attention to what we are doing. gastronomy, like art in general and literature in particular, is a meticulous practice that requires devotion and patience. the ability to invent is thus related to knowledge: a recipe is an existing path you may decide to follow as a simple act of prudence, though sometimes one might want to take a risk and follow a new route, venturing onto unknown roads to conceive new formulas. in cooking, as in the exercise of producing art, one can invent new recipes or reheat previously prepared dishes. by way of consequence, if experiencing a work of art is like eating and cooking is like creating that work of art, then the cook is to the guest as the author is to the spectator: the instigator of an experience, a magician who sometimes surprises and other times turns out disappointing. between the two actors of these trans-actions, there is a test, a dialogue and an address: no work of art without spectator, no meal without eater. the spectator and the guest are not passive subjects, receptacles who consume and swallow everything without blinking: they taste, feel and judge. thus the spectator like the eater is the real actor of her experience; she chooses her speed, her manner of apprehension and may even suddenly put an end to her aesthetic experience. the the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 38 barbara formis refusal is a real rejection because the destiny of an unfinished novel, for example, or a half left plate is sad: it leads to forgetfulness, waste, dust on the top of a shelf or maceration in a trashcan. sometimes the remains of the work or the meal may have a less tragic fate, for example recycling: the painting is given away or sold and the meal reheated the next day in a microwave oven. this comparison reveals a major point for pragmatist aesthetics in general and somaesthetics in particular: like a meal a work of art is not a mere object but rather the site of an experience. its materiality evolves as a form of energy and as a living practice because a work of art is a sort of an aliment: it allows us to nourish our experience and it shapes our knowledge. as aliment, the work of art is very easily assimilated, almost without effort; it is an experience far more instructive than that of learning theory. aesthetic experience is above all sensuous: we understand without knowing, we know without understanding. eating is certainly a way of providing physical sustainment to the body: we need a certain amount of calories, carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins in order to move, act and simply live. food is then the first and most fundamental element of our life, the primary power that our body needs on both a biological level and a cultural and ideological one. but unfortunately this type of power appears to be far too rudimentary to be considered legitimate from a theoretical perspective. it’s precisely because of its primacy that food is often forgotten, underestimated and unnoticed as a field of knowledge. its materiality does not seem to be valuable enough within the field of philosophy as an academic discipline. indeed it is strange that we have been able to reason endlessly concerning the relationship between body and mind, dictate laws, establish hierarchies and cite examples in favour of one or the other theory, without ever trying to explain the structures contained in the very idea of food. undeniably, if there were a direct link between body and mind, between a physical practice and theoretical knowledge, that link would lie in the activity of eating. food is the primary link between physical matter and spiritual energy. the term “food” would then not only define edible material, but also the entirely impalpable element that is needed for living and thinking. with regard to the principle of identity, one could talk about the relationship between the self and food in the terms of the chicken and egg paradox. does my body come before or after food? if eating is the condition sine qua non for the existence of a body and the body thus comes after food, how, on the other hand, could there be food without a body ingesting and absorbing this food, or without a body searching for it? this paradox is also reflected in the relationship between the act of “eating” and the act of “thinking.” which of the two actions comes first? do we need to eat in order to think or the inverse? if we suppose that eating comes first, than the first immediate objection would be that eating also requires a very basic and elementary form of thought. this type of thought is identifiable with life as an unreflective awareness of the self. and also, how would one then consider the case in which the act of thinking is directed towards the act of eating, as in cooking for example? if we need to eat in order to think, we often need thinking in order to eat. eating would then appear not only as an aesthetic experience, subject to the rules of judgement and appreciation, but more profoundly as the unreflective experience at the origin of any other type of experience. the experience of eating would testify to the possibility of constructing a background to life, the condition sine qua non for thinking, perceiving and judging. eating is a way to go back to the real. philosophy has always preferred to extract the subject from the concrete continuum of life, in order to familiarize us with abstractions, flights of fancy and theoretical investigations. in contrast to the dualist tradition, the real investigation, the one that sows the threads of our existence, happens often unmarked under our eyes, or hidden in our stomaches. somaesthetics and food39 sexual politics of milk milk as a performative and sexual metaphor for knowledge the reality of food brings us back to the unreflective experience of eating, and more specifically to the very first encounter with food: breastfeeding. within the interwoven relation of eating and thinking, milk has a very special place. milk is the primary food, the element that nourishes and quenches thirst before any other type of food can be assimilated by the body. milk is a symbol of pleasure and ecstasy. in its maternal substance, milk is simply miraculous: it comes already sterilized, at the perfect temperature, it is ingested through the process of sucking and consists of carbohydrates, lactose, water, minerals, vitamins, proteins and lipids. in addition, during feeding, the composition of milk magically varies: lighter and sweet in the beginning, it will be more bold towards the end. its transformation is the exact mirror image of the traditional meal: breastfeeding starts with dessert. for its part, colostrum (the adaptation milk produced by the breasts the first two days after birth), brings in all the food the child needs in just a few grams: a concentrate of proteins, immunoglobulin, enzymes and hormones. this type of soft and sliding food is comparable to that of the astronauts: sucked and squeezed out of a food bag cum tube it turns into a puree through the process of salivation. like an astronaut, the newborn must adapt to a hostile environment. milk incarnates the potentiality of a nutritional facility that would not be synonymous with naivety and ignorance, but rather the key to a clairvoyant and absolute knowledge. milk is the symbol of the fountain of life, of the uninterrupted flow of wisdom. to ingest science as the newborn swallows milk, with the same deep reflective consciousness and apparent lack of physical effort, would be the dream of any poet, philosopher or writer. to produce words with the same ease as a mother produces milk would be sheer delight for an author. words would flow like a stream of milk without constraint; sentences would arise from the breast milk of knowledge, a kind of universal nutriment of thought. milk is a metaphor for the world as described by esperanto, a language without ties that dissolves in the mouth; this language would be entirely soluble. paul claudel speaks of the solubility of words in the following terms: et si la parole est une nourriture, c’est ainsi que divers aliments nous ont été donnés. car il en est que l’homme fabrique lui-même, comme le pain, de crus et d’autres qu’il faut cuire; il en est que l’on broie et mâche, d’autres où la langue seule fait son œuvre; et d’autres, comme le lait, qui fondent d’eux-mêmes dans la bouche comme le beurre et le sucre. et moi, pressé par le bruit intérieur, je voulais proposer au monde un mot soluble et délectable, afin de repaître comme un profond estomac la mémoire et l’intelligence comme une bouche bordée de lèvres avec ses dents1. in this passage claudel subverts the order of the mother tongue. if words were like food, some needing to be cooked and others to be ingested raw, we would grind and chew some of them, but others like milk, as well as butter and sugar, simply dissolve in the mouth. the writer’s desire is to find a “delectable and soluble word” in order to nourish memory and intelligence as if they were a stomach. claudel grasps the idea of milk as a metaphor for a sublime language that appears like a flowing river, a natural human capacity. if communications are swallowed, the formal aspect of words disappears and the meaning becomes absolute, no mediation is possible. would 1 paul claudel, la ville, 1901, vol. i, paris : gallimard, bibliothèque de la pléiade, théâtre, 1956, p. 434. “and if speech is food, then this is how various aliments have been given to us. for there are some that are manmade such as bread, some that are raw, and some that must be cooked; some that are chewed, others where the tongue alone does its work, and others, like milk, that dissolve in the mouth like butter or sugar. and i, pressured from within by noise, i would like to propose to the world a delectable and soluble word, so as to feed memory and intelligence like a vast stomach with a mouth lined with lips and teeth.” (my translation). the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 40 barbara formis this be a mystical experience? perhaps. an erotic experience? certainly. for this soluble food of milk or butter or sugar, this first food that melts in the mouth without effort, is an ecstasy of the lips and body, like a kiss. milk is considered pure because of its whiteness without spots or shades, without thickness. milk is innocence. it is considered virgin since it is the foundation of life, when all is extremely fragile and one drop is vital. there at the very dawn of life, milk is salvation. in within a certain form of patriarchy, milk is a mother and milk is woman: the identification between milk and motherhood is founded in breastfeeding as a corporeal act and as a symbolic value. milk is a mother also because milk is “the mother” of any other type of food, it is a sort of proto-food, the one that we experience before any other; milk is a mother because a mother nourishes her new born baby through the milk produced by her breasts; and milk is a mother because a mother is supposed to provide food and nourish her child throughout growth. the second identification, between milk and womanhood, is less evident but nonetheless persistent and strong: milk is a woman insofar as it contains feminine qualities such as purity, whiteness and virginity; milk is a woman because it is delicate and soft. from a philosophical point of view, milk has a privileged position. rousseau sees it as the natural element par excellence, which relates to its assimilation to womanhood insofar as women are considered to be closer to nature then men. from a metaphysical perspective, milk is indeed unique, since it relieves both hunger and thirst and is placed beyond all categories. moreover, milk acts like the supportive substratum of different types of aliments, it is a foundation for establishing the multiple categories of edible matter. it is the white and untouchable background on which are drawn all the other colours; the primitive smell from which various scents are formed; the flavour that precedes any flavourings; the stuff before any texture; the liquid that runs before viscosity. milk is the archetype of any type of food. it is this element without qualities which alone allows the determination of all possible forms of food. in kantian terms, milk would be a transcendental form of food, the a priori schema of any diet; in less kantian terms it is the mysterious element that originates and determines the differences and hierarchies arising in the entire food cosmology. yet such a privileged position is far from absolute and unanimous. if a dairy diet is often recommended for health reasons, this is in large part due to the fact that the dairy industry has managed to make a marginal and poorly considered food a key pillar of modern diet. presented as essential to the health of the skeletal system, thanks to collusion between nutritionists and the dairy industry, the dairy diet hides a less glorious reality. portrayed as a miraculous food by some, milk becomes a diabolical drink for others and is accused of contributing to the development of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. if we go back in time the opponents of a purist vision of milk multiply; amongst them the ancient greeks for whom milk is a barbaric, unclean and disgusting element. aristotle tells us that the persians considered milk as an immaculate element (and by saying this he implies that milk is appreciated by barbarians). he also recalls that empedocles describes it as “whitish pus.”2 so the greeks are not milk drinkers. for them, before being a drink, milk is a soothing liquid, an emollient for massage and a medical product used for its laxative proprieties. the greeks dug an unbridgeable gap between their habits and those of other (supposedly inferior) populations, reserving for themselves the consumption of wine, olives and bread, leaving to others all the impure substances like beer, animal fats and milk, as well as the incapacity to bake 2 aristotle, in generation of animals, 777 a 7. somaesthetics and food41 sexual politics of milk bread.3 for aristotle, milk is “soft;”4 for plato it is “tender.”5 milk is for uncultivated and weak peoples. although zeus was fed goat milk when he was born, the ancient greeks consider milk as a dirty substance. the simple fact that it is a natural element originating from the body of an animal is per se the sign of its impurity and its obscenity. within the culture of classical greece purity is synonymous with culture and manhood, and consequently the opposite of nature and animality. in a passage in the republic, where plato explains the fundamental characteristics of human virtue and specifically the tasks related to the guardians,6 he regulates breastfeeding for the guardians’ wives. if the new mothers do not have enough milk they will procure other women’s milk. they must breastfeed infants with measure, and childminders will be made responsible for any tiresome labour and night duties. plato asserts that a well-designed city-state has to make motherhood easier by diminishing the time and energy dedicated to breastfeeding and childcare.7 the republic can function, according to plato, only when the child is not recognised by her parents, and especially her mother. because education is a duty of the city, the affective relationship between a mother and her newborn has to be diminished, and sometimes even eradicated. one effective method is to limit the time dedicated by a mother to breastfeeding her child. by doing so the people of the republic will be freed from familiar ties and the idea of individual possession. aristotle, in a very different context, defines milk as an element that is fundamentally related to sexual procreation. in history of animals he associates milk with another white fluid bodily product: sperm.8 in book iii, aristotle begins his analyses with the study of blood, the liquid element that is “the most universal and the most indispensable”9 in animals. “blood in a healthy condition is naturally sweet to taste”10 is one of the first ‘gastronomic’ qualities that aristotle mentions in his description, before describing its colours and varieties, for example, that “the blood in the female is thicker and blacker than in the male; and […] of all female animals the female in man is the most richly supplied with blood, and of all animals the menstruous discharges are the most copious in woman.”11 womanhood is thus characterized, according to aristotle, not only by a great quantity of blood but also by a great dispersion of this very important liquid. then, after a brief passage on marrow, aristotle dedicates a longer passage to milk by associating it again with sperm. what do milk and sperm have in common for aristotle besides their similar colour and texture? firstly, they are made by the same substance, which is blood, and it is on the basis of the definition of blood that they can be classified. secondly, and maybe more importantly, they belong to the same cycle of life. aristotle explains that if all other liquids are “nearly always congenital in animals, milk and sperm come at a later time.”12 if aristotle does not go into details 3 see janick auberger, manger en grèce classique la nourriture, ses plaisirs et ses contraintes, presses universitaires de laval, ch. 4, p. 218 and sq., 2010. 4 aristotle, hstory of animals, 516 a. 5 plato, timaeus, 81c. 6 plato, the republic, v, 460 a. 7 ibid., v 461 b-c. 8 aristote history of animals, iii, 523 b, 15 ; in the complete works of aristotle. the revised oxford translation, ed. jonathan barnes, vol. i, princeton, bolligen series lxxi, 2 : princeton university press, 1984, p. 826. 9 aristotle, ibid. 520 b, 19, p. 826. 10 ibid. 11 ibid. 521 a, 20, p. 827. 12 ibid, 521 b, 15, p. 828. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 42 barbara formis about what “later time” actually means, it is easy to deduce that both milk and sperm appear during adulthood and are directly related to sexual reproduction and the procreation of the species. sperm plays an important role in ancient greek concepts of education, and it would be interesting to explore how this role had a input on the symbolic value of milk. it is common to find the idea of sperm as a metaphor of knowledge, transposed from one body to another via the sexual encounters that were the basis for male education. from this perspective the sexual activity between the master (an adult male called the erastes) and the student (a younger male usually in his teens called the eromenos) is symbolized by the adult’s pleasure and the transmission of a liquid from the master’s body into the student’s body. the greeks called this phenomenon paiderastia, based on the root pais which literally means “young beardless boy.” the term is often clumsily translated as “pederasty” and associated with homosexuality or worse with abuse of minors. contrary to this vulgar opinion, the greek practice of pederasty was a collectively acknowledged erotic relationship that symbolized social hierarchy. the practice was so pervasive that it became the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens. within the homo-social culture of classical greek, sperm is the perfect incarnation of knowledge. so how in such a context could the association between milk and sperm be instructive? it is by going back to aristotle’s master, plato, and then to plato’s master, socrates, that we can understand the deep critical potential of the association between milk and sperm in the greek philosophical context.13 socrates’ definition of philosophical investigation is maieutics; that is to say, the art of the midwife. it is in his symposium that plato portrays socrates giving a speech about love; to be more precise, socrates, the man who knows nothing, cannot properly speak and pronounces his speech as a ventriloquist by recalling somebody else’s speech. the person who speaks through socrates’ mouth (and under plato’s quill) is a woman, her name is diotima. there, in the midst of male speech, in the ardour of pederasty, where homosexual love is the source of knowledge, socrates introduces a female voice: sacrilege. it was strictly forbidden for women to attend banquets. women could participate in a symposium as dancers or musicians, and they could also have to submit to sexual intercourse, but they were not allowed to eat, drink or speak. who was diotima, exactly? a prophetess and priestess of mantinea, a description which unites three characteristics each of which would have excluded her from participating in that symposium: being a woman, a religious figure and a foreigner. other sources say that she was a famous courtesan. potentially excluded from the symposium in three different ways, she is present via socrates’ lips. but why a woman and not a man? this seemingly innocuous question is nevertheless essential, as pointed out by david halperin in a very important study.14 as halperin shows, diotima has the advantage of not being personally involved in practices of pederasty and so her teaching is neutral. diotima has a woman’s body and replaces a male conception of knowledge as possession with a female conception of knowledge as reproduction; or, to put it another way, she replaces the idea of love as desire of the other with the idea of love as desire for a child. in this passage, plato advances a completely novel image of a “male pregnancy” which is actually very consistent with the socratic method, defined as “the art of giving birth to rhetoric.” 13 see francis wolff, socrate, paris, presses universitaires de france, coll. « philosophies », 2010 (1st ed. 1985) and sarah kofman, socrate(s), paris : galilée, coll. « la philosophie en effet », 1989. 14 david halperin, “why is diotima a woman?” in one hundred years of homosexuality and other essays on greek love, 113–151, 190–211. new york: routledge, 1990. somaesthetics and food43 sexual politics of milk in socrates’ language, men also fall pregnant, suffer the pains of childbirth, feed their young.15 this new definition of sexual desire as fully oriented to procreation illuminates the issues related to the vital need to feed. if diotima teaches socrates an ethic of “correct pederasty” (to orthoson paiderastein) it is because only a female body can give rise to the universality of desire as procreation. in classical greek culture female desire is related to the shape of the body, the physiological economy, and to personal needs rather than desires of the mind. the body is identified with its generative function, since in classical greece women were not considered as having an active role in procreation, being the mere venue of the male germ. in classical greece, sexual practices were a mirror of society, they did not belong to the private sphere but to the social sphere. sexual practices generally reflected the social relation between a dominant subject (exclusively male) and a dominated body (young boys, women, slaves). in this context, no reciprocal relationship (nor desire) was possible, but only sexual acts performed by one person on another person. from this perspective, penetration and ejaculation, where no reciprocity is admissible, are symbols of the social hierarchy. that is why in this context, desire is not mutual but only unilateral: the master loves the young boy, but the latter cannot reciprocate, being only the receptacle of the master’s desire and knowledge. many decorations on vases illustrate paederastic encounters where the young beloved has a passive and neutral expression on his face, showing neither pleasure nor satisfaction, but rather a sort of sufferance. socrates disrupts the social hierarchy of paederastic education by inflaming desire in the young. his erotic appeal provokes an inversion of the social order, which brought him criticism and eventually condemnation to death. the relation between this new erotic method and philosophical knowledge has been widely studied, but what remains to be explored are the consequences for feminist theory. a very specific entrance point for this enquiry goes back to the symbolical relation between sperm and milk. if sperm is the element that is emblematic of knowledge (going from one body to another body), this is because in traditional greek culture knowledge is a material entity that passes from one receptacle to another, a sort of an object that could be ceded and purchased; this is why, for example, the sophists asked for money for their teaching. in this framework knowledge is a merchandise. socrates’ critique of this equation, and consequently plato’s, was particularly virulent: knowledge is not an object of possession, but rather a quality of human beings that can be awakened by philosophical enquiry. from a socratic standpoint, sperm is not a matter conveyed from one body to another body, as if the body of the receiver were a simple receptacle, but rather an energy that arouses and develops the body of the receiver (the young boy), who is the real author of his own desire and knowledge. sperm is not a material object, but an energy; something that is unique but universally shared, something that cannot be purchased because it is already possessed. through this redefinition of knowledge (and sperm), socrates empowers the dominated subject, which is the young boy. yet, we could add that the dominated subject also included the category of woman, and her capacity to give birth, which is the operative symbol of socratic philosophy. furthermore, the association of sperm with energy allows us to understand its transformation into the nourishing liquid of breast milk. already, in the practices of pederasty, fellatio was associated with breastfeeding insofar as the master was nourishing the young through 15 ibid. p. 117: “diotima introduces and develops the unprecedented imagery of male pregnancy, insisting on it despite what might seem to be the wild incongruousness of procreative metaphors in a paederastic context. in diotima’s formulation, men become pregnant (kyein), suffer birth pangs (ôdis), bear (gennan) and bring forth (tiktein) offspring, and nourish their young (trephein). indeed, the authentic aim of erotic desire, according to diotima, is procreation (3206e).” the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 44 barbara formis their mouths.16 but another aspect is that milk corresponds to sperm in so far as milk emerges at the birth of the child, which, according to maieutics, is the initial object of desire. sperm is present immediately before conception, milk arises immediately after birth: these two products of the body are both necessary steps in the maieutic process of desire and maintenance of the child, where the child is knowledge. milk and sperm are both nourishing liquids, they provide spiritual nutriment to the body and act as symbols of society and education. the self, virility and cannibalism if milk is the flow of knowledge and the fountain of life, its identification with sperm and the consequent transformation of its meaning entails a sexual politics with potentially feminist overtones. the classical greek model of pederasty is characterized by unilateral desire. maieutics is a procedure that disrupts that model and as such it provides a political counterpoint for womens’ emancipation. of course, one can only speak hypothetically about a feminist theory within socrates’ philosophy, but if there are some sparkling fragments of such a theory, they would be found in a supposedly hidden link between alimentation and education, with such a link passing through sexuality. given that education in classical greece was deeply entangled with sexual practice and social domination, the redefinition of sexual practice through maieutics necessarily redefines education. knowledge is consequently seen not as a sexual act which implies domination and possession of somebody else’s body, but rather as childbirth. the act of delivery is the socratic metaphor for education. a feminist reading of this moment in socrates’ thinking is profoundly related to the project of somaesthetics in so far as somaesthetics is rooted in the indissoluble relation of thought and action, body and mind, pleasure and knowledge. in a similar way to maieutics, somaesthetics also deals with the interaction between bodies, the energetic qualities of matter and engages in a critique of any limitation of the human body to the status of an object. this novel understanding of sexual practice and knowledge in socrates has profound implications for both the forms of life that are related to food in general, and for the feminist theory of food in particular. the identification of milk (as the feminine element) and sperm (as the masculine element) contrasts with their evaluation in greek society. if sperm is highly considered because of its relation to knowledge, then milk, as we have seen above, is denigrated because it is considered dirty and weak. one explanation for this devaluation of milk would be the low consideration of women in greek society, wherein womanhood strangely assembles all those characteristics that are considered as faults in men: weakness, emotionality, lack of will, irascibility, dishonesty, weirdness. femininity is the default, the negative side, of virility. but there is certainly a second and more profound reason that is due to the connection between milk drinking and cannibalism. already in homer, milk is mentioned as being appreciated by orientals17 and the cyclops are portrayed as beings who eat human flesh and drink milk excessively as if it were wine, in order to wallow about drunk and bellowing, in the midst of the sheep. according to the greeks, not only is milk repulsive because it is originates in the mammary glands, but it is also associated with cannibals and big meat eaters. to drink milk means to accomplish a double act of cannibalism: firstly, because we ingest an animal liquid; secondly, because populations that drink milk are themselves considered to be cannibals. herodotus in his histories speaks of the scythians saying that “their drink is milk”18 and notes 16 ibid., p. 142. 17 odyssey, iv, 89 18 i, 216. somaesthetics and food45 sexual politics of milk that to improve the process of milk production they used to introduce bone tubes into the sexual parts of the mares and blow into them believing that “air inflates the veins of the animals and push[es] milk down into the breasts.”19 in the imagery of the greeks eating meat and drinking milk were related as activities that were synonymous with primitive and uncivil behaviour: barbarians are carnivorous and “galactophageous” which literally means “those who are fed on milk.” homer mentions them only once, and he describes them as a people of horsemen and armed pastoralists transporting arrows on large carriages. this is the key difference with the greeks who were sedentary people and farmers. the barbarians did not possess the art of agriculture; they were nomadic shepherds who had to rely on a carnivorous diet. the shepherd who does not sow and depends on whatever his current environment provides loses his identity and is subject to natural events. the specificity of the civilized diet is based on agricultural products, the baking of bread and the cultivation of wine. consequently milk does not form part of such a culture. for the greeks eating meat is related to the cookery of sacrifice.20 since eating meat is already a sort of cannibalism, men had to ritualize the act of cooking and make offerings to the gods in order to avoid their anger. thus, perhaps it is precisely because eating meat was so strongly criticized, that milk in general and breastfeeding in particular, were so massively denigrated in greek culture. as psychoanalysis also teaches us, breastfeeding is a vivid metaphor for cannibalism, and the nursing mother can be portrayed as a devouring mouth. we have identified two major causes that could explain the greeks’ deprecation of milk: firstly, its connection to womanhood (a gender that is classified as physically and morally inferior), and secondly, its association with cannibalism and barbarism. yet there is most probably a third cause that can be highlighted: the devaluation of passivity in contrast to activity and its consequent implication in the construction of the idea of the subject. more specifically, this factor in the greek deprecation of milk lies in the devaluation of sucking and drinking, and the inverse enhancement of biting and eating. the difference between these two modes of ingestion is related to the emergence of teeth. sucking is the first and primal mode of feeding, and it is only with the appearance of the first teeth (often called “baby teeth” or also “milk teeth”) that biting becomes conceivable. teething is not a simple phenomenon: it corresponds to a period of suffering that determines an anatomically fit state for food diversification. dentition is an empowering step that allows the individual to switch from simple suction to real biting. the newborn can only ingest food by drinking or, later on, by swallowing puree, but with the growth of the first incisors, she can begin to chew, bite and lacerate matter with her teeth. at the other end of the life cycle, the loss of teeth can be experienced as a return to suction and a symbol of regression. for newborns it is during the same period of acquiring the capacity to bite that they affirm their identities and begin to construct themselves as subjects. we can identify here a gender difference between the activities of sucking and biting that can be criticized, as we will see later. teething thus seems to symbolize the passage from a passive state to an active state. on the one hand, if sucking is an act of submission and dependence, by swallowing without chewing the subject acts like an object, as if she were a receptacle. on the other hand, in biting and chewing, the subject seems more emancipated and alive, because these acts imply a voluntary movement, they involve a decision, a commitment to take full ownership of the food. and if we wanted to gender these acts, we would associate sucking with womanhood and biting with manhood. if suction evokes innocence – a stage of full confidence 19 ibid. 20 see marcel detienne and jean-pierre vernant, la cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec, paris : nrf gallimard, 1979. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 46 barbara formis – chewing evidences a state of mistrust and conflictuality with regard to food and its origin. it is not surprising that in some animals teeth are not only used to chew but to inject poison. during the process of sucking the subject acts like a plant, she absorbs the liquid and enjoys in an almost motionless state the energy received by ingestion. sucking is a vegetable modality of living. conversely, during the process of mastication, the subject is fully an animal, he is animated by an inner force, he dominates the surrounding world by modifying it, transforming and destroying in order to absorb it. if suction swallows sensually without destroying food, biting sets up a mediated relationship to the world. hegel would say that such a mediated relationship is the necessary condition for the emergence of a true consciousness. the voracious animal bite would be synonymous with a realized subjectivity. here again in greek culture we encounter, not surprisingly, some familiar dualisms: on one hand, biting is related to the fact of eating meat, manhood and subjectivity; on the other hand, sucking is related to milk drinking (and particularly breastfeeding), womanhood and passivity. a sexual politics of milk would thus begin by following somaesthetic’s guidance for overcoming these dualisms. some traces of just such a project can be originally found in feminist theory. sexual politics is, of course, the title of one of the first books of the second wave of feminism written by kate millet in 1969 and reedited three times since.21 in this controversial book millet analyses the political impact of the role played by patriarchy and sexism in literature (i.e. in henry miller and d.h. lawrence). during the third wave of feminism, carol j. adams wrote the sexual politics of meat: a feminist-vegetarian critical theory where the author demonstrates the profound ideological connection between a carnivorous diet and male domination in society and invokes veganism as a form of feminism and political activism.22 furthermore, apart from feminist theory, we can also find traces of a philosophical inquiry into food as a pivotal field of social and political conflict in derrida’s theory of differance, and more specifically in an interview called ‘eating well’, or the calculation of the subject with jean-luc nancy published in 1991.23 in this text derrida explains that heidegger’s idea of “dasein is not unrelated to what i am calling here a “sacrificial structure.”” for derrida this “sacrificial structure” is related to what he calls “phallogocentric structure:” one day i hope to demonstrate that this schema implies carnivorous virility. i would want to explain camo-phallogocentrism, even if this comes down to a sort of tautology or rather hetero-tautology as an a priori synthesis, which you could translate as “speculative idealism” “becoming-subject of substance,” “absolute knowledge” passing through the “speculative good friday:” it suffices to take seriously the idealizing interiorization of the phallus and the necessity of its passage through the mouth, whether it’s a matter of words or of things, of sentences, of daily bread or wine, of the tongue, the lips, or the breast of the other. (…) authority and autonomy (for even if autonomy is subject to the law, this subjugation is freedom) are, through this schema, attributed to the man (homo and vir) rather than to the woman, and to the woman rather than to the animal. (…) the subject does not want just to master and possess nature actively. in our cultures, he accepts sacrifice and eats flesh.24 21 kate millett, sexual politics garden city, new york: doubleday, 1969; london: rupert hart-davis ltd., 1971; london: virago, 1977; urbana: university of illinois press, 2000. 22 bloomsbury academic, 1990, new édition 2010. 23 jacques derrida, “ ‘eating well’, or the calculation of the subject: an interview with jacques derrida’ in e. cadava, p. connor and j.-l. nancy (eds) who comes after the subject? new york and london, chap. 8, p. 96 and sq., routledge, 1991. 24 ibid. somaesthetics and food47 sexual politics of milk the “idealizing interiorization of the phallus” passes through the body (“the mouth,” “the tongue,” “the lips” or “the breast of the other”), and this passage is a sacrifice comparable to the one that the greeks organize in the ritual banquets for eating meat. virility is profoundly linked to a carnivorous diet and to sacrifice, and this schema is the proper structure for subjectivity. later, in the interview, derrida suggests that vegetarianism is not the answer insofar as the vegetarian also has to be subjected to the sacrifice, which in this context is entirely linked to the “self.” sacrifice is identified with “need, desire, authorization, the justification of putting to death, putting to death as denegation of murder,” and within this scheme the vegetarian also accepts denegation as sacrifice. a better solution, according to derrida is that “eating well” should become a collective practice: the infinitely metonymical question on the subject of ‘one must eat well’ must be nourishing not only for me, for a ‘self ’ which, given its limits, would thus eat badly, it must be shared, as you might put it, and not only in language. (…)this evokes a law of need or desire, orexis, hunger, and thirst (…) respect for the other at the very moment when, in experience (…), one must begin to identify with the other, who is to be assimilated, interiorized, understood ideally (…), speak to him in words that also pass through the mouth, the ear, and sight, and respect the law that is at once a voice and a court.25 what if this shared experience evoked by derrida – driven by desire and appetite (the greek orekis), this experience in which the subject (“self ”) vanishes – was the primary experience of food which is breastfeeding? such a hypothesis – which is fully driven by somaesthetics – would imply two fundamental changes: firstly, the rehabilitation of the supposedly negative and passive state of suction and secondly the establishment of a schema of subjectivity no longer grounded in virility, but in womanhood in general, and motherhood in particular. in terms of actual bodily and somaesthetical experience breastfeeding indicates a direction, at least, for the first change. during suction, the subject is not entirely passive. its mode of existence cannot be reduced to simply vegetating. during breastfeeding, the child is mobilizing such a large amount of energy that (s)he can get tired and fall asleep during suckling, exhausted before even being satiated. suction is a powerful movement, the baby sucks without stopping, without slowing down the pace, pauses are very rare and brief. by suckling the baby actively causes the ejection of milk through her vigorous aspiration. it has been found that, in some cases, the amount of calories ingested by infants may be less than the amount of calories burned during the exercise of suckling, with a resulting lack of weight gain for newborns. breastfeeding is indeed an “activity” in the full sense of the term, accomplished by a phenomenon of extreme concentration that allows a deep sense of pleasure in the baby. far from the image that we have of vegetable existence as that of a passive and helpless object, breastfeeding may even be said to attain an alternative ideal of a vegetative life as a way of fully absorbing the surrounding world. to breastfeed is to engage in a form of life beyond the active-passive dichotomy, a form of life characterized by outgoing activity and ingoing absorbtion, by fragility and voracity. furthermore, if breastfeeding causes pleasure in the newborn, it is the same for the nursing woman. hormonal changes due to the production of milk affects the mental and sensory status of the mother, prolactin changes her sleep cycles, and the mother spends more time in deep sleep, high levels of oxytocin lead to soft drowsiness, a quiet euphoria, a kind of calming the body. it is said that breastfeeding mother should “eat for two,” chemically, it is true in fact that high levels of prolactin enhance cell multiplication of the gastrointestinal tract (the 25 ibid. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 48 barbara formis stomach and the intestines), their surface of absorption increases, the liver also becomes more efficient. this means that the digested nutrients are more abundant and faster. this dance for two between the mother and the child contradicts the conventional idea that suckling is a passive state. this hormonal transaction provides a feeling of hunger and mutual euphoria. the body and the sensations are processed by a continuous dialogue between two persons as dependent on one another and whose common material is milk. a sexual politics of milk could well lead to a different theory of the subject in which the subject is not identifiable with the “self ” but rather with a shared experience. can the subject be defined as a human relationship where passivity and activity no longer in opposition are reunited in a more complex form of life? notes bibliography adams, carol j., the sexual politics of meat: a feminist-vegetarian critical theory. bloomsbury academic, 1990, new edition 2010. aristotle. generation of animals & history of animals, iii, 523 b, 15; in the complete works of aristotle. the revised oxford translation, ed. jonathan barnes, vol. i, princeton, bolligen series lxxi, 2 : princeton university press, 1984. auberger, janick. manger en grèce classique la nourriture, ses plaisirs et ses contraintes, presses universitaires de laval, ch. 4, p. 218 and sq., 2010. derrida, jacques. “ ‘eating well’, or the calculation of the subject: an interview with jacques derrida” in e. cadava, p. connor and j.-l. nancy (eds) who comes after the subject? new york and london, chap. 8, p. 96 and sq., routledge, 1991. detienne, marcel and vernant, jean-pierre. la cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec, paris : nrf gallimard, 1979. halperin, david. “why is diotima a woman?” in one hundred years of homosexuality and other essays on greek love, 113–151, 190–211. new york: routledge, 1990. millett, kate. sexual politics. garden city, new york: doubleday, 1969; london: rupert hart-davis ltd., 1971; london: virago, 1977; urbana: university of illinois press, 2000. plato. timaeus. zeyl, d. j. (trans.), indianapolis and cambridge, mass: hackett publishing co., 2000 plato. the republic. griffith, tom (trans.), g.r.f. ferrari (ed.), cambridge texts in the history of political thought, 2000. contact information: barbara formis e-mail: barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr mailto:barbara.formis@univ-paris1.fr introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 117-132 bodies of belief / bodies of care117 somaesthetic encounters with socrates somaesthetic encounters with socrates: the peaceful warrior as yogi dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian abstract: the body perfects itself: it is the subjective site of personal transformation, hence, the somaesthetic body. it is, simultaneously, the objective site of inspired transformation, hence, the mentored body, the cared-for body. this thesis is examined through peaceful warrior: the graphic novel (2010), which is dan millman’s autobiografiction, illustrated by andrew weingarner. the paper interprets dan millman’s journey by employing richard shusterman’s theory of somaesthetics as well as the classical indian treatise of patanjali called the yoga sūtra. the paper is built around the idea of the “mentor”here, socrates who must guide the disciple (dan millman) to “greater perceptual acuity.” to this end, it reflects on: 1. “socrates” as an idea; 2. the relationship between the field (which is the classical image of the body) and the farmer (here, the mentor); 3. the building of the peaceful warrior, and 4.the culmination of the journey when the peaceful warrior becomes the yogi. the moment of awakening in the narrative is when socrates declares to dan that, “this world is a school” where one must discover his purpose. the mentor guides the seeker towards his purpose. the seeker journeys towards the purpose by moving from the outermost somatic territory through routines called bahiraṅga sādhana into the inner territory of the mind involving routines called antaraṅga sādhana and, eventually, arrives at the innermost territory of the soul through routines called antarātma sādhana. the journey from the somatic territory towards the territory of the soul takes the seeker through four degrees of wakefulness – sleep (nidrāvasthā); dream (svapnāvasthā); wakefulness (jāgratāvasthā); eternal wakefulness (turyāvasthā). the journey towards the soul places somaesthetic demands that are satisfied by observing the eight aspects of yoga: yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi. in the process, the seeker traverses all the three domains of yoga: karmamārga (actions centred in the body); jňānamārga (actions centred in the mind); bhaktimārga (actions centred in the soul). the seeker commits his body (the subjective site) to the purpose. the seeker is inspired by the mentor to become a warrior as he battles the forces of inertia entrenched in him. when the peaceful warrior arrives at superconsciousness he completes the journey of the yogi. keywords: peaceful warrior, body, mentor, sleep, wakefulness. the peaceful warrior (1980) is millman’s autobiographical narrative about his spiritualsomaesthetic journey through modern dance and martial arts as well as his exploits on the trampoline and in gymnastics which bring him international attention. it is the account of an athlete’s life which describes his commitment to the care of the body as the fine-tuned instrument for winning competitions involving somatic routines that demand aesthetic grace, hence, the rationale of reading millman’s journey as the road to somaesthetic perfection. the graphic novel, written 30 years after the book and four years after the film, departs from the suggestive dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian somaesthetic encounters with socrates the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 118 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian language of the earlier narratives to be more direct and immediate as when socrates provides dan with the foreknowledge about the impending “test.” it was what the wind whispered: “this world is a school. if you don’t learn the easy lessons, they get harder” (50).1 there comes a time in the life of millman, as also in the narrative, when he realizes that the purpose of training and winning competitions within the confines of a stadium is not the end for which one must be on the road but to understand that life itself is the bigger stadium in which one has to win. it is a proposition that demands a greater magnitude of training and, as for winning, one has to discover the ‘purpose.’ unless one dedicates oneself totally – body, mind and soul – to the search, the ‘purpose’ would remain elusive, hence, the need to be spiritually committed to the quest. ironically, that ‘purpose’ which lies buried within each one of us must be reached by a more arduous journey to far off lands where there are secrets waiting to be unraveled. during his discussion on the liezi, which is a daoist classic with lessons on somatic cultivation, shusterman draws attention to the two journeys undertaken by the seeker– the “imperfect” outward travel and the “perfect” inward travel. the two travels are distinguished thus: “by outward travel we seek what we lack in things outside us, while by inward contemplation we find sufficiency in ourselves” (ttb 203).2and what would those journeys yield if one did not have the benefit of a map drawn up by a mentor who had travelled the road towards discovering the ‘purpose’ somaesthetically? millman’s closing remarks in the introduction to peaceful warrior: the graphic novel captures the storyline of the narrative thus: you are about to enter an adventure in which socrates and joy guide dan along the peaceful warrior’s path – a mysterious passage through valleys of shadow – as dan searches for the gateway to a brighter reality. in the process, you may discover the peaceful heart and warrior spirit in each of us. (5)3 the testimony of millman points to the role of the mentor in the life of the peaceful warrior; the role of the body that must be mentored with care and the wakefulness that ensures the keenness of vision so necessary in the journey towards enlightenment. socrates, dan’s mentor, through care for the body transforms the latter into a “peaceful warrior” who must be sworn to the canon of “excellence in the moment” (144). the path of the peaceful warrior must pass through the “valleys of shadow” that point to the phantoms of unrestrained consciousness that occlude mindfulness; one must quell these by conquering the monstrous wall of fear within. and, finally, there is the discovery of the warrior spirit, the potential energy which all of us possess at the time of our arrival and which must be realized through actions informed by body consciousness and mindfulness leading up to the vision of the continuum; of the here and the now, in which, each one of us is placed. in order to realize the continuum, one must necessarily be awake and watchful and not languish in illusions, dreams, delusions, and in the case of dan, nightmares and night terrors. 1 dan millman, peaceful warrior : the graphic novel. tiburan: h.j. kramer, novato: new world, 2010. subsequent references to peaceful warrior is abbreviated, pw. the publishing notice of peaceful warrior: the graphic novel (2010) mentions that the text copyright is held by dan millman while the illustration copyright is held by andrew winegarner. millman’s personal attestation in the introduction is that the graphic novel “contains many elements and scenes not found in either the original book or the movie. so, in collaboration with illustrator andrew winegarner, i’ve been able to show and tell the classic tale in a fresh way.” when he adapted his book for film in 1990 with a screenplay reflecting his vision, he did manage to get the producer interested but peaceful warrior which, eventually released in 2006, was scripted by kevin bernhardt which left millman feeling a little thwarted by the arm twisting ways of hollywood. the partnership with andrew is millman’s “opportunity to share the movie ...[he] had always envisioned up on the screen.” 2 richard shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge, 2012. subsequent references to thinking through the body is abbreviated, ttb. 3 millman, pw, 5. bodies of belief / bodies of care119 somaesthetic encounters with socrates the peaceful warrior in the “preface” to body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics, shusterman describes encounters with his mentor, the zen master as “moments of struggle, frustration, failure, shame, and pain” which ultimately yielded “perfect happiness” (xiii). 4 while “perfect happiness.” as a phrase, is abstract and vague, even subjective, his rephrasing of that intense personal experience is more illuminative – “greater perceptual acuity”which suggests that the encounter with a truly evolved mentor enables a bioenergetic enhancement of the human capacity to see. shusterman is not alone in proffering, first, the tentative phrase that becomes more clean-cut in the re-phrasing. wordsworth on his return to tintern abbey after five long years, captures the evolution of the poet’s “greater perceptual acuity,” first, in an inexact phrase: “sensations sweet” which is then, tellingly and somaesthetically, rephrased: felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,/and passing even into my purer mind/ with tranquil restoration.” the third sūtra (aphorism) in samādhipāda (on true emancipation), the first chapter of the yoga sūtra of patanjali, refers to “greater perceptual acuity” as a state of the seeker who has conquered the dissipations caused when consciousness (citta) is unbridled. the aphorism, first, spells out a cryptic phrase: tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe avasthānam.5 it begins with the adverb, ‘then’ (tadā) which implies that the speaker refers to the stage in the development of the seeker when the distractions of the mind, caused by the ceaseless waves of consciousness, are, eventually, stilled to the supreme degree of concentration (ekāgratā). the adverb, ‘then’, points to the seeker 4 richard shusterman, body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge, 2008. subsequent references to body consciousness abbreviated, bc. 5 bks iyenger, light on the yogasutra of patanjali. delhi: indus imprint of harper collins, 1993. subsequent references to light on yogasutra is abbreviated, loy. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 120 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian as a warrior who gradually annexes the somatic territories from the outermost layer of the skin to the innermost self through the intervening territories of the muscles, the bones, the nerves, the mind, the intellect, the will and the consciousness. the true state (svarūpe, here the splendor of the soul) abides or radiates (avasthānam) and it is attained by the seeker who becomes the illumined soul or the all-seeing (draṣṭuḥ). the shortest road to the adverb, ‘then’ is the longest road informed by the discipline implicit in the verb “act” in accordance with the instructions laid out by the mentor, patanjali. the second chapter of the yoga sūtra called, sādhana pāda (or the way of purposeful repetitious actions) commences with the three-fold commitment demanded of the seeker: tapaḥ svādhyāya īshwarapraṇidhānāni kriyāyogaḥ. the yoga of action, kriyāyoga, insists that the seeker possesses an ardent desire like an unquenchable thirst (tapaḥ); the unflagging attention required by selfstudy (svādhyāya)6; the absolute faith in the mentor’s powers to inspire and move one towards perfection (īshwarapraṇidhānāni).7 the first of the 55 aphorisms of the second chapter of the yoga sūtras, crystales the three paths open to the seeker: the path of action implicit in the first commitment called karmamārga; the path of knowledge implicit in the second commitment called jňānamārga; the path of devotion implicit in the third commitment called bhaktimārga.8 the three paths may very well be the three approaches open to the seeker but, in the map possessed by the peaceful warrior, the paths lead one to the other – from the outermost territories of the body to the innermost territory. the somaesthetic discipline of the external territories called bahiraṅga sādhana,9 involves the first four aspects of yoga: first, the disciplining of the body through vows of abstention, control and self-restraint (yama); second, the disciplining through a strict observance of the rules and precepts inscribed in the scriptures (niyama); third, the disciplining of the body by perfecting posture (āsana); fourth, the discipline of regulating and controlling of breath (prāṇāyāma). the subdual of the external territories leads the peaceful warrior to the inner territories. so, bahiraṅga sādhana must needs graduate towards antaraṅga sādhana, involving the next two levels of yogic discipline called pratyāhāra when the seeker grapples with the five senses so as to draw them within facilitating the inward journey towards dhāraṇā where the focus is on achieving equipoise and equanimity through rigorous concentration routines. antaraṅga sādhana begins externally where bahiraṅga sādhana leaves off and sets its course inward into the mind. this is the stage when karmamārga leads to the stage of complete absorption in the quest for knowledge through self-study: svādhyāya which informs the path of knowledge implicit in the second commitment called jňānamārga. walking the path of knowledge, it dawns on the seeker that the journey is complete only when it reaches the inner most territory of the soul. it is, in wordsworthian terms, the “passing ... into the purer mind/ with tranquil restoration” or, in shusterman’s terms, the attainment of complete identification between the seeker and the seer (the soul) –the enlightenment that is tantamount to “greater perceptual acuity.” 10the passing “into the purer mind” requires an unalloyed faith in the spirit of the mentor which is the path of devotion and complete self-abnegation: the bhaktimārga. the path of devotion involves the last two aspects of yogic discipline: 1. dhyāna and 2. samādhi. it begins where the seeker achieves equipoise of mind (antaraṅga sādhana) 6 iyengar, loy, 344. 7 ibid., 330. 8 ibid., 108. 9 ibid., 324. 10 richard shusterman, “preface,” bc, xiii. bodies of belief / bodies of care121 somaesthetic encounters with socrates but rises to levels of wakefulness and watchfulness (antarātma sādhana). the seventh aspect of yoga, dhyāna is the discipline when the seeker meditates and is attentive to the subtle impulses that cause the awakening from within. when the seeker, as peaceful warrior, watches the body as the medium that conducts these subtle impulses towards superconsciousness, the eighth and final aspect of the yogic discipline, samādhi, is achieved. dan millman and richard shusterman are kindred spirits as they undertake identical journeys: dan’s journey to san francisco, hawaii, india, hong kong and japan through somaesthetic education in aikido and yoga is matched by shusterman’s journey to jerusalem, hiroshima, beijing, and shandong through somaesthetic education in the feldenkrais method and zen meditiation. the “larger lesson” to be learned from the peregrinations of these two seekers is that the self has an “essential dependence on environmental others” (bc 213).11 both millman and shusterman have acknowledged the role of mentors in their respective journeys of discovery: shusterman provides a meditative account of his formation under the tutelage of zen master, roshi inoue kido when he lived and trained in the zen cloister, the shorinkutsu-dojo (ttb 302-314). millman narrates his encounters with a sage-like man, whom he first encounters in a dream before, actually, meeting him in the gas station; whom he ‘nicknames’, socrates. socrates ‘socrates’ is not the real name of the old man whom dan meets in the gas station. towards the end of the narrative, when the heart-monitor flatlines suggesting the passing away of socrates, the caption reads: “and death. the passing of a sage, a warrior, a mentor, a friend” (152).12 to dan, socrates was all these and much more. after all, it was the strange old man who first drew the restless dan’s attention to the irony of his life: “young guy like you. in a hurry. needs directions but isn’t listening.” dan’s naïve reply is that he, “gotta go. need to get some sleep.” the old man is heard teasing: “maybe you need to wake up.” dan’s response to this series of repartees is by contriving a name to playfully dismiss the intriguing old man: “you’re quite the philosopher, socrates” (35).13 just then he realizes that by some mysterious prescience he got the appropriate name for the one who tells him that he “wouldn’t mind one last student” (37) who was “obviously [in] need of a teacher” (37). listen: you are asleep 11 ibid., 213. 12 millman, pw, 152. 13 ibid., 22, 27, 29, 33, 34, 41, 79. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 122 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian socrates was not making a facetious comment when he picked dan to be the “one last student.” on the contrary, he was waiting like the “gardner [who] plants the seeds” (159), in the most fertile soil so that the lessons of life can be conducted through the body and the mind of that impassioned seeker. perhaps dan had seen in socrates the coming together of sos which is greek for “whole, unwounded, safe” and kratos which is “power.” so, “socrates” is that continuum of enlightenment or buddha-hood who appears, first, as the alternative to the “dark specter” (22) that terrifies dan in his sleep; then, during his real encounter with the old man of his dream, dan beholds socrates perform an incredible and mystifying stunt to land on the roof of the gas station (29); later, the old man shocks dan by narrating his own dream in which he saw the latter as a nine-year old on a roof top, too terrified to jump (33); also, socrates lets dan in on the secret to his ability to catch the “wrench” (34) flung at him even as his back was turned to the approaching tool or when he managed to lob the orange peel in the trash can without looking (41) as the result of “body wisdom” (41). as dan is on, what the doctors feel, the long road to repair with his thigh bone shattered into 40 pieces after his motorbike rammed into a speeding car, socrates puts him on the table to give him “a jump start” (79) by rubbing the damaged parts of the body with his hands that are bioenergetically charged; finally, after dan survives the “great battle” in which “invisible forces – forces of light and darknessare fighting” (52) within and thus becomes “a peaceful warrior” he asks to see the real socrates who reveals himself containing whitmanesque “multitudes,” described by the caption thus: “the next moment, fleeting images appear around socrates – identities from other times, places and cultures” (160). whitman: “i contain multitudes” bodies of belief / bodies of care123 somaesthetic encounters with socrates the field and the farmer the gardner plants the seeds only in fertile soil as his goal is to enable their germination that perpetuates vital life. the soil bears and enwraps the seed like the protective womb. it patiently presides over the gestation when potential vitality is transformed into active vitality. the soil holds the roots firmly so that the plant can stand even as it unfetters the shoots that break out of the subterranean darkness into the light of luxuriant growth. dan millman, as the fertile soil in whom socrates plants the seeds must cling to the roots foregrounding the necessity for the body to remain ready, resilient and responsive. the body anchors us to the history of this world even as it conducts the spirit to germinate and flower into light and emancipation. in the context of “body consciousness and performance,” shusterman refers to the guanzi, a dao text of the middle of the fourth century bc which insists on “inner cultivation” as a “method to grasp the dao and thereby achieve the most effective perception and most successful manner of action” (ttb 203).14 in order for the seed of the dao to be perpetuated it must germinate in the body of the seeker as perfection in performance before it, spiritually, flowers into “the most effective perception.” the gardener and the seed during the course of the 196 aphorisms in the yoga sūtra, the body of the seeker is named in four different ways: a. kṣetram (sādhana pāda: 4);b. kāyā (sādhanapāda: 43;vibhūtipāda: 21, 30, 46); c. ṡarīra (vibhūtipāda: 39); d. dehā (vibhūtipāda: 44). while all the four refer to the perishable body, it is the reference to the body as, kṣetram, which is of the greatest significance because it metaphorizes the body as the fertile cultivable soil. the practical sanskrit-english dictionary (1890) by v.s. apte15 registers fourteen different but related meanings; a few of which are: i place, abode, region, repository; ii. a sacred spot, a place of pilgrimage; iii. place of origin; iv. the sphere of action, the body (regarded as the field for the working of the soul); v. the mind (388). as a root word, kṣetram also takes the suffix pālaḥ (kṣetrapālaḥ) which has three different but related meanings: i. a man employed to guard a field; ii. a deity protecting fields; iii. an epithet of ṡiva (the supreme yogi, the supreme dancer, the generative spirit which destroys in order to create, the masculine principle, the supreme warrior, the eternally awake). the 14 shusterman, ttb, 203. 15 vaman shivram apte, the practical sanskritenglish dictionary. 3rd edition. bombay: gopal narayen, 1924. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 124 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian word, kṣetram suffixed with the particle, jňā (kṣetrajňā) has three meanings: i. a husbandman; ii. a sage, one who has spiritual knowledge; iii. the soul. apte also records the two earliest instances in sanskrit literature where the body is likened to the fertile soil with its spiritual dimensions emphasized: first, the 4th bce text, the bhagavad gita16 and then the 5th ce play by kalidasa, kumārasambhavam. 17 the bhagavad gita, believed to have been in existence 800 years before the yoga sūtra, must be the site of the earliest reference to the body as the cultivable field, kṣetram. the 13th chapter, kṣetra-kṣetrajňā yoga, which provides a comprehensive exposition of the meditation on the imperishable universal spirit, is translated by swami chinmayananda in his commentary as “the field and its knower” (796). the chapter opens with arjuna supplicating before lord krishna for the knowledge about matter (prakriti) and spirit (purusha) as also the field and the knower-of-the-field. lord krishna replies in 34 slokas(couplets) beginning with the terms of reference: “this body, o kaunteya [the epithet of arjuna, as he is born to kunti], is called the field [kṣetram], and he who knows it is called, kṣetrajňā (the knower-of-the-field) by those who know them ... i.e., by the sages” (800). the seeker who identifies completely with the pluralistic world and its myriad entanglements is said to be asleep (nidrāvasthā ) and in a dream-state (svapnāvasthā). when the individual realizes that the body as matter does conduct the spirit or pure consciousness, it begins to discriminate between that which imprisons the body and that which unshackles the body. the beginning of discrimination is the beginning of wakefulness (jāgratāvasthā) that puts the seeker on the road to becoming the knower-of-the-field when it dawns that the seeker is “pure consciousness” which has freed itself from the attachment of knowing. this state of superconsciousness is a state of absolute emancipation called (turyāvasthā). the sixth canto of kalidasa’s kumārasambhavam (the birth of kumara or karthikeya to shiva and parvathi in order to slay the demon tarakasura) reads: “yogino yam vichinvanthi kṣetrābhyantaravarthinam” (canto vi: sloka 77). it means that evolved men and women (yogino) seek out (vichinvanthi) those who have awoken from the stupor of worldly entanglements and who have cultivated the life of abiding within the body (kṣetrābhyantaravarthinam). besides the reference to the body as the field, the fourth chapter of the yoga sūtra that maps the road towards complete emancipation, kaivalyapāda, emphasizes the necessity for regulating one’s energies so as to come into pure consciousness. it requires the seeker to be watchful of the ceaseless distractions, dissipations, and delusions in order to remain focused, single-pointedly, on the goal. to animate this point, the fourth aphorism likens the discipline of channeling one’s energies to the ministrations of the farmer: “nimittaṁ aprayojakaṁ prakrtīnāṁ varaṇabhedaḥ tu tataḥ kṣhetrikavat” (249). b.k.s. iyengar in his light on theyoga sūtra of pataňjali, elucidates the aphorism thus: culture of the sprouted consciousness is of paramount importance in yoga. as a farmer [kṣhetrikavat] builds dykes between fields to regulate the flow of water, evolved yogis channel the abundant flow of nature’s energy to free themselves from the bondage of their actions and develop spiritual insight. (249)18 the relationship between the farmer/gardner/socrates and the field/seed/dan is based on the principle of harmony between the immediate field of action, so evocatively captured by 16 chinmayananda swami, the holy geeta. mumbai: central chinmayananda trust, 1992. 17 kalidasa, kumara sambhavam. translated by kuttykrishnamaral. kozhicodu: mathrubumi. 18 iyengar, loy, 249. bodies of belief / bodies of care125 somaesthetic encounters with socrates william james in the phrase, “the supreme theatre of human strenuousness” (bc 170)19 and the circumambient universe whose vernal instincts influence our thoughts and consciousness like the seasons influencing the germinating seed. the relationship is understood as that fine tension between the care of the farmer (which is more about unconditional giving) and the resilience or the give of the field (which is more about absolute trust in the hands of the tiller). when dan wanted to leap from the rooftop for the first time, he was petrified by self-doubt and dread. it appears that his father’s advice was not adequately inspiring. socrates, steps into dan’s life after his father’s death, and picks up the thread from where his father left off when he draws attention to the “destiny [which] ... began some years ago ... on a rooftop. now it’s time for you to leap again. and i may be able to help you” (52).20 it is this help which socrates extends to dan that must be examined in the context of the farmer’s care towards the germinating seed. building the peaceful warrior there are, in fact, three mentor-figures in the narrative: dan’s father; his coach, lopez; and the farmer, socrates. the question one must ask at this juncture is: who among the three would count as the real mentor? dan’s father brought him into the world and gave him the first valuable lesson about life: “it’s ok to be afraid, danny. we all feel scared sometimes ... but you can’t let the fear stop you” (9). those encouraging words lend succor and strength to dan to perform routines on the trampoline and in the gymnasium. he resolves to make a career in gymnastics which brings into his life the second father-figure: his coach, lopez. when he receives the news of mr. millman’s death, coach, lopez does not convey the news to dan immediately. he thinks about the competition where he expects dan’s performance on the uneven bars to increase the chances of the uc berkeley team (11). in fact, the words with which the coach is introduced provide a telling profile of the man who can only be obsessed with: “if everyone hits, we have a shot to win this” (11). in the eyes of his friends, dan is that “secret weapon” (42) who must be unleashed during the competitions. coach lopez does not see a greater purpose than that for dan, the gymnast, when he intervenes during a lean patch in order to advise him: “take your risks in the gym, not in life. in life, dan, play it safe” (54). under the care of his father and later his coach, dan is but a weapon who will be prevailed upon and coerced into conforming with the designs that others have chalked with little possibility of discovering one’s purpose in life or pausing to see the beckoning hand of destiny. his life takes a momentous turn when he encounters, in the gas station, socrates for whom dan is not as much a “weapon” as he is himself the “peaceful warrior.” actually, the graphic narrative makes a distinct departure from both the film and the novel, in that, it suggests a chance meeting between socrates and the coach when they “struck up a conversation. he [socrates] shared some interesting ideas that changed my thinking” (144). coach lopez brings the wisdom gleaned from that encounter to prepare the gymnasts for their final performance at the ncaa championship: “that old guy reminded me that we can’t control any outcomes in life, only our efforts. all we can do is show up and do our best” (144). while coach lopez would take the wisdom received from socrates to enhance his chances in the gymnastics arena, the latter (on his death-bed) plants the same seed of wisdom in the soil of dan’s life to watch the germination of actions born out of the spirit of following one’s vision; doing what one is born to do and what one has worked for (142). shusterman invokes the “care of the self ” implicit in the japanese philosophy of personal cultivation called, shugyō where 19 shusterman, bc, 170. 20 millman, pw, 9, 11,42, 54. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 126 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian there is an equal emphasis on the body as on the mind as, together, enabling “self-knowledge and self-cultivation” (bc 18). the exhortation of socrates would require dan to recalibrate his gymnast’s body into the field of the “peaceful warrior” who must attend to “the concrete reality of the present moment” (ttb 312) with “greater mindfulness” (312) so as to experience the “somatic symphony”(313) when the music of “an overwhelming impersonal perception of breathing that pervade[s] all ... [the] consciousness” is apprehended as an eternal wakefulness or superconsciousness. between the two acts (act i: the gymnast and act ii: the peaceful warrior) comes the dramatic interlude of the motorbike accident whose gravity becomes clear when the surgeon reads dan’s x-ray: “fractured right femur ... badly mangled... about forty pieces” (pw 59). the interlude does mark the turn that dan’s life takes towards the ‘purpose’. it has an intensity all its own with dan in a semi-conscious state in which he remembers a flurry of activity and visits by several people. the episodes in the hospital begin in despair and culminate in dan’s tryst with himself and the higher purpose within him which suggest the trajectory of the damaged gymnast who must repair his body and his mind before beginning the journey of the “peaceful warrior.” it begins with the surgeons agreeing on the prognosis that his gymnastics days are all but over and it would be a miracle if he would be able to walk again. later, when a worried coach lopez confers with nurse, valerie, about dan’s chances of competing again, he is told that they are not even remote. in his delirium, dan has nightmares of being chased by the “dark specter” (59-60). with a gorge suddenly in front of him, dan decides to dive across the chasm to “save his life” (60) “or maybe save his soul” (60). miraculously, a hand materializes in the darkness the hand of socrates which grabs his wrist and leverages him to safety. socrates, indeed, visits dan in the hospital. he “lays his hands on dan’s injured leg... and heart” (61). a few days later, joy, socrates’s protégé, stays at dan’s side while he is asleep. the gesture of touching the injured leg and the heart is symbolic of socrates transmitting his vital energies which are a result of “clean living” (80),21 in order to heal the broken body and the distraught mind. b.k.s. iyengar’s notes on the 35th aphorism of the third chapter of the yoga sūtra add credence to the fact that socrates is mending the body and mind of dan by spiritually overhauling his constitution: the citadel of puruṣha [the soul which is the seer] is the heart. it is anāhatacakra, the seat of pure knowledge as well as of consciousness. by saṁyama [perfect integration of body and mind which shusterman calls a “somatic symphony”], a yogi [like socrates] can become aware of consciousness and of true, pure knowledge. he learns to unfold and tap the source of his being, and identify himself with the supreme. (216)22 it is this spiritual energy, communicated by socrates to dan during such “jump start[s]” (79) that enables his somaesthetic reconditioning. the teacher also tells the student that he is in a stupor, in a dream visited by illusions that are mistaken for reality. the latter is “missing the big picture” because he is “like a fly sitting on a tv screen” (66) distracted by the myriad tiny dots. and to catch the meaning of socrates’s words dan must wake up. and dan would not wake up until he realizes that he has been in deep sleep (66). 21 millman, pw, 59,60,61,80 22 iyengar, loy, 216 bodies of belief / bodies of care127 somaesthetic encounters with socrates healing: the anahata chakra the peaceful warrior as yogi the entry for “mentor” in brewer’s book of myth and legend reads as follows: a guide, a wise and faithful counselor; so called from mentor, a friend of ulysses, whose form minerva assumed when she accompanied telemachus in his search for his father. (181)23 the mythological description of mentor points to the human and the divine becoming one; of the human being inspired by the divine in order to become charged with purpose. in the case of telemachus, mentor takes the place of his father, ulysses, only after the “supramental descent” (sri aurobindo’s pregnant phrase)24 of minerva into the human person thus bringing to the body of the warrior the superconsciousness,in which empowered state, he leads telemachus and shows him the way. shusterman, in body consciousness, alludes to the power one comes into when the human and the divine or infinite fuse into one by invoking emerson: we do few things by muscular force, but we place ourselves in such attitudes as to bring the force of gravity, that is, the weight of the planet, to bear upon the spade or the axe we wield. in short, ...we seek not to use our own, but to bring a quite infinite force to bear. (215)25 socrates becomes such a divinely inspired mentor to dan when, on the death-bed he tells the latter: “my journey is nearly over. yours is just beginning. wherever you step, the path will 23 j.c cooper. ed., brewer”s book of myth and legend. oxford: helicon, 1993. 24 “sri aurobindo’s teaching and spiritual method.” auroville: the city of dawn. 13 aug. 2014. online. 18 nov 2015. http://www.auroville.org/contents/575. 25 shusterman, bc, 215. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 128 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian appear. trust that. and whatever you face ... i’ll be there. we’re part of one another’s destiny” (142). socrates, indeed, is with dan at every step of the journey guiding him through the triple-roads of action, knowledge and devotion; through the triple-discipline that begins at the external somatic territory, passes through the internal territory of the mind and comes to rest at the innermost territory of the soul; involving the eight aspects of ethical restraints, ethical observances, postures, expansion of the vital energy through breathing, withdrawal of the senses into the mind, concentration, meditation and emancipation; and through the four degrees of consciousness beginning with sleep, dream, wakefulness and eternal emancipation or the state of superconsciousness. the path of action (karmamārga) begins as the discipline of self-cultivation at the outermost somatic territory (bahiraṅga sādhana). the actions involve wrestling with the neglected soil whose potential remains because it is untapped due to the smugness that makes dan accept his achievements in gymnastics as the ultimate purpose of his life. he is too bedazzled by the glory and the fanfare to be bothered about the larger purpose of life. his life as a gymnast appears to be one filled with somaesthetic consciousness yet he languishes between the dream-state (svapnāvasthā) and the sleep-state (nidrāvasthā ). socrates, the mentor, diagnoses the condition by likening dan to “a fly sitting on the tv screen” which can only make him see the “dots” and miss the “big picture.” he also cautions him about the need to “answer the phone” when “destiny calls” (66). so long as dan is like the fly, he would see only the specters in his dream and so long as he is asleep he would not hear destiny’s phone call. he must needs break out of the “unconscious consciousness” in order to cultivate the keener faculties of seeing and hearing. dan, who is actually hobbling around with a pair of crutches, in more than one sense, needs help. socrates, vividly and objectively, reflects on the young man’s condition thus: “at night, in your dreams, you walk, talk, maybe fly, all the while thinking you’re awake. your life is like a dream. same is true for most people. you can’t wake up until you realize you’re asleep” (66). the first signs of the young man making the momentous turn is when he confesses to the old man that he is scared of him. moreover, he admits that though he may not be ready to learn what socrates wants to teach or hear what the latter wants to say, he is still “willing to listen” only to be forewarned by the latter that “there are going to be conditions” (78), signaling the first stage of the peaceful warrior as yogi called, yama which imposes five moral restraints as spelt out in the 30th aphorism of the sādhana pāda: ahiṁsā satya asteya brahmacarya aparigrahaḥ yamāḥ. (loy 142) 26 (non-violence, truth, non-stealing, continence and contentment [constitute] yama). dan is soon appalled to hear that he would have to eschew protein, meat, desserts, beer, coffee and instead live on water, herb tea, juice, salads, fruits, whole grains, tofu, sprouts, seeds. when socrates tells the reluctant young man with a ravenous appetite: “you want special healing, you apply special discipline” (85), he is guiding the latter towards cleansing his body and mind through a diet regimen so essential for the pursuit of self-knowledge implicit in the five-fold observance called niyama which prescribes ṡauca santoṣa tapaḥ svādhyāya īshwarapraṇidhānāni niyamāḥ (sādhana pāda 32)27 (loy 144) which translates as: cleanliness, cheerfulness, a burning desire, self-cultivation, and surrender to the preceptor constituting niyama. after a week of somatic conditioning dan declares to socrates that he has put away the crutches, he has finished his fast and is ready to begin training. the old man makes the disciple sit in an imaginary chair with the back against the wall even as he gently strokes the cat, oscar. dan is hardly able to hold the posture for 20 minutes and the old man observes: “that’s because your muscles are 26 iyengar, loy, 142. 27 ibid., 144. bodies of belief / bodies of care129 somaesthetic encounters with socrates too tense. they waste energy fighting one another. not like oscar here” (pw 91). he tells dan that “fear can paralyze the muscles just when you need to act. so go deep. open the body, release the past. deeper – down to the bones!” (91). by making the disciple listen to the body as if it is a violin which needs fine tuning, socrates emphasizes the need for prolonged ease of posture as a prelude to long hours of meditation and thus initiates the former into the third aspect of yoga called, āsana. the 46th aphorism of the sādhana pād says: sthira sukham āsanam. (loy 157).28 the principle of the āsanamis that it must be a posture that can be sustained with steadiness and firmness (sthira) even as it fills the body with a sense of felicity and transport (sukham). in the early days of training with the old man, dan becomes more high-strung on account of the restraints, observances and routines. he is puzzled by the preceptor’s words that it is imperative to go through the “growing up before showing up” (101) as he is, equally, puzzled by the cryptic suggestion that the body and mind “must ripen like fruit” (101). the warrior on the road to ripening arrives (like a fruit) at the doorstep of joseph, the restaurateur, who conducts dan into the final stage of bahiraṅga sādhana, involving the regulation of breath called prāṇāyāma: “that’s it. breathe into your belly. when you notice any thoughts or feelings coming up, just let‘em flow by like a river. no need to cling to anything, just let it be ...” (101). bahiraṅga sādhana is the stage when the somatic frontier is penetrated in order to enter the territory of the mercurial mind. the penetration into the mind is not achieved by battering the wall of dreams and distracting consciousness but by a delicate maneuver of withdrawing the senses which are entrenched in the body. these minions of the mind prefer to keep consciousness anchored in the body by conjuring a concatenation of dreams and specters that occupy the mind in a false sense of reality and a false purpose of life. it is critical for the peaceful warrior to realize that the worldly sense of reality is a way of living life as in a dream. in order to shake off the specters one must begin to see that one has been sleeping. the point at which the seeker receives the intimation that he has been asleep after all is the beginning of antaraṅga sādhana. the breathing routines of prāṇāyāma work to release the senses from their firm hold on the somatic territory even as āsana works to release the tension that has built up in the muscles. in fact, the path of knowledge, jňānamārga, begins with the flow of awareness that the mind opens, not like a castle door but like the sluice gate of a dam which, in shusterman’s “simple-sounding injunction [is] to live one’s life in a waking state” (ttb 291) or in patanjali’s phrase is: jāgratāvasthā. socrates enables the penetration of the somatic territory by instructing dan to carry a notebook to register all the random thoughts that fade in and fade out of his mind (pw 117). it takes dan hardly a day to realize that the notebook is inadequate to contain the cascade of thoughts erupting from the mind. socrates likens the mind to “a barking dog” (119). a dog cannot but bark. the way to control the dog is to keep it on a leash and not “let it pull ... [us] down the street” (119). being led by one’s thoughts is to live like a “puppet on a string” (119). one must come into wakefulness to perceive this as the fact about the mind so as to be able to watch it spew its conjurations. in order to keep the mind-dog on a leash, even as it barks its thoughts, is to withdraw into a position of vantage “to notice what passes through ... [one’s] awareness” (119). it is imperative, then, to bridle the almost irrepressible senses in order to withdraw into oneself and watch the mind-dog bark. jāgratāvasthā or the state of wakefulness enjoins the seeker to take absolute control of the senses which is implicit in the 55th aphorism which defines pratyāhāra as paramāvaṡyatā (supreme control) of the senses (indriyāṇām). the 28 iyengar, loy, 157. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 130 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian aphorism reads as follows: tataḥ paramāvaṡyatā indriyāṇām. (loy 170).29 the adverb, tataḥ (then) is a critical link in this aphorism as it suggests the yogi’s transition from the discipline of regulated breathing (prāṇāyāma), through ingathering of the senses (pratyāhāra) towards the higher state of dhāraṇā which involves the practice of harnessing attention in order to achieve concentration and to focus on the higher purpose of attaining to superconsciousness. the first aphorism of the third chapter, which is about the innermost quest for esoteric accomplishments (vibhūtipāda), characterizes dhāraṇā as the practice of binding or tethering (bandhaḥ) the consciousness (cittasya) to one place or region (deṡa): deṡa bandhaḥ cittasya dhāraṇā. the phase of antaraṅga sādhana is marked by an inner wakefulness when dan realizes that he has to merely “let‘em [thoughts or feelings that erupt in the mind] flow by like a river. [there is, indeed] no need to cling to anything, just let it be ....” that way, he ensures that he does not maunder into the mundane streets led by the mind-dog. the adverb, tataḥ, also signposts that the seeker, who is now capable of watching the mind, is ready to ascend the higher rungs of yoga which are beyond somatic fine-tuning (bahiraṅga sādhana) and mind-watching(antaraṅga sādhana); the seeker enters the final stage of eternal wakefulness: antarātma sādhana. dan’s journey is unique when compared to the journeys commonly undertaken by others. common men approach journeys, sometimes with a map, sometimes with an unfinished business in mind, and sometimes with a sense of adventure whose outcomes are within the realm of communicability. dan’s journey, unlike the common journeys, takes place without a map, without a worldly purpose and beyond the communicative efficacy of ordinary men. it begins in the somatic territory and moves inwards into the cognitive and metacognitive realms of the intelligence through a wakefulness that puts behind the days when the body was languishing in the successive cycles of dream and sleep. his journey cannot be conducted with a map as the bearings of the mental geography require one to plot the regions differently and the routines of antaraṅga sādhana underline a cartography that carefully watches the bounds of the mind. so, there are no maps because there cannot be any, as the seeker is himself the journey and the journeyman whose road appears and opens even as its experiences are registered through the body and the mind. moreover, the seeker submits to an experience whose basis is self-discovery which makes it difficult to decide if he/she has arrived at the destination. to the common traveler, the terminus marks the distance covered and the end of an exhausting affair. the huge uncertainty in the peaceful warrior’s journey necessitates the presence of the mentor whose care lends succor to the seeking. the support of the mentor to the mentee is equal to the measure of penance (karmamārga), the measure of knowledge (jňānamārga) and the measure of identification with the seer, which is the soul (bhaktimārga). socrates, whose presence goes with the peaceful warrior, guides dan beyond the somatic territory (“felt in the blood” beyond sleep and dream); beyond the super-rational territory of the mind (“felt along the heart” beyond wakefulness) in order to arrive at the innermost territory (“into the purer mind with tranquil restoration” which is the stage of superconsciousness and eternal wakefulness –turyāvasthā). it marks dan’s arrival at antarātma sādhana which, happening as it does in the innermost realm of the soul, is, essentially ineffable experience that is incommunicable. dan arrives at antarātma sādhana after “a nine-year journey around the world” (pw 154) and “travels into the hidden recesses of his mind and heart” (155) in order to “prepare ... for something that ... [he] cannot yet see or taste or touch” (155). he only receives a beckoning intuition that it is “out there waiting” (155) for him. during this “final ascent [to superconsciousness] that may deliver or destroy him” (161), he understands that “a part of 29 iyengar, loy ,170. bodies of belief / bodies of care131 somaesthetic encounters with socrates socrates lives within him now” (156). this reminds us of minerva’s descent into the person of mentor who, thus inspired and informed, is able to show telemachus the way. the site in the narrative where dan receives the call to commence antarātma sādhana is “the remote wilderness high in sierra nevada” (156). the door to his soul opens the moment he resolves “to face the darkness” that had tormented and hounded him all his life. as if on cue, socrates makes his final appearance and instructs dan to “open all [the] ... senses. follow the moon. [as] it leads to the gateway” (159). the moon, an archetype of the mind, should light the peaceful warrior’s way during the final ascent. dan who has gone beyond sleep, dream and wakefulness must open all the senses to conduct the flow of superconsciousness. having travelled beyond the practice of dhāraṇā, he accomplishes the integration of ingathered energies and like the farmer (kṣhetrikavat ) who digs canals to guide water, dan begins an intense meditation on the fundamental questions that have remained unanswered: “who am i?”; “what is the purpose of my life?”; “where is the gateway beyond the mind, beyond past and future, beyond life and death?” (156). the fourth chapter of the yoga sūtras called kaivalya pāda, describes the journey into the “purer mind” which begins in meditation (dhyāna) and culminates in “tranquil restoration” or samādhi. by meditating on the fundamental questions, dan arrives at a purer consciousness that is subtle and quite different from the earlier consciousness of his wakeful state. earlier, while watching his mind-dog, he was able to see how consciousness was born, how it flowered into a concern and how it occupied him like an inescapable purpose. now, with the energies flowing single-mindedly into fundamental questions he moves towards an immaculate state where consciousness is incapable of inscribing any purpose or influencing any action. the futility of attachment to the conjurations of consciousness dawns on his senses which are, on the instructions of socrates, fully-opened like the sluice gates of a dam in order to let the answers rush in like an illumination or “supramental descent.” the sixth aphorism of the kaivalya pāda posits that only through meditation (dhyāna) can be born (jam) an immaculate and “purer mind” that cannot be influenced by consciousness (anāṡayam). the aphorism begins with the prepositional phrase “of these” (tatra) pointing to the activities undertaken by the yogi involving consciousness. so, the aphorism: tatra dhyānajam anāṡayam (loy 252),30 suggests that, of all the consciousness-related activities, only those that result from intense meditation are pure and untainted because they do not possess the detritus of the past. they are anchored in the tranquility of now-ness. the peaceful warrior chooses to obey the commandment of life that if the time is “now” there is no choice but to act, “here.” choosing to act, here and now, dan, finally, confronts and penetrates the specter of darkness (pw 171). the seed that socrates planted breaks out of the darkness and “a small shoot emerges from the rich earth” (177). in that moment dan, the mentee, the peaceful warrior, becomes socrates, the mentor who has discovered the answers to the questions that emerge from the innermost territory of the antarātma (the soul-as-the-seer). millman describes the final episode of dan’s journey as the arrival at an illumination which is also a recognition. the illumination comes with the recognition of one’s essential one-ness with the cosmic reality. millman describes dan’s arrival at superconsciousness or turyāvasthā thus: as he emerges from the cave, having passed through the visionary gateway of his death and rebirth, he gazes up at the heavens but sees only the light at the center of creation, beyond life, beyond death. ...hiking back down the mountain, dan knows that a part of him, the separate self, has died. ... yet he feels more alive than ever before, having found an 30 iyengar, loy, 252. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 132 dr. vinod balakrishnan, swathi elizabeth kurian understanding and peace greater than he has ever known. (179)31 the “light at the center of creation” that dan experiences as his momentous destination is the omniscient consciousness (samādhi) that happens when the kṣetram (dan-the-field) becomes the kṣetrajňā (the-knower-of-the-field). the 29th aphorism of the fourth chapter talks about this arrival at the one-ness or union (yoga) when the light of the soul dawns. the seeker-aspeaceful warrior becomes the seer, the yogi. references apte, shivramvaman. 1924. the practical sanskritenglish dictionary. bombay: gopal narayen. chinmayananda, swami. 1992. the holy geeta. mumbai: central chinmayananda trust. cooper, j.c., ed. 1993. brewer”s book of myth and legend. oxford: helicon. dan, millman. 2010. peaceful warrior the graphic novel. tiburan: h.j. kramer. iyenger, bks. 1993. light on the yogasutra of patanjali. delhi: indus imprint of harper collins. kalidasa, mahakavi. 2000. kumarasambhavam. translated by kuttikrishna maral. kozhicodu: mathrubumi. shusterman, richard. 2008. body consciousness a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge. ---. 2012. thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge. “socratic (adj),” online etymology dictionary. accessed 12 sep. 2015. http://www.etymonline.com/index. php?search=socrates “sri aurobindo’s teaching and spiritual method.” auroville: the city of dawn. 13 aug. 2014. accessed 18 nov 2015. http://www.auroville.org/contents/575 whitman, walt. 1855. “song of myself,” in modern american poetry. 5 jan. 1990. accessed on 5 jan. 1990. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/whitman/song.htm 31 millman, pw, 179. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 68 page 68-78monica yadav action, body, technology: a study of cave, “the man who” and hands monica yadav abstract: the study of technology opens up a possibility of reformulation of the concepts and practices of the triad body, brain, and environment. technology, as a surface, produces in reflection an encounter of the triadic relation of body-brainenvironment with itself. through a conjunct study of three disciplines philosophy (through the plato’s allegory of cave), theatre (through peter brook’s the man who) and science (through neurological case studies), i seek to propose that the triad is in both a material and virtual relation, where material and virtual are “allelic” pairs. keywords: body, technology, environment, brain, the virtual. introduction technology often engages in the production of a newer perception and experience. actions and possibilities of actions through technological enhancement and prosthesis open up new modes of behavior. the act of attaching the body to technology gives an invitation to look at the material and the virtual by/in the body. technology in my paper is a surface; a bounded one of reflections in a close relation, unconcealed and arranged for interaction. it is a surface where the triadic ecology of body-brain-environment encounters its own relationship. the triadic relation in other words is brought closer to itself. this migration closer to itself mediated by technology is a new way of structuring the relationship and its material ecology. here, technology is not merely a medium to execute a task but is also a creator and animator which attends and is orientated towards varieties of triad formations that cannot be presumed beforehand. the triadic relation of body-brain-environment implies that each is haunted by the other; sometimes evading, sometimes capturing. to elaborate, an individual does not merely live in its environment, controlling or mastering it, but also as an entity that gets excited and stimulated by it. the excitations and stimulations cannot be consciously intended or controlled or manipulated. the excitations and stimulations also reach the brain which acts as a mediator between organs and transfers it to the tissues and the other contact surfaces. by mediator, i imply that it acts both as an adjunct and as an intervener between two body parts. the body organs or parts receive excitation from both directly outside and through the mediation of the brain. perception and experience hence, are not entirely determined by and in the neural networks of the brain but also by the sensory stimuli received from the environment. visual or auditory hallucinations are an example of experiences produced directly by the brain. the brain generates images and sounds somaesthetics and technology69 action, body, technology: a study of cave, “the man who” and hands that the eye sees, and the ear hears, while acting with/in the environment. these hallucinations, in turn, affect the way a body behaves in its environment. direct stimulation of the body happens during a situation such as sudden event in the environment like a natural catastrophe, a war trauma like of torture, rape, and economic trauma such as sudden unemployment or homelessness. the suddenness is felt as trauma which cannot be immediately, directly and easily deciphered by the brain. on the other hand, the body acts out in the world, a doing which acts upon the body and the brain too. environment, body, and brain thus respond to each other and work in relationship with each other. as i use the term body, i have full cognizance of the body-mind bifurcation that exists in the discourse of philosophy and that is aroused by the usage of the concept. i do not discuss mind in my paper. my interest in the paper is to address the dichotomies of body-brain, bodyenvironment and brain-environment and discuss the triad ecology of body-brain-environment that emerges, flourishes, interacts with and through the reflection of itself as created by technology. technology, here, is an active surface that builds a possibility of capturing, recording, reflecting and revealing the brain of the triadic relationship and putting what it captures into the triadic ecology. technology thus is not a passive reflector. each technology is a surface that is unique and particular in terms of how its reflection organises the triad. it is unique, that is its mystery. by the sheer nature of its uniqueness, the effects, or results of reflections created and superimposed by technology, cannot be pre-determined. to find another kind of knowing pertaining to the triadic relation, technology by bridging the split between the material and the virtual brings an attitude of freshness towards the relationship. from bringing an instantaneous familiarity in the triad of its relation through the reflection from technology’s surface, the relationship passes onto a new life. technology here is not an interface. interface, according to the oxford english dictionary, means a point where two systems, subjects, organisations meet and interact. an interface connects two different systems; two different spaces. what will be an interface when a connection within one system and with itself is elaborated upon? the technology expands the relationship from within which opens a reality revealed only when the interaction of the body, brain and environment encounters a surface that blocks their movement and offers itself in the formation of the triadic relationship. the swamps of surface produce a jarring encounter of the triadic components otherwise concealed in inactivity with each other. to explore in more depth a deeper understanding of such a surface that explicates the virtual and the material nature of the triad of brain-bodyenvironment, i would study plato’s cave parable followed by an analysis of peter brook’s the man who and an examination of a few case studies from neurology. 1. in the shadow of plato’s cave in the cave allegory,1 the prisoner’s world of knowledge and light lies outside the cave. the cave is a prison of appearances, understood to be a copy of those which exist outside. instead of going by this understanding, i would like to speculatively analyse the aesthetics of the spectacle created in plato’s cave. the cave is a cave of appearances densely populated with prisoners and shadows and yet in another sense is devoid of the density and of the concreteness of plato’s ideas and knowledge. the emptiness of the cave’s dark space is filled with the activity of this world. the prisoners are continuously in motion producing and watching the images projected onto the wall. in this regard, the spectacle of the cave is a sequence of images being projected onto 1 plato, the republic, book vii, trans. benjamin jowett, available online at http://classics.mit.edu/plato/republic.8.vii.html the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 70 monica yadav a surface watched by an audience who is itself projected as a spectacle. the sensations that the spectator receives directly stimulates the brain. there are maps of the body in the brain, so stimulation in a certain region of the brain excites the corresponding body part. the excitation of the body part and the stimulation of the brain is mapped on the wall. the mapping on the wall further stimulates the neural connections of the spectator. the wall picks up the movements and the “inner” experiences of the prisoner such as the decision to move. the manipulation of the environment through such movements of the body determines the prisoner’s perception of itself. the body, its actions, its “inner” experiences are (on) the wall/ stage. this wall of activity is grasping and immersive involving the prisoner completely. the observation of the spectacle is an integral feature of the cave parable and brings us in an analogy with science which is guided by human observation. light exposes that which is in the cave. it brings the cave to light, rendering it visible and hence knowable. the appearance in the cave is hence not to be treated as a temporary referent to the reality but as that which creates a perception of the object/ideas. it creates a visual field for the idea of an object to appear. the field transforms sensory objects (of bodies) into virtual objects (of shadows and their movement), and by linking the two formulates them for a new and different avatar. the new avatar is the audience immersed in the spectacle, creating that which it watches and engages with. this new avatar is both sensorial (bodily experiencing and creating the spectacle) and virtual (itself the spectacle which is an allele to that who watches it). virtual in common parlance is understood as something that does not quite exist. the word gained this meaning with the development of computer technology in the 1960s. it was used for something that is “made to appear to exist physically” in reference to virtual memory and virtual machine. “virtual memory is essentially a matter of extending and enhancing the physically real, by “fooling the machine” into believing its memory is greater than it is, something particularly useful in the early days of computers when physical memory was expensive and, by today’s standards (megabytes and gigabytes), very small (measured in kilobytes, or 0.001 of a megabyte).”2 this understanding of the virtual was later expanded in the 1990s to virtual reality which is an environment that allowed experiences and interactions without it existing materially. the effects created thus, were real. it is in accordance with this meaning that i use the word virtual. virtual is that which does not have a material existence yet produces an effect in the material. it may not exist in material nonetheless is mediated through material therefore is also in association with the material. in plato’s cave, the virtual exists as a default allele to the bodily or the material because of its intimate interaction with body, brain and environment (the cave). it is an allele in the sense of inheritance with the material like the gene variation. the virtual in the material is the transcendent living contingent. the virtual imitates the material, and the material imitates the virtual. they are indissociable. together, they create a movement that is invisible and transforming, like the prisoner freed that leaves the cave and comes back. the prisoner in plato’s cave is indissociable from her existence in the cave or rather from the cave (or the environment). the cave is also a space that cannot be escaped from or rather is not meant to be escaped from. it creates and produces sensations to which the prisoner, once free, keeps coming back to (and responds to). the visible elements of the cave i.e. the shadows and appearances are ghosted by the physical bodies of the prisoners, their behavior, their movements and their neural firings. the prisoner that goes out of the cave and enters plato’s world of ideas does so by exceeding its 2 steven pinker, editor’s introduction to digital and other virtualities: renegotiating the image, ed. antony bryant, griselda pollock (london: i. b. tauris, 2010), p. 11. somaesthetics and technology71 action, body, technology: a study of cave, “the man who” and hands “prisoned” self. the prisoner had followed the light of this world to exit the cave, and she returns to the cave with a voice of itself. the prisoner returns to the cave to share that which the self has learnt outside. in the coming back of the prisoner, there is a confluence of knowledge (light) and the immersive, spectacular world of/in the dark cave. the luminosity of the world outside is a witness to the immersive environment of the cave. a cave that is eternal that supports life as a mother does in her womb. the cave offers anonymity to its dwellers who are untouched by the world outside. the darkness of the cave is creative with its dwellers in continuous interaction with their virtual allele as a spectator. the walls are like mirrors but are not mirrors. mirrors that project outward (into the cave) that which falls upon them. the light and the cave mediates the formation of shadows and images (of the prisoners) on the walls and their projection back into the sensory field of the prisoners. without the cave (so as without the light and the prisoners), the glistening allele of the virtual often engaging in a production of a newer perception and experience the material could not have emerged. hence, the same cave, which seemed to be the prison for individuals, is the space of freedom where freedom is realised, experienced and shared. freedom to go out, to explore, and to break the shackles of prison. freedom to perform to oneself, to watch and enjoy a spectacle, to create a spectacle collectively. in the ‘not so visible’ cave, the only order is that of prisoner’s breathing. i let this breath guide us to a further exploration of the surface, which in the cave parable is the cave wall, and in peter brook’s play is the recording technology, to establish an understanding of the triadic relationship that is neither purely material nor purely virtual. 2. on the stage of the man who i now enter into the domain of theatre to further investigate into the intimate allelic nature of material and virtual and understand it through the interactions between virtual-material triadic ecology of brain-body-environment and technology. i would study peter brook’s the man who (l’homme qui, 1993),3 written in collaboration by peter brook and marie-helene estienne, and is based on oliver sacks’ book the man who mistook his wife for a hat. it opens a new unknown landscape of human and brain in a lucid and sympathetic manner.4 it is a play with four actors (david bennent, yoshi oida, sotigui kouyate, and maurice benichou, the latter replaced by bruce myers in the new york production), a musician (mahmoud tabrizi-zadeh), a video camera, two television monitors, and minimal props (like chairs) on a raised square wooden platform stage. i have referred to both reviews and articles about this play and brooks’ interviews as well as a production of the play by the duke university theatre studies department directed by kari barclay.5 the play displays exchanges between a doctor and a patient where each actor becomes either character interchangeably. simple exchanges of questioning by the doctor and the patient’s reply to them demonstrate a mode of perception and behavior that is very different. some fail to recognise a side of their body as their own; some have devastatingly weak memory; some are 3 it is one of the first play of the trilogy of peter brook on cases of neurological disorders. the second was i am a phenomenon (je suis un phénomène) (1998) and the third was valley of astonishment (2014). all three productions are under two hours each. 4 peter brook found in neurology a basis for his theatre when oliver sacks took brook around in neurological wards in new york. peter brook and the company did field research by visiting many mental hospitals of paris and london, meeting various inmates and saw several videos. they found cases equivalent to the ones sacks discusses in his book. for the first couple of months they studied cases and extracted the relevant material. the script was written after many years of research and experimentation and consultations with physicians and neurologists, including oliver sacks himself. 5 peter brook, the man who, directed kari barclay (1993; durham: duke university theatre studies department, 2014), video. the production was designed by austin powers. the actors were samuel kebede, faye goodwin, nick prey, and cynthia wang. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 72 monica yadav prone to painful, violent tics; some cannot recognise things visually. two patients are shown an image of rolling waves on the television monitor.6 when asked about it, one said that the image is that of horizontal lines and the other says that it is a spot of color. when the sound of the waves is added to the film both remarked that it looked like the sea. these patients suffered from visual agnosia where they had no identification and recognition of objects by sight.7 the use of a camera and its interaction with the patients becomes the turning point of the play. the camera records the exchanges between the doctor and the patient. the doctor shows the recordings to the patients. in this encounter with themselves in the recording, the patients are taken aback. the technology to record and replay becomes an important tool to present onstage the disorienting sensory encounters of the individuals. the dissociation of each gesture from its meaning comes out starkly. for one of the patients, the doctor records his recitation of a passage from thomas gray’s elegy and then made him listen to the recording. on hearing nothing but jargon, he starts to cry. for another, the doctor uses a mirror to show to the man to his astonishment that he has only shaved one side of his face. to another elderly patient, the doctor asks, “how old are you?” the patient replies, “i’m 23.” the doctor gives him a mirror to look at himself. he asks horrified and astonished, “what’s happened to me, doctor?” the play then ends “with vivid close-ups of the cerebral cortex projected on screens. three doctors watch in silence. a patient sits apart, eyes closed, lost in his own inner space. each in his own way contemplates the infinite mysteries of the brain, that “valley of astonishment,” as brook calls it, which they can never fully fathom.”8 the play demonstrates the brains of people, who suffer from neurological disorders, through their association with their body and language. through their actions and utterances, the play depicts the inner landscape of the patients to which their everyday behaviors belonge. through their encounter with mirror, sound recorder, and video recorder, the patients are horrifyingly brought closer in familiarity to their living life. the echoing of their behavior by the recording technology serves as the origins of their living behavior. the encounter of the patients with the recording technology is an encounter with their own brain. the image of their behavior and activities, that the recording technology reflects back, is discordant with the image of their acting-hood that they thought to have realised. the doctors use technology with the intention to introduce the patients to the reflection of their own actions and behaviors when recorded and replayed. the technology powerfully creates the brains of the patients through their actions and behaviors and proposes to the patients a connection to themselves through this encounter via technology. the process of differentiation that technology seemingly creates between the material or the bodily behavior and the virtual or the diagnosis of the brain is also the same process that redeems material and virtual from an oppositional dichotomy and establishes them as necessary correlatives or allelic pairs. the use of recording technology and the projection of that which is recorded makes the stage (like the walls of plato’s cave makes the cave) a platform that displays the intimate, living, intricate relationship between bodily and virtual. a relationship that is continuous, imitative and mutative, revealing a new kaleidoscopic pattern each time. the sparkling patterns are nothing but virtual webs on which materiality descends upon taking a form. 6 peter brook, “a journey into the brain,” peter brook official website, may 6, 2014, accessed may 2018, http://www.newspeterbrook. com/2014/05/06/un-voyage-dans-le-cerveau/. 7 gautam dasgupta, “peter brook: the man who...,” performing arts journal 18, no. 1 (1996): 81-88, accessed april 20, 2018, https://muse. jhu.edu/article/25573. 8 philippa wehle, “the man who mistook his wife for a hat,” american theatre 12, no. 4 (1995): 20. somaesthetics and technology73 action, body, technology: a study of cave, “the man who” and hands the piecewise indifferent narrative of history-less behavior, brought to the stage by the actors, leaves the spectators taken aback by the pathos, pain, strangeness and courage of these individuals. the actors played the characters without evoking any particular social, cultural or economic background. the actors demonstrate modes of behavior that have a uniquely different relationship with the body and hence with the environment. “it was as if the actors were not acting, but simply existing onstage. as such, this kind of performance was a rare example of acting in the here and now. the quietness of the actors, the economy of their movements, the authenticity of gesture, and the serenity of the playing suggested a meditation on the fragility and vulnerability of all human beings—all damaged souls.”9 yoshi oida, one of the actors of the man who, writes in his book, the invisible actor,10 that the only way he was able to play a character with a neurological disorder was by a very careful and detailed development of each action. earlier he could not even relate to the character and found it illogical to portray. but as he developed each action, as he focused at the smallest details, at the tempo, he felt the damaged individual emerge. he writes that he was terrified at realising the possibility that he could easily become the damaged without even knowing about it. as evident from oida’s account, it is through the body (of the actors), the brain (of a patient with neurological disorders) becomes formed as the actor, when it becomes active through the behavior (action) of the character. in other words, through the detailed display of body movement and behavior, a diagnosis of a brain or neural connections is put on display. brain here is not merely an organ with electrochemical workings. it is a mode of behavior that the play presents through minimal theatricality by bringing to stage the materiality of a human being with neurological disorders, to reveal the hidden folds of the brain. by emptying the gestures of their theatricality, and by making them as simple and minimal as possible, the actors try to play a “pure brain”. hence, the formation of the brain is contextual and emergent. in this emergence, theatre becomes an instrument to represent the damaged in/through the activity and the interactions of the body; and it is only through a disorder of some type that the deep valleys of the brain are revealed invoking incomprehension and astonishment. if the technology is to expand/contract the limits of mobility or of perception of the body, it can also reflect the limits of the body back to the person who has been recorded. in the context of such a projection, there seems to lie no difference between the recording technology that showcases to the patients their behavior (and also indicating their brain mechanisms) and the walls of plato’s cave that reflect back their actions and neural workings. by such a logic, the cave wall is as much a technology as a camera or a sound recorder. the solidity of the wall has a mechanism of opacity through which it reflects back, while a camera and a sound recorder have a mechanism of recording by which they reflect back that which it “watches.” the brainbody-environment triadic ecology is mapped onto these technologies. technologies hence, are surfaces that can capture, record, reflect that which it touches or touches it. what the technology reflects is the virtual brain-body-environment ecology to the material brain-body-environment triadic ecology. this encounter of the material and the virtual is allelic in nature. to elucidate it, i have here separated the material from virtual, but in reality, the two are indissociable, so much so that it is difficult to tell what is purely material and what is purely virtual. as technology becomes the surface to reflect the triadic relationship through behavior and activities, it becomes pertinent to analyse action or activity in order to understand its role in the emergence of this ecology. hence, to gain an understanding of the body-brain-environment relationship demands 9 margaret croyden, conversations with peter brook, 1970–2000 (new york: theatre communications group, 2009), 273. 10 yoshi oida and lorna marshall, the invisible actor (new york: routledge, 1997). the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 74 monica yadav articulations of both behavior and activities, including reflections of behavior and activities via technology onto the triadic relationship. 3. at the hands of action in plato’s cave, the origin of knowledge is in a deed; sudden act, a sudden turn that a prisoner makes. although for plato, what destroys ignorance or appearance is the true knowledge of ideas and not the turning of the head from appearances to ideas; the knowledge is produced by its own accord, and the turning of the head is an accidental factor. i instead propose that it is this accidental factor of action in the non-existence of true knowledge that stimulates a pursuit of true knowledge. an action thus becomes the beginning point. an action of a material body and on a material body. the prolonged duration of this action (or movement) or in its repetition (behavior) develops forth a virtual-body allele within the backdrop of a surface as seen earlier through the examples of plato’s cave and brook’s the man who. a material action is needed for creating a virtual bodily existence. it is in action that there is a collusion between existence and the environment. in that instance, a new form of existence is composed in the world. the form is material and finely distilled with virtual characteristics. the force of this existence is connected to the environment that overflows with the contingent, unforeseen, multisensory provocation. a form is born out of action and is sustained by the environment. an accidental action or rather an impulse, makes a person do what it had never done, or it thought it could never do. in one of his case studies, oliver sacks discusses a case of sixty-yearold j. madeleine11 who had never used her hands in her life. she was congenitally blind with cerebral palsy and was taken care of by her family. she found her hands to be completely useless and felt as if she had no hands. her hands could not recognise any object neither did they care to explore. in sacks’ words, there was no interrogation in her hands. they were inert and inactive. she had to be coaxed into action, but to no avail. her first hand movement occurred whilst hungry; impatiently she suddenly reached out her arm, groping for a morsel, and fed herself. sacks calls it the first impulse that induced movements in her hands and gave birth to perception in her hands. her hands were perfectly fine with no sensory deficit. the question arises as to what was it that rendered them functionless to the point of their non-existence? this is because she was “taken care” of and that she never learned the use of her hands as infants do. yet she could acquire active use of her hands in her sixtieth year despite never having used them before. she could now easily identify with her hand. until then, no meaning, no thinking, no talking or no intelligence could change the (virtual) association12 that she had with her (bodily) hands, as she previously identified herself as having no hands. virtual as non-material is not independent of material. the virtual of the body is malleable and mutable. it manifests in the mode of behavior. the virtual can get altered by the use of the material (body or specifically hands in the case discussed earlier) whereas the use, an action or a movement of the body, can create a new virtual (association), and hence a new body. the change in virtual determines the change in material, the hand not a hand becomes a hand. in madeleine’s case, despite the existence of hands, she had no hands in her conduct in/with the world hence 11 oliver sacks, the man who mistook his wife for a hat: and other clinical tales (new york: simon & schuster, 1998), 59-66. 12 here i attempt to argue is that even though madeleine has physical hands, her relation to her hands is not determined by the materiality of the hands but something like a virtual association that arises with the material or physical hand only in its use. use, movement, action, behavior in that sense is a bridge between the virtual and the body or rather the material (for the body has been understood to be as a material entity only). what i hence argue is that it has an allelic pair in virtual, that is, the body is also a virtual entity. the virtual and the material linked through action. it is the virtual of the body through the material of the body that creates different modes of behavior. somaesthetics and technology75 action, body, technology: a study of cave, “the man who” and hands denoting she acknowledged her body without hands or rather she was a body without hands. her association changed due to the use of her hands. the use made her associate with her hands as being her own hands, with her body now endowed with completely functional hands. this indicates that an individual although mediated by the physical body is not limited within and by the material of the body but is determined by the virtual of the body. madeleine could extend to include an object, a tool, a machine or in her case her own limb or contract to exclude the given body parts from the virtual of the body and hence the body. if, for example, a person were to use a machine to enhance its mobility such as an electric wheelchair, the wheelchair could be understood as analogous to a (prosthetic) limb. this technology that enhances mobility for a human is where the virtual association with the wheelchair as the limb or body is established. the technology here is a creative surface for the formation of virtual association and the form of a body to emerge. behind the virtual (association) reoriented by an action lurks the creative power of the technological surface; the sheer force of formation. technology gives rise to new form of assimilation of the virtual with the material and recognises their allelic pairing. doings pus in perpetual movement the triadic relationship of body-brain-environment. another example that shows this rapidly changing relationship is the rubber hand illusion which was discovered by psychologists in pennsylvania at the end of the last century. this illusion can be experienced by keeping an inflated rubber glove on a table in one’s field of vision and hiding the real hand away behind cardboard. the “fake” hand and the concealed “real” hand are both stroked and tapped using identical movements. the strokes and taps should be the same and synchronous on both hands which are placed in the same position. with the continuous looking and stroking of the “fake” hand for some time, the person begins to associate and recognise the “fake” hand as the “real” hand, whilst losing any sense of attachment or association with the actual “real” hand.13 as the hand is no more a part of the body, it no more can be used as before. such illusions have been seen in cases of stroke patients when they do not associate with their paralysed limb as their own and sometimes instead develop an association with someone else’s limbs as belonging to themselves. under this illusion, the brain is no longer geared to use the real limb with which it has lost connection and association. another group of scientists conducted an experiment with a fake hand but blindfolded participants to see if vision played an important role or not. the scientist moved the participant’s left index finger to touch the “fake” hand and simultaneously touched the participant’s “real” right hand in exactly the same fashion. according to their findings, within 9.7 seconds of the illusion, it was demonstrated that by touching the “fake” hand the participant felt it was touching their own hand.14 this experiment shows that the rubber-hand illusion is not produced by vision. it depends on the synchronous tactile and simple proprioceptive15 signals from two body parts.16 this is sufficient enough for the body to recognise the fake rubber hand as its own and derecognise its real hand. multisensory signals play a crucial role in the reformulation of the body. 13 “body illusions: rubber hand illusion,” new scientist, last modified march 18, 2009, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16809-bodyillusions-rubber-hand-illusion/. 14 h. henrik ehrsson, nicholas p. holmes and richard e. passingham, “touching a rubber hand: feeling of body ownership is associated with activity in multisensory brain areas,” the journal of neuroscience 25, no. 45 (2005): 10566. 15 proprioception comes from latin word proprius which means “one’s own” perception. it is also referred to as the third sense (where the other two aresix exteroceptive (by which the outside world is perceived) senses are sight, taste, smell, touch, hearing and balance and interoceptive senses (by which the pain and the stretching of internal organs is perceived)) that tells of the relative position of body segments in relation to other. proprioception can get impaired when one is tired or during epilepsy or injury in one of the joints. 16 ibid., p. 10569. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 76 monica yadav the rubber hand illusion depicts the significance of sensory perception that is the stimuli received from the milieu and its capacity to bodily transform a virtual relationship. virtual ensures multiple differentiation due to its malleable and manipulative nature. the participant begins to identify with the fake hand as its own. the multi-sensory signals, received through the body from the environment, redirects the brain to associate and recognize a new body as its own. this experiment shows that the limits of the body in relation to the brain are not limited to the physical body given since birth. the body can be fake hands; it can be a prosthetic leg; it can be antennas attached to the head; it can be the body in a video game. practice is the starting point that generates characteristics of both material and virtual, reorganised through sensory perception onto the backdrop of a surface,17 to create a form of the triadic relationship. the acting body immersed in a milieu of sensory stimulation mediating the movements and stimulations to the brain through technology is a body in conjunction with brain and environment. conclusion the body-brain becomes the embodied means of practice in a complex relationship with the environment. within this context, brooks’ play offers a significant platform to understand the triadic relationship and to further contemplate on the body-virtual allele of the prisoner in the cave, by bringing to picture an explosive interjection with technology. exploring more deeply into the triad, technology is a necessity which brings a sheer effectiveness in explicating the triadic relationship that is united through the contraries of the material and the virtual. theatre, by creating onstage very specific and particular theatrical images of individual behavior, brings to light the basic universal materiality of human behavior, becomes a laboratory space that through pure demonstrative gestures gives the audience a peek into the body and its intricate relationship with the brain facilitated by technology. theatre, in conjunction with the neurological research and psychiatric case studies on action, establishes the virtual to be a cause of multiplicity of existence and causes existence in the reflexivity of the body-brain-environment relationship through technology. the virtual causes the material to be immersed in the milieu that coils around and percolates through in a manner that both are non-differentiated. if the material is visible in form, virtual is a characteristic indicated through form. the material always carries the virtual within itself. what the virtual of the material indicates is the physiological forms of the material. the virtual is then the projection of many uses and functions; and hence many ways of life that can be explored, lived and codified. it is a speculation of the existence of a relationship of body-brain-environment which is dynamic and transformative. the virtual-material allelic relation places the triad at the juncture of the clinic (biology), theatre (culture) and parable (philosophy). the triadic relationship is a virtual relationship whose continuous wiring is embedded in acting and plays out in reflection though technology. it seems thus that technology has an indispensable importance in shaping the virtual, expanding the material and defining the allelic nature of the material-virtual pair. any action or any habitual movement can reassert or strengthen the relationship. each action and each movement free from everydayness is also sufficient to break through the old virtual linkages to establish new ones. with action in forefront breaking and orienting virtual linkages, technology in the background destroys all that is human in order to witness a new formation of humanity in/through a triadic 17 this surface is like dirt particles on which water droplets condenses to form snow crystals. the dirt particle is without which no condensation surface will be available for the development of crystals. somaesthetics and technology77 action, body, technology: a study of cave, “the man who” and hands ecology of body-brain-environment. this formation, as abstract as it may be, is through pure movement ready to realise form as best as it can. in the constraint of each form lies a possibility of courage to exercise freedom to form again. the devotion of the triad to what it encounters makes it what it is, thoroughly a servant of movement. the question then arises with which i conclude whether the triad relation exercises a sense of discrimination in its association to what crosses its path? references andy, lavender. 1994. “the man who.” new statesman & society. brook, peter. 1998. “does nothing come from nothing?” vol. 34. no. 1. london: the british psycho-analytical society bulletin. —. 1996. the empty space. new york: simon and schuster. brook, peter. 1998. “threads of time.” the threepenny review (the threepenny review) 73: 25. brook, peter, and daniel labeille. 1980. “the formless hunch: an interview with peter brook.” modern drama (university of toronto press) 23 (3): 221-226. brook, peter, and herb greer. 1976. “peter brook: in conversation with herb greer: credo quia contre-courant est.” the transatlantic review (joseph f. mccrindle foundation) 57: 79-88. bryant, antony, and griselda pollock, eds. digital and other virtualities: renegotiating the image. london: i. b. tauris, 2010. crichton, paul. 1994. “the man who mistook brain lesions for theatre.” psychiatry and the media 18: 634-635. croyden, margaret. 2009. conversations with peter brook, 1970–2000. new york: theatre communications group. dasgupta, gautam. 1996. “peter brook: the man who . . .” performing arts journal (perfroming arts journal, inc) 18 (1): 81-88. derrida, jacques, and mary ann caws. 1994. “maddening the subjectile.” yale french studies (yale university press) 84: 154-171. drukman, steven. 1995. “the man who.” artforum international 33 (8): 14. ehrsson, h. henrik, nicholas p. holmes, and richard e. passingham. 2005. “touching a rubber hand: feeling of body ownership is associated with activity in multisensory brain areas.” the journal of neuroscience (society for neuroscience) 25 (45): 10564-10573. feral, josette, and ronald p. bermingham. 2002. “theatricality: the specificity of theatrical language.” substance (university of wisconsin press) 31 (98/ 99): 94-108. harpin, anna. 2010. “marginal experiments: peter brook and stepping out theatre company.” the journal of applied theatre and performance (research in drama education) 15 (1): 39-58. lakhani, b., borich, m. r., jackson, j. n., wadden, k. p., peters, s., villamayor, a., … boyd, l. a. 2016. “motor skill acquisition promotes human brain myelin plasticity.” neural plasticity. kroll, jack. 1995. “the man who.” newsweek, march 27. oida, yoshi, and lorna marshall. the invisible actor. psychology press, 1997. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 78 monica yadav plato. “the republic.” translated by benjamin jowett. accessed april 29, 2018. http://classics. mit.edu/plato/republic.8.vii.html. sacks, oliver. 1991. awakenings. picador. sacks, oliver. 1998. “foreword.” in phantoms in the brain: probing the mysteries of the human mind, by sandra blakeslee v.s. ramachandran, vii-ix. new york: william morrow and company, inc. sacks, oliver. 2015. gratitude. new york: alfred a. knopf. sacks, oliver. 1984. “hands.” the new york review of books. sacks, oliver. 2007. musicophilia: tales of music and the brain. new york & toronto: alfred a. knopf. sacks, oliver. 1990. “neurology and the soul.” the new york review of books 37 (18). sacks, oliver. 2004. speed. august 23. sacks, oliver. 1995. “the last hippie.” in an anthropologist on mars: seven paradoxical tale, by oliver sacks, 42-76. alfred a. knopf. sacks, oliver. 1985. the man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. simon and schuster. sacks, oliver. 2003. “the mind’s eye: what the blind see.” the new yorker 48-59. sacks, oliver. 2006. “the power of music.” brain 129: 2528–2532. wehle, philippa. 1995. “the man who mistook his wife for a hat.” american theatre 12 (4): 20. 2014. a journey into the brain. may 6. http://www.newspeterbrook.com/2014/05/06/un-voyage dans-le-cerveau/. 1994. “a masterpiece and no mistake; peter brook.” london: times, may 10. 2013. the valley of astonishment. october 6. http://www.newspeterbrook.com/2013/10/06/thevalley-of-astonishment/. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture contents introduction body first: somaesthetics and popular culture 4 jozef kovalčik & max ryynänen articles: popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom 6 sue spaid the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through 21 somaesthetic experience scott elliott artworks’ bodies 37 adam andrzejewski sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga 46 noora-helena korpelainen the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash 61 janne vanhanen perfume, violence and symbolic sacrifice 75 davide giovanzana under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture 85 max ryynänen the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) editorial board editor in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) issue editors senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) professor jozef kovalčik (slovakia) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) professor arto happala (finland) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design joana cabral mollwitz the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 40 page 40-52rasmus ölme suspension rasmus ölme abstract: the article is a report from the final stages of the artistic research project movement material and articulates an overview of the project through the lens of a term that came to be a key term in the project: suspension. the article describes the problems from which the research questions emerged, the theoretical underpinnings of those questions, the practical research proceedings, and some of the documentation that the practical research produced. keywords: choreography, dance, suspension, intra-action, materialism, artistic research. starting note movement material is the title of an on-going research project in dance and choreography that i conduct at the danish national school of performing arts, in copenhagen.1 tthe project continues until autumn 2018, and this article unpacks what has come to be a key element of the research: suspension. the term was initially present in the work understood as the resilient feature of matter. however, during the research, the term gained importance and expanded its meaning to describe an immaterial quality of (running the risk of sounding presumptuous) a state of mind and/or a form of thinking seen as an attunement of two poles of a dichotomy. the article describes the terminological reformulation of the term suspension as an example of the entanglement of theory and practice, the thinking in doing (the dance), and the doing in thinking. it does so by describing how the correlation of word and experience has played out in the research project. i want to emphasize that movement material is an artistic research project and that its purpose is to further the art form of dance and choreography. this means two things: (1) the purpose of the dancing is as a laboratory for the research questions and not as the means of producing a dance performance. therefore, the research is not done in relation to an audience. (2) the theories that i engage with are used as tools for the artistic investigation. this somehow un-academic (although it takes place in academia) method differs from more scientific methods in the sense that i’m not claiming to properly understand philosophical concepts and represent them artistically. the contextualization of the concepts i use may therefore seem brief, because i focus instead on how the concepts have furthered my thinking through – and articulation of – the dance practice. 1 the research project is funded by the danish ministry of culture somaesthetics and its nordic aspects41 suspension the field of research – materialism in dance and choreography just as artistic practices can provide working material for philosophical practices, philosophy can provide articulation for artistic work. in this case, the theoretical influence appeared through the increasing importance of new materialism in the field of dance and choreography. this development is seen inside what has been called the expanded field of choreography, which began approximately 10 years ago and is closely related to object-oriented ontology, speculative realism, and post-humanism. the term expanded choreography echoes rosalind krauss’ 1979 essay “sculpture in the expanded field,” and testifies to a desire to detach choreography from its traditional connection to dance.2 for the 2012 conference “expanded choreography. situations, movements, objects …,” the term was referred to as follows:3 in the last few years the term “choreography” has been used in an ever-expanding sense, becoming synonymous with specific structures and strategies disconnected from subjectivist bodily expression, style and representation. accordingly, the meaning of choreography has transformed from referring to a set of protocols or tools used in order to produce something predetermined, i.e. a dance, to an open cluster of tools that can be used in a generic capacity for both analysis and production. another, more recent, appearance of the term is from the title of the phd publication by danish choreographer mette ingvartsen (2016): expanded choreography: shifting the agency of movement in the artificial nature project and 69 positions.4 ingvartsen does not explicate the origin of the term “expanded choreography,” but describes her interest in distancing her work from the dancing human subject as “a reconsideration of how movements could be formed beyond the human body in its intersection with materials, machines, imaginations, affects and sensations.”5 ingvartsen sees this as “a way of proposing a non-anthropocentric notion of dance and the body, by including the expressions of non-human elements.”6 expanded choreography refers to the use of choreography outside its more traditional relation to dance. this article, and the research project it refers to, shares the desire to broaden the horizon of what choreography can mean, but differs from the abovementioned desire to distance itself from dancing. my interests instead concern how such an expansion can take place from within choreography’s relation to dance. such an expansion “from within” is a questioning of choreography that does not look for an application outside dance, or outside the body, but instead questions the supposedly evident relationship between dance and choreography. movement material also proposes a different take on what could be understood as a non-human element. a materialist approach to the body can be seen as less anthropocentric, as it considers how the material body choreographs the human subject just as much as vice versa. 2 swedish choreographer mårten spångberg makes a claim of the term in an online interview: “after international festival, i introduced a term we stole from rosalind krauss: choreography as expanded practice. this was all a matter of saying that choreography could be other than a dance. it’s a mode of production.” https://contemporaryperformance.com/2016/07/04/interview-marten-spangberg/ (accessed 07.11.2017) 3 an event organized by the university college of dance and circus in stockholm, the museu d’art contemporani de barcelona (macba), the fundació antoni tàpies, and the mercat de les flors, with the support of the swedish research council and the swedish arts grants committee, on the occasion of the exhibition retrospective by xavier le roy at the fundació antoni tàpies. devised by mårten spångberg. http://www.macba.cat/en/expanded-choreography-situations (accessed 07.11.2017) 4 mette ingvartsen, expanded choreography, shifting the agency of movement in the artificial nature project and 69 positions. diss. , 2016. available at: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uniarts:diva-177 5 ingvartsen, 2016, p. 9 6 ibid. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 42 riikka perala symbolic and material through years of choreographic practice in the form of art work, research, and teaching, i ended up, sometime around 2013, grappling with the materiality of movement. although dance clearly identifies itself with the body, dance often gets stuck in representations of bodily ideals (a classic critique of dance) and psychological and/or conceptual narratives. it should be said though that the times they are a-changin’, and the development in the european scene of the recent decade with its exploration of somatic techniques and interest in post-humanism has presented other bodily representations. such representations are not immune to bodily idealization, but may at least serve as alternatives that broaden the spectrum of possible representations. my incentive to engage in the materialist approach is to contribute to the manifoldness of possible bodily representation. emphasizing the material agency in the body is an effort to counter a symbolic dominance that i experience within the history of western staged dance. my first attempts to articulate my critique in words moved through the dichotomy of symbolic and material. i borrowed the two terms from french philosopher catherine malabou, who in turn gives two references for them: the french anthropologist claude levi-strauss and the polish historian ernst h. kantorowicz.7 levi-strauss introduced the separation of symbolic and material by looking at the importance of gifts between tribes and defined the symbolic as that which is not material. kantorowicz has written on the subject in his book the king’s two bodies.8 there are two common sayings that illustrate well the examples of both the gift and the king: “it is the thought that counts” and “the king is dead – long live the king.” in the first case, the object is imbued with the non-material value of intention. yet, intention is not enough; it demands to be materialized. in the second case, the symbolic royal body shifts from one material body to another, as if it were a demon or spirit of some sort. both examples demonstrate an uncanny feature of matter, as they point to an immaterial presence within matter. these two examples are related to social organization, but we can also find examples in physics, such as gravity and magnetism. both the gravitational pull and the magnetic force reside in the matter, but extend beyond its surface. in reference to the human body, we find this complex relationship between the material and immaterial in the body/mind problem or the body–mind split. the use of the term mind in contemporary western discourse mostly relates more to conscious thought than to soul or spirit, which could be seen as other immaterial properties of the human matter. the body–mind split has been under attack for quite some time, but the misconception prevails, as it somehow lends itself well to human intuition. it makes sense of the world in a seductive way. similar to the experience of self, the body–mind split can be quite easily deconstructed in abstraction, but is much more difficult to change in actual and immediate experience. i might be able to understand the argument that there is no self, but still perceive that understanding from the standpoint of my (non-existent) self. in the same way, i can acknowledge the futility of the body–mind split argument, yet still experience the existence of a gap between me and my body. the sheer fact that we have such a linguistic separation between “me” and “my body” reveals the existence of such a gap. the experience of this gap easily leads to an understanding of the body as a tool of the mind. dancing from that standpoint reflects the symbolic dominance in dance that i want to counter by emphasizing the material body. i have developed a technique to work on this that i have come to call body-self attunement. 7 malabou refers to them in a course entitled plasticity of life vs. biopower, at the european graduate school in saas-fee, switzerland. the course was published on-line at www.egs.edu 8 kantorowicz, ernst hartwig, the king’s two bodies: a study in mediaeval political theology, 7. pr., princeton university press, princeton, 1997[1957] somaesthetics and its nordic aspects43 suspension it is a qi-gong movement that i picked up approximately 15 years ago and then used extensively in my teaching. the movement is simple and so is the principle of it. quite instinctively, when saying “i” or “me,” the person uttering the word points towards the chest: a specific place on the body where the experience of self seems situated. body-self attunement works on constructing bodily kinesthetic experience around centers other than this self-center pointed to on the chest. rather than explaining it only through text, i would like to invite you to look at that movement and hear my articulation of it through this link (and feel free to try it out with me). body-self attunement https://vimeo.com/242752813 attunement and intra-action as shown, body-self attunement is a movement practice that emphasizes material agency in the human body. the goal is for the practitioner to develop a sensitivity to the material body through experience, but also to notice the potential differences in ways that a movement can be experienced. the use of the body–self dichotomy can be a bit deceiving, as it may seem as an either/ or logic, either symbolic or material. this is why attunement is an important term. attunement suggests a tension between the two poles of a dichotomy. when tuning a string instrument, you negotiate the tension between the two points of attachment of the string. the actual playing does not happen in the extremities, in the points of attachment, but between them. however, no sound can occur without the tension between those points. this suggests a relation to dichotomies that is not based on either/or, but as creating a space for play by setting up a tension between two points. body-self attunement can thus be seen as a proposed configuration between those two points – a different tune. we can extend this metaphor to a form of thinking. nowadays, the term binary, when related to as a form of thinking, has a pejorative connotation. supposedly, binary thinking is limited, lacking nuance, and provides little help in approaching complex problems. however, the binary remains a element crucial to thought (not least in computer programming and coding through which we conduct our everyday digital lives). i would go so far as to say that the binary is inescapable. paradoxically, even the term non-binary is based on the binary assumption that you are either binary or non-binary. to continue the articulation of what attunement can mean in terms of thinking, i turn to intra-action, a term that karen barad coined to describe a relational mode of thinking that “signifies the mutual constitution of entangled agencies.”9 in contrast to the neighboring term “interaction,” which presupposes the existence of determined and separate agencies that, once constituted, interact with each other, barad proposes intra-action that “recognizes that distinct agencies do not precede, but rather emerge through their intra-action.”10 as such, intra-action does not deny the existence of binaries, but looks beyond them, before they were formed. approaching binaries through intraaction is not an effort to undo or collapse the binary, but a way to engage with the space between two poles. it is with this in mind that i approach the binaries that appear throughout this text (all of them, in one way or another, echoing the body/mind binary): material/symbolic, doing/ thinking, practice/theory, dance/choreography, and sensorial/cognitive. what intra-action can add to what i call attunement is the mutual constitution of entangled agencies. in that sense, 9 karen barad. meeting the universe halfway. quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. (durham and london: duke university press, 2007) p.33 10 ibid., p. 33 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 44 rasmus ölme the playing and the tuning are mutually constituted. the dichotomy does not exist before the negotiation between opposites. its constitution is entangled in negotiation. movement and matter in the introduction, i mentioned how the term suspension was first understood as the resilient feature of matter. there is a linguistic genealogy of translations behind that understanding, and i want to give an account of this genealogy to report on how the term suspension appeared in the research in the first place. iin the swedish edition of the french philosopher gilles deleuze’s book the foldleibniz and the baroque i found an intriguing statement: “… materiens mekanism är fjädringen.”11 my own translation would be “… the mechanism of matter is springiness.” to find a more precise english phrase, however, i went to tom conley’s 1993 translation and found a version very different than my own: “… motivating spirit as a mechanism.”12 in my opinion, there is no exact english translation of the swedish word fjädring, but one of the uses of the term in english is suspension, as in the suspension of a car, which is how the term suspension ended up in this research project. the suspension system of a car allows it to run smoothly on uneven surfaces; you can observe it in action by pushing down a car’s hood and then watching it bounce back when you release the pressure. let me trace back the process of translations and show how it revealed new perspectives to me. in his original french version, deleuze uses the term ressort, which commonly translates to spring or coil in english.13 ressort is cconsistently translated to fjädring in the swedish edition, whereas in conley’s translation, in addition to the previously mentioned, it reads “a spirit in matter” (7:2006), and “the motive force” (14:2006). curious about his choice of translation, i emailed professor conley, and he very kindly responded. in our brief email exchange, he explained that the rationale for this translation was to avoid reference to the metal coil to maintain a sense of the abstraction that prevails. he also mentioned other possible translations, such as resilience, elasticity, or springiness. although at first, i had trouble with conley’s translation, because i could not understand why he introduced such abstraction and immaterial notion of matter, i’m now very sympathetic with his concern regarding the abstraction that might get lost by referring to an actual piece of matter. in swedish, coil/spring reads fjäder meaning that fjädring is not the actual spring, but the mechanism that the spring has, its springiness or, as in the example of the car, suspension. the linguistic differentiation between spring and springiness (in swedish: fjäder and fjädring) reveals a separation between the thing and its mechanism, similar to what i described above in relation to a magnet and its magnetism and to the separation between me and my body. by using the term spirit, conley points to an immaterial feature of matter. spirit is not understood here as something beyond matter, but as an animate force and mechanism within matter itself. there is not just matter that can be moved, but there is movement in matter. the latin word for spirit is anima, which also reveals the entangled understanding we have between movement (animated), being alive (animate), and spirit (anima). relating to conley’s less material translation of the french ressort, i will turn to jane bennet, who addresses the tension between the mechanistic and the spiritual in the chapter “neither vitalism nor mechanism” in her book vibrant matter: a political ecology of things. bennet tells 11 gilles deleuze , vecket: leibniz & barocken (glänta, göteborg, 2004) translation and foreword by sven-olov wallenstein. p.38 12 gilles deleuze, the fold: leibniz and the baroque, (univ. of minnesota press, minneapolis, 2006 [1993]) 13 gilles deleuze, le pli: leibnix et le baroque (editions de minuit, paris, 1988) somaesthetics and its nordic aspects45 suspension the reader that she is “looking for a materialism in which matter is figured as a vitality at work both inside and outside of selves, and is a force to be reckoned with without being purposive in any strong sense.”14 she continues by noting how “the association of matter with passivity still haunts us today, i think, weakening our discernment of the force of things.”15 in the chapter, bennet draws on three different concepts: hans driesch’s entelechy, henri bergson’s élan vital, and immanuel kant’s bildungstrieb. the three thinkers are summoned to question the idea of an immaterial force acting on matter and, instead, propose the presence of an immaterial force within matter. it is important to emphasize that this non-material and non-spatial force still resides only within matter (just as the immaterial self is still pointed to on the body). it is not a spirit added to matter, just like gravitation is not added to mass, but is intrinsic to it. driesch proposes that entelechy resides in the gaps within matter or what he describes as the “only partly spatial portion” of nature.16 we can understand, at least metaphorically, how the space within matter allows for the mechanism of springiness, or resilience. in order to have some springiness, there needs to be emptiness. it is not the aim of this article to unfold in depth the three concepts that bennet uses, but i want to report on how bennet’s articulation of bergson and driesch furthered my thinking about suspension. addressing bergson’s élan vital, bennet describes how the concept proposes matter as a “tendency toward spatialization.”17 it should be noted that she does not say that matter has this tendency, but that it is this tendency. just as mass is gravity, the spring is springiness. bennet gives one more example of the spatial relationship to matter’s immaterial force as she quotes driesch, explaining morphogenesis as where “manifoldness in space is produced where no manifoldness was.”18 a similar articulation can be found in the fold, where deleuze (referring to heinrich wölfflin) notes how “matter tends to spill over in space,” or as my own translation from the swedish version would have it: “matter’s tendency to inundate space.”19 to conclude, three characteristic properties of matter have been articulated: (1) its resilient capacity (fjädring/springiness), (2) its tendency to extend into space, and (3) the presence of an immaterial feature in matter. we can quite easily acknowledge the presence of these features in the human body: the resilience of the bodily tissues, the morphologic extension into space (from embryogenesis and on), and the experience of an immaterial existence in the material body. i will now continue to demonstrate how i have been working with these aspects and their implications for bodily movement inside the practical research. 14 jane bennett, vibrant matter: a political ecology of things, (duke university press, durham, nc, 2010) p. 7 15 ibid., p. 65 16 ibid., p. 65 17 ibid., p. 77 18 ibid., p. 70 19 deleuze, 2006, p. 4 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 46 rasmus ölme dance and choreography – sensorial and cognitive traditionally, the relationship between dance and choreography has been understood as being embodied by the choreographer, who is the one with the original idea and the mental capacity to structure it into a coherent expression, and the dancer, who remains merely the medium: the doer who does not need to know why s/he is doing something, provided that s/he can do it. i’m aware that i’m simplifying when saying this. there are other practices, both historical and contemporary, but i see enough examples of the opposite – on stage, in the studio, and in media – that i feel confident making this generalization. a similar hierarchy exists between knowing and feeling, which is what i express as cognitive and sensorial. cognition is a vast concept, and my use of it requires some delineation. here, cognitive capacities should be understood as the process of knowing, related to the mind’s faculty to plan and make conscious decisions. in terms of choreographic work, i understand this capacity in two ways: first, the conscious choice of a certain theme of the dance that could be practically anything, such as spatial coordinates, aesthetic ideals, belief systems, and so on. this is about knowing what the dance is about. second, i relate it to compositional choices made in relation to an overall structure. this is about knowing what is going to happen and constructing a sense-making structure. what i refer to as the sensorial capacity points to a less planned activity that feels its way through the direct kinesthetic experience, as opposed to planning toward a specific goal, meaning, or result. it does not worry about meaning and does not plan ahead. such an approach to dance and choreography is not new, and it has taken various artistic expressions throughout the history (such as contact improvisation and authentic movement, to mention just two). i will continue by articulating more specifically the outcomes it has produced in this research project. the practical research phase was done by svärmen (the swarm) a research group that i formed during the phd research “from model to module: a move towards generative choreography.”20 the purpose of involving this collective was to set up a structure for critique and develop the research questions. because we have collaborated since 2013 and the research questions in movement material resonate with some of the concerns of the phd research, these people have the most profound practical embodied experience of the questions at stake. the name, svärmen, came out of discussions around what collective working and thinking can mean. to form a swarm meant to create a group mind that could produce forms of knowledge different from the individual. in the same way, i wanted to make use of this group apparatus to be able to harvest more thoughts, reflections, ideas, and insights than i thought i could do on my own. to accomplish this, i set up a protocol, or score, for a two-hour practice session, which could be done either together with the others or alone in the studio. the greater part of the session was based on documenting and reflecting on one’s practice. these reflections were posted on an online platform so that we could keep track of each other’s work, even when working individually. for the purpose of this paper, i will focus on the movement part: a 30-minute session that was scored as follows: practice dance and choreography through materialization of movement with the following ideas: follow the movement. 20 rasmus, ölme. from model to module: a move towards generative choreography. (diss.) (stockholm: kungliga tekniska högskolan, 2014) available on www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:929122/fulltext02.pdf current participants of svärmen are linda adami, dan johansson, tilman o’donnell, ellen söderhult and rasmus ölme somaesthetics and its nordic aspects47 suspension springiness as the basic mechanism. matter’s tendency toward spatialization / to spill over in space. track your mind in the attunement of sensory and cognitive capacities. i have already introduced the origins of most of the terminology in the score: springiness (fjädring) as a material feature, matter’s extension beyond its surfaces (spatialization/spilling over), and attunement between sensory and cognitive. however, the first instruction – follow the movement – is new and needs more explanation. follow the movement while working with svärmen during the phd research, we developed a practice we called inside touch. it is based on the idea of kinesthetic experience as tactile. sensing movement in the body is likened to the tactile sensation of surfaces sliding on each other, for example, a hand sliding along a fabric. instead of defining movements to ourselves through spatial coordinates, such as “lift your left hand diagonally to the right,” we wanted to define them through experience and actual physical sensation. for example, the kinesthetic experience of the above-described movement is felt more in the shoulder than in the hand and the direction of that sensation is neither necessarily “diagonally” nor on “the right”. surfaces within the body are sliding on each other, and you can feel the movement passing through your body. following that sensation is following the movement. it is as if you, eyes closed, feel your way through a room, letting your body’s surfaces slide along the surfaces of that space, except in this case that space is your body and the surfaces are inside instead of outside your body. to speak of following may sound like there is something already present that i just need to get in touch with and then follow, but following is more active than that. in andré lepecki’s words: “dancing demonstrates before our eyes that there is much more to the work of the follower than to submissively shut up and walk behind in passive, or servile, or obedient participation.”21 lepecki takes this as an example of what he calls “followingleading,” which he describes as “… leading by following, and of following by taking initiative ….”22 he, in turn, refers to canadian theorist erin manning, who has written on the subject of leading and following movement. manning write: we walk. i am leading. but that does not mean i am deciding. leading is more like initiating an opening, entering the gap, then following her response. how i follow, with what intensity we create the space, will influence how our bodies move together. i am not moving her, nor is she simply responding to me: we are beginning to move relationally, creating an interval that we move together. the more we connect to this becomingmovement, the more palpable the interval becomes. we begin to feel the relation.23 manning describes how one has to follow while leading when dancing with a partner. in the example of follow the movement, it is movement itself that is the partner, but still arrives at 21 andré lepecki, “from partaking to initiating: leadingfollowing as dance’s (a-personal) political singularity”, international symposium “dance, politics & co-immunity” in dance, politics & co-immunity. (1st ed.) (zürich: diaphanes. edited by gerald siegmund und stefan hölscher. 2013) p. 33 22 ibid., p. 34 23 erin manning, relationscapes: movement, art, philosophy. (cambridge, mass.: mit press. 2009) p. 30 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 48 rasmus ölme the same conclusion of following, as not being a passive action. there is still one more reason to underline the leading aspect in following. if following were a purely passive act, the follower would be devoid of responsibility and liability in relation to the produced movement. such understanding of the follower/dancer as an immaculate, frictionless medium will lead to an essentialist understanding of movement as true or natural. this needs emphasis. different bodies will follow in different ways, and each body’s way of following is in itself an expression of the conditioning that this specific body has been formed within. there is not one natural body, so there is not one natural way of following and not one natural movement to follow. again, we need to be reminded of intra-action. there is not first movement and then the following, but an entangled relation between the follower and the followed, as lepecki’s term “followingleading” suggests. it is exactly in this entangled relation between supposed binaries that following the movement takes place: in the attunement of moving and being moved. while moving through the physical research practice called follow the movement, i’m playing in the space between the sensorial and the cognitive, between dancing and choreographing. just as body-self attunement emphasized the material in the material/symbolic binary, follow the movement privileges the sensorial before the cognitive as an effort to find a different attunement of the two. therefore, while practicing follow the movement, i do my best to avoid planning and composing. i try to not have any good ideas about what i should be doing and, if i get any, i do my best to ignore them. thinking something about what i’m doing tends to make me loose contact with the immediate sensation of movement. i cannot stop myself from thinking, but i can work on the attunement of the sensorial and cognitive faculties available to me, and propose a different setting for those parameters. while practicing following the movement, i have experienced that i do not need to choreograph for choreography to appear. choreography will emerge anyway. in that sense, one could say that it is possible to take the dance out of choreography (as the expanded field of choreography has worked on), but one cannot take the choreography out of dance. paradoxically then, the skill of allowing choreography to appear lays in the suspension of voluntary conscious choreographing as a planning cognitive faculty. this is where suspension is re-formulated from its initial inspiration as material property to refer instead to a state of mind. immaterial suspension as the immaterial properties of matter were not described as separate from matter in my previous examples (élan vital, entelechy, gravitation, magnetism), so the immaterial suspension should not be understood as separate from matter’s suspension in the form of resilience. there are three features that i associate with suspension in its immaterial form: something hanging (sus-pended), a temporary break in an activity (suspended from school), and the excitement felt in front of an unpredictable future (suspense). a body in suspension defies gravity, free-floating, ready and waiting for an as yet undefined event. the term “undefined” is important here and should be understood as a suspension of definition that relates to the faculty of mind that i have described as cognitive. i cannot stop myself from knowing (and why would i want to!?), but i can work on suspending knowing. this leads to a negative definition of suspension. instead of being an action in itself, the suspension is the suspension of an action. but suspending is not the same as stopping. being suspended from school is not the same thing as being expelled. it presupposes that there will be a re-integration, a return. in the same sense, when i suspend a movement, i do not stop moving. when a movement is suspended, the movement is still there, but not active. the force that generated the movement is still active, but it is balanced through somaesthetics and its nordic aspects49 suspension suspension, hovering in thin air. when an activity is suspended, it is still active, but not acting. just above, i wrote “the movement is still there.” the double meaning of “still” suggests that there is no movement – it is still – but also that movement remains present – still there. if movement is always present, always still there, one could consider movement as the default mode of all things. there is no inert matter; no stillness to which movement needs to be added. instead, it is a question of releasing the suspension and allowing movement to move on. this definition proposes a quite radical argument against a more common understanding of movement as ephemeral. movement is never gone, it is only suspended. movement then becomes ineradicable. unstoppable like time. omnipresent like space. movement is then no longer done, but allowed to happen; to move on. there are similar articulations of suspension and movement as a default mode in the texts already mentioned. bennett explains how driesch describes the immaterial force of entelechy in negative terms as it “relaxes its suspensory power.”24 the movement appears because suspension is relaxed. as for deleuze, he describes how movement as default mode can be detected as “cause for movement already present within the body, only awaiting the suppression of an obstacle from outside.”25 suspension. a word that has revealed a world to me. but also in reverse, there was a world, or maybe an ecology of practices, which led me to that term. the entire translation dilemma that led me to the expanded understanding of the term suspension was based on a physical understanding of a word: the physical sensation of something that the word could not exactly encompass when translated between different languages and/or different translators. a physical sensation of meaning and a physical sensation of mismatch between the signifier and the signified. dance is often described as a wordless art form that expresses what words cannot. often, this is then referred to as emotions and considered in opposition to thinking, again echoing the body/ mind problem. it is to be hoped that this article can contribute to a more complex understanding of the relation between sensation (instead of emotion) and word. the importance of grappling with language and terminology is obvious, yet the insufficiency of language remains. just as i previously described how the tension created between two opposites formed a space for reflection and play, this experienced discrepancy between a sensation and its semantic definition can be understood as a productive, creative, and playful space. a space to hover in, rather than to minimize; a gap to be maintained rather than closed. but when experiencing the discrepancy between a sensation and its expression in language (we all know the feeling of looking for the right word for something we feel), it is as if the signifier becomes matter. one can think of a word as a symbol for what it represents. without the signified, the signifier can seem empty, but the experienced mismatch reveals a more intricate relation between the two. not only do our words matter, but they seem to have material qualities balancing on the onomatopoetic. i have had to move through different languages known to me (which remain in the occidental branch of the indo-european language family) to try to name something that none of the words by themselves express. an in-between-words that gets circled in by those words, indicating a domain or field rather than an exact semantic definition, a bit like a tag-cloud that encircles the phenomenon of a property of matter. a tag cloud that would look something like this: 24 bennet, 2010, p. 72 25 deleuze, 2006, p. 14 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 50 rasmus ölme ending note i want to end this article by describing the mentioned creative and playful space between word and sensation by presenting some documentations by svärmen. as much of the documentation is poetic, scattered in keywords or notes not meant to be published, i have edited them (and sometimes translated from swedish) to make more sense in relation to this article. the italics are the actual quotes, followed by my comments, which try to contextualize the quote in relation to this text. as i have already presented the complexity of translation, here i will leave the swedish term fjädring untranslated and consider it as a signifier that represents the tag cloud above. notes on fjädring: i first found it elusive, but then i began to acknowledge it not so much as an activity but as a state – psychophysical, spatial, organizational, relational, etc. i felt i needed an english word and i chose buoyancy. a mind can be buoyant and likewise a room or an organism. buoyancy here, then, is a thinking defined by allowance, tempered by curiosity about the circumstances as they are. buoyancy as a state of mind, not just as a physical feature. then the two instructions of “following the movement” and “matter’s tendency toward spatialization” fall into each other. this quote reveals the difficulty of translating fjädring to english. i relate the term buoyancy to suspension through the floating, as i described the suspended body as free-floating. the mechanics of the breath as metaphor for fjädring. the air you breathe comes into the body, gets processed, and exhaled. notice the air outside and inside the body; their directions and their movements. the sphere of one’s own breath includes both outside and inside. it includes the space in the body, the space around the body, and a border where the exhalation turns back to the body again and gets inhaled. i don’t refer to the exact same air, but to that sphere as a form of fjädring. here the breath is related to fjädring, as air bouncing in and out of the body. anyone who has tried floating on water or scuba diving, also knows how the breath relates to buoyancy. breathing out changes one’s density and one sinks. inhaling lifts you up, suspends you, makes you float. but the note above also describes another body, a body of air. the surface delineation of the body is no longer the skin, or the silhouette, but in that place outside your body where the air gets inhaled from. similarly, space is no longer defined as that outside and around the body, as it also exists within the body. somaesthetics and its nordic aspects51 suspension i noticed how fjädring can have different strengths or degrees. like the difference of a hard and a soft bed. i noticed how i would push down in order to reach up and to make myself more suspended. i noticed how i could use my body as a slingshot and catapult myself away. there is fjädring in rotation, in momentum and in the twist. in the lever, the catapult and the bounce. then i got curious about the smaller scale and the fjädring that is on-going and active also when the body is still. i noticed how the sensation of fjädring increases when different body parts met other bodily surfaces. there is fjädring in the lungs, the skin, and the fat. when am i bouncing against something, that is springy, and when am i the springy thing? here we find variations of fjädring. there is the intentional engagement of turning it up or down. as with the metaphor of tuning a string instrument, the researcher varies the tension of the string. how hard can i tense it before it snaps, and how loose can i make it, but still be able to play on it? then there is scale. from full body bounce to molecular bounce. there are qualities of fjädring through different functions: catapult, twist, and so on. finally, once again the body dissolves with its surrounding as the researcher questions where fjädring is located and finds it both in the bodily matter and in the material that the body bounces against. the material experience of one’s own body cannot be separated from the material sensation of something that the body touches. instantly i sense that fjädring forms spirals. i sense the body as a spiral and visualize a wringed towel and a twister ice cream. the spiral expands both within the body and in space and becomes never ending. it travels in space like a lost fly. where did it go? sometimes i have to look for it. like going through all your pockets to find something you think you have lost. it travels fast to other places in my body and sometimes becomes superficial. could that be an alternative? what is profound and what is superficial fjädring? i give time, attention and affection to the event and space is created in me. body becomes porous. i visualize myself as a lazy old rubber band that lost its elasticity. profound fjädring. i am a rubber band – i am the fjädring instead of adding fjädring to what i am. the bounces are tiny but the sensation is wide and extended. through simply sitting and sensing the fjädring that lives in the action of sitting but to which i’ve never payed attention. i learn. there is a lot inside this document. it reveals a relation between fjädring and spirals and how those spirals, once again, blur the body in space, as they are felt both on the body and into the space. that sensation is then clearly expressed by saying that the body becomes porous. the researcher moves on to describing how fjädring can get lost, or rather how one can lose contact with it, as the researcher then notes how fjädring is “something that lives in the action … but to which i never paid attention.” i find that is a great description of following the movement. the embodied kinesthetic experience is always there, but keeps falling into the background. even the most overwhelming physical insight will eventually become a part of the default bodily experience. it takes intentional engagement to re-animate it, which can also be seen as an example of how one has to lead in order to be able to follow. finally, the document reports on an experience similar to what i emphasized above about bergson’s élan vital. a piece the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 52 rasmus ölme of matter does not have its properties, it is its properties. here the body is experienced as being fjädring. acknowledgements next to my close colleagues in svärmen: linda adami, dan johansson, tilman o’donnell, and ellen söderhult, and the collaborators chrysa parkinson, shai faran, and jan burkhardt. i‘m grateful for the support and feedback from mads thygesen, kent sjöström, and efva lilja, and for the inspiration from martin kilvady and ido portal. references barad, karen. meeting the universe halfway. quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. durham and london: duke university press, 2007 bennett, jane, vibrant matter: a political ecology of things, duke university press, durham, nc, 2010 deleuze, gilles, vecket: leibniz & barocken, glänta, göteborg, 2004 deleuze, gilles: le pli: leibnix et le baroque, editions de minuit, paris, 1988 deleuze, gilles, the fold: leibniz and the baroque, univ. of minnesota press, minneapolis, 2006 (original print 1993). ingvartsen, mette. expanded choreography: shifting the agency of movement in the artificial nature project and 69 positions. lund: lund university. 2016 lepecki, andré, “from partaking to initiating: leadingfollowing as dance’s (a-personal) political singularity”, international symposium “dance, politics & co-immunity” in dance, politics & coimmunity. (1st ed.) zürich: diaphanes. edited by gerald siegmund und stefan hölscher. 2013 erin manning, relationscapes: movement, art, philosophy. cambridge, mass.: mit press. 2009 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 40 page 40-51garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson and xin wei sha ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter: non-anthropocentric design of responsive-media environments garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson and xin wei sha abstract: in this paper, we describe an experimental approach to the study of coordinated group activity (ensemble) through the development of a responsive media system and enacted movement-based research. interested in how ensembles emerge, we take into account the material conditions of phenomena associated with coordination and entrainment. to this end we share about the development of a responsive media system and as well as a series of movement experiments with the system. as a unframing tactic, we suspend ontological assumptions which occlude, mask, or ignore relation and event as emergent and unprestateable. this tactic belies both our observations of event as well as the design of responsive behaviors in the media environment apparatus. our investigations yielded insights for us about embodied experience with respect to technicity. keywords: digital-physical hybrid systems, group activity and ensemble, material computing, responsive media, movement research, research-creation. als das kind kind war, ging es mit hängenden armen, wollte der bach sei ein fluß, der fluß sei ein strom, und diese pfütze das meer. als das kind kind war, wußte es nicht, daß es kind war, alles war ihm beseelt, und alle seelen waren eins.1 -peter handke, from “lied vom kindsein,” featured in der himmel über berlin (1987), directed by wim wenders 1 from peter handke’s “song of childhood,” featured in the 1987 film by wim wenders wings of desire: “when the child was a child / it walked with its arms swinging, / wanted the brook to be a river, / the river to be a torrent, / and this puddle to be the sea. / when the child was a child, / it didn’t know that it was a child, / to it, everything had a soul, / and all souls were one.” somaesthetics and technology41 ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter 1. the problematic of ensemble, entrainment, and material creativity a small table found in a 2014 blog post by adrian freed2 enumerates words beginning with prefixes co-, sym-, and syn-. in this “semblance typology of entrainments,” as he titled it, each word is complete with a short definition, and many words are attached to examples: “morris dance”, “twisting together,” “three-legged race”, “melting together.” freed’s typology unfurls the term entrainment from traditional understandings bounded by discipline. semblance here can be read here as uniting these disparate notions by what wittgenstein called their “family resemblence” (this unity wittgenstein might also approvingly label “true enough”). freed’s list invites us to unfurl notions of togetherness bound together as corporeal gesture coordinated across messy assemblages of bodies and stuff: a group preparing a meal, a crowd’s distributed movements through urban spaces, or children playing tag, holding a conversation while walking downtown. we call these notions of togetherness “ensemble”.3 like ensemble, the term entrainment seems to have never belonged solely to any one context. christian huygens found that pendulums would synchronize their phase when connected by a single medium (harmonicity in classical physics). in musicology, to entrain to a beat is to fall into a groove (or at least to play in tempo). biological entrainment describes the syncing of an organism’s circadian rhythms with an environmental rhythm. prosodic entrainment is the mimetic matching of patterns of speech in group conversation. perhaps the most poetic notion of entrainment comes from the morphology of physical and geological systems: solids or liquids perturbed by flow. aeolian or fluvial flows lift sediment from the seafloor or the sands of a desert, creating patterns of ripples and waves. in these examples, the temptation may be to understand entrainment as the assimilation or adaptation of one system to another. the preposition to is important sign post of the kinds of relationalities we’re interested in. it’s not so simple as tuning a guitar to an electronic tuner, or playing along “to” a drum machine. it is not a relation of pure identity but rather of summing; the better pronoun for entrainment is to entrain with. because we will say more about media systems, we’ll provide the aeolian harp here as an example. traditionally this was a stringed instrument installed outdoors. gusts of wind blow through the instrument, and if the frequency of the vortex turbulence on either side of the string matches the frequency of the string or one of its harmonics, the string will vibrate. (other “environmental” instrument variations use pipes, bells, or chimes.) some contemporary engagements with this atmospheric instrumentality are found in harry bertoia’s sonambient steel-rod instruments. the wind is replaced by the sea in eduardo chillida’s peine del viento in san sebastian or the sea organ by nikola bašić in zadar, croatia. these seaside plazas are built with pipes that lead out to the ocean, through which the surf rushes up to create a roaring, noisy yet pitch-resonant sound. in these examples, the material configuration constitutes a potentiality which are activated in irreducibly complex ways by energetic forces. what’s more, the instruments do not care where the forces come from; they may be coupled with atmospheric, non-human material, or anthropogenic energies. as mentioned above, we don’t need to include the human to speak of entrainment or 2 https://adrianfreed.com/content/semblance-typology-entrainments last accessed [2019-02-19] 3 what we call ensemble could also readily be encapsulated by other philosophical concepts such as the deleuzoguattarian assemblage or the whiteheadian societies of actual entities. no doubt the power of these process theoretical notions are behind the inspiration for this project and the reader may expect more appearances by such figures in the final part of this essay. rather than get deep into the metaphysical architecture of deleuze or whitehead, we take notice of those resonances and return to the problematic of ensemble, “attending to the phenomena” per husserl’s injunction, via empirical experiment. to venture to risk being too open-ended and shrouded in naivety, to ask without embarrassment like the child in the poem from wings over berlin, “warum bin ich ich, und nicht du?” the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 42 garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson and xin wei sha ensemble. to this end our project begins in the mess of the matter of ensemble—and ends there too—there is always more to be unpacked from cultural, physical, chemical, and affective strata, novel vectors to pursue. accordingly, we do not set out to create a definitive account of what we mean by ensemble, but for us a foothold. it acts for us as a problematic in the style of gaston bachelard4 propelling forth a question: how can we condition enacted experience for ensemble to emerge? at least to the extent that creation must be considered technical (in the sense of ancient greek techne), we hold that this is a fundamentally sociotechnical question. agent-based simulations in computational media try to get at complex systems and movement, whether in the case of architecture and the built environment and the movement of cars and pedestrians, economies and the flows of capital, flocking of birds and so on. all of the various movements are described as the activities of so-called autonomous agents.5 these computational agents are autonomous in the sense that they plan their movement based on local conditions and according to pre-given rules which dictate speed, proximity to other avatars, avoidance etc. it should be said that on behalf of these algorithmic descriptions of complex behaviors that there are quite good reasons for applying them to various domains, namely that they adequately approximate ensemble and crowd behavior. what’s more, they afford many practical advantages over enacted experiment, notably w.r.t. scale. media artists have been using these techniques for almost half a century to produce impressive eye-candy.6 but, how can we say that processes afforded by subjectivity (in this case, movement planning, spatial awareness) may be contained within discretized human bodies? and how can we venture to represent these worldly processes by digital logical operators? on the side of pragmatics, an enacted approach leverages embodied knowledges as well as the physics of the world without collapsing relations into topological graphs. in other words, we do not need to train avatars to walk in order to understand the dynamics of a crowd moving through an airport, we look to in-situ examples of people moving through an airport. in what follows, we share a project in speculative engineering, experimental movement research, and artistic creation which seeks to clear away presuppositions about what we think we know about ensemble and group coordination, to dispense with the notion of the agent (no more than an ontological bracketing of subjectivity and corporeality), to sidestep reductive accounts of relationality as interacting sets of coded logical behaviors. what follows is a concretized proposition, which points to embodiment as processually constructed and thus conceive of the body which doesn’t necessarily end at the skin. 2. lanterns: development of an apparatus and experimental ensemble practice the lanterns system is a sandbox for exploring a variety of interest areas, including human interaction in physical-digital systems, experiential approaches to dynamical systems, and corporeal entrainment between matter and biology. the lanterns are tangible pendant objects with responsive sound and lighting behaviors. the lamps are suspended from hacked gametrak 4 patrice maniglier, “what is a problematic?” 5 craig reynolds, “flocks, herds, and schools: a distributed behavioral model” 6 gary william flake, the computational beauty of nature: computer explorations of fractals, chaos, complex systems, and adaptation; przemyslaw prusinkiewicz et al., the algorithmic beauty of plants; daniel shiffman, the nature of code: simulating natural systems with processing. somaesthetics and technology43 ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter joysticks tracking the lamps’ movements. each lantern consists of six dimmable led with plastic diffuser,7 sockets, and a bundle of six cloth-covered electrical wires. suspended from a theatrical grid, the cluster of bulbs and sockets hovers only a few feet above the ground (figure 1). theatrical hardware yields computational control over the brightness of each individual light bulb. we employ some simple mappings for sonification and animating the lights, which can be seen in documentation videos.8 we will discuss how we arrived at these mappings and their implications after we have given some background on how we arrived at this configuration for our system. figure 1: interaction with the lanterns system through the free interplay of movement-based experimentation (figure 2), design iteration, and artistic creation, we developed aestheticized movement practices alongside our experimental engagements with the system. as we went along, artistic creation informed research questions and experimental design. in turn, both of these activities informed the development of the lanterns system (figure 1). this meant the design of the hardware (on the scale of months) and responsive media software (on the scale of minutes, hours) was retooled as we went along. below, we will give some background on the process of developing the system and the influence of the co-developing experimental practice, and the aesthetic achievements (dance works and an installation environment) and the way in which our work always refracted back through the questions we were asking about ensemble. the system developed iteratively alongside in-situ experimentation about rhythm and ensemble. in preliminary experiments, we began not with lanterns, but balloons. we created an on-the-fly system for ensemble coordination using some cheap latex balloons which we worked together to keep above the ground. 7 the plastic diffuser and led technology make the pendants extremely durable. 8 three lanterns videos: movement games with early prototype https://vimeo.com/193831344; dance performance https://vimeo. com/216553103; group etudes (experimental performances) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evm1z-kjllg. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 44 garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson and xin wei sha figure 2: dancers in free play with the lanterns system we made two important observations in these experiments. first, that the oblong shape of the balloon and its related material constitution introduced indeterminacy into the activity (the initial spark for our interest in the role of matter in movement and ensemble). and secondly, that our collective modes of playful engagement continuously shifted as we changed variables (adding balloons, people tiring, etc.). we found that most attempts to determine roles ahead of time quickly fell apart. speech was too slow to coordinate our action, but as we practiced our approach changed in order to accommodate the contingency of the balloon physics. with these balloon games on the mind, we began to work on a single lantern. the first prototype strongly resembled the final iteration in terms of physical design and the media behaviors were similar but not as refined (and obviously absent any group dynamics). we made two observations from working with this system. first, one significant difference is that the first prototype used spherical glass bulbs with incandescent filaments. we noticed immediately that interlocutors took a long time to get used to moving the lantern because they regarded it as fragile and delicate (in the end we did break many bulbs, which led us to switch to leds with plastic diffusers). furthermore, we began to find the movement resonances that were composed into the lantern itself. by resonances we mean the patterns of movement which recurred throughout our play, like circling and swinging. both of these observations point to what we mean by composing conditions for activity (instead of determining outcomes or steering behavior). somaesthetics and technology45 ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter figure 3: instances of the final lanterns system like many of the proposals contained here, we advocate a movement away from discrete considerations of media towards continuous ones. the design ethos of responsive media, a particular way of composing systems with media, sensors, and computation, is attuned to processual aspects of experience, such as rhythm, atmosphere, affect, and ensemble.9 continuous approaches to computation in digital domains might be said to emulate the analog or the material in some way (consider the aeolian harp example above). in the case of the lanterns, much of the computation is already done by the analog physics of the system. we employ simple analyses of the position data to create simple media behaviors; we extract the speed of each lantern from the joystick data vector as well as a measure of each lantern’s proximity to other lanterns. their proximity is determined heuristically by calculating the total distance of each lighting pendant to the group’s centroid. each lanterns position data are mapped to banks of filtered noise which are tuned to various pitch collections. their speed and acceleration control playback speed and tuning of a bank of samples, fluttering the lightbulbs as they sound. sound is spatialized across a multi-channel sound array to track the lantern’s position through the space. the total distance from the pendants’ centroid controls the pitch and amplitude modulation of sub-bass oscillators; as the lanterns gather together, the oscillators pitch into an audible range and pulse more frequently. the amplitude of this synth maps to the amplification of the light’s control data. in the case of the final swarm of swinging lanterns (figures 1-3), the simplicity of the media behaviors aims to highlight the prebaked, kinematic rhythmic character of each individual lantern as well as their relationships to other lanterns. the spatially diffused sounds, pulsing lights, and moving pendants constitute an experientially rich set of inter-penetrating fields of media and matter. instead of algorithmically injecting variance into the interaction, we aim for a reproducible sonifications and lighting behaviors which leverage the rhythms, movements, and 9 sha xin wei, poiesis and enchantment in topological matter. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 46 garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson and xin wei sha energies directly from moving human bodies and analog matter. in this way, lanterns’ responsive sound and lighting de-emphasize algorithmic virtuosity. instead virtuosity is always already relational, social, and lived. tightly coupling sound and light to the movements of the physical system also works to de-center the human’s hierarchical footing by destabilizing “interactive” design frameworks in which humans control over media through sensors are not slaved to the human body or extend as prostheses. a key aspect of our approach to experimental phenomenology is to rely not on models of “psychological” or “cognitive state” but instead to use semantically shallow models to drive the computation,10 described in [sha 2013]. this design principle results from an abductive approach to studying rich experience with the least possible commitment to theoretical models of experience. in particular, we have developed rich responsive media systems that leverage the embodied physicality and physics, but eliminate the need for modeling “user” “psychology” in code.11 lanterns draws on these methods, techniques and design principles. material computation or natural computing in foundations of computer science and engineering, and new materiality in cultural studies signal a turn to the design of responsive environments and computational media paying as much attention to material qualities like elasticity, density, wear, and tension as to social and cognitive experience. this demands thinking about and designing computation in a non-reductive way that spans formal divides between symbolic-semiotic, social, and physical processes. one radical context for the lanterns work is the investigation of hybrid physicaldigital models of computation, especially those that blend digital microprocessors instantiating turing computation with the physics of analog matter. following stepney and our own previous work, we generalize computation as the reproducible transition from state to state of a structure (physical, biological, informatic) under some deterministic scheme.12 previously we observed that sound computing already exemplifies a rich history of hybrid physical-digital computation, where the processing of sound leverages both the physics of the analog and algorithmic (the code) parts of a computational electronic-musical “instrument.” most importantly, we consider the human to be part of the system, following human-in-the-loop design common in ai research motivated by augmentation rather than automation (replacement) of human activity. lanterns radically simplifies the complexity of the dynamics of the parts to clarify the relation among the physics, the digital computation, and the human performers. we single out temporal (generalized rhythmic) aspects of activity such as cadence in swing, body and sound, as described below. the basic observation is that simple ballistic physics of the lanterns allow the performers to play most creatively to invent ensemble gestures that would be impractical to model and embed into code in advance.13 3. tactics for engagement: experimental results in this final section, we synthesize insights about ensemble from the experiments with the system itself. the following table summarizes the activities and inventions generated during experimental working sessions led by four professional dancers who have worked together for 10 ibid. 11 brandon mechtley, julian stein, christopher roberts, and sha xin wei “rich state transitions in a media choreography framework using an idealized model of cloud dynamics”. for more examples, visit www.synthesiscenter.net. 12 susan stepney, “the neglected pillar of material computation,” navid navab, doug van nort, sha xin wei, “a material computation perspective on audio mosaicing and gestural conditioning”. 13 as stuart kauffman argues, this is always the case with living systems because living systems have open rather than closed configuration spaces, but at the very least, this is a practical insight for building rich media systems for improvisatory activity. stuart kauffman, humanity in a creative universe. somaesthetics and technology47 ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter years. the first column describes various recurrent pendant movements which we discovered through improvised and unstructured play (the resonances to which we referred in the previous section). we made these patterns objectives for some playful exercises which were repeatable which could be varied (column two). an important methodological point was then not to instruct each other how to make this happen. instead unexpected coordinations emerged as a collectively and processually, transforming the relation between dancers, between the moving pendants, and between humans and pendants (column three). from a systems perspective, the first column corresponds with different perturbed states of the media system (whereas the unperturbed, equilibrium state would be the pendants resting at a standstill) and in the second column variations of these states are permuted. the final column lists the variations of the human ensemble’s movement state space when the media system’s state is farthest from equilibrium. by far from equilibrium we mean for instance when the lanterns all swing together the inertia of the system will slowly dissipate until reaching equilibrium. this phase space is similar for states “circling” and “twisting.” (this is also true for “gathering”, but the system seems to enter a different state of equilibrium if the lanterns are knotted together as shown in the image above). table 1: lanterns experiments and etudes our movement experiments with the lanterns system points to insights about the relationality between coordinating human bodies and the material counterparts via fields of media. what’s notable about these tactics is that we changed our relation to the lanterns, and in turn their relation to each other, to us, shifted. this suggests a looping relation between the humans and lanterns, but there is a lingering slippage in positing a relation between humans and the material system; clearly the humans are coordinating with each other to work with the lanterns, but the pendants do not coordinate back in a way that is familiar to us. this impetus the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 48 garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson and xin wei sha to collaborate is one-way; as far as we can say, the media system does not wish or desire to participate. the indifference of the system’s non-living matter seems obvious. this was quite apparent to the dancers, who, despite their training to navigate complex spatial pathways and anticipate movements, frequently caught a stray lantern to the face, or were scraped by the zip ties which bundled the threads together. it is tempting to conclude with this indifference as evidence of the intrinsic asymmetry between living and non-living systems (difference in kind). andrew culp has proposed asymmetry as a generative diagram for mapping this difference which can be applied to this situation if we replace “terms” with “systems”: “asymmetry works to impede reciprocal relations and prevent reversibility. it diagrammatically starts by constituting two formally distinct terms as contrary asymmetry. it is maintained by concretely establishing a relationship of incommensurability between their sets of forces.”14 culp juxtaposes asymmetry to complexity, which he calls “flattening,” and an “equalization of inequality,” which amounts to a kind of reductive scientific mysticism. it seems that by reviving deleuze’s concept of the irreducible inequality (here a productive operator generative of difference), culp’s gesture would lead us to space in which the non-human system could speak for itself on its own terms, even if there’s no sense to be made of its speech act. figure 4: instances of the final lanterns system while culp’s provocation inoculates us against the flattening of difference, his reading of deleuzian metaphysics furnishes no system by which we can account for the lived experience of ensemble. this is not surprising given the nature of culp’s shadow work, imploring us to dispense with deleuzoguattarian concepts adjacent to ensemble such as assemblage, becoming, and even experience for their affirmative, joyous, and connective connotations. asymmetry only takes us as far as understanding difference as the continuous substrate and irreducible inequality as a primordial mechanism of creation. humans and non-living systems are organized differently. we can understand this non-human/human ensemble as asymmetrical; forces such as desire, 14 andrew culp, dark deleuze (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2016): 33-37. somaesthetics and technology49 ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter intention, anticipation are incommensurate with the physical forces acting upon the material of the lanterns. to speak to our lived experience of ensemble with lanterns, to describe the encounter between a human and a non-human system, why and how this ensemble falls apart, we come to the question of organization. and indulge a traditionally affirmative reading of the relation of metallurgy to music in gilles deleuze and felix guattari’s a thousand plateaus. they write: matter and form have never seemed more rigid than in metallurgy; yet the succession of forms tends to be replaced by the form of a continuous development, and the variability of matters tends to be replaced by the matter of a continuous variation. if metallurgy has an essential relation with music, it is by virtue not only of the sounds of the forge but also of the tendency within both arts to bring into its own, beyond separate forms, a continuous development of form, and beyond variable matters, a continuous variation of matter: a widened chromaticism sustains both music and metallurgy.15 there are affinities between the lanterns’ physical system and the molten metal as a physical system, just as there are affinities between the media behaviors of the lanterns system and musical texturality. this is not just because the lantern pendants are made of copper threading at its core, or that their movements are sonified, but because they are constructed in a manner which accords with both the continuous variation of matter entangled with media. this entanglement is a function of digital-physical computation strategies mentioned in section 2. given the asymmetry of the lanterns systems and human beings, how then can we speak about ensemble? or entrainment with? in his essay “nonorganic life,” manuel delanda writes that: “a centuries-old devotion to ‘conservative systems’ (physical systems that, for all practical purposes, are isolated from their surroundings) are giving way to the realization that most systems in nature are subject to flows of matter and energy that continually move through them.”16 so while we can understand the biological organism of the human as a organizationally closed autopoietic system, and the group of humans speaking, gesturing and walking together as a closed semiotic system, we need not draw thick lines around humans when considering the lanterns experiments as a movement system. so, “warum bin ich ich und nicht du?” no doubt the humans retain their biologically organized boundaries, but when these systems become coupled in this way, maybe words like “i” and “you” and “it” lose their meaning. in the spirit of simondon, it may simply be less interesting or enlightening to speak in terms of biological organizations or subjects. deleuze and guattari write that “the musical smith was the first ‘transformer’” but no doubt the musical smith was also transformed just as the movers in these experiments adjusted their relation to the lanterns in order to point the media system towards a state of perturbation. that some of the examples we’ve cited produce static concretized artifacts may also occlude what is interesting about the lanterns. the canal, the arrangement of metal filings, the wave patterns in the seafloor sediment—what is interesting about these is not the result of course by the process. as a movement system, the lanterns don’t produce durational artifacts, but rather produce gesture. these gestures are co-produced by the physical system of the pendants, the energetic, 15 gilles deleuze and felix guattari, a thousand plateaus, translated by brian massumi (minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press, 1987): 441. 16 manuel delanda, “nonorganic life,” in zone 6, eds. jonathan crary and sanford kwitner (new york: urzone, 1992): 128-167. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 50 garrett laroy johnson, todd ingalls, britta joy peterson and xin wei sha somatic system of the human movers, and the computational media schema continuously driving spatialized sound and the electric flows to the light bulbs. like music, gesture is ephemeral, mechanical reproduction notwithstanding. per experimental jazz saxophonist eric dolphy: “when you hear music, after it’s over, it’s gone in the air; you can never recapture it again.” acknowledgments the authors would like to thank their collaborators in experimental and performative endeavors: evan anderson (theatrical lighting design), juan rodriguez, lela groom, kim lusk (dancers), pamela east (photography/logistics). this work is supported and hosted by the synthesis center at arizona state university. we’re grateful for conversations with many people who help us to shape this project in both research-creation and writing phases, including adrian freed, a.j. nocek, phillip thurtle, and lauren sarah hayes. references culp, andrew. 2016. dark deleuze. forerunners series: ideas first. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. delanda, manuel. 1992. “nonorganic life,” in zone 6, edited by jonathan crary and sanford kwitner, 128-167. new york: urzone. deleuze, gilles and felix guattari. 1987. a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia, translated by brian massumi. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. heess, nicolas, dhruva tb, srinivasan sriram, jay lemmon, josh merel, greg wayne, yuval tassa, tom erez, ziyu wang, s. m. ali eslami, martin a. riedmiller, and david silver. 2017. “emergence of locomotion behaviours in rich environments”. corr abs/1707.02286. arxiv:1707.02286 william flake, gary william. 2000. the computational beauty of nature: computer explorations of fractals, chaos, complex systems, and adaptation. cambridge ma: mit press. johnson, garrett, britta joy peterson, todd ingalls, and sha xin wei. 2018. “lanterns: towards an enactive and material approach to ensemble.” proceedings of moco 2018. johnson, garrett. 2015. “solo lanterns examples”. vimeo video. https://vimeo.com/193831344. kauffman, stuart a. 2016. humanity in a creative universe. oxford: oxford university press. leonard, naomi e et al. 2014. “in the dance studio: an art and engineering exploration of human flocking,” in controls and art: inquiries at the intersection of the subjective and the objective, edited by amy laviers and magnus egerstedt: 27-49. new york: springer international publishing. maniglier, patrice. 2012. “bachelard and the concept of the problematic: what is a problematic?” radical philosophy 173, pp. 21–23. mechtley, brandon, julian stein, christopher roberts, and sha xin wei. 2017. “rich state transitions in a media choreography framework using an idealized model of cloud dynamics.” proceedings of the thematic workshops of acm multimedia, pp. 477-484. somaesthetics and technology51 ensemble, entrainment, and movement in the mess of the matter navab, navid, doug van nort, sha xin wei, 2014. “a material computation perspective on audio mosaicing and gestural conditioning.” new instruments in musical expression, pp. 387390. peterson, britta joy, garrett laroy johnson, and evan anderson. 2016. lanterns solo performance. vimeo video. https://vimeo.com/216553103. peterson, britta joy, garrett laroy johnson, evan anderson, kim lusk, juan rodriguez, and lela groom. 2016. lantern movement etudes. youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=evm1z-kjllg. prusinkiewicz, przemyslaw et al. 1991. the algorithmic beauty of plants. new york: springer. reynolds, craig. 1987. “flocks, herds, and schools: a distributed behavioral model.” computer graphics in siggraph ‘87 conference proceedings 21, no. 4, pp. 25-34. shiffman, daniel. 2012. the nature of code: simulating natural systems with processing. magical book project. stepney, susan. 2008. “the neglected pillar of material computation.” physica d 237, pp. 1157– 1164. sha, xin wei. 2013. poiesis and enchantment in topological matter. cambridge: mit press. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) editorial board editors in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) issue editors post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) university lecturer päivi järviö (finland) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) professor arto haapala (finland) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design joana cabral mollwitz the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 4 introduction body first: somaesthetics and popular culture as the highbrowed critics of the mass culture debate (ortega y gasset, adorno, arnold) mocked popular culture audiences throughout the 1920s, 1930s and the 1940s, hannah arendt stepped up to defend the ‘masses’ in her essay “crisis in culture” (1959). arendt reminded the intellectuals that we all need entertainment. she criticized the critics of mass culture by saying that the biggest threat for art is found in the philistines, who snobbishly take art to be only education and civilization—which is not the most fruitful way of thinking about art—and who so use to it for example to build class difference. 2019 intellectuals are not polarized in the same way as in the early 20th century, but an echo of the discourse of the ‘philistines’ of the debate keeps haunting us. we constantly face a rhetoric pointing to ‘active’ viewer of movies, of art projects which activate people in the suburbs and the need to be an active consumer and not to just go with the flow. could the obsession with the active audience be considered to be one form of the neoliberal? it is definitely, at least, a philistine way of approaching culture. where the word active is used about audiences, and when it is not pointing to works of art where audience participation is encouraged, it is also not hard to note, that in today’s society that means intellectual activity, not physical—and that often being active means that one consumes culture with some kind of connection to something we might label highbrow. it is not that we’d laugh actively or that we’d dance actively in the disco, it is that we’d for example reflect actively on the environment or the society, or that we would reflect actively on politics. without debasing our needs to reflect on political and environmental issues, it is hard to understand what is wrong with just getting entertained? when families cue to the roller coaster in the amusement park or when teens go to watch a movie, which they assume will frighten them and make them nearly jump off their chair, they consciously want to activate their bodies. we find this interesting. the active body is central in many aesthetic inventions and it has motorized the development of countless aesthetic phenomena. contrary to highbrow arts and the work of academic philistines, popular culture has not been shy about this. the breakbeat in rap music was developed to extend dancing in parties. many clothes are either autoerotic or designed to arouse others. and for those who are interested in people reflecting on things actively, of course these bodily traditions have sparked and fueled also active analysis and reflection. discos and amusement parks are obvious examples of popular culture, where the body is really the priority, but then there are other forms of culture where the active body is if not central, then at least quintessential for the practice. think about action films and the way you can feel tickling in your sole when tom cruise climbs the burj khalifa in mission impossible—ghost protocoll (2011). think about horror films where disgust and chills in the spine are central for the experience. don’t forget how romantic novels warm up the chest and how if nothing else than at least nodding your head is an integral part of listening to live jazz music. it is not, though, that these forms of culture would only be contemporary. in the classical debate in indian philosophy on the rasa (emotive affect), the 11th century kashmiri philosopher abhinavagupta notes the physical side of the experience of theatre by analyzing how sight and hearing, when well stimulated, can sublimate the audience spiritually (spiritual elevation so follows somatic stimulation). and if you think about it, aristotle’s ‘catharsis’ nails the physical body first: somaesthetics and popular culture5 introduction effects of drama. today we know that the audience of greek spectacles came to the ‘show’ like they would arrive to football matches, often late and drunk. (one could think that his theory is as much about popular culture as it is about art with the capital a, the greek culture was so different from ours.) aristotle’s way of borrowing the term catharsis from the medics of his time, who talked about bodily purification, is no coincidence. and it is an allegory which is easy to understand. the way good drama, thrillers and horrors of fiction massage our stomachs is a commonplace for modern and postmodern (wo)man. sometimes it feels even that popular culture is mainly about the production and consumption of bodily effects. jan mukarovsky wrote about ‘aesthetic functions’ in his aesthetic function, norm and value as social fact (1936), and discussed a lot of folk and popular art in his work. mukarovsky’s function is of course semiotic, as mukarovsky was a member of the prague school, but the concept is also very appropriate (and not in dissonance with mukarovsky’s work) for discussing bodily effects, which are produced to us in popular culture and which we seek for when we enter the realm of popular culture. what is the function of horror or circus? a lot of it is found in the realm of the body. anyway, whether the body really comes first, like in the amusement park, or whether it is just integral/quintessential for the practice, we’d like the reader of this volume to think for a while about the role of the body in entertainment, mass culture and the vernacular. walter benjamin writes in his analysis of urban paris and its poets, “charles baudelaire: a lyric poet in the era of high capitalism” (1939), how traffic, factory work, new media (photography, film) and tivoli shared the same rhythm and shocking nature. the body was also central for richard shusterman’s theory of rap music (shusterman 1992), where its function of ‘moving the ass’ sparked the later discourse of somaesthetics. but what we’d like to think of here, in this introduction, is the fact that the body is in so many ways involved in leisure and entertainment, that we might need a small moment for just thinking about it and nothing else. the examples mentioned earlier are just a start when one decides to accept that the body could be seen as the key for understanding the whole field of the popular. it is more like we’d need to ask: in what ways is the body important for this and that practice? the bottom of our stomach gets massaged when we watch an entertaining ice hockey game (ice hockey journalists often talk about the catharsis of the game, especially in relation to hockey fights) and sometimes we want to listen to music which resonates with our pulse. list your 10 major uses of popular culture and think of their bodily extensions. we believe you might surprise yourself. this volume includes texts by 7 authors, who are davide giovanzana, scott elliot, noora korpelainen, adam andrzejewski, janne vanhanen, sue spaid and max ryynänen. their texts touch upon issues like ballard’s/cronenberg’s crash, the everyday practice of yoga, the bodies of popular art works, provoking images of violence, and the way media imagery distances us from the bodies of the ones who suffer. we are not describing their texts in a reader’s digest fashion as we believe that it is more interesting for you to go straight into their thoughts. the texts do not always follow our intuitions in this introduction, but the spark was given by some of the thoughts mentioned here. we are very happy to provide you this set of texts, which circulates around the topics explained above, and we have already learned a lot during the editing process we hope you, as the reader, enjoy the texts of body first: somaesthetics and popular culture as much as we do. jozef kovalcik & max ryynänen, issue editors somaesthetics and sound contents preface somaesthetics and sound 4 anne tarvainen & päivi järviö articles: music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: 8 overview of the literature anne tarvainen jazz improvisation and somatic experience 24 stefano marino the somaesthetics of musicians: 41 rethinking the body in musical practice jungmin grace han the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses 52 salvatore morra composing awareness: 67 approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga charulatha mani sound of the audience: 86 music together and make sense of noise peter s. bruun resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature: 102 reading sound figures in novalis’ the novices of sais alexis b. smith introduction to issue number 1: page 25-39 somaesthetics and technology25 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course cumhur erkut and sofia dahl abstract: engagement with virtual reality (vr) through movement is becoming increasingly important. therefore, vr developers should improve their bodily skills and learn how to use movement as design material. to do so, first-person accounts of the development and experience are necessary. since these qualities are well addressed in experiential somaesthetics, we explore the education space in vr, with attention to the first-person experiences, movement data, and code. we present an approach for teaching and designing vr-based embodied interaction and describe simple projects implemented by the participants. the evaluation of projects indicates that the concepts, practices, and perspectives of embodied interaction were attained in vr. our reflections contribute to the literature on movement-based interaction education in vr, and its evaluation and validation by first-person accounts, in addition to the data and program code produced. keywords: embodied interaction, design theory, movement qualities. 1. introduction this article focuses on teaching fundamentals of movement-based interaction in virtual reality (vr) to media technology students, by combining specific activities informed by experiential somaesthetics, including movement exercises and theoretical research material, with technological practices such as motion capture and coding. while the digital technologies of movement are increasingly specialized, the value of somaesthetics is appreciated in designing the complex and effective feedback loops between technology and humans.1 as an interdisciplinary project grounded in philosophy and aesthetics, the potential of somaesthetics in the education of human-computer interaction (hci) and interaction design is explained in detail by bardzell, in his commentary to shusterman’s somaesthetics entry in the hci encyclopedia.2 according to bardzell, design professionals need to have the following skills:. 1 höök et al., “somaesthetic appreciation design.” 2 shusterman. “somaesthetics,” encyclopedia of human-computer interaction. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 26 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl 1. a cultivated ability to read sociocultural signs and trends; 2. a creative and reasoned ability to explore alternative futures; 3. a verbal ability to articulate these activities; 4. a receptiveness to alternative framings and a willingness to explore highly variable alternative directions; and above all 5. a personal identity or coherence that holds all of these moving parts together through a given process. shusterman discusses some of these skills in the context of somaesthetics education,3 and suggests that experiential somaesthetics can provide: 1. pre-warning for feeling and emotions, with impact on learning effort; 2. better control of movements, hence our actions; and 3. more positive attitudes and conduct, since education can be considered as reorganizing or retraining habits of feeling and movement and habits of conduct to which feeling and movement contribute. shusterman asks,4 “in what manner of framework could practical somaesthetics be most effective introduced into the school curriculum at the various levels of primary, secondary, and college education? what reforms of curriculum, institutions, and attitudes would be needed to introduce such embodied education?”. in this paper, we try to provide an answer to these questions with a case study in media technology curriculum, as an embodied education (as in the quote) of vr. somaesthetics has been previously applied to media technology for body/media relationship,5 with frequent references to vr. specifically, the diversity of media forms and the importance of interactivity, as well as the moral, social, and aesthetics problems of the body representation in vr are still very important. the call for experiential somaesthetics6 encourages people to “transfer their concern from the external shape and attractiveness of the body to improving the qualitative feeling of its lived experience and functioning.” here, we describe and reflect upon our educational activity of such experiential skills directed at developers of media technology. 2. background and state of the art the recent affordability of headsets and content distribution channels have made vr an interesting educational opportunity. takala and his colleagues provide a good overview of the academic curriculum of vr during the last three decades.7 high-quality textbooks, such as the vr book,8 and moocs, such as the popular five-course vr specialization created by gillies and pan at coursera,9 provide learning opportunities for large audiences. all these channels agree on the uniqueness of the bodily vr experience, consider embodiment as one of the illusions 3 shusterman, “somaesthetics and education: exploring the terrain.” 4 ibid. 5 shusterman, “somaesthetics and the body/media issue.” 6 ibid., p. 45. 7 takala et al., “empowering students.” 8 jerald, the vr book. 9 https://www.coursera.org/specializations/virtual-reality somaesthetics and technology27 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course that make up this experience,10 and derive interaction design guidelines.11,12 the illusions in vr are defined as erroneous or misinterpreted perceptions of sensory information that provide direct response to synthetic stimuli, indicating a positive experience of vr. the embodiment illusion (or virtual body ownership) and the illusion of presence (the experience of being there) are considered the most prominent illusions in vr. presence is composed of the place illusion and the plausibility illusion.13 there are also illusions and distortions occurring on behalf of virtually stationary and moving users. while there is much research on the representational and the experiential aspects of illusions, the first-person accounts of developing and experiencing virtual reality, so ubiquitous in early vr,14 are not common in the current scientific literature.15 shusterman has previously addressed16 this issue of a media technology challenge to embodiment mainly by arguing two points: “first, no technological invention of virtual reality will negate the body’s centrality as the focus of affective, perceptual experience through which we experience and engage the world. second, that cultivating better skills of body consciousness can provide us with enhanced powers of concentration to help us overcome problems of distraction and stress caused by the new media’s superabundance of information and stimulation.” somabased interaction design,17 in a similar vein, recognizes vr as one of the emerging technologies that will have an effect on our lived experience. depending on its design, it will encourage certain movements, experiences, practices, and awareness of our bodies—while not encouraging others. this, in turn, will affect how we work, play, and communicate in vr. this is why we need to cultivate our understanding of what it means to be a sensing, feeling, and moving body, shaping and being shaped by our lifeworld.18 the skills that we see as useful for vr developers in terms of embodied interaction include: understanding and describing movement as a sociodigital design material in real and virtual worlds, developing the bodily skills needed for technological development, understanding what movement qualities are and how they can be extracted from movement tracking data, and applying these methods and techniques to real-world scenarios, e.g., games, robots, installations, and for the present paper, in vr. we consider this list as a practical and thematic rendering of shusterman’s list for media technology, to address the last and the most important item in bardzell’s list: a personal identity or coherence. how can this need be incorporated in learning and practicing vr, with attention to somabased, embodied interaction with a strong first-person perspective? our aim was to inform 10 slater, “place illusion and plausibility.” 11 gillies, what is movement interaction in virtual reality for? 12 jerald, the vr book. 13 slater, “place illusion and plausibility.” 14 lanier, “the sound of one hand.” 15 serafin et al., virtual reality and the senses. 16 shusterman. “somaesthetics,” encyclopedia of human-computer interaction. 17 höök et al., “embracing first person perspectives.” 18 ibid. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 28 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl our students in using movement as design material and obtain first-person experiences of felt qualities of movement, both in virtual and real worlds. by “qualities,” we refer to the sensation of how (e.g., lightly, smoothly, jerkily) an action is performed, rather than the action itself (e.g., reaching, grasping).19 these qualities can be described through the first-, second-, and thirdperson perspectives20 and sensed through proprioception, in addition to vision and hearing. our study on the educational space of embodied interaction in vr included the general overview of vr education by takala and his colleagues,21 textbooks,22 and moocs, e.g., gillies and pan’s coursera specialization. although they are very useful learning resources for the technical side of vr, none of these resources have the vivid first-person accounts of developing and experiencing virtual reality, in line with previous descriptions.23 our ongoing embodied interaction course was designed for first-year master’s students at aalborg university specializing in sound and music computing, games, interaction, or computer graphics. in 2016, two students proposed a project that combines the leap motion hand-tracking sensor with vr, using the orion sdk and oculus rift and focusing on a drawing application. when this mini-project was integrated with a larger one (which was eventually published),24 we expected to recruit more students interested in vr. indeed, the following years have seen an increase in students interested in applying embodied interaction in vr, with five students in 2017 and more than ten students in 2018 (accounting for about half of the class) interested in vr. to meet this demand we performed some rearrangements and changes in the course. the following section will describe in more detail the general outline of the course and the changes implemented. 3. our approach: methods and interventions general course outline our master’s-level elective course in media technology requires our students to learn the theory of embodied interaction, together with the use of basic computer vision, creative coding, embodied agents, multi-agent systems, ai engines, and wearables and vr basics. many of these subtopics were inherited from a curriculum focusing on robotics and embodied conversational agents. although the curriculum and study plan are the same as the original course25 (taught also in a different location), we have gradually changed our approach to these subtopics through a lens focused on soma-based design.26 as specified in the course description, the successful student must have knowledge about standard methods and techniques in embodied interaction; be able to understand and describe movement as a design material; be able to understand the bodily skills needed for technological development, decision making, steering, and path finding; and be able to understand what movement qualities are and how they are extracted from movement tracking data. 19 fehr and erkut, “indirection between movement and sound.” 20 hornecker, marshall, and hurtienne, “locating theories of embodiment.” 21 takala et al., “empowering students.” 22 jerald, the vr book. 23 davies, “osmose.” lanier, “the sound of one hand.” 24 gerry, “paint with me.” 25 see https://moduler.aau.dk/course/2019-2020/msnmedm2145. 26 höök, designing with the body. somaesthetics and technology29 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course the course consists of ten sessions, either half or full days, in combination with a project (worth 2 ects, or two-fifths of the course effort) that students hand in together with a brief paper for the oral examination in june. the students prepare for the first lecture by watching a video prepared by the universidad de zaragoza (the embodied mind at https://vimeo. com/107691239) and select their background research literature from the proceedings of the acm movement and computing (moco) workshop (http://moco.ircam.fr/). we believe that every graduate course could be linked to a particular scientific community, and for our course the best candidate is moco. our general approach is to build the knowledge and skills around theory, technology, and movement. in the theoretical part we introduce students to concepts from interaction design, ai, philosophy, and psychology. we engage the students in learning activities on how the different perspectives aid and affect the design process and outcomes, how our bodies affect perception and action, and how developers/designers use their bodily skills in their craft. the technological part is focused on tools for implementation and analysis (including motion capture and various toolboxes for vr development and movement analysis). for the movement part we engage the students in different kinds of movement exercises to make them perceive and reflect on the first-person experience of movement. this movement material includes some practical exercises from a previous collaboration with contemporary dance choreographers,27 which were adopted from loke’s movement exercises,28 such as playing with everyday movements, e.g., in the act of walking. within the general course outline, we typically devote some sessions to workshops on movement, for instance by exploring and analyzing movement with motion capture systems. with respect to technological and analytical tools the students also get a brief introduction to laban movement analysis (lma) and specifically laban’s theory on effort.29 although developed for dance, lma provides a conceptual framework for describing the quality of movement in a way that can be systematically used to analyze and understand a range of activities. briefly, laban proposed to describe the effort of a movement as how it evolves in terms of time (quicksustained), space (direct-indirect), flow (free-bound), and weight (light-strong), and this systematic way to describe movement quality has been used for dance as well as music and human computer interactions.30 specific interventions in 2017 in comparison with earlier versions of the course, we specifically implemented the following main changes during 2017: 1. short, frequently occurring movement tasks. rather than the previous two-day movement workshop, we implemented short exercises into the sessions. examples of such movement exercises are walking through wide or narrow door openings, or the change of viewing perspectives by standing on a desk or crouching under it. in the 2018 edition of the course, we have further experimented with the finnish health-fitness program asahi.31 27 erkut and rajala-erkut, “beyond command & control.” 28 loke and robertson, “moving and making strange.” 29 höök, designing with the body, chapter 6. 30 ibid. 31 http://www.asahinordic.com/en/front the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 30 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl 2. introduction to soma-based design and first-person perspectives, by reading höök et al.32 specifically, we present the students with two partly opposing viewpoints, contrasting soma-based design with a more utilitarian view of hci as problem solving33 and highlighting the necessity for first-person experiences. through a debate, the students are challenged to argue for one or the other approach. 3. no set programming environments. rather than introducing and giving exercises to solve in a particular programming environment, we let students choose freely what to use for implementation and concentrate on giving them a solid base for performing choices that make sense in terms of using movement as design material. however, those who develop vr applications univocally chose unity3d34 as their programming environment. 4. one-day practical workshop together with students at the danish national school of performing arts. in 2017, this proved a very fruitful collaboration, not only because of the specific exercises (presented below) but also due to the feedback and perspectives the students offered each other. our students also practiced trusting their autobiographical,35 first-person experiences in developing their mini-projects. in 2018, we had a graduate student from the danish national school of performing arts following the course and preparing occasional choreography for our participants. in addition, we have conducted practical motion capture workshops in a workshop setting. details of joint workshop (strengthening the first-person experience) on march 23, 2017 the whole class visited the danish national school of performing arts, which offers an international graduate program in contemporary dance, for a full-day workshop. the title of the workshop was “making sense of technology for performing arts,” and its learning objectives stated that participants should be able to: discuss the use of technology subjectively and objectively, regardless of their discipline; evaluate the use of technology from existing artworks; make appropriate technological choices for their artistic/technological projects; and collaborate with participants outside their discipline to create an artistic idea/ sketch/task involving hci. the participants, who were equally distributed from the danish national school of performing arts and our students, gathered in the studio, and during a short greeting and introduction the performing arts students were briefly informed about the course and the projects of our students. after a short warm-up session, all students engaged in movement exercises proposed by the performing arts students. all exercises related to the experience of 32 höök et al., “somaesthetic appreciation design.” 33 oulasvirta and hornbæk, “hci research as problem-solving.” 34 https://unity3d.com 35 höök, “transferring qualities from horseback riding to design.” somaesthetics and technology31 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course movement qualities such as body limbs moving in straight lines as opposed to curves. another exercise mapped the movement effort and viscosity of the imaginary matter to the width and length of the dance studio, respectively, and instructed the participants to experiment with different trajectories. after a break, our students presented their project ideas in more detail in a “speed dating” exercise. here the two groups of students formed two concentric circles where the students in the inner circle quickly explained the main idea of their project to the students in the outer circle, which was rotated every five minutes. this exercise, which is used in soma-based interaction design,36 allowed the students to refine and sharpen their own idea by repeating it. after this, students from the two institutions paired up and “body-stormed” about the project ideas. that is, the students acted out the movements and how the interaction could work out. with adequate reflection, discussion, body-storming, and resting, the explorations continued for the entire day. the session ended by setting a date for the performance students’ visit to the media technology venue to experience and try out the mini-projects. 4. outcomes: self-reports and evaluation the vr-related mini-projects submitted by students as part of their examination are outlined in this section, resembling annotated portfolios.37 the structure of our presentation is as follows: we first describe the projects in their creators’ own words (in italics), then reflect briefly on the perspective and movement qualities in relation to experiential somaesthetics. specific to the vr projects, we requested the students to reflect upon the three important illusions in vr, as introduced in the background section of this paper, namely the place, plausibility, and embodiment illusions.38 they all showed good understanding of these illusions, both in their reports and presentations. projects 1 and 4 were individual projects, whereas p#2 and p#3 were completed by groups of two students. all projects except p#3 were tried out by one of the authors in a lab setting, wearing an head-mounted display (hmd) and headphones, and project source codes were also examined. p#3 required the fixture of a wearable prototype, which was time consuming; therefore one of the students presented the interaction, and the evaluators watched the virtual environment from a big screen. until 2017, the grading basis was pass or fail; a project that addressed most elements of the course learning objectives and ran in real time was evaluated as passing. therefore, all projects below had a passing grade. starting in spring 2018, the course has been evaluated on a 7-scale grade, and we currently assess to what degree the learning objectives were met. p#1: taijijian vr in this project, a virtual experience was created, in order to explore the possibilities of an embodied cognition and interaction approach of sound effects synthesis in real time, responsive to the virtual body of the user and his movement. the experience consists of a taijijian simulator, a tai-chi modality with a chinese jian sword. the htc vive system was used for the visual display and movement tracking, processing the data collected in real time in both unity 5 and max 7, including 3d binaural sound rendering. in the real world, the presence and movement of human bodies and objects make changes in the 36 höök, designing with the body. 37 gaver and bowers, “annotated portfolios.” 38 slater, “place illusion and plausibility.” the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 32 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl sound environment that surrounds them and how it is perceived. therefore, to improve the illusion of presence in virtual reality experiences, it is interesting to investigate and develop new techniques and frameworks for creating sound design systems responsive to the presence and movement of the user’s body and virtual objects. furthermore, these systems should be compatible with 3d sound rendering methods to give them spatial meaning from the user’s perspective. figure 1: top: taichi jian beginning scene. bottom: entering the cave and holding the torch. pay attention to the animal paintings on the walls. somaesthetics and technology33 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course evaluation of taijijian vr the slow, completive movements of tai-chi practice (figure 1, top) offered a useful premise to discuss the movement qualities, and the meditative nature of the audio/visual environment (mountain view and subtle wind) sparked high expectations in evaluation. the report, however, was written in third-person perspective and explained mapping of the sounds and their relation to presence in vr (not the movement) from a cognitive point of view. while the project focus was on the functional outcome, the student demonstrated several subtle, nuanced movement qualities in the use of the sword. however, the first author’s trial needed exaggerated movements to make the sword sounds audible, and this negatively affected the soma-based experience. p#2: cave exploration—rock paintings this project focused on the design of a virtual reality experience of ancient rock and cave art. it relies on embodied interaction to relive a virtual ancient cave. the interaction design invites the user to navigate and explore a virtual cave by interacting with a virtual fire torch. based on the user’s movements in the virtual cave, synchronized sonic and light events are triggered. the interaction design utilizes the oculus rift cv1 and the oculus constellation system to track a user in the physical world and transfer the movements of the user into the virtual environment. the oculus touch controllers are used to substitute for the user’s hands in the virtual environment. the programs are used to develop the virtual reality, likewise the mapping of fire particles to the virtual fire torch and the triggering of events. the embodied interaction design was informed by movement-based game guidelines:39 we focused on a specific movement guideline from the category of “movement requires special feedback” as a framework for designing the movement feedback … the category “celebrate movement articulation” encompasses the choice of giving feedback to the user’s movement quality moment by moment. importantly, it is not merely a question of if and when, but especially how the movement is performed.40 the fire particles are rendered with the unity particle system. the dynamics of the system are influenced by properties of birth and properties of lifetime. the speed of the user’s movement is directly reflected in the emission and spread of the fire particles from the virtual fire torch. slow movements produce a trail of spread fire particles leading to attention on the surroundings. fast movement produces a narrow flame with no trail of fire particles. inside the cave is a hidden history; the revelation of this depends on how much a user invests herself in vr, meaning moving away from the starting center point and exploring the space. the user can trigger four events that provide enhancement of the symbolic cave paintings in the form of soundscapes and light effects. to incorporate a gradually unfolding of the cave paintings, a user must discover the cave to trigger the sonic events paired with the visuals of the paintings. four soundscapes are mapped into four areas in the cave that are paired to the four cave walls. the soundscapes provide more vivid descriptions of the cave paintings in terms of sound effects, e.g., wild animal sounds paired to the related cave painting. four spotlights in distinct colors turn on with the related sonic event. evaluation of cave exploration—rock paintings this project creatively utilized many guidelines coherently in a high-quality production. it described some of the development and implementation choices in first-person perspective. the code contained four iterations of the concepts, all of which were calibrated by the designers’ 39 isbister and mueller, “guidelines for the design of movement-based games.” 40 ibid. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 34 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl own movements and explorations. both the report and the presentation had frequent references of movement qualities. especially in the presentation, laban dimensions (see section 3) were used to describe the movement qualities. the visual and auditory elements were very skillfully constructed, and the narrative was engaging and captivating. rock paintings was the highestquality production we have evaluated in several iterations of the course. p#3: arm constraint—pseudo-haptics the ability to modify and reshape the physics of a virtual reality creates countless opportunities, yet not all controllers allow for suitable human interaction. this project investigated an alternative approach to the bubble technique41 in a virtual environment using pseudo-haptic feedback. the method exploited physical affordances of stretching an elastic band to represent the imaginary tension one would feel when extending the arm to boundaries that are physically impossible (see figure 2). our initial focus was to investigate the acceleration of hand motion while reaching out and grabbing an object. we assumed that a quick acceleration of your arm would be the most promising way to eject some grabbing device in a virtual space. this assumption was considered from a third-person perspective,42 by discussing the imaginative movement of grabbing an object out of reach. yet after actually performing the movement ourselves, it was discovered that a quick stretching motion not only felt unnatural to do but also decreased how well you aimed toward the object. when reaching for objects in the real world, a much slower and fluent movement is performed than first anticipated. this might be caused by having to use multiple motor skills and visual cues, in order to maintain a certain precision needed to grab objects. we have to judge the distance to the object, control the speed of our arm and other body parts such as torso rotation, and determine when and how to grasp the object with the hand. we are naturally good at this within our reaching limits, as we know exactly where our limbs are in relation to our body. however, when you are able to reach beyond this limit it becomes an unfamiliar motion that may cause some cognitive confusion. as can be seen (figure 3), the apparatus allows for two states: one in which the elastic cable is loose, resembling normal reach within the vr environment (left), and the other having high tension, resembling reaching beyond normal reach (right). the virtual hand (vh) follows several measurements depending on the distance between the shoulder point and the real hand (rh), and the chosen threshold of the rubber band (figure 3). if users have their rh stretched further than the rubber hand threshold, the vh will move in the direction of a vector represented by the shoulder and hand joint (vsh). the speed of the vh is determined by how large the magnitude of vsh is compared to the rubber hand threshold. if users have their rh stretched less than the threshold, the vh will move toward the rh, where the speed is determined by the duration of the state added to a bias. when the user’s hand and the vh are positioned at the same location, the vh will completely follow the rh. evaluation of arm constraint the students have completed a vr engineering project with little resemblance to experiential somaesthetics, including the movement qualities and first-person experiences. yet they have solved a practical hci problem43 and contributed to a state-of-the-art vr interaction. fortunately, during their demonstration they referred to laban dimensions and explained how the wearable 41 dominjon et al., “the ‘bubble’ technique.” 42 loke and robertson, “moving and making strange.” 43 oulasvirta and hornbæk, “hci research as problem-solving.” somaesthetics and technology35 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course apparatus changed the movement qualities in typical reaching tasks. figure 2: wearable apparatus figure 3: left: the two states of the wearable apparatus. right: the states in a virtual environment. p#4: mocap with rokoko smartsuit this project was a special assignment to learn how to use a recently acquired rokoko smartsuit44 to capture subtle movements in a practical somaesthetics workshop. while the project focus was on the functional outcome, the student tried to apply the embodied design ideation framework of wilde and her colleagues45 to the observations he made on the wearer of the suit, and on his behavior when observing the avatar on screen (see figure 4). we outline his account as an example of the third-person perspective. by wearing the suit and viewing one’s movements as an avatar on screen, the user is disrupted in his or her habitual behavior. this destabilizes the user’s understanding of how his or her bodily movements look from a different perspective and changes the proprioceptive perception of one’s limbs. a natural curiosity emerges to see how well the avatar responds to one’s own movements, as it acts like the user but looks different. this embodies the potential for exploring possibilities of realtime motion capture technology. evaluation of mocap with rokoko smartsuit by being present at a two-day practical somaesthetics workshop, the participant gained a lot 44 https://www.rokoko.com/en 45 wilde, vallgårda, and tomico, “embodied design ideation methods.” the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 36 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl of first-person perspective in movement and interaction design. the special nature of the assignment did not allow for reflection on these, yet the student provided examples of some movement qualities from the recorded videos and motion capture data. based on his work, in the current (spring 2018) edition of the course, we used the rokoko smartsuit extensively in our movement and computing exercises. figure 4: mocap with rokoko smartsuit. the actual situation (left), the smartsuit studio representation (middle), and the virtual on unity (right). 5. discussion the course activities briefly outlined above—movement exercises; theoretical research material; and practical motion capture, coding, and designing embodied interaction—constitute our approach to make students well equipped for being good designers of movement-based interactions, also in vr. the mini-projects submitted by the students demonstrate their knowledge of three important illusions in vr, namely the place, plausibility, and embodiment illusions, the last being extended toward human-centered embodied interaction. students were able to discuss perspectives of movement46 and quality in terms of laban effort,47 and in our opinion, developed “a personal identity or coherence that holds all of these moving parts together through a given process,” with reference to bardzwell’s list in the introduction. these projects were made available to the new students in spring 2018 for inspection, try-outs, and reflection from a first-person perspective. taijijian vr proved the technical possibility of using vrtk for different headsets and desktop prototyping. this is important since the increasing number of vr projects put pressure on our labs, in terms of logistics. it also proved the potential of interactive, procedural sound generation in tandem with vr interaction. while it focuses on instrumental interaction with a sword—a popular controller for fast-paced and adrenaline-driven vr games—the project provides an alternative framing for slow, contemplative movement and paves the way for experiential somaesthetics. taijijian vr also challenges the design guideline that auditory feedback may be distractive for somaesthetics appreciation48 and proves that skillfully designed interactive sound can, on the contrary, strengthen the action–perception loop. cave exploration vr integrated many guidelines from vr, games design, narratives, and embodied interaction into a high-quality application. it provided an example of what we want to achieve in embodied vr interaction. it will be a running demo in our lab and a case study for future editions of the course. 46 loke and robertson, “moving and making strange.” 47 maranan et al., “designing for movement.” see also section 3. 48 höök et al., “somaesthetic appreciation design.” somaesthetics and technology37 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course arm constraint proved a useful practice for us to understand the engineering side of multimodal interaction in vr. the passive device prototype has a potential to be actuated with haptics. the project has obvious references to the body, embodiment, and familiarity/ unfamiliarity with the movement and its cognitive effects (however, when you are able to reach beyond this limit it becomes an unfamiliar motion that may cause some cognitive confusion). yet bringing these closer to the enacted first-person view of interaction will require iterations. mocap with rokoko smartsuit became a standard part of our course in spring 2018, and together with somatic exercises it had the most profound impact on the student projects since then. based on this implementation, some participants in the spring 2018 edition could put a transparent sphere around a moving body, indicating its immediate reach, or visualize the traces of the arm movements in an assignment after the first class. we are currently researching and developing this aspect for the 2019 edition. 6. conclusions and future work we have presented an approach for incorporating vr elements in teaching embodied interaction. the activities are conducted to guide the participants toward the felt qualities of movement, in real and virtual worlds. we have reflected upon the structure, activities, outcomes, and recent changes in the current phase. we have identified two factors that have the most impact on student projects: somatic exercises and hands-on work with motion capture including the data produced. we recommend the somatic exercises to any program that enters into new design areas. höök discusses five techniques49 for further training somaesthetic skills: 1) focusing on change and interest, 2) disrupting the habitual, 3) laban movement analysis, 4) autoethnographies, and 5) engaging with other somaesthetic connoisseurs. we continuously experiment with new tools, techniques, and guidelines to design for and through movement qualities, and we hope to contribute to this list, as well as to interaction design, vr, and programming education in general. likewise, motion capture training is very valuable for vr, and we hope to work with more advanced tools and techniques in the future.50 before we could work with the tools and exercises, we had heavy theory on the history of hci and vr, as well as embodied cognition and enaction. in addition, some projects spent a lot of time trying to solve emerging technical problems. we address these as follows: by showing and not telling, we introduce the current students to the field by the previous years’ projects, our evaluations, the program code from a private repository, and inviting the students who had good projects or solutions to technical problems. as tutors, we provide our examples on the unity 3d game engine, but the students are free to choose their platforms to work on their projects. our future courses in embodied interaction will include less theory and a more substantial experiential component. the participants will evaluate their designs in terms of an account of the intellectual, emotional, and physical characteristics felt by themselves in the making of the application, and an account of the felt experiences of those who tried their applications. the firstperson perspective would then cover all aspects of movement and computing, acknowledging the realities and idiosyncrasies of the development process as it evolves. data and program code could be molded into our design as personal design material to be felt and subjectively experienced—unlike the movement interfaces, games, and virtual and augmented reality 49 höök, designing with the body. 50 we look forward to integrating the virtual production workflow in the course 2019 onwards: https://www.rokoko.com/en/explore/blog/ virtual-production the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 38 cumhur erkut and sofia dahl applications of today, where they are hidden in software/hardware abstraction layers. we have introduced the elements of practical somaesthetics at the end of the second-cycle graduate education. while this might be considered late, we aimed for full understanding and mastery of third-person design and evaluation methods before encouraging the student to trust his or her soma from a first-person, experiential point of view. we have aimed for “a personal identity or coherence that holds all of these moving parts together” that would inform our graduates during the onset of their professional career (bardzell’s commentary to shusterman’s somaesthetics in the hci encyclopaedia).51 our effort was not without challenges. we now comprehend what shusterman52 means when he asks “what reforms of curriculum, institutions, and attitudes would be needed to introduce such embodied education?” from curriculum design through practical logistics about the movement space, equipment, cameras, mocap, etc., all the way to examination, there were lots of issues that needed solutions when extending a college-level learning activity beyond the classroom. however, with a correct attitude from the students and staff about the importance of experiential somaesthetics in designing for vr, our solutions worked for our initial effort, and they can be excelled in the future. as for curriculum reforms, we are introducing our positive experiences to earlier semesters, e.g., to second-year bsc students, as a flipped class, so that they experientially learn somatic practices at our university. references davies, char. 1998. “osmose: notes on being in immersive virtual space.” digital creativity 9, no. 2 (may 30): 65–74. doi:10.1080/14626269808567111. dominjon, lionel, anatole lecuyer, jean-marie burkhardt, guillermo andrade-barroso, and simon richir. 2005. “the ‘bubble’ technique: interacting with large virtual environments using haptic devices with limited workspace.” ieee: 639–640. doi:10.1109/whc.2005.126 erkut, cumhur and anu rajala-erkut. 2015. “beyond command & control.” proc. chi ea, acm press, doi:10.1145/2702613.2732855: 1681–1686 fehr, jonas, and cumhur erkut. 2015. “indirection between movement and sound in an interactive sound installation.” proc. moco, acm press, doi:10.1145/2790994.2791016: 160–163. gaver, bill, and john bowers. 2012. “annotated portfolios.” interactions 19, no. 4 (july 1): 40–49. doi:10.1145/2212877.2212889 gerry, lynda joy. 2017. “paint with me: stimulating creativity and empathy while painting with a painter in virtual reality.” ieee transactions on visualization and computer graphics 23, no. 4 (march 21): 1418–1426. doi:10.1109/tvcg.2017.2657239. gillies, marco. 2016. what is movement interaction in virtual reality for? 1–4. new york: acm press. doi:10.1145/2948910.2948951. hornecker, eva, paul marshall, and jörn hurtienne. 2017. “locating theories of embodiment along three axes.” position paper for chi 2017 workshop on soma-based design theory, january 7. http://www.ehornecker.de/ver_vor.html. höök, kristina. 2018. designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design. cambridge, 51 shusterman, “somaesthetics,” encyclopedia of human-computer interaction. 52 shusterman, “somaesthetics and education: exploring the terrain.” somaesthetics and technology39 incorporating virtual reality with experiential somaesthetics in an embodied interaction course ma: mit press. höök, kristina, baptiste caramiaux, cumhur erkut, jodi forlizzi, et al. 2018. “embracing first person perspectives in soma-based design.” informatics 5, no. 1 (march). doi:10.3390/ informatics5010008. höök, kristina, martin p. jonsson, anna ståhl, and johanna mercurio. 2016. “somaesthetic appreciation design.” proc. chi, acm press: 3131–3142. doi:10.1145/2858036.2858583. höök, kristina. 2010. “transferring qualities from horseback riding to design.” nordic conf. human-computer interaction (acm). doi:10.1145/1868914.1868943. isbister, katherine, and florian “floyd” mueller. 2015. “guidelines for the design of movementbased games and their relevance to hci.” human-computer interaction 30, no. 3 (may): 366– 399. doi:10.1080/07370024.2014.996647. jerald, jason. 2015. the vr book. association for computing machinery and morgan & claypool publishers. san francisco, ca, usa. doi:10.1145/2792790. lanier, jaron. 1998. “the sound of one hand.” whole earth review: 1–4. loke, lian, and toni robertson. 2013. “moving and making strange.” acm transactions on computer-human interaction 20, no. 1 (march 1): 1–25. doi:10.1145/2442106.2442113. maranan, diego silang, sarah fdili alaoui, thecia henrietta helena maria schiphorst, pattarawut subyen, lyn bartram, and philippe pasquier. 2014. “designing for movement.” proc. chi: acm press; 991–1000. doi:10.1145/2556288.2557251. oulasvirta, antti, and kasper hornbæk. 2016. “hci research as problem-solving.” proc. chi: acm press: 4956–6497. doi:10.1145/2858036.2858283. serafin, stefania, niels christian nilsson, cumhur erkut, and r. nordahl. 2016. virtual reality and the senses. danish sound innovation network, technical report. https://issuu.com/ danishsound/docs/dtu_whitepaper_2017_singlepages. shusterman, richard. 2016. “somaesthetics and the body/media issue.” body & society 3, no. 3: 33–49. doi:10.1177/1357034x97003003002. shusterman, richard. 2004. “somaesthetics and education: exploring the terrain.” knowing bodies, moving minds, 3: 51–60. landscapes: the arts, aesthetics, and education. dordrecht: springer netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-2023-0_4. shusterman, richard. 2013. “somaesthetics.” encyclopaedia of human-computer interaction, 2nd ed., mads soegaard and rikke friis, eds. aarhus, denmark: interaction design foundation. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computerinteraction-2nd-ed/somaesthetics . slater, mel. 2009. “place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments.” philosophical transactions of the royal society b: biological sciences 364, no. 1535 (december 12): 3549–3557. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0138 takala, tuukka m., lauri malmi, roberto pugliese, and tapio takala. 2016. “empowering students to create better virtual reality applications: a longitudinal study of a vr capstone course.” informatics in education 15, no. 2 (november 15): 287–317. doi:10.15388/infedu.2016.15. wilde, danielle, anna vallgårda, and oscar tomico. 2017. “embodied design ideation methods.” proc. chi, acm press: 5158–5170. doi:10.1145/3025453.3025873 the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 4 preface somaesthetics and sound the intertwining of sound and the body is fascinating and multifarious. until fairly recently, sound has mainly been studied in terms of listening, sound reproduction technologies, and acoustical measurements. in turn, the body, especially that of someone producing sound with their voice or with an instrument, has commonly been approached as a physiological entity. lately, however, the embodied and experiential aspect of sound has increasingly gained ground in research and pedagogy as well as in the arts. in a short period of time, studying the experience of listening or producing sound has generated a number of fruitful approaches and methods for sound studies. the field has, so to speak, “come of age.” however, the advancement of this field in recent years does not mean that it would not have existed before. numerous pioneering studies focusing on the sound experience of human beings have been published, some well before the turn of the millennium and some more recently (e.g., benson, 2003; bicknell, 2015; burrows, 1990; eidsheim, 2015; ihde, 1976, 2007; jankélévitch, 1961/2003; mccaleb, 2016; neumark, gibson, & leeuwen, 2010; vitale, 2010; welten, 2009; winter, 2009). the number of published articles and books on the subject is increasing, as exemplified by extensive anthologies such as the oxford handbook of sound studies (pinch & bijsterveld, 2011), which considers sound and music to be experienced “in such diverse settings as shop floors, laboratories, clinics, design studios, homes, and clubs, across an impressively broad range of historical periods and national and cultural contexts” (pinch & bijsterveld, 2012, para. 1). research of speech and singing is another field of sound studies that was almost completely focused on exact sciences, such as phonetics, anatomy, physiology, and acoustics. during the last decade, however, the spectrum of approaches has expanded considerably with publications such as the journal of interdisciplinary voice studies; a book series called routledge voice studies; and a number of carefully crafted articles, anthologies, and monographs. an impressive example of the broadening of this field, which would have been unimaginable ten or twenty years ago, is the recently published oxford handbook of voice studies. this book identifies six modes or domains of research that may be transferable to other fields of embodied or experiential sound studies as well as somaesthetics: 1) prompts (texts, artistic forms, everyday practices that the voice performs or executes), 2) performance (what comes into being during vocal engagement, including sounds, their character, silences, and the trajectory along which these elements unfold), 3) material dimensions and mechanism (the physicality of the voice and its function), 4) auditory/sensory perception (the part of the vocal feedback cycle that is concerned with auditory and any sensory perception of voice, including autoperception), somaesthetics and sound5 preface 5) documentation, narrativization, and collection (the modes of research that focus primarily on voice in the form of the secondary forms of documentation and data collection), and 6) context (the meta-context within which we understand the other domains, and, equally importantly, the domain that affords and limits insight into a given phenomenon). (eidsheim & meizel, 2019, pp. xxiv–xxvi) as eidsheim and meizel (2019) note, initiating the process of mapping the territory and naming the six domains is only a first step in a much larger project: the collective work of charting voice-related areas of scholarship and practice for the purpose of facilitating new entry points for scholars and illuminating connections across fields. (p. xxvi) substituting “voice” with “sound” might make the six modes or domains of research, as well as this statement, relevant to broader study of the sound–body relationship. a journal issue on sound and somaesthetics is an ideal medium for disseminating some of the subjects of research, approaches, points of view/being, and methods for studying the embodiment of sound. as the field is in the process of expanding and researchers are finding new options for interdisciplinary study, such a journal issue is only one of the numerous platforms through which this fascinating area can be developed. it will be interesting to see how the increasing interest in the embodied experience among sound and voice researchers will change the utilization of somaesthetics as part of these approaches as well as how this tendency towards the body in sound studies will encourage scholars of somaesthetics to address soundrelated themes in their work. in this issue of the journal of somaesthetics, contributors from various fields explore sound as manifested in the body, as originating from the body, or as a meaningful, embodied experience. the focus is on the body-aesthetic or somaesthetic dimensions of sound, music, and the voice. the articles deal with improvisation, playing instruments, singing, theatre, and the philosophy of sound. in most articles, sound is approached from the embodied experience of the sound producer (i.e., the player or singer). some authors base their reflections on their own experiences, while others use research material they collected through interviews and discussions. in her overview article, anne tarvainen maps out the most interesting writings in the field of somaesthetics, music, sound, and the voice. she introduces richard shusterman’s texts on these subjects and presents the writings of other scholars who apply somaesthetics with sound-related approaches. the aim of tarvainen’s article is to offer some entry points for readers interested in applying somaesthetics to research and/or artistic practices involving music, sound, and the voice. in his article, stefano marino focuses on jazz drumming and improvisation. he links his analysis to somaesthetics and pragmatist aesthetics and points out that improvised music can be understood as somatic knowledge. marino articulates the bodily nature of improvisation, highlighting the thoughts of numerous theorists without neglecting musicians’ perspective on the subject. marino concludes that jazz drumming is comparable to other somatic activities, such as yoga, because it is equally practiced for cultivating somatic consciousness and exhibiting sophisticated use of the body. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 6 page 6–7 focusing on the lived experiences of two professional musician-teachers, grace han studies the essential role of the body in practicing the cello. traditionally, becoming a professional instrumentalist in the field of classical music has been conceived as an endless repetition of instrument-specific skilled movements. these ideally result in automatic, habitual routines that allow the musician to shift his or her attention toward abstract musical ideas. in her interviewbased study, han questions this conventional dichotomy, instead understanding the everyday work of a musician as a vehicle for self-understanding through imagination, bodily awareness, and liberation. drawing upon the currently growing body of research on music as an experience of embodiment, salvatore morra focuses on the tunisian lute, ʻūd ʻarbī, and its “sounding tunisian.” understanding the senses as inseparable from one another, he explores “the notion of tunisian sound in relation to touches and bodies of ʻūd ʻarbī players and the meanings they construct.” morra first introduces the ʻūd ʻarbī and the tradition of playing it and then describes the embodied process of building, hearing, and touching the instrument. in her article, charulatha mani describes the artistic process of composing “sonic river,” a vocal piece co-performed with another singer. this work is based on the karnatik (south indian classical) musical tradition. during the vocal and somaesthetic process, mani explores the development of her own bodily awareness and links these reflections to the yoga tradition. mani criticizes the patriarchal tradition of karnatik music, which ignores the bodily experience, and discusses how to democratize the vocal practices of this prestigious music culture. in his article, composer peter bruun looks at the theater project “sound of the audience,” which he executed in copenhagen with two directors, a musician, and a group of local residents. for three months, the group rehearsed a performance in which the performers acted like an audience, producing audience sounds such as speech and coughing. then, the work was performed in front of an actual audience. the article is based on the composer’s own experiences as well as conversations with one of the participants. in it, bruun ponders whether there can be music without sound. he looks at the function of music in community-making and discusses the function of music between and among people in a world where music distribution is largely digitized. he concludes that music is a fundamentally communal bodily activity that “begins in the flesh.” based on interpretations of klangfiguren (“sound figures,” commonly known as chladni figures) by the early german romantics novalis and johann wilhelm ritter, alexis b. smith traces the universal language of nature, described by novalis as the “true sanskrit.” this language, which is closely related to music, contains sound, writing, and meaning simultaneously; like in sanskrit, there is no longer a separation between objects and their names, nor between humans and nature. drawing upon the properties of sanskrit and ritter’s scientific and poetic narratives about the sound figures, smith argues that sound figures have a prominent role in the novices of sais, in which novalis develops poesie as a universal language and sound figures are alluded to through poetic, metaphorical imagery. anne tarvainen and päivi järviö, issue editors somaesthetics and sound7 preface references benson, b. (2003). the improvisation of musical dialogue: a phenomenology of music. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. bicknell, j. (2015). philosophy of song and singing: an introduction. london & new york: routledge. burrows, d. (1990). sound, speech, and music. amherst, ma: university of massachusetts press. eidsheim, n. s. (2015). sensing sound: singing and listening as vibrational practice. durham, nc & london: duke university press. eidsheim, n., & meizel, k. (eds.). (2019). the oxford handbook of voice studies. new york: oxford university press. retrieved from https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780199982295.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199982295 ihde, d. (1976). listening and voice: a phenomenology of sound. athens, oh: ohio university press. ihde, d. (2007). listening and voice: phenomenologies of sound. albany, ny: state university of new york press. jankélévitch, v. (2003). music and the ineffable (c. abbate, trans.). princeton, nj: princeton university press. mccaleb, j. m. (2016). embodied knowledge in ensemble performance. farnham, uk: ashgate. neumark, n., gibson, r., & leeuwen, t. (2010). voice: vocal aesthetics in digital arts and media. cambridge, ma: the mit press. pinch, t., & bijsterveld, k. (eds.). (2011). the oxford handbook of sound studies. new york: oxford university press. retrieved from https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195388947 pinch, t., & bijsterveld, k. (eds.). (2012). the oxford handbook of sound studies [abstract]. retrieved from https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947 .001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195388947 vitale, a. r. (2010). towards a phenomenology of the instrument-voix. analecta husserliana, 104, 403–421. welten, r. (2009). what do we hear when we hear music? a radical phenomenology of music. studia phaenomenologica, 9(1), 269–286. doi:10.7761/sp.9.269 winter, k. f. (2009). a phenomenological experience of singing vocal harmony with another person (master’s thesis, drexel university). retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1860/3044. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199982295.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199982295 https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199982295.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199982295 https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195388947 https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195388947 https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195388947 https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195388947 http://hdl.handle.net/1860/3044 introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 52 page 52-67kensho miyoshi what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? kensho miyoshi abstract: the physical movements of designed objects not only have utilitarian purposes but also make us experience the diverse kinetic sensations. such an imaginative projection of one’s own embodied sensation to observed movements is called “kinesthetic empathy”. despite the majority of its research focused on observation of human movements, little is known about how kinesthetic empathy works with the movements of everyday, non-anthropomorphic objects. through my close observations, i propose a new concept of “kinesthetic elements” that help us understand the kinesthetic potential of object motions beyond somatic dissimilarity. keywords: kinesthetic empathy, kinetic design, kinesthetic element, design research. 1. introduction kinetic movements appear in diverse scenes of designed objects and environments—for example, in the tick-tock of clock hands; the rotation of fan blades; pop-up toasters; the swaying of curtains; and the sliding, revolving and folding of automatic doors. each movement not only has its utilitarian purpose, but also takes on unique aesthetic qualities through its forms, dynamics and contexts. some movements appear light, effortless and graceful, while others seem heavy, stiff and awkward. my phd research began with my initial interest in such qualitative aspects of object movements. the motivation derives from my background in human-robot interaction (hri) research, which focused on autonomous aerial robots1,2,3 and practices in kinetic art.4,5 the aesthetic, poetic and empathic experiences in observing physically dynamic objects in various contexts triggered an interest in exploring the qualitative aspects of object movements and their potential application beyond art and engineering, and into the realm of design. my foundational studies afforded me the possibility of deeper exploration into the area where kinesthetic empathy 1 miyoshi, kensho, ryo konomura, and koichi hori. “above your hand: direct and natural interaction with aerial robot.” in acm siggraph 2014 emerging technologies, p. 8. acm, 2014. 2 miyoshi, kensho, ryo konomura, and koichi hori. “entertainment multi-rotor robot that realises direct and multimodal interaction.” in proceedings of the 28th international bcs human computer interaction conference on hci 2014-sand, sea and sky-holiday hci, pp. 218-221. bcs, 2014 3 balloon 2 blimp. 2013. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ballon-2-blimp?xg_source=activity 4 hamon clock. 2013. available: https://miyoshikensho.com/en/ham.html 5 puwants, in collaboration with kosei komatsu. 2014. https://miyoshikensho.com/en/puw_n.html somaesthetics and technology53 what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? meets kinetic design. although the definition of kinesthetic empathy varies depending on the context,6 it essentially refers to our innate capacity and sensitivity to simulate the sense of movement of the entities one observes, such as humans, animals and objects. the notion of kinesthetic empathy was a research theme in a recent research project, watching dance: kinesthetic empathy, which is documented in a book titled kinesthetic empathy in creative and cultural practices by reynolds and reason.7 despite their primary focus on human movement in dance and theater, as opposed to designed objects, the concept provided me with a perspective to understand what i had attempted, but failed to articulate, regarding the aesthetic experience of watching movements. this paper presents my recent findings, which build upon my preceding exploration.8 2. background kinetic design i deliberately use the open term kinetic design to mean designed objects such as products, furniture and interior in which physical movements serve either practical or aesthetic purposes. the notion of movement in my research, despite its designerly purpose, follows what gabo and pevsner called “movement itself ” in their realist manifesto9 in 1920. “movement itself ” refers to the physically dynamic movement of objects, rather than to the movement of futurism, which attempted to recreate the sense of motion by using physically static media and optical effects.10 kinetic design consists of objects with a variety of motions, such as automatic and continuous (e.g. mechanical clocks), automatic and reactive (e.g. automatic doors) and manual (e.g. non-automatic doors), among others, although these categories are neither discrete nor comprehensive. everyday objects such as pop-up toasters, mechanical clocks and fans are typical examples of kinetic design. the potential of this type of design has been explored in many ways, including aesthetic,11,12,13 interfacial,14,15 communicative16 and emotional.17 the kinesthetically empathic potential of object movements, however, has rarely been considered. through the lens of kinesthetic empathy, our empathic and embodied response to the behavior of objects can be revealed, which will provide a new perspective on how we “feel” them bodily, as opposed to how 6 ibid. 7 reynolds, dee, and matthew reason, eds. kinesthetic empathy in creative and cultural practices. intellect books, 2012 8 miyoshi, kensho. “where kinesthetic empathy meets kinetic design.” in proceedings of the 5th international conference on movement and computing, p. 32. acm, 2018 9 gabo, naum, and noton pevsner. the realistic manifesto (1920). aspen, 1967. 10 rickey, george w. “the morphology of movement: a study of kinetic art.” art journal 22, no. 4 (1963): 220-231. 11 yoshimoto, hideki. “pulse and rhythm: exploring the value of repetitive motion as an element of design.” phd diss., royal college of art, 2015. 12 niedderer, kristina. “exploring elastic movement as a medium for complex emotional expression in silver design.” international journal of design 6, no. 3 (2012). 13 moloney, jules. designing kinetics for architectural facades: state change. routledge, 2011. 14 ishii, hiroshi, and brygg ullmer. “tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms.” in proceedings of the acm sigchi conference on human factors in computing systems, pp. 234-241. acm, 1997. 15 parkes, amanda, ivan poupyrev, and hiroshi ishii. “designing kinetic interactions for organic user interfaces.” communications of the acm 51, no. 6 (2008): 58-65. 16 ju, wendy, and leila takayama. “approachability: how people interpret automatic door movement as gesture.” international journal of design 3, no. 2 (2009): 1-10. 17 weerdesteijn, jeske mw, pieter ma desmet, and mathieu a. gielen. “moving design: to design emotion through movement.” the design journal 8, no. 1 (2005): 28-40. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 54 kensho miyoshi we process them intellectually. whereas the contemporary scholarship on kinesthetic empathy is mostly concerned with observing human movement,18,19,20,21,22 not much is known about the ways in which kinesthetic empathy works with movements of non-human entities. kinesthetic empathy with non-human entities the origin of kinesthetic empathy dates back to 1873 when robert vischer, a german aesthetician, used the term einfühlung (later translated into english as empathy) to denote the aesthetic experience of projecting oneself onto an object.23 kinesthetic response was considered to result from a conscious attention to objects of various kinds. sixteen years later in france, according to popper’s thorough book on kinetic art,24 paul souriau, who was a french philosopher, established the first and in-depth study into the aesthetics of physical movement of humans and animals. although the term was not used explicitly in his book the aesthetics of movement,25 kinesthetic empathy was, in effect, the crux of his method of aesthetic observation and reasoning. souriau explores various aesthetics of animals’ movements through his imaginative projection of himself onto them, beyond the gap in the somatic structure. later, michael polanyi, who is known to be the father of the well-known concept, tacit knowledge, also explored indwelling, which refers to the tacit perception of objects and events through the medium of our body.26 while these views share a similar focus, a disagreement remains in terms of the controllability of kinesthetic empathy. vischer argued that kinesthetic empathy results from conscious effort and imagination. in contrast, for polanyi, indwelling was a type of tacit knowing, “which we are quite incapable of controlling.” several studies have explored kinesthetic empathy with inanimate objects, such as chairs in a visual installation space,27 human-scale objects inhabited and animated by performers,28 and interactive environments,29 among others. while these studies provide detailed consideration of each case, their transferability to design remains open. laban movement analysis,30 one of the most pioneering frameworks for motion analysis, was expected to be of some use. however, being heavily grounded in the structure of the human body, it was not possible to easily apply the framework to non-anthropomorphic objects. in addition to these insights from philosophy and aesthetics, recent studies have provided 18 reynolds and reason (2012). 19 parviainen, jaana. “kinaesthetic empathy.” (2003). 20 moen, jin. “kinaesthetic movement interaction: designing for the pleasure of motion.” (phd diss., kth royal institute of technology, 2006). 21 reason, matthew, and dee reynolds. “kinesthesia, empathy, and related pleasures: an inquiry into audience experiences of watching dance.” dance research journal 42, no. 2 (2010): 49-75 22 jola, corinne, lucie clements, and julia f. christensen. “moved by stills: kinesthetic sensory experiences in viewing dance photographs.” seeing and perceiving 25 (2012): 80-81. 23 vischer, robert. “on the optical sense of form: a contribution to aesthetics.” empathy, form, and space: problems in german aesthetics 1893 (1873): 89-124. 24 popper, frank. origins and development of kinetic art. (new york graphic society, 1968). 25 souriau, paul. the aesthetics of movement. (univ of massachusetts press, 1983). 26 polanyi, michael. the tacit dimension. (university of chicago press, 2009). 27 cuykendall, shannon, ethan soutar-rau, karen cochrane, jacob freiberg, and thecla schiphorst. “simply spinning: extending current design frameworks for kinesthetic empathy.” in proceedings of the ninth international conference on tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction (acm, 2015), pp. 305-312. 28 gemeinboeck, petra, and rob saunders. “movement matters: how a robot becomes body.” in proceedings of the 4th international conference on movement computing (acm, 2017), p. 8. 29 reynolds and reason (2012). 30 bartenieff, irmgard. body movement: coping with the environment. (reading: gordon and breach science publishers, 1980). somaesthetics and technology55 what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? scientific understandings of kinesthetic empathy. first, there is a strong parallel between kinesthetic empathy and the mirror neuron system, originally discovered in the 1990s.31 mostly by using the fmri technique, recent neurological studies have identified humans’ empathic responses to non-human and non-anthropomorphic objects such as character animations,32 vacuum cleaner robots,33 and abstract animations.34 second, kinesthetic empathy is also informed by several fields such as perceptual psychology,35,36 ecological psychology37 and embodied cognition.38,39 the concept of affordance in particular has an intricate relation to kinesthetic empathy. it has been indicated that internal kinesthetic stimuli can occur when a certain action is invited by the external objects or environments, even if no explicit action results.40 affordance invites imagining how to move in order to touch or grasp an object, for example, whereas kinesthetic empathy consists of projecting oneself onto an object and imagining how it would “feel” kinesthetically. while different types of simulation exist, they are difficult to distinguish on the phenomenological level. this confusion has also occasionally been observed in my ongoing participatory practice where designers learn about the concept of kinesthetic empathy and apply it to analyzing and designing the quality of object movement. third, anthropomorphism is a concept that closely resembles, and is often confused with, kinesthetic empathy. my studies so far indicate that the degree of anthropomorphism can affect kinesthetic empathy. the critical difference between the two concepts is that kinesthetic empathy is about internal kinesthetic stimuli in the observers when they empathize with an observed movement, whereas anthropomorphism is about how we find human-likeliness in objects.41,42,43 these scientific theories are expected to be relevant to my research; however, the specific meaning in my research gradually becomes clear through practice. overall, the concept of kinesthetic empathy is highly interdisciplinary, yet its connection to design is largely unexplored. this paper presents the early stage of my exploration into the following research questions. what can designers learn about humans’ empathic and embodied reaction to object movements through the lens of kinesthetic empathy? how can designers apply the knowledge to analyzing and exploring the quality of object movements? 31 polanyi (2018). 32 power, patrick. “character animation and the embodied mind—brain.” animation 3, no. 1 (2008): 25-48. 33 hoenen, matthias, katrin t. lübke, and bettina m. pause. “non-anthropomorphic robots as social entities on a neurophysiological level.” computers in human behavior 57 (2016): 182-186. 34 engel, annerose, michael burke, katja fiehler, siegfried bien, and frank rösler. “how moving objects become animated: the human mirror neuron system assimilates nonbiological movement patterns”. social neuroscience, 3(3-4), (2008): 368-387. 35 bartley, s. howard. “principles of perception.” (1958). 36 arnheim, rudolf. art and visual perception. (univ of california press, 1974). 37 gibson, james j. the ecological approach to visual perception: classic edition. (psychology press, 2014). 38 clark, andy. supersizing the mind: embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. (oup usa, 2008). 39 blakeslee, sandra, and matthew blakeslee. the body has a mind of its own: how body maps in your brain help you do (almost) everything better. (random house incorporated, 2007). 40 freedberg, david, and vittorio gallese. “motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience.” trends in cognitive sciences 11, no. 5 (2007): 197-203. 41 blythe, philip w., peter m. todd, and geoffrey f. miller. “how motion reveals intention: categorizing social interactions.” (1999). 42 bartneck, christoph, takayuki kanda, omar mubin, and abdullah al mahmud. “does the design of a robot influence its animacy and perceived intelligence?.” international journal of social robotics 1, no. 2 (2009): 195-204. 43 mori, masahiro, karl f. macdorman, and norri kageki. “the uncanny valley [from the field].” ieee robotics & automation magazine 19, no. 2 (2012): 98-100. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 56 kensho miyoshi 3. approach my research belongs to what phillips and pugh call exploratory research, where little is known about the problem at hand and researchers have to develop new methods and theories and examine whether the existing methods are applicable.44 christopher frayling differentiated three types of research in art and design: research into, for and through art and design.45 though all three are present in my research, it is research through design that largely contributed to the development of my research. what follows is my exploration into kinesthetic empathy with the movements of physical, non-anthropomorphic objects and the process in which i developed two original concepts: kinesthetic representation and kinesthetic elements. the methods of making, observing objects and reflecting on my own practices46 were used. for simplicity, in the following discussion i define direct kinesthesis and indirect kinesthesis (kinesthetic sensation) as follows. a direct kinesthesis arises from people’s own bodily movements, whereas an indirect kinesthesis refers to a sensation of kinesthetic empathy with external motions. 4. kinesthetic representation kinesthetic empathy is, essentially, an association of an observer’s own kinesthetic sensation, whether a real memory or imagination, with observed movements. however, even if observers experience kinesthetic empathy, its sensation is often difficult to verbalize, which became an obstacle to exploration. through trial and error, i developed a method of communicating the sensation of kinesthetic empathy through body gestures, which i termed kinesthetic representation. figure 1 presents my first attempt to express my own kinesthetic empathy with the spinning motion of a cone-shaped sculpture in an embodied, non-verbal manner. my static posture, leaning sideways, was aimed at expressing the body posture, which gave me a direct kinesthetic sensation similar to the kinesthetic empathy with the sculpture—the tensional feeling of balance and imbalance. this translation from internal sensations to external postures proved to be an effective tool to communicate with other people the ineffable sensation of kinesthetic empathy. figure 1: left: my sketch of the cone-shaped sculpture; careful i (2009) by glass artist and researcher heike brachlow.47 middle: my sketch of the sculpture in motion. right: my body posture that expresses my kinesthetic empathy with the movement. 44 phillips, estelle, and derek pugh. how to get a phd: a handbook for students and their supervisors. (mcgraw-hill education, 2010). 45 frayling, christopher. “research in art and design.” (1993). 46 schon, donald. “the reflective practitioner.” (1983). 47 careful i (2009) by glass designer and researcher heike brachlow. video available: http://www.heikebrachlow.com/hb_frameset.htm somaesthetics and technology57 what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? to better articulate kinesthetic empathy sensations, dynamic body gestures were attempted. figure 2 ilustrates an example of kinesthetic representation, which i performed (on the right) with the aim of expressing my kinesthetic empathy with balance machine, a kinetic sculpture i created (on the left). the hammer attached at the top is lifted by the motor and released. it then hits the body of the sculpture and makes it literally “almost fall over.” it was created to gain an in-depth understanding of the movement and mechanism of machines that almost fall over48 (2008), the kinetic sculpture by boston-based artist michael kontopoulos, by replicating the movement from scratch. i performed the specific body gesture, which provided the direct kinesthesis closest to the sensation of kinesthetic empathy with the sculpture’s motion. figure 2: upper-left: balance machine standing upright. bottom-left: balance machine tilting to the left. upper-right: my kinesthetic representation with the sculpture standing upright. bottom-right: my kinesthetic representation with the sculpture tilting. the annotations are my observation and reflection that led to the idea of kinesthetic elements. another type of kinesthetic empathy exists between one who performs a kinesthetic representation of an object motion (observer-a) and another who observes a’s kinesthetic representation (observer-b). figure 3 depicts the three kinds of kinesthetic empathy present in the communication enabled by kinesthetic representation. observer-b compares his/her kinesthetic empathy, both with observer-a’s kinesthetic representation and with the object movement, to explore the kinesthetic potential observer-a is attempting to communicate. this communication should be further clarified by using verbal discussions between a and b than merely relying on the gestures. 48 machines that almost fall over (2008). http://www.mkontopoulos.com/portfolio/machines-that-almost-fall-over/ the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 58 kensho miyoshi figure 3: multiple types of kinesthetic empathy present in the system of kinesthetic representation; “k.e.” in the illustration means “kinesthetic empathy.” the direct kinesthesis experienced while performing the kinesthetic representation and the referenced indirect kinesthesis are not exactly the same. however, the exploration through bodily movement enabled me to articulate various aspects of my kinesthetic empathy with the sculpture. borrowing schön’s terminology,49 i explored by performing the action (reflectionin-action) as well as reflecting on it by watching the video recording of my own movement (reflection-on-action). through this process, four facets of kinesthetic senses were identified. first, and most obviously, the sense of balance is present. my kinesthetic representation features balance and imbalance by leaning backward to the point at which i nearly fall over. the nuance of kinesthetic sensation exists even in the choice of the direction of leaning—backwards, not forwards. the sculpture supports itself with the base stretched to the right, but, on the other hand, the left side is empty and defenseless. this reflects the human ability to better resist imbalance forwards more than backwards, because of the direction of the feet stretched out from the heels. here, the attention shifts from balance to tactility. the sculpture wobbles after regaining balance, and the oscillation gradually decreases. the physical contact between the base and the floor is reflected in my kinesthetic representation where my feet are touching on and off the floor. these two senses of contact are similar but never the same because of the gap in materiality, weight and dynamics. while these two aspects—the balance of leaning and the tactility of the base—are reflected in my kinesthetic representation, there are other sensations that are not clearly articulated. one is the slightly painful collision between the hammer and the body of the sculpture. the others are the sense of effort in the motion of lifting the hammer and the sense of articulation in which the weight is received by one specific point (the joint supporting the root of the hammer). as a combination, the movement reminds me of the sense of muscular effort around the shoulder when lifting a heavy weight held by hand and keeping the arm extended. 49 schön (1983). somaesthetics and technology59 what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? here, kinesthetic representation becomes a useful tool to explore the kinesthetic empathy experienced with not only the artifacts i created but also existing practices and natural phenomena. a possible confusion, that needed to be avoided, was that kinesthetic representation could be interpreted as a superficial imitation of the object movements or mere kinetic (without esthetic = sensory, perceptual) representation. i needed to make my intention clear each time i presented kinesthetic representation in textual, digital or oral form. i used kinesthetic representation to analyze the movement qualities of over 50 types of objects. while conducting this research, any objects in motion such as everyday objects, natural phenomena and existing kinetic artworks became the targets of observation. when i found something especially intriguing, i attempted to create similar mechanisms myself to extend the observation. while kinesthetic representation was conceived as a tool to communicate with other people the experienced kinesthetic empathy, the comparison between direct and indirect kinesthesis allowed me to understand kinesthetic responses at a higher resolution. further analysis revealed several commonalities between the fragments of kinesthetic empathy sensations, which i termed kinesthetic elements. these elements were identified in an organic and reflective manner, where one element served as the lens to construct others. that kinesthetic representation has failed to cover some elements does not mean a real failure but a process of exploration. 5. developing kinesthetic elements when identifying the elements, i often referenced anatomy50 and perception51 to learn about the mechanisms of human organs and senses. perceived kinesthetic qualities cannot be fully reduced to the workings of the organs; however, they are mutually inseparable. at the beginning, four types of kinesthetic elements emerged: balance, articulation, tension and haptic. the formulation of this idea was inspired by the so-called “five senses.” although i find this phrase misleading, as it sounds to some as if humans have merely five senses, i wondered whether, if at all, something equivalent to the “five senses” existed in kinesthetic empathy. through this question, the four elements emerged from the accumulation of my observations. balance we have a tacit understanding of how objects balance and stand on the ground, just as we know how to stand upright and remain stable. balance is of high necessity for human perception, both physically and psychologically.52 observing an object at in equilibrium, for example a cuboid placed upright on the floor (figure 4, left), may not make us experience explicit kinesthetic empathy. once the cuboid becomes imbalanced (figure 4, right), however, we can easily understand the sense of imbalance and imagine the kinesthetic sensations of keeping a similar posture. what strikes us is the accuracy and immediacy of our intuitive, perceptual ability to sense balance in observed objects.53 the kinesthetic empathy experienced here may be compared with, for example, the feeling of leaning in a direction, being pushed off-balance suddenly without warning, or sitting on a chair and trying to balance on the legs of the chair. 50 saladin, k. anatomy and physiology: the unity of form and function. 2007. (ohio: mcgraw-hill, 2010). 51 bartley (1958) 52 dondis, donis a. a primer of visual literacy. (mit press, 1974): 22. 53 ibid. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 60 kensho miyoshi figure 4: a cuboid standing upright (left) and tilting sideways (right). the sense organ with which we perceive the condition of our body in relation to the gravitational field is called the vestibular system.54 it is the non-auditory part of the inner ear that functions as the sense organ for this mechanism and detects the two major aspects of the gravitational force: change in motion, or acceleration, and the static posture of the head. the vestibular sense is often integrated with other parts of the body: vision, the tactile sense and even auditory sense. articulation our bodies have various articulations: shoulders, backbones, wrists, fingers, knees and necks. an articulation, also called a joint, is a connection between bones in the body that link the skeletal system into a functional whole. they are constructed to move within certain degrees and directions.55 each joint contributes to a unique kinesthetic sense as it comprises of different components, such as tendons, and it also connects with different muscles. nonetheless, we all have a coarse understanding of what the movements of joints feel like which can be projected onto movements of similar structures. in sports science a double pendulum, a pair of rigid bodies joined with a hinge and hanged from either side of its edges (figure 5, left), is used as a dynamic model of our limbs.56,57 out of the chaotic movements that the pendulum creates, several patterns appear to be kinesthetic empathic. one familiar pattern of motion appears when the pendulum falls from a high position in a folded shape, reaches the bottom in a stretched condition, and then suddenly bounces up. we might project the action of swinging a golf club or a tennis racket, which embraces the kinesthetic sense of speedily stretching an arm to the point where the elbow can no longer bend. it is the impulsive pause and the sense of skeletal limitation in the elbow, the centrifugal force in the whole limb, the feel of the blood being pushed to the edge and the elasticity in bouncing the arm back. it is also noticeable that we do not necessarily experience explicit kinesthetic empathy with all the moments of the pendulum movement. a degree of similarity and dissimilarity, and thus how vividly we can kinesthetically empathize, seems to exist. 54 bartley (1958): 365 55 saladin (1998): 247 56 bazargan-lari, y., a. gholipour, m. eghtesad, m. nouri, and a. sayadkooh. “dynamics and control of locomotion of one leg walking as self-impact double pendulum.” control, instrumentation and automation (iccia), 2011 2nd international conference (ieee, 2011): 201-206. 57 yamada, n. what makes the movement of top athletes different: the secret of the eminent athletes revealed by sports science (title translation by me). (kagaku dojin. published in japanese, 2011) somaesthetics and technology61 what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? figure 5: a double pendulum (left) and the trace of its chaotic movement. tension elastic structures can contain physical tension in their bodies through deformation. “whether we are dealing with a bent steel blade, a sheet of rubber, a funhouse mirror, an expanding bubble, or the rising emotion of a heated argument, there is always a forceful deviation from a state of lower tension in the direction of tension increase.”58 we understand the elasticity of the material through touching, holding, bending, twisting and so forth. however, it is also possible to estimate the amount and nature of tension by simply watching the behavior of the material that results from either external force or its own weight. the more familiar the material is to the observer, the easier this estimation becomes. one could project the sensation of muscular tension—one of the major sources of kinesthetic sense—onto an observed elastic, transformative movement (figure 6). muscular tension and release are present in a great diversity of our daily movement, such as respiration, locomotion (walking or running) and the manipulation of tools (gripping a pen, rotating a door knob or flipping food in a frying pan). all sensations of this kind create the repertoire of our kinesthetic sense of tension. figure 6: transformation of 3d objects. different forms have different ways of accumulating and releasing physical tension. bending sculpture59 (figure 7) is one of the artifacts that allow us to perceive the tension element. if one taps softly on the sphere, the fiber continues to bend up and down for a while because of the balance between the weight of the ball and the elasticity of the rod. given the flexibility of the motion, our kinesthetic sense closest to this increase and decrease in the fiber’s tension could be the muscular tension along the backbone, for example the tension on the back 58 arnheim (1956): 428 59 video available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g33w2rn1hli the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 62 kensho miyoshi in bending the upper body forwards. the slightly anthropomorphic shape of the sculpture might affect the kinesthetic empathy response. figure 7: bending sculpture, made of carbon fiber, a foam sphere and a wooden base. the blue arrow indicates the movement. haptic while the previous three elements are mostly about internal stimuli, this element, haptic, concerns physical contact between surfaces. by seeing and hearing the touch between objects (e.g. a glass falling onto the floor or a door slammed shut), we can tacitly imagine the sense of materiality, dynamics and shapes of the colliding surfaces. figure 8 depicts a simple visual experiment in which collisions of various abstract shapes and surfaces can allow us to simulate diverse types of haptic empathy. in the case of the balance machine, one may perceive the haptic element in observing the collisions between the bottom of the sculpture and the floor and between the hammer and the wooden structure. figure 8: simple visual experiment of the haptic element. imagining two surfaces colliding can allow us to simulate various haptic sensations. a number of studies have revealed that a human observer can easily simulate the haptic sensation an observed person is experiencing. for example, “watching the movie scene in which a tarantula crawls on james bond’s chest can make us literally shiver—as if the spider crawled on our own chest.”60 caravaggio’s incredulity of saint thomas (1601) can allow viewers to feel as 60 keysers et al., (2004): 335. somaesthetics and technology63 what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? if their skin is penetrated.61 in addition, the study by keysers et al.62 provides scientific evidence that we also experience a vicarious haptic sense when observing non-anthropomorphic objects. the parts of the brain responsible for sensing bodily sensations such as pressure, pain, or warmth, are activated as if our bodies were subjected to tactile stimulation, not only when we are touched, but also when we observe two non-living objects touching each other are shown (rolls of paper towels and binders being touched by a stick were used as examples). the extent to which similar neurological reactions could be triggered by other objects and contexts remains open. nevertheless, at the very least, it supports the views such as vischer’s einfühlung and polanyi’s tacit knowing. 6. reflection the four elements explained a wide range of kinesthetic empathy with object movements, but how did they emerge at all? it is difficult to explain the exact process of the conception, as it was intuitive rather than logical. in fact, it is one of the greatest leaps that occurred in this research; however, i could post-rationalize the process as follows. in my phd research, the observation of movements was no longer an intentional act conducted as “research” but embedded in my everyday life. especially since encountering the work by reynolds and reason,63 i searched for a pattern in the kinesthetic empathy with object movements. at the same time, this exploration itself has presumably made myself more perceptive to the kinesthetic aspects of motions. i accumulated the tacit understanding of kinesthetic movements through kinesthetic representations but could not yet externalize it in a manner that makes sense to myself or others. finally, the idea of “five senses” inspired me to identify a pattern, which turned out to be the four kinesthetic elements. it is clear that my thinking was based on literature regarding perception,64 embodied cognition65 and anatomy.66 according to my observation, it is fairly common for multiple elements to be perceived when observing one movement; this finding is also supported by the result of my ongoing workshops. the idea of kinesthetic elements becomes an important key to understanding kinesthetic empathy beyond somatic dissimilarities. the elements are, as it were, fragments of our embodied memories, whether real or imagined, that could spark when we find similar features in observed physical phenomena, just as mirror neurons work. the problem of the four elements concerns the dynamics of movements. the balance element derives from the change of attitude of an object, while the articulation and tension elements derive from the transformation of an object; the haptic element derives from contact of multiple surfaces. none of these elements were meant to specifically articulate the kinesthetic empathy that results from observing a change in speed/direction of objects that neither change their attitude, transform, nor touch other objects. for example, looking at an object that is moving in a certain direction at a constant speed and then suddenly decelerates and stops (e.g. a door’s movement67 in figure 9), observers may similarly feel the sense of a sudden stop or even physical 61 freedberg & gallese (2007): 201. 62 keysers et al. (2004). 63 reynolds and reason (2012). 64 e.g. bartley (1958) and gibson (1979). 65 e.g. blakeslee & blakeslee (2007) 66 saladin (1998) 67 a sliding door suddenly decelerates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tizxyiyqhki the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 64 kensho miyoshi effort to cushion the sudden inertia. this could be likened to the sensation experienced when one is cycling and suddenly brakes. figure 9: a sliding door. the limitation of the four elements became clearer as i continued my observation and applied the elements to various object motions. this has led me to the next phase, considering the possibility of new kinesthetic elements for dynamics. this does not necessarily require new objects to observe; those i used for prior observations can be observed through a new perspective, which would lead to finding more clues about the aspect of dynamics. in terms of the benefit of such a generative way of articulating kinesthetic elements, the bottom-up approach allows the framework to be grounded in the phenomenon in question rather than borrowing a framework developed in another context (e.g., laban movement analysis). also, it perhaps reflects my own sensitivity to the kinesthetic dimension of physical phenomena. this indicates that the sensitivity is what designers can “learn” to acquire and potentially use for designing movements—the educational potential of the framework. 7. conclusion in this paper, i proposed a new space for exploration where kinesthetic empathy meets kinetic design. i also illustrated my first, yet substantial, step through my observations. as the literature review suggests, movement has received an increasing amount of attention in the areas of design as well as robotics and human-computer interaction. however, its embodied and empathic potential is much less explored than the communicative and functional aspects. kinesthetic empathy, despite its current connection to bodily performances, is a highly potential lens through which designers could start to rethink the aesthetic qualities of movements beyond utilitarianism. my exploration into the kinesthetic potential of object motions was initially difficult because of the structural gap between humans and objects. nonetheless, by attending to the internal sensations rather than external appearance of movements, the seemingly disconnected two “bodies” began to be bridged, especially owing to the idea of kinesthetic elements. the elements identified are highly dependent on my own observation rather than objective, universal facts. therefore, they function best when they are considered as a lens through which people can observe physical phenomena differently and build up their own observations. my ongoing phd research has continued my observations and tested some of the elements to determine the impact they might have on designers’ creative practices. these practices and kinesthetic elements grow concurrently; the change of one affects the other. the comprehensive overview of the new knowledge on this novel design approach, which i term “kinesthetic design”, will be available in my upcoming doctoral thesis from the royal college of art. acknowledgement this research was supported by overseas scholarship by nakajima foundation. somaesthetics and technology65 what allows us to kinesthetically empathize with motions of non-anthropomorphic objects? references arnheim, rudolf. 1974 . art and visual perception. univ of california press. bartley, s. howard. 1958. “principles of perception.” bartenieff, i. 1980. body movement: coping with the environment. reading: gordon and breach science publishers. bartneck, christoph, takayuki kanda, omar mubin, and abdullah al mahmud. 2009. “does the design of a robot influence its animacy and perceived intelligence?” international journal of social robotics 1, no. 2. pp. 195-204. bazargan-lari, y., a. gholipour, m. eghtesad, m. nouri, and a. sayadkooh. 2011. “dynamics and control of 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(2007). ohio: mcgrawhill. schön, donald. 1983. “the reflective practitioner.” souriau, paul. 1983. the aesthetics of movement. univ of massachusetts press. vischer, robert. 1873 “on the optical sense of form: a contribution to aesthetics.” empathy, form, and space: problems in german aesthetics 1893, pp. 89-124. weerdesteijn, jeske mw, pieter ma desmet, and mathieu a. gielen. 2005. “moving design: to design emotion through movement.” the design journal 8, no. 1, pp. 28-40. yamada, n. 2011. what makes the movement of top athletes different: the secret of the eminent athletes revealed by sports science (title translation by me). kagaku dojin. published in japanese. yoshimoto, hideki. 2015. “pulse and rhythm: exploring the value of repetitive motion as an element of design.” phd diss., royal college of art. page 85-93 body first: somaesthetics and popular culture85 under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture max ryynänen abstract: distance has from time to time been discussed in aesthetics, e.g. as a necessary component in the experience of the sublime (kant) and the aura (benjamin). it looks like photographs/films are able to cut distance physically and time-wise, but that this does not necessarily lead to emphatic engagement (sontag, butler). thinking about the amount of news images we see, it is interesting how little we discuss this phenomenon. artists sometimes aspire to cut this distance by searching for new ways of representing e.g. war. in my text i will try to analyze distance as an aesthetic topic. i also discuss anssi pulkkinen’s project streetview (reassembled), where a ruined house was imported from syria to europe, to make the war more comprehensible. i believe reflecting on distance could have both aesthetic and political significance. keywords: ethics, aesthetics, war, visual culture. although walter benjamin (2008) was enthusiastic about the way photographs cut distance to objects both place-wise and time-wise, we mostly keep our moral and emphatic distance when we see things happening faraway through the media of photography and/or documentary film footage. how otherwise could we who view catastrophes only through media survive seeing war footage and continue living our lives, as if nothing had happened? to get to grips with this topic, i will take a small leap into the history of the philosophy of art. i will take a look at the thoughts of immanuel kant and walter benjamin on distance, and will then continue by discussing everyday media from this perspective. i will discuss anssi pulkkinen’s art work streetview (reassembled), a work based on an appropriation of a ruin in syria, which was exhibited in a variety of exhibition spaces in northern europe—and how it cut distance also experience-wise. it seems that most visual culture, even when we know that we do not encounter fictional reality, stays morally and emphatically distanced for us. on the other hand, when you move horrifying physical remains from war zones to e.g. helsinki finland, like in the case of streetview (reassembled), this presence of a distant catastrophe can make things more concrete and cut distance in surprising ways. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 86 max ryynänen 1. kant, benjamin and some philosophical remarks on distance in the analytic of the sublime, the second book of the critique of judgement (1790), and in particular in its passage on the dynamically sublime, immanuel kant embraces impressive but hard-to-grasp encounters with nature. kant spent his whole life in (probably boring) königsberg and its environs. we have no reason to believe that he was doing anything else other than just imagining what it means to see “volcanoes” and “high waterfalls,” based on what he read and on depictions of nature, but it is highly probable that he had experienced “threatening rocks,” “thunderclouds” and (relatively) “mighty rivers.” (kant 1952, 110) provided our own position is secure, their [i.e. encounters with impressive natural entities] aspect is all the more attractive for its fearfulness; and we readily call these objects sublime, because they raise the forces of the soul above the height of vulgar commonplace, and discover within us a power of resistance of quite another kind, which gives us courage to be able to measure ourselves against the seeming omnipotence of nature. (kant 1952, 110-111) it is not hard to imagine how in the end (kant does not go into detail here), one does not just have to be far enough away to feel safe, but one must also be close enough to be impressed by these natural entities. although we are sometimes able to imagine how an impressive natural site or object could look threatening when looked at from the right distance, it remains merely an analytic fact if we do not perceive it correctly. imagine that you are heading toward a small waterfall. although it does not show any impressive features as you are approaching it, when you are at the site it suddenly strikes you with its massive aquatic nature and the rocks surrounding it. but when you are too close, you cannot grasp the whole. sometimes we actually need not to be too close, as is the case with mountains: seen at the site they do not show their contours. mountains are impressive when you are able to see their shapes and/or silhouettes, but when you are on the mountain itself, you encounter just small rocks, bushes and trails. kant writes: “nature considered is an aesthetic judgment as might that has no dominion over us, is dynamically sublime.” (kant 1952, 109) he emphasizes how even if we are talking about frightful issues, one cannot himself/herself be frightened when one reflects upon the sublime. fear is central, yet we cannot be afraid of what we see. (kant 1952, 109-110) if we think about the problematics of right distance, and also of kant’s most classical example of beauty in the analytic of the beautiful, the second part of the critique of judgement, the rose looks interesting. in kant’s analytic of the beautiful, the rose (or any other beautiful object) is an object of “taste” and of “restful contemplation”. (kant 1952, 94) although kant does not say it, when enjoying a rose there is a certain amount of distance we need to have. my intuition is that our distance from the rose should be from a little less than one feet to maximum of three feet, otherwise we are somewhat gazing at a landscape with a rose in it. again, in the text on the dynamically sublime (which is something we do not use our taste for, but to which we simply react), kant himself is aware of the problematics of rationality and body first: somaesthetics and popular culture87 under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture perception. visual perception, in the experience of the sublime, becomes overwhelmed by the hard-to-digest size and the formally hard-to-grab nature of the event which we perceive as sublime—or, to be precise, the reflection of it, as the aesthetic is not “presupposing either a judgment of sense or one logically determinant, but one of reflection.” (ibid.) kant and benjamin, two german classics which discuss distance, have interestingly a very different touch on the topic. as benjamin mainly discusses cutting distance as an issue of aesthetic de-sacralization, kant’s conception of the sublime is about fear. the 9/11 attacks in the united states in 2001 accumulated reflection on kant’s philosophy of the sublime by philosophers and journalists, when hundreds of millions of people watched the apocalyptic theater of terror which took over manhattan, where skyscrapers melted and a titanic cloud of smoke veiled the city. in the analyses of the sublime in both philosophy and the press, what stood out was simply the scale of the events (and their seductive appearance), although once again distance was a key for experiencing the sublime. hearing bystanders’ experiences, it all seemed to be far from visual, but those of us who gazed at the event from our couches, and who did not have close-up experiences at the site, were visually shocked, following our safety (distance from the event) and the disturbingly breath-taking views offered by tv, which showed footage from helicopters. samuel weber’s (2013) essay “clouds: on a possible relation of terror and terrorism to aesthetics” (2013), shows how even the inhabitants of new york enjoyed the content of their lunch-boxes while watching the event, just far enough on the other side of hudson river that they could feel safe, though visually and geographically (one could say geopolitically) surprisingly close to the terrifying things happening on the other side of the water. if you did not have a friend or family member in the area of the twin towers, you, together with the visual distance, went through an aestheticizing process: sometimes, even if you did not want to, you just enjoyed the moving images, which passed in front of you by way of the tv. those of us with no reality connection to the seen, would have needed close-ups of the horrors in order to lose at least some moral / emphatic distance, which kept the images safely away. for those who had a close-up experience at the site or a relative living in houses nearby, the aesthetics of terrorism crept under the skin. for the rest of us, it often felt embarrassing or just ethically and aesthetically problematic. watching it all, i sometimes forgot what i really was watching, and i felt embarrassed when i ‘woke up’ to the fact that i was enjoying it like a film, while real people were dying. but how would we survive global news coverage, if all images touched us? walter benjamin, in his essay the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction (written 1936), emphasizes how a photograph or film bridges both the temporal and geographical distance to the photographed / filmed subject. interpretations of this seminal work underscore how reproduction erodes the aura of unique artifacts and places, but in the text itself, the philosopher also pondered how our relationship to distances changes through reproduction. the examples in the text range from distant mountains to classical architecture (benjamin 2008). as artworks were suddenly not just in a place, which one needed to travel to, but were also accessible through reproduction, benjamin thought that this cutting of distance would destroy their auratic nature. benjamin thought of a metaphysical change in our relationship to (besides historical, also) distant (and original) art objects. one can ask, if one wants to think side by side with him, if media cuts distances, but at the same time keeps them ethically distant? maybe the aura, the glow of the classics (for benjamin, a glow that was both negative and theological) was broken following modern reproduction techniques, and while our interest was sometimes raised by the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 88 max ryynänen someone in a photograph, who touched us, mostly—this is something which might have become more and more of a reality after the increased repetition and overflow of images in which we live—people in pictures are not that meaningful for us.1 whether or not one wants to go into benjamin’s famous conception of the aura, mona lisa surely lost something when she became easier to access through pictorial representation. but a corpse lying on the ground on a street in iraq did not gain much presence in the lives of us who were not there by coming closer to us through the images shown during the second gulf war. i believe benjamin might have been right about early photography. maybe people felt that it was incredible to see a picture, which was a decade older or to witness a place they had never visited. but the number of images, their repetition and our need to become immune to them has exceeded all possibilities of staying in close touch with most of them. the repetition and the amount of images we see today is devastating to the meaning and weight of images. it is interesting that we see things happening somewhere far away through images, which cut the distance, and yet at the same time keep things far away enough to not let them get under our skin. a typical example of this is fresh documentary footage on a particular war, where we see horrible things happening, but are able to keep fear, heavy empathy and engagement from leaking into our experience, if not on a level which could be close to watching fiction, at least on a level where one is detached and attached at the same time. it is just that here one is not enjoying the same kind of control as a viewer of fiction, as the viewer of war footage ‘knows’ (or believes) that s/he has access to reality through the image, at least in some way. in the following, i will discuss this tension, not just through analyzing these relationships, but also through discussing art, which erodes distance. i will start with some concrete examples from the media to make the point clear. in a way, this is an essay where, after laying out some of the problematic contours of the topic, i offer another way of thinking about the topic, a way, which stresses in what ways the arts can in the end disturb the geographically and time-wise anti-distancing but emotionally and ethically distancing power of images, through finding new ways of coping with distance. 2. media, art, and distance i calculated how many people i come across through media. the amount was a couple of hundred per day—fifty just by reading the morning paper—and close to 100 000 per year, and counted in millions during a decade. what did these mediated people do? besides playing tennis, driving cars, making love and cooking—some of them fictional, some not—i also witnessed “real” (or rather images of real) victims of wars and catastrophes. how amazing it is that i have this surface connection to all these people. and how amazing it is that we see people from faraway places in danger and bad situations, and that we are able to continue our lives as if nothing has happened to us. like in the case of the viewers of 911 imagery who had a concrete attachment to the event (a friend living in manhattan, etc.), sometimes we cannot stand everyday images which are about issues which connect to us. i cannot but think about our systematic mistreatment of animals. we hug dogs, and if we see a wounded bird, we are expected to save it, but at the same time we have an incredibly cruel system of producing meat, dairy products and fur. the images produced 1 here one should maybe mention kendall walton’s thoughts on the transparency of photographs. walton’s point is that we can see through them, i.e. that we, in a way, see the original objects (it is so just a technical matter that we are watching an image). walton does not touch our reactions to the images, but just the way we still feel we are watching the objects themselves. see walton 2008. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture89 under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture at the sites of meat and dairy production are images people do not want to see. to be able to continue not caring, people do not want to see documentaries about animal mistreatment. of course the material produced by organizations for animal rights is edited to really disturb us, and not just to package a relatively challenging tv dinner for us, which is mostly the case with documentaries. newspaper photo editors and the editors of documentaries (and sometimes also their producers) take away those images which are too much for us, thus producing a safe texture of pictures and moving images, which make it possible for us to experience a little horror, but which in the end neither hurts us, nor gets under our skin. (i will never forget the pictures one of my students, a photo editor of a large newspaper, showed me from one of africa’s recent wars: those she decided were too much and which consequently were never published.) the people who produce animal rights material attempt to do the opposite, to wake us up ethically, so they really go over the boundary of what we can take. and we resist the images which would creep under our skin.2 sometimes even ‘relatively soft’ (visually symbolic) news images can actually touch us, of course, as we know from the case of autumn of 2015, when we saw the body of a small boy, lying dead, washed ashore in turkey, his face turned against the sand; or in the autumn of 2016, when the video of the little boy, omran daqneesh, wiping dirt and dried blood from his face in a hospital in aleppo spread like wildfire through social media and raised a wave of responses. these images shared an experience of a crisis of humanity and helplessness, weirdly so through their nearly kitsch nature, if one can use the word here by stressing the style of the images. in the 1990s, there were many public discussions on the way people were able to watch footage of wars without drowning in empathy.3 the rwanda war raised some of them, the footage raising our comfort zone a little higher than it had been in the 1980s. but on the other hand, it is also natural that people protect themselves, and we might have not just the right, but the duty to do that, to keep ourselves in mental shape. if we were not able to detach ourselves from what we see, it would be impossible to pair modern media with a healthy life. the whole world would be a mental wreck. the number of people on sick leave would become incredibly high every time a war broke out which our media was interested in showing to us. from depictions of war, we learn that empathy is not present when one has to focus on mere survival: many emotions and attitudes are hard to keep up when one’s life is at stake. from a safe distance, people can then later construe what they are experiencing. (this is what i know myself from my two car accidents, which gained experiential maturity only afterwards.) in literature, erich maria remarque’s im westen nichts neues (1929), which takes place during the first world war, exemplifies the nature of this oscillation. during the war, the rare moments when the going gets tough are somewhat emotionless for the protagonists, while in the trenches, and even more in hospitals and back home, there is time and emotional space for reflection. this is the classic theme where the young boys of war books and movies return home, and are then suddenly more traumatized than they ever were at the site of the horrors. (timely distance is a huge factor in how we experience things.) judith butler writes in her frames of war: when is life grievable? (2009) about precarious lives, and the way they sometimes do and sometimes do not touch the americans who see them “framed” (presented) by media. as america’s own wars have produced a lot of suffering, it looks, 2 i express my gratitude here to pinja mustajoki, who’s doctoral thesis i am advicing. as her doctoral work is about the animal mistreat images nobody wants to see, i have learned a lot about defensive attitudes towards documentary images. 3 this boundary is of course broken once in a while, and published images have become more raw with time. to what extent will they keep leaning in an increasingly shocking direction? the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 90 max ryynänen like butler shows, like there would be a nearly systematic selection of what to grief. cases like abu ghraib and guantanamo (see e.g. p. 64-65) show the political interest to regulate the visual field and the work done by the us government to contextualize what americans see in the ‘proper’ political manner. while butler’s book, which mainly focuses on the media audiences of the us, a country which seems to endlessly produce new wars, does not really in the end touch upon the aesthetic process of distancing, it shows how aesthetics can easily be overshadowed by politics. while the book’s message is not in the focus of this aesthetic inquiry it is a good reminder that images are also manipulated (or as butler says ‘framed’) politically. also susan sontag has come close to butler’s position (butler actually often works on her heritage) by discussing our relationship to the sufferings of others. in her regarding the pains of others (2003), a follow-up to her work on photography, sontag accentuates the need to have images on the painful life of others, although she points out that if one has not experienced what the people in the images have lived through, one cannot in the end really understand the experiences at stake. the book is about ethical relationships, but interestingly, neither sontag really works on an aesthetic framework on how things happen when we see e.g. images of war. armies are well aware of the potential and problems of distance. aki mauri huhtinen’s book keinosota (artificial war, 2004), a book published by finland’s national defence university, is a depiction of contemporary technological warfare which deals with the modern possibilities of detaching soldiers from their victims. the book discusses how computerization and observing events through monitors makes it emotionally less disturbing to carry out strikes, as empathy grows, along with a decrease in the distance to the experience. visual and spatial distance is intentionally increased so it becomes easier for people to follow orders, to fire a missile into an unknown village, for instance, when one does it through a computerized image (and not at the site). one can note in huhtinen’s book that this relationship to visuality is becoming methodological, as there are so many notes on how to create a fruitful distance to war through media.4 could the closing up of visually digestible but ethically problematic distances in fact be the most significant thing that can be done through images, art in general or media, from a political point of view? can art tear people out of their personal safety nets, and bring humanity closer to us? could some practices even make us see images differently? and do we want that? mira kallio-tavin (2013) has pointed out how ethically present a person’s face is when it is given respectful space, allowing it to come close to the viewer. only then can we truly encounter another individual through an image. giving a real face to someone, a face that is close, and human and touching (this can also be done to an animal), can break much ice from the relationship between us and the objects of photography or painting. encountering otherness visually or even artistically is not an uncomplicated task, of course, and many projects that aim to reduce the ethical distance between viewers and images have been criticized as being social pornography. it is also quite common to portray the problems of some group defined as fragile by making up representations of them on stage, instead of finding a way of giving them a voice of their own. i was involved in the process of presenting a special kind of art work, anssi pulkkinen’s street view (reassembled) (2017), to a finnish audience, after the work had already toured various countries in central europe. the idea of the work was simple: the artist took a destroyed house from syria, and recreated it on a truck, which, like the refugees of the late 2010s, traveled around 4 the book features, for example, ideas on how to scare people with noise. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture91 under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture europe. as money for public sculpture usually goes for celebrating dead national male heroes and national wars, it was hard, from this point of view, to be critical of the use of money in this alternative way, as the “sculpture” won the mobile home competition for sculptural work.5 i could have felt uneasy with the way the sculpture could have been seen as abusing real war for artistic purposes (some people did interpret it in this way), but i started leaning in another direction as i noticed that syrian intellectuals, such as issa touma, were positive about the work. i also heard that the people living in the area had commented on it being a good idea to bring it to europe so that people would understand what the war was about. in addition, my refugee godson, whom i semi-adopted with my wife two years ago when he came to finland as a refugee from afganistan, thought this was a good idea, and in the end i did not have the conviction that i (a middle aged european man) should have the last word here.6 in an old text on how to keep messages alive, umberto eco reminds the reader about the fact that it is not particularly effective always to have the same sign about the dangers of putting one’s head out of the train window. it would be more effective to, for example, tell the story of what happened to someone who did stick their head out of the window.7 (as mr. johnson last week put his head out from the train, a branch...) this is exactly what art does when it follows one of its main traits in modern culture. it searches for unseen ways of discussing, taking care and analyzing issues. it goes without saying that anssi pulkkinen’s street view (reassembled) strikes at the very core of this ethos by building a material bridge to a war that would otherwise only be present to us as a flat media spectacle, but the main thing about it was that the artist created a new form of expression in which the issue could come close to us. in a way this readymade, the appropriation of a ruin, challenged the idea of (2d) documentation. there the walls were: partly bombed, possible to sense, smell and feel, so rendering them material, but not just that. they were rendered somatic for us. like the stones of the australian indigenous people to whom the tribe tell their secrets, and our gravestones that we experience as being a little alive and that stand out from other stone material, the ruins of a real war spoke to our whole bodies, based on our knowledge of the walls being real, and not reproductions. by creating new practices of presentation, street view (reassembled) forced us to see something differently through its novel approach. if projects like these were the norm, their effect would soon lose their power and become like news footage, but what we are dealing with here is one of the age-old tasks of art, to find new ways for expression, to recycle the sensory— the ways in which we experience and interpret things. it can help us stay alert so that the true essence of things will not be overshadowed by practices that increase experiential distance. and there are other pieces like this. in the early 2000s, amel ibrahimovic beautifully exhibited a jacket he got from his best friend before he ran over a bridge and was never seen again as the yugoslavian war broke out the next day.8 gazing at the jacket, the story and life crept under my skin. jake and dinos chapman bought hitler’s paintings (2008) and “pimped” them, 5 more on the work and its commissioning (last visited may 24, 2019): http://www.mobilehome2017.com/fi/. 6 we wrote with issa touma for the same publication. see aleksi malmberg and annukka vähäsöyrinki, eds., home re-assembled: on art, destruction & belonging (rotterdam: jap sam books, 2017). i have used the text for the book as the base for writing this article, which is far more philosophical, and less polemical. i am very thankful for the editors for the call and the right to not worry about every sentence in this rewriting of the sketchy first version of the text. 7 this is one of the main examples of umberto eco’s a theory of semiotics (1976), in chapter one. 8 the work is presented on ibrahimovic’s home page (last visited may 24, 2019): http://amelibrahimovic.net/works/my-refugee-shoes-andmy-refugee-clothes. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 92 max ryynänen playing around with their mere horrifying existence, and the fact that they were hitler’s real products.9 the ‘real’ is out there, and art sometimes makes good use of it. sometimes it helps to bring them closer, so close that they creep under our skin. while artists originally put statues on pedestals and cast ritualistic events on stage in order to build (aestheticized, reflective, dramatized) distance, its role has also always included bringing different phenomena close at different times. new media and means of communication have often been expected to “connect people”, but so far the interaction between mediatized people has not led to any notable increase in empathy. as we can conclude from the examples of war, it is rather that media has created a collectivity that requires less and less commitment, which in turn has grown hand in hand with the expansion of our sense of where we belong (the globe). in this cultural situation, the potentials of art have not yet been fully discussed and tested, and to do that, one should maybe at least, for the sake of discussion, go through the theoretical problems hidden in the topic, something i tried to sketchily begin here in my article. monuments, memorials, nationalistic symbols and depictions of “great men” and (pathetically rarely) women, have been a financially lucrative territory for which sculptors have often, regrettably, settled. but on the other hand, it is partly because of this that the sensory and philosophical recycling is so effective in pulkkinen’s work. the mere thought of pulkkinen’s mobile ruins touches a chord, if one firstly just accepts ethically the act of exhibiting a destroyed house from a real war. the ruin used in street view (reassembled) was transported to europe through turkey. it travelled from door to door, reminding us europeans of the arms trade carried out by europeans, the irresponsible foreign policy of leading western countries, and what, in the case of one house and family, globalization means at the micro-level. from my point of view, in pulkkinen’s piece reality really made a visit. epilogue our philosophical stroll through art, visual culture and philosophy of distance has ended, and i feel there have been no major surprises. but i think that going through these themes with care has perhaps made clearer how images work, what their role (or lack of role) in politics is, and how art at least sometimes, whether we like its working strategies or not, can affect our relationship to distant problems where “normal” images cannot ‘help’. it looks like these excessive (extreme), kitschy and sometimes maybe even other types of reproductions can creep under our skin, but that mostly reproductive documentations do not do that. mostly visual culture cuts distance only time-wise and place-wise, not morally and/or emphatically. as artists seeks to find new ways of coping with reality, bringing the real body of a distant reality for a visit might be something we could find rewarding even at length in a world where the stream of popular images mostly leaves us untouched. going back to kant, whose strolls were totally non-surprising, always starting and ending at the same time, if he read about (natural) catastrophes from books, it is interesting to think about how seldom it was that he had moments when those issues he wrote about could really make their way under his skin. his body did not tremble with fear when he discussed waterfalls, as he was just sitting in an armchair. it makes me feel that the way we take for granted that we understand issues while not really experiencing them, touching them or in any way engaging with them, is 9 see mark brown, “hitler gets chapman treatment as hell rises from the ashes,” guardian, may 30, 2008, art (last visited may 24, 2019), https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/may/30/art. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture93 under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture a far older and broader tradition and convention than we realize when we discuss media and its effects. art might be able to remove us from this distancing practice at least occasionally without traumatizing us with the wrong kind of intimacy. but even if images are an easy target to think about, our ways of keeping up the distance—at the same time as we easily think we manage and understand the world where we live in—are a much broader and deeper problem of culture, of which we can just begin to see the basic contours. art alone cannot bridge us to the world, of course. and neither can philosophy. but there is certainly work to be done and rewards to be gained from this path, and i hope this text could be one drop in a growing river, which in the end could turn out to be a whole waterfall of new approaches to what it means to experience globally and ethically in a future world. a key to understanding the problematics might also mean that we need to accept the role of the “body”’ of a work of art, and its importance—here even the “body” of a piece of architecture and the everyday of a war zone. the presence of this body could often be a success-factor in understanding issues, which are distant. the “somaesthetics” of architecture here might be that our example connects our organic bodies to the architectural body of the war zone, and feeling this makes a difference to the world of popular images. we need to get more connected, not just to people, but to the bodies of e.g. buildings and clothes (ibrahimovic’s jacket). references benjamin, w. (2008). the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility. in walter benjamin, the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility and other writings on media. cambridge ma: the belknapp press of harvard university press. butler, j. (2009). frames of war: when is life grievable? london: verso. eco, u. (1976). a theory of semiotics. bloomington: indiana university press. huhtinen, a. m. (2004). keinosota – taistelu vastanottajista: informaatiosodan strategiset rajat; sotilasjohtamisen eettinen tarkastelu. lahti: elan vital. kallio-tavin, m. (2013). encountering self, other and the third: researching the crossroads of art pedagogy, levinasian ethics and disability studies. helsinki: aalto university. kant, i. (1952). the critique of judgement. oxford uk: clarendon press. remarque, e. m. (1929). im westen nichts neues. berlin: propyläen verlag. sontag, s. (2003). regarding the pain of others. new york: farrar, straus and giroux. walton, k. (2008). transparent images: on the nature of photographic realism. in s. walden (ed.), photography and philosophy, pp. 23-25. oxford: blackwell. weber, s. (2013). clouds: on a possible relation of terror and terrorism to aesthetics. germanic review, 88 (3) (july 1, 2013), pp. 339-362. page 37-45 body first: somaesthetics and popular culture37 artworks’ bodies artworks’ bodies adam andrzejewski abstract: in this paper, i shed some light on specific kind of experiences when the appreciator takes the artwork as having a body. i shall propose a framework which allows to conceptualise artworks’ bodily dimension and which says something nontrivial about artworks and our relationship to them. i argue that some artworks are able to cast a specific sort of aesthetic atmosphere connected with their physical nature as well as appreciator’s somatic consciousness. the existence of such atmospheres might be a reason for shifting our understanding of artworks and human relations to them. keywords: materialism, aesthetics, contemporary art, exhibitions. 1. a stranger in the room imagine yourself visiting an art gallery. as a passionate art lover with a distinguished taste for modern and contemporary art, you have certain habits regarding appreciating works of art. it is early wednesday morning, and you have intentionally chosen this specific time as you prefer to meet as few other visitors as possible. in your opinion, artworks should be appreciated fully without any distractions. in such a perfect environment, you’re dwelling in the gallery enjoying aesthetic and artistic features of the exhibited pieces. eventually, you come into a room and get caught by a strange feeling. you are looking around nervously and with a surprise realise you’re alone in the room. however, the odd impression remains: you do feel someone else’s presence. a bit confused, you realise that the only candidate for “the other” is the artwork displayed in the room. that is, you feel the artwork’s physical presence, you feel it as having a body. in this article, i would like to shed some light on the unusual experience described in the above paragraph, that is, when the appreciator experiences the artwork as having a body. in order to do so, i shall propose a framework which allows to conceptualise the artworks’ bodily dimension and which says something nontrivial about artworks and our relationship to them. in short, my hypothesis is the following: at least some artworks have bodies. although it may sound quite controversial, i believe there are reasons supporting this claim if we give the term “body” a specific meaning. 2. close, but not close enough in order to explore the hypothesis that (some) artworks could have bodies, i propose to start the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 38 adam andrzejewski from identifying and briefly discussing the existing issues from philosophical aesthetics which take into account (not always explicitly) materiality of artworks and the kind of experience connected with it. i would like to consider just two examples thereof: (1) the nature of portraits and their role in our everyday life, as well as, (2) the case where someone loves a piece of art, respectively. although, neither of these examples can be translated directly into my hypothesis, analysing them will help us set up a theoretical framework supporting my intuition and will bring our attention to the aspects of works of art that make us think that some art pieces have bodies, and how we should understand such an unintuitive claim. in my house, there is a rather special photograph given to me by a close friend of mine kamil. the photograph (taken by our mutual friend filip) depicts me with kamil sitting near our favourite tree in the park close to the area where we live. we both look very happy and quite exhausted. the photo was taken at the end of a full day and night of intensive celebration honouring his acceptance at the prestigious lodz film school. every time i take a look at the photograph, good, wild memories vividly come back to me, but also, and most importantly, i think of my friend. the way in which he is depicted makes me think: “that’s the real him!”.1 the photograph is a portrait of my friend. the situation described in the previous paragraph is—certainly—quite familiar to most people. we treasure portraits (mostly photographs, both analog and digital) of our family members, loved ones and friends. cynthia freeland has illuminated the very special nature of portraits and the complex experience of them in her celebrated book portraits and persons (2010). in a nutshell, her philosophical account of the art of portraiture2 argues that portraits “provide us with an essential revelation of persons, of their very nature” (ibid., p. 43). that is, when looking at a portrait, we get a certain sense of authenticity: the person depicted is rightly represented in terms of gesture, facial expression or individuality (ibid.). thanks to this function of portraiture, we might maintain “contact” with persons that we love or like even if they are far away or passed away some time ago.3 more analytically, freeland formulates three conditions that have to be met for an object to qualify as a portrait. so, the portrait needs to present “(1) a recognizable physical body along with (2) an inner life (i.e., some sort of character and/or psychological or mental states), and (3) the ability to pose or to present oneself to be depicted in representation” (ibid., p. 74).4 thus, if something is a portrait, then it gives the viewers a sense of the depicted person’s “essence”: her distinct features of character, body awareness, the way she is and/or the moral outlook of that person (ibid., p. 78 and p. 116).5 for example, leonardo da vinci’s lady with ermine (148990) depicts cecilia gallerani who was a mistress of ludovico sforza, duke of milan. gallerani is presented in a noble pose, as a wealthy and powerful woman. without going deeply into the complex and interesting interpretation of the painting (see pizzagalli 2006; shell & sironi 1992), we can easily notice that she is a bit lonely. there are no other people around her; the 1 which is not always the case when i look at other photographs depicting him. also, i doubt that it is the real me in the photo (or, at least, not to the same extent as my friend). in other words, i would say that the photograph is his portrait, but not mine. this raises the question of when a given photograph is a mere depiction of the person, and when it is able to become something more “serious”, that is, a portrait of that person. for the sake of simplicity, i decide not to address that question. 2 portraiture, as a category, is a subset of depicting objects. so, it covers various art forms such as paintings, drawings or photography. 3 ibid., p. 49. freeland supports her claim with reference to kendall walton’s transparency thesis regarding photographs. it says, roughly, that when looking at a photograph, we indirectly see the objects depicted in it (“seeing-through-photography”). cf. walton (2008). however, it seems that freeland extends this specific sense of “contact” to other forms of portraiture as well. 4 for another interesting account of portraiture, see also maes (2015). note, that the notion of body, as explained later, applies also to objects that are not of representational nature. i am using portraiture as a starting point for my further investigations. 5 nb. freeland claims that only persons can be portrayed. see p. 80. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture39 artworks’ bodies background is in a minor colour, and her expression seems to be quite distanced. all of this clashes interestingly with the way she intimately strokes the ermine. based on the painting, we might say something nontrivial about gallerani’s life. let me move to the second example derived from philosophical aesthetics. undoubtedly, artworks can elicit serious emotional reactions. people like artworks, admire or contemplate them. on the other hand, some artworks evoke frustration, boredom or anxiety in their recipients. it is hard to remain neutral when it comes to art. and, because of that, art is a powerful tool that can be successfully used for social change or moral education (see e.g. simontini 2018; berger & alfano 2016). there are people claiming to love particular works of art. imagine for a moment that you are visiting the uffizi gallery in florence. you have very carefully chosen a month, day and exact time for your visit to maximally limit the number of other visitors in order to enjoy the beauty of artworks there fully. while walking through the corridor, you overhear a lady saying “i return here every year. i just love botticelli’s primavera! i can’t take my eyes off it!” you might interpret the overheard confession as follows: the lady likes primavera very much. that would not be very surprising since we often unproblematically use the phrase “i love x” while actually meaning “i really like x”. we love skiing in les trois vallées, drinking priorat wine in barcelona or eating chocolate noir in turin in that way. however, the primavera case seems to be different. what the lady actually meant was that she really loves botticelli’s masterpiece located at the uffizi gallery. the issue of loving artworks seems to be an underdeveloped topic within the contemporary philosophical debate.6 luckily, anthony cross has recently touched upon that issue when investigating the nature of obligations to artworks (2010). starting from assessing the moral character of obligations to (all) artworks (he is quite critical of such a possibility), he claims that people have genuine obligations to those artworks they actually love (ibid., p. 87). the concept of love that is invoked by cross is not entirely clear; notwithstanding, he makes an interesting observation when noting that “… we value works of art in much the same way that we value other persons” (ibid., p. 91). (nb. cross critically evaluates this claim.) i think this says something true about our relationship with works of art, and i propose to treat the mentioned passage as an invitation to broaden the scope of human love to artworks.7 without a doubt, there are a number of various kinds of love: we love our partners, friends, kids or members of the local community, but in each case “love” means something a bit different (helm 2005/2017). since the theme of loving artworks is almost absent in philosophical aesthetics, and its framework has not been established yet, i propose to learn something about the issue in question from real-life cases, however rare. agnieszka piotrowska’s critically acclaimed documentary married to the eiffel tower (2008) is—as far as i can tell—the best artistic study on that theme, showing women falling in love with objects. types of objects vary from person to person, and they have different sizes, textures, and designs. in the film, we see evidence for loving a katana or a bow, but also for loving the berlin wall, the golden gate or the eiffel tower, and at least the last two objects might count as pieces of architectural art. my intention is not to analyse the documentary’s content nor to judge the viewpoint stated in the movie, but merely to pick up on interesting points that are shared by all of the heroines depicted there. firstly, objects are given full-fledged agency similar to persons. that is, objects (including artworks) can feel, have moods, intentions, thoughts and are even able to save human lives (one of the 6 for a notable exception, see maes (2017). 7 for the sake of simplicity, i’m leaving aside the (causal) relationship between obligations to artworks and loving them. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 40 adam andrzejewski characters claims that she did not commit suicide because of her love for the twin towers). it is especially evident when people depicted in the documentary claim that they are very much in love with some objects: the portrayed characters believe that the objects love them back.8 secondly, there is a sense of sexual appeal towards the loved objects. however, it is not always necessary and certainly goes beyond standardly understood fetishism. lastly, the relationship with the loved object is taken very seriously. it is shown that the characters are deeply and genuinely emotionally engaged with loved objects: they can stand for them or communicate with them and feel “no difference” between them and human agents (newman, bartles & smith 2016). two of the depicted characters are even “married” to beloved objects—the eiffel tower and the berlin wall. now it is time for general remarks. as i mentioned earlier, the examples derived from philosophical aesthetics would help direct our attention into those aspects of artworks that support my main hypothesis, suggesting that at least some artworks could have bodies. investigations into the nature of the art of portraiture tell us one important thing: it is not the artwork in itself that has a “body”, but rather the person that is depicted in the portrait. or, more analytically, if we feel someone’s presence in the gallery room, it is the person depicted in the portrait, rather than the piece of art as it is. the overall—without a doubt—special and intensive experiences elicited by portraits are connected mainly with the portrayed persons. that is, if we feel a certain “mood” or “air” when experiencing an artwork, it is because we can grasp the “mood” or “air” of the portrayed person. a positive lesson learned from focusing on portraits is that we are quite sure that artworks can cause such a feeling, and we get a good explanation of that fact. the position suggested by me provides a more radical and (and surely controversial) view that it is truly possible for someone to love an artwork. it presupposes that we are interested in not only what is depicted by the object (for example, a person, a landscape) but also in the work itself. people love artworks in their totalities, not only what is represented/symbolized by them. even if the story from married to the eiffel tower is highly controversial, it says something true about loving artworks (not only as sexual objects): if we love a piece of art, we feel like it has its own body.9 returning to the primavera example, it would be quite strange to love that masterpiece without admitting its autonomy (though we do not need to claim that it has any agency or personality). it is worth noting that when we love a work of art, we are likely to change our manner of thinking about it—including the vocabulary we use. that is, i bet that we are more likely to say that the work is “hurt” or “raped” rather than “damaged” or “misinterpreted”, and that shift takes place quite naturally, without one even fully noticing it. 3. atmospheres places have atmospheres: a narrow, dark street could be frightening, a mountain view sublime, while a clearing feels peaceful and safe. atmospheres are elusive “entities” yet powerful and irresistible: it is hard to avoid them, and they have an impact on our lives. in this section, i shall introduce the concept of “atmosphere” as an aesthetic concept described and defended by gernot böhme in his book the aesthetics of atmospheres which has recently been published in 8 nb. it is subject to change in due course: it is possible to “break up” with an object. in such a case, both persons and objects suffer from emotional coldness. 9 the feeling of bodily presence of the artwork is not necessarily connected with the fact that a human being is depicted by that artwork. it is true that in such cases it would be “natural” to link that feeling with the person depicted (e.g. portraits). however, in this paper an approach suggested by me is more ecumenical. that is, i suggest that some artworks have bodies and that fact is fairly independent from their representational nature (e.g. an abstract painting could have a body although it does not depict any person). body first: somaesthetics and popular culture41 artworks’ bodies english (2017).10 in the next section, i will use that concept as well as what has been established so far to support the claim concerning artworks’ bodies. according to böhme, “atmosphere is what relates objective factors and constellations of the environment with my bodily feeling in that environment. that is: atmosphere is what is in between, what mediates the two sides.” (ibid., 20). atmospheres are “placed” between the subject and object. their ontological status is then quite peculiar. on the one hand, they are quasi-objective: they could be shared with other people, or at least they are inter-subjective to some extent (ibid., 70; see also griffero 2014). for example, imagine that you intrude upon a departmental meeting without being formally invited. as a student, you might feel intimidated, and the atmosphere in the room might be quite tense. or, when visiting the church of the holy sepulchre in jerusalem, you get the impression that the place you are in is very solemn and serious. at that point, it is not surprising if we note that other students or pilgrims feel the atmospheres quite similarly. thanks to the fact that atmospheres are essentially rooted in the sharable features of the environment, e.g., a room is spacious, a landscape is vivid, a valley is cloudy, people can discuss and share their impressions with others. i would like to add one qualification: when you agree on the features of a certain atmosphere, its influence is strengthened. for example, if your companion says “that street is so dark. i don’t feel safe here!”, and you concur, then the street might seem even more hostile to both of you.11 moreover, atmospheres can be created. it is not something new that some places are intentionally designed to elicit a certain kind of impression. this is especially true when it comes to, for example, tourist practices (i.e. some designated spots to admire the natural surrounding like a picturesque landscape) or architecture (i.e. monuments or squares that highlight royal power) to name just a few. on the other hand, atmospheres are extremely vague, indeterminate and intangible (böhme 2017, p. 69).12 how we perceive a particular place or object depends on who we are, what experiences we embraced throughout our lives and our general approach to the surroundings. that is, atmospheres are entirely subjective since “one must expose oneself to them” (ibid., p. 70).13 it is difficult to imagine the atmosphere of the place without actually being there. what is more, we often struggle with explaining the sense of an atmosphere of a place to individuals who have not experienced it. for example, after visiting the scrovegni chapel in padua, you say to a friend “giotto’s frescos are truly amazing!”, but it seems unlikely that he could grasp the general aura of giotto’s artworks without seeing them. in atmospheres, we perceive not only objective features of objects, but also objects’ “ekstases” that are “the expressive forms of things” (böhme 2017, p. 95). that is, objects not only have properties (e.g., being blue) but also these properties relate “to the way in which they radiate outwards into space” (ibid.). another important characteristic of atmospheres is that they fill spaces. people enter a place that is filled with a certain atmosphere, and usually, its radius is limited to that place. for example, if you are at a local pub during christmastime, you probably feel an atmosphere of joy and happiness. the atmosphere is “spatially” extended throughout the pub and, maybe, its proximate exterior. so, you cannot feel that atmosphere on the opposite side of the street. however, when you exit the pub, you might be fuelled with its atmosphere. that is, “atmospheres are apprehended as powers which affect the subject; they have the tendency to induce in the 10 atmospheres are sometimes defined also as “half-entities”. see e.g. grant (2013, p. 21). 11 it does not mean, of course, that the street itself gets any “new” features. however, the atmosphere of danger becomes increasingly tense. 12 however, at the same time, they claimed to be as real as solid entities. see griffero (2014, p. 10). 13 juhani pallasmaa (2014) notes that when someone is in an atmosphere she or he grasps its “essence” immediately. that is, she or he experience first the atmosphere as a totality, and then (if at all) its “elements”. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 42 adam andrzejewski subject a characteristic mood” (ibid., 88). it should be noted that böhme’s proposal may be easily undermined by claiming that it lacks the critical dimension of the aesthetic.14 that is, focusing on the very elusive notion of “atmospheres”, we are not able to give any objective criteria for appreciating atmospheres. i think that is quite true. however, it is not a threat to böhme’s theory itself. he intentionally distances himself from the aesthetics concentrated on formulating aesthetic judgements and focuses instead on aesthetic experiences (böhme 2017, pp. 43-46). the primary aim of the aesthetics of atmospheres is to describe people’s aesthetic reactions to atmospheres and their role in shaping our perception. 4. bodies so, finally, what does it mean that some artworks have bodies? or, what are artworks’ bodies? the most intuitive answer to these questions is to claim that “body” is nothing more than another way to say “medium”.15 that is, by “body” we refer—maybe a bit metaphorically—to artworks’ materiality in general. and if so, since all artworks have mediums, then all artworks have bodies. the answer sounds elegant and straightforward as it provides a unifying solution by employing an already well-established conceptual framework for our problem. intuitive as it is, however, it does not explain the particular situation (and experience) described in the opening section of this essay, namely, that some artworks are experienced as being present in a different way than other art-works. the difference is not automatically rooted in the medium itself, as two artworks made from the same sort of medium (say, marble) may be experienced entirely differently—the first one might make one feel like it has a body, whereas the second might not. taking into account the above, i shall propose an alternative view for artworks’ bodies. i suggest that when we say “i feel that this artwork has a body”, we really refer to the special aura of that artwork. in other words, we mean that such a piece of art casts a special atmosphere.16 the key point here is that atmospheres, as aesthetic phenomena, are essentially bodily feelings. according to böhme, “[t]o perceive aura is to absorb it into one’s bodily state of being. what is perceived is an indeterminate spatially extended quality of feeling” (böhme 2017, p. 54). he also notes that “atmospheres are evidently what are experienced in bodily presence in relation to persons and things or in spaces”(ibid.). böhme’s proposal renders to the fact that atmospheres emanate from objects and fill spaces around them. people are bodily aware of atmospheres thanks to objects’ ekstases and change the mood when entering a particular atmosphere. i accept this, but i think that in the case of artworks we can nuance this view a bit more. atmospheres are bodily feelings and may be noticed by individuals only when they are aware of their bodily presence in the world. the same is true when we feel an atmosphere cast by another person. for example, when we accidentally run into our ex-partner and get an impression of discomfort or when someone is welcoming a beloved friend after a long time apart and feels happiness.17 both cases presuppose that we are bodily aware of the presence of the other person and we react (also bodily) to them because they have bodies as well. i hope it is acceptable to draw an analogical line between persons and artworks. sometimes we react to artworks in such a way that enables us to experience our bodily nature, that we are engaged with the world primarily with our flesh 14 nb. sometimes taking care of that dimension in doing aesthetics is not the most important thing. see e.g. leddy (2012). 15 i refer here to the physical medium and omit the issue of artistic medium, as the latter is not relevant for the purposes of this essay. see davies (2001, p. 181). 16 it seems true that some artworks can cause atmospheres. see pallasmaa (2014, p. 233); griffero (2014, p. 83). 17 however, it should be noted that it is still hard to define when, (or, more precisely, under which circumstances), a person causes an atmosphere. this might be defined by the person of whom the atmosphere we feel and the recipient of that atmosphere as well. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture43 artworks’ bodies and encountering other bodies as well. this kind of feeling—which is not automatically aesthetic appreciation—reflects, in its essence, to the same extent both on subject and object. in other words, an artwork’s body is, in fact, a (specific) kind of atmosphere that is cast by that artwork. however, it is not only a matter of how the work works. we must remember that atmospheres are “placed” between subjects and objects. and if this is true, then also human reactions to objects (here, artworks) are not neutral for designing a certain kind of atmosphere. i do not want to say that people “project”18 their bodies onto artworks, but rather i would like to stress that people’s body consciousness is questioned in such a way by artworks that we perceive them as having bodies as well.19 to sum up, artworks’ bodies are their atmospheres.20 obviously, not every artwork has a body. it is rather an unusual situation when experiencing art. so, what are the criteria for obtaining/designing this kind of atmosphere? as it has been stated earlier, the aesthetics of atmospheres is not focused on formulating frameworks for critical discourse. appreciating this standpoint, however, i hope to provide an account of some general tendencies that facilitate the existence of artworks’ bodies.21 firstly, it seems that—using nelson goodman’s terminology (1976)—autographic works of art are more likely to cast such an atmosphere. naturally, experiencing the majority of allographic artworks allows us to experience aesthetic atmospheres as well. for example, reading a gothic novel in my house may create an atmosphere of horror in my shadowed living room. notwithstanding, having just one and only one instantiation of an artwork (e.g., a painting) gives an impression that the work is located here and now, in this space and at that time. an artwork’s uniqueness fosters the existence of its “body” because i, as a person and art appreciator, have only one body and the same (as i feel it) goes for the artwork. secondly, the way in which an artwork is physically present in the space also has some importance. three-dimensional objects, such as sculptures, are more similar to our own bodies (even if they are very different) than paintings (even if they are quite similar to humans—i mean portraits, for example). this is obviously because some objects arrange space around them “better” than other artifacts. sculptures are (usually) more “enforcing” if you compare them to drawings or landscape paintings. as a result, a place is created which means that the spatial surroundings of the artwork become meaningful (haapala 2005). thirdly, artworks connected with the so-called lower senses (touch, smell and taste) also seem to favour the existence of bodies. if you extend the notion of arthood to a wide range of artifacts, such as fine clothing design, then it would be even more intuitive. artworks, traditionally speaking, are “distanced” from appreciators due to the fact that we experience them via the so-called higher senses (sight and hearing). and these are the senses of distance which (supposedly) make them more objective and intellectual, as opposed to the lower senses that are (allegedly) proximal and subjective (see korsmeyer 1999). experiencing an artwork via the lower senses might reinforce the possibility of gaining the artwork’s body (designing the atmosphere). for example, using your favourite piece of design, say, a hans wegner chair is inevitably connected with bodily involvement in its function. naturally, this does not mean 18 surely, there are a number of artworks questioning human bodily dimensions in a more direct way. for example, body performances. see heinrich (2012). 19 please note that neither do i claim here that artworks have the same kind of bodies as humans nor that they enjoy any full-blooded personality and/or consciousness. 20 again, not every aura is an artwork’s body. aura is a more general and heterogeneous category, whereas bodies refer to specific artistic atmospheres that invite us to experience and understand artworks in their totalities as something autonomous and fully present in the space. 21 the list is obviously not final. it is rather a phenomenological question as to whether a given person feels the bodily presence of the work of art (its special atmosphere). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 44 adam andrzejewski that the chair feels like having a body. however, the situation might be different if someone else is using your chair. it is possible for you to feel that your chair does not want to be used by other persons. quite analogically, someone could have a similar impression when wearing their best friend’s cardigan. it may fit very well. however, they might feel as if they “aren’t in their own skin” as the cardigan is the visual signature of that friend. in the end, it is worth considering the possible advantages (both theoretical and practical) of accepting the claim that some artworks have bodies. i think that my hypothesis, although roughly stated and clearly needing further development, is valuable for a number of reasons. first of all, it sheds light on the rather strange experience of artworks—when the appreciator feels someone’s presence, but there is no other human being in the room. that experience might be not frequent, but it allows us to conceptualise artworks in terms going beyond the concept of physical medium. artworks seen in that way are more “autonomous”.22 and people are capable of appreciating that. secondly, thanks to that, it provides another reason for postulating the genuine rights of artworks. artistic artifacts are traditionally seen as vehicles for human intentions and emotions, and because of that, we should respect them. genuine rights of artworks ought to be rooted in artworks, not in artists (creators). maybe we should be able to value them not only for the aesthetic pleasures they give us but also for the works as they are, even if they are not original, sublime or beautiful. thirdly, as one of the heroines depicted in married to the eiffel tower says, “[p]eople love objects for practical purposes. this is why they don’t see the soul of the object.” perhaps the heroine is telling us a profound truth: if we would like to really get an object’s (artwork’s) soul, its essence, then we should treat it like one of us, and this presupposes perceiving it as if were a body. this is because we are, as humans, conscious bodies (shusterman 2012). * * * in this paper, i have tried to enumerate reasons supporting the hypothesis of artworks’ bodily dimension. that is, i suggested that some artworks could be experienced as having bodies. in other words, these artworks are able to cast a specific sort of aesthetic atmosphere connected with their physical nature (going beyond “mere” medium) as well as the appreciator’s somatic consciousness. the existence of such atmospheres might be a plea for shifting our understanding of art-works (not purely in objectifying terms) and human relations to them (as something intimate). acknowledgment thanks to karan august and max ryynänen for their helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. i am also grateful to an anonymous reviewer for interesting criticism. this work has been supported by the foundation for polish science. references berger, j., alfano, m. (2016). virtue, situationism, and the cognitive value of art. the monist, 99, pp. 144-158. 22 here i mean some kind of phenomenological autonomy—that the work is really “there” and felt as independent of the spectator. i do not refer here to, for example, aesthetic autonomy (also involving the autonomy of aesthetic judgement). body first: somaesthetics and popular culture45 artworks’ bodies böhme, g. (2017). the aesthetics of atmospheres. ed. by thibaud, j-p. london: routledge. cross, a. (2017). obligations to artworks as duties of love. estetika: the central european journal of aesthetics, 54, pp. 85-101. davies, d. (2001). medium in art. in levinson, j. (ed.). oxford handbook of aesthetics. oxford: oxford university press. freeland, c. (2010). portraits and persons. new york: oxford university press. goodman, n. (1976). languages of art: an approach to a theory of symbols. 2nd edition. indianapolis: hackett. grant, s. “performing an aesthetics of atmospheres”, aesthetics, 32 (1), pp. 12-32, 21. griffero, t. (2014). atmospheres: aesthetics of emotional spaces., trans. by s. de sanctis, ashgate 2014. haapala, a. on the aesthetics of the everyday: familiarity, strangeness, and the meaning of place. in the aesthetics of everyday life. light, a., smith, j.m. (eds). new york: columbia university press. pp. 39–55. heinrich, f. (2012). flesh as communication – body art and body theory. contemporary aesthetics, 10. helm, b. (2005/2017). love. in zalta, e. (ed.). stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. korsmeyer, c. (1999). making sense of taste. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. leddy, t. (2012). defending everyday aesthetics and the concept of “pretty”. contemporary aesthetics, 10. maes, h. (2015). what is a portrait? the british journal of aesthetics, 55, pp. 303-322. maes, h. (2017). truly, madly, deeply: on what it is to love a work of art. the philosopher’s magazine. newman, g., bartles, d., smith, r. (2015). are artworks more like people than artifacts? individual concepts and their extensions. topics in cognitive science, 6, pp. 647-662. pallasmaa, j. (2014). space, place and atmosphere. emotion and peripheral perception in architectual experience lebenswelt, 4, pp. 230-245. pizzagalli, d. (2006). dama z gronostajem: życie cecilli gallerani w mediolanie czasów lodovica sforzy. poznań: rebis. simoniti, v. (2018). assessing socially engaged art. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 76, pp. 71-82. shell, j., sironi, g. (1992). cecilia gallerani: leonardo’s lady with an ermine. artibus et historiae, 13, pp. 47-66. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. walton, k. (2008). transparent pictures: on the nature of photographic realism. in walden, s. (ed.) photography and philosophy: essays on the pencil of nature. oxford: blackwell publishing. pp. 23–25. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 6 page 6-24ximena alarcón díaz conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening ximena alarcón díaz abstract: this paper articulates the design for the first stage of intimal: a physical/virtual embodied interactive system for relational listening in the context of human migration, set within the artistic practice of improvisatory telematic sonic performance. informed by the deep listening experiences of nine colombian migrant women in europe and integrating embodied music cognition methods, intimal draws upon sensorial experience in dreams, virtual spaces, and physical spaces to develop a holistic understanding of the body as an interface that keeps one’s memory of place. technologies are intended to be used as mediations aiding the co-relations in listening for the sensing, processing and retrieval of an oral archive of other women’s testimonies from the colombian civil war, while improvisers’ body movements, voices, and spoken words resonate with these voices. the author suggests how intimal system could act as catalyst for creating new layers in the reconstruction and transformation of embodied memory, opening paths for individual and collective healing of feelings associated to the migratory experience and the armed conflict. keywords: interactive system, relational listening, embodiment, memories, migration, colombianconflict, women, telematic sonic performance, oral archives. 1. background while working in the fields of sound arts and networked performance,1 i became interested in opening paths for the creative expression of feelings derived from the migratory experience. between 2012 and 2016, i created internet-based telematic sonic performances–which involve telecommunications and computers in the transmission of unidirectional or bidirectional streaming of audio. migrants from all over the world listened to “in-betweeness”2 in the context of human migration; that is, a limbo experienced in between lands, cultures, and identities, and perceived in one’s surrounding acoustic environments.3 using pauline oliveros’s deep listening 1 garret lynch and denis rea, “body, space and time in networked performance,” proceedings from remote encounters: connecting bodies, collapsing spaces and temporal ubiquity in networked performance conference 2013. liminalities: a journal of performance studies 10, no. 1 (may 2014): 2-15. 2 m. ortega, “multiplicity, inbetweeness, and the question of assimilation,” southern journal of philosophy 46 (2008): 65, 80. 3 ximena alarcón, “networked migrations: listening to and performing the in-between space,” liminalities: a journal of performance studies 10, no. 1 (may 2014): 2–21. somaesthetics and technology7 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening practice4 and the telematic medium, people in my study engaged in a set of relations involving dreams, body expression, voice, and spoken language. inspired by the embedded relationality of migratory aesthetics, “characterized by its success in interweaving and interconnecting the fragments, disengaged from older structures and discourses”,5 and the concept of relational listening6 where the psychological and technological processes are part of the possibilities of listening to others’ listening, i have engaged in the development of intimal: interfaces for relational listening. through my development of the art-research project intimal, i hope to gain a greater understanding of the experience of the body within the interrelations among the condition of migration, the voice, and the telematic medium; interrogating the role of body as an interface that keeps memory of place, thereby opening paths for the healing of loss and dislocation. specifically, my research looks at (1) how co-located and telematic technologies can expand a relational dialogue that directly responds to the embodied experience of migration; and (2) how an oral archive that represents a disembodied memory of voices can be integrated into this process of remembering as a catalyst for emerging relations. i envision intimal as a physical/virtual “embodied” interactive system for relational listening that interrelates body movement, voice and language, oral archives, and the memory of place in the context of migration through the artistic practice of improvisatory telematic sonic performance. to inform this interactive system, i explored the migratory listening experiences of nine colombian migrant women presently residing in the cities of barcelona, london, and oslo in counterpart with an oral archive containing testimonies collected by the commission of colombian migrant women for truth, peace and reconciliation,7 most of which describe experiences derived from the colombian armed conflict. thus, the project is situated in the historical context of colombia post conflict and the feelings that arise for colombian migrant women during this process. as a result, a modular design for virtually and physically mediated ensemble interaction8 involving technologies for sensing (body movement, voice, and language), processing (in relation to the oral archive), and retrieval (the audio response that the improvisers receive from the system) has arisen, to be tested in may 2019 by project participants via a telematic improvisatory performance. in this paper, i will describe the conceptual design of intimal, its supporting theories, and the methodology used in my fieldwork with the nine colombian women. although this scope does encompass their responses to the oral archive, i have left aside the curatorial, annotation, and technological work that accompanied the oral archives. 4 pauline oliveros, deep listening: a composer’s sound practice. lincoln: iuniverse books, (2005). 5 isabel hoving, “between relation and the bare facts: the migratory imagination and relationality.” in sam durrant and catherine m. lord, eds., essays in migratory aesthetics: cultural practices between migrations and art-making. new york: editions rodopi b.v., (2007): 179–190. 6 lawrence english, “relational listening: the politics of perception.” in ear wave event, issue 2 spring 2015. accessed 29 september 2015, earwaveenvent.org 7 a grassroots organization operating mainly in barcelona and london, where most colombian migrants reside in europe; see http:// mujerdiaspora.com. 8 charles patrick martin, “apps, agents, and improvisation: ensemble interaction with touch-screen digital musical instruments.” phd thesis, australian national university, (2016). the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 8 ximena alarcón díaz 2. theoretical framework and methodologies intimal is informed by interdisciplinary practices and concepts including deep listening, the philosophy of embodiment, migration anthropological studies, and the methods and theory of embodied music cognition. when situating this project in migration studies, ahmed notes that “journeys of migration involve a splitting of home as place of origin and home as the sensory world of everyday experience.” embodiment in migration narratives involves a “spatial reconfiguration of an embodied self ”,9 so that issues of absence and presence,10 as well as a sense of place,11 insist upon daily attention from people who experience migration. to access and explore these migratory narratives, intimal uses oliveros’s practice of deep listening, which invites one to expand one’s “perception of sounds to include the whole space/time continuum of sound—encountering the vastness and complexities as much as possible.”12 this practice uses sonic meditations, unconscious dreaming,13 chi kung and tai chi chinese body energetic practices, and free movement14 to increase one’s awareness of sound in one’s internal and external environments. listening to and sharing dreams, as well as migratory experiences on a virtual platform creates an interesting experience interweaving different perceptions of space and time, and share unexpected encounters between people in different locations.15 as sharon stewart explains, deep listening “is founded upon a remarkable devotion to opening the body, through developing a regular, personal movement practice that helps free the body (of tension) while at the same time stimulates awareness of the energy (flow) of the body.” stewart favors the label somatic listening “which encompasses both a listening inwardly to the sensations and movements of the body as well as a listening with the entire body, which becomes highly sensitive and responsive to the kinetic energy (movement) of the sound it engages with”.16 thus, with experience as paramount, nourished also by philosophical eastern traditions, deep listening is in dialogue with practical somaesthetics,17 cultivating an awareness of listening as potentially reciprocal and non-judgmental: in which when listening to someone/something (e.g. our body, dreams, surroundings) always will imply that someone/something might be listening in return. deep listening practitioners have explored listening to the body via different avenues: focusing on a “prosodic body,” which is formed around the sounds we speak;18 listening with the feet by exploring slow walking and voicing people’s sense of place;19 and breathing and touch in craniosacral therapy, listening for the “still-point” to create a dialogue with disturbances and 9 sara ahmed, strange encounters: embodied others in post-coloniality. london: routledge, (2000): 90 10 ann brooks, and ruth simpson. emotions in transmigration, transformation, movement, and identity, 31–51. basingstoke, hampshire: palgrave macmillan, (2013). 11 doreen massey, sense, place and gender. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, (2001) 12 pauline oliveros, deep listening: a composer’s sound practice. lincoln: iuniverse books, (2005). 13 carole ione lewis, listening in dreams. lincoln: iuniverse books, (2005). 14 heloise gold, deeply listening body. kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications, (2008). 15 ximena alarcón, “telematic embodiments: improvising via internet in the context of migration.” in david rothenberg, ed., vs. interpretation: an anthology on improvisation, vol. 1. 85–93. prague: agosto foundation, (2015). 16 sharon stewart, “listening to deep listening.” journal of sonic studies 2, no. 1, (2012). 17 richard shusterman, “somaesthetics” in the encyclopedia of human computer interaction, https://www.interaction-design.org/ literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/somaesthetics accessed 23 january 2019. 18 robert kocik, supple science: a robert kocik primer. michael cross and thom donovan, eds. on contemporary practice: oakland, ca, (2013). 19 viviane corringham, “listening with the feet.” in monique buzzarte and tom bickley, eds., anthology of essays in deep listening. kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications, (2012): 143–148. somaesthetics and technology9 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening blockages felt in the body.20 in light of these deep listening experiences, embodiment can be understood as a holistic concept; according to sean gallagher, embodiment encompasses perceptual, emotional, and interactive processes, the use of language and metaphor; “the exercise of free will in intentional action,” and “the creation of cultural artifacts that provide for further human affordances.”21 also in line with deep listening practice, nina sun eidsheim22 proposes transitioning the traditional listening perspectives of singing and other musical performances from the “figure of sound”—that is, the sonic narrative, which focuses only on audio parameters and processes—to the “figure of vibration”—that is, the sensing of sound and listening. this shift helps one to delve deeper into sonic spatial relations, beyond the auditory experience alone. shanken and harris23 refer to oliveros’s work as “techno-intuitive” and her methods for extending embodied knowledge and expanding consciousness as a foundation for transforming our relationship with the earth and creating “community and healing”. they highlight oliveros’s recurring themes in telepresence and telepathy manifested in her telematic circle,24 a group of musicians improvising through the internet, as well as in dream work led by ione25 and experienced by participants in deep listening retreats. they mentioned further explorations by artists such as nina sobell using biofeedback “brain waves drawing over the internet between poland and los angeles” with the intention of creating “a non-verbal intimacy in cyberspace, one world, one time.” in non-visual network interface performances, mills and beilharz note that listening and the semiotics of sound are the main mediators, in that they illustrate “the role of metaphor and embodiment in the perception of musicians creating and responding to musical signs in networked synchrony.” in turn, they also support the idea of using a framework of distributed cognition to achieve “fluidity in networked musical dialogue” via extended listening practices, “replacing visual referents in facial expression, body language and the physical marking of time.”26 in my experience with telematic sonic performances that try to listen to someone across the ocean while simultaneously trying to be heard, migrants also undergo what franziska schroeder calls networked listening, which provokes an “unselfing” or decentering, or the “state of moving from oneself to the other.”27 migratory processes also generate this decentering condition, and this alignment represents the intersection around which this research has interwoven the medium of improvisatory performance into the context surrounding it. in order to delve deeper into embodiment, that is, i incorporate into intimal the use of embodied music cognition as “a method to reveal motion features that contrast with the original audio, or to reveal motion 20 lesley greco, “deep listening and touch:unwindying the body of my voice.” in monique buzzarte and tom bickley, eds., anthology of essays in deep listening, kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications, (2012): 153–159. 21 sean gallagher, how the body shapes the mind. oxford university press: oxford, (2005): 247 22 nina sun eidsheim, sensing sound: singing and listening as vibrational practice. durham, n.c.: duke university press, (2015). 23 edward shanken, and yolande harris, “a sounding happens: pauline oliveros, expanded consciousness, and healing.” soundscape: the journal of acoustic ecology 16 (2017): 4–14. 24 see http://paulineoliveros.us/telematic-circle.html accessed 03 december 2018 25 ione, “deep listening in dreams: opening to another dimension of being.” in monique buzzarte and tom bickley, eds., anthology of essays in deep listening. kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications, (2012): 299–313. 26 roger mills and kirsty beilharz, “listening through the firewall: semiotics of sound in networked improvisation,” organised sound 17, no. 1 (2007): 16–27, doi: 10.1017/s1355771811000471. 27 franziska schroeder, “network[ed] listening—towards a de-centering of beings,” contemporary music review 32, nos. 2–3 (2013): 223, accessed 14 august 2013, doi: 10.1080/07494467.2013.775807. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 10 ximena alarcón díaz features that are not easily visible to the naked eye.”28,29 recalling eidsheim, such methods assist in the measurement and understanding of vibrations represented in biofeedback signals such as muscle movement, breathing, and body macro and micromovements that are not usually considered to be sonic in networked performances, and which, in combination with deep listening, might enable “an understanding of the relationship between mind, body, and matter, using methodologies that draw upon experimentation and computer modeling.”30 focusing on language and voice as its principal listening resources, intimal treats oral archives as disembodied voices that present vocality, an expression of embodiment and uniqueness,31 and the historical memory that is carried by the voice and speech. in turn, migrants’ performative expressions, rooted in free bodily improvisation, the voice, and the spoken word, are understood to represent multivocalities, or “private and experimental sites where one can try on new voices or identities without fear, performing the new voice to whatever capacity one feels one is able to perform.”32 the present methodology, then, derives from issues of loss, place, presence, and embodiment in the context of migration; the invisibility of the body in telematic sonic performance; the possibility of perceiving and sonifying “vibrations” using the methods of embodied music cognition; and the role of voice and language as unique and as embodying memories of place. it is intended to help integrate oral archives and the listening experiences of nine women using sensorial, qualitative and quantitative approaches. in alignment with the concept of relational listening, my intention is to integrate physical and virtual embodied experiences, where improvisers explore their sense of place and sense of presence as new “spatial reconfigurations” of their embodied selves in migration. 3. colombian migrant women in europe: case study colombia is presently in a post-conflict condition following a war that lasted for sixty years and became part of the collective memory of at least three generations of colombians. around six million people left the country during this time, looking for a better future all over the world33 (bermúdez, 2006). the human disruption has been profound. colombian migrant women, for example, have experienced loss thanks to the migration itself, but also as a result of the conflict that spurred it.34 upon arriving in europe, these women seem to experience an awakening regarding their gender role, questioning social situations that were considered normal in colombia’s patriarchal society. based on my interviews with intimal, i associate this experience with the muting of women’s gendered experiences of violence35 minimizing these in the midst of the 28 a. r. jensenius, and r. i. godøy. “sonifying the shape of human body motion using motiongrams.” empirical musicology review 8, no. 2 (2013): 73–83. 29 a. r. jensenius, “exploring music-related micromotion.” in clemens wöllner, ed., body, sound and space in music and beyond: multimodal explorations, 29–48. new york: routledge, 2017. 30 marc leman, embodied music cognition and mediation technology. cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press, (2008): 26 31 adriana cavarero, for more than one voice: towards a philosophy of vocal expression. translated by paul a. kottman. palo alto: stanford university press, 2005. 32 julie choi, creating the multivocal self: autoethnography as method (new york: routledge, taylor & francis, 2017). 33 anastasia bermúdez torres, colombian migration to europe: political transnationalism in the middle of conflict. working paper no 39. centre on migration, policy and society, university of oxford, 2006. 34 psychological and physiological consequences of these women’s migration experiences include feelings of guilt, fear, anger, indifference, powerlessness, disillusionment, social and family judgment, solidarity, the experience of silence, and the manifestation of illness. see commission of colombian women in diaspora, truth, memory and reconciliation: commission of colombian women in the diaspora, pilot phase achievements report, september 2017 (london: conciliation resources, 2017). 35 florence thomas, conversaciones con violeta: historia de una revolución inacabada. bogotá: aguilar, 2006. somaesthetics and technology11 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening “real violence” of the conflict.36 given this context, i wanted to explore the spaces for suppressed voicing and listening that overlapped the conflict and look at how an awareness of those spaces might emerge through the women’s process of listening to their own migration. to establish co-relations, intimal incorporates two sources of migratory experiences: the listening experiences of nine colombian migrant women residing in the cities of barcelona, london, and oslo, both in colombia and in the places to which they have migrated, and an archive of audio testimonies by other colombian migrant women. because the colombian conflict has touched all layers of colombian society, this precise comparison between the nine women’s listening and sounding experiences and the stories in the archive is crucial to expanding the relationality of listening to the diversities of the colombian migration and to opening space for women’s voices in a creative and non-judgmental space for free expression. through insights derived from the colombian case, this project hopes to offer a universal take on experiences of migration caused by armed conflict. 4. development listening to the oral archive in the oral archive, i identified four semantic themes or spheres of migratory memory: (1) body stories that emerged as an intimate physical space involving body/mind inner geography; (2) social body, which offers a dimension of shared time and identity involving social and family links; (3) native land (colombia, in this case), which broadly represents the historical shared dimension of this specific migrant community, informed as well by the causes that motivate or force someone to migrate; and (4) host lands, which offer a dimension of migration that reflects stories in the present land or other foreign territories that have been part of women’s migrations. each space includes categories with literal and figurative language forms. for example, body stories include categories such as body events, illnesses, selfcare, mind, sexuality, and sensations and feelings. social body includes categories such as blood family, friends and colleagues, created family, key stages of life such as childhood and teenage, and values. native land includes categories such as conflict events, conflict actors, economy, education, land, and values, and host lands has categories that mirror native land and invite a broader understanding of conflict in contemporary societies. i also identified prosody in the archive via three types of voices: the disillusioned voice, the demanding voice, and the transformative voice, communicating emotions (scherer, 2003). these spaces are not intended to be fully representative but served instead as a basis for understanding body/mind in geographical dislocation, and for opening creative paths for a balanced listening in between memories of place (figure 1). 36 laura tolton, “a groping versus ‘real violence’ in colombia. contrast as a minimisation strategy.” journal of critical discourse studies 11, no. 3 (2014): 322–341. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 12 ximena alarcón díaz figure 1: spheres of migratory memory derived from the oral archive. the spaces and categories described above define selected fragments from the oral archives that are understood in the project as short stories. these will be retrieved by the intimal system to be heard by other women and trigger their own memories. the intimal system will help the sonic retrieval of fragments of the oral archives, according to the actions of the performers. fieldwork with nine women by integrating my previous research experience with deep listening and telematic performance into the methods of embodied music cognition, i designed a methodology to holistically understand nine women’s migratory experience via (1) semi-structured individual interviews, (2) dream-awareness online virtual workshops, (3) a deep listening intensive workshop, and (4) a motion-capture session. each step in the methodology contributed to the intimal system design, and its integration with the oral archives is described below. by exploring the women’s listening and sounding as spaces that sound but that also have “vibrations” generated by body movement and feelings (see eidsheim above), the interviews revealed their daily efforts to embody different public spaces and work environments. their responses indicated how difficult it was to freely move and navigate in the public environment without feeling invaded by unwanted whistles that explicitly referred to their bodies and how they are sexually desirable, or worrying by their safety, as well as the ways in which they automatically embodied other ways of being in a working environment: “i had to do many things to be able to walk in the streets in bogotá. for instance, i needed to know where geographically the construction was to avoid whistles and piropos (…) which were mostly very ugly. (…) as a woman i have done thousands and thousands of things to avoid the bombardment of situations like finding geographically the space [where i could move], knowing what time i can leave, what time i should arrive.” (lr) somaesthetics and technology13 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening “i remember that if i was not teaching, my voice was like . . . how to say it, very thin. and once i was teaching i had a different voice, another strength, otherwise i could not survive in front of 30 male students (…) [feeling it] in the body too, a bit warmer but at the same time stronger, i had to be stronger, present. i had it very clear; it was a bit automatic.” (vo) the need to map their public spaces, the muting and transformation of their voices, together with the difficulties of freely expressing religious, sexual options and reclaiming agency over their bodies represented, to me, physical and metaphorical revelations of minimized violence. the women’s accounts offered accumulated reasons for leaving the country, which one of them expressed metaphorically as having: “plenty of sounds in myself, and in colombia (…) i was repeating the same note, the note that was expected from me, that was part of the score, as the society expects that we all sound. that was the note that i was sounding externally, but internally i knew i didn’t want to remain in that.” (cl) after migrating, their listening experiences in their host lands involved further muting, but also an eventual expansion and expression of sounds, once they managed to learn the foreign languages and new cultural codes—that is, to become multivocal. “i was almost mute for one year (…) i had moments in which i was scared of buying a burger, it might seem silly (…) i wasn’t able to order a burger; i felt judged all the time, and it was an enormous effort. (…) my sound was opaque, very opaque. it took lots of effort. it was not lots of time, but, yes, lots of work and effort to find again my voice.” (lr) “i am not sure if [it is] because the italian and the spanish are similar, but at some point i lost my speaking voice. i think i was lost in a corporal level of memory and identity, and it was a linguistic colonization that took me to the silence, until i said to myself, “here something is happening,” and until i left italy (to come to norway), i realized i needed to recover my native language, my colombian identity in every sense (…) norway is a very silent country.” (ar) despite these women’s different ages and migratory experiences, the current colombian moment of post-conflict has revived shared feelings regarding colombian space and old and recent memories of the colombian conflict. this situation, then, “touches” them, overlapping directly and indirectly upon their migrations: ““it was a contrast between the sound, like of happiness, to be with all your friends and all of a sudden the eruption of the firecrackers of the demonstrations, and of the red guard. (…) i think that defines very well how i did feel there, a deep desire of being with people there, but also a very unstable situation, with very strong sounds that suddenly erupted and silenced all of that.” (bs) “and i went to bed (and when waking up) my partner said…the no won [referring to the colombia peace agreement referendum in 2016]. and i couldn’t stop crying, the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 14 ximena alarcón díaz i am still crying, and it was a moment of rupture for me, of saying “i don’t want to be colombian, i don’t want to be part of that country… it has nothing to do with me”. i don’t know why i am still crying. it was very strong, and that has been the last thing that has happened to me, to reconnect with being colombian (…) i am that, but i don’t want to be that country, i am a country that doesn’t exist anymore and never will exist because the no won.” (bs) in light of these memories, sonic creative expression activities in the fieldwork focused on the exploration of interstitial spaces such as dreams and virtual space—spaces that might offer “texture” for imagining telematic presence. while listening to their dreams, the women were invited to explore spaces and sounds that could be heard there. this dream work was crucial to opening spaces of memory involving mobility devices such as trains, wheeled devices, and scooters, as well as blended sounds and voices that reflected the state of their migrations. also, the women shared feelings that were present in their migratory processes, such as the need for “breathing” or the feeling of being “without voice,” as well as the presence of judgmental voices in their dreams. within the limitations and possibilities offered by the virtual platform, they improvised with body movements and gestures, expanding the possibilities of nonverbal expression. they experimented with words that emerged from their dreams and allowed for alternate meanings, breaking linguistic agreements and opening spaces of silence, releasing the stress and need to be heard in any language. sounds of the sea and seagulls were also powerful for some of the women, as was an increasing awareness of a spiritual appreciation for all beings. the women gave themselves permission to question relationships with known and unknown characters in their dreams and collectively proposed keywords to summarize their takeaways from each dream session, including “flow and transition,” “take the voice out—integration of the other,” and “sensory spaces.” because dream awareness touches upon issues of identity, agency, and power that are part of the daily challenges they face as migrants and as women; this exercise prepared them to speak out and move beyond the rigid limits of rational thinking to fearlessly explore new possibilities for expression and being. at the two-day deep listening workshop in glasslåven art centre in norway, the women expanded their listening to their inner geography37 and their multivocalities38 and established connections with the earth through early morning walks.39 they also practiced spontaneous responses to voices coming from “dreams” or other unknown voices40 in preparation for listening to the oral archives. these exercises opened spaces for each of the participants to accommodate respectful and powerful sharing as well as creative expressions, bringing to the surface common, diverse, and even opposing perspectives regarding colombian culture. for example, the role of humor or the need for silence opened the need for acoustic spaces for colombian cultural diversity and a shared history of conflict. these listening exercises informed a set of possibilities for expression for each woman regarding her migratory journey, with which to improvise in two free body-voice and spoken word experiments: the “migratory journey” and “listening to the archive.” 37 using the score titled “tapping into your inner plant (discovering your sound seed),” a guided meditation by sharon stewart. 38 using the score titled “chhhidiomatikflui” by ximena alarcón. 39 heloise gold, deeply listening body (kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications, 2008), pp. 3-10. 40 using the score titled “histomemoriology” by ximena alarcón. somaesthetics and technology15 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening experiments in the mocap lab in the motion capture laboratory (mocap lab) located at the department of musicology in the university of oslo, i used technologies such as infrared cameras, sensors for muscle activity (emg) and breathing sensors, and close, ambisonic, and directional microphones, to record body movements and acoustic information. participants wore a total of 63 infrared markers each, placed on the face, limbs, back, and head, as well as a pair of emg sensors in the cervical trapezius and breathing sensors. the motion-capture software qualisys recorded video of the experiments. i looked for patterns in the women’s bodily expression of their migratory journeys, for the ways in which they cross-influenced one another in free improvisation, and for the ways in which their vocal narratives might interrelate with stories in the oral archive. experiment 1 – improvising their migratory journey in the first experiment, a floor score derived from the four spheres of migratory memory guided each woman’s improvisation by offering a space for listening. they improvised in trios that were grouped according to the city where they lived in europe. each participant had some time to perform as the main improviser, while the other two, called the resonators, accompanied her journey. the resonators were free to join the main improviser using body movements and voices, including spoken words. they stood in a triangle, with the main improviser at the point and the resonators to the sides. they were free to move all over the stage space. the solo performance was approximately two minutes each, and then the resonators joined the main improviser. the full performances lasted between about three minutes and about eight minutes (figure 2). figure 2: intimal participants, group 1, experiment 1. i developed a process for analyzing this material using visual computational representation (plotting) of the collected data, direct observation of the video, and listening.41 plots helped me speculate regarding how the participants moved in the space over time. in the mocapgram (fig. 3), a tool to understand how the different markers moved in time and space, each horizontal 41 (1) i used mocapgrams, a tool to understand how the different markers move in time and space dimensions, and plottings of breathing data and emgs showing muscle tension; (2) i looked at video (without audio) and wrote general observations about things such as repetitive body movements, then compared those with the mocapgrams and other plottings; (3) i watched the video with audio; and (4) i listened to the audio only, looking for vocal expression and relations among their narratives and their body movements. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 16 ximena alarcón díaz line visualizes the movement of a marker (it changes color over time). repetitive colors along the timeline indicate rhythmic patterns. for example, sequences of little white lines are present in markers such as rmpart7g3 (right mouth) and lmpart7g3 (left mouth) and coincide with speech when one looks at the synchronized video and audio. the defined colored sections indicated that the improvisers were building spaces with their bodies in defined sections in different spaces on the stage. it might be that space was being created according to the floor score, but it is hard to know sure, because not all of the participants moved strictly according to the four spaces. figure 3: mocapgram improvisation 3, group 3, oslo. body movement regarding space, i divided my observation into three areas of movement in the vertical plane, as well as the displacement that the women have on the floor space in the horizontal plane. observing the lower body, i noticed movements that denoted working the land, and also body stories such as crawling like a baby and expressing oneself with babble. in addition, the body moving on the ground extends to the sides, expressing a sort of liberation. one of the expressions brings with it the awareness of a body that weighs a lot when it is standing and feels lighter when it squats. direct gestures from the womb and stories of maternity emerge naturally from the middle body, as do movements of the arms embracing the torso gently, to demonstrate love and caring, or with rapid movements, to demonstrate the feeling of a cold climate. reflecting layers of colombian conflict, it is interesting that one of the groups used arm movements that evoked military expressions or salutes to the flag; in this case, though, they were expressing orientations in the city of bogotá (north, south, west, east) that clearly marked social class divisions. regarding the upper body, when the person stretched upward, she was expressing ideas or beliefs about spiritual transformation. hands gestures were used to imitate the use of a mirror, for example, and to accompany their spoken language—they would use hand movements to go out, or go in, or go up or down, and so on. in the upper body, as well, somaesthetics and technology17 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening there were repetitive gestures of head up and narratives of land involving other beings, trees, and mountains. in the horizontal displacement, i observed running, marking steps, slow walking and the rhythmic, repetitive movements of foot stomping, all in relation to migratory journeys. because of the uncertainty that migration brings, rotations in a space and the search for directions or decisions regarding taking a step forward (in their narratives) or not are key movements to focus on in the intimal system. poetic body movements acting as metaphors for a migratory journey also appeared in the brief encounters between improvisers while they were walking; they seemed to represent little pauses for mirroring movements. resonators’ movements and separations seemed to reassure the main improvisers as gestures of respect and acknowledgment regarding the story that the main improviser was telling. group movement patterns were very distinct and suggested the influence of the space in which the given participants lived—those from london tended to be very individual in their movements and directional paths, whereas those from barcelona seemed to engage more in collective body movements, and those from oslo seemed to accompany one another, aligning themselves in the space and maintaining a certain distance. this aspect cannot be further studied in this stage, but it is open for exploration at later stages of the intimal system. when looking at the breathing data in figure 4, we can see along the timeline that the breathing of the main improviser differed initially from the resonators, but when resonators became more active, at around the 700 milliseconds, for example, the representation of their breathing indicates more activity in response to the main improviser. i suggest that studying and sonifying breathing patterns in real time, when speaking or in silence, could offer the improvisers a sense of individual rhythms and togetherness, both in a co-located setting and with the others at a distance, telematically. figure 4: breathing data for one improvisation involving the main improviser and resonators. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 18 ximena alarcón díaz voice, narrative forms participants used different narrative forms, such as poetry, conversation, and the performative voice. when they engaged in conversation, they summoned the voices of people from their pasts who offered advice or judgment. performatively, they experimented with voices at a high pitch, or even screams, as the body stretched and they played with speed and transformations of words in different languages; creating fresh and evocative metaphors of migration. changes between languages reflected “multivocalities” and the freedom to express oneself beyond one’s official native language, even by creating new words. (see video 1 as an example of body movement and narrative voice)42 experiment 2 – listening to the archive in the second experiment, in order to create an intimate listening experience (in addition to the technologies used in the first experiment) participants also used earbuds. they did not face one another so to not permit free reactions without direct influence from the others (figure 5). they listened to twenty-two minutes of fragments from the oral archive that included stories from three women. silences of forty seconds between the fragments were intended to allow for paused listening and a time to react through improvisation. the fragments were selected according to the four spaces of migratory memory. figure 5: intimal participants, group 2, experiment 2. body movement body stories seemed to inspire more variety in the movements, whereas during land stories the performers seemed to move in a more rhythmic manner than in, for example, social body. the upper body offered rhythmic patterns that seemed to be dictated by the voicing and spoken word. the hands also came into the rhythm, according to what the performer was saying, as part of the description or expressive amplification of the story. shaking was a movement that was introduced in the deep listening workshops, and it was performed by some of the participants in this experiment. as in the previous experiment, walking was an important feature and also 42 https://vimeo.com/304188356 somaesthetics and technology19 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening meaningful in all of its variations, including side to side and either slow or fast. at different moments, there were noticeable synchronic opposite movements between the participants. for example, one participant closed her arms and bent down (to cry), while at the same time another opened her arms up and raised them above her head. this made me think of different responses to the same archive that could be used for co-relations in a telematic performance. in native land, stories of the colombian conflict generated conversations between the women. when there were themes of reconciliation and transformation, the improvisers raised their heads. at the end of the experiment, performers in the three groups engaged in free movement as a ritual for ending: a collective acknowledgment of, and gesture of complicity in what they had heard together. voice narratives participants either translated, performed, or amplified the stories that they heard from the archive in their own words and gestures. they also engaged as commentators, as though part of a conversation or a secret confession of similar stories: “sometimes it was like a dialogue (…) there was a moment… that almost we had parallel lives (…) she told about the fish in the magdalena river, and then i remembered when i went to the magdalena river, it was strange. at the beginning it seemed that our lives were very similar, but no, they were very different.” (lr) they evolved feelings about what they heard and released them dramatically, either with their body or their voice. the participants spoke in voices that perhaps evoked the disillusioned voice, the demanding voice, and the transformative voice from the oral archive, which needs further analysis using sonic retrieval techniques. they recalled childhood and other songs, and they responded with a strong body action-voice to the story of a machete (bowie knife). words that reinforced and extended the archive material included, for example, mamita [mommy], papa [daddy], campo [countryside], paz [peace], pilatunas, sol [sun], morir [to die], sangre [blood], machista [macho], mama [mum], guerra [war], maternidad [maternity], manos [hands], mujer [woman], correr [to run], niños [children], violencia [violence], and cuerpo [body] (see video 2 as an example of body movement and narrative voice reacting to the oral archives).43 in summary, listening to and annotating the oral archives, brought to the project the understanding of testimonial narratives of migration and conflict from colombia, leading me to propose a structure and aesthetic of fragments, with semantic and prosodic content, to incorporate these into the intimal system, and to be heard by other women. in the fieldwork, conducting interviews regarding nine colombian women’s listening experiences in native and host lands, and engaging them in online and physical deep listening practice—dream awareness, listening body, and improvisatory expression—contributed to distil and catalyze their feelings and the essence of their “migratory journeys.” through body movement, abstract voice and speech, the free improvisatory individual and collective expression of their journeys, invited them to express their unique self, feeling accompanied by the others, who resonated with their stories, and who are physically present in the host land. the integration of fragments of the oral archive, brought different perspectives of listening to women they don’t know, and whose stories might touch some collective experiences. these fragments helped them to connect with a shared history, fragmented in itself, and to trigger a reflection on how to listen 43 https://vimeo.com/304189572 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 20 ximena alarcón díaz to, embrace and connect with these voices of migration and conflict. motion capture technologies revealed features to infer emotional links to body movement/ voice as well as movements that can be integrated through navigation in the archives and the interaction between theirs and others’ migratory journeys. qualitative observation of data representation (plots) helped to reveal and choose the most salient features that could aid the interaction with the sonic material and with others, physically and telematically, and the aesthetics involved in the design of interfaces for relational listening. in this paper, i have touched biodata superficially, and only as a material to speculate conceptually what are the most interesting features to use for implementation in the first stage of the project, for instance: movements such as walking and breathing, as metaphors for sense of place and sense of presence, in the context of migration. for implementation, and being the scope of another paper, this data is being studied by choosing specific markers, measuring displacements of participants in space, to act in co-relation with the triggering of the archives, and developing ways of real-time sonification of breathing data to transmit across distant locations. 5. the system based on this study for this first stage of intimal, i have found the actions of walking, speaking/voicing, and breathing to be the most meaningful movements toward strengthening the metaphor of performing a “migratory journey.” intimal will be tested live in a telematic sonic improvisation between the cities of oslo, london, and barcelona in may 2019. to perform a retrieval of the oral archive in co-relation with the individual migratory journeys, the system will sense walking, rotation, and voicing, allowing pauses and helping improvisers to locate traces of words and movements in the navigation. this sensing feature is intended to interrelate their own migrations, and the voices of the archive. using machine learning, the system will process the corelations that are established between improvisers’ location, rotation, and steps, and the location of the stories in the archive: for instance, in the spheres of migratory memory, co-relating the rotation angle with each category, and bringing together fragments of the archive according to their similarities (how close these are), or differences (how distant these are). thus, these will be retrieved according to the steps and distance travelled by each improviser. the emotional content of the archive, measured according to the three types of identified voices (disillusioned, demanding, and transformative), will help the system trigger an emotionally set of stories for the listener (too many demanding voices, for example, could be emotionally exhausting). improvisers’ spoken-word responses will be recorded as new layers of memory triggered by the archive. the employment of keywords that resonated with the nine women in this study, as well as references to place, is intended to aid the navigation but also to create a sonic path that the public audiences can hear even as the improvisers engage in the privately shared listening experience. to expand the telematic sonic performance beyond the “figure of sound,” and to perceive vibrations in the distance, the system will sense improvisers’ breathing data and process it for sonification, which will be streamed in real time between the distant locations. as a response, the audio of the sonified breathing data will be heard in loudspeakers, while the audio from the archive will be heard in the headphones by the improvisers. some keywords from the archive will also be heard through the loudspeakers by the audience. any performance using the intimal system would then represent a shared listening ritual of collective memory (figure 6). somaesthetics and technology21 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening figure 6: diagram of the intimal system with sensing, processing and response modes. 6. conclusions upon completing her part in the fieldwork for the project, one of the intimal participants said: “i feel i am not from colombia, nor from spain; i am from intimal, from my cells” (sv). this indicates the way in which the empirical study of embodiment can impact the perception and sense of place of migrants, transcending geography in favor of the body. physical and virtual improvisation can help migrants to negotiate and connect different spheres of migratory memory and expand a sense of presence within the context of migration and loss. the use of body movement, or the body as an interface that keeps the memory of place as a means of interacting with the archive, provides a path toward working on the memory of migration. walking alone is a powerful metaphor for migration, involving decisions and the search for direction as one seeks one’s path. using also biofeedback, specifically sonification of breathing data in real-time will offer non-verbal and intimate communication, in a co-located form and telematically across locations. after the technical development of this project, i envision performers connecting telematically from barcelona, london, and oslo and becoming involved in a dream virtual space, loosening the rigidity of known narratives of the self and others by transforming them into expanded embodied vocal expressions. performers (via headphones) will experience listening as an intimate subjective experience and the body/voice as a primal expression for connection and healing. audiences will listen to paths and rhythms represented in some of the words triggered by the archive, to the body/voice reactions of the women who are physically in the space, and to their sonified breathing. i propose that relational listening brings together the spatiotemporal dynamics of sonic encounters that occur when one listens to one’s inner body as a place to ground oneself; listen the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 22 ximena alarcón díaz to others’ body movements, dreams, and voices; and listen to vibrations, which, when amplified with technologies, contributes to an awareness and expansion of our sense of presence. after the fieldwork, participants decided to continue engaged with the deep listening practice physically and online, giving birth to the intimal women’s listening community. they have been listening to and sharing their dreams in connection to waking time, as they relate to the four spheres of migratory memory, leading to awareness moments that open healing paths for them, ranging from awareness of body, place, language, land, and options for inner and outer conflict resolution exploring relationships in their native and host lands. in the context of human migration and historical backgrounds with armed conflict and other violence, the existence of an online listening community, which also engages in public telematic sonic performances, could supply a catalyst for creating new layers in the reconstruction and transformation of memory in the interests of individual and collective healing. acknowledgments experiments in the motion capture lab were supported by collaborators from ritmo, imv– uio, victor evaristo gonzález sánchez and ulf a. s. holbrook. studies regarding the prosody of the archive are being supported by ritmo, imv researcher olivier lartillot, and data curation of the archive is being assisted by lucia nikolaia bojorquez. the center for deep listening at rensselaer polytechnic institute supported the project with the use of a google hangouts platform for large-group communication. the intimal project received funding from the european union’s horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the marie sklodowskacurie grant agreement no. 752884, and has been partially supported by the research council of norway through its centres of excellence scheme, project number 262762. it has been mentored by alexander refsum jensenius from ritmo. references ahmed, sara. 2000. strange encounters: embodied others in post-coloniality. london: routledge. alarcón, ximena. 2014. “networked migrations: listening to and performing the in-between space.” liminalities: a journal of performance studies 10, no. 1 (may 2014): 2-21. issn: 15572935. alarcón, ximena. 2017. “on dis-location: listening and re-composing with others.” reflections on process in sound 5 (autumn 2017): 24–37. alarcón, ximena. 2015. “telematic embodiments: improvising via internet in the context of migration.” in david rothenberg, ed., vs. interpretation: an anthology on improvisation, vol. 1. 85–93. prague: agosto foundation. bermúdez torres, anastasia. 2006. colombian migration to europe: political transnationalism in the middle of conflict. working paper no 39. centre on migration, policy and society, university of oxford. brooks, ann, and ruth simpson. 2013. emotions in transmigration, transformation, movement, and identity, 31–51. basingstoke, hampshire: palgrave macmillan. cavarero, adriana. 2005. for more than one voice: towards a philosophy of vocal expression. translated by paul a. kottman. palo alto: stanford university press. somaesthetics and technology23 conceptual design for intimal: a physical/virtual embodied system for relational listening corringham, viviane. 2012. “listening with the feet.” in monique buzzarte and tom bickley, eds., anthology of essays in deep listening, 143–148. kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications. eidsheim, nina sun. 2015. sensing sound: singing and listening as vibrational practice. durham, n.c.: duke university press. english, lawrence. 2015. “relational listening: the politics of perception.” in ear wave event, issue 2 spring 2015. accessed 29 september 2015, earwaveenvent.org gold, heloise. 2008. deeply listening body. kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications. greco, lesley. 2012. “deep listening and touch:unwindying the body of my voice.” in monique buzzarte and tom bickley, eds., anthology of essays in deep listening, 153–159. kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications. hoving, isabel. 2007. “between relation and the bare facts: the migratory imagination and relationality.” in sam durrant and catherine m. lord, eds., essays in migratory aesthetics: cultural practices between migrations and art-making, 179–190. new york: editions rodopi b.v. ione. 2012. “deep listening in dreams: opening to another dimension of being.” in monique buzzarte and tom bickley, eds., anthology of essays in deep listening, 299–313. kingston, n.y.: deep listening publications. jensenius, alexander refsum. 2017. “exploring music-related micromotion.” in clemens wöllner, ed., body, sound and space in music and beyond: multimodal explorations, 29–48. new york: routledge. jensenius, alexander refsum, and godøy, rolf inge. 2013. “sonifying the shape of human body motion using motiongrams.” empirical musicology review 8, no. 2: 73–83. kocik, robert. 2013. supple science: a robert kocik primer. michael cross and thom donovan, eds. on contemporary practice: oakland, ca. leman, marc. 2008. embodied music cognition and mediation technology. cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press. lewis, carole ione. 2005. listening in dreams. lincoln: iuniverse books. martin, charles patrick. 2016. “apps, agents, and improvisation: ensemble interaction with touch-screen digital musical instruments.” phd thesis, australian national university. massey, doreen. 2001. sense, place and gender. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. ortega, mariana. 2008. “multiplicity, inbetweeness, and the question of assimilation.” southern journal of philosophy 46: 65–80. doi: 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2008.tb00154.x. oliveros, pauline. 2005. deep listening: a composer’s sound practice. lincoln: iuniverse books. scherer, klaus r. 2003. “vocal communication of emotion: a review of research paradigms.” speech communication 40: 227–256. shanken, edward, and yolande harris. 2017. “a sounding happens: pauline oliveros, expanded consciousness, and healing.” soundscape: the journal of acoustic ecology 16: 4–14. shusterman, richard. 2012. “somaesthetics”. in the encyclopedia of human computer interaction, https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-humanthe journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 24 ximena alarcón díaz computer-interaction-2nd-ed/somaesthetics accessed 23 january 2019. stewart, sharon. 2012. “listening to deep listening.” journal of sonic studies 2, no. 1. thomas, florence. 2006. conversaciones con violeta: historia de una revolución inacabada. bogotá: aguilar. tolton, laura. 2014. “a groping versus ‘real violence’ in colombia. contrast as a minimisation strategy.” journal of critical discourse studies 11, no. 3: 322–341. page 79-95 somaesthetics and technology79 designing with the body designing with the body interview with kristina höök on somaesthetics and design dag svanæs abstract: in this dialogue with dag svanæs, kristina höök discusses topics covered in her book “designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design”. she explains how she has made somaesthetics relevant to design, both as a theoretical foundation for embodied interaction design, and practically through the application of feldenkrais and other soma practices to design practice. keywords: body, interaction design, soma, somaesthetics, design ethics. on a windy winter day in florida, i sit down on the beach with professor kristina höök from the royal institute of technology (kth) in stockholm to discuss her latest book designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design.1 dag svanæs (s): congratulations with your new book. kristina höök (h): thanks. s: the title of the book is “designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design”. for those of our readers who are not in the design field, what is interaction design? 1 kristina höök. designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design. mit press, 2018 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 80 dag svanæs h: interaction design is the discipline that designs digital interactions. we build web pages and mobile apps, but also physical interactive artefacts where the digital is an important part of the interaction. s: what has been your motivation for writing the book? h: i come from computer science and have moved towards interaction design, step by step. i came to somaesthetics because i was designing systems to be worn on the body, wearable interactions, and i was very unhappy with how those designs came about. the process and the end result felt very reductionist. in my research group at kth, we were measuring data from the body and then portraying it back to the end user so that they could adjust and be healthy and happy. that was all well, but it felt like we were missing out on a huge part of what it means to have a body and to move and interact. consequently, i was looking for a different theoretical foundation for our work. that is how i came to somaesthetics and to other theories of the body that we combined into what we now call soma design. s: when did you first learn about the work of professor richard shusterman? h: i first read his work around 2011, and became very interested in finding ways to bring somaesthetics to my field of research. at the time, in 2012, i happened to be the technical chair of the international conference on human-computer interaction, and invited shusterman to give the keynote talk. s: what theoretical foundations were already there in 2010, and what did somaesthetics bring to the table? h: interaction design, to simplify, has been very much about looking at new technical materials, new use situations, and new ways for people to live with technology. when the interaction mainly took place through a screen, we could do with cognitive psychology and certain philosophical theories, but as soon as the interaction started moving into mobile devices and onto the body, we had to find other ways of designing. at that time, in 2010, we already had various theories around embodiment and what dourish’ had coined embodied interaction.2 inspired by phenomenology, embodied interaction start out with how we are in the world with our tools; that the tools extend us and our way of being, and that we should design from that perspective. that was already in my field and i could use when doing design. the problem was that a lot of that work had focused on the social side of embodied interaction. there was not much talk about the actual physical body in the theories around embodied interaction. there was no pulsating, living, interesting body in those theories, oddly enough. and to some extent, if you look at the philosophy of merleau-ponty,3 he does speak about the body, but only in the abstract. he is not speaking about how my sitting bones feel now that i am sitting here in this chair, or any of those more down-to-earth physical bodily realities of how embodiment is enacted through our human morphology. this is what i was missing. so, i went shopping for theories that could extend on my understanding. 2 paul dourish. where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction. mit press, 2004. 3 see: dag svanæs. “interaction design for and with the lived body: some implications of merleau-ponty’s phenomenology.” acm transactions on computer-human interaction (tochi) 20.1:8. 2013. somaesthetics and technology81 designing with the body s: shopping? h: what you need to know about interaction design and human-computer interaction is that we do borrow from all sorts of fields. we are not scared of borrowing from the arts, from philosophy, from psychology, from sociology, from ethnography and so on. s: with “borrow” you mean apply? h: we read up on a theory, and then we try to make it actionable in our design processes so that we can design better interfaces and better interactions for the end users. digital devices are currently everywhere in our everyday lives; in our kitchens, on the bus, in our cars, and in our pockets. interaction is everywhere. that is why our field had to move on from caring only for the cognitive side of interaction. we had to care also for the social side of interaction, and for the fact that digital products are now close to our bodies. this is what makes somaesthetics so relevant. s: what aspects of somaesthetics did you start out with? h: when you are looking at a theory, you are looking for concepts that together form a worldview that you can turn into something actionable – helping you in the practical design process. we look for concepts that open a generative creative path to new interfaces. it leads to new ways of thinking about design that leads to new methods for doing design, that leads to new and hopefully better designs. what i found interesting in somaesthetics was that shusterman dared to talk about and engage ideals in human action and human pleasures. also pleasures that go beyond shallow pleasures, to the very ideals for what it means to live a good life with your body, with your emotion, with your sociality, with your whole self. this said, somaesthetics did not answer all my questions. i also looked at neurology, evolutionary biology and a whole range of other academic endeavors. i found, in particular, another philosopher called maxine sheets-johnstone4 because i needed to come very close to the body. i was looking for answers to questions like “what does it mean to move a muscle?”, “where does meaning making arise in movement?”, “why are certain experiences aesthetically pleasing?”. maxine sheets-johnstone looks at this from an evolutionary biology point of view. she writes about the morphology of the human body and how we are in the world and with other people, with and through our bodies. s: in the book, you write about how you made somaesthetics actionable in your design work, beyond providing a new theoretical perspective. h: both maxine sheets-johnstone and richard shusterman build their work on movement practices, and both attribute their understandings and ways of reasoning to how those movement practices have shaped their understanding of the world. sheets-johnstone was a choreographer and a dancer and shusterman is a feldenkrais practitioner. if you look at how others have imported ideas into our field, into interaction design, they have done it through using these bodily practices as the place where they 4 maxine sheets-johnstone. the primacy of movement. vol. 82. john benjamins publishing, 2011 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 82 dag svanæs can start experiencing and innovating, where their creative ideas can arise. in this sense, it was not enough to read a book about somaesthetics. somaesthetics is part of pragmatism and the whole point of pragmatism is to act in the world, not only talk about it or write about it. s: pragmatism. h: yes, the philosophy of john dewey, william james and others. what i do now, based on my understanding of pragmatism, is not only to observe people moving, but move in order to create in and through movement, with my own emotion experience, as it is spurred by movement and through movement, with other people. and by movement i do not mean only that you move a limb, but complex processes. in fact, emotion is a form of movement. the word emotion originates from the french word esmotion – to set in motion, move the feelings. there are many different ways you can do this. one way is to slow the movement down in order to understand what is going on as you are moving or experiencing something. you can make something strange by doing a nonhabitual movement to make the habitual movement clear to you and thereby design for both the habitual and the non-habitual. you can also simply attend to your senses, register every little detail, ward off other interests, and deepen your experience and understanding of what you feel. but your own movement is but half of what we design with. the other half in a designer’s world, is the materials we use to create artefacts. in interaction design you have to touch and feel and taste and interact with the digital materials. and that might sound really odd to readers of this journal. s: can you give an example? h: say you have an accelerometer that registers how you are moving, and you want to use that as part of a design project. then you need to know what it can do and what it feels like when you get feedback from it. or you can use certain algorithms to process the data from the accelerometer. then you need to understand what it feels like when that algorithm is modelling you, or following you, or doing something for you. an interaction design process is one that unfolds between yourself, your movement using techniques like slowing down or making strange or engaging in some specific body practices like something feldenkrais or something else, and the other half consisting of the digital (and physical) materials. we prepare our digital materials. we shape them and give them rudimentary form so that we can feel them. then we use that in our creative processes and brainstorming. i call it “slow-storming” because it is not about the brain, but about the whole body because that is where the ideas arise. this soma design process is not easy. you need to engage repeatedly over and over in order to craft and hone and feel how a particular interaction might unfold. it is not a one-off thing. it is a back-and-forth where the material changes with what i do. that is the point of interaction, that it is inter-acting with you, changing with you. it takes time. the shaping of a design is a slow process. it is a process of feeling, of touching, of interacting, of shaping. and then, step-by-step as you feel and interact and shape through your first-person experience, you bring out something that you can then invite others to touch and feel and interact with. somaesthetics and technology83 designing with the body s: this gets a bit abstract now. h: yes, very abstract. s: could we forget about the digital for a while? h: yes. s: say that you want to design new kitchen utensils for ikea. how is this done today, with a user-centered approach, and what would typically be a somaesthetic approach to this? h: most design today is done pretty rapidly, and often as variations of what already exists. let us instead imagine that we are trying to design something entirely new, some that we have not seen before. what you have to do then is to bring out a multitude of ideas. you must start somewhere. there is some need perhaps, like stirring a hot liquid. you then bring out a lot of different solutions and let those solutions help you see what the problem is. it is a backwards process of sorts where the solutions define the problem. this is what we call design thinking.5 rather than defining the problem and then letting the solution come as a consequence of a defined problem, you start by bringing out many different design solutions, and then you define the problem through the solutions. this is the way design is done today. and then we bring in other users than ourselves because we need to have potential users in our design loop to make sure that we are catering for their needs. we bring in potential users to try out our ideas, our rudimentary prototyping ideas that might not be fully functioning yet. that is usercentered design,6 where you bring in the users, sometimes even to the extent that to teach the users about the material that the products are built from. s: which is participatory design?7 h: yes, where you educate your end-user about what the material affords and enable them to help you design, because they are the experts in their own practices. if you are designing kitchen utensils for chefs, you might invite chefs and teach them about all kinds of fancy new digitally-enabled materials that are available and then design together with these chefs over a long period of time. s: but this sounds fantastic? h: yes, it is amazing and it gives you a lot of fantastic results. and i am not arguing against user-centered or participatory design. i think these can be combined in clever ways, but what somaesthetics provides you with beyond what we already get from user-centred design is a very deliberate engagement with your own experiences. let us assume that our design challenge for the ikea kitchen was to look for a novel fork design using a new kind of material that you had been working on. as we start shaping this entirely novel fork, every little tiny detail in your hand movements matters. how 5 tim brown. change by design: how design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation, new york: harperbusiness, 2009. 6 iso 9241-210:2010 ergonomics of human-system interaction – part 210: human-centred design for interactive systems, 2010. 7 jesper simonsen and toni robertson. participatory design: an introduction. routledge international handbook of participatory design. routledge, 2012. 21-38. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 84 dag svanæs exactly you are gripping this material. how does it feel in your hand? how do you touch the food with this novel fork? how do you move food with it? how is the heat transported or not transported through the fork, and so on? and to get to that level of detail you need to really attend to your senses and to all the different aspects of what this new fork material can give you. s: so, “you” in this case is the designer? h: yes, the designer. you might do this whole careful soma design process as a participatory design process. you might have other people there who do the same thing. together you have to slow down or disrupt or engage in a manner that allows you to deeply feel, articulate and imagine new experiences that come in the meeting between you and this new material of the fork. s: you talk about slowing down. h: or disrupting. s: disrupting, yes. husserl talks about epoché,8 the phenomenological reduction, which is about making the familiar strange. is this a process similar to epoché? h: yes. as an adult person you move in certain ways. you move in habitual ways. you walk in certain ways. you sit in certain ways, and you live in a world of artefacts that you recognize. there are chairs, there are tables. and in this kitchen you have these forks that we were talking about and they look a certain way. you have habits for how to eat with forks. to really liberate yourself from those deeply engrained practices you have to put yourself into a situation where you can experience something new. s: you break the habit? and through that you also become aware of the background of the habit? h: yes. and then you might go back to designing for something that is extremely familiar, because now you know what it is. but if you don’t break out of it you don’t see it. you don’t feel it. you don’t know it. in the fork example, let us assume that there is a new steel-like material that we are going to use. it has properties that we don’t know exactly what can give us. we have to touch it. we have to feel it. we have to bend it and work with it in order to extract all the possible affordances of the material. dewey speaks about this as emptying the material of its potential. making the different parts come together as a whole. i think this is a key part of soma design with interactive materials. digital materials are quite new to us as designers. what does it mean to touch and feel and extract them and empty the material of all its aesthetic potential and affordances? that’s where soma design can play a role. s: the title of the book is “designing with the body”. what is that in contrast to? h: this is a bit difficult to talk about because i don’t fully understand it. i think it is 8 see: søren overgaard. “how to do things with brackets: the epoché explained.” continental philosophy review 48.2 (2015): 179-195. and n. depraz., f.j. varela, and p. vermersch. on becoming aware: a pragmatics of experiencing. vol. 43. 2003: john benjamins publishing. somaesthetics and technology85 designing with the body going to take the rest of my research career to think through these questions. when you design with your body, when you design with movement, motion, experience, with sensual aesthetic impressions, it is with a body that is ancient. from an evolutionary point of view our bodies are old, right? s: yes. h: we very often cheat in our design process. we use language and that is a shortcut – a way of cheating. bypassing movements and instead relying on read-made solutions communicated through our brilliant language skills can be very, very fast. but designing with the body, to really design something that sits well with the movement or with the body or with sensual pleasure or engagement, it helps you become more aware of your habits. it takes time. so, you are designing yourself and your own movement as much as you are designing a new product. s: this has similarities to dance improvisation,9 then? h: yes definitely. what i find interesting about dance, apart from the fact that they’re improvising and they’re doing new possibilities in the moment, is that this in turn changes them. it changes their bodies. it changes their nervous system reactions. it changes what they can do and what they can experience. they get a richer palette, a richer repertoire of possibilities through improvised movements or through movement in general. so, if you’ve never done my favorite activity horseback riding you haven’t had that experience. if you’ve never had anybody close to you die, you haven’t had the experience of grief. there are so many experiences that we haven’t had and that we need to cultivate and understand and slowly design with. and once we have them, they change us. through engaging in the way that we have done with soma design, not only have we created new systems that are innovative and interesting in that they have different shapes and forms and ways of interacting, we have also changed ourselves. s: as designers or users? h: both. i changed myself, my own body, to be able to appreciate the finer details of the design processes that we do. but as the resulting designs are picked up by end-users and made to be part of their everyday lives, they will also change. s: developing new skills and sensitivities? h: yes, and bodily movements. and nervous system reactions. you know how plastic the whole nervous system is, especially of course the frontal lobe interactions. but even the other parts, the slower parts of our brain, the slower parts of our bodies, can be changed. if you look at me you can see i am a horseback rider.10 you can see that i have muscles in certain places. when i sit on the horse, it looks a particular way because i have trained myself for years to get that kind of balance and get those muscles and get 9 see: thecla schiphorst. “self-evidence: applying somatic connoisseurship to experience design.” chi’11 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. acm, 2011. 10 see: kristina höök. “transferring qualities from horseback riding to design.” proceedings of the 6th nordic conference on humancomputer interaction: extending boundaries. acm, 2010. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 86 dag svanæs those nervous systems reactions that make me balanced on top of a horse. and it is the same thing here. the process of designing changes me as a designer and also changes the end user. and we know this already. you use your mobile phone and it trains your eyes at a particular distance. it is not necessarily good for you because you need to be able to look far away as well. and it changes your way of socializing and changes your way of moving around the dinner table when everybody is using those screens. any technology, any tool, any fork or whatever we put into human culture changes us, changes our movements, changes our practices, our routines, and our habitual movements. and that in turn chances our muscles and our nervous system. s: in the book, you give some examples of projects that you have been doing at kth. which one of these projects could be a good example of how soma design made the product differently from what it would have been without the soma approach? figure 1: the soma mat (copyright: royal institute of technology) h: the problem is they wouldn’t exist, i think. i don’t know. i will give you one example. we designed this mat. we call it the soma mat.11 as you lay down on the soma mat on your back and close your eyes, you can get many different feedbacks. we give you verbal instructions to focus on different body parts, and as you do, the mat is heating up underneath those body parts. it helps you to become more aware of where your different body parts are. but it also helps you recognize different temperatures of your body; skin temperature, inner temperature, the temperature of the air around your body and so on. and after a while the voice disappears without you even noticing. it just continues with the heat coming and going underneath different body parts for a while. we put it up for use during three months in four different families. as it turned out people changed from using this. we had a 13-year-old girl in one of the families, saying that it made her more self-confident. when she was giving a talk at school, she would think about how she would lay on the mat, what it would feel like and her breathing and her posture. it made her more aware of her own body and who she was. it made her feel 11 anna ståhl, kristina höök et al. “the soma mat and breathing light.” proceedings of the 2016 chi conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. acm, 2016. somaesthetics and technology87 designing with the body more confident when she was giving a talk in school. s: during the design of this product, what did somaesthetics bring to the design process that was not already there in what you were talking about with user-centered and participatory design? h: first of all, we had to cultivate our own understanding of our own bodies. we decided to go with feldenkrais. we could have used some other body practice and in fact we tried a bunch. figure 2: from a soma design workshop at ntnu in trondheim, norway in 2018 where members of both höök and svanæs’ research groups learn feldenkrais from richard shusterman s: “we” is the design team? h: yes, we were four or five people. we would meet at least once a week and have a lesson. sometimes it was kung fu. sometimes it was feldenkrais, or contact improvisation dance or other movement-based practices. we would work very deliberately with this. we always filled in a so-called body sheet – a description of our experience of our own body before doing the exercise and after doing the exercise. and what we could observe from the progression in those body sheets is that there was always something happening. a big change from before to after. we found that absolutely super interesting. we also found it very interesting that when we shared our experiences we often had had completely different experiences. but despite this, we could understand one another because we had been doing the same movement. even though somebody else had had a completely different experience. i could understand what had been going on. this was one strand of work in this project. engaging with our own bodies, changing our own bodies, changing our ability to somaesthetically appreciates stuff. the other strand of work was bringing in digital material. we were testing all sorts of ideas. we had tubes of hot and cold water wired around our body limbs to see if we could do something with that. we had vibration feedback. we had a bunch of different ideas. and the idea of doing it as a mat was just one of the ideas. we had a bunch of other ideas about sitting on certain materials that would change shape and push us, or we would the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 88 dag svanæs have a lamp changing its illuminance. we had a bunch of different materials that we tried. and again, we had to engage with all those materials slowly and deliberately. we were looking for a kind of marriage between our bodies, changed by the somaesthetic experiences, and the design materials, and shaping them into orchestrated experiences, unfolding over time. i would like to add something to this. to describe why this fascinated me so immensely. that was because i had new experiences that i have never had before. by doing certain movement practices and disrupting and doing them slowly and so on, i could learn new stuff about myself. i am fifty-four years old and i still had new amazing experiences of my breathing, of my lungs, and of my inner organs. with the digital materials, the same thing. i thought i knew what they were, and then suddenly we could shape entirely new interactions. we were using heat. we have been using vibration. we have been using interactive lights and so. materials that i thought i knew, that i understood their affordances. and then suddenly i could shape these into quite different experiences. the sheer joy of discovering that there are new things for me to learn. there are new and very interesting experiences for me to have in this world. of course, in some abstract manner you already know that in some way. but in another way, it was such a revelation. the world is so rich and the limited digital design world has over-focused on symbols and language and icons and graphical interfaces and we have forgotten about this rich, rich soil that the body and movement offer to our design processes. and then of course, this is obvious if you look around you. design and human culture and how we express ourselves is of course not only addressing the visual senses as in graphical, symbolic, language-oriented arts, but also all the other senses and it is stupid to assumed that we can ignore that aspect of what it means to have interesting experiences. my experience was playful. it was enjoyable. it was just fun. i have fun at work when i do these designs and our end users love it. it is not without pain or effort. but it gives pleasure at a deep level. s: this is an aspect of somaesthetics as philosophy that shusterman writes about. that philosophy has to be lived. it is not just a matter of reading and understanding through language but at some point, you need to… h: moved to be moved. s: you need to actually do something practical or engage in some of these bodily practices? h: yes, and it’s just to make it clear again: i do think that there are infinite possibilities. infinite number of experiences that we can have. it is not only one repertory of movement that a human being can do. i don’t know how much you’ve been horseback riding. s: a little. h: we learn through our whole life. every time i go to ride i learn something new. and it is a new experience every time. and if you haven’t been riding you don’t know what i’m talking about. the horses have different gates that they can do, walking and stuff. i find it just absolutely fascinating. these movements, these gaits. the rhythm of their movements and the synchrony you can get into. the corresponding relationship with your movements and their movements. i don’t think you can understand what somaesthetics and technology89 designing with the body i am talking about until you have been riding yourself. you don’t understand what it means to be moved by a horse’s movements. i can describe this to you, and i can write poetry about it. i can write novels about it. i don’t still think that you have an embodied understanding of what it is until you do it. s: returning to somaesthetics, would you have been able to do your design research just with the practical exercises that to a large extent already existed in dance and elsewhere, or was the reflections and philosophical understanding that shusterman brought in necessary for you to understand how to make use of it and apply it to your design practice? h: i don’t know the answer to that. i just know that unlike a design practitioner the role of the design researcher is to articulate. to bring out knowledge, and to articulate knowledge so that we can build on one another’s works. articulation does not have to be in words. or in text on paper, but it needs to take shape and form in the world. for me, doing a body practice like feldenkrais is not enough. i need to do design work. i need to bring in those digital materials and show what can be done. that is new knowledge to my field. i also need to be able to articulate what is in that design. with the soma mat it is not enough that we built it. i also have to extract and explain and point to what is novel in the design and describe it to my peers so that they can use it in their design practices. the way we express knowledge in my field is through methods and particular design examples, but also through concepts and through explaining how those concepts link together with what it means to be human, for example. and this is where somaesthetic theories, the concepts that shusterman, sheets-johnstone and other people introduce are needed in order to tie everything together into a system, into a theory, into something that provides us with a particular theoretical lens by which i can understand those design examples methods and design concepts. this is this is how i see it. i don’t think that you have to have all of those concepts and words and theories in order to be a good soma designer. i think you can learn these things through the practical work. s: for actual design work, you think that it is much more important to engage in these bodily practices than to read up on somaesthetics theory? h: yes, but as an academic it is my role is to show how everything ties together and why it works and how to explain it and how to explain these phenomena. and that is where you need a system of concepts and theoretical ideas that link it together. s: what are the implications of this for design education? h: when i started working with soma design, i assumed that this is how design is taught at art schools. i knew that they engage heavily with their materials and touch them and work with them and turn them into different shapes and forms to see what they enable. if you have plastic, you work with plastic for a long time before you do something super interesting and innovative and new, right? s: yes. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 90 dag svanæs h: what we are doing with soma design is that we are taking some of that with us into engineering schools and we are sort of saying: “well you are creating these products for people to use in their everyday lives, on their bodies or around their bodies or in the kitchens and whatnot. so, you also need to bring in these kinds of practices in order to understand what you’re designing and how you’re designing for people. it’s not enough for you to study other users. you also have to feel this. the felt dimension of digital product needs to be in your repertory.” s: looking back at this. in art schools, students have drawing classes where they learn to improve their skills in drawing and visual design and seeing. should feldenkrais and tai chi be part of interaction design education? h: i don’t think feldenkrais should be part of it. i think that you can translate these methods into methods that engage with the digital materials in various ways so that you figure out a way of feeling and touching with digital material. a fusion of perhaps of feldenkrais with some digital material, or kung fu with some digital material. it does not have to be feldenkrais. s: but there is room for some activity that teaches the designers appreciation for the bodily aspects of design? h: yes, experiencing – bodily, sensually. to give an example, we did this design class last year. we worked with electrolux, a swedish company. they asked us to do soma design for cleaning your home, doing your laundry, or air purification. what we made our students do was to go home to their own kitchen, slow down their movements, make stuff strange and feel and touch and interact in ways that spurred new ideas for what you could be doing in the kitchen and what kind of tools that you could have around yourself. and also to take existing products, like the blender for example, and then touch and feel and interact with that in order to redesigned it entirely. if i deconstructed this product, what could i do? we started out more generic with body practices, such as feldenkrais, contact improve and slow walking in the forest behind kth. we did a bunch of different body practices. we also did bodily movement exercises in the settings that they were aiming to design for it. in the kitchen and these environments, engaging with vacuum cleaning and doing your laundry. but we asked our students to do those everyday practices in ways of “making strange”, disrupting, slowing down, or doing it playfully. deconstructing movement and sensual engagement in order to be able to construct something entirely new. we had in total nine student projects and they were really innovative compared to what we typically see at an engineering school. if we had asked them to use their normal user-centered double-diamond design approach, we would have gotten the typical everyday ideas that we see all the time anyway – robots and various internet of things design. instead, our students’ designs had a much more reflective aesthetic quality to them. s: in the last chapter of your book you go into the ethics of design. h: yes, i hesitated before i wrote that chapter. some people told me i shouldn’t have written it, or they were worried about me writing it because it was like opening a can of worms. but the thing with somaesthetics to me is that it is also an ethical project. somaesthetics and technology91 designing with the body you can’t attend to your senses and your ability to appreciate through your senses and aiming to live a better life without this also being an ethical project – of your life. soma design engages with issues like dualism, feminism, privilege and class as all of those are enacted with and on our bodies. all of these things become acutely there when you are designing with a somaesthetic approach because there is no way of distancing yourself from yourself. s: how technology alienate us from ourselves? h: yes. overemphasizing certain aspects of what we are and underemphasizing other aspects of what we are, and thereby stopping us from feeling our own reactions and our own bodily ways of being in the world, – making us less aware. somaesthetic design has to care and make you more aware. s: how did do you bring the ethical aspects back into the design process? is it sufficient just to do somaesthetic design as you have described? h: i opened this can of worms and i don’t know whether i addressed it. i guess i have to go on the rest of my life and work with this. if you do these kinds of design processes, there is no way you can ignore for example that the fact that we have different bodies. your body is different from mine or my body today is different from the one i had when i was 15. these things are overtly there, in your face, in our soma design processes. but whether there is any guarantee that just because you do somaesthetic design that you would necessarily only design stuff that is good for all people? i don’t know. i am still battling with for example the selfishness in turning this much attention inwards and getting to know myself so much better. is that is that the only way by which i can be a better attending to someone else’s needs. the whole idea that if i if i don’t know myself, if i don’t know my own emotional reactions, my own bodily reactions to stuff, then i can’t really be there for you either. right? so, the whole idea is like in buddhism that if i live this way then i can more generously be in the world for other people. but, there is this risk that it makes you even more individualistic and even more selfish. i think. as with any method you have to know what you are doing when you apply a method. using a method is no guarantee that you come to these insights. it makes it more likely perhaps that you do. s: so, you open up a can of worms and in addition you do something that is a lot of people would maybe hesitate doing, and that is making a design manifesto. h: yes. (hehe) s: based on a someaesthetic approach, you have a design manifesto of seven points. if you should try to do an elevator pitch of this manifesto, what would be the essence of it? h: the essence is really trying to capture the fundaments of engaging with somaesthetics. it is going back to the idea that you need to engage with your passions, with your emotions, with yourself, with your with your body in order to design good stuff. the first one, and i remember them because i use them quite a lot, the first one says basically to design for this life not for the next life. and for our field, to interaction design, it the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 92 dag svanæs has been the case that we have been hunting seconds and milliseconds to make every usage situation as fast as possible in order to save time. the question then is what do we save time for. for the next life or for what? to me this speaks directly to the division between aristotle and plato argues that you have this ideal world and you come to that afterwards, but where aristotle says no, let us live a good life here and now. let’s improve our senses here. this is what i think interaction design should be worrying about. we should not be saving seconds by making everything as efficient as possible. we also need to care about the aesthetics of it and we shouldn’t be solely working to promote an “attention economy” making people addicted to our technologies, but also with what is a good life and what improves life for all of us. how can we live together and live a sustainable life together? the whole manifesto is breathing these values. another of the statements is we design slowly. this is a very strong reaction against the commodification of designerly thinking where we are putting out ideas rapidly and aggressively quickly jotted down on some post it notes. then we believe we have done innovative design. to me it is cheating. it is a shortcut to simple ideas and to the easiest targets. it is not the path to thoughtful, careful and sustainable design for people. s: all these things live very happily in your lab. in that academic setting. h: well not always happily, because it is also demanding. people in my lab and in my group have had to talk through several times how close we come to one another or how annoyed we get by one another and so on because it becomes very intimate. s: sure, but out there in the real world with … h: … capitalism and deadlines and tech companies and… s: … the tech giants and start-ups that need funding. is there room for this in the 21st century? h: i don’t know yet. i think that in the long run, with the kind of awakening that our field and the whole world is going through, we cannot put more shit stuff out there. we have to be way more reflective on how we build our society now if we are going to survive on earth and if we are going to survive without stressing the hell out of one another. i do believe that a sustainable business is one that has sustainable work processes, sustainable design processes, and puts out products for end users that has those qualities. s: but if it isn’t it a paradox that you try to change the world by building products? are there any examples of this actually happening? we know that things change for the bad, but do you have any good example of digital products that were intentionally made to make the world a better place, and then actually made the world a better place? h: i do think there are products where a lot of care has gone into the design. let me take an example, and it might sound contradictory, but the desktop interface. it really shifted interaction from being a language-oriented skill that only engineers can process what they had to know a bunch of commands into an interaction that could be more bodily. you were moving stuff around on the desk as if you were moving stuff in the somaesthetics and technology93 designing with the body physical world, and this enabled a whole bunch of people to be able to use computers and later mobile phones. and though there are many negative consequences of course of computers and mobiles, there are still amazing positive consequence. enabling communication, enabling better business processes, enabling poor people to get more educated and be less poor. learning processes and so on. amazing opportunities that come out of your ability to use these technologies right. i think we are heading towards a society where experience rather than possessions are going to be important. we are liberating ourselves from stuff and moving into services and experiences. to me this kind of design is crucial in that it liberates ourselves from things. whether one spurs the other, i do not know. is it the changing times and the crazies that we are standing in front of that makes us more aware and more interested in experiences rather than things? i don’t know. is it that somaesthetics comes as an answer to that? i don’t know. i just know that that’s what i want to contribute. i believe that we can we can do what graphical user interfaces did for computers and how that liberated us from time and space and connect us to one another and in positive and negative ways. and what is interesting is how alan kay12 came to the ideas of the desktop interface. he was looking at some tennis instructor teaching a woman to play tennis in only one lesson. have you seen that video?13 it’s amazing. it is really about body and movement. by distracting her conscious, critical mind, the tennis instructor made her simply imitate his movements and she learnt how to serve, play forehand and backhand. kay did the same for computer interfaces. instead of learning a bunch of commands, he shifted them into simple movements, such as dragging and dropping. s: yes, he explained to me when i had my sabbatical at apple research in the mid 90s. h: i wouldn’t say that there is anything in the soma design methods that i describe that protects them from being misused by psychopaths or people longing for power. of course they can be used like that. power is inflicted onto the body. inequalities, like feminism and so on, is done onto the body. it’s the body where it’s enacted. you can use these methods to know more and thereby be persuasive or oppressive or all of those things. i’m sure. s: could you say more about feminism? h: feminist to me… if you are designing with the body and with your experiences then it becomes obvious that your body is different from mine. and your experiences are different from mine because you are male and i am female. we will move differently, we will experience differently – and both of our experiences are as true and important. instead of downgrading the female experience, it comes to forefront. it spurs ideas such as designing for menopause and female health, for example. designing for a whole range of human experiences. feminism here not only concerns the male and female body, but all sorts of bodies, all sorts of experiences that are shaped by our physical, bodily ways of being in the world. there are of course many different feminist theories, here i am very much talking about the feminists interested in how our bodies are corporeal realities and how that shapes 12 one of the main innovators of the desktop interface at xerox parc. 13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50l44hetvos the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 2 (2019) 94 dag svanæs our experiences. like elizabeth grosz14 writing about how menstruation and breast feeding and menopause and so on shape my experiences in the world. as well as queer ways of being in the world, and male ways, and young bodies ways of being in the world, or old bodies ways of being the world. experience and possibility for design is filtered through that particular body. s: to be a little bit more personal, do you think it is a coincidence that it is you as a female in the male-dominated field of computer science who have been doing this? h: it is definitely noticeable that when we have workshops on soma design, it attracts a lot of women. some of the strong proponents for this way of designing in interaction design are women. not all of them, but perhaps more than what we see otherwise in design. s: is that relevant in any way? h: i don’t know. i don’t think that this is a female privilege at all. i just think that it happens. some of these experiences have been used to oppress women. have been used to downgrade female experience. the whole history of male vs. female, rational vs. irrational. rationality or mind vs body, the associations go back to the old greek society. we haven’t liberated ourselves from those dichotomies. females are associated with body and emotion and movement and dance in our society. there’s no reason for that. it is just as stupid as associating women with fire and dangerous things as they did in australia because the women were the ones carrying the coal. s: like lakoff15 wrote about. h: yes. to me, and i guess to a lot of women, we ask why are our experiences downgraded and put as low status all the time when obviously these experiences are there for both men and women? why is the female body not spoken about in philosophy? why is menopause such a taboo subject when 50 percent of the population go through this phase in their life? it is a huge thing in women’s lives. a huge transformation. s: is it coincidence that this happened in stockholm, maybe the most gender equal city in the world? h: women researchers in scandinavia, are perhaps so strong because we are brought up in a more equal society. we are not scared of doing research in this area, while in other parts of the world a lot of women would be super-scared because they need to break into old hierarchical male-dominated organizations, and they have to take on the topics that are objectively seen as the most important topics to do. s: last, is it a coincidence that this happened at kth? h: well, there is the participatory design movement that was done at kth and other places in scandinavian countries, like århus in denmark. but somaesthetics is also 14 elizabeth grosz. volatile bodies: toward a corporeal feminism. indiana university press, 1994. 15 george lakoff. women, fire, and dangerous things. university of chicago press, 2008. somaesthetics and technology95 designing with the body strong in other places, like australia and even china. s: thank you for taking the time, and again, congratulations with the book. h: thanks. references brown, tim. 2009. change by design: how design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation, new york: harperbusiness. dourish, paul. 2004. where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction. mit press. grosz, elizabeth. 1994. volatile bodies: toward a corporeal feminism. indiana university press. höök, kristina. 2010. “transferring qualities from horseback riding to design.” proceedings of the 6th nordic conference on human-computer interaction: extending boundaries. acm. höök, kristina. 2018. designing with the body: somaesthetic interaction design. mit press. lakoff, george. 2008. women, fire, and dangerous things. university of chicago press. overgaard; søren. 2015. “how to do things with brackets: the epoché explained.” continental philosophy review 48.2: 179-195. and n. depraz., f.j. varela, and p. vermersch. 2003. on becoming aware: a pragmatics of experiencing. vol. 43. john benjamins publishing. schiphorst, thecla. 2011. “self-evidence: applying somatic connoisseurship to experience design.” chi’11 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. acm. sheets-johnstone, maxine. 2011. the primacy of movement. vol. 82. john benjamins publishin. simonsen, jesper; robertson, toni. 2012. participatory design: an introduction. routledge international handbook of participatory design. routledge: 21-38. ståhl, anna; höök et al. 2016. “the soma mat and breathing light.” proceedings of the 2016 chi conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. acm. svanæs, dag. 2013. “interaction design for and with the lived body: some implications of merleauponty’s phenomenology.” acm transactions on computer-human interaction (tochi) 20.1:8. page 23-39 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects23 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction: an exploration on approaching and treating problem drug use riikka perala abstract: can a person use dangerous substances and still take care oneself and be healthy? is it right to give people directions and tools for using substances, which, in the worst case, could be lethal to them? this article provides empirical examples of practices and policies designed to offer those who inject drugs opportunities and methods for taking care of themselves and, thus, the chance to lead a more balanced life, in spite of it all. images of problem drug use have traditionally been associated with despair and devastating marginalization. harm-reduction policies, initiated in the 1980s to combat the spread of hiv and other blood-borne viruses among drug users, raised the issue of drug use in the context of health and healthcare, and gave users new ways to think about themselves. critics refer to this development as “biopower,” in which drug users have become “docile bodies,” who are expected to follow safe injecting practices and other such procedures under the surveillance of healthcare professionals. however, the users themselves have been more positive and consider harm-reduction policies not only as life saving, but life altering. this article touches on different aspects of harm-reduction policies in the context of the foucauldian discussion of “care of the self.” a somaesthetic framework is applied to understanding harm reduction as a set of practices in which helping drug users goes through their body and not through their will, as in traditional approaches to addiction. focusing on the body provides users with new ways of thinking about their existence and relationships with themselves and others. keywords: problem drug use, addiction, care of self, somaesthetics. prologue former canadian health minister jane philpott found herself in a tight corner on may 14, 2017. it was the opening ceremony of the biannual meeting of harm reduction international, a global network that promotes evidence-based public health and drug policies and the human rights of drug users. philpott was to give speech as a representative of the canadian government. the evening had already been emotional. in 2016, it was estimated that 2,300 people in canada had died from opioid overdoses, and the deaths continued in 2017. one of the victims was raffi balian, a canadian harm-reduction and human rights activist who had died of an overdose just the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 24 riikka perala a few months before the conference, and whose work and contributions to the harm-reduction community were mentioned in the ceremony by grieving friends and colleagues. when it was philpott’s turn to talk, she faced an angry crowd of protestors. signs held by the protestors read “theytalkwedie” and “lifewon’twait,” indicating that the canadian government had not taken sufficient action to combat overdose deaths. some of the protestors turned their back on philpott while she desperately tried to convince them and other members of the audience that she took their criticism seriously. an article about the ceremony that appeared in canada’s “now magazine” a couple of weeks later noted that “minister philpott appeared shaken” and that for some “it was difficult to see an overseer of tangible progress take the brunt of so much collective frustration and anger.” according to hugh gibson, the author of the article, for the protestors, “it also wasn’t a time to be warm and cuddly.”1 after her speech, philpott left the stage with a slightly nervous smile. “stop smiling,” one of the protestors shouted angrily. “thousands are dead, and you’re smiling.” two weeks later, philpott continued the discussion in an interview with the canadian broadcasting corporation (cbc)2, in which she again reassured users and their families that she had taken note of their concerns. one of her solutions was to provide heroin-assisted treatment to people suffering from severe opioid addiction. she stated “although a challenging concept for some people,” it could “save lives.” researcher eugenia oviedo-joekes, who was asked to comment on the minister’s suggestion in the interview, saw it as an important step toward seeing drug users as people. “[it’s] very important that a minister of health is saying those words,” oviedo-joakes stated. “we need to change the way people see our patients. we are not kind to our patients. people need to stop thinking about the drug and start thinking of the people.” introduction the world health organization’s (who) burden of disease (gbd) reports provide data on mortality and loss of health as a result of diseases, injuries, and risk factors for all world regions. the original gbd study was commissioned by the world bank in 1991, and provided burden of disease estimates for 1990. later, the project was extended to provide estimates for the years 2005, 2010, and 2013. the task of australia’s national drug and alcohol centre (ndarc) was to calculate the global levels of disease, injury, and death associated with illicit drug use and dependence. to date, the findings of its study have pointed out that burdens of death and illness caused by illicit drug use are notably high in the u.k., u.s.a., south africa, and australia. the most pronounced source of the burden is opioid addiction, and the burden of this disease falls most heavily on men aged 20–29 years old. disability and illness caused by opioid dependence increased more than 74% between 1990 and 2010. another central cause of death and illnesses associated with illicit drug use is amphetamine addiction.3 it is not only the users of illicit drugs who carry the disease burden related to drug use. for example, opioids are highly addictive substances, and their medical use can have adverse and irreversible consequences. in the u.s., consumption of opioid pain relievers (opr) and the harm associated with their consumption has soared in the 2010s. overdose mortality quadrupled 1 hugh gibson, “dispatches from montreal’s international harm reduction conference,” now 26.5.2017. https://nowtoronto.com/news/ dispatches-montreals-international-harm-reduction-conference/ 2 catherine tunney, “jane phillpot says pharmaceutical heroin a potential livesafer in opioid epidemic,” cbc 20.5.2017 https://www.cbc.ca/ news/politics/philpott-heroin-addiction-opioids-1.4123233 3 summary of the ndarc’s findings and background on gdp reports can be found from their website https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/ project/global-burden-disease-mental-disorders-and-illicit-drug-use-expert-group) somaesthetics and its nordic aspects25 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction between 1999 and 2011. the period 1997–2011 saw a 900% increase in people seeking treatment for opioid addiction, as well as a sharp increase in the number of visits to emergency rooms caused by drug use.4 the u.s. centers of disease control and prevention (cdc) referred to the situation as the worst drug overdose epidemic and added opioid-related deaths to its list of five public health challenges. president trump has also taken a stand, calling the situation “a health emergency.” in canada, the government has referred to its situation as a national opioid crisis and a public health emergency.5 one of the government’s solutions has been to launch the good samaritan drug overdose act, to help canadians save a life during an overdose situation. in europe, opioids, especially highly potent synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl and karfentanyl, are considered a growing health concern along with new psychoactive substances (nps) produced in small laboratories across the world and sold and bought on the dark web. in addition, injecting drugs continues to be problem.6 given the magnitude of the problem related to opioid use, and drug use generally, our ability to deal with these problems is surprisingly limited. also, we easily resort to traditional approaches to understanding drug use and its causes and effects. as researcher oviedo-jokes noted in the cbc interview mentioned above concerning heroin-assisted treatment, “do you know how hard it is to know that there is a medication that works, but no one seems to just do it?” prominent public health experts have raised a similar question: why do we continue to invest heavily in criminal and legal enforcement measures, although there is very little scientific evidence of their effectiveness?7 this article poses two questions. first, why is it so difficult and, in some cases, even unthinkable, to apply new and alternative ways, such as heroin-assisted treatment, to deal with opioid problems and drug addiction? second, have we overlooked some important issues regarding drug users’ health, well-being, and their maintenance and, because of this, contributed to their degradation? in a vein similar to that of helen keane8, my starting point in this article is that one of the problems is our understanding of drug problems and addiction as a total lack of individual control and the use of drugs as inherently pathological. surely, as keane notes, living with drug addiction is often extremely difficult and many want it to end. however, there seems to be only few options available for how this could be done. for instance, we tend to forget that many quit their drug use without formal help and that there could be other ways of approaching drug problems, outside the demands of normality and complete recovery from addiction.9 the present article makes use of michel foucault’s “care of the self ” concept and richard shusterman’s somaesthetic framework to argue for drug policies and treatment practices that would take as their starting point problem drug users’ ability to make rational decisions and choices regarding their health and well-being without coercion and control, if they were given a proper chance and the tools to do this. the context is a drug policy orientation called harm reduction, which consists of a range of public health policies, programs, and practices that aim to 4 a. kolodny, d.t. courtwright, c.s. hwang, p. kreiner, j.l. edie, t.w. clark, c.g. alexander, “the prescription opioid and heroin crisis: a public health approach to an epidemic of addiction,” annual review of public health 18:36 (2015), p. 557-9 5 ibid. 6 jane mounteney, paul griffiths, roumen sedefov, andre noor, julián vicente & roland simon, “the drug situation in europe: an overview of data available on illicit drugs and new psychoactive substances from european monitoring in 2015,” addiction review 111 (2016), p. 34-48 7 thomas f. babor, jonathan p. caulkins, griffith edwards et al., drug policy and the public good (oxford: oxford university press, 2010) 8 helen keane, what’s wrong with addiction? (melbourne: melbourne university press, 2002) 9 ibid., p. 8. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 26 riikka perala reduce the harm associated with drug use. typical interventions are needle and syringe exchange programs, overdose prevention and other forms of health and social counseling related to drug use, and opioid substitute treatment. in addition, harm-reduction advocates for users’ rights and includes their views in the development of drug and welfare policies. for foucault, as cited e.g. by didier eribon,10 drugs weren’t something that one could or should either support or reject. they are part of our culture, and there are good and bad drugs and their effects, as there is good and bad music. his ethics were based on an idea of individual existence that would be independent of present categories and discourses of normality, developed particularly in the fields of the medical profession and human sciences, such as psychology. the key question is how can a person take care of him/herself and develop meaningful ways of existence.11 richard shusterman’s somaesthetics is used to highlight the importance of practices based on the drug users’ bodies and surrounding environments in users’ rehabilitation and re-integration into society.12 according to peter ferenzy,13 in the heart of the modern understanding of addiction, there has been an understanding of repression from which the individual should be liberated. traditional treatment, for its part, has concentrated on overcoming this repression by treating users’ minds and “wills.”14 however, as will be shown in the empirical part of this article, focusing on the body may provide the users with new ways to think about their existence and relationship to self and others. images and theories of drug addiction previous research has demonstrated many problems in the ways that societies handle drug problems and drug addiction. nordic sociologists nils christie and kettil bruun referred to drugs as societies “good enemy.”15 as they claim, it is very easy as well as politically convenient to wage a war on drugs and drug users, because they are often alien to many. it is also very hard to say anything positive about drugs without being labeled suspicious, while it is very easy to project everything that is wrong in society on them and on people who use them. drug users themselves often feel that they carry a stigma, which prevents them from participating in society or normal life. the international network of people who use drugs (inpud) has criticized the criminalization of drugs, which, according to them, produces many of the harms associated with drug use. also, the general understanding of drugs and drug users is often inaccurate and crude, stigmatizing people who use drugs as deviant criminals.16 there is a growing body of evidence indicating that even basic social and health policy services may be out of reach of drug users or fail to offer proper treatment and help for them.17 10 didier eribon, michel foucault (translated by betsy wing) (cambrigde: harvard university press 1991) 11 eribon, 1991, p. 394 12 see e.g. richard shusterman, thinking through body. essays in somaesthetics. (cambridge: cambridge university press 2012); richard shusterman, performing live. aesthetics alternatives for the ends of art (london: cornell university press) 13 peter ferenzy, “foucault and addiction” telos 125 (2002), pp. 167-191 14 ibid. 15 nils christie and kettil bruun, den goda fiende. narkotikapolitik i norden (universitetsförlaget, 1985) 16 see e.g. inpud, “drug user peace initiative. stigmatizing people who use drugs” (london: inpud secretariat 2014) 17 hatcher, e. alexandrea, sonia mendoza & helena hansen,“at the expense of a life: race, class, and the meaning of buprenorphine in pharmaceuticalized “care,” substance use & misuse 53:2 (2018), p. 301-10; julie netherland & helena hansen,“white opioids: pharmaceutical race and the war on drugs that wasn’t,” biosocieties 12:2 (2017), p. 217-238.; anna leppo & riikka perälä, “remains of care. opioid substitution treatment in the post-welfare state,” sociology of health and illness 39:6 (2016), pp. 959-978.; philippe bourgois & jeff schonberg, “righteous dopefiend” (berkeley: california series in public anthropology, 2009); nina mulia, “ironies in the pursuit of well-being: the somaesthetics and its nordic aspects27 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction culturally speaking, drug use, especially problem drug use and opioid addiction, has indeed been depicted as one of the most devastating vices of western societies. caroline j. acker looked at the construction of opiate addicts in the field of psychiatry and psychology.18 according to her, by the mid-twentieth century, heroin addiction came to symbolize an incurable deviance. heroin addicts, in turn, came to be perceived as inherently flawed and morally corrupt personalities who were incapable of living in a normal society. according to acker, the effects of these constructions can be seen in the field of drug policy, which legitimizes the criminal control of drug users. they have also had an effect on the popular cultural image of drugs and drug use, which is routinely associated with criminality and violence, while people who use drugs are depicted as desperate and immoral “junkies.” robin room19 has discussed addiction narratives as a form of (horror) story-telling with certain reoccurring characters and events: a good person turning into a bad one because of addiction, a lonely struggle against addiction where the hero or heroine of the story meets different obstacles and setbacks and usually fails, and the betrayal of ones’ family members and friends, often in horrible ways. sometimes help is available, especially for men in the form of “a good woman,” but usually the process of addiction is described as inevitable degradation – “first to the poorhouse and then to the grave as in the cautionary tales of the temperance movement” 20– and the loss of one’s humanity. this story has also been prevalent in treatment, where loss of control over drinking and drug use – and later over one’s entire life – has been depicted as one of the quintessential features of addiction. further, this condition can be treated only by the addicted individual her/himself with the help of various confessional procedures, where one admits her/his problem with alcohol or drugs, and uses her/his entire willpower to overcome the problem.21 all of this is partly true, as room notes,22 and drugs indeed have destructive effects.23 problem drug users suffer from many different problems and many live outside the normal curriculum of societies. users themselves have considered addiction as a fruitful and re-assuring way to understand their behavior however, discourses of addiction, as keane24 notes, are also engaged in the production of truths about drugs and drug users. more importantly, they have maintained policies and identities that have been damaging to users, such as denying them, as addicted individuals, a possibility for autonomous agency and proper subjectivity. care of the self and somaesthetics as frameworks of addiction for foucault, as previously mentioned, drugs weren’t an undisputable “bad,” but also a source of physical pleasure. foucault did not discuss addiction in his scientific work, but he might as perspectives of low-income, substance-using women on service institutions” contemporary drug problems, 29 (2002), pp. 711-4 18 caroline j. acker, creating an american junkie. addiction research in the classic era of narcotic control. (baltimore: the john hopkins’s university press, 2002) 19 robin room, “the cultural framing of addiction”, janus head 6:2 (2003), pp. 221-234 20 ibid., pp. 230-231 21 ibid., pp. 230-231 22 ibid., p. 232 23 keane, 2003, p. 9 24 keane, 2003, p. 11 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 28 riikka perala well have, as ferenzy25 has argued, because the discourses on addiction formulated in the field of medicine and psychiatry entail themes similar to the discourses on sexuality in which foucault was interested. foucauldian ideas of power and governance are often associated with iron-cage-like images of control and power, where the individual is merely an effect of different power relationships and discourses.26 this has also been the case in the field of drug research. for example, the harmreduction policies looked at in this article have been described as a new medical discipline and control that represses drug users rather than supports them. peter g. miller27 used foucault to discuss harm reduction as “surveillance medicine” and “new public health” thinking, where drug users are seen not only as entitled, but also obliged to take responsibility for their own health. since then, this view has been cited in several journals and has gained ground as a prominent critique of harm-reduction policies.28 miller points out the pitfalls that one should be aware of while conducting and developing harm-reduction policies and public health policies in general; however, what is problematic in these kinds of views is that they often overlook foucault’s ideas of resistance and possibilities for change.29 later in his career, foucault became interested in alternative modes of living that would allow for a more heterogeneous form of existence than those found in western societies based on christian morality.30 this led him to investigate practices of the sexual care of the self of ancient greece and rome, and later, as kevin thompson and amy allen demonstrate in their analyses on foucault’s ideas of power and resistance31, to strive for practices of care of the self in which both our individuality and relationship with others could be renegotiated and refashioned. next, i will discuss foucault’s ideas about what foucault called “care of the self,” and developed in his later works, lectures, and interviews. after this, i will turn to richard shusterman, who used foucauldian ideas to formulate his own somaesthetic discipline. in the empirical part of the article, i will use foucault and shusterman’s ideas to search for forms of working with drug users that would move away from treatment techniques based on coercion, control, and normalization, still typical of many drug treatment interventions today.32 the notion of care of the self, as foucault starts to explain the theme of his lecture series at the college de france in 1982, is his best translation of the complex greek notion of epimeleia heatou, which refers to practices of care of oneself in greek culture. in the lecture, foucault portrays socrates as the first person associated with the idea, which subsequently remained 25 ferenzy, 2003 26 on discussion see e.g. amy allen, “power, subjectivity, and agency: between arendt and foucault,” international journal of philosophical studies, 10:2 (2002), pp. 131-149, 145 27 peter g. miller, “a critical review of the harm minimization ideology in australia,” critical public health, 11:2 (2001), pp. 167-178 28 see e.g. benedict fischer et al., “drug use, risk and urban order: examining supervised injection sites (siss) as governmentality,” international journal of drug policy, 15 (2004), pp. 357-365 29 amy allen, “rethinking resistance; feminism and the politics of ourselves,” eurozine, 5:5 (2010); eribon 1992; alan rosenberg and alan milchman, “the final foucault; a central issue in governmentality and government of the self,” in sam binkley and jorge capetillo (eds.), a foucault for the 21st century: governmentality, biopolitics and discipline in the new millennium (newcastle upon tyne: cambridge scholars publishing, 2011), pp. 62-72 30 eribon 1992; kevin thompson, “forms of resistance: foucault on tactical reversal and self-formation,” continental philosophy review, 36 (2003), pp. 113-138 31 see also kevin thompson, “spaces of invention; foucault and the question of transformative institutions” (university of chicago political theory workshop november 28, 2011). available online at: http://ptw.uchicago.edu/thompson11.pdf 32 see e.g. julian randall & iain munro, “foucault’s care of the self: a case from mental health work,” organization studies 30:11, pp. 1485–1504. i am indebted to julian randall and ian munro’s analysis on care of the self and mental health, which inspired me to use the notion care of the self in the context of harm-reduction measures. somaesthetics and its nordic aspects29 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction as the fundamental philosophical idea of the greek, hellenistic, and roman cultures.33 in the summary of the course34, foucault brings to the fore some of the most important aspects of this practice. first, care of the self is an activity that requires some regularity, methods, and objectives, not just “an attitude or a form of attention focused on oneself.” second, care of the self is a critical and pedagogical practice, a struggle, where one takes responsibility for oneself and changes oneself with the help of the aforementioned regular practices. third, it is a relationship that requires a master, a guide, or anyway someone else, as care of the self is also about the person becoming part of the society he or she lives in. care of the self does not mean, like many of foucault’s critics often assume, retreating to self-centered individualism or freedom to do what one wants. as julian randall and iain munro have summarized foucault’s conception of ethics in their investigation on care of the self in the context of mental health, in the heart of foucault’s ethics, there is a principle of equality, where one actively shapes oneself with the help of others – friends, family, or an advisor – and, in this way, transforms oneself.35 for the purposes of this article, what is particularly interesting in practices of care of the self is the role of medicine. it is not considered as a controlling discipline, but rather a supportive one. in the third and final volume of his book the history of sexuality: the care of the self36, foucault cites the ideas of plutarkhos and celcus. in their writings, medicine is not be conceived of solely in the context of illness, “as a remedy or an operation,” but also as a form of practical philosophy, a “medical perception of the world,” which provides the individual with knowledge of and rules for a good life. what is especially important is the individual’s relationship with his/ her environment. as foucault cites celcus’s ideas of “health practices” (hygieine pragmateia or techne): a certain change in a surrounding environment could have morbid effects on the body. on the other hand, a weak body may benefit from a certain environment.37 richard shusterman discusses foucault’s analysis of socrates and diogenes as examples of foucault’s idea of philosophy that would not be just a matter of text, but also an embodied life practice.38 shusterman himself separates three different branches of somaesthetics into a discipline that tries, among other things, to “think through the body” the possibilities for new forms of creative self-fashioning and aesthetic pleasure.39 analytical somaesthetics is a theoretical field that describes the basic nature of our bodily practices and demonstrates how these practices can be shaped by different power relationships and discourses. pragmatic somaesthetics is concerned with different methods of somatic improvement and their comparison and tries, in this way, to make some sense of their contribution to the human body. lastly, practical somaesthetics is about the actual practice of these body practices as well as about physically engaging in the care of the body.40 at the center of somaesthetic theory is shusterman’s critique of traditional philosophy, 33 michel foucault, the hermeneutics of the subject. lectures at the college de france 1981-1982 (new york: palgrave mcmillan 2001) 34 ibid. 35 randall & munro 36 michel foucault, the care of the self. the history of the sexuality. volume 3 (new york: random house 1988) 37 ibid. 38 richard shusterman, ‘somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal’, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57: 3 (summer, 1999), pp. 299313 39 shusterman, 2012 40 shusterman, 2000 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 30 riikka perala particularly its prejudice of the body and its maintenance.41 yet, as shusterman42 writes, ancient philosophers like socrates noted the value of the body for human activities. even the act of thinking required a healthy body, whereas ill-health could lead to serious mistakes. one should not ignore the role of the body in the formation of our self-knowledge, which shusterman considers one of philosophy’s prime cognitive aims.43 in fact, shusterman asserts that improving awareness of our body and its states can influence our moods and attitudes. for example, some malfunctions of the body can become so habitual for us that we do not even recognize them anymore. nonetheless, they may have a profound impact on our activities as well as on our thinking. also, the ability to act as we will act depends on somatic efficacy. what is more, our bodily operations are deeply intertwined with our possibilities for virtuous and right action and a good life.44 body can also work as a site of resistance, as shusterman writes, commenting especially foucault’s ideas of body as a site of inscribing social power.45 as for the questions posed in this article, shusterman46 asks an interesting question: “why so much inquiry has been devoted to the ontology and epistemology of pain and so little to its psychosomatic management, to its mastery and transformation into tranquillity or pleasure?” with respect to addiction, the question could be, why are we so preoccupied with describing and thinking about the pains of addiction and not with providing addicted people chances for finding peaceful and meaningful ways of existence with their injured body? research setting i will now turn to the empirical part of the article, where i will discuss foucault and shusterman’s theories in the context of harm-reduction policies. most of the data used in the article is derived from a needle and syringe exchange facility for injecting drug users, which was founded in the southern part of finland at the beginning of 2000 and which follows a harm-reduction ideology. this facility was the first of its kind in finland and part of a radical and rapid change in finnish drug policies toward harm reduction.47 harm-reduction policies are conducted all over the world, but in very different contexts and with very different possibilities. in central europe, harm reduction has become mainstream, and many countries, such as the netherlands, portugal, denmark, and switzerland, consider it as the central tenet of their drug policies. finland, sweden, and norway follow a dual track (tammi 2007), where harm reduction is applied along with a strong focus on the criminal prevention of drugs. in some countries where the emphasis is on “the war on drugs,” harmreduction measures are considered illegal. it is interesting that, although a great deal of data on the effectiveness of harm reduction is available, its measures are still often questioned or bypassed by many prominent actors. for 41 shusterman, 1999 42 ibid. 43 ibid. 44 ibid. 45 ibid. 46 ibid., p. 330 47 pekka hakkarainen and christoffer tigerstedt, “ristiriitojen huumepolitiikka–huumeongelman normalisaatio suomessa,” in m. heikkilä, and m. kautto (eds.), suomalaisten hyvinvointi 2002 (helsinki: sosiaalialan tutkimusja kehittämiskeskus 2002) [”conflicting drug policy–the normalization of drug problem in finland,” in m. heikkilä, and m. kautto (eds.), well-being in finland 2002 (helsinki: national research institute for social welfare and health, 2002)] somaesthetics and its nordic aspects31 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction example, the who has taken criminal control as a given in the case of drugs, whereas other “dependence-producing” substances, such as alcohol and tobacco, have been managed within a public health framework.48 at the moment, services to reduce drug-related harm and provide clean needles and syringes for injecting drug users have failed to keep up with the growing need, although, for instance, the un has pledged to end aids by 2030. in some countries the number of harm-reduction services has even fallen.49 in all, the data examined in the article entail 150 pages of field notes, as well as interviews with clients and employees (n = 25 and n = 17), which were carried out during my ethnographic investigation in the harm-reduction facility between 2004 and 2007. the employees had professional background as nurses, health nurses, and social workers. the clients injected drugs, mainly bubrenorphine and other medical opioids and amphetamine. most of the drugs were obtained illegally from the street. the age range of my client interviewees was 19–57 years old. i did not ask all of them specifically when they had started injecting drugs, but statistically the clients of the services had started injecting when they were 16–18 years old. my interviewees told me that they had started injecting “in high school” or “at adolescence.” one of them told me that she had started when she was 40 years old. altogether i spent a year and a half in the field, in short, 2–3 month periods. the analysis is based on following observation and interview data: (1) following the client and employees’ interaction and activities in different parts of the service, as well as following the different ways clients used the service; (2) following the health education courses that were arranged for the voluntary clients for the prevention of drug-related harm during or outside the opening hours (altogether four courses); and (3) interviews that handled various themes from the prevention of drug-related harm and the realization of harm-reduction policies to user and employees’ views about the current service system and about the activities that took place in the facility. for the purposes of this article, i looked at parts of my data, where the users and staff discuss the possibilities of harm-reduction practices to help the users in ways other than treatment orientations, or where i made these kinds of observations myself. this was not the initial starting point of my investigation, but it turned out to be a very relevant theme. importantly, harmreduction services did not only provide sterile needles and syringes, but also possibilities to look at problem drug use in new ways. in the upcoming analysis, i will interpret my data through foucault and shusterman’s theories and provide a more systematic view of what i see could be possible harm-reduction policies to contest prevailing treatment approaches. i will focus on three themes: (1) harm reduction as a drug policy orientation, which provides drug users with a regular curriculum and a possibility to organize their lives in new ways by focusing on their physical well-being; (2) harm reduction as a set of practices that gives users a chance to think about their life and relationship with others in a new light; and (3) harm reduction as a new way of organizing the relationship between the users and drug treatment professionals. 48 suzanne taylor, victoria berridge and alex mold, ‘who expert committees and key concepts for drugs, alcohol and tobacco’, in matilda hellman, victoria berridge, karen duke & alex mold (eds.) concepts of addictive substances and behaviours across time and place (oxford: oxford university press 2016) 49 katie stone, the global state of harm reduction 2016 (harm reduction international, 2016) the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 32 riikka perala results finding structure and content in life with the help of harm reduction while reading foucauldian analyses of power and societal governance, one cannot escape the conclusion that administering to the well-being and health of individuals in contemporary societies is something negative: a way of achieving societal order or suppressing individuals. also, harm reduction, as was shown earlier in the article, has been described as this kind of discipline. in my data, on the other hand, what turned out to be one of most interesting feature of the harm-reduction service was its ability to provide users who came to the facility with the chance to organize and structure their lives in a context and an institutional surrounding that made sense to them and gave content to their lives. during the first week of my fieldwork, i described my impressions about the facility and its clients in my field journal as follows. “the clients came to the facility for various things, not just for clean paraphernalia. the organization of the service is surprisingly smooth and predictable. i am already familiar with the routines and wishes of some of the clients. one regular visitor uses thick, 0.8 mm needles while injecting, which the staff does not recommend, but the man insists on. there is always a small discussion around that when he comes to the facility, but the workers do not want to moralize. “we try to softly direct and lure them into making healthier choices,” one of the workers explains to me. one, on the contrary, is terrified of injecting, and wishes for as thin needles as possible. one is waiting behind the door every morning, when the facility opens at noon, and comes mainly for food and a chance to talk to somebody. everyone i meet and get a chance to talk to greets the service. “this is the best place in town, write that in your book,” “this facility has saved my life,” and “i would be in the gutter without this.” from the point of view of the foucauldian discussion on the care of self and shusterman’s somaesthetics, a noteworthy aspect of users’ views is that, instead of feeling as if they were being supervised in the facility or obliged to concentrate on their health, many clients told me that they “finally” had the possibility to take care of their health and themselves. many of the clients came to the facility regularly, 2–3 times a week, and some of them could spend the entire opening time (four hours) there. some popped by many times during the day. my interviewees told me that coming to the service provided them with “a timetable,” as well as access to information they said they had not had before. “i can spend my days here, instead of at my flat. and there is always something interesting going on here,” as a young man in his 20s summarized his feelings about the service to me. shusterman50 discusses our culture’s deepening preoccupation with the body and its well-being. i realized very soon that the clients of the harm-reduction facility shared this preoccupation and strived for better health and life, in spite of their drug use. for example, many wanted to be tested for hiv and hepatitis c regularly and were generally worried about their health. many considered drug use as an “addiction disease,” from which they suffered, and wanted to take as good care of themselves as possible, despite their condition. for example, in the interviews, many described how relieved they were when the hiv test result turned out to be negative. “it would have been a death sentence. i could not have dealt with that,” as one of them summarized his feelings to me. the nurse of the facility described that the testing situations 50 shusterman, 2000 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects33 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction were always very emotional. according to her, the relief of a client after the test turned out to be negative showed as a relaxation of his/her entire body and appearance. “they don’t want to die. in fact, i think that they are survivors and very strong people, who have kept themselves together in conditions, which are sometimes intolerable. we try to direct this energy toward healthier things,” she continued. the exchange of clean needles and syringes had become “a matter of the heart” for many, and some had also started to exchange clean paraphernalia among their peers who didn’t visit the facility, gaining in this way status and experience as peer workers and harm-reduction experts. this work also provided a clear structure to their lives. one of the most active clients, a woman in her 40s, explained to me her relationship with the service as follows. “i come here every tuesday and friday to change clean paraphernalia. i am a “super exchanger”, so i get to change 300 needles and syringe at a times, whereas the other ones get to change maximum 40 at a time. on mondays and fridays i exchange needles and syringes among my friends and then i bring the used ones back here.” i followed her use of the facility throughout my entire fieldwork period. she had started to use the services a little more than a year before and was already very familiar with the staff, calling them “my angels.” although she did not quit using drugs during my research period, her use was much more under control by the end the research period than at the beginning. she had also become an active member of the user organization that was founded by the clients of the facility during my research period, as well as one of the first “peer workers” to accompany the facility’s staff to different harm-reduction lectures and events, both in finland and other parts of the world. one of the nurses at the facility explained her impressions of the meaning of the service and the work done there: “there is so much potential in these people (the drug users). and here (in the facility), it becomes visible as we take them as they are, and they don’t have to pretend that they are not using or that they want to recover. it is very liberating for many.... many of them also strive for a normal life and better health, and are happy that they have the possibility to come here to pursue these things.” one of the benefits of the service was that it was seen as being neutral in its orientation. clients often compared the service with other services by saying that, in other treatment institutions, one was supposed to answer a list of questions before “getting down to business,” “how much [drugs] you have consumed and so on,” as on one of my interviewees explained. instead, at the facility, the focus was on everyday matters and problems of the users. what the clients appreciated in particular was that they could receive information on what was really bothering them, whether it was high blood pressure, a mysterious rash, or how to look after yourself and your friends while injecting. from the viewpoint of foucault’s care of the self and shusterman’s somaesthetics, it was interesting that all of this happened through various practices that were somehow regular in nature, although not codified. for example, needle exchange was seemingly an important ritual for many. not only did the user receive clean paraphernalia, he/she also had the possibility to ask the staff about different topics linked to injecting, which method was safe, what kind of needles the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 34 riikka perala should they use, and so forth, as well as have contact with someone. later, the service started to supply harm reduction opioid maintenance treatment, which many clients saw as “life saving.” according to them, they received not only medicine in this treatment, but also a regular and stable structure to their lives. the facility manager reflected this in her interview. life for the clients was often chaotic and even violent outside the facility, but inside they had the possibility to reveal their “soft” side and relax for a while. i wrote in my field journal after one particularly nice and relaxing afternoon (may 2007) that many of the clients seemed to enjoy the possibility of just sitting and spending time in the facility and looking at other people, which, in turn, was something that made them feel “more normal” or an “ordinary human being,” as many of them often sighed. the feeling of normality, for its part, was for many the first step toward a life without drug use or, at least, toward a more controlled use. next, i will look more closely the therapeutic effects services operations had on the clients. feeling like “a human being” again according to shusterman,51 the body needs care in many ways and for many reasons. for drug users who came to the harm-reduction facility, care was something that made them feel like a “human being again.” a very important element in creating this feeling was, first, the fact that the staff did not fear or judge the clients in any way. this was a deliberate policy that was regularly discussed by the staff. the clients, in turn, saw this as the staff ’s respectful attitude toward them, which they appreciated. many were ashamed of their bodies, which often had bruises and infected needle marks. some of the clients had lost their limbs and sat in wheelchairs or had walkers. many had bad teeth caused by their drug use. in the facility, however, the clients and their injuries were always addressed in a very polite way, and the staff made a concerted effort to ensure that the clients felt accepted and as normal as possible. a nurse working in the facility explained to me her views of what took place in the facility: “they (the clients) sense that their problems are taken seriously here. if they go to for instance emergency rooms, they are often turned away, because they are intoxicated. also, all of their troubles are almost always interpreted through drug use, which they should stop in order to receive help. here we help them without conditions. it is seemingly liberating for many to be treated like a regular customer, who has issues with his/her health, and not just a “junkie”.” a female client in her 30s discussed the meaning of the service and compared its orientation with the stereotypical notions of drug users in a very similar manner: “the discussion goes always like “drug injecting is a death sentence” and that person will use drugs ”forever”. some people do live on the streets and have a lot of problems for sure, but many also have homes and, you know, we watch television and all (laughs). here (in the service) i get information, which i can really use of in my everyday life.” our discussion was brief and the woman did not explain further to me what kind of 51 shusterman, 2000 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects35 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction information she was talking about. the discussion, however, took place during a health education evening, where the woman participated actively in the discussion about the prevention of overdose deaths and the use of emergency services in these kinds of situations. a man in his 50s explained to me his transformation as a “paradox.” before starting at the facility, he had tried many treatment orientations, but always left them “in anger.” “there is no use in controlling and forcing a person to do something, if he hates authorities, you know”. he continued to describe that, in the facility where this kind of coercion did not exist, for first time, he took responsibility for himself by himself: “first, i came here once and a while to exchange needles and syringes. then i started to talk to some of the workers about the educational leaflets that were available in the facility and commenting on them. you know, how they depicted drug injecting et cetera. then i got interested in peer work and here i am now, a chair of the user organization.” from the point of view of shusterman’s somaesthetics, it was interesting that concentration on physical well-being seems to liberate clients from constant reflection on their drug use and life in general, which they found relaxing. many of the clients described the facility as their “home” or “closest thing to home,” where they were looked after and got help without conditions. vice versa, they did not have to “pretend” to be sober or want to end their drug use. harm-reduction orientation also provided them with opportunities to help others besides themselves. in the following excerpt, one of the peer workers of the facility, a woman in her 40s who was in opioid substitution treatment, described her activities: “i just took this one girl to a birth control clinic and on wednesday i escorted this one to a drug treatment evaluation. now, i was able to bring these three girls here from their apartment. just to get them out of there. i have some clothes reserved for them [...]” these kinds of accounts come close to foucault’s ideas of care of the self as a collaborative effort, where an individual’s relationship with him/herself and others is rethought and refashioned. as demonstrated earlier, drug users are often depicted as tough and amoral criminals, incapable of living as or with normal people. i, on the other hand, observed very early that many of the users were as caring as any other person and also wished to be taken care of. the question arises, can we strengthen these kinds of elements in treatment somehow? in the last part of this chapter, i will look more closely at some of the factors in the operation of the service and particularly in the operation of its workers that helped the users acquire new things and perspectives in life. towards new professionalism i have written elsewhere that the emancipatory nature of the facility owed a lot to its nature as a place that had more faith in the drug users’ own initiative than average drug treatment facilities. the clients were not pressured to do anything against their will. instead, the employees wanted to give them time to get used to the facility and staff, and take the initiative when they felt like the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 36 riikka perala it.52 for me, this was very surprising at first, because problem drug use is often depicted as a total lack of interest toward anything else other than drug use. according to the staff, it is important to gain the trust of the users who came to the facility. without trust, as clients explained to me, it was useless to promote any other goals. however, if trust is gained, many a user reveal a new side. the following story by a social worker resonates well with foucault’s ideas of care of the self as a relationship that strives for an individual’s selfrealization with collaborative, not coercive, methods and demonstrates the positive effects that efforts to build a confidential relationship with a client can have: “this one man came here almost every day for a couple of years and just exchanged needles and syringes. didn’t say a word and looked like he wanted to kill everybody. but i always greeted him, said hi and goodbye and see you again. and then one day he started talking. and there was no end to it (laughs). it’s was like a lamp had turned on in his head or something. now he is one of our most active peer workers.” other employees told similar stories. in them, particularly three themes stood out as relevant. first, the workers did not do anything special, but just were there for the clients. what was particularly important was that they had time and “did not look at the clock all the time.” second, clients started to change their behavior, if they were given enough chances and, again, time and space to do this on their own terms. third, clients appreciated that they were not treated paternalistically in the service, but were treated as adults who could make their own decisions and judgments. many of the clients, for instance, stated that they wanted “information,” not “moral guidelines.” also, the clients easily saw that, if they were looked down on by the employees or if their judgment was questioned, it became a situation that usually led to the client leaving the service in anger. this, however, did not take place often, as the employees knew how to be careful and not offend the clients. in fact, i was often very surprised how close and playful the employees were with the clients, as the sociological classics had taught me that the most crucial features in the operation of different treatment institutions was the conflict between the clients or “the inmates.” one of the employees explained her working orientation in the interview in the following way, which comes close to foucault’s ideas of care of the self as an equal relationship between the individual and her/his aid: “i use elements of friendship in my work. i talk with the clients about regular stuff that takes place in their life and in my life as well, such as films, pets, music et cetera. after a while, they get interested in the other things we have here as well, which is of course my ultimate goal. but, i’m not cheating them or anything. i truly enjoy discussing about things with them, and many of them are very bright. but of course, there is also a professional orientation on the background as well.” according to another employee, the lack of the “controlling function” gave the clients the possibility to work with the workers more openly than they can with the representatives of the social services and other public institutions. as she explained, “they don’t have to, for instance, lie to us that they don’t use drugs, and they also feel that they can tell us other unpleasant things about their lives.” 52 anna leppo & riikka perälä, “user involvement in finland: the hybrid of control and emancipation” journal of health organization and management 23:3 (2009), pp. 359–371 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects37 care of the self, somaestethics and drug addiction different first aid training and overdose prevention education evenings and workshops were very popular among clients. in somaesthetic terms, these activities could be described as a combination of analytical and practical somaesthetics, where the clients were first taught about their body’s various functions, and then, how to take care of the body through different practical measures. i attended four of these evenings, and they were an eye-opening experience for me in many ways. what was especially surprising for me was how engaged the clients were in these evenings and how actively they shared their experiences and thoughts about the themes that were handled in them. many of the clients liked one anesthesiologist in particular, who used scientific terms while discussing overdose prevention and did not paint moralistic pictures of the harms of drug use. “you are pretty different from the others doctors i’ve met,” one of the participants told him during one session. the leader of the user organization described his feelings about the course and similar activities: “finally someone has realized that, hey, let’s involve the drug users in the development of the services as well. it was “a stroke of genius” in many ways. i mean, my god, how good it feels when you are asked to be part of something.” conclusions in this article, i asked first why it is sometimes so difficult and, in some cases, even unthinkable to apply new and alternative approaches, such as heroin-assisted treatment, to deal with drug problems and drug addiction. the second question was, is it possible that we have overlooked some important issues regarding the drug users’ health, well-being, and their maintenance and, because of this, contributed to their degradation? as for the first question, i demonstrated how according to the traditional and stereotypical understanding of addiction and problem drug users, it is still even impossible for us to see that drug users could be interested in maintaining their health and be capable of looking after themselves and each other. however, as i demonstrated in the empirical section, even the most problematic drug users seek a better health and life if there are proper chances and infrastructures available for this. working with the user’s physical well-being, in particular, seems to resonate well with many of the users’ needs to be taken care of. in light of my analysis, there is considerable potential for somaesthetic thinking in the field of health and social policy, particularly in the work with people living on the margins of society. as shown in the article, addiction treatment has traditionally been about dealing with one’s inner pathologies, using different psychiatric and psychological methods. this “confession” leads to recovery, as the addicted person sins against him/herself and others. yet, as i have demonstrated, the focus on the body can be a more neutral tool for recovery, while also providing people who suffer from addiction with ways to live with their addicted body. the use of foucault’s ideas of care of the self has emphasized factors in harm-reduction measures that have provided professionals with tools to reach problem drug users without coercive or involuntary methods. there is already quite a lot of research on the political activism of drug users in the harm-reduction field, as well as public-health-oriented research about the effectiveness of harm-reduction measures. the focus in my analysis has been on the actual, everyday practices of harm reduction, which have been discussed and investigated less, but could offer important insights into how to deal with drug problems in future. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 38 riikka perala particularly significant themes in users’ paths to transformation in this analysis have been employees trust in users’ own initiative, the respectful attitude of the employees toward them, and the close collaboration between the clients and the employees over users’ health. the harmreduction facility was, in many ways, a community, where the users were welcomed as they were, and where they were helped and taken along without too many conditions. contrary to many analyses, use of medical knowledge was also considered liberating, providing the users with information on their condition and tools and daily structures that helped the users live with them. references acker, caroline, j., creating an american junkie. addiction research in the classic era of narcotic control. 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an overview of data available on illicit drugs and new psychoactive substances from european monitoring in 2015,” addiction review 111, (2016) pp. 34-48. mulia, nina, “ironies in the pursuit of well-being: the perspectives of low-income, substanceusing women on service institutions,” contemporary drug problems, 29, (2002) pp. 711-4. randall, julian & munro, iaia, “foucault’s care of the self: a case from mental health work,” organization studies 30:11, (2010) pp. 1485-1504. netherland julie & hansen, helena, “white opioids: pharmaceutical race and the war on drugs that wasn’t,” biosocieties 12:2, (2017) pp. 217-238. room, robin, “the cultural framing of addiction”, janus head 6:2, (2003) pp. 221-234. rosenberg, alan & milchman, alan, “the final foucault; a central issue in governmentality and government of the self,” in sam binkley and jorge capetillo (eds.), a foucault for the 21st century: governmentality, biopolitics and discipline in the new millennium (newcastle upon tyne: cambridge scholars publishing, 2011), pp. 62-72. thompson, kevin, “forms of resistance: foucault on tactical reversal and self-formation,” continental philosophy review, 36, (2003) pp. 113-138. thompson, kevin, spaces of invention; foucault and the question of transformative institutions (university of chicago political theory workshop november 28, 2011). available online at: http://ptw.uchicago.edu/thompson11.pdf; shusterman, richard, thinking through body. essays in somaesthetics, (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2012). shusterman, richard, performing live. aesthetics alternatives for the ends of art (london: cornell university press, 1999) shusterman, richard, “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal”, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57: 3, (1999) pp. 299-313. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 6 page 6-22martin ejsing christensen philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception martin ejsing christensen abstract: this paper examines the pragmatist philosopher john dewey’s idea of philosophizing as an esthetic experience. the first section of the paper presents dewey’s general idea of esthetic experience as it figures in his main work on esthetics, art as experience. with this general idea in place, the second section then moves on to analyze the way in which dewey thought of philosophizing as an esthetic experience. finally, the third section discusses how dewey’s thoughts about philosophizing as an esthetic experience can be seen as a contribution to the field of somaesthetics. keywords: jonh dewey, philosophy, esthetic experience, richard shusterman, somaesthetics. in his different writings on somaesthetics, the founder of this burgeoning new field of inquiry, richard shusterman, does not hide the fact that his thinking is deeply inspired by the american pragmatist philosopher john dewey. in the introduction to his body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics, for example, shusterman suggests that dewey “provides probably the most balanced and comprehensive view among twentieth-century somathic philosophies.”1 in his more recent collection of essays, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics, shusterman similarly ends the second essay on “the body as background” by concluding that “it is dewey, however, who makes the most sustained and systematic argument for the qualitative background as necessary to mental life.” and elsewhere in the book, shusterman explicitly states that dewey was the “primary american inspiration” behind his earlier “pragmatist aesthetics,” which his more recent somaesthetics is “a natural extension of.”2 one of the places where dewey’s influence on shusterman is most conspicuous is when it comes to his idea of the “soma” as “the living, sensing, dynamic, perceptive, purposive body” (47), which is explicitly inspired by dewey’s thoughts about body–mind in experience and nature. in a similar way, shusterman’s central idea of the body as “the basic instrument of all human performance, our tool of tools, a necessity for all our perception, action and even thought” (26) is also directly inspired by dewey’s thinking, just as his critique of the “dominantly platonic– kantian aesthetic tradition grounded in the art/reality and aesthetic/functional dichotomies” 1 richard shusterman, body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics (cambridge, uk: cambridge university press, 2008), p. 12 2 richard shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (cambridge, uk: cambridge university press, 2012), p. 58, p. 289, & p. 140 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects7 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception (282-3) is heavily indebted to dewey’s critique of the same dichotomies in art as experience. although shusterman in this way has been deeply inspired by dewey’s philosophy, there are also certain parts of it that he has been mildly critical of ,3 just as he has drawn on a wide variety of empirical research to bolster and develop many of dewey’s ideas. the most significant way in which he has contributed to the development of a deweyean form of pragmatism, however, is probably through his imaginative use of deweyean ideas to analyze and understand the somaesthetic dimension of a broad range of phenomena reaching all the way from rap and country music to photography and asian ars erotica.4 although shusterman has used deweyan ideas to analyze phenomena that dewey never wrote about, there is at least one subject that dewey did write about and that has occupied shusterman, too, for a long time, and that is the subject of philosophy itself as an activity or practice. from the very beginning of his somaesthetic project, one of shusterman’s key questions has been what a somaesthetic perspective implies for the way in which philosophy should be practiced and taught.5 as shusterman sees it, a somaesthetic perspective implies first and foremost a willingness “to overcome the limits of philosophy’s institutionalized confinements as a purely academic practice of teaching, reading and writing texts” by returning to the old idea of “philosophy as a way of life,” according to which philosophy should always be embodied.6 and it should not just be embodied in the sense that it theoretically affirms “the body’s crucial role in all perception, action and thought” in “the familiar forms of writing, reading and discussing texts,” but also, more crucially, in the sense where one practically demonstrates “one’s philosophy through one’s own bodily example, expressing it through one’s manner of living,” as confucius and many greek and roman thinkers did (4). according to shusterman, however, such a break with “philosophy’s institutionalized confinements as a purely academic practice of teaching, reading and writing texts” is not the only way in which a somaesthetic perspective matters for philosophy. for it also raises a number of questions about the way in which philosophy should be done if one sticks to the more traditional practice of “teaching, reading and writing texts.” as shusterman sees it, one of the problems with philosophy as a “merely theoretical discursive pursuit” (142) is that it tends to be “essentially conceptual rather than experiential” (114), because it focuses on “verbal arguments” rather than “lived perceptual experience” (141) or the “nonpropositional, nondiscursive dimension of experience” (176) that a somaesthetic perspective highlights. instead of breaking with the practice of teaching, reading, and writing texts, it is, however, also possible to inject more experiential, non-propositional content into this practice, and that is the other way in which shusterman takes a somaesthetic approach to matter for the practice of philosophy. in several places shusterman has thus questioned the way in which philosophy texts usually focus on “mere conceptual understanding” (122) and asked if philosophy, understood somaesthetically as “cultural politics,” could not, instead, “intervene in literary practice by making itself a selfconscious form of literary composition – say, philosophy as literature in the essay style of montaigne or emerson; the fictional style of sartre, camus, beauvoir, or musil; the dramatic 3 see especially richard shusterman, pragmatist aesthetic: living beauty, rethinking art, (lanham: rowman & littlefield publisher, 2000a), p. ix. richard shusterman, practicing philosophy: pragmatism and the philosophical life (new york: routledge, 1997), pp. 157-178 4 see richard shusterman, performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art (new york: cornell university press, 2000b), pp. 60-75 & pp. 76-95 as well as shusterman 2012, pp. 239-287 5 see especially shusterman 1997, pp. 1-66, shusterman 2000, pp. 3-61, shusterman 2012, pp. 166-196 and richard shusterman, “philosophy as a way of life: as textual and more than textual practice” in philosophy as a way of life: ancients and moderns – essays in honor of pierre hadot, ed. michael chase et al. (oxford: john wiley and sons, 2013), pp. 40-56 6 shusterman, 2012, p. 140 & p. 122 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 8 martin ejsing christensen dialogical style of plato; the poetic style of lucretius or dante; or in the form of literary criticism that rorty at times has practiced with great skill?” (185) although shusterman in this way admits that it is possible to make the writing of philosophy more experiential through literary means, it is striking that he does not seem to be as interested in this implication of a somaesthetic approach to philosophy. despite his insistence on the need to break with “philosophy’s institutionalized confinements,” it is thus suggestive that shusterman has not shown any interest in making his own writing more “experiential” and seems to prefer to stick to “the crisper, more lineary style of argument characteristic of the ordinary language analytic philosophy” (170) that he was introduced to in his formative years as a philosopher. at times, he even seems to operate with a dualism between the “conceptual” and the “experiential” that makes it virtually impossible for him to do so. this seems, for example, to be the case when he criticizes philosophy for being “essentially conceptual rather than experiential” (114), because it focuses on “verbal arguments” rather than “lived perceptual experience” (141) or the “nonpropositional, nondiscursive dimension of experience.” (176) a similar dualism also seems to be operative when he says that somaesthetics can be seen as a way of “reminding contemporary readers that philosophy could and should be practiced with one’s body rather than being confined to “the life of the mind,” as well as when he claims that “the most convincing demonstrations of this truth are not in verbal arguments, but in lived perceptual experience.” (141). although i do not think that shusterman, in the end, subscribes to such dualisms between “mind” and “body” or the “verbal” and “lived perceptual experience,” the dualistic implications of his expressions are extremely unfortunate in so far as one of the main purposes of somaeshetics is precisely to overcome such dualisms. fortunately, however, there are resources in the writings of shusterman’s own primary source of inspiration, dewey, for developing a non-dualistic understanding of the experiential dimension of the reading and writing of philosophy texts that may provide valuable inspiration for the somaesthetic attempt not only to reconceptualize the relationship between philosophy and the esthetic, but also to change the way philosophy is written and read. although the question of the esthetic or experiential dimension of philosophizing seems to have occupied dewey from early on, his most mature and developed thoughts about the subject are to be found in his main work on esthetics, art as experience. in this work, dewey thus not only states that “philosophy, like art, moves in the medium of imaginative mind,” but also talks about “genuine artistry in … philosophical speculation” just as he claims that “an experience of thinking has its own esthetic quality” and criticizes the idea “that scientists and philosophers think while poets and painters follow their feelings,” because he is convinced that “there is emotionalized thinking” in both “to the same extent in the degree in which they are of comparable rank.”7 so, in art as experience, dewey treats philosophizing – the reading and writing of philosophy texts – as an esthetic experience, and although shusterman never really seems to have delved into these thoughts about philosophy as an esthetic experience, the many scattered remarks about the esthetic dimension in philosophizing to be found primarily in art as experience (but also elsewhere) seems, when put together, to add up to a full-blown, non-dualistic picture of philosophizing as an esthetic experience, which may be able to provide valuable inspiration for the somaesthetic attempt to change the way philosophy is written and read.8 that is, at least, the main claim of this paper, which will try to substantiate it in the following way. the first section presents dewey’s 7 john dewey, art as experience, (new york: perigee books, 2005), p. 309, p. 39 & p. 76 8 although to my knowledge, shusterman has not written in detail about dewey’s conception of philosophizing as an esthetic experience, he is clearly aware of it as evidenced, for example, by shusterman 2000b, p. 22 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects9 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception conception of esthetic experience as it figures in art as experience. with this in place, the second section then examines the precise sense in which dewey took philosophizing to represent a form of esthetic experience, before the third section, finally, discusses what implications dewey’s conception of philosophizing as an esthetic experience may have for the somaesthetic attempt to change the practice of “teaching, reading and writing texts” in philosophy. esthetic experience as the title art as experience indicates, dewey’s thinking about art and the esthetic is rooted in his conception of experience. this conception deviates from traditional empiricist understandings of experience because it does not primarily designate anything peculiarly subjective, but instead comes very close to the idea of life itself as dewey understands it. in art as experience, for example, dewey explicitly states that “the nature of experience is determined by the essential conditions of life,” just as he emphasizes the need to mention a number of “biological common places” if one wants to get at “the basic vital roots” of experience.9 the way in which dewey links his conception of experience closely with the idea of life itself becomes clear the moment one takes a look at this conception. as he explains in art as experience, the most basic element in this conception is that experience is something that comes about through “interaction of organism and environment” (22). the use of the terms “organism” and “environment” here clearly indicates the way in which dewey relates experience to embodied, biological life, and the same point comes through when he argues that “experience occurs continuously, because the interaction of live creature and environing conditions is involved in the very process of living” (36). so, experience, as dewey understands it, occurs constantly because the interaction between organism and environment that defines experience occurs as long as life continues. although the conception of experience as an interaction between organism and environment is described from the perspective of a bystander looking at the interaction from the outside, dewey also gives a description of experience from the point of view of the organism itself. from this perspective, experience can, according to dewey, be said to consist in a constant alteration “between doing and undergoing” (49) in the sense that the organism, first, does something to the environment, and then undergoes something because of this doing. when i eat, for example, i do something: i take something in my environment and put it into my mouth. because of this doing, however, i also undergo something: i feel, perhaps, the texture of the food in my mouth and experience some kind of flavor. in a similar way, when i read a book, first, i do something: i open the book and direct my eyes toward the first couple of words. then, i undergo something: i experience that the words make sense, that they sound good and so on. from the perspective of the organism, experience is thus an indefinite series of such doings and undergoings. the organism implicated in such doings and undergoings may, however, relate to these in different ways. on one hand, the organism may perceive the relation between the different doings and undergoings. on the other hand, it is also possible that the organism does not perceive the relation between them. william james’ classic example of a child that reaches out to touch a fascinating, flickering flame provides a good illustration of the distinction.10 first, the child does something in the sense that it reaches out to touch the flame, and then it undergoes something in the sense that it experiences a painful burn. if the child does not perceive or realize 9 john dewey, art as experience, (new york: perigee books, 2005), p. 12, p. 13 & p. 20. the biological roots of experience are also discussed in john dewey, experience and nature (new york: dover publications, 2000), p. 8 and in john dewey, logic: the theory of inquiry (new york: henry holt & co, 1938), pp. 23-41 10 william james, the principles of psychology vol. 1 (new york: dover publications, 1950), p. 25 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 10 martin ejsing christensen the relation between the doing (reaching out to touch the flame) and the undergoing (a painful burn), it will, as dewey sees it, not understand that the undergoing is a consequence of its own doing and therefore not learn that it is painful to touch flames. the next time it sees a fascinating flickering flame, it will probably just reach out to touch it again and undergo the same painful burn. if the child instead perceives the relation between its doing and undergoing, however, it will understand that the undergoing is a consequence of its own doing and learn that it is painful to touch a flame. the next time it sees a fascinating, flickering flame, it will, accordingly, probably inhibit the spontaneous impulse to touch it and instead be more circumspect in relation to flames. in art as experience, dewey uses the distinction between these two ways of relating to what is done and what is undergone to define two concepts that play an important role in his understanding of esthetic experience. first, he uses it to define the idea of intelligence. as he sees it, “perception of what is done and what is undergone” thus “constitutes the work of intelligence” (47). so, the child that did not perceive the relation between its doing (reaching for the flame) and the undergoing (the painful experience of being burned) is, as dewey uses the term, less intelligent than the child who did perceive the relation. in addition to intelligence, dewey also uses the distinction to define the closely related concept of meaning. as he explains in art as experience, he believes that “the consequences undergone because of doing are incorporated as the meaning of subsequent doings because the relation between doing and undergoing is perceived.” (65) when the child perceives the relation between its act of touching the flame and the painful burn that results from the act of touching, both the doing and undergoing gains meaning, as dewey sees it. instead of the flame just meaning a fascinating colorful thing, it now gains the meaning of something that may burn and hurt. at the same time, the act of reaching out for the flame also gains new meaning. instead of being a joyful attempt to get in touch with something fascinating, it becomes a dangerous attempt to play with fire. so, perception of the relation between doing and undergoing does not just define intelligence, but also gives meaning to the acts of the organism as well as the objects of the environment. in this way, as dewey sees it, the original, biological body becomes “the living, sensing, dynamic, perceptive, purposive body” (47) of somaesthetics. for it is through such intelligent interaction with its natural and cultural environment that the organism not only learns what things and acts mean, but also gradually builds up a whole stock of meanings (habits), which makes it possible for it to understand, perceive, and intend things. a look at dewey’s most succinct definition of esthetic experience may explain why the ideas of intelligence and meaning play such an important role in his understanding of esthetic experience. as he puts it in one place in art as experience, esthetic experience is defined by the fact that “what is done and what is undergone are … reciprocally, cumulatively, and continuously instrumental to each other” (52). it is probably easiest to understand this idea by means of a concrete example, and because dewey himself refers to matisse at some point (141), let us imagine matisse in front of his canvas getting ready to paint, say, le bonheur de vivre (joy of life). first, he does something. he dips his brush in red paint and places a first brushstroke somewhere on the canvas. then he undergoes something. he sees the red brushstroke there on the canvas surrounded by the background color. then he places a second brushstroke next to the first one and undergoes the experience of two red brushstrokes next to each other, and so on throughout the whole process with different colors and brushstrokes. if this process has to qualify as an esthetic experience, the first condition that has to be satisfied according to dewey’s definition is that “what is done and what is undergone … are instrumental to each other.” by somaesthetics and its nordic aspects11 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception this dewey simply means that they should control each other or be a means to each other. what matisse undergoes after the first red brushstroke should thus be the experience of the red color there on the canvas and not the sound of a dog barking outside his window or the pleasant memory of last night’s party. and this controlling relation should, as dewey’s definition puts it, be “reciprocal” and go both ways in the sense that the red color on the canvas that matisse experiences as a consequence of the first brushstroke should control his second brushstroke and influence what color it has, where he places it, and so on. and this “reciprocally instrumental” relation between the different doings and undergoings should hold “continuously” throughout the process, according to dewey’s definition. so, it is not enough if it holds, say, only between the first 1,000 doings and undergoings but not between the last 1,000. finally, the continuously and reciprocally instrumental relation between what is done and undergone should also be “cumulative.” this means, as dewey explains by reference to the etymology of “cumulative,” that there should be a “heaping up” or “massing” throughout the process in the sense that the, say, ninth brushstroke should not just be controlled by the experience of the consequences of the eighth brushstroke, but should be controlled by everything that has gone before, just as the tenth brushstroke should be controlled by everything that has gone before it. in this way, the experience will have a direction and move toward some culminating whole or end, which dewey takes to be a defining feature of esthetic experience. the previous explication of dewey’s definition of an esthetic experience has taken as its starting point the idea of experience as a long series of different doings and undergoings. sometimes, however, dewey also treats an experience as consisting of just one undergoing and doing. when looked at this way, an esthetic experience begins when a person undergoes an “inner vision” (279) or “inspiration” (68), which then leads to the production of a work of art through an act of expression. as dewey sees it, however, such a process always begins with an “inchoate” (68) or vague idea (in the case of matisse, his first idea of the joy of life). this initial vision then prompts the person to do something (matisse places the first brushstroke on the canvas). the person then undergoes the consequences of the doing (matisse experiences the red color on the canvas), which then modifies the original idea or inspiration, before this idea then prompts the next doing and so on throughout the whole process. although this constitutes a slightly different perspective on esthetic experience, it still fulfills the conditions laid down in dewey’s definition of esthetic experience. here, the relation between the initial, inchoate idea, or inspiration, and the outer work can be said to be “reciprocally, cumulatively, and continuously instrumental to each other” (52). the initial, vague idea controls the first act of expression. the work done then controls the modification of the idea. the modified idea then controls the next act of expression and so on, back and forth continuously throughout the process until it culminates in a fully worked-out idea and a finished work of art.11 although the previous elucidation has used the activity of an artist like matisse to illustrate dewey’s idea of esthetic experience, it is important to notice that dewey does not limit the idea to creative artists like matisse, but extends it to “the perceiver and appreciator” (54) as well. as he puts it in one place, he thus believes that “what is true of original production is true of 11 because dewey, in this way, takes an esthetic experience to begin with a vague idea that is gradually worked out, he can also claim that “the unexpected turn, something which the artist himself does not definitely foresee, is a condition of the felicitous quality of a work of art” (145), just as he can say that the esthetic is to be found “between the poles of aimlessness and mechanical efficiency” (40) or “caprice” and “routine” (51). in art as experience he also claims that esthetic experience is characterized by a special immanent relation between “means and ends” ( 204-5); “the practical, emotional, and intellectual” (56); “the past, present and future” (127 & 183); and “all the senses” , which he sums up by describing esthetic experience as “imaginative experience” (279), where the imaginative “designates a quality that animates and pervades all processes of making and observation” in so far as “it is a way of seeing and feeling things as they compose an integral whole.” (278) i will not, however, go further into these ideas here. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 12 martin ejsing christensen appreciative perception” (184) in the sense that both activities have to fulfill the same conditions if they are to qualify as esthetic experiences. just as with the creative artist, the creative perceiver or appreciator of a work of art like matisse’s joy of life will, as dewey sees it, begin the experience with “a first total, unanalyzed qualitative impression” (311), which will then guide his or her activity of looking, and it is only if the perceiver, on this basis, manages to have an experience where all of the different doings and undergoings that make up the activity of looking at matisse’s joy of life are “reciprocally, cumulatively and continuously instrumental” to each other that the activity will qualify as an esthetic experience. it is, of course, still possible to distinguish between “the artistic” as something that “refers primarily to the act of production” and “the esthetic” as something that refers to “perception and enjoyment” (48), but then it only designates a difference of content and not a difference of structure, as dewey sees it. when painting the joy of life, matisse is obviously doing something different than the one who perceives it afterward, because he is handling brushes and paint, whereas the perceiver is moving his eyes and body. but in so far as they both have an esthetic experience, the relation between their different doings and undergoings will, according to dewey, be similar because it will be “reciprocally, cumulatively and continuously instrumental.” as this idea of esthetic experience suggests, it is possible for different experiences to fulfill these conditions to different degrees depending on the extent to which what is done and what is undergone are “reciprocally, cumulatively and continuously instrumental to each other,” and in art as experience, dewey introduces a rough distinction between experiences having “esthetic quality” (57) and “distinctively” (57) or “peculiarly and dominantly esthetic” (58) experiences in order to differentiate between those experiences that fulfill the conditions to some extent and those that do it to a high degree. if an experience has “esthetic quality,” it is, as dewey sees it, because it fulfills the conditions for an esthetic experience to some degree, whereas a “distinctively esthetic experience” is one that fulfills the conditions to a high degree. the distinction between experiences having “esthetic quality” and “distinctively esthetic experiences” is, however, just a rough one because is possible for different experiences to fulfill the conditions for an esthetic experience to all kinds of degrees. it is so important for dewey to emphasize that the esthetic is a matter of degree because he is critical of traditional attempts to make a sharp separation between “fine art” and “ordinary experience” (4). this critical attitude is founded on his conviction that the “customary distinction [“between fine art and useful or technological art” or “ordinary experience”] is based simply on acceptance of certain existing social relations” (27). as dewey sees it, it is, thus, solely social conditions that have decided that some activities (say painting) have been allowed to fulfill the conditions that define an esthetic experience to a high degree, whereas an activity like masonry, say, has been reduced to a rather monotonous line of work. his belief in the social relativity of the distinction between fine art and ordinary experience is in fact so deep that it can be said to motivate the whole of art as experience’s attempt to rethink the idea of esthetic experience. as dewey himself puts it in the introductory chapter, the whole point of the book’s basic idea of continuity between esthetic and ordinary experience is thus to make it possible to “explain how and why” “artistic and esthetic quality” “so generally fails to become explicit” despite the fact that it is “implicit in every normal experience” (11). in this sense, the purpose of dewey’s idea of esthetic experience is not only to allow the reader “to indicate the factors and forces that favor the normal development of common human activities into matters of artistic value,” but also “to point out those conditions that arrest its normal growth” (10), and, as the next section will demonstrate, one of those common human activities that dewey took to have the potential to somaesthetics and its nordic aspects13 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception develop “into matters of artistic value” is the activity of philosophizing. philosophizing as an esthetic experience that dewey takes philosophizing to be one of the kind of experiences that has a potential to develop “into matters of artistic value” is something he states explicitly in a number of places in art as experience. in one place, he simply states that “an experience of thinking has its own esthetic quality” (39), whereas elsewhere he claims that the way in which thinking orders “a variety of meanings so that they move to a conclusion that all support and in which all are summed up and conserved” is “the essence of fine art” (179). in other places he similarly claims that “philosophy, like art, moves in the medium of imagination” (309), just as he emphasizes the possibility of “genuine artistry in scientific inquiry and philosophic speculation” (125). so, there can be no doubt that the activity of philosophizing is one of the activities that dewey took to have the potential to develop “into matters of artistic value.” but how, exactly, does he see philosophy as an experience with (at least) esthetic quality?12 at the most general level, dewey thinks that an experience of thinking has esthetic quality because it fulfills the general conditions for an esthetic experience. when one has an experience of thinking, what is done and what is undergone are thus “reciprocally, cumulatively, and continuously instrumental to each other” (52). although dewey takes this idea to apply to the “artistic” philosopher who creates a work of philosophy, as well as the “esthetic” reader who reads it, it is probably easiest to understand in relation to the reader of a work of philosophy. as dewey sees it, philosophical ideas and arguments are, in a sense, works of art, just like a painting by matisse. in experience and nature, he thus states that “the idea is, in short, art and a work of art.”13 and just as he thinks that the real work of art is not the physical painting by matisse hanging on the wall, but the esthetic experience that is called forth when an encultured person interacts with it, he also thinks that it is the experience called forth by the definition of an idea or the presentation of an argument that is the real experience of thinking, and not the words in themselves. in art as experience, he explains this idea in relation to an argument as follows: we say of an experience of thinking that we reach or draw a conclusion. theoretical formulation of the process is often made in such terms as to conceal effectually the similarity of “conclusion” to the consummating phase of every developing integral experience. these formulations apparently take their cue from separate propositions that are premises and the proposition that is the conclusion as they appear on the printed page. the impression is derived that there are first two independent and ready-made entities that are then manipulated so as to give rise to a third. in fact, in an experience of thinking, premises emerge only as a conclusion becomes manifest. the experience, like that of watching a storm reach its height 12 although dewey clearly insists that philosophizing may have “esthetic quality,” it is less clear if he thinks it may constitute a “peculiarly and dominantly esthetic experience.” sometimes he seems to suggest that it may, in so far as he seems to claim that the only difference between philosophy and those activities that are traditionally recognized as the fine arts is material. thus: “an experience of thinking has its own esthetic quality. it differs from those experiences that are acknowledged to be esthetic, but only in its materials. the material of the fine arts consists of qualities; that of experience having intellectual conclusion are signs or symbols having no intrinsic quality of their own, but standing for things that may in another experience be qualitatively experienced” (39). at other times, however, he seems to suggest that the difference is not just material but also formal in a sense that the formal has to do with the purpose that drives an activity. thus: “nevertheless, the experiences in question are dominantly intellectual or practical rather than distinctively esthetic, because of the interest and purpose that initiate and control them” ( 57). although precisely what he means by this is an important question, i will not pursue it here, but limit myself to the more modest claim that philosophizing at least has esthetic quality. the relation between philosophy and literature is also discussed by shusterman in relation to rorty and habermas in shusterman 1997, pp. 113-129 13 john dewey, experience and nature (new york: dover publications, 2000), p. 371 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 14 martin ejsing christensen and gradually subside, is one of continuous movement of subject-matters. like the ocean in the storm, there are a series of waves; suggestions reaching out and being broken in a clash, or being carried onwards by a cooperative wave. if a conclusion is reached, it is that of a movement of anticipation and cumulation, one that finally comes to a completion. a “conclusion” is no separate and independent thing; it is the consummation of a movement (39). as this passage makes clear, dewey equates the conclusion of an argument with “the consummating phase of every developing integral experience.” it corresponds, in short, to the culmination of an esthetic experience or, at least, an experience with esthetic quality. the thought is as follows. if one reads an argument printed on a page, one does something: one directs one’s eyes toward the first line/premise. then one undergoes something in the sense that one experiences some kind of meaning. this experience of meaning is, as dewey sees it, a product of the interaction between the printed signs on the page and the embodied meanings/habits that one has acquired through one’s previous experience with such signs. the meaning attributed to the first premise then automatically creates an expectation of what the next premise/sentence will be about because it leads one to expect that it will be about something that is related to and relevant to the first premise. if the experience is a real experience of thinking, however, the meaning attributed to the first premise will be only a tentative suggestion so that, when one does something again and moves one’s eyes toward the second sentence/premise, it is perfectly possible that it does not correspond to the anticipation or expectation that was set up by the meaning attributed to the first premise. instead of “being carried onward by a cooperative wave,” it is thus possible that the suggestions will be “broken in a clash.” of course, this may just be because it is a bad argument, but it may also be because the meaning assigned to the first premise was premature and inappropriate. if the second premise thwarts the expectation created by the meaning assigned to the first premise, it may then lead to a revision of the meaning originally assigned to the first premise, and similarly, if one moves on to the conclusion. even if one feels that the reinterpretation of the two premises have made them fit together and carry one’s thinking “onwards by a cooperative wave,” they may then clash with the meaning spontaneously assigned to the conclusion and start a similar process of revision all over again. in this sense, as dewey sees it, the premises and the conclusions in a real experience of thinking are reciprocally, continuously, and cumulatively instrumental to each other in so far as one’s understanding of the premises is informed by one’s understanding of the conclusion, just as much as one’s understanding of the conclusion is informed by one’s understanding of the premises, and this process of mutual adjustment continues throughout the experience until it culminates in the acceptance or rejection of the argument. in this way, as dewey puts it, a conclusion is thus “no separate and independent thing,” but “the consummation of a movement” of thinking, in the same way that the physical painting by matisse is not the real work of art, but the consummation, culmination, or conclusion of a movement or experience of painting or looking. the same idea of an experience of thinking as having esthetic quality applies, as already mentioned, to the thinking of a single idea just as much as to the thinking of an argument. because dewey, in the passage from experience and nature, in which he refers to ideas as works of art, specifically refers to the idea of art itself as a work of art, his own idea of art may be used to illustrate this idea. as i have presented it, the essence of dewey’s idea of art is that “what is done and what is undergone are … reciprocally, cumulatively and continuously instrumental to each other” (52). this idea is, as dewey sees it, itself a work of art in so far as it, like a painting by matisse, is the product of an experience that fulfills the conditions defining an esthetic somaesthetics and its nordic aspects15 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception experience and is capable of eliciting the same kind of experience when a suitably encultured organism interacts with it. just like the person who looks at a painting by matisse has to connect the different parts of the painting with each other, the person who tries to understand dewey’s idea thus has to relate the different parts of the idea to each other: the idea of doing, the idea of undergoing, the idea of instrumentality, the idea of reciprocality, the idea of continuity, and the idea of cumulation. and for the person who encounters dewey’s idea of art for the first time, there will, just as with an argument, probably be a continuous movement back and forth between the different ideas before the experience finally culminates in a real understanding of dewey’s idea of art. so, as dewey sees it, an experience of thinking has its own esthetic quality, because such an experience – no matter whether it deals with a single idea or an extended argument and no matter whether one is “artistically” creating them or “esthetically” perceiving them – is structured in such a way that “what is done and what is undergone … is reciprocally, cumulatively and continuously instrumental to each other.” it may seem surprising that dewey in this way treats philosophizing as a form of esthetic experience, but in art as experience, he applies precisely the same ideas to philosophizing as to esthetic experience in general. just as he claims that esthetic experience is imaginative experience, he thus insists that philosophizing depends on the imagination. inspired by the english romantic poet john keats, he claims that: even “the greatest philosopher” exercises an animal-like preference to guide his thinking to its conclusions. he selects and puts aside as his imaginative sentiments move. “reason” at its height cannot attain complete grasp and a self-contained assurance. it must fall back upon imagination – upon the embodiment of ideas in emotionally charged sense. (34) as this passage makes clear, dewey takes a real experience of philosophical thinking to share the same imaginative quality that characterizes all forms of esthetic experience. similarly, he also takes an experience of thinking to be creatively inspired in the same way as other forms of esthetic experience. this is how he puts it in one place in art as experience: persons who are conventionally set off from artists, “thinkers,” scientists, do not operate by conscious wit and will to anything like the extent popularly supposed. they, too, press forward toward some end dimly and imprecisely prefigured, groping their way as they are lured on by the identity of an aura in which their observations and reflections swim. only the psychology that has separated things which in reality belong together holds that scientists and philosophers think while poets and painters follow their feelings. in both, and to the same extent in the degree in which they are of comparable rank, there is emotionalized thinking and there are feelings whose substance consists of appreciated meanings or ideas. (77) as dewey suggests here, an experience of thinking begins with the undergoing of a vague idea of something that one wants to express or think through (“some end dimly and imprecisely figured”) whose “aura” then guides the philosopher’s creation of an idea or argument in such a way that both the original idea and its expression in words (written or verbal) gradually form each other through an experience of thinking characterized by a reciprocally, cumulatively, and the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 16 martin ejsing christensen continuously instrumental relationship between what is done and what is undergone.14 the quoted passage also reveals that dewey takes philosophizing as breaking with a rigid distinction between the practical, the emotional, and the intellectual in the same way that he takes all forms of esthetic experience to do. as he points out, he thus believes that “there is emotionalized thinking” and “feelings whose substance consists of appreciated meanings and ideas” to the same extent in philosophy and in conventionally recognized forms of art, like poetry and painting. so, as dewey sees it, the conventional picture of philosophy as purely intellectual or abstract, having to do only with reason as opposed to emotions, is deeply flawed. dewey takes the ability to feel to be so important in philosophy because he is convinced that a philosopher has to have a bodily rooted “feel” for his materials in the same way that any artist, whether a painter or a sculptor, needs a “feel” for his or her material. as he puts it in one place: it is quite true that certain things, namely ideas, exercise a mediating function. but only a twisted and aborted logic can hold that because something is mediated it cannot, therefore, be immediately experienced. the reverse is the case. we cannot grasp any idea, any organ of mediation, we cannot possess it in its full force, until we have felt and sensed it, as much so as it were an odor or a color. (124) so, just as a painter needs a certain “feel” for colors – an immediate experience of their meaning – ideas have to be “felt and sensed” by a philosopher if an experience of thinking is to occur. that the importance of feeling in philosophy is not generally recognized, dewey seems to suggest, is partly because it is difficult for outsiders to understand, since they cannot help but experience philosophical ideas as “signs or symbols having no intrinsic quality of their own, but standing for things that may in another experience be qualitatively experienced” (39). the case is different, however, for the thinker who has had intense experiences philosophizing. as dewey points out: those who are especially addicted to thinking as an occupation are aware when they observe the processes of thought, instead of determining by dialectic what they must be, that immediate feeling is not limited in its scope. different ideas have their different “feels,” their immediate qualitative aspects, just as much as anything else. one who is thinking his way through a complicated problem finds direction on his way by means of this property of ideas. their qualities stop him when he enters the wrong path and send him ahead when he hits the right one. they are signs of an intellectual “stop and go.” (124) so, those who know the art of philosophizing from the inside are aware that it is guided by the immediate, qualitative feel of certain ideas, just as all other forms of art are guided by a feel for their peculiar material. and just as dewey takes such a feel to be necessary if an experience is to take on esthetic quality within all other fields, he also takes it to be necessary within philosophy. as he puts it:: whenever an idea loses its immediate felt quality, it ceases to be an idea and becomes, like an algebraic symbol, a mere stimulus to execute an operation without the need of thinking. for this reason certain trains of ideas leading to their appropriate consummation (or conclusion) are beautiful or elegant. they have 14 dewey also expresses the same idea in a slightly different way by saying that “the beginning of a new idea, terminating perhaps in an elaborate judgment following upon extensive inquiry, is an impression, even in the case of a scientific man or philosopher” (317). somaesthetics and its nordic aspects17 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception esthetic character. in reflection it is often necessary to make a distinction between matters of sense and matters of thought. but the distinction does not exist in all modes of experience. when there is genuine artistry in scientific inquiry and philosophic speculation, a thinker proceeds neither by rule nor yet blindly, but by means of meanings that exist immediately as feelings having qualitative color. (124-125) so, as dewey sees it, in the end it is the qualitative feel of certain ideas and the sense for such “feel” that conditions the presence of “genuine artistry” or “esthetic character” in an experience of thinking, because it is the guidance provided by them that makes it possible for the thinker to proceed “neither by rule nor yet blindly” and thus avoid the two extremes that he takes to delimit the esthetic in experience. but in what way may such a conception of philosophizing as esthetic experience be able to contribute to the field of somaesthetics? that is what the next section will explore. somaesthetic lessons shusterman defines somaesthetics as being “concerned with the critical study and meliorative cultivation of how we experience and use the living body (or soma) as a site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning.”15 as this summary description indicates, somaesthetics has both a theoretical (“critical study”) and practical side (“meliorative cultivation”), because it studies not only the role of “the living, feeling, sentient body” in experience theoretically, but also tries to come up with and implement practical ways of “improving specific somatic skills of performance” by means of increased “somatic understanding and awareness.16 given this understanding of somaesthetics, it is clear that dewey’s understanding of philosophizing as an esthetic experience, which is deeply rooted in the interaction between an encultured body and its environment, can be seen as a theoretical contribution to somaesthetics. more importantly, i also think that it is able to go beyond the purely theoretical and contribute practically to the somaesthetic task of “improving specific somatic skills of performance.” implicitly, dewey’s conception of philosophizing as an esthetic experience thus points to a number of ways in which the activity of philosophizing – for example, when philosophy students read philosophy texts – may be improved by means of increased “somatic understanding and awareness.” to appreciate this idea, it is important to understand how central dewey thinks the body is even in a supposedly intellectual activity like reading a philosophy book. as explained previously, dewey thinks that an experience of thinking depends on a certain “feel” for specific ideas. but as dewey sees it, these feelings are deeply rooted in the body. this becomes especially clear in experience and nature’s seventh chapter on “nature, life and body–mind,” where dewey explains the bodily rootedness of ideas as follows: when i think such meanings as “friend” and “enemy,” i refer to external and eventual consequences. but this naming does not involve miraculous “action at a distance.” there is something present in organic action which acts as a surrogate for the remote things signified. the words make immediate sense as well as have significance. this something now present is not just the activity of the laryngeal 15 shusterman 2008, p. 1. 16 richard shusterman, “body and the arts: the need for somaesthetics” in diogenes, 59 (1-2), 2013, p. 16. there shusterman also explains his distinction between analytic, pragmatic and practical somaesthetics the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 18 martin ejsing christensen and vocal apparatus. when shortcircuiting through language is carried as far as limitation to this apparatus, words are mere counters automatically used, and language disappears. the ideas are qualities of events in which all the parts of organic structure which have ever been implicated in actual situations of concern with extra-organic friends and enemies: presumably in proprio-receptors and organ-receptors with all their connected glandular and muscular mechanisms. these qualities give body and stuff to the activity of the linguistic apparatus.17 so, as dewey sees it, the meanings that certain ideas – whether the ideas of “friend” and “enemy” or “experience” and “nature,” for example – possess for a specific person “are qualities of events in which all parts of organic structure which have ever been implicated in actual situations of concern” with the things that the words or ideas designate. in this sense meaning is, according to dewey, a bodily affair of “glandular and muscular mechanisms” and “proprioreceptors and organ-receptors.” the feel for ideas that guides thinking is thus deeply rooted in the body, according to dewey, and the significance of this for an activity like reading is tremendous. for, as dewey goes on to explain in the next chapter on “existence, ideas and consciousness,” even “our most highly intellectualized operations” depend on the “immense multitude of immediate organic selections, rejections, welcomings, expulsions, appropriations, withdrawals, shrinkings, expansions, elations and dejections, attacks, wardings off, of the most minute, vibratingly delicate nature” that constitute the organic substratum of thinking (299). when it comes to “reading a book” (306), for example, it is thus the case that, if “a reader” does not repeat “something of these organic movements, and thus “gets” their qualities, he does not get the sense of what is said; he does not really assent, even though he gives cold approbation” (300). so, as dewey sees it, a process like that of reading a philosophical text is in this sense deeply rooted in a multitude of minute, organic movements. based on the meanings that have been deposited in one’s body through previous engagement in “actual situations of concern” with the things that the ideas refer to, certain organic movements (and meanings) are automatically activated the next time one encounters similar signs on a page. provided that the activity is running smoothly and one understands the text, there is of course no need to pay any attention to these minute “organic movements,” which are then better left in the background. unfortunately, however, “the act of taking which enables dialectic [reading] to exist or occur” is not always successful in so far as “taking is fallible” and, as such, “often mis-taking” (287). for philosophy students, for example, who have to read complex and abstract (historical) texts, it is thus a fact that they often have a hard time understanding or making sense of the texts that they read. of course, there are many reasons why this is so, but from a deweyan perspective they will, in the end, always be rooted in bodily movements. as he explains in experience and nature, understanding may thus … flag because of fatigue; it may take one meaning for another because of perverse sensory appreciations, due to organic maladjustment; haste, due to absence of inhibition, may lead one to take a meaning to be clear when it is cloudy or ambiguous with respect to the purpose for which it is used, although in itself it is neither clear nor obscure. (288) so, all of these ways of mistaking or misunderstanding a text are, according to dewey, rooted in organic conditions such as “fatigue,” “perverse sensory appreciations,” “organic 17 john dewey, experience and nature (new york: dover publications, 2000), p. 292 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects19 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception maladjustment,” and “absence of inhibition;” when such mistakings occur, it becomes, as he explains, a substantial problem that “we are not aware of the qualities of many or most of ” those organic movements that condition our understanding in so far as “we do not objectively distinguish and identify them” even though they “exist as feeling qualities, and have an enormous directive effect on our behavior” (299). and the reason why it is such a problem that we are not aware of these organic movements is that we, then, cannot adjust or change them in such a way that we can move from misunderstanding and mistaking to understanding and an experience of thinking. so, just as with someone who is unable to “stand” or control his “posture and movements” (299), the solution for someone who cannot understand a philosophy text is, as dewey sees it, to strengthen “the plane of conscious control, the direction of action by perception of connections” (296). but how could one strengthen the plane of conscious control so that philosophy students, for example, will perform better when reading philosophy texts? of course, one way to do this is through theoretical lectures on philosophizing as an esthetic experience, which might change the way in which students approach this type of text.18 but that would still be a very theoretical intervention. practically, one of the most important things would probably be to teach them to slow down when reading. from a deweyan perspective, reading is a bodily activity that takes time in so far as it not only involves eye movements, turning pages, and so on, but also constant activation of the embodied habits that are responsible for the meaning ascribed to individual words.19 if students are to become more aware of this process, they need to slow down so that they become able to pay more attention to it. this also seems to be implied by dewey’s suggestion that “haste, due to absence of inhibition, may lead one to take a meaning to be clear when it is cloudy or ambiguous.”20 the all-importance of slowness when reading philosophy texts has recently been emphasized by michelle bolous walker in her slow philosophy: reading against the institution, where she suggests that slowness is a precondition of appreciating philosophy texts in exactly the same way as eating slowly may be a precondition of appreciating food. as walker describes it, many students come to philosophy with reading habits formed outside philosophy, where they have developed “superficial skimming techniques … online” that make them “ill-equipped” for philosophy, because they simply lack “the basic skills of concentrated attention, uninterrupted thinking and receptivity” that philosophy demands.21 according to walker, this situation is exacerbated further by the institutional setting of philosophy. as she explains, drawing on pierre hadot and others, the institution of philosophy was originally inspired by the ancient idea of philosophy as “a way of life that binds the philosopher to philosophy” or as a “love of wisdom” that “inaugurate a transformative relation” (2). gradually, however, this original idea has been replaced by the idea of philosophy as a “forensic desire to know” (1), which, as walker sees it, has had profound effects on philosophical reading habits because it has encouraged a “cult of speed and haste” (10) guided by images of reading as “‘information extraction” or “mining’” (18) that positively prevent the practice of philosophizing as “a slow and repetitive art” (21) 18 in a similar way, one could also make students aware of the fact that philosophers write within many different genres, as has been emphasized by berel lang in the anatomy of philosophical style (oxford: basil blackwell, 1990), pp. 9-44 or make them read some of the essay in an anthology like costica bradatan (ed.), philosophy as a literary art: making things up (london: routledge, 2015) 19 here dewey is in line with siri hustvedt who in her living, thinking, looking: essays (new york: picador, 2012), p. 134 claims that ”the act of reading takes place in human time; in the time of the body, and it partakes of the body’s rhythms, of heartbeat and breath, of the movement of our ideas, and of our fingers that turn the pages, but we do not pay particular attention to any of this.” 20 this fits in well with shusterman’s analysis of thoreau in shusterman 2012, p. 297, according to which “slowness is another method thoreau recommends for heightened awareness.” 21 michelle b. walker, slow philosophy: reading against the institution (london: bloomsbury academic, 2017), p. 13 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 20 martin ejsing christensen of reading that “grounds thought in the body, in experience” (29). the question which these considerations lead walker to raise, and which i think dewey’s thinking about philosophizing as an esthetic experience also raises, is if there are “ways, then, that we can, as teachers of philosophy, welcome our students into an ethical community of readers” and teach them “what it means to read philosophy slowly and patiently” (22). i will not go further into walker’s own positive suggestions (which she develops through slow reading of other philosophers) here, but rather take my cue from a suggestion that she makes and then develop it in a deweyan way. walkers suggests that teachers could help students learn how to read slowly by making “slow reading exercises a standard part of the curriculum” (14). but how could one go about introducing such exercises into the curriculum in a deweyinspired way? here i draw on a personal example.22 a year ago i gave an introductory lecture on phenomenology to a class of roughly 40 first-year philosophy students. as part of their preparation for the lecture, the students had been asked to read a number of introductory texts about phenomenology. one of these was the text “phenomenology and psychology” by the danish phenomenologist løgstrup; another was merleau ponty’s famous “what is phenomenology?” preface to his phenomenology of perception. the lecture lasted three hours and began in a quite traditional way in so far as i first gave a general introduction to some of the key concepts in phenomenology (such as phenomenon, subject, lifeworld, intentionality, epoché, reduction, and so on), and then went on to say a bit about how these ideas figure in merleau-ponty’s dense text. next, however, i projected a powerpoint with a difficult excerpt from merleau-ponty’s text23 and suggested to the students that i would like to use it as a reading exercise. then, i read it slowly to them aloud before i suggested that they should go over the passage, two and two together, and see if they (with the background understanding of phenomenology that i had given them) could make sense of the whole passage. i also emphasized that i thought it was a difficult passage even for me, while i pointed out that they would have plenty of time to do the exercise (i had reserved 45 minutes for it). then the students started reading and arguing with each other, and after approximately 25 minutes, i asked if anyone was willing to hazard an interpretation of the first couple of sentences or even of the whole passage. several students were willing to do so, and we then went through the whole passage word by word and line by line. each time a student suggested an interpretation that was able to make sense of some parts of a sentence but not all, i asked how they would make sense of the rest of the sentence or passage and, in this way, we collectively/collaboratively finally managed to make sense of the whole passage (or so we 22 while the example is personal and inspired by dewey’s thoughts about philosophizing as an esthetic experience similar exercises have also been suggested by university didacticians. see for example john c. beane, engaging ideas: the professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking and active learning in the classroom (san francisco, john wiley & sons, 2011, pp. 133-148 23 the relevant passage can be found in maurice merleau-ponty, phenomenology of perception, (london: routledge, 2002), pp. xiii–xiv, where merleau-ponty explains that “for husserl, on the contrary, it is well known that there is a problem of other people, and the alter ego is a paradox. if the other is truly for himself alone, beyond his being for me, and if we are for each other and not both for god, we must necessarily have some appearance for each other. he must and i must have an outer appearance, and there must be, besides the perspective of the for oneself – my view of myself and the other’s of himself – a perspective of for others – my view of others and theirs of me. of course, these two perspectives, in each one of us, cannot be simply juxtaposed, for in that case it is not i that the other would see, nor he that i should see. i must be the exterior that i present to others, and the body of the other must be the other himself. this paradox and the dialectic of the ego and the alter are possible only provided that the ego and the alter ego are defined by their situation and are not freed from all inherence; that is, provided that philosophy does not culminate in a return to the self, and that i discover by reflection not only my presence to myself, but also the possibility of an “outside spectator’; that is, again, provided that at the very moment when i experience my existence – at the ultimate extremity of reflection – i fall short of the ultimate density which would place me outside time, and that i discover within myself a kind of internal weakness standing in the way of my being totally individualized: a weakness which exposes me to the gaze of others as a man among men or at least as a consciousness among consciousness. hitherto the cogito depreciated the perception of others, teaching me as it did that the i is accessible only to itself, since it defined me as the thought which i have of myself, and which clearly i am alone in having, at least in this ultimate sense. for the “other” to be more than an empty word, it is necessary that my existence should never be reduced to my bare awareness of existing, but that it should take in also the awareness that one may have of it, and thus include my incarnation in some nature and the possibility, at least, of a historical situation. the cogito must reveal me in a situation, and it is on this condition alone that transcendental subjectivity can, as husserl puts it, be an intersubjectivity.” somaesthetics and its nordic aspects21 philosophizing as an esthetic experience: a deweyan conception thought, at least). how can this exercise in slow reading be said to help the students perform better philosophically? based on my knowledge of their abilities, i feel certain that most of them would not have been able to make sense of the passage when they read it at home – probably because they lack the appropriate background understanding of phenomenology and read too fast. often, however, students are not even aware that they have not understood a text, because they simply project a more or less arbitrary meaning on it and then think they have understood it. so, the first thing an exercise in slow reading may do is make them aware that they have not really understood the text. next, of course, it may also make them aware that it takes time to read such texts and that it pays to slow down while reading, because this is what allowed us to move from a situation of nonor mis-understanding to understanding. in this way, the exercise in slow reading may thus be said to have given them a concrete experience of how slow reading is able to improve performance when it comes to reading philosophy texts. instead of the reading process being a mysterious black box that some get and some do not, it was, so to say, opened up collectively and became something that we did together, in public. the evidence here is of course anecdotal, but i think it points to the fact that, in principle, the situation with philosophy students who are unable to read philosophy texts are not different from the case of a person who has bad posture and does not know how to correct it. from a deweyan, somaesthetic perspective, the solution in both cases is the strengthening of “the plane of conscious control, the direction of action by perception of connections” and, as i hope to have indicated here at the end of this paper, slow reading exercises inspired by dewey’s understanding of philosophizing as an esthetic experience is one way in which this plane of conscious control may be strengthened, so that it may lead to somaesthetically improved performance within the very special practice of reading philosophy texts. references bean, john c. 2011. engaging ideas: the professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking and active learning in the classroom. san francisco: jossey-bass. bradatan, costica (ed.). 2015. philosophy as a literary art: making things up. london: routledge. dewey, john. 1938. logic: the theory of inquiry. new york: henry holt & co. dewey, john. 2000. experience and nature. new york: dover publications. dewey, john. 2005. art as experience. new york: perigee books. hustvedt, siri. 2012. living, thinking, looking: essays. new york: picador lang, berel. 1990. the anatomy of philosophical style. oxford: basil blackwell. merleay-ponty, maurice. 2002. phenomenology of perception. london: routledge. shusterman, richard. 2013a. “philosophy as a way of life: as textual and more than textual practice” in philosophy as a way of life: essays in honor of pierre hadot , ed. michale chase, stephen r. l. clark, michael mcghee (oxford: wiley-blackwell), pp. 40-56. shusterman, richard. 2013b. “body and the arts: the need for somaesthetics” in diogenes 59 (1-2): 7-20. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 22 martin ejsing christensen shusterman, richard. 2012. thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press shusterman, richard. 2008. body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfullness and somaesthetics. cambridge. uk: cambridge university press. shusterman, richard. 2000a. pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art. lanham: rowman & littlefield publishers shusterman, richard. 2000b. performing live. aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art. new york: cornell university press shusterman, richard (1997): practicing philosophy: pragmatism and the philosophical life. new york: routledge walker, michelle b. 2016. slow philosophy: reading against the institution. london: bloomsbury academic. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 6 page 6-20sue spaid popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom sue spaid abstract: with this paper, i introduce the category “ameliorative practices,” which are collective actions that have wellbeing as their goal. such practices include somaesthetics, everyday aesthetic practices, cultural heritage, particular kinds of popular culture, as well as ameliorative art practices. before articulating how various forms of popular culture might also engender wellbeing, i explain why wellbeing is such a hot topic and survey philosophy’s current interest in this field, which dates from aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia. in light of what philosophy and ameliorative art practices have taught us regarding the significance of wellbeing, it is increasingly obvious that certain forms of popular culture might also enhance wellbeing, a view that is either largely dismissed or has escaped philosophical inquiry. i end by assessing art historian claire bishop’s classic critique of art’s ameliorative claims and grant kester’s response. keywords: well-being, everyday aesthetics, artistic practice, aesthetics. 1. introduction i first introduce the notion of ameliorative practices, which are generally collective actions enacted to achieve wellbeing. this vast category comprises somaesthetics, everyday aesthetic practices, cultural heritage, publicly-accessible popular culture, as well as ameliorative art practices. since the notion of wellbeing described here is inspired by artists’ actions, i employ joseph beuys’ 1971 forest action as a case study to show step-by-step how ameliorative practices facilitate wellbeing. i next try to explain why wellbeing is currently such a hot topic and survey philosophy’s recent interest in this goal. once a philosophical account of wellbeing is in place, i can demonstrate how popular culture arising from freely-performed, self concordant actions boost well-being. finally, i revisit the debate concerning art’s ameliorative potential. to hint at the relationship between popular culture and wellbeing, consider songs of rebellion, resistance, and reconciliation that have helped people (african slaves and irish workers alike) across centuries endure their lack of freedom.1 the same goes for material culture such as crafts and garments adorning indigenous people across the world, which not only enrich the senses, but affirm daily that society’s cultural achievements. one of this paper’s central claims is 1 check out this amazing list of contemporary songs of rebellion. https://x96.com/life/25-songs-of-rebellion/ accessed 18 december 2018. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture7 popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom that cultural heritage and wellbeing are so entwined that colonizers’ historical efforts to remove indigenous people’s everyday objects and to outlaw their rituals, dress, and language have been first and foremost demoralization strategies. given that popular culture is largely consumer-oriented, it’s hardly surprising that scholars focused on wellbeing have overlooked its ameliorative potential. even more confusing, the media routinely markets candles, diets, juices, retreats, smart drugs, spas, edible supplements, and vitamins to consumers eager to experience, attain, or achieve wellbeing. although i heartily encourage wellbeing as a goal, any attempt to procure it via consumer goods is specious, if not fallacious. obviously, particular food choices (e.g. more vegetables/fruits, fewer sugars/fats) make people feel better than others, but as this paper argues, wellbeing is more complicated than feeling good or being happy. unlike diseases readily cured by surgery or medicine, wellbeing results from concerted efforts over time that build capacity and affirm access, not curative or preventive substances meant to compensate deficits. teamwork and actions, not cozy environments (e.g. denmark’s hygge fad), arouse wellbeing. here, the adjective ameliorative specifies practices meant to improve, amend, or restore participants’ wellbeing. by contrast, richard shusterman, who follows pragmatist philosophers such as william james and john dewey, employs meliorative, melioration, and even meliorism as intermediaries between “popular art’s grave flaws and abuses” and its “merits and potential” (shusterman, 2000a, p. 177). actions that aspire toward wellbeing are procedural (make it work), not processual (mere happenings). as briefly noted, my brand of wellbeing is derived from eight decades of ameliorative art practices dating to le corbusier’s le pavilion de l’esprit nouveau (1925). related historical examples include: hélio oiticica, parangolé (1965); yoko ono, mend piece to the world (1966); lygia clark, relational objects (1967); robert morris, tate gallery actions (1971); joseph beuys, forest action (1971); and teresa murak, procesja (1974) (spaid, 2017, p. 214). by the 1990s, ameliorative art practices were no longer outré performance art. esteemed as participatory art, such works were appreciated because they simultaneously challenged participants’ comfort levels and invigorated them, as exemplified by: rirkrit tiravanija’s untitled (free) (1992); marie-ange guilleminot, emotion conteneu (1995) and paravent (1997); carsten höller, flying machine (1996); lee mingwei, dining project (1998), sleeping project (2000), bodhi tree project (2006), and mending project (2009); hans haacke, de bevölkerung (since 2000); and olafur eliasson, the weather project (2003-2004) (spaid, 2017, p. 214). presented in the context of public exhibitions, these artworks gathered the multitudes to freely perform actions of their own accord and achieve something memorable together, decades before wellbeing became a “thing.” just as not all painted walls are wall paintings and not every singer is recognized as a performer, not all ameliorative practices are art. and in fact, the vast majority of ameliorative practitioners perform said practices either as their profession (paid experts) or in order to improve their capabilities (paying students/volunteer strivers), rather than enact them as art with art audiences. artists who originate ameliorative art practices tend to do so as strivers, rather than as experts bent on sharing their expertise. they take the opportunity of an exhibition to invite the public to try out, learn, or even permanently adopt particular skills. to distinguish artworks, i simply place “art” between “ameliorative” and “practices,” since ameliorative practices’ status as art is optional, rather than mandatory. whether art or not, ameliorative practices share similar structures (teamwork), functions (capability-building actions), capabilities (survival skills/coping mechanisms/adaptive tools), and goals (wellbeing). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 8 sue spaid although popular parlance tends to link happiness to wellbeing, these terms prove to be false friends, since neither secures the other. wellbeing doesn’t necessitate happiness, and vice versa. positive self-assessments of wellbeing rather signal some combination of access and capacity, similar in affect to hannah arendt’s notion of freedom, where the “i will” and “i can” coincide (arendt, 2000, p. 451). i would argue that wellbeing reflects one’s beliefs (more a disposition than a mood) that one can enact what one wants in the real world (as envisioned in the imagination, and of course within reason and guided by ethical conduct). on this level, wellbeing proves closer in effect to foucault’s notion of power or arendt’s concept of a free action. wellbeing reflects one’s sense of self-esteem owing to accomplishments coupled with the belief that it’s possible to envision and enact ever more actions. i next describe the six-step process that artists and experts engaged in ameliorative practices deploy, over and over. 2. how ameliorative practices engender wellbeing visual artists, as well as theater directors and filmmakers, increasingly address wellbeing; some by employing related issues as content in their works and others by actually organizing people to remedy societal ills as their art, which is what i term ameliorative art practices. my research into ameliorative art practices indicates that they generally follow six action steps: “1) some actorproducer proposes an alternative mode of being, which 2) he/she publicly shares with others via an exhibition, workshop, and /or performance, 3) prompting actor-recipients to envision a better world that 4) compels them to implement specific actions, 5) indicative of their newfound capacities, skills, and values; thus 6) spawning greater cooperation and self-empowerment for all involved” (spaid, 2017, p. 215). let’s look at how these steps underlie joseph beuys’ overcome party dictatorship now, december 1971: “1) believing that urban forests are integral to city life, 2) beuys invited students to sweep paths through the local forest [with brooms], 3) thus generating a public awareness concerning invaluable trees being demolished to make room for tennis courts, 4+5) inspiring artists and the general public either to initiate their own actions years later or to help beuys plant 7000 eichen in kassel in 1982, simultaneously 6) augmenting everyone’s wellbeing.” as beuys’ 1973 save the forest poster declares for all to read, “let the rich beware, we will not yield: universal wellbeing [emphasis mine] is advancing” (spaid, 2017, p. 215). my linking beuys’ healing action to wellbeing is not a just a matter of interpretation, yet he didn’t necessarily envision this outcome when he earlier performed the action. it’s well documented that beuys was highly influenced by rudolf steiner, who in 1894 published die philosophie der frieheit (its english title is the philosophy of spiritual action). in 1919, steiner published toward social renewal: rethinking the basis of society, which introduced his fundamental social law: “the wellbeing [emphasis mine] of a community of people working together will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of his work, i.e., the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of the work done by others” (steiner, 1993). steiner adds, “every community must have a spiritual mission, and each individual must have the will to contribute towards the fulfilling of this mission.” echoing the spiritual dimension of aristotle’s eudaimonia, whose literal translation from greek is good (from ἐΰς) spirit (from δαίμων), steiner concluded this section with a proto-poem that some regard as his personal motto. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture9 popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom the healthy social life is found when in the mirror of each human soul the whole community is shaped, and when in the community lives the strength of each human soul (steiner, 1993) clearly, beuys was channeling steiner when he organized his 1971 forest action. and the rest is history. one soon recognizes that most ameliorative practices cycle through the above action steps, each with a particular function that generates some capability that enhances wellbeing. either the cycle is repeated or it snow-balls into something unimaginable. by now, the relationship (→) between each action’s function and its particular capability begins to emerge: 1) agency → doubt, 2) participation → knowledge sharing, 3) envisioning together → re-imagine alternative possibilities, 4) diwo ethos (do it with others ) → strategize, fundraise, plan with others, 5) action → implementation/fulfillment, and 6) self-empowerment/autarky (repeat). artists carrying out ameliorative art practices double as “agents of perceptual change,” since such procedures reorient people’s preconceptions and perspectives (spaid, 2002). what interests me here is the way actions originally meant as healing acts incidentally facilitate survival skills. as we shall see, kevin melchionne recognizes such fringe-benefits as the “valuable compensatory role” of everyday aesthetic practices (melchionne, 2014). this rarely goes the other way around, since one’s acquiring survival skills doesn’t necessarily foster wellbeing. for example, being an expert marksman rarely offers “compensatory values,” since superior skills don’t necessarily assuage whatever fears/concerns drive people to require selfprotection. i imagine, however, that those who learn how to envision together also develop a sense of belonging. those who engage teamwork learn to trust others. those who achieve wellbeing gain confidence. those who experience endurance recognize the importance of seeing goals through to completion. those who know how to modify/moderate goals are equipped to conserve energy. those who view their glasses as half full/empty transform their futures into opportunities/losses. those who treat problems as opportunities for solutions keep moving. since somaesthetics is primarily focused on individual achievements, rather than teamwork, one might argue that it cannot foster the notion of wellbeing described here. being agencyoriented, somaesthetics tends to address subjects in the process of identifying, adopting, and cultivating particular skills that they value for their ameliorative outcomes. problem is, somaesthetics is typically considered individualistic, rather than community-oriented, as steiner and beuys advised. a more accurate account, however, frames somaesthetics as teamwork, since it typically involves strivers working alongside some expert, all of whom stand to influence each other, similar in effect to hegel’s master-slave narrative, such that slaves mold the master, and vice versa. this analogy addresses the mutually-beneficial relationship between the master and the slave, not that of the master-slave and the expert-student. one of the most important features of ameliorative practices is the way actor-producers recruit and inspire actor-recipients (audience members/participants) to perform particular actions that later inspire former participants to attempt actions in the company of new recruits. in this respect, ameliorative practices are not only generative, since actions beget further actions; but they extend beyond practitioners’ bodies to reach other human bodies. one imagines somaesthetics experts playing similar roles when they lead participants to perform actions that they neither imagined nor dreamed of doing. sometimes somaesthetic exercises even inspire participants to become expert leaders who eventually recruit more participants. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 10 sue spaid as briefly noted, one point that differentiates ameliorative art practices from most ameliorative practices is that artists typically recruit audiences to perform tasks about which they know little. being strivers, artists are keen to adopt whatever skills said actions require. since artists carrying out ameliorative art practices are in no position to share their nonexistent expertise, they must have something entirely different in mind. they either intend to try out healing exercises or instigate self-discovery. in initiating such actions, ameliorative art practitioners aim to strengthen the bonds between human beings with the view that reinforcing such bonds generates trust, openness, confidence, and most certainly, greater capacity and access. moreover, artists who enact ameliorative art practices with people, rather than on behalf of degraded environments, as beuys and eco-artists have done; reinforce the view that nature includes human beings, thus eliminating the “nature-culture divide.” although i formulated these six steps as a result of my having experienced ameliorative art practices over three decades, my description of how participants achieve wellbeing incidentally squares with both shusterman’s characterizing somaesthetic practitioners as constantly pushing themselves to improve their capabilities and positive psychologist martin seligman’s perma model for wellbeing (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and purpose, and accomplishment) (seligman, 2017). if wellbeing is grounded in accomplishment, as ameliorative practices suggest, then people who lose weight feel “great” not because they feel more attractive or are lighter on their feet, as the media purports; but because accomplishments that prompt self-esteem prompt wellbeing. this also explains why it’s erroneous to associate wellbeing with spa treatments, where participants are remarkably passive. i next explore why wellbeing is currently so topical. 3. when wellbeing became a “thing” why has wellbeing become such a hot topic? one explanation is that the more freedoms people enjoy, whose fluctuations gallup polls regularly; the more they expect to attain wellbeing. every other year, gallup interviewers ask about 1000 people from each of 140 countries one simple question, “in your country, are you satisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?” in 2017, a record-breaking 80% of the world resounded affirmatively, the highest rate ever recorded in more than a decade of tracking freedom (clifton, 2018). uzbekistan and cambodia topped this list at one and two, so wealth is clearly not the main factor. unsurprisingly, all five nordic nations are in the top eleven (>93% satisfaction rates), whose four other members are united arab emirates, canada, new zealand, and costa rica. i would argue that freedom is the cornerstone of wellbeing. and in fact, philosopher ingrid robeyns explores this relationship in her new book wellbeing, freedom and social justice: the capability approach re-examined, where freedom is gauged by people’s capabilities, what martha nussbaum defines as “what people are actually able to do and be” (robeyn, 2017, p. 93). robeyn further distinguishes achieved wellbeing (functionings), whereby one leads a flourishing life worth living; and the freedom to achieve wellbeing (capabilities). this approach slightly veers from mine, whose functions are capability-building actions steps that stimulate wellbeing (robeyn, 2017, p. 26). an alternative explanation is that people’s appetites for wellbeing increase whenever they feel particularly anxious about their future. in fact, gallup’s 2017 “negative experience index” indicates that “the world tilted more negative than it has in the past decade,” due to several nations experiencing greater discord, leaving their citizens to report upticks in “stress, anger, sadness, physical pain, and worry” (ray, 2018). it’s important to note that only south sudan body first: somaesthetics and popular culture11 popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom sits on both lists (“least satisfied with freedom worldwide” and “highest negative experience index worldwide”), which indicates that one’s feeling a lack of freedom doesn’t always correlate with unhappiness, and vice versa. if people who report being unhappy sometimes feel free, the opposite must be true; people who are unsatisfied with their freedom also report happiness, which demonstrates this disconnect. this latter group likely represents the pool of people striving for wellbeing, since i imagine that it takes a certain amount of happiness to be able to do something about one’s sense of ill-being. by contrast, i worry that chronic depression prevents unhappy people from taking action. i return to the differences between happiness and wellbeing a bit later. but i remind the reader that this paper concerns wellbeing, and not happiness; so if you find them synonymous, my view is not nullified. yet another explanation for the sudden interest in wellbeing is that even as violent crime rates fall and the global economy booms, communities across the world experience ever more environmental degradation, planetary resource exploitation, and senseless hate crimes, which leaves people feeling increasingly vulnerable. perhaps anxiety is actually aggravated by some historically novel combination of greater economic comfort across the board and falling precariousness. until rather recently, extreme precariousness was the norm for most. as more and more people experience greater comfort, anxieties about deprivation are sure to rise. i sometimes joke that belgium is the “wellbeing capital” of the world, since everything seems marketed in terms of wellbeing. even newspapers praise its importance. its prevalence suggests that it remains out of reach for those yearning to achieve it. a little “history lesson” can explain this national obsession. on the occasion of the battle of waterloo’s bicentennial, journalist pierre havaux explained how belgium’s multi-lingual inhabitants unified once they gained sovereignty in 1830: “the belgian soul exists, like no other. it is recognizable by its taste in proportion and craft, individualism, the spirit of association, and the love of a comfortable life” (havaux, 2015, p. 48). while the french bore the mantle of “liberté, égalité, et fraternité,” their neighbors to the northeast embraced “goût, individualisme, et confort,” thus securing happy people. problem is, these values can end up displacing wellbeing, if individual will overrides the whole community. (note: belgium’s actual national motto is “l’union fait la force (einigkeit macht stark)” not “goût, individualisme, et confort.”) suffice it to say, wellbeing becomes a “thing” whenever people’s deflated sense of capacity and/or access inspires them to do something novel that augments both. i next survey philosophy’s recent interest in this topic. 4. philosophy’s focus on wellbeing one must admit, however, that human beings’ aspiration for wellbeing is as old as philosophy itself, recalling aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia (human flourishing/prosperity). he defined eudaimonia as “doing and living well” and considered it more comprehensive (god-inspired) than mere mortal happiness (aristotle, 1980). when asked in 1935 how people might better their world, ludwig wittgenstein took a cue from fellow austrian steiner and stressed the individual’s role in shaping his/her community: “just improve yourself; that is the only thing you can do to better the world” (monk, 1991, p. 213). this suggests that those who manage to change themselves generate transformations across the board and set in motion a new series of actions that are generative like sound waves. artist yoko ono’s mend piece (1966) follows a similar mantra, though hers flows in the other direction, from world to self: “when you go through the process of mending, you mend something inside your soul as well.” the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 12 sue spaid nearly sixty years after wittgenstein, shusterman revitalized eudaimonia when he wrote: “philosophy aims at right action, for which we need not only knowledge and self-knowledge, but also effective will. as embodied creatures, we can act only through the body, so our power of volition, the ability to act as we will to act depends on somatic efficacy” (shusterman, 2000b, p. 168.). in this context, “somatic efficacy” is effectively what i earlier identified as capacity and access, whose relationship to the body is implicit in my case, though explicit in his. he continues, “this synthesis of meliorism with experimental, pluralist individualism expresses the pragmatic spirit. so does the simpler, ordinary ways we live, coupled nonetheless with a desire to live better.” (shusterman, 2000b, p. 215). here, shusterman captures both the striving toward (“a desire to live better”) and teamwork (“pluralist individualism”) that typically kindle wellbeing. it may seem odd that shusterman mentions “wellbeing” only three times in pragmatist aesthetics (1992), and most notably in the last chapter, which launched somaesthetics. consider, however, that eight years later, “wellbeing” appears on only five pages of bowling alone (2000), sociologist robert putnam’s scathing indictment of the impact of declining societal participation on democracy (shusterman, 2000a , pp. 261, 268, and 271). we can only surmise that wellbeing was not yet a “thing.” shusterman stresses melioration, setting personal goals, and attaining ever higher levels of distinctions of achievement and fulfillment, in fields as diverse as martial arts, meditative practices, and cosmetology, yet barely mentions wellbeing, perhaps because it’s implicit in the “hedonic highs” he commends his readers for achieving (paquay and spaid, 2016, pp. 66-67). every breakthrough to a new level incidentally confirms participants’ greater access and increased capacity. shusterman does, however, point out aristotle’s ranking practical action (praxis) over poetic activity (poiēsis), since the former is “derive[d] from the agent’s inner character and reciprocally helps shape it. while art’s making has its end outside itself and its maker (its end and value being in the object made), action has its end both in itself and in its agent, who is affected by how he acts, though allegedly not by what he makes.” (shusterman, 2000a, pp. 53-54). this point not only echoes ono and wittgenstein’s emphasizing the significance of ameliorating the self, but is reiterated by melchionne who recognizes the “shift from external to internal factors or, in other words, how dispositions, inner resources, and coping tendencies support wellbeing” (melchionne, 2014). to my lights, the specifically philosophical interest in wellbeing has largely been developed by aestheticians working in everyday esthetics, whose ascent coincided with the rise of participatory art, public engagement practices, and socially-engaged art. melchionne defines everyday aesthetics as “the aspects of our lives marked by widely shared, daily routines or patterns to which we tend to impart an esthetic character” (melchionne, 2013). it is the very ordinariness of the kinds of activities that everyday aestheticians muse over (“home-cooked meals, dining rituals, peeling oranges, packaging leftovers, packing picnics, garden[ing], homemade beer, and japanese tea ceremonies”) that warrants their insistence that these kinds of activities exhibit invaluable aesthetic properties, because they enhance wellbeing (paquay and spaid, 2016, p. 63). in fact, melchionne’s succinct abstract for his paper “the point of everyday aesthetics” employs only eight words: “the point of everyday aesthetic activity is wellbeing” (melchionne, 2014). he goes so far as to argue that everyday aesthetic activities have distinctive features that make them better suited for promoting subjective wellbeing than even the fine arts, presumably because everyday aesthetic activities are readily available, comport to users’ skills and interests, and “are practiced by nearly all as a matter of everyday life” (melchionne, 2014). he makes a second, even more important point: “everyday aesthetic practices of our own design [emphasis body first: somaesthetics and popular culture13 popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom mine] stand a much better chance of influencing wellbeing than the occasional encounter of high or popular art, such as attending museums or concerts from time to time. fine art activities are intermittent for all but the makers and some attendant professionals.” being “of our own design,” everyday aesthetic practices double as expressions of freedom, since they prove our capacity to enact something of value, which is why they stand a “much better chance of influencing wellbeing” than culture created by others, though selected and/or purchased by us. this coheres with both my initial claim that actions indicative of access and capacity, not lifestyle purchases, enhance wellbeing; and shusterman’s privileging praxis over poiēsis. i imagine that most people engaged in somaesthetic practices identify wellbeing as more or less a given, a veritable by-product of the “hedonic treadmill.” moreover, when we aim too high, we risk illbeing. as melchionne warns, “we may rise to euphoria or sink to depression because of the outcomes of our endeavors, but we typically adapt to changes in circumstances so that good and bad emotions eventually run their course….[still], self-concordant activities often play a valuable compensatory role in our inevitably difficult lives” (melchionne, 2014). it’s relevant that he emphasizes both “self-concordant activities” and “valuable compensatory roles,” since the former indicates capacity and access, while the latter suggests amelioration. exemplary of their compensatory roles, he notes that they reduce “anxiety and depression while increasing focus and efficacy. in turn, the improved mood achieved through activity may help individuals face the larger challenges in their lives”(melchionne, 2014). this is characteristic of the way healing acts occasion survival skills, an attribute of ameliorative practices discussed in section ii. the view advocated here veers slightly from that of melchionne, who doesn’t necessarily associate wellbeing with ameliorative outcomes. for him, wellbeing arises when individuals: “1) enjoy a steady flow of positive feelings, 2) have few negative ones, 3) are satisfied in their main pursuits, such as work and relationships; and 4) give their lives overall positive evaluations. the high incidence of positive emotion, low negative emotion, satisfaction in key domain, and positive overall assessments are four distinct factors in wellbeing.” melchionne tends to use wellbeing and happiness interchangeably: “i use them pretty much interchangeably and don’t worry about it too much” (melchionne, 2017). for me, wellbeing reflects people’s beliefs (more an attitude than a mood) about their personal potential (capacity) and what they deem possible (access), which is why wellbeing coheres better with freedom than happiness. melchionne associates everyday aesthetics with five areas: “food, wardrobe, dwelling, conviviality, and going out (running errands or commuting)” (melchionne, 2014). although songs of rebellion and traditional dress, mentioned at this paper’s onset, prove a fit; he likely excludes popular culture and exercises familiar to somaesthetics from everyday aesthetics. by now, however, it should be clear that all three are ameliorative practices, since they have wellbeing as their goal. he qualifies everyday aesthetic activities as: common but unimportant while, by contrast, works in the fine arts merit our attention because they reflect skill and insight. …by contrast, most everyday aesthetic activities do not inspire critical reflection or arthistorical study. rarely do they reflect great skill or insight. they are pursued in private and, when there is a public conversation, it is largely consumerist (melchionne, 2014). these points apply equally to somaesthetic practices and popular culture alike. melchionne remarks that only when everyday aesthetic practices are displayed in a fine art context do they receive the recognition they deserve. this recalls the current debate roiling the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 14 sue spaid france, where a recent government report recommends the return of all african treasures obtained via colonialism to their nations of origin. instead of claiming that everyday aesthetic practices tend to fall under the radar until museums shine a light on them, i would counter that everyday aesthetic practices merit our attention when they garner ameliorative outcomes, and thus enhance wellbeing. with this in mind, perhaps the best reason to restitute objects to nations whose ancestors created them is that it is in this context that their ameliorative potential shines brightest. in other nations’ museums, they are objects whose significance reflects institutional valorization, if not the glory of past conquests. in the presence of those whose ancestors fabricated them, such objects both affirm daily that society’s rich cultural heritage and manifest its autonomy. nicholas thomas, director of cambridge’s museum of archaeology and anthropology, adds, “[i]t is not imaginable that peoples would surrender their heritage if they were truly free [emphasis mine] to retain it. yet material culture was not always, for everyone ‘heritage’” (hunt, dorgeloh, and thomas, 2018). in blaming africans for letting colonizers buy/steal/take their material culture on their lack of freedom, he disregards the firepower imbalance. his suggestion that the africans didn’t realize the value of what they let go begs the question: “who gets to decide which material culture ranks as heritage?” and circles back to mechionne’s point about museums. finally, melchionne remarks that material culture arising from everyday aesthetic practices is by definition “common and unimportant,” so it’s rather disingenuous for thomas to claim that africans didn’t recognize “heritage.” he knows full well that the transformation of material culture into cultural heritage is a sluggish procedure. such attributes are not immediately obvious to anyone, whether free or oppressed. the clearest example of a nation deploying material culture to weave its national identity in terms of cultural heritage is the museo nacional de antropología, built in 1963 in mexico city (vackimes, 2001, p. 30). rather than merely shine a light on practices previously underappreciated, mna inspires national pride in mexico’s rich history and warrants international admiration. displace people from their material culture, and you strip them of any possibility for wellbeing, since they lose access to their history, cultural heritage, creative talent, and ingenuity. no wonder cameroonian prince kum’a ndumbe iii finds the trafficking in african art so disconcerting: “this is not about the return of african art. when someone’s stolen your soul, it’s very difficult to survive [emphasis mine] as a people” (nayeri, 2018). i have little doubt that the us government’s historical efforts to limit native americans’ ability to engage everyday aesthetic practices (crafts, rituals, ways of life) was first and foremost a strategy to defuse their capabilities, thus eroding their wellbeing (fomenting demoralization) and neutralizing their will. cultural heritage exports can be a form of psychological warfare, not unlike strategies meant to destroy fighters’ morales in hopes that they surrender, give up or runaway, rather than engage in physical warfare. i next develop the relationship between popular culture and wellbeing 5. popular culture’s ameliorative potential given the consumerist nature of much of what is marketed as popular culture, as well as the fact that it is typically consumed in private by individuals who aren’t expected to exert much effort, it’s hardly surprising that aestheticians have overlooked the potential for popular culture to enhance wellbeing. here, i lump sports and leisure in with popular culture, since town governments often have sports, culture and leisure departments, presumably because they are linked to community wellbeing. as for such activities’ compensatory roles, consider the way body first: somaesthetics and popular culture15 popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom singing along with the radio or in a choir enhances breathing, joining a street protest promotes identity, attending rock concerts releases steam, dancing in a nightclub expends extra energy, meditating while waiting proves relaxing, practicing martial arts with experts enhances selfesteem, following yoga/pilates/t’ai chi classes builds core strength, exercising/doing sports burns calories, taking pit stops/breaks helps people refocus, while attending a coffee klatch/tea party generates feelings of connection, especially when a book read jointly is under discussion. applying melchionne’s prescription for everyday aesthetic practices as common and ordinary, i imagine community members participating in long-term, low-key, yet truly rewarding activities, otherwise said programs wouldn’t survive year after year. consider that robert putnam’s millennial treatise bowling alone not only linked people’s no longer participating in group activities to their increasing disconnection from family and friends, but it also claimed that democracy was in jeopardy. years since, dozens of papers and books have challenged his assessment. although the goal here is self-improvement, rather than mastery, let alone training for the olympics or a college scholarship; i imagine some participants occasionally becoming experts. with community-oriented popular culture, participants need not assess some cultural event’s accessibility, primarily because accessibility is presumed (typically affordable and publicly accessible), which makes it closer in kind to everyday aesthetic practices than somaesthetic practices, which tend to segregate according to skill levels. being open to everybody, popular culture avails access and capacity in spades, yet it must require some effort for participants to achieve wellbeing. consider carnival parades like mardi gras in new orleans, us; le carneval de binche en belgique; or carnaval de trinité-et-tobago. one might not know anything about these different, though related parades, their history, or traditions underlying their vastly different costumes and rituals/festivities, let alone speak their participants’ languages; but one doesn’t imagine them to be inaccessible, which is why they qualify as popular culture (spaid, 2018). most people consume parades as bystanders, not as participants, yet parade watchers also carry out “self-concordant” activities. after all, they have had to organize their families/friends to arrive on time and everyone has walked from either the public transport or a nearby parking lot. presumably, group members will either stay for local activities after the parade or return home for some pre-arranged get-together such as a family dinner. i imagine many more slipping back into their daily routines, which may or may not qualify as everyday aesthetic activities; as they prepare for their next day’s school, work, or day off. not all candidates for popular culture offer ameliorative outcomes, but many do. consider outdoor events such as fireworks, a sea of protestors sporting pink pussy cat hats, or burning man. even though these lack immediately-obvious compensatory roles, participants routinely select these events for their ameliorative outcomes. although the chemical toxicity of fireworks is quire worrisome, plenty of people find the loud booms and crackling noises relaxing (youtube’s firework sound tracks suggest this) accompanied as they are by the awesomeness of massive sprawls of spirals and sprays of stars across the night sky. in this context, firework watchers are on par with parade goers, who’ve made a physical effort to attend some community-wide event, and are thus self-concordant consumers. by contrast, greeting the wave of like-minded supporters of women’s rights connects protestors to strangers in ways that attending a symphony or even a rock concert wouldn’t. past burning man participants routinely comment that they really liked purchasing goods with their labor, rather than money/credit, since it lends everybody a special role in this temporary tent city. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 16 sue spaid by contrast, consider indoor activities that are not necessarily publicly accessible, but are widely accessible, such as watching stand-up comedy, being a die-hard band groupie, or binge-watching a television series; whereby repeat actions indicate participants’ capacity for appreciation. as compared to singing, protesting, dancing, meditating, martial arts, doing pilates, or discussing books; laughing at comedians, attending several gigs each month, and staring at a screen for hours on end is comparatively passive and individualistic in scope. although it may require some amount of scheduling management to perform such self-concordant actions, teamwork seems to play a greater role for those performers, whose success at engaging their audiences necessitates collective action (comedians, musicians, and actors working alongside respective stage crews). laughter is widely considered “the best medicine,” given its scientifically-proven benefits (lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones, works abs, improves cardiac health, boosts t-cells, triggers release of endorphins, and produces a general sense of wellbeing).2 one’s attending either a comedy show or a funny film hardly guarantees laughter. if or when one does laugh, laughing alongside others generates feelings of belonging that often augment one’s overall enjoyment, transforming public laughter into a shared exercise. like bowling alone, laughing alone indicates polarities. one suddenly feels superior to those who “don’t get it” or inferior to the mob whose stares suggest that only an idiot would consider this hilarious. similarly, seeing oneself as a band groupie not only provides a sense of belonging, but groupies exhibit dependability and commitment, making them vital team players on par with second string athletes who mostly watch during matches. elsewhere, i’ve argued that nirvana’s original fans eventually decided the band sucked because they felt shame once they realized the music’s universal, rather than uniquely seattle, appeal (spaid 2018). i now wonder whether nirvana’s fans rather lost their sense of belonging once their access no longer seemed special. by contrast, those who endure binge-watching multiple seasons (60+ hours) of the wire, breaking bad, or the americans not only emotionally engage with complicated characters, but earn the right to retain their access, and most likely forever. all of these actions are generative, in the sense that one actively recruits people to check out those comedians, bands, and tv series one appreciates. it thus seems that the more users double as doers, the more actions associated with popular culture trigger wellbeing. as three day weekend founder and artist dave muller observed over two decades ago, “the alternative is the alternative to doing nothing” (spaid 1998). the key component is thus doing something meaningful, which of course begs the question, “which activities prove meaningful?” consider bands like fela kuti and his africa 70 (confusion, 1975) or queen, who spontaneously performed “eeee ooo” at liveaid in 1985. by engaging their fans in “call and response” schemes, they knowingly transformed listeners into necessary doers. in order to discover this, one must stop being a bystander, and “just do it.” i next review several recent criticisms of art’s ameliorative potential, which i imagine apply to all practices whose aims are ameliorative. 6. concluding remarks: fears, foes, and friends of art’s ameliorative potential a full decade before i developed the notion of ameliorative art practices (aaps), art historian claire bishop railed against artworks aiming for ameliorative outcomes. it is unlikely that the 2 i thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting that i consider stand-up comedy. this website lists laughter’s benefits: http://mentalfloss. com/article/539632/scientific-benefits-having-laugh accessed 18 february 2019. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture17 popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom above artists whose works i characterize as ameliorative necessarily intended such outcomes. what makes such works ameliorative is that they enhance wellbeing, so it is a property whose effect might be anticipated, though not realized until much later. even beuys created his poster two years after his forest action, so he too likely grasped this action’s particular outcome in hindsight. although most of the examples bishop cites are collaborative and relational, they primarily reflect social situations, as opposed to actions. she recognizes this, since one of her main bones of contention is their focus on discourse, whose immateriality she find aesthetically insubstantial. by contrast, ameliorative practices demand material settings and necessitate action. bishop’s 2006 artforum exposé mentions only two artists who have influenced my understanding of the relationship between aaps and wellbeing, so her criticisms don’t necessarily apply here. she names tiravanija in passing and credits höller for not making artistic decisions that are motivated by ethical considerations, but this shouldn’t be too surprising since nowhere does this paper address ethics. thus far, aesthetical issues have been front and center: the importance of having access to one’s “heritage;” the way somaesthetic practices, everyday aesthetic practices, and popular culture enable people to freely participate in actions with aesthetic import; and finally the significance of artistic practices that challenge and reward participants. these enhance capacity, while affirming access. bishop frames art that is meant to heal in agonistic terms, precisely because she considers such works driven more by ethical than aesthetic considerations. she claims that the best collaborative practices need to be thought of in terms other than their ameliorative consequences. she adds, “the ethical imperative finds support in most of the theoretical writing on art that collaborates with ‘real’ people.… emphasis is shifted away from the disruptive specificity of a given work and onto a generalized set of moral precepts” (bishop, 2006). following rancière, she emphasizes, “[t]he aesthetic is the ability to think contradiction: the productive contradiction of art’s relationship to social change, characterized precisely by the tension between faith in art’s autonomy and belief in art as inextricably bound to the promise of a better world to come [emphasis mine]. for rancière, the aesthetics doesn’t need to be sacrificed at the altar of social change, as it already inherently contains the ameliorative promise” (bishop, 2006). but as noted above, the artwork’s autonomy (its end and value residing outside the maker and in the object) originally inspired shusterman to privilege praxis over poiēsis. i actually share many of bishop’s criticism of what passed for collaborative art in the early aughties, most specifically their overly social dimension, focus on public discourse as artistic practice, immateriality, moralizing goody two-shoe attitudes, and lack of radical proposals. however, i rather admire artists who carry out projects with the view to express freedom, which alters participants’ well-being and inevitably changes the world. such impressive artworks demonstrate why works rejected by bishop leave her feeling dissatisfied. moreover, aaps point to the relevant features of everyday aesthetic practices, somaesthetic practices, and popular culture that are most likely to enhance wellbeing. at the very moment when artists were trying to find ways to bridge antinomies, bishop was encouraging the “contradictory pull between autonomy and social intervention… it is to this art—however uncomfortable, exploitative, or confusing it may first appear—that we must turn for an alternative to the well intentioned homilies that today pass for critical discourse on social collaboration” (bishop, 2006). she claims that these kinds of works push us toward a platonic regime in which art is valued for its truthfulness and educational efficacy [emphasis mine] rather than for inviting us—as dogville did—to confront darker, more painfully complicated the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 18 sue spaid considerations of our predicament” (bishop, 2006). bishop calls for “greater darkness” in the arts, yet she fails to distinguish between live actions and virtual pictures. this matters of course, since numerous artists have explored live actions that are far darker than any film. recall marco evaristti, who in 2000 invited people to turn on ten blenders housing gold fish, while santiago sierra has paid human beings to do all manner of inhuman things, including sitting in cardboard boxes for eight hours, bleaching their black hair blond, tattooing a horizontal line across their backs, and lying in a box in a car trunk. three months after bishop fired her salvo, grant kester struck back, noting that the: normalization of paranoid knowing as a model for creative intellectual practice has entailed ‘a certain disarticulation, disavowal, and misrecognition of other ways of knowing, ways less oriented around suspicion’. sedgwick juxtaposes paranoid knowing (in which ‘exposure in and of itself is assigned a crucial operative power’) with reparative knowing, which is driven by the desire to ameliorate [emphasis mine] or give pleasure. as she argues, this reparative attitude is intolerable to the paranoid, who views any attempt to work productively within a given system of meaning as unforgivably naive and complicit; a belief authorized by the paranoid’s ‘contemptuous assumption that the one thing lacking for global revolution, explosion of gender roles, or whatever, is people’s (that is, other people’s) having the painful effects of their oppression, poverty, or deludedness sufficiently exacerbated to make the pain conscious… and intolerable’ (kester, 2006). at first glance, it looks like kester is typecasting bishop and rancière as paranoid. to my lights, he rather means to relay gender theorist eve kosofsky sedgwick’s distinction between paranoid knowing and reparative knowing, which “is driven by the desire to ameliorate or give pleasure.” moreover, the “reparative attitude is intolerable to the paranoid,” who tends to blame the lack of revolutionary progress/advancement on other people’s inability to see beyond some sense of illbeing. if “paranoids” really do belittle others’ pain, as sedgwick suggests, then nothing seems more relevant than participants allied with somaesthetics, everyday aesthetics, ameliorative art, and even popular culture. anything that people can do to get others to engage in activities that require effort, are self-concordant, and compensatory sounds exciting. as one american-tv psa (“public service announcement”) used to say, “don’t get under a rock, get into action!” references arendt, h. (2000), the portable hannah arendt, ed. peter baehr, new york: penguin books. aristotle (1980), nicomachean ethics, trs. david ross and lesley brown, oxford: oxford university press. 1095a15–22. bishop, c. (2006), “the social turn: collaboration and its discontents,” artforum. 44: 6 pp. 178183. http://onedaysculpture.org.nz/assets/images/reading/bishop%20_%20kester.pdf accessed 20 december 2018. clifton, j. (2018), “freedom rings in places you might not expect,” gallup blog, june 27, 2018. retrieved from https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/235973/freedom-rings-places-notexpect.aspx body first: somaesthetics and popular culture19 popular culture and wellbeing: teamwork, action, and freedom havaux, p. (2015), “comment la belgique s’est inventé une histoire,” tr. sue spaid, vif express, no. 28, pp. 47-49. hunt, t., dorgeloh, h. and thomas, n. (2018), “restitution report: museum directors respond,” the art newpaper. retrieved from https://www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/restitutionreport-museums-directors-respond kester, g. (2006), “another turn,” artforum, 44: 9. retrieved from http://onedaysculpture.org. nz/assets/images/reading/bishop%20_%20kester.pdf melchionne, k. (2013), “the definition of everyday aesthetics,” contemporary aesthetics. retrieved from https://contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleid=663 melchionne, k. (2014), “the point of everyday aesthetics,” contemporary aesthetics. retrieved from https://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleid=700 melchionne, k. (2017), email correspondence dated 31 october 2017. monk, r. (1991), ludwig wittgenstein: the duty of genius, london: vintage books. nayeri, f. (2018), “return of african artifacts sets a tricky precedent for europe’s museums.” retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/arts/design/macron-report-restitutionprecedent.html paquay, j.-f. and spaid, s. (2016), “the 0 km movement: everyday eaters enjoying edible environments,” the journal of somaesthetics, vol. 2 nos. 1 and 2. retrieved from https:// somaesthetics.aau.dk/index.php/jos/article/view/1461/1224 putnam, r. (2000), bowling alone: the collapse and revival of american community, new york: simon & schuster. ray, j. (2018), “world took a negative turn in 2017,” september 12 2018, retrieved from https://news.gallup.com/poll/242117/world-took-negative-turn 2017. a s p x ? g _ s o u r c e = l i n k _ n e w s v 9 & g _ m e d i u m = t o p i c & g _ c a m p a i g n = i t e m _ & g _ content=world%2520took%2520a%2520negative%2520turn%2520in%25202017 robeyns, i. (2017), wellbeing, freedom and social justice: the capability approach re-examined, cambridge, uk: open book publishers. seligman, s. (2017), retrieved from https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/perma-model/ shusterman, r. (2000a), pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art, new york: rowman & littlefield press. shusterman, r. (2000b), performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art, ithaca: cornell university press. spaid, s. (1998), “l.a. undercover: a profile of alternative projects,” art papers, mar/apr, pp. 14-17. spaid, s. (2002), ecovention: art to transform ecologies, cincinnati: contemporary arts center. spaid, s. (2017), ecovention europe: art to transform ecologies, 1957-2017, sittard, nl: museum de domijnen hedendaagse kunst. spaid, s. (2018), “bellissima!: reassessing access to redress mass art,” popular inquiry, 2:2. van staveren, i. (2015), “capabilities and wellbeing,” the elgar companion to social economics, the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 20 sue spaid eds. john b. davis and wilfred dolfsma, cheltenham, uk: edward elgar publishing limited, pp. 165-179. steiner, r. (1993), “understanding the human being”, selected writings of rudolf steiner, ed. richard seddon, bristol: rudolf steiner press. https://wn.rsarchive.org/articles/fusola_index. html accessed 20 december 2018. vackimes, s. c. (2001), “indians in formaldehyde-nation of progress: the museo nacional of mexico and the construction of national identity,” museum anthropology, 25:1, pp. 20-26. somaesthetics and beauty contents preface somaesthetics and beauty 4 falk heinrich, max ryynänen and anne elisabeth sejten interview: beauty from a pragmatist and somaesthetic perspective: 6 a conversation with richard shusterman stefano marino articles: beauty trouble 12 anne elisabeth sejten fine art as the “art of living”: 25 johann gottfried herder’s calligone reconsidered from a somaesthetic point of view tanehisa otabe the beauty of mathematical order 36 esther oluffa pedersen how can there be beauty in participatory art? 53 falk heinrich challenging urban anesthetics: 65 beauty and contradiction in georg simmel’s rome henrik reeh performative somaesthetics: interconnections of dancers, audiences, and sites 91 jessica fiala & suparna banerjee the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance 112 john toner & barbara montero aesthetic challenges in the field of sustainability: 127 art, architectural design, and sustainability in the projects of michael singer else-marie buhkdal the aesthetic enchantment approach: from “troubled” to “engaged” beauty 166 sue spaid page 61-74 body first: somaesthetics and popular culture61 the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash janne vanhanen abstract: the article examines and interprets british science fiction writer j. g. ballard’s controversial 1973 novel crash from the perspective of the philosophical concept of the event. the protagonists of crash eroticize automobile collisions and their repercussions in human bodies, striving to increase the intensity of their existence via pornographic quest of the perfect, final crash. in vanhanen’s analysis, crash brings together the pornographic emphasis of repetition with the singularity of the life-changing crash-event that the novel’s characters encounter. vanhanen considers freudian interpretations of the novel’s crash fantasies as traumatic compulsion to repeat—which itself is a manifestation of the death instinct. this shall be compared with philosopher gilles deleuze’s conception of the death instinct being a ”neutral” metaphysical primary drive rather than part of the freudian duality between eros and thanatos. via this conception, it becomes possible to approach crash not only as a ”cautionary tale,” as ballard has described it, but also as an affirmative ”psychopathic hymn” to the potential of self-differentiation released by the event. keywords: deleuze, crash, cars, desire. driving along the highway, how would it feel like to let go of the steering wheel and push the accelerator pedal to maximum? as your own control of the car diminishes, other factors step in: the inherently oblique geometry of the driving lane begins to guide the trajectory of the vehicle; traffic statistics calculate the density of incoming traffic, increasing or decreasing the probability of head-on collision; minute variations of road temperature, air humidity and wind speed add their own influence to the swerve of the car, now starting to spin around; material qualities of the shattering windshield decide the pattern of glass shard wounds on your face; chemical composition of the driver seat’s upholstery determines the flash point of the car’s interior getting into contact with flaming fuel... the simple act of relinquishing control sweeps you away from your safe zone to face the inhuman agency whose influence is in normal conditions minimized. an interruption into regulated flow of things appears out of imperceptible potentialities, an event that has already happened, as if slipped straight out of the future tense into the past, skipping the present—a the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 62 janne vanhanen point of indeterminacy that becomes apparent only after its passing. in what follows i shall focus on the british science fiction writer j. g. ballard’s controversial novel crash (1973) and interpret it from the point of view of an event that is life changing. crash is a story of a group of people who have developed a sort of fetishistic relation to car crashes, being sexually aroused by images related to collisions, wounds and scars resulting from impacts, re-enactments of crashes and fantasies of different kinds of automobile disasters. from the perspective of event-ness, the novel’s titular crash represents a quintessential example of event where different ontological levels of existence (ranging from semiotic to material) are synthesized together, producing unforeseeable mixtures. also, the temporality of an actual collision, with its anticipation and after-effects, can be seen to be as complicated in ballard’s text as in many philosophical accounts of the concept of event. in my analysis of crash i turn to the philosophy of gilles deleuze, for whom an event is an ontologically primary concept that precedes substance and empirical states of affairs. in deleuze’s theory, the event is a change of pattern, a coming-together of relations that produces something new in empirical reality, but which also alters its conditions of existence: the event thus not only modifies the future, but also the past so that we cannot view our conditions in the old manner anymore (1994, pp. 189–90).1 approaching ballard’s work from a deleuzian perspective is thus not arbitrary, since i propose that this critical reconsideration of the conditions underlying one’s current state of normality is what ballard’s crash and his other works of speculative fiction strive to bring to the fore. as the author zadie smith interprets it, ballard’s method is “taking what seems ‘natural’—what seems normal, familiar and rational—and revealing its psychopathology” (2014, para. 5). in crash’s case the state of normality under dissection is the ever-increasing technological dependence and communications landscape forming “an almost infantile world, where any demand, any possibility, whether for life-styles, travel, sexual roles and identities, can be satisfied instantly,” as ballard (1995, p. 4) describes the post-war world in his later preface to the french edition of the novel.2 this description seems even more relevant in our current times. crash can thus be seen as a speculative study of what kind of extremes this possibility of instant and infinite satisfaction can lead to and, as such, a reaction to the ethos of liberation of sexual and violent desires and freeing of social restrictions by the 1960’s generation. samuel francis considers crash as “[p]arodying the post-freudian 1960s ideal of healthy, guilt-free polyperversity” (2011, p. 110). as roger luckhurst in his introduction to crash states, “[i]t is a book that flags the end of the new wave [science fiction of 1960’s and 70’s] avant-garde by pushing its logic of violent transformation to exorbitant ends” (2008, p. 519). crash can thus be read as a hyperbolic description of the collective transformative event of 1960’s societal liberation, placing a magnifying glass upon its latent tendencies actualizing in the lives of the crash-fixated characters. even though widespread social and technological changes—at least in the post-war western world—form crash’s background, the book depicts events mainly in personal focus. the crashevent that becomes an object of desire for the novel’s characters is conditioned by increasingly technological and mediated world, but takes place on the level of individual subjectivities. the principal question seems to be: can we desire our own annihilation? this personal dilemma mirrors the cold war world’s nuclear doctrine of mutual assured destruction, the retaliationcapacity assuring the total annihilation of not only the target nation but also the aggressor in the 1 event, for deleuze (1994), introduces a change in a structure, i.e. in a series of things both material and immaterial. a basic example of an event would be that it is a singular point, as in change of direction of an infinite series of ordinary points in a geometrical line (pp. 189–90). 2 the french edition’s introduction is republished in the 1995 english edition of crash. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture63 the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash event of intercontinental missile exchange. this precarious balance formed a “bomb culture,” as writer, artist and countercultural activist jeff nuttall’s 1968 book of the same title (2018) aptly nominates it. when the “sane” state of normality is founded upon such nihilistic ideology, what might seem as insanity becomes a legitimate reaction to impossible situations, as 1960’s thinkers such as gregory bateson, michel foucault and r. d. laing theorized. so, according to this logic, even though the actions of the novel’s characters might be diagnosed as displaying aberrant paraphilia towards eroticized crash-scenarios, they may be interpreted as manifestation of deeper-level culture-wide structures. it can be argued that while the technological progress of automobile culture denotes increased individual freedom of mobility and hence of possibilities to actualize personal desires (see e.g. d’costa, 2013), a contrary fascination with the idea of annihilating collision runs deep within the contemporary culture. just think of the dark collective allure of disasters such as princess diana’s fatal crash in a parisian underpass.3 what if instead of controlled, predictable movement we somehow secretly yearned for a crash? and what if this crash-desire was essentially of libidinal, erotic nature? this is the premise of ballard’s novel crash. the serial crashes crash’s themes have been interpreted in multiple and often conflicting fashions, but some common notions can be agreed by all.4 crash depicts a world where the link between the car and sexuality, arguably prevalent in 20th century popular culture, has been taken to the extreme. the novel’s narrator, advertising film producer ‘james ballard,’5 becomes acquainted with a sinister figure, dr robert vaughan, after ‘ballard’ has had a head-on collision with an oncoming car on a freeway exit ramp. when ‘ballard’ is recuperating in an almost-empty airport casualty hospital ward after the crash, vaughan shows acute interest in his crash wounds. eventually ‘ballard’ and his wife catherine get to know and become embroiled in vaughan’s coterie of car crash enthusiasts, entering various sexual liaisons with them—these encounters all have to do with crashed cars and the various wounds and scars resulting from such collisions. vaughan’s obsession seems to unfold in the other characters “the mysterious eroticism of wounds: the perverse logic of blood-soaked instrument panels, seat-belts smeared with excrement, sun-visors lined with brain tissue” and awakens them to car crashes’ liberation of “tremor[s] of excitement, in the complex geometries of a dented fender, in the unexpected variations of crushed radiator grilles, in the grotesque overhang of an instrument panel forced on to a driver’s crotch as if in some calibrated act of machine fellatio” (ballard, 1995, p. 12). vaughan’s stated mission is to explore the “benevolent psychopathology” that he and his coconspirators are trying to actualize out of the virtual potentiality of a culture “ruled by advertising and pseudo-events, science and pornography,” according to ballard’s preface (1995, pp. 138, 4). in practice, vaughan’s exploration entails looking for accident sites and photographing the scenes, mimicking the postures of the victims with his sexual partners, as well as studying research films of calibrated test crashes and arranging recreations of spectacular accidents with stunt drivers. it is no coincidence that vaughan, a photographer, is described as “tv scientist” and “computer specialist” as the world of crash is essentially a semiotic mediascape of information 3 just a quick internet search will produce a number of websites devoted to car crashes of famous people. there is even a wikipedia list of “notable people” killed in traffic collisions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_people_who_died_in_traffic_collisions. 4 florian cord (2017) provides a good overview of differences in critical reception of crash (pp. 18–80). 5 single quotation marks are used to distinguish the novel’s character ’ballard’ from the author ballard. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 64 janne vanhanen and circulating images. from this point of departure, the author studies, and the novel’s protagonists follow, the “pornographic logic” of a world obsessed with representations, finding pleasure in transgressing the supposed control of consensual normality that is at the same time invested with repressed desires. as lauren langman observes, “pornography obeys certain rules, and its primary rule is transgression […] its greatest pleasure is to locate each and every society’s taboos, prohibitions and proprieties, and systematically transgress them, one by one” (2018, p. 669). this pornographic logic compels to seek ever-changing variations of relations between various objects of desire in order to find the ever-fleeting, ultimate transgressive pleasure, resulting in the novel’s characters devising imaginary scenarios of car disasters combined with sex, as well as dwelling on the minutest details of the fatal crashes of celebrity figures such as albert camus, james dean, jayne mansfield—and even john f. kennedy, the assassination of whom is considered as a special kind of car crash by vaughan (ballard, 1995, p. 130). in these constant rearrangements of objects and signs, both imaginary and those realized by the protagonists, concrete physical, corporeal and technological facts are collided with the semiotic sphere of images, fantasies and meanings. consider the following passage from the beginning page of crash as a demonstration of this: in his vision of a car-crash with the actress [elizabeth taylor], vaughan was obsessed by many wounds and impacts—by the dying chromium and collapsing bulkheads of their two cars meeting head-on in complex collisions endlessly repeated in slowmotion films, by the identical wounds inflicted on their bodies, by the image of windshield glass frosting around her face as she broke its tinted surface like a deathborn aphrodite, by the compound fractures of their thighs impacted against their handbrake mountings, and above all by the wounds to their genitalia, her uterus pierced by the heraldic beak of the manufacturer's medallion, his semen emptying across the luminescent dials that registered for ever the last temperature and fuel levels of the engine. (ballard, 1995, p. 8) in their obsession to actualize every potential combination of crash-altered automobiles and human bodies, crash’s protagonists resemble the fictional libertines of marquis de sade’s novels, who as men of status and resources have the means to satisfy their own desires almost without limit. however, from this freedom opens a vortex of the pornographic logic’s perpetual demand to transgress repeatedly, to an absurd degree, resulting in numbness of repetition instead of pleasure. as timo airaksinen notes, ”what is originally supposed to be supremely stimulating reappears now as something so boring that one wonders why the sadean heroes bother” (1995, p. 141). therefore, the libertines cannot truly create an event, a singular point in the series of combinations of desired objects and effects. crash adopts the pornographic quest of the perfect transgression against repressed desire, which remains, however, perpetually unattainable namely because of the pornographic logic’s constant supply of ever new combinations of desire. these combinations appear as fantasy images and, after their enactment, as tableaux vivants lingering in the post-orgasmic calm after the crash, ready to be appreciated in erotico-aesthetic terms by the crash enthusiasts. yet these imaginary and real scenarios never provide a closure but compel one to devise further combinations. ballard supplies the reader with extended lists of vaughan’s dream couplings of: body first: somaesthetics and popular culture65 the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash the lungs of elderly men punctured by door handles, the chests of young women impaled by steering-columns, the cheeks of handsome youths pierced by the chromium latches of quarter-light [...] ambassadorial limousines crashing into jack-knifing butane tankers [...] taxis filled with celebrating children colliding head-on below the bright display windows of deserted supermarkets [...] alienated brothers and sisters, by chance meeting each other on collision courses on the access roads of petrochemical plants [...] massive rear-end collisions of sworn enemies [...] specialized crashes of escaping criminals [etc. etc. ad nauseam]. (ballard, 1995, pp. 13–14) this seriality cannot but bring to mind andy warhol’s serial works, which similarly combine different pictorial elements, usually of famous people or other popular media content, with visual distortions introduced by his silkscreen and painting techniques. during 19621964 warhol produced his own “death and disaster” series of silkscreen paintings based on newsprint pictures of car crashes among other disasters. these graphic images, often depicting bloodied and mangled crash victims, were silkscreened, often multiple times, on vibrantly coloured canvases and named accordingly, such as green disaster #2 (green disaster ten times) or silver car crash (double disaster). this impassive shuffling of different disaster motifs, colour schemes and descriptive names combined with the often shocking imagery provides a close predecessor in the visual arts to ballard’s literary vision of the alluring immediacy and brutality of post-war media landscape. crash’s constant rearrangements of eroticized details of violent events—delivered not without a touch of absurdity and black humour, as in a fantasy image of “luckless paranoids driving at full speed into the brick walls at the ends of known culs-de-sac” (ballard, 1995, p. 15)—suggest that the author’s implication is that the technological advance of the 20th century has increased the possibility of these combinations, multiplying the range of areas of life that can be sexualized or turned into pornography. as such, ballard’s perspective comes very close to those anti-humanist tendencies of poststructuralist philosophy which emphasize the nonvoluntary, irrational and preor unconscious elements of subjectivity. it is technology that shapes us, not the other way around, and crash describes the adaptation of human sexuality to the technological reality of “tens of thousands of vehicles moving down the highways, [...] giant jetliners lifting over our heads, [...] the most humble machined structures and commercial laminates” (ballard, 1995, p. 138). following the poststructuralist bias of structure-before-subject, the milieu of crash is as impersonal and abstract as possible: the narrative circles west london surroundings, the ring roads, junctions, underand overpasses near heathrow airport and shepperton film studios, “the endless landscape of concrete and structural steel that extended from the motorways to the south of the airport, across its vast runways to the new apartment systems” (ballard, 1995, p. 48). after being released back home from the hospital following his initial crash, ‘ballard’ notices his new sensitivity to his once-indifferent surroundings: “i realized that the entire zone which defined the landscape of my life was now bounded by a continuous artificial horizon, formed by the raised parapets and embankments of the motorways and their access roads and interchanges” (ballard, 1995, p. 53). these perpetually halfway spaces can be called “nonplaces” (non-lieux), to use the terminology of anthropologist marc augé (1995) referring to anonymous places of transience, or “any-spaces-whatever” (espaces quelconques), to quote gilles deleuze’s term denoting either the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 66 janne vanhanen disconnected or empty environments that are unable to provide any overarching principles of connection between their different elements (1986, p. 120). therefore these spaces can engender pure potentiality that in crash is used by the protagonists to break down any barriers inhibiting exchange between different ontological categories. that the expanses of these post-modern nonplaces turn out to enable violent sexual encounters between technological and anatomical parts speaks—to ballard—of the implicit potentiality of modern technology to “provide us with hitherto undreamed-of means for tapping our own psychopathologies” (1995, p. 6). death drive and crash-trauma deleuze’s any-space-whatever is a space of freedom, of an open future, but ballard seems to consider this liberation, heralded by 1960’s counterculture’s eroding of conservative values, as leading potentially to atrocity. the death drive always wins. and in crash the death drive, a psychic entity theorized by sigmund freud,6 assumes a very literal manifestation on the highways and streets of the novel’s world. roger luckhurst writes that crash “neatly literalizes freud’s later speculations about the existence of a ‘death drive,’ a primitive human instinct that might actively wish for the quiescent state of death” (2008, p. 517). as ballard himself states, “[a]fter freud's exploration within the psyche it is now the outer world of reality which must be quantified and eroticised” (1968, back cover). as ballard is effectively likening his project of speculative fiction to freud’s work of revealing the hidden conditions of human volition, a look into freud’s theory of the death drive vis-à-vis crash is a necessary endeavor. the initial reception of the novel—mirroring the way david cronenberg’s 1996 film adaptation was later received—certainly made evident the fact that ballard’s anti-humanist view was picked up by the commentators. both crash the novel and crash the film were at the time of their release vilified exactly as nihilistic and pornographic. an often-quoted anecdote has one publisher’s reviewer writing in his or her assessment of the book and the writer: “this man is beyond psychiatric help” (tighe, 2005, p. 80). this, and other moral condemnations in subsequent critical evaluations of the book, have doubtlessly resulted in part from the cool, detached and neutral style of the prose, describing various technological, medical and sexual atrocities in the same clinical tone, as if in some scientific article. consider, for instance, the following passage: i felt the warm vinyl of the seat beside me, and then stroked the damp aisle of helen's perineum. her hand pressed against my right testicle. the plastic laminates around me, the colour of washed anthracite, were the same tones as her pubic hairs parted at the vestibule of her vulva. (ballard, 1995, p. 81) the pornographic detail is there, but the clinical, abstracted diction negates any possible excitement for most readers. as victor sage comments on ballard’s style, “[h]orror and laughter both arise in ballard out of his deadpan tone and this fact complicates the schematic nature of his effects” (2008, p. 38). in a science fiction fanzine interview, ballard says that he situated the novel in his own contemporary environment and used his own name for the narrator character in order to “achieve complete honesty [...] complete realism [... and] complete authenticity” and that crash is “an investigatory book” with “all the neutrality of a scientific investigation” (ballard 6 freud’s original german term todestrieb is translated also as death instinct. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture67 the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash interviewed in goddard, 1973, p. 53). this neutral tone with its lack of perceptible authorial voice and decipherable intention seemed to leave a moral void into which the reader had to take a plunge and, in the opinion of the critics, was in danger of getting lost. ballard himself responded that his tone reflects a “terminal irony, where not even the writer knows where he stands” (1976, p. 51). as the abstract, anonymous nonplace that crash depicts no longer imposes any limitations— once one has got rid of one’s own internalized patterns of control, such as safe driving and healthy living—the flows of desire of the novel’s characters become paradoxically aimless, as they are fixated on devising endless variables of collision between automobile disasters and sexual pleasure. as the pornographic logic of increasing intensification demands ever-new combinations of metal against flesh and bone, what is there to do but to devise more and more crash-fantasies? crash’s protagonists quite literally circle around the same abstract geometry of ring roads and ramps, repeatedly devising novel combinations of crash-fantasy components. what is left other than constant rearrangement of these images? only a final, fatal crash would seem to offer a way out of the fantasy loop, a movement intensive enough to detach them from the gravitational equilibrium of the pleasure-seeking orbit, and to point a flaring trajectory towards a terminal point: death. crash’s perverse fetish for eroticized car crashes and their repercussions in the form of wounds, abrasions and scars would thus seem to bring forth the perspective of the interplay between repetition and singularity. obsessive repetition displayed by the novel’s characters, the book’s structure and its language seems to call for a psychoanalytical interpretation, where the compulsion to repeat would denote an indication of the freudian death drive. freud’s claim is that the death drive represents a fundamental urge possessed by all organic life: an urge to fall back into an earlier state of things, meaning the inorganic state from which life emerged. within life, then, exists a deep-seated will to its own annihilation (freud, 1961, p. 32). freud admits that the proposition of the reality of a primal negative drive is speculative (1961, p. 18), even though he initially deducted its existence from observations gained in his practice. if freud’s basic assumption of the human psyche was that it was fundamentally oriented towards increasing pleasure, either by avoiding displeasure or producing pleasure itself, the observance of compulsory need of traumatic patients to repeat negative experiences suggested that the pleasure principle cannot be the only driving force of mental events. something else drives us towards manifest behaviour that is harmful to us as individuals and the death drive would thus offer an explanation of seemingly incomprehensible self-destructive actions. notably in our present context—the eroticized car crash—freud refers to the traumatic effects of events such as “severe mechanical concussions, railway disasters and other accidents involving a risk to life” as being indicators of the death drive and assumed causes of the traumatic repetition compulsion (1961, p. 6). in his later work, freud (1962) detaches his theory of the death drive from merely individual psychopathologies to apply it to the whole of the social world, where in his view the drive is inherent in all human relations, manifesting as aggression and thus posing a problem of controlling this drive on societal level. whether situated within the individual or the social, the notion of positive life force against negative death drive continues the freudian tradition of dualities between, e.g., the ego and the id or reality principle and pleasure principle. under the light of this dualism the paraphiliac the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 68 janne vanhanen behaviour of the characters in crash would appear as classic example of the influence of the death drive. because of some originary event that threatens the very unity of the subject—a car crash, in this case—vaughan, ‘ballard,’ catherine et al. are traumatically compelled to repeat this event of such intensity that it has surpassed their psychic capacity to respond to it. yet, as i propose, it would seem that according to the logic of crash, the compulsion to repeat the fantasizing and actualizing of crash-sex scenarios is for the novel’s characters a peculiar route to affirmation and creation rather than a paradoxical clash of positive and negative drives. they are acting according to the emerging “benevolent psychopathology” prophesized by vaughan. ballard the author has himself vacillated between the warning tones of his french edition introduction (“a warning against that brutal, erotic and overlit realm that beckons more and more persuasively to us from the margins of the technological landscape” [1995, p. 6]) and later more affirmative pronouncements (“crash is not a cautionary tale. crash is what it appears to be. it is a psychopathic hymn” [ballard interviewed in self, 2006, p. 32]). rather than depicting activity related to traumatic neurosis, could crash be considered in terms of the production of something new—a production of event? emma whiting (2012) notes perceptively that despite ballard’s works of early 1970’s (the atrocity exhibition [1970] and crash) treating subjects that might seem to situate the books in the tradition of “abject literature,” as nominated by julia kristeva, these novels do not bring the reader into a direct and disturbing contact with the abject content, as our culture already circulates images of abjection at such rate that their challenging, as well as psychically restorative force is numbed (pp. 92–93). despite the photographic-level of detailing of visceral aftermaths of disasters, the texts do not traumatize, but rather “seem strangely devoid of horror. the crashes and crashed bodies provoke little affect either within or without the text and are often presented as merely elaborate, stylistic poses” (whiting, 2012, p. 92). an analysis of crash by jean baudrillard (1991) would agree, as baudrillard sees the novel as an emblem of the postmodern condition of hyperreality where reality and image cannot be separated and signs make evident their nature as effects. in crash everything is mediated, circulated through representations, so that even the most grotesque automobile disaster or sexual act (or their combination) is devoid of affect, both for the novel’s character and the reader. there will be no real trauma in the world of crash. the speculative drive – deleuze and the event based on the above observations, do whiting’s and baurdillard’s interpretations of crash’s affectless quality undermine the possibility of any trauma-based interpretation of the novel? approaching the death drive through gilles deleuze’s interpretation of the freudian concept might provide us with grounds for understanding crash’s defusing of the traumatic structure despite its repetition compulsion. for deleuze, the freudian death drive is, indeed, a speculative concept—and rightly so. freud’s speculations on the death drive cannot be deducted in any straightforward manner from the observations made in his clinical work, as the drive necessarily remains beyond empirical reality. the speculative work, then, is to construct the drive and in his own work on the death drive deleuze detaches it from freud’s dualistic model of the libido versus death drive. this desexualized drive—besides death drive deleuze calls it “neutral energy”7—is not dependent on pleasure as its antithesis and is a matter of the “metaphysical surface” rather than the physical body (deleuze, 1990, p. 208). 7 as deleuze (1990) states: ”we must interpret the expression ’neutral energy’ in the following manner: ‘neutral’ means pre-individual and impersonal” (p. 213). body first: somaesthetics and popular culture69 the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash the metaphysical surface is, for deleuze, a pre-individual, “virtual,” field of radically open potentiality and it forms the transcendental condition for any individuals’ emergence in the extended, physical world. as the empirical surface, our everyday world consists of individuated things, which are restricted by already actualized or determined relations between them. “counter-actualization” is a process where the individual’s actualized relations are dissolved and distributed anew, as if gaining access to the conditions of the individual’s actual existence (deleuze, 1990, p. 178). in this deleuzian context, counter-actualization requires a taking hold of, or even a creation of, the event. from the perspective of the actual—a given present that is populated by “statesof-affairs”—the event appears always as virtual and untimely: a passage out of the orderly state towards a chaos that cannot ever be fully lived. events arise from the interactions of things as their logical attributes. as in deleuze’s example, the virtual event “to cut” can be actualized in many different positions, for instance in active “i cut” and passive “i am being cut.” the virtual event is “neutral” with respect to these different actualizations, and is as such impersonal and pre-individual and should be thought of as infinitive expression “to cut” (deleuze, 1990, pp. 5–6). from the perspective of the actualized world, events are occurrences that are happening to me. from the perspective of the virtual and metaphysical field, events subsist out of chronological time and are not voided in their accidental actualizations. the infinitive hovers over the actual states-of-affairs. at this stage it is necessary to ask: what is the connection between deleuze’s interpretation of the death drive, his metaphysical concept of the event and the activities and ideas depicted in ballard’s novel crash? let us take repetition into consideration. freud speculated death drive as a fundamental drive towards the end of individual life; death drive was at the bottom of the neurotic compulsion to repeat harmful patterns. in this case repetition is repetition of the same. again and again, the subject finds himor herself in a position that is negative in valence. at first glance we could psychoanalyse crash’s protagonists as displaying the exact symptoms of repetition compulsion. yet, for deleuze there is another, more constitutive level of repetition— not of the same, but of difference. deleuze sees the history of philosophy from plato to heidegger being dominated by difference understood as secondary in relation to identity. the terms (x and y) of any relation of difference (between x and y) are thought to have primary identity, the relation itself being a secondary type of occurrence between them (deleuze, 1994, p. 30). against this understanding deleuze posits difference as the primary transcendental principle, which creates the now-secondary order identities by the way of the event constituting a sufficient reason for empirical phenomena—to take a relatively simple physical example, a cloud is formed because of its preceding differential conditions between air temperature and moisture, differentials that come together in an cloud-event. in deleuze’s philosophy difference is no longer subordinated to identity. difference as prioritized ontological principle acts as the genesis of variation; repetition makes possible the continuation of this variation. repetition can now be considered as a fundamentally creative process. this view orients also deleuze’s reading of the death drive: it becomes freud’s great discovery of speculative metaphysics, asserting primary repetition that is not in deleuze’s interpretation an inclination of the organic matter to return to a previous inorganic state but a process of continuous self-differentiation—perpetual change and adaptation of the constitution of the self (1994, p. 113). from the subjective point of view of an individual, this self-differentiation may appear as dissolution of subjectivity and as such appears as a harbinger of impeding death. in crash’s case the characters’ physical merging with automobiles in the violent intercourse the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 70 janne vanhanen of the crash-event and the psychological melding of body parts with car parts in their crashfantasies speaks of the allure of this self-differentiation as self-negation. freud already provides a model for this as he postulates a same tendency towards release of tension both in drives of pleasure and death: “to keep constant, or to remove internal tension due to stimuli,” calling this tendency the “nirvana principle,” an orientation towards zero excitation (1961, pp. 49–50). this is apparent in the pleasure principle’s function: to free the mental apparatus entirely from excitation […] but it is clear that the function thus described would be concerned with the most universal endeavour of all living substance—namely to return to the quiescence of the inorganic world. we have all experienced how the greatest pleasure attainable by us, that of the sexual act, is associated with momentary extinction of a highly intensified excitation. the binding of an instinctual impulse would be a preliminary function designed to prepare the excitation for its final elimination in the pleasure of discharge. (freud, 1961, p. 56) freud, then, effectively describes the orgasmic sex-death in the ultimate crash, so desired by crash’s characters. yet, in crash, the crash-event that the novel’s protagonists are continuously circling around and sometimes enacting is portrayed—perhaps scandalously—as life-changing and affirmative process from the perspective of those who have undergone the transformation through collision. in the novel, ‘ballard’ looks at vaughan’s extensive collections of photographs of crash victims, extracting from their myriad details a whole new world of meanings. looking at the photo dossier of “the crash, hospitalization and post-recuperative romance” (ballard, 1995, p. 99) of vaughan’s acquaintance, gabrielle, who was left crippled after her car accident, ‘ballard’ can grasp the depth of her collision’s transformative power: i realized the extent to which this tragically injured young woman had been transformed during her recovery from the accident. the first photographs of her lying in the crashed car showed a conventional young woman whose symmetrical face and unstretched skin spelled out the whole economy of a cozy and passive life, of minor flirtations in the backs of cheap cars enjoyed without any sense of the real possibilities of her body. [...] this agreeable young woman, with her pleasant sexual dreams, had been reborn within the breaking contours of her crushed sports car. [...] the crushed body of the sports car had turned her into a creature of free and perverse sexuality, releasing within its twisted bulkheads and leaking engine coolant all the deviant possibilities of her sex. (ballard, 1995, p. 99) through observing the effects of the collision on the young woman, the incorporeal sense of the event becomes manifest to ‘ballard.’ the crash-event is transformative both in the empirical, corporeal world of bodies bearing the marks of their encounters with crumpling metal and shattering glass, and in the metaphysical meaning of making visible the conditions of psychological, vocational and sexual normality that formerly bound the characters and are now seen as obsolete once one has crashed with reality itself and understood it as continuous selfdifferentiation – at the limit of which lies the death of the self or the “i.” body first: somaesthetics and popular culture71 the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash crash’s psychopathic hymn do we have the resources to consider the death of the self as something other than traumatic? in order to read crash ultimately not as “cautionary [tale], a warning” but “a psychopathic hymn” (ballard, 1995, p. 6; self, 2006, p. 32) we must pinpoint what this hymn is sung in praise of. i would propose that in this matter we should focus on the “beyond” in freud’s beyond the pleasure principle. what lies beyond the organic orientation towards pleasure is, as we have discussed above, drive towards death, i.e. the organism’s instinct to return to a state of zero excitation. in deleuze’s analysis this instinct—freud’s death drive—becomes an affirmative force of selfdifferentiation. especially in his writings with félix guattari the locus of this differentiation, from the point of view of the organism, is nominated as the body without organs (corps-sansorganes, often used in the abbreviated form bwo/cso). as deleuze and guattari state, the bwo is the “limit of the lived body” (1987, p. 150) and the term refers to the ontological understanding of the body as assemblage of affects—preindividual relations of increasing and decreasing intensity. hence, the bwo undermines the traditional notion of the organism as self-enclosed unity of determined configuration of organs. “the enemy is the organism. the bwo is opposed not to the organs but to that organization of the organs called the organism” (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 158). the bwo denotes a body considered not as a self-enclosed unity, but rather a “plane” that collides together heterogeneous elements on the basis of which phenomenological experience of the lived body emerges. crash’s hymnal quality emerges especially in its monomaniacal descriptions of syntheses of these heterogeneous elements, of metal, glass, flesh and fluids: “this automobile marked with mucus from every orifice of the human body [...] layout of the instrument panel, like the profile of the steering wheel bruised into my chest, was inset on my knees and shinbones [...] the car-crash, a fierce marriage pivoting on the fleshy points of her knees and pubis [etc. etc.]” (ballard, 1995, pp. 137, 28, 99). also, as crash’s world is that of baudrillardian hyperreality, the heterogenous elements include also incorporeal elements—images, ideas, fantasies—which are no less real than corporeal things. as the transcendental condition of subjective experience, the bwo is evident to the experiencing subject only in the most ambiguous states that disturb the normality of the body. deleuze and guattari refer to the drugged or the masochistic body in relation to these intensive states and quote william burroughs in naked lunch as depicting the drugged body’s revolt against the organized organism: the human body is scandalously inefficient. instead of a mouth and an anus to get out of order why not have one all-purpose hole to eat and eliminate? we could seal up nose and mouth, fill in the stomach, make an air hole direct into the lungs where it should have been in the first place. (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 150) compare this with crash: i visualized my wife injured in a high-impact collision, her mouth and face destroyed, and a new and exciting orifice opened in her perineum by the splintering steering column, neither vagina nor rectum, an orifice we could dress with all our deepest affections. i visualized the injuries of film actresses and television personalities, whose bodies would flower into dozens of auxiliary orifices, points of sexual conjunction with their audiences formed by the swerving technology of the automobile. (ballard, 1995, pp. 179–80) the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 72 janne vanhanen ‘ballard,’ after he has had intercourse with a deep, indented scar in the thigh of gabrielle, envisions a future sexuality of mobile erogenous zones. the crash-event that the protagonists of the novel have all encountered has become a harbinger of new fluidity of desire that can be conceptualized by deleuze and guattari’s body without organs. the deleuzian conception of event means not only the production of something genuinely new in the experiential world (here: the crash-sex interface of automobiles and their human drivers and passengers, a previously unthinkable proposition) but also the altering of the past in a way that the latent, virtual potentialities enabling the empirical emergence of the event become understood (here: various elements of the post-war technological and mediated landscape that produce the possibility of the crash-event). the event itself eludes presence in its actualization, which concerns both the future and the past, with the virtual event remaining in the infinite mode. as i see it, the literary devices of crash reflect this: the crash-event remains undescribed in the novel, at least in any substantial manner that would be comparable to the exquisitely detailed descriptions of crash fantasies or the tableaus of altered metal and flesh after the crashes. for instance, vaughan’s terminal crash has already happened in the beginning of the novel.8 what about trauma? is it not the case that crash depicts a textbook example of the libidinal conflict between the erotic drive towards increasing of excitation and the thanatic countermovement towards the oblivion of zero intensity? would the result of this oscillation between eros and thanatos be the traumatic compulsion to repeat the crash-event that originally presented a threat to one’s organic unity? we can turn this freudian analysis around, as deleuze does, and by this interpret crash’s protagonists’ quest as not negative but affirmative. for deleuze, what is primary is not some originary lack that desire would be oriented towards in the hope of fulfilling the lack, but rather the metaphysical difference-in-itself that lacks nothing. the question becomes that of perspective: from the point of view of organic normality that the social control seeks to keep intact, becoming-other is aberration, perversity, negativity—even death of the self. from the perspective of the body without organs, intensive differences do not recognize negativity, only variation. yet, the state of death as zero intensity (cf. freud’s nirvana principle) is always present in the bwo as the condition from which relations emerge and recede into. ”it is in the very nature of every intensity to invest within itself the zero intensity starting from which it is produced, in one moment, as that which grows or diminishes according to an infinity of degrees” (deleuze & guattari, 1983, p. 330). as the intensive body of differential relations of varying intensity, the bwo is not otherworldly, however. deleuze and guattari’s criticism of freud concerns his way of universalizing the drives and the subsequent subject formation—hence deleuze and guattari’s figure of anti-oedipus as criticism of the western familial/oedipal situation taken as a universal model for the development of subjectivity, as well as their usage of the concept of machine instead of structure. rather, deleuze and guattari see the bwo, with its substratum of the neutral energy of zero intensity (i.e. the death drive), as necessarily historical. this means that the bwo exists bound in certain organization, but as an enemy of it (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 158), providing potentiality for change in order to devise escape routes towards alternate modes of existence. following deleuze and guattari, one can ask: if life is understood in the most general terms as transmission of intensities, why limit life to the activity of the organism? organism, as self-enclosed and selfmaintaining system is oriented towards habituation as the repetition of the same. the event, as 8 crash begins in the end – or after the end of vaughan, as ‘ballard’ recounts how vaughan has died in his ultimate crash, finally enacting his obsession of colliding with the actress elizabeth taylor (however missing his target and plunging through the roof of a tourist bus instead). body first: somaesthetics and popular culture73 the crash-event: repetition and difference in j. g. ballard’s crash the repetition of preceding elements in a way that produces difference, “escapes” the traumatic model of repetition of the same. claire colebrook (2011) emphasizes the need in philosophical thinking to move beyond the model of the organism, a traumatic body bounded between desire for expansion and fear of obliteration, in order to approach that which is truly yet unthinkable. j. g. ballard, in speculating an assemblage of various elements of different modes of existence, both organic and inorganic, opens up a trajectory towards thinking our current social and technological situation in novel terms. therefore, crash offers itself not only as an object of literary analysis, but also as a source of philosophical thinking in itself. the question of whether crash is a moral, cautionary tale or immoral pornography is now beside the point. by constructing a literary world where the characters are swept up with the erotic allure of technology, media and self-modification via auto-erotic crashes, the crash-event in the book and the crash-event of the book reveal heretofore hidden genealogies leading to this speculative modern moment of the “autogeddon” (ballard, 1995, p. 50) to come. the writing of this article was funded by alfred kordelin foundation. references airaksinen, t. (1995). the philosophy of the marquis de sade. london, routledge augé, m. (1995). non-places – introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity (j. howe, trans.). london & new york, verso ballard, j. g. (1968). a neural interval. ambit 36 (summer), back cover ballard, j. g. (1976). two letters. foundation: the international review of science fiction 10, 50–52 ballard, j. g. (1995). crash. london, vintage baudrillard, j. (1991). ballard’s crash. science fiction studies 18(55), 309–19 colebrook, c. (2011). time and autopoiesis: the organism has no future. in l. guillaume & j. hughes (eds.). deleuze and the body (pp. 9–28). edinburgh, edinburgh university press cord, f. (2017). j. g. ballard's politics: late capitalism, power, and the pataphysics of resistance. berlin & boston, walter de gruyter deleuze, g. (1986). cinema 1: the movement-image (h. tomlinson & b. habberjam, trans.). london, the athlone press deleuze, g. (1990). the logic of sense (m. lester & c. stivale, trans.). london, the athlone press deleuze, g. (1994). difference and repetition (p. patton, trans.). new york, columbia university press deleuze, g. & guattari, f. (1983). anti-oedipus (r. hurley, m. seem & h. r. lane, trans.). minneapolis, university of minnesota press deleuze, g. & guattari, f. (1987). a thousand plateaus (b. massumi, trans.). minneapolis, university of minnesota press d’costa, k. (2013, april 22). choice, control, freedom and car ownership. scientific american. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 74 janne vanhanen retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/choice-controlfreedom-and-car-ownership/?redirect=1 francis, s. (2011). the psychological fictions of j. g. ballard. london & new york, continuum freud, s. (1961). beyond the pleasure principle (j. strachey, trans.). new york & london, w. w. norton & co freud, s. (1962). civilization and its discontents (j. strachey, trans.). new york & london, w. w. norton & co goddard, j. (1973). ballard on crash – answers to some questions. cypher 10 (october), 53–54 langman, l. (2018). punk, porn and resistance: carnivalization and the body in popular culture. current sociology 56 (4), 657–677 luckhurst, r. (2008). j. g. ballard: crash. in d. seed (ed.). a companion to science fiction (pp. 512–521). malden, ma & oxford, blackwell publishing nuttall, j. (2018). bomb culture – 50th anniversary edition. london, strange attractor press sage, v. (2008). the gothic, the body, and the failed homeopathy argument: reading crash. in j. baxter (ed.). j. g. ballard: contemporary literary perspectives (pp. 34–49). london, continuum self, w. (2006). junk mail. new york, black cat smith, z. (2014, july 4). sex and wheels: zadie smith on jg ballard’s crash. the guardian. retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/04/zadie-smith-jg-ballard-crash tighe, c. (2005). writing and responsibility. london, routledge whiting, e. (2012). disaffection and abjection in j. g. ballard’s the atrocity exhibition and crash. in j. baxter & r. wymer (eds.). j. g. ballard: visions and revisions (pp. 88–104). basingstoke, palgrave macmillan the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) editorial board editors in chief professor falk heinrich (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) issue editors professor falk heinrich (denmark) senior lecturer max ryynänen (finland) professor anne elisabeth sejten (denmark) editorial board professor richard shusterman (usa) honorary professor else-marie bukdhahl (denmark) professor stefan valdemar snævarr (norway) professor dag svanaes (norway) professor arto haapala (finland) post.doc anne tarvainen (finland) professor mie buhl (denmark) associate professor cumhur erkut (denmark) associate professor sofia dahl (denmark, sweden) professor kristina höök (sweden) professor palle dahlstedt (sweden) associate professor yanping gao (china) professor mathias girel (france) professor leszek koczanowicz (poland) published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk the journal of somaesthetics was founded by richard shusterman, else marie bukdahl and ståle stenslie. the journal is funded by the joint committee for nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences, nos-hs and independent research fund denmark. © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. articles published in the journal of somaesthetics are following the license creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0 international (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) issn: 2246-8498 authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a creative commons attribution license: attribution noncommercial noderivs (by-nc-nd). further information about creative commons. the journal does not charge the authors for publication. page 53-72 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects53 into the woods with heidegger into the woods with heidegger reflections about an artistic-academic experiment falk heinrich abstract: this article is an academic reflection about a video project that i conducted in the summer of 2016. the video documents my collaboration with artist thomas wolsing. my ambition for this collaboration was to discover and experience interlacements between, on the one hand, art theory (epitomized by some sentences of heidegger’s “the origin of the work of art”) and on the other hand, artistic and physical-constructional work that is building a land art piece. the article cites and reflects on dialogues and monologues presented in the video by discussing the mutual dependence between and incompatibilities of art theory and art making. the conceptual cornerstone of the discussion is the notion of embodiment as outlined by edgar wind and fischer-lichte augmented by barad’s related notion of agential intra-action. the article discusses the experienced integration of physical and discursive actions that, in the moment of performance, are elusive and refute any ethical assessment. keywords: aesthetics, art, practice, heidegger, edgar wind, embodiment, ethics. 1. video documentary and academic reflection this article is an academic reflection about a video project that i conducted in the summer of 2016. the project was part of a bigger framework, entitled constructions and emergence, that created a framework for artists and scientists/scholars to meet and collaborate. five collaborating teams were formed. the pieces resulting from these collaborations between artists and scientists were exhibited and presented at the landshape festival 2016, a land art festival funded by the region of north jutland (kulturkanten). the landshape festival also exhibited other works of land art commissioned and selected by a curatorial team. i worked with the danish artist thomas wolsing. all the footage was made with a gopro camera mounted on my head. the dialogues, monologues, and visuals are the result of improvised encounters between thomas wolsing and myself. in addition, i used on-the-fly selected sentences of heidegger’s seminal essay “the origin of the work of art” to create an encounter between not only two persons including their physical actions, but also between an artwork in the construction phase and excerpts from art theory. these encounters played out in the forest. this article follows the edited video in which i the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 54 falk heinrich have retained the chronology of the occurrences. far from the whole raw footage found its way into the final video: many dialogues and oral reflections were omitted, and some shortened in order to create a somewhat interesting dramaturgy and a coherent thematic development. as already hinted at, the project has two different documentary outcomes: a video and a conventional text-based article (the latter being this text) each using very different media with their respective affordances. a written article accommodates extended discursive reflections, descriptions, and references, whereas the medium of the video provides for a narrative representation of a situation’s complexity in regard to the depicted material conditions, the diegetic sounds of the forest, the human participants’ actions, and the interpersonal occurrences and dialogues. the recording of the intonation of my uttered words in conjunction with a pointof-view shot of my movements and actions better transmits my shifting emotional states ranging from curiosity to despair and hopelessness in regards to my set objective. the text format, on the other hand, caters for the construction of conceptual-discursive frameworks within which the descriptions of the concrete occurrences and experiences are merely jumping pads for abstract theoretical explanations.1 as the etymology of the term ex-planation suggests, this inevitably results in a necessary reduction of complexity and the construction of an intelligible and academically reflected theoretical world as a tool for comprehension. but let me commence with the transcription of the beginning of the video. in the video, i am standing in the middle of the forest, where i have agreed to meet with the artist thomas wolsing for our first day of the project. he drove his red car near to the spot in the middle of the forest where he wanted to construct the planned piece of art. we had met several times before in order to discuss the framework and objectives of our collaboration. the transcript starts with a short explanation of the envisioned collaboration, its focus, and goals. falk: here is thomas wolsing and his red car and … he is the artist and is taking a lot of plant pots out of his car. we have begun our collaboration a bit late, meaning that the founding concept of the artwork has been done by thomas. i was not part of the concept development process. my collaboration will consist of helping thomas build and install this piece of land art here in the middle of the wood. what is the piece’s name, thomas? thomas: it’s: erhernogen (engl: istheresomebody) parenthesis: still-life. nature morte. falk: ok. i want to document my experiences of the process. i will talk during the process, also with thomas, asking questions, expressing reflections and how it feels to practically help thomas construct the art piece. as already said, i am a scholar doing research within art theory. i have read a fair bit of theoretical books, such as martin heidegger’s “the origin of the work of art”. i was thinking that i will read some of his paragraphs, some of his sentences, once in a while, in-between, when i feel it would fit, read them and reflect on them a bit in relation to what i am doing in the moment: concretely helping thomas construct the piece. i have forgotten to say that i am hoping that my theoretical understanding will in one way or another be influenced by the practical part of 1 “late 14c., from latin explanationem (nominative explanatio) “an explanation, interpretation,” noun of action from past participle stem of explanare “to make plain or clear, explain,” literally “make level, flatten,” from ex “out” (see ex-) + planus “flat” (from pie root *pele(2) “flat; to spread”)” (harper 2001-2018). within a visual, pictorial discourse of imagination, making plane necessitates the reduction from three dimensional to two-dimensional representations that transforms objects to more or less generic signs and transforms them from being obstacles to way points necessary for further moves and actions. somaesthetics and its nordic aspects55 into the woods with heidegger building, wielding something, to feel the material and form, to feel, hm… maybe there will be associations, which i might not have had if i only had read his [heidegger’s] text my ambition was to discover personal interlacements between, on the one hand, art theory, epitomized by some heidegger quotes and my in situ reading of them and, on the other hand, artistic creational and construction work and processes. my intent was to find very personal points of convergence or even common points of emergence of the artistic-creational act and art theory. from the very beginning, i imagined that this field of convergence must be located in or emerge from my performing body.2 2. dependencies and distinctions the application of art theory to concrete production work has proven to be a difficult endeavor in many art universities and universities with artistic programs. there is a historical division of labor between the art academies and the universities. the reflective part of art has clearly been allocated to the universities. here, art is seen as a cultural expression of societies that has to be formulated and expressed with the help of academic-hermeneutic analyses bringing about knowledge-producing theories and contextualization. on the other hand, the concretecreative methods of art production have been allocated to art schools of all kinds yielding artistic competences to be used in the materializing of inspiration and craftsmanship, be that a painting, music or sound, theatre, or other forms of artistic event. artists produce works of art that, with luhmann3, can show the world that there are other possibilities than the actual ones at a given moment. the autonomy of art (in western societies since the 19th century) does not only secure a foundational purposelessness of art making in regard to societal needs and challenges, but it also shields the artist from demands of academic reason and causal-logical methods of production. therefore, autonomous art, so it is claimed, can transcend existing discourses. switching back to academics, art theorists analyze and interpret art pieces uncovering not only their internal structures and modi operandi, but their possible significances as an attempt to make them relevant for society and its members. however, the relationship between art making and art theory is not linear and unidirectional. academia is not only interpreting existing pieces of art, academia is also synthesizing and voicing artistic problems; this is another outcome of academic reflective endeavor.4 collenberg-plotnikov, following the german philosopher and art historian edgar wind, seems to hint at art and art theory intrinsically forming a circular dependency. in wind’s book art and anarchy5, he laments that modern art is a secluded way of producing art and points to, for example, renaissance art that also had educational purpose and 2 in this context, my performing body refers to myself constructing the piece within the conceptual framework of my project. it is neither acting in the theatrical sense or a mere doing. the performing body is not operating flesh in merleau-ponty’s understanding. the performing body is rather bringing about manifestations initiated by the conceptual framework, my proprioceptions and associations, and academic questions. my academic take on the performing body is informed by performance studies and the notion of performativity (erika fischer-lichte, the transformative power of performance, the transformative power of performance: a new aesthetics (london, new york’: routlegde, 2008); richard schechner, performance theory, performance theory (london, new york: routlegde, 2003); karen barad, ‘posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter’, signs, gender and science: new issues, vol. 28,.no. 3 (2003), 801–31) and aesthetics, especially somaesthetics (richard shusterman, ‘somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal’, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57.3 (1999), 299–313). 3 niklas luhmann, ‘the medium of art’, thesis eleven, 18–19 (1987). 4 collenberg-plotnikov, bernadette, ‘forschung als verkörperung’, in wie verändert sich kunst, wenn man sie als forschung versteht?, ed. by judith siegmund (bielefeld: transcript verlag, 2016). 5 edgar wind, art and anarachy (evanston, usa: nothwestern university press, 1985). the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 56 falk heinrich where patronage did not solely mean financial support, but also demands and discussions about artworks to be. if we were to believe wind, this raised artistic quality and gave art a position in society.6, 7 also, shusterman states that art theoreticians partake in making art history through “the interventions of theorists, whose views have traditionally been central to the creative and critical context in which artists, critics, and art historians function.”8 wind sees the cultural significance of art in the ability of embodiment (“verkörperung”). works of art can be seen as materialization – as artistic answers – to questions that cannot be solved by thought proper. embodiment gives a necessary resistance to thought. artistic questions are always means and products of thoughts. these questions might be asked by the artist himself or herself, but they are most poignantly (and often retrospectively) formulated by university academics. art as cultural production is far from a solitary endeavor but, if it should serve any cultural and epistemological purpose, must be seen as a complex collaboration between a whole range of actors, where academic research definitely has a role to play. the same goes for any theoretical endeavor: theory too, being the production of structured thoughts, needs to be transformed and made observable as materialization of a kind. this might be in the form of artworks, any cultural artifacts, and the experiments of natural science. this might seem to be a rather simplified functional relationship between academia and art and, most certainly, there are many more aspects, both personal stimuli and societal conditions, that eventually lead to the making of works of art. however, in my reading, wind seems to suggest that academic analysis is not only a post-factual, interpretive endeavor, but that academic reflection also plays a prospective role in the production of art. definitely, art does not (and should not) illustrate art and/or aesthetic theories, however, it is reasonable to claim that there is a dialogue, a mutual inspirational process going on and that art and human sciences presuppose each other (at least in the present societal constellation). this is even more relevant today, where art academies aspire to be research institutions conducting artistic research. this development (re-)ignites the discussion about the differences and communalities of academic and artistic research and about how we operationalize and bring into play our respective competences (see, for example, badura; borgdorff; savin-baden & wimpenny).9 the simple fact that artistic research demands an artistic problem formulation or a hypothesis of a kind or, even more rudimentary, a specified and articulated field of interest, whose importance must be validated through a contextualization of the artistic process and product, shows that theoretical (reflective) dimensions are an intrinsic part of art making. expressed the other way around but equally true, art making and art reception are intrinsically reflective enterprises that allow us to engage in an interplay of perceptions and significances, precisely because art, on a basic level, serves the materialization of the imaginary that circles around the fruitful dependency between rationality (the sensible) and irrationality (the not6 wind, 1985, p. 62 7 luhmann has a similar take on art seen from the perspective of sociology. he asserts that artworks are elements of the social system of art in line with other system participants such as the audience, the critics, institutions, funding bodies, etc. artists’ seclusion and autonomy is an ambition supported – and also perforated – by all the other system participants. according to luhmann, modern art during the 20th century has begun to incorporate the very question of its social positions, purposes, modes of communication, and significances into art making (niklas luhmann, ‘the medium of art’, thesis eleven, 18–19 (1987)., thus creating reflective anchors (in terms of society). in my view, this is (partly) a result of the merger of art academies and universities in the anglo-american societies and forms the basis for recent discussion about artistic research (see further down in the article). 8 richard shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art (lanham: rowman &littlefield publishers, 2000) p. 45 9 badura, jens, ‘erkenntnis (sinnliche)’, in künstlerische forschung ein handbuch, ed. by jens bdaura, selma dubach, anke haarmann, dieter mersch, anton rey, christoph schenker, and others (zürich: diaphanes, 2015); borgdorff, henk, ‘the production of knowledge in artistic research’, in the routledge companion to research in the arts, ed. by m. biggs and h. karlsson (london, new york: routledge, 2010); savin-baden, maggi, and katherine wimpenny, a practical guide to arts-related research (rotterdam. boston,taipei: sense publishers, 2014) somaesthetics and its nordic aspects57 into the woods with heidegger structured).10 but does that mean that artistic research will take over the role and competences of academic research, because the artistic researcher will incorporate these dimensions into art making proper? what, then, remains for the academic scholar? this is, of course, a vanity question. collenberg-plotinkov’s differentiation is an attempt to characterize societal-functional differences. of course, this generalized model cannot account for the many concrete incidences, where both artists and academics try to enlarge their field by incorporating the other side. during the past decades, one could observe a kind of beating around the bush by academic and artistic researchers in an attempt to find new distinctions. artistic researchers have tried to define what artistic research is in comparison to academic research by experimenting with and testing different combinations of and weighings of the resulting work of art and different means of explicit reflection (e.g., documentation report, thesis, discussion, presentation) as research outcome. this is most evident in the different national requirements for artistic phd programs (see for instance, biggs & karlson11). on the other hand, even though academic results are most often disseminated through scholarly journals and books, academics were never prohibited from also engaging in artistic practice. that does not mean that there is still an old finger-wagging man admonishing us to keep the reflective-analytical distance to the artwork. but for many musicologists, for example, it is quite natural to play an instrument and/or to compose music. some theatre researchers do engage in theatre productions as dramaturge, director, etc. and can universities forbid art historians from painting or curating? therefore, on a personal level, both artists and university scholars engage in multiple ways with their fields of interest and expertise without respecting professional boundaries. explicitly or not, experiences made in the ‘other’ disciplinary field will have an influence on both an artist’s and a scholar’s work and thinking. and it is precisely the complexity of personal involvement with the common field (of art as cultural and communicative creations) that allows for a necessary manifold of both artistic and academic outputs. in the last passages, i have tried to set the stage for my elaboration. on this stage, i find the notion “verkörperung” (embodiment) intriguing and it shall henceforth be the focal point of this article. indeed, it is not a new concept and can be found in many texts on art and especially artistic research, simply because art is about the creation of an artifact, a material or otherwise tangible and concrete manifestation (painting, sculptures, installations, music or theatre performances, events/happenings – just to mention a few). however, the fact that academic research, be it in natural or human sciences, also is in need of this “verkörperung” is a disregarded phenomenon, especially within the humanities. the natural sciences have their various forms of experiments that embody and materialize their academic research questions and give the necessary resistance and indeterminacy necessary for theory formation. the natural scientist rheinberger calls this “nicht-fokale aufmerksamkeit”.12 evidently, art theory is dependent on works of art (as many human sciences are empirically dependent on cultural artifacts of various kinds). this relation is normally seen as unidirectional, where the artwork is the pre-given subject matter for academic analyses. human sciences ‘postartifactually’ unravel the significances and inner workings of art and present them as discursive knowledge, as generalized propositions. however, i, in line with wind, collenberg-plotinkov and 10 collenberg-plotnikov, 2016, p. 79 11 biggs, michael, and henrik karlson, ‘evaluating quality in artistic research’, in routledge companion to research in the arts, ed. by michael biggs and henrik karlson (london, new york: routledge, 2011) 12 rheinberger, hans-jörg, iterations (berlin: merve verlag, 2005) p. 72 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 58 falk heinrich shusterman (to name some), claim that works of art also serve as the embodiment of questions produced (but not exclusively) in art theory. in this regard, theories always produce questions (and not propositions), simply because all abstract and generalized propositions necessarily are hypotheses that have to be verified by the particularity of life. in art theory, artworks are most often used as referenced examples that seem to incorporate and thus make plausible the hypotheses of the theory in question. in this sense, all theories are creating the works of art they are referring to. in order to be embodiments, theories have to conjure up artworks as perceptual objects or “gebilde” in gadamer’s sense13, a form of “ideality” (or the ideality of artistic form) based on a conceptual structure that allows for hermeneutic participation. only if a theory succeeds in creating its referenced artworks as perceptual imaginations, that is, as physiological occurrences, then the embodiment of theory has succeeded. expressed a bit differently, i claim that any theory cries out for incarnation and wishes to be merged with the materiality of the world.14 for example, heidegger’s essay on the origin of the work of art refers several times to the greek temple and also to van gogh’s painting of worn-out shoes. heidegger almost conjures up the decisive world-establishing significance of the temple by letting us recollect images of temples that incorporate perceptions of, for example, the rocky ground it is (and we are) standing on and indirectly the heat of the sun and so forth. he is almost arousing our capability to physically feel the shoes as a particular thing and their inherent thingness as a specific tool. a work of art works (performs) by creating our world that lets us reflectively experience the situated constituents of our world. also, heidegger’s far more abstract passages on art show and let us experience the combat between world and earth, wherein the earth reads and feels as palpable materiality that is always in the process of concealment, of negating any obvious significances and therefore remains sensuously material. of course, for heidegger, the earth is first of all a metaphor, namely a metaphor for the agency of hiding, of remaining unknown and dark. nevertheless, his description of van gogh’s shoes connotes the concealing – and therefore fertile – earth. and in his description of the greek temple, “the rocky ground”15 becomes the ever-concealing earth, whereas the temple opened up a world for the greek society and citizen, as long as the gods were present in the temple. but i am jumping ahead of myself and the video. in my performative experiment, i wanted to try to embody bits and pieces of (one specific) theory of art through the physical work of construction of an artwork; not by bringing art theory and emerging artwork into a hermeneutical alignment, but rather by searching for instances of embodiment where thought and physical construction are two sides of the same coin. what these instances of embodiment could look like, i had at this point in the video no idea whatsoever. the experimental setting was very simple; i participated actively in the construction of the artwork while reflecting on the artwork-to-be by citing and interpreting heidegger’s essay. i wanted to embody heidegger’s thoughts by bringing them into the concrete situation of physical construction work. a whimsical aspect of my aim is that wind detested heidegger. he accused him of “[seeking] to replace critical analysis with contemplative declarations.”16 in his polemical essay “jean-paul sartre: a french heidegger,” he heavily attacks heidegger (and sartre) by writing that “[t]he 13 gadamer, hans-georg, die aktualität des schönen (stuttgart: reclam verlag, 1977) p. 44 14 wind asserts that the experiments of natural science embody their theories through the act of measurement. the apparatus of measurement becomes the materialization of thought and theoretical assumptions that, paradoxically, predetermine our notion of reality. 15 heidegger, martin, basic writings (london, new york: routledge, 1993) p. 166 16 wind, 2001, p. vi somaesthetics and its nordic aspects59 into the woods with heidegger dismissal of lucidity, of rationality, of any harmonious sense of existence as ‘unauthentic’ is one of the most vicious pieces of sophistry that m. sartre has taken over from heidegger.”17 wind sees in heidegger’s adoration of darkness (concealment) the philosophical argument for his active support of national socialism. for wind, embodiment of art is realized through aisthesis, the sensuous experiences and appreciation of the artwork. “there is only one test of the artistic significance of an interpretation: it must sharpen our appreciation of the objects and thus enhance our aesthetic pleasure”.18 he sees embodiment as a process of rationality, of hermeneutics on the basis of symbols and forms. art ultimately is embodiment of thoughts that rigorous interpretation can pleasurably decipher by bringing into rational clarity the significances of formal composition and historic contextualization. evidently, he is talking as an art historian at a time when artistic research was not a topic. the science of art found embodiment in existing works of art. 3. questions, artistic embodiments and body actions back to the video: a summer forest with an abundance of moss, fern, and mainly coniferous trees. the first day of our encounter in the forest was a warm and pleasant day. everything was green. falk: ok, thomas, what should i do? thomas: we have to put these pots in this area over there. we should put each beside a fern. thomas and i carried some plant pots from his car to the selected site, approximately sixty meters from the narrow stony path. the forest was not a very dense one, rather light and spacy. thomas had chosen a spot with a lot of ferns. while carrying the pots into the forest, thomas explained: thomas: it is like that, that, my idea for this project was that [this forest], a beautiful area with summer cottages [pause] obviously, this is an industrial, planted forest, but we call it nature […] it is a recreational area, where tourists like to come [..]. and furthermore, i am very fascinated by these ferns here, and moss. moss and ferns were the first plants on the earth – from the origin of life. when you look at a fern like this one, as long as it is planted in the earth, is it termed nature, but when it is in a pot, is it called culture, part of civilisation. that is why i thought what we will do is dig up the ferns, plant them in the pots, widen the hole in the ground and put the pots into them. falk: ok. thomas: when we do this at many spots, it can provoke the public’s curiosity yes – that is to say, something is happening here, something different. let us continue with this idea. falk: and we do not know whether the pot is coming out of the earth or whether, precisely, it is put into the earth. 17 ibid. 18 wind, 1985, p.62 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 60 falk heinrich thomas: so, nature is human-made, at the border of nature and civilisation. i think that is interesting and i was thinking of working with this in the project. figure 1: still from the video article: into the woods with heidegger – a video article thomas wolsing has been working for a while with the special culture and atmosphere of provincial areas, namely parts of the country where there does not seem to be any economic and cultural progress. these are the areas where the young people move away towards the metropoles and industrial centers and where only the elder and uneducated people remain. in these areas, many houses are abandoned and slowly deteriorating, time seems to stand still. his idea for this project, is to erect a summer cottage of decay in the middle of the forest; a cottage that is in the process of being swallowed up by the forest, the forest soil, and its plants. the dialogue between him and me shows not only his thematic focus, namely the distinction and relationship between nature and culture or civilization, but that he is looking for concrete materializations of these thoughts that are able to entail the complexity not of thoughts, but rather the complexity and indeterminacy of his experiences that his thoughts arise from and that his thoughts want to capture. in order to have a playground for his (and others’) thinking, he wanted to create a particular situation that could nurture his questions about the distinction and relation between nature and culture. this situation should embody his thoughts by being an artistic answer in the form of a concrete work that yet is distinctively undetermined and polysemic. thomas has encountered the planted pot idea; a pot that grows out of the forest floor and that contains the most ancient plants to be found in this forest – moss and fern. until now, thomas’ idea was only a concept and not yet a full artistic answer: because we had not externalized and materialized the idea, we had not planted the ferns into the pot and the pot into the forest floor. thomas: let us try to – it is tempting to dig one up. falk: (digging a hole) shall i dig more? thomas: yes, in there. fine sand, isn’t it. falk: yes, sand. thomas: fantastic. we’ll try to place it [the pot] back again. it’s almost like it’s in a shop for decorations. haha. let’s see. exciting. it’s quite amusing, isn’t it? yeah. it’s quite effective, isn’t it? somaesthetics and its nordic aspects61 into the woods with heidegger falk: yes. thomas: one takes something, manipulates it and puts it back again; then, it is completely modified. and i have thought a lot about whether i should plant a pot; but in a way, i think, one associates the fern and moss with this here [pointing at the forest]. it’s strange, isn’t it? no. the only thing that is strange is the pot. and pot signifies culture. how one blends…. falk: hmm, yea. but when we are in our gardens, we have a lot of pots, at least many have, but one experiences them not as culture, but more as… also as nature, as something that is different than the city and urban space that has another logic and atmosphere. thomas: it is quite exciting, when there begins … civilisation or when begins this site … a cultivation of this environment. falk: i think it is quite fascinating, as i said before, that one can make the association that these pots come out of the earth and are not put into the ground. they grow out of the earth like ferns. i want to question the distinction between nature and culture, one that we are socialized into. also, what we do, that we craft culture. to generate culture is our nature, somehow. thomas: it is pretty. yes. it looks good. the planted pot is a paradoxical statement that plays itself out in-between perception and semiotics. the pot is a human-made container that allows us to grow nature in artificial environments (such as houses and terraces) and is therefore a sign for human endeavor and thus culture. the planted pot with fern and moss disturbs our normal categorization of nature and culture, it inscribes the latter into the former and vice versa. the artistic embodiment of thought (forming questions) led to a situated tableau where the pots and plants are estranged – with shklovsky’s word ostrenje19 – by fiddling with their habitual context. in this constructed situation, we perceive the pot either as an almost naturally growing thing or as artificially planted cultural distinction between nature and nature (that seems to become culture). this distinction is a quite literal separation line (a clay wall) between the same (nature) that demands a categorical displacement on one side: either the planted fern is now a part of culture or the forest floor is a part of culture. taking the round form of the pot into consideration, most likely we will consider the fern in the pot as cultural artifact. thomas associated it with a decorating shop, which amused us. important is that the embodied idea can be considered an artistic answer, but only if the answer itself constitutes a playground for further questions and thoughts and not definitive answers. artistic embodiments spur cognitive indeterminacies and associations, recollections, imaginations, etc. embodiment means here a structured but not hierarchized and not categorized simultaneity of well-selected constituents that together aspire to a transient whole. the constituents are both material objects (the pot, the fern, the moss), the place (the venue in the forest) and the perceptual associations and semiotic connotation these objects occasion. the thoughts (the questions) are directly linked to, or better, are parts of the artifact’s constituents and their chancing relations. at that moment, we cannot any longer determine what came first, the thought or artifact initiated the fern-pot-forest floor-gebilde (in this case, a kind of tableau). nonetheless, this tableau elicits more thoughts and further questions that, in a 19 viktor shklovsky, ‘art as technique’, in russian formalist criticism: four essays, ed. by e.l.t. lemon, e.l.t. and m.j. reiss (lincoln: university of nebraska press, 1965). the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 62 falk heinrich recursive movement, shapes our perception of the artifact through varying interpretations and yields possibly further modifications of the tableau. but there is one thing missing. until now, my elaboration of the pot-in-the-forest-floor has focused on the objects and their relations, but not on the action of digging up the fern, of putting it in the pot, and putting the pot back into the earth. are they just intermediary means towards a goal, which in this case is the tableau and ultimately, the finished artwork? or do these physical actions entail an essential function of their own? of course, my questions are rhetorical; i claim that these actions (beside the objects) quite literally embody the artistic questions by slowly constructing an artistic answer. embodiment is thus not only the engendered result (the artwork), but also the very act of producing it. here, thoughts are transformed into moving and working bodies; these bodies are constructing tangible statements (in our case, by displacing objects and composing new constellations). in our western culture, these tangible statements are seen as works of art, as final results of artistic creation that can be perceived and contemplated, analyzed and judged, and distributed with the support of our economic system. however, wind’s project and idea of embodiment needs human bodies and human labor. my endeavor is different from wind’s and therefore also my idea of embodiment. my question is: how to embody philosophical thoughts in or through my own physical activity of art making? my bodily actions are (somehow) intended to be the instrument with which i want to embody heidegger’s “contemplative declarations.”20 or expressed differently, can the performative body be the locus for an integration of artistic practice and theoretical discourse? and is this at all desirable? the closest integration of these two approaches is to be found in the field of somaesthetics. from its conception, this field is thought as a field that crosses between aesthetic theory and body practices, where one informs the other.21 however, the most radical approach is found in post-human theories, such as barad’s “agential intra-action.” standing on both foucault’s but also deleuze’s shoulders, barad proposes a novel approach: “the primary ontological units are not ‘things,’ but phenomenal-dynamic topological reconfiguration / entanglements/relationalities/(re)articulations. and the primary semantic units are not ‘words’ but material-discursive practices through which boundaries are constituted.”22 the basis for barad’s assertion is the conviction that statements (“discursive formations”23) and, for example, material and performing bodies, have a direct formative impact on each other, thereby constituting agencies (and not objects). she elaborates on this by referencing bohr: “on the basis of this profound insight that ‘concepts’ (which are actual physical arrangements) and ‘things’ do not have determinate properties, or meanings apart from their mutual intra-actions, bohr offers a new epistemological framework that calls into question the dualism of object/subject, knower/ known, nature/culture, and word/world.”24 in a specific way, my project tried to make barad’s first assertion physical by bringing specific words into the closest possible contact with body actions within an artistic framework. the concept of my experiment thus is the physical and 20 ironically, one could claim that contemplative declarations are the very method of modern art making where rationality and irrationality make a tension field. collenberg-plotnikov writes: “mit warburg sieht wind das kunstwerk im spannungsfelt von rationalität und irrationalität. dabei wird om jeweiligen kunstwerk aber eben kein ausgleich zwischen den polen erreicht, sondern beide pole bleiben, […] stets als solche erhalten; die synthese bleibt labil” (collenberg-plotnikov, 2016. “forschung als verkörperung” in siegmund, j. (ed). wie verändert sich die kunst, wenn man sie als forschung versteht, bielfeld: transcript verlag. p. 79). does that mean, seen from the perspective of wind, that heidegger’s philosophy is art in disguise? certainly not. however, it shows that both art and science are nurtured by the force of inducing rationality (understood as an ordering, coherent system) to the (yet not) inexplicable. 21 shusterman, 1999 22 barad, 2003, p. 818 23 michel foucault, the archaeology of knowledge (new york: pantheon, 1972). 24 barad, 2003, p. 820 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects63 into the woods with heidegger agential vicinity of all the constituents (heidegger’s words, video camera, thomas, my actions including perception and proprioception, the material objects on site, etc.). let’s get back to the transcript. my last comment in the cited passage is a critical and theoretical question about the validity of the historic-cultural distinction between nature and culture. this thought obviously has roots in my academic reflection and was prompted by the pots in the forest ground. clearly, thomas was not interested in this academic excursion and responded to my invitation with an aesthetic judgment, “[t]hat is pretty. yes. it looks good.” we concluded this session. i turned off the camera and we agreed on a date for our next meeting. 4. world and earth – opening and concealment i came back several days later. i came a bit earlier, because i wanted to see what he had done in the past few days and i wanted to have some time alone, which meant some time with the camera and heidegger’s essay. the weather was still very nice and warm, the forest floor dry and inviting. when i arrived at ‘our’ site, i put on the camera and inspected thomas’ progression of the work. falk: now, i am here again and i want to see what thomas has done yesterday and the day before. [..]he has made a wooden construction with tiles under it. this appears to become a terrace. and here, i think this will be the outline of the house. after having inspected the work from various angles, i thought about this project’s main objective: how to fuse academic essays with artworks, how to fuse one specific essay with one artwork that is not even finished? for some decades, i have been working as an academic, which means i quite naturally started with text. i sat down on the moss, in the middle of the unfinished work and began to read and interpret some of heidegger’s key notions. this form of improvised interpretation is more a series of associations than academic answers. these associations transform theoretical notions into concrete images placed into a very concrete context. falk: maybe we should just read a bit, again, something with earth, which i find very interesting. “the work lets the earth be an earth.” he [heidegger] has this opposition between world and earth and earth is the covered, the hidden, one cannot say something about. “earth is essentially self-secluding. to set forth the earth means to bring it into the open region as the self-secluding.”25 earth is also a movement, it’s not the material we are talking about here – moss, soil, etc. – but earth is also a symbol of something that hides, that does not want to be identified. and if you want to present earth, you will also have to present that earth does not want to be presented as something. it’s a movement of disclosure, all the time. here, we have the world of the house, of a house that will be built – also if you build a house in decay, it is built after all; it constructs a world, the world we live in, the comprehensive world we live in – and then there is the forest floor, earth, that we do not know. yes, we know it in a biological sense, chemical and this kind, of course. but nevertheless, there is always something that gets hidden, that is closed off, a secret. the dark, not a dark force, but something we do not have access to. we only have access to it when it surfaces. (pause) and then we have the earth: “the work lets the earth be an earth …” 25 heidegger, 1993, p.172 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 64 falk heinrich from a philosophical standpoint, this seems very clear to me. according to heidegger, the work of art is a “setting up of a world” and a simultaneous “setting forth of the earth” by paradoxically setting “itself [the work] back into the earth”.26 following heidegger, a work of art is an ongoing movement of becoming (setting up) and disintegration. especially seen in the light of modern art, which is (also) very much about the process of creation proper and the showing of the many possible artistic constellations and combinations of artistic means be they figurative, abstract, or in the process of become identifiable figures or, the reverse, of becoming geometrical abstractions. heidegger’s earth can be seen as the very possibility of, but not yet actualized, cultural creation and as the multiplicity of artistic instantiations through which we see our world. my interpretation is very much influenced by thinkers such as luhmann, who substitute the conceptual pair of matter and form with medium and form, where medium is defined by loosely coupled constituents and form by more tightly coupled ones (see luhmann27 and my elaborations28). and, for example, rancière, who associated the “aesthetic regime” of modernity with an altered concept of beauty that no longer is associated with the harmony of “proportions of parts, or the unity of expressions of a character, but [with] the indifferent potential of the whole that endlessly mixes elements together by leaving them perceptually at peace”.29 or by deleuze’s elaboration of the distinction between the actual and the virtual.30 in my interpretation, the earth is a metaphorical description of the creative-artistic process that becomes a feature of its own in the artwork proper and thus also a guideline for its reception. those are thoughts that belong to the discourse of aesthetics trying to identify and describe the various workings of artworks. evidently, the above-outlined mechanisms have something to do with the relationship between the artist, the work of art, and the recipient. the descriptions clearly are abstract in the sense that they are intended to be applied to works of art in general. in my eyes, they correlate fairly well with my concrete situation in the video: sitting on the forest floor contemplating the unfinished work through the framework of heidegger’s notions (and my interpretation thereof ). as such, this cognitive framework filters and solidifies my sense perception creating a cognitive closeness and a physical distance. now, both the artist’s (thomas) and heidegger’s thoughts are present in this unfinished work of art. however, i can only partake from a distance, because i do not embody the thoughts in an agential, performative sense. this reminds me of the artist william kentridge and his account of studio work: “one of the fundamental things that happens in the studio is the process of creating: the physical activity of making marks, erasing and redrawing, in which there is always a gap between the head and the art – a reliance on the hand’s motor memory for the manifestation of ideas, as well as a direction from the brain in which these two forms of control are combined with unconscious memory”31 kentridge asserts that there is a difference between the physical action as an intelligence of its own compared to the cognitive intelligence. at the same time, he acknowledges that there is a productive gap at play while doing studio work. he continuous by identifying “a secondary split, and that is when you step back from being the artist as maker of a drawing and become 26 heidegger, 1993, pp. 171-173 27 luhmann, niklas, ‘the medium of art’, thesis eleven, 18–19 (1987) 28 heinrich, falk, ‘a theoretical foundation for interlacing artistic and academic methodologies’, isea 2014 proceedings : conference proceedings, 2014, p. 4 29 rancière, jacques, aisthesisscenes from the aesthetic regime of art (london: verso books, 2013) p. 11 30 gilles deleuze, repetition and difference 1994 (new york: columbio university press, 1994). 31 kentridge, william, no it is (cologne: verlad der bichhandlung walther könig, 2016) p. 25 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects65 into the woods with heidegger a viewer of what you have made.”32 indeed, there is nothing surprising in this account, it is the very condition of modern artmaking and, i would claim, of any creative work. so, even in artmaking this split seems to be unavoidable and even a necessary condition. is my aim of exploring the anticipated merger of philosophical aesthetics and art creation an impossibility? is it in vain to look for an integration of art production as a performative act and aesthetics as a reflective endeavor? i am fully aware that philosophical aesthetics constructs its own discourse and belongs to a different social system and epistemological domain than artmaking (as mentioned earlier) and that this split and its intended dissolution since descartes runs as a red thread through the history of western philosophy. reading kentridge’s reflection on studio work, it seems clear that this split is not only a philosophical concept, but also an artistic condition.33 no wonder that frustration began to grow in me. i remember going from the site – that in this particular moment wasn’t a “clearing”34 at all – back to the carpark at the edge of the forest while talking to my recording device. in order to convey through the video this confusion, this frustration about the impossibility of my naïve project, i created two simultaneous audio tracks, one with the continuation of my explication, where the artwork is just an exemplification of theory that slowly turns into frustrated exclamations of my own naivety, stupidity, and vulnerability. and the other track tries to explain the project’s impossibility. [simultaneous voices] falk voice 1: that what we do not know, undisclosed at all times, it has not yet opened itself, it hides, conceals itself. maybe that is what i am doing here, i venture into something that seems so stupid and i also feel quite stupid going around here in an artwork that yet is not, a work of art to-be, an artwork that creates a world, represents a world and i am talking to myself with the intention to combine heidegger’s elevated thoughts about the work of art that sets up a world and lets the earth be earth. and i expose myself, i expose myself due to my ignorance and inability to combine these two things together: philosophy, theory, language and … this here. falk voice 2: the world of philosophy that lives with the ephemeral, the notional and that gains meaning within its own notional system. he talks about world and earth, and things and equipment and things like this. one has to enter, go into this world and live there, breath there in order to be able to extract meaning. the work of art, or rather, the work with artworks, to install something, to take those pots and carry them that is ... that is very ... it’s the body working, carrying something, feeling the forest ground. there aren’t any elevated thoughts. philosophical thoughts do not make sense here. in any case this relationship is not very clear to me, i feel like … 32 ibid., p. 26 33 there are several art strategies that try and tried to transcend human intentionality and thus also the poietic effect of reflection and assessment. for example, romanticism focusses on feeling and emotions, while the surrealists use techniques such as automatic drawing and writing in order to get beyond the above-mentioned split. 34 heidegger uses the term clearing in the sense of disclosure (aletheia) and appearance of things. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 66 falk heinrich figure 2: still from the video article: into the woods with heidegger – a video article in the video, the image of the site fades away giving space for a, not-flattering, still of counterfeit that eventually also fades into blackness. only the cacophony of multiple voices remains. how can art theory and art-making meet? can only representational distinctions link those two endeavors? 5. epiphany or dangerous conjunction? next day, thomas and i met again. we had to finish the terrace. thomas: i am thinking, on the practical side, i …. right now. if you could lay the foundation, only at a few spots. thomas: no, i have poles, thick posts over there. so, we hammer one in here and fasten it with a screw here. falk: ok fine. thomas: and … dum, dum…. in each corner. and then, you know, it is stabilized. ha-ha. that’s it. falk: ok. super. it will be good to do something physical. not only something on a conceptual level. i began working, hammering the posts into the earth with a post hammer. hammering is a very rhythmic work like rowing or similar repetitive movements. after the first post, it occurred to me that i could accompany the hammering with one of heidegger’s key sentences, or the other way around, to spice up the monotony of heidegger with the rhythm of the hammering. in the rush, i remembered this phrase: “to be a work means to set up a world.” bangto be – bang a work – bang means to set – bang up a worldbang to be to be – bang a work – bang means to set – bang up a worldbang to be – bang a work – bang means to set – bang up a worldbang to be – bang a work – bang means to set – bang up a worldbang to be – bang a work – bang means to set – bang up a worldbang to be – bang a work – bang means to set – bang up a worldbang …. somaesthetics and its nordic aspects67 into the woods with heidegger figure 3: stills from the video article: into the woods with heidegger – a video article i felt an immense delight, not only in the movement, but especially in the found simultaneity and integration of rhythmic physical and vocal performance, semantic content, the concept of the work of art, and the forest. after the hammering scene, the video shows the following text: this is the closest relation between practical building work and one core sentence of heidegger’s philosophy on art, i have experienced. it’s an embodiment of words and a word-becoming of action. this rhythmic conjunction melts both the semantics of action and word into pure performance, into energetic transformations of air to muscles to sounds and movements of an earth-opening post, back to my hands and arms. this is an opening of my human earth, where my momentary body, all my perceptions and thoughts are moulded, transformed and again hidden away. this is my human earth, where pure but blind energy amalgamates with joy, sorrow, movement, sense, breathing, indoctrination to form my perception of this work of art to-be and to create my world. in retrospect, the incidence appears to be fairly simple; a simple simultaneity of unrelated actions and words combined by a repetitive rhythm. there is no common origin, just a heterogeneity of things, words, and actions that got forged into a peculiar amalgamation. on the face of it, my action embodied the words, primarily as sounds stripped of their semantic content or, vice versa, my action constituted the materiality and performance of word-sounds. the occurrence can be approached from two different angles: firstly, as the performativity and materiality of signs and, secondly, my working body uttering signs. 6. performativity and embodiment mersch asserts that every sign needs to be performed as presentation (as graphical or uttered signs). he characterized this as “existenzsetzung” (setting into existence, my translation).35 it is an occurrence that brings the sign into a factual existence. however, the sign (as reference) cannot indicate this performed existence, because medial existence is not a part of signs. according to mersch, this is the paradox of the performance (of signs). luhmann’s claim that art has something to do with the productive distinction between perception and communication, between the perception of the performance of materiality and mediality, and the communication as sign operations and that art makes this distinction visible/palpable. both assert that this 35 mersch, dieter, ‘paradoxien der verkörperung’, in inervalle 9 körper – verkörperung – entkörperung (kassel: kassel university press, 2005), p. 32 the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 68 falk heinrich paradox is productive. mersch states that the setting into existence of sign yields “eine kraft […], die sinnlich angeht, anspricht, zufällt oder ergreift.”36 this paradox might be true for academic reflection that is based upon (onto-)logical either-or distinctions. but does an actor not fill the semantic of signs with expressive and thus perceptual flavors that are part of the signs, part of their mediality? mersch seems to identify the performance of a sign as an aesthetic dimension that establishes a direct and sensuous contact to the sign recipient that the sign as such cannot account for but also does not need to account for. in this unaccountability, which is nothing else than the necessity of another initiating force outside of the conceptual field of semiotics, lies a sign’s aesthetic dynamic: “eine sprengende potenz, die darauf hindeutet, dass keine theorie sich je selbst erfüllt, sondern dass sie notwendig an anderen teilhabt, das ihr entgeht.”37 in this very sentence, mersch draws the consequences for theory: theory can never be able to capture the act of “setzung” in the very moment of its utterance here, theory is in need of the participation of something that ‘performs’ it, another agential force that theory in the moment cannot capture. hence, also reading and interpreting (which means performing) theory (here, fragments of heidegger’s theory) needs another agential force: my operating body ‘doing’ it. my article so far should have made it clear that i am not interested in a recipient’s perspective, but in the performer’s experiences (in mersch terminology, the one who sets the sign into being). uttering the sentence “to be a work means to set up a world” demands choices, but not an (onto-) logical choice between either the semantics or the performance of its ‘setting into existence’, but rather a choice between the expressive timbre that evidently modifies the semantic-associative field of the uttered words. this expressive quality is not only dependent on the performer’s (the utterer’s) psychological-associative background and agential intention, but also on the physical action and context the utterer is part of. therefore, i claim that a shift in perspective from the recipient point of view (which traditionally is the viewpoint of academics) to a performative perspective, dissolves the paradox into mutually enforcing simultaneities. the actions of my muscle incorporate heidegger’s phrase into my body and those actions colored the phrase itself on an aesthetic-expressive and on a semiotic level. my body actions were substantially building the world of the artwork and thus a certain experiential and cognitive perspective on the world. but more importantly, my repetitive actions were opening my body. in the video, i called this my human earth – at the same time expressive and receptive. my operating, working body filled words with constructive energy and my body-mind with significations. fischer-lichte states that “at this point, we are able to radically redefine the term embodiment. by emphasizing the bodily being-in-the-world of humans, embodiment creates the possibility for the body to function as the object, subject, material, and source of symbolic construction, as well as the product of cultural inscriptions.”38 the body is both something that in our awareness constitutes us as subjects, a material that can be formed and culturally inscripted and an object of reflection. however, according to fischer-lichte, the body proper is “elusive” (germ:. unverfügbar) because “bodily being-in-the-world cannot be but becomes […].”39 however, when dealing with performativity and the delight in pure bodily action, one question is often omitted; what kind of world do we want to set up? asked differently, who (or what) is the observer that could make a critical and ethical assessment during the hammering 36 ibid, p. 33 37 ibid, p. 33 38 fischer-lichte, 2008, p. 89 39 fischer-lichte, 2008, p. 89 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects69 into the woods with heidegger and reciting? asked differently, does this kind of merger between bodily action and semantics deplete any critical position?40 in order to include reflective dimensions into her notion of phenomenon as intra-action, barad needs to replace ontological distinctions with agential ones. she talks about agential separability and agential cuts: “the notion of agential separability is of fundamental importance, for in the absence of a classical ontological condition of exteriority between observer and observed it provides the condition for the possibility of objectivity.”41 barad is talking about phenomena as intra-actions of various elements (for example, materiality and discourse) that entail the possibility of second order (or meta-) observations as inherent elements of “measurement” of phenomena. but what about occurrences that deliberately remove this self-reflective possibility? history has shown that the human body is not a guaranty for the good, because the performing and sensuous body cannot any longer be understood differently than as intra-actional relations. the soma is the result of effectuations of different agential forces. figure 4: still from the video article: into the woods with heidegger – a video article 7. questions to somaesthetics the practice-based research experiment into the woods with heidegger, which includes these reflections, opens up a vast field of indeterminacy and questions concerning, for example, embodiment. it is to be understood more as a journey of (personal) discoveries within an artisticexperimental setting. with this paper, i have embarked upon an expedition into embodiment, its concrete perceptual physicality, and its various artistic and academic-reflective aspects, while knowing that the body and thus embodiment are elusive; elusive in a performative sense (as shown by fischer-lichte and mersch), but also elusive in an ethical sense. to elaborate on the latter, let me have a look at shusterman’s “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal”.42 in a way, the concept of somaesthetics seems redundant, because the aesthetic (aesthetic perception, aesthetic experience, aesthetic recognition, etc.) presupposes sense-perception or the recollection of those perceptions, which are bodily acts. thus, aesthetics as an academic 40 i am aware that the physical setting of my experience is highly abstract in the sense that i am (almost) alone in the forest; there is neither an audience or other performers doing the same act as we find it in, for example, religious rituals or militaristic mass demonstrations, where a direct access to the body of the practitioners is pursued. yet, this ‘abstract’ setting gives me a platform to experience some sort of embodiment stripped of a problematic content of the uttered sentence and a ritualistic context – but, of course, a research or investigatory setting. in that moment, my action did not harbor any inherently critical or self-reflective dimension, but solely surrendered to movement. 41 barad, 2003, p. 815 42 shusterman, ‘somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal’. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 70 falk heinrich discipline has in one way or another to deal with sense-perception (the manifold of empirical data). however, in shusterman’s view, somaesthetics is important, because it focuses on the amelioration of the (human) sensing body. it is an aesthetics of exercise and improvement enhancing the possibilities of aesthetic experience and sense making. in his view, somaesthetics contain at least three perspectives: an analytical, a pragmatic one, and somaesthetics as practice. the bearings of the last form seem to be that body practices are a means to development and healing and thus includes self-understanding. this is the transformative and didactic foundation for, for example, yoga, meditation, gymnastics, feldenkrais method, martial arts, and many other somatic methods. there is no doubt that these kinds of practices can lead to more selfunderstanding (for example, of the very functioning of the body, the connection between body and self-awareness). the inherent claim behind these methods seems to be the assertion that the soma contains an ethical dimension that can be brought to work by those exercises. mere body awareness (the alignment of body and mind) seems to entail promises of liberation and redemption. but is the human body the locus of pureness and the pristine? does a retreat to an awareness of somatic functions and states rip from us societal, ideological contaminations of any kind? not if we were to subscribe to barad’s model of new materialism, where the body (among other objects) cannot be seen apart from discursive statements. a closer look at the various body practices discloses that the different somatic practices come with a certain ‘ideology’. in yoga, for example, body practices are seen and supported by the believe that exercise balances the psyche and lead to a more accepting attitude towards oneself and others. the same goes for zen, taiichi, and most of the martial arts. however, martial art at the european gymnastics seems to serve at least two masters: training for warfare (gymnastics was in the greek origins composed of physical exercise for young soldiers) and improvement and maintenance of somatic capabilities (that always include the psychic dimension such as discipline, endurance, the will to transcend limits, etc.). shusterman is very aware of this danger and distinguishes between representational and experiential forms.43 representational forms are concerned with the body representation (for example, beauty in its various forms) and sees the body as an object composed of functional parts and as mechanics that can be improved for external objectives or, it can, if not suitable, be disposed of. the fascistic employment of gymnastics is to be found in this category. here, bodies are externalized and alienated in regards to “the spiritual self ”.44 the other category is based on experience, where somatic exercises serve the bodily experience (of the spiritual self ?). shusterman seems to find that the ethical component in the “body’s subject-role as the living locus of beautiful, personal experience” seems able to escape societal inscriptions. according to shusterman, this practice and perspective on the soma negates externalization and does not “impose a fixed set of standardized norms of external measurement (e.g., optimal pulse) to assess good somaesthetic experience.”45 but like embodiment or the performance of utterances, the occurrence of experience is elusive in that it is deprived of critical assessment. according to theories that promoting the human subject as unified entity, this can only be done postfactum or as an ethical inscription prior to the somatic experience. the act of experience proper melts discursive statements and materiality momentarily into an emergent unity. this is an experienced unity that cannot be assessed backwards by analysing its components. so, how to assess a “good” somaesthetic experience and distinguish it from bad ones in the moment of experience? to rephrase the question: how can critical reflection be an intrinsic part 43 ibid., p. 305 44 ibid. 45 ibid., p. 306 somaesthetics and its nordic aspects71 into the woods with heidegger of the somatic experience?46 surely, fascistic gymnastics and body exercises can elicit a fulfilling experience precisely due to the amalgamation of ideology and body experience as can yoga. but fascist body cultivation and yoga seem totally different. my claim is thus that any somatic practice must be reflected, subjectified, and assessed by its ideological bearings as part of the experience proper. figure 5: still from the video article: into the woods with heidegger – a video article references barad, karen, ‘posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter’, signs, gender and science: new issues, vol. 28, (2003), 801–31 collenberg-plotnikov, bernadette, ‘forschung als verkörperung’, in wie verändert sich kunst, wenn man sie als forschung versteht?, ed. by judith siegmund (bielefeld: transcript verlag, 2016) deleuze, gilles, repetition and difference 1994 (new york: columbio university press, 1994) fischer-lichte, erika, the transformative power of performance, the transformative power of performance: a new aesthetics (london, new york’: routlegde, 2008) <http://dx.doi. org/10.4324/9780203894989> foucault, michel, the archaeology of knowledge (new york: pantheon, 1972) gadamer, hans-georg:, die aktualität des schönen (stuttgart: reclam verlag, 1977) <http:// www.reclam.de/print/detail/978-3-15-019041-8> [accessed 24 february 2016] heidegger, martin, basic writings (london, new york: routledge, 1993) heinrich, falk, ‘a theoretical foundation for interlacing artistic and academic methodologies’, isea 2014 proceedings : conference proceedings, 2014, 4 kentridge, william, no it is (cologne: verlad der bichhandlung walther könig, 2016) luhmann, niklas, ‘the medium of art’, thesis eleven, 18–19 (1987) 46 the conceptual bearing of my question is that reflection and doing belong to different systems that operate in parallel but interrelated. according to luhmann’s system theory, bodily actions can, for example, contribute to communicational acts and be subject to conscious. looking at neuroscience, the human brain is a highly complex structure that can simultaneously be activated in many different, more or less interrelated locations. the journal of somaesthetics volume 4, number 1 (2018) 72 falk heinrich mersch, dieter, ‘paradoxien der verkörperung’, in inervalle 9 körper – verkörperung – entkörperung (kassel: kassel university press, 2005) rancière, jacques, aisthesisscenes from the aesthetic regime of art (london: verso books, 2013) rheinberger, hans-jörg, iterations (berlin: merve verlag, 2005) schechner, richard, performance theory, performance theory (london, new york: routlegde, 2003), x <http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2804307> shklovsky, viktor, ‘art as technique’, in russian formalist criticism: four essays, ed. by e.l.t. lemon, e.l.t. and m.j. reiss (lincoln: university of nebraska press, 1965) shusterman, richard, pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art (lanham: rowman &littlefield publishers, 2000) —, ‘somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal’, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 57 (1999), 299–313 wind, edgar, art and anarachy (evanston, usa: nothwestern university press, 1985) —, das experiment und die metaphysik : zur auflösung der kosmologischen antinomien (frankfurt a. m.: suhrkamp, 2001) <http://www.suhrkamp.de/buecher/das_experiment_und_ die_metaphysik-edgar_wind_29078.html> [accessed 11 april 2018] the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 4 preface somaesthetics and beauty beauty is a cornerstone of philosophical aesthetics, perhaps the fundamental one. however, if beauty performs a long-living philosophical role, ever since plato connected it to the truth, it encounters serious problems from modernism onwards. some of the most visionary intellectual sensibilities from the end of the 19th century noticed the changes that turn beauty into an antiquated concept. for example, paul valéry, who in 1928 asked whether “the moderns still make any use of it,” concluded that “the beautiful is no longer in vogue.” increasingly seen as a phenomena in entertainment, beauty never recovers to regain its former philosophical glory. on the other hand, the ambiguous decline of true beauty and the parallel rise of pleasure or sensation-seeking beauty continues to pose a concern to aesthetic thought. to be sure, the aestheticization of everyday life blends economy and aesthetics, industry and style, mode and art, consumpation and creation, mass culture and elitist culture. but how does this aestheticization of the contemporary world affect the very experience of beauty? the lack of borders within the aesthetic field rebounds on a corresponding unlimitedness in our ability to perceive. similarily, the question is: has the beautiful become too broad and thus too superficial a concept, or does the sentiment of beauty help us to differentiate our perceptions? mapping the conceptual potential of beauty points not only to a revaluation of modern and contemporary art and artistic ways of challenging traditional beauty, but it simultaneously emphasizes the need for focusing on the sensible, perceptive, and bodily experience. the primary question remains, how, despite trivialization, beauty may still (or again) refer to an aesthetic experience that manifests itself in the sensing body, both as originating from the body and as appearing in a meaningful embodied experience. in this issue of the journal of somaesthetics, we collected contributions from various fields exploring experiences of beauty vis-à-vis aestheticized phenomena in everyday life, design, art, urbanity, and elsewhere. we did not want to limit contributions to specific fields or methods of inquiry but included contributions from various relevant fields and their epistemological perspectives (aesthetics, arts, health studies, sports, and natural sciences). the issue starts with stefano marino’s interview “beauty from a pragmatist and somaesthetic perspective: a conversation with richard shusterman,” which presents shusterman’s approach toward the significance of the notion and experience of beauty for somaesthetics. the first section of articles that focus on existing theories on beauty. anne elisabeth sejten’s “beauty trouble” provides an introductory analysis that traces the concept of beauty as an epistemic turn toward sensibility in which beauty seems to have disturbed rather than stabilized the autonomy of aesthetics. these discussions about beauty allow her to identity conflicting features in four shifting concepts of beauty from the foundational century of the enlightenment until today and, thus, to argue that the concept of beauty has had a persistently dynamic and vital role in aesthetics. tanehisa otabe’s article seeks to establish a counterweight to kant’s transcendental theory of beauty by bringing to the fore herder’s almost forgotten work calligone. herden counters kant’s dualism with a kind of monism that does not accept kant’s distinctions between, for example, nature and art, nor the distinction between the beautiful, the agreeable, and the good. herder’s ambition is an integration of aesthetic experience and beauty as the fine art of living. somaesthetics and beauty5 preface finally, in “the beauty of mathematical order,” esther oluffa pedersen presents a study of the role of mathematics in beauty. drawing extensively on greek philosophy, she discusses how mathematical beauty connects not only to the aesthetic theory of kant but also to creative works in modern design and poetry. mathematics appears to be a key to understanding the platonic and aristotelian notions of natural order and creation, which again prove to be relevant to the understanding of somaesthetics. the second section comprises articles that deal with the human subject’s own bodily aesthetic experiences as a participant of a participatory work of art, or as the somaesthetic relationship between dancers, audiences, and sites, or as the aesthetic experience of the athlete. in his article “can there be beauty in participatory art?”, falk heinrich characterizes beautiful experiences as the lived intensity that appropriates the participant by positioning him or her as one constituent of a situation that consists of a multiplicity of other constituents such as the site, the conceptual framework, and other people. in his article “challenging urban anesthetics: beauty and contradiction in georg simmel’s rome,” henrik reeh addresses the experience of beauty in cities. reconstructing the prevalent role of the blasé attitude in simmel’s view of the metropolis, he highlights how, surprisingly, simmel elaborates on a contextual or even conflictual notion of beauty in rome around 1900. one hundred and twenty years later, reeh returns to a particular park in simmel’s rome and demonstrates how somaesthetic qualities are decisive sources of beauty in the contemporary city as well. his article includes experiential and artistic materials that aim to strengthen somaesthetics in the realm of academic research. in their article “performative somaesthetics: interconnections of dancers, audiences, and sites,” suparna banerjee and jessica fiala discuss somaesthetic authorship and agency in dance, its audience, and “embodied encounters with sites.” through a discourse on two case studies, toomortal (2012) by shobana jeyasings and dusk at stonehenge (2009) by nina rajarani, they explore what happens at the aforementioned intersection. john toner’s and barbara montero’s “the value of aesthetic judgements in skillful action” inquires into the world of sport and the role that skill has in it. toner and montero claim that still, not much attention has “been devoted to an evaluation of the aesthetic dimension of sport from the performer’s perspective.” they address this issue by covering aesthetic experiences that athletes experience and analyzing their value and use in sports. the third section deals with beauty and ecology. else-marie bukdahl’s article “aesthetic challenges in the field of sustainability: art, architectural design, and sustainability in the projects of michael singer” insists that beauty is not merely a contemplative concept but is to be constructed. singer’s work is to be understood as an artistic action that regenerates nature and creates landscape and architectural projects in which artistic and ecological goals were integrated into the construction process. in her article “the aesthetic enchantment approach: from “troubled” to “engaged” beauty,” sue spaid introduces the aesthetic enchantment approach, which enhances the scientific cognitivism stance on beauty by adding a performative dimension to it. an example of this is the active commitment of citiens in citizen science approaches to ecologically degraded sites, which add a bodily aesthetic dimension that is pertinent for ameliorative aspects of the sentiment of beauty to the cognitive dimension. falk heinrich, max ryynänen and anne elisabeth sejten, issue editors somaesthetics and food5 introduction to volume 2, nubers 1 and 2: somaesthetics and food food and drink, perhaps of all the objects to which we direct our aesthetic energies, fall most naturally within somaesthetic inquiry. as food and drink are literally consumed and incorporated into the body, our attention to these processes likewise works to break down the false dichotomies of inner/outer, body/mind, and self/world. it may be surprising then, that in the more than 15 years since somaesthetics was first proposed as a new discipline by richard shusterman, there has been little sustained attention devoted to food and drink within the emerging literature on somaesthetics. in the past few years however, as somaesthetics has matured into both a unique philosophical approach to aesthetics and an interdisciplinary methodology, work has begun to appear on food and eating from a somaesthetical perspective. in keeping with this direction, the journal of somaesthetics is proud to present this volume devoted entirely to exploring the implications of somaesthetics for questions concerning the cultivation, preparation, consumption and enjoyment of food. taken collectively, the contributions to this double issue exhibit the diverse array of food related topics that are pertinent to somaesthetics. from visual art, performance art and film, to experimental psychology and nutrition, urban farming, restaurant culture, wine, and crossmodalism, the papers collected here illustrate the impressive range of topics, and disciplinary approaches, that comprise a gustatory somaesthetics. this special issue can also be seen as providing an important counterbalance to the literature in the philosophy of food that has to date been dominated by the questions of the art-status of food and the cognitive, expressive, and representational elements of eating. as a result, the living soma has all too frequently dropped out of these discussions. in narrowly attempting to establish the similarities between food and art, some approaches to the philosophy of food tend to lose sight of the unique insights that the aesthetics of food can provide for our understanding of all of the interrelated modes of embodied human experience. as the living soma is the irreducible site of gustatory and aesthetic experience, it is our hope that this special double issue of the journal of somaesthetics will contribute to forging a new direction in research into the myriad ways that human beings relate to food. russell pryba introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) editorial board published by aalborg university press journal website somaesthetics.aau.dk journal design zane cerpina with the generous support of the obel family foundation and the schmidt family foundation © the journal of somaesthetics (jos) 2016 © individual contributors. the moral right of the authors has been asserted. art & technology, aalborg university rendsburggade 14, 9000 denmark contact: somaestheticsjournal@gmail.com issn: 2246-8498 editors stahl stenslie (denmark) richard shusterman (us) else marie bukdahl (denmark) associate editor russell pryba (us) assistant editor elizabeth cruz petersen (us) editorial board fred maus (us) paul taylor (us martin jay (us) mark johnson (us) orlan (france) bryan turner (us/australia) introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 75-84 body first: somaesthetics and popular culture75 perfume, violence, and symbolic sacrifice perfume, violence, and symbolic sacrifice davide giovanzana abstract: this article firstly analyzes a practical exercise of re-staging iconic violent images through actors and discusses the bodily reactions to being exposed to violent images. the article then presents a theoretical framework to understand the notion of the body as symbolic sacrifice. the text brings together these two notions (effects of violent images and symbolic sacrifice) and discusses the violence inherent in advertising images. lastly, it claim that the clothing and perfume advertising industry, through the display of violence, attempts to commodify the sacrificed body. keywords: violence, visual culture, theater i remember in 2010 when jean-luc nancy gave a lecture at the contemporary art museum of helsinki, kiasma, at a conference entitled “body as theatre” (elo & luoto, 2018). he started the lecture by examining the moment of waking up, especially the instant when he became conscious of seeing. and then he wondered where this seen image finds its location in the body: “where do i perceive this image in me?” “strangely enough,” he reported, “the image finds its placement not in front of me, not in my eyes or in the center of my head, but somewhere at the back of my skull, almost behind me. the encounter with the world happens behind me.” and later during the lecture, referring to his own book, corpus, he stated: “the body always forces us to think further” (nancy, 2008). i could add, not only further, but even outside the body. when you think about what your own body has experienced, you have to place yourself inside and at the same time outside yourself. this idea, or better to say, this image appearing at the back of the skull, finding its location in the body, almost outside the body, has haunted me ever since i attended jean-luc nancy’s lecture. and probably this is also one of the reasons that initiated an exercise which consisted in re-staging pictures that i discuss in this article. for i was interested not only to find where an image (the image of the world) finds its location in the body, but also how images affect the body. how they can “modify” it. when i started this investigation, it was 2015. paris was struck by several terrorist attacks. after these attacks in paris, i was affected by several videos posted on the internet by isis. the intensity, the determination, and the violence present in these videos captivated me. something repulsed me yet at the same time intrigued me. i founded this ambivalence in me problematic. and then i thought that probably this problematic ambivalence is an important problem that needs to be examined. therefore, this investigation led me to focus on images that represent an the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 76 davide giovanzana experience on the limit: images that are considered violent. michel foucault wrote extensively on how violence, and by extension a power system, expresses itself mainly on the body. the structural repression of a power system imposes its violence on the bodies of its citizens and displays this violence on their bodies as theatrical images (i.e. public executions, decapitations, or hanging), which contribute to a precise staging of fear (foucault, 1977). in this sense, violent images could be examined as a theatrical communication of a power system. but here i am more interested in examining violence as a manifestation per se (which creates phenomena of closeness and trauma or distance and consciousness) rather than its use as instrument by a power structure (for terror and control). this article is divided into two parts. the first part discusses a practical exercise that aimed to re-stage violent images. this exercise led to an examination of the violence hidden in the advertising industry. the second part presents a theoretical framework discussing the notion of the body as symbolic sacrifice. lastly, the article examines if the advertising industry and especially perfume advertising, through the display of violence, attempt to commodify a kind of “longing” for the body. the “symbolic sacrifice” defined by the italian psychologist massimo recalcati, is a psychological and anthropological understanding of the paradoxical relationship that humans have towards their own bodies (recalcati, 2017). during the 20th century, western thinking has seen an attempt to overcome the so-called mind–body division that is often epitomized by the christian concept of the soul as “pure” and of the body as “corruptible.” in this sense, the phenomenological school, which focuses on the body experience in order to develop rational thinking, is a clear example of this attempt. this school proved that the body is an important area of philosophical investigation. by referring to the notion of symbolic sacrifice, i would like instead to suggest another approach to this “division” between the body and mind, which proposes that human beings have to “sacrifice” their body in order to become “human.” humans, unlike animals, can reflect on their own death. language contributes to this process of “consciousness,” but this “consciousness” demands a “symbolic” sacrifice. humans sacrifice their being part of nature in order to access humanity (animals-conscious-of-death). and this element of “nature” that is “sacrificed” is inscribed in the body. however, the sacrificed body is not simply something removed or denied, it is a constant negotiation that humans have to make between “language” and “nature” (the body, the beast, or the dark side). this constant negotiation is not easy and can be explosive. it also constitutes a great source of desire that the advertising industry tries to exploit. in fact, the violence present in the images of the advertising industry is not supposed to repulse the observer but on the contrary to arouse desire. in this sense, “buying” a perfume represents the promise to restore the body that has been sacrificed. the advertisement therefore tries to commodify the beast, the nature, and the dark side that symbolically humans have killed (or removed) within themselves. my initial question was why some images are considered violent? and especially what kind of knowledge we can acquire by watching violent images? in addition, as a theater director, i was curious to examine an aspect of human behavior that we could consider “extreme”: i was wondering how to represent violence. i was wondering how actors can understand a violent situation and how they can “embody” such a situation. the immediate and usual way to perform “violent behavior” on stage would be to ask one actor to embody an aggressive character that performs violent acts towards other characters. however, i was wondering if it would be possible to examine alternative ways to explore performing violence and especially, to explore a situation that is far from their everyday life experience, a situation that could be considered an body first: somaesthetics and popular culture77 perfume, violence, and symbolic sacrifice experience on the limit, something that is unfamiliar. with the photographer keme pellicer, we were researching many violent images that can be seen in the media. with keme, we decided to propose ten different violent images and let the students1 choose according to their spontaneous gut-feelings. four images were selected. these images were iconic violent images, very far from our reality, and at the same time, because we have seen them over and over, almost familiar. they were so extreme: the moment when a vietcong insurgent is shot in the street by a general, a woman held as a trophy by a group of male french resistance fighters, an american soldier pulling a naked iraqi prisoner with a dog lash, a woman being buried alive. these images are common for their ubiquitous replication in the media, and at the same time they are remarkable. the most problematic aspect is that these images are so haunting because we don’t know what to do with the emotions that such repellent images create. we are familiar with them and the vision of them is unsustainable, we want to stop the images, for them to not exist. the difficulty is what to do with the emotion generated by these images. some people simply deny them. some prefer to release the tension either through jokes or through actions. some individuals decide to view these images as a test, to prove a personal resistance to these frightful pictures. i believe that most of us, however, need to create a “distance” from these images. the notion of distance developed by kant and re-proposed by max ryynänen considers “distance” geographically. the observer is in a safe place, far from the terrible event, allowing the observer to appreciate the view (ryynänen 2019). but i would like to decline this notion of “distance,” of being safe, to something more intangible, something related to ethics, or to the emotion of the observer: something like a theoretical framework placing the observer in a “safe” position, allowing him or her to cope with the violence present in the world. for these images do not produce knowledge, but as susan sontag wrote, they simply haunt us (sontag, 2003, 126). this “distance” could then be understood as a theoretical frame that rationalizes these emotions. i will come back to this notion. the idea of the exercise was to re-stage these iconic violent images with the help of the student actors and re-photograph them. after having re-staged and re-photographed them, the students made several theater improvisations based on the re-staging. these improvisations pushed the students to explore these images from different angles; from the position of the perpetrators, from the position of the victims, from the point of view of the photographer. during these improvisations, the students developed monologues of what the characters they embodied could have said, thought, or felt in that particular situation. our aim was not to be “documentary” in the sense of being as realistic as possible. the work was purely fictional. the actors were encouraged to invent what they felt. naturally, it is logical to wonder if fiction can provide knowledge starting from a historical image. i do believe that this exercise is fruitful but it is important to clearly define what exactly is examined. two main points were under scrutiny during these improvisations: 1) could the students make such an effort of imagination to be able to portray themselves in such an extreme situation? 2) can we understand something more that the picture does not say? and if yes, what? regarding the first question, some students were able to explore the violence of these images, others were struggling. and for the second question, all the improvisations indicated that the image presented a reduced vision of what was probably happening. when we look at an image, it seems that as the viewer, we understand what is happening: we see an armed person shooting at a defenseless person. we immediately label who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. but the “reality” is far more complex. the 1 this research was done in collaboration with the ba students of the swedish acting department of the theater academy of helsinki, finland. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 78 davide giovanzana improvisation opened up the complexity that the image could not do. to go back to susan sontag, the improvisation managed to introduce a narrative that helped to “understand” the situation instead of “haunting” us. after this experience, with keme and with the students, we were exploring how it would be possible to shoot these images that we re-staged again, but with a “twist” so that these images can relieve us instead of haunting us. something about distance is at stake in these images: they disturb us, they come too close on an emotional level. we need to create a “mental” or “emotional” screen to put them a bit further away so that we are not disturbed, so that we can look at them. at the same time, in order to achieve something productive, something that can trigger knowledge (and not only haunting), they need to come even closer to us; in the sense, not closer to our skin, but closer to our reality, of being familiar to us, so that as viewers, we can decipher what is not in the frame. the whole idea was to find ways to introduce everyday life objects or elements from our everyday life that could bring these violent situations closer to our reality. and especially, to find ways to make them “less” haunting (less dangerous or traumatizing) and still retain the importance (the brutality, the violence) of the image. this “twist” is a bizarre turn that we aimed to apply onto the images. at this point, before i continue with the description of the process, i would like to share a peculiar, and at the same time revealing, experience which brings us back to susan sontag’s statement. i was invited to the aalto university, to an ma seminar about visual culture and contemporary art to share this research process conducted with the acting students of the theater academy of helsinki. when i presented the images, which were only one step among a larger process, some students from the ma program reacted aggressively towards what i was presenting. these students, without knowing about the whole process conducted with the acting students, stated that the method was wrong, that ethically speaking the process was questionable, and anyway why on earth would we want to produce more violent images, there are already enough of them. i was surprised because the criticisms that the students were making about the work were exactly the same reasons that led me to initiate this work. i wanted to offer an alternative discourse to the presence of violent images in our everyday life. i tried to develop a process of thinking through practice. and i was sharing the practical research that was carried out, so i could develop a discussion on violence. but this reaction was unexpected, and somehow it confirmed the statement of susan sontag: the images triggered an explosive reaction among the students, and the debate was closed. students were entrenched in their opinions and their judgments were fixed. no discussion. it was surprising that even in an academic environment, the images worked in the same way: they simply haunted the viewer. the discussion eventually became polarized: on the one hand some students argued that violent images create more violence and on the other hand other students argued that violent images help to understand violence. what appeared to me was that the polarization of arguments simplified the complexity of the violence: it is good or it is bad. violence is a multi-layered and indistinct experience that it is difficult to accept. it seemed that the students needed an answer for what they were seeing and, especially, feeling. probably this incident exemplifies the problem related to the representation of violence. the key to resolving this problem would be to understand what has happened, to try to deconstruct the progression of the reaction, in that precise moment when the view of the images hits their bodies and their bodies needed to sublimate this “hit,” this tension, into a discourse. then, the discourse polarized the position of the students and nullified any attempt to contextualize or to integrate a broader dialogue about these images. this situation reminded me of the intense debate about the video my way, a work in progress by the finnish artist teemu mäki made in 1995. in this video we can see teemu mäki killing a cat. the video lasts 30 minutes and the scene body first: somaesthetics and popular culture79 perfume, violence, and symbolic sacrifice where the cat is killed lasts 6 seconds. the video contains video footage of wars, sadomasochistic sex, battery chickens, famine in africa, views from slaughterhouses, ecological catastrophes, and garbage dumps. the video tried to examine forms of structural and mental violence. with this video, the artist wanted to instigate empathy towards people suffering from wars, to give voice to those who are economically exploited, and to make the western audience more conscious of their implication in global war. however, the scene of the cat provoked a vehement reaction among the viewers. teemu mäki received many threatening emails explaining that he deserved to die like the cat in the video and the video has been censured in finland (mäki, 2005, 74-76). all the other 29 minutes and 54 seconds of the video were obliterated by the cat scene. this art piece, which was supposed to develop a debate about the western attitude towards violence in the world, generated only violent reactions. i don’t want here to defend the work of teemu mäki. i am more interested in the reactions that the video created. i will come back to these “reactions.” there is already a long tradition that goes back to the renaissance, where artists, like for instance michelangelo, considered their artwork as a form of creation and destruction. michelangelo considered sculpting as a form of violence where the artist hammers, removes, and eliminates the stone. for him, this act of destruction is the very act that supports the art. and the art historian scott nethersole points out that a medieval exegetical tradition compares the violence suffered by the martyrs with the art of sculpting, especially sculpting ivory (nethersole, 2018, 209). but here, rather than examining how artists considered their work (whether destructive or cathartic), i am more interested in the reactions and how the concept of violence creates new consciousness or knowledge. and, as in the case of teemu mäki or in the aalto university incident, the debate remained conflictual. of course, we could say that violence, because it is about violence, can lead only to conflict. but this position leads to a dead end. i would like to suggest that maybe in these discussions, the wrong questions about violence were asked. i will come back to this issue later in the article. but let us return to the process of “twisting” the images and to the results of this second step. the image of the woman held by the french resistance was “reversed” in the sense of having a group of women (dressed in clothes of the same time period) holding a man. the gender reversal did not produce any effect. probably the reason was that the group of women remained unclear. when it was the men, it was not only men, but also the “heroes” who liberated france. in this sense, in the reverse picture, the group of women could not be connected with any existing group. maybe we would have needed to go a step further and, for instance, have a group of “metoo” women holding a man who had harassed them and on whose forehead was written the word “pervert.” the persons in the image of the buried woman were replaced by moomin characters2: moomin was buried by little my, snufkin, and too-ticky. in this situation, the clash between familiar, childhood imagery and this brutal action managed to disrupt the initial image. the image of the american soldier holding the iraqi prisoner was replaced by a woman wearing a niqab holding a naked european man with a leash. by reversing nationalities, the sooften condescending attitude of the west towards other cultures was opened up. and finally in the image of the shooting, the gun was replaced by a very harmless object: a perfume bottle. a perfume was sprayed and the woman, the “victim,” with her hands fastened behind her back, received the “shot” of perfume as if it were a bullet. at first in this image, the “twist” seemed a failure. the image looked like a typical perfume advertisement. but then at a second thought, this process revealed how the perfume advertising industry relies on violence to sell its products. 2 the moomins are the central characters of a comic strip for children created by the finnish artist tove janson. this comic strip is extremely famous and almost all the finns know their adventures. they are a family of white, round fairy tale characters with large snouts that make them resemble cute and inoffensive hippopotamuses. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 80 davide giovanzana when this reflection became clear, the initial reaction was to blame this type of advertisement. how is it possible that images portraying male domination, sexual domination, rape, even gang rape are used to sell perfume or clothes? for instance, the dolce & gabbana 2007 advertisement displayed a woman held to the floor by a man. three other men are standing by and looking at the woman. by the contortions of the woman’s body, she seems to be fighting and trying to get out from the grip of the men. later calvin klein made a similar advertisement, which also portrayed a woman assaulted by a man while two others are complacently watching the scene. it is very hard not to think of these images as a glamorization of gang rape. or for instance, a gucci 2015 advertisement portrayed an adult woman lying over the lap of a man and the man slapping the ass of the woman as if she was a child. or the sisley 2016 advertisement where a woman is sitting on the floor in the middle of a bull fighting arena, her legs spread out with a red dress and a bull looking at the woman. as spectators, we suppose that the bull will soon charge directly on the sex of the woman. and again, a relish 2009 advertisement displayed two young women arrested by two police officers in rio de janeiro. the two police officers are not only arresting the women, but they are abusing their authority and the image suggests that they assault them sexually. one of them is holding one of the women on the car while grabbing her ass, the other one is gripping her hands behinds her back and pulling her. the woman’s facial expression could be read either as discomfort from being pulled or as pleasure from being “dominated.” or again, alexander wang’s 2016 advertisement, displaying two young girls (who look like minors) with cadaverous faces (as if they are sick or drug users) in the trunk of a car. and so on. women’s organizations opposing the objectification of women are constantly attacking this industry (the guardian, 2016); the brands regularly apologize, but nevertheless new images with the same violence are produced. these images are obviously shameful. should we consider that the key to attracting the attention of potential buyers is a strategy of relying on shock value (the violent images)? or do these violent images reveal something else? the italian psychologist massimo recalcati, following freud and lacan’s analysis, points out that humans are the only “animals” able to think and discuss their own death (recalcati, 2017). this “consciousness” is made possible through the acquisition of language. but this acquisition of language also brings a loss: it banishes humans from the sphere of nature. a series of symbolic barriers, of cultural limitations, of prohibition imposed by civilization’s program, demands the removal of the animality in the human (27). becoming “human” requires a separation, a cut from a form of excess. according to recalcati, an animal cannot experience nakedness, being naked, because the animal is never really naked, in the sense that the animal does not wear clothes. to be naked or to dress up are actions that are possible for an existence that relies on the filter of language (28). what differentiates the existence of the human from that of the animal is that the life of the animal and its death can only be present, immediate, it cannot become an object of interrogation, of examination. in the animal, everything is fully “present,” regulated by the rule of instinct. in other words, the human being, in order to become human, needs to sacrifice the animal part of her, to detach herself from nature, and submit herself to the filter of language. i am well aware that the terminology employed by recalcati stands on a slippery slope. it is easy to accuse recalcati of an anthropocentric, condescending attitude towards animals. post-human thinking has already pierced this animal–human dichotomy. however, even if it seems antiquated, i consider his notion of language regulating body interesting. the sacrifice that language operates, is a symbolic sacrifice of the “excess” allowing to access the realm of humanity. and whoever does not accept the symbolic sacrifice imposed by language, becomes a creature that embodies the monstrous excess of life, of life that scares life, of life body first: somaesthetics and popular culture81 perfume, violence, and symbolic sacrifice that is not controlled. it is the terrifying, unknown, dangerous beast that scares children: the black wolf, the venomous snake, the shark, the crocodile (31). these figures which populate the folktale imagery are the symbolic transposition of the danger of falling back into “animality.” what threatens humans is the possibility of losing their “humanity,” forgetting their symbolic sacrifice, and letting the “beast” rule, in other words to fall into barbarianism. the notion of symbolic sacrifice replaces here the body–mind division and proposes a dialectic mediation between “human” and “nature.” the excess embodied by the body needs to be “regulated,” to be “cut” away, and language operates this regulation. it is possible to infer then that in order to access the status of humans, people have to “cut” away what connects them to the realm of the animals, to nature. the excess that is “sacrificed,” the animal inside, nature, is what resides in the body. the body represents then the memory of the animal, of nature, that language has to control. to some extent, a similar idea can be found in dante. in the divine comedy, canto xi depicts the sinners punished for using violence. these sinners are divided into three categories: those who used force against others (homicide, tyrants, and thieves), those who used violence against themselves (suicide and spendthrifts), and those who used force against god. the canto also explains that there are three types of violent nature: those that cannot contain themselves (cannot stop their impulses), those that use malice (use intellect wrongly), and those that are mad beasts (not following virtue). dante’s division is taken directly from aristotle’s ethics, he also considered “bestiality” the worse condition for a human being (aristotle, 1934). scott nethersole, studying violent imagery in early renaissance florence, pointed to a distinction between sacred violent images and secular violent images (nethersole, 2018). sacred art, as for instance the flagellation of christ, is meant to evoke empathy in the viewer, while secular art portraying violence perpetrated by a brute or beasts were meant to “repel” the viewer (92). what is interesting in this observation is that violent images have two specific statuses: one is supposed to emotionally touch the spectator, the other to stimulate consciousness in the spectator’s eye. nethersole lengthily described the tradition in florence to paint the flagellation of christ, where the perpetrators are in full action but the skin of christ remains intact. such a clash between the “text” of the story (christ being flagellated) and the “image” (christ not being wounded) pushes nethersole to suggest that the “flagellation,” or the violence, was imagined by the watchers. by doing so, the spectators participated actively in the passion of christ (91), the viewers become flagellators wounding christ. the intention is to bring the viewer closer to the suffering of the scene. the viewer is summoned to feel, and to respond emotionally to the implicit violence in the image. secular images of violence instead did not have the intention to make the spectators feel the violence. nethersole, among the various terrible secular images he analyzes, discusses widely the particular extensive stucco decoration (48 meters long) that surrounds the entrance of palazzo scala from borgo pinti in florence. the stucco presents numerous violent scenes between humans and beasts, and beasts against beasts, centaurus being drunk, and various killings. what struck the author is why someone would place scenes of violence in his house? these are not sacred images supposed to arouse empathy, they are a long listing of brutalities. the author suggests that, in order to understand these images, we should not forget dante’s text. when the humans progressed away from animality, they progressed away from violence (123). these violent images were not there to impress or to create an emotional response to violence, but they were a fable instigating the spectator’s perception. the observers took pleasure in watching these violent scenes because the viewers considered themselves civilized and thus far from being “animal” (or brutal). they considered themselves to be distant and could “enjoy” these violent depictions. these images, according to nethersole, the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 82 davide giovanzana were placed in such a central place of the house because they were a social definition of the owner of the house (141). the sacred images, in which the violence was invisible, invited the viewer to meditate on christ’s pain and on their own sinfulness. while in secular violent images, in which violence was visible, viewers rejected this violence as alien to them (237). even though nethersole’s research dwells on renaissance paintings (another time period and another medium than the pictures discussed in the exercise), i consider his arguments convincing and applicable to today’s context. however his final conclusion is disputable and i will discuss it here because it reconnects with the “incident” at the university. nethersole discusses the jubilatory description that giorgio vasari3 gives of the massacre of the innocents (1485-1490), painted by the italian painter domenico ghirlandaio (1448-1494). the description outlines the beauty of the lines and the skillful composition of this massacre: “con giudizio, con ingegno et arte grande” – made with judgment, intelligence, and great skill (238). the extensive praise by vasari and especially the pleasure that this art piece provokes in vasari is challenging. this strong connection of violence with pleasure seems to compromise the discourse about the sacred or secular that nethersole developed. in his interpretation, there was a moral learning from these violent images (either empathy or consciousness), but never an aspect of joy or pleasure. this leads nethersole to wonder what could be the reason for violent images to be displayed in homes. nethersole seems to find the answer to this question in aristotle’s poetic, when he discusses mimesis and especially the definition of the catharsis effect, which claims that the viewing of horrific images creates the sense of wonder and pity that helps to purge the observer from committing similar actions. this statement is a direct response to plato’s criticism of mimesis which, according to plato, prompted emotions in the spectators that were problematic and ethically dubious. we can perceive in the opposition of the two greek philosophers a similar opposition in arguments in the university incident. however, in both cases, and here is my reservation regarding nethersole’s conclusion, the arguments are based on a theory for theater, meaning for something that develops a narrative. the problem with images, as we have seen, is that they do not create any narrative. this leads me to wonder, as i mentioned earlier, if the wrong questions about violence are being asked. it seems that the debate about violence is concerned with moral issues: good or bad. but as i examine below, this moralistic approach to violence might impede the perception of a broader implication connected to violence. to return to the perfume advertisements using violence, in which category would they fall? what is the purpose of the violence in these images? is it to summon empathy, like in sacred art described by nethersole? or is it to stimulate consciousness among the buyers, like in the secular art? i doubt the first option and also the second one seems unlikely. what is it then? the symbolic “sacrifice” implies a constant negotiation between “humanity” and “beast,” which is dealt with in the subject: the outburst of vitality or the desire to let the “animal” emerge are continuous temptations that humans face. this desire to “connect” with the animal inside is probably, as recalcati suggests, a frustration from the fact of living a “lesser” life: a life that is regulated by the filter of language. according to him, a life that is constantly under scrutiny (by language) cannot be an existence fully lived (recalcati, 2017, 27-29). the animal, unlike the human, can instead live “fully.” it is thus possible to understand this ambivalent attitude of the human wanting to become human and at the same time longing for the primeval state that has been sacrificed: the body, the animal, the life fully lived. this is why, there are situations in which “civilization” is suspended, and humans are allowed to let the beast, the nature, the “body” 3 giorgio vasari (1511-1574) was an italian painter, architect, writer, and historian, most famous for his “lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects,” considered the ideological foundation of western art history. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture83 perfume, violence, and symbolic sacrifice speak; like in the act of making love. in this moment of intimacy, language is dispossessed and humans can regain the primeval status of being fully present. or in its opposite, during a conflict either ritualized, like a sports game, or lethal, like war. the ritualized conflict is limited in time: when the game is over, the players regain their “humanity.” and similarly, when the war is over, the soldiers should regain their civil life and return to their “humanity.”4 games and wars, where civilization is suspended, are exceptional moments; they are not supposed to be the norm.5 the subject who has agreed to the symbolic sacrifice is nevertheless in tension within herself: for the body is present and reclaims her attention. it is possible to understand here the longing of the body, of the fully lived life. the body makes itself present, palpable, in various ways. the subject is thus in constant tension and needs to negotiate the “emergence” of the body while remaining “civilized,” remaining in the symbolic sacrifice. the sublimation of such tension, of such desire, is therefore captured by the advertising industry which seems to offer a release for it. the excess of the body, the desire to live fully, is packaged in a bottle or in clothes that are accepted by the civilization program. the subject can purchase this accepted part of herself. what the advertisement offers is the promise to reconnect with the lost body, with the beast, with nature. it is a perfume, a sense that does not create knowledge, but stimulate memories and arousals. in this view, the longing of the body is commodified. in such case, the violence depicted in the advertisement, is not necessarily an incitement to implement violence, but is a way to touch the “soft” spot of humans: what they had to give away to become humans. in this situation, violence is instrumentalized, and used to sell products. the potential buyer hopes by buying clothes to reconnect with her “lost” body. i would suggest that these ads should not be condemned for objectivizing women or for portraying violence, but for instrumentalizing violence itself. violence, the mystery of violence, is denatured and trivialized. the danger of such operation is that we might then fail to address the right questions about violence. as in the case described at the university or with teemu mäki. the anthropologist anton blok argues that violence in the west has been monopolized by the state. this created a sense of pacified humans and society. however, such condition makes us consider violence (and its so-called unauthorized form) as something anomalous, disruptive, irrational, senseless; the reverse of social order. violence is considered the antithesis of civilization, something that needs to be brought under control. the danger in this, concludes blok, is that we might fail to ask what violence signifies and how (blok, 2000, 23-24). we are inclined to look only at the expression of it and judge it from a moralistic standpoint. bringing the discussion of violence into a moralistic point of view is again an attempt to come to terms with a complicated phenomenon, to provide a simplified answer to an ambiguous phenomenon. by either considering it as good or bad is to reduce the mystery of violence and to consider it through the lens of utilitarianism. in this article, two arguments were examined: the tension between the body and language and the effects of violent images. the body is the depositary of the excess that humans have to sacrifice in order to reach the status of humanity. this symbolic sacrifice is operated and consolidated by language that “prevents” the body from falling back into animality, into barbarianism, into nature. as i mentioned, this tension between the body and language is a constant negotiation, a tension that is sublimated into a morbid desire or longing for the lost ability to fully live life. the body is thus the container of the excess and the temptation of this excess. the clothing and perfume advertising industry instrumentalizes this desire by offering a commodified version of 4 an example of the ritualistic bath for the soldier coming back from war can be found in the greek tragedy oresteia by euripides, when clytemnestra prepares the bath for her husband, agamemnon coming back from the trojan war. 5 of course, this claim is debatable and giorgio agamben in his work homo sacer, examined the ambiguity of western societies proclaiming democratic values and at the same time promoting continuous states of emergency diminishing the state of law. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 84 davide giovanzana it. the violence that is so often blatantly displayed in such advertisements becomes a promise to the potential consumer to re-connect with the sacrificed “animality,” with nature, with the excess. as discussed above, violence is a complex phenomenon and exposure to violent images affects the viewer’s body. in order to release the tension generated by the vision of violence, the viewer needs to create some kind of “distance.” a theoretical framework, a moral judgment, a polarized position (is it good or bad) are ways to establish a safe distance and thus to “protect” the body. but as examined above, violence is not only an external phenomenon that humans want to get rid of. it is a part of the “animality,” of the “nature” that is sacrificed, and which is longed for. the use of violence in an advertisement in order to sell products is a way to arouse such an emotional response and at the same time to offer a channel to sublimate this tension. the problem is that “violence” is put into a sellable package (either accepted or banned), but the important questions about violence and about our relationship towards violence are avoided. references agamben, giorgio (1995) homo sacer. milano: einaudi editore. alighieri, dante (1966) la divina commedia. milan: mondadori. aristotle (1934) nichomachean ethics. london: cambridge university press. blok, anton (2000) the enigma of senseless violence, in meanings of violence. oxford: berg. elo, mika and luoto, miika. (eds.) (2018.) “figures of touch”. helsinki: the academy of fine arts atthe university of the arts helsinki. eschilo. (1995.) orestea. roma: rizzoli. foucault, michel. (1977.) discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. london: vintage books. matine, alexandra. (2016.) “the next step in marketing to women is to stop marketing to women.” the guardian 2.3.2019. link (last access 25.7.2019): https://www.theguardian.com/ media-network/2016/mar/02/marketing-women-advertising-gender-equality mäki, teemu. (2005.) darkness visible. helsinki: finnish academy of fine arts. nancy, jean-luc. (2008.) corpus. fordham university press, new york nethersole, scott. (2018.) art and violence in early renaissance florence. london: yale university press. recalcati, massimo. (2017.) contro il sacrificio. milan: raffaello cortina. ryynänen, max. (2019.) “under the skin: notes on the aesthetics of distance and visual culture.” the journal of somaesthetics 2019: 1. sontag, susan. (2003.) regarding the pain of others. new york: picador. page 21-36 body first: somaesthetics and popular culture21 the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience scott elliott abstract: this paper explores how the human mechanisms of gene expression may be used in novel artistic practices which use the human body as material. examining historical examples of artists who use the body as material along with popular culture body modification practices, epigenetic transformations are put forward as a method to be explored in new forms of artistic practice. examples of speculative fiction, works of architecture and psychotherapeutic devices are investigated towards outlining a direction for such a practice. keywords: architecture, genes, orlan, reich, ballard, crash, stelarc. 1. transformative capacities considering the continuing, ongoing nature of our species’ evolution, any notion that our way of being or form of existence is static must be refuted. the ever-changing formation of being is carried out through adaptations. the adaptations we understand best are those that are naturally selected over generations through reproduction. but what of the changes that occur within a lifetime, or in the fleeting transience of a single event? changes are constantly occurring towards transformations. whether they result in improved fitness or whether they are mutations that will not be carried forwards into subsequent generations cannot be predetermined. accompanying our evolutionary process is a prevalent desire for physical transformations, to change our flesh and bones into something else. such desire may be to improve in terms of popular aesthetics or criteria of beauty, or for fitness, or to develop new abilities and capacities. some transformations occur through intentional and planned techniques, such as the physical transformations realized through cosmetic surgery. other transformations come about in a makeshift way, taking advantage of an existing potential that one has come upon by chance encounter and carrying this potential forward into actuality. one example of a situation in which this emerges is the physical, somatic experience between body and a constructed enclosure. this essay explores architecture, cars, and wilhelm reich’s “orgone accumulator” for their capacities to transform the human body, and raises questions about the sexual dimension present in a somaesthetic engagement with surroundings. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 22 scott elliott using the body and its transformative capacity in artistic practice as well as in popular cultural aesthetics has focused greatly on using medical interventions that make physical changes to flesh and bone. this pliable material is used not only as a medium of expression, but as able to express an idea of potential through its materiality. the aesthetics of bodybuilding, for example, offer a cultural phenomenon where the mass, shape and texture of human flesh are critically measured on stage, and the practice of this culture requires ongoing transformations of this material. a counterpart to this are the unique aesthetics evidenced by those addicted to cosmetic surgery. whereas bodybuilders and cosmetic surgery patients ostensibly seek to achieve an existing aesthetic criterion, performance-bioartists have made physical changes to their bodies to question aesthetics. the artists stelarc and orlan have both experimented with surgical interventions in part to pose questions about cultural phenomena behind such desires for transformation, as well as to propose functional augmentations of the body towards realizing a new human form of existence through extended capacities. to continue the development of these creative practices, a consideration of our adaptive mechanisms, in particular the mechanisms of gene expression known as epigenetics, may reveal existing potentials for bodily transformation that have not yet been taken advantage of. such potentials for transformation can be found in somatic material encounters between the body and a built enclosure. part of such somatic encounters is a sexual dimension not often discussed, and it may be this that allows for a transformation to be more readily adapted. material fetishes and material encounters are found in works of art and literature that hint at such potential for transformation. 2. the plasticity of flesh and bone bioartists have made artworks through the genetic transformations of living organisms, from rabbits and rats to butterflies.1 cybernetics have also been used to enhance human capacities for movement and sensation.2 others have sought to transform their own flesh and bone through artistic practices. among these artists, stelarc and orlan offer examples of attempts to propose and actualize possibilities for the human body through the physical transformation of their bodies. these transformations of their own bodies, however, operate within a form of creative practice that reserves the transformation for the artists, positioning themselves as objects in relation to spectators of their performances. to offer the potential of transformation beyond metaphor and symbol, alternative forms of practice should be explored. stelarc’s “extra ear” (1999) and “ear on arm” (2007) projects aimed to grow a copy of one of his ears with his own skin cells, and have it surgically transplanted onto his body. this ear would include a microphone that would allow the public to listen online to what the ear hears. although the project has thus far not achieved all of its goals, he is continuing the process. this project, among others stelarc has made, seeks to increase his body’s sensory capacities through a functional addition, an action that aims to be more than aesthetic. stelarc (“obsolete bodies,” n.d.) has stated that “it might be the height of technological folly to consider the body obsolete in form and function, yet it might be the height of human realizations. for it is only when the 1 eduardo kac’s project “gfp bunny” (2000) involved the display of a rabbit that had been genetically modified (by louis-marie houdebine) with the green fluorescent protein of the jellyfish so that it would fluoresce when exposed to blue light; kathy height’s project “embracing animal” (2004-2006) genetically modified rats with human dna and built special housing for them for public viewing; marta de menezes’s project “nature?” involved the genetic modification of butterfly wings to create a new wing pattern not seen before. 2 neil harbisson’s artistic practice derives from his use of a cybernetic implant that allows him to hear color, extending his senses as he is otherwise color-blind. https://www.cyborgarts.com/ body first: somaesthetics and popular culture23 the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience body becomes aware of its present position that it can map its post-evolutionary strategies.” his attempts to transform the body through biomedical and industrial technologies aims to address what he finds lacking in the human organism as well as realize potentials for new forms of being. he writes (“redesigning the body”, n.d.), “having confronted its image of obsolescence, the body is traumatized to split from the realm of subjectivity and consider the necessity of re-examining and possibly redesigning its very structure. altering the architecture of the body results in adjusting and extending its awareness of the world.” from 1990 through 1993, orlan made an iterative artwork in the form of a series of cosmetic surgery performances titled “the reincarnation of saint orlan.” her position on the topic of the body as a material for art is clarified in her “carnal art manifesto” (n.d.), where she states, “carnal art is not interested in the plastic-surgery result, but in the process of surgery, the spectacle and discourse of the modified body which has become the place of a public debate.” through this iterative work, she sought to transform herself into a female ideal of beauty as depicted by male artists, seeking to gain the facial features of idols of female beauty in historical paintings (mona lisa, venus, psyche, europa, among others). this embracing of the possibility for physical transformation of her flesh and bone was to counter her dna, her innate biology, as she states, “my work is a struggle against the innate, the inexorable, the programmed, nature, dna (which is our direct rival as far as artists of representation are concerned), and god!” (jeffreys, 2006). figure 1: stelarc (2007ongoing) ear on arm. performance/photography artwork. photos © nina sellars. reprinted with permission. both stelarc and orlan evidence artistic practices that manifest physical transformations of the body, but it is particularly their (respective) bodies. their work focuses on sensation, what is experienced through the transformation and post-transformation, but they leave no experience of sensation for us observers or spectators. we can imagine and sympathize but not sense, taking the images and videos they create as inspiration for our own potential transformations but not take part in the transformative process ourselves. in this respect their practices offer conceptual propositions and symbols of transformation that we may abstract into our own lives rather than effecting any sensation of transformation in us. as stelarc (“phantom body,” n.d.) has stated, “the body now performs best as its image.” although they (especially orlan) present a critique of prevailing aesthetics of the body, their work depends on body the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 24 scott elliott as image, as object, and the critique they offer cannot be carried out without this focus. body as process, as a continuing evolution that we can affect and possibly direct, requires a different perspective as well as a different form of practice. popular culture examples of related practices, such as the aforementioned bodybuilding or cosmetic surgery, offer us possibilities more readily accessible. individuals (non-artists) such as rodrigo alves or dennis avner (a.k.a. stalking cat) may offer even more extreme versions of the potentials cosmetic surgery can offer than either stelarc or orlan do. whereas most individuals who attempt these transformations through cosmetic surgery do so through private medical systems, some attempt to perform surgery on themselves (veale, 2000, p. 221). these diy surgeries illustrate the overwhelming desire for self-transformation through practices of self-mutilation where aesthetics and neurosis converge. similarly, online bodybuilding forums offer information on where to purchase steroids and cosmetic injections as well as protocols on how to use them. in recent years this practice of chemical transformation has become more acceptable, and these chemicals easier to find. current practices range from injecting androgens and growth hormones to silicone oils and bioplasty (derma fillers).3 in these actions, flesh and bone grow and mutate while integrating with non-living materials. aside from aesthetic transformations, the practice of ‘trepanation’ has been carried out by some individuals on their own bodies in search of increased mental capacity and psychological health.4 once a futuristic or controversial topic, even full sex reassignment surgeries have entered into public discourse. our bodies, taken as image or objects, are now understood as more plastic in the sculptural sense, capable of being modified or shaped into new forms. the prevalence of this desire for the extremes of body image, and the normalization of both this desire for transformation and the practices through which it is carried out, has changed how such body art is perceived. furthermore, the normalization of physical changes to the body has led to greater sensations of transformation, with bodies becoming dramatically different, that what is required from critical artistic practices is more than symbolism and image. if we are able to undergo our own surgical and chemical transformations, and to experience the changes that arise in our physiology and psychology, the affective value of symbolic propositions begins to wane. rather than a focus on body image, artistic practices might aim to transform one’s body schema, with the former being what others see and the latter being what one feels as a body sensorially or in regards to affect.5 this parallels what has been lacking in body art practices, in their focus on the image and object of the body as symbol in an alienating ritual of object-subject spectatorship. the experience of transformation, one that is beyond cosmetic but somehow a transformation of being, may be what is desired. this begs the question of whether artistic practices could manifest this change, engendering an affective transformation not through the transformations of flesh and bone but through another medium. 3 a key distinction between these popular and artistic practices is that whereas stelarc and orlan make their processes and practices visible to participate in a critical public discourse, these popular culture examples mostly aim to keep their transformations secret, to achieve transformations that would be accepted as natural rather than artificial. 4 20th century examples: amanda feilding, bart huges, joseph mellen. see also: trepanation: history, discovery, theory. robert arnott, stanley finger, c.u.m. smith. lisse: swets & zeitlinger, 2003. 5 shaun gallagher (2005, pp. 37-38) offers a literature review on the difference between ‘body image’ and ‘body schema.’ he puts forward the distinction as follows: “body image [is] a (sometimes conscious) system of perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and dispositions pertaining to one’s own body [.…] body schema, in contrast, is a system of sensory-motor processes that constantly regulate posture and movement—processes that function without reflective awareness or the necessity of perceptual monitoring [.…] the body image normally involves a personal-level experience of the body that involves a sense of ownership for the body. the body schema, however, functions beneath the level of personal life [….] the body image involves an abstract and partial representation of the body in so far as one’s perception, thought, and emotional evaluation can attend to only one part or area or aspect of the body at a time.” body first: somaesthetics and popular culture25 the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience 3. phenotype as artistic medium beyond these cosmetic or skin-deep transformations, poet and architect robert kocik proposes that we take our human mechanisms of gene expression—epigenetics—as a novel artistic medium. the epigenome is understood to be affected by both physical and chemical environmental stressors and diet, affecting which genes are expressed. the epigenome is involved in regulating gene expression. whereas genotype is the set of genes in our dna responsible for a trait, phenotype is the physical expression of that trait (through rna as it converts the genetic information so it can be used to build proteins). the genome does not change in an individual, but the epigenome can be altered by environmental conditions. aspects present in our dna can remain latent until particular environmental factors trigger their expression. it is accepted that environmental conditions can affect the expression of genes, particularly with environmental toxins. yet other aspects of our somatic interaction with our architectural surroundings could still be explored towards effecting transformations. our individual genetics may be fixed, but within that genotype exist potentials for gene expression we may not by aware of. whereas orlan’s above statement that dna is the enemy of the representational artist, non-representational creative practices may find ways to explore this genetic potential. in looking at this potential, kocik (2014, p. 124) has proposed that we use phenotype as an artistic medium towards transformations that are either required for our continuation, or that may be beneficial for reasons of our own determination. he writes, “phenotype is a particularly viable artistic medium. if it is not—if phenotype is not taken up as a particularly viable artistic medium and made true as such—how will we ever stay alive?” basing his design strategy on the science of epigenetics, kocik proposes what he calls “evoked epigenetic architecture,” a designed surrounding that has the possibility to transform an organism at an epigenetic level by regulating the expression of genes through determining environmental conditions. he writes (p. 103), “an epigenetic building places selective pressure directly upon our impending persons.” to enclose the body with a built surrounding that would evoke epigenetic gene expressions—thus leading to transformations of the body—would be a way of making phenotype an artistic medium. this form of transforming the body would be markedly different from what artists have done in the past; rather than changing their own bodies through surgery or chemical intervention, the artist would create the possibility for anyone to venture into this enclosure and be transformed. this would be a doubled creative act; first the creation of the built surroundings or enclosure, and second the body’s epigenetic expression in response to the surrounding. not all bodies will respond in the same way, as a confluence of specific latent genes, environmental conditions, and timing are required.6 but in that moment of perfect confluent accord, the body creatively takes up this potential through a gene expression. kocik writes (p. 124), “so, why not architecture (as active epigenetic agent): the built environment intersecting, interrupting transfer of genetic material from dna to rna? as possible biotopological practices how about: architectural licking.” could we develop forms of artistic practice that employs somatic experience towards the evocation of epigenetic change? such a development might allow for epigenetic expressions, and thereby effect transformations of the bodies of those who engage with the artworks rather than transformations symbolically represented in the individual bodies of the artists. 6 madeline gins and arakawa’s artistic and architectural practice presents a similar ethos, aiming to build an architecture against death. their “architectural body” project proposes the potential of architectural design to transform a body, although they do not directly discuss epigenetics. more: http://www.reversibledestiny.org/ the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 26 scott elliott this idea of licking references an important early study into epigenetics. in a study on the nurturing behaviors of rats, a direct connection between behavior, somatic engagement and gene expression was illustrated. the study showed that rat pups who were licked by their mothers grew up to be happy and calm adult rats that were able to react calmly to stress, whereas rat pups not licked by their mothers became anxious and prone to disease (weaver et al., 2006). in this case, a somatic and social experience of connection between pup and mother effected a clear transformation. the nurturing behavior of licking led to an epigenetic gene expression, and this lead to significant differences in adult rats. this may correlate with human childhood experiences as recent studies have indicated that trauma suffered during childhood can lead to changes in brain development (bearer & mulligan, 2018). 4. remedial enclosures in exploring the limits of what transformations can be expected through our engagement with designed surroundings, wilhelm reich’s ‘orgone accumulator’ and the commissioned house designs of richard neutra present examples of built enclosures designed to transform a person that predate our contemporary understanding of epigenetics. seeking to address both psychological and physiological ailments, both neutra and reich created constructions as remedies, through a reduction of the intensity or frequency of these ailments. rather than an epigenetic transformation through phenotype as artistic medium, they propose transformation through aesthetic pleasure in connection with the libido and evidence historical precedents for creative practices aimed at transforming the body. although there is no record of the two being in contact, uncanny parallels exist in the lives of these two designers. wilhelm reich (1897-1957) and richard neutra (1892-1970), were both born in austria and died in america. they also shared an interest in freud’s psychoanalytic thought. apart from being a personal friend of freud’s son ernst ludwig, neutra’s connection to freud was primarily through the concept of the libido. neutra was interested in the relation between libido and aesthetic pleasure, and how this link offered new possibilities for architectural design. in her book form follows libido, sylvia lavin (2007, p. 72) writes: the modernist building generally offered its form both as an object of aesthetic pleasure and as an instrument of good health. what neutra added to this formulation was a definition of aesthetic pleasure as the source of healthful effects, and not just in general but in relation to psychological health in particular. psychoanalysis was key to this development, because the libido offered the opportunity to link the pursuit of satisfaction and the very idea of pleasure to an environment conceived in relation to flows of energy. according to lavin, neutra’s architectural designs were intended to offer a kind of therapeutic aesthetic experience. the energies that freud describes in his definition of libido are similar to the energies that neutra and other architects were designing their buildings around. neutra was interested in 19th century philosophies that did not separate physiology from psychology, perhaps as psychology had yet to come into its own as a distinct field of medicine. this examination of the whole person was key to neutra’s designs, somewhat similar to reich’s perspective. based on freud’s theory of sublimation, meaning the transformation of repressed energy into a symptom, neutra created his own model of energy transactions or transformations. he believed that there were energy transformations within a body, but that these could be brought body first: somaesthetics and popular culture27 the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience into the body from outside, from an external source. the body was a collection of energies that repeated and intensified the energy exchanges taking place elsewhere in the world. lavin (2007, p. 70) writes, “the economy of his buildings was that, in purchasing a ‘neutra,’ his clients acquired the promise of happiness delivered through the therapeutics of aesthetic pleasure.” figures 2 and 3: richard neutra (1929), lovell (health) house. photo © user: losangeles / wikimedia commons. permission for reprinting on creative commons license cc-by-sa-3.0. examining his commissioned houses, lavin describes how neutra, when designing a home for a client, would conduct many hours of interviews with the client to outline their psychological neuroses. based on this information, he would design a home that would counteract these neuroses, or act as a therapeutic element in treating them. the elements that he used to effect these therapies were based on his own aesthetic of modernist or international style architecture; large open spaces, large windows, mobile walls, reflecting pools, among others. later in his career he began to include other elements essential to this idea of therapy, namely opening the house up to the exterior environment, creating natural air flow from outside to inside, and using natural materials such as stone and wood, and of course water in reflecting pools. the interior surfaces were reliefs built up from these materials rather than flattened into a single plane. it was these natural elements and material surfaces of the interior space of the house that were to create, according to lavin, the therapeutic effects needed to treat his clients’ neuroses. the materials, the effect of using these varied natural materials, was to animate modernist abstract space with the currents of energy in the atmosphere. figure 4: richard neutra, (1932). vdl studio and residence (architect’s own studio and house). photo © user:davidhartwell / wikimedia commons. permission for reprinting on creative commons license cc-by-sa-4.0 the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 28 scott elliott neutra’s houses intimately connected the inhabitants to the materials and to the environment immediately surrounding the house. the house was permeable, as he saw that humans were permeable. these energies, for neutra, flowed through all things, people, materials, environments. this holistic view also afforded him the philosophical potential to begin treating clients with his architectural designs. in connection with the libido, the aesthetic pleasure that was therapeutic had within it a sexual dimension. lavin (2007, p. 70) writes, “the form psychology that conditioned neutra’s reception of psychoanalysis resounded with the quest for pleasure. this tradition presented the body as a registration device that through empathic exchange manifested the effect of an aesthetic object. the resonating vibration imagined between the properly perceiving subject and the properly shaped object was defined as sexually charged.” it was this sexual dimension, acting on libidinal energies, that permitted a somaesthetic experience of neutra’s architectural surrounds to be therapeutic. the remedial transformations neutra sought to effect in his residents would come about through this energetic engagement and interaction between body, material and form. figures 5 and 6: richard neutra, (1932). lovell (health) house. architecture. photo © user:davidhartwell / wikimedia commons. permission for reprinting on creative commons license cc-by-sa-4.0 a psychologist rather than architect, as one of freud’s disciples wilhelm reich continued freud’s research into sexual dysfunction in searching for a biological basis for the metaphor of the libido (libido as energy, instincts, unconscious and part of the ‘id’). the desires created by this libido, for example sexual expression, often do not fit with societal norms or expectations of behavior and must be controlled through what freud called ‘ego defenses.’ overuse of ego defenses leads to neuroses. so, for freud, the sexual dysfunctions that result from neuroses are preventing the expression of libido and therefore of sexual desire. reich turned this around, saying that it is rather the lack of the expression of these desires that leads to neuroses. this was controversial, as reich was stating that the remedy for neuroses was to have a fulfilled sex life through unadulterated expression of one’s sexuality. reich’s identification of what is lacking in the organism, and the creation of a device to compensate or replace what is lacking (the ‘orgone accumulator’), derives from his belief that life operated in a cycle of ‘biological pulsation.’ this came about through two opposing movements, one of contraction and one of expansion, which themselves came about, for contraction, through a combination of anxiety and sympathetic innervation, and for expansion, the combination of body first: somaesthetics and popular culture29 the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience pleasure and parasympathetic innervation.7 this was the basis for a rhythm of life, a pulsation that operated across organisms (reich, 1973, p. 4). what is particularly interesting here is his extension of psychological experiences, anxiety and pleasure, in combination with parts of the autonomous nervous system (parasympathetic and sympathetic systems) towards a somatic experience. reich (1960, p. 236) writes: “what we feel as pleasure is an expansion of our organism. in pleasure corresponding to vagotonic expansion, the autonomic nerves actually stretch out toward the world. in anxiety, on the other hand, we feel a crawling back into the self: a shrinking, a hiding, a constriction (“anguistiae,” “angst”). in these sensations, we are experiencing the real process of contraction of the autonomic nervous system.” this is where the orgone accumulator enters the picture, as a functional, mechanistic contraption that operates to cause direct change in the organism: “the orgone accumulator charges living tissue and brings about an expansion of the plasmatic system (vagotonia)” (reich, 1960, p. 237). reich believed that by sitting in this box, a person would ameliorate their health (physically and psychologically) through the accumulation of positive orgone energy that he believed was a ubiquitous life-force in the universe. orgone energy was akin to libidinal energy, as reich’s pseudoscientific experiments to determine a measurable biological corollary to freud’s libido led him to this result. this perspective parallels neutra’s belief in the capacity for the (libidinal) energies present within an individual to be transformed by that which surrounds them. the orgone accumulator is made up of an outer layer of ‘upsom board’, something like mdf today, and then interior layers of alternating steel wool and fiberglass, finishing with an inner layer of zinc treated sheet metal. reich’s idea was that the steel wool would attract the energy and the fiberglass would insulate it: the atmosphere orgone energy does not ‘seep’ through the openings, but penetrates the solid walls. in relation to the accumulator, the organism is the stronger energy system. accordingly a potential is created from the outside toward the inside by the enclosed body. the energy fields of the two systems make contact and after some time, dependent on the bio-energetic strength of the organism within, both the living organism and the energy field of the accumulator begin to ‘laminate’ i.e. they become excited and, making contact, drive each other to higher levels of excitation. this fact becomes perceptible to the user of the accumulator through feelings of prickling, warmth, relaxation, reddening of the face, and objectively, through increased body temperature. there is no mechanical rule as to how long one should sit in the accumulator. one should continue with the orgonotic irradiation as long as one feels comfortable and ‘glowing.’ (greenfield, 1974, pp. 372-373) 7 the human autonomic nervous system is divided into two parts, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. the sympathetic nervous system accelerates heart rate, raises blood pressure and also constricts blood vessels, whereas the parasympathetic nervous system slows heart rate, relaxes the sphincter muscles and increases glandular and intestinal activity. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 30 scott elliott figure 7: wilhelm reich, orgone accumulator (author’s own, built in 2012). photo © scott andrew elliott figure 8: microscopic pictures of the materials used to build an orgone accumulator (clockwise from top left: steel wool, sheet metal, fiberglass, mdf). photo © scott andrew elliott the particular qualities of the materials that construct the orgone accumulator are what, following reich’s theory, allow for the increase of energy within a person and resultantly lead to a transformation. accepting that this theory of orgone energy is false, it is interesting that many individuals who have used the device have had significant affective experiences within them. author william s. burroughs, known for the censorship of his novel “naked lunch” due to its pornographic content, was a follower of reich’s theories and built a number of his own orgone accumulators. in an article he wrote for the pornographic magazine oui (1977, p. 59) he stated, “[t]he orgone box does have a definite sexual effect. i also made a little one from an army-style gas can covered with burlap and cotton wool and wrapped around with a gunny sack, and it was a potent sexual tool. the orgones would stream out of the nozzle of the gas can. one day i got into the big accumulator and held the little one over my joint and came right off.” without the fictional ‘orgone energy,’ what remains is a somaesthetic experience of the material enclosure itself. to sit inside a sheet metal enclosure just large enough for your body (as the accumulators were intended to be custom-fit for each owner) offers haptic, visual and auditory sensations that are themselves affective. perhaps, mirroring neutra’s designs, it is the aesthetic pleasure found in the encounter with the form and materials that lead to the change in libidinal energy? might these examples of built surroundings from neutra and reich offer insight into the epigenetic potentials present in somaesthetic experiences? could a neutra house or the orgone accumulator perform the architectural licking that kocik speculatively proposed? this interaction between somaesthetic experience and a transformative libidinal energy may hold clues to how phenotype could be made into an artistic material. to move from genotype to phenotype, from the possible to the actual, requires an expression that may come about through a material encounter between a body and its surroundings. 5. libidinal plasticity and the material encounter of the car crash following the transformations effected by the somaesthetic encounter with surrounding materials in the works of neutra and reich, in j. g. ballard’s crash (1973) bodies are transformed through material encounters which take place in violent events. for ballard, rather than an evolutionary body first: somaesthetics and popular culture31 the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience progression towards selection of traits better adapted to our automobile environments, the chance event of material encounter present in the violence of a car crash offers a transformative possibility. in such an event, the violent merging of these materials (living and non-living) as well as the transfer of energies (kinetic and libidinal) makes the possibilities present in the already ongoing material conversation accessible. these possibilities need not be speculated upon; in this instance both physiological and psychological transformations are actualized. a person is changed by such a material encounter, and whether or not they participated in the selection of the possibility towards its actualisation is questionable. ballard finds a sexual dimension in this encounter between body and material surroundings. when flesh, metal and plastic collide at high speed, where the transfer of energies is manifested in the physical trauma of breaking living and non-living materials, what results for ballard’s characters is a transformation of their sexual desires. he writes (1973, p. 29), “this obsession with the sexual possibilities of everything around me had been jerked loose from my mind by the crash.” this small metal enclosure that we spend so much of our time in may offer possibilities for transformations through the material encounters we have with it. similar to reich’s orgone accumulator, this device may increase libidinal energy through somatic experiences. ballard writes (1973, p. 81), “the passenger compartment enclosed us like a machine generating from our sexual act an homunculus of blood, semen and engine coolant.” these transformations are both physical and psychological, as the violent event leaves its marks on the crash victims as well as shifts their libidinal drives through the development of a fetish for the materiality of the car. these drives, or sexual fetish, lead the characters into further crashes and sexual encounters within cars as their transformations continue. over the course of the novel, the main character drifts towards homosexuality through his sexual experiments in and with cars. the physical changes to the human bodies are fetishized as well, as a new material representative of the new sexuality that emerges. describing one character’s changes, he writes (1973, pp. 99-100): the crushed body of the sports car had turned her into a creature of free and perverse sexuality, releasing within its twisted bulkheads and leaking engine coolant all the deviant possibilities of her sex. her crippled thighs and wasted calf muscles were models for fascinating perversities [….] her strong face with its unmatching planes seemed to mimic the deformed panels of the car, almost as if she consciously realized that these twisted instrument binnacles provided a readily accessible anthology of depraved acts, the keys to an alternative sexuality. according to freud (1950, p. 252), present in a traumatic event is an inherent sexual dimension, he writes, “the mechanical violence of the trauma would liberate a quantity of sexual excitation which, owing to the lack of preparation for anxiety, would have a traumatic effect.” the transformation that comes about from such a violent event as the car crash may offer an example of plasticity, where “plasticity designates the fluidity of the libido” (malabou, 2007, p. 80) the plasticity that freud describes in human sexuality allows for what he terms a sublimation of libidinal energy into creative impulse. he writes (1950, p. 255): sexual instinctual impulses in particular are extraordinarily plastic, if i may so express it. one of them can take the place of another, one of them can take over another’s intensity; if the satisfaction of one of them is frustrated by reality, the satisfaction of another can afford complete compensation. […] further, the the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 32 scott elliott component instincts of sexuality, as well as the sexual current which is compounded from them, exhibit a large capacity for changing their object, for taking another in its place—and one, therefore, that is more easily attainable. […] it consists in the sexual trend abandoning its aim of obtaining a component or a reproductive pleasure and taking on another which is related genetically to the abandoned one but is itself no longer sexual and must be described as social. we call this process ‘sublimation’. monastic orders who follow a vow of chastity seek to redirect their libidinal energy towards devotion to god. a literary example is described in thomas mann’s death in venice (2004), where the character gustav has a desire for an adolescent boy, and redirects this desire into writing poetry. yet this plasticity is entirely psychological and does not address a physical transformation. ballard’s transformation, or libidinal transmutation, occurs through a somatic experience in an event where the materials of the body and of a constructed surrounding violently interact, and result in both physiological and psychological changes. furthermore, rather than sublimating the desire into some disconnected act, these desires that are produced by the violent material encounter of the car crash are lived out and expressed. the transformative potential present in the overlap between somaesthetic experience and libido follows through from possibility to actuality. this marks a parallel between freudian libidinal plasticity which is only psychological with a physiological plasticity of the flesh and of the epigenome. perhaps the sexual plasticity that allows for a fluidity of the libido carries over into this physiological realm in a way that allows for physiological changes? the new sexuality and psychological drives of his characters come about not through a genetic adaptation, these were not evolutions that came to pass through generational selection. rather, by taking up what is on hand through the direct material encounters, a transformation takes place. through material encounters, ballard’s characters find ways to adapt, mutate, or transform into new kinds of beings. the sexual dimension of somaesthetic material encounters may lend a degree of plasticity to physiological transformations, and allow for epigenetic transformations to be effected through such events of material encounter. exploring the notion of plasticity, catherine malabou (2012) argues that both physiological brain injuries and diseases as well as psychological traumas can result in significant transformations in affected individuals, and that such transformations express a negative plasticity inherent to our human condition. her notion of plasticity is derived from freud’s theory of the libido, and malabou’s proposition of a negative plasticity runs counter to both freud’s and contemporary science’s use of the term to describe positive adaptive mechanisms of healing. she writes (2012, p. 17): it is clear that wounds—traumas or catastrophes—are not “creators of form” in the positive sense of the term. we are quite far from the sculptural paradigm of “beautiful form.” if the wound, as the determining cause of the transformation of the psyche, has a plastic power, it can only be understood in terms of the third sense of plasticity: explosion and annihilation. if brain damage creates a new identity, this creation can be only creation through the destruction of form. the plasticity at stake here is thus destructive plasticity. malabou present examples of individuals who have suffered traumatic events (ptsd from exposure to warfare) and traumatic brain injuries, all of which result in a loss of one identity in body first: somaesthetics and popular culture33 the plasticity of flesh and bone: transforming the body through somaesthetic experience exchange for a new one. this negative plasticity, we should note, also raises ethical concerns for how creative practices take up epigenetics as it is clear that there are possibilities to cause harm just as much as to find beneficial transformations. figure 9: patricia piccinini, graham, 2016. artwork [silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, concrete]. 140 x 120 x 170cm. photo © patricia piccinini. reprinted with permission. patricia piccinini’s recent sculptural collaboration with the transport accident commission of victoria (australia) led to the speculative design of a new human body more capable of withstanding a car crash.8 named ‘graham’ (2016) this example offers material adaptations to the body that allow for a transfer of energy into the body without causing as much damage. here, the flesh and bone structure has been altered in order to better absorb the violent energy of the car crash, though solely in the physical sense. in the work of piccinini, the detail of the surface again is responsible for the evocation of imagined possibilities. in reviewing her work, van badham (2017) writes, “what’s uncanny about piccinini’s work is not that an artist’s mind can conjure such creatures. it’s that the finesse of their detail make every variegated body that she crafts seem suddenly possible. but for piccinini, the beasts she invents are the logical conclusion of what is possible within the ongoing material conversation between evolutionary forces and environmental ones.” this speculative invention that follows what is made possible within the “ongoing material conversation” suggests that there may be current epigenetic opportunities in the direct somatic experience of the car to lead to significant changes in the human organism. however, this work reflects a similar ethos as does the work of stelarc or orlan in the use of body as image and object to speculate on possibilities. what opportunities might we presently have for actualising these possibilities to transform ourselves more tangibly and immediately? following the propositions outlined by neutra, reich and ballard, what remains to be developed are creative practices in which the affective experience of being within a closely built surrounding—be it architectural, pseudoscientifically medicinal or automotive—leads to epigenetic transformations. it would seem that addressing the plasticity of the libido could offer a direction for such practices to follow. 6. selecting for epigenetic change i propose that it is through a sexual dimension of somaesthetic experience that we will find a way to use phenotype as an artistic medium. it may be that this dimension has always been an important part of our species’ adaptations. darwin’s original texts outline a difference between natural and sexual selection, a difference explored by elizabeth grosz (2011, p. 132), as she writes: 8 http://www.meetgraham.com.au/ the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 34 scott elliott sexual selection, as an alternative principle to natural selection, expands the world of the living into the nonfunctional, the redundant, the artistic. it enables matter to become more than it is, it enables the body to extend beyond itself into objects that entice, appeal, and function as sexual prostheses [….] sexual selection unveils the operations of aesthetics, not as a mode of reception, but as a mode of enhancement. grosz’s research outlines sexual difference and sexual selection as the origin of difference, as a mechanism shared by living beings (from bacteria on up) that is the condition for all other differences. for grosz, difference of any kind begins here. returning to kocik, he suggests that our traits may direct our genetics, rather than vice versa. this might reflect the reversal reich made of freud’s theory of the libido. kocik writes (2014, p. 31), “keep your eye on our ‘traits’—the genome will fashion itself after our traits and behaviors and not vice versa. in this way the genome will become an advanced type of retrofection—germ cells influenced not only by somatic cells but even more directly by social forces or perhaps psychological factors (though psychosexual retrofection is clearly beyond the scope of this essay).” through a reconsideration of the how the body is transformed, artists may develop practices which allow us to live out transformations through material encounters that stimulate epigenetic gene expressions rather than represent the artist’s body as image and symbol of experienced transformations. the sexual dimension of such encounters may be precisely this psychosexual retrofection kocik parenthetically alludes to. by attending to the material encounters we engage in, and finding within them our own potentials of plasticity, we may find ways to effect immediate transformative adaptations and actualize our ongoing desire for change. references arnott, r., finger, s., and smith, c. 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(n.d.) redesigning the body. [artist statement. retrieved on january 8th 2019 from http://stelarc.org/?catid=20317. veale, d. (2000). “outcome of cosmetic surgery and ‘diy’ surgery in patients with body dismorphic disorder” in psychiatric bulletin, volume 24, pp. 218-221. weaver et al. (february 28 2006). “maternal care effects on the hippocampal transcriptome and anxiety-mediated behaviors in the offspring that are reversible in adulthood” in proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america. 103(9), pp. 3480-3485. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0507526103 figures 1. stelarc, ear on arm, 2007(ongoing). performance/photography. photos © nina sellars. 2. richard neutra, lovell (health) house, 1929. architecture. photo © user:losangeles / wikimedia commons / cc-by-sa-3.0 3. richard neutra, lovell (health) house, 1929. architecture. photo © user:michaeljlocke / the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 36 scott elliott wikimedia commons / cc-by-sa-4.0 4. richard neutra, vdl studio and residences, 1932. architecture. photo © user:davidhartwell / wikimedia commons / cc-by-sa-4.0 5 & 6. richard neutra, lovell (health) house, 1929. architecture. photo: library of congress, prints & photographs division, habs cal,19-losan,66(wikimedia commons / public domain) 7. wilhelm reich, orgone accumulator, 2012. installation. photo © scott andrew elliott. 8. materials used to make ‘orgone accumulator’, 2017. photo © scott andrew elliott. 9. patricia piccinini, graham, 2016. sculpture. photo © patricia piccinini. somaesthetics and food contents introduction to volume 2, numbers 1 and 2: somaesthetics and food 5 dialogues: discussing taste: a conversation between carolyn korsmeyer and russell pryba 6 crossmodal cooking: an interview with charles michel 13 pearl diving for the fabled artist: an interview with marius presterud by 28 oslo apiary’s eco philosophical radio articles: sexual politics of milk 36 barbara formis eating out as eating in: the intimate call of the contemporary restaurant scene 49 laura t. di summa-knoop the 0 km movement: everyday eaters enjoying edible environments 59 jean-françois paquay and sue spaid overeating, edible commodities and the global industrial diet: 72 how somaesthetics can help psychology and nutrition kima cargill art, food, and the social and meliorist goals of somaesthetics 85 else marie bukdahl regimes of taste and somaesthetics 102 dorota koczanowicz fiat vinumsalvum mundus 113 joshua karant notes on contributors 124 introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 52 page 52–66salvatore morra the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses salvatore morra abstract: this article investigates the possibility of assessing sound and music in terms of somatic values, norms and practices. i discuss ways in which the tunisian musical instrument ʻūd ʻarbī is connected to its sound and the player’s body. i explore the reflexive dynamic by which the intersensorial experience (connor, 2004) of ʻūd ʻarbī roots the instrument's sound in tunisian society. qualities, the effects of the plectrum's special position and touches, hands movements, resonances and stroking gestures, recall the intimate sense of crafting the instrument, the shaping of its organic matter and the potential relationships between the player's body, the instrument, and its maker. keywords: ʻūd ʻarbī, musical instrument, body, intersensorial experience, somaesthetics, tunisian culture. in line with the development of studies in the body-centered discipline of somaesthetics (shusterman, 1999), we are currently witnessing a growth in research into music in terms of experiences of embodiment, for example in mccartey (2004), vitale (2010), tarvainen (2018). for shusterman (1999, p. 308), the body is now viewed not only as an object of aesthetic value but also as a crucial sensory medium for enhancing our understanding and practice of arts, music and sound. after all, the body is the essential tool through which cultural values are transmitted, inscribed, and preserved in society. provocative developments in the social sciences argue for the re-cognition of human body interactions with raw matter, including work of craftsmanship (sennett, 2009). taking up the challenge of such voices, this article will consider the relationship between body and sound, focusing on the reflexive dynamic by which the intersensorial body experiences (connor, 2004) involved in musical instruments (both making and playing them) root the instrument's sound in society. my article turns to the traditional tunisian musical instrument, ʻūd ʻarbī, with which people perform contemporary mālūf, one of urban tunisia’s foremost musical genres. steven connor and others have highlighted the idea that the senses are inseparable from one another (connor, 2004, p. 153). this intersensoriality opens a field of cultural possibilities, a range of forms, images and dreams in relation to the wood, strings and plectrum of the ʻūd somaesthetics and sound53 the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses ʻarbī, that i explore through body sensory perception. how do we experience sound through the senses? how can our body consciousness inform cultural identity through music and the sound of musical instruments? in other words, i will explore how the ʻūd ʻarbī's cultural identity is also shaped by the ways of experiencing the sound through the interaction of other senses: sight and touch. i will demonstrate how the very sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī is iconic in the same way that the instrument is felt, touched, made and experienced through the body, and that it is invested with culturally constructed meanings. i report players’ accounts and interweave data from my own research (doctoral thesis) and interviews with people who recounted memories of particular sounds, and instruments or who described how they perceived the legacies of the instrument and the way it "sounds tunisian". the tunisian ʻūd ʻarbī the ʻūd, a plucked instrument, is the most prominent musical instrument in the arab-islamic world. it developed an unusually large following throughout the twentieth century, in both the arab world and outside, capturing the imagination of musicians more than many other middle eastern traditional instruments. the recognized standard arab/egyptian model (ʻūd sharqī, oriental ʻūd, also called ʻūd miṣrī, egyptian) is the most commonly used type, along with the turkish model, and there are also various models from iran, greece, iraq and syria. several practices and styles of ʻūd co-exist in tunisia, as well as a unique type recognized as indigenous and genuinely tunisian, named ʻūd ʻarbī, today also known as ʻūd tunsī. figure 1: ʻūd ʻarbī (1867). courtesy horniman museum & gardens (photo. david san milan del rio). ethnomusicologically speaking, the ʻūd ʻarbī's case is one of patrimonialization and revival. this can be traced in the artistic, pedagogical, political and symbolic meanings given to the instrument, as well as in its varying material qualities over time. the mutating course of the ʻūd ʻarbīs public life throughout the twentieth century situates the instrument’s changing performance practices, meanings and values within a heterogeneous cluster of sociocultural currents that interact with individual and national actors. in my master’s research (morra, 2013), i agree with the widely held view that the tunisian ʻūd school owes its formation to the legendary player sheykh khamaīs tarnān for the ʻūd ʻarbī, but argue that it was also largely created by ʻalī srītī and aḥmad al-qalaʻī for the ʻūd sharqī. the dominance of the standard oriental ʻūd in tunisia distinguishes the tunisian model from a range of social, musical and identity features in the twentieth first century, where the tunisian instrument has not had the lion's share of political policy, upper class society or players' encouragement. the ̒ ūd ̒ arbī in the 1960s had, like the oriental sharqī, many performance possibilities; this was a market associated and marketed with tunisian music supported by the bourghiba government through the figure the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 54 salvatore morra of ṣālaḥ al-mahdī. in her extensive research into the tunisian mālūf, davis reminds us that this music had been linked in the twentieth century to an ideology of national identity and nostalgia for a past golden age. as davis pointed out, this explanation was supported by drawing on the myth of the mālūf's andalusian origins to justify the authority of the canon of mālūf published notations (1960s) after independence: al-turāth al-mūsīqī al-tūnisi (tunisian musical heritage) (davis, 2002). similarly, nostalgia creates a space where performing the ʻūd ʻarbī is encouraged as an instrumental means of increasing authenticity. it also serves to generate and sustain bonds of national consciousness, however, between and among the players and public. today, of the ʻūd-s of north african type, it is the ʻūd ʻarbī that is played throughout urban tunisian centers (tunis, sfax, soussa, monastir), parts of north africa (algeria and morocco), and in a range of diasporic communities from france to italy. in tunisia, there are three makers of this instrument: the bēlaṣfar family and ʻabdelatif bēlaṣfar (tunis), ridhā jandoubī (menzel temīn), and faīṣal ṭwīrī (bardo). their work with crafts sets out crucial information regarding the construction of the instrument, that is the result of body-hands procedures transmitted orally through generations. the ʻūd ʻarbī also coalesces in a variety of sites: concert halls such as the masraḥ al-baladī, acropolium chartage, rashīdīa institute of tunis, sfax, monastir, kairouan; the practice rooms of the institut supérieur de musique; mālūf clubs such as conservatoire al-farabi; teaching studios, one example being les jeunes du maluf tunisien; private homes; museum collections in london, brussels and tunis; online facebook groups, such as: le malouf tunisien, al-malūf club de chant arabe, rashīdīa -monastir; youtube channels such as jalēl benna with 1,647 followers and ʻalī sayarī with 9,431 followers; instrument makers’ workshops (tunis, sidi bou said, hammamet); websites (oudmigrations.com, chikioud.com, christianrault. com), outdoors spaces (ennejma ezzahra), and recording studios, to give only a partial list. today, there are three prominent players of ʻūd ʻarbī in tunisia. zīād gharsa is the son of the sheykh ṭāhar ghara, who was pupil of the legendary sheykh khamaīs tarnān, and therefore in a direct lineage of transmission with the musical heritage. he is in his forties and lives in the capital. like his father, since the age of four, zīād has lived in a music culture context centered on the rashīdīa music institute1 and various private mālūf associations. his knowledge of mālūf and technical skills on the instrument are recognized and widely appreciated. ʻabīr ʻayādī is a young ʻūd ʻarbī player from sfax, who, like zīād, has considerable experience performing and composing for the instrument, as well as institutional involvement; she is one of the ʻūd teachers of the ism of sfax; and she has also served in the mālūf orchestra of sfax and tunis and organizes summer schools. finally, zīēd mehdī is a young tunisian accountant who lives in paris, and a passionate and prolific ʻūd player. zīēd trained as a player with kamel gharbī, and his brother and sister, who are settled in tunis, are amateur musicians too. zīēd owns several different construction of ʻūd-s ʻarbī, and he is obsessed by the sound this traditional instrument makes. he lives most of the time in paris, where he attends the mālouf tunisien's association directed by aḥmad ridhā ʻabbēs and performs with his ensemble ambar. at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and today the tunisian ʻūd ʻarbī, is still experiencing musical changes and different positions in tunisian society. within the last fifty to seventy years, its transmission has moved back and forth from national institution to private association, from sheykh oral tradition to one with a more modern structured, recreating its identity, appeal and diffusion in many diverse situations. this musical instrument, therefore, is 1 the rashīdīa institute of tunis was founded in 1935 and devoted to the education and promotion of tunisian music. somaesthetics and sound55 the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses entangled in a web of complex relationships and situations between human, socio-historical and cultural contexts (bates, 2012, p. 364). ʻūd ʻarbī, crafting wood by hand various aspects of body sensory perception involve the role of the craftsman and their work, exploring whether there is a relationship between the way of making ʻūd ʻarbī and the sound the instruments produce. as william james noted, everything circles round the body, and is felt from its point of view (shusterman, 2006, p. 7). my observations of instrument construction by the luthier hedī bēlaṣfar at the workshop of the centre of arab and mediterranean music (cmam) in sidi bou said, tunisia, in june 2015, led me to believe that there was a relationship between the maker’s hand movements and how the instrument sounded “tunisian”. it is not a matter of abstract quality: hedī belaṣfar’s technical skills are considered cultural merits rather than mere procedures, embedded in tunisian national craftsmanship. they are transmitted orally and come from a past from which few examples survive today.2 through the months of may and june 2015, i observed hedī bēlaṣfar making an ʻūd ʻarbī that i had commissioned at the start of my doctorate. the various stages and order of working are flexible, but the basic process involves creating the mould, "qālib al-qaṣʻa", a model for the body. luthiers have several moulds for several models of ʻūd, and as hedī bēlaṣfar's son, muḥammad -islām, told me they have the "old" and "authentic" mould for ʻūd ʻarbī in tunisia. ribs are attached to the mold, which form the base for the case of the instrument. the al-kʻab is important in this phase, a small cubic block that is placed on both the upper and lower part of the body (al-qaṣʻa), where the ribs are attached. figure 2: ʻhedī bēlaṣfar crafting the instrument, 2015. the ribs, called aḍlāʻa and literally meaning "sides", are between 2 and 3 cm long, and 3 mm thick that are reduced to 1.5 mm after cleaning and smoothing. their shaping is achieved using a saw (munshār). after cutting the ribs, bēlaṣfar bows them, literally "arch" or "arcade", 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbegbo2dwkk&t=16s. “the making of the tunisian ʻūd”. written and directed by salvatore morra, assistant claudia liccardi, camera operator muḥammad azziddin, post production coordinator and editor david san milan, subtitles ikbal hamzaoui and stephen conway. morra© 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbegbo2dwkk&t=16s the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 56 salvatore morra dipping them in water and adjusting them on a hot surface. the last part of this stage is the manufacturing and fastening of the ribs. the aim is to provide support, what he calls al-ʻamūd al-faqrī—literally meaning the "backbone" or "spine"—to the body starting with placing the ribs from the middle of the qālib. the direction of placing the ribs is from the right hand side—then left and again right and so on—from top down, to be welded by adding a sharpened spike. then it is left to dry. when they are dried, a fine strip of paper is added between them to keep them accurately joined together with an organic glue. the glue, called ghīra, and made from the legs of calves, is dried, treated and then dissolved in water under heat (in the interview, bēlaṣfar highlights the quality of this glue and its property to let the sound propagate through the wood). i have seen hedī bēlaṣfar using this and other organic material with "natural movements" as if every touch on the instrument, even the most careful for precise gluing, is to be conducted without overdoing it. bēlaṣfar knows the results he wants on the basis of his years of experience with sight and touch. as sennett (2009, p. 9) reminds us, the intimate connection between head and hand, the thinking and the real putting into practice, are the focus of the craftsman. the use of glues between the rib papers, for instance, is the result of hedī bēlaṣfar’s hand movements. it is entirely a conscious movement, a consciousness transmitted from the mind to the hands after years of work. up to this point, all the crafting is done by hand. crafting the rosettes (al-qamrāt), literally "moons", is a work of artistic manufacturing. the ʻūd ̒ arbī has three rosettes. they are placed towards the chest of the soundboard. reinforcement using another wood, often spruce, is placed underneath the rosette (the reverse side of the surface). the idea of reinforcing under the face of the instrument goes against the principles of lightness and sound propagation, as the luthier ṭwīrī likes to highlight. the reinforcement inevitably makes the instrument heavier, he says. the weight of an ʻūd ʻarbī, approximately one kilogram, is above the average of other models of ʻūd. the lower bridge "al-fars", literally "horse", or "kursa" chair, is glued on the lower part of the surface, measuring 36 cm from the musāfa (end of the body and beginning of the neck). on the fars there are eight grooves in which to insert the strings. a membrane made of wood (rosewood or mahogany and decorated with mother of pearl), al-wiqāya, literally "protection" or raqma, is placed below the two roses to protect the surface from the strokes of the plectrum. in the ʻūd ʻarbī, a piece of leather is placed around the edge of the body to keep it securely fastened and protect it against high temperatures. thick bone inlays and mother of pearl, for instance, render the instrument heavier, particularly towards the neck side. the neck is made of red pine, covered with ebony wood on the top and decorated with several patterns of black ebony and white cow bones. the neck is attached to the body by a piece of wood that ends at the other extremity, with a dhīl khuṭāf (tunisian expression) baʻabūs al-kharīfa, a "swallow tail" or "dovetail" (rondinelle) with four angles inserted into the neck. makers do not need to glue this, as this feature slots into both parts and fastens securely. the headstock, called al-bunjuq, is normally made of walnut (aljūz), and carved from only one piece of wood. it is standard practice to paint it black. in this description of crafting the ʻūd ʻarbī, two features of the instrument are important for the point i wish to make here. the first concerns the fact that the instrument is very much a robust plucked instrument. it is constructed to be heavy and sturdy. consequently, in some ways, especially due to the thickness of the neck and the tension of the strings, it is also hard to play. this difficulty is a principle characteristic of the ʻūd ʻarbī, and results in the unique resonance for the instrument. this feature also renders the instrument distinctive from other ʻūd types, and even among north african models. in the bēlaṣfar instrument, this is a matter somaesthetics and sound57 the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses of the overall amount of material, the wooden reinforcements, the amount of glue and how everything is assembled. what is characteristic of belaṣfar’s ʻūd making initially seemed a rather casual approach towards the accuracy of details and the lack of personal design innovations: wood, bone ornamentations, rosette carving, overall design shape, and materials all fall within an imagined, idealized tunisian crafting tradition. this idealized tradition has come from the numerousʻūd ʻarbī that belaṣfar has seen, repaired and constructed in his life. crafting is a physical hands-on practice for belaṣfar, involving hands-on contact with the instrument, of touch and movement rather than an imaginative process or an activity following a theoretical acoustic principle. it is experienced through the body, which is the center of vision, the center of action. in turn, belaṣfar’s ʻūd-s ̒ arbī can be considered genuine and rustic, almost rural, earthy. he encompasses ̒ ūd ̒ arbī nature, evoking the instrument’s rhythmic attitude. these values regarding how the instrument looks are also reflected in the sound the instrument produces, a sound that prominent players such as zīād gharsa and zīēd mehdī have said imitates characteristics of tunisian identity, as we are going to further explore, connecting with sentiments of both its african and arab/tunisian sources. hearing and touching the instrument, experiences of ʻūd ʻarbī's sound for connor "with sight we achieve balance and understanding", instead, "touch performs sound" and it is directly related to the material of the object (connor, 2004, p. 154). he further argues that "we hear the event of the thing not the thing itself " (2004, p. 157), and to think of a sound as the "voice" of what sounds, is to think of the sound as emanating from its material source. many players, including myself, believe that those organic materials, unique to this type of ʻūd, contribute to the sound of the instrument as "tunisian" and are also experienced through the sight of it. for example, when i asked yasin, a mehdī's student of ʻūd ʻarbī , about the first approach he took with the instrument, he replied: the first approach was visual (to the ʻūd ʻarbī). the template and the decorations on it are peculiar and have something medieval and hypnotic about them. at the sight of the instrument we are already projected into andalusia or to andalusian tunisia. it is therefore the testimony to an era. (yasin, interview, november 24, 2017). the ʻūd ʻarbī decorative materials, as we are going to see, sometimes intersect sight with sound, thereby shaping images and ideas about the instrument's identity. during my fieldwork in tunisia in november 2018, i decided to move to sfax in search of other ʻūd ʻarbī players who would help me explore the issue of sounds not through the medium of recordings but rather through sight, by touching and playing. at dusk one saturday that month, i had an appointment made through facebook with muḥammad dammāk, who had continuously posted photos of himself with his tunisian ʻūd in earlier months. muḥammad is a sfaxbased ʻūd player, teacher and doctoral student at the ism of sfax. although muḥammad was a little wary of me that evening, a foreigner looking so hard to find an instrument, he brought his ʻūd to show me and played an istikhbār3 in mode dhīl, going on to tell me about his idea of the sound of this tunisian instrument. 3 istikhbār is an improvisation, a word and a musical form that not only refers to an improvisatory prelude to a song and combination of melodic patterns, but also to the special tunisian modes. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 58 salvatore morra muḥammad owns a fine ʻūd made by the maker ridha jandoubī in the same year as his examination recital. this instrument, he says, "has something different, it sounds different". after playing an improvisation, muḥammad focused on the difference between the two oriental and tunisian instruments, although he did not have the first one with him, as if the standard starting point must be the former without which the latter could not have existed or at least be understood. muḥammad places the power of his experience with this instrument in the playing and listening to sound and the sonority it produces, in contrast with the everyday oriental, iraqi and turkish ones: the timbre (ṭabʻ, saūt) of the tunisian ʻūd is special, what's beautiful is that its register is very high due to its smaller body. sol yakāh and do raṣd, for example, played on the fifth string, important for every player who ends a phrase in the lower register, do not exist. this is what is difficult and at the same time interesting and fascinating. the fact that in the raṣd dhīl, or dhīl mode, when playing the tetrachord mḥaīr ʻirāq on the note sol yakāh you have to go higher playing sol nawā instead, because you don't have that string, it forces you to constantly transpose your phrasing. an odd practice initially, which seems unnatural to the ear. (m. dammāk, interview, november 20, 2016) the resulting sound from this higher pitch phrasing, the continuous combinations and apparently sudden shifts from one register to another, is what attracted him most, especially the fact that it is very different from what we are used to with other ʻūd-s styles. figure 3: muḥammad dammāk, sfax, 2018 one of the most important features of the ʻūd ʻarbī is the tuning. north african ʻūd-s, similarly consists of a fourth interval between the first and second strings, either c–g as a practice in tunisia, g–d used in algeria (constantine) or d–a in morocco, and a fifth, between the third and fourth strings (guettat, 2000, p. 334). several algerian players have confirmed to me that the note c is often tuned into a, forming an octave between the 3rd and 4th strings, which is a constant and uniquely tunisian feature (d 3rd, d 4th) among those maghrebian tuning patterns. somaesthetics and sound59 the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses this octave interval is central to my argument about the ʻūd ʻarbī's intersensorial experience which touches on other local factors embedded in its african context. figure 4: the tuning of the tunisian ʻūd ʻarbī on the basis of this feature, players argue that the tuning affects the style, body and hands movements, and musical phrasing, notwithstanding the repertory performed. dammāk introduced me to the idea of cultural differences between old and new, traditional and modern perceived through the body experiences of the materiality and sound of a musical instrument. its timbre is affected by tunings, combinations of materials and ways of production by hand, all of which characterize the sound. in al-aghānī al-tūnīsiyya, in describing the tunisian ̒ ūd, rezgui (1989, p. 58) specifies that it is different in timbre from the oriental ̒ ūd. in defining timbre, dammāk uses variously the word ṭabʻa (sing.), which also refers to the mode of the tunisian modal system, and to the expression saūt, which means sound. the north african modes system ṭubūʻa (plur.) defines tunisian as “maghrebian”. guettat (1980, p. 278) interprets it as the recalling of identity, a modal system, and a form of improvisation. this term, ṭabʻa, is traditionally also used for timbre by players, or when indicating a special sound effect. timbre is therefore one aspect of the ʻūd ʻarbī's sound as being identifiably tunisian—soon recognized as specific to a culture and a territory—and it is obtained through certain hand movements governed by the instrument's tuning. the constant transposing of phrasing and shifts of registers that muḥammad dammāk highlights characterize the right hand strokes, up and down along the octave strings, as well as the left hand movements along the neck to give a high pitch sound to the phrasing line. those body gestures generate the sound that is enhanced by the sense of "sight" in musical performance. dammāk affirms that those awkward gestures "seem unnatural to the ear", and that therefore the relationship between hearing and sight correspond and result in a unique sound. the octave tuning of the ʻūd ʻarbī, in particular, forces the gesture that is in turn imprinted in the sound. perhaps one of the most important features of the ʻūd ʻarbī's sound is that it embodies the possibilities of two dimensions concerning right and left hand movements: the manner of strokes production with the plectrum and the position of hands on the neck due to the inverse tuning. the former gives an image of an unusual timbre effect; the latter is an image of the sound almost compressed into set gestures. the ʻūd ʻarbī can therefore also be defined by the position of the hands when played. similarly, when i met muḥammad bouzguenda, the ʻūd player of the rashīdīa of monastir, he also underlined the importance of the timbre in understanding the tunisian ʻūd ʻarbī sound. he introduced me to the term that is a metaphor for timbre, namely lahja, which is rendered by the resonating octave tuning, and is mostly limited to a tunisian repertory, indicating its rhythmical african beating strokes. lahja is a linguistic term which denotes the nuances of dialect pronunciations. obtaining the lahja on the ʻūd ʻarbī is what often makes this instrument difficult to play for players of a standard ʻūd. "to achieve the lahja, if we play a tunisian song, we do it directly with the tunisian ʻūd", its "dialectic sound" already exists in the tuning, but the left the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 60 salvatore morra hand shifts and right hand strokes you make are also crucial, bouzguenda told me. to distinguish the lahja requires careful listening and the player must pay attention to the relationship between phrase listening and view fingering. as bouzguenda showed me, the most common fingering mistake of ʻūd sharqī players who are playing the ʻūd ʻarbī, is playing the note d first position on the string c kerdēn, instead of using the open d third string. in this way, he explained, the octaves tuning loses its effect and the lahja is lost. figure 5: muḥammad bouzguenda, monastir, 2016 the way that something sounds also depends on what touches or comes into contact with the hands to generate the sound (connor, 2004). the rīsha (a plectrum) presents a particularly complex and fascinating "tactile landscape" (see connor, 2004, p. 165) in terms of the different shapes, material and texture that combine to produce sound. it functions complementarily to the body gestures. there are rīsha-s made of tortoise shell, bull-horn and original eagle feathers. the ones used to play the ʻūd ʻarbī in both tunisia and algeria, are usually longer than standard oriental ʻūd plectra, because the right hand up and down strokes are different in terms of plectrum position and tremolo techniques. the role of notions such as traditional and authentic types of plectrum are also particularly striking. plastic rīsha-s seem alien among ʻūd ʻarbī players, and the example below of the player gargourī can be seen as an exception. the hardness of the bull-horn plectrum, for instance, its durability and the more sensitive final portion of these long rīsha-s, make them seem older and closer to authentic "sound" and lahja. zīād gharsa, for instance, is always seen (in videos) playing official concerts with an original long eagle feather. the choice of rīsha-s for ʻūd ʻarbī players is connected to understanding its elasticity in relation to the length and hand position. the rīsha dramatizes the contrast between the robust materiality of the ʻūd ʻarbī and the hard touch used to stroke the strings. the hard stroke of ʻūd ʻarbī players has often been associated with the materiality and weight of the instrument, the heavy body and rural "voice" adapting well to open-air performance (guettat, 2000). there is also a crafting dimension: the hardened "voice" is intrinsic to the material, whereas the form and length of the rīsha are shaped by the player. according to ʻayādī, mehdī and gharsa, rīsha-s somaesthetics and sound61 the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses should be rounded on the playing edge and two and half times longer than the palm of one's hand. the rīsha is not involved in producing all the timbre and nuances, but the stopping and stroking of all courses together and the hard rhythmical accents up and down along the strings always seems to involve what many players define as the "joyful, harmonious" touch, that is a quality of ʻūd ʻarbī's sound. for many players, this is obtained by a long rīsha held between the index and middle finger, which is positioned to face the strings. importantly, this style of touch on the strings is not lateral or smoothly done, but rather it is frontal to them and therefore heavy, earthy. in this case, there is much more material for the rīsha to pass on to the next stroked string. figure 6: ḥassen gargourī playing the ʻūd ʻarbī with his rīsha. in terms of cultural meanings rather than the object's quality, ḥassen gargourī, a sfaxian amateur ʻūd ʻarbī player, is not particularly concerned about the instrument he plays, and gharsa's authentic touch does not interest him at all. ḥassen uses a long piece of plastic as rīsha, a sort of elastic strip. this strip is unique in its genre, and no one else that i know plays any ʻūd-s with such an object in tunisia. it is a compromise between having a long thin piece, which imitates the form of the traditional bone/feather rīsha used everywhere by constantine players, but at the same time less is expensive and readily available. however, ḥassen is adamant about the right hand movement he has to make with such a plectrum, not the actual sound the object makes or helps to make. the technical concerns about the rīsha analyzed so far, such as its length, for example, tend to become something more abstract, sometimes for aesthetic reasons. while the material of the plectrum lies within the sound-touch relationship highlighted by connor (2004, p. 154), a long rīsha and hearing a good ʻūd ʻarbī sound are central to the soundsight relationship instead, where the evidence of sight in this case acts to fix, characterize and complete the evidence of sound. these applications of the rīsha may be seen as both a primary way to the medium of touch in ʻūd ʻarbī sound identification—because it is the most proximate, medium of sensory contact between the instrument and players' hands—and as a refining of the body's hearing-touching circuitry that distinguishes the ʻūd ʻarbī's sound from that of other ʻūd-s. in this respect, it seems that the knowledge ̒ ūd ̒ arbī players have of other ̒ ūd types becomes crucial to understanding the instrument's sound. when i asked basēm ʻaffēs, a young ʻūd the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 62 salvatore morra virtuoso and teacher based in the town of soussa, about playing tunisian music on the oriental ʻūd, he explained "it is possible to play the notes of the tunisian mode mazmūm on the oriental ʻūd, but to get the tunisian sound you have to imitate the ʻūd ʻarbī technique of playing as close as possible". the emphasis on the technique of playing is important here. while hearing the f note of the mazmūm mode provides the intensity of the sound rather than its specificity, the hearing seems incomplete and questionable without the determination of the sense of touch (connor, 2004). as we have seen, the "touch" is a consequence of many elements, body form, hand movements, and use of the plectrum, that coalescence into a specific ʻūd ʻarbī's timbresound. this sense of touch was described in a conference paper entitled "the struggle of teaching tunisian music with the ̒ ūd sharqī", which basēm presented at the music conference "la musique du maghreb entre apprentissage et transmission" held at the ism of soussa in march 2017. he asked two main questions: can we apply ʻūd ʻarbī techniques to the ʻūd sharqī? how can we use the ʻūd sharqī to play tunisian music in the ʻūd ʻarbī style? during the session, basēm played some examples with his oriental ʻūd. he compared the two instruments, playing ʻūd ʻarbī right hand techniques with the oriental ʻūd. he used the example of playing the different stroke types of the plectrum, and the effects of moving between high and low registers according to the octave tuning of the tunisian ʻūd. although i felt a change in the sonority of the instrument, he concluded the performance by playing similar sound effects that can be obtained on the oriental ʻūd. those effects imitate the lahja, that special linguistic dialect or musical sound effect of tunisian styles. in an interview with me some days after the conference basēm discussed what most tunisian oriental ʻūd players agree about the ʻūd ʻarbī, namely, that the ʻūd sharqī has greater technical potential than the ʻūd ʻarbī, but different sound effects. hence, "you can play all that is performed on the ʻūd ʻarbī with it, but not the other way around", he concluded at the conference. the obvious question was why use the ʻūd ʻarbī? "because the sound is different", he answered. basēm admitted that applying ʻūd ʻarbī techniques is not a definitive solution, that in truth the oriental ʻūd cannot really equal the sound of the tunisian, but that it is rather a mere "imitation" of it. i am further interested here in narratives that help us understand the meaning of the ʻūd ʻarbī's sound as a "tunisian sound" through the body of the player. as regula qureshi (1997, p. 2) has demonstrated, instruments can mean. their sound can immediately evoke specific experiences, and the instrument may turn out to be a potent icon of both social practice and personal experience. cornelia fales (fales, 2002, p. 91) goes further in proposing the notion of "timbre" as a "double medium", "a place holder for some absent entity": as in other contexts it may represent a sound of the ancestors, a sound of nature etc. the ̒ ūd ̒ arbī's sound, for instance, is an expression of "tunisian/african sound", its identity, which makes sense of the relationship between the instrument, human body and society. not only does the ʻūd ʻarbī's sound evoke a tunisian identity, but it enriches its complexity through narratives of places, sites and itineraries. it recalls labelle's (2010, p. xxv) notion of "acoustic territories" in which sound creates a relational geography that is most often emotional, fluid and "that moves in and out the body providing intimacy". zīēd mehdī is obsessed by the sound this instrument makes, talking about it as "sounding tunisian", about the way its sound evokes and identifies his culture. the first time zīēd talked about sound to me, it was in tunis at his house in the summer of 2015. he played a chord on the ʻūd ʻarbī and said, "listen to how it sounds tunisian". that night i did not fully grasp what he meant, i was focused on the music and staring at his hands on the instrument, but i have spent as much time in paris as in tunisia with somaesthetics and sound63 the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses zīēd, and sound appears to be an overt theme in zīēd’s attitude to music with the ʻūd. for zīēd: listening to the oud arbi’s sound you feel an amazing commotion that carries you away to another time and place. you feel like you are traveling back in time and space, strolling far away in the old medina of tunis and sidi bou said, probably because for me they are my favorite places in tunisia and they are a kind of anchorage to where i want to be, and they make me feel a sensation of freshness and joy. (z. mehdī, interview, 18 june 2017). the interpretation of the khatam ramal, the incipit yā ʻashiqīn dhāka al-shʻar, for instance, that he performed for me in his apartment in paris, points to a specific intimacy. like many of his feelings, it was richly embedded in homeland memories, incorporating sounds that seemed to be moods in the timbre, and were expressed in structural intervals of the melodic line of the song. it all suggests that zīēd demonstrates that playing the ʻūd ʻarbī prompts mutable forms of evocating tunisian culture. figure 7: zīēd mehdī, paris, 2015. one day in the winter of 2015 we went to his home after a rehearsal session of the group, mālouf tunisien paris, at the tunisian cultural center of paris, because i wanted to learn to play some pieces. that evening, zīēd's attitude to sound matched the musical structure inherent in the piece well. he played it slowly, in a more melancholy manner, discerning its nuances of sound carefully. his sound functioned as a central cross-sensory metaphor for connecting words, sound and body, yielding insights into the ʻūd's felt relationship with its tunisianness. i was not entirely convinced, so that evening i asked what he really meant by "sounding tunisian". zīēd said, "the sound of the tunisian ʻūd is round, bewitching and sparkling", highlighting the third string pitch of note d. he played all four courses of strings together as a guitar chord type of effect, positioning the third finger on the note b half-flat on the second string. "you see, when gharsa takes a tunisian ʻūd, this is the first thing he plays, i have seen him doing it many times”. the open strings, generally, create a "bright" sound effect, what mehdī the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 64 salvatore morra indicates as the "sparkling" sound. "this is the sound of sheykh ṭahār gharsa's voice, which is the "voice" of mālūf." a particular plectrum touch, for example, which consists of a long light tremolo ferdēsh in standard ʻūd practices, is rendered instead on the ʻūd ʻarbī by energetic, fast triplet (down-up-down) strokes interrupted by a pause between each of them. this type of ferdēsh is unique to the ʻūd ʻarbī and "it works well with its robust strings action and accentuated rhythmical style of tunisian music," zīēd explained. furthermore, "with the rīsha, literally, you have to rotate between high and low pitches," he added. this means that you must often change register to complete a melodic line, due to the absence of the lower c note (raṣd). both the movement of the plectrum and the phrasing between the registers is important. "the movements must be harmonious so the sound is pure," he said. "by pure i mean that the sound has to recreate tunisian situations, for me it evocates smell, rāiḥa—the smell of the tunis medina, of shīsha-s and jasmine," he concluded. within this sound world of the tunisian ʻūd ʻarbī, evocation is mediated through the body, which is invested with culturally and intimate constructed meanings. they are embedded in the tunisian mode system and the way they are rendered on the ʻūd ʻarbī through the body’s movements endows its sound with an association of longing and nostalgia, lost memories, various aspects of tunisian life: from joyful sentiments to a harmonious state of mind. the same sound permeates the rich and different intimate worlds of everyone who encounters it, deeply anchored in places that are the very medium of tunisian-arab identity. according to connor's (2004, p. 153) idea of the "predominating sense", where close inspection reveals that this predominating sense is in fact being shadowed and interpreted by other, what he defines as "dormant senses", like touch and sight in this case, it is possible to argue that experiencing ʻūd ʻarbī's sound consists of multiple intersensorial actions and that it establishes strong bonds of identity with those senses and associated organs. the more we concentrate on hearing its sound, the more it will implicate other senses and their complexity. as we have seen, hearing the ʻūd ʻarbī sound becomes less and less "pure", where touching the instrument also accompanies, doubles and performs the sound of it (2004, p. 154). to look intently at the instrument is to grasp the timbre of an era, or the lahja of a language. to be surrounded by its sound is to be moved by its rīsha-s' touches; to hear the stroke is to see the long plectrums. i argue that the ʻūd ʻarbī is an object whose apparatus (decorations, strings, plectrums, weights), implicates a complex sense and body introspection to support and supply a notion of sound, where each sense threads through all the other modes of sensory apprehension. i have explored the notion of tunisian sound in relation to the touches and bodies of ʻūd ʻarbī players and the meanings they construct. the experience of senses reveals interlinked sonic qualities which further disclose meanings of tunisian identity. i have explored how the application of a multiple intersensorial analysis of touch, sight and hearing (connor, 2004) to the ʻūd ʻarbī, enhances the idea of its sound. whereas some decorative materials evoke the sound of an ancient time, others deploy heavy and robust feelings, mainly in connection with touch and sight. such experiences of senses, i have suggested, are contingent upon how the apparatuses of the instrument (decorations, strings, plectrums, weights) support the notion of a "tunisian sound". i have argued that in spite of certain exceptions and variations, it is one way in which the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī enacts its "tunisianness", becoming distinct and defining a limited metaphorical territory of tunisian society. somaesthetics and sound65 the sound of the ʻūd ʻarbī: evocations through senses references ʻayādī, a. (2009). ala al-ʻūd al-tūnsī: al-khasusīāt al-urghanulugīa wa al-tarikhiyya wa almunah al-tahrīs (the tunisian ʻūd: organological and historical specificities and educational method), (unpublished master’s thesis). ism, sfax, higher institute of music. bates, e. (2012). the social life of musical instruments. ethnomusicology, 56(3), 363–359. cheret, b. (2001). oud 'arbî, oud tunsî. le luth maghrébin à quatre cordes: essai d'identification (facture, organologie, performance) (unpublished master’s thesis). paris, université paris x-nanterre. connor, s. (2004). edison's teeth: touching hearing. in v. erlmann (ed.), hearing cultures, essay on sound listening and modernity (pp.153–172). oxford, new york: berg. dammāk, m. (2010), al-ʻūd al-magharbī: al-khasusīāt al-taqaniyya wa al-taʻbiriyya min khalāl al-istikhbār, (the maghrebian ʻūd: technical and expressive specificity through the istikhbār) (unpublished master’s thesis). ism, sfax, higher institute of music. davis, r. (2002). patronage and policy in tunisian art music. in virginia danielson, scott marcus, and dwight reynolds (eds.), garland encyclopedia of world music (vol. 6, 505–513). new york and london: routledge. fales, c. (2002). the paradox of timbre. ethnomusicology, 46(1), 56–95. guettat, m. (1980) la musique classique du maghreb. paris: sindbad. guettat, m. (2000). la musique arabo-andalouse, paris and montréal: fleurs sociales. labelle, b. (2010). acoustic territories: sound culture and everyday life. new york: continuum. mccartey, a. (2004). soundscape works, listening, and the touch of sound. in j. drobnick (ed.), aural cultures (pp. 179–85). toronto: yyz books. morra, s. (2013). authenticity and innovation: conceptualising a “tunisian school” of ʻūd performance in the twentieth century (unpublished master’s thesis). uc, cambridge, university of cambridge. qlibī, a. 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(2006). thinking through the body, educating for the humanities: a plea for somaesthetics. the journal of aesthetic education, 40(1), 1–21. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 66 salvatore morra shusterman, r. (2010). body consciousness and music: variations on some themes. action, criticism, and theory for music education, 9(1), 93–114. tarvainen, a. (2018). democratizing singing: somaesthetic reflections on vocality, deaf voices, and listening. pragmatism today, 9(1), 91–108. vitale, a. r. (2010). towards a phenomenology of the instrument-voix. analecta husserliana, 104, 403–421. introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 86 page 86–101peter s. bruun sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise peter s. bruun abstract: in spring 2017 i took part in an experimental music theatre project, “sound of the audience”, conducted by the lab station, a center for experimental stage art in copenhagen. my participation as a composer stimulated a reflection upon music and how musical expression and musical meaning may be seen as emerging from mutuality and togetherness. the aim of this article is to contribute to the theoretical and philosophical discussion about the nature of music and music experience. further, i explore in which way sound plays a role in the emergence of music. the music-making that took place in “sound of the audience” can be seen as evincing the way a musical practice can evolve and unfold from the togetherness and auditory awareness within a group. keywords: musical meaning, sound, togetherness, mutuality, shared life 1. introduction avant-garde music has for more than a century explored the territory between musical sound and noise. futurist composer luigi russolo in l’arte dei rumori (1913) stated that music must breach the confines of musical sound and accept the sounds—the noises—of the modern world; of cities and machines. he constructed a collection of instruments called intonarumori (“noisemakers”) for which he composed a series of pieces that were performed at concerts, allegedly with great scandal. john cage challenged our musical perception in another radical way. his piece 4’33’’ consists of a fixed amount of time where nothing is played. you are invited to listen to whatever sound there is in your environment and in yourself, and that is the music. many have regarded cage’s music as anti-music: if any sound can be music how can there be music at all? how do we distinguish music? cage’s own interpretation was the opposite. that any sound can be music is more pro-music than anything! as cage (1958) put it: there will always be music, we just have to listen!. parallel to cage’s musical experiments, the advent of sound recording and sound engineering made it possible to emulate and manipulate sound electronically. it became possible to compose sound—structure sound itself. this and, not least, the massively growing possibilities for disseminating mediated sound by physical media, mass media and digital media, has been seminal for our music perception in ways we have probably yet to understand (katz, 2010). to somaesthetics and sound87 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise convey his musical ideas, however unconventional and groundbreaking they were, russolo still needed instruments for somebody (some body) to play (“tocar” = touch, is the spanish word for “play”). and somebody must come and listen. philosophy has pondered the nature and meaning of music for ever. the experiments of russolo and cage, among other artists, have questioned conventional notions about what music is and can be: can noise be musical sound?—can any sound be musical? but the way musicmaking and music dissemination itself has developed now compels us to explore these topics from other angles. music is more and more regarded as a product or a commodity that the individual acquires and consumes, but to comprehend what music is we need to examine how music functions in us and, not least, between and among us. in spring 2017 i took part in an artistic experiment called lyden af publikum (danish for sound of the audience, soa in the following), conducted at and by the lab station, a center for experimental stage art in copenhagen, dk. my participation in soa as a composer fostered theoretical and philosophical reflection upon the relationship between musical expression and the bodily founded experience of mutuality and togetherness through sound within a group. the aim of this article is to develop these reflections and particularly investigate which role sound and sonic expressivity play for the emergence of music in a community. different theoretical conceptions are combined and held together with the experiences from soa, and i suggest that this may shed new light upon our understanding of music and musicality. i draw especially upon theories and findings from the philosophy of music (small, 1998; benson, 2003), cognitive research (lerdahl & jackendorff, 1983; sloboda, 2005) and developmental psychology (malloch &trevarthen, 2009; stern, 2004, 2010). after a short description of the project, soa, there is an outline of the theoretical approach, the theoretical conceptions invoked, and how they are combined to form a theoretical hypothesis. this theoretical framework is applied, explored and substantiated in an analysis of the experiences from soa—my own experiences and recollections, as well as experiences and reflections that have appeared in my conversations with another participant in the project. the theoretical considerations and analytical results are summarized, and finally, i shall broaden the discussion and suggest that these results may inspire a discussion about music and musicmaking from a broader historical and societal perspective. 2. sound of the audience – background and realization idea in the early twentieth century, the russian theatre director vsevolod meyerhold wanted to investigate the role of the audience at a theatre performance, as he called the spectators the fourth creator of a performance (in addition to the writer, the director and the actor.) he catalogued audience response in 20 categories, attempting, apparently, to allow himself to analyze how spectators in the theatre, rather than simply expressing approval or disapproval, take active part in co-creating the performance. (mcauley, 1999, pp. 238–239) the ideas of meyerhold inspired artistic directors at the lab station, lotte faarup (lotte in the following) and øyvind kirchhoff (øyvind) to undertake a dramaturgic experiment: what if things were turned around? what if the spectators in the theatre were the performers? how could something like that be dramaturgically constructed and how would it play out?1 1 the idea itself may seem as self-evident as it is far-fetched and absurd, but it is characteristic of the way the lab station works as a platform the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 88 peter s. bruun it seemed obvious that the performers should not be professional stage artists but similar to a normal, ordinary audience. consequently, the piece should be executed as a piece of social and community theatre2 and involve locals from the borough of vesterbro in copenhagen, where the lab station is located. participation should be open to anyone, and prior musical experience was irrelevant. the project was eventually to become part of caravan next, a network and festival across europe for social and community theatre.3 lotte and øyvind realized that the piece could not have a traditional script. it needed to be based upon sound and action; thus in essence, a piece of music performed by a choir of people constituting “an audience”. they knew me from my work as a composer with experimental music theatre and asked me to collaborate. together we decided to involve erik jakobsson (erik), conductor, to lead the rehearsals. i entered the project when the artistic idea was formulated in detail, and the plan for the realization—recruitment, rehearsals, performances—was set. my role in the project was as a participant and a composer and, occasionally, as a conductor. compositions two pieces were planned to form the core of the performance: “moskva 1920” (“moscow, 1920”) and “københavn 2016” (“copenhagen 2016”). “moskva 1920” was based on meyerhold’s catalogue of audience behavior. the material for “københavn 2016” was an extensive catalog of noises and actions recorded (by memory and description, not actual sound recordings) by lotte and øyvind, in theatre performances they had attended in copenhagen during autumn 2016. on my suggestion, lotte made a dramaturgic sketch for each piece. moskva – 1920 • der har vi jo emil! (oh, there we have emil!) • hvad fanden handler det her om.. (what the heck’s this all about?) • det bliver stort… (it’s going to be grand..) • den der kender jeg! (that one i know!) • hold så kæft! (now shut up!) • det finder jeg mig ikke i! (i am not going to take this!) • bare jeg ikke er ved at blive syg… (i hope i’m not getting ill…) • suverænt… (superb…) københavn – 2016 • hvornår er det slut? (when is it over?) • hvad laver han? (what’s he doing?) • er det sjovt? (is that funny?) • jeg kan ikke se noget… (i can’t see anything…) • de sveder… (they’re sweating….) • hun er dygtig… (she’s smart…) • jeg er træt (i’m tired) for action-based dramaturgic research: the aim is not to produce groundbreaking, interesting performances but rather to try in practice what happens when you question the most basic or obvious assumptions about how theatre works. 2 see, for instance, http://www.socialcommunitytheatre.com/en/ 3 http://caravanext.eu/ http://www.socialcommunitytheatre.com/en/ http://caravanext.eu/ somaesthetics and sound89 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise i made two compositions based on these dramaturgic sketches that would be the starting point for our work. below, under “analysis”, i will go into further detail about the compositions and their musical function in the process. process, rehearsals when rehearsals started, the choir consisted of 40 members, women and men from all social layers, of different ages and from different parts of the greater copenhagen area. some participants had some musical experience from singing in choir, and others had no formal musical training at all. we rehearsed every friday afternoon from late february to the end of may. a few members left the choir along the way, and a few others joined. erik led rehearsals with the task of first and foremost of teaching the choir the piece. i assisted and conducted a few of the rehearsals myself. lotte directed and instructed the choir regarding expression, physical gesture and appearance. performances three performances were organized: one informal ‘dress rehearsal’ at the lab station and two performances in the playhouse at the royal theatre during the copenhagen stage experimental stage art festival. the choir was positioned like a theatre audience at the performances, the idea being that they mirrored the actual audience. part of the performance was also the choir’s entrance, which simulated the entrance of an audience in a theatre. in the royal theatre it eventually appeared more like an act, since the actual audience by far outnumbered the choir and the hall needed to be illuminated as for a normal performance. below is a link to a documentary about the project in copenhagen, with clips from the performances. additionally, there is a link to a video of a performance of ‘moskva 1920’ made in turin in october 2018. the piece was recreated as part of a conference about the caravan next project at the social and community theatre centre of the university of turin. locals from turin were invited to take part in the choir, lotte and i led the rehearsals which took place over four days, and i conducted the performance.4 3. theoretical approach: what is music and when is music? the theoretical hypothesis which will be applied, explored and substantiated in an analysis of the experiences from soa is that music begins in bodily founded awareness of mutuality, situated in a context of communality. music emerges from this awareness as a shared experience of togetherness that can be re-experienced and shared. as philosophers of music and music education—elliott (2015) and small (1998)—have pointed out, in order to comprehend music, as it actually takes place in the world, it is sensible to regard it as process rather than matter: music is social action and activity more than it is a thing or a collection of objects (musical works). small has invented the term musicking to suggest that the word “music” itself is radically to be regarded as a verb rather than a noun: to music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing. (small, 1998, p. 9) 4 documentary from copenhagen. 2017. https://vimeo.com/222439272; performance of “moskva 1920” in turin. 2018. https://vimeo. com/299920415/9e5358f910 https://vimeo.com/222439272 https://vimeo.com/299920415/9e5358f910 https://vimeo.com/299920415/9e5358f910 the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 90 peter s. bruun there is a circularity in this quote, of which small himself was most certainly aware: he aims to redefine the notion of music and does so by referring to musical practice—the practice of performing musically. music is something we do, rather than something we have (and do something with). this definition opens up the questions about music’s nature and meaning, because it is now no longer a question of what music is (in itself ), but a question of what it means that we do it. how and why do we perform musically? what does it mean, that we are musical creatures? part of small’s answer to that is, that musical performance is a ritualistic behavior by which “..relationships are brought into existence between the participants that model, in metaphoric form, ideal relationships…” (small, 1998, p. 96). this offers questions for further consideration: what it is that is brought into existence; how is the “metaphoric form” constituted, what is the character and essence of the relationships brought into existence, and what is the connection between the relationships and the metaphoric form? small develops it further by stating that the relationships are “established in mythical time” and that “mythmaking, like ritual, are deeply embedded and probably ineradicable forms of human behaviour…” (p. 99) other approaches to music may, however, elaborate this differently and further: music psychology and cognitive research examines music as a mental faculty in relation to, or parallel to, language. serafine (1988) argues that music must be seen as a form of cognition: every musical experience is grounded in cognition, and the development of musical cognition is an intrinsic feature of the human mind. fred lerdahl and ray jackendoff (1983) demonstrated how musical experience can be seen as rooted in a structural perception similar to linguistic grammar: the tonal structures unfold in a way that the mind recognizes and understands. moreover, says sloboda (2005), an essential feature of musical structures is that they are dynamic, and that this indicates a semantic content in music. it is common to say that music may have meaning in a grammatical sense, but is has no semantic content—as in ”for i consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all...” (stravinsky, 1936, p. 53–54). john sloboda challenges that notion: maybe the dynamic experience, the sensation of force and movement, is the semantic content of music. the dynamic experience is, says sloboda, an indispensable part of music understanding, and this suggests that music ultimately refers to “the physical world in motion” (sloboda, 2005, p. 170). daniel stern’s (2010) concept of forms of vitality expands this notion, as it connects dynamic experience to an essential feature of the way human beings understand each other. he asks: ”how can empathy, sympathy, and identification be explained without in some way capturing the exact movement characteristics of a specific person..?”, and answers: ”for identification based on faithful imitation one also needs the ’how’—the other’s ’dynamic movement signature,’ their form of vitality.” (stern, 2010, pp. 4–13). in other words, the dynamic experience of inner motion in oneself and others is crucial for human interaction, and the dynamic experience of music can be a way in which we, through our bodies, communicate what is inside us. other research in developmental psychology (malloch & trevarthen, 2009) has shown how essential human traits such as empathy and communality may have a connection to musicality. malloch and trevarthen have developed the concept of communicative musicality. they say that “...we move with rhythm, and this movement simultaneously makes up the measure of time from ’inside us’; we tell one another measured stories with emotionally expressive grace – with what we call musicality. this musicality communicates, because we meet as actors first who detect the source of human movements in their form, subjectively – before we debate, explain, reason the imaginative and hopeful stories that our minds somaesthetics and sound91 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise make up as reconstructions of objective reality ‘out there’.” (malloch & trevarthen, 2009, p. 8) although this may not suffice to explain music as a phenomenon, it broadens the perspective upon how musical performance establishes relationships (small, see above) and why we music: in musicking, we are attuning ourselves to each other and finding out, who we are. this may indicate the nature of the “metaphorical form” (small, 1998, p. 96 – see above). maybe that is the music. if we grant that the “measured stories” (malloch & trevarthen, 2009, 8 – see above) can assume shape as sonic time-pieces that may be remembered and re-told, this may hint at why there is such a thing, or such a ‘matter’, as music in our world; and why, when we perform musically, there is an accompanying feeling of the presence of something—a thing or matter that emerges among us. when sloboda says, music may refer semantically to “the physical world in motion” (sloboda, 2005, 170) this is true but may not be the whole truth. maybe music first ‘refers’ to motion inside us: a vibration or tension, because we want to be together, yet cannot escape that to be who we are, we also need to be selves with sensations, feelings, experiences and opinions of our own. it is our human fate to ”debate, explain, reason…” (malloch & trevarthen, 2009, p. 8 – see above), yet we never cease to music. we pursue the experience of expressing ourselves together through our bodies, musicking, and ameliorate the potential solitude inherent in selfness. from a phenomenological point of view, benson (2003) interpreted this ceaseless musicking that is an inescapable part of human life as the improvisation of musical dialogue. music is an eternal dialogue between musickers—that is everybody who take part in music (which, ultimately, means every human being). the piece of music is, says benson, an “ergon within the energeia” (benson, 2003, p. 125): it is never a monad or an ideal object but rather a coagulation or convergence within the dialogue. sound the question remains, what role sound does play? does music(king) also necessarily begin with sound, or is musical sound—the sound of music—contingent and coincidental? in other words: could there equally well be music without sound? i am not just proposing this as a philosophic puzzler along the way. two brief examples may show that it is a relevant question in this context. composer dieter schnebel (1930-2018) has experimented with graphic scores, that are meant to be ‘read’ rather than performed and listened to. the ‘performance’ takes place in your own mind as you (try to) imagine sounds in motion. 5 jeppe ernst (b. 1985) puts the question of music and sound to another kind of trial, writing music where there is no sound, neither real nor imagined. the music is notated with conventional music notation, with indications of durations, action dynamics, tempo, etc., but the notes themselves do not necessarily denote sounds. they may denote different kinds of touch – padding the head, stroking the cheek, etc. – and the music is performed by touching. or they may denote “events” – actions, imagined incidents, possible or even impossible sensations or thoughts (“something cold, something warm, a bird on the sky”) – and the performance is to perform the actions or, again, to read the score and imagine. the music comes to resemble a massage. or a guided meditation. 6 5 http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/werke/mo-no/ 6 http://www.edition-s.dk/composer/jeppe-ernst http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/werke/mo-no/ http://www.edition-s.dk/composer/jeppe-ernst the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 92 peter s. bruun both these examples show that there may well be music even if there is no sound. on the other hand, the fact that music in most contexts is intrinsically connected with sound, makes it improbable, that sound does not play a fundamental role in our musicking. in one sense music most probably does begin with sound. sound is a way we connect, as trevarthen (1979) has demonstrated, and that particular way of connecting probably forms the basis of musicking. there may be an obvious bodily foundation of music in the fact that sound probably is the closest we can come to touching each other without physically touching: it is the transmission of actual vibrations. in another sense, however, music is not the sound. it is, in essence, according to what dissanayake (2000, pp. 19–50) says, the pursuit of the mutuality and togetherness that the sound may come to stand for. musicking may be seen as immersing in sonic expression with no other purpose than being together and sensing being-together. once we have started doing it—musicking—music emerges and there will be music, like there is music in our everyday world at all times. music may then be represented, as in a musical score, constructed, reconstructed or imagined, as in our imagination, in other media (touch, action, visual signal)—or with emulated sound. i shall come back to this last aspect in the final discussion. 4. analysis: sound of the audience – music creation through shared experience and togetherness several actors from different backgrounds were involved in the creation of soa. the idea came from lotte and øyvind. they asked me to collaborate and relied on my composition skills and experience of working with music theatre. erik played a crucial role as he shaped the composition during rehearsals, not only by working with the sounds and actions but also by modifying the compositional structure itself in order to increase and encourage freedom of expression. the participation of the members of the choir made the piece. among them and with them, the piece emerged as it was meant to be. musical structure, sensation and comprehension as i had been left with two catalogues with descriptions of sound and action, i felt as if i had to start from scratch, when i began composing. one limitation was that the performance in total should last approximately 45 minutes. as we wanted to leave time in the performance for some improvisation regarding the choir’s entrance and exit, this meant that each piece must last no longer than 20 minutes. scrabbling for something to get me started, i suggested that lotte make the dramaturgic sketches (see above, 2). these enabled me to imagine the two pieces as two small operas. i could conceive the pieces as series of scenes with different musical content and overarching musical structures. the compositions are musically quite conventional. they are based on composition techniques such as linear counterpoint, variation, development, iterative processes, augmentation and diminution, repetition and recurrence. the composition tool is traditional music notation and the compositions are presented as musical scores where particular motifs denote particular actions with resulting sounds as described. below are pages 1, 2, 3 and 8 of ‘moskva – 1920’. the compositions themselves underwent a lot of changes during rehearsals. suggestions from the participants were considered. some of the structural ideas in the score eventually turned out to be hard to remember or too complicated to carry out, and needed to be modified. somaesthetics and sound93 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 94 peter s. bruun the score will make immediate sense to someone familiar with musical notation. this has to do with the sheer fact that the score maps (simple, intelligible and established) musical structures (lerdahl & jackendoff, 1983). erik could grab the score, read through it, and form an idea about how it was to be executed. he knew a lot about what he was supposed to instruct the choir to do, and even how it would “feel”, without having any particular notion of how it would eventually sound, or what the choir precisely would be doing. (just as i had no definite idea of how the sounds and actions would be carried out once we started to rehearse.) the score signifies music because it represents a structure that adheres to certain rules: a musical structure. it maps a piece of mental architecture that unfolds in time. the structure is also dynamic (sloboda, 2005, p. 170). without listening or playing, reading the score itself opens up an experience of a certain flow, not only a succession of events but actual motion, best described as local undulation and a global build-up of energy or power: intensification, achieved through “densification” of the occurrence of events, and action dynamics (variation and build-up of force in the way actions and sounds are carried out). returning to our composition: it is possible to read the score and thereby comprehend the musical structure, but only because reading (and understanding) the score also involves some dynamic sensation. in practice, when people read through musical scores they are commonly seen micro-conducting with small hand movements, the mouth is shaped as for humming, or even the facial muscles may be twitching slightly as if to execute, with some part of one’s body, the motion of the music. sound and music. emergence of the piece: togetherness. still, though, there is no sound! i have until now only written about a musical score and how to comprehend a musical composition from a score. following the theoretical discussion above, one might ask: when there is no sound, is there a piece of music (theatre)? in our context we had a piece of musical structure that was to become a piece in which a particular kind of sound, ‘audience noise’, would play a crucial role. but the score—the musical structure—had no sounds in it. neither does a score for, say, a mozart symphony, for that matter. we may have come to see the symphonic score as signifying musical sound, but in fact it does not. it signifies a musical structure with signs that indicate certain performative actions. by convention and tradition we can have a strong imagination of the sonic result of the actions. the score for soa adhered to no convention that could form the basis of such a sonic imagination. although the structure itself was meaningful, intelligible and musical, it was, in a sense, sonically void. one could ascribe tones to the notes and make a piano rendering of the score. i have made a piano version of the first 8 pages of ‘moskva 1920’ (link to sound file below7.) it could have been made with other instruments, such as non-tonal (percussion) instruments, or even with non-musical sounds to make it sound less conventional, but still, it would not come close to our idea about what soa could be or what it became. the musical structure now has sound, but the result is boring. we have provided the structure with sound, but for a trained score reader it was probably more interesting to read the score than to listen to what we had now. according to lerdahl and jackendorff (1983) and sloboda (2005), the score—the structure in itself—is music in a semantic sense. providing it with sounds does not really make it into a musical experience. the piece, as music, only emerged as what it was to become when we started rehearsing. we provided the structure with the sounds of the audience, but there is more to it 7 https://www.dropbox.com/s/whryj2qi3nvr7al/lyden%20af%20publikum%20pianodemo.mp3?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/whryj2qi3nvr7al/lyden%20af%20publikum%20pianodemo.mp3?dl=0 somaesthetics and sound95 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise than providing sound. it does not suffice to say that given a functional musical structure, we added the (sonic) content. there was a score, there was a musical structure, but still, no one really knew what the piece was or could be. foregoing my work on this text, i asked malene, a member of the choir in soa, for a conversation in which i could gain her perspective on the process: how did she experience meeting us, the professionals; how did she experience the collaboration and togetherness of the group; and—in particular—how did she recognize the piece coming into being. malene works in pedagogy, and she sings in an amateur choir, ‘verdens sirener’ (sirens of the world) where women of different nationalities share their musical roots by singing each other’s songs. during the project she had strong commitment and interest in the artistic ideas and the process. our conversation is analyzed from a phenomenological approach, inspired from dahlberg (2006) and van manen (1990, p. 39): “a good description that constitutes the essence of something is construed so that the structure of a lived experience is revealed to us in such a fashion that we are now able to grasp the nature and significance of this experience in a hitherto unseen way…”. i asked malene, at which point during the process she recognized and comprehended the overall form of the piece. (in the following, quoting malene, i have allowed myself to highlight keywords). malene: … i could not, today or even just after the performance, recreate the whole progression of it.. i did not have it all in my head…” she said. “but i remember… we [malene and her boyfriend] had been away for some weeks [and unable to attend the weekly rehearsals] and then, when we came back, we noticed that something had developed. things had a contour: “this makes some sense. at the first rehearsals i thought ”this is really silly. i wonder if anything will ever become of this…” also, i hadn’t quite realized that it was something we were eventually going to perform… it was when we came back, after having been away, i could sense that this is something. it has a form… speaking with malene, something became very evident to me, of which i had only had a vague impression during rehearsals: the participants in the choir had no perception of an overall musical structure. even if some of them had been able to read the score, they did not “get it” at any time. they were to learn everything by heart. i am not sure if erik and i, during the initial rehearsals, were fully aware of this abysmal gap between the choristers’ impression of what was going on and ours. they had been told that there was a score—a composition—and that our work together would culminate in a theatre performance, but still, from their point of view they were taking part in a theatre experiment about audience noises. how could they, by any means, recognize that they were learning a piece of music? erik and i, were conducting musical rehearsals, part of which was to experiment and find the right actions and sounds. the gap was bridged with confidence and trust. initially every rehearsal started with everyone introducing themselves. later, when the group was established, rehearsals were often rounded off with a common meal or a drink. malene pointed out there was something in the way the introductions were conducted—by lotte and øyvind—that set the atmosphere in a particular way. rather than asking where people lived, their age, what they did for a living, or their civil status, lotte and øyvind would ask people to share things like “what is your favorite music?”, “which kind of weather do you like?” the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 96 peter s. bruun malene: there was something fantastic about those questions… that was clever: asking about something that did not categorize or stigmatize. it made it possible for us to see each other in another way… i have no idea what people were doing in their daily lives. but we got to know each other as humans. the way we were together as humans was fantastic: being experimental together. that was funny, because we all did something together…. in the atmosphere of confidence and trust it was possible for us to create the piece together. malene: … it said: “here’s room for anyone”… that hasn’t really anything to do with sound. but on the other hand, if we did not feel confident we wouldn’t dare to experiment with sound. we wouldn’t be able to express ourselves… in a way we could be like clowns. that was also reflected in the performance. it was something “clowny” musicking. immersing your self into the common body and letting it dissolve for a while: our music. the feeling of doing something together and having fun together remembered as also connected to the piece itself: doing some thing together. me: what made it “clowny? was it the sounds? malene: “no, the sounds were just human sounds… it was really because it was in a work...that we were doing it together and at the same time. we were like an army of people doing the same… sometimes many things in a mishmash. and then all of a sudden we stopped…” so far as the piece came out as a complete aesthetic experience it rested upon the co-creation of the choir. it perhaps took a while for them to realize that we were making a piece of music theatre—a certain progression, that eventually would make sense as a performance. the whole set-up was peculiar in the sense i mentioned: lotte and øyvind had conceived the idea as a piece of (music) theatre but relied on erik and myself, and the choir, to form a coherent piece of music, erik and i had a piece of music in mind, although we did not really know what kind of piece, the participants in the choir were primarily in it because it felt enjoyable to be together and joyous to experiment together with sound and action, but they sensed an energy. malene: if you think back, you miss it… the energy… of performing… but mostly of being together as humans… the energy of being together is connected to the energy of performing. as we were together, in the rehearsals, little by little, things fell into place. the sounds themselves became stable and consistent. transitions became clear. the sounds came together. everything became more and more transparent and obvious, and in the end we had something that was some thing: our piece. we did not just feed ‘sounds of the audience’ into a given musical structure, and even if some people rarely sensed that what we were making was music, we were actually making music. we were musicking together. following small (1998), soa may be seen as an example of how a certain community of practice becomes a musical practice, how it evolves. although, in soa, our perceptions of what was going on and where it was heading were different due to our different roles and backgrounds, somaesthetics and sound97 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise we musicked together, and music—musical meaning—began to evolve, not from the musical score and the composition, but primarily from our being together. true, in our context there was an inspirational, driving force behind it: the composition, the imminent performance, and, not least, erik and myself and our musical ambitions on the choir’s behalf, but we still had to develop our sonic language and the sensible doing-together—or rather, let it happen. as we went with the flow—the good energy malene mentioned—things started to make sense. things began to mean something: malene: i did not have an overall perception of the piece, but within the different sections i had a strong feeling of what was coming next. even today, when i hear bottles clinking in a certain way, i can’t help hearing a cough inside my head… [because the succession of bottles clinking and coughing was a recurring phrase in the piece københavn 2016]. in that way certain phrases and passages got stuck in the head… like it meant something very particular to us. although it didn’t really mean anything… during our conversation she and i constantly used the phrase “ja, det var stort!” (“yes, it was grand!”)—a sentence from lotte’s dramaturgy (see 2 above) that i chose to put in the score for ‘københavn 2016’ as a recurrent spoken phrase in the piece. malene’s experience reveals how music, musical meaning, is something that may happen when people are together. the succession of ‘bottle-clinking and cough’ was a small piece of sonic structure in time, which in our community became meaningful. the tiny sonic time-structure was inaugurated as shared experience, and would then eventually become a piece of mental structure. a similar thing happened with “ja, det var stort!”. it is a sonic structure that has a formal, linguistic, semantic meaning—a proposition—but in soa, through our musicking, it became something else. tossed around in our voices it became a piece of sound, stripped of its semantic content and imbued with new meaning; our musical meaning. the way we musicked in soa—with awkward noise and behavior—stressed, as i see it, how musicking and music may be seen as a mutual quest to overcome or ‘live with’ a tension that is inherent in being human. we want to be together with our sensing, expressive bodies, but we must also be ‘selves’. to be selves we must “debate, explain and reason” (malloch & trevarthen, 2009, p. 8), but, still, we are also always musicking humans. we take part and re-create music every time we listen and let music flow through our mind and body, and we are all very familiar with musical sounds. the sounds that sound ‘nice’ are stimulating and comforting, call forth emotions and bring us together. but most of us are not aware that we are musikcing, and that it is our musicking that makes musical sounds sound nice. most of the participants in soa were probably no more aware of their own musicality than that they like music and probably use music in their life. a lot of them could perhaps not themselves make music with musical sounds, their voices would be rough, or they might not be able to carry a tune, but the sounds we played with were not musical sounds from the outset. our sounds were not nice. they were the kind of sounds that would most often lead to reprimanding counteractions: “we ourselves, our selves, do not approve of what your body is doing. so you, yourself: make your self make your body stop doing it. now!”. even more so, those sounds became our musical sounds. musicking does not begin with musical sounds but with mutual listening and careful attention. the soundmaking together in a shared, communal and safe space, allowed us to be together as bodies paying attention to other bodies and attuning ourselves to one another. we “…told one another measured stories with emotionally expressive grace and met as actors first who detected the source of human movements in their form, subjectively” (malloch & trevarthen, 2009, p. 8) the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 98 peter s. bruun performance and remembrance what then, again, about the piece? the professionals, lotte, øyvind, erik and myself, had had a piece in mind all the time. one could possibly say the piece was merely a conclusion that we drew: “this is what we have been doing, here we exhibit a slice of a certain corner of reality!” i think, however, that this is not how it was. doing the piece and performing it, we all put something of ours into the world: something we had created together and now could share with someone—from our sounding bodies to the resounding bodies of the audience-audience. malene: the first time i truly realized what this was about was at the first viewing. and i thought “who on earth will care to look at this?” i say, we’re having fun, but will anyone else think it’s funny?” but then i could see my neighbor’s four year old son, who i had invited. he was laughing out loud…. people could sense that we’d had fun. it was not just the piece itself, it was that inter-play that did it... that it worked as a performance. me, proposing tentatively: yes – every performance has something vulnerable: “are we going to get this right?” but this performance was fragile at another level: “will it make any sense to anyone..?” malene: yes – will it in any way convey the energy that we want it to… but it did! in soa the whole idea of someone performing for someone else was to be questioned, because the normal division between performers and spectators was blurred, but the performance was none the less a performance. we showed something that we had done to other people. the obviousness and simplicity of the whole artistic idea itself made it accessible. it was ‘clowny’ and funny for the ‘audience-audience’ to see the ‘choir-audience’ perform with sounds and actions that normally are annoying and unwanted. the accessibility and the amusement lay not only in the familiarity of bodily gesture and funny noise and action, however, it was accessible because it was a piece of music. the sounds and actions came through as a true endeavor to make sounds and actions come together in a work, no matter how rough and awkward those sounds and actions were. our shared experience—the time we had spent together—could be shared, because the energy of our work for togetherness was embedded in the performance. it exemplifies how music, as benson (2003) says it, can be understood as an eternal flow of dialogue, and how, consequently, the piece can be seen as an ‘ergon within the energeia’ (benson, 2003, p. 125): it is a ‘piece of work’ within the eternal flow. the performance was not a rendering of a composition; it was ‘a piece of work’ by which we shared ‘a piece of work’ we had completed by being together and letting our bodies sound. the fragility i referred to in the conversation above, showed that every performance necessarily entails the ambition of bringing something to life. as brandt puts it “since the performer creates ‘something’ and thereby could fail or succeed to give birth to it, the meaning immanent in the something is saved by the performance; a feeling of a precarious, fragile transcendent intentionality quite naturally accompanies the aesthetic display.” (brandt, 2009, 39). the performance came to stand as a token of shared life that could be shared. the piece was something—some thing—that might be shared again and again, and every instance of sharing would bring new life. somaesthetics and sound99 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise 5. conclusion: musical creativity and aesthetic experience as shared life soa was a very special collaboration between theatre and music professionals and a group of people with little or no musical or artistic training. the idea and concept called for a particular approach, which rested totally on the involvement and co-creation of everybody. we, the professionals, were driving it, but we did not have a fixed goal or final solution. the piece had to emerge among us. to be able to express yourself with sounds and action that you would normally not consider musical sounds, to sense the others, and to be together in a trustful and playful environment, created an unusual situation in which the participants could express themselves musically without a specific musical purpose—maybe even because there was no apparent musical purpose. this makes it possible to see soa as an example of how musical practice evolves within a community of practice. the impulse that here, at the lab station, in this project, we would play around with the annoying, disturbing, unwanted, involuntary ‘sounds of an audience’, evolved into what one could call a musical language: a certain way of musicking. our work culminated in a musical performance. the piece came to life and we may say we had co-created a work, a piece of music theatre. the piece itself is “ergon within the energeia”—it is a coagulation within the flow of energy, that was our work together and, ultimately, our beingtogether. as such it could be shared in performance, from the sounding bodies of the choiraudience to the resounding bodies of the audience-audience. soa is an example of how music begins as musicking, which can be seen as bodily founded mutual awareness of mutuality: a shared inner experience of the energy of being together. from this music may emerge as a transcendent experience of “measured stories told with emotionally expressive grace” (malloch & trevarthen, 2009, p. 8) or as a ‘a piece of work’ we have completed and shared and may share with others: “ergon within the energeia” emerging in the ceaseless musical dialogue (benson, 2003, p. 125). sound is not music’s content nor meaning, and there may well be music without sound, but soa also demonstrates how a connection between sense of mutuality, sound, and temporal and bodily dynamic expression (what stern calls forms of vitality (stern, 2010)) may be a precondition for musicking and hence music. 6. discussion in our digital age, music has become transcendent in a new and unexpected way. music can, as mediated sound, be enjoyed as a solitary experience—without bodily movement, expression of voice or the touching of instruments—in the presence of no one but yourself. it has become a product, a sound-product, to an extent that we may ask: is that ‘sound’—for our minds and bodies? is there a risk that we are, little by little, numbing our musical perception and musical thinking? musical sound-products have in a short time become omnipresent. it seems as if humans crave them just because they exist. trying to undo this would probably, already, be comparable to overturning the agricultural revolution, but while ‘the sound of music’ seizes the space, the lack of mutual embodiment may leave us with musical sound-products that we can have and enjoy and that satisfy a demand, but that are never truly our music. when john cage encouraged us to liberate our musical minds, let sound be sound, and let music happen, that was surely not what he wanted. russolo, when he constructed his noise machines, did not just want to make spectacular sounds. he wanted to reclaim music, from what appeared to him as stagnated convention. making music together, as in soa, can also, from a pedagogic perspective, be seen as the possibility of reclaiming musicality in a world overloaded with musical sound; to do something that you can do yourself. to be your own voice and your own sounding body— together with others. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 100 peter s. bruun acknowledgments i would like to thank all the participants in lyden af publikum. i would particularly like to thank lotte faarup and øyvind kirchhoff for initiating the project and, not least, for trusting me to participate. rikke jeppesen rod at the lab station facilitated the process with aid from jakob dahn, and was an indispensable team player. i thank erik jakobsson for the warm collaboration and for his musical competency. i am immensely grateful that malene razz-meyer took the time to talk to me and share her thoughts and experiences from lyden af publikum. references benson, b. e. (2003). the improvisation of musical dialogue: a phenomenology of music. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. brandt, p. aa. (2009). music and how we became human – a view from cognitive semiotics: exploring imaginative hypothesis. in malloch, s. & trevarthen, c. (eds.), communicative musicality: exploring the basis of human companionship. new york, usa: oxford university press. cage, j. (1958). experimental music: address to the convention of the music teachers national association in chicago in the winter of 1957. retrieved from http://www.robertspahr.com/ teaching/cpro/john_cage-experimental-music.pdf dahlberg, k. (2006). the essence of essences: the search for meaning structures in phenomenological analysis of lifeworld phenomena. international journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 1(1), 11–19. dissanayake, e. (2000). art and intimacy: how the arts began. seattle, usa: university of washington press. elliot, d. (2015). music matters: a new philosophy of music education (2nd ed.). new york, usa: oxford university press. katz, m. (2010). capturing sound: how technology has changed music. los angeles, usa: university of california press. lerdahl, f. & jackendoff, r. (1983). a generative theory of tonal music. massachusetts, usa: mit press. malloch, s. & trevarthen, c. (2009). musicality: communicating the vitality and interests of life. in malloch, s. & trevarthen, c. (eds.), communicative musicality exploring the basis of human companionship (pp. 1–11). new york, usa: oxford university press. mcauley, g. (1999). space in performance: making meaning in the theatre. ann arbor, usa: university of michigan press. russolo, l. (1913). l’arte dei rumori. retrieved from https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/ russolo_luigi_l_arte_dei_rumori.pdf serafine, m. l. (1988). music as cognition: the development of thought in sound. new york, usa: columbia university press. sloboda, j. (2005). exploring the musical mind. oxford, uk: oxford university press. http://www.robertspahr.com/teaching/cpro/john_cage-experimental-music.pdf http://www.robertspahr.com/teaching/cpro/john_cage-experimental-music.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/russolo_luigi_l_arte_dei_rumori.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/russolo_luigi_l_arte_dei_rumori.pdf somaesthetics and sound101 sound of the audience: music together and make sense of noise small, c. (1998). musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. middletown, usa: wesleyan university press. stern, d. n. (2004). the present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. new york, usa: norton. stern, d. n. (2010). forms of vitality: exploring dynamic experience in psychology, the arts, psychotherapy, and development. oxford, uk: oxford university press. stravinsky, i. (1936). an autobiography. retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/ igorstravinskyan002221mbp/igorstravinskyan002221mbp_djvu.txt trevarthen, c. (1979). communication and cooperation in early infancy: a description of primary intersubjectivity. in margaret bullowa (ed.), before speech. the beginning of interpersonal communication (pp. 321–347). new york, usa: cambridge university press. van manen, m. (1990). researching lived experience. new york, usa: suny press. https://archive.org/stream/igorstravinskyan002221mbp/igorstravinskyan002221mbp_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/igorstravinskyan002221mbp/igorstravinskyan002221mbp_djvu.txt introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 28 an introduction to marius presterud’s pearl diving project page 28-29 towards an aesthetic of the innards: an introduction to marius presterud’s pearl diving project stahl stenslie elements of beauty and pleasure in food are usually associated with and recognized through visual appearance, smell and taste. once our food is swallowed it is as if it has disappeared from our aesthetic horizon. how to aesthetically relate to the autonomous, hidden world of the innards? how to practically make art within the complex mechanisms of our digestive system? can we construct viscerally noticeable pleasures and sense beauty on the inside of our bodies? the chemical components of food affects us in various ways, but our food processing is normally not somatically pronounced, rarely mapped in everyday situations or much noticed throughout the food digestive process that last the better part of our day. in the following contribution, the norwegian artist and clinical psychologist marius presterud turns this around, describing a fascinating exploration of the sensory appreciation and aesthetics of our innards. in some ways it could even be described as a living portrait of the beauty in our innards. his food is both natural, ecological, and in-edible: by swallowing  freshwater pearls from oysters, he firstly repeats the process of how they are created; in the innards of an oyster, where an un-edible particle of sand over time is capsulated with layers of nacre until it acquires the iridescent visual effect attributed to precious pearls. secondly he eats them as a food of splendor, devouring the pearls, making them a part of his body, beautifying his inner body. from a somaesthetical perspective, how does eating pearls contribute to a sensory-aesthetic appreciation? or a corporeal, sensual, somatic sense of beauty? viscerally speaking, once the pearls are eaten and from the perspective of the innards, the body will hardly notice these small, round objects that simply follow the digestive system in an unharmful way until they –again hardly noticeableleave the alimentary canal. here marius introduces a somaesthetical twist, or perhaps even somaesthetic sacrifice: in the attempt to explore this innermost aesthetics inside his own body, he uses gastroscopy as an instrument of discovery, revealing, tracking, exploring how the pearls are processed and even beautifying his intestines. gastroscopy is a rather unpleasant procedure, and not without dangers. as marius dryly comments, intestines have been ruptured before… this search for beauty is therefore neither without expense nor violence. in a melioristic perspective this raises interesting issues: how –and whencan an agonizing somatic experience turn into an interesting, rewarding somatic work of art? through gastroscopy, marius uncovers an inner, somaesthetic splendor when finding ‘the pearl with its radiant beauty, perfection and circular integrity.’ the inner pearl caught on video as he is in uttermost discomfort exemplifies the whole procedure as a unique sensory appreciation. this is an interesting and innovative approach in itself, but as we already know, marius goes beyond the surface. swallowing pearls turns his innards into a ‘gem-filled horn of plenty.’ although intensively his personal somatic experience, the inedible gems simultaneously comments on disturbing phenomena such as eating disorders. this furthermore concerns the mundane,  every day search for our self, a search relevant for different academic disciplines. an introduction to marius presterud’s pearl diving project stahl stenslie somaesthetics and food29 stahl stenslie marius uses the resulting imagery (see video link) as fodder for reflections on the profession of health clinicians. this is a clear reference to the field of embedded practice. a central part of marius’s text is his practical approach to somaesthetics. he is actively using shusterman’s concept of somaesthetics as his point of departure both for the production of art as well as in his analysis of his own work. it is his own live body at work, turned into a living gallery where he actively performs both as a viewer of and vessel for art. the pearls are not unaffected by the process. the chemical reactions inside the body affect their colors. marius’s intestinal labour gives birth to new, human-colored pearls, making him ‘pater perlum’: a father of pearls.  the video: the work is documented on video. a preview is downloadable from: https://vimeo.com/123148524 pearldiving - part 1 of a interdisciplinary work series by marius presterud.  short description: we find a treasure inside the artist. what’s it like to have a thing of value inside of you? the idea of the minable individual that we have this inner, unlocked potential to turn to is in its pure form, a critique worthy internalization. viewers are invited to ponder what ideological purpose this inward looking serves. in this film though, we actually find “it,” in contrast to everyday life spent searching. the film is a happy-ending spin-off on theories on anorexia, which claim that a lack of abstraction leads to attempts at controlling inner turmoil through the concrete/the body. the soundtrack consists of the artist wheezing after a quick self-enhancing jog. material: freshwater pearls, stomach sack (artist’s own) technique: gastrological examination video after swallowing pearls length: approximately 2 min when: november, 2014 where: ullevål hospital, oslo photo by margit selsjord short version: https://vimeo.com/123147757 teaser: https://vimeo.com/123148524 https://vimeo.com/123147757 https://vimeo.com/123147757 https://vimeo.com/123147757 https://vimeo.com/123147757 https://vimeo.com/123147757 https://vimeo.com/123147757 introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 46 page 46-60noora-helena korpelainen sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga noora-helena korpelainen abstract: in this article, i consider aesthetic experiences in ashtanga yoga practice. yoga has become extremely popular, a part of everyday life. yet, aesthetics and yoga are rarely considered together. using somaesthetics and everyday aesthetics, i argue, that the aesthetic is essential in practicing yoga because of the performing body, environment-like uniting of postures, and the experiences of liminality, sacredness, liberation, and asceticism. furthermore, i show that recognizing the aesthetic dimension in yoga doesn’t require approaching yoga as an art form, and that balance and beauty can be considered parallel. keywords: yoga, aesthetic experience, everyday aesthetics, beauty, aesthetics. 1. introduction yoga is popular. there’s hardly another as popular method for cultivating both body and mind. due to its popularization, this ancient esoteric practice is prominent in our contemporary, globalized, virtually shared, and aesthetically tuned culture. in fact, the way one encounters yoga in different medias, public spaces, and everyday discussions, is often aestheticized. modern yoga researcher mark singleton describes the situation aptly, though provocatively, in the following. today the yoga body has become the centerpiece of a transnational tableau of personalized well-being and quotidian redemption, relentlessly embellished on the pages of glossy publications like yoga journal. the locus of yoga is no longer at the center of an invisible ground of being, hidden from the gaze of all but the elite initiate or the mystic; instead, the lucent skin of the yoga model becomes the ubiquitous signifier of spiritual possibility, the specular projection screen of characteristically modern and democratic religious aspirations. in the yoga body— sold back to a million consumer-practitioners as an irresistible commodity of the holistic, perfectible self—surface and anatomical structure promise ineffable depth and the dream of incarnate transcendence. (singleton, 2010, p. 174, emphasis in the original.) body first: somaesthetics and popular culture47 sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga this situation exactly motivates me to scrutinize the aesthetics of modern yoga. to expand on singleton’s notion, yoga practitioners produce numerous representations of their own practices as photos, videos, and texts with a seemingly important aesthetic tone; and social media provides an engaging platform for the circulation of these representations. it is, however, misleading to form a conception of the aesthetics of yoga approaching solely representations of yoga, although they are either intentionally emphasizing some aesthetic qualities or are easily interpreted as underlining the aesthetic dimension. i wish to show that an experienced yoga practice can be considered aesthetic, too. yoga is an old word: it’s mentioned already in the circa fifteenth century bce text rg veda. the so-called “classical yoga” practice has been described already in the circa third century text yoga sūtra by patañjali. regarding the long history, the meaning of the term “yoga” has been exhaustive (white 2012, pp. 1–6). in the contemporary situation where yoga is, besides popularized, also institutionalized by independent yoga research centers and recently also by universities, the definition of yoga is compelling. however, modern yoga researcher suzanne newcombe argues that yoga’s nature can’t be fixed with “overarching essentialist definitions” (newcombe 2018, pp. 549–574). having this in mind, i discuss, in this paper, yoga as a practice done by a yoga practitioner. i follow indologist david gordon white’s understanding of yoga practice as a kind of program and a practical application of theory (white, 2012, p. 11).1 a yogi, whose experience about existence arguably differs from a normal human being, and his practice, remain thus outside my scope. modern postural yoga is a late “invention” dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century. modern yoga researcher elizabeth de michelis describes modern yoga as syncretic, cross-cultural, and secularized “practice and a living tradition” to which ashtanga yoga, one of the most popular postural modern yoga practices, is also foundational (de michelis 2008, pp. 17– 35). postures, as such, are not a modern phenomenon in yoga practice; instead, it seems to be the wide use of uniting postures in series that characterizes modernity in yoga practice (mallinson, 2011, p. 3). thus, although i find several aspects in yoga intriguing from the aesthetics’ point of view, i focus here on ashtanga yoga’s serial posturality to reveal the essentiality of the aesthetic dimension in modern postural yoga. yoga and aesthetics are rarely considered together. besides, if the concept “aesthetic” is used, it usually emphasizes some kind of incorrectness in yoga practice. for example, benjamin smith refers with the aesthetic to the pose being “imposed on their [practitioners’] body rather than drawn out from it” (smith 2007, pp. 36–37, endnote 19). however, philosopher richard shusterman holds that yoga carries within its practices “somaesthetic knowledge” (shusterman, 2000, p. 261; shusterman 2012, pp. 11, 34, 43–44, 87, 337). this suggests that yoga practitioners deal with the aesthetic somehow. through reconsidering aesthetic experiences in yoga practice, i argue that the aesthetic dimension is not only possible, but essential, in modern postural yoga. i begin with outlining the ashtanga yoga practice and its relation with the body and performance to form an initial understanding of yoga as a somaesthetic program. doing so, i do not wish to negate yoga’s religious or spiritual relations—and i glance at spirituality, too—but in general, i leave the discussion about spirituality in yoga outside the scope of this paper, just as i do with the discussions about yoga’s health effects and political aspects. the discussion on these aspects exceed the limits of this paper. 1 white states that “yogi practice” denotes the behavior of a yogi who has gained ability to transmit the supernatural powers into acting. “yogi” begun to mean something else than a tantric practitioner only during the twentieth century. (white 2012, pp. 11–15.) indologist georg feuerstein’s conception of yoga as a psychotechnology is in line with white’s conception (feuerstein 1990, pp. xx–xxi). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 48 noora-helena korpelainen somaesthetics focuses on our somatic being in the world as “body–minds,” underlining thus the contradiction between a living and a dead body instead of that between body and mind. yoga practice builds up, in general, on experimenting the mind-body inclusion (e.g. white, 2012, p. 7). this conception of the body, and its use, is the base for understanding yoga as a somaesthetic program, a conception, which aids in approching yoga practice without focusing neither on yoga’s religious relations nor its possible art-like nature.2 this is especially due to the somaesthetics’ appreciation of popular phenomena and the fact that somaesthetics, as a field of studies within the aesthetics tradition, is less bound with the discussions about the arts. furthermore, somaesthetics’ demand for practical approach in making philosophy enables appreciating yoga as a practice empowering thus the aesthetics of yoga, which is in first place based on subjective experiences. after pointing out that the aesthetic dimension affects yoga practices through the performing body, i continue, in the third chapter, to discuss the “everydayness” in practicing yoga. with the help of everyday aesthetics, i wish to show that the aesthetic in yoga practice has to do with experiencing environment. i assist this reading with philosopher arnold berleant’s concept “aesthetic field” (berleant, 1991) to show, in the third and fourth chapter, that due to the unavoidable presence of body, the aesthetic experiences in yoga have to do with liminality, sacredness, liberation, and asceticism. this analysis pours in the significance of balance in ashtanga yoga practice. i propose, in the fourth chapter, that in yoga practice balance parallels beauty which proves to be, in fact, no less than one key function in modern yoga practice. my viewpoint is formed through practicing ashtanga yoga together with reflective and analytical approaches. i do not attempt to give necessary and sufficient conditions for aesthetic experiences in practicing modern postural yoga nor in yoga as such. instead, i wish to enlarge the almost neglected discussion about the aesthetics of yoga and bring a view outside the scope of religious studies, which holds the dominance in discussing about experiencing yoga. 2. live performance in ashtanga ashtanga vinyāsa yoga is a yoga method developed by the yoga teacher śrī k. pattabhi jois (1915–2009) whose teacher was the former yoga guru śrī t. krishnamacharya (1888–1989).3 ashtanga appears as a notably designed practice with its six series of postures and the style to perform them in a fairly rigid order (mala). it’s, however, based on the ancient yoga traditions, namely the eight limbs (aṣṭa aṅga) of yoga, presented in yoga sūtra, and the tradition of haṭha yoga, a yoga method known for the use of physical practices. ashtanga thus forms up of physical practices (āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra) and mental practices (dhāraṇa, dhyāna, samādhi) together with moral and ethical guidelines (yama, niyama) (e.g. jois, 2002). while the other parts are stressed all the time in the ashtanga teachings, the physical side of yoga practice dominates not only in the media representation but oftentimes also in the practice situations (see e.g. freeman et al., 2017; smith, 2008, p. 147). indeed, postures like dvipāda sīrsāsana, in which both legs are put behind the head while sitting and holding hands together, are aesthetically pleasing when done by an advanced practitioner. 2 the aesthetics of yoga parallels easily yoga with either the arts in general or with some art form. this happens e.g. in newcombe’s analysis of yoga studios and in singleton’s analysis of modern postural yoga’s history. (newcombe, 2018; singleton, 2010.) 3 i refer with “ashtanga” only to jois’s method. for a detailed description of ashtanga from a practitioner’s point of view, see e.g. benjamin richard smith’s sociocultural articles (smith, 2004, 2007, and 2008). body first: somaesthetics and popular culture49 sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga ashtanga is often described as physical, dynamic, and performance centered. when one starts the practice for the first time, it’s evident to focus on the physical side, that is, in practicing posture (āsana) and breathing (prāṇāyāma). ashtanga teachings also notice the value of physicality with the use of bodily techniques such as the special kind of audible breathing (ujjayi), muscle locks (bandhas), gazing points (driṣṭi), focusing attention, and the method for linking breathing to movement (vinyāsa). these techniques are believed to help in regulating the life force (prāna) enabling thus the hoped purification. for example, the capacity to control one’s breathing is believed to imply the practitioner’s capacity to control their mind (e.g. jois, 2002, p. 50; feuerstein, 1990, p. 135). ergo, the physically bounded technique of vinyāsa is in the core of ashtanga practice. i will come back to it later. however, despite of the physical bias, ashtanga is a holistically engaging practice in which a practitioner must deal with their whole being, whether when practicing posture, concentration (dhāraṇa), meditation (dhyāna), or when working to follow the guidelines, like non-violence (ahiṃsā), and purity (śauca) (e.g. smith, 2008; neverin, 2008). the immediate experience of practicing ashtanga is somatic. according to shusterman, in neuroscience, somatic describes especially “feelings of skin, proprioception, kinaesthesia, bodily temperature, balance, and pain” (shusterman, 2012, p. 6). doing the practice heats the body up until dripping sweat on a yoga mat and touch is notable when trying to push one’s hands through the crossed legs in garbhapindasāna. although pain is generally avoided in yoga practice, sometimes bending forward hurts the hamstrings. in the somaesthetics’ point of view, somatic has, however, much wider reference emphasizing a living body in interdependence with pretty much everything. it describes all that affects the being and functioning of a body-mind, either inside or outside it, all the senses, emotions, cognition, habits, movement patterns, and ways to experience the body-mind, as well as all naturally or culturally shaped knowledge (e.g. shusterman 2012, p. 16). it goes without saying, that the aesthetic dimension affects a yoga practitioner, too. in yoga contexts, the aesthetic relates often only to beauty. for example, in the 46th sūtra of vibhūtipāda,4 beauty belongs to the perfections of body acquired through yoga (broo, 2010, p. 197). beauty seems to be promised in yoga practice. when beauty is commonly understood as a quality in objects we observe, it’s easy to relate aesthetics in yoga to a yoga practitioner’s changed appearance or to their exquisite practice performance. practicing ashtanga changes the body as i’ve pointed out in the introduction. moreover, the dynamic way to perform ashtanga suggests that a refined postural performance would be even the purpose of the practice. visually focused understanding of the aesthetics of yoga is, however, not comprehensive when considering somatically experienced modern yoga. aesthetic, as a concept, derives from the ancient greek word aisthesis meaning roughly perception. the somaesthetic view emphasizes perception as a phenomenon dealing with the whole body-mind. to shusterman perception is “embodied” and the aesthetic refers then to feeling, consciousness, and sensory appreciation, as well; the aesthetic is an unavoidable feature of normal human existence and a part of everyday life (shusterman 2012, pp. 3, 103, 111, 140– 141, 182–183, 188, 288–314). in yoga practice, however, the nature of our everyday perception is generally considered dysfunctional, forming a source to our suffering which a practitioner seeks to overcome with yoga (white 2012, pp. 6–8). yoga practice is ought to make one feel better. shusterman points out that in somaesthetics this “feel better” refers both to cultivating the 4 yoga sūtra 3.46.: rūpa-lāvaṇya-bala-vajra-saṃhanantvāni kāya-sampat. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 50 noora-helena korpelainen present experience and to the consciousness about the cultivation (shusterman, 2012, p. 111). practicing yoga develops perception and enhances skills to experience. i leave to be pondered, if the inner experience of a somatic practice like yoga, in fact, cultivates the aesthetic. performances have always had their place at least in modern postural yoga. already krisnamacarya arranged spectacle-like yoga demonstrations (singleton 2010, pp. 190–196). in a typical practice situation, it would be, however, odd to speak about performance because the practice is not aimed at the audience’s enjoyment. audience, in the literal meaning, is rarely present when ashtanga is practiced, but, practitioners pause sometimes to contemplate fellow practitioners’ performing. it can be an aesthetic experience to watch bodies performing movement sometimes simultaneously and with a concentrate manner while listening to the steady sound of breathing and the occasional thumps on a wooden floor in a sweaty yoga studio, which even without practitioners often praises many senses with colorful yoga mats, candles, incense, borduna-like silence, and images from mythology (like gaṇeśa and oṃ) and recent history (like teachers’ photos). one’s own practice performance may also provide aesthetic experiences. while observing their “inner body” during the practice, a yoga practitioner may experience ecstatic sensations like, for example, bright light seen with eyes shut (bernard 1960, pp. 90, 94–95). the performance is a part of ashtanga, but, it is better to understand live with which shusterman means unavoidable, conscious and developed, controlled and pleasurable everyday being (shusterman, 2000, p. ix; shusterman 2012, pp. 17, 27, 288–314). in fact, many ashtanga practitioners attempt “to make the practice a part of everyday life” and “transform their quotidian selves” with the help of the practice (smith, 2004, note 4). in a general ashtanga experience, novelties and exciting exotic experiences play a small role. more often a practitioner is occupied with repetition, familiarity, and perseverance. this is highlighted with ashtanga teachings, which prefers regularity and values the most the daily practice done early in the morning. the practice is usually modified little according to each practitioner and even the individual practice program stays basically the same, sometimes for years. every time the practice starts with opening a yoga mat, taking a straight standing pose (samastitiḥ) and chanting a mantra. each practice consists of sun salutations (sūryanamaskāra), fundamental poses, poses of the series under practice, and the finishing sequence. the practice ends with a mantra, relaxation, and rolling up the mat. experientially each practice is still different. ashtanga’s live performance denotes the skillful and enjoyable practice performance and points to the transformed existence. following shusterman, performing ashtanga is then living in a “waking state,” the “art of living,” which to shusterman is a potential source for aesthetic enrichment and “spiritual enlightenment” (shusterman 2012, pp. 26, 288–314). within yoga discourse, the ideal purpose of the yoga practice is commonly to renounce the attachment to the world. when the aesthetic is understood as deepening our attachment through perception, senses, and emotions, thus enriching and complexifying our experience, it follows that the aesthetic challenges a yoga practitioner. in ashtanga practice this challenge appears as the dramatization of the everyday. shusterman grounds his understanding of dramatization in “the act of framing” which functions as a maintaining mechanism for the dialectics between the immediately perceived surface of the experience and its deeper cultural frame (shusterman 2002, pp. 10, 226–238).5 in 5 the reading in this paragraph bases strongly on the shusterman’s explanation found in the same place. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture51 sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga ashtanga, a practitioner observes everyday mundane actions, like breathing, moving the body, and being present through participating attentively into the practice, that is, into the frame. “the act of framing” describes the twofold function in which continuous directing of attention both intensifies the experience of everyday being during the practice and helps to experience better the everyday in general. a practitioner becomes thus always more powerfully engaged to the immediately perceived surface of the experience during the practice. at the same time “the act of framing” instills ashtanga’s cultural value. 3. pleasure in (the) practice ashtanga is practiced in various environments, though yoga studios, with their often ascetic (and in my experience also kitschy) style, provide the ideal surroundings for the practice. the built-in practice space is a yoga mat, a portable space separator providing a secure chassis for the bodily movement and privacy to the practice experience. as newcombe says, the limits of a personal yoga mat, “a ritual space,” “are often experienced as a deeply personal location,” and practitioners guard its sacredness (newcombe 2018, pp. 566–567). however, for a frequent practitioner, the practice itself remains a place, a somatically engaging significant set-up, through which one wonders—as one would in an environment like nearby woods or a home town—participating somatically in encountering at times something new but most of the time “the same old thing.” a yoga practice, as the body-mind, can be understood as a place for experiment and experience through the already discussed “act of framing.”6 in ashtanga practice, framing means directing somatic attention, in general. concentrating in breathing and proprioception directs the attention to the experiences of the “inner body” withdrawing attention from the surroundings. framing heightens the significance of the “inner body” giving a familiar sense of the situation due to previous practice experiences. a yoga practice is thus a place in a way philosopher arto haapala understands place. it is interpretation in the hermeneutic sense of living in an environment and making sense of it by acting there, by doing various things in the environment, by creating different kinds of connections between matters seen and encountered. in this sense interpretation is very much a matter of action [. . .] it is something that we are engaged in all the time while engaged in our daily practices. (haapala 2005, 46–47.) an ashtanga practitioner refines the posture into the body-mind and observes the effects dwelling somatically within nested frames; the quotidian life, a yoga studio, a yoga mat, mantras, vinyāsa, a posture, the body-mind, and the body-mind’s functions and directions. according to philosopher ossi naukkarinen, popular phenomena should be approached as environments, that is, instead of objects, as ever-changing event-like situations and processes in time and space demanding multi-sensory engagement (naukkarinen, 2017). i find this view appropriate also in the case of popular ashtanga practice. instead of art works or forms, the practice parallels everyday environments and belongs thus to the same category with places where we brush our teeth, commute, and shop grocery, for example. one may ask, how does the aesthetic relate to these environments? yoga sūtra, which ashtanga practitioners tend to read, might give one answer with its underlying metaphysical duality. 6 richard shusterman discusses also about a scene (skene) in understanding the body-mind as a place (shusterman 2002, pp. 233–235). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 52 noora-helena korpelainen the metaphysics of yoga philosophy holds that the two entities, nature (prakṛti) and “the seer” (puruṣa), connect and thus form up the existence. all perceivable belongs to essentially creative prakṛti and its entangling three qualities (guṇa); sattva (e.g. bliss), rajas (e.g. activity), and tamas (e.g. dense). a yoga practitioner is a result of this entanglement and therefore unable to perceive the reality as it is. only puruṣa, existing behind all, sees the truth. (broo 2010, pp. 19, 183–184, 207–208; ruzsa, 2019.) in my reading, with aesthesis in mind, the existence itself seems an aesthetic experience, only that a yoga practitioner may not receive it so. yoga, like any everyday environment, belongs to the aesthetic dimension when perceived. of course, this reading simplifies the presented metaphysics, but my point is to illustrate with it the necessity to base the aesthetics of yoga on engagement instead of distance. when trying to understand the aesthetic dimension of an everyday environment like a yoga practice, berleant’s concept “aesthetic field” is enlightening. it emphasizes an unavoidable engagement in the field, which consists of inseparable though recognizable material, appreciative, creative, and performative dimensions, forces, and phenomena instead of objects (berleant, 1991). i discussed the performative dimension already in the preceding chapter and i revisit it in the next chapter together with discussing the creative dimension. here the examples of practicing posture and the way to unite postures illustrate ashtanga’s material and appreciative dimensions. in practicing posture, the pervasiveness of materiality, brought up with yoga’s metaphysics, becomes experiential. a practitioner experiences not only “flesh and bones” but also emotions, thoughts, sensations, and energy flows as something to be directed and modified. an example of materiality in ashtanga practice is e.g. utthitahastapādaāngusthāsana (uhp), a posture practiced in the beginning of the first series (yoga chikitsa). it is a typical balancing posture in which one stretches a leg up in front of the body supporting the posture with a strong leg, holding big toe with fingers and waist with another hand. it takes time to learn to stand without shaking in it and the balance vanishes easily. a practitioner supports, strengthens, lengthens, realigns, releases, and opens the body in relation to a set fulcrum while working to receive, accept, and let go of the thoughts and emotions like fear, judgement, anxiety, or problem solving. a practitioner modifies the breath and nervous system and directs the sensations of focus along the body. when practicing in a group of other practitioners, a practitioner also directs the somatic attention in haptic communication with others (smith, 2007, p. 35). a practitioner participates this way in directing other’s “energy flows” as well. in uhp the balancing of prakṛti’s qualities is palpable. when tamas prevails, laziness, pain, or anxiety obstruct a posture. when rajas dominates, a practitioner overemphasizes the performance. but, when a practitioner experiences the place with no need to move and no need to stay still either, the pose happens. every posture done for the first time is a “foreign land” with unknown places and borders opening a new “window” to the reality. the postures bring up the body-mind’s essence with new somatic experiences enabling a practitioner to realize and scrutinize their limitedness. the appreciative participation to the postures’ and the body-mind’s transformation may mean new ways to think and experience. besides postures change the physical point of view due to body’s position and gazing points, the point of view to the body-mind, gravity, and the environment changes after practicing a posture some time. indeed, a posture is a “living metaphor.” as berleant says, a “living metaphor’s” force “does not lie principally in what it means but what it does” (berleant 1991, pp. 125–126). at one point, the posture manifests familiar, comprehensible, own, easy, and pleasant. pleasure is mainly discussed, in the traditions that relate to ashtanga, either in relation to body first: somaesthetics and popular culture53 sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga the understanding of yoga body as a “sealed hydraulic system” or in relation to experiencing emptiness. the former discussion deals with the esoteric practice of transforming the essential fluids to the “ambrosia of life” with the help of “the feminine principle” (kuṇḍalinī) and “the heat of asceticism” (white, 2012, p. 16; jois, 2002, p. 31).7 in some forms of this practice, pleasure (bhukti) values even higher than liberation (mukti) (dehejia, 1986, p. 185). the discussion about emptiness, instead, relates enjoyment to developing consciousness, one of the core principles of yoga practice, in general. it is understood that an advanced yoga practitioner’s “one-pointed awareness” (samādhi) develops through “empirical, rational, sensorial, and subjective” levels including both object-bound and objectless awareness; “bliss (ānanda) and joy (hlāda)” are related to the sensorial or aesthetic level of awareness in which the focus of a practitioner is the aesthetic cognizing itself, either in the “blissful apprehension” or in “the indescribable intentional flow of awareness” (white 2012, pp. 6–12; larson 2012, pp. 84–88). in my opinion postural practice provides the third, and more relevant, way to grasp pleasure in popular ashtanga practice. modern yoga manuals discuss in detail about the correct way to perform postures. ashtanga practitioners, however, often refer to patañjali’s only words about posture: “steady and pleasant” (broo 2010, pp. 134–136).8 i find these words echoing haapala’s understanding of the everydayness. according to him, familiarity characterizes our everyday experience, instead of distance and strangeness, and this he relates especially to the experience of place. everyday environment gives a homey background for our everyday experiences disappearing itself at the same time into its functionality, into just being present. it is our attachment to the environment that characterizes the everydayness. (haapala, 2005, p. 41.) following haapala, the everydayness of ashtanga practice is in its “being there,” as a part of life and its functions. a practitioner may, however, look forward to the next time to practice as one would look forward to going home. the everydayness manifests in ashtanga practice especially due to vinyāsa-technique.9 vinyasa frames each pose (sthiti) of a posture and unites specially arranged postures together. thus, vinyāsa heightens the experience of settling down to a posture and makes the practice a continuous wholeness. in the immediate experience, vinyāsa, however, means matching one’s inner rhythm to the movement guided by the breathing. as such, vinyāsa backs postures, gives an environment for happenings, and helps to immerse in experiencing the practice. vinyāsa is thus both a tool to experience present situation and a manifestation of being present. it helps a practitioner to realize the presence altogether. due to vinyāsa, ashtanga is also characterized by alternation, structured by stillness and movement. the body-mind’s inner movement manifests while a practitioner is settled in a stillness of a pose, and the experiential stillness, instead, manifests while a practitioner is moved by vinyāsa. one might experience an alternating “landscape” where momentariness mingles with continuity alternating endlessly like the movements of waves approaching the shore. in my understanding, vinyāsa is a somatically experienced representation of the attempt to still the fluctuation of the mind, the famous patañjali’s description of yoga (broo, 2010, p. 32).10 7 in ashtanga practice this is especially related to practicing inverted poses. 8 yoga sūtra 2.46.: “sthira-sukham āsanam |”. philipp a. maas argues, that sūtras 2.46. and 2.47. are to read together, when the meaning of āsana underlines two types of practices in classical yoga: “slackening of effort” and “merging meditatively into infinity” (maas, 2018, pp. 49–100). 9 ashtanga community often states that the destroyed book yoga korunta by rishi vamana is the source for the method. for sure krishnamacharya taught it during his years in mysore palace yoga school. singleton argues that the western bodily traditions influenced the method (singleton, 2010, pp. 175–210). 10 yoga sūtra 1.2.: “yogaś citta-vṛitti nirodhaḥ |”. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 54 noora-helena korpelainen when a practitioner experiences consciously a pause between thoughts, between the happenings, between moving and settling down, the place may become experienced liminal by which i mean meaningful being in between. a practitioner drills stretching this experienced pause. encountering the background environment from this position helps the practitioner to redefine the body-mind’s construction. this may mean experiencing the body more as a blissful “non-place” as shusterman describes his own zen-experience (shusterman 2012, p. 314). according to neverin, even novice yoga practitioners may describe their practice experience as merging into “a whole different world,” and with a long-lasting practice the liberating experience can provide a long-lasting continuous flow-experience (neverin 2008, pp. 125, 123– 128). the experience of flow is close to berleant’s conception of sacredness which he describes as a sensation of strong, participative, significant, and personal connection enabled with a holistic engagement. it is “a magical moment” in which the experience of reciprocity intensifies, concentration strengthens, and one is more perceptive. one may feel as merging together with the surroundings; the place becomes an environment. (berleant 1997, pp. 171–172.)11 in these moments, the whole sequence of postures may suddenly “open” through a posture-in-hand giving a feeling of beginning the practice from the middle. one might realize what it is all about. in practicing ashtanga, the experiences of sacredness may mean everyday openings of connection with the environment while the everydayness characterizes the aesthetics of ashtanga practice. the aesthetics of yoga can therefore be understood without approaching yoga as an art form. 4. balance and beauty asceticism has characterized yoga practice for centuries. contemporary yoga practitioners are, however, hardly ascetics with their “super cool” yoga pants trying to combine hectic modern lifestyle, career, and family life together. for many, ashtanga means something like exercising at gym. the purpose of the practice is rarely to renounce the worldly life in search for final liberation. it may be that only a frequent practitioner experiences the everydayness as discussed in the previous chapter, since familiarizing oneself with the environment takes time. there are, however, other views to the everydayness. the everyday experiences may differ depending on person’s character, habits, and skills to deal with the environment (puolakka 2018). i believe that aesthetic experiences in modern postural yoga practice are available for each practitioner, and that this may be through the parallel character of balance and beauty. in ashtanga practice, asceticism relates to self-discipline (tapas), the yoga sūtra’s moral guideline, which promises perfection of the body and senses (broo, 2010, p. 132).12 indeed, maintaining the daily practice calls for self-discipline, but sometimes appearance beats practicing also in the case of a frequent practitioner. this is well illustrated by jp sears, the internet comedian who ironizes the life around yoga practice in his project awakenwithjp. his video “how to take yoga photos for instagram” (awakenwithjp, 2016), is a felicitous show of the tendency to link the visuality of a yoga practice representation to practitioner’s status: the more beautiful, powerful, or expressive representation, the more advanced a practitioner is believed to be. this raises a question, if modern postural yoga practitioners, in fact, seek the aesthetic with their practice? 11 berleant argues, that in the experience of environment, sacred can be aesthetic without religious preferences (berleant 1997, pp. 171–172). 12 yoga sūtra 2.43: “kāyendriya-siddhir aśuddhi-kṣayāt tapasaḥ |”. tapas (to heat) has several meanings and it is practiced in various ways. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture55 sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga according to klas neverin, “beautism,” the extreme quest for beauty, may be empowered by neglecting language in modern yoga practice (neverin 2008, pp. 131–135). i agree, to the extent that, since the meaning of beauty is neglected in modern yoga contexts, beauty becomes understood in the most common way our contemporary culture understands it, that is, as a sensuously biased concept. in modern yoga contexts, beauty describes almost purely a person or a deity—and most of all, a female yoga practitioner (also a theme, which jp sears ironizes). the transcultural contemporary yoga scene is, however, an arena for the many culturally dependent beauty conceptions. one ought to recognize, for example, the typically eastern conception, which relates beauty to such phenomena as everyday life, learning processes, limitedness of human being, ideal expression, intuitiveness, metaphors, nature, and aestheticization of death (eväsoja 2011, pp. 15–22). in shusterman’s understanding, ascesis has to do with beauty. for him, ascesis means “a special quality of attentive consciousness or receptive, caring mindfulness that discloses a vast domain of extraordinary beauty in the ordinary objects and events of everyday experience that are transfigured by such mindful attention” (shusterman, 2012, p. 305). beauty is thus found in the everyday life. ascesis, which has an etymological root in the ancient greek word áskēsis meaning exercise, relates to disciplined developing of consciousness. it is noteworthy, that the aesthetic contradicts anesthetic, not ascetic (shusterman, 2012, p. 3). ascesis characterizes person’s relation to the daily-life. based on this understanding, ascetic could be valued as a style of an ashtanga practitioner. style, as a concept, expresses the reflective connection between the form and the content. style means expressing experientiality developed through somatic processes, and as shusterman says, sometimes style manifests the whole being of a person and seems to “shine” out from them (shusterman 2012, pp. 46, 332, 333–337).13 in any case, style is unavoidable. a yoga practitioner performs either consciously or unconsciously their experiential reality. in modern postural yoga practice, a practitioner’s “mindful attention,” the ascetic style, is based on balance. a practitioner balances the body-mind and its functions, a posture and postures relation to vinyāsa; and balancing captures also the relation between the self and the others, the teacher and the student, as well as the relation between purpose and method, liberation and renouncement of liberation. at some point, a practitioner may even need to balance yoga and non-yoga. the style of a modern postural yoga practitioner evolves through practicing. although, already one’s first ashtanga practice may highlight the both meanings of “feel better”—one may both feel energized and realize enhanced perception—a first-timer and an advanced yoga practitioner undoubtedly experience their yoga practice differently. somaesthetics, as an ameliorative framework, suggests that an advanced yoga practitioner is advanced also in experiencing aesthetically. neverin seems to agree, when stating that experiential skills, such as perception, sensing, and interpretation, but also memory, emotions, and imagination steer modern postural yoga practitioner’s many experiences and sensitize them to perceive both the body-mind and its surroundings (neverin 2008, pp. 125–126, 127). cultivating the body-mind changes experiencing. therefore, a yoga practitioner’s task is creative. within ashtanga context, creativity of each practitioner follows from prakṛti’s essentially creative nature. berleant illustrates creation with the idea of generation, a process of growth and development referring both to unfolding potentialities and to the reciprocity between different factors. according to him, creativity demands developed skills to be aware, 13 klas neverin notices that practitioners and their practices may be evaluated in relation to the volume of “shining (emotional) energy” formed by experienced empowerment and its reinforcement through gained attention with performing (neverin 2008, pp. 128–135). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 56 noora-helena korpelainen as well as skills to enter the experience and work with it. (berleant 1991, pp. 132–150.) the continuously changing experientiality in ashtanga is very much about unfolding skillfully expanding possibilities from one’s being and about encountering with manifold factors in the manner of reciprocity. it is an effect of encountering the body-mind and discussing continuously with the body-mind, that one finds the possibility to put one’s head between legs from behind and the mind behind the thoughts. but practitioner’s experiential development relies also on the reciprocity with the sociocultural context. alter and neverin point out the relation between performing and empowerment in modern postural yoga: others practice performances affect emotionally and motivationally practice experiences while performing empower existentially and socially, a situation, which may result in an emotionally “positive spiral” strengthened by a sense of belonging to the community (alter, 2008, p. 46; neverin 2008, pp. 128–135). an experiential space that opens through creativity, be it inside the body-mind, around it, or between body-minds, may give a sense of liberation. however, neverin argues, that yoga’s power to change people has limits due to our interdependence with our material, social, and discursive environments (neverin 2008, pp. 130–132). in my opinion, neglecting such concepts as beauty and aesthetic in modern yoga may hinder a yoga practitioner’s process of cultivation. when yoga is understood as a technology based on balancing the aspects of one’s existence, yoga can bring forth, at least by analogy, experiences of beauty. the conception of beauty follows then the pythagoreans’ seminal “proportion-based theory,” in which beauty consists of fit, right, or balanced proportions. according to philosopher władysław tatarkiewicz , this theory dominated the european aesthetics’ conception of beauty for over two thousand years (tatarkiewicz 1972, pp. 165–180). also shusterman seems to follow the theory when stating that somaesthetic programs, like yoga, aim at experiencing beauty and developing harmony in the body-mind. the many ways experiential proportions that become balanced are the different facets of one’s own being. they manifest in between reflective and pre-reflective, between appearances, cognitive and affective, between internal and outer experiences, and between the experiencer and the experienced. beauty is thus understood in the broadest sense including the ethical dimension. (shusterman 2012, pp. 3, 5, 14, 22, 34–45, 87, 133, 305–306; shusterman, 2000b, p. 142.) experiencing balance means being in the process, for balance is an active condition. it needs continuous maintenance and, at times, complete restoration. this is highlighted in bhagavadgītā, in which kṛṣṇa teaches the talent of equanimity to the depressed war hero arjuna while persuading him to act instead of non-acting (tapasyananda, 2003, p. 181).14 the dynamic character of balance manifests in the belief-system prominent in haṭha yoga tradition and discussed also in modern yoga contexts. the system’s esoteric and metaphoric dualities such as sun and moon, life and death, heat and coolness, feminine and masculine are somatically experiential to a yoga practitioner (see e.g. white 2012, pp. 15–17; mallinson 2012, pp. 258– 262). perhaps the clearest symbol of both balance and beauty can be found in the hindu god śiva, the lord of yogis, and his eternal dance. śiva, whose image may be found also in a modern yoga studio, is a paragon of holding balance in whatsoever pose, and as a god the ultimate beauty. indeed, succeeding in holding balance may feel like encountering beauty, the potential dimension of the process, face to face. such balance is the result of controlling the mind, or attention, which seems naturally disposed to flit hither and thither. yoga is centering—the center being the 14 bhagavad-gītā is valued also in ashtanga yoga community. body first: somaesthetics and popular culture57 sparks of yoga: reconsidering the aesthetic in modern postural yoga transcendental being, whether it be called god or higher self. thus the word yoga signifies both the state of harmony and the means of realizing it. (feuerstein, 1990, p. xx, emphasis in the original.) recognizing only extreme yoga experiences beautiful would imply that beauty in yoga practice is only for advanced practitioners. balance, however, due to its dynamic character, can be experienced from the very first moment one starts to practice. in these experiences—in the sparks of yoga—a modern postural yoga practitioner may behold “extraordinary beauty.” with this analysis, it follows that without experiences of beauty, advancing in modern postural yoga practice is impossible. 5. conclusion the aesthetic is an unavoidable dimension of modern postural yoga, a practice for the millions. although the aesthetic is rarely discussed within yoga contexts, modern postural yoga has elements that call for aesthetic consideration. perception, senses, emotions, different kinds of materials, and developing consciousness, which form a part of a yoga practitioner’s project, are all critical to the aesthetic analysis and experiences. when approaching yoga practice through the material, appreciative, creative, and performative dimensions of the aesthetic field, also a yoga practitioner’s experiences of liminality, sacredness, liberation, and asceticism can be considered aesthetic. beauty, wellbeing, and success—the culturally trendy possible outcomes of yoga—are often favored in popular culture’s presentations of yoga. the popularization boosts the overall tendency to practice yoga, but, it often neglects yoga as a practice. i have tried to show how the aesthetics of yoga goes beyond appearance and how representations of yoga practices offer only a partial, nay fallacious, subject for analyzing the aesthetics in modern yoga. following my argument, others practice performances in general, should be discussed rather as re-representations of yoga practice. through explicating the experience of the ashtanga yoga’s technique to unite postures, i have tried to show, that the live experience of performing yoga practice is already one kind of representation. a picture of a half-naked film star-like woman in a yoga pose manifests the misleading dichotomy of the aesthetic and the ascetic, which can be, instead, considered interconnected. the fundamental practice of balancing consciously different aspects in order to maintain the yoga practice extends to balancing ascetic and aesthetic tendencies and experiences. in this process, philosophical works, such as yoga sūtra, are helpful as they equip a practitioner with the initial knowledge of the many aspects that need to be taken into account in the practice. i have tried to show that philosophical aesthetics may also support yoga practices further. through discussing everyday experiences and experiences of beauty in yoga, it is apparent, that in yoga practice one may also have to balance consciously between different kinds of aesthetic experiences. balancing a heart-beat-like momentary aesthetic experiences and a breath-like continuous everydayness may well be “art of living.” for a yoga practitioner, it is a somaesthetic beginning. through bringing the aesthetics into discussions about modern yoga, i wish to appreciate the contemporary situation where the ancient echoes in the aesthetically colorful present. considering yoga practice as a somaesthetic program and as an everyday environment enable us to approach the aesthetics of yoga without understanding yoga as an art form. the aesthetic consideration thus brings a refreshed, if not a completely new, view to practicing yoga. furthermore, the aesthetics of yoga provides a view to a technology as an experiential environment—be it that the the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 1 (2019) 58 noora-helena korpelainen technology is one of the oldest—illustrating thus the “man-madeness” of a human being. why practicing yoga keeps attracting people instead of just using it as an entertainment? i propose, that through practicing yoga, one gets heightened everyday presence and satisfyingly intensified experiences of the everyday. although, the aesthetic might not be the fundamental reason for practicing yoga in general, aesthetic experiences—sparks of yoga—empower the repetition of the practice—the fundamental premise of practice, in general. this way the aesthetic proves to be one of the key functions in modern postural yoga. i think that yoga’s popularization calls for reconsidering the aesthetics of yoga. acknowledgements i thank yoga instructor eddie stern of the initial encouragement to contemplate aesthetics and yoga together as well as giving me the metaphor “sparks of yoga.” i also thank niko jääskeläinen, jussi sainio, and oili sainio for the overwhelming support in this process. references awakenwithjp. 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(2012). yoga, brief history of an idea. in white, d. g. (ed.), yoga in practice. princeton and oxford: princeton university press. pp. 1–23. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 6 page 6–11stefano marino beauty from a pragmatist and somaesthetic perspective a conversation with richard shusterman stefano marino richard shusterman is an american pragmatist philosopher, currently dorothy f. schmidt eminent scholar in the humanities, professor of philosophy and english, and director of the “center for body, mind, and culture” at florida atlantic university (fau). shusterman is mostly known for his contributions in the field of pragmatist aesthetics and the emerging field of somaesthetics. among the main topics of his original development of a pragmatist philosophical perspective one can mention experience (and aesthetic experience, in particular), the definition of art, the question of interpretation, the philosophical defense of the value and significance of popular art (in comparison to the frequent devaluation of the latter by many philosophers and intellectuals), the revaluation of the idea of philosophy as an art of living, and finally the strong emphasis of the role of the body in most (or perhaps all) human practices, activities and experiences. this deep concern for embodiment led to his proposing the field of somaesthetics, and eventually to the existence of the journal of somaesthetics, of which he is one of the founding editors. since pragmatist aesthetics is one of the leading trends in contemporary aesthetics, and since beauty is one of the guiding concepts of all research in aesthetics since its foundation with baumgarten and kant until today, we thought it would be interesting to ask shusterman about the role that beauty played in his philosophical thought and in his vision of somaesthetics. 1. together with taste, genius, the sublime and a few other concepts, beauty (or: the beautiful) surely represents one of the main questions in the whole history of aesthetics. and, as such, it has surely played a role also in the development of pragmatist aesthetics, from dewey’s groundbreaking 1934 work art as experience onwards. now, the title of your most famous book, pragmatist aesthetics (1992; 2000: translated into 14 languages), explicitly refers to the concept of beauty, inasmuch as the subtitle reads: living beauty, rethinking art. so, what is the “living beauty” that pragmatist aesthetics deals with, or even that pragmatist aesthetics is fundamentally focused on? yes, the subtitle of pragmatist aesthetics includes the gerundive term “living beauty”, which i chose because of its semantic richness. this expression in english has at least two clear meanings. first, when “living” functions as an adjective, it suggests a beauty that is lively, vivid, or energetic (the sort of beauty that i wanted to defend in popular genres like rock music and hip hop). secondly, when “living” functions as a verb, the expression “living beauty” refers to the somaesthetics and beauty7 beauty from a pragmatist and somaesthetic perspective idea of living one’s life as an aesthetic project, the idea of the art of living or of living a beautiful life or a life lived as a work of art. when i published the book in french and german in the early 1990s (before pragmatism and pragmatist aesthetics became widely known in europe), the book’s main title did not mention pragmatism at all but instead focused on the subtitle’s idea of “living” beauty or living art. the french title (minuit, 1992) was l’ art à l’etat vif and the german translation (fischer, 1994) bore the title kunst leben. the idea of pragmatism appeared only in the subtitles of these translations because, as i already noted, pragmatist aesthetics was not really recognized in europe at that time. john dewey’s aesthetics, for example, was not translated into french until 2005. but to return to the expression “living beauty”, my aim has been to highlight the vivid, lived or experienced dimension of art and the idea of the art of living: of appreciating beauty in art and life and therefore contributing to the experienced beauty of art and life in one’s practices of living. one can contribute to enhancing the experienced beauty of art even if one is not a practicing artist; for example, through practices of interpretation, of teaching, of theorizing in ways that open people’s eyes to forms of beauty that they did not previously appreciate. of course, anyone alive can work on contributing to the beauty of living through his or her own practices – ethical as well as aesthetic, and in my vision of pragmatist aesthetics there is considerable overlap between the ethical and the aesthetic. i am a pluralist rather than an essentialist about beauty. i think there are a great variety of forms of beauty and i am not convinced that they can be fully and properly reduced to a single common essence. i recognize that some traditional definitions of beauty can be useful as convenient hints for understanding the concept: for example, unity in variety. but there are forms of unity in variety that are not beautiful and some examples of beauty may not clearly exhibit a unified variety of parts. in terms of this familiar definition, i would insist that what is important to my idea of living beauty is that the unity would be an energetic or dynamic unity that is felt in lived experience rather than being some static dead sort of unity. my work in performance with the man in gold, a project you know from reviewing my book on his adventures, exemplifies this senese of dynamic, energetic beauty. the man in gold is not beautiful according to the conventional standards of beauty we know form the world of advertising and top models, but he radiates energy and light that express an aura of dynamic beauty. besides the definition of beauty as unity in variety, other accounts of beauty relate it to pleasure. i recognize a strong hedonic dimension in my aesthetics. though some criticize pleasure as superficial, i insist that it is a crucial element in life and one that promotes improved knowledge and performance. we would lose our taste for living if we had no hope of pleasure; and pragmatist aesthetics affirms pleasure as an important value that is perfectly consistent with knowledge. much of my work on aesthetic experience involves highlighting the nexus between pleasure and knowledge. 2. one of the distinctive features of pragmatist aesthetics, ever since its first edition in 1992, has always been its defense of popular art (and, in this context, especially popular music), with the claim that popular art actually “deserves serious aesthetic attention”: according to pragmatist aesthetics, “popular art not only can satisfy the most important standards of our aesthetic tradition, but also has the power to enrich and refashion our traditional concept of the aesthetic”; popular art suggests “a radically revised aesthetic with a joyous return of the somatic dimension which philosophy has long repressed” (shusterman 2000, pp. 173, 177, 184). in this context, i would like to ask you if, on the basis of your pragmatist background and perspective, you the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 8 stefano marino conceive of any fundamental (or, say, essential) difference between the experience of beauty in the so-called high culture or highbrow art and the experience of beauty in popular culture and popular art. with respect to this issue, it is helpful not to focus simply on the distinction you mention between highbrow art and popular art but to think more in terms of a distinction between highbrow and popular ways of appreciating art (whether that art is designated highbrow or popular). i think the same artwork (highbrow or popular) can be experienced or used in very different ways: some are very intellectual, refined, controlled, and comparatively unemotional; others are much simpler, unreflective, unrestrained, and more emotional and somatic. popular art encourages this freer, more emotional, somatic reception. but it can also be appropriated in a very refined intellectual way. a popular genre like a superhero comic book, for example, can be enjoyed simply for its story and the sensory visual interest of its images, but it can also be analyzed intellectually for its form, its intertextual references, and its philosophical or social meanings. the same is true for rap music, which i have shown can convey sophisticated philosophical messages as well as exciting people to an unrestrained emotional reception that generates spontaneous and vigorous dancing. beauty can be sensory and intellectual at the same time; and the best of popular and highbrow art exhibits both forms of beauty. the distinction between popular art and high art, is not an essential one but a pragmatic, contextual, shifting distinction, because, as i’ve often noted in my discussions of the high/popular art distinction, the very same work of art can evolve from a popular work into a work of high culture. classical greek drama in ancient times was a form of popular art and entertainment where the audience behaved in ways resembling people at a rock concert, but these plays are now considered classics of high culture. the novels of charles dickens and emily bronte were initially regarded as popular art but now are high culture classics. shakespeare was originally popular theatre and in nineteenth century american culture he was appreciated both in popular vaudeville form and as refined theatre. in a similar way, opera in nineteenth-century america could be enjoyed in a popular way (with the audience joining in with boisterous singing and commentary) or in a refined, highbrow way. 3. your original development of pragmatist aesthetics has finally resulted into the “coinage” of a new concept and a new discipline, namely somaesthetics – defined as “the critical, meliorative study of the experience and use of one’s body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning” (shusterman 2000, p. 267), and also as “a systematic framework” that has three fundamental branches: analytic, pragmatic and practical somaesthetics (shusterman 2008, p. 19), and also “three dimensions”, depending on “whether their major orientation is toward external appearance or inner experience”: representational, experiential and performative somaesthetics” (shusterman 2016, pp. 102-105). in your article thinking through the body, educating for the humanities: a plea for somaesthetics you write: “somaesthetics, roughly defined, concerns the body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning. as an ameliorative discipline of both theory and practice, […] it seeks to enhance the meaning, understanding, efficacy, and beauty of our movements and of the environments to which our movements contribute and from which they also draw their energies and significance” (shusterman 2006, p. 2). so, what is the meaning of beauty from the point of view of a philosophical discipline, like somaesthetics, specifically centered on the somaesthetics and beauty9 beauty from a pragmatist and somaesthetic perspective body, on embodiment, on the embodied nature of our world-experience and life-experience in general, and of our aesthetic experience in particular? one of the key motives that generated the project of somaesthetics and perhaps the most urgent reason for proposing it was my conviction that bodily beauty should not be limited to the conventional stereotypes of beautiful bodies that we know from the advertising, fashion, and movie industries and that it should, moreover, not be limited to the body’s surface and external form. somaesthetics is centrally concerned with sensory perception and appreciation, and in this sense it continues the original direction and concerns of aesthetics. most people who do not specialize in aesthetics and do not know its history are not aware that the field was not originally conceived as the theory of art and beauty. rather, its founder alexander baumgarten introduced it in the mid-eighteenth century as a field devoted to the study and cultivation of our sensory perception so that through better sensory perception we could improve our knowledge, our performance, and our experience. (i am happy to mention here for italian readers that the translator of baumgarten’s aesthetics into italian, salvatore tedesco, also translated my book on body consciousness (conscienza del corpo) and wrote an excellent introduction to his translation. baumgarten did not include cultivation of the body and of improved consciousness of our somatic feelings in his aesthetic project, but i realized that this is necessary for the comprehensive improvement of our perception, performance, and pleasure. moreover, through my experiences in the arts (notably music and dance) and in the practice of various somatic arts and disciplines (yoga, taijiquan, zazen, feldenkrais method), i learned to appreciate the beauty of certain inner bodily feelings: of breathing, of energy flow, of harmony and balance, of felt vigor and power, of dynamic release, and so on. for many of us, these feelings too often go unnoticed or fail to occur. a major aim of somaesthetics is thus to help us feel better in two senses of “feeling better”: first to experience more enjoyable feelings or, we could say, more frequent and powerful feelings of inner beauty; but secondly, to gain more precision, clarity, and awareness of our inner feelings, so that we can cultivate these feelings and our somatic behavior to enjoy more beauty with greater appreciation. 4. in your book body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics, you write: “pragmatism seeks to synthesize the beautiful and the good” (shusterman 2008, p. 47). and one of the most important chapters of pragmatist aesthetics is devoted to the question concerning “postmodern ethics and the art of living”, and hence the relationship between aesthetics and ethics (indeed, the chapter begins with a famous wittgenstein quotation from the tractatus of 1921: “ethics and aesthetics are one”). in your philosophical view, does beauty play any role also in ethics beside aesthetics? yes, it does because i see a significant overlap between ethics and aesthetics, which includes an overlap in ethical and aesthetical vocabularies. adjectives like fine, fair, or fitting that we use in commending things aesthetically are obviously used in ethical contexts as well. in english we don’t often speak of fine or noble ethical acts as being beautiful, but in several other languages “beautiful” is used to describe and commend ethical acts or to praise the character of the person who performs them. besides the beauty of admirable ethical acts, there is the fact that beauty very often inspires people to ethical action. beauty arouses love, and love is a powerful incentive to cultivate and exhibit virtue. the idea of beauty as essentially related to goodness and as inspiring the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 10 stefano marino love is central to the platonic tradition, including its flourishing in the italian renaissance, where god was the ultimate source and perfect exemplification of beauty, goodness, and love. in our postmodern (and some might add posthuman) times of extreme skepticism about a permanent human essence from which we can logically derive absolute, universal ethical rules, we are increasingly led to make our ethical decisions through the sort of reflective, nondeductive judgment that characterizes our aesthetic judgments of taste. the detailed arguments for that claim are in the chapter you mention, so i won’t go into those details here. 5. finally, one of the latest developments of somaesthetics, and more precisely of its second subdiscipline (pragmatic somaesthetics), concerns scrutinizing the issue of asian erotic arts (see shusterman, “asian ars erotica and the question of sexual aesthetics”, in the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, vol. 65/1, 2007; reprinted and enlarged in thinking through the body). is there any difference, any specificity or particularity, in investigating from an aesthetic point of view the role of beauty in such a particular field as eroticism and sexuality, in comparison to more traditional fields or domains of aesthetic inquiry? one distinctive feature about dealing with the aesthetics of erotic desire or the beauty of lovemaking is that the erotic has been essentially excluded from the dominant modern tradition of aesthetics because that tradition has been defined by disinterestedness in opposition to desire. even before kant formulated his views of aesthetic judgments as disinterested and of beauty as essentially different from anything related to pleasures of the appetite (whether of food or sex), the influential english philosopher shaftesbury insisted on the radical gap between appreciating the beauty of the human body and the experience of sexual attraction to that body. as i explain, in my chapter on edmund burke’s somaesthetics in thinking through the body, he was one of the very few modern aesthetic theorists to affirm beauty’s sexual dimension. nietzsche, to some extent, was another, and both thinkers were probably led to this conclusion because they recognized the body’s crucial role in aesthetics. both these thinkers i regard as forefathers of somaesthetics although in my writings i criticize some of the limits of their theories of the body. but we should not forget that premodern thinkers also recognized the beauty-erotic connection. this connection lies at the heart of plato’s philosophy. beauty is the object of eros, and it is eros that guides the philosophical quest to perceive the ideal form of beauty and, through this vision, to give birth to beautiful forms of action and knowledge. the first step in plato’s erotic quest for beauty is the desire for another person’s body because of the beauty it possesses, and which (according to plato) it possesses as a reflection of the ideal form of beauty. the philosophical quest involves gradually raising one’s desiring love from the body of the beloved to ever more abstract and spiritual manifestations of beauty until it reaches the ideal form of beauty itself. but the first rung of plato’s ladder of love is sexual desire for a beautiful body, and we find this idea also in renaissance neo-platonism, where we also find an erotic desire for union with god. the various ways that erotic desire takes beauty as its object (whether human, abstract, or divine beauty) forms part of my current research along with my explorations of the somaesthetic experience of beauty in practices of lovemaking as taught in the erotic arts of various cultural traditions. i have been slow to publish such research for a variety of reasons, some of which you can easily imagine. academic philosophy is a conservative and somewhat prudish field so philosophizing about the somaesthetics of lovemaking risks having somaesthetics and beauty11 beauty from a pragmatist and somaesthetic perspective the whole field of somaesthetics dismissed as a low-minded and superficial provocation. as you know, i am willing to take such risks but i do so here with more care and prudence than with other topics more respected by philosophy, including the topic of fashion on which i was happy to write an article for your collection. moreover, beyond the conservatism of academic philosophy (that also has its positive aspects in preserving certain valuable traditions) but more generally in current culture, the whole topic of eroticism has been tainted by the recent scandals and outraged backlash concerning the widespread sexual harassment and erotic exploitation of women. i deplore such predatory behavior not only as immoral but also as viciously ugly, so this is a good place to end our interview about beauty. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 124 notes on contributors notes on contributors else marie bukdahl, d. phil., is an affiliated professor at the university of aalborg, denmark. she is a former professor at the university of aarhus, the former president of the royal danish academy of fine arts (1985-2005), and a member of the royal danish and norwegian society of sciences and letters (1985and 2006 -). bukdahl is also an honored member of international who’s who and was selected as one of the leading educators of the world by international biographical centre, cambridge and is an officier des palmes académiques and chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres, paris. she has a long list of publications spanning from philosophy, aesthetics and literature to visual art and architecture, among others articles on somaesthetics and postmodern philosophy and books on art and architecture, e.g. the baroque. a recurrent inspiration (1998), the re-enchantment of nature and urban space. michael singer projects (2011). she has also been involved in exchanges programs with the academies and universities in china and the united arab emirates and jordan and has, for example, published books about the exhibition of art works in xiamen from the royal danish academy of fine arts (2005) and the islamic golden age in spain (2006). kima cargill is the author of the psychology of overeating: food culture and consumerism (2015, bloomsbury academic). she studies how overeating is influenced by living in an affluent culture focused on consuming.  she is associate professor of psychology in the interdisciplinary arts and sciences program at the university of washington, tacoma. laura t. di summa-knoop is an assistant professor of the practice at fairfield university, ct. her research interests include narrative theory, philosophy of film, everyday aesthetics, and issues related to the cognitive analysis of visual arts. her work has been presented at a number of national and international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals such as contemporary aesthetics, aesthetics and phenomenology, culture and dialogue, film and philosophy, and the philosophical forum. she has been the managing editor of the philosophical forum since 2010. barbara formis (phd in philosophy, university paris 1) is senior lecturer in aesthetics and the philosophy of art in the department of fine arts of the university paris 1, panthéonsorbonne. she works in the interdisciplinary field between philosophy and performance. mainly influenced by pragmatism, her research explores the possibilities of a philosophy of the body with a particular focus on live art (performance, dance, theatre, happenings, events) and its relationship to social phenomena and life-practices. she is director of the research teams espas (aesthetics of performance art) at the institute acte (arts creations theories aesthetics) of the university paris 1 sorbonne and cnrs (french national center for scientific research). she is also the founder and co-director with dr. mélanie perrier (university lecturer and choreographer) of the laboratoire du geste (gesture laboratory), a research collective working in the area of performance art. joshua karant teaches philosophy, food studies, and hip hop culture at pratt institute in brooklyn, ny.  his current research interests include local food and wine traditions, the politics and economics of wine production, and the concept of terroir. notes on contributors notes on contributors http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill http://www.amazon.com/psychology-overeating-food-culture-consumerism/dp/1472581075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1446575901&sr=1-1&keywords=kima+cargill somaesthetics and food125 notes on contributors dorota koczanowicz holds a phd in art sciences and is an adjunct professor at the department of cultural studies, university of wrocław. she authored doświadczenie sztuki, sztuka życia. wymiary estetyki pragmatycznej [experience of art, art of living: dimensions of pragmatist aesthetics] (2008) and co-edited między estetyzacją a emancypacją. praktyki artystyczne w przestrzeni publicznej [between aestheticization and emancipation: art practices in the public space] (2010), shusterman’s pragmatism: between literature and somaesthetics (2012), and discussing modernity: a dialogue with martin jay (2013), the last two published by rodopi. she publishes on aesthetics, arts, and culture, but also collaborates with journals and magazines (e.g. format and odra), writing exhibition reviews. she has conducted research at john f. kennedy institute, berlin; the wittgenstein archives at the university of bergen (wab), norway; and columbia university (east central european center), new york. her research focuses on contemporary art, gastronomic culture and their mutual relationships and interactions. she is specifically interested in representations of food and eating in contemporary art, socio-cultural contexts of meal preparation and sharing, consumerism, history of dieting and obesity, and also body consciousness and its images in culture. carolyn korsmeyer is professor of philosophy at the state university of new york, buffalo. her research areas include aesthetics and emotion theory, and she also has a special interest in the senses that have been traditionally neglected by philosophy: taste and touch. several of her publications address taste, food, disgust, and related subjects. savoring disgust: the foul and the fair in aesthetics (2011) concerns the appeal of disgust when it is aroused by works of art (and even on occasion by foods). making sense of taste: food and philosophy (1999) explores the gustatory sense and its aesthetic features. she has also analyzed gender and its influence on philosophical ideas in the book gender and aesthetics (2004). her current book project, things: in touch with the past, concerns the experience of “genuine” or “real” things, especially insofar as old things can bring us in touch (sometimes literally) with the past. charles michel is a franco-colombian professional chef graduated from ‘institut paul bocuse’ cookery school in lyon, france in 2006. after a classical training in kitchens in france and italy, including two years at the three michelin-starred restaurant “dal pescatore”, his work as a cook took a turn in a collaborative research with professor charles spence, applying insights from sensory and psychological science to culinary creations. he is currently conducting research on food aesthetics as chef-in-residence at the crossmodal research laboratory, department of experimental psychology, university of oxford. his work focuses on understanding the role of the senses in modulating flavour perception. he has recently been applying the knowledge of brain and sensory research to inform creative processes and experience architecture: creating a bridge between art and science could play a crucial role to design the healthier, more sustainable habits for the future of mankind. charles has conducted academic research, public and private consultancies, media, advertisement, and developed entertainment concepts. london’s science museum, magnum media tv, the fat duck experimental kitchen, oxford’s saïd business school, discovery channel and jack daniel’s are amongst its clients/collaborators. he is an active researcher on the emerging field of ‘gastrophysics’ at oxford’s department of experimental psychology, collaborator of an artistic/theatrical group called ‘the crossmodalists’ delivering high-end dinners and performances, and is visiting experience-curator at www.lastanusas.com, a luxury hotel in the pacific coast of ecuador, south america. http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3a%2f%2fwww.lastanusas.com&t=ogjlzmzlymyxowe4njgxogzhngrly2qzzdawmdg4zwm3zgjhognimsxubu4zdwpesg%3d%3d http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3a%2f%2fwww.lastanusas.com&t=ogjlzmzlymyxowe4njgxogzhngrly2qzzdawmdg4zwm3zgjhognimsxubu4zdwpesg%3d%3d http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3a%2f%2fwww.lastanusas.com&t=ogjlzmzlymyxowe4njgxogzhngrly2qzzdawmdg4zwm3zgjhognimsxubu4zdwpesg%3d%3d http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3a%2f%2fwww.lastanusas.com&t=ogjlzmzlymyxowe4njgxogzhngrly2qzzdawmdg4zwm3zgjhognimsxubu4zdwpesg%3d%3d http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3a%2f%2fwww.lastanusas.com&t=ogjlzmzlymyxowe4njgxogzhngrly2qzzdawmdg4zwm3zgjhognimsxubu4zdwpesg%3d%3d the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 126 notes on contributors living on the belgian countryside, jean-françois paquay is a cartographer in the urban planning department of catholic university in louvain-la-neuve (ucl); a gardener specialized in preparing and using artisanal soils; and a ceramist renowned for using homemade ash glazes. his portager® (a portmainteau of portable plus potager) offers a system for transforming abandoned lots, flat roofs, balconies, sidewalks, parking lots, and driveways (spots with direct sunlight) into easily-removable farmable plots. homemade soil potential (2015), his solo exhibition curated by philosopher mateusz salwa, recently traveled around finland in klein gallery, philosopher max ryynänen suitcase gallery. his research concerning farming with mole-hill soil is forthcoming in the proceedings of the 2013 ‘art and ecology’ conference at university of wrocław in wrocław, poland. marius presterud is a lyricist, psychologist and cultural entrepreneur. in addition to leading the eco-artist group oslo apiary & aviary, he is currently poet in residence at flatbread society, oslo. previous to this, he spent a decade as the front singer of the band bourgeois stallion. his original background is in psychology, with years of experience as a clinician from both public and private sector. thematic commonalities throughout his work, writings, and lectures is a focus on relations, selfhood, embodiment and health. russell pryba is a lecturer in the philosophy department at northern arizona university. he is the associate editor of the journal of somaesthetics. associate editor of aesthetic investigations, the journal of the dutch association of aesthetics, sue spaid’s 2013 doctoral dissertation work and world: on the philosophy of curatorial practice reflects twenty-five years of experience working as a critic, gallerist, curator, and museum director. the current issue of rivista di estetica features her paper “biodiversity: regarding its role as a bio-indicator for human cultural engagement.” additional philosophy papers appear in the current issue of aesthetic investigations, as well as the forthcoming proceedings of the 2014 spanish and portuguese society of aesthetics meeting and journal for aesthetics and art criticism. as 2015 was un international year of soils, spaid wrote three new papers regarding artists focused on soil, including the catalog essay for the exhibition catalog patricia johanson’s environmental remedies: connecting soil to water. her 2015 philosophical research was supported by a mutinous stars foundation grant. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 67–85 somaesthetics and sound67 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga charulatha mani abstract: this paper aligns the fundamental principles of somaesthetics with pressing issues in the field of voice in karnatik music, the music of southern india. in doing so, it unpacks both compositional and singing processes from a bodily perspective, weaving together the philosophies of yoga and body awareness into the pragmatic paradigm of vocalized and perceived sound. by embodying raga-based music, the author interrogates established convention in relation to movement and gesture in karnatik music. the creative processes in the composition and embodiment of the context of the musical composition, “sonic river,” are unpacked in conjunction with yogic poses that align with the composition’s melodic contour, and accounts of lived experience as journal entries. a critical analysis of these informants yields a four-pronged framework to aid in the understanding of the crucial role of body awareness in achieving and inspiring a fulfilling and free artistic expression, particularly in the context of voice. keywords: soma, karnatik music, voice, composition, yoga. background: ways to acknowledge the body according to merleau-ponty’s (2013) established theories of phenomenology, understanding at an embodied, pre-reflective level prefigures the cognition and intellectualization that follows. such an approach challenges the cartesian body-mind duality dictum that is predicated on the mind’s independent capacity to analyze, strategize and learn/understand even experienced phenomena such as abstractions (descartes, 1975). the theories of phenomenology have assumed primacy in the burgeoning disciplines of artistic research in music and voice studies over the last few decades, not least in paving the way to a better understanding of how music is listened to, perceived, understood, expressed and conceptualized. the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience have been inundated over the last few decades with definitive theories that privilege the body as the site of knowing, including lakoff and johnson’s (1999) “embodied mind” and antonio damasio’s (1994) “body minded brain.” laterally, the materiality of a “sociosemiotic body” whose awareness and pre-conditioned perceptions derive from, on the one hand, its cultural encrustations, and on the other, its signification and communication with its the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 68 charulatha mani immediate society and environment, has emerged as a key node of study (waskul & vannini, 2006) in the field of embodiment. a refreshing strand of embodied philosophy in action that has emerged fairly recently is richard shusterman’s somaesthetics. he describes it very simply: “it means putting one's body where one's mouth is; to really walk the walk, not just talk the talk” (shusterman, 2012, p. 4). somaesthetics, in essence, is a philosophy in action that transcends theory and sustains itself through self-improving, culturally contingent, and practical approaches to unpack the aesthetics created and perceived by the body (shusterman, 2012, p. 4). shusterman’s terminology and theory of somaesthetics draws on a foundation of around two decades, and has looked to bodily conditioning, bodily awareness and reflective/corrective processes of iterative self-improvement, as overarching ways to adopt a body-centric lived philosophy of life; a way to achieve processes and outcomes across contexts in a better manner. a somaesthetics approach notably aligns with body shaping and mental conditioning not as silos but as a reconfigured whole. further, for participating individuals, somaesthetics is a pragmatic philosophy that also engenders a self-refining socio-cultural feedback loop with the phenomenological world. such a philosophy is rhizomatically imagined by shusterman transcontextually, using tools such as yoga, the feldenkrais method, and the alexander technique, and has found wide application in fields as varied as learning, dancing and, recently, singing (tarvainen, 2018a, 2018b). artistic research theorist darla crispin (2013, p. 59) uses the word “rhizomatically” to describe the expansive way in which the tentacles of artistic practice reach out into the realm of artistic research, and vice versa. when i use this word in the current context, it is intended to communicate that the propagation of ideas in a somaesthetics approach is often irregular, interesting, and lattice-like, while also providing a supportive framework that is dynamically evolving and readjusting. according to shusterman (2012, p. 42), somatic perception notably concerns itself with the importance of consciousness of a person’s bodily movements in and as action—the discipline is directed to developing movement consciousness as a tool to explore the body’s shaping by socio-cultural forces and habits, and the body’s paradoxical functions as both a keeper and a destabilizer of these socio-cultural values. as heinrich (2018, p. 6) notes: “the vocabulary of somaesthetics seems to be able to embrace and facilitate this novel demand for aesthetics and knowledge,” the novelty being led by the pragmatic philosophical underpinnings of the field of somaesthetics. such a novelty invites exploration through sound and the body, as creative compositional practice led by the voice wherein knowledge construction emerges from being aesthetically attuned to the body. i call this exploration composing, a state of creating music through vocal practice that is in synchrony with a composed (as in, calm and attuned to one’s bodily state) mode of awareness. contextualizing soma in an intercultural vocal paradigm the privileging of the body as the first receiver, processor and the producer of cultural knowledge in performative contexts has been invaluable in the field of voice and sound studies, with influential scholars from barthes (1977) through cavarero (2005) and dolar (2006) to järviö (2006) and thomaidis (2013) (to name but a few), exploring newer pathways to yoke the voice, its modes of manifestation and meaning, and its significance, to the living body that is inextricably linked to it. the pathway that linked bodily awareness to sound for pauline oliveros was listening (bell & oliveros, 2017). for thomaidis (2013), it was his physiovocal practice, somaesthetics and sound69 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga which he repurposed as a tool in his actor/singer training. for järviö (2006), it was the felt connection of the singing body to the moving vocal apparatus as well as to the function of being a pedagogue. it would therefore be safe to construe that body consciousness is relational; likewise, sound is relational—the act of sounding is physically impossible without a physical environment supporting its propagation as longitudinal waves. the body senses the ecologies of practices and ontologies around it; it also senses itself, as merleau-ponty's (2013, pp. 130–55) reversibility thesis establishes. in producing sound, the voice rightly described by dolar (2006) as “the flesh of the soul, its ineradicable materiality,” senses itself, standing-in as both the first messenger and primary recipient of sonic stimulus in relation to the body. it reports to the body, it receives from the body, and is that “truncated body” that dolar (2006) refers to. the aesthetic of the sound of the voice is thus inextricably linked to the aesthetic of the body, soma. as a female singer of karnatik music of south india, i have gradually come to understand that my vocal sound and the sounds that i listen to are mirrors that both reflect the pains and pleasures experienced by my body—to the world as voice and back to my body itself, to be inscribed in it as an indelible “somatic marker” of sound (hunter, 2013). sonic river: content, rationale and interrogations this article describes the process of body–sound linkage as witnessed through the lens of somaesthetics. i draw on literature and philosophies across cultures and disciplines, my own experiences as a composer/vocal practitioner. i use a piece of music for two voices that i have recently composed and recorded, “sonic river,” (may 2019) as the focal point for this study. for the text in “sonic river,” i drew on the well-known shanti mantra (chant for peace) from the oldest upanishad (vedic scripture) in sanskrit, the brihadaranyaka upanishad (canto 1.2.28). the text is as follows: asatoma sadgamaya tamasoma jyotirgamaya mrityorma amritam gamaya om shanti, shanti, shantihi. [from the unreal lead me to real, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to immortality, peace, peace, peace]. the recording for this has been vocalized in a karnatik style by myself and my sister, srimathumitha mani, a professional singer in the karnatik fold who is also a certified yoga instructor. through this article, i identify and share certain highlights from the conception and delivery phases of this work by adopting somaesthetics as the lens, tool and rationale. throughout this exposition, i draw on the role of the soma in the context of the voice in karnatik music, the classical music of south india. the linking of a philosophy of bodily awareness and of acknowledgement with a practice of singing that has traditional constraints poses problems, particularly in relation to the political and social situatedness of the female voice in karnatik singing practice. in order for the reader to come to terms with the gravity of the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 70 charulatha mani embodied approaches in karnatik music, i offer some context here. when considering karnatik music, one must consider the status of the form across three very distinct periods in history— pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial. to outline briefly, a community of female singer-dancers known as the devadasis were historically the pioneers of the art form, and spread their embodied style of music-making far and wide across the world as early as the eighteenth century. the singing body was central to karnatik music and dance in their practice, specifically in the context of female temple performers. with the wave of british colonization of india, on the one hand, a victorian sense of propriety and modesty came to be imposed upon the indian woman, and on the other, a nationalist movement spearheaded by the educated upper classes (brahmins) took it upon itself to actively seek out a cultural medium to propagate the nationalist spirit which was by then laced with patriarchy—both from an indian and british perspective. karnatik music became the medium through which brahmin women (and men) would symbolize indian culture, values and morals. in the case of women, these values were instated by the males, as the singer/activist t. m. krishna (2013) explains. in the mid-twentieth century, following a complex legislative process, the devadasis were robbed of their rights to sing and dance at temples, and their earlier temple dedication rituals were abolished. while this legislation did put an end to certain undesirable institutions in devadasi practice, such as the dedication of children to temples and their abuse by powerful men in the community, it also obliterated the role of the performing body in the context of the karnatik music of the feminine. in summary, in the post-colonial era, a purging of corporeality continued in the garb of stage decorum, and karnatik music was sanitized of any earlier somatic practices. acknowledging the bodily senses, according to those involved in the nationalist revival of the art form, meant allowing for the weakness of the flesh to manifest (weidman, 2006). this was not ideal, given that the performers of this revised karnatik music belonged to the upper caste and had to be respectable—heightened respectability being directly linked to a distancing of the voice from the body. the karnatik voice, from this point in history, became emblematic of the virginal—it was to be pure, untouched by the rather corruptible soma. a notion of purity became all-important (and therefore problematic), specifically in the context of women performers. in the current karnatik kacceri construct, the singer is seated on a platform erected on the stage, centrally and cross-legged. the microphone is placed in front of the singer on a stand, and the singer sings into it from this seated position. the accompanists are seated on either side of the singer, and overall there is little room for movement and gesture, except from the hands and head. further, the facial expressions that are usually observed are related more to the effort of singing rather that to the expressivity inhered in the soundings. for performers of the younger generation, such as myself, who wish to move and express themselves while singing, who wish to fully sensorially enjoy the sound, there is really no avenue to do so. while i do acknowledge that bodily awareness is not merely related to overtly perceived movement or gesture and can span those minutiae of internal movements that happen during singing as well as those moments of stillness, i do find that a negation of the corporeal has become a problem in karnatik music, and that it closely ties in with the classist and elitist framework that sadly sustains it. this issue of gestural freedom and women performers’ lack of this freedom is one of few pressing issues that i have raised in my doctoral thesis, and addressed through the artmaking itself—from an embodied, intercultural perspective (mani, 2019a). somaesthetics and sound71 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga sensing the organic body: a case of karnatik voice i expand on the context further, only to situate the importance and advocacy that an acknowledgement of bodily pain and pleasure in karnatik singing brings to this article. the spiritual nature of karnatik music was overemphasized during the nationalist rebranding of karnatik music, and the impersonal purity of the voice as the divine vehicle to attain godhead was played up, as if to compensate for the loss of the bodily involvement. the body was dubbed as a lesser, rather surface-level phenomenon, compared to the deeper truth of the brahman (the soul). however, it would be parsimonious to suggest that bodily involvement is lacking in karnatik music. on the contrary, the role of voice, in and as movement of the vocal apparatus, including the glottis and larynx, is strikingly apparent in the way the various ragas (karnatik melody types) and ornaments typical of them (gamakas) are delivered (durga, 1983). for instance, in case of the brigha, a characteristic ornamentation of karnatik music known for its lightning fast quality, vocal diminutions fall into fractional note values and scatter brilliantly like an inflorescence of sound, exemplifying the effective integration of prana (life force as breath) on the one hand, with the rapidly moving larynx and accompanying glottal closures on the other (mani, 2019a, pp. 170–179). likewise, in karnatik voice, a resonant sound is normative, and the larynx rises when the pitch increases, unlike western operatic voice culture in the romantic era and afterwards.1 these movements that reside behind the veneer of the outward-facing singing body are seldom mentioned, however, in music classes with a guru or in performance. a student of karnatik music is therefore left to undertake a lonely personal journey into perceiving the activities in their body, and often such a conscious “tuning into” one’s body is regarded as the nemesis of spontaneous performance. performance is considered by many a guru as one that is at the service of a greater musical tradition and technique; as one that needs to transcend the distracting body. the place of the body in current discourses on karnatik voice is arguably limited to mapping the emergence of the voice to the various yogic chakras (energy centers) in the body. the vishuddhi chakra located at the throat, known popularly in the west as the “throat chakra” is associated with the voice, and well-known karnatik compositions such as sobillu saptaswara of thyagaraja serve to reinstate in the minds of listeners and performers that the body is a receptacle that allows for the flow of divine sonic energy through its chakras (and therefore must not be regarded as a vessel of enjoyment and sensorial awareness). for instance, thyagaraja in this line from sobillu maps vocal sound to anatomy: nabhi, hrd, kantha, rasana, nasadula entho, sobhillu saptaswara [from the navel, to the throat, the nasal cavity, and through the mouth emanate the seven primary notes of music]. upon close reading and examination of the trends in vocal studies in karnatik music, and based on three decades’ worth of guru-led learning, conditioning, and performance in the field, i have come to understand that bodily awareness and body focus in the context of karnatik singing are barely mentioned in pedagogical, performative or academic contexts. when they are, it is discussed with a veneration, sometimes through the media of transcendence (proximate to 1 richard wistreich (2000) unpacks this aspect of laryngeal motion as a key difference between the pre-romantic and romantic styles of western vocal training. see also mani (2019b, pp. 410–417) for a comparative analysis of western voice and the karnatik voice, relating both also to movement. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 72 charulatha mani järviö’s (2006, p. 69) classification of the “subjective singing body”), and at other times through the lenses of vocal health and physiognomy (i.e., in terms of what järviö (2006, p. 69) refers to as the “objective body”) —seldom in its irrefutable role as the single most powerful bearer of corporeally experienced sensory feeling in a performer (proximate to järviö’s (2006, p. 69) classification of “organic body”). i have come to realize that approaches to keeping the vocal sound impersonal, in any way possible, are the only ones that are embraced and propagated in the current patriarchally-driven system. lived bodily experiences of participation in music-making are seldom acknowledged or shared in karnatik music, let alone written about in an academic context. this could partly be because the “organic singing body” is side-lined in preference to the pre-eminent, “disembodied” voice, as cultural anthropologist amanda weidman (2006) observes, particularly in the context of the feminine karnatik singing body. such a pointed ignoring of felt bodily experience is symptomatic of a greater issue—a sense of shame associated with the female performing body, as the rather limited but powerful niche of critical karnatik literature affirms (krishna, 2013; weidman, 2006). in approaches such as those of jacques dalcroze, however, bodily experiences are an aggregate of both the sound and bodily movements, and eminently pre-empt musical understanding— affectively and as motion (juntunen & hyvönen, 2004). in this line of approach, kinaesthetics are given a pride of place in feeling and communicating sound. in my earlier study of 2018, i demonstrated a connection between the aural, visual and kinesthetic in communicating karnatik raga using a customized tool, the “ragacurve,” and effectively combining it with hand gesture (mani, 2018a). as part of my doctoral study (2016–2019), across two different case studies, i harnessed the role of the singing soma as the fulcrum of reference in intercultural music-making between early opera and karnatik music (mani, 2018b; 2018c; 2019a). upon reflection on these projects, i now realize that i may have conferred on somaesthetics the power of activism by instating it as a tool to illustrate one means through which a feminist approach to karnatik voice may be undertaken. i worked on intercultural opera from the premise that my voice is very much rooted in my bodily connection to the world—as a colored woman and embodied performer. the affects induced in me and my bodily responses to these affects linked to my vocal expression. the outside temperature and the way my skin felt linked to my voice. the contour traced by my fingertips in the air as i processed the raga linked to my vocal awareness—as breath, as rasps, as sounds, and microtonal inflections typical of karnatik music ornamentation processes (gamakas). i would argue that my vocal sound became the ephemeral instantiation of the intensity of my soma in this world. i strove consciously to not regard my body as a conduit to the divine through the voice. further, i ensured that i did not attribute the sound to any yogic practice or to the belief that it may be linked to the divine energy, kundalini, rising as nada (sound). all these may very well be true of the voice—but for me, as an affective performer interested in the cross-modal potential of sound (küssner & leech-wilkinson, 2014), the vocal sound began and ended with my body, as it embraced it and allowed it to ripple through, to teach, and to learn; as it remained rooted in this world of sensory pleasure and pain. within this bodily embrace, the vital energy, the breath of life encircles—as prana, as järviö (2006, p. 70) rightly alludes to in referring to the vedic context of vocal sound. interestingly, thyagaraja, the famed karnatik composer-saint, wrote: prana anala samyogamu valla pranava nadamu sapta swaramulai bhava somaesthetics and sound73 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga [the fire of vital energy as breath gives rise to the primordial sound (nada) – forming seven notes and associated emotions.] the operative word that invites comment in the above line of text is bhava, meaning emotion. this text acknowledges that a deeper psychophysical factor that is felt, processed and reflected as sound by the singer’s body, is at play in the context of “sounding,” and inevitably enfolds the sound in a primarily body-sphere. etymology: soma a brief discussion and clarification of the meaning of the word soma is warranted here, not least due to the intercultural nature of this article’s subject matter. while soma in its greek avatar refers to the living corporeal body that is very much rooted in the world, soma in sanskrit is a vedic term that pertains to a few different things. firstly, the soma mandala section in the rig veda (regarded as the oldest of the vedas, over 4000 years old) refers to soma as a ritual drink. the plant from which the soma is extracted is also referred to as soma itself. soma also refers to the moon, and other hindu deities, including shiva (someshwara / somanatha). there seem to be, on the surface, no etymological links between the greek notion of soma, the body, and its sanskrit connotation, however, a deeper study might be warranted in this issue, given the history of proximity between the two ancient civilizations. for instance, the plant and the juice yielded from the plant are both soma—the cause and the resultant effect. a parallel may be drawn between the body and the sound—the yielder and the yield—soma. by this logic, the sound is the juice of the body, and is the essence in itself; a tangible soma, brewed to be felt and experienced cyclically by the body, as the source and product of being aware. a socio-semiotic understanding of the soma is also called for here, particularly in the context of a singing body steeped in the cultural traditions of karnatik music, now venturing into the domain of intercultural music-making. as waskul and vannini (2006, p. 10) note: “despite its essential biological nature, as soon as the body becomes an object of discourse it is invested with symbolic meaning and symbolic value – use-value, sign-value, exchange-value… through the functioning of a discursive and material order.” the sound made, felt and processed by this cultural signifier soma is embossed in such a soma with its own socio-semiotic signature. in an interactionist paradigm of intercultural music-making, a combination of socio-culturally contingent bodily responses to the sound and sonic responses to the body consciousness cascade through one another—creating ripples which, i believed, established an ecosystem of “philosophy of intercultural music-making” for me in dialogue with a “philosophy of embodied singing” (montero, 2006, p. 976). bodily habit, voice, and mapping models for vocal somaesthetics recent publications in the field of cultural musicology that draw on the nexus between sound, bodily senses, materiality and signification include those by eidsheim (2015) and neumark (2010). adding to this very valuable corpus is the emerging work of anne tarvainen, one of the few researchers currently working at the unique junction of singing and somaesthetics. tarvainen (2018a, p. 121) attempts to define the context for voice and the somaesthetics principles that jointly reside here; she notes: “vocal somaesthetics will be interested in the bodily sensations of what it feels like to vocalize.” the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 74 charulatha mani in proposing a direction for vocal somaesthetics, tarvainen (2018a, p. 122) observes “instead of focusing on the acoustic or physiological facts in vocalizing, i suggest that vocal somaesthetics will prioritize the study and cultivation of the bodily-vocal experiences instead – the inside perspective to human vocality.” she proposes that both affective and motional dimensions of vocalizing are activated when turning one’s focus to the bodily feelings in the “act of singing.” she goes on to note: “becoming aware of these shifts [in bodily focus while singing] and learning to use them consciously is one of the lessons somaesthetics can teach us.” (2018a, p. 134). drawing on anne tarvainen’s (2018b, p. 105) call for a “diversity of experiences and bodies” as a means of “broadening and democratizing” singing, i may be offering one approach to answer the following question, which has been a contentious issue in karnatik voice for over a century now: how can we democratize karnatik singing so that it is a form of aesthetic expression that is evolving, equitable, non-gendered, and embodied—for both affective and motional dimensions of voicing to thrive? in cultivating a bodily habit of linking vocalizing to gesture and unified bodily movement, i looked to the vast body of literature on embodiment, singing and its intersections with shusterman's ideas of body awareness. i wished to attune to my bodily feelings—prephysiovocality as somatic perception—to work on them, thereby resisting the pre-formed restrictive habits and patterns which i felt have hitherto hampered my free singing. shusterman (2012, pp. 66, 189) argues that even racial hostility is an encrusted phenomenon that builds over time due to bodily experience and not necessarily practical reasoning. singing for me, in my mind, has always been a dynamic process, however, i was shaped by a controlling patriarchal social construct in the field of karnatik music, and my body was habituated to those sociocultural regulations—a sense of disembodied voice was ingrained in me as i have unpacked in mani (2017). these regulations have restricted women performers from acknowledging and feeling comfortable with their bodies in the field of indian music. to interrogate these encrusted habits and further, to acquire a sense of reconciliation and peace with my singerly body, and to explore the implications of body-mind dimensions of yogic practice on singing, i turned to somaesthetics as an approach to the piece “sonic river”. the primary aim of this study is to apply somaesthetics as a tool to access the bodily sensations related to vocalizing, and further as a key to unlock an awareness of yoga–music connection in being thus aware of the body. the study also aims to instate gestural and sensorial freedom in karnatik singing, and to demonstrate the intercultural and cross-modal correspondences afforded by somaesthetics as a discipline. for, as eidsheim (2015, p. 124) calls for: “there is another way of thinking about signification [of the sounding body] in relation to the body's actions,” and through somaesthetics, i sought to explore this way. methodology drawing on tarvainen (2018a, 2018b), in this, the latter part of this essay, i share both the affective and motional body sensations that i felt in composing and co-singing “sonic river”. in doing so, i describe to the reader, how these realizations derived from the body became loci of learning and self-improvement in my life as a singer. also, as i explained earlier, the very act of acknowledging and sharing these bodily sensations in singing was therapeutic and liberating for me as a female karnatik singer, and makes a strong point to the broader scholarly and performance community—a way of engaging with feminist activism using vocal somaesthetics as the tool. somaesthetics and sound75 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga for the methodology to unpack the creation and singing process of “sonic river,” i referred to the various ideas adumbrated in the recently available somatic toolkit materials from spatz (2019). i was increasingly attuning to my body and had developed a habit of journaling my bodily feelings through my immersion in the somatic processes. i employed this method to record my impressions—through the processes of composition and recording. i also drew on an experiential free-flowing writing style as my signature form of expression in the journals. i had reflective conversations with srimathumitha on her yoga-based interpretation of the perception of sound, i referred to her journal entries and analyzed them for key themes based on their resonances with my own perceived reflections. she had also begun journaling regularly and shared her ideas with me over a period of a few months, as we awaited the joint recording. i composed the piece between january and february 2019, and along with srimathumitha, i sang and recorded the work in may 2019. my journal entries would often unfold as autoethnographic stories of my body coming face to face with sonic reality (bartleet & ellis, 2009). the sung sound and the received impulse, in juxtaposition, would feedback to one another like an overlapping dialogic exchange between two kindred spirits. as shusterman (2013, p. 8) observes: the advocacy of somatic training for wisdom and virtue is even more striking in asian philosophical traditions, where self-cultivation includes a distinctive bodily dimension developed through ritual and artistic practice (both conceived in highly embodied terms) and through specifically somatic training (such as disciplines of breathing, yoga, zen meditation, and martial arts) that aim at instilling proper body-mind harmony, proper demeanor, and superior skill for appropriate action. srimathumitha’s yoga immersion and my embodied karnatik styled composition both fall into the categories identified in shusterman (2013), however, this article is not only about vindicating the good aspects of such tradition, but interrogating and thwarting the controlling aspects of such tradition, as expressed in the earlier section about the prevailing attitudes towards the karnatik singing body. in relation to certain key narration points in the analysis that follows, i have referenced a time-pointer from the recording. listening to the clip at these specified times while reading the narrative/reflection that speaks to it might help the reader orient themselves to our worlds of bodily sensation, readjustment, rediscovery, habituation and learning. analysis: reflections and realizations in and from the creative process using bodily sensations as the central lens, i present my analysis across four themes: readjustment, rediscovery, habituation and learning (see figure 1). these themes naturally unfolded as srimathumitha and i journeyed towards the realization of “sonic river,” in tandem, and accessed our hitherto untapped sonic and somatic worlds. they have been derived from a thematic analysis of the reflective journal entries that resulted from examining the self during the “arriving” (into the body through breath, body scan, and awareness) and “yielding” (allowing the self to sensitize to the ecologies) processes, as understood from the somatics toolkit (spatz, 2019; ashley, 2019), and of reflections of various stages of body scanning. by situating them within relevant literature, i could gain a three-dimensional view of the process-product-senses prism in the analysis section across the four key themes that have been identified here as readjustment, rediscovery, habituation, and learning. i observed a chronological order in their unfolding, however, it must be noted that several micro-elements that formed the processual framework underwent these stages of maturity in a staged manner that rendered the macroeffect cascading rather than monotonously linear. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 76 charulatha mani figure 1: analysis framework for “sonic river” across musical composition, vocal delivery, and yogic flow 1. readjustment shusterman (2012, pp. 327–330) proposes the idea of conscious proprioception (in the context of dance), the cultivation of an ability to inform oneself of one’s movements and an awareness of how various practices—such as body scan and reflective corporeal practice—can improve one’s ability to focus on one’s body. i found that when i focused on my body and its responses to what i was experiencing as sound, the singing became freer. i was no longer a slave to my vocal limitations, to the conventional rules of the karnatik kacceri system that rendered me rooted to the ground in a sitting position, and to those doubts in my mind that questioned my physiovocal fitness to execute a complex passage. my journal entry dated february 2, 2019, demonstrates my frame of mind at the time of composing. i found, in many instances, that the complexity of the passage became trivial in comparison to the joyful fluidity that being conscious of my body’s musical movement afforded me. while, for pauline oliveros the listening of sounds and sonic minutiae became a source of bodily comfort, for me, awareness and relaxation through bodily awareness and proprioception translated into a comparable sense of comfort and flow in the singing. in my two decades of traditional karnatik singing practice i had not experienced such a sense of comfort and effortlessness in singing. my journal entry made during the time of composing, (a term that i have coined and explained earlier as a form of composing through singing and bodily awareness as the tools) yields an operative phrase: “mindless,” in the following entry from my journal dated february 13, 2019: somaesthetics and sound77 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga where am i in the raga contour?—i am unaware. what is the ornament blossoming?—i am unaware. i am blissfully and mindlessly unaware of anything except my good old body. the torso and the arms are the heralds, the hands that rise up as if they are drawing on the very depths of the universe to gather with love, a visceral energy, are a receptacle of ‘nada’ the divine sound championed by the body. it’s ok… it’s fine to just be the music. to allow, give, yield, feel, embrace, flow, fall, surrender, and then take control without force. with only effortless intent born from being aware. it felt to me that composing became a way to approach creativity through voice, embodied understanding of melody, and a composure through bodily and sensorial awareness. somaesthetics was the key that unlocked this holistic experience, a sense of composing not only the music and being aware of the text, but also composing and conditioning the body in tune with the sound. in the journaled passage above, i also reference the notion of “yielding” in somatic practice, drawing on tamara ashley’s (2019) work with the somatics toolkit. in all my years as a karnatik singer, i was longing to break with tradition, yet hadn’t quite calculated the pathway to it. through this practice, i found that i was allowing myself to experience that redrawing of the horizons of freeness of state from the interstices of effort, yielding, and readjustment. 2. rediscovery the rediscovery, for me, happened across two levels: my discovering my musical idiom again, using my body consciousness as a tool, and my understanding the deeper relationships that i nurtured unacknowledged to myself until then, with my voice. during the composition phase, i would begin my sessions by extending my arms as wide as possible, and embrace the warrior poses—extending my torso while energizing my legs and spine. i would then regroup, and go into the reverse warrior; as i flowed from one mode of being into another, i would imagine the raga under consideration, saramati, as space (mani, 2014). the minor third and the minor sixth notes of the raga carve out the fundamental gamut. i would think of these as my twin nodes as i warmed-up to the space that they metaphorically enfolded. in translationally imagining this space as my bodily extension i would become aware of the raga contour as gesture and the rise and fall of the sanskrit syllables in their long (dirgha) and short (hrsva) forms as key postures that connect the raga trajectory, in line with godøy’s (2017) study of the gestural qualities of music. i imagined and composed the harmonies for the vocal line as a canon. i would feel them as ripples of warmth and light coursing through my body. the intercultural nature of the work unfolded in this dimension. as i ventured into the western domains of harmony, counterpoint, contrary motion and a “rounds” styled form, i realized that who i had become—a migrant music researcher in an australian conservatoire—had habituated me to newer approaches to my own music. i nominate the journal entry dated february 23, 2019, as an effective example of the cross-modal correspondence that ensued between my body, my imagined sound and my voice, in this intercultural paradigm: i feel music as space, as depth, as texture, as mutable gelatinous substance, as the surf in the ocean and as photons of light. i swim in this sea of song. my soma is one with the ephemeral. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 78 charulatha mani how can i explain the intimacy of feelings of music in my heart. i give way to tears in sheer abandon. i cry unhindered. as tears flow, i think of the elusive beauty of music. as i sing my vision is blurry with tears. i think, ‘if only i could grasp this beauty through the film of tears!’ but i cannot—not through words, not as tears, not through the musical symbols. only through action, through feeling it as motion, as space, as particles of conscious energy, can i try. the essentially monodic (a single line of sound at a time) nature of the human voice has its advantages and limitations. the advantage is that it allows for a listening of the produced sound and an imagining of such sound as a layer in a greater musical landscape that a single musicking body can only imagine. the limitation is that the materiality of the other sonic layers cannot be produced in-situ by the same body. the body then relies solely on embodied cognition to “mirror” the other layers, in itself (cox, 2011). this way of looking at harmonized western music was new to me, owing to my essentially monody-based karnatik background (krishna, 2013), but i regarded this as an opportunity to evoke a cross-modal awareness in my sounding and listening abilities. i would sometimes use a piano accompaniment to create a vertical sonic space—a variety of tonal color. a combined awareness of the body, the raga and the effects that the singing and harmonizing produced across the affective and motional dimensions of my existence at the time, together informed the composition (available here). 3. habituation a key theme that emerged as a critical product of the analysis was habituation, particularly for srimathumitha, who was forging those mind-body-music connections through yoga. before the recording of the piece, i shared my vocal interpretation and a score with her. i provided my vocal sketch as a home recording made with a tanpura2 in the background. i was keen to learn how she perceived the sound, given her yoga expertise and embodied sonic practice. while i turned to my body to help me fathom the sonic potential of the combination of the ancient sanskrit text (shabda) and its relationship to the raga saramati and harmony, she had noted that she would “approach the work firstly through her bodily listening and movements, as yogic poses, and then realize it” through her voice. in the initial weeks of engaging with the composition, srimathumitha reflected in her journal entry dated march 4, 2019: yoga itself means yuj or a bind. it is a state of being. not being scattered but streamlined. i listen to my body, i go into a state of pratyahara (tuning the senses inward rather than outward). when i do so, the noise is very less and what remains for me is the music and my singerly state of being. in parallel, i had tuned into my senses—tactile, kinesthetic, even olfactory—to awaken my relationship to the raga contour (harrison, 2019). as shusterman (2012, p. 4) notes, it was a case of attuning to “one’s philosophy through one’s own bodily example, expressing it through one’s manner of living.” until then music and singing had been separate from my lifestyle and bodily identity. through this experiential engagement, i may have found a way to link these spheres of personal and professional identity. srimathumitha then writes of the process that she undertook in unpacking sonic river (entry dated march 10, 2019): 2 the tanpura is a drone characteristic of indian music. the tonic, fifth and the octave notes (swaras) sound in succession to one another through this plucked instrument and give rise to a substrate-cum-zone for music-making. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12muw_ln4gma5cgo-qmltt0fzyoarkfzq/view somaesthetics and sound79 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga when i listened to sonic river being sung out with the harmonies i initially felt peace and flow. i then imagined it as a sonic embodiment of my bodily awareness and composed a yogic flow for it. as i did that, my body sang. in the same entry, she continues to share the correspondences of her yogic practice with the opening of the piece as “om shreem,” audible in the time bracket 2” to 22”: i kept going back to chest opening asanas (poses). for me, this piece facilitated opening of the anahata (heart chakra). the piece opens with "om shreem." traditionally, shreem directly addresses goddess lakshmi who is seated on a pink lotus flower. it symbolizes feminine power and a very powerful flow of the feminine energy. the blooming of lotus is associated with the opening of the heart and this is exactly what came to my mind when i flowed bodily for sonic river. i became the lotus in a sea of sound. mantras (sanskrit chants) such as shreem are specifically designed ancient sounds constituting syllables that act on specific bodily chakras. they create vibrations that act upon and strengthen the prana (life force) at that particular site in the body. shreem is one such mantra referring to abundance, grace, beauty, however, its sonic activation (for srimathumitha) is linked to bodily exploration. srimathumitha maps certain asanas (yogic postures) to the flow of music. a yogic vinyasa flow is here being likened to the flow of musical contour (journal entry dated march 12, 2019): chest opening poses like anjaneyasana (figure 2), eka pada vyagarasana (figure 3), bhujangasana and natrajasana (figure 4) automatically found their way into my body. instead of just my mind being immersed in the singing, now my body was actively engaging with and expressing the notes, sounds and all the different emotions that i felt. i think this is a very sacred and visceral space to get into for singers. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 80 charulatha mani figure 2: upward gliding through octave inspires anjaneyasana for srimathumitha figure 3: eka paada vyaagrasana (one-legged tiger pose) somaesthetics and sound81 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga figure 4: natrajasana (the dancer’s pose) is an uprising of the body in tune with the sound 4. learning through the trope of learning, i analyzed those moments when srimathumitha and i both felt settled and centered, exuding a feeling of having assimilated the key outcomes from our journey with “sonic river” thus far. for my part, i felt a great sense of wellness and emotional stability while composing this piece, as well as while recording the final version of it in the voices of srimathumitha and myself. during composition, the harmonies between the second and fifth scale degrees used to give me horripilation. i recall feeling the rush of warmth in my skin in those moments of arousal during the composition phase. the sessions of composing sometimes took place in my garden. it was the rainy season here in brisbane, and this journal entry dated february 24, 2019, contextualizes my heightened sensorial awareness: i feel cool earth as i touch the mud. the lower fith seeps into my being like a root taking form. it is indeed the harmony of the body-earth. i bend forward. i am emboldened by the texture of the earth. i am aware of its wetness in my fingers. i steady myself and embrace the lower fith, travelling with my spine turning upwards. my feet dig deep into the soil. i am rooted, and i grow. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 82 charulatha mani the section that sonically captures the moments described in the above journal entry occurs between 47” and 1’05”. these moments in the recording are followed by 30 seconds of voicelessness—the tambura alone filling the aural space. in parallel, srimathumitha describes her bodily mapping of the final section of the piece (2’10” onwards to the end) to the anjaneyasana (see figure 1) harmonies translated into imagining my body coming into a beautiful pose. the anjaneyasana inspired me at the end of sonic river where my body mirrors the upward gliding of the raga from the second to the octave. it overshoots the octave, only to return to it and unite. the flow into anjaneyasana is similar. as the arms rise, i feel the chest opening. my throat feels open. my arms are raised. a beautiful backbend unfolds from the lower back. the hip is also open. after a few days of immersing herself in the piece, she noted (journal entry dated february 27, 2019): my body is so tuned in to following the sound and the sound is so tuned in to following the body. this forms a beautiful cycle of listening to myself. it is not about attaining anything but being in the best possible state of existence physically and mentally at any given moment in time. during the final recording srimathumitha and i had conversations about our singular journeys into the piece, comparing notes across various sections and taking in the wholeness of the experience. we both tapped into the embedded multisensorial memories in the body (harrison, 2019, pp. 8–9). she frequently revisited her asana photographs. this final recording (available here) is shared in the context of this paper and holds the encrusted memories of process. it references the physiovocal philosophies of voice as witnessed in the work of voice studies and sound studies by scholar nina sun eidsheim (2015), albeit in a subtle way. the interaction—between voice, sound, the body and its state of being through which it achieves comfort and performativity—emerges as a fascinating locus of further research in somaesthetics, sound studies, and cultural studies. conclusions in summation, shusterman’s (2012, p. 26) key idea that the body is “the basic instrument of all human performance, our tool of tools, a necessity for all our perception, action and even thought” was explored through voice-led composing and singing in the piece “sonic river.” using this experience as a lens, i could suggest that if a composer/singer had to express a philosophy of life as practice, or an aesthetic of living as a singerly being, then the approach shared here could be a plausible and effective exemplar. the character of sound as an aggregate of thought, perception, movement, and affect, has come to mark the philosophies of musical and orally transmitted subject matters, including the vedas, across a wide variety of cultures. shusterman (2013) differentiated between analytical, pragmatic and practical somaesthetics in his noteworthy essay. these distinctive paradigms from somaesthetics could be mapped to sound and music-making. in the same essay, he makes a clear case for somaesthetics as a bridging philosophy between theory and practice, not least because the currently emerging discipline studies “the living, feeling, sentient body” theoretically, while also advancing methods to implement practical approaches to “improving specific somatic skills of performance” https://drive.google.com/file/d/12muw_ln4gma5cgo-qmltt0fzyoarkfzq/view somaesthetics and sound83 composing awareness: approaching somaesthetics through voice and yoga through “somatic understanding and awareness” (shusterman, 2013, p. 16). contextualizing this statement in the current context, in adopting a greater sensitivity towards the soma—while composing and singing with enhanced awareness—i believe that i may have achieved a greater sense of fulfilment, as an artist-academic who approaches research in creativity using her body as a central tool. through this journey i was also able to interrogate the established patriarchy in the karnatik music of south india through the idiom of movement, within sound (as harmony) and through sound (as the movement of the singing and the yoga-engaged body). bodily knowledge marks artistic research, “research done by artists in, through, or by means of their artistic practice” (kirkkopelto, 2017, p. 134). as an artist-researcher whose practice is very much rooted in voice and its embodied vocality, i found that somaesthetics could be a method, product, and rationale. for, as lilja (2015, p. 56) observes, “in artistic research there are no standard methods. we have a great acceptance for individual or genre specific methods and the evolution of methods over time during the process of work and research.” somaesthetics has a good ally in artistic research and vice-versa. drawing on my experiences in this study, i recommend that karnatik music performance practice open its doors to somatic approaches to free itself from the imposed conventions that have rendered its identity rather dissociated from the body. i also call for more research in the fertile intersections that i have identified here, namely artistic research and somaesthetics, and singing and yoga. this paper anticipates a greater and rewarding application of somaesthetics in the contexts of music, voice studies, and sound studies. acknowledgments a heartfelt acknowledgement to the contributions of singer and yoga practitioner srimathumitha to this creative endeavor. i would also like to thank the recording engineers at surang studios, chennai, india for their mixing and mastering of “sonic river.” references ashley, t. 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(2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. shusterman, r. (2013). body and the arts: the need for somaesthetics. diogenes, 59 (1–2), 6–20. spatz, b. (2019). somatics toolkit: core practice body basics—arriving. retrieved from http:// somaticstoolkit.coventry.ac.uk/ tarvainen, a. (2018a). singing, listening, proprioceiving: some reflections on vocal somaesthetics. in r. shusterman (ed.), aesthetic experience and somaesthetics (pp. 120–42). leiden & boston: brill. tarvainen, a. (2018b). democratizing singing: somaesthetic reflections on vocality, deaf voices, and listening. pragmatism today 9(1), 91–108. thomaidis, k. (2013). the vocal body. in: s. reeve, (ed.), body and performance. exeter: triarchy press (pp. 85–98). waskul, d. d., & vannini, p. (eds.) (2006). body/embodiment: symbolic interaction and the sociology of the body. new york, ny: routledge. weidman, a. (2006). singing the classical, voicing the modern: the postcolonial politics of music in south india. durham, nc: duke university press. wistreich, r. (2000). reconstructing pre-romantic singing technique. in j. potter (ed.), the cambridge companion to singing (pp. 178–191). cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. https://youtu.be/9szmfvthqmq https://youtu.be/_8cx4kmwnm4 http://hdl.handle.net/10072/386762 http://hdl.handle.net/10072/386762 http://somaticstoolkit.coventry.ac.uk/ http://somaticstoolkit.coventry.ac.uk/ introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 8 page 8–23anne tarvainen music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: overview of the literature anne tarvainen abstract: during the last ten years, somaesthetics has been increasingly applied in studies of music, sound, and the voice. in this overview, i will map out the most interesting articles and books in this field after briefly introducing somaesthetics and considering how its various dimensions could be utilized in issues related to sound and music. in addition, i will discuss the role of the body in previous academic approaches to music. in the first main section of the article, i will introduce some texts by richard shusterman, the developer of somaesthetics, in which he deals with music, sound, and the voice. after that, i will present the writings of other scholars who apply somaesthetics in their music-, sound-, and voice-related approaches. this article is intended to give an overview, not to comprehensively deal with the content of these texts, and to offer some entry points for readers interested in applying somaesthetics to research and/or artistic practices involving music, sound, and the voice. keywords: music, sound, voice, body, embodiment, somaesthetics, musicology, music education. somaesthetics is a line of philosophy introduced by the american philosopher richard shusterman in the 1990s (see, e.g., shusterman, 1999b, 2008, 2012c). it has been particularly influenced by john dewey’s pragmatism as well as the philosophies of maurice merleau-ponty, michel foucault, simone de beauvoir, ludwig wittgenstein, and william james, among others (shusterman, 2008). one of the main ideas of somaesthetics is that bodily experience can be cultivated. by practicing body consciousness, one can free oneself from harmful bodily manners and improve one’s overall quality of life. shusterman suggests that a researcher working in the field of somaesthetics should not only approach things analytically but also critically examine the physical practices of our culture, suggest new forms of somatic conventions, and put them into practice. therefore, in addition to analytic and theoretical considerations, somaesthetics involves pragmatic examination and practical implementation of bodily disciplines (shusterman, 2012c, p. 42–45). analytic somaesthetics examines the nature of bodily experiences and practices and how knowledge and reality are constructed in them. this field deals with body-related ontological and epistemological issues as well as socio-political considerations, such as bodily norms somaesthetics and sound9 music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: overview of the literature (shusterman, 1999b, p. 304; 2012c, p. 42). in research on sound and music, this could mean, for example, critically analyzing the experiences and conventions of producing and listening to sound as well as discussing the relationship of sound to the environment, culture, social practices, power, and norms. pragmatic somaesthetics is prescriptive and suggests new kinds of somatic practices and methods. in addition, it involves critical review of existing somatic methods and proposes potential improvements. (shusterman, 1999b, pp. 304–305; 2012c, pp. 42–43) in regard to sound and music, pragmatic somaesthetics may critically examine, for example, methods of playing instruments, singing, and teaching music. also, practices of listening as well as the physical and experiential aspects of different sonic environments may be evaluated, and new innovations may be proposed. furthermore, new ways of developing our sonic culture may be proposed to better serve our bodies, aesthetic tendencies, and well-being. the third dimension of somaesthetics is practical, and it concerns the actual practice of somatic methods and self-development through them. the practical dimension has been largely excluded from previous academic philosophy. (shusterman, 1999b, p. 307; 2012c, p. 45) somaesthetics differs from earlier philosophical approaches to the body, as the researcher or philosopher is encouraged to act bodily and put into practice and test the somatic methods and conventions he or she is exploring. in studies on sound and music, this can come very naturally, as many researchers already have a background in the field they are studying, such as music, theater, or sound design. the somatic nature of sound and music may be self-evident to musicians. the embodiment of music is tangible, as arnold berleant (2002), a scholar of philosophy and music, highlights: musical sounds are more than auditory sensations; they are produced in some way, executed by the bow of a stringed instrument, a person’s breath into a woodwind or brass instrument, the movement of fingers on piano keys, or hands and feet on the organ. (pp. 92–93) in academic approaches to sound and music, this has not been so obvious. in the past, the embodiment of music has been largely ignored or seen only as a metaphorical phenomenon. it has been common to think of music as something located in a musical work and to approach it visually with the help of notation. music has also been seen as a direct communication from the composer’s mind to the listener’s mind, and the importance of the body in this communication has often been overlooked (maus, 2010, pp. 15–16, see also cusick, 1994, p. 16). music historian and musicologist suzanne cusick (1994) writes, as a performer, i act on and with what we ordinarily call music with my body; as a musicologist i have been formed to act on (and with?) what we ordinarily call music with my mind, and only with my mind. (p. 9) according to cusick, the body has been ignored in music. this is related to the mind/body problem that still deeply affects western culture. according to her, this denial of the body has theological, moral, and classand gender-related causes in our culture. (cusick, 1994, p. 16) since then, musical sounds and the body have been taken into consideration in research. often, though, sounds have been approached as an acoustic, measurable phenomenon and the the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 10 anne tarvainen body has been approached as a physiological entity. the perception of sound and music has been explained by cognitive research and neuroscience. when examining the effects of music on body, physiological and measurable impacts on heart rate, breathing, blood flow, or brain function are often considered. these are fascinating approaches to the physicality of music and sound, but as i see it, it is necessary to consider the bodily experience, especially the aesthetic experience, to complement them. in the fields of phenomenological and feminist musicology, as well as sound and voice studies, embodied and aesthetic experiences have gained a foothold (e.g., clifton, 1983; eidsheim, 2015; jankélévitch, 2003; le guin, 2005; sudnow, 1993; thomaidis & macpherson, 2015). some of these approaches have features that are comparable to somaesthetics, although they are not explicitly related to it. this comparison is relevant, given the strong link between somaesthetics and the traditions of phenomenology and sociology. these are some of the fields to which somaesthetic studies of sound and music could relate in the future. i suggest that we rethink our established ideas of sound and music with the help of somaesthetics. for example, in western thinking, some elements of music (e.g., rhythm) are traditionally understood as more bodily than others (e.g., harmony, melody). in formalist theories of music in particular, rhythm has traditionally been seen as less important than melody or harmony. joel rudinow (2010), a philosopher of music, wonders if this is because melody and harmony tend to contain “higher frequencies” and are therefore perceived to be more “mental,” while the rhythm is somehow perceived as more “bodily” (p. 110). with the help of somaesthetics, such generalizations in the traditions of music and philosophy can be challenged by examining sound and music in the body in more subtle and comprehensive ways. rhythm is undoubtedly a bodily element, and it is always present in our bodies, for example, in the form of heartbeats and breathing. however, different pitches and timbres also manifest in our bodies in palpable ways. for example, a singer senses different vowels and pitches in different ways throughout the body; open vowels and lower pitches are felt more in larger cavities, such as the chest cavity, while closed vowels and higher pitches resonate more strongly in smaller cavities, such as the nose and forehead. thus, it is not only rhythm, but various qualities of sounds, that are felt in the body. shusterman’s observations on music, sound, and the voice in shusterman’s thinking, sound, especially music, has been a relevant theme for a long time. unlike most other philosophers, he does not use music and sound only as metaphors, but writes about them as concrete practices, revealing their real bodily origins and consequences. his analyses cover not only individual bodies but also the somatic aspects of sound and music in regard to culture, society, values, and power. shusterman’s philosophy offers a lot of intriguing entry points for researchers, philosophers, pedagogues, composers, musicians, and sound artists who want to increase their understanding of the embodied aspects of sound and music. he has written about music, especially to highlight the aesthetic value of popular art, which has long been recognized in popular music research but not in the fields of philosophy and aesthetics. therefore, shusterman’s mission to illuminate the aesthetic potential of popular music within the philosophical debate has been most welcome. one of shusterman’s most well-known texts is his article “the fine art of rap,” which was first published as an essay in the journal new literary history in 1991 (shusterman, 1991). an expanded version of the article appeared later in his book pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art (shusterman, 1992a), and again a few years later in his book performing live: somaesthetics and sound11 music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: overview of the literature aesthetic alternatives for the ends of arts (shusterman, 2000b). the latter book also contained an article on country music that was also published a year earlier in the journal of aesthetics and art criticism (shusterman, 1999a; 2000a). in the above texts, shusterman provides insightful aesthetic analyses of these two genres of music. in one of his interviews, shusterman said that he wanted to bring forth “the aesthetic qualities, values, and strategies of this [country] music” (väkevä, 2000, p. 9). when talking about his analysis of rap music, he highlighted the embodied essence of the music in both its production and appreciation (väkevä, 2000, p. 7). throughout his career, shusterman has written numerous articles related to rap music (1992d; 1992e; 1995a; 1995b; 2005), including a two-part version of “the fine art of rap” in the journal of rap and hip hop culture (1992b, 1992c). later, shusterman’s discussion on rap music inspired other writers, like robert dobrowolski (2012), who wrote “sampling (no)body,” and max ryynänen (in press), whose article “living beauty, rethinking rap: shusterman’s philosophy of hip hop revisited” will soon be published in the journal of comparative literature and aesthetics. shusterman has a solid pragmatist view of the value of art as embodied practices that are intertwined with our daily lives. according to him, by examining popular and world music, we can distance ourselves from the western tradition, which sees music as “transcendental works of genius” (väkevä 2000, p. 6). instead, we should approach music from the perspectives of playing, performing, and listening—the actual practices of music (väkevä, 2000, p. 6) in his article “form and funk: the aesthetic challenge of popular art,” shusterman (2000d) argues, “my deweyan pragmatism makes me not only critical of the alienating esoterism and totalizing claims of high art, but acutely suspicious of any essential and unbridgeable divide between its products and those of popular culture” (p. 169). shusterman also discusses the democratization of art in his 2002 article “from natural roots to cultural radicalism: pragmatist aesthetics in alain locke and john dewey,” which was included in his book surface and depth: dialectics of criticism and culture. in this article, which was written in the spirit of pragmatism, he addresses music from the perspective of its functional value. for example, music can have a “dance value” in contexts where it is used for dancing (shusterman, 2002b, pp. 131, 134) shusterman does not hold on to conventional forms of aesthetic appreciation in each musical genre. instead, in his other article from 2002, “home alone? self and other in somaesthetics and ‘performing live’,” he addresses how different kinds of music are used and experienced diversely in our everyday lives. for example, classical music can play in elevators, and rock can be listened to in an academic setting, in which listeners sit quietly and contemplatively (shusterman, 2002c, p. 103). what about the role of somaesthetics in the field of aesthetics? in his 1999 article introducing somaesthetics, shusterman explains how somaesthetics, with its embodied insights, could complement the established aesthetics of different art forms: we can easily see, for example, how somaesthetics’ improvement of sensory acuity, muscular movement, and experiential awareness could fruitfully contribute to the understanding and practice of traditional arts like music, painting, and dance […], and how it could also enhance our appreciation of the natural and constructed environments that we navigate and inhabit. (shusterman, 1999b, p. 308) the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 12 anne tarvainen as mentioned earlier, somaesthetics can be seen as not only an analytic consideration of bodily practices but also as having constituent pragmatic and practical dimensions (shusterman, 2012c, pp. 42–45). in addition to studying bodily–aesthetic actions and experiences, shusterman (2008) emphasizes the need for their practical cultivation (2008, pp. 1, 6–7). in this sense, i believe that somaesthetics could have particular potential for the development of music pedagogies and music education. in his 2012 article “body and the arts: the need for somaesthetics,” shusterman argues that practicing music is not just about mechanically absorbing external bodily habits into the body. he highlights how sensing sound, especially rhythm, is a profound ability of our bodies that is related to our body rhythms, such as heart rate, respiratory rhythm, and muscle function: “underlying such embodied musical phenomena is, i think, a more basic idea: our sense of timing and rhythm are based ultimately on somatic experiences such as the beating of our hearts, the rhythms of breathing and regular muscular contractions” (shusterman, 2012b, p. 15). shusterman (2012b) points out that we need our bodies—our hands, feet, and voices—to produce music, just as we need our bodies to appreciate it (shusterman, 2012b, p. 15). this may sound self-evident, but the academic research on music has not always noted this fact. in western music culture, the body is still largely seen as an instrument. this view separates the body and mind and elevates the role of the mind as a “leader.” shusterman’s somaesthetics, however, profoundly questions this simplification of the body as mere matter without agency (shusterman, 2012c). somaesthetics also offers opportunities for developing sound production so that such practices are healthier and less stressful for the body. in his article “thinking through the body, educating for the humanities: a plea for somaesthetics,” shusterman (2006) wrote on the development of bodily habits, which are not simply mechanical repetitions but require cultivation of true somatic consciousness, among musicians. shusterman has written more about somatic methods than the voice or music themselves, although they have long been recurrent themes in his thinking. he has stated, if i devote less time to the somaesthetics of music than to disciplines of body awareness (such as feldenkrais method), it is not out of disrespect for music but because i believe that other philosophers will want to perform such work on music and can do so as well or better than i can. (shusterman, 2002c, p. 103) along with the texts mentioned here, shusterman has written about music in the context of popular culture aesthetics (e.g., shusterman, 2003, 2012a), and social action (shusterman, 2014). he has also highlighted the significance of music in confucian philosophy, which understands music as something that creates order and “purifies the inner mind” (shusterman, 2012a, p. 112). his text on music in confucian philosophy later inspired james garrison (2015), who wrote more broadly about this subject in his article “reconsidering richard shusterman’s somaesthetics: the confucian debate between mèng zǐ and xún zǐ.” of particular interest to researchers of music is shusterman’s (2010) article in the special issue of action, criticism & theory for music education, which focuses on somaesthetics and music. in this article, shusterman comments on other articles on the same issue and discusses, among other things, the extent to which the performer’s and listener’s experiences of music are different or similar and whether there is some symmetry between them. he brings up the theory of mirror neurons and embodied empathy associated with listening, which would indicate some kind of symmetry. he also highlights how peoples’ experiences of the same work of art can differ somaesthetics and sound13 music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: overview of the literature and still be equally accurate and authentic (shusterman, 2010). in addition to organized sound (i.e., music), shusterman has also made innovative insights into less organized sounds and vocalizations. he points out that while vocality is an essential part of our embodiment and aesthetic perceptions, it is not limited to speech and singing; there are a wide variety of different bodily sounds that express our embodied style and bodily processes. shusterman writes, our auditory appreciation of somatic style goes beyond the voice of speech. there are styles of laughing – like the deep and easy full-bodied guffaw or the tense yet uncontrollably explosive and repetitive high-pitched giggle – and ways of crying or sighing that contribute to a person’s somatic style […]. the sounds of somatic style include also ways of coughing, gasping, sneezing, grunting, burping, and snoring. (shusterman, 2012c, p. 327) this insight opens a completely new set of visions and possibilities for researchers of the human voice. one does not have to focus only on certain vocal sounds used in speech or singing, but can expand his/her perspective to the whole spectrum of sounds that the human body can produce. and, most importantly, one does not have to focus only on the auditive aspects of these sounds. instead, one can broaden investigations to the sensations that these sounds evoke and the aesthetic potential these experiences have. in addition to these approaches, somaesthetics offers a fertile theoretical frame for looking at the ways in which these sounds are controlled and cultured and how we deal with unwanted bodily sounds in our everyday lives. such analyses on bodily sounds have been carried out before in the field of sound research (e.g., connor, 2014; labelle, 2014), but i believe that somaesthetics could add something to this stream of literature, especially from the experiential point of view. in his article “somaesthetics and the fine art of eating,” shusterman (2016) develops an unconventional and fresh approach to embodied sounds. he examines sounds related to eating (i.e., the actual sounds of the eating body), and writes about eating noodles in japanese culture: there is an enjoyable feeling of micro-muscular power and focused energy through the vigorous suction movement, a pleasure that may be related but cannot be reduced to its symbolic association with our initial infant sucking bliss nor to the amusing sound that noodle-sucking makes. (shusterman, 2016, p. 268) in his 2012 book thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics, shusterman reminds us that culture, social power positions, and customs shape—and even create—our bodies just as much as our own will does. this is particularly evident in regard to the human voice. shusterman writes about non-normative, difficult vocal situations in which our bodies and voices can deceive us as we become unable to vocalize what we intended, and instead end up shaking uncontrollably or crying. (shusterman, 2012c, p. 32) all in all, shusterman’s observations on the human voice, its embodied nature, its vulnerability, and its cultural implications are worth reading for voice researchers who want to understand the experiential meanings of the human voice. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 14 anne tarvainen somaesthetics applied by scholars of music, sound, and the voice so far, it seems that researchers of music and music education have been the most eager to apply somaesthetics in their fields. the special issue of the journal action, criticism & theory for music education (2010, issue 1) mentioned before includes articles on music and somaesthetics related to shusterman’s book body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. this issue, which was edited by wayne bowman, a professor of music and music education, is a mustread for anyone interested in the somaesthetics of music. in addition to bowman’s introductory article, the journal includes seven articles, four of which explicitly deal with music. a researcher interested in the embodiment of music will find a number of good writings in this journal that may inspire him/her to approach somaesthetics. in his article, music theory scholar fred everett maus (2010) discusses the somaesthetics of music and its potential in the context of classical instrumental music. he provides examples of how embodiment has been addressed in previous studies of classical music, highlighting the somatic features of experiencing music and the fundamental importance of body movement for understanding musical gestures. although listening to classical music does not put as much emphasis on the body as, for example, dance music, it may involve bodily sensations, such as chills and feelings of tension. maus approaches the body from both the performer’s and listener’s point of view, and he argues that the listener’s and performer’s experiences do not necessarily have the same qualities. according to him, this topic is central to the somaesthetics of music. he writes, in general, whether one starts from the performer’s or listener’s perspective, an interesting question for musical somaesthetics is the extent to which, and ways in which, performers and listeners may share embodied responses to music, despite their very different bodily relations to the musical event. (maus, 2010, p. 19) in his article, music education researcher sven-erik holgersen (2010) discusses the importance of bodily awareness and somaesthetics in music education. he comprehensively presents the different levels of consciousness proposed by shusterman and their significance in the musical experience and process of learning music. holgersen also presents an in-depth discussion on musicians’ bodily skills and how somaesthetic reflection can help develop them. according to him, musicians’ motor habits—and the development of these habits—require conscious practice: musicians not only memorize and learn music by heart, they literally incorporate the music. if they need to correct body habits in order to improve their musical performance, they often focus attention on the musical rather than on the somatic problem. so far, i agree with shusterman that the correction of bad habits requires reflection: it cannot be approached solely as a motor problem, unconnected to deliberate reflection. (holgersen, 2010, pp. 38–39) in her article, roberta lamb (2010) reflects on how shusterman’s book body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics speaks to her as a musician-teacher and scholar. among other things, she wonders how somaesthetics could illuminate the embodiment of performance as well as talent, genius, and virtuosity—the ideals of western music education culture. according to lamb, all three branches of shusterman’s somaesthetics—analytic, pragmatic, and practical—are relevant for teaching music: “it seems to me that these three somaesthetics and sound15 music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: overview of the literature branches of somaesthetics would never be completely isolated from each other in educational practice and thought, or thought and practice, precisely because education is in itself a process of movement and change” (lamb, 2010, p. 51). according to art education scholar kimberly powell (2010), discipline and training are central themes in music education. in her article, she asks what the roles of somatic training and experiences could be. she also discusses how sensory perceptions are culturally formed and writes about the embodied practices of music based on her ethnographic study of the japaneseamerican practice of taiko drumming. powell finds that the same practices that shusterman has written about in regard to somaesthetics—breathing, bodily attunement, and mindfulness—are present among people learning taiko. in addition, she writes about elements specific to practicing taiko: repetition and slowed action. powell (2010) describes the process of learning as follows: “in taiko drumming, repetition and slowed action helped to refine muscular action of hands and arms as well our sense of correct tone or pitch when the drumhead was stuck in the right manner” (p. 81). she also writes about the importance of language and verbal reflection in music learning. according to her, language can be used to “facilitate somatic awareness” (powell, 2010, p. 82). in conclusion, she argues that musical experiences have a transformative power that can even advance social justice (powell, 2010, p. 89). in 2007, wayne bowman and kimberly powell published “body in a state of music.” in this article, they point out that the role of the body in making and listening to music has only rarely been the subject of empirical research and has been widely ignored in philosophy (bowman & powell, 2007, p. 1088). in their article, they review previous studies of music and embodiment, including literature from the fields of philosophy, music education, and social sciences. they write about somatophobia and the role of the body in aesthetic theories and music education. they also present different bodily methods, such as the dalcroze, kodaly, and orff methodologies. bowman and powell link their review to merleau-ponty’s and dewey’s approaches as well as shusterman’s somaesthetics. they consider not only the materiality of the body but also the social and cultural aspects and the situationality of the body, arguing, “music is distinctively, perhaps uniquely, a form of embodied agency; the unity of the body-mind is a fact that musical experience demonstrates vividly, compellingly, irrefutably. not all modes of embodied experience are musical, but all musical experience is embodied” (bowman & powell, 2007, p. 1101). they also point out the significance of an embodied approach to the politics of music education. understanding the embodied nature of music gives us insight into the controlling practices that shape the body in music education, an issue that has largely remained undiscussed to date (bowman & powell, 2007, p. 1101). in his article “a somaesthetic approach to rock music: some observations and remarks,” musicologist stefano marino (2018) looks at the reception of rock from a somaesthetic perspective. he points out that the importance and power of listening to rock music can be understood when we consider the somatic dimension of listening. he introduces theodor w. adorno’s thoughts on popular music and responds to them by arguing that we cannot put all popular music in the same category when it comes to aesthetic potential. according to marino (2018), “somaesthetics […] may provide a valuable contribution by amending some prejudices and thus arriving at a better understanding of the specific kind of aesthetic experience that popular music involves” (p. 115). he argues that the somatic and emotional aspects of the aesthetic experience highlighted by the somaesthetic approach can be mental and intellectual as well. in his article, music researcher simon mckerrell (2012) explores the concert audience of traditional scottish music. his main point is that instead of the dualistic cartesian approach, the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 16 anne tarvainen listening practices in this music culture are based on somaesthetic experience and a bodily understanding of music. he believes that shusterman’s somaesthetics can provide a good theoretical basis for ethnographic research on proprioceptive and aesthetic experiences. he writes about the results of his study as follows: significantly, almost none of the participants in these interviews could remember the semantic content of any of the songs within a week to two weeks after the gig. they could, however, remember the feelings that they had, and i would argue that this more affective reception has more lasting value. (mckerrell, 2012, p. 86) mckerrell puts forward the idea that somatic sensory perception of music is not referential, but actual and proprioceptive. the somatic essence of music carries with it cultural-aesthetic features and categories that are based on the body and are transmitted bodily. joel rudinow, a philosopher of music, writes about rhythm as a somaesthetic element in his 2010 book soul music: tracking the spiritual roots of pop from plato to motown. he points out how, in the philosophy of music, the formalist view has emphasized the melody of the music while largely ignoring rhythm. this may be because rhythm has been interpreted as more of a bodily element than a mental element of music. he draws upon susanne langer’s work, which views rhythm as an organic element that engages the human body and is not mechanical in its repetition but constantly changing and varied. rudinow points out that rhythm is not only an aurally perceived element of music but also a factor that affects the whole body. he writes, from the point of view of somaesthetics, to say that the slow and measured rhythm of a funeral march mirrors the way sadness slows and measures our expressions of it is as good as to say that rhythm in music feels like emotions feel. (rudinow, 2010, p. 118) he then emphasizes how such processes are related to the accumulation and release of somatic stress in the body and its muscles. interestingly, langer’s thoughts, as described by rudinow, are based on dewey’s philosophy and thus have the same philosophical root in pragmatism as shusterman’s somaesthetics. stephen paparo (2016), a professor of music education and a choral conductor, explores the effect of the somatic feldenkrais method on singers’ performance in his article “embodying singing in the choral classroom: a somatic approach to teaching and learning.” in addition, he examines how singers’ somaesthetic body awareness increases with this kind of facilitation. he concludes, “through somaesthetic perception and reflection, participants began to understand how they embodied their singing” (paparo, 2016, p. 496). due to the enhanced body awareness achieved through this approach, the singers’ physiological vocal performance improved. the results of the study include reduced muscle tension, improved coordination, better alignment, and freer movement of the vocal mechanism, leading to better coordination of singing and breathing as well as improved resonance of the vocal cords. (paparo, 2016, p. 496) in his article on rock drumming, drummer and researcher gareth dylan smith (2017) explores drumming auto-ethnographically and phenomenologically. based on his diaries, he addresses the bodily knowledge associated with playing drums. he bases his analysis on shusterman’s idea that aesthetic experience is valuable and enjoyable, vividly felt, and meaningful. smith describes his own experience of playing drums as a contrast to present-day life, in which communication media scatters the everyday experience and breaks concentration. to smith, playing drums is something that lifts him out of the nervousness and stress of everyday life: somaesthetics and sound17 music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: overview of the literature “perhaps this why i find rock drumming to be such a sanctuary – it is when i feel the most awake, the most me” (smith, 2017, para. 8). smith’s ideas are based on shusterman’s somaesthetics, especially heightened somatic consciousness and the cultivation of bodily experience, which resonate well with his experiences as a musician. in 2017, helen phelan, a professor of art practice and a singer, published the book singing the rite to belong: ritual, music, and the new irish. in her text on singing and belonging, she applies shusterman’s somaesthetics as an approach. according to her, the belonging created by singing is physiological and emotional to a great extent, and “[t]he ability to communicate beneath cognitive and rational structures is proposed as one of the key ways in which song facilitates belonging” (phelan, 2017, p. 9). according to phelan, resonance, somatics, performance, temporality, and tacitness are the key elements that connect us as we sing. for her, the body is not only a passive representative of cultural values; instead, through bodily practices, we can change and create those values. in his article “the sound of somaesthetics: ken ueno’s jericho mouth,” martin jay (2018) discusses the vocal work of the avant-garde composer and performer ken ueno from a somaesthetic point of view. jay combines roland barthes’ thoughts on the geno-song and fenosong, looking at how ueno uses his voice to vibrate an entire acoustic space and, through the disfigured character of his expression, questions traditional aesthetic ideals of harmony and order. in this regard, jay writes about somaesthetic appreciation: rather than contemplating objects from afar, assuming a position of elevated disinterestedness, somaesthetics involves an experiential unification of subject and object in a moment of bodily intensity, as often painful as pleasurable, in the place of an eternity of formal, cold beauty. (jay, 2018, p. 88) in her articles, ethnomusicologist and researcher of singing anne tarvainen (2018a, 2018b, in press) develops vocal somaesthetics by exploring the bodily–aesthetic experiences of vocalizing and listening to the human voice. particular attention is paid to the proprioceptive dimension of experience, which has been neglected in previous research on the voice. tarvainen looks at the forms of vocalization that are challenging or differ from cultural aesthetic vocal norms. in her texts, she has discussed topics such as the voices of deaf singers and the experiences of singers with reflux disease. the aim of vocal somaesthetics is to analyze and challenge the musical and vocal ideals of our culture and, thereby, democratize the practices of singing and vocalizing. this area of research not only focuses on singing or speech but also enables study of all kinds of vocal activity and proposes new practices for developing vocal experiences. tarvainen’s method of voicefulness, in which one’s own voice is used to enhance bodily awareness, is an example of such a practice. in addition to the texts presented above, i would like to mention a few more writings that more or less discuss somaesthetics and the embodiment of music: barbara montero’s (2006) “proprioception as an aesthetic sense,” brandon polite’s (2014) “the varieties of musical experience,” njörður sigurjónsson’s (2009) “variations on the act of listening: twenty-one orchestra audience events in light of john dewey’s ‘art as experience’ metaphor,” and, of course, those that were mentioned above, including robert dobrowolski’s (2012) “sampling (no)body,” max ryynänen’s (in press) “living beauty, rethinking rap: shusterman’s philosophy of hip hop revisited,” and james garrison’s (2015) “reconsidering richard shusterman’s somaesthetics: the confucian debate between mèng zǐ and xún zǐ.” the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 18 anne tarvainen it goes without saying that one should also explore the articles in this special issue of the journal of somaesthetics, “somaesthetics and sound” (2019, issue 2). in this issue, stefano marino (2019) writes about improvisation with jazz drums; grace han (2019) discusses playing cello in the western classical music tradition; salvatore morra (2019) presents the embodied aspects of crafting and playing a tunisian musical instrument, ʻūd ʻarbī; charulatha mani (2019) writes about singing indian karnatik music; peter bruun (2019) addresses experimental theatre performance with a choir; and alexis b. smith (2019) discusses sound figures and the human body in the writings of early german romantics. there are interesting approaches in the arts and design that apply somaesthetics to explore and modify sound, among other things (e.g., feng, 2015; höök, jonsson, ståhl, & mercurio, 2016). unfortunately, i cannot go into these in detail in this article. also, it should be noted that dewey’s philosophy has been used widely in the research on music education (e.g., boon, 2009; väkevä, 2012; westerlund, 2003; woodford, 2004). i will not go further into this topic either, but these studies may be of interest to researchers and pedagogues applying shusterman’s somaesthetics based on dewey’s pragmatism. it is no wonder that researchers of music, sound, and the voice have increasingly begun to use the somaesthetic approach in their examinations. somaesthetics provides concepts and a solid theoretical base for looking at the body and embodied experience from an aesthetic perspective. with this in mind, music, sound, and the voice, as embodied aesthetic phenomena, are fruitful targets for somaesthetic inspection. as this article has revealed, somaesthetics has been applied in a variety of contexts and by many different researchers, artists, and educators. people from the fields of musicology, music theory, the philosophy of music, ethnomusicology, music education, and art education as well as musicians, singers, and teachers have written some of the most interesting texts about embodiment, experience, and aesthetics. in what kinds of contexts related to music, sound, and the voice could somaesthetics be applied in the future? as i see it, in addition to the fields of research and education that have already been mentioned, the fields of performance research, artistic research, voice studies, vocology, ergonomics for musicians, and soundscape studies could benefit from the somaesthetic approach to complement their own approaches. in addition, there is great potential for somaesthetic applications in arts, design, and technological innovations. i hope that increasingly more sound and music scholars, pedagogues, musicians, sound artists, designers, literary scholars, and philosophers will begin to consider sound, music, and the voice as somaesthetic phenomena. acknowledgments the author of the article receives funding from the kone foundation. references berleant, a. 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(2000). interviewing richard shusterman. action, criticism & theory for music education, 1, 105–138. retrieved from http://www.fau.edu/humanitieschair/pdf/int-action.pdf http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/shusterman9_1.pdf http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/shusterman9_1.pdf http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/nja/article/viewfile/7500/6349 https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/4414/1/njordur_sigurjonsson_thesis_final3_fixed.pdf https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/4414/1/njordur_sigurjonsson_thesis_final3_fixed.pdf https://www.musicandpractice.org/volume-3/embodied-experience-rock-drumming/ http://www.pragmatismtoday.eu/summer2018/democratizing-singing-somaesthetic-reflections-on-vocalityhttp://www.pragmatismtoday.eu/summer2018/democratizing-singing-somaesthetic-reflections-on-vocalityhttp://www.pragmatismtoday.eu/summer2018/democratizing-singing-somaesthetic-reflections-on-vocalityhttps://www.academia.edu/36435319/singing_listening_proprioceiving_some_reflections_on_vocal_somaest https://www.academia.edu/36435319/singing_listening_proprioceiving_some_reflections_on_vocal_somaest http://www.fau.edu/humanitieschair/pdf/int-action.pdf somaesthetics and sound23 music, sound, and voice in somaesthetics: overview of the literature väkevä, l. 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(2004). democracy and music education: liberalism, ethics, and the politics of practice. bloomington, in & indianapolis, in: indiana university press. introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 112 page 112–126john toner and barbara montero the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance john toner and barbara montero abstract: a considerable volume of research has explored spectators’ attraction to the aesthetic aspects of sport. however, considerably less attention has been devoted to an evaluation of the aesthetic dimension of sport from the performer’s perspective. we hypothesize that such evaluation can benefit athletic skill, and in the current paper substantiate and elucidate some of the types of aesthetic experiences athletes may undergo and consider their potential use in sports. we see this work as propaedeutic to future empirical work investigating the role of aesthetic selfevaluation in athletic performance. keywords: aesthetics, bodily awareness, expertise, consciousness. that rodger federer and other great athletes move in aesthetically valuable ways, is as plain as day to the spectator. what is not apparent from the spectator’s point of view, however, is whether athletes such as federer have aesthetic experiences of their own movements. do elite athletes’ movements feel graceful to the athletes themselves? and can athletes’ judgements regarding the aesthetic qualities of their own movements ever be conducive to optimal athletic performance? although some philosophers of sport have touched on such topics, there has yet to be an extensive investigation into the role of such judgements in athletic skill. we think that there ought to be and the present paper presents some first steps in doing so, steps that, we hope, will be propaedeutic to future theoretical and empirical work investigating the role of aesthetic self-evaluation in athletic performance. in the following sections, we draw, in part, on phenomenological evidence and in part on a wide range of empirical evidence to support the view that experts retain a keen and acute bodily awareness as they practice and perform and that such awareness facilitates the type of aesthetic judgements we see as an important feature of embodied athletic skills. we start by explaining how it might be beneficial for athletes to focus on aesthetic properties of their movement and then proceed to outline prior research into aesthetics by philosophers of sport. next, we conceptualise aesthetic experience in sport by arguing that attending to aesthetic qualities of their movement elicits similar feelings in athletes to those they might experience when perceiving art. we then devote considerable attention to elucidating a range of aesthetic qualities that athletes might attend to, and make judgements about, during skill execution. in doing so, we will extend our previous work on the importance of mindful bodily awareness in skilled action (see toner, somaesthetics and beauty113 the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance montero, and moran, 2016) – by arguing that one relevant type of mindful bodily awareness for athletes is an awareness of the aesthetic qualities of their own movements. we hypothesize that athletes sometimes focus on the aesthetic properties of their actions—for example, on the grace or beauty of their bodily movements— and that such a focus can be beneficial to performance. in other words, we hypothesize that, for athletes, focusing on such things as the beauty of their own movements not only offers them aesthetical pleasure, and as such is intrinsically valuable, but also proves beneficial to performance, and as such is instrumentally valuable. for certain sports where the goal is in part to create aesthetically pleasing movement, we can take for granted that the athlete’s aesthetic self-evaluation is relevant to performance outcome. for example, a figure-skater may attend to the angle of her arm to ensure that she is creating an aesthetically pleasing, gently sloping curve. this focus presumably helps skaters to determine whether their actions are producing their intended aesthetic effect in judges as well as to inform ongoing aesthetic decisions (e.g., the languid aspect of this movement might be best complemented by something stronger next; montero, 2006). some question whether it is possible for figure-skaters, dancers and others who aim to create movements that are judged by others to be aesthetically valuable to experience the aesthetic qualities of their own movement (mcfee, 1992). however, we assume, following montero (2006), that performing artists, figureskaters and others who are engaged in explicit aesthetic pursuits can be aware of and evaluate their movements in terms of the beauty, grace, elegance and so forth of their own movements. our concern here, however, is with the further question of whether aesthetic judgements may be useful in a wide variety of sports that do not have an explicit aesthetic component. a batter’s ultimate goal, of course, is not merely to create an aesthetically pleasing swing. baseball would look a lot more like ballet if that were the case. nonetheless, we hypothesize that some of the proprioceptive information that baseball players and other athletes process has what seems best explained as an aesthetic component: the shoulder movements, for example, that a baseball player might be aware of when hitting a home run may be experienced as beautifully powerful or the arm swing as making the shape of a graceful curve. if athletes experience their own movements aesthetically, interesting questions arise: might it be that one way an athlete may judge the effectiveness of her actions is by judging whether they embody their desired aesthetic properties? correlatively, can a judgement that a swing has a graceful swoop to it, or that a throw exhibits a powerful streamlined beauty, for example, be conducive to achieving optimal performance? athletes, we are assuming, focus on aesthetic properties of movements (their gracefulness, beauty, for example) when one of the goals is to produce an aesthetically pleasing form, such as in a gymnastics floor routine. but do they sometimes focus on aesthetic properties of movements when aesthetically pleasing form is not an explicit dimension of success? the hypothesis we hope to take some preliminary steps towards substantiating is that even when it does not matter in and of itself how athletes look when they make their wining moves, they still may aim for graceful, beautiful, elegant, or other such aesthetically pleasing moves. we argue that doing so might very well be one useful means for athletes to produce their desired effects. in other words, aesthetically pleasing form might matter instrumentally; it might matter since aiming at it might contribute to optimal performance. we limit ourselves to a discussion of what might be termed ‘positive aesthetic experiences’ whilst acknowledging that ‘negative experiences’ may also be of value to the athlete. for example, arguably, there could be an aesthetic dimension to the feeling of muscle exhaustion and arguably an awareness of this dimension is of use to the long-distance runner (kupfer, 1995). however, we focus predominantly on aesthetic experiences that are associated with a positive affect, such as the experience of beauty. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 114 john toner and barbara montero prior research into aesthetics by philosophers of sport although there has been little work on the question of whether athletes themselves are aware of the aesthetic properties of their own movements, some philosophers of sport have investigated the question of whether it is appropriate for spectators at a sporting event to adopt what has been referred to as an “aesthetic attitude,” that is, to pay attention to the grace and elegance of an athlete’s movements. on the one side, best (1974) has argued that an aesthetic attitude is not appropriate when observing sport since sporting activities are defined by whether an individual/ team has won or lost. thus, the fact that a certain movement looks beautiful to observers could only be a by-product of achieving ends that demand skillful means. other philosophers of sport – like elcombe (2012), for example argue that sport is at its core aesthetic since, as elcombe sees it, it is in recognizing its beauty that spectators find meaning; in his words, “art as sport’s ideal embodied metaphor widens the lens and deepens the significance [of sports]’ (p. 214). thus, there has been some interest in the idea that sport, at least from the spectator’s point of view is rightly evaluated in aesthetic terms. although elcombe addresses sport in the most general sense, other theorists have been keen to differentiate between ‘aesthetic sports’ (e.g., gymnastics, diving, figure skating; activities in which the aim cannot be specified in isolation from esthetic concepts such as grace) and ‘purposive sports’ (baseball, track and field; sports in which the aesthetic dimension is relatively unimportant as there are a huge variety of means by which one can achieve an end/one’s goal). not all see this dichotomy as mutually exclusive. yeomans and holt (2015), for example, noted that sports such as boxing can have elements that are purely purposive (i.e., when a knockout occurs) and elements that are purely aesthetic (i.e., when neither fighter has been knocked out and the judges must award points based on an assessment of the quality of a boxer’s performance; for example, cleaner punches, better defense). kupfer (1995) argues that fixating on the purposive nature of sport results in an activity losing meaning for the participant. he proposes that “aesthetic expectations are satisfied when scoring and victory complete excellent play” (kupfer, 1995, p. 396) and this allows the joining of the useful (purpose-achieving) and the aesthetic (aesthetic execution of the play). aesthetic experience we argue that skilled performers sometimes evaluate their performance – in both training and competitive situations – by judging whether their movement possesses certain aesthetic qualities. but what is an aesthetic quality? this question is the subject of much debate (beardsley, 1970; goldman 1990; sibley, 1965), and we cannot hope to identify what should be the correct application of this term. however, we can specify our central (though not exclusive) focus, which is that in paying attention to the aesthetic qualities of their own movements, athletes are focusing on something analogous to the type of qualities one might find in art (beauty, grace, power, precision etc.) and that the athlete’s experience in such situations is analogous to the type of experience one might have in perceiving art: a type of pleasure that is valuable in and of itself. restricting the concept of the aesthetic in this way undoubtedly makes our task more difficult in certain respects: there is a rich body of philosophical work on how we may take aesthetic pleasure in a wide range of activities, everything from washing dishes to walking to work (kupfer 1983; shusterman, 2012). and we think it is likely that the aesthetic pleasure of the highly skilled athlete could be elucidated by adopting tools and concepts from this body of work. to some extent, this has already been done. research by maivorsdotter and quennerstedt (2012) explores how people ‘body’ the world aesthetically as part of their participation in somaesthetics and beauty115 the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance sport and their finding that participants’ ‘meaning making’ (i.e., how they make sense of their involvement) was partly determined by whether they had satisfying/non-satisfying aesthetic experiences of an activity. aesthetic events, which they understood as transactions attached with emotional quality, they thought, stood out for participants from the constant flow of ordinary experience. maivorsdotter and wickman (2011) propose that although many of our everyday experiences are unlikely to be savoured in this immediate way, they act as “paths where aesthetic judgements are used to communicate whether and in what ways different courses of action lead to fulfillment (or not)” (p. 617). whilst our focus is primarily on the evocative dimension of performance, we acknowledge that everyday training routines involve a certain degree of mundanity including the struggles or displeasures that we invariably encounter as we seek to extend our embodied capacities (see hockey, 2013). furthermore, shusterman’s work (2008, 2012) on the body-centred discipline of “somaesthetics” has emphasized the body’s complex and crucial role in aesthetic experience. this inter-disciplinary practice aims to heighten our first-person awareness of our bodies in order to identify the habitual patterns that might be compromising the efficient execution of our desired movements so that we can learn to move “more successfully and with greater ease and grace” (2008, p. 166). however, we choose to focus more narrowly on the aesthetic experience that is characteristic of the intrinsic enjoyment we have of art for three reasons. first, we take it as relatively uncontroversial that the concept of the aesthetic applies to our experience of art and thus in employing a narrow concept of the aesthetic, we should be able to sidestep to a degree the question of whether the type of experience we are hypothesizing is both employed by and is of use to athletes is, veritably, an aesthetic experience. second, we think that there are significant similarities between the highly skilled athletes’ and the highly skilled dancers’ awareness of the aesthetic qualities of their own movements and as the literature on dance that we rely on (montero 2006, 2016) employs a narrow concept of the aesthetic, it is natural to employ the same concept. finally, and perhaps most importantly, as we see this work as preliminary to future empirical work on aesthetic awareness in sport, we hope to be relying on a concept of the aesthetic that can be readily conveyed to study participants and we are predicting that most athletes will be able to grasp the concept of the aesthetic when it is described as the kind of pleasurable experience you might have when looking at a great painting or watching a great ballet. thus, our narrowing of the concept of the aesthetic, though it does make our current task more exacting, will, we hope, make future empirical work easier. (that said, we would also be happy to see further empirical work exploring athletes’ aesthetic awareness, where this awareness is conceived of more broadly. at these early stages of investigation, the best path forward may be to let a thousand flowers bloom.) we propose that aesthetic judgements (judgements about the aesthetic qualities of actions) are an extremely common feature of highly-skilled performers’ everyday training and performance regimes. . in exploring athletes’ use of aesthetic judgement, we shall assume that proprioception can give rise to aesthetic experience. we acknowledge that this idea runs counter to the traditional view about aesthetic experience, according to which one cannot have an aesthetic experience of one’s own body as perceived through one of the “lower senses” (any sense other than sight or hearing). this traditional view is brought out in prall’s (1929) assertion that “experience is genuinely and characteristically aesthetic only as it occurs in transactions with external objects of sense” (p. 28, 56; hegel 1835/1975; santayana 1896/1955). in the current paper, however, (following korsmeyer 1999, shusterman 2012, montero 2016, and smith 2015) we reject the idea that only vision and hearing lead to aesthetic experience. indeed, we see our argument that all sports are at their core aesthetic as fodder for criticisms of the traditional view. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 116 john toner and barbara montero bodily immersion and aesthetic judgement one way in which aesthetic experience is facilitated is by what has been referred to as “bodily immersion” (montero, 2016), which is the experience of being aware of, or as it is sometimes described by performers “in contact with,” your entire body. bodily immersion may not suffice for an aesthetic experience; there could be times in which one is fully aware of one’s body without being aware of anything aesthetically valuable. yet, following (montero, 2016), we maintain that it can help enable aesthetic experience. physical training appears to facilitate such awareness. for example, after extended training, dancers are thought to develop a heightened awareness of their bodily movements via proprioception (ramsay & riddoch, 2001). in dance, where bodily movements may have aesthetic qualities (grace, power, precision and so forth), it has been argued that this type of bodily awareness is a means by which dancers can be aware of the aesthetic qualities of their bodily movements (montero, 2016). elite athletes are similarly thought to have (either because it has been developed or because it is innate) enhanced proprioceptive acuity, which, we would like to submit, allows for a form of bodily immersion that similarly provides a conduit to the aesthetic experience of the aesthetically valuable movements of their own bodies. bodily awareness is also important not only for learning new skills but also for “identifying, analyzing, and rectifying our problematic bodily habits” (shusterman, 2008, p. 13). to be sure, athletes often focus on external factors—getting the ball in the hoop, for example. and we make no claim as to whether aesthetic experience occurs in these contexts, such as, the experience of seeing the arc of the ball as beautiful and whether athletes aim, to some to degree, to create such beauty (though we leave open these possibilities). our present claim concerns the athletes’ awareness of and judgements about aesthetic qualities of their bodily motions. and preliminary to this is the claim that athletes are in fact aware of and immersed in their own bodily movements. there are numerous descriptions of bodily immersion in sport. for example, an elite trampolinist in hauw and durand’s (2007) study sought to avoid injury (as a result of poor execution) by using kinaesthetic feedback to survey body position and the tautness and flexibility of the trampoline bed. similarly, nyberg (2015) found that elite freeskiers monitored their rotational activity during the in-flight phase of a jump so as to ascertain “whether they will be able to perform the trick the way it was intended without adjustments or whether they will need to make adjustments during the flight phase” (p. 115). in these cases, immersion is characterised by an attendance to certain cues, or kinesthetic sensations (see ilundáin-agurruza, 2015, for a similar argument relating to the role of ‘kinesthetic attunement’) during on-line movement control. yet are these aesthetic experiences? we posit that sometimes athletes are aware of the beauty, grace, and precision of their own movements and that these are aesthetic experiences because they involve an experience of an aesthetic quality. occasionally, these qualities may be the very same qualities observers are aware of. as we pointed out, federer’s movements are often singled out as being aesthetically valuable by sports fans and the media. he seems to perfectly capture the quality of grace as understood by herbert spencer (1907) as movements “in which an economy of effort has been achieved” (p. 383). and, we would like to suggest that federer, himself, when immersed in his bodily movements, may also be aware of his grace, elegance, and economy of effort. that said, it may be that, as with dance, what the spectator sees as aesthetically valuable does not overlap entirely with what is perceived as aesthetically valuable from the athlete’s point of view. not only may the athlete find faults that the spectator does not notice and that may somaesthetics and beauty117 the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance detract from the aesthetic value of the movement—a return in tennis may look effortlessly beautiful to a spectator but be experienced by the tennis player making the return as gruelingly difficult—but the athlete, because she has developed such a heightened awareness of her own movement, may be privy to certain valuable aesthetic properties that the spectator misses. that same tennis player, at another time, might be aware of the beautiful action of her arm powerfully moving through space, which is nonetheless occurring so quickly that the audience does not register it. some support for the view that skilled athletes have an awareness of aesthetic qualities during on-line action comes from coelho, kreft and lacerda’s (2014) phenomenological exploration of taekwondo athletes’ experiences engaged in combat. athletes in this study emphasized the importance of performing movements in a manner which could give rise to beauty and pleasure. to do so, they sought to increase the difficulty and complexity of their attacking moves as this had the capacity to bring “great joy, it’s almost a feeling of fullness… so if it’s in the end of the combat it’s something that endures, it’s very good” (p. 85). experiencing beauty through bodily action could only arise if they were attempting a challenging technique: “it has to be a movement that almost nobody can make, this makes it special….the mondollyo (kicks involving bodily rotations) can even lead to ko [knockout] if it is made right, and this is a beautiful movement” (p. 84). it is common practice for skilled performers to introduce obstacles during the course of their practice/training activities in an attempt to extend their current movement capacities. nguyen (2017) argues that rock climbers often set such obstacles for aesthetic reasons. he discusses his own experience of overcoming one particularly tricky problem which required a gradual, delicate and extremely considered approach. when completed in the right manner it “feels unbelievably good – it feels like you’re a thing made of pure precision, a scalpel of delicate movement, easing your way up the rock” (p. 10). clearly, bodily immersion in skilled action can give rise to aesthetic experiences. what, however, might be the benefit of this type of bodily immersion? being present and focusing on what one is doing in contrast to letting one’s mind wander is widely thought to be conducive to optimal performance/experience (randall et al. 2014). moreover, aesthetic pleasure from skilled bodily engagement, we would like to suggest, could be especially advantageous since it is likely to motivate focused attention on one’s actions. this might be particularly useful during training where repetition might lead to boredom and a subsequent loss of focus. the desire to enjoy aesthetically pleasing objects, is sometimes even defined as an insatiable desire; in bernard bosanquet’s words, “the aesthetic want is not a perishable want, which ceases in proportion as it is gratified” (1915, p. 4). training, then, could be more readily prolonged if one never has one’s fill of aesthetically satisfying experiences. a deep and powerful bodily immersion in a task/activity also characterizes the phenomenon known as ‘flow’. to illustrate, jackman et al. (2019) found that national hunt jockeys experienced altered physical perceptions during flow. these perceptions included distinct kinaesthetic feelings, lightness of touch and perceptions of balance. the flow state is seen to represent a peak experience in which performers have a powerful sense of control over what they are doing. not all flow involves bodily movement. a poet may experience flow when her command of the language is high and the challenge is great but not too great to make the task very difficult. however, we posit that bodily actions performed during flow are experienced as especially enjoyable when they emanate from an awareness of aesthetic properties of movement. sometimes the body is rendered absent in accounts of flow (dreyfus & kelly, 2011). however, we propose that the feeling of ‘absorption’ typically reported the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 118 john toner and barbara montero by performers experiencing this phenomenon does not mean that the body generally becomes inconspicuous or invisible. although words may sometimes fail to retrospectively describe the bodily experience of flow, we posit that bodily self-awareness does not vanish during the flowexperience itself. conceptualizing flow as a state characterized by bodily awareness allows us to consider how it may lend itself to an aesthetic experience. importantly, for both performing artists and athletes, the type of bodily immersion that facilitates awareness of the aesthetic components of one’s own movements is important because one can derive a great deal of joy from executing complex skills with grace and precision; if one happened to be ‘absent’ during the experience this would not be possible. coelho, kreft and lacerda (2014) found that taekwondo athletes’ not only concentrated on trying to successfully land complex and difficult kicks but that they sought to meet specific aesthetic criteria whilst doing so. for example, one of the athletes revealed that “with a good control of the distance, we are able to perform these more beautiful movements that are, normally, more difficult, more spectacular to perform, and, in this sense, we are much more able and, definitely, this contributes to my pleasant experiences” (p. 88). in addition, aesthetic judgements ensure that we remain present during this state and this enriches our experience ‘by adding texture to it’ (colombetti, 2014, p. 130). and, as we’ve suggested, because aesthetic experience is particularly engaging and pleasurable, it may do this better than other experiences. “flying along” according to hockey’s (2013) autophenomenographic data (i.e., findings that emerge from the detailing of one’s lived experience of a phenomena), runners seem to be aware of numerous aesthetic qualities of their movements. as he explains, when you have a really good run there is always plenty of push in it. there is always lots of power in the legs and you feel as if you are flying along, so it kind of builds on itself in a controlled way and you hit the rhythm and stay in it. when you are running like that the power inside gives you confidence, which gives you sort of more power to drive it forward” (hockey, 2013 p. 135). consider the judgement that the runner feels as if he is “flying along.” how should we understand this? imagine a dance critic writing in a review that claims, “the dancers seemed to be flying along across the stage.” you would want to see that performance; it must be beautiful (acknowledging of course that the critic might be favourably disposed to that type of dance as, indeed, might the person who is reading the critic)! in other words, you would understand the critic to be identifying an aesthetically relevant property of the dancer’s movements.1 and, arguably, the dancers themselves could experience this as well; they could feel as if they were flying. but if the dancer’s experience of flying, or, rather, seeming as if to fly, is aesthetically valuable, then there seems little reason to think that the athlete’s experience is not aesthetically valuable as well.2 the point is that with running, as with dance, feeling as if you are flying along 1 is this an aesthetically relevant quality of the dancers’ movements or is it a quality of the choreography? it could be either, though in most cases, presumably, it is both: a dancer will only look to be flying if the choreography suggests flying, but the choreography will only suggest flying if the dancer performs it in a way that makes it look as if she is flying. in either case, however, the attribution would seem to be aesthetically relevant. 2 perhaps not all experiences of “flying along” are aesthetically relevant. perhaps if you were to be pushed out of an airplane, then you might feel as if you were flying along as you plummeted towards death. yet there might not be anything aesthetically valuable in that experience.. but let’s put such unpleasant thoughts aside. somaesthetics and beauty119 the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance seems to be an experience of an aesthetic quality. it seems to be an experience similarly relevant to, if not an instance of, the experience of beauty, and as such, it seems to be an experience that is valuable in and of itself. for an experience to count as valuable in and of itself does not mean that it can’t also be practically useful. when michelangelo observed his work on the sistine chapel, he may have experienced it as beautiful. this was aesthetically pleasurable in and of itself. but it also may have been practically useful: working on the painting until he had achieved the desired experience could have ensured that he’d be given further commissions. and the runner’s experience of seeming-to-be-flying, arguably, also serves a purpose, as it can indicate whether a run is going well, or, indeed, whether it is going well enough so that one can afford, at crucial junctures, to push beyond any remnant of pleasure. as noted above, many theorists have argued that not all successful athletic movements are aesthetically pleasing to the athlete or spectator and nor have they any need to be. indeed, supporters of this view might point to the numerous examples of highly successful performers who possess unorthodox techniques and yet who seem perfectly capable of ‘winning ugly’. however, in outlining how certain aesthetic qualities serve a purpose internal to the game, kupfer (1995) argued that “while many who play well lack in grace, their good performance is not achieved because of their awkwardness. it is rather because they have compensated for the lack of grace and manage to “get the job done” (p. 394). closing out a tightly contested basketball game with a graceful jump and throw merely “discloses the function inherent in grace” (p. 394). power another quality that runners may be aware of and which is brought out by hockey’s data, is an awareness of power. hockey mentions “power in the legs” and claims that “there is plenty of push” and that “the power inside gives you confidence.” is the awareness of such power an aesthetic experience? it would seem so. again, when a dance critic comments that a dancer moved powerfully, this would seem to be aesthetically relevant. alister mccauly writes in a review of the alvin ailey dance company, “[t]he texture of their dancing is powerful and juicy, brilliant in speed and marvellous in slowness.” their power is part of the artistry that one pays money to see and it is something the dancer can experience from a first-person perspective as well.3 and when dancers do, they are having an aesthetic experience. similarly, we would like to suggest that the athlete’s experience of power is also aesthetic. perhaps one might say that the two situations are significantly different. in the case of the dancer, but not in the athlete, creating the power is a conscious aim: the dancer aims at creating powerful arm gestures while the athlete aims at reaching the finish line and that any experience of power is simply an unintended by-product of this aim. but we do not think that this objection hits the mark. first off, even assuming that athletes do not aim at creating powerful experiences or aim to achieve a sense of flying-through-the-air, it is not clear what this shows. the objector seems to think that this would show that the experience of these qualities (power and seemingflying) could not be aesthetic experiences. but why? when you go to an art gallery, you haven’t aimed at creating experiences that have various aesthetic qualities. rather, unless you are the artist observing your own work, you have aesthetic experiences of objects that you in no way aimed to create. thus, it seems that one’s aim is not at issue: even if the athletes did not aim 3 as with the example of seeming-flying, the power perceived from the dancer’s point of view might not always line up with the power perceived from the audience’s point of view. for example, sometimes one might feel very powerful as one creates a movement that is intended to look weak. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 120 john toner and barbara montero to create movements that feel powerful, their experience of power can count as an aesthetic experience. beyond this, we would like to suggest that sometimes athletes do aim to create such experiences. perhaps thinking of creating a powerful swing, or stroke, or push off can be useful. for example, aiming for an aesthetically satisfying experience of power may be one way in which athletes focus on cue words. athletes sometimes use cue-words to focus thought on important components of their skills. for example, a swimmer might think: hips. and this simple word succinctly captures a great deal of what the swimmer wants to do with her hips while swimming. a cue word, such as hips, does not specifically direct one’s attention to creating aesthetic qualities in one’s movement. but a cue word such as power could; it could direct one’s attention to creating powerful movements. and this can be useful if powerful movements, in the context at issue, are those that work best. in this way, the aesthetic experience of power could be conducive to optimal performance. rhythm the third feature of hockey’s quote that we would like to focus on concerns rhythm. hockey tells us that in a good run: “you hit the rhythm and stay in it.” and we would like to suggest that, at least at times, in being aware of the rhythm of your movement, you are aware of certain aesthetic features of the rhythm. until recently, the topic of the aesthetics of rhythm had been largely ignored in analytic philosophy, or as judge (2016), puts this point, philosophers have no rhythm. however, as recent literature suggests, the idea that rhythms can have aesthetically valuable qualities is uncontroversial. if anything has aesthetic value, music does. and, arguably, for many pieces of music part of their aesthetic value depends on their rhythms: bach’s welltempered clavier, stravinsky’s rite of spring, scott joplin’ maple leaf rag are all aesthetically pleasing in part because of their captivating, surprising, or complex rhythms. perhaps just as uncontroversial is that bodies can move rhythmically. take kupfer’s (1995, p. 403) analysis of the importance rhythm plays in the athlete’s experience of movement: isolated with and within his body in its environment, the performer is free to appreciate the rhythms he makes with it. the runner, for instance, can appreciate from the “inside” the pattern his arm, leg, and breath movement creates. for him, shifting, breathing, and muscular exertion are viscerally felt and heard, whereas spectators can only infer this experience from what they see. rhythm in bodily movement has been defined as the “temporal pattern apparent in a movement or set of movements and whose constituent parts are relatively stable” (macpherson, collins, & obhi, 2009, p. s48) it can occur when bodily movements match the rhythm of music or create counterpoints to it. and it can also occur without the accompaniment of music. in fact, according to proponents of the dalcroze method (a form of music education that trains students to become attuned to the rhythm of music and to express what they hear in movement; jaques-dalcroze, 1967), the experience of moving rhythmically is more fundamental then our experience of auditory rhythm and, thus, should be taught to music students priori to, or at least in conjunction with, their attempts to learn to play an instrument rhythmically (greenhead & habron, 2015). what, however, is the nature of athletes’ awareness of the rhythm and can it be considered an awareness of an aesthetic quality of their movements? an awareness of rhythm is believed to somaesthetics and beauty121 the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance play a crucial role in both the acquisition and maintenance of complex motor skills. for example, athletes engaged in sports that involve running sometimes, during training, work on the rhythm of their breathing where they consciously focus on, say breathing in for three counts, out for two. but it is not clear that such awareness constitutes an awareness of any aesthetic properties. for example, one takes aesthetic pleasure in the beautifully complex rhythm of javense gamelan music. but could something as simple as the rhythm of breathing be aesthetically valuable for an athlete? we think it may be if one accepts that a simple, yet deliberate rhythm, such as the rhythm of hip-hop music, can be aesthetically valuable. just as a drummer might find aesthetic pleasure when focusing on keeping a simple steady beat, we think that an athlete, too, might find aesthetic pleasure in the rhythm of breathing. and although there is invariably an automatic element to breathing, breathing is also something athletes work on and do deliberately. indeed, many athletes devote considerable time to learning how to breathe in a manner that facilitates performance. after winning the third olympic gold of her career at the 2016 rio olympics, the british cyclist laura trott revealed that breathing techniques helped her to think only “about what you're doing in that very moment and not allowing your mind to run away with worries about past events and those in the future (tweedy, 2016)”. there is also empirical evidence (see xiao ma et al. 2017) to suggest that diaphragmatic breathing can improve sustained attention, affect and reduce cortisol levels (a purportedly objective measure of physiological stress) with healthy adults. we hypothesize that, in addition to being aware of the rhythm of their breath, athletes are aware of the aesthetic properties of the rhythm of other aspects of their movements—such as a golfer’s swing or a swimmer’s stroke—which can be rightly categorized as aesthetic experiences during tournaments. again, in looking at the rhythm of swimming, one finds a simple rhythm. and again, one might wonder how the simple “one, two, one two” rhythm could be aesthetically valuable. but like the deliberate steady rhythm of breathing or of a drum beat, we think it is possible to be aesthetically aware of such a simple rhythm. beyond this, however, we think that there is a way in which the rhythm of swimming is more complex than this since it involves a complicated interplay between all muscle groups. thus, the type of aesthetic value at stake may be similar to that of a highly coordinated symphony. for some pieces of music, the rhythm of each musical line for the individual players might not be that dazzling but when they play together the rhythm is stunning. the athlete’s body, we posit, is the symphony and, moving their arms, legs, head, hips, hands, feet and so forth in temporal synchrony as they perform complex tasks provides aesthetic pleasure. there is some empirical evidence supporting this view. researchers have suggested that rhythmic entrainment, or the process by which attention becomes coupled with a rhythmic stimulus, elicits affective mechanisms (mcguinness & overy, 2011; trost, labbe, grandjean, 2017). our claim is that affect is, at times, aesthetic. such coupling can also occur between bodies and unfold through movement. he and ravn (2017) found that haptic sensations play an important role in developing elite sport dancers “shared intentionality” whereby moving together forms a practical way of understanding each other. these feelings of connection or entrainment proves crucial in “maintaining reciprocal engagement, but also in actively (re-) working and (re-)shaping their movements” (p.22). we further suggest that, because the awareness of the aesthetic properties of the rhythm of their movement is pleasant, such awareness may be beneficial since it may compel athletes to maintain the rhythmicity of their movement and to develop an awareness of when they have ‘lost’ their rhythm. indeed, an absence of rhythm (i.e., the presence of temporal irregularities in the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 122 john toner and barbara montero movement patterns) has been proposed to characterize inefficient or sub-optimum movement performance (macpherson et al. 2009). karageorghis et al. (2013) found that swimmers swam faster in two experimental trials (where participants listened to motivational and oudeterous music at 130 bpm) compared to a no-music control condition and claimed that these results may be attributable to ‘rhythmic entrainment’ whereby the music had a metronomic effect and slightly increased the participants’ stroke rate. qualitative findings would appear to support this hypothesis as a number of the swimmers revealed that music was used as a rhythmical stimulus. this finding is in line with those from studies in ballet (e.g., côté-laurence, 2000) and tennis (e.g., söğüt, kirazci, & korkusuz, 2012) which revealed that the processing and control of rhythmical elements of movement has a significant impact on learning and performance. rhythmical cues may exert this effect by priming the activation of brain structures involved in movement execution. together, this body of evidence reveals that remaining aware of one’s rhythm not only has an aesthetically valuable quality but that it enhances performance proficiency. “feeling right” it could be that the aesthetic qualities that athletes are aware of, outstrip those that they cannot readily describe. and we would like to suggest that sometimes athletes’ claims to the effect that a certain movement “feels right” are indicative of such a situation. ravn (2010) used this term to describe how ballet dancers evaluated whether they were felt ‘placed and aligned’ in their body as they performed complex moves. similarly, ravn and christensen (2014) found that an elite golfer placed important emphasis on ‘listening to her body’ and ensuring that her movement felt right and that this was an important means of enhancing her skill during training. we argue that “feeling right” represents a general aesthetic evaluation that is commonly used by highly-skilled performers during both practice and competitive performance. it feels right, we would like to suggest, because it hits the aesthetic sweet spot. what exactly this is might not be easy to quantify because the years of training have enabled skilled athletes to chunk vast amounts of information about their skills into higher level concepts; “smooth,” or “streamlined,” or “like a torpedo” are aesthetic concepts that might capture a decade of information about how to perform a skill. and sometimes, though not always, the details fade away. there appears to be a considerable volume of empirical evidence indicating that skilled performers make these types of aesthetic judgments. for example, aggerholm and larsen (2017) conducted a phenomenological analysis of parkour (i.e., the physical discipline of training to move over and through any terrain using only the abilities of the body) practitioners’ bodily experience of practicing and performing acrobatic tricks. their findings revealed that the manner in which movements were performed was of crucial importance to these performers. that is, if they were faced with the challenge of jumping over the gap between two roofs and landing on the edge of the target roof one way in which they would ensure their success was by focusing on an aesthetically valuable quality of the landing. for example, the participants spoke about the need to perform the movement ‘cleanly’ – in other words, with the level of control and ease they were striving for. importantly, while there is a functional component to this trick ‘making it clean’ constitutes a subjective and bodily sense of performing the task just right. similarly, hockey (2013) revealed that an important aesthetic dimension of distance running was seeing and hearing ‘the going’. runners develop a kinaesthetic awareness of their posture and often take a fleeting glance at its reflection in house windows or shop fronts as they move past. this process involves comparing the relationship between an internal image (forged after thousands of training miles), bodily sensations and the reflected image. we would like to somaesthetics and beauty123 the value of aesthetic judgements in athletic performance hypothesize that with highly skilled runners, such judgements are sometimes, indeed, we think often, informed in part by their aesthetic experience of their posture. in other words, when the posture is judged as satisfactory, when it’s judged as “feeling right,” it is in part because the posture is judged as, for example, regal, or balanced or streamlined. and if an athlete notices that such desired aesthetic qualities are lacking, the athlete will take measures to embody them. aesthetic judgements about movement “feeling right” are of particular importance when performers find themselves having to practice repetitive activities in an effort to refine or alter deeply embedded movement patterns. the training routines of any elite performer inevitably include a certain amount of repetition (e.g., as one seeks to refine a specific aspect of skill) and while these activities are vital for skill advancement they are likely to become stultifying on occasions. making aesthetic judgments about our movement proficiency may allow us to remain interested in the performance of these relatively mundane activities. more specifically, maintaining such awareness not only brings meaning to the experience but keeps the act alive and prevents us from performing these tasks in a mechanical and unthinking manner (dewey, 1934). furthermore, in seeking to improve their skill, proficient performers actively look for challenges which will create disequilibrium or put a ‘wrench in the works’. as such, judgements about whether movements have the desired aesthetic qualities may serve to invigorate the performer and encourage them to test the boundaries of their performance. although some authors have argued that performers should avoid tweaking or experimenting with their technique during practice (as this will disrupt the execution of proceduralised skills; see masters & maxwell, 2008) we believe this approach may inspire performers to identify affordances or opportunities for change – a prerequisite for continuous improvement in any skilled activity (see author, 2014). aesthetic pleasure may also be gained by working through a problem – of feeling that one has improved one’s technique or form and that one is capable of performing a complex skill with an increasing degree of fluency. according to dewey, it is out of this process of adaptation and re-adaptation that an aesthetic consciousness can be formed. moments of aesthetic joy or fulfillment are, in dewey’s words, brought about when we “punctuate experience with rhythmically enjoyed intervals”. these rhythmical intervals involve periodic injections of vitality or “constant variation” and this seems to characterize the process of continuous improvement amongst athletes. in a similar vein, montero, toner, and moran (2019) argue that aesthetic judgements/ experience can be in themselves pleasurable and interesting, and, as such, are conducive to longer practice sessions. moreover, not only might they motivate continued training, but, in line with anders ericsson’s theory of deliberate practice (ericsson, krampe, & tesch-romer, 1993), according to which excessive proceduralisation (i.e., the enemy of aesthetic experience) leads to aborted improvement, continuing to make aesthetic judgements may jumpstart an athlete, dancer or other highly skilled individual’s technical or artistic development. conclusion one of the goals of the current paper was to explore whether athletes have aesthetic experiences of their skills and, if they do, whether such experiences can be beneficial to the practice and performance of their skills. we have presented some evidence suggesting that athletes do experience some of their movements as aesthetically valuable and have argued that such judgements can facilitate athletic excellence (e.g., by allowing performers to identify sub-optimal features of performance or to identify when they are moving in a desirable manner). our analysis the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 124 john toner and barbara montero has focused largely on the aesthetic experience of individual-sport performers but we recognise that there is likely to be a haptic dimension to aesthetic experience (a reciprocity of movement; see he & ravn, 2017) and that researchers should explore the role of the aesthetic in team sport. we also recommend that researchers explore aesthetic experiences of a negative valence (e.g., ugliness, graceless etc) and how these might contribute to the performer’s experience. we argued that performers are accustomed to evaluating their movement proficiency on the basis of an evaluation of the aesthetic properties of their movement. we proposed that these judgements may serve a transformative function and hold the capacity to lift us above the humdrum and routine. the phenomenological evidence presented in the current paper suggests that an exploration of aesthetic experience is important because it indicates that athletes do not necessarily consider their movement in terms of some external function or purpose it may serve and one should not assume that they evaluate its success purely in terms of whether it achieved some extrinsic end. instead, we have argued that athletes sometimes evaluate it by determining whether it has a certain desired aesthetic quality, whether it has power, or a feeling of flying, beauty, or elegance. we realize that addressing the aesthetic quality of athletic practice from the athlete’s point of view presents some challenges, as it is not readily amenable to the type of objective external measurements that one would like to ground one’s theory in. however, given that, as we have argued, aesthetic evaluation can be a beneficial part of athletic skill, we think it would be worthwhile to develop new measures to test our view. and we hope that this work inspires future theoretical and empirical research investigating athletes’ aesthetic experiences of actions as they seek to refine and improve their embodied capacities. references aggerholm, k., & højbjerre larsen, s. 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(2017). the effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults. frontiers in psychology, 8, 874. yeomans, m., & holt, j. (2015). purposive/aesthetic sport: a note on boxing. fairplay, revista de filosofia, ética y derecho del deporte, 3, 87-95. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 24 page 24–40stefano marino jazz improvisation and somatic experience stefano marino for emi, ignazio, lele, luca, net, piero: for our beautiful way of improvising in music and life in our youth. “all that’s sacred comes from youth”. pearl jam, not for you. abstract: in this article i investigate musical improvisation from a somaesthetic perspective. i first provide a sketch of somaesthetics’ relationship to music and explain why, in dealing with improvisation, i mostly focus on jazz. then i connect the question of jazz improvisation to the pragmatist attempt to reconcile art and life, and focus on the dimension of somatic knowledge in improvisation. finally, i exemplify my ideas by referring to jazz drumming and the improvisational capacities that it is able to display and that are of interest for theoretical, practical and pragmatic somaesthetics. keywords: somaesthetics, jazz, performance, improvisation, drumming. 1. ever since its introduction in the philosophical discourse of contemporaneity in the tenth chapter of the second edition of pragmatist aesthetics, somaesthetics has been defined as “the critical, meliorative study of the experience and use of one’s body as a locus of sensoryaesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning” (shusterman, 2000, p. 267).1 according to some of the distinctions introduced by the founder of somaesthetics, richard shusterman, the latter represents “a systematic framework” (shusterman, 2008, p. 19) that has 1 in one of his most recent contributions to this field shusterman has slightly changed and also broadened his definition to some extent, speaking of somaesthetics as “the critical study and meliorative cultivation of the body as the site not only of experienced subjectivity and sensory appreciation (aesthesis) that guides our action and performance but also of our creative self-fashioning through the ways we use, groom, and adorn our physical bodies to express our values and stylize ourselves. to realize its aims of improving somatic experience and expression, somaesthetics advocates integrating theory and practice” (shusterman, 2019, p. 15). somaesthetics and sound25 jazz improvisation and somatic experience three fundamental branches (analytic, pragmatic and practical), which in turn include “three dimensions” (representational, experiential and performative), depending on “whether their major orientation is toward external appearance or inner experience of the body” (shusterman, 2016a, pp. 102–105). from this point of view, somaesthetics may be understood as a somewhat general and also interdisciplinary philosophical approach that can be applied to a great variety of problems and phenomena, and that is both comparable to, and compatible with, other relevant and general approaches (such as, for example, marxist aesthetics, phenomenological aesthetics, hermeneutical aesthetics, etc.). according to shusterman, “aesthetics can be more usefully pluralistic” than it has usually been, both with regard to a plurality of complementary approaches and to a plurality of objects of inquiry, for example neither excluding “the most elevated fine arts” nor devaluating “the most common-day everyday aesthetic practices and popular artistic forms” (shusterman, 2012, p. 105). 2more recently, in the introduction to a collection significantly entitled aesthetic experience and somaesthetics, shusterman has observed that somaesthetics’ “integration of theory and practice, along with its melioristic thrust to improve […] somatic experience and practice,” reflects this discipline’s “roots in pragmatist experience which puts aesthetic experience at the center of its philosophy of art,” and that the lived body or soma “clearly seems to be at the core of aesthetic experience both in the creation and appreciation of art” (shusterman, 2018, p. 2). on the basis of both the conceptual and thematic breadth of somaesthetics and of its variety, openness, plurality and flexibility, i will focus in this article on musical practice and experience, and i will especially investigate jazz improvisation from a somaesthetic perspective. pragmatist aesthetics and somaesthetics have already been applied to the understanding of music, and especially of certain forms of popular music (like rock, rap and funk) by shusterman himself in some important and indeed pioneering contributions to this field (shusterman, 1999; shusterman, 2000, pp. 169–235), which can be drawn close and compared to other significant works on popular music in contemporary aesthetics.3 following shusterman’s model, and further developing his intuitions and insights, other relevant contributions to a somaesthetics of musical practices and experiences were subsequently provided by other scholars in this field. for example, in a recent contribution on vocal somaesthetics it has been convincingly remarked that, “[i]n contrast to the traditional research of human vocality, vocal somaesthetics [is] interested in the bodily sensations of what it feels like to vocalize and to listen to another person vocalizing:” it can be described as “an approach that focuses on the bodily and experiential dimensions of producing vocal sounds and listening to them,” and it is aimed at creating “a comprehensive understanding of human being as a bodily, sentient and vocal being” which considers “human vocal behavior as somatic experience in all its manifestations” (tarvainen, 2018, pp. 120–121, 136–138).4 with its focus on the need to “put experience at the heart of philosophy and [to] celebrate the living, sentient body as the organizing core of experience” (shusterman, 2008, p. xii), somaesthetics can also be successfully applied to jazz music, and can make it possible to arrive at an original understanding of some of its aspects, such as improvisation. an aim of this article is thus to add pragmatist aesthetics and somaesthetics to the list of the philosophical approaches 2 on the somaesthetics of fashion, for example, see shusterman, 2016a. on somaesthetics and the fine art of eating, see shusterman, 2016b. 3 see, for example, theodore gracyk’s important trilogy of books on this topic: rhythm and noise: an aesthetics of rock (1996); i wanna be me: rock music and the politics of identity (2001); listening to popular music: or, how i learned to stop worrying and love led zeppelin (2007). 4 in her essay, tarvainen also refers to the works on musical somaesthetics by holgersen (2010) and maus (2010). for a somaesthetic approach to contemporary rock music, see also marino (2018). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 26 stefano marino capable of shedding light on jazz music, on the basis of the particular contribution that it can offer with regard to the role played by the body in musical practice. 2. musical improvisation is by no means limited only to jazz, but rather represents a fundamental component and element of music as such, at all levels and during the entire history of western and non-western musical traditions. all improvised music, not only jazz, calls for performance values that are different from those that are considered important in that part of so-called classical music based on what lydia goehr has called the werktreue paradigm or ideal (see goehr, 1992). it is therefore not surprising that a philosopher like hans-georg gadamer, for example, in outlining his hermeneutical ontology of art based on the notion of “transformation into structure,” indeed uses the example of improvisation but, in doing so, does not refer to jazz but rather to pre-bachian “organ improvisation” (gadamer, 2007, p. 202; see also gadamer, 2004, pp. 110, 580).5 although improvisation has played a constitutive role in the development of music as such throughout the world in all ages, and although there are surely other important traditions of improvisation in contemporary music, if we focus on contemporary music it is probably jazz that “involves the most highly developed improvisation” (davies, 2005, p. 490), which is most often and quite spontaneously associated with improvisation by a vast number of listeners, and that not by chance is emphatically defined as “the infinite art of improvisation” (berliner, 1994). as has been noted, “improvisation and swing are […] the most important elements of jazz,” although sometimes “defining them has proved elusive” (monson, 2002, p. 114). given the obvious existence of many different and sometimes opposite perspectives on both jazz and improvisation, it is important to add that, in my view, this argument can be valid and can be applied to jazz music in general, that is to the entire repertoire that, for a hundred years or more,6 we have been used to considering and classifying as “jazz.” however, certain kinds of jazz (like big-band swing or so-called pop fusion and smooth jazz, for example) may fall prey to some extent to the objection of only being able to practice “pseudo-improvisation” rather than genuine and real improvisation, because of their tendency to reduce the role of improvisation to a limited, merely patterned and, as it were, pre-digested embellishment of details in socalled “breaks” whose function remains completely determined by the underlying harmonic and metric schemes.7 other kinds or forms of jazz (such as be-bop or free jazz, for example) seem to justify the fact that for many listeners today jazz represents “the paradigm example of improvisation” in a more convincing way (brown, 2011, p. 59). in fact, notwithstanding the presence of established and style-compliant constraints, structures, schemata and habits also in be-bop improvisation and in some early forms of free jazz, the latter do not confine the practice of improvisation to a mere substitution and embellishment of details in pre-determined parts of 5 as has been noted, musical improvisation “has long been a common—indeed, perhaps basic—feature of music throughout the world” and, with regard to the european tradition, “[i]mprovisation in concert music [only] declined in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (brown, 2011, p. 59). 6 as is well-known, the very first jazz recording commercially released, “livery stable blues” by the original dixieland jazz band, dates back to 1917, but the origins of this genre are definitely older and rooted in afro-american musical traditions including blues and ragtime. 7 i employ the concept of “pseudo-improvisation, deriving it from adorno’s seminal essays on jazz and popular music from the 1930s-1940s, re-published now in english translation in his collection essays on music (adorno, 2002). while acknowledging that adorno’s investigation of music, with his unique capacity to deduce philosophical and social implications from the musical material itself, remains of invaluable importance today, i disagree with his tendency to sometimes propose “totalizing claims” (such as the claim that all jazz is standardized and pseudo-individualized) instead of “a more fine-grained and concrete analysis of the various arts and the differing forms of their appropriation” (shusterman, 2000, p. 170). on adorno’s aesthetics of popular music, see campbell, gandesha and marino, 2019. somaesthetics and sound27 jazz improvisation and somatic experience the song, such as the “breaks,” but rather let improvisation profoundly influence and modify the structure of the song itself and thus determine its development and its meaning. to be precise, not all jazz takes the specificities of improvised music to the extreme, however, while it is surely important to pay attention to the discontinuities between the different phases and stages of development of the history of jazz, from my perspective, in a somehow hermeneutical fashion, it is even more important to emphasize its continuity and to precisely ground it in the practice of improvisation.8 as the italian scholar of jazz, gildo de stefano, has claimed, “there is just one chain connecting the different styles in jazz,” and it is specifically improvisation: “improvisation [in jazz] is spontaneous but at the same time every note must always sound as inevitable and right, and must always let emerge a sense of wonder […]. imagination still remains the greatest gift that a jazz player can be equipped with” (de stefano, 2014, pp. 146–148). while some theorists and musicians have urged the importance of differentiating jazz sharply from so-called “non-idiomatic improvisation” or “free radical improvisation,” and thus of avoiding to classify the latter as “jazz” (see, for instance, arena, 2018), in my view there is not a complete discontinuity between these forms of improvised music but rather a certain continuity. on this basis, i tend to consider “non-idiomatic improvisation” or “free radical improvisation” as a radicalization of a spirit and an attitude that has probably characterized all jazz music at least since the bebop era (although in various ways and with different degrees of freedom, of course), rather than as something totally different from jazz and incommensurable to it. in much the same way, for example, in my view there is also more continuity than discontinuity between the kind of improvisation that is usually practiced in jazz and the sometimes radical, spontaneous, dissonant and free improvisation that we can find traces of in the performances of some musicians that are usually classified as “rock” but that, due to their originality, freshness, energy, experimental and emancipatory attitude, destabilizing musical power, and also improvisational freedom, undoubtedly belong to the great figures of contemporary music. just to name a few examples, we may mention jimi hendrix, frank zappa, the velvet underground, tim buckley, led zeppelin, king crimson, einstürzende neubauten, sonic youth, tortoise, and to some extent also a more mainstream-oriented band like radiohead. 3. in addition to what has been said before, the abovementioned idea that improvised music calls for values that are different from those that are considered important in other musical forms can be also applied to other aspects of this problem. for example, it can be applied to the different ways in which the bodies of both the musician and the listener (who, in many forms of music that call for higher or lower degrees of improvisation, is sometimes a listener and at the same time a dancer) are involved in the performance. in his rich, interesting and very well-documented survey of the field entitled the body in music, the italian musicologist luca marconi has explained that “every sound (either vocal or instrumental) is necessarily perceived in more or less direct connection to body attitudes and behaviors that are potentially able to produce an equivalent sound” (marconi, 2009, p. 49). so, “a presence of somatic phenomena” is always implied by music as such (marconi, 2010, p. 177). at the same time, however, following intuitions and insights provided by davide sparti and vincenzo caporaletti in their theories of “the unheard-of sound” and “the audiotactile principle,” but also 8 i borrow this general conception, and apply it freely here to the particular phenomenon of jazz music, from gadamer’s (2004, p. 83). idea of “the hermeneutic continuity of human existence [that] constitutes our being” philosophical hermeneutics. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 28 stefano marino softening some of their conclusions that appear to him too radical or extreme, marconi adds that certain forms of music definitely emphasize “the bodily adhesion to the sound dimension” more than others: for example, “all ‘african-derived genres’ (above all jazz, but also blues and rock) promote and appreciate listening and paying attention to the bodily gestures through which every performer develops his/her personal way of playing music,” whereas other musical styles tend to reduce the importance of the role of the body in the performance and hence, as it were, “desomatize the sound” (marconi, 2009, pp. 51, 60). as examples of the different features and values that are called for in different musical traditions, in his article marconi mentions, for instance, some ritual forms of music in ghana, tanzania and latin america, which explicitly provide for “improvised variations on codified repeated musical patterns” and that “generate in the participants to the musical and dance rituals […] a sense of communitas, a shared feeling of fraternity and equality perceived through different body attitudes” (marconi, 2010, pp. 163, 168). as i have said, however, “african-derived genres” (all implying a more or less pronounced component of improvisation) and, in occasional cases, even such forms of “european serious music” as “the performances of collective improvisations in avant-garde music” (marconi, 2010, p. 170), may also call for very different bodily attitudes and interactions than those that we are more frequently used to associating with music on the basis of certain traditions that we have become familiar with, and that, as it were, have become commonsense for us. connecting these examples to those provided by shusterman (taken from contemporary popular music but referring anyway to “african-derived genres,” inasmuch as he mostly focuses on rock, rap and funky music), we can then see that the experience of this music (which often requires a high degree of improvisation, in turn): …can be so intensely absorbing and powerful that it is likened to spiritual possession. […] rock songs are typically enjoyed through moving, dancing, and singing along with the music, often with such vigorous efforts that we break a sweat and eventually exhaust ourselves. […] clearly, on the somatic level, there is much more effortful activity in the appreciation of rock than in that of high-brow music, whose concerts compel us to sit in a motionless silence which often induces not mere torpid passivity but snoring sleep. […] the much more energetic and kinesthetic response evoked by rock exposes the fundamental passivity of the traditional aesthetic attitude of disinterested, distanced contemplation – a contemplative attitude that has its roots in the quest for philosophical and theological knowledge rather than pleasure (shusterman, 2000, pp. 178–184). 4. some recent philosophical contributions on musical improvisation, with a special focus on jazz, have proposed that we “solve the puzzle” concerning this particular practice with conceptual tools provided by, for example, contemporary philosophers like wittgenstein and derrida, with a particular emphasis on the role of mistakes as surprising experiences of creativity, and the capacity to face the unknown and to freely decide how to proceed, in jazz (see, for instance, bertinetto, 2018b and 2018c; and goldoni, 2018a and 2018b). other recent contributions on this topic have tried to investigate jazz improvisation, and especially ornette coleman’s free jazz, by bringing it into conversation with husserl’s phenomenological analysis of time consciousness and retention-protention scheme (angelino, 2019). as i have already said, in this article i would somaesthetics and sound29 jazz improvisation and somatic experience like to add pragmatist aesthetics and somaesthetics to this list, on the basis of the particular contribution that this approach can offer, especially with regard to the role played by the body in all musical practice and experience, and in improvised music in particular. a passage from shusterman’s book body consciousness can be of help in explaining why a pragmatist and somaesthetic perspective in this specific field can be interesting and useful. in chapter four of his book shusterman quotes a long passage from wittgenstein’s vermischte bemerkungen on the body’s crucial role in music, and then adds that this recognition would need “to be taken a step further in a pragmatic direction:” in fact, “if one’s body […] is capable of being more finely tuned to perceive, respond, and perform aesthetically,” then it is probably reasonable to try “to learn and train this ‘instrument of instruments’ by more careful attention to somaesthetic feelings” (shusterman, 2008, p. 126). for shusterman, “[m]ore than guitars or violins or pianos or even drums, our bodies are the primary instrument for the making of music,” and also “more than records, radios, tapes, or cds, bodies are the basic, irreplaceable medium for its appreciation:” in general, “our bodies are the ultimate and necessary instrument for music” at all levels, both in theory and practice, both for musical creation and enjoyment (shusterman, 2008, p. 126). now, such a seemingly easy and, as it were, obvious remark such as “our bodies are the primary instrument for the making of music” is actually very powerful, and even radical in emphasizing something that, in my opinion, other philosophical and also scientific approaches to music sometimes tend to forget and don’t pay adequate attention to: namely, the unavoidable somatic component that is present in all music-making and that certain forms of musical performance take to the extreme. this is something that, conversely, pragmatist and somaesthetic approaches to music can help us to remember, to pay attention to, and thus to investigate in its various dimensions (representational, experiential and performative). this is also something that, although of great value and importance for all kinds of music (including the repertoire of classical music with its rigorous distinction between the composer and the performer, with its werktreue ideal of performance, with its very precise postures prescribed to the musicians and also to the listeners, etc.), is especially important in the particular case of improvised music. in addition, it must also be noted that in the scientific investigation of music the body has often been referred to “as an instrument” in a somehow reductionist way, whereas the somaesthetics of music, “instead of focusing on the acoustic or physiological facts” in making music, prioritizes the study and cultivation of bodily-musical experiences, i.e. what we may also call “the inside perspective” (tarvainen, 2018, p. 122). at this point, i would like to add a few remarks on the concept of improvisation as such, not only limited to music, in order to develop a sufficiently broad idea of improvisation that may also be of help for the pragmatist aim to reconnect art and life. in fact, just as musical improvisation is by no means limited only to jazz music, so improvisation in general is by no means limited only to music, or even only to the performance arts in general. in alessandro bertinetto’s recent and indeed ambitious theorization, which explicitly recalls in its very title nietzsche’s famous formula about the birth of greek tragedy from the spirit of music, the birth of art can be traced back to the spirit of improvisation. this is true because improvisation, in turn, is such a fundamental part of human life in general that it may be well conceived of as “the link between human practices and art:” for bertinetto, “improvisation incorporates and genetically shows the specificity of autonomous art as well as […] the link between human practices [of all kinds] and art as a specific human practice” (bertinetto 2018a, p. 119). other relevant insights into this fundamental connection between the particular human practice of art and the global the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 30 stefano marino realm of human practices and experiences that always include an improvisational component, can be found in recent important works on improvisation in life and art, with a specific focus on “the body that improvises” (see amoroso and de fazio, 2018, and in general the contributions collected in pelgreffi, 2018). improvisation must be thus understood as a human practice by no means limited to music, or, more in general, to art, but rather must be understood in a broad way, with a broad meaning, as a part (and, indeed, a fundamental and unavoidable one) of the human world-experience in general, as a cultural practice that is connected to a specific expertise or competence and that displays itself at various levels in all dimensions of life. as a matter of fact, there is a certain and often indefinable degree of improvisation in most everything we do: we improvise to some extent at work, in our personal relationships, during a conversation, while having sex, when taking an exam, when riding our bicycle or driving our car, in many aspects of our everyday life in general, and then of course in art and music. from this point of view, it surely makes sense to emphasize the links between improvisation in everyday life and artistic improvisation, while at the same time recognizing the differences between them, and thus distinguishing them: in fact, if the performance of all actions involves certain improvisational elements and components, then in the specific case of the artistic field improvisation must be understood as a kind of development of creativity and rearrangement of forms, materials and techniques in real time. if improvisation is a genuinely human practice, a genuine component of human life experience in general and not only in art, it is nevertheless in art, and particularly in music, that the specific features of improvisation manifest themselves in perhaps the clearest way, and become fully explicit, thus also facilitating a philosophical understanding of this capacity. in other words, improvisation in art, and in particular in music, highlights, emphasizes, strengthens and increases in value the characteristics of improvisation in general, and thus makes it easier for theorists to grasp its essence, to identify its basic features and distinctive characters. if so, then “improvisation in the performing arts shows at a micro level what happens, at a macro level, in artistic practices in general,” and the latter, in turn, shows what happens at a still greater macro level in life in general (bertinetto, 2018a, pp. 129, 131–132). 5. on the basis of these presuppositions, placing an inquiry into jazz improvisation into a somaesthetic context of investigation can prove to be useful and important so as to deepen, enrich and refashion our understanding of improvisation in both life and art. as noted by davide sparti (2005, p. 135), improvisation is also a genuine source of knowledge, and more precisely a kind of knowledge that is more a “knowing-how” than a “knowing-that,” and a kind of knowledge that can be described in terms of “embodied skills”. this is already clear on the many occasions in which we must face the unknown and the unexpected in everyday life—the very term “improvisation” deriving from the latin ex improviso (bertinetto, 2016, pp. 189–220). this becomes even clearer and more explicit in performance art and especially in music and dance: namely, in forms of art in which the body plays a very fundamental and special role (also in comparison to other art forms or genres), both in itself and in its tight and sometimes inseparable relationship with the musical instrument. the kind of knowledge and skill that is required to be a musician can be also indeed be considered an embodied knowledge. this is true in general, and thus at all levels and in all musical styles or genres, but it is especially true in the case of good, prepared and well-trained somaesthetics and sound31 jazz improvisation and somatic experience musicians, and in the case of improvised music, since in improvised music the musician, in order to be able to face the challenge of the unknown and the unexpected on stage in the free interplay with their musical partners, with the audience and with the surrounding environment, must be really in sync with their instrument as if it was a part of their body. as explained by bill bruford (2018, pp. 12, 18–19, 199)—a legendary rock and jazz drummer but also a phd scholar and the author of an academic book on creativity that, among other things, is also based on the precepts of john dewey’s philosophical theory of art as experience, as far as its theoretical background is concerned—, the unforeseen is a “foundational construct of creativity:” as showed by the latin etymology, it is also linked to the notion of improvisation, “a key skill of the jazz performer as she or he deals literally with the unforeseen in real time” during a process or activity that can be described as an embodied performance.9 ever since pythagoras, plato and st. augustine, up to medieval and early-modern conceptions of the so-called “music of the spheres” or “harmony of the spheres,” and arriving at the present age with adorno’s idea of “music as knowledge” (adorno, 2006, pp. 96–99) and still other theorists, music has often been associated with truth and knowledge.10 if music has been understood as a form of knowledge from many different philosophical and also religious or mystical perspectives, from a pragmatist and especially somaesthetic point of view it can be said that musical knowledge represents a form of embodied knowledge that can be also of great importance to broaden and deepen one’s “body consciousness,” to adapt a famous expression by shusterman for my purposes. according to sparti, however, if we ask ourselves the question: “how can one become able to play improvised jazz?,” then in trying to answer it we find ourselves compelled, as it were, to develop …a theory of practical knowledge that stresses the embedded and embodied aspect of musical knowledge and skill, namely that required to be able to play an instrument and especially to show the kind of performative capacity that improvising is. […] [i]t is crucial to differentiate between knowledge mediated by mental representations and knowledge-in-action, immediately embodied in acting. […] when we start from the observation of an expert improviser and try to trace back his/her ability to a complete catalogue of codified and explicit instructions, then we understand how difficult our task is. moreover, what has been learned are not only and not so much the rules but rather a sort of sensitivity or touch, namely the sensitivity or touch required to realize a flow of coordinated and generative actions, a sort of dynamic circuit between the musician [scil. with his/her body: sm], the instrument, the co-players and the sound event. […] it is necessary to clarify the practical features of the particular form of creation of the new that improvising is. many music critics and musicologists have developed their analyses at a level that is [intellectually] too high, thus omitting precisely the embodied practices that have generated the music that one aims to report on: the history of jazz, the songs, but already and also the actions of the musician, presuppose the existence of arms and hands, of a resonating voice, of a selectively listening ear, of a sight directed in certain directions: in other words, they presuppose aspects of perception and human embodiment that cannot be overcome or taken for granted. one must thus develop a 9 on the underlying deweyan presuppositions of bruford’s investigation of creativity, based on his academic study of this topic but also grounded in his 41-year career as a drummer that led him to actively collaborate with, among others, yes, king crimson, genesis, uk, earthworks, michiel borstlap, patrick moraz, ralph towner and eddie gomez, david torn and many more, see bruford, 2018, pp. 20-37. 10 in frank zappa’s well-known and funny, but at the same time serious view, music is even more important than knowledge: “information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music, music is the best” (zappa and occhiogrosso, 1989, p. 79). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 32 stefano marino carnal sociology [scil. and philosophy: sm] of music, not one of the body but, more radically, one from the body (sparti, 2005, pp. 136–137; my emphasis). following shusterman’s original intuitions, “if we put aside traditional philosophical prejudice against the body and simply recall philosophy’s central aims of knowledge, selfknowledge, right action, and its quest for the good life, then the philosophical value of somaesthetics should become clear in several ways:” if “knowledge is largely based on sensory perception” but the latter’s “reliability often proves questionable,” then the route offered by somaesthetics is “to correct the actual functional performance of our senses by an improved direction of one’s body, since the senses belong to and are conditioned by the soma” (shusterman, 2000, p. 267). from a somaesthetic perspective, knowledge of the world and also self-knowledge are not only important as such but also improvable, and can be improved “not by denying our bodily senses but by perfecting them” through specific methods, experiences, practices and arts (shusterman, 2000, p. 268). 6. on the basis of what has been said above, jazz improvisation can be understood: (1) as an artistic practice that promotes, in a deweyan pragmatist spirit, the attempt to reconcile and reconnect art and life; (2) as an artistic practice that, like all music and all performance art, is based among other things on a strong, indeed unavoidable somatic component, i.e. on a fundamental role played by the body during the performance, with the musician’s body completely involved and “immersed” in the performance: in the specific case of jazz, let us think of the particular and often inimitable postures and uses of their bodies by such different jazz musicians as charlie parker, miles davis, charles mingus, john coltrane, albert ayler, wayne shorter, keith jarrett, john scofield, pat metheny, brad mehldau, and many more; (3) as an artistic practice that, precisely due to the level of somatic involvement by the musician in the playing of music that is (partially or totally, depending on the kind of musical improvisation) “instantly composed” during the performance, requires a great competence and mastery of the musical instrument. namely, it requires a relationship with the instrument that arrives at understanding it, and above all at feeling it, as something like an appendage of one’s own limbs (please consider, as a somewhat typical example, the drummer’s relationship with drums, percussions and cymbals forming the “drum kit” as almost appendages of their own arms and legs). 11 on the one hand, the capacity to arrive at a good level of improvisation in music thus requires a great deal of musical knowledge12 and also somatic knowledge, a progressively increased knowledge of one’s own body, of its potentialities and also of its limits. on the other hand, in a somaesthetic spirit of pragmatic meliorism, this may also prove to be a genuine 11 as noted by bill bruford in his book on creativity in performance explained through the example of drumming, “it is important to highlight [that] the instrument is played with some combination of all four limbs in play. […] assuming a four-limbed drummer is playing a standard seven-piece drum set of bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat, high tom, low tom, ride, and crash cymbals, she or he may strike any combination of seven instruments with any combination of up to four limbs” (bruford, 2018, p. 106)—that which clearly requires a great mastery not only of the instrument, i.e. the drum kit, but also of the drummer’s body, with a high level of bodily coordination and somatic consciousness. 12 of course, this musical knowledge can be, but must not necessarily be, an academic one, as in the case of many excellent self-taught jazz musicians. it must also be added that learning to play an instrument fluently is not in itself a sufficient condition for original, brilliant improvising and, in general, for creativity. to again quote bill bruford (2018, pp. 68, 209), “[t]he importance of technical control in music invention lies in its affordance of possible options from which to select”, but there is “no direct linear connection between technical dexterity (or the amount of deliberate practice needed to achieve it) and creativity” which, in turn, is defined by bruford in his academic inquiry into “creative performance” as “sociocultural, intersubjective and interactive” (and embodied, i add), as “embedded within a meaningful shared experience around collaboration and community”, and as “an action in between actors and their environment rather than a psychological phenomenon entirely located within the individual mind”. somaesthetics and sound33 jazz improvisation and somatic experience source of improvement of one’s capacities to use one’s body in new, unexpected, creative ways. for this reason, not only can be music compared to a form of knowledge that also includes a component of somatic knowledge, as argued before; and not only can be musical improvisation be understood as one of the varieties of music that mostly testify this fact:13 in addition, it is also remarkable that musical improvisation can be approached from a somaesthetic perspective from the analytic, the pragmatic and the practical dimension of somaesthetics, and also from both the representational and the experiential side of this discipline (shusterman, 2000, pp. 271–276). in using the term “discipline,” it can be interestingly observed that this term has characteristically “[a] double meaning,” indicating both “a branch of learning or instruction and […] a corporal form of training or exercise,” and that this perfectly applies to somaesthetics as “a discipline of theory and practice” (shusterman, 2000, pp. 271, 276) but also perfectly applies to music. as a matter of fact, to express the concept by using the “discipline/indiscipline” terminological pair that also gives the title to two masterpieces in robert fripp’s catalogue with king crimson,14 the development of musical capacities at all levels undoubtedly requires a great deal of “discipline” (both theoretical-technical and somatic-practical) in order to arrive at a significant, expressive and aesthetically rich level of musical “indiscipline.” this is exemplified in a perfect way, once again, by what happens during a jazz improvisation, if we simply think of how much “disciplined” and at the same time “undisciplined” all great performers in the history of jazz have always been, and of how much their postures and the uses of their body are connected to their capacity to “express the inexpressible” through their voices and their instruments15— where the pair “discipline/indiscipline” does not completely overlap, but can nevertheless be fruitfully connected with, other pairs such as “structure/expression,” “convention/innovation,” “habit/changes,” “style and commonality/liberty and individuality,” “order/chaos” etc. 7. at this point, i would like to exemplify the previous interpretations and argumentations by referring to the abovementioned (and, in my view, really exemplary) case of the drummer’s explicitly and emphatically somatic relationship with their musical instrument. as a matter of fact, although the same phenomenon can be observed in jazz in the cases of saxophone players, trumpet players, guitar players, bass players, piano players and of course also singers, then due to the perhaps higher level of somatic involvement that an activity like drumming requires 13 learning to play an instrument so fluently as to be able to “instantly compose” a musical piece, as happens during real improvisations, requires what robert fripp has so described with reference to his development of particular guitar techniques in his guitar craft students’ group: “there was a knowing in the hand through doing it for years which i consulted. […] my body knew what was involved, but i didn’t know about it” (quoted in tamm, 1991, p. 15; my emphasis]). see also tamm, 1991, p. 78, on the somatic component involved in fripp’s guitar methods as a teacher: “many of [george ivanovich] gurdjieff ’s exercises involved or began with some sort of gradual relaxation of the muscles, starting with the muscles of the face and working downward through the body. fripp has said that we can do nothing when not relaxed, and since his time at sherborne [scil. where fripp attended courses of john g. bennett, a former student of gurdjieff ] has practiced a regular routine of relaxation in the morning before breakfast; such a ritual, led by a qualified instructor, has been worked into the guitar craft seminars. along with relaxation there is a type of exercise for sensing the different parts of the body ‘from the inside’.” in these and analogous experiences, the somatic component of musical practice interestingly appears to be inextricably connected and interlaced with mental and sometimes quasimystical components that are nevertheless not autonomous, as it were, but indeed inseparable from the physical, somatic dimension of music playing, and actually grounded in it. 14 quite interestingly, in a recent description of the present “incarnation” of king crimson as an eight-piece band that has been quoted in the booklet of their double cd live in chicago 2017, the music of the band has been defined as characterized, among other things, by extraordinary capacities for improvisation: “the precision of an orchestra, the freedom of a jazz band, and the power of a rock band”. 15 i borrow this description from adorno. in his view, we fail to do justice to the essence of all genuine philosophizing if we do not grasp “the philosophical urge to express the inexpressible. the more anxiously a philosophy resists that urge, which is its peculiarity, the greater the temptation to tackle the inexpressible directly, without the labor of sisyphus – which, by the way, would not be the worst definition of philosophy and does so much to bring ridicule upon it. […] philosophy is neither a science nor the ‘cogitative poetry’ to which positivists would degrade it in a stupid oxymoron. it is a form transmitted to those which differ from it as well as distinguished from them. its suspended state is nothing but the expression of its inexpressibility. in this respect it is a true sister of music” (adorno, 2004, pp. 108–109). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 34 stefano marino because of its very nature, the latter may prove to be more useful for our purposes (with all the limbs of the body being simultaneously and in coordination active in beating drums, cymbals, cowbells and so on, so that the role of the body as agent to create music becomes especially tangible in drumming). different musical styles in jazz drumming, as exhibited and displayed especially in improvisations, are indeed not only revealing of different technical skills, different aesthetic choices and taste preferences in the use of certain cymbals or drums, different shades and nuances in the application of singleor double-stroke rolls, paradiddles, singleor doublebass drum pedal techniques, and all other “rudiments” for drumming, but are also revealing of different “somatic styles” (borrowing the concept of somatic style from shusterman, (2011)). just to name a few examples of leading figures in modern jazz drumming from the 1970s onwards, please consider how inseparable jack dejohnette’s, joey baron’s or brian blade’s passionate and overwhelming drum style is from their tumultuous and at times even somewhat “uncoordinated” (due to an unrestrained musical enthusiasm and expressiveness, especially in baron’s or blade’s cases) physical approach to the instrument.16 or, vice-versa, consider how inseparable steve gadd’s, vinnie colaiuta’s or dave weckl’s extraordinarily precise, calculated and metronomic drum style is from the accurately controlled and “hyper-coordinated” movements of all their limbs and parts of their bodies during the performance.17 consider how inseparable peter erskine’s, manu katche’s or bill bruford’s impeccable class, sensitivity and touch is from their relaxed, non-ostentatious and “disciplined” somatic style, even when playing very “undisciplined” and ferociously improvised tunes (still using the “discipline/indiscipline” conceptual pair, given bruford’s long-time involvement with at least three “incarnations” of king crimson).18 consider how inseparable billy cobham’s, dennis chambers’ or omar hakim’s energetic, powerful and, so-to-speak, muscular drum style is from a posture that immediately shows, at the very level of their bodies’ movements, the capacity to connect a high level of fluency and mastery of their instrument to a unique feeling for funky rhythms and the primordial function of drums for dancing.19 consider also how much the distinct drum styles of various drummers enrolled in a certain band in different years are also connected to, and reflected by, their dissimilar somatic styles; and how much, this, in turn, can influence the entire band’s practices of musical composition and performance at various levels. useful examples in contemporary jazz may be those of the different musical and somatic styles provided by danny gottlieb, paul wertico and antonio sanchez in the pat metheny group, or by marvin “smitty” smith, billy kilson, nate smith and eric harland in the dave holland quartets, quintets, sextets, octets and big bands. finally, consider how relevant and striking, eye-catching, impossibleto-pass-unnoticed is the connection between the purely musical dimension of drumming and its somatic dimension on the occasion of drum duets starring musicians characterized by heterogeneous styles. just to mention a few well-known examples, let me remind the reader of such exciting drum duets as those between bill stewart and gregory hutchinson,20 or between 16 for example, respectively: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij26nzem-gs; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwiyjrprfxu; https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vdtc9whncg. 17 for example, these three great drummers soloing together and having a beautiful improvised conversation with drums, cymbals and percussions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czojnlvhrqu. 18 for example, respectively: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2qlsrfuao8; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp_iwatu4a8; https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqhkjyewjou. 19 for example, respectively: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ijn1rlyete; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjkznnux7by; https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ao0aeur6q. 20 for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhdjmsssfd0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij26nzem-gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwiyjrprfxu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vdtc9whncg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vdtc9whncg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czojnlvhrqu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2qlsrfuao8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp_iwatu4a8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqhkjyewjou https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqhkjyewjou https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ijn1rlyete https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjkznnux7by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ao0aeur6q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ao0aeur6q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhdjmsssfd0 somaesthetics and sound35 jazz improvisation and somatic experience terry bozzio and chad wackerman,21 two of frank zappa’s favorite drummers, with their very different musical and somatic styles, and with their unique capacity to provide different but equally valid interpretations of the black page.22 interestingly, an account of musical creativity that, as already hinted at above, understands it on the basis of a deweyan background, that also pays attention to the dimension of surprise, of the unforeseen and unexpected and thus of improvisation (with a special focus on jazz), and that precisely exemplifies through drumming its conception of creativity and performance as a meditated, common and diffused (instead than individual or “person-centric”, as in “the ‘lone genius’ paradigm posited by the romantic conception”), embedded and also embodied “action in context,” has been offered by bill bruford, one of most famous rock-jazz drummers of recent decades and the author of the academic study uncharted: creativity and the expert drummer (bruford 2018, pp. 3–14, 45–52, 199–201). although bruford’s book is not specifically dedicated to trying to answer such questions as, for example, how embodied knowledge is present, needed and learned/developed in the case of improvisation in jazz drumming, or what the embodied knowledge here entails in specific or concrete terms, or how embodied knowledge and experience are connected in improvisation in jazz drumming, or what the lack of such knowledge might reveal and how would it be revealed, in some chapters it nevertheless pays close attention to the somatic dimension of music (with a focus also on jazz and improvisation). this is the case, for example, in his intriguing observations on the way in which musical activities (in the matter in question, those of jazz and rock drummers) “are governed by a cultural tradition that regulates and shapes the experience of creative practice, and take place within a community that mediates and promotes the psychological behavior and meaning-making of the individual. […] embracing a particularly corrosive ideology, however, the broader drum culture (that enfolds the community) is something of an extreme case,” as testified by a few “sets of issue” among which, for bruford, prominently figures a deep-rooted anti-somatic prejudice deriving from no less than “the impact of the cartesian mind/body split” (bruford, 2018, pp. 16–17). as a matter of fact, according to bruford “the link between creativity and the drum culture” (that especially manifests itself during jazz improvisations23) is problematically “mediated by the corrosive influence of the culture’s organizing ideology,” defined as “the articulated system of meanings, values, and beliefs that can be abstracted as the ‘worldview’ of the drum community,” and that, at least to some extent, seems to reinforce “distinctions between the culture of drummers and other instrumentalists,” which can be connected to “western music culture’s perceived predisposition against the ‘rhythmatist’” (bruford, 2018, p. 133). in a genuinely pragmatist and even somaesthetic fashion, bruford indeed criticizes a certain “historical insistence that notions of aesthetics, mind, harmony, and the intellect are superior to hedonism, body, rhythm” which “has become embedded” in a widespread but mistaken “drum ideology” that, in a philosophically ambitious way, he even dares to trace back “to rené descartes and the seventeenth century dualist notion of the ‘mind/body split’.” referring to simon frith’s sociological analysis of popular music, which can be intriguingly compared to shusterman’s philosophical critique of the high 21 for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xriznovc5j8. 22 frank zappa’s composition the black page has been emphatically defined as “the most complex rhythmic composition humanly performable” (salvatore, 2000, pp. 136–137). it is “a written piece of music that, while simulating improvisation” (i.e. sounding as if it was an improvised piece played by the drummer), “reveals instead its real character of written musical score,” “a sound experience that has to do with the possibility of impossibility” (montecchi, 2000, p. 191). 23 “jazz performance”, according to bruford (2018, p. 87), can be understood as “an ongoing interaction between person, product, and environment, one which an audience is invited to observe. it is expected that the product (the performed outcomes of these interactions) will change frequently and in response to multiple environmental conditions. the emphasis is on the process, not the product.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xriznovc5j8 the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 36 stefano marino culture/popular culture dichotomy in pragmatist aesthetics and elsewhere, bruford observes that “the equation of ‘serious’ with the mind and high culture, and ‘fun’ with the body and thus low culture, became established in the united states and europe in the mid-nineteenth century,” and that characteristically, while “a good classical performance [is] measured by the stillness it commands, […] a good rock concert [is] measured by the audience’s physical response and bodily movement” (bruford, 2018, p. 133). starting from these presuppositions, if we shift our attention to the specific case of drumming, and in particular of jazz performances based on improvisation,24 we can see some effects of “[t] his musical dichotomy of aesthetic/mind versus hedonistic/body” grounded in “the falsity of the mind/split [and] the separation of thought from feeling” (bruford, 2018, pp. 134, 136). that is, we can understand – and, on the basis of this understanding, reasonably criticize—the still quite common but wrong idea of “bodily responses [as] mindless” and, as a consequence of the high level of somatic involvement that drumming requires, “[t]he conception of drumming as ‘mindless’” and the fact that “the western kit drummer [has] become imbued with the primitive, the sexual, and the mindless” (bruford, 2018, pp. 134–135). with regard to this, the experience and practice of drumming can offer a good example to support the efforts of pragmatist aesthetics and somaesthetics to put aside traditional prejudices against the body and reevaluate its central role in art and performance, while the somaesthetics’ critique of the sad somatic neglect that has been characteristic of a great part of western philosophy and culture, in turn, can provide a suitable theoretical framework for a revaluation of improvisation in drumming, not in spite of its pronounced somatic character, but precisely because of the latter and the importance of the body that it displays. last but not least, jazz improvisation may be of interest to a philosophical discipline like somaesthetics not only from an artistic point of view, but also from a more practical point of view that can be connected to the pragmatic/practical dimension of somaesthetics interested in “proposing specific methods of somatic improvement” and in “practicing such care through intelligently disciplined body work aimed at somatic self-improvement,” that is, “concerned not with saying but with doing” (shusterman, 2000, pp. 272, 276). based on my own experience as a musician and indeed as a drummer, after almost three decades i can still exactly remember the very first lesson i attended with my teacher, a very well-trained professional drummer named enzo augello, who (to my surprise and partial disappointment, as a teenager who unrealistically expected to be able to play like john bonham or stewart copeland after one or two drum lessons!), before even teaching me how to play a single-stroke roll or how to alternate hi-hat, bass drum and snare drum in very a simple 4/4 rhythm, devoted almost three hours to teaching me how to sit on the stool, how to correctly place my body in front of the drum kit, how to correctly hold the drumsticks, at which height i should correctly place the cymbals on the basis of the dimensions of my body, and so on. this is exactly what a good music teacher will immediately pay attention to with their pupils from the very first lesson: purely somatic teaching, in a sense, before even hitting the snare drum or the floor tom for the first time with the drumsticks. this is exactly what proved to be essential, in my modest experience as an amateur and non-professional drummer, in order to prevent the bodily problems that can otherwise occur in such a physically demanding activity as playing drums (inflammations, muscular spasms, tendinitis, etc.) and that can even evolve into more serious problems concerning one’s somaesthetic feelings with music. as observed by shusterman, 24 as noted by bruford, improvisation, as a partially or totally “instant composition” with a particularly important role assigned to the performer in comparison to the composer, has also been subject for decades to negative prejudices and devaluation (bruford, 2018, pp. 9–13). somaesthetics and sound37 jazz improvisation and somatic experience …the body deserves humanistic study to improve its use in the various artistic and scholarly pursuits that it underlies and serves. musicians, actors, dancers, and other artists can perform better and longer with less attendant pain and fatigue when they learn the proper somatic comportment for their arts, how to handle their instruments and themselves so as to avoid unwanted, unnecessary muscle contractions that result from unreflective habits of effort, detract from efficiency and ease of movement, and ultimately generate pain and disability. a famous case in point concerns the somatic theorist-therapist f. m. alexander, who first developed his acclaimed technique to address his own problems of hoarseness and loss of voice in theatrical acting that were generated by faulty positioning of his head and neck. such learning of intelligent somatic self-use is not a matter of blind drill in mechanical techniques but requires a careful cultivation of somatic awareness (shusterman, 2006, p. 10; my emphasis). i would thus like to conclude with another example taken from modern jazz drumming, and indeed a prominent and famous one, namely roy haynes. i consider hayne’s example as a good and indeed fitting one to make reference to because it proves useful to exemplify and, as it were, to embody the interest of somaesthetics in a vast plurality of different aesthetic practices and experiences not only from a purely theoretical point of view but also from a practical one, including their potential health benefits and help in improving the use of our body and our general well-being. as a matter of fact, haynes, who is now 94 years old and can be proud of an outstanding 70 year long career that has led him to collaborate as drummer and group leader with (among others) lester young, charlie parker, bud powell, sonny rollins, thelonious monk, stan getz, miles davis, eric dolphy, john coltrane, chick corea and michel petrucciani, still continues to perform worldwide and to generously delight audiences from all over the world with his expressive, inimitable style (“snap crackle” was a nickname given him in the 1950s).25 the example of haynes can be compared to many other analogous cases of extraordinarily healthy old musicians in jazz but also in other genres from classical music to heavy metal, but at the same time he definitely stands out because of his uncommon age, his still-excellent level of musical skills at 94 and the particularly demanding physical effort required by his instrument. what this example shows is that, if viewed from a certain perspective, some forms of musical practice can perhaps also be included in the list of the “pragmatic disciplines […] recommended to improve our experience and use of the body” that pragmatic/practical somaesthetics is interested in, such as “diverse diets, body piercing and scarification, forms of dance and martial arts, yoga, massage, aerobics, bodybuilding, various erotic arts […], and such modern psychosomatic therapies as the alexander technique, the feldenkrais method, bioenergetics, rolfing, etc.” (shusterman, 2000, p. 272). the somehow unique example of a musician like roy haynes shows how, in a pragmatist melioristic spirit, the continual, repeated, well-balanced and adequate practice of jazz can lead to what shusterman correctly defines as the “learning of intelligent somatic self-use,” “careful cultivation of somatic awareness” and “improved use of the body:” jazz drumming as a form of somaesthetic knowledge comparable to yoga meditation and practice, in a way. 25 “haynes extracted the rhythmic qualities from melodies and created unique new drum and cymbal patterns in an idiosyncratic, now instantly recognizable style. rather than using cymbals strictly for effect, haynes brought them to the forefront of his unique rhythmic approach. he also established a distinctively crisp and rapid-fire sound on the snare; this was the inspiration for 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(1989). the real frank zappa book. new york: poseidon press. introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 59 page 59–68jiyun bae somaesthetics in early korean history: the educational scope of the hwarang jiyun bae abstract: this paper is concerned with first, reviewing hwarang in early korean history through the eyes of somaesthetics and second examining the educational implications of hwarang. hwarang’s features (aesthetic ideology called pungryudo, their core activities, including songs and journeys) are highlighted from the perspective of somaesthetics. at the core of the hwarang’s activities are such elements as entertainment, pleasure, and joy. in the context of today’s education, the hwarang and somaesthetics promote the insight that one’s intellectual and practical life is integrated into one’s lifestyle based on these bodily experiences. 1. introduction somaesthetics and education are in a pull-and-push relationship. for example, when systemized and programmed in a curriculum, somaesthetics may present a normalized and standardized means of achieving self-awareness and self-cultivation. however, both have the same structure in that they are only possible in relationships with others or with the environment, even though bodily self-awareness is central to somaesthetics. what would happen if somaesthetics were constructed as an educational, political, or social system? history may give us a glimpse. this paper aims to examine the educational significance of hwarang, a system involving groups of young men in early korean history, from the perspective of somaesthetics, so that we can envision the relationship between somaesthetics and education. somaesthetics is an attempt to expand the academic base of aesthetics to interdisciplinary studies and practices. shusterman adopted some pre-modern undifferentiated asian cultural ideas and practices as embodiments of somaesthetics, including confucianism from china (2004), sitting meditation (zazen) from japan (2012, chapter 13), and sexual aesthetics from india (2012, chapter 12). for example, unlike with hedonism, shusterman discovered intrinsic value, totality, and divinity in sexual experiences based on indian classical theory. hence, i recognize the art, comprehensiveness, and sacredness of hwarang, and in this research, i explore its significance to contemporary education. some features of somaesthetics are found in hwarang practice. bodily activities (e.g., dance, singing, performance, martial arts, travel, and pilgrimage) are the disciplines that are the most significant to the hwarang. enjoying engaging in, playing during, and deriving entertainment aesthetics and body experiences in health care60 somaesthetics in early korean history: the educational scope of the hwarang from those activities are essential missions and synonyms or beyond for studying, working, or disciplining in modern connotations. the ideology underlying the hwarang ideology is pungryudo, the way of the stream of wind, which means to play or live in the present moment. the hwarang selection criterion of a “beautiful person” and their pungryudo spirit reveal an aesthetic ideology from early korea. lastly, i aim to reconsider the educational significance of the hwarang. in the context of education in korea, the hwarang have been repeatedly highlighted throughout the years and included in textbooks on history, ethics, the korean language, and social studies as a symbol of the korean ethnic identity, as well as of korean patriotism, bravery, and sacrifice. in the field of education, the hwarang have long been referenced as a model of how to educate people to be harmonious and whole. from the viewpoint of contemporary education, many studies have considered the hwarang to be an ideal from which current educators should learn and integrate their knowledge, virtues, and physicality into the current educational system. however, instead of advocating adoption of the hwarang as an excellent educational model, i explore the educational aspects and the implications of their somaesthetics of beauty, pleasure, enjoyment, and play. 2. the hwarang and their core activities the term hwarang refers to groups of young men and group leaders during the kingdom of silla (57 b.c.–935 a.d.) on the korean peninsula. the leaders, known as hwarang, were usually aristocrats, and the members, known as nangdo, were from various social classes. most were teenagers who banded together for religious, military, political, and/or educational purposes. the hwarang became part of the state system during king chinhung’s reign (540–577); the groups’ features, appearance, and origins before that time are uncertain. the scope of arguments regarding the identity of the hwarang varies: a youth corps for wars, religious groups for conducting rituals, young talent for selection by the state, ethical role models of the age, or an educational organization. as silla underwent dynamic transformations, the hwarang likewise experienced changes in their functions and characteristics. the hwarang originated in relationships in the context of tribal states’ ritual activities before the rise of the kingdom of silla. subsequently, silla exploited the hwarang to support centralized governmental authority to compete with two other kingdoms during the three kingdoms period (in the sixth and seventh centuries). two vital historical records, samguk sagi and samguk yusa,1 elucidate the origins of and outline the hwarang. neither document is a contemporary source, as both were written during the goryeo dynasty, which appeared after the fall of unified silla. [t]hey then selected a handsome boy and adorned him, calling him hwarang, to uphold him [as a leader]. followers gathered like clouds, sometimes to refine each other’s sense of morality and honesty (相磨道義), sometimes to enjoy collectively music and song (相悅歌樂), and to train in and appreciate mountains and streams (遊娯山水), going far and wide. because of this, they knew if a man was corrupt or honest and selected those who were good and recommended them to the court. thus[,] kim taemun, in the hwarang segi, wrote, “wise advisers and loyal 1 samguk sagi (history of the three kingdoms) was written by kim pusik (1075–1151), the official scholar of the goryeo dynasty, and is an orthodox history of the confucian position. samguk yusa (memorabilia of the three kingdoms), written by the buddhist monk ilyon (1206–1289), contains more descriptions of buddhist concepts, myths, and daily life. in this paper, i refer to ilyon (2013) and kim (2012a) as translations of these texts into modern korean. for the english translation, i refer to ilyon (2006) and kim (2012b). i modified some english translations as needed. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 61 jiyun bae subjects excelled from this. outstanding generals and brave soldiers were produced from this.” (kim, 2012b, pp. 130–131) the above passage notes the three core missions of the hwarang: to refine members’ morality, enjoy singing and music, and engage in sightseeing in nature. ahn (2004), a korean pedagogist, has labelled these the curriculum of hwarang education. each is understood as comprising an ethical and moral education, as well as an emotional education through the arts, and the cultivation of the body and mind. this understanding shows respect for the hwarang as a symbolic and traditional korean model of harmonious education that integrates letters with arms and emotion with reason. 2.1. the songs and music of the hwarang songs and music have rhythm, melody, and lyrics rooted in the bodily dimension. the songs of the hwarang, as the primary musical form, have complex related dimensions of ritual, hyangga (rural or silla songs), and knowledge. the songs and music of the time imply primitive ritual aspects, as they were performed during feasts and rituals. a foreign historian has found them worthy of special mention. moreover, the chinese historical document hou han shu (book of the later han), features drinking, singing, dancing, and entertainment during rituals in the three han, formerly the kingdoms of silla. in the area of mahan state, every year after the farming work of may, they celebrate with spirits, singing, dancing, and drinking all through the day and night. dozens of people in the village come together and stamp their feet to beat a rhythm for the dance. the festival is held in october as well when farming is complete. the people of jinhan state preferred to sing, dance, and drink. (min, 1997, p. 33) in silla, a successor to the three han states, palgwanhoe2 (the buddhist festival of eight vows) was the most important ritual, and the hwarang played a significant role in it, performing, it is assumed, a combination of music, singing, dance, plays, games, and martial arts (choi, 2016). it has also been assumed that the silla people gathered to enjoy the performances the hwarang created, organized, and presented. the primitive ritual aspect of hwarang music encompassed singing, dancing, eating, drinking, shouting, chanting, and group movements (e.g., people stamping their feet). through enjoyment of these ritualized bodily movements, the hwarang provided the silla people with an aesthetic experience, brought them joy, and brought them closer to the spirit of god. secondly, hwarang song, hyangga, a genre of poetry in korean literature from the silla era, illuminates the capability of the hwarang as creators or songwriters. a silla monk with membership to the hwarang, wolmyeong, said, “i only know hyangga because i belong to the group of guksun [another name for the hwarang] and am unfamiliar with buddhist songs.” only fourteen hyangga are extant, and the themes vary from religious and shamanistic to emotional and practical. since songs are seamlessly embedded into people's lives through their grounding in the bodily dimension, hyangga was a powerful tool for consolidating the ideas, ethics, and emotions of the time. even the king encouraged the hwarang to compose hyangga and made it one of their significant roles. as hyangga were widely sung and shared among the people of the 2 palgwanhoe is a religious ritual that combines indigenous religions’ harvest ceremony and the buddhist eight vows ceremony, which was held for the first time during king chinhung’s reign, during which the hwarang were officially sanctioned. the ritual was held once per year for seven days, and the tradition passed into the following dynasty, the goryeo, even after the fall of silla. aesthetics and body experiences in health care62 somaesthetics in early korean history: the educational scope of the hwarang kingdom, the artistic talent of the hwarang and their status as artistic creators must have been exalted. lastly, the emphasis on songs and music implies that the hwarang possessed literary knowledge. the hyangga of the hwarang are ten-line poems, a highly-developed structure, written using chinese characters, while other forms, namely fourand eight-line hyangga, were transmitted orally. when silla initiated diplomatic relations with china in the sixth century, which was less advanced than baekje and goguryeo (the two other kingdoms on the korean peninsula), there was strong demand for but short supply of intellectuals proficient in chinese and confucian classics. although silla had its own writing system called hyangchal, an adaptation of chinese characters to transcribe the local silla language, more advanced knowledge of chinese was needed. according to hamada (2002, pp. 98–101), the student monks of silla who traveled to china became or taught hwarang when they returned home, which partly explains why the hwarang were able to compose ten-line hyangga. 2.2. journeys of the hwarang referring to lee (2014), the agenda for and memorable aspects of the journeys of the hwarang reported in the records can be summarized as follows: to be initiated into the mysteries of the mountain spirit to overcome crises in the kingdom, train in swordsmanship, spy, have mystical experiences, hold religious ceremonies, hunt, sightsee, perform merciful acts toward poor filial girls, and compose songs and poems to dedicate to the king. on some journeys, they were, by happenstance, captured by barbarians but saved by other hwarang, or they experienced a supernatural phenomenon and composed a song about it, or retired from secular society to begin ascetic practice. generally, journeys connote breaking away from one’s daily routine, refreshing oneself, indulging in leisure, attending special events, and undergoing personal growth. further, the journeys of the hwarang included self-cultivation (修行) and practicality. we must delve into the meaning of “play” or “travel” (遊, yu) in order to grasp the selfcultivation aspect of the journeys of the hwarang. lee (2014) asserted that usage of yu in silla entailed more than mere playful amusement and supported this argument by referring to the synonymous usage of yu and “self-cultivate” in historical documents. ・kim heumun, when he was young, played (遊) in a hwarang group. ・kim yushin said to yeolgi, “when i was young, i played (遊) with you, so i am very familiar with your constancy and integrity.” ・gumgun says that i belonged to geunrang’s disciples and practiced selfcultivation (修行) in the garden of pungwol [another name for the hwarang]. (lee, 2014, pp. 19–21) “play” or “travel” and “self-cultivation” are synonymous in the above contexts. we need to understand the notion of “play” or “travel” comprehensively, as encompassing amusement, training, cultivation, prayer, cooperation, and study. in modern korean, yuhak (遊学), meaning to study in a faraway land, contains vestiges of the notion’s complexity. physical training during journeys was a significant feature of the self-cultivation aspect. kim yushin, a hwarang-turned-general who led the victory of silla in the unification war, was a well-known master of fencing. his journeys in the mountains involved intensive sword training and mystical experiences that helped him acquire power. contrary to the biased general sense the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 63 jiyun bae of hwarang as military groups, the military aspects of the journeys of the hwarang are neither primarily typical nor conventional (tikhonov, 1998). nevertheless, their journeys comprised hunting, martial arts training, and/or reconnoitering. some journeys are indicative of the religious or spiritual side of self-cultivation. two hwarang, bochun and hyomyung, led thousands of followers on a journey to enjoy the beauty of the mountains. en route, the two disappeared, leaving the secular world to escape to a sacred mountain. afterward, they began studying buddhism, made tea to offer to the buddhas, and prayed and meditated in a temple, a hermitage, and on the mountain peak. this example allows us to envision the spiritual self-cultivation of the hwarang during their journeys. they worshiped the natural objects they encountered (e.g., trees, rocks, and the mountain peak as a hierophany of the buddha), presented offerings in temples or before statues, meditated, and studied nature. aside from their patriotic and notable religious pursuits, the religious self-cultivation of the hwarang, such as purification, praying, chanting, offering tea, and meditation, would have had a practical somaesthetics impact on their bodily senses and consciousness; for instance, their bodily consciousness would have become more refined, their consciousness would have sharpened, and their daily lives would have been enhanced by aesthetical enrichment. additionally, the complex meaning of “play” in the mountains and streams included intellectuality and practicality. the existence of monk hwarang and their destinations on their journeys support this. around the sixth century, monks were intelligentsia who actively accepted the influence of chinese ideas and culture through buddhism. according to lee (2014, p. 29), the monks were involved in the education of the hwarang in the role of conveying advanced knowledge. on many of their journeys to the temples, monks accompanied the hwarang, so it is reasonable to believe that the hwarang encountered refined chinese culture during these journeys. the hwarang were greatly admired during their heyday. their journeys to the mountains and generally into nature, which had a mystical and sacred meaning, secured their prestige. journeys were a powerful opportunity to enhance their spiritual presence and political position. 3. pungryudo: the dao of elegance 3.1. pungryudo the symbolic significance of the hwarang and their core activities or missions involving songs and journeys should all be seen as reflecting pungryudo, the aesthetic ideology. pungryudo (風流道, the way of pungryu) refers to the principle held by or thoughts of the hwarang in the silla era. pungryu (風流) remains in modern korea as well as in china and japan. in modern korean, pungryu signifies a tasteful and free-spirited lifestyle and appreciation for art and the environment. it also refers to the specific genre or title of korean traditional music. on the other hand, according to the historical records, pungryu in the silla era was a somewhat mysterious yet normative idea that combines three traditions. our country has a mysterious principle called pungryu. the origin of this teaching can be found in detail in the history of the hwarang and, in fact, includes the three teachings that transform people when exposed to them. [the idea of ] “at home [be] filial to your family, outside the home [be] loyal to the state” is taught by the minister of punishments in lu [confucius]. “following the doctrine of inaction and aesthetics and body experiences in health care64 somaesthetics in early korean history: the educational scope of the hwarang the practice of teaching without words” is the principle of the scribe of zhou taoism [lao tzu]. “refraining from doing anything evil and to practice reverentially everything good,” this is the teaching of the prince of india [buddha]. (kim, 2012b, p. 131) it seems that pungryudo was a harmonious mixture of confucianism, buddhism, and taoism that provided practical agendas (e.g., loyalty, filial piety, trust, non-action, and respect for life) for the hwarang and society. however, these explanations were scripted during the goryeo dynasty when the three teachings were established solidly enough, and silla pungryudo disappeared. in the early silla period, when organization of the hwarang system began, the three teachings were gradually recognized in silla,3 and it can be argued that pungryudo derived from these three teachings. it is appropriate to view pungryudo as a traditional silla ideology and as a mixture of indigenous beliefs, such as shamanism and the maitreya cult, with the three religions. pungryudo represented the idea of an aesthetic and desirable lifestyle. 3.2. the aesthetics of pungryudo pungryudo, as its name indicates, originated in pungryu, china’s traditional aesthetics, and later spread to korea and japan. pungryudo was the core thought and value that the hwarang were meant to pursue. the normative aspect of pungryudo has been emphasized because of the prevailing understanding of the hwarang from the viewpoint of the modern educational context. however, as the selection criterion of the hwarang—a beautiful person—shows, pungryudo was more aesthetics beyond ethical norms. min (1997) has argued that pungryu (ch. fengliu, jp. furyu) is an east asian primary classical aesthetic concept that still exists today. it originated in china no later than the second century b.c. and applies to a wide range of concepts, including morality, art, nature, and personality. it was subsequently adopted in korea and japan, where it developed differently in each context, becoming a fundamental aesthetic. the korean sense of pungryu is: an open-minded spirit, free from worldly values that exhibits vitality while having a relationship with reality. nature provides an open place where freedom of the spirit is not spatially bound, and poetry, music, liquor, and entertainment are mediums for engaging such a spirit. korean pungryu is a way of behaving and a way of life with an aesthetic and ethical character. (min, 1997, p. 9) min noted that pungryu was a methodological concept, asserting that it had practical applications, such as in politics, social relations, literature, arts, entertainment, sexuality, and daily living, throughout korean history. according to min, the “enriched content of pungryu is nothing but the aesthetic life” (1997, p. 7). pungryudo is one of the significant roots of korean pungryu, as it is the first that appears in historical records in which the beauty of the hwarang is noted as a central feature of pungryudo. chosen hwarang and their appearance, decorum, grooming, attitude, behavior, performance, and stories set the ideal aesthetics of the time. their beauty encompassed representational and experiential dimensions, aimed at the “completeness of the existence of a good and beautiful personality” (min, 1997, p. 50). in somaesthetics, these two dimensions describe a variety of pragmatic disciplines (shusterman, 2000, pp. 272–275). in representational somaesthetics, 3 in the kingdom of silla, confucianism was officially accepted during king sinmun’s reign (681–692), taoism was officialized during king hyoso’s reign (692–701), and buddhism was established as the state religion during king beopheung’s reign (514–540). the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 65 jiyun bae the body’s external appearance, such as fashion and cosmetic beauty, is emphasized, while in experiential somaesthetics, inner experiences, such as yoga or zazen, are emphasized. however, they are not strictly exclusive, and they often overlap. the hwarang were literally a group of beautiful men:4 “they selected two beautiful girls [for the wonhwa, which was a prototype of the hwarang]”; “beautiful noble boys were selected and adorned, and their faces were powdered”; and there was “a beautifully shaped person” and a “person of good virtue” (ilyon, 2013, pp. 340–345; kim, 2012b, pp. 131–131). furthermore, silla was the most fashionable of the three kingdoms. many crowns, caps, earrings, necklaces, rings, and shoes made of fabric and adorned with jewels, stones, gold, and glass have been excavated, and the number and quality of these items have reached a remarkable pitch. it is imaginable that the fashion of the hwarang was even more splendid than that of the ordinary aristocrat. as such, the people of silla lauded their beauty. these descriptions fit the hwarang ideal of a beautiful personality and the kingdom of silla’s intentions to use the hwarang as symbolic leverage to strengthen their authority. the lives of the hwarang reflected experiential aesthetic values such as loyalty, friendship, bravery, wisdom, belief in the supernatural, and spiritual power. for example, the hwarang eungnyeom, who met thousands of people in the course of his journeys, shared with the king what he believed to be the three most impressive virtues to embody in life: simplicity, frugality, and humility (ilyon, 2013, pp. 171–175). this is reminiscent of “non-action,” which is the course of nature in daoism. the hwarang jukjirang even bribed a local official to bail a nangdo out of his unfair forced labor (ilyon, 2013, pp. 146–149). the great general sadaham released prisoners of war from a battle he won and eventually died from overwhelming sorrow at the death of a fellow hwarang. the confucian values of love and humanity (ren) are evident in these episodes involving jukjirang and sadaham. jukjirang’s and sadaham’s love for their fellow hwarang alludes to homosexuality (gu, 2011).5 two other hwarang, daese and guchil, disappeared into the mountains to pursue spiritual enlightenment (kim, 2012b, pp. 135–136), implying daoism values or maitreya belief. individual hwarang had a distinctive way of life. the normative, touching, unconventional, and noble lives of individual hwarang might have greatly impressed the silla people, and their life stories were handed down through the generations. pungryudo aimed at both representational and experiential aesthetic ways of self-cultivation, which influenced broad fields such as politics, society, religion, arts, and daily life. 4. educational significance of the hwarang in the hwarang education system, what and how to perform life were given in holistic ways, such as through music including songs, journeys, communion with nature, pleasure, and entertainment. in that sense, meliorism, which indicates the direction of somaesthetics (the belief that humans can change the world for the better), was also shared with the hwarang as pungryudo, which taught living one's life fully in the present. this ideology guided them to comprehensively realize their 4 the word hwarang has two parts: “flower” (花, hwa) and “gentlemen” or “court attendants” (郎, rang) (mohan, 2001, pp. 161–162). however, many arguments about the etymology of hwa have arisen. first, hwa is a phonetic borrowing to spell the native ancient korean words for “purity” and “beauty” (kol); second, it signified a military emblem comprising decorative feathers; and third, it was a symbol of the maitreya tradition, in which the flower has a symbolic meaning (lee, 2000, pp. 37–40). 5 historical records of hwarang homosexuality are limited to literary allusions. on the other hand, some contemporary creations in which hwarang appear depict their homosexual relationships. the hwarang segi manuscripts discovered in 1989 are rich in depictions of the sexual lives of the hwarang, including homosexuality, but these are considered highly likely to be forgeries. aesthetics and body experiences in health care66 somaesthetics in early korean history: the educational scope of the hwarang representational/experiential and aesthetic/normative goals. considering today’s systematic educational goals (especially in schools), experiential and normative goals are advocated as the antipode to the representational and aesthetic dimensions. however, educational goals ought to emerge naturally from one’s integrated way of life rather than in a divisive dualism. education needs to support an integrated educational goal to holistically instruct individuals on life. hwarang songs and music were an integrated self-culture tool. they had practical meaning in terms of knowledge acquisition and structuring that met society's demand. it reminds us of the importance of art education as self-culture in confucianism, in which shusterman pointed out that music was highly appreciated as an educational method. confucianism considered music and ritual (li) to be key elements for the cultivation of both the self and society. art is not merely for satisfying personal pleasure but is “a crucial means of ethical education that can refine both the individual and society by cultivating our sense of good order and propriety while instilling an enjoyably shared experience of harmony and meaning” (shusterman, 2004, p. 20). the role of art in modern education needs to be readdressed, as all art has a unique social background, as well as ethics, common sense, and pleasure. moreover, the journeys of the hwarang should lead us to rethink the significance of nature in education. nature as a place for learning and playing, referred to as mountains and bodies of water, implied a wide range of meanings. it was seen as a place that encouraged aesthetic experiences and a distant place away from everyday life, given that a change in the environment to which one’s body is accustomed is an efficient strategy for the impetus of enhancement through the provision of new bodily sensations, feelings, and a new consciousness. nature was also viewed as a place to access the gods. hence, journeying into nature was a sacred pilgrimage that encouraged the divine aspect of the aesthetic experience. hwarang were aware of the sacredness of their journeys, and their sacred nature was widely elevated through it. at the same time, for the hwarang, nature was a site for studying society, history, and culture. they witnessed the lives of local authorities, intellectual monks, and commoners throughout the state, observing silla’s politics, social structure, and culture. the site to which they most often journeyed, the mountains, constituted actual territories, borders, and battlefields. this background brought a sense of realism to their tactics and practices of physical discipline to determine how hwarang approached their lives including their educational methods, we must focus on three words in the descriptions of their core activities: pleasure (悅), play (遊), and entertainment (娯). for the hwarang, studying, working, practicing, and training were not separate activities divorced from enjoyment or pleasure. regarding enjoyment (樂) and pleasure (悅), somaesthetics holds the same view. shusterman referred to confucianism’s understanding of pleasure and claimed that it is deeply related to improving the state of one’s life; that is, “the true aesthetic way of self-cultivation is a path of pleasure, which is why it is better to love and enjoy the way rather than merely to understand it” (2004, p. 31). pleasure is not hedonistic but closer to a clear sense of self-awareness. shusterman asserted that western academia has isolated pleasure from meaning, truth, and knowledge, again referring to confucian notions of pleasure to criticize the situation. unlike western philosophy, confucianism emphasizes enjoyment and pleasure as notions deeply related to knowledge (shusterman, 2004, p. 31). shusterman (2004) referred to the well-known opening of the analects: “having studied, to then repeatedly apply what you have learned—is this not a source of pleasure? to have friends come from distant quarters—is this not a source of enjoyment?” (p. 30) he showed appreciation for confucius’ insight regarding the equivalency of pleasure and knowledge. the journal of somaesthetics volume 8, number 1 (2022) 67 jiyun bae shusterman (2003) also criticized the downplay of entertainment in traditional aesthetics and philosophy, in which art represents the sublime and transcendence, while entertainment represents mere pleasure. he emphasizes that pleasure, the essence of entertainment, should be understood in many dimensions. he indicated five layers of pleasure to liberate the meaning of “pleasure” from its confinement to a single dimension, hedonism (shusterman, 2003, pp. 303– 305). the hwarang journey reflects all five dimensions of pleasure that shusterman proposed. the first is the pleasure of the senses, which entails sharpening the senses through experiences in nature, the enjoyment of unfamiliar food, and experiences of changes in nature. the second is the pleasure of understanding the qualities and meanings of objects and events; for instance, the hwarang understood the meaning of nature in various ways (e.g., militarily, politically, socially, mythically, and in terms of survival) throughout their journeys. thirdly, escaping daily life is also an aspect of pleasure that can be derived from a journey. fourthly, transcendental pleasure is linked to sacredness: the journeys of the hwarang reflected divine pleasure through religious rituals and spiritual practices in the sacred mountains. fifth and finally, the collective pleasure shared among the hwarang in the context of group excursions indicates a social dimension of pleasure. at the core of the hwarang’s activities are such elements as entertainment, pleasure, and joy. in the context of today’s education, the meaning of these elements is superficially understood as the opposite of work, study, patience, or effort. instead, the hwarang and somaesthetics promote the insight that one’s intellectual and practical life is integrated into one’s personal lifestyle based on these bodily experiences. both the object and method of hwarang education were performed in an integrated way. their music and journeys were a composite of art, knowledge, self-cultivation, spirituality, and practical value. the music of the hwarang was a complete ritualistic art form, directly based on bodily experiences (e.g., singing, dancing, eating, drinking, chanting, moving, and playing). their music and journeys were processes by which knowledge was embodied, produced, and refined. as in the somaesthetics perspective, knowledge is not the essence of foundationalism; instead, it is established on bodily sense and practicality. moreover, the educational objective of their activities was the ideal of a “beautiful personality.” the hwarang were admired and regarded as extraordinary beings through their activities. lastly, the practicality of their activities should also be noted once again. their activities had practical purposes, such as the social, political, and military ends of the kingdom of silla, including the realization of individual aesthetic life. the activities convey the practical meaning of pragmatism as a philosophy for living. references ahn, k. (2004). hwarangdo gyoyuksasanggwa cheolhak [philosophy of education of the hwarang]. sillaology studies, 8, 5–15. http://www.riss.kr/link?id=a35494882 choi, k. (2016). sillaui hwarangdowa pungryudo [hwarangdo and pungryudo in silla]. sachong: the historial journal, 87, 1–34. http://www.riss.kr/link?id=a103634895 gu, s. (2011). <mojukjiranga>ui gayojuk seongyuckgwa dongsungae code [<mojukjiranga>’s characteristic as a popular music and homosexuality code]. the review of korean culture studies, 38, 7–27. doi: 10.17329/kcbook.2011..38.001 hamada, k. (2002). shiragikokushino kenkyu—higashiasiano kantenkara [a study of the history of silla—from the perspective of east asian history]. tokyo, japan: yoshikawa kobunkan. aesthetics and body experiences in health care68 somaesthetics in early korean history: the educational scope of the hwarang ilyon. (2006). samguk yusa: legend and history of the three kingdoms of ancient korea (t. ha & g. k. mintz, trans.) korea: silk pagoda. ilyon. 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(1997). kankokuno kotennbigakusi kenkyu: furyuno shisono tenkai [a study of the history of classical aesthetics in korea: development of thought of pungryu]. doctoral dissertation, university of tokyo, tokyo, japan. http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/3140736 mohan, p. n. (2001). maitreya cult in early shilla: focusing on hwarang as maitreya-incarnate. seoul journal of korean studies, 14, 149–173. http://hdl.handle.net/10371/66662 shusterman, r. (2000). pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art (2nd ed.). rowman & littlefield publishers. shusterman, r. (2003). entertainment: a question for aesthetics. british journal of aesthetics, 43(3), 289–307. doi: 10.1093/bjaesthetics/43.3.289 shusterman, r. (2004). pragmatism and east-asian thought. metaphilosophy, 35(1), 13–43. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24439810 shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge university press. tikhonov, v. (1998). hwarang organization: its function and ethics. korea journal, 38(2), 318– 338. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 102 page 102–120alexis b. smith resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature: reading sound figures in novalis’ the novices of sais alexis b. smith abstract: the early german romantics novalis and johann wilhelm ritter interpret klangfiguren (“sound figures,” known most commonly as “chladni figures”), as pointing towards the scientific evidence of a universal language of nature, with sound containing its own writing—sound that can be seen, and writing that can be heard—a language that is therefore revealed with the human body as its instrument. this language, which novalis calls the “true sanskrit” of nature in his literary fragment the novices of sais, becomes novalis’ and ritter’s key to deciphering the knowledge of the self through an inner seeing and hearing. keywords: klangfiguren, sound figures, chladni figures, german romanticism, novalis, die lehrlinge zu sais, the novices of sais, johann wilhelm ritter, fragment, sanskrit, nature, body. 1. introduction ulrich gaier has called die lehrlinge zu sais (the novices of sais, 1798/99) by novalis (1772– 1801) “perhaps the most complicated text in german literature.”1 the abstract and philosophical discussions that ensue among the characters have left much confusion and debate over the meaning of the literary fragment, and to what or whom novalis is referring in each passage.2 set in sais, egypt, an unnamed teacher leads a group of likewise nameless novices on a search for the lost universal language of nature. interestingly, the rosetta stone was discovered by napoleon’s team of explorers in 1799 in the town of rashid, just months after novalis stopped work on the novices of sais. it is believed to have been originally displayed in the temple of sais, where novalis’ story takes place—but novalis’ novices are not looking at the hieroglyphs. instead, novalis writes in the beginning of “die wahre sanskrit,” “the true sanskrit”: 1 as quoted in hoffmann (1989, p.28) by the editor, charlton. 2 in her review of ulrich gaier’s book, krumme regel, stopp (1973) explains, “after jurij striedter’s pioneering work, supplemented by ulrich gaier’s fuller analysis of die lehrlinge zu sais, it would seem that rudolf haym’s judgment of this work as a confused, ‘noch völlig ungestattete dichtung’ has been finally disposed of; however, this view is still valid for professor neubauer in his bifocal vision” (p. 459). of gaier’s sevenstage analysis of the literary fragment, immerwahr (1972) writes, “all of these are difficult to follow, some are unconvincing in themselves, and some are incompatible with each other” (p. 743). the general incomprehensibility of novalis’ story has therefore not only been in the narrative itself, but also in attempts to analyze it! somaesthetics and sound103 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature we do not understand the language, because the language does not understand itself, nor wishes to; the true sanskrit would speak in order to speak, because speaking is its delight and essence. (novalis, my translation and emphasis) man verstehe die sprache nicht, weil sich die sprache selber nicht verstehe, nicht verstehen wolle; die echte sanskrit spräche, um zu sprechen, weil sprechen ihre lust und ihr wesen sei. (novalis, 1960, i, p. 79, my emphasis)3 that novalis avoids the hieroglyphs and turns to sanskrit as a basis for his novices’ search for the lost universal language can perhaps be explained by the following passage in friedrich schlegel’s (1772–1829) “über die sprache und weisheit der indier” (1808). in the context of his analysis of sanskrit compared to other languages and specifically in the search for the origin of language, schlegel discusses the “perfect grammar” of sanskrit in contrast to the hieroglyphs. he emphasizes the experience of a “feines gefühl” (“fine feeling”) that comes with understanding the primordial meaning of nature through sanskrit. of this feeling he writes: this fine feeling then had to produce writing with the language itself at the same time; no hieroglyphic painting or imaging after external objects of nature, but one which now also depicts and denotes the inner character of the letters, as it is so distinctly felt, in visible outlines. (my translation and emphasis4) dieß feine gefühl mußte dann mit der sprache selbst zugleich auch schrift hervorbringen; keine hieroglyphische nach äußern naturgegenständen mahlende oder bildernde, sondern eine solche, welche den innern charakter der buchstaben, wie er so deutlich gefühlt wird, nun auch in sichtlichen umrissen hinstellte und bezeichnete. (schlegel, 1846, p. 298, my emphasis) unlike the hieroglyphs, which were created after external images of nature, sanskrit, in its alphabet and sounds, represents the inner character of nature, which is sensed by a “fine feeling”. here, a brief history of sanskrit is needed. joshi (2016) writes: sanskrit is regarded as the ancient language of hinduism, where it was used by the hindu celestial gods, and then by the indo-aryans. (…) the sanskrit language was termed as deva-vani (‘deva’ gods – ‘vani’ language) as it was believed to have been generated by the god brahma who passed it to the rishis (sages) living in celestial abodes, who then communicated the same to their early disciples from where it spread on earth. there are four types of sanskrit that were written by the rishis (sages, also known as “seers”) between 1500 and 600 bce—together they are called the vedas. morreall and sonn (2012) explain, the vedas are traditionally ascribed to ancient ‘seers,’ called rishis, who ‘heard’ or ‘perceived’ them. that is, the knowledge they convey is not thought to be ‘revealed’ in the way that western scriptures are. instead, the rishis had extraordinary abilities to 3 two volumes of novalis’ writings will be referenced in this article. volume i, which contains the story die lehrlinge zu sais (the novices of sais). volume iii, referenced later, contains his fragments from das allgemeine brouillon (the general notebook). 4 all future bolded text in quotations is my emphasis in order to highlight the most important language and phrases and keep them in context. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 104 alexis b. smith understand reality, to ‘see’ it as it truly is, and to convey that information in language. (p. 213) the rishis therefore both heard and saw this language (perhaps to be understood as an internal, synaesthetic experience, since others did not have access to it) and then transcribed it.5 the sanskrit alphabet, which consists of 52 letters including 16 vowels and 36 consonants, is intimately connected to the physiology of creating sound—it is made out of every possible sound that the mouth can make—and pronunciation is extremely important for the accurate communication of the language.6 panini, who lived around the 4th century bce, is credited with writing “the only source of sanskrit grammar and vocabulary today” in ashtadhyayi, which “contains 3959 systematised rules that are undiluted in brevity, full of wonderful analysis, explanation, and preferential usage of the language and word formation” (joshi, 2016). when panini’s text was first published in 1810, friedrich schlegel’s analysis and first translation from sanskrit into german was discredited. “armed with panini’s grammar, later 19th century linguists such as bopp and böhtlingk revised schlegel’s theories on the nature of sanskrit” (figueira, 1989, p. 425). the early german romantics were fascinated with, and integrated aspects of, hinduism, buddhism, and ideas about india and sanskrit into their writings to suit their own purposes. cowan (2008) writes: among the early german romantics, the four figures that would become most enthralled with ancient hindu and buddhist texts and medieval sanskrit drama were novalis, schelling, and the two brothers schlegel. the indological groundwork laid by french and english scholars like abraham-hyacinthe anquetil-duperron, pierre sonnerat, william jones, and warren hastings had been absorbed and elaborated upon by kant, herder, and friedrich majer in the german principalities, having a direct impact on the early romantics. (p. 325) the schlegel brothers wrote articles for their quarterly, athenäum (1798–1800), which cowan (2008) states “reflected their enthusiastic support of the virtues of sanskrit language and literature” (p. 327).7 dauer (1965) writes, “friedrich, in ‘gespräch über die poesie,’ argues that the treasures of south asian literature should be as accessible as those of greek and roman antiquity, viewing india as the source of universalpoesie,” which is the schlegel brothers’ and novalis’ project on creating an ideal, universal language. in schlegel’s conception of universalpoesie, he embraces the infinity in becoming—that the universalpoesie will forever evolve and never be 5 the rig veda is considered the core text of the vedas and is the oldest known vedic sanskrit text, the earliest chapters date from either between around 1500 and 1200 bce or 1700 and 1100 bce. it contains ten books known as mandalas (“circles”) written by rishis. it was first translated into latin in 1830 ce by friedrich august rosen, and was therefore not available to the early german romantics. the last of the vedas, the upanishads, were written from approximately 800 bce and 500 bce, and were a reaction against the focus of religious life from “external rites and sacrifices” in the earlier vedas and a turn toward “internal spiritual quests” (violatti, 2014). the translation into latin by anquetil duperron in 1801–1802 ce became the introduction of the upanishads to the western world, and was therefore not available to novalis when he wrote the novices of sais (on which he ceased work in 1799). arthur schopenhuer (1788–1860) and friedrich schelling (1775–1854) are most commonly credited with embracing and praising these texts, increasing their popularity in the western world. 6 neuroscientist tony nader, md, phd (2000) writes about how the veda also gives rise to the structures and functions of human physiology (which is out of scope for this current project). his work focuses on the understanding that everything is made of vibrations and that the various fields join in a unified field. even thought is a vibration of consciousness. his work shows that science found its success by restricting itself to objective knowledge, carefully excluding subjectivity (and therefore consciousness). the vedic civilization explored consciousness so deeply as to make it a science. nader is the successor of maharishi mahesh yogi, who was also a researcher in veda and consciousness. 7 cowan (2008) also notes, “in an essay entitled ‘die sprachen’, august wilhelm describes the grammatical perfection of sanskrit as the language of heaven, its characters having been designed by god himself ” (p. 327). somaesthetics and sound105 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature perfect or complete.8 there are only a few specific references to india in novalis’ encyclopedia project, das allgemeine brouillon (the general notebook, 1798/99), which he worked on in tandem with the novices of sais, but scholars have identified the ways in which he integrated ideas of ancient india into his writings.9 in the “einleitung der herausgeber” (“introduction by the editors”) to the novices of sais, the editors, kluckhohn and samuel (1960), explain: because novalis already speaks of “true sanskrit” in the beginning, the influence that georg forster’s sanskrit studies must have had on him cannot be overlooked. they can be found in forster’s introduction and commentary for the translation of kalidasa’s sakuntala (1791) and in a few essays in the “short writings,” that friedrich schlegel included in his essays about forster (lyceum, i, 1, 1791). forster, following his teacher sir william jones, describes sanskrit as the “holy language” (…). (my translation) da novalis aber schon zu anfang der dichtung von “echter sanskrit” spricht, so darf doch nicht der eindruck übersehen werden, den georg forsters sanskritstudien auf ihn gemacht haben müssen. sie finden sich in forsters einleitung und erläuterungen zu seiner übersetzung von kalidasas sakuntala (1791) und in einigen aufsätzen in den “kleinen schriften,” die friedrich schlegel zu seinen essays über forster (lyceum, i, 1, 1797) veranlaßten. forster, seinem lehrer sir william jones folgend, bezeichnet sanskrit als die “heilige sprache” (…). (p. 77)10 like friedrich schlegel, novalis received great inspiration from the drama sakuntala in his philosophy of becoming (cowan, 2008, p. 327). he explores this in his conception of poesie and in the process of the novices’ search for the universal language in order to discover the inner reaches of the self. he did not study the sanskrit texts or translations as friedrich schelling and the schlegel brothers later did (indeed, he passed away too soon), and only mentions “sanskrit” once in his writings—in the opening section of the novices of sais.11 “sanskrit” therefore remains 8 schlegel (1800) defines universalpoesie in athenäum fragment 116: “romantic poetry is a progressive universal poetry. its purpose is not merely to reunite all the separate genres of poetry, and to put poetry in contact with philosophy and rhetoric. it wants, and should also mix poetry and prose, genius and criticism, art poetry and poetry of nature, soon to merge, to make poetry lively and sociable, to make life and society poetic, to poeticize the joke, and the forms of art with a rich educational material of every kind fill and saturate, and animate by the vibrations of humor. (…) the romantic type of poetry is still in the process of becoming; yes, that is their very nature, that they can only become eternal, never be perfect. it cannot be exhausted by any theory, and only a divinatory critique would dare to characterize its ideal. she alone is infinite, as she alone is free, and who acknowledges as her first law that the poet’s arbitrariness does not suffer any law over herself. the romantic type of poetry is the only one that is more than art, and, as it were, poetry itself: for in a certain sense all poetry is or is supposed to be romantic.” (my translation) (die romantische poesie ist eine progressive universalpoesie. ihre bestimmung ist nicht bloß, alle getrennte gattungen der poesie wieder zu vereinigen, und die poesie mit der philosophie und rhetorik in berührung zu setzen. sie will, und soll auch poesie und prosa, genialität und kritik, kunstpoesie und naturpoesie bald mischen, bald verschmelzen, die poesie lebendig und gesellig, und das leben und die gesellschaft poetisch machen, den witz poetisieren, und die formen der kunst mit gediegnem bildungsstoff jeder art anfüllen und sättigen, und durch die schwingungen des humors beseelen. (…) die romantische dichtart ist noch im werden; ja das ist ihr eigentliches wesen, daß sie ewig nur werden, nie vollendet sein kann. sie kann durch keine theorie erschöpft werden, und nur eine divinatorische kritik dürfte es wagen, ihr ideal charakterisieren zu wollen. sie allein ist unendlich, wie sie allein frei ist, und das als ihr erstes gesetz anerkennt, daß die willkür des dichters kein gesetz über sich leide. die romantische dichtart ist die einzige, die mehr als art, und gleichsam die dichtkunst selbst ist: denn in einem gewissen sinn ist oder soll alle poesie romantisch sein.) 9 in regard to indian gods, see volume i, p. 111; iii, p. 590. for indian fairy-tales, see ii, p. 280 and iii, p. 587. the index to novalis’ writings (volume v) misses his reference to “indischen heymath” (indian homeland) in iii, p. 285. the only reference to “sanskrit” specifically is found in the novices of sais, i, p. 79. 10 it is also important to credit herder’s ideen (ideas) in bringing the german readership the first overall picture of india. in 1871 he received georg forster’s translation of the play by kalidasa, sakuntala, oder der entscheidende ring, which was the first translation of sanskrit into german (via the english translation by william jones). herder contributed a forward for forster’s publication, and both herder and forster are credited with expressing great value in intercultural dialogue. however, dauer (1965) argues that herder created an ideal india of his own, having very little to do with actual india, as he never traveled there. forster’s approach is paternalistic in nature, argues esleben (2003), as he conceptualizes the exchange between europeans and indians as similar to the relationship between fathers and their children (p. 227). 11 dauer (1965) analyzes novalis’ adoption of endless reincarnation in the search for the blue flower in heinrich von ofterdingen (henry of ofterdingen, 1802), as well as the significance of the dream state in relation to the yoga elements in buddhism. however, novalis had already begun his explorations of the dream-state in the novices of sais, especially in the embedded fairy-tale, “hyacinth und rosenblümchen” (“hyacinth and rose petal”). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 106 alexis b. smith an abstract ideal in his thought. he seems to take his cue from forster’s introduction to his translation of sakuntala for the very basis of his narrative. forster writes: the accumulation of experiences of all kinds, partly directly with our own senses, and partly through the writings, consequently becomes the preparation for the most convenient application of our being here (hierseyns) (…). (my translation) die einsammlung von erfahrungen aller art, theils unmittelbar mit eigenen sinnen, theils mittelbar durch die schriftzüge, wird folglich die vorbereitung zur zweckmäßigsten anwendung unseren hierseyns (…). (p. xxvii) jörg esleben (2003) points out that in his “vorrede” (“introduction”), forster suggests that the german romantics, “due to geographical and historical factors, have the ‘eklektischen charakter’ [‘eclectic character’] that enables them to collect, study, and order, in an unselfish and disinterested fashion, the fragmented and varied instances of beauty, goodness, and perfection that are scattered all over the world” (p. 219). interestingly, this is precisely novalis’ approach to the novices’ search for the universal language of nature; they are searching for this language by gathering and organizing objects of nature and tracing lines in the sand. however, why would novalis emphasize the “true” (“echte”) sanskrit of nature, if he is writing about actual sanskrit? it seems, rather, that novalis is proposing a different sanskrit, a “true” holy writing, one that is not only writing, but also “speaks” from objects of nature, including the human body—and therefore not only spoken or transcribed by humans. according to novalis in his literary fragment the novices of sais, all of nature has the same original substance…a sprachlehre (grammar). this sprachlehre is the key to the wunderschrift (magic writing) of nature. the true sanskrit of nature is described as one in movement— figures appear and disappear—bringing thoughts and wishes, and, as the novices are hoping to discover, also letters and words. looking for this lost universal language, these seekers of nature’s deepest mysteries search through objects of nature in order to discover a language that emerges from inside these objects—and themselves, as both sound and written signs in one. the language consists of not only writing (“schrift”), but also images (“bilder”), figures (“figuren”), light (“licht”), and sound (“klang”). one key to interpreting this mysterious combination of attributes is subtly apparent in the opening paragraph of the literary fragment: various are the roads of man. he who follows and compare them will see strange figures emerge, figures which seem to belong to that great cipher which we discern written everywhere, in wings, eggshells, clouds and snow, in crystals and in stone formations, on ice-covered waters, on the inside and outside of mountains, of plants, beasts and men, in the lights of heaven, on scored disks of pitch or glass or in iron filings round a magnet, and in strange conjunctions of chance. in them we suspect a key to the magic writing, even a grammar…. only at moments do their desires and thoughts seem to solidify. thus arise their presentiments, but after a short time everything swims again before their eyes. (p. 3/5, my emphasis)12 mannigfache wege gehen die menschen. wer sie verfolgt und vergleicht, wird wunderliche figuren entstehen sehn; figuren, die zu jener großen chiffernschrift zu gehören scheinen, die man überall, auf flügeln, eierschalen, in wolken, im schnee, 12 the translation by manheim (novalis, 2005) contains graphic artwork on every other page, so the page numbers of the story are always on odd pages. somaesthetics and sound107 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature in kristallen und in steinbildungen, auf gefrierenden wassern, im innern und äußern der gebirge, der pflanzen, der tiere, der menschen, in den lichtern des himmels, auf berührten und gestrichenen scheiben von pech und glas, in den feilspänen um den magnet her, und sonderbaren konjunkturen des zufalls erblickt. in ihnen ahndet man den schlüssel dieser wunderschrift, die sprachlehre derselben.... nur augenblicklich scheinen ihre wünsche, ihre gedanken sich zu verdichten. so entstehen ihre ahndungen, aber nach kurzen zeiten schwimmt alles wieder, wie vorher, vor ihren blicken. (i, p. 79, my emphasis) the list of objects and phenomena of nature are suddenly contrasted by the phrase “on scored disks of pitch or glass” (“auf berührten und gestrichenen scheiben von pech und glas”) (i, p. 79). what novalis describes here are materials used in the formation of sound figures.13 ernst florens friedrich chladni (1756–1827), a german physicist, inventor and amateur musician, was the first to perform extensive experiments on the sound figures, and he published his findings in entdeckungen über die theorie des klangs (discoveries on the theory of sound) in 1787. he is ultimately the one who became famous for them, known today in english as “chladni figures.” 14 he demonstrated various modes of vibration on rigid surfaces by placing sand (or other fine material) on a circular, square or rectangular surface and drawing a bow along the edge. the sand bounces with the vibration and settles at the nodal points, where there is no vibration. these nodal points become the intricate figures that form on the plates. these figures became integral in the development of acoustics and instrument building, for which chladni is named the father of acoustics.15 figure 1: table 1 from entdeckungen über die theorie des klanges, 1787.16 13 this has been previously recognized by bonds (1997), who mentions in a footnote that novalis’ opening paragraph of the novices of sais contains a reference to ernst florens friedrich chladni’s klangfiguren (198), but he does not analyze this aspect of novalis’ text further. menke (1999) also writes that novalis studied and worked on the klangfiguren in his notes for das allgemeine brouillon. 14 i will continue to use the general term “sound figures” to differentiate between the romantics’ use of them and that of chladni. 15 many influential studies have been undertaken on chladni, acoustics, and the history of instrument building; see for example ullmann (2012) and jackson (2006). 16 image from “ernst chladni” (2016). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 108 alexis b. smith i argue that sound figures play a prominent role in the novices of sais in novalis’ concept of the development of poesie as a universal language, and are alluded to through poetic, metaphorical imagery. novalis mixes the subjective, abstract, and ideal experience of sanskrit, which only the teacher (like the rishi) experiences with the objective, scientific analysis of the sound figures. however, the sound figures that novalis poeticizes are not those directly interpreted by chladni, whose focus was on the study of vibrational patterns of tones, but rather are a result of his collaboration with friend and physicist johann wilhelm ritter (1776–1810), who developed a galvanic interpretation of the “chladni figures.”17 whereas chladni writes of “schallwellen” (“sound waves”), ritter writes of “schallstrahlen” (“sound rays”),18 arguing that sound and light are one. in his “appendix” to fragmente aus dem nachlasse eines jungen physikers (fragments from the estate of a young physicist, 1810), ritter interprets the sound figures as representing the universal language of nature, with sound containing its own writing—sound that can be seen, and writing that can be heard—a language that is therefore revealed with the human body as its instrument.19 his text, along with novalis’ fragments on the sound figures, help provide a key to read the abstract imagery in the novices of sais as an analogy for novalis’ “true sanskrit” of nature. 2. sound figures according to novalis and ritter in fragment 245 of das allgemeine brouillon (the general notebook), novalis defines the nature of speaking language through metaphors, including the physical attributes of the sound figures: 245. music. consonants are fingerings, and their sequences and alternations belong to the application. vowels are strings of sound, or batons of air. the lungs are [the] bow in motion. (…) (p. 37)20 245. musik. die consonanten sind die fingersetzungen und ihre folge und abwechselung gehört zur aplicatur. die vocale sind die tönenden saiten, oder luftstäbe.21 die lunge ist der bewegte bogen. (...) (iii, p. 285) these first three sentences call to mind not only a stringed instrument being played by hand, but also a human voice producing sounds with the mouth by way of the movement of air from the lung up through the vibrating column of the throat. the “finger placements” (“fingersetzungen”) also evoke the fingers placed on the edges of a plate to form additional nodal lines of a sound figure, and the “moving bow” (“bewegte bogen”) which draws them stimulates the movement of the sand and sound from the plate (see figure 2).22 17 ritter later collaborated with hans christian ørsted (1777–1851) on this project. for a detailed account of the partnership and collaboration between ritter and ørsted, see christensen (1995). 18 menke (1999), p. 70. 19 benjamin (1963) was the first to recognize the importance of the “appendix” for its conceptual work on the relation of language, music, and writing (pp. 240–243). 20 the translation by wood (novalis, 2007) misses the “the” in “die lunge ist der bewegete bogen.” 21 here, “luftstäbe,” translated as “batons of air,” is a poetic license for wind instruments, indicating an air column of a rigid vibrating body. 22 for a demonstration of how chladni figures are formed, this video, although of poor visual quality, is helpful: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=tlibfydddhu (cortel 2009). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlibfydddhu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlibfydddhu somaesthetics and sound109 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature figure 2: from william henry stone (1879) elementary lessons on sound. of particular relevance to this analysis is novalis’ interpretation in fragment 362 which, as i will show, is very similar to ritter’s.23 362. physics and grammar. a dampened sound in close proximity appears far away to us./ lateral motions of the air in sound. figurelike motions of sound, like letters of the alphabet. (were letters originally acoustic figures? letters a priori?) (…) colored images are figures of light. the light ray is the [striking] bow of [the] violin.24 (…) every word should be an acoustic formula for its construction and pronunciation—the pronunciation itself is a higher, imitative sign of a higher pronunciation—construction of the meaning of a word. (…)” (p. 54, bolded text my emphasis) 362. phys[ik] und gramm[atik]. ein gedämpfter, sehr naher ton dünkt uns weit zu seyn./ lateralbewegungen der luft beym schall. figurirte schallbewegungen wie buchstaben. (sollten die buchstaben ursprünglich acustische figuren gewesen seyn. buchst[aben] a priori?) (…) farbenbilder sind lichtfiguren. der lichtstrahl ist der streichende fiedelbogen. (…) jedes wort sollte eine acustische formel seiner construction, seiner aussprache seyn – die aussprache selbst ist ein höheres, mimisches zeichen einer höhern aussprache – sinnconstruction des worts. (...) (iii, p. 305, bolded text my emphasis) 23 early 20th century novalis-ritter scholar heilborn (1901) accuses ritter of plagiarism here (p. 135), but specht (2010) argues that it was rather a product of their romantic concept of “symphilosophie”—the integration of many voices into one’s own thinking (p. 159). a similar approach is found in music. composers have been known to take musical quotes from other composers in honor of the composer and quoted piece (known commonly as “borrowing”). in burkholder’s (2019) definition, “musical borrowing has typically been studied as an issue related to a particular repertory or genre, such as the renaissance mass or the 20th-century avant garde, or to a particular composer, such as handel or mahler. yet the use of existing music as a basis for new music is pervasive in all periods and traditions, parallel to and yet different from the practices of borrowing, reworking and allusion that contribute to the formation of traditions and the creation of meaning in literature, architecture, painting and sculpture.” 24 wood’s (2007) translation is “the light ray is the stroked bow of a violin,” but it should be “the light ray is the striking bow of the violin.” the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 110 alexis b. smith looking at these figures as though they are letters, novalis sees the basis of the language of nature. with each word then as an “acoustic formula” of its construction and pronunciation, novalis emphasizes that there should be no separation between the signifier, its sound, and the signified. the word, sound or “acoustic formula”, and meaning (“sinnconstruction,” which novalis describes as a “mimetic sign of a higher pronunciation”) should ideally be one. sanskrit offers a helpful model: hopkins (1971) explains, “sanskrit words were not just arbitrary labels assigned to phenomena; they were the sound forms of objects, actions, and attributes (…)” (p. 20). rather than interpreting this language of nature as an expression of human words, novalis imagines that the language is always in itself an expression of being. novalis’ ideas of language intermingle with scientific observations of the figures in the remainder of the fragment—from the movements of light and warmth, to a description of an experiment with phosphorus powder.25 these notes indicate that he worked with these materials himself, similar to the way ritter records his experimental work and plans. his scientific descriptions are also complemented by combinations of scientific observation and poetic metaphor, for example, “the ray of light is the striking bow of the violin.” but then what does light have to do with the sound figures? ritter makes similar claims as novalis in the “appendix” to his fragments from 1810 but explains them further. ritter’s “appendix” oscillates between passages addressing scientific observations of the sound figures and poetic speculations on the relationships between music and language. the opening first few pages of the “appendix” closely follow a letter that he wrote to hans christian ørsted, in which he discusses the electrical qualities of the sound figures and speculates on performing similar experiments via chemical materials—thereby creating chemical sound figures.26 suddenly, in the third paragraph he writes: —it would be nice if that which is externally clear here, would be precisely that which the sound-figure is to us innerly:—light figure, firewriting). every tone thus has its letter immediately by itself; and the question is whether we do not in fact only hear writing,—read, when we hear,—see writing!—and is not every seeing with the inner eye hearing, and hearing a seeing of, and through, within? (p. 473) —schön, wäre es, wie, was hier äußerlich klar würde, genau auch wäre, was uns die klangfigur innerlich ist:—lichtfigur. feuerschrift). jeder ton hat somit seinen buchstaben immediate bey sich; und es ist die frage, ob wir nicht überhaupt nur schrift hören,—lesen, wenn wir hören,—schrift sehen!—und ist nicht jedes sehen 25 “(…) what takes the place of sand here? one actually (forces) the sound to impress itself—to become enciphered—on a copperplate. further application of this idea. (strew phosphorus powder on a plate—so that it absorbs the colors of the different light, or after gently heating, so that it combusts—and radiates—the differently formed and diversely contacted bodies in strange figures—preparation of such a powder). (…)” (p. 54) (“(…) was vertritt wohl hier die stelle des sandes? man (zwingt) eigentlich den schall sich selbst abzudrucken – zu chiffriren – auf eine kupfertafel zu bringen. weitere anwendung dieser idee. (bestreuung einer tafel mit phosphorpulver – das die farben des verschiednen lichts annähme, oder das bey einer gelinden erwärmung verschiedengestalteter und mannichfach berührter körper in sonderbaren figuren brennte – und leuchtete – bereitung eines solchen pulvers.) (…)” (iii, p. 305)) 26 hans christian ørsted, with whom ritter studied and was in close contact, was a danish physicist and chemist who worked with various plates of metal, glass, sand and other materials to produce sound figures. he modeled his figures after the work of ernst florens friedrich chladni (whom ritter also mentions in his fragments). together, ørsted and ritter were able to displace earlier resonance theories by discovering that no vibration can occur without electricity—which is his interpretation of added energy (erlmann, 2014, p. 194). music as sound also contains electricity, and therefore also light. ritter is not just writing on a poetic, romantic notion, but rather sees the electric current in connection with the sound figures as an energy force necessary for life on multiple levels. strässle (2004) argues that “chladni’s and oersted’s klangfiguren were no more than external visualizations of acoustic phenomena. ritter’s aim, however, is rather different in that he is attempting to theorize the inner representation of tone” (p. 31). however, ørsted’s work in naturphilosophie is largely overlooked in the scholarship—his work was more in line with ritter than with chladni. christensen (1995) explains that ørsted went on to discover electromagnetism in 1820, which ritter did not live long enough to experience. “ørsted’s discovery was probably inspired by ritter’s failed experiment of 1803 on galvanism and magnetism” (christensen, 1995, p. 164). somaesthetics and sound111 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature mit dem innern auge hören, und hören ein sehen von und durch innen? (p. 472)27 ritter wishes to discover that that which is clear in the outer appearances of the sound figures could be as clear on the inside of the body. he suggests that the appearance of this language could be connected in an organic, perhaps synaesthetic way within the body as a result of the combined perception from the eyes and ears. in a footnote to this passage after the word “firewriting” (“feuerschrift”), ritter explains that there are electrical processes which accompany the emergence of tone as a part of oxidation processes. he therefore questions whether sound is not also accompanied by light, which would suggest a more natural, organic connection between that which is visible and that which is audible—that seeing and hearing the language should happen at the same time.28 unlike in the semiotic theory of human language in course in general linguistics (1916) by ferdinand de saussure (1857–1913), which shows how sounds are arbitrarily assigned to the symbols/letters of an alphabet and the signifier and signified are therefore separate from each other, this language of nature, the word itself, comes from the object it is describing—they are contained in each other:29 in general, however, the writing must be that which is written by language, by tone, by the word itself. here one maintains for music, or the general language, the hieroglyph, or [the one] which completely writes out the entire tone, the entire chord, etc. the speaking [thing] is identical to the spoken since everything only speaks itself. the matter itself is therefore here the writing, the note. (…) all writing must relate to the hieroglyph as organ to organic whole (…). (p. 489) ueberall aber muß die schrift das von der sprache, dem ton, dem worte, selbst, geschriebene, seyn. hier erhält man dann für die musik, oder die allgemeine sprache, die hieroglyphe, oder die völlig vollständig den ganzen ton, den ganzen accord, u. s. w. ausschreibt. das sprechende ist dem ausgesprochenen gleich, da alles nur sich selbst ausspricht. die sache selbst ist als hier die schrift, die note. (...) alle schrift zusammen muß sich zur hieroglyphe wie organ zum organischen ganzen (…) verhalten. (p. 488) just as the appearance of sound and light are inseparable, so, too, is the relationship between the spoken and written word. unlike novalis, ritter places importance on the concept of the hieroglyph here. by the time ritter wrote this “appendix,” the rosetta stone had already been discovered, so the possibility of translating the hieroglyphs was a reality. as signs that represent “logograms (words), phonograms (sounds), and determinatives (placed at the end of the word to help clarify its meaning)”30 the hieroglyphs of ancient egypt (however static) provide ritter with an example of how to approach uncovering the multi27 translator holland (ritter, 2010) offers a bilingual edition of ritter’s fragments and “appendix.” the page numbers for the german quotes will always precede those of the corresponding translation. 28 in connection with the language-nature of the sound figures, ritter writes about the lichtenberg figuren (“lichtenberg figures”), which were discovered by german physicist georg christoph lichtenberg (1742–1799) and are produced by applying an electric current through solids, liquids, or gases. ernst florens friedrich chladni had initially received the idea to perform the sound figures experiments after having studied lichtenberg’s lichtfiguren. interestingly, these lichtenberg figures can also appear on the surface of the human body, for example, after being hit by lightning—a scarring, or as ritter would argue, a “writing” that appears on the outside of the body. see for example domart, garet, e. and garet, y. (2000). 29 novalis takes this idea further, suggesting that the word should also be a mimetic sign of its “higher pronunciation,” that is, its “meaning”: “every word should be an acoustic formula for its construction and pronunciation—the pronunciation itself is a higher, imitative sign of a higher pronunciation—construction of the meaning of a word.” (p. 54) (“jedes wort sollte eine acustische formel seiner construction, seiner aussprache seyn – die aussprache selbst ist ein höheres, mimisches zeichen einer höhern aussprache – sinnconstruction des worts.” (iii, p. 305)) 30 scoville (2015). the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 112 alexis b. smith layered essence of music as a universal language through the sound figures—not as understood by the mind, but rather by the body. ritter sees language—both written and spoken—as an entire, organic system in motion.31 electricity, in his thinking, is the means by which light and sound travel—it is what connects humans with nature, and in turn, the entire universe. music occupies and exists in space, then, not only in time. indeed, he calls upon the music of the spheres to support his claim, suggesting that the music of all worldly bodies travels from the sun through the rays of light—that music, the general language, which split into specific languages, originated from the sun.32 he continues this thought: the world, as far as it is and can become visible is this letter, this writing. the word writes, the letter resounds; each, inseparable is being, consciousness, life; and so on up to god. writing, word, light, and consciousness fall into one. the eye [is] the sense for writing which can only be recognized on and through the sound. the sound itself however is light, which must already belong to another sense than the eye because the eye does not see the light but rather only by way of light = tone. (p. 485) die welt, soweit sie sichtbar ist, und werden kann, ist dieser buchstabe, diese schrift. das wort schreibt, der buchstabe tönt; beydes in seiner unzertrennbarkeit ist das sein, das bewußtseyn, das leben; so herauf bis zum gott. schrift, wort, licht und bewußtseyn fallen in eins. das auge der sinn für schrift, die nur am und durch den ton erkannt werden kann. der ton selbst aber ist licht, das ohnehin einem anderen sinne, als dem auge, gehören mußte, weil das auge das licht nicht sieht, sondern nur vermittelst des lichts = tons. (p. 484) just as there are types of light that are not visible to the human eye (for example ultraviolet rays, which ritter discovered in 1801), ritter postulates that there are also sounds, not audible by the human ear. because sound and light waves do not interfere with each other, ritter finds them to be intimately connected; in fact, toward the end of his “appendix” he concludes, “therefore: tone and light do not interfere with each other! how could they however, in essence, since they are indeed one?” (p. 507) (“also: ton und licht stören sich nicht! —wie aber im grunde auch könnten sie es, da sie ja eins sind?” (p. 506)). while today we know that sound and light are not one and the same, ritter’s theory was ahead of its time, as it was not until heinrich hertz’s discovery of radio waves in 1886 that there was scientific proof that sound can travel via invisible light waves.33 ritter suggests then, that like the direct relationship between sound and light, and the spoken and written word in these figures, the understanding of the self can be uncovered in the same way by studying this phenomenon in nature—which brings us back to the novices of sais. 31 as wetzels (1971) writes, the jena romantics, inspired by friedrich schelling’s naturphilosophie, thought of nature as “one huge living organism;” they therefore desired to find the “soul” of this all-encompassing unity of inorganic and organic nature (p. 45). erlmann (2014) adds, “nature was seen as a coherent whole, with volta’s electric pile being but one element in a long chain joining the organic and inorganic. in fact, the cosmos itself was seen as an immense battery and galvanism as the ‘key to the entry into innermost nature’” (p. 191). 32 echoing johann gottfried von herder (1744–1803) in “abhandlung über den ursprung der sprache” (“treatise on the origins of language, 1772”), ritter asserts that sound, and therefore music, was the first general language—then, human languages developed from it. see especially pp. 473–476 in the “appendix” for the german and english references to herder. 33 shlain (1991) explains, “although radio waves are at the far end of the electromagnetic spectrum and are invisible, they are a form of light” (p. 285). somaesthetics and sound113 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature 3. poetic sound figures in the novices of sais as mentioned in my introduction, in novalis’ story, the true sanskrit is described as not only writing, but also image, figure, light, and sound. these descriptions are spread throughout the narrative and not all of the elements are described at once. this is indicative of the novices’ search for the elusive universal language of nature, which they have not yet experienced, but of which they have heard. novalis’ fragment 511 on poesie in das allgemeine brouillon (the general notebook) explains this approach: [511.] poesie must never be the main material, always only the miraculous. one should not represent what one would not fully overlook, distinctly perceive, and of which one would be quite a master—for example in the representations of the transcendental. (my translation) [511.] die poesie muß nie der hauptstoff, immer nur das wunderbare seyn. man sollte nichts darstellen, was man nicht völlig übersähe, deutlich vernähme, und ganz meister desselben wäre – z. b. bey darstellungen des übersinnlichen. (iii, p. 640) for this reason, the novices are not able to represent precisely what the teacher experiences in the descriptions of their observations. the novice who is the narrator of the opening section, explains that only the teacher, like the rishi (the “seer” of the vedas), has access to experiencing this language. he observes: a little later, there was one who said: “the holy scripture needs no explanation. he who speaks true, is full of eternal life, his written word seems wondrously akin to the mysteries, for it is a chord taken from the symphony of the universe.” surely the voice was speaking of our teacher, for he knows how to gather together the traits that are scattered everywhere. a unique light is kindled in his eyes when he lays down the sacred rune before us and peers into our eyes to see whether in us the [star] is risen that makes the figure visible and intelligible. (p. 5/7, my emphasis)34 nicht lange darauf sprach einer: „keiner erklärung bedarf die heilige schrift. wer wahrhaft spricht, ist des ewigen lebens voll, und wunderbar verwandt mit echten geheimnissen dünkt uns seine schrift, denn sie ist ein akkord aus des weltalls symphonie.“ von unserm lehrer sprach gewiß die stimme, denn er versteht die züge zu versammeln, die überall zerstreut sind. ein eignes licht entzündet sich in seinen blicken, wenn vor uns nun die hohe rune liegt, und er in unsern augen späht, ob auch in uns aufgegangen ist das gestirn, das die figur sichtbar und verständlich macht. (i, p. 79, my emphasis) here, he describes several elements of the language. the “holy writing” is a chord from the symphony of the universe. only the teacher knows how to bring the “traits” (“züge”) together—a light emerges from his eyes when he lays the sacred rune before the novices’ eyes, and he looks into theirs to see if the image of the star has formed, that this figure makes visible and understandable. the novice continues: 34 manheim (2005) translates this last line as “…whether in us the light is risen that makes the figure visible and intelligible.” “light” misses the original german “gestirn,” which means star, and emphasizes not only the light but the shape of the light like a sound figure. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 114 alexis b. smith often he has told us how when he was a child, the desire [to] practice, to busy, and to fulfill his senses left him no peace. he looked up at the stars and copied their paths and positions in the sand. unremittingly he observed the heavens, and never wearied of contemplating [his] clarity, [his] movements, [his] clouds, [his] lights.35 he gathered stones, flowers, insects of all sorts, and arranged them in rows of many different kinds. (…) the perceptions of his senses crowded into great colorful images; he heard, saw, touched and thought at once. (p. 7/9, my emphasis) oft hat er uns erzählt, wie ihm als kind der trieb, die sinne zu üben, zu beschäftigen und zu erfüllen, keine ruhe ließ. den sternen sah er zu und ahmte ihre züge, ihre stellung im sande nach. in’s luftmeer sah er ohne rast, und ward nicht müde seine klarheit, seine bewegungen, seine wolken, seine lichter zu betrachten. er sammelte sich steine, blumen, käfer aller art, und legte sie auf mannig fache weise sich in reihen. (...) in große bunte bilder drängten sich die wahrnehmungen seiner sinne: er hörte, sah, tastete und dachte zugleich. (i, pp. 79–80, my emphasis) this is the first instance in the literary fragment where the novice describes how the teacher creates these figures: from the stars, which he imitates in the sand, and from objects he collects from nature, which he lays in rows. by gathering objects of nature or tracing the stars in the sand, the teacher creates the form that produces a sound (that at this point only he can hear). but it is not just sound—a mixing of the senses occurs—a synaesthetic reaction, which allows for deeper understanding through feeling (recall schlegel (1808) describing the “feines gefühl,” “fine feeling” of sanskrit). the novices, as though in unison, lament that humanity cannot hear the inner music of nature anymore, and therefore cannot sense the figures inside themselves. if the human could learn to feel again, “then the stars would arise within him” (p. 71) (“dann gingen die gestirne in ihm auf ” (i, p. 96)). the stones are mentioned several times throughout the story—they are placed in many “rows” or “rays” that touch each other, like an image of stars or the sun, which is a common form and variation of the traditional sound figures. recall ritter’s assertion in his “appendix” about the physical sun in the universe, which represents the opposite movement—the splitting that happens from music (the general language) into specific languages is from the source, the sun outward (p. 484). novalis’ manmade sound figures then represent the retracing of the rays back to the source—and the self. just like ritter’s assertion that the writing of the sound figures is already present before their excitation, so too is the knowledge of the self already present and needs only be set in motion. in novalis’ text, this process of deciphering must be developed with a combination of contemplation about the outer and inner worlds. [if one would have only first brought out a few movements] to serve as nature’s [letters], the deciphering would become increasingly simple and our power over the movement and generation of thoughts would enable us to produce natural ideas and natural compositions even without any preceding real impression, and then the ultimate end would be attained. (p. 81, my emphasis)36 35 manheim translates this line as “...their clarity, their movements, their clouds, their lights,” when the original clearly specifies “seine,” “his.” 36 manheim translates “hätte man dann nur erst einige bewegungen” as “once we had evolved thought processes,” which misses that novalis writes here of “movements,” which can be related to the wave forms of sound. he also translates “buchstaben der natur” as “nature’s code,” losing the significance of letters making up an alphabet—they represent precisely what they are: likewise, wave forms are the building blocks of tones. somaesthetics and sound115 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature hätte man dann nur erst einige bewegungen, als buchstaben der natur, herausgebracht, so würde das dechiffrieren immer leichter von statten gehen, und die macht über die gedankenerzeugung und bewegung den beobachter in stand setzen, auch ohne vorhergegangenen werklichen eindruck, naturgedanken hervorzubringen und naturkompositionen zu entwerfen, und dann wäre der endzweck erreicht. (i, p. 98, my emphasis) the novices’ ultimate goal is to understand these figures as letters of an alphabet, so that the language can be deciphered with more ease. here the base form of the inner sound figures is named, just as in both novalis’ fragment and ritter’s “appendix”—first the letters of nature must be found, which will then ultimately form the language of nature. so, the novices begin their search in the outer world of nature in order to rediscover their inner connections—the key to which only they have. some say, what need to journey warily through the dismal world of visible things? for the purer world lies in us, in this source. (…) we need not inquire at length; an easy comparison, a few lines in the sand are enough, and we shall understand. thus all things are a great manuscript to which we hold the key… (p. 47, my emphasis) was brauchen wir die trübe welt der sichtbaren dinge mühsam zu durchwandern? die reinere welt liegt ja in uns, in diesem quell. (...) wir brauchen nicht erst lange nachzuforschen, eine leichte vergleichung, nur wenige züge im sande sind genug, um uns zu verständigen. so ist uns alle eine große schrift, wozu wir den schlüssel haben… (i, pp. 89–90, my emphasis) according to novalis, it is not mankind as a whole who has this particular gift—it is reserved for a special kind of human—the poet. the poet is the one who can make words out of the lines of movement (i, p. 102). he follows the path of the scientist and picks up where he left off (i, p. 103–104).37 with this, he has the gift of reading the “labyrinth paths” like a “map” (i, p. 103).38 in the seemingly climatic moment of the literary fragment, the narrator steps back from tuning into the conversations between the novices and travelers they encounter, and hears the “musical pronunciation” of their speech: (…) their speech was a wondrous song, its irresistible tones penetrated deep into the inwardness of nature and split it apart. each of their names seemed to be the key to the soul of each thing in nature. with creative power these vibrations called forth all images of the world’s phenomena, and the life of the universe can rightly be said to have been an eternal dialogue of a thousand voices; for in the language of those men 37 “the scientist follows their steps and gathers every treasure they have let fall in their innocence and joy, the poet, filled with sympathy, does homage to their love, and seeks in his songs to transplant this love, this germ of the golden age, into other times and lands.” (pp. 101/103) (“(...) ihren tritten folgt der forscher, um jedes kleinod zu sammeln, was sie in ihrer unschuld und freude haben fallen lassen, ihrer liebe huldigt der mitfühlende dichter und such durch seine gesänge diese liebe, diesen keim des goldnen alters, in andre zeiten und länder zu verpflanzen.” (pp. 103–104)) 38 unlike novalis, ritter gives the power to understand and create the musical universal language of nature directly to the composer, suggesting that music can be used to manipulate its listeners, for good and for evil. ritter explains in his “appendix”: “composers can achieve an infinitely great dignity. they manage an entire race related to mankind; they allow its servants and angels to appear, and they can also summon its devils. they will never succeed in the latter as much as the former; and thus of the glorious, good apparitions in music there are more significant ones, and far more, than the ones which are worthy of contempt.” (p. 479) (“componisten können zu einer unendlich hohen würde gelangen. sie verwalten ein ganzes dem menschen verwandtes geschlecht; seine diener und seine engel lassen sie erscheinen, und auch seine teufel können sie aufrufen. aber das letzte wird ihnen nie zu jenem grade gelingen, wie das erste; und so sind der herrlichen, guten erscheinungen in der musik bedeutendere und weit mehrere da, als der verachtungswürdigen.” (p. 478)) the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 116 alexis b. smith all forces, all modes of action seemed miraculously united. to seek out the ruins of this language, or at least all reports concerning it, had been one of the main purposes of their journey…. (p. 113, my emphasis) (...) ihre aussprache war ein wunderbarer gesang, dessen unwiderstehliche töne tief in das innere jeder natur eindrangen und sie zerlegten. jeder ihrer namen schien das losungswort für die seele jedes naturkörpers. mit schöpferischer gewalt erregten diese schwingungen alle bilder der welterscheinungen, und von ihnen konnte man mit recht sagen, daß das leben des universums ein ewiges tausendstimmiges gespräch sei; denn in ihrem sprechen schienen alle kräfte, alle arten der tätigkeit auf das unbegreiflichste vereinigt zu sein. die trümmer dieser sprache, wenigstens alle nachrichten von ihr, aufzusuchen, war ein hauptzweck ihrer reise gewesen…. (i, pp. 106–107, my emphasis) this seemingly euphoric moment toward the end of the literary fragment is placed into question by the language itself. some observations are certain, and others only appear to be the case, as indicated by the verb scheinen (to seem or appear). their names only appear to be the key to the soul of every natural body, and it only seems that they come close to uniting themselves with the incomprehensible. novalis writes with more confidence, however, that their speech or pronunciation (“aussprache”) was a “wonderful song,” and that one could certainly say that the life of the universe is an “eternal thousand-voiced conversation.” returning to fragment 245 from das allgemeine brouillon (the general notebook), a principal component necessary for novalis’ concept of poesie is music, as he explains toward the end of the fragment: 245. music. (…) on the universal language of music. the spirit becomes free, indeterminately stimulated—which is so beneficial for it—and seems so familiar to it, so patriotic—that for this short moment it is transported to its indian homeland. all love—and goodness, future and past are aroused in it—hope and longing. / attempts to speak musically. our language—was much more musical to begin with, and has gradually become so prosaic—so unmusical. it has now become more like noise-sound [laut], if one thus wishes to degrade this beautiful word. it must become song once again. the consonants transform tones into noise.” (p. 37, with my corrections and bolded terms my emphasis) 245. musik. (…) über die allg[emeine]n sprache der musik. der geist wird unbestimmt angeregt – das tut ihm so wohl – das dünkt ihm so bekannt, so vaterländisch – er ist auf diese kurzen augenblicke in seiner indischen heymath. alles liebe – und gute, zukunft und vergangenheit regt sich in ihm – hoffnung und sehnsucht. / vers[uch] bestimmt durch die musik zu sprechen. unsre sprache – sie war zu anfang viel musicalischer und hat sich nur nach gerade so prosaisirt – so entönt. es ist jezt mehr schallen geworden – laut, wenn man diese schöne wort so erniedrigen will. sie muß wieder gesang werden. die consonanten verwandeln den ton in schall.” (iii, p. 285, bolded terms my emphasis) novalis traces the origin of music as the universal language to india—that in experiencing music the spirit returns to this home. he therefore suggests that the attempt to speak musically will bring one closer to experiencing the universal language. according to the teacher in the novices of sais, this is achieved by first gathering, organizing and meditating on objects in nature. somaesthetics and sound117 resounding in the human body as the ‘true sanskrit’ of nature the language of nature comes from these objects as though sound figures inside of the body… eventually sound, light, and figures emerge that will make the language comprehensible. the trümmer or “ruins” that the novices seek, as ritter would also suggest, are inside themselves and must only be set into motion—then their pronunciation, or speech, will become musical again. 4. conclusion in the novices of sais, novalis takes the characteristics of the sound figures and separates them into their distinct attributes; they are fragmented through descriptions of inner and outer light rays and sound, in turn representing the irrepresentability of poesie, his ideal, universal language—the “true sanskrit” of nature. novalis makes the figures themselves more tangible by giving humans (and in particular poets) the power to create them via rows of stones and other objects of nature and by drawing lines in the sand—suggesting that the physical images in the outer world also produce the figures and sounds which should be perceived as a synaesthetic reaction from inside their bodies.39 together, novalis and ritter were longing for an absolute, universal language, and through their scientific and poetic investigations, the sound figures seemed to be the key to deciphering this language—they point toward the scientific expression, perhaps, of this original language of nature so closely related to music. this poesie would contain its sound, writing, and meaning all at the same time; as in sanskrit, there would no longer be a separation between objects and their names, nor humans and nature. knowledge of the properties of sanskrit and ritter’s scientific and poetic narratives on the sound figures help shed “light,” so to speak, on the possible significance and meaning behind novalis’ abstract and metaphorical use of them in his fragments and the novices of sais. acknowledgments the content for this article has been derived from my dissertation, smith., a. (2017). hearing with the body: poetics of musical meaning in novalis, ritter, hoffmann and schumann (doctoral dissertation) with some revisions and an important addition. this present article addresses the role of novalis’ ideal concept of “sanskrit” in his literary fragment, which i previously overlooked and adds a significant layer of meaning to novalis’ and ritter’s interpretation of the sound figures. it also corrects and further clarifies some of my early assumptions regarding the role of hearing in his text—not from the outside through the ears, as i argue in my dissertation, but rather as an expression from inside the human body—an inner hearing or “feeling” that then becomes the “musical pronunciation” of speech. the sound figures become an analogy for novalis’ concept of the “true sanskrit” of nature. this shows a significant influence from the early reception of hinduism, buddhism and sanskrit studies by the western world on both novalis and johann wilhelm ritter’s work, however abstract and fragmented. this research project is a work-in-progress. like novalis, my subjective knowledge of sanskrit is very limited, as i cannot read or speak it. from what i have read objectively, any true experience of the language must be subjective, like the teacher’s—it is otherwise lost in translation. many thanks to the editors of the journal for their detailed feedback, and to yasas renn and don carrell for the helpful resources and our discussions on sanskrit. 39 ritter, on the other hand, gives this power to composers, acknowledging their great responsibility and the possible positive and negative influences that could ensue. the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 118 alexis b. smith references benjamin, w. 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(1879). elementary lessons on sound. new york, ny: macmillan & company. stopp, e. (1973). reviewed works: krumme regel: novalis’ ‘konstruktionslehre des schaffenden geistes’ und ihre tradition by ulrich gaier; bifocal vision: novalis’ philosophy of nature and disease by john neubauer; index zu novalis’ ‘heinrich von ofterdingen’ by helmut schwanze. https://www.ancient.eu/sanskrit/ https://www.ancient.eu/sanskrit/ http://www.zeno.org/literatur/m/schlegel,+friedrich/fragmentensammlungen/fragmente http://www.zeno.org/literatur/m/schlegel,+friedrich/fragmentensammlungen/fragmente https://www.ancient.eu/egyptian_hieroglyphs/ https://www.ancient.eu/egyptian_hieroglyphs/ the journal of somaesthetics volume 5, number 2 (2019) 120 alexis b. smith the german quarterly, 68(2), 458–460. strässle, t. (2004). “das hören ist ein sehen von und durch innen”: johann wilhelm ritter and the aesthetics of music. in s. donovan & r. elliott (eds.), music and literature in german romanticism (pp. 27–42). woodbridge, uk: boydell & brewer. ullmann, d. (2012). chladni und die entwicklung der akustik von 1750–1860. basel, switzerland: birkhäuser. violatti, c. (2014). upanishads. ancient history encyclopedia. retrieved from https://www. ancient.eu/upanishads/ wetzels, w. d. (1971). aspects of natural science in german romanticism, studies in romanticism, 10(1), 44–59. zielinski, s. (2006). electrification, tele-writing, seeing close up: johann wilhelm ritter, joseph chudy, and jan evangelista purkyne. in g. custance (trans.), deep time of the media: toward an archaeology of hearing and seeing by technical means (pp. 159–203). cambridge, ma: mit press. https://www.ancient.eu/upanishads/ https://www.ancient.eu/upanishads/ introduction to issue number 1: the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 12 page 12–24anne elisabeth sejten beauty trouble anne elisabeth sejten abstract: by tracing the concept of beauty as an epistemic move toward sensibility and embodied experience, this article provides a survey in which beauty appears to have disturbed rather than stabilized the philosophical field of aesthetics. on the other hand, the enduring ability to disturb philosophical thought is exactly what testifies to beauty’s conceptually dynamic and vital role in aesthetics. the troubling consequences of the concept ‘beauty’ are discussed in five centennial tableaus that accentuate mutually conflictual aspects: sensitive beauty in the eighteenth century, idealistic beauty in the nineteenth century, sublime beauty in the twentieth century, and appearing beauty in the twenty-first century. this outline of changing conceptions of beauty throughout the history of aesthetic philosophy entails questions about the distinction between the aesthetic and the artistic, as well as it addresses the relationship between art and nature in a new fashion. keywords: sensible beauty, artistic beauty, the beautiful and the sublime, appearing beauty, art and nature. beauty’s foundational role in aesthetics is irrefutable. the epistemological specificity that has allowed aesthetics to join philosophy in its own right has to do with the disunion of the alliance that, since antiquity, has linked beauty to morality and truth as inseparable pillars of true knowledge. from the canonization of the idealization of beauty in plato’s era throughout medieval christianity, beauty has indistinctly been embraced in sensitive and metaphysical splendor in various spiritualized forms. this metaphysical conceptualization remained largely unchallenged until the eighteenth century, when enlightenment philosophers began splitting beauty from supra-sensitive transcendence.1 in many essays, beauty was increasingly conceptualized in relation to the specific—and sensible—pleasure it occasions2 before finally receiving its attribute of aesthetic in baumgarden’s aesthetica (1750) and being incorporated by kant as the beautiful in his transcendental philosophy in the critique of judgment (1790). the purpose of this article is to revisit various key formulations that have orchestrated the ascension of beauty throughout modern thought not only to exemplify to the extent to which 1 the history of ideas unfolding around “the beautiful” is treated in numerous works, e.g., ferry (2001), lacoste (1986) and, most recently, talon-hugon (2004). 2 for example, in dubos’ seminal critical reflections on poetry and painting (1719) and hutcheson’s an inquiry into the origin of our ideas of beauty and virtue (1725). somaesthetics and beauty13 beauty trouble beauty has taken an active part in arguments for an autonomous field of philosophy—a genuinely aesthetic take on human experience—but also to witness how beauty acts as a subtle troublemaker. from the beginning of its epistemic turn toward sensibility, beauty seems to have disturbed rather than stabilized and weakened more than strengthened the newly gained autonomy of aesthetics it was supposed to secure. nonetheless, the enduring ability to disturb philosophical thought is exactly what provokes the interest in beauty. although beauty belongs to one of those choses vagues that qualify abstract ideas and emotional phenomena3, such dubious familiarity does not necessarily discredit beauty’s potential to embrace a dynamic concept in philosophy. the persistence of beauty is evidence to the contrary. does not beauty possess an astonishing immunity that serenely overcomes the ever-failing attempts at conceiving a theory of beauty? ideas of beauty continue inexorably to survive a destiny of being dragged through ordinary and poetic language that endows beauty with the ability to signify a thousand different things. however, the difficulty of grasping beauty philosophically may well reside in its popularity and extreme vivacity in ordinary life and the arts, combining all kinds of articulations from spontaneous exclamations, such as “how beautiful!” to the grandiloquent allegorical figure of beauty in the fine arts. likewise, the long-term absence, if not disesteem, that has fallen to beauty’s lot in modernist and contemporary aesthetics may have to do with the concept’s plasticity. if beauty is capable of hibernating in other concepts, especially those that sensuous experience brings together, such as emotions, feelings, affectivity, sensitiveness, and do on, beauty tends taciturnly to traverse them all in an englobing category. therefore, somaesthetics offers a powerful horizon of theorization that implicitly communicates with our investigation. whether beauty is troubling because it is perceived as an obstacle to fulfilling aesthetical thought, or beauty is troubling because it claims to be genuine in aesthetical thought, the reasons converge in beauty’s inner connections to sensibility and to a somewhat secret body knowledge. sensitive experience remains essential to beauty, which is the assumption that i would like to expand upon. in this context, somaesthetics evokes an obvious response because of the interest this research field has in the active and participating aspects of bodily perception. the guiding thread that links philosophical positions on beauty, which are presented below in four condensed centennial tableaus, is thus a discussion concerning the types of sensitiveness these approaches to beauty imply, regarding whether their trouble-making activity conveys the purpose of cultivating or abandoning beauty in aesthetics. it goes without saying that, within the limits imposed by the scope of this article, the selection is extremely fragmentated and restricted to momentous sources of classical philosophy in the first place. second, the selection is even more eclectic in its focus on the german philosopher martin seel, who provides an indicative voice of what might be seen as the scholarly return to beauty in contemporary aesthetics. eighteenth-century tableau: diderot and the french enlightenment denis diderot, the author of the article “beautiful” in the french encyclopedia (1752), illustrates the ongoing reconstruction of the understanding of beauty during the eighteenth century in a highly significant way. even before broaching the subject, he observes the convoluted nature of beauty. paradoxically, he claims that the general use in ordinary language is exactly what makes beauty such a “difficult” concept: 3 the expression choses vagues, i.e., things misty, derives from paul valéry’s la politique de l’esprit (1941) and signifies things which escape definition and are thus loaded by spirit, and spirit only. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 14 anne elisabeth sejten before delving deeper into the difficult research that the origin of the beautiful is, i would first bring to the attention, with all the authors who wrote on the subject, that by a sort of fatality, the topics most addressed among men are rather ordinarily these least known to them; and that such is, among many others, the lot of the beautiful. (diderot, 2006 [1752]) he then moves to a meticulous discussion of the erudite sources of beauty from antiquity to his own contemporaneity, touching on, among others, saint augustin’s definition of beauty as “unity,” wolff ’s notion of the kind of “pleasure” that beauty occasions, crouzac’s emphasis on the “feeling” that arouses art, hutcheson’s discovery of an “internal sense,” and father andré’s distinction between essential and arbitrary beauties. however, in formulating his own position, diderot, being highly skeptical about the positions he has just reviewed, laconically points to a criterion in a debate about music between rameau and rousseau, that is, “the perception of rapports.” still, what matters in the experience of beauty, as implied as the perception of rapports, is the preeminence of the senses. to affirm that something is beautiful is mediated less by the intellect than by the senses: when i say, then, that a being is beautiful through the rapports that one notices in it, i do not refer to the intellectual or fictitious rapports that our imagination brings into the being, but i refer to the real rapports that are there, and that our understanding notices through the help of our senses. (diderot, 2006 [1752]) the secular change in the understanding of beauty is sealed in the spontaneous expression by which diderot pays tribute to the senses: “through the help of our senses.” the beautiful is definitively no longer a property that exists only through reason but arises within the perceiving and sensing subject. sensible beauty, in fact, constitutes the groundbreaking outcome of the major epistemic transformations that came to affect the entire way of understanding the world in the transition between the sixteenth and seventieth centuries. because of the major scientific advances that occurred, particularly in mechanical physics, the sensible achieved an autonomous position alongside the intelligible. kant’s transcendental criticism may be singled out as the accomplishment of the epistemological rehabilitation of the senses, as far as the senses constitutively contribute to the work of knowledge in constituting the world of phenomena. diderot’s encyclopedia entry is interesting because it crosses the line insofar as he accompanies beauty in joining the field of “out there” in a general and everyday manner. beauty then obviously migrates into the sensible world by diderot’s losing sight of the speculative wordings of the authors he consulted. scarcely retaining any of the outlined theories, he nonetheless embraces their underlying assumption: beauty happens within a relationship between the subject and an object. of course, we might still talk about the idea of beauty, but this idea is certainly not a faint echo of the idea of beauty. beauty refers to the feeling occasioned by something that a subject has come across in the sensible world, or, as diderot stated, “the real rapports that are there.” emphasizing the pure, formal condition of the power that some things and beings have to affect us, diderot appears to argue for a basic, but enlarged, understanding of beauty that is by no means restricted to the arts. instead, he pays attention to the proportions at play within material tissues that stimulate the ability to perceive freely. thus, receptiveness to beauty requires a certain “active” passivity that allows understanding to grasp the world through the senses. it is no coincidence that during the same period, diderot ventured into a strange “anatomicsomaesthetics and beauty15 beauty trouble metaphysical” project that drew lessons from the blind and the deaf-mute in experimentation that led him to closely explore bodily perception (sejten, 2000, pp. 99–144). learning from the blind helped diderot to put forward the idea of autonomous bodily knowledge, which is based solely on sensorial receptivity and is beyond understanding and reason. similarly, his observations of the deaf-mute indicated the existence of a language beyond ordinary language; that is, a far more musical language that was capable of making sense of sensuous polyphonies. for diderot, beauty, slightly troubling, acts beyond will, apprehending human beings through the senses, which is more captivating than the entitlement to master beauty through understanding. implicitly cultivating sensibility becomes part of living practice, which commits itself to optimizing and intensifying experiences of beauty. nineteenth century tableau: idealistic counter-reactions the liberation of beauty from idealism, however, cannot be complete, even though aesthetics at the end of the eighteenth century gained a solid philosophical foundation in the judgment of beauty based solely on a fabulous (although seemingly frail) feeling of pleasure. in the enlightenment in general and in kant in particular, the intensity of this feeling refers to the subject itself, celebrating less what has triggered that feeling than the subject’s own capacity to conceive freely without concepts and to share cultural humanity. this ambiguity is one of the reasons for the renewed troubling of beauty. although unchained from its former union with morality and truth, beauty encounters unmistakably re-idealizing movements during the nineteenth century. the kantian legacy had already been taken into opposite directions by its immediate philosophical successors. schiller reformulated the famous kantian free play of the imagination and understanding toward the pedagogical humanism of bildung, whereas hegel literally dismissed the “aesthetic” in its sensuous aspects— “as a mere name it [the word “aesthetics”] is a matter of indifference to us” (hegel, 1975)—in order to confine beauty to the sole domain of art. for hegel, the nascent philosophical discipline of aesthetics identifies the “spacious realm of the beautiful” with the “province of art.” it was less metaphorically formulated when hegel (1975) resumed the scientific approach of his inquiry into beauty: “our science is philosophy of art and, more definitely, philosophy of fine art.” a similar promotion of beauty in the name of art takes place in schopenhauer’s opus magnum, the world as will and idea, from 1819. in undisguised platonic terms, schopenhauer posed the epistemological question of which knowledge might lead to the ideas: what kind of knowledge is concerned with that which is outside and independent of all relations, that which alone is really essential to the world, the true content of its phenomena, that which is subject to no change, and therefore is known with equal truth for all time, in a word, the ideas, which are the direct and adequate objectivity of the thing in-itself, the will? (schopenhauer, 1919, pp. 238–239) in response to this elaborate question, schopenhauer highlighted art as the answer and provided a similar rhetorically and sharply worded reply: we answer, art, the work of genius. it repeats or reproduces the eternal ideas grasped through pure contemplation, the essential and abiding in all the phenomena of the world; and according to what the material is in which it reproduces, it is sculpture or painting, poetry or music. (schopenhauer, 1919, p. 239) the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 16 anne elisabeth sejten even though art solely represents an incomplete and temporary means of emancipating human beings from the will, as art in hegel absorbs itself in the odyssey of absolute spirit, art also has the power to accomplish what plato denied it: the direct access to the world of ideas. these paramount philosophical elaborations of aesthetics during the early nineteenth century not only illustrate that, almost exclusively, aesthetics has become a philosophy of art. they clearly testify that beauty within that movement again became metaphysical. both hegel and schopenhauer reconducted beauty to a new form of idealism. hegel’s idea was derived from the platonic form and idea even though it differed from plato by combining concept and concrete reality. nonetheless, artistic beauty serves a higher purpose in the dialectical selfrealization of the total spirit. in addition to the re-idealization of beauty, things are not much better in terms of what has become of the philosophy of taste based on the idea of sensible immediacy. initially, and especially during the german enlightenment, as evidenced in schiller, the concept of taste entailed bildung, which emphasizes the need for education and cultivation. however, if taste, in the first place, stands for the theoretical appreciation of a direct, unmediated sensuous access to beauty, the concept remains ideologically problematic to justify in the long run, as argued by christoph menke (2012). on one hand, taste is truly emancipating because it allows the subject to independently assess and yet lays claim to universal validity. on the other hand, taste is soon compromised by social determinations and overruled by a specific—bourgeois—standard of taste before eventually being absorbed by hidden power agendas (menke, 2012, pp. 226–239), which is our understanding of taste today. in its modernized and standardized version, taste presents a sociological diversity of domains of taste, such as taste in fashion, taste in music, and taste in cooking. from georg simmel to pierre bourdieu, sociology has mainly explored taste in relation to culture and value. the double, antagonistic pressure on beauty, which is not only absolutized in speculative idealism but also banalized by social coding, should not prevent us from summing up the longlasting outcome of the generalized view of beauty in this tableau. manifestly, the decisive impact of eighteenth-century philosophy consists in tying the concept of beauty to the arts. aesthetics swiftly became a philosophy of art. however, this alliance with art launched beauty over further troubled waters. most importantly, the aesthetic dimension, with its sensitive constitution, seems at risk. furthermore, the valorization of the arts as the only valuable entry to beauty considerably reduces the areas in which beauty may be experienced. however, the sanctification of art and the corresponding devaluation of aesthetic receptivity may lead to a more moderate and more radical claim. without excluding other types of objects or experiences, artworks may represent elaborated things that are explicitly aimed at evoking aesthetical emotions, thus intensifying living practice in its entirety. this affirmation was partially strongly formulated by nietzsche in the second half of the eighteenth century. in his notorious declaration in the birth of tragedy from 1867, nietzsche took his nearest philosophical predecessors to a new higher level, especially schopenhauer, whom he quoted extensively in literally assigning human life to art—“we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art”—only to make the hidden rupture provocative. according to nietzsche, art and life are assimilated, “for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified” (nietzsche, 1910, p. 50). accordingly, nietzsche insisted on a specifically aesthetic core of art. beauty trouble certainly gained renewed force from that point. somaesthetics and beauty17 beauty trouble twentieth-century tableau: oscillations between the beautiful and the sublime the evolution of beauty outlined above hides some reasons that the vocabulary of beauty became old-fashioned relatively early. beauty has suffered from more than just being confined to idealism. the fall of beauty, in large part, has involved its complicity with a traditionalist, if not manifestly conservative and bourgeois, register of taste. some of the most visionary intellectual sensibilities since the end of the nineteenth century were aware of the changes by which beauty may become an antiquated concept. for example, in 1928, paul valéry asked whether “the moderns still make any use of it,” only to conclude that “the beautiful is no longer in vogue,” and that “beauty is a kind of dying person” (valéry, 1957, pp. 1239–1240)4. an eminent connoisseur of art, valéry, who was both a poet and an art critic, knew what he was talking about. as fond as hegel was of classicist paintings and the ideals of beauty that underpin them, modern painters from the age of impressionism and forward have been eager to ruin the academic codification of beauty. likewise, in dawning modernist poetry, of which baudelaire and mallarmé are prime examples, writers have claimed to serve art instead of providing the leading classes with splendid literary works that might legitimate their position in society. when modern art eventually coincided with modernism, beauty became too pleasing, too facile, too conformist, and a slippery slope that must be avoided5. however, valéry and his fellow kindred spirits were skeptical about what could replace the beautiful when beauty was increasingly subsumed as entertainment, or according to valéry (1957), “all the values of the chock have supplanted beauty.” this concern is even more urgent today because society is currently characterized by the phenomena of increasing aestheticization, which calls for analogous reflection. there is undoubtedly no direct return to the eighteenthcentury aesthetics category of taste or to highly speculative beauty. however, between taste’s early developments in bourgeois identity and future mass consumerism and between autonomy and the market, in recent philosophy, innovative conceptualizations have responded to the need for rethinking beauty in aesthetics. the reappearance of the concept of the sublime during the 1980s among french philosophers featured new departures in aesthetics6. compared to beauty’s trajectory, the sublime embarked on what could be described as a glamourous career, at least since french philosopher jeanfrançois lyotard promoted it as a core concept, which was particularly dynamic and powerful in inspiring philosophical thought. the sublime proved capable, apparently much more so than beauty, of grasping modern art, avant-garde art, and contemporary art, which most people consider obscure, if not utterly incomprehensible. the sublime, in fact, refers to an art that ruins the very idea of an infinitely pleasant and harmonious experience of beauty. the feeling of the sublime is characterized by an eminently discordant and double structure that, according to burke, is torn between sorrow and enjoyment and between terror and delight. in kant’s epistemological terminology the dichotomy is between the failure of the imagination to present perceivable forms and the exhilarating enthusiasm in which raison surpasses this failure of imagination. all these negative features relate to the task to which lyotard (2012) summoned art and critical thought to present the non-presentable: “présenter l’imprésentable.” 4 translated by the author. 5 for an updated discussion of beauty critically informed by art, see danto, a. (2002). the abuse of beauty. daedalus, 131(4), 35–56. www. jstor.org/stable/20027805. 6 see du sublime (1988), a collection with contributions from, e.g., jean-françois lyotard, philippe lacoue-labarthe, and louis marin et jean-luc nancy. paris: belin. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 18 anne elisabeth sejten if the sublime dismisses beauty and eventually replaces beauty, why return to beauty? most refreshingly, sianne ngai has advocated for replacing both the beautiful and the sublime by three entirely new categories—the zany, the cute, and the interesting—as the only means of making sense in the “hypercommodified, information-saturated, performance-driven conditions of late capitalism” (ngai, 2012, p. 1). ngai’s three categories are of great interest because they systematically elucidate the aesthetic experience of being part of “socially binding processes:” the zany in relation to “production;” the cute in relation to the sphere of “consumption;” even the interesting, which might have some similarities to the sublime, is confined to the sphere of mere “circulation” of information (ngai, 2012, p. 1). the consequence of submitting adjusted aesthetical concepts to social immersion, however, is that they expand sociologically but diminish aesthetically. ngai emphasizes their relative “lack of power” and their “weakness” in terms of “aesthetic impact” compared with the classic feelings of the sublime and the beautiful that were both supposed to be “powerfully felt” (ngai, 2017, pp. 18–19). therefore, finally, beauty has very little application in ngai’s project. as she asserted, the feeling of the beautiful is necessarily a strong one. in troubleshooting, she proposed replacing the beautiful by more socially adjusted categories, indicating that she implicitly agreed to understand beauty and the nature of beauty as relying on aesthetic and affective immersion. only the diagnosis of late modern lifestyles seems to leave little space for that kind of experience. simultaneously, ngai’s approach exposes a socially determined negotiation of the relationship between the aesthetic and the artistic, insofar as aestheticization conditions generally led her to stress the prevalence of popular, entertaining, and even infantile emotions in late capitalist society. a quite different strategy for insisting on beauty’s lasting relevance in aesthetics remains latently associated with the concept of the sublime, which, paradoxically, was supposed to overcome beauty. rethinking the sublime concerns beauty. the sublime does not exclude the beautiful; instead, it connects to the beautiful if not as an inclusive concept in aesthetics that is at least part of the sublime, then as an intensified feeling of pleasure. initially, kant confirmed the interconnectedness between the two categories when he affirmed that the feeling of the sublime did not necessitate a proper transcendental deduction but could be based on that of the feeling of beauty. even lyotard did not fail to credit the beautiful in kant when he confirmed that the great philosophical importance of the beautiful and the sublime in the third critique resides in the “derealization of the object” (lyotard, 1986, p. 45), which affects aesthetic feelings per se. twenty–twenty-first century tableau: appearing beauty the german philosopher martin seel appears to address these inner ties between the sublime and the beautiful through the notion of “appearing”, which he promoted as “a promising basic concept of aesthetics” (seel, 2005, p. xiii). seel argues for the necessity of tracing the aesthetic experience back to a common ground of perception independent of what is perceived, which, in the first place, situates the investigation in nature outside art, but does not exclude art in its further steps. this reorientation of aesthetics toward nature, which extended the topic of seel’s habitation thesis, aesthetics of nature (1991), also modifies the understanding of the sublime. the opposite is true in french poststructuralism. lyotard emphasized the validity of the sublime and its philosophical pertinence almost exclusively in art, whereas seel aims to unfold the sublime in relation to nature. likewise, the sublime, according to lyotard, was essentially elaborated on with respect to time, whereas seel explores the sublime mainly in relation to space (hoffmann, somaesthetics and beauty19 beauty trouble 2006, pp. 19–48). this shift in perspective allows seel to connect the sublime and the beautiful in terms of a tension between the two. from that point, the categorical separation between the sublime and the beautiful corresponds to a hypothetical and ideal line of demarcation, rather than justifying the reality of two essentially different aesthetic sensations and experiences. in other words, if the beautiful and the sublime are to be differentiated gradually and not categorically, the cause of their aesthetic capacity must be sought in the same elementary condition from which they both emerge. according to seel, appearing occupies that crossing point. the beautiful and the sublime both appear to our senses; their ontological status, strictly speaking, is less “to be” than “to appear.” they are inseparable from their appearing nature, which marks their inner link to nature. in tracing aesthetics to nature, another basic precondition in aesthetics is revealed, that of contemplation, which seel placed as the fundamental layer of his aesthetics of nature (seel, 1991, pp. 38–88); here, beauty takes the lead. appearing connects to beauty in the most spontaneous contemplation of nature. objects of nature, whether organic or inorganic, are beautiful as long as they simply occupy or fill contemplation; they last as long as contemplation lasts. they are as they appear, which is the reason for their beauty. in this specific contemplation mode, objects of nature are beautiful, simply because they seem to be in the world for no reason except the perception of their appearance. this is also the reason that there is not really anything to understand in this experience of beauty, in which phenomenal givenness and the contemplative gaze co-exist and nourish each other. regardless of how far this minimal natural beauty may be from the sublime and beauty in superior levels of the aesthetic experience in art or elsewhere (also in nature), when imagination and reason participate more actively than in pure and free contemplation, the condition of appearing continues to provide a common ground for both beauty and the sublime. what is captivating is perhaps less than whether the world appears in visible, perceivable proportions (as in the classical beautiful) or in visible disproportion to the subject’s possibilities of perceiving (as in the classical sublime). it might be more fascinating to experience what is not harmonious in that which is harmonious and what is harmonious in that which is not. modern poetry from baudelaire onward certainly mirrors that ambition, and we might say that the collaboration of beauty and the sublime generally enhances the intensity of the aesthetic experience, as if each lacks suspense without the other. beauty that pacifies without troubling is not beauty; the sublime that is disquieting without being uplifting is not sublime. in fact, combining the beautiful and the sublime might not even be incompatible with lyotard, for whom “derealization” is constitutive in both. in addition to being chosen as an exponent of a certain return to beauty in aesthetics, this debate on the sublime should benefit from seel, as far as he invites us to consider the asymmetry between beauty and sublime in the former’s favor. while an element of beauty is inherent in the sublime, the former can exist without any admixture of the latter. apprehending beauty through the sublime is completed by bearing witness to the persistence of beauty and to its extraordinary transversal ability to emerge in places and situations where it is least expected. might it be that beauty runs through all levels of the aesthetic? or that the difference between the beautiful and the sublime may not be understood consistently if they are not seen as being oppositions within beauty? returning to the beautiful through the sublime thus accentuates the paradoxical relationship between beauty and appearing. beauty itself does not appear, but beauty is inseparable from appearing. according to water benjamin, “semblance belongs to the the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 20 anne elisabeth sejten essentially beautiful as the veil covering something else”, while specifying “[u]nveiled, however, it would prove to be infinitely inconspicuous [unscheinbar]” (benjamin, 2004, p. 351). rephrasing beauty between the aesthetic and the artistic our rough outline of the determining features of beauty throughout the relatively young discipline of aesthetic philosophy includes constellations varying between “the aesthetic” and “the artistic,” both of which are assigned to form part of “the beautiful.” diderot valued the aesthetic component and paid little attention to art, whereas hegel excluded the aesthetic dimension from his philosophy of art. although it is distributed differently, this controversy also affects the dissimilar approaches to the sublime taken by lyotard and seel. obviously, emphasizing that aesthetic objects are basically objects of appearing encourages rethinking the relationship between the aesthetic and the artistic. anglophone philosophers in particular have pleaded in favor of establishing a clear analytical distinction between the aesthetic and the artistic (best, 1982)7, but seel elaborated the issue differently. on one hand, in its elementary aesthetic sense, to be beautiful implies the condition of appearing. a thing must appear in such a way that it shows itself to be intrinsically valuable. beauty, accordingly, takes on its aesthetic significance at that elementary level. here art has no exclusive right to beauty. in the proper sense of the word, the horizon of the aesthetic resembles unlimited. all objects and situations may occupy or temporarily captivate a given observer, be they romantic gardens, lovely people, fancy cell phones, or amazing italian coffee makers. that is why the aesthetic of everyday experience must be taken into consideration, provided that it enables an encounter with a relieving or enchanting present, appearing here and now. moreover, when addressing aestheticization phenomena, this issue does not seem satisfactorily solved by referring—at least without further elaboration—to the kantian distinction between pure beauty and dependent beauty, disinterested beauty without any purpose, and purposive beauty. on the other hand, artworks indubitably constitute a sphere of their own. seel’s main focus on appearing provides inspiration in defining that distinctive otherness according to the artwork’s specific ways of appearing. artworks appear in a particular way; they do not simply appear as nature does but show themselves in their appearing. therefore, they also must rely on reception and acknowledgment. the word “work” in “artwork” or “work of art” signifies participation; the spectator, reader, and listener must ascertain and discover what a work of art brings into the world. in short, to pursue the interplay of words, artworks work in us, and we have to work on them to interpret and come to terms with their more or less idiosyncratic language. however, the influential distinction that beardsley (1979) proposed between aesthetic and artistic values ignores the fact that all artistic production is the creation of unique appearances in the world, which are specific appearances, because artworks display unique interpretations of the world. artworks are elaborate signs and more than merely things. nonetheless, artistic presentation is rooted in embodied perceptions, sensations, and affections. duchamp and warhol, who needed appearance, needed to insist on appearance and to exhibit the puzzles and entanglements of aesthetic and artistic beauty. in art, even non-appearing is a matter of appearing. likewise, many beautifully designed objects may join the world of artworks because they produce aesthetically intense meaning. 7 more recently jean marie shaeffer (2015) has followed the same path. somaesthetics and beauty21 beauty trouble beauty and nature if beauty can still lay claim to being essential in aesthetics and art in general, it is because artworks, in their own way of appearing to the viewer, are unique and remarkable as well as captivating and powerful. from this perspective, it makes sense to maintain the hypothesis that beauty is a broad concept that includes the sublime. however, although art has moved away from presumed classical forms of beauty, the aesthetic remains both an essential and a defining aspect of art8. as gilles deleuze convincingly demonstrated, whoever does not regard the paintings of francis bacon as beautiful will not be able to find what is troubling about them. of course, in this context, what is beautiful refers to the forces actualized by bacon’s colorful and distorted paintings and not merely to the intellectual interest someone might take in these artworks but to what constitutes their aesthetic dynamism and affects beyond affections (deleuze, 2003). in deleuze’s thought, the major concepts relate to intense beauty. how do we evoke these states of “events” and “lines of becomings,” as valorized by deleuze, without implying an element of beauty or without implying the joy of being transported elsewhere by sensation alone to connect with the intensity and multiplicity of life through concrete, empirical sensations that cannot be unfamiliar to beauty? beauty’s persistent ability to appear when least expected is rather troubling. if beauty can be reaffirmed at the edge of modern and contemporary art, which for other art theoreticians has proven its final disappearance, more solid arguments are needed in pleading for the genuinely aesthetically beautiful. for that purpose, referring again to deleuze might be helpful. in his thesis, difference and repetition (1968), deleuze launched the project of “transcendental empiricism,” in which concrete and empirical sensation is the vital conceptual framework in which the new philosophy of difference coincides with aesthetics: empiricism truly becomes transcendental, and aesthetics an apodictic discipline, only when we apprehend directly in the sensible that what can only be sensed, the very being of the sensible: difference, potential difference and difference in intensity as the reasons behind qualitative diversity. (deleuze, 1994, p. 56–57) by affirming that sensation is immanent to unknown material forces because of the ability to “apprehend directly” within the sensible, deleuze clearly demonstrated the ontological assumption of his project. in sensation, we meet what transcends us as far as “the very being of the sensible” literary puts human beings in touch with life in its intensity and multiplicities. on the ontological horizon of sensation, beauty may join another similar fabulous border concept in aesthetics, that of nature. in deleuze, nature signifies the concrete and empirical field in which radical difference can be sensed and thus “experimented.” deleuze and guattari’s conceptual rhizome underpins a radical understanding of nature, claiming that “in nature roots are taproots with a more multiple, lateral, and circular system of ramification, rather than a dichotomous one” (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 5). seel, although more phenomenologically oriented, also insists on thinking about nature as incommensurable with “difference.”9 human experiences of nature, he argues, provide encounters with something that cannot be fully translated into culture or reason, something that resists any cultural capacity. however, 8 simultaneously, a figurative return to nature has taken place in contemporary art. if modern art seems to testify to the opposite in conducting the process of emancipation of art from the fixation on unambiguous images of familiar figures from the external world, many contemporary artists have actually returned to figurative painting in addition to drawing attention to nature; e.g., the works of anselm kiefer, gerhard richter, and andreas gursky clearly show the appropriation of natural configurations. 9 in german, “differenz von natur” (seel, 1991, p. 14). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 22 anne elisabeth sejten critical theory’s grand old master, theodor w. adorno, had already emphasized the complex interrelations between art and nature. in aesthetic theory (1970), adorno attempted to rescue kantian natural beauty or more precisely to dialecticize hegelian cultural beauty (kulturschönen) through kant’s natural beauty (naturschönen). most surprisingly, adorno insisted that natural beauty marks the very inner life of beauty: “the more strictly the works of art refrain from natural proliferations and imitation of nature, the more closely the successful ones approach nature” (adorno, 1997, p. 120). this quotation may be used as a motto for uncovering a central common thread in the visual arts of the last two centuries. in the change from a supposedly traditional, classical imitation of nature to the pictorial adaptation of the very forces of figuration beyond representation, nature continues to articulate a radical otherness, while simultaneously being both the source of beauty and the unbridgeable difference from it. what matters from adorno’s critical point of view is that artworks have the potential to reveal the following: what is real about reality is richer than all the appearances we could attempt to fix in the language of conceptual knowledge. underlying the work of art is that reality is not just a collection of facts because it reveals the difference between determinable appearance and indeterminable appearance, which points to the return of the sublime at the heart of beauty. rightfully, adorno quoted valéry in recalling the perspective that lyotard followed in elaborating the sublime: “beauty demands, perhaps, the slavish imitation of what is indeterminable in things” (adorno, 1997, p. 120)10. the assumption that a reciprocal relationship exists between aesthetic nature and art may join the classical formulation that kant presents in section 45 of critique of judgment: “nature, we say, is beautiful [schön] if it also looks like art; and art can be called fine [schön] art only if we are conscious that it is art while yet it looks to us like nature” (kant, 1987, p. 174). in answering the question whether free nature or free art should serve as the model for aesthetic perception and production, kant disentangles a complex relationship between nature and art. commenting on kant’s argument, seel persistently identifies a “double exemplariness”: kant’s solution lies in the thesis of a double exemplariness of nature for art and of art for nature. the presence of aesthetically perceived nature is a model for the inner vitality of the work of art; the imagination of the work of art, on the other hand, is at least one model for an intensive perception of nature. the reciprocal fecundation of art and aesthetic nature arises only when nature, among other things, can be perceived as successful art and when art, among other things, can be perceived as free nature, without the difference between art and nature being extinguished. it is neither nature perceived in the appearance of art nor art perceived in the appearance of nature that kant establishes as the norm of an unrestrained aesthetic consciousness, but rather a dialogue between art and nature. (seel, 2015) seel is correct in arguing that that dialogue is still “ours” (2015). especially when beauty is scrutinized in the much broader context of a complex cultural landscape, it becomes evident that domains besides art, from high-tech design to the broadest sense of everyday life, embrace profound aesthetic experience as much as art does. beauty, nature, and culture continue to cross, define, enlighten, and challenge each other on the same ground that gave rise to aesthetics in philosophical thought, where our inquiry began with diderot: sensuously and bodily embedded 10 the translation diverges slightly from the original french: “le beau exige peut-être l’imitation servile de ce qui est indéfinissable dans les choses.” somaesthetics and beauty23 beauty trouble experience. the pivotal foundation of aesthetics, the body and the underlying bodily relationship between art and nature, also suggests what requires further exploration in the field of somaesthetics. based on the cases selected here, the most stimulating beauty trouble the present inquiry encounters concerns the permanent, yet differently valued, inner, intuitive access to what merits the name of beauty because of that same inner, intuitive constitution. however, the circular ingrown ability of beauty is not natural but must be cultivated and practiced, which is what art partly does and what explains why much theorization of the beauty conceived by artists often refers to a two-foldedness within beauty. for example, baudelaire (2010) specified two kinds of beauty— universal and ephemeral—which inhabit each other. ruskin insisted on natural creation in architecture: “man cannot advance in the invention of beauty, without directly imitating natural forms” (1900, p. 101). similarly, somaesthetics advocates the need to carry out the project of cultivating beauty to include everyone’s life as an art of life. as long as beauty keeps troubling us, there is hope for cherishing the quality of human life. references adorno, t. w. (1997). aesthetic theory. athlone press. baudelaire, c. (2010 [1863]). the painter of modern life. penguin books ltd. beardsley, m. (1979). in defense of aesthetic value. in proceedings and addresses of the american philosophical association, 52(6), pp. 723–749. benjamin, w. (2004). goethe’s elective affinities, walter benjamin: selected writings, 1: 1913-1926 (m. bullock & m. w. jennings, eds.). harvard university press. best, d. (1982). the aesthetic and the artistic. philosophy, 57(221), 357–372. www.jstor.org/ stable/4619580 deleuze, g., & guattari, f. (1987). a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia (b. massumi, trans.). university of minnesota press. deleuze, g. (1994). difference and repetition (p. patton, trans.). columbia university press. deleuze, g. (2003). francis bacon: logic of sensation. continuum. diderot, d. (2006 [1752]). beautiful. in the encyclopedia of diderot & d'alembert: collaborative translation project (p. bonin, trans.). michigan publishing. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo. did2222.0000.609. originally published as beau. encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 2, 169–181 (paris, 1752). ferry, l. (2001). le sens du beau. le livre du poche. hegel, g. w. (1975/1988). aesthetics: lectures on fine arts (t. m. knox). oxford university press. https://monoskop.org/images/0/05/hegel_gwf_aesthetics_lectures_on_fine_art_vol_1_1975.pdf hoffmann, t. (2006), konfigurationen des erhabenen. de gruyter. kant, i. (1987 [1790]) critique of judgment (w. s. pluhar, trans.). hackett publishing company. lacoste, j. (1986). l’idée de beau. bordas. lyotard, j.-f. (1986). l’enthousiasme. la critique kantienne de l’histoire. galilée. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 24 anne elisabeth sejten lyotard, j.-f. (2012). écrits sur l'art contemporain/writings on contemporary art. leuven university press menke, c. (2012). ein andere geschmack: weder autonomie noch massenkonsum. in c. menke & j. rebentisch (eds.), kreation und depression: freiheit im gegenwärtigen kapitalismus. kadmos. nietzsche, f. (1910). the birth of tragedy (w. m. a. haussmann, trans.). george allan & unwin ltd. ruskin, j. (1900 [1849]). the lamp of beauty. in seven lamps of architecture. dana estes & company publishers. schopenhauer, a (1909). the world as will and idea (r. b. haldane & j. kemp, trans.). keagan paul, trench, trübner & co. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38427 shaeffer, j. m. (2015). l'expérience esthétique. gallimard. seel, m. (2005) [2000]). aesthetics of appearing (j. farrell, trans.). stanford university press. seel, m. (2015). landscape of human experience. contemporary aesthetics, 13(2015). https:// www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleid=731 seel, m. (1991). eine ästhetik der natur. suhrkamp. sejten, a. e. (1999). diderot ou le défi esthétique. vrin. talon-hugon, c. (2004). l'esthétique. presses universitaires de france. valéry, p. (1957). léonard et les philosophes (1929). in œuvres, vol. ii. gallimard. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 64 page 64–81henri hyvönen care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals henri hyvönen abstract: this article focuses on men affected by eating disorders by examining the autobiographical narratives of six men from the perspective of the concept of care of the self. recent studies of men’s eating disorders have focused on men’s endeavors to comply with gendered beauty ideals in relation to which men feel themselves to be inadequate and stigmatized. i argue that for the participants, eating disorders were processes through which they affirmed self-stylizations that conformed to the norms of social taste groups in multiple localities such as in the work and school. in their discussions of these encounters, the men described the identity work and positive self-understandings achieved through behaviors attached to eating disorders. this article challenges research on men’s eating disorders to focus its analytical gaze on men’s agency and the usefulness to them of a wide variety of disordered eating behaviors in different social contexts. keywords: agency, body, eating disorder, masculinities, men, qualitative, self-care. 1. introduction the often-repeated assumption that eating disorders (eds) among men are rare has hindered the drive for gender equality in research on eds (cohn et al., 2016; murray et al., 2017). sociological and feminist approaches to eds, not unreasonably, often link them to motivational factors associated with unequal social structures that demand women to be thin to satisfy ideals of feminine beauty (bordo, 2003; piran, 2010). these societal demands and meanings of eds have been seen as unlikely to appear in men’s lives: thus, adolescent girls have become “the face of a disorder” (cohn et al., 2016). because of this narrow understanding of eds as predominantly a women’s problem, men do not only delay seeking help because of fear of stigmatization (botha, 2012; delderfield, 2018; murray et al., 2017), but they also find it difficult to identify their behaviors as eds and to participate in studies addressing the theme (mccormack et al., 2014; robinson et al., 2012; räisänen & hunt, 2014). based on a comprehensive review of the literature on men’s eds, murray et al. (2017) pointed out that in the 2000s it has become clear that eds are not uncommon among men and that in some types of ed up to half of those affected are men. in the wake of these findings, unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self65 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals ed research is slowly abandoning the premise that eds predominantly affect women: darcy and lin (2012) argued that most ed assessments have not been “asking the right questions.” based on the conception that conventional measures of ed symptoms may lack sensitivity and specificity with regard to men, increasing interest in muscularity-oriented disordered eating has emerged since the late 1990s (murray et al., 2017). research into men’s experiences of eds has particularly focused on how men affected by eds actualize social ideals connected to men, such as self-control, stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, aggression, risk-taking, and strength (arnow et al., 2017; drummond, 2002; griffiths et al., 2015; robinson et al., 2012). moreover, beauty ideals have been seen to organize hierarchies among boys and men (arnow et al., 2017; cohn et al., 2016; drummond, 2002; drummond & drummond, 2015; griffiths et al., 2015; kotzé & antonopoulos, 2019; monaghan, 2002; 2014). differences between men have rarely been noticed, although non-heterosexuality has been found to be a risk factor for ed in men (botha, 2012; cohn et al., 2016; murray et al., 2017). murray et al. (2017) argued that by linking the persistent restriction of energy intake with women and conflating muscularity-oriented disordered eating with the male experience of eds, the research on men’s eds has renewed rather than dismantled a strong gender dichotomy in ed research. here, the discussion around body-shaping is set up around a gender binary that leans on and reproduces two categories of normalized sexed bodies that can develop through “improvements” and either meet or fail to meet the standards (heyes, 2007, pp. 6–9). here the contents of beauty are understood as essential and self-evident, rather than socially negotiated. this has resulted in a significant lack of research regarding men’s relationship with eds characterized by persistent restriction of energy intake (botha, 2012). the approach stressing hierarchy between men and a singular idealized masculinity tends to exclude the subjectivity and agency of men (waling, 2019) as well as the plurality of men and their social surroundings (gough, 2018; matthews, 2016). murray et al. (2017) point out that only a few studies of men’s eds have addressed the relationship between local cultural standards and body image. however, in his seminal work on men’s lived experiences during their period of acute ed, delderfield (2018) began this discussion by suggesting that men affected by eds might use other people to legitimize extreme dieting (p. 49), reach out to others for help with weight loss (pp. 74–76), and express a drive for a body shape that would benefit them in their everyday environment, but which does not stem from ideals associated exclusively with men (p. 68). concurrently, delderfield (p. 128) focused mainly on men’s bodies as “the nexus for the assault from others” and men’s selves as depleted, colonized, and stigmatized. because of negative life experiences, participants in delderfield’s (2018) study had had little opportunity to practice agency in their social relationships or engage in positive identity work during their period of acute illness. delderfield argued that individuals could pursue and achieve goals in their lives, such as a personally satisfying career, despite an ed (p. 84), but not through practices related to their eds. men affected by eds tend not to consider themselves as ill, and they find it difficult to see themselves as having an ed (cohn et al., 2016; murray et al., 2017; robinson et al., 2012; räisänen & hunt, 2014). moreover, many men’s body-shaping practices, such as long periods of dietary restraint interrupted by pre-planned high-energy “cheat meals,” bear a resemblance to behaviors previously associated with eds (murray et al., 2017, p. 3). therefore, i find it important to analyze the connections between men’s eds and their everyday routines, social lives, and participation in their working lives. i contribute to theoretical discussions about men’s bodies by rethinking the meanings of eds in men’s lives through focusing on the plurality of localized the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 66 henri hyvönen lived experiences. a qualitative design is pursued, using empirical data gathered from six semistructured one-to-one interviews with finnish men who experienced being affected by an ed at some point in their lives. the onset of their eds took place before graduation from secondary education, and periods of acute ed continued into adulthood. the present article makes use of shusterman’s (2000; 2006; 2012) somaesthetic framework and the foucauldian concept of care of the self (foucault, 1986; heyes, 2007) to rethink men affected by eds not only as individuals who aim to represent normative aesthetic qualities such as beauty, but also as subjects who perceive these qualities in themselves and experience pleasures through creative self-stylization and social interaction. i am not claiming that eds are not illnesses that cause suffering and can require treatment. rather, i wish to temporarily shift the focus of analysis to the agency of men affected by eds. in line with shusterman (2006), i analyzed the structure of somatic experience, the sources of meaning, and the significance and goals of these behaviors. this agency is practiced through bodies, which constitute the essential medium or tool of these practices (shusterman, 2012, pp. 62–63). the body is “where life’s interests, pleasures, and practical purposes are realized” (p. 2), but these interests, pleasures and purposes are shaped in cultures that, in the context of late modern societies, are increasingly “steeped in the ideology of lifestyles and saturated with a bewildering variety to choose from” (shusterman, 2000, p. 282). this study addresses the following question: how do men affected by eds make their eating habits and exercise meaningful in relation to other people and their social surroundings in autobiographical speech? the findings of the present study indicate that some men affected by eds practice self-care through their symptoms to achieve a somatic style “conforming in some way to the norms of some social taste group” (shusterman, 2012, p. 324). this self-directed aesthetic work is motivated by “the desire to please others” (shusterman, 2000, p. 275), by which i refer to certain individuals in the social environment of the participants. i argue that general gendered beauty ideals are too broad a framework to explain all the meanings and behaviors related to eds. such beauty ideals should be rendered as socially constructed, context-specific, and providing only a partial explanatory framework (gough, 2018; mears, 2014). moreover, bodies that can be perceived as unbeautiful should also be seen as having strategic potential in certain social encounters. the remainder of this article is structured as follows. i begin with a brief discussion of the possibilities of men’s agency, care of the self, and somatic self-stylization in the context of current western societies. thereafter, i discuss the study’s data and methods. findings of the study are then presented, followed by three sections illustrating them in more detail. the findings contribute to analytic somaesthetics (shusterman, 2000, p. 271) in that they describe the nature of some bodily practices and their function in social life. i end with a summarizing discussion and conclusions, which also contribute to pragmatic somaesthetics in that they offer normative accounts for remaking society (pp. 304–305). unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self67 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals 2. plural “beauties” the postmodern period has seen individuals as inhabitants of a plurality of inadequately integrated roles and self-representations, rather than fulfilling distinct functions (shusterman, 2000, pp. 241–242). in line with gough (2018, p. 9), i adopt a critical position toward the idea that certain health behaviors grant men power and status. to begin with, contemporary men face an ideological dilemma, in that the beauty ideals of men can be achieved through bodyshaping, but body-shaping is often associated with femininity. this dilemma, as well as the question of how the body should be shaped, play out differently in the lives of men inhabiting different localities, bodies, and experiences. the keen focus on men’s endeavors to achieve dominance also ignores other forms of social interaction, such as the possibility of relating to others horizontally through popularity (delderfield, 2018; matthews, 2016). waling (2019) argued that the focus on inequalities between groups of men prevalent in earlier men’s studies did not illuminate men’s agentive and affective encounters with the plural expectations set on them in their everyday social surroundings. in line with her, i detached my research from the keen focus on masculinities. my analytical framework builds on previous somaesthetic research on somatic self-stylization. i understand somatic self-stylization as an act of shaping and decorating one’s body to conform to the norms of some social taste group. such a group can also constitute a subculture that resists mainstream tastes, and yet maintains individual expression to put themselves in a favorable light (shusterman, 2012, p. 324). drawing on previous somaesthetic analyses of eating habits (cargill, 2016) and addiction (perälä, 2018), i suggest that conceptions of the body as a biological machine with physiological needs and the mind as a locus of free will that is limited by addiction tend to exclude the self and lived experiences. somaesthetics is a discipline focusing on the experience and use of one’s body as “a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation and creative self-fashioning” (shusterman, 2000, p. 267). this “body-mind” (shusterman, 2006, p. 2) is, however, fundamentally shaped by culture. culture gives it social institutions, vocabularies, norms, and systems of judgment, including diet and exercise, through which it thinks, acts, and expresses itself aesthetically (shusterman, 2012, p. 27). heyes (2007) argued that body ideals in contemporary western societies are fragmented. despite governance through, for example, health education that encompasses the whole population, ideal shapes and uses of the body are maintained in social settings that have mutually incompatible belief systems. to maintain membership in a group of people that shares a body ideal, one must practice agency through conscious introspection (gough, 2018; waling, 2019). numerous subcultures, created in local social networks and/or through media, are formed around, for example, psychology and nutrition (cargill, 2016; delderfield, 2018, p. 85; gough, 2018; heyes, 2007) or fashion (hall, 2014). such communities might be centered on cultivating the body and mind (korpelainen, 2019) or be work organizations that favor a certain body shape and behavior (kelly et al., 2007; kotzé & antonopoulos, 2019; mears, 2014; monaghan, 2002). instead of free choice in a hypothetical free market of lifestyle choices, individuals are thrown as subjects into local norms of health, skill, and beauty (heyes, 2007, p. 8). these plural conceptions of beauty stem from the social norms of a certain group of people, for example, a work organization (mears, 2014; shusterman, 2000, p. 241). in men’s lives, this diversification has been caused in part by the blurring of boundaries between the social roles of men and women and by contemporary post-industrialized working life. since the 1980s, male bodies have emerged as objects of desire across a range of media, and the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 68 henri hyvönen consumption has turned into an activity suitable for men (bordo, 1999; gough, 2018; murray et al., 2017). increasingly, men’s job opportunities lie in fields such as the service sector in which appearance is part of one’s market value (mears, 2014). to address meanings and agency, i analyze symptoms and behaviors related to eds through the concept of care of the self. care of the self, or self-care for short, is an activity that requires regularity, methods, and objectives given by an external guide, authority, or example memorized earlier in life. as such, self-care also constitutes a practice that enables an individual to become part of a group of people he or she wants to belong to. in this article, i focus on practices in which individuals scrutinize themselves and intentionally decide to change, maintain or otherwise affect their bodies (heyes, 2007, pp. 82–86). self-care can aim at increased both wellbeing and physical performance and to garner positive attention from other people (pp. 64–65). as my participants suffered from plural symptoms that changed over time, i regard all these symptoms as forming a repertoire of self-care practices with different intended ends. according to heyes (pp. 74–76), a shared aim to control eating could also become a practice that unifies a group of people and sets the conditions for group membership. these memberships can turn out to be valuable through social interactions with other representatives of that group, but also with people who do not belong to it. this “iterative citation of identity” (p. 75) may contribute to a gender performance intelligible to other people (butler, 1990) but also to other aspects of life as well. gough (2018, p. 11) emphasized agency in research on self-care: individual agency does not always demand particularly strong or explicit resistance, but self-care may also be in conformity with external norms. eds are socially constructed as disorders because they can damage, for example, cardiac, neurological, and bone health (botha, 2012; murray et al., 2017). gough (2018, pp. 19–23) points out that in a consumerist and individualistic society where designing the body is a key strategy for designing identities, relating to one’s appearance and the feelings the body engenders constitute a way for men to protect their mental health against distress. my approach mirrors previous ed research which pointed out that there is no clear qualitative difference between suffering from eds and other forms of body dissatisfaction. body-shaping activities, such as excessive exercise, may turn into eds, understood as behaviors fulfilling the diagnostic criteria of an ed or eating habits that weaken one’s wellbeing (arnow et al., 2017; bordo, 1999; 2003; cohn et al., 2016; delderfield, 2018; griffiths et al., 2015; murray et al., 2017; robinson et al., 2012). unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self69 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals 3. research setting and process this article is based on six interviews originally conducted to analyze the meanings men attribute to their eds and the actions connected to them in relation to gender identity (hyvönen, 2016). the participants recruited for the original study were people who identified as men and experienced being affected by an ed at some point in their lives. thus, i followed bordo (1999; 2003) and botha (2012) in that i detached my analysis from the diagnostic criteria of eds. the participants were all adults, aged from their early 20s to their early 50s. all the participants were white ethnic finns. all the participants lived in southern finland. they were recruited through the eating disorder association of finland and its member organizations and through my personal contacts. in line with standard practice for research in the humanities in finland, this research adheres to the ethical principles developed by the finnish national board on research integrity (tenk) (finnish national board on research integrity, 2019). participants were provided with details of the research and informed consent was obtained. in the semi-structured interviews, the subjects provided autobiographical narratives about their lives with eds. the themes covered in the interviews were subdivided according to five periods: the time before the participants were affected by the ed, the beginning of the illness, thoughts during the illness, the time they felt they were suffering from an ed, and recovery from the illness. all participants had identified that they had an ed and sought help a few years before the interview. their age range, initial symptoms and symptoms that appeared later during the period of acute illness are presented in table 1. all names are pseudonyms. table 1 the age ranges, the age at onset of ed, and the symptoms the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 70 henri hyvönen after analyzing the original data set, i noticed that all participants described intentional, meaningful practices of self-stylization that contributed to their social life without being entirely reducible to their gender identity as men. interviews were then reanalyzed through coding references to ed and those practices. theoretically driven thematic analysis was used to analyze the data (braun & clarke, 2006). the theoretical viewpoints that affected the analysis included (1) intentionality of practices of self-care in that they aimed at certain outcomes, (2) somaesthetics as a viewpoint that includes bodily practices and self-stylization that cannot be reduced to the visible surface of the body but also appear as pleasure through uses of the body, (3) the plurality of subcultures in which ideals of beauty and self-stylization were produced, and (4) an understanding of personally meaningful social life as a phenomenon that is not limited to leisure but also appears in, for example, working life and education. the data were read and coded for themes related to my research question. the analysis began with coding the data manually with descriptive content analysis. this meant dividing the data into units of meaning. one unit consisted of an utterance, which held a single thought, opinion, or idea. then, similar codes were organized under thematic categories. finally, all the categories were reviewed and named. only themes that i considered strong enough are presented in the following section. these themes were constructed around at least one code that was present at least once in more than half of the six interviews. also, less commonly occurring codes were included under these themes as long as they supported and deepened the ideas of more prevalent codes. 4. findings i identified three repeating themes related to my research question. first, participants reported self-stylization through an ed. the participants reported that the self-stylization led not only to improvements on the surface of the body or in its physical capabilities. instead, eating habits and exercise were also understood as parts of visible self-stylization. these self-stylizations were not exclusively related to gendered norms or identity. self-stylization through emaciation, food restrictions, and exercise were sometimes used to compensate for the undesirable effects of binge eating, which helped some participants cope with certain backlashes in their social life. second, through self-stylization, participants pursued and received peer support and feedback. the participants reported that their self-stylizations met the expectations set by other people, such as a group of close friends. third, personally meaningful social life in which an ed was beneficial was not limited to leisure. certain self-stylizations and self-care practices also appeared meaningful in the context of working life. the themes, subordinate themes, and the participants who made reference to each theme are presented in table 2. the following three empirical sections, 5–7, address the three themes in greater detail. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self71 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals table 2 theme and superordinate theme structure 5. self-stylization in addition to and instead of “experiential” pleasures (shusterman, 2000, p. 275), the participants reported that during their period of acute ed, they had deliberately shaped their bodies for “representational ends” (p. 275) as part of self-fashioning (pp. 267–275) and self-stylization (pp. 323–324). the aspect of fashion was made visible by reference to ideals and bodily disciplines that arose from the field of commercial beautification products and clothing (gough, 2018; hall, 2014) and commercial markets of fashionable foods (cargill, 2016; heyes, 2007). the selfstylization used fashionable clothes, leisure activities, and eating habits as well as one’s body as raw materials for developing a style. a distinct style helped participants to impress other people by both conforming to the norms of a certain group of people and by standing out from other people (shusterman, 2012, p. 324). for jesse, alexander, and kristian, the need to shape one’s body arose from self-observed obesity caused by binge eating, which had provided comfort from loneliness and bullying: jesse: there were a lot of sick and dark relationships: virtually every relationship in the school. the so-called “gang” in my street was all the same. … i began to empty our freezer. i took cakes and buns and ate them secretly at night. although it was not out of control yet, something changed. i did not pursue acceptance anymore. i gave up and focused my energy on eating. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 72 henri hyvönen alexander: i had very few friends. eating was a nice way to pass the time. … i didn’t have any hobbies. … children usually have some rules about what they are allowed to eat. parents leave them food. for me, it was snacking. i didn’t have any rules, so i ate sausages and jelly during the day. kristian: i ate myself to the point of bloating. sometimes the bullies waited for me around the corner and i got beaten up. it didn’t hurt me anymore at that point, because i had already gotten my drug fix. during that euphoria, i just laughed at it. echoing the somaesthetic analysis of overeating by cargill (2016), food compensated for the lack of other pleasurable experiences. thus, behavior typical of an ed first constituted a temporary solution (delderfield, 2018; robinson et al., 2012) to personal problems. jesse, alexander, and kristian said that they eventually wanted to learn to control their binge eating by self-care and self-stylization to avoid further backlashes in social life. delderfield (2018, p. 42) pointed out that agency in disordered eating develops in stages that are reactions to previous stages. at the age of 14, kristian experienced himself as obese. concurrently, he wanted to achieve an “androgynous” style by mimicking glam rock musicians and fans: kristian: the images in those magazines, those pop stars, turned into a god before me. it was not only about being a fan, but mimicking them. i focused on their weight and height. i wondered how they were able to weigh 60 kilograms and be 180 centimeters tall. it’s impossible! i was 166 centimeters tall and weighed 65. there was no other option but to start dieting. … at the time, in the year ’85, the norm-minded 95 percent of people wore regular so-called fashionable clothes. the other five percent were punk rockers, hanoi rocks fans, or madonna fans. those people were either loved or hated. a middle-aged guy came up to me and called me a frigging whore. i was so proud! i didn’t mind at all. i had become something that stands out, something that cannot be defined or categorized. i found it pleasurable that other people didn’t know if i was a boy or a girl. i was always asked that question. kristian’s self-stylization was not about beauty stemming from normalized ideals of masculinity. however, it was still gendered in such a way that it constituted a disturbing performance (butler, 1990) that aimed to confront the duality of gender that was present in his youth. gough (2018, pp. 20–21) pointed out that men’s possibilities for incorporating performances and identity elements associated with femininities as well as intended and possible outcomes of such actions vary depending on the sociocultural context. by intentionally annoying other men, who listened to mainstream rock and wore “lee cooper jeans and a denim jacket,” kristian could to affiliate himself with “other freaks.” this solved the problem caused by insecurity and self-doubt that arose when he experienced himself as being unable to conform to the prevailing norms of masculinity. the femininity that he identified with thinness (bordo, 2003; heyes, 2007) did not conform to shared norms of feminine beauty or intelligibility to other people. instead, being perceived as a freak was aimed at irritating other people. some participants reported doing the exact opposite. they connected their past selfstylization to ideals that they perceived were the most prevalent and shared – in “a society where image matters” (gough, 2018, p. 20). jasper’s self-stylization involved both his bodily features and its surface, which he could improve with the right choice of clothes that were, according to him, both “classic and trendy” (see hall, 2014). unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self73 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals jasper: nobody set any demands on me, but instead i had my own vision of my own style and what i wanted to look like. … it was related to my clothes and my hair. i think that by the time this perfection project started i was in a situation in which i could no longer concentrate on anything else but my body. … i think that weight loss itself was not that big of a deal, but that others noticed it and it was considered positive. then i noticed it and found it enjoyable. … in [school], everybody noticed it. jasper became an object of other’s people’s gaze and lived his life according to the norms he attributed to that gaze (see heyes, 2007, p. 25). by conforming to the most commonly shared ideal of what a young man should look like (shusterman, 2012, p. 324), jasper was able to impress others and feel complacent by receiving positive feedback. jasper practiced emotional reflexivity and agency (waling, 2019) in that he conformed to the norms of men’s fashion. however, he did it to maintain the positive feelings he had achieved in local social surroundings, such as school. by aiming at a “classic,” “trendy” and highly individualistic self-stylization, jasper distanced himself from other people and was intentionally careful not to belong to any subculture in his social surroundings. 6. peer support in the previous section i focused on practices of self-stylization that participants had interpreted as a means of achieving self-esteem and self-satisfaction. however, self-stylizations and selfcare were also valuable in that they offered possibilities for success in single, identifiable social encounters. on these occasions, representational elements of self-stylization did not appear only on the surface of bodies, but also in what those bodies did. alexander reported that he eventually experienced benefiting from excessive eating: alexander: i have really happy memories [from kindergarten]. i was tall and stocky. i ended up in confrontations immediately, but i handled myself well. i was the strongest child there. in a boys’ world that is obviously a good thing. the strongest one usually gets many friends, which he would not have got otherwise. i think that i realized back then that when i eat a lot, i’m strong. positive feedback from other people shaped the way he cared for himself from then on (see waling, 2019). during primary school, alexander joined a group of boys that appreciated strength: “during breaks we tried to break our bench press records, and we exercised after school. in our class, there were a few boys who were good at it. it was an immensely important thing to me.” in the excerpts, alexander does not cite beauty ideals stemming from “gender role strain” (gough, 2018, p. 3) or “masculinity norms” (murray et al., 2017, p. 6) as motivators of his actions. the representational aspects of his self-stylization (shusterman, 2000, pp. 275–276) did not aim at conforming to the general beauty ideals of men. instead, companionship with his friends motivated him to grow bigger and stronger. this becomes even more evident when his efforts to gain status are compared to those of an individual who was surrounded by a different set of fashionable lifestyle choices. jesse moved to a city to study at university at the age of 20. there he found other people among whom his expertise in spirituality, metaphysical thinking, low-energy vegetarianism, and organic food was appreciated. behaviors related to eds take time and are not always compatible the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 74 henri hyvönen with other people’s perceptions and expectations (delderfield, 2018, pp. 74–76). jesse made friends in the city by spending time in commercial environments with people who shared the same interests (see korpelainen, 2019), and whom jesse described as also having been affected by eds: jesse: it took me six months to get into the right circles. half of the people in my new group of friends were anorectics. … we pretended it was healthy, although it was just a very ascetic diet. it allowed us to lie to ourselves that we were not affected by eating disorders. … interviewer: how did you meet these new friends? jesse: i think it happened in shops where you could buy freaky vegetarian food. there were all kinds of oddities, and you had to ask the person standing next to you “how do you use this?” or “what is this for?” interviewer: were there other core ideals in that group besides healthiness? jesse: yes. it was not about healthiness after all. it was not orthorexia. we shared an interest in the arts and thinking as well as interesting religious thoughts and weird artistic visions. from the viewpoint of peer support, these eating habits had two distinct meanings for jesse. first, echoing the analysis of weight watchers meetings by heyes (2007, pp. 85–88), the membership in this group was a forum for togetherness. here the aim of practicing self-care by following shared “theories for improving the use, health, and experience of our bodies” (shusterman, 2000, p. 277) unified a group of friends and set the conditions for its membership. second, following the shared conception of healthy eating also helped jesse compensate for binge eating by restricting his energy intake. the theme of peer support was also apparent in references to participants’ efforts to impress other people and pursue support and care from other people by making themselves more interesting through self-stylization. sam reported that during upper secondary school, he had discussions with his peers that convinced him that “it was necessary to follow a vegetarian diet” because of their shared loathing of “the meat industry and killing living creatures.” he felt that by practicing more visible and distinctive self-stylization he could make himself appear more intellectual in a group that appreciated intellectuality: sam: vegetarians examine what they eat and are aware of the animalistic basic necessity of eating. in the same way anorectics are aware of eating. both conditions address the same arrogance. … i started to do it. soon it was not game anymore, and i was not able to stop. interviewer: why did you want to have anorexia? sam: because it is cool. you want to represent the myth of a suffering person. it is another form of self-harm. for example, if you cut yourself, you want other people to see your scars and ask what is wrong with you. i wanted it to show. it was twisted self-expression. “hey look everybody, i’m suffering!” unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self75 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals interviewer: what are you suffering from when you become emaciated? sam: self-loathing, obsessions. endless perfectionism is part of that imagery. instead of thinness and the looks related to it, the weight loss itself was rendered meaningful by sam. through the iterative citation (heyes, 2007, p. 75) of the symptoms of “anorexia,” sam was able to experience his body as one of a self-loathing, obsessive and perfectionist intellectual (see shusterman, 2012, p. 27). these actions included the aim of being perceived as an interesting person in a social group that he assumed appreciated these traits. 7. working life as part of self-stylization the changing nature of working life is an important sociocultural context that enables and delimits men’s opportunities for shaping their bodies even if they are affected by an ed (delderfield, 2018, pp. 72–73). most of the participants referred to a workplace or a career aspiration, such as a desire to become a singer (kristian) or a writer (sam), in which they could make use of their self-stylization. for the participants, the practices of self-stylization and self-care were timeconsuming. therefore, some participants also wanted to have a job in which they could practice the self-care they found beneficial for their wellbeing and self-stylization. daniel’s ed began at the age of 18 as a spontaneous investment in exercise. eventually, he started to see himself as a long-distance runner. this also satisfied his need for a career plan after upper secondary school: daniel: for the first time, you notice things you’re good at. it could be the only thing in which you could achieve something. you want to invest in that and be noticed. … i got depressed in upper secondary school, because it was difficult to come up with an idea of what to do after that. i was frustrated, and unfortunately it affected my grades. i noticed that one thing gave me good vibes. i was pretty good at running and thought that it would be great if i developed this thing further. i thought that i should get into long-distance running. … i should have been preparing for my matriculation examination, but that didn’t interest me. daniel felt that people in social surroundings like school appeared to revere the kinds of special achievements that he had yet to attain. for daniel, his body was a resource for advancing his career aspiration, which constituted an asset for social returns (see mears, 2014, p. 1334). here daniel was engaged in what gough (2018, pp. 25–26) understood as the pursuit of personal satisfaction: he actively attributed meanings to his emaciation, such as having a thin appearance and being seen as a runner. they gave him a reason to ignore the things he found uninteresting, such as his matriculation examination. in line with the findings of delderfield (2018, p. 84) and murray et al. (2017), daniel agentively reserved time to maintain routines related to his ed. echoing robinson et al. (2012) on men’s self-assessed benefits of ed, daniel saw that training was originally a solution to a problem: his vague, unattached position was replaced by an attachment to being a long-distance runner and being seen by others as one. therefore, his agency was not oriented toward mere beauty; this beauty had a specific function as a part of his career aspiration. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 76 henri hyvönen in his mid-20s, alexander was employed as a doorman at a popular bar. that job supported alexander’s perception of himself as strong, since it included carrying heavy loads and handling aggressive customers: interviewer: was weight training valuable in your work as a doorman? alexander: probably yes. although i didn’t develop as much as i wanted to because of my substance abuse, i was probably more muscular than normal, and that was part of your credibility in that work. interviewer: what was it like to be a doorman? alexander: it was awesome. in the early 90s, doormen were still kings. there were lots of situations in which i could have used it to my advantage. i could have picked up a waitress or a female customer. … i felt stressed and threatened at work. it was nice to drink a lot (laughter), as it made you to forget it all. on the other hand, there were also great moments, and it was easy money. interviewer: how would you compare your income to the normal income level of that time? alexander: it was many times bigger. interviewer: even considering that you only worked two nights a week? alexander: yeah! even so. however, for alexander, the competent identity of a doorman (monaghan, 2002) required continuous self-care (kelly et al., 2007). here beauty got its content from the needs of the particular workplace, where his employer bought credibility and a body communicating strength from him (mears, 2014). gough (2018, pp. 39–45) located men’s contemporary body projects in a situation where the supply of jobs isolated from social interaction is decreasing. men increasingly work in the service sector, which requires social, emotional, and communication skills. this does not necessarily render recognizable masculinity worthless. instead, gender performances valued in a particular context, consisting of a certain appearance and controlled expressions of certain emotions, need to be intentionally constructed and maintained through self-care (mears, 2014). drinking helped alexander to tolerate the stress that came from the fear of violence that was constantly present in his work. binge eating compensated for the weight loss that occurred during drinking periods and, alexander believed, it supported his training by making him stronger. alexander described a multi-faceted strategy consisting of rules and regularity (delderfield, 2018, pp. 82–83) through which he simultaneously aimed at managing stress and maintaining physical strength and a muscular appearance: alexander: i never ate anything when i drank. i drank for a week, but i ate practically nothing. thus, my weight decreased. although i lost muscle mass, i could afford to lose some of my muscles. as an end result, i was quite fit and in really good shape. alexander’s work enabled him to employ these self-care practices, as he worked as a doorman only one or two nights per week. his self-care practices, which included binge eating, unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self77 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals weight training, and drinking, brought him aesthetic pleasure in being strong and the possibility of benefiting from this form of bodily capital in both his working life (kotzé & antonopoulos, 2019; mears, 2014) and in his free time, for which he got activities from the bar where he worked. like alexander, kristian reported that he cared for himself to achieve a combination of selforiented pleasures and self-stylization that helped him to succeed in work, which in turn made it possible for him to show his stylized body to other people: kristian: i worked at a kiosk. i decided that i was going to be the freakiest freak on the planet. if you could have seen the clothes i was wearing! there was a primary school next door. when i was working there the first day, the kids told everyone in the school that there was a funny man there. all the kids came to see what i looked like. i was so flattered. and besides, there was a lot of money flowing into that kiosk because the word spread that there was a creep working in that kiosk. adults came there to queue so they could stare at a real-life freak. they were spitting on my face or throwing snowballs or they just called me faggot and told me to kill myself. i didn’t mind at all because i was working at a kiosk, which has a back room and a tremendous amount of chocolate. i was able to escape there. for kristian, too, work constituted an arena for displaying his competence, which did not mean being beautiful. instead and by intention, it meant being perceived as unbeautiful (mears, 2014). this competence did not arise from the customer service work at the kiosk, but rather from being a “freak” and irritating other people. nevertheless, it made his self-stylization meaningful. self-care through binge eating enabled him to continue working despite the stress he experienced daily. 8. discussion through interviews with six men affected by eds, i addressed the social aspects of men’s eds, in particular, self-stylization and conforming to norms of social taste groups. my findings showed that there are deep interrelations between the symptoms of eds—interpreted here as self-care—and the impact and relevance of self-stylizations in social life and local subcultures. the analysis demonstrates that behaviors attached to, or eventually leading to, eds were often reactions to conditions in the participants’ social lives. in line with delderfield (2018), heyes (2007), shusterman (2012), and waling (2019), i aimed at recognizing agency and introspection in bodily self-care practices. the present analysis contributes to contemporary discussions of agency in men’s eds (delderfield, 2018; murray et al., 2017) by connecting the eds to selfstylizations that conform to the norms of some social taste group. these norms are constituted as the social group is exposed to the media or participates in shared practices of consumption or other leisure activity in a commercialized environment (gough, 2018; hall, 2014). in addition, workplaces, where individuals try to benefit from their self-stylization, measure individual value and offer opportunities for individuals to change their self-stylization through self-care to better suit the needs of the job (kelly et al., 2007; kotzé & antonopoulos, 2019; mears, 2014; monaghan, 2002). echoing heyes (2007, p. 70), i suggest that my analysis has provided a richer perspective on eds and their related social aspects than simply understanding the participants as following a stable gendered ideal of beauty. moreover, the power relations to which the participants were subject were not entirely or even mostly repressive, as delderfield (2018) implied. rather, they the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 78 henri hyvönen were also productive in that they produced identity work and positive self-understandings (see murray et al., 2017). for my participants, eds were meaningful self-care practices that concurrently constituted an illness. these different combinations of self-care practices and their meanings were fourfold, and they appeared in different combinations in each case: binge eating was a coping mechanism that aimed at pleasure and coping with negative feelings; body-shaping practices developed a particular body shape, understood as credible or useful in a certain social setting; special dietary habits connected the self to a group with such preferences; and a combination of bodily self-care practices, working life situations, and self-stylizations that contributed positively to quality of life. during their periods of acute eds, most of the participants either worked or wanted to work in a field they found credible in one or more subcultures they belonged to or in which they could show their self-stylization to other people. most of the participants reported that their lifestyles affected by eds included mechanisms that maintained, rather than decreased, their ability to work. the ability to work and to make sense of their eating and exercise seemed to prevent them from understanding their behaviors as eds, as suggested by earlier research on men’s eds (cohn et al., 2016; robinson et al., 2012; räisänen & hunt, 2014). even binge eating was not solely a coping mechanism that occurred in isolation from one’s drive for a certain body shape. instead, coping mechanisms that helped individuals control their emotions, along with a certain body shape, contributed to self-stylizations that were useful in a certain job. thus, most of the participants could understand their eds as meaningful actions for a long time. my participants did not understand their eds as striving to represent a beauty stemming from a narrow social ideal of masculinity. instead, they claimed that during the period of acute illness they pursued an experience of cohesion with other people through membership in a subculture. following matthews (2016), i argue that research on men’s health should not begin by presuming masculinity as “the measuring stick” against which men regulate their healthrelated behavior. instead, i argue that other salient practices of social life, such as the opinions and approval of peer groups and friends, shape men’s health-related behavior. by focusing on the lived experiences of men, i sought to avoid a static understanding of masculinity as the explanatory key to their behaviors. even alexander and daniel, who identified their selfstylization with strength, muscularity, and hierarchy associated with masculinity, differed in their audiences for this desired credibility and in their understanding of what kind of body was needed for success (see waling, 2019). i do not suggest that beauty should be abandoned as an explanatory framework in studies of men’s eds. instead, i suggest that the values and meanings attached to beauty should be analyzed in their particular social contexts, in which investing in one’s looks is rewarded (mears, 2014). i suggest that future research should recognize men’s own agency in health-related practices. this is not to mean that people experiencing themselves as affected by eds should not receive treatment. instead, i stress three points: first, some forms of self-care perceived as meaningful by their practitioners can eventually turn into an ed and retain those meanings even during periods of acute illness (murray et al., 2017). second, as suggested by bordo (2003), gough (2018), and heyes (2007), we should not overemphasize the distinction between selfcare leading to personal wellbeing and submitting the self to surrounding norms, as personal wellbeing is often dependent on the acceptance of other people. third, men’s perceptions of the meanings of their eds do not always stem from social ideals connected to men, so masculinity is not the only discourse positioning men (waling, 2019). another theoretical implication of my study is that the meanings of men’s eds are constituted through lived experiences in particular unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self79 care of the self, somaesthetics, and men affected by eating disorders: rethinking the focus on men’s beauty ideals social contexts. here i follow the recent theoretical discussion in studies of men and masculinity (gough, 2018; waling, 2019). this expands the findings of robinson et al. (2012): as participants identify eds as solutions to problems, when social surroundings change, those problems and eventually the symptoms of eds also are subject to change. one limitation of this study is the small number of participants, which affects generalizability, as is often the case in qualitative research on men’s eds (delderfield, 2018; drummond, 2002; mccormack et al., 2014; robinson et al., 2012). many questions remain about the prevalence and forms of men’s eds, and their impacts on health, social life, and work. one way forward for further research could be to include larger data samples that focus specifically on the interconnections between eds and work in men’s lives. such research may enable further understanding of how practices that allow, reproduce, and demand behavior typical of an ed could be questioned and critically scrutinized in working life. shusterman (2000, pp. 272–273; 2012, p. 188) called for a pragmatic somaesthetics that could contribute to improving bodily self-care practices through changes in the surrounding society. the findings of this study elucidate several practical implications regarding men’s eds. i suggest that men’s eds should not be interpreted only as issues of masculinities but as related to the wish to be accepted in particular subcultures, such as in workplaces and schools. thus, services specifically aimed at men should notice that friendship, acceptance, and being part of a social group, rather than actualizing social ideals connected to men, play a much stronger role in men’s eds than has previously been understood. therefore, it would be important to organize activities that include all kinds of boys and young men, and to offer support from responsible adults, which could help to prevent eds. moreover, both localized and mediated subcultures should be monitored to identify unhealthy collective practices. acknowledgements i would like to thank jeff hearn, marjut jyrkinen, jukka lehtonen, elina penttinen, and tuija pulkkinen, as well as two anonymous reviewers at the journal of somaesthetics, for their insightful and helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this article. i would also like to thank the eating disorder association of finland for their help with recruiting the participants. this work was funded by the academy of finland (strategic research council) [grant number: 292883] and the doctoral programme in gender, culture, and society at the university of helsinki. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 80 henri hyvönen references arnow, k., feldman, t., fichtel, e., lin, i., egan, a., lock, j., westerman, m., & darcy, a. 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(2016). including the excluded: males and gender minorities in eating disorder prevention. eating disorders, 24(1), 114–120. darcy, a., & lin, i. (2012). are we asking the right questions? a review of assessment of males with eating disorders. eating disorders, 20(5), 416–426. delderfield, r. (2018). male eating disorders: experiences of food, body and self. palgrave macmillan. drummond, m. (2002). men, body image and eating disorders. international journal of men’s health, 1(1), 89–103. drummond, m., & drummond, c. (2015). it’s all about the six-pack: boys’ bodies in contemporary western culture. journal of child health care, 19(4), 423–431. finnish national board on research integrity (tenk). (2019). ethical review in human sciences. http://www.tenk.fi/en/ethical-review-in-human-sciences foucault, m. (1986). the care of the self. pantheon. gough, b. (2018). contemporary masculinities: embodiment, emotion and wellbeing. palgrave macmillan. griffiths, s., murray, s., & touyz, s. 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(2014). the role of gendered constructions of eating disorders in delayed help-seeking in men: a qualitative interview study. bmj open, 4, e004342. shusterman, r. (2000). pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art (2nd ed.). rowman & littlefield publishers. shusterman, r. (2006). thinking through the body, educating for the humanities: a plea for somaesthetics. journal of aesthetic education, 40(1), 1–21. shusterman, r. (2012). thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge university press. waling, a. (2019). rethinking masculinity studies: feminism, masculinity, and poststructural accounts of agency and emotional reflexivity. journal of men’s studies, 27(1), 89–107 page 53–64 somaesthetics and beauty53 how can there be beauty in participatory art? how can there be beauty in participatory art? falk heinrich abstract: the article proposes a notion of beauty that is relevant to participatory art and culture. the article emphasizes the experiential aspect of the concept of beauty, identifying this part as enacted intensity, in which all heterogeneous constituents create moments of experienced unity. unity is not understood as static phenomena but as a cycle of intensity and release that relate to (inter)action and understanding. the article elaborates an experiential unity of beauty based on deleuze and gadamer. höller’s test site and seghal’s this success/this failure serve as concrete works of art to test, validate, and specify the proposed theory. keywords: beauty, participatory art, intensity, experience, performance. introduction: beauty and beautiful experiences this article reflects on the notion of beauty as it is relevant to participatory art and culture. for participatory artworks the audience is an intrinsic part of the work because they are assigned a more or less well-defined function or agential role. the participant has multiple points of access to a participatory work of art: as an observer of others’ participation, as an actor or agent within and part of the work, and as a retrospective interpreter that relives the experience of participation.1 philosophically, beauty is the aesthetic judgment of an object. my premise, however, is that the notion of beauty undergoes constant transformation. my claim is that in participatory art (as in experience culture in general), the concept of beauty has morphed into beautiful experiences. this linguistic change seems minor and without semantic importance; however, a close examination reveals differently, as i intend to show. i will also differentiate between beautiful experiences and aesthetic experiences, showing that beautiful experiences are based on a judgment of pleasure that contributes to the overall aesthetic experience. however, not all aesthetic experiences include the experience of beauty. 1 the term participatory art is very broad and contains various subgenres and sub-definitions. the concept of participation demands that a person or persons (excluding professional performers) are (an) agential part(s) of a work of art, such that a participatory work of art is never finalized in a distinct form but is completed by each participation. participants are given poietic agency because the participants’ actions within the framework of a participatory work of art model each instantiation of the work. in contrast to the finalized work of art, a work of participatory art is foremost a framework for participant agency. however, participation is an ambiguous term because it depends on the perspective and focus. for example, the psychological participation of onlookers and audiences involves not only that the onlooker/reader/ audience projects him or herself into the presented occurrences but also the projection has physical implications. another example is art’s social and societal aspects, which was elaborated by rancière. here, the audience participation in art is a societal phenomenon. i want to limit my research to participatory works of art that include the participants’ actions as artistic material. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 54 falk heinrich in the twentieth century, art and art theory attempted to convince us that the concept of beauty had outplayed its role. beauty was considered an aesthetic objective that was mainly relevant to bourgeois art. modern art, particularly various avant-garde movements, rejected beauty altogether and focused on other dimensions, such as material, perceptual, political, societal, and conceptual aspects (e.g., danto, 2003; nehemas, 2007). beauty seemed to have left the domain of art and found a new habitat in the experience economy of late-stage capitalism (e.g., the beauty industry, architecture, services, design including experience design, food aesthetics, and self-development). here, the concept of experience is linked to active engagement, agency and interaction. however, art has become part of the discourse of experience in both economic and epistemological senses. the epistemological sense has been elaborated since at least dewey’s art as experience (1980). nevertheless, experiences are not merely the bases for knowledge ascription and personal growth. experiences have become goods that are bought and consumed as leisure activities. for example, museums and their exhibitions have a decisive experiential dimension. solo exhibitions of one artist have often been superseded by thematic, historic, or even associative logics of curation that offers the visitor an experiential journey. today, curating entails designing for audience experiences that exhibit additional dimensions that are intended to be novel and surprising. furthermore, audience development programs and activities offer experiences in addition to and different from exhibited works of art. regarding economics, art experiences have become the products and goods of art institutions that have high visitor numbers. in this respect, the museum shop is also important, not only as an additional source of income but also as a place where audiences exchange elusive experiences with material objects. agential participation in all kinds of events, entertainment and art has become a major societal and personal value. the proliferation of gaming, co-design, participatory design, participatory art, and the experience economy has changed our aesthetic valuation, our epistemic discourse, and thus, as i claim, our usage of the notion of beauty. participatory art can also be seen in this light. its experiential potential lies in the inclusion of the audience and its transformation into agential parts of art pieces that offer various modes of encounters, such as conceptual realization, communicative encounters, and bodily affective dimensions (including propriosensory ones) all of which offer experiences. it seems that beauty has overtaken art from the inside. in this process, i claim that the notion of beauty has changed, or rather, a new facet of it has emerged. that is not to say that older concepts of beauty have ceased to exist but that a novel notion of beauty has surfaced, which considers the experiential dimension of participatory art. this claim is a hypothesis that might be dismissed as pure speculation without any referential or empirical validity. it seems to collide with the following: first, plato’s incremental notion from eros to the recognition of eternal forms; second, both kant’s analysis of beauty as an aesthetic judgment of an object and hume’s heuristic notion; and third, mathematical notions of beauty that favor symmetry (which is the axiom of many empirical investigations). thus, why is it important to describe a novel concept of beauty, when the world of academia and aesthetics seems to circle round kant’s (and others’) understanding of pure representational beauty, where contemplation yields the pleasures of the purposeless interplay of cognitive and sensory faculties and where adherent beauty is aligned with moral qualities? the field of definitional approaches to beauty is much bigger and much more complex than i presented. beauty has been associated with diverse ideas and ideals. however, in modern somaesthetics and beauty55 how can there be beauty in participatory art? western culture and its academic approaches, beauty is traditionally either derived or projected onto an object that is external to the human perceiver (e.g., kant 2007, § 9). beauty, which is a subjective judgment based on positive feelings such as pleasure and delight, seems to reify itself in an external object. in contrast, an experience, that is significant life events as compounds of “doing and undergoing” (dewey 1980, p. 44), seems to be excluded as a potential object simply because many experiences cannot be projected onto an object outside the experiencing human. if this is so, participatory works of art cannot be experienced as beautiful because no experience, as defined by dewey, can be beautiful. an ‘objective’ counterpart seems to be missing. according to this line of thought, an experience can be stimulating, exhilarating, soothing, and interesting, but not beautiful. etymologically, beauty stems from *deu, a proto-indo-european root meaning “to do, perform; show favor, revere.” (harper 2019) thus, the root of “beauty” entails action and performance. this definition does not undermine that perceiving and purposelessly judging are acts of showing favor, but it emphasizes that actions can be experienced as beautiful. etymology always opens a field of potentiality. the sentiment of beauty can also be based on action whether as motor-imagery, as starr has convincingly shown in her book feeling beauty (2015, p. 82) or as action in participatory art. however, i want to accentuate that the mere performance of actions is not enough. a reifying dimension must be part of the experience of beauty. this dimension can be established by an enacted understanding of the underlying concept of the participatory work of art or, in the case of important life experience, the creation of an experience as a decisive and completed event in the deweyan sense. i will return to that notion. furthermore, there needs to be an evaluative dimension that connects the experience of actions to a play of understanding (in the kantian sense). if this is the case, then the act of judgment and the judged act converge. nonetheless, we should not dispose of the existing elaborations of beauty but extract from them sub-concepts and notions that can be reformulated in light of the question about beautiful experiences in participatory art. carsten höller, test site my test case is carsten höller’s work, test site. i have chosen this work because it seems remote from what we usually judge to be beautiful, which is the reason it is an effective test for my ongoing investigation of the oppressed or forgotten side of beauty. höller’s work consists of huge, glasscovered slides that wind like a corkscrew across several stories in the tate modern. the slides are made of metal and plexiglass. the mere sight of these slides indicates fast transportation downward, and might, simply by looking at them, elicit feelings of joyful expectation, nausea, and excitement as well as physiological arousal. slides are sites of action. in addition to having a sculptural dimension, test site has an experiential one in which visitors are offered the possibility of sliding down. höller’s slides were located in an art museum or in an art context. the institutions of art museums demand distinct behavioral and cognitive-discursive scripts (e.g., schank & abelson, 1977). the most important is aesthetic contemplation and judgment, which are based on taste, artistic expression, composition, and curatorial arrangement. only recently has participation gradually become an artistic strategy in galleries and museums, adding new experiential dimensions to the existing ones. every participatory artwork exhibited in a museum puts the visitor in a double position, in which agential participation is contrasted to aesthetic the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 56 falk heinrich contemplation. clearly, test site involves recipient participation in either direct interaction (actually sliding down) or indirect interaction (imagining sliding down). participatory artworks are based on the incorporation of the recipients and/or their actions as a necessary and intrinsic part of the artifact. they are constituent parts of the artwork without which the work would not be complete. hence, there are many instantiations of one artwork, and the work is completed many times in different variations. each instantiation is different, depending on the participants’ actions and their experiences of those actions as part of the work of art. most importantly, a participatory piece entails multiple perspectives that are derived from the different types of participant action. interaction creates one observational perspective; contemplative onlooking creates another kind. participatory art relies on multiple privileged positions of experience in which both agential and reflective participation are demanded. how can such works be beautiful? tino sehgal, this success/this failure perhaps one test is not enough. in 2007, tino sehgal exhibited the artwork this success/this failure for the first time. in 2018, the museum of contemporary art in aalborg, kunsten bought this piece and thus gained the right to exhibit it. the artwork consists of instructions that are not written but communicated verbally to the museum leadership. the artwork instructs children to execute specific actions—namely, to play in a huge, empty, white room without any objects. they are instructed to ask visitors (mostly adults) to join in their play. they convey that they are the artwork, they say its title and the name of the artist. i joined and played with the children who were present. we mainly played tag, but we also talked about their “job” and when their turn was finished. what is beautiful about playing catch or tag in a museum space while being observed by other visitors (among them my teenage son)? art-theoretical and art-historical analyses of sehgal’s works often focus on the ontological shift from the artwork as a material artifact to the reification of situations and actions as works that can be bought and exhibited as if they were objects. certainly, sehgal’s work foregrounds the dominance of art-economics discourses that are tied to artworks as commodities through, for example, visitors’ and attendants’ involvement the artwork itself. however, situational involvement also yields different and specific kinds of experiences that are worth considering. the aim of this article is to convince the reader that test site and this success/this failure might entail beautiful experiences, which therefore might give rise to a notion of beauty that is relevant to participatory art. beautiful experiences of acts in reflecting on beauty, one needs to start somewhere. i will start with the assumption that beauty entails a specific way of relating to and being in the world (i.e., the world is represented by distinct objects or artifacts), namely, as a pleasurably intensive way that seems to transcend the distinction between the subject and the world by occasioning a perceived unity. this starting point can be modified or even proved wrong. however, it is a valid starting point because this characteristic can be found in many treatises on beauty.2 however, precisely what yields this specific self-transcending relation that varies across cultures and epistemic discourses and from person to person? how does the experience of participatory art relate to my presumption? 2 i claim that this is one of the few characteristics that many treatises and articles on aesthetics either point out or intrinsically posit. this can be expressed by notions such as love (nehamas, 2007)) promise (beyle, 1980), occurrence (kirkeby, 2007), and recognition (plato, 1998). somaesthetics and beauty57 how can there be beauty in participatory art? as previously defined, participatory art includes persons as agents in artistic occurrences that therefor also become social occurrences. of interest here is the construction of these events or scenarios. on the one hand, they are fictional (in the sense of being overtly constructed and artistic). on the other hand, they are palpably real because they demand active, bodily participation. the experience of constructed and designed yet very real scenarios has become an artistic and aesthetic value not only within the artworld but also in the experience economy. höller’s test site with its huge winding slides is such a scenario. an art space frames the metal slides, which otherwise could be seen as either transport constructions or huge playground devices. the installation of these slides yields various perspectives and thus various possibilities of experience and interpretation: it is a sculpture, a functional construction, a site of (playful) action—for adults as well as children—and a site for the observation of participating, sliding persons. participation is based on a remarkably simple script (slide down assisted by museum staff ). the experience both stands in contrast to and adds to the still-prevalent behavioral script of the museum as an institution that suggests the distancing, imaginative, and hermeneutical reception of artworks. the simple act of sliding adds a decisive bodily experiential dimension to the piece, thus unquestionably shaping the recipients’ judgment of the artwork. after the sliding experience, the sculptural entity becomes a reminder or sign of concrete, physical experience: the feel of speed, the banging sound when my derriere and thighs slide over the joints of the different parts, the feeling of enclosure and outlook through the transparent top of the slides, the special feeling of being a child again, and so on. other participatory artworks do not have material components but construct a scenario of participation and interaction through explicit or implicit means, such as rules and instructions or the modification of the space by sound, light, and projection. some use digital technology (e.g., rokeby’s very nervous system); others do not. sehgal’s this success/this failure involves neither digital technology nor physical objects. it consists of only actions. there is no object to which audience experiences could be attached. however, our memory needs such hooks, onto which remembered actions and feelings can be fixed. there is only the white room, its specific atmosphere, and the playing children can be seen as objects (indeed, i have forgotten how many there were and what they looked like; in my memory, they are generic schoolchildren). i remember the running and the touching when i was caught before reaching the base or when i caught a child. our playing was on display, not only to the onlooking museum visitors but also to the room and the institutional setting itself. i was playing and at times watching myself playing, mixing different aspects of this experience, such as bodily actions, propriosensoric awareness, the atmosphere of the space, and the ongoing sensemaking process into one complex and ambiguous investigative field. sensemaking processes entail both the intrinsic realizations of the game and the potential significations of the experience as a work of art. intensity and unity because participants’ actions and their individual experiences are constitutive elements of participatory artifacts, it seems reasonable to make actions and acts the focal point of an investigation of beautiful experiences and experiences of beauty. in my book (heinrich, 2014), i scrutinize three dimensions of actions: first, the visceral dimension of sense-perception, especially proprioception; second, the agential dimension of actions that establish interaction systems; third, the reflective, conceptual dimension brought about by the incorporated external perspective of the onlooker in the participant. inspired by the gravedigger in shakespeare’s the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 58 falk heinrich hamlet, i termed these dimensions “to do, to act, and to perform.” in the book, i further argue that a complex sentiment of beauty is based on the synthetization of these three dimensions into one significant whole, occasioning a feeling of coherence and even unity.3 this figure of thought has a certain affinity with beauty as a dialectic between integral parts and a coherent whole (i.e., variety and uniformity).4 in this article, i want to elaborate on the kind of unity that this act produces and how the assumed unity of an act yields beautiful experiences. i also seek to answer the often-heard question of how participation entails or occasions the sentiment of beauty, while those pieces seem to absorb, or even consume, the participant in and through action, leaving no space for the recognition and sentiment of, for example, beauty. sliding down several stories increases the level of arousal. furthermore, it yields sense perceptions and proprioception; that is, sensing the slides’ material and architectural construction and sensing one’s own body being modeled by the slide. sliding down might also elicit memories and fantasies. second, it works with agency: the decision to slide down, the interactions between personnel, the slide, and the participant. third, the big slide installations in an art space contain conceptual dimensions. all participatory artworks are based on a scenario that includes an inherent or explicit script that has to be understood to enable participation and the generation of meaning. all these dimensions are constituents of the artwork, and they inform each other in one way or another. the instructed children in sehgal’s this success/this failure tell the audience that they and their playing are the work of art. thus, my playing with them in the white space was also the work of art. i was aware of being observed, and i observed myself while i was playing. playing, running, talking, the museum space, the white wall, the marble floor, the diffused light, the observing people standing in one corner of the room, my knowledge of the piece and its conceptual art-historic stance, my ambition to get rid of my awareness of being observed, feelings of pride and nervousness, the smiling faces of the children: those and many more were this artwork’s constituents (at least for me). how can both artworks, with very different constituents, create an experience of unity? first, i want to specify my notion of unity. it seems clear that different constituents do not yield a unity in the platonic sense, that is, as a form or idea that unites plural characteristics into one universal—at least not on an experiential level. on this level, felt unity is brought about by acts of correlating, differentiating, and creating internal correspondences and linkages between the components. this is not an (academic) analytical undertaking aimed at the formation of concepts, but rather the creation of fields of intensity where the constituent parts feed into each other. here, the very concept of a participatory work of art is one constituent. my usage of the notion of unity has much in common with the idea of communitas formulated by researchers of rituals, such as turner (1967), and applied by performance researchers, such as schechner (2003). here, communitas is understood as an experiential space without structured hierarchies of the participants in the ritual. in turner’s view, this is a characteristic of liminality. i want to extend the notion of communitas to include concepts, feelings, perception, the space, other participants or onlookers, thoughts, and so on, as i described earlier. it is not exclusively a communitas of people but of all the constituents included in a participatory artwork. 3 i describe the emergent characteristics of an act in chapter 7 of my book, performing beauty in participatory art and culture. 4 see, for example, hutcheson (1726) and diderot (2011). somaesthetics and beauty59 how can there be beauty in participatory art? intensity is generated by the constituents’ feeding each other; that is, by the tensions, collisions, and momentarily insolvable contradictions that enable and even necessitate (inter)actions in the attempt to resolve them. however, the components’ interplay and feeding into each other both enable participation and are based upon participation. the art recipient must participate in order to create these points of intensity. the concept-based demand for participation is thus both a necessary constituent and a result of intensity. in participatory art, unity must be seen as a defined field of possibility within which ongoing performative interplaying between all the different constituents occur. participatory unity cannot be understood as a completed entity or representation. on the contrary, representations (e.g., the concept of a slide) and interpretations are also constituents. interpretations and representations must be validated by interactions. validation is an act of realization in the double sense of recognition and elicitation. the notion of intensity should be understood in two ways: first, simply as felt psychophysical intensity (i.e., arousal); second, in the deleuzian sense of compression and potentiality (deleuze 1994). intensive linkages are not only emotional and cognitive occurrences, even though they might be perceived as such, but also extend to a space, its objects, and its occurrences (e.g., the slides, other participants, the building, my curiosity and nervousness, the children, the white space, other onlookers, my steps, the movement of my hand while trying to tap one of the children, my feeling of being observed, etc.). there is a difference between the perception of intensity and the intensity that makes up a participatory work. this difference is important because the heterogenous reality of the constituents cannot be grasped by the participant. the participant can only be attuned to it by interactions and by forming ideas about it. the ungraspable heterogeneous simultaneity of a participatory work of art’s constituents might bring about the idea of unity. however, this idea of unity is not only a concept (i.e., a uniting form). it is, first of all, a feeling and a longing to be or act as part of something. the cognitive idea of unity is just another constituent. it yields participant engagement that is aimed at the realization of unity. engagement is not an unreflective immersion, not a kind of “flow” in which the sense of self disappears, but self-awareness and the idea of unity flow in connection with all other constituents. it is not a dissolution of the subject because the image of the subject as agent is also a constituent. in my experience and view, these felt intensities and the longing for unity harbor the sentiment of beauty in participatory art. needless to say, not all participatory artifacts and not all participation yield intensity and thus possible beautiful experiences. hence, beauty also emerges from ongoing judgments of and within the ever-changing situation. the sentiment of beauty arises in the relationship between bodily felt intensity and the idea of partaking in something that transcends the participant. thus, intensity is also an act of transcending my subjectivity and the perception of immanence (i.e., to partake). intensity is an almost material occurrence and expression of the anticipated unity. thus, beauty emerges (kirkeby, 2007) as a moment of pleasurable engagement and surrender. in test site, the participant has to decide to participate and get in line at the top of the slide. from the decision to the actual sliding down, intensity increases. thoughts, expectations, anxieties, memories, and perhaps tiresome waiting combined with the sounds, atmosphere, and materials of the art space (tate modern) create a specific felt intensity, depending on the individual participant. this intensity is expected to be transformed into one main action: sliding down, which is the point of no return. however, many other decisions are possible (e.g., going away, hesitating, arguing with the personnel, or preventing others from sliding down). the specific intensity is pre-forming the experience of sliding down: is the anxiety sustained the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 60 falk heinrich or released? does the bodily experience of sliding add a different dimension to the conceptual understanding? while sliding down, intensity might be transformed into an immanent unity, in which all the elements seem to “work” together, sense perceptions add to understanding and vice versa, the curves of the slide oscillate with the sensation of the space, adults fall into a child’s enthusiasm while sliding again and again on childhood’s playground. according to dewey, “the moment of passage from disturbance into harmony is that of intensest life.” (dewey 1980, p. 17) the experience of beauty is an experience of accepted and lived presence where the experiencing subject resonates with other constituents of the event within the framework—the scenario—of a particular artwork. however, the participating subject, the i, is not a finite entity but consists of various constituents in addition to the other parts of the piece. enjoying sliding down, the speed, the curves, and the impression of rotating space is both a culmination and a release of intensity: beauty happens. your success/your failure does not offer release as easily the act of sliding does. it builds tension from the moment one enters the room and realizes the rules of the artwork. it increases (dramatically for some) when one is invited by the children to play with them. transgress the invisible line between the space of the onlookers and the playground! now one is part of the work regardless of what one is doing: standing, running, walking, talking, and so on. the simple fact of being observed increases the intensity, but this is the psychological intensity of the participating subject. another kind of intensity builds up based on the declaration that this is an artwork, and i am part of it. the declaration (and its recognition) dissolves the established order of the art museum (e.g., a museum is a space that contains and displays works of art). by crossing the threshold, the space, the children present, everything craves a new local meaning, another ordering of the constituents’ internal relationship. the order can only be established by my concrete participation and by the actions i undertake. my actions are concrete sensemaking practices and continuous tests. the emerging sense is only one formational image of the constituents’ simultaneous but fluctuating connections. fluctuation is intensity yearning for form or forms. one form is the idea of unity, the feeling of being at the right place at the right time, doing the right thing, ordering the universe of this piece into a momentary cosmos; in my case, form was accepting and finding pleasure in playing with children in a museum hall. beauty happens. gebilde let me try to approach from another angle. as i reiterated, participatory artworks distribute agency among all the partakers. in the case of test site, this includes the participant, the slide, the onlookers, and the museum. in your success/your failure, the components included me, my actions, my words, the gaze of the audience, the whiteness of the space, the children’s fatigue, and so on. by means of a conceptually determined structure of interaction, the artifact determines how, when, and where the participant is seen as a participant that is able to interact. of course, the participants can do what they want, but if their actions should make sense within the framework of the work, then the inherent interaction structure must be respected (or otherwise considered). participation can be seen as a form of playing, as conceptually framed, ruleor script-based interactions. according to gadamer, playing means to be “transformed into a structure.” the participant is thus also “being played” (gadamer, 1973, p. 103). hence, a participatory artwork somaesthetics and beauty61 how can there be beauty in participatory art? appropriates the partaking subject; the subject delegates agency because the structure (or what i have called interaction mechanics) determines how to interact/play. appropriation is also a form of self-transcendence that yields “one-anotherness” (das einander) (gadamer cited in scheibler, 2001, p. 124) “[d]as einander” is a neologism expressing the simultaneity of being oneself and being part of something else. by playing, the participant willingly assumes a conceptual and agential function and thus becomes part of the structure. in test site, this happens by the participant’s being a performative part of the winding, speed-producing slides and vice versa, and by the slides as part of the participants’ body and bodily experience. in your success/your failure, it happens by talking and playing with the children and observing yourself as a palpable instantiation of sehgal’s artistic concept. it is important to notice that gadamer’s notion of structure does not negate the form of intensity that i attempted to describe earlier. on the contrary, the field of unifying intensity depends on a well-defined structure, which determines the playground for participation. within this structured space–time, the intensity of tension, collision, momentarily insolvable contradiction, correlations, and so on unfold. in turner’s description of communitas as an unstructured ritual space, he meant the momentary annulment of societal structures. (turner 1988, p.133; 1985, p. 124) however, each ritual has a performance structure that allows for communitas to happen, which must be recognized. gadamer discusses the performance structure that each work of art constructs. participatory art can only be recognized as works of art if the participant considers his or her actions an intrinsic part of something. this something is reified by the conceptual framework that the participant is able to observe and realize as artifact. according to gadamer (1973, p. 126), this something is a performative gebilde. arthos wrote that the term gebilde “allows [gadamer] to play on the capacity of art to be both a work (ergon) and work (energeia), just as spiel is both play and a play” (arthos, 2013, p. 28). the artwork as gebilde constitutes the conceptual and performative framework without which an act could not be recognized and performed. furthermore, a participatory gebilde (ergon) has to be “realized” in each (inter) action (energeia); i use the term “realized” (to make real) in both its senses: “constructed/ initialized” and “comprehended.” thus, gebilde in participatory art is energeia based on and enabling ergon, which is a conceptual understanding that composes the aforementioned constituents into a structure. it is my hypothesis that the simultaneous congruity of energeia and ergon is experienced as pleasurable intensity and subject-transcending integration. beautiful experiences are pleasurable oscillations between the two forms of realization: ergon and energeia. in die aktualität des schönen (gadamer 1977)5, gadamer traces the importance of beauty in modern art by investigating three aspects: play, symbol, and festival. he did not analyze participatory art that did not exist as an art form at the time of writing, yet in his chapters on art, he prioritized the performative aspect of art works as play and art as festival. in his view, all art invites the audience to be a player that enters and is an active part of the gebilde of each work of art. according to gadamer (1986, p. 28), “the concept of play was introduced precisely to show that everyone involved in play is a participant. it should also be true of the play of art that there is in principle no radical separation between the work of art and the person who experiences it.” however, in participatory art, acts of playing (i.e., participating) are a constitutive part of the work and not only hermeneutic play. the proprioperception of one’s acts melds with the perception of the other constituents of a participatory work of art. gadamer (1977, p. 38) applied 5 gadamer, h.-g. (1986). the relevance of the beautiful and other essays, trans. nicholas walker, ed. robert bernasconi, cambridge: cambridge university press. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 62 falk heinrich the term “die ästhetische nichtunderscheidung” (“aesthetic non-differentiation”) to characterize the aesthetic perception of art as playing. aesthetic non-differentiation is tied to a holistic perception that aims neither at recognizing artistic means nor at definite interpretations. it is a performative conglomerate of sense impressions and momentary and preliminary cognitions. in other words, “aesthetic non-differentiation” is the perceptual intensity of heterogenetic space– time of which the participant is part. gadamer compared his notion of non-differentiation with kant’s interplay of understanding and imagination. i would like to extend kant’s notion by claiming that in participatory art, understanding as a concept-based activity interacts not only with imagination as the synthetization of the manifold of sense-perception but also with all the present constituents of a singular work of art and its spatial and social contexts. intensity is both a subjectively felt state and the atmosphere (böhme, 1993) that includes the participant. in his chapter on art as festival, gadamer (1986, p. 42) seemed (among other aspects) to reiterate this intensity by claiming that each work of art establishes its own time outside everyday time. he discussed “’fulfilled or autonomous time.” in the original german text, he used the term “eigenzeit.” he explained, “it is the nature of the festival that it should proffer time, arresting it and allowing it to tarry. this is what festival celebration means” (42). tarrying time resembles compressing, thickening time (at least in the perception of it); arresting time creates intensity. he continued, “in this respect, the work of art does resemble a living organism with its internally structured unity. in other words, it too displays autonomous temporality” (43). he explicitly tied this idea of autonomous temporality to the notion of beauty. however, intensity alone is not enough. to be pleasurable, intensity needs release or resolution. i propose to equate the pleasurable resolution of intensity with sensemaking. here, i am inspired by luhmann’s terminology, in which sense is not only a hermeneutic-based meaning of generation but also indicates an act (or a systemic operation) of selection (luhmann, 2000). sense (in german sinn) is produced as and through selections. it is an act based on the difference between potentiality and actualization. potentiality entails multiplicity (in deleuzian terms, virtuality), which must lead to actualizations (i.e., concrete actions). sense resolves an intense multiplicity into action that reduces complexity and that makes the situation available to the sensemaking system. in participatory artworks, actions reduce the complexity of the situation. in the case of a participatory artwork, participatory action ensures the continuation of the work. in the case of the participant’s cognitive system, it is any act of consciousness (thoughts, interpretation, associations, feelings, etc.). however, each actualization brings about new multiplicities, altered constellations of sensations, perceptions, agencies, and understandings in a changed landscape of all constituents. if the cycle of building and releasing intensity is able to create an experience of oscillation or swinging, then i claim that participation can be experienced as beautiful. expressed differently, the cycle is experienced as beautiful when involvement makes sense and when sense-making enforces immersion. conclusion participatory art contains the promise of sense-making through the fulfilling and pleasurable experience of presence, which is the promise of unity experienced here and now. however, unity has to be realized through participatory acts, through actually playing with children, and through feeling the curving slide on my derriere. the beautiful is no longer a veil that is projected onto an object. instead, it is the sense and sensation of the congruence or harmony of somaesthetics and beauty63 how can there be beauty in participatory art? possibility and realization. judged as beautiful, the act contains an oscillating movement between intensity, release, another intensity, another release, and so forth. of course, the experience of a participatory artwork can be remembered, analyzed, and judged post festum, but it necessitates the rudimentary reliving of intensity and release (or no intensity and no release because not every participatory artwork offers this oscillating movement, and not every participant can effectuate and experience it). a beautiful experience in participatory art is still an aesthetic judgment based on a comparison between promise and felt realization. however, it is not primarily an evaluative judgment of a participatory art piece. it is primarily a particular judgment in the process of engagement. the beautiful experience becomes one constituent among others. beautiful experiences are evaluations of each cycle of intensity and release. only then could one judge a participatory piece of art—based on one precise instantiation of it—as a beautiful experience or not. references arthos, john. 2013. gadamer’s poetics: a critique of modern aesthetics. london: bloomsbury. beyle, m.-h. (stendhal ). 1980. “de l’amour, coll. ‘folio.’” paris: gallimard. böhme, gernot. 1993. “atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics.” thesis eleven 36: 113–26. danto, arthur. 2003. the abuse of beauty. peru, illinois: open court. deleuze, gilles. 1994. repetition and difference 1994. new york: columbio university press. dewey, john. 1980. art as experience. new york: perigee books. diderot, denis. 2011. on art and artists: an anthology of diderot’s aesthetic thought. heidelberg: springer. gadamer, hans-georg: 1973. “the play of art.” in the philosophy of art, edited by alex neill and aaron ridley. boston: mcgraw-hill. —. 1977. die aktualität des schönen. stuttgart: reclam verlag. http://www.reclam.de/print/ detail/978-3-15-019041-8. —. 1986. the relevance of the beautiful and other essays. edited by robert bernasconi. cambridge: cambridge university press. harper, douglas. 2019. “online etymology dictionary.” online etymology dictionary. www. etymonline.com. 2019. heinrich, f. 2014. performing beauty in participatory art and culture. performing beauty in participatory art and culture. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315797984. hutcheson, f. 1726. an inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue. edited by w. leidhold. indianapolis: liberty fund. kant, immanuel. 2007. the critique of judgement. library. vol. 1. oxford: oxford univerity press. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/20.2.135. kirkeby, ole fogh. 2007. skønheden sker. frederiksberg: forlaget samfundslitteratur. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 64 falk heinrich luhmann, niklas. 2000. art as a social system. stanford, ca: stanford university press. nehama, and alexander s. 2007. only a promise of happiness the place of beauty in a world of art. princeton: princeton university press. nehamas, alexander. 2007. only a promise of happiness: the place of beauty in the world of art. princeton. n.j.: princeton university press. plato. 1998. the symposium. oxford: oxford univerity press. schank, roger c., and roger p. abelson. 1977. scripts, plans, goals, and understanding. hillsdale, new jersay: lawrence earlbaum publisher. schechner, richard. 2003. performance theory. performance theory. vol. 10. london, new york: routlegde. https://doi.org/10.2307/2804307. scheibler, ingrid. 2001. “art as festival in heidegger and gadamer.” international journal of philosophical studies 9 (2). starr, gabrielle. 2015. feeling beauty the neuroscience of aesthetic experience. cambridge, massachusetts: mit press. turner, victor. 1982. from ritual to theatre: the human seriousness of play. paj publications. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107415324.004. —. 1988. the anthropology of performance. new york: paj publications. turner, victor w. (victor witter). 1967. “betwixt-and-between: the liminal period in rites de passage. in the forest of symbols: aspects of ndembu ritual.” in . ithaca (n. y.): cornell university press. turner, victor w. 1985. on the edge of the bush: anthropology as experience. the university of arizona press. page 25–35 somaesthetics and beauty25 fine art as the “art of living” fine art as the “art of living” johann gottfried herder’s calligone reconsidered from a somaesthetic point of view tanehisa otabe abstract: inspired by shusterman’s concept of philosophy as an “embodied art of living,” this paper revisits johann gottfried herder’s late calligone (1800) from a somaesthetic point of view, arguing firstly that herder’s theory of the agreeable and the beautiful is based on his conception of aesthetics as a theory of the senses; and secondly that herder’s theory of art focuses on the relationship between art and life. calligone should accordingly be re-evaluated, this paper maintains, in light of a recent development in aesthetics: from the philosophy of art to what is known as somaesthetics, aisthetics, or everyday aesthetics. keywords: the agreeable and the beautiful, the feeling sense of touch and the groping sense of touch, the subtle senses and the media, pygmalion of the self, art of living. explaining how he coined the term “somaesthetics,” richard shusterman once said that “new names can be helpful both in stimulating new thinking and in reorganizing and reanimating older insights.” based on the greek and roman idea of philosophy as an “embodied art of living,” somaesthetics has succeeded in reorganizing and reanimating older, often forgotten discourses on sôma and aisthêsis.1 inspired by shusterman’s concept, this paper revisits johann gottfried herder’s late calligone (1800) from a somaesthetic point of view. a metacritique on the critique of pure reason (1799) and the calligone are the major works of heder’s last years: the former posed against the theoretical philosophy of his former mentor immanuel kant’s critique of pure reason (1781) and the latter against the aesthetic theory of the critique of the power of judgement (1790). however, few attempts have been made to analyze herder’s late contributions. in particular, little attention has been given to the calligone,2 which 1 shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics, p. 5. 2 as far as i know, there are only three books that thematically deal with the calligone, namely: jacoby, herders und kants ästhetik, fugate, the psychological basis of herder’s aesthetics, and osterman, die idee des schöpferischen in herders kalligone. in the last few decades, however, several articles have been devoted to the study of the calligone. for example, in “free play and true well-being: herder’s critique of kant’s aesthetics,” paul guyer, a renowned kant scholar, reconstitutes herder’s main arguments in the calligone, comparing them with kant’s argument in the third critique. in the field of musicology, mark evan bonds argues that the calligone constitutes a significant step toward the so-called metaphysics of the instrumental music. his thesis that originates in hugo goldschmidt’s musikästhetik im 18. jahrhundert und ihre beziehungen zu seinem kunstschaffen, 186, opposes the 1972 assertion of carl dahlhaus that “the metaphysics of the instrumental music the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 26 tanehisa otabe is likely due to the following reasons. the first is intrinsic as the calligone is, like critical forests (1769), a polemical work whose construction is largely based on the work it criticizes. it is therefore not easy to discern and reconstruct herder’s own arguments. in his letter to j. w. l. gleim dated june 13, 1800, herder expresses his desire to “put away from the second edition of the calligone everything that does not belong to it,”3 i.e., criticism of the third critique. the second edition, however, never appeared. the second reason for the neglect of herder’s late works is historical. the decade 1790–1800, marked by the publication of the third critique and the calligone, was a most significant period in the development of modern aesthetics. friedrich schiller’s on the aesthetic education of the human being (1795) avers that we are “human” thanks to “aesthetic play.”4 friedrich schlegel’s essays and fragments, and above all the conversation on poetry (1800), serve as manifestos of german romanticism. finally, friedrich wilhelm joseph schelling’s system of transcendental philosophy (1800) insists that “aesthetic intuition” or “art” is the “only true and eternal organ and document of philosophy.”5 these works have in common a utilization of aesthetics, or the aesthetic, to overcome kant’s critical dualism. in comparison, herder’s calligone, which is primarily directed at kant’s critical philosophy, seems to have been left out of the received historical narrative. at issue in herder’s criticism of kant’s aesthetic theory is that he accepts neither the strict distinction between the beautiful, the agreeable, and the good, nor the opposition between nature and art. these distinctions underlie kant’s third critique and its dualistic foundations. herder, in contrast, whose view is often regarded as “monism,”6 does not approve of such dualistic distinctions. this does not mean that herder wants to undermine all distinctions. rather he aims at restructuring or rearranging these distinctions according to his monistic view. as i shall argue, herder’s theory of the agreeable and the beautiful is based on his conception of aesthetics as a theory of the senses; and his theory of art focuses on the relationship between art and life. this would suggest that herder’s calligone should be reevaluated in light of the contemporary transformations of aesthetics: from the philosophy of fine art to somaesthetics, aisthetics, or everyday aesthetics. 1. aesthetics as a theory of the senses in the third critique, kant distinguishes between three kinds of the feeling of pleasure: 1. the passive and private pleasure that depends on given sensations (e.g., colors or tones), i.e., the pleasure of the agreeable; 2. the universally-valid pleasure that presupposes a given representation but originates from the free play of our cognitive powers, i.e., the pleasure of the beautiful; and 3. the universally-valid pleasure that accompanies a judgment of the perfection of an object, i.e., the pleasure of the good (kant 5: 209, 217).7 the beautiful and the agreeable are similar insofar as they do not presuppose any concept of an object, whereas the beautiful and the good was quite unknown to herder” (dahlhaus, klassische und romantische musikästhetik, p. 95). see bonds, “idealism and the aesthetics of instrumental music at the turn of the nineteenth century,” pp. 387–420, here pp. 409–410. 3 see adler, “herders ästhetik als rationalitätstyp,” pp. 131–139, here p. 131. 4 schiller, on the aesthetic education of man, pp. 80, 135. 5 schelling, system of transcendental idealism, p. 231. 6 see nisbet, herder and the philosophy and history of science, pp. 4, 109. 7 kant’s works are cited in the body of the text according to the volume and page number in immanuel kants schriften, ausgabe der königlichen preußischen ausgabe der wissenschaften (berlin: w. de gruyter, 1902–). translations are from the cambridge edition of the works of immanuel kant, series editors paul guyer and allen w. wood (new york: cambridge university press, 1992–). somaesthetics and beauty27 fine art as the “art of living” are similar insofar as their pleasure is not private but universally valid. kant’s argument is based on his dualistic position: the distinction between the subjective and the objective; and between matter and form, i.e., between what is given and what generates order. to kant’s distinctions herder responds: “no one doubts that the words ‘agreeable, beautiful, and good’ designate different concepts. in all our notions and feelings we are of the one nature that thinks, senses, and desires; these related concepts must, therefore, share borders. the question is how these concepts border on each other, how they are divided and connected. mere oppositions do not solve riddles; much less do the arbitrary barriers of words” (herder 8: 672–3 n.).8 thus, herder reduces these three concepts into one single nature, thereby rearticulating them anew based on his conception of aesthetics as a theory of the senses. herder’s definition of the agreeable reads as follows: “what our sense readily accepts [annehmen], what is acceptable to it [genehm], what it readily approves [genehmigen]—that is what is agreeable [angenehm]” (8: 664). compared with kant’s rather dry definition that “the agreeable is that which pleases the senses in sensation” (kant 5: 205), herder’s definition is highlighted by his linguistic insight that the adjective angenehm (agreeable) and the verb annehmen (accept) have the same origin, which cannot be adequately rendered in english. by the expression “readily accept” [gern annehmen] herder understands the following: “it is what maintains, promotes and enhances the feeling of our being, it is what is in harmony with it that each of our senses readily accepts, assimilates, and finds agreeable” (herder 8: 667). in short, by feeling something as agreeable, we perceive our “well-being [wohlsein], health” anew (8: 667–68). why is herder so interested in the agreeable? there are two reasons. first, well-being is striven towards both by the human being and nature as a whole. following the order of nature, the human being seeks the agreeable. second, assimilation is fundamental for human beings who assimilate not only the agreeable, but also the beautiful (8: 689, 712). the “concept” is also that which “we assimilate from an object in cognition” (8: 732). here one should clarify what herder means by “concept” [begriff]. in section six of the third critique, kant avers that “there is no transition from concepts to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure,” concluding on this basis that the determining ground of the judgment of taste is not a “concept” but a “feeling,” which is also the reason why the beautiful and the agreeable are essentially distinguished from the good (kant 5: 211). herder, on the other hand, insists that we “distinguish concept and feeling only by means of abstraction” and that we are “always conscious of this innate transition. […] even a fanatic does not descend so deep into the dark ground of his soul that he believes that he feels—or even judges—without any concept” (herder 8: 733). that is, concepts pertain to all activities of our souls, i.e., not only in the higher levels like thinking and willing but also in the deepest sensory levels.9 for herder, it is concepts that create a scaffolding upon which the sensory-intellectual human being is engaged in the world via senses, imagination, intellect, and will. the “ground of the soul” is not a chaos that eludes concepts, as kant argues; it is rather organized by concepts in a human manner (as a kind of gestalt). thus, herder argues that according to kantian dualism where only form can generate order in matter, matter itself would be a “tartarus without concepts” and we could not hope to “reach the light of concepts” (8: 734). 8 herder’s works are cited in the body of the text according to the volume and page number in werke, 10 vols. (frankfurt am main: deutscher klassiker verlag, 1985–2000). translations are mine. 9 see adler, “fundus animae – der grund der seele: zur gnoseologie des dunklen in der aufklärung,” pp. 197–220 and otabe, “der grund der seele: über entstehung und verlauf eines ästhetischen diskurses im 18. jahrhundert,” pp. 763–774. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 28 tanehisa otabe rather, matter is already formed or form resides in matter. thus “each sense is organized so as to assimilate one out of many [ein eins aus vielem]; otherwise it would not be an organized sense of the soul” (8: 733–34). i now discuss how herder relates the agreeable to the beautiful. in his theory of the agreeable, herder thinks primarily of the “darkest senses” (8: 676) i.e., “the sense of smell and taste” (8: 668) as well as “the sense of touch” (8: 668). both senses pertain to “maintaining our well-being” (8: 672). among these two senses, however, the sense of touch alone has the function of grasping the form of an object: “by injustice the sense of touch is counted as a rude sense. […] not only as a helper and tester it assists sight and hearing; it further provides sight with its firmest basic concepts [grundbegriffe] without which the eyes would perceive only surfaces, contours, and colors” (8: 677). here two points should be noted. first, the sense of touch is understood in two ways. while the sense of touch is closed in a subject, it is open to the world when it grasps the forms of an object,10 thereby mediating between the so-called lower senses (smell and taste) and the socalled higher senses (sight and hearing). herder calls the touch of sense that is closed in a subject the “feeling sense of touch” [das fühlende gefühl] (8: 676) or the “rude, and self-preserving sense of touch” (8: 677) and the touch of sense that is open to the world the “groping sense of touch” [das tastende gefühl] (8: 677), or the “understanding sense of touch” (8: 689). certainly the “groping sense of touch” is primarily located in the grasping hand, but it pervades the whole body. the human being is “endowed with the sense peculiar to it, i.e., the groping sense of touch in its whole shape” (8: 751). the groping sense of touch is peculiar to the human being because it is distinguished from other animals by its “hand” (8: 751). second, it is necessary to investigate the relation between the senses of touch and sight more closely. triggered by molyneux’s problem and following berkeley’s essay towards a new theory of vision (1709),11 herder insists that what we properly perceive by sight are flat surfaces with colors and that our perception of form is only possible when the sense of touch that grasps an object underlies the sense of sight. “a man born blind whose vision was restored” must, therefore, “adjust a visible world with a tangible one,” which is, however, the case not only with a man born blind whose vision was restored but also with “children and the visually impaired” (8: 691). with the help of the sense of touch we learn to see forms such that we come to “see also gropingly” (8: 751), i.e., vision can replace the sense of touch to see an object haptically as a three-dimensional object without the aid of the sense of touch. “being founded on the sense of touch, our images of vision [gesichtsideen]12 stand on their own basis” (8: 751). being open to the world, the groping sense of touch (or the vision under its guidance) grasps “shapes in certain numbers and measures as conditions of rest and motion” (8: 752). “we live in a well-ordered and well-shaped world in which the results of the natural laws in gentle shapes manifest to us beauty as corporeal perfection that is harmonious with itself and with our sense of touch” (8: 687). an object is beautiful when the double condition that it is harmonious with itself and with our sense of touch is fulfilled.13 in contrast, the “agreeable” fulfills only the single condition that it promotes the well-being of a subject that perceives an object. the sentence “x is agreeable” seems to determine an object x; but it only signifies that the well-being of the subject 10 see jacoby, herders und kants ästhetik, p. 107. 11 see morgan, molyneux’s question: vision, touch, and the philosophy of perception, pp. 1–5, 59–62. 12 herder distinguishes begriffe from ideen, etymologically ascribing the former to the sense of touch and the latter to the sense of sight. 13 the meaning of this harmony will be analyzed later. somaesthetics and beauty29 fine art as the “art of living” is promoted by object x. “for the sake of brevity, we attributed to the object what belongs only to the feeling subject” (8: 725). on the other hand, the sentence “x is beautiful” points out not only a subjective condition but also actually determines the object x. despite these differences, the beautiful and the agreeable do not exclude each other, as kant claims, because a beautiful object is also agreeable in that it is harmonious with a perceiving subject and promotes the wellbeing of that subject. accordingly, the agreeable and the beautiful form two layers: a base and an upper layer, respectively. next i address the question of how herder distinguishes the higher senses from the lower senses. according to herder, in the lower senses “subject and object are, as it were, one in sensation”—we find in our “subtle organs, vision and hearing, το μεταξυ,14 a medium that enters between an object and a feeling subject” (8: 708), thus enabling remote perceptions: “both media,” i.e., “light and sound,” have “an immutable rule that is harmonious with the organ”— “color wheel” and “tone scale,” respectively (8: 709–710, 695). any given medium faces us with a new world. as for sight, herder remarks that “vision gives <a> not only a new language, a shortened alphabet of the sense of touch that gropes in darkness, […] but also <b>—a sacred power! the omnipresent light transforms us, as it were, into omnipresent beings at once. a world of objects that we slowly—often forgetfully, seldom perfectly—groped in darkness […] is now presented by a light ray to the eye and, thus, to the soul as a huge co-operation and co-existence [ein mitund nebeneinander] according to eternal laws” (8: 692—<a> and <b> added by the author). in <a> herder reiterates that sight can replace the sense of touch to see an object gropingly. what is peculiar to vision is, however, according to <b> that, due to the characteristics of light, it can instantaneously visualize the world as “a huge co-operation and co-existence” at once . in <a> vision still functions successively, like the sense of touch, whereas in <b> it is marked by simultaneity. as for hearing, herder continues as follows: “being bumped and elastically restoring itself, does not each object give a sound? is not there a medium that receives and transmits this sound to other harmonious bodies? the sound is nothing other than a voice of all moved bodies that is uttered from within and conveys their suffering, resistance, and aroused powers to other harmonious beings loudly or quietly” (8: 698). while the medium of light conveys to us the surfaces of an object, we are led by the medium of sound to an inner dimension of an object—a new world that is closed to both sight and touch. thus herder concludes that “by means of a rule that encompasses the whole world, both media [i.e., light and sound] reveal us all, the former visible all, the latter audible all, respectively—a world order” (8: 706) what does herder then understand by a world order? based on the ancient four elements theory, herder considers each living being in relation to an environment that he designates its “element” or “region.” “fish,” for example, “seems to us a lively representation of the silver sea itself; the sea reflected and embodied itself in fish, and, if i may say so, it transformed itself into a feeling of fish” (8: 715), because the characteristics of the element of water (or sea) are manifested precisely in fish, particularly in its shape or activities. the same applies to birds and animals (8: 717–718). each living being inhabits a certain element whose characteristics it embodies. and to live such a life is well-being: “everywhere i find nature in high consonance with the wellbeing of the creature and in the original beauty suitable for each region” (8: 717–718). every environment is independent: “‘what nature has given to you is not given to me. i do 14 here herder uses the greek word το μεταξυ, referring to aristotle’s de anima (ii.7). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 30 tanehisa otabe not know anything about your groping sense of touch. […] sight and smell make a world for me; i am created to this world,’ said a bird of prey with an elephant, a parrot, and a whale. they all spoke from their world, from their elements” (8: 715). thus, each animal speaks in and from its world. herder adds, however, the following: “but only it, i.e., the human being, spoke in them; in the name of all it conducts this conversation” (8: 716). herder personifies animals to let them say that each living being lives in its own element, pointing out at the same time the peculiar position of the human being that only it can hear—and consciously recite—the conversation of animals. such consciousness proves that it is endowed with reason. accordingly, the human being does not simply live in its element but does so with consciousness: “all living beings in nature aim for well-being, by making nature harmonious with it and vice versa; only the human being can do it with reason and reflection” (8: 776). reason is the capability of becoming conscious of what the human being naturally does in “all life performances [lebensverrichtungen]” by following the way embedded in nature. to use one’s reason is, therefore, to live a life “with consciousness” (8: 753). this means the senses and reason are not opposed. reason is rather embedded in the base layer of the senses and constitutes an upper layer by becoming conscious of the base layer. as such, aesthetics as a theory of the senses forms the basis of herder’s philosophy as whole. 2. art and life according to herder, only the human being can “make nature harmonious with it and vice versa […] with reason and reflection” (8: 776). herder continues: “the realer purposes the human being accomplishes by means of this harmony between nature and itself, the worthier its art” (8: 776). thus, herder understands art as “all life performances” insofar as they are penetrated by “understanding and rule,” i.e., the “use of active reason by means of sensory organs” (8: 774). the following section clarifies how herder defines art in the second and third part of the calligone. in the second part of the calligone, herder addresses the relationship between nature and art: “we often oppose nature to art, while we often ascribe to nature the greatest art. both are not without reason” (8: 759). herder explains: art is often ascribed to nature because nature generates via various means many purposive productions and, in this way, practices a kind of art— “nature’s art” [naturkunst] (8: 759–760). the human being was also born of “nature’s art.” “the most gifted artwork of nature, the human being,” however, “ought to be an artist by itself— that is immensely crucial” (8: 761). that is, although nature’s art gave birth to the human being as an “artistic creature,” the human being ought to exert its natural endowment in order to be an artist. for the human being, what matters are only the results attained by its art. to that extent, nature is opposed to human art. the relationship between nature (or nature’s art) and the human being (or human art) is therefore bidirectional. nature provided the human being with an organ so that it can exert its natural endowment. in this sense, nature is regarded as a “mother extremely propitious toward the human being” (8: 762). the human being must, however, do everything “by itself” (8: 762). when nature throws obstacles in its way, the human being is “opposing its art to nature” (8: 761). in this sense, the human being has to intrude into nature. it does not, however, follow that human art aims at conquering or negating nature. “formed as harmonious with nature, the human being lives in nature, and must live with nature” (8: 774). nature as the base layer represents a condition for human art positioned in an upper layer, while human art in turn acts upon nature such that each layer constitutes an inseparable whole. somaesthetics and beauty31 fine art as the “art of living” in section 43 of the third critique, kant distinguishes “free or liberal art” as an “occupation that is agreeable in itself ” from “handicraft” as an “occupation that is disagreeable (burdensome) in itself and is attractive only because of its effect (e.g., the remuneration)” (kant 5: 304). herder disapproves of this distinction, arguing that it is contrary to “nature”; instead, herder maintains, we must “treat the footstep of art [kunstgang] of the human nature according to nature” (herder 8: 763–764). thus, in the second part of the calligone herder reconstructs the development of human art in an extremely peculiar way. human art begins with architecture and garden art. “being brought outside and exposed to the weather and dangers of nature, the human being needed shelter and house” (8: 764). garden art, closely connected with the house, represents the essence of fine art insofar as it distinguishes “in nature harmony from disharmony,” thus “heightening and assembling the beauty of nature everywhere” (8: 766). the third and the fourth arts, clothes and wars, correspond respectively to woman and man, clothed and naked, decorum and honestum. the final art is language: “to be together, the human race needed language from an early age. language, an instrument of the noblest arts of spirit, was not invented without need. in it resides a fine art of the human being” (8: 771). one notices, first of all, that these five arts are regarded as matrices for further arts e.g., household art results from the third art, clothes, and the art of glorifying fighters—in the form of epics or sculpture—from the fourth art of war (8: 770). second, the role of women is emphasized not only in the third art, clothes, but also in the fifth art, language: “we learned to speak from our mothers; how fortunate it is! their sonorous tone and their agreeable talkativeness […] bring a melody of language into our mind and heart, a rich source of the variously beautiful” (8: 771). third, we should draw attention to the expression “the fine art of living” [schöne kunst des lebens] (8: 770). this expression used to characterize the third art of clothes anticipates the main theme of the third part of the calligone, which will be analyzed later. except for architecture and garden art, the five aforementioned arts do not belong to the “fine arts” in the terminology of the 18th century. besides being useful, architecture and garden art do not play central roles in the fine arts, and in fact they are often excluded from the fine arts.15 it follows that for herder, who gives the five arts as examples of fine arts, the concept of the autonomy of art is alien. this can be also seen in herder’s theory of taste. “clothes, gesture, dwelling, and speech in its election of contents and presentation inexorably reveal the taste and tastelessness of the person concerned to those who examine” (8: 841). the “domain” of taste covers the above-mentioned five arts and even goes beyond them, for taste resides in lifestyle from which the “so-called fine arts” tend to be detached. “it is a sign of the lack of taste to imagine that taste is necessary or possible only in the so-called fine arts, i.e., music, painting, dance, and the novel; we experience pretentious art connoisseurs who fancy themselves to have excellent taste in these arts and yet who have the most tasteless lifestyles [lebensführung], even in their way of presenting themselves as connoisseurs” (8: 847–848). this view reflects a rousseauesque criticism of modern europe: “how often the folks who led an active life under a favorable climate laughed at the artful but clumsy europeans, taking pride in their sense that they better understood the art of living [die kunst zu leben], and practiced it from their youth more easily and happily than the latter” (8: 845). for herder, taste is, therefore, evident in the “art of living,” and the fine arts which became independent of other 15 charles batteux who introduced the term “beaux-arts” excludes eloquence and architecture from the fine arts. see batteux, the fine arts reduced to a single principle, p. 22. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 32 tanehisa otabe arts lost their root in life as a result. in the third part of the calligone, herder once again addresses “fine sciences and arts” [schöne wissenschaften und künste]. literally translated from the french words “belles lettres” and “beaux arts,” this expression coined in the mid-18th century is vague in its meaning. in order to avoid such vagueness, herder advances that “this genre of sciences and arts should become formative [bildend]—it should form the human character in us; at this point they all converge, even though they would otherwise not be united in the way of their operations”(8: 941). accompanied by the adjective “bildend,” the noun “kunst” generally means “plastic art.” herder, however, changes the meaning of the adjective, understanding the art which forms or builds the human character in us. the question consequently arises: “what is cultivable and trainable in the human being?” herder’s answer is that “everything awaits this training, without which the human being was and is not only a raw wood, an unformed marble, but is and becomes a brute” (8: 943). that is, “all limbs,” the “subtle senses,” “our soul-forces,” and “our inclinations” are to be trained. here we should notice, first, that herder emphasizes cultivating the senses: “the subtle senses, vision, hearing, hand, and tongue need training” (8: 944). while the first part of the calligone dealt with the cooperation of the senses of touch and vision in connection with molyneux’s problem, arguing that the sense of touch serves as a ground for that of vision, in the third part of the calligone herder revisits the issue in the context of cultivation of the senses to “form eye by hand, and vice versa” (8: 944). as for the relationship between ear and tongue, herder underscores the need to “accustom the ear to hearing intelligibly, i.e., to hearing not only the tones, but also the thoughts of human speech” and to “accustom the tongue to expressing the latter, as is required by its nature and end” (8: 944). in other words, the ear and the tongue are to be cultivated toward language—the “fifth fine art of the human being” according to the second part of the calligone (8: 771). herder thus integrates his theory of the senses and art into his theory of cultivation in the third part of the calligone. second, herder’s argument throughout the calligone converges on the “forming art of living” [die bildende kunst des lebens] (8: 946), an idea starkly opposed to the modern idea of autonomous art.16 it does not, however, follow that his “art of living” has nothing to do with fine art: “the person who always struggles for ‘removing what should not be in the wood, precisely that way fosters the form of the image,’ as luther says, is a pygmalion of the self who follows the idea of the beautiful and the supreme that enlivens him” (8: 946). here herder compares the art of living to the art of sculpture, quoting luther’s words in his very first publication, the seven penitential psalms in german (1517),17 which are also cited in hamann’s socratic memorabilia (1759).18 this metaphor originates from the ninth section of plotinus’ essay on the beautiful,19 where a sculptor regards himself as a statue to be formed, hence herder uses the expression 16 the history of the idea of the art of living still needs to be investigated. as for the art of living in the 18th century, see schmid, philosophie der lebenskunst: eine grundlegung, pp. 33–37. 17 “[…] gleich wie ein bildmacher, eben yn dem er weg nymet und hawet, was am holtz tzum bilde nit sall, yn dem furdert er auch die form des bildes.” luther, werke, vol. i, p. 208. dietrich irmscher, the editor of the 8th volume of the frankfurt edition, notes that luther’s source is “not proven” (8: 1241). 18 hamann, socratic memorabilia, p. 384. 19 see: “recall your thoughts inward, and if while contemplating yourself, you do not perceive yourself beautiful, imitate the statuary [οἷα ποιητὴς ἀγάλματος]; who when he desires a beautiful statue cuts away what is superfluous, smooths and polishes what is rough, and never desists until he has given it all the beauty his art is able to effect. in this manner must you proceed, by lopping what is luxuriant, directing what is oblique, and, by purgation, illustrating what is obscure, and thus continue to polish and beautify your statue [τὸ σὸν ἄγαλμα] until the divine splendour of virtue shines upon you, and temperance seated in pure and holy majesty rises to your view.” thomas taylor the platonist: selected writings, pp. 157–158. somaesthetics and beauty33 fine art as the “art of living” “pygmalion of the self.”20 what characterizes the calligone is that this metaphor of a sculptor pertains to the existence of the human being who takes care of itself by forming itself as a kind of living artwork.21 3. artistic illusion in the calligone, as we have seen, herder does not seek to distinguish the fine arts and other arts as two different species. his theory of artistic illusion in the second part of the calligone, however, reveals a characteristic peculiar to the fine arts. herder describes artistic illusion (täuschung) as follows: “the word ‘täuschen’ [give an illusion] comes from the word ‘tauschen’ [exchange]. the poet gives me an illusion when she puts me in her way of thinking, or in her plot and feeling; i exchange [tauschen] my way of thinking with her, or let it lie dormant while she acts; i forget myself. […] i have to forget myself, even my time and space, carried by the wings of the poetry into its dramatic plot, into its time and space” (8: 788–789). this exchange is, however, not to be confused with a state of complete self-oblivion, as herder’s expression “lie dormant” suggests, alluding to the leibnizian concept of “dormant monad.” no matter how deeply the observer is absorbed in a work of art, she does not confuse fictions with realities. at issue is an exchange of ways of thinking without losing oneself: “by the power of a plot, i must mentally be where the poet lets me exist; my imagination, my feeling, serves the poet, but not my person” (8: 789). excellent works are endowed with the power to make me forget myself and to take me out of myself: “without pettily returning to myself, i am filled with the idea that elevates me above myself and occupies all my powers” (8: 730). a work of art engages me in feeling and thinking together with the artist and living the unknown world, contributing in this way to the “art of living” on a deep level. herder’s view of artistic illusion was relatively new in the 18th century. in lessing’s laocoon (1766), we find an expression of the view widely shared in the 18th century: “the poet desires to make the ideas which she awakens in us so vivid, that from the rapidity with which they arise we believe we perceive the sensory impressions of the object they refer to; and in this moment of illusion we cease to be conscious of the means—that is, of the words—which she employs for this purpose.”22 by “artistic illusion,” lessing means that as the recipient is not conscious of the means of a work of art; she gets the impression that the objects to which they refer are immediately present. for herder, on the other hand, artistic illusion means that the recipient imaginarily assimilates the way of thinking and feeling of the artist, displacing her own way of thinking and feeling into the background. in conclusion: by investigating the five senses as a basis for aesthetic theory; by understanding the human being to be constituted by an inseparable base layer of nature and upper layer of art; and finally by interpreting the fine arts as an art of living, herder is uniquely positioned within modern aesthetics. 20 influenced by the prevalence of the myth of pygmalion by ovid (metamorphoses, x, 243–97) in 18th century france and germany, herder added to his book sculpture (1778) the subtitle: “some observations on shape and form from pygmalion’s creative dream” (herder 4: 243). 21 the analogy between the art of statuary and the art of living dates back to epictetus (ca. 55–135 a.d.): “for just as wood is the material of the carpenter, and the bronze that of the sculptor, the art of living has each individual’s own life as its material.” epictetus, discourses, fragments, handbook, p. 36. 22 lessing, laocoon, pp. 160–61 (slightly modified). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 34 tanehisa otabe references adler, hans (1988) “fundus animae – der grund der seele: zur gnoseologie des dunklen in der aufklärung.“ dvjs, 62, no. 2, pp. 197–220. — (1994) “herders ästhetik als rationalitätstyp.” in johann gottfried herder: geschichte und kultur, edited by martin bollacher, würzburg: königshausen & neumann, pp. 131–139. batteux, charles (1747) the fine arts reduced to a single principle. translated by james o. young. oxford: oxford university press, 2015. bonds, mark evan (1997) “idealism and the aesthetics of instrumental music at the turn of the nineteenth century.” in journal of the american musicological society 50, no. 2/3 pp. 387–420. dahlhaus, carl (1988) klassische und romantische musikästhetik. laaber: laaber-verlag. epictetus (2014) discourses, fragments, handbook. translated by robin hard. oxford: oxford university press. fugate, joe k (1966) the psychological basis of herder’s aesthetics. the hague/paris: mouton & co. goldschmidt, hugo (1915) musikästhetik im 18. jahrhundert und ihre beziehungen zu seinem kunstschaffen. zürich: rascher & co.. guyer, paul (2007) “free play and true well-being: herder’s critique of kant’s aesthetics.” in jaac 65, no. 4, pp. 353–368. hamann, johann georg (1759) socratic memorabilia. in dickson, gwen griffith. johann georg hamann’s relational metacriticism. berlin, new york: walter de gruyter, 1995, pp. 375–400. herder, johann gottfried (1985–2000) werke, 10 vols. frankfurt am main: deutscher klassiker verlag. jacoby, günter (1907) herders und kants ästhetik. leipzig: verlag der dürr’schen buchhandlung. kant, immanuel (1902–) schriften. ausgabe der königlichen preußischen akademie der wissenschaften. berlin: w. de gruyter. — (1992–) cambridge edition of the works of immanuel kant. series editors paul guyer and allen w. wood. new york: cambridge university press. lessing, gotthold ephraim (1874) laocoon. translated by robert phillimore. london: macmillan and co. luther, d. martin (1883–2009) werke. weimarer ausgabe. morgan, michael j. (1977) molyneux’s question: vision, touch and the philosophy of perception. cambridge: cambridge university press. nisbet, hugh barr (1970) herder and the philosophy and history of science. cambridge: modern humanities research association. osterman, friedrich (1968) die idee des schöpferischen in herders kalligone. bern/münchen: francke verlag. otabe, tanehisa (2012) “der grund der seele: über entstehung und verlauf eines ästhetischen diskurses im 18. jahrhundert.” in proceedings des xxii. deutschen kongresses für philosophie “welt der gründe,” hamburg: felix meiner, pp. 763–774. somaesthetics and beauty35 fine art as the “art of living” schelling, friedrich wilhelm joseph (1800) system of transcendental idealism. translated by peter heath. charlottesville: university press of virginia, 1978. schiller, friedrich (1795) on the aesthetic education of man. translated by riginald snell. new york: unger, 1965. schmid, wilhelm (1998) philosophie der lebenskunst: eine grundlegung. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. shusterman, richard (2012) thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. taylor, thomas (1969) thomas taylor. the platonist: selected writings, princeton: princeton university press. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 36 page 36–52esther oluffa pedersen the beauty of mathematical order a study of the role of mathematics in greek philosophy and the modern art works of piet hein and inger christensen esther oluffa pedersen abstract: since antiquity, mathematics has been identified as a science that allows humans to comprehend the inner workings of harmony. in greek philosophy, mathematical form is celebrated as an eminent source of beauty. the greek understanding of cosmology is the principal reason for the strong connection between mathematics and beauty in greek philosophy. a harmonious and definite cosmos is described by the geometrical figure of the circle. the mathematical images of the cosmos are an important starting point for seeing beauty in forms that can be described mathematically. the question, however, concerns whether the connection between beauty and mathematics survives in modern conceptions of beauty. of course, even in ancient greece, the concept of beauty was not exhausted by objects that could be grasped mathematically. in the modern context, it would be even more peculiar to argue for a necessary connection between beauty and mathematics. my focus is much humbler: i intend to illuminate how mathematics continues to play a role in certain conceptions of beauty. i also argue that the way in which mathematics is connected to beauty illuminates a specific mode of embodying intellectual insights. the two examples i consider are taken from design and poetry: the invention of the super-ellipse by piet hein, the danish designer, poet, mathematician, and artist; and the danish poet inger christensen’s collection of poems, alphabet. keywords: mathematical beauty, plato’s timaeus, eudoxus, piet hein, inger christensen, embodiment of mathematical beauty, mimesis and modern art. my aim is two-fold. on one hand, i argue that mathematics is a special and, in many respects, an extraordinary theory of art, which is rooted in the greek philosophical tradition of viewing mathematical forms as carriers of beauty. on the other hand, i explore how this inherited greek philosophical tradition has undergone far-reaching changes in our modern world.1 the greeks 1 in aesthetic measure (1933), g. e. birkhoff attempted to create a general mathematical formula to describe aesthetic beauty. in contrast, i do not mean to argue that all beauty can be described mathematically but that mathematics historically has played a great role in shaping notions of beauty and that some modern artists and designers continue to take inspiration from mathematics. their interest in mathematics reveals a relationship in the philosophical tradition stemming from plato and aristotle. the modern aesthetic inspiration by mathematics rests somaesthetics and beauty37 the beauty of mathematical order would have experienced the world as a finite, eternal, and ordered cosmos, whereas we have come to know ourselves as placed in an infinite universe in which our solar system is just one of many such systems in the cosmos. the developments and achievements of modern science have overthrown the culturally inherited belief in an ordered cosmos. thus, modern humans are confident that we are able to create new technologies and designs to meet the challenges of human life. at the same time, we are aware that the ability to recreate nature by way of science and technology also poses a self-inflicted threat because we destroy natural resources and create technological means of mass destruction. the ambiguity of our place and role in the universe is clearly reflected in the poetry of inger christensen. moreover, it is apparent that piet hein’s design is a new way of imitating nature. modern humans are no longer at rest in a harmonic cosmos that is fitted for human life. instead, we must ourselves to create harmony while we also realize our destructive influence on life. the article has two parts. in part one, i provide a rudimentary summary of mathematics’ role in greek philosophy in order to delineate the deep relationship between mathematical form, beauty, and art, which we have inherited by way of history. in the discussion of greek philosophy, i will focus on how geometry, as beautiful form, mediates intellectual insight and sensible perception. i argue that we can find a link from the greek conception of beauty to modern art and design in the aesthetic theory of kant. in part two, i apply the theoretical ideas described in part one to two short interpretations of works by piet hein and inger christensen. i start by discussing how, as a designer, hein brought mathematical insights into play in his work. from the example of hein’s very elegant and simple creation of a modern form of mathematical beauty, i move to discuss the poetry of inger christensen. in the collection of poems called alphabet, inger christensen uses mathematics as an artistic means to convey poetic meaning. the beauty of harmonious mathematical forms becomes its opposite in the poems. inger christensen was inspired by the fibonacci sequence of numbers in the construction of her poems. i will explain the alphabet’s eerie and alarming connection to the fibonacci sequence. in the conclusion, i return to the interconnections between beauty, mathematics, and art to consider how hein and christensen employ mathematics in the search for beauty and briefly outline some differences between the role of mathematics for the creation of beauty in antique greece and our modern world. a very evident difference is the significance accorded to the human body. part one: mathematical beauty in the greek tradition plato’s timaeus is a prime source to consult to apprehend the immense importance of mathematics in greek philosophy and its legacy in western thought. the dialogue is atypical, as plato gives the lead to the pythagorean philosopher timaeus from locri, which is present-day calabria, italy. traditionally, we know plato as a composer of philosophical dialogues in which socrates debates with and questions the people of athens, including philosophers and sophists. timaeus has only a very short prologue that consists of a dialogue among socrates, timaeus, hermocrates, and critias (17a–27d), during which they decide to listen to timaeus’ speculative account of how the cosmos, human beings, animals, and plants were created. i will not follow timaeus’ deliberations step by step but instead focus on the most significant assertions indicating the strong tie between mathematics and beauty in greek thought. mathematical forms, such as the conic sections, were described by euclid around 300 bc. the on a very different understanding of humankind and our place in the universe. thus, employing mathematics in modern design and art is also an interplay with interesting layers of cultural and philosophical meaning. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 38 esther oluffa pedersen intellectual conception of conic figures, such as the circle, ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, gave rise to geometrical descriptions and rules of transformation and construction. however, euclid’s neat axiomatic comprehension of geometrical forms was preceded by the long development of mathematical thinking. a major difficulty was understanding the relation between geometry and arithmetic. greek arithmetic was based upon rational numbers, and its explanatory power was challenged by the discovery of irrational numbers, such as √2, which do not have a solution in rational numbers. these difficulties were solvable in the advanced understanding of geometry by eudoxus, who was a close colleague of plato, around 330 bc. the great invention of eudoxus was to reinterpret irrational numbers such as √2, φ, and π as non-quantified mathematical relations of magnitude to explain and describe continuous geometrical entities, such as lines, angles, areas, and volumes as well as geometrical proportions, such as the golden ratio, φ. for example, in school, we learn that the area of a circle is calculated by multiplying the square of the radius by π: area = r2 * π. an illustrative approximation of the proof can be shown by cutting the circle up into smaller parts, of all which have the same length as the ratio (see figure 1). this geometrical invention is thought to be the basis of plato’s mature treatment of mathematics (see fossa & ericson 2005 for a historical and mathematical argumentation for the relationship between eudoxus and plato), which laid the foundation of euclid’s axiomatic proofs in geometry. thus, geometry became the most important mathematical discipline, and the proofs of geometrical figures, such as the circle, the ellipse, the triangle, and the square, became the epitome of human intellectual achievement. the divine craftsman for plato, geometry was a fitting model of intellectual knowledge because the drawn geometrical figures were images (eikon) of the intelligible model figure (paradeigma). by means of a sensible hand-drawn image, the intellect is able to understand the model’s figures. we may draw an approximation to a perfect circle to comprehend that the round line of the circle is exactly the same at any point, and the radius stays constant. the intellectual grasp of the intelligible geometrical figures entails drawing those that function as images of the properties and relational proportions of the corresponding geometrical forms. there is an intriguing relationship between the intelligible geometrical forms and the physically and sensuously created images of circles, triangles, and squares we use to comprehend geometry. there is also a stimulating relationship between the embodied drawings of geometrical figures and the intelligible grasping of their mathematical significance, which is the only possible means of drawing the sensible images. for plato, the interrelation between sensible images and the intellectual grasping of their mathematical nature functioned as an image of the intricate interconnections between the sensible and the intelligible. using an analogy, plato argued that our beliefs (doxa) concerning the sensuous world relate to the eternal knowledge (episteme) of being in the same way that the drawn geometrical figure relates to the geometrical form. moreover, these two kinds of knowing were proportionally related. the ability to draw the physical image (eikon) of a geometrical figure is furthermore a craft (technê) that we acquire in practice and education. hence, there is a strong tie between knowledge and craft. in timaeus, the analogy is taken even further, as plato argues that the knowledge of the cosmos that timaeus presents is only an image “that is no less likely (eikôs) than any anyone else’s” (29c). hence, it is a likely account of an image of the model. humans strive to comprehend the created cosmos, but as mortal and finite beings endowed with a spark of intellect (nous), we are only able to give a likely account of how the intellect of the demiurge created the cosmos. somaesthetics and beauty39 the beauty of mathematical order the cosmos was created; thus, its coming into being was a product of the craft (technê) of the demiurge. any human intellectual comprehension of this process will always fall short. consequently, the best account of the cosmos is the one that is not less likely than anyone else’s. plato thereby builds fallibility into his cosmology, not as something that makes his account less reasonable but that demarcates the relationship between the fallible human intellect and craft and the eternal, beautiful, and good cosmos created by the demiurge or divine craftsman. however, just as the divine craftsman created the cosmos, humans can create images that assist in our knowledge of the cosmos. hence, knowledge is intimately connected to an embodied and sensual relationship to the world. the creative practice of technê by the demiurge as well as the human consists of producing something that the material with which both are working does not contain from the outset. in plato’s understanding of this process, mathematical proportions enable humans to envision this creative act (see gleen 2011), which is what timeaus employs as he gives his likely account of how the cosmos was created. by following the lead of geometry, timaeus gives an account of the creation of cosmos by the demiurge. the first premise is that the cosmos is unitary, created, and beautiful; moreover, the demiurge is good and has crafted the most perfect cosmos. the cosmos was crafted by the technê of the demiurge to represent the eternal model. timaeus conveys his understanding of the beauty of the cosmos and the goodness of the demiurge by giving a likely account of its mathematical structure. thus, the beauty of mathematical proportions and simple geometrical figures is represented in the images to which timaeus, as a human being, clings in order to give a likely account. therefore, the route to insight commences in the sensible embodied drawing of geometrical figures so that intelligible knowledge emerges from this practice. timaeus argues that cosmos was formed as a perfect sphere, which is unitary and self-sufficient. hence, the cosmos is “a happy god” (34b) and contains all beings within it. the inner cosmos contains two concentric circles that continually revolve in the same spot (36c). the outer circle is interpreted as the sphere of the fixed stars. it has the same motion, whereas the inner circle is interpreted as the space designated for the planets, which has a different motion. thus, the retrograde movements of the planets are explainable as instances of difference compared with the motion of the fixed stars. only after the perfect and eternal movements of the heavenly bodies is in place did the demiurge create time and appoint the planets to be the keepers of time (see 37c–39e). the space between the fixed stars and planets is occupied by the four elements: fire, air, water, and earth. these are described as standing in a harmonious relation to each other by means of fine mathematical proportions. furthermore, the elements are imagined in the form of a platonic solid, which according to plato, are “the most beautiful bodies, dissimilar to one another, but capable in part of being produced out of one another by means of dissolution” (53e). the five platonic solids constitute the only perfectly symmetrical three-dimensional forms arranged in the use of only one figure. in timaeus, plato argues that the four elements, as the smallest parts of the cosmos, are describable as unique figures that change internally. because three of the solids are composed of triangles, simpler forms can be made into the most complex forms. fire, which is the most heavenly and unstable element, is given the form of a tetrahedron—a pyramid-like form of four triangles. air is identified with the octahedron, which consists of eight triangles that form a spherical double pyramid. the elementary form of water is an icosahedron that consists of 20 triangles. thus, two fire elements and one element of air become one element of water. earth, the most stable and corporeal element, is given the form of a cube that consists of six squares. the fifth platonic solid is the dodecahedron, which consists of 12 regular pentagons and resembles a sphere. according to plato, “god used it up for the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 40 esther oluffa pedersen the decoration of the universe” (55c). this strange passage is often interpreted as plato’s concept of the dodecahedron as the canvas on which the constellations of the stars are depicted (see gregory 2001: 43). illustration by johannes kepler of the five platonic solids and the 4 elements as well as the cosmic sphere from the book harmonices mundi, 1619 figure 1: illustration by johannes kepler of the five platonic solids and the 4 elements as well as the cosmic sphere from the book harmonices mundi, 1619 plato shows the human ability to grasp and gives a likely account of the creation of the cosmos that is dependent on mathematical insight. as mortal humans, to appreciate the beauty of the cosmos, we need mathematics, which not only gives us insights into the workings of the cosmos but helps us gain its equanimity in our minds. by contemplating the cosmos, which is the demiurge’s creation, we imitate the “revolutions of reason in the heaven and use them for the revolving of the reasoning that is within us, these being akin to those, the perturbable to the imperturbable” so that “through learning and sharing in calculations which are correct by their nature, by imitation of the absolutely unvarying revolutions of the god [cosmos] we might stabilize the variable revolutions within ourselves” (47b–c). the detection of harmonious forms in the cosmos is closely affiliated with mathematical forms and with the individual’s peace of mind. therefore, the pursuit of mathematical knowledge as well as the pursuit of beauty advances serenity. by this means, the ascription of beauty to mathematical forms and the cosmos is by analogy the ascription of beauty to the perpetual forms of nature and our imitation of them in art. the demiurge created the cosmos as “a living creature endowed with soul and reason” (30c) and imbued it with the heavenly bodies, the four elements, and the gods. after these creations, the demiurge requested the gods to populate this most beautiful and harmonious world with living beings. as beings created by the demiurge, the gods can only be torn apart by the demiurge itself. however, their creations are finite and mortal beings (see 41c–b). thus, the frailty and fallibility of humans, animals, and plants are due to the gods rather than the demiurge as a divine craftsman. somaesthetics and beauty41 the beauty of mathematical order human and divine technê and the creative process there is a sense in which the job of the divine craftsman does not differ from that of any other craftsman. the demiurge has to act on a material, and the material must be receptive to the model in order to be made into an image (eikon) of the model (paradeigma). the idea that the world is a product of design has enormous consequences for the relationships among mathematics, design, and art. it implies that human craftmanship can attain perfection in forming matter analogous to the divinely created cosmos. even though it is obvious that humans are less perfect in all their doings, they may strive to become good by imitating the beautiful creation of the demiurge. we come closest to intellectually understanding the perfect forms of the cosmos by way of mathematics, especially geometry. the human understanding of geometry commences with the bodily practice of drawing and constructing geometrical figures and images. intellectual knowledge thus emerges from this embodied practice. if we can combine mathematical comprehension with craftmanship, we can create sensuous forms, such as buildings, as imitations of the divine craftsman. we can by analogy become craftsmen who create harmonious forms that will be deemed beautiful if they are akin to the divine bodies created by the demiurge. in the greek understanding of the human activity of creating objects, human craftsmanship is an imitation of the created cosmos, and thus its beauty is measured by mathematical and natural forms. according to aristotle, craftsmanship, not the craftsman, matters. therefore, he directs attention to the technê of craftsmanship and to the process of creation rather than the individual creator. one reason for aristotle’s shift in focus from the agent to the process is his overall critique of plato’s cosmology. according to aristotle (see physics 251b), the ideas of the beginning of the cosmos as the demiurge’s creation and the later creation of time are nonsensical. in aristotle’s view, the cosmos was eternal, and he envisioned it in its totality as an unmoved mover that was perfectly beautiful and indivisible and that contemplated nothing but perfect contemplation (see metaphysics xii, 1072a). thus, human craftsmen and their creations cannot be understood as analogous to the divine craftsman. aristotle understood the process of creation as one in which the art of building (the technê) was the moving or efficient cause of a house, which resides in the builder (see physics iii. 3, 195b). the person who creates new objects as a craftsman is also a practitioner of a certain craftsmanship or technê. hence, form resides in technai, such as architecture, painting, carpeting, and so on, which is responsible for its own realization; the medium is the person. moreover, to become a medium for the realization of form, the craftsman must practice his craft. thus, aristotle focuses on practice, which is bodily training. plato and aristotle agree that humans create objects of beauty by imitating the inherent structure of the intelligible cosmos. in plato’s view, we imitate the demiurge; in aristotle’s view, we become media for the process of forming the cosmos. thus, in the greek conception of creation—processes of designing and creating art works—individual humans participate in the act of forming by bringing the right technê into play. in human creation, it is vital that it takes place in a sensuous environment and involves forming sensuous images that allow intelligible forms to emerge. the sensible and intelligible are deeply intertwined, and there is no access to the intelligible realm of forms without the embodied creation of the sensuous. as an underlying and defining structure, mathematics enables us to envision how the design product or the art work participates in the much larger world of mathematics and thereby carries connotations to other fields of significance. mathematics is essential in understanding the close connection between beauty and intellectual experience. the divine heavenly bodies are archetypes of beauty, and any human comprehension of the workings of the cosmos is through the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 42 esther oluffa pedersen mathematics. thus, mathematics can be viewed as the science that explains beautiful forms in a language that humans can learn. understanding the mathematical explanation of the conic sections entails both intellectual pleasure and the possibility of being able to create objects that are approximations of these forms. the interdependence between mathematical knowledge and craftsmanship in designing and creating objects emerges. however, according to aristotle, not only the intellectual endeavors of the mathematician or the mathematically trained craftsman foster intellectual pleasure, but also the connection between art and intellectual comprehension concerns all types of knowledge. aristotle noted in his poetics, “to be learning something is the greatest of pleasures not only to the philosopher but also to the rest of mankind” (1448b: 13–15). according to aristotle, if a product of design or an artwork helps us learn something about the world, it will give rise to intellectual pleasure. if a crafted object alludes to a mathematical structure, the viewer has direct access to the intellectual pleasure of grasping this structure. aristotle viewed “imitation, … sense of harmony and rhythm” (1448b: 20) as natural to humans and thereby also something in which we instinctively find delight. from antique greece throughout the middle ages and the renaissance, cosmology implied a harmonious relationship between the cosmos and humans. this conception enabled humans to grasp cosmic harmony and create beauty in human designs using imitation, proportion, or rhythm in a manner that was analogous to the order of cosmos. its metaphysical and epistemic foundations were the geocentric worldview. thus, in the early modern period, with the appearance of the heliocentric world view and its mechanical description of the infinite universe, the role of beauty and creation in art and design shifted, as the analogous relationship between the human creator and the divine craftsman lost its metaphysical foundation. a modern reformulation of beauty: immanuel kant the idea of a certain intellectual pleasure connected to the experience of beauty has a long history, but it was given its modern formulation by immanuel kant in the critique of judgement (1790). in aesthetic judgements, kant argues that we experience intellectual pleasure as the subjective counterpart to the experience of an object that we deem beautiful. for example, the sensuous experience of this rose gives rise to a harmonious play between the power of judgement and the understanding (see §8 of critique of judgement, aa v: 215). the understanding suggests different concepts to capture what makes the rose beautiful, while the power of judgement insists that these concepts are inadequate: there is something more in the beauty of the rose than can be grasped by concepts and understanding. less often recognized in aesthetic discussions of the critique of judgement is that in the introduction kant claims that this feeling of intellectual pleasure also accompanies our discovery of order in nature. thereby, within the framework of his own critical philosophy, kant reformulates a modern version of the relationship between beauty and nature formulated by plato. according to timaeus, “all that is good is beautiful and the beautiful is not void of due measure” (timaeus 887c). from the modern metaphysical and epistemic perspective, there can be no ontological relation between the good, the beautiful, and mathematical proportionality. however, kant offers a perspective on reflective judgement, which enables us to consider the relationship between our epistemic functions and our search for patterns in the sensible phenomena. he speaks of a technique of nature (see critique of judgement, aa v: 216) that guides us in comprehending a subject to apprehend a unified conception of nature. the understanding of sensuous experience as guided by laws, which was the concern of his first critique, kant now argues, explained only how we acquire knowledge of singular experiences. the conceptualization of sensuous somaesthetics and beauty43 the beauty of mathematical order experience that arises when the understanding applies concepts to the empirical sensations of intuition cannot explain why and how we grasp the various different empirical laws of nature as a united and ordered whole. it is, declares kant in the introduction to the third critique, only through the workings of the reflective power of judgement that we impose a unity on nature, as a feeling of pleasure is attached to the concept of purposiveness in nature (see critique of judgement, aa v: 186-188). the reflective power of judgement proposes the unification of the singular laws into a purposeful whole, which exceeds the determining judgements that guide the understanding. this understanding can help us apprehend individual natural laws. however, these empirically heterogenous laws can be united under a principle that is not empirical, which is a result of reflective judgement and hence gives rise to the intellectual feeling of pleasure. kant asserts that unification under a non-empirical principle is incidental; there is nothing in the understanding or in nature that necessitates such ordering. when we judge that nature is an ordered whole, we are solely justified in arguing that we experience nature as if it was ordered. we do not have access to any metaphysical or ontological resources in our attempts to understand nature, which enables us to claim that nature is ordered according to a harmonic structure that we can grasp. nevertheless, we do comprehend nature as an ordered whole. however, we no longer feel any special pleasure in the comprehensibility of nature even though humanity must have felt such a pleasure in the distant past. this leads kant to put forward the astonishing claim that if reflective judgement was not used to search for connections between clusters of empirical knowledge, “even the most ordinary experience would not be possible” (critique of judgement, aa v: 187). because reflective judgement has an important but undetected role in the comprehension of nature, the feeling of pleasure that accompanies the success of proposing principles of order and unity in our knowledge of nature has become so interwoven with knowledge that it is no longer deliberately noted. within the framework of his critical philosophy, kant develops a modern version of the aristotelian idea that humans acquire an intellectual feeling of pleasure from comprehending what is empirically given as a system of connections, which mirrors the greek idea that the closest we can come to grasping the cosmos is through our mathematical descriptions of the movements of the heavenly bodies. however, kant’s understanding of nature is no longer the finite cosmos of the greeks but an infinite universe. the mathematization of nature in the natural sciences, as founded by kepler and galileo in opposition to the cosmology of greek philosophy and medieval christianity, were developed from specific empirical laws to unite them under general principles. the movement from the concepts of the understanding to the reflective principles of the power of judgement held the promise of attaining the conception of a unified natural world, but we do not know how far our endeavor reaches. kant seems to think that if we devise with new principles that unite empirical laws into a whole, they will be accompanied by an intellectual feeling of pleasure that is similar in kind to the feeling of pleasure that accompanies the experience of beauty. hence, we acquire from kant’s critical philosophy the path for a modern interpretation of why the application of mathematical insights to design processes and artworks gives rise to a distinctive experience of beauty. in parallel reflective judgements, nature is observed as if it is ordered according to a technique of nature and view objects as if they are beautiful, which introduces within a modern framework a new interpretation of the interrelationship between nature and beauty. although aesthetic judgements do not single out ontological traits of beauty, and even though the technique of nature is only a perspective of reflective judgement, these judgements give rise to a feeling of pleasure, which encourages us to view nature as an ordered whole and to judge our own the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 44 esther oluffa pedersen creations as analogous. furthermore, just as geometrical insight has to start with the sensuous embodied practice of drawing and constructing geometrical images and figures, the content of the reflective power of judgement is the singular sensuous experience. we cannot develop general claims about what is beautiful or about which experiences should give rise to a feeling of intellectual pleasure. reflective judgement arises only from our bodily interactions with the sensuous environment. based on this modern formulation of a purely functional relationship between intellectual insights, beauty, and the modern mathematical natural sciences, we now focus on two examples of the application of mathematics in design and art. part two: mathematical beauty in modern design and art in modernity, the analogous relationship between a created and intelligible cosmos and the objects created by humans has been reduced to a myth. however, as we have seen in kant’s foundation of modern aesthetics, the concept of beauty is connected to reflective judgements of our environment as if it is conducive to human comprehension. the functional relationship between our judgements of beauty, our comprehension of nature as ordered, and our feeling of intellectual pleasure enlightens our understanding of modern craftsmanship and its relationship to mathematics. in the following, i start by considering piet hein’s practice of design by revealing that human creation can recreate order in environments that are shaped by humans. the poetry of inger christensen, in contrast, indicates that the human reordering of nature by means of scientific and technical developments confronts humans with our civilizational limits. creation of a new form: piet hein and the super-ellipse when the city center of stockholm was being modernized in the late 1950s, the city planners encountered a problem that at first seemed unsolvable. they intended to remodel sergels torg, one of the main squares of the city, so that it would both accommodate the increased car traffic and preserve it as a beautiful space and meeting place for pedestrians in the city. sergels torg is rectangular, and the city planners envisioned a makeover that would allow for a plaza with fountains within a traffic circle. the form of the plaza would repeat the shape of the peripheral road with shops and restaurants on the outskirts. the problem was how to design the road and the interior plaza. a simple circle would waste too much space, the curves in an ellipse would be too narrow for the traffic to move smoothly, and a rectangle would not add novelty to the newly designed square. the city planners tried a modified ellipse with wider curves. however, although this shape functioned as road, it looked awkward when it was repeated in the interior plaza. the chief architect of the renovation project knew piet hein from their student days and decided to phone him to ask for help. as the story goes, hein immediately had a suggestion for the solution: “what we want,” he told the architect, “is a curve that mediates between the circle and the square, between the ellipse and the rectangle. i think a curve with the same equation as an ellipse but with an exponent of two and a half would do it” (hicks 1966: 56). with the aid of the calculation powers of computers in those days, hein produced a drawing of the curve with the exponent of two and a half, which fit the specific rectangle of the square. this curve could be increased and decreased without losing its original shape, and thus the inner plaza could be fitted harmoniously into the traffic circle. somaesthetics and beauty45 the beauty of mathematical order sergels torg with super-elliptical round-about and interior plazza. stockholm early 1960'ies. figure 2: sergels torg with super-elliptical round-about and interior plazza. stockholm early 1960'ies. by thinking about the problem as a geometrical challenge, hein invented a new shape, the super-ellipse, which could be increased and decreased in size to fit the different areas of the rectangular square. hein pointed out that its superiority lay in its “unity, like a piece of music” (hicks 1966: 56). the city planners’ freely constructed modified ellipse was doomed as a solution to the challenge because it “isn’t fixed, isn’t definite like a circle or square. you don’t know what it is. it isn’t esthetically satisfying” (hicks 1966: 66). hein stressed that a form drawn freehand would not be aesthetically appealing because it would lack definiteness. this argument shows that he adhered to the greek ideal that the symmetry and definiteness of mathematical forms are more beautiful than the contingency of a form created using only the human eye. the proportions and the precise calculation of the super-ellipse are appealing not only to the human eye but also to the human intellect. designed in the curves of the super-ellipse, the road enabled both people and cars to move more freely than they would have on a road in the shape of an ellipse or a rectangle. thus, hein’s design was not merely an intellectual achievement but a practical invention highlighting that the practical use of the design object is central to good design processes. the obvious but necessary restriction in all design is that it must fulfill its practical purpose. at sergels torg, hein’s super-ellipse enables humans to drive cars and enjoy café life in the same square. good design always starts by considering the embodied human being and the humanly shaped environment. the mathematical formula of the super-ellipse has been known at least since the french mathematician gabriel lamé described it in 1818 (see solomon 1999: 48 for a concise description of the mathematical properties of laméian ellipsoidal harmonics). the super-ellipse is a special instance of the theory of ellipsoidal harmonics, which lamé developed to describe the equation by which the curve of an ellipse is transformed.2 the curve of an ordinary ellipse becomes increasingly similar to the square if the value of n becomes greater than 2. it will become increasingly pointed and star-like when the values of n are less than 2. hein knew about these mathematical descriptions of transformations of the ellipse, and, as a designer, he drew on his mathematical knowledge to create an aesthetically satisfying solution to the challenge posed by sergels torg. the first to calculate the form and to bring it into being as a physical object, hein 2 an ordinary ellipse is described by the equation (x/a)2 + (y/b)2 = 1. if a = b the ellipse becomes an ordinary circle. ellipsoidal harmony, as an equation for describing all variations of an ellipsoidal form, is defined as: |x/a|n + |y/b|n = 1. the super-ellipse has the exponent of n = 2.5. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 46 esther oluffa pedersen called his favorite exemplar of ellipsoidal harmonics the super-ellipse. its curve is close to the rounding of an ordinary ellipse, but it is also squared when the value of n is 2.5. different curves of an ellipse with one centrum. n = 2 is the ordinary circle. for any value of n smaller than 2 the figure becomes more and more pointed. n = 2,5 displays the rounding of hein's super-ellipse. values of n larger than 2 makes the figure more and more square. figure 3: different curves of an ellipse with one centrum. n = 2 is the ordinary circle. for any value of n smaller than 2 the figure becomes more and more pointed. n = 2,5 displays the rounding of hein's super-ellipse. values of n larger than 2 makes the figure moreand more square. because the super-ellipse mediates between the square and the circle, it can be used to solve the human problem of directing traffic smoothly and harmoniously in a rectangular square. hein’s drawing of a new path for traffic at sergels torg is, in my opinion, an example of how technê works through the individual. the combination of hein’s skills as a designer and mathematician enabled him to envision a new solution. hein has described the creative process of design as mystical, which resembles aristotle’s insistence that technê works through the individual. he emphasizes that “you must know the field … but thinking you know too much can be a hindrance to creativity. i [hein] work according to a principle of being unwise. it helps to be unwise. but i had to develop sheer stupidity into unwisdom” (hicks 1966: 66). the insistence on unwisdom sounds strikingly familiar to socrates’ declaration that he knew nothing. for hein as for socrates, the important thing is to be open to new solutions and new knowledge rather than dogmatically adhere to human views. in the process of design, the move from “sheer stupidity” to “unwisdom” develops through continuous engagement with practice. it is by forming objects, drawing images of mathematical figures, and improving these practical skills that the designer can be open to yet unknown solutions. according to hein and the greek tradition of technê, the creative process and the invention of beauty are nurtured when we let the knowledge of the field play in an open mind. as i somaesthetics and beauty47 the beauty of mathematical order have already pointed out, the mathematics of the super-ellipse was well-known. however, the application of this mathematical form as the most harmonious and elegant way to manage the traffic at the square was possible because hein was able to think as both a designer and a mathematician. the aristotelean idea that technê speaks through the designer, who in this case was piet hein, sheds light on how he thought of the super-ellipse. because hein understood ellipsoidal harmonics, he could invent the new physical form of the super-ellipse. because the unity of a mathematical form makes it possible to enhance or decrease its size, the harmony of the road at sergels torg could be reiterated in harmonious forms within the roundabout, thus generating harmony and beauty in the plan of the square. the process of designing sergels torg was based on the intellectual comprehension of form as a solution to a concrete and contingently shaped human urban space. according to hein, the solution that he envisioned for sergels torg addressed a problem that was specific to modernity, which mediated between “two tendencies” of civilization: “one toward straight lines and rectangular patterns and one toward circular lines” (life, 66). these tendencies are humanly produced, and “there are reasons, mechanical and psychological, for both tendencies. things made with straight lines fit well together and save space. and we can move easily—physically or mentally—around things made with round lines. but we are in a straitjacket, having to accept one or the other, when often some intermediate form would be better” (life, 66). thus, as a form mediating between the circle and the square, the super-ellipse is a human solution to the “lines [drawn by man] which he himself then stumbles over” (life, 66). after he designed sergels torg in the form of the super-ellipse, hein created other objects using the same form. the best known of his designs is the super-ellipse table and the superegg, which is a three-dimensional, solid super-ellipse. one of the most beautiful features of the super-ellipse table is that it has no end. the rounding of the corners is not done simply by cutting the sharp edges. hein’s creation of tables in a super-ellipse form is an example of how a new form is created in the design process, one that is not found in nature, but has nature-like features because it is mathematically well-described. it is an improvement of the ellipse. the super-egg form is an improved shape of a bird’s egg. the super-egg can be stood erect, and its shape is perfectly symmetrical and harmonious. hence, hein has imitated nature by employing mathematical figures to create forms that exceed natural forms. in using the example of piet hein’s use of the super-ellipse, i have demonstrated that the design process can be helped by applying geometrical forms that surpass the forms of nature. we do not encounter super-eggs in nature; the orbits of the planets are not super-elliptical. instead, design objects are mediations between the two archetypical directions in human orientation: straight lines and circular lines. hein’s invention of the super-ellipse is a modern response to the needs that arise in the course of fitting human-designed objects to a more or less unified whole. we need cars and desire to drive smoothly in the city, and we have square rooms in most houses but wish to fit many people at a table. the super-ellipse is an efficient shape for our roundabouts and tables. furthermore, as a definite mathematical form, the super-ellipse satisfies our intellect, thereby providing intellectual beauty in addition to its immediately pleasing form. the artificial environments in human culture require the excellent designer to possess a technê that will be able to imitate the human understanding of geometrical forms in nature in order to create design objects with new geometrical properties. as a bridge to the next example, inger christensen, it is fitting to point out that the dimensions of all piet hein’s super-ellipse tables are approximations of the irrational number φ= 1.618034…, which is also known as the golden ratio. thus, the ideal mathematical proportion is the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 48 esther oluffa pedersen fundamental in hein’s designs. throughout our history, φ has given rise to various more or less mystical interpretations. some have argued that φ not only proves the mathematical structure of the universe but also that a universe with such unity and order under the surface must have been designed by god—the great demiurge. this is, however, not what should interest us here. the play between the finite and the infinite: inger christensen in turning to inger christensen, i direct the focus away from design and toward art, specifically poetry. i have already mentioned aristotle’s poetics. in the treatise, aristotle puts forward the rather questionable theses that all art is imitation or mimesis. since then, critics have asked how can a poem be viewed as an imitation? does the love poem imitate the feelings of the lover? if so, in what sense? much of the criticism against imitation as the central and defining feature of art is reasonable. however, inger christensen’s collection of poems, alphabet (1981), is an example of how the artistic play with the theory of imitation could be used to create intelligent and evocative art. of course, the collection could be interpreted in many ways. however, in accordance with my theme, which is the mathematical structures in art and nature, i interpret the poems as a playful interaction with the ideal of mimesis. christensen’s collection of poems is based on a stringent system, which is the imitation of the fibonacci sequence correlated with the order of letters in the alphabet. the fibonacci sequence is a sequence of numbers in which each successive number in the sequence is obtained by adding the two previous numbers: 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 1 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, and so on. the ensuing sequence of numbers has the characteristic that the ratio between any two succeeding numbers is an approximation of φ, which is defined as 1+ √5/2 = 1.618034. the fibonacci sequence is an arithmetical expression of the golden ratio. for example, 2+3/3 = 1,666. the larger the fibonacci numbers are, the closer the approximation to φ; so, for example, the ratio between the 11th and 12th fibonacci numbers is 144 + 233/233 = 1.618026. the illustration displays how the proportions of the golden rectangle consists of fibonacci numbers. a and b being two succeding fibonaccis numbers. figure 4: the illustration displays how the proportions of the golden rectangle consists of fibonacci numbers. a and b being two succeding fibonaccis numbers. somaesthetics and beauty49 the beauty of mathematical order the golden ratio or golden section expresses the harmonious division of space. it was used by plato in his famous divided line analogy in the fifth book of the republic (509d-511e – see fossa & erickson 2005) as an analogy of the different kinds of knowledge and the route the individual has to undergo to develop the ability to recognize in mere meaning (doxa) the eternal and divine knowledge (episteme and nous). in plato’s use of the golden ratio, we see the ideal of emergent qualities arising from mathematical proportion as well as the acute interrelationship between sensible and intelligible understandings of this proportion. in the analogy of the divided line, plato suggested that eternal knowledge reveals to the human intellect that a mathematical structure underlies the phenomena of the world. plato thus read apparently non-mathematical contexts as though their inherent deep and hidden truth were written in mathematical language (fossa & ericson 2005: 76). the golden ratio gives us an immediate view of a harmonious relationship within a form, whereas the exponential development of the fibonacci sequence points to vast and relentless growth. hence, the fibonacci sequence does not depict a unified form but an eerie, unified formulation of infinite expansion. in alphabet, inger christensen exploits the intricate relationship between the golden ratio, which fosters the beauty of a closed form by means of mathematical proportions, and the open and explosive development of the fibonacci sequence of numbers, which expands exponentially and quickly develops into numbers that are too large to be comprehended in images. because the fibonacci sequence develops exponentially, the 28th number in the sequence is 832,040. in the fibonacci sequence, it is impossible to write poems with succeeding numbers of lines following the rapidly increasing numbers and for the reader to comprehend a collection of 28 poems in which each succeeding poem has the length of the next number in the fibonacci sequence. the large numbers are too large for us to view in sensible images, and a poem of 832,040 lines is immensely difficult to read as a unified whole. in alphabet, christensen does not follow exactly the fibonacci sequence but plays with the effect of conjoining the closed and contingent system of the order of letters in the alphabet with the open system of the exponentially developing fibonacci sequence, the form of which is endowed with mathematic necessity. the danish alphabet has 28 letters. each poem in alphabet is connected to a letter by the first sentence in each poem. the first sentence announces the existence of a natural object by correlating the starting letter with its place in the alphabet. for example, the third poem starts with the line, “the cicadas exist”; c is the third letter in the alphabet. the collection of poems is thus structured by two formally structuring principles: the order of letters in the alphabet and the exponential increase of the numbers in the fibonacci sequence. the beginning letter of each poem follows the alphabet, and the length of the number of lines in each poem develops according to the fibonacci sequence. depending on which letter in the alphabet has been reached, the poem has as many lines as the correlated fibonacci number has. the first poem is simply a reiteration of its first and only line: “apricot trees exist, apricot trees exit.” it is followed by the next poem, which has two lines, and thereby the fibonacci sequence is begun: bracken exists; and blackberries, blackberries; bromine exists; and hydrogen, hydrogen the imitation of the fibonacci sequence as an arithmetical expression of the golden ratio is inhibited because it develops so quickly into large numbers that the finite numbers of letters in the alphabet cannot be represented. thus, there is a mismatch between the finite and the infinite, the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 50 esther oluffa pedersen which is similar to the mismatch between the sum of letters represented by a fibonaccian number and the infinity of meanings created by language. thus, imitation and ability to supersede nature, which hein’s designs exemplify, fall short in christensen’s poems. the failure to represent all letters in the alphabet in this collection of poems conveys artistic meaning. if christensen had followed the fibonacci sequence stringently, the last poem would relate to the danish letter å and consist of 832,040 lines. christensen stops at the letter n, which ought to be represented in a poem of 610 lines, instead stopping at line 377. the letter n is used in modern mathematical annotation as a space holder for any number. thus, because the poem stops in the middle of n, it suggests that we may comprehend that the entire inventory of letters and things exist as space holders for other things, which might just as well exist but have not been mentioned in christensen’s alphabet. the poems begin by naming a natural object based on the first letter of the alphabet. one way in which christensen plays with the idea of mimesis is by imitating the human endeavor to name and list all things in the world. christensen has called this list a “sloppy dictionary” (christensen in holm 2016: 138). by naming things, we move from the sensuous practical engagement with things to an intellectual and theoretical comprehension of them, which is potentially detached from any bodily interaction with the world. the failure to develop 28 poems following the fibonacci sequence indirectly hints that the endeavor to name and list all things is in vain. furthermore, christensen not only lists ordinary and friendly natural objects that exist but also merges this image of the natural world with negative phenomena such as death, pollution, and killers. the relation between words indicates the human use of nature to create weapons, such as the atom bomb. beneath the surface lurks catastrophe that is our own creation. the alarming possibility that humanity creates disasters by the scientific manipulation of nature gives new meaning to the sudden ending of the poem. perhaps the catastrophe has already taken place. the final lines of poem 14, which commences with the statement, “nights exist,” ends with a vision of children seeking shelter in a cave from what might be an exploding atom bomb: but they are not children nobody carries them anymore in the uncanny and frightening ending of christensen’s collection of poems, children lose their childhood because they are deserted or dead. the collection simply breaks off in a manner that is analogous to death cruelly ending a life. the significance of the application of the fibonacci sequence as the structure of alphabet can be seen as an imitation of the growth as well as the sudden termination of life. furthermore, it can be read as an imitation of the fission caused by an atom bomb. because the letters in the alphabet are a closed and contingent unity, humans can produce names and theories about anything in the world. similarly, we have produced the means of our own nihilation through modern science and technology. thus, in christensen’s poems, the usual positive connotations related to the symmetry of the golden ratio become an alarming and uncomfortable mirror of the human demiurge. that is, our quest not only to comprehend but also to transform the natural order seems on one hand to lead to failure because of the infinity of possibilities that christensen represents in the fibonacci sequence as a structure representing the finite alphabet. on the other hand, we are also threatened by failure because we have produced artificial objects that can destroy us as well as the planet. somaesthetics and beauty51 the beauty of mathematical order the beauty of mathematical forms in modern art: an outline of a conclusion in designing objects, piet hein employed mathematics to augment the beauty of our world, and he invented a form to address the challenges posed by modern urban landscapes. in alphabet, inger christensen applied the classical trope of mathematical beauty—the golden ratio—and the fibonacci sequence to represent the potentially uncanny and alarming effects of human endeavors to design and redesign our natural world. hein’s use of mathematics is paradigmatic of the concept of beauty as a finite form, and his manner of creating designs for the modern world adheres to the ideal of reordering the potential chaotic modernity in a neatly finite human-created cosmos. christensen’s play with mathematics has a critical connotation, the subtext of which questions the sanity and serenity of our intellectual quest for understanding and controlling nature. the ability to theoretically model the natural world entails the possibility of transforming the natural order, thus enabling humanity to become a powerful and potentially destructive demiurge. in alphabet, christensen displays this new powerful human position, which threatens to obliterate our physical existence. the loss of belief in a finite and eternal cosmos has led to difficult questions about how humans operate in potential infinity. the beauty of the finite cosmos of the greeks has vanished, but the language of mathematical beauty continues to suggest itself as a reference that can be used to construct novel forms of harmony from the chaotic modern world or as a mimetic approach to articulating the predicaments of our intellectual achievements. hein’s designs exemplify that the practical engagement with mathematics and specific problems of design can reshape the natural world into a pleasing artificial environment that fits both the human body and technological invention. on one hand, hein augments nature and the space of human movement. christensen, on the other hand, reveals that human-augmented nature and the human desire to control it by means of science and technology pose potential threats to humankind. she thereby exposes the fragility of the human body and the natural environment as well as the ambiguity of the persistent human desire to control nature. references aristotle (1984) “metaphysics”, the complete works of aristotle, vol. i, transl. w.d ross, princeton n j: princeton university press aristotle (1984) “physics”, the complete works of aristotle, vol. ii, transl. w.d ross & hardie & gaye, princeton n j: princeton university press aristotle (1984) “poetics”, the complete works of aristotle, vol. i, transl. w.d ross & bywater, princeton n j: princeton university press birkhoff, george david (1933) aesthetic measure, cambridge m. a.: harvard university press christensen, inger (2001) alphabet, transl. nied, new york: new directions fossa, john & ericson, glenn (2005) “the divided line and the golden mean.” revista brasileira de historia da mathematica, 5(9), 59–77) gleen, s. (2011) “proportions and mathematics in plato’s timaeus”, hermathena, 190, (11–27) gregory andrew (2001) plato’s philosophy of science. london uk: bloomsbury hicks, jim (1966) “a poet with a slide rule. close-up: piet hein bestride art and science.” life magazine, 14.10.1966, (55–66) the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 52 esther oluffa pedersen holm, isaak winkel (2016): “et hvidkalket, gudsforladt lys: inger christensen's alfabet og katastrofen”, european journal of scandinavian studies, vol. 46:1 (137-156) kant, immanuel (1790) critique of judgement / kritik der urteilskraft, akademie ausgabe v plato (2003) the republic, transl. lee, pereia, jowett, london uk: penguin classics plato (1925) timaeus, transl. w.r.m. lamb, cambridge, ma: harvard university press david salomon (1999) computer graphics and geometric modelling, berlin: springer page 85-92 bodies of belief / bodies of care85 lygia clark’s practices of care and teaching lygia clark’s practices of care and teaching: somaesthetic contributions for art education luciana mourão arslan abstract: this article examines the work of the brazilian artist lygia clark through a somaesthetic perspective while highlighting the didactic and therapeutic aspects of her oeuvre. after thinking through the connections between lygia clark’s art practices and somaesthetics, this article suggests some methods that could contribute to improving the contemporary field of art education. keywords: lygia clark, art education, somaesthetic, brazilian art. somaesthetics encompasses many studies suggesting new goals and methods in art education in the contemporary world: the improvement of sensory perception, the awareness and capacity to identify subtle relations between people and the world, and the identification of aesthetic experiences through the soma (living body). here, i present an exemplary practice created by lygia clark, who predated and was never in contact with the new field of somaesthetics, but whose work displays how rich art education can be, if taken within a somaesthetic perspective. this paper is organized in two parts. first, it will present a somaesthetic perspective on the practices of care and art education created by lygia clark, a brazilian artist who developed a kind of therapy not rooted in psychology, but actually based on visual arts. the second part presents some contributions to art education based on my own ideas developed by means of a somaesthetic perspective. i somaesthetic practices of care in lygia clark’s art the brazilian artist lygia clark was born in 1920. she developed her career in brazil, but she also lived in france having moved to paris to study in 1950. she later returned there to escape from the brazilian political scene in the 1970s—when the government in brazil was taken over by a military coup—and an intense period of censorship forced many artists to live abroad. in many different activities within art and therapy, she built a controversial career as an artist, professor, and therapist. for example, without any formal education in psychology, she took care of people who suffered from borderline personality disorders. during different periods in her life, clark created a set of artworks in order to activate soma-consciousness and self-improvement in patients and art participants. clark made use of her knowledge about shapes, color, space, matter and surfaces to create specific situations that enhance what richard shusterman (2008) defines as somaesthetic perception and somaesthetic reflection. nowadays, her works are part of collections in many of the principal art museums around the world. she participated in the venice biennale twice (1958 and 1968), received the guggenheim luciana mourão arslan lygia clark’s practices of care and teaching the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 86 luciana mourão arslan international award in 1960 and her works have been shown in special expositions around the world, such as the recent exhibition named the abandonment of art in the new york museum of modern art moma.1 in addition to those exhibitions, many studies have been made about her work. two examples of clark’s practices will be presented here. for a better understanding of these works, one should not be confined to an optical experience or a disengaged interpretation of them. besides the fact that clark created fascinating objects with very complex designs, these designs do not get their full sense on their own but instead depend on the participant’s embodiments, because they intend to access a bodily memory through pre-verbal and nonverbal experience. “stone and air” and “cannibalistic slobber”: propositions created by lygia clark lygia clark’s artistic works or propositions were created to be assembled as replicas by anyone, even if they had no artistic skills, merely by following some simple rules. in the following i show two of those propositions: stone and air and cannibalistic slobber. as they were written in the form of a recipe, the readers are able to repeat the experience, which i strongly suggest they do. created by clark in the 1970s, stone and air is one of her relational objects: a set of objects made of simple materials like shells, plastic bags, gloves, rubber bands and paper: all designed to heighten somatic experience. this can be identified as a sort of aesthetics of precarity, an art trend known for the use of simple skills and ordinary materials; or they can simply be understood as a “domestic technology” (the name given by the visual artist ruben gershman to describe the behavior of clark in collecting materials in supermarkets, streets, and all different places). stone and air is one of those works that lygia clark used to treat patients. this particular work increases self-awareness; it especially helps us to take a deep breath, to try different speeds of breathing, in order to identify the connection between the air and our body movements and to highlight the fact that we exchange the same air, which connects our bodies like invisible glue. follow the stone and air sequence of instructions and some pictures showing how it is being performed by art students: − observe the materials: transparent plastic bag, round stone, rubber band and air. first of all observe and touch the materials. feel the stone, which is natural, with an irregular, hard and unchangeable surface, it is cold, heavy and opaque; feel the plastic bag with almost the opposite features: it is a soft, bright, translucent industrialized material, with a very rectangular and flexible shape. next, observe the rubber band, which is a kind of transitional material, because it brings the opaqueness of the stone and the flexibility of the plastic bag together. and finally, another important material for stone and air, as the name suggests, is the air, which is bonding us, being exchanged, filling all spaces, outside and inside our bodies. take a deep breath just to sense this last substance: the air. − take the plastic bag in both hands and fill the bag with your own breath. inhale deeply to fill your lungs and then exhale into the bag’s cavity to fill it up. do not fill the bag completely as we need some space to move the stone later. clasp the top of the bag and tie the opening with the rubber band. − take one of the corners and press the corner inwards as to create a concavity. take your stone and place it in the pressed corner that we have just created. 1 this major retrospective devoted to the art of lygia clark in north america showed nearly 300 works done during the period between 1948 and 1988. bodies of belief / bodies of care87 lygia clark’s practices of care and teaching − the exciting part is to integrate oneself with the stone and air: move the stone by using your hands to press the bag, creating different rhythms to match your breathing. − try to feel the density of the bag containing your breath and the pressure of the stone floating in the air while you handle the bag. photos: luciana arslan. title: clark’s “stone and air,” with art students and professors, federal university of uberlandia, brazil. stone and air has an explicit goal to attain clearer body consciousness, which is one of the main principles and goals of somaesthetics; the work provides an experience in order to develop self-perception and self-improvement for the participant who performs it. in stone and air the participants have to match their breathing and body movements with the balancing of the stone. the air that goes inside the bag materializes the act of exhaling, suggesting a connection between the inner and outer spaces, which is an important dimension needed to feel the connection between our body and the environment. it’s difficult to define stone and air as an object of art, a sculpture, or even to define who the real artist is, since the air and the action only occur in the participant’s body and the material the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 88 luciana mourão arslan is shaped by the participant. that is why in stone and air the frontiers between artist, artwork, and spectator are completely blurred. the work only takes form in the soma of the participant. although clark created the “recipe,” the participant defines all the rhythms of the action. the form of the bag, which is filled with the participant’s air can be completely variable. the participant is always the central character in the proposition. that explains why the art categories such as “happenings” or “performances” were entirely rejected by clark, to define her propositions. unlike some artworks created by yoko ono or marina abramovic, clark never performed propositions as happenings. propositions are wholly projected to be acted by others “to be carried out by a ‘participant’” (lepecki, 2014, p. 279), to be embodied in the participants’ everyday actions. it provides the connection between an integrated aesthetic experience and everyday life, a good example of some of the principles affirmed by somaesthetics. like stone and air, the second work i present, namely cannibalistic slobber, also uses materials from everyday life: in this case, a spool of cotton thread. the sequence of this sensorial proposition needs at least 5 persons: − one person has to lie down on the floor; preferably wearing only underclothes (because it allows the person to better feel the strings on their skin); in addition to that, the person has to close his or her eyes. − about six people have to sit or kneel around the person lying down. they also have to put a spool of cotton thread into their mouths; slowly they should start to pull the thread from the spool in the direction of the person lying down. − when all the cotton threads have come to the end of the spool, the participants can observe the new web formed by the thread and drops of saliva. − participants can gently remove the mass formed by the thread and saliva. the person lying down can now be informed that the proposition has been concluded. bodies of belief / bodies of care89 lygia clark’s practices of care and teaching the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 90 luciana mourão arslan photos: paulo augusto soares. title: clark’s cannibalistic slobber, with art students and professors, federal university of uberlandia, brazil. by experiencing propositions, the participants can access body memory, discover new sensory aspects, feel the connection between their bodies and other bodies and the environment. such art is a medium designed to develop self-awareness and social intuition simultaneously. clark created gentle actions which not only involve the enrichment of everyone’s perception while being executed, but may subsequently be reflected upon in other situations of everyday life. the proposal cannibalistic slobber (1973) was initially suggested for a group of students in sorbonne, paris, france, where clark gave a course named “gestural communication.” since then, it has been reinterpreted in many places, not only in art exhibitions. people reported having different sensations and feelings. in their experience of the work. some participants relate it to a deeper perception of inner parts of the body, whilst others to the connection between different bodies or even a sensation of intimacy with strangers without any direct physical contact. as a matter of fact, we could go as far as saying that such experiences provide a kind of somatic selfawareness which englobes the consciousness of other surrounding bodies. in my opinion, clark’s recognition in the art world is more linked to other aesthetic approaches than somaesthetics. for instance, her works have very elaborate forms, which allow formalistic appreciation. yet, the relations between emptiness and fullness, balance and unbalance, and the use of contrasting materials and surfaces are, i believe, used by her not to enhance the language of art per se, but to enrich sensory somatic experience. however, rolnik (2016) criticizes the fact that some propositions done by clark, occasionally appear in exhibitions that provide an inadequate context for the visual appreciation of spectators (and not participants). the art world sometimes overlooks the fact that the existence of these “artworks” had as the main goal the improvement of people. clark, herself, insists, that the goal of these works is to make people feel the body. repeating lygia clark’s words: “(...) an art for the blind. actually, it is no longer art, but a simple proposition to sense the body” (butler, 2014: 243). clark’s works show that visual art can expand the perception of our inner bodies, and enlarge our repertoire for using our bodies in our everyday life. that is the reason why somaesthetics and clark’s works seem to provide a perfect encounter or meeting place for advocating the deep relation between art and life. both of these aesthetic approaches have roots in aesthetic bodies of belief / bodies of care91 lygia clark’s practices of care and teaching experiences and in somatic therapies, and both expand into interdisciplinary territories. in a theoretical, as well as in a practical way, they expose how aesthetic experience can provide more intensely meaningful life. ii somaesthetics, lygia clark and art education the role of a professor was somewhat neutralized in clarks’s complex career. the exercise of highlighting the didactic features in clark’s work is not entirely new but needs more attention to be better understood. the film sur les traces de lygia clark: souvenirs et évocations de ses années parisiennes2 presents the memories of five of clark’s students. this short movie suggests clark’s freedom of creating original strategies of teaching based on awareness, practices of self-care, meliorism, improvisation, and joy in the present moment. it also depicts how clark blends traditional divisions between teacher, art components, and students. another brazilian researcher, mirian celeste martins (2011), notes the procedures created by clark to present the idea of an art teacher as a “proponent,” an educator who reinforces the idea of someone who can promote aesthetic experiences by means of special situations. martins (2011), whose discourse is clearly based on dewey’s theory, argues for the importance of developing sensory perception in art education, insisting that it is more important than to “present” art images or ideas to be exclusively perceived on a mental plane. the improvement of the senses helps us to interact more intensively with the world, to live better. the senses allow the art teacher to derive more enjoyment from the class, to identify better ways to be in contact with students, to be more empathetic with them. somaesthetics helps art teachers in their classrooms and beyond, including in their personal lives. it would be a good idea if preparatory courses, as much for teachers as for students, could include somaesthetic contents regarding self-care, self-awareness and sensorial perception. the mainstream of contemporary art denies art any utility to life and society. it has to be autonomous this perspective has a terrible effect in art education. some art curriculums are structured on this idea of an art detached from life, which valorizes art as language (pure language) and discussing art only in the theoretical context of a very traditional western culture. to bring the somaesthetics perspective to art education is to bring back the deweyan perspective that affirms improved experience and sensorial perception as a main goal of art education. by defending the idea that aesthetic experiences and art can contribute to life’s improvement, art education can gains more importance in the education curriculum. everyday life can be framed in aesthetic experiences, and even the art displayed in museums can become embodied in our lives. many art works, and not just those from clark, can be fully understood only through the body and through the vivid somatic experiences they can provide. by valorizing only visual perception and ideas, art education denies the embodiment, the pleasure, and the entertainment we can obtain through art and from aesthetical experiences. somaesthetics goes beyond the classroom3 and the university: the professor who embodies somaesthetics improves her sensitivity to the context, her empathy with others, her powers of focusing, all of which also produce better teaching, learning, and aesthetic experiences. 2 sur les traces de lygia clark: souvenirs et évocations de ses années parisiennes. director: paola anziché, irene dionisio, production fluxlab,torino, itália , 2011. 26’. dvd, color, sound, hdv-super 8 film ( available in https://vimeo.com/122889908). 3 after having studied for 13 months at the center for body mind and culture at florida atlantic university learning about somaesthetics, i realized that many changes took place, not only in my specific field of research in art education, but also in my everyday life. this experience was endowed by a postdoctoral scholarship from capes (coordenação de pessoal de ensino superior) and the support from federal university of uberlândia. https://vimeo.com/122889908 https://vimeo.com/122889908 https://vimeo.com/122889908 https://vimeo.com/122889908 https://vimeo.com/122889908 https://vimeo.com/122889908 the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 92 luciana mourão arslan finally, some guidelines can be designed for art educators who would like to pursue a somaesthetic perspective and follow the example of clark as an art educator: − to challenge the frontiers between art and life; − to accept the idea that aesthetic experiences can occur outside the art world; − to maintain the goal of meliorism, which includes the idea that art education can also improve the art of living; − to treat the body, not as an instrument, but as a soma – a sentient, perceptive, integrated entity capable of understanding and generating ideas; − to study and teach artists who challenge the traditional art world; to sustain a wide perspective on aesthetic experience (involving a multicultural repertoire); − to have the courage to present new attitudes; to be vividly aware and to enjoy the classroom moment (which allows improvisations); − defend the use of everyday materials and everyday experiences; − to be open to an empathetic relation with students. the somaesthetics lens can help art educators to understand and convey to their students the powerful impact of aesthetic experience provided by art. moreover, it can help them improve their lives and those of their students by transforming the classroom into a more enjoyable place. lygia clark embodies a wonderful example of this idea. references anziché, paola, and irene dionisio, directors. 2011. sur les traces de lygia clark. souvenirs et évocations de ses années parisiennes. production fluxlab, torino, itália. 26’. dvd, color, sound, hdv-super 8 film. butler, cornelia h., luis pérez-oramas, and lygia clark, eds. 2014. lygia clark: the abandonment of art, 19481988. new york, ny: museum of modern art. lepecki, andré. 2014. “the making of a body: lygia clark’s anthropophagic slobber,” in lygia clark: the abandonment of art, 1948-1988. edited by cornelia h. butler, luis pérez-oramas, and lygia clark. new york, ny: museum of modern art. martins, mirian celeste. 2011. “arte, ‘só na aula de arte?’,” revista educação, porto alegre 34.3: 311-316. rolnik, suely. 2012. “archive for a work-event: activating the body’s memory of lygia clark’s poetics and its context / part 1,” manifesta journal 13: 72-81. accessed december 1, 2016. http://www. manifestajournal.org/issues/fungus-contemporary/archive-work-event-activating-bodys-memorylygia-clarks-poetics-and-its#. shusterman, richard. 2012. “aesthetics as philosophy of art and life,” jtla journal of the faculty of letters 37: 1-6. ---. 2003. “entertainment: a question for aesthetics,” british journal of aesthetics 43.3: 289-307. ---. 2008. body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. new york: cambridge university press. ---. 1998 “two questions on canibalism and rap,” in xxiv bienal de são paulo. curadores paulo herkenhoff, adriano pedrosa. roteiros 2: 156-147. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 102 page 102-112dorota koczanowicz regimes of taste and somaesthetics1 dorota koczanowicz abstract: the aim of the article is to point out the social and cultural conditions of culinary practices in light of pierre bourdieu’s concept of habitus and richard shusterman’s somaesthetics. tastes reflect our social position and cultural background. we are what we eat, but what we eat is not exactly a matter of choice. we are ruled by various regimes of taste, and our bodies are formed in compliance with culturally entrenched norms and values. drawing on theories from bourdieu and shusterman, this article explores the ways in which taste disciplines our bodies and examines possibilities of emancipation. two feature films: babette’s feast and blue is the warmest colour are used as an art component, which helps to highlight the discussed problems. keywords: somaesthetics, habitus, food, taste, film eating, in fact, serves not only to maintain the biological machinery of the body, but to make concrete one of the specific modes of relation between a person and the world…2 luce giard in western culture, the social structure consists basically of classes, strata, and occupational groups. social divisions overlap with economic differences, which karl marx was intent on highlighting, yet this major criterion intersects with other important factors, such as education and social capital in the broad sense of the term. the analysis of interplay and mutual grounding of these forces was an important addition pierre bourdieu made to the marxian account, contributing seminally to our understanding of how social divisions are shaped and perpetuated. bourdieu’s brilliant analysis is developed in his famous distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. inquiring into what differentiates members of particular social groups, the french sociologist concludes that it is taste first of all, rather than economic capital. taste denotes for bourdieu both culinary preferences and aesthetic choices that determine our ways of interacting with the world. to label the ensemble of predispositions which socialization processes encode in our bodies bourdieu uses the term habitus: “the habitus is both the generative principle of objectively classifiable judgments and the system of classification (principium divisionis) of these practices.”3 the space spanning between these two capacities of the habitus can accommodate a variety of lifestyles. the habitus is a form of embodied disposition, which is often unconscious and revealed, 1 preparing this text was supported by ncn grant: aesthetic value of food. pragmatist perspective, no. 2013/11 / b / hs1 / 04176. 2 michel de certeau, luce giard, and pierre mayol, the practice of everyday life, vol. 2. living and cooking, trans. timothy j. tomasik, minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1998, p. 183. 3 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 170. dorota koczanowicz regimes of taste and somaesthetics somaesthetics and food103 regimes of taste and somaesthetics as bourdieu writes, “only in bodily hexis, diction, bearing, manners.”4 the habitus tends to be described as an embodied necessity and a differentiating system that generates various practices and, at the same time, schemes for evaluating them. the habitus is a “structuring structure,” but it is also subject to “structuring” itself. it emerges from particular social and economic conditions. drawing on immanuel kant’s the critique of judgment, bourdieu reminds that the kantian aesthetics, preoccupied with setting apart that which pleases from that which gratifies, was supposed to result in capturing the distinctiveness of the aesthetic judgment as pure disinterestedness in contrast to “the interest of reason which defines good.”5 the french sociologist observes that only the members of the privileged classes can possibly afford this “pure” aesthetics while “working-class people expect every image to explicitly perform a function, if only that of a sign, and their judgments make reference, often explicitly, to the norms of morality or agreeableness. whether rejecting or praising, their appreciation always has an ethical basis.”6 this difference becomes particularly pronounced when we analyze the aesthetic categories guiding everyday choices and decisions, such as what to wear, where to live, and what to eat. “taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed.”7 bourdieu disagrees with kant on one more point. he argues convincingly that our aesthetic choices are closely intertwined with our culinary preferences. there is a close affinity between artistic preferences and gastronomic taste. examining the choices made by people from various backgrounds, bourdieu points out that “[t]he antithesis between quantity and quality, substance and form, corresponds to the opposition – linked to different distances from necessity – between the taste of necessity, which favors the most ‘filling’ and most economical foods, and the taste of liberty – or luxury – which shifts the emphasis to the manner (of presenting, serving, eating etc.) and tends to use stylized forms to deny function.”8 moreover, since culture highly appreciates such qualities as disinterestedness, refinement, exceptionality and sublimation, “art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfill a social function of legitimating social differences.”9 the forms of behavior instilled in training become a second nature, one so transparent that social actors take it for granted and hardly conceptualize at all. “the sense of limits implies forgetting the limits.”10 paradoxical though it may sound, forgetting the limits is the surest preventive means against transgressing them. it is so because, as bourdieu explains, “… primary experience of the social world is that of doxa, an adherence to relations of order which, because they structure inseparably both the real world and the thought world, are accepted as self-evident.”11 doxa is a framework which contains action and sets limits to social mobility. as bourdieu emphasizes, “objective limits become a sense of limits, a practical anticipation of objective limits acquired by experience of objective limits, a ‘sense of one’s place’ which leads one 4 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 424 5 pierre bourdieu, distinction : a social critique of the judgment of taste, trans. richard nice, cambridge, mass.: harvard up, 1984, 5. 6 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 5. 7 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 6. 8 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 6. 9 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 7. 10 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 471. 11 bourdieu, distinction... p. 471. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 104 dorota koczanowicz to exclude oneself from the goods, persons, places and so forth from which one is excluded.”12 weaving a grid of values, patterns of understanding and ways of action, the habitus organizes the style of engaging in social activity, modes of perception, and frameworks of assessment characteristic of particular individuals and social groups. what is the differentiating effect of the habitus on culinary choices? there are groups of products that are typically opted for by the urban and rural populations, respectively; there are also products that tend to be chosen by particular genders or age groups. the diet of peasantry features opulent servings of starches, pork, potatoes, and poultry. the bourgeois menus prioritize veal, lamb, mutton, fish, and seafood. women tend to drink more milk and consume more sweet foods, at least in the peasant and working classes, with the rule being largely obliterated among senior managerial staff and liberal professions. the confessions of st. augustine make it clear that the saint found it a lesser challenge to renounce sexual temptations than to withstand the enticements leading to the sin of gluttony.13 the attractions of the dinner table prove far more perilous than the allures of the body since we all must eat, but not everybody indulges in physical love.14 out of the two obvious things shared by humans and sustaining human life – that is, eating and sex – eating is far more common. however, the activity, which is common to all people, is, at the same time, a strongly differentiating one. social characterization through culinary choices is perfectly exemplified in two short dinner scenes in blue is the warmest colour (la vie d’adèle). set in the homes of two main characters – eponymous adèle, a high school student, and emma, a spirited student of arts – the episodes pithily portray their differences in age, life experience and, emphatically, class background. in full accord with bourdieu’s theories, the fare served at adèle’s working-class home is simple, cheap and hearty, while emma’s educated parents treat their guest to expensive and not really nourishing oysters, the food adèle has never tasted before. the oysters symbolize refinement, prosperity and sexually-laden sensuality. they are counted among the most famous aphrodisiacs and associated with the vagina. it has never occurred to adèle’s parents that emma might be something more than an obliging friend that helps their daughter in learning. passionate erotic scenes in adèle’s “maiden” room are not imaginable within the bounds of her parents’ perception, so they regard adèle’s girlfriend as just a friend who simply stays overnight. connoisseurs of refined cuisine, emma’s parents are socially and culturally educated, and supportive of their daughter’s choices. differences in culinary tastes instantaneously reveal differences of class and culture, which will ultimately contribute to the relationship falling apart in spite of considerable erotic fascination and emotional engagement. the habitus forms habits, modes of thinking and perception, and moral convictions. it is a mold which imposes severe constrains and is extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible, to shake off: “it functions as a social orientation, a ‘sense of one’s place’, guiding the occupants of a given place in social space towards the social positions adjusted to their properties, and towards the practices or goods which befit the occupants of that position.”15 the inflow of money does not furnish a nouveau riche with a skill of spending it freely, an apparently inborn capacity of owners or heirs to old fortunes. a new-rich may afford sophisticated foods, but he still enjoys pork chops best and regards pancakes and jam as the fare suitable for women’s palates.16 as bourdieu 12 bourdieu, distinction..., p. 471. 13 see st. augustine, the confessions, trans. r.s. pine-coffin, london: penguin books, 1971, pp. 235-7. 14 cf. sander l. gilman, diets and dieting: a cultural encyclopedia, new york: routledge, 2008, p. 61. 15 boudieu, distinction...p. 466. 16 cf. bourdieu, distinction…, pp. 373-374. somaesthetics and food105 regimes of taste and somaesthetics explains, this is so because “the schemes of habitus, the primary forms of classification, owe their specific efficacy to the fact that they function below the level of consciousness and language, beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny or control by the will.”17 what will happen if a refined culinary taste collides with a puritan taste? does an attempt to change the entrenched tastes and tradition stand any chance of success? babette’s feast alice b. toklas, a paris-based american, gertrude stein’s long-time partner, and, crucially, an excellent cook, had no doubt that the french had developed an outstanding culture of gastronomy, and that cooking could be considered art. she believed that exceptional dishes triggered emotions comparable to those evoked by artworks. in her cook book, she admitted to a telling dilemma: “what more can one say? if one had the choice of again hearing pachmann play the two chopin sonatas or dining once more at the café anglaise, which would one choose?”18 cooking herself for the parisian artistic elite, she used her dishes many a time as a tool of emotional hierarchization and emotional communication. sometimes, the emotional gesture was not reciprocated. this is what, famously, happened when alice served fish with the idea to celebrate picasso. she cooked a sea bass, decorated it with tomato puree-colored mayonnaise, and embellished it further with a pattern of hard-boiled eggs, black truffles and herbs. proud of her work, the cook did not expect to have her tribute rejected by the artist, who actually suspected the color configuration of garnish to allude to his rival matisse.19 picasso was stein’s close friend. matisse was also one of regular guests to her house, but was definitely less liked. the autobiography of alice b. toklas features a story about a very competent “maid of all work,” hélène, who had very distinct opinions on a variety of issues, claiming for example that “a frenchman should not stay unexpectedly to a meal particularly if he asked the servant beforehand what there was for dinner. (…) so when miss stein said to her, monsieur matisse is staying for dinner this evening, she would say, in that case i will not make an omelette but fry the eggs. it takes the same number of eggs and the same amount of butter but it shows less respect, and he will understand.”20 the author of the autobiography recounts further that hélène “was terribly interested in seeing monsieur picasso and his wife and child and cooked her very best dinner for him (…).”21 the café anglaise, mentioned by toklas and generally enjoying the reputation of the best restaurant in 19th-century paris, is where the eponymous heroine of babette’s feast is revealed to have worked. babette’s history is told in one of karen blixen’s short stories and in its screen adaptation,22 which transfers the narrative of “babette’s feast” from the original location in 19thcentury norway to a remote village on the coast of jutland, home to two beautiful sisters – martine and philippa. their father, the leader of a strict lutheran community, spared no effort to make the girls entirely committed to himself and the religious group. named in honor of martin luther and his friend philipp melanchton and brought up in strict evangelical discipline, 17 bourdieu, distinction…, p. 466. 18 alice b. toklas, the alice b. toklas cook book. with a foreword by m. f. k. fisher, new york et al.: harper perennial, 2010, p. 98. 19 toklas, cook book..., p. 28. 20 gertrude stein, the autobiography of alice b. toklas, the web edition published by ebooks@adelaide. retrieved 3.07.2015. 21 ibid. 22 1987, dir. gabriel axel. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 106 dorota koczanowicz the sisters relinquished the chances of love and worldly life offered at a certain moment in their lives by two men. martine did not requite the advances of lorens löewenhielm, a young officer “exiled” to live with his aunt as a punishment for his dissipate lifestyle. philippa, in turn, refused the offer made by achille papin, a famous opera singer who, enchanted with her voice, promised her triumphs on the stages of paris. after their father’s death, the sisters keep up his work. but with its charismatic leader gone, the community descends into aggravating antagonisms and, as the years go by, its members grow ever more embittered, and mutual resentments exacerbate. on a rainy evening in 1871, an exhausted woman knocks on the sisters’ door, and presents a letter of reference penned by papin. she is babette hersant, a refugee from france, where the civil war is raging. with her family brutally killed and herself narrowly surviving, babbette is grateful to offer her housekeeping services in exchange for a safe place to stay. she conforms to the principles of the village, and tunes into its rhythm of life. she learns how to cook bread soup and dried fish dishes, the local staple fare. as she is very reticent about herself, little do the sisters realize that for all these years they have had the most famous parisian chef for a servant. the years go by with hardly any variation until the day when babette receives a letter informing that she has won the lottery of 15,000 francs, an exorbitant sum. upon this event, she persuades martine and philippa to let her prepare a real french dinner to celebrate their late father’s hundredth birthday. with the planned dinner courses including turtle soup, quail with foie gras stuffing and truffles, and blini with caviar, babette has all the ingredients of her opulent and refined dishes brought over from france together with beautiful tablecloths, candlesticks, and china crockery. the stream of supplies keeps flowing in as each course is to be served with the best wine vintages and champagne, and the dessert features rum sponge cake with candied fruit. witnessing their pantry fill with cages of fowl, crates of beverages, and other odd produce barred from their diet so far, the sisters begin to regret their decision and feel anxious about how their conservative fellow-believers will react. martine has a dream in which a huge turtle is consumed by flames. the terrified sisters, for whom eating has routinely had only a life-sustaining function, with food for the soul given an absolute preference, call a meeting, in which the congregation decide to give the dinner a go, but deliberately to ignore its sensory thrills and pass in silence over the food served. a congregation member concludes: “it will be as if we never had the sense of taste.” comforted a little by this resolution, the sisters stop worrying so much about what babette is up to. the last question concerns the bottle put on the table. martine asks: “surely that isn’t wine?” “no,” replies babette, “it’s clos de vougeot.” the ostensibly simple story-line of babette’s feast telling about two sisters – inhabitants of a remote village – stages, in fact, a highly complex world of symbolic relationships lending themselves to diverse interpretations, and conveys a richly polyvalent message. the eponymous feast has been analyzed in terms of ethics and politics (alain finkielkraut), in religious (zbigniew benedyktowicz, dariusz czaja, and priscilla parhust ferguson) and aesthetic perspectives (wiesław juszczak), and in the psychoanalytic framework (sharn waldron). this catalogue of approaches implies what complexity nutrition accrues when it is incorporated into the order of culture. in the light of bourdieu’s categories, the story can be construed as an unexpected clash between and an intervention of one habitus into another one. on the one hand, there is the protestant ethos, which, as french philosopher alain finkielkraut contends, never appreciated cooking: “nutrition was necessary, but a necessity must under no circumstances be elevated into an art.”23 on the other hand, there is an entirely different attitude to food. for babette, as well 23 alain finkielkraut, serce rozumiejące (un coeur intelligent) [the understanding heart], trans. jan maria kłoczowski, wuw, p. 164. somaesthetics and food107 regimes of taste and somaesthetics as for the whole social class she served in france, food was not reducible to meeting the basic needs. it patently connoted prestige and pleasure. satisfying the expectations of the bourgeoisie was an art of the highest order. in bourdieu’s terms, the film suggests that the protestant doxa yields to the enchantment of art: “a second article of faith in babette’s feast is the certainty of the instantaneous and direct power of art. (…) art touches individuals of every station, even against their will.”24 the members of the religious community come to realize their limitations. partaking of the feast is a transformative, albeit admittedly fleeting, experience to them. as bourdieu teaches us, the situation verges on improbability. there has actually been no time enough to learn new – odd and intense – flavours. in attempting to defend the film’s message, we could cite the argument advanced by ferguson, who observes that “two performing arts, music and cuisine, speak to the senses directly; their effect is all in the moment. critical appreciation enhances the experience by increasing understanding, but the senses make the primal connection.”25 this suggests that gustatory pleasure can be felt even if one does not realize that what one tastes is famous champagne rather than lemonade. this is, incidentally, what one of the guests at the dinner mistakenly believes. granted, babette’s feast is not a socio-psychological account of reality, but even so it can effectively serve as a starting point for reflection on the possibilities of transforming taste. it is a perfect starting point for at least two reasons. firstly, it deals with french cuisine, which boasts the status of the world’s best, and is, as such, a unique benchmark and frame of reference for culinary tastes. this reputation has certainly been aided by the fact that, as toklas observes, “the french approach to food is characteristic; they bring to their consideration of the table the same appreciation, respect, intelligence and lively interest that they have for the other arts, for painting, for literature and for the theatre.”26 secondly, 19th-century france went through a social makeover propelled by the french revolution, and, at the same time, through a culinary transformation triggered by the emergence of a new institution – the restaurant. the best cooks, who had worked for the aristocracy before, turned chefs cooking for a new, robustly developing social stratum – the bourgeoisie. these factors facilitated and channeled a metamorphosis of the culinary tradition. bourdieu convincingly shows that financial and social advancement entails also educational challenges. acquisition of new tastes and learning to spend new money are painstaking and exigent processes. contrary to his idea of how such transformations come to pass, they require both determination and competent teachers. the birth of restaurants precipitated the rise of culinary literature. professional restaurant critics appeared side by side with literary critics and took upon themselves the task of “serving, modifying and mediating consumption.”27 in the age of post-revolution transformations, the role of the guide through the world of new possibilities and new challenges fell upon alexandre balthazar laurent grimod de la reynière. his almanach des gourmands (the almanac of gourmands) was the first guidebook through tastes. the groundbreaking and voluminous work, published annually from 1803 to 1812 (except 1809 and 1811),28 proved a bookselling blockbuster and a model to be emulated by 24 priscilla parhust ferguson, accounting for taste: the triumph of french cuisine, chicago-london: the university of chicago press, 2004, p. 193. 25 ferguson, accounting…, p. 194. 26 toklas, cook book…, p. 1. 27 robert appelbaum, dishing it out: in search of the restaurant experience, london: reaktion books ltd., 2011, p. 47. 28 see stephen mennell, all manners of food: eating and taste in england and france from the middle ages to the present, chicago: university of illinois press, 1996, p. 267. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 108 dorota koczanowicz numerous imitators.29 its popularity soared as many craved to know where the best seafood was on sale in paris, how to carve mutton properly, what the proper table manners were, and how a banquet menu should be put together. grimod noticed that changes in customs and habits had led to an increased appreciation of bodily – “purely animal,” as he calls them – pleasures. he wrote: the hearts of most wealthy parisians suddenly metamorphosed into gizzards. the sentiments are no longer anything but sensations, and their desires no longer anything but appetites. it is for that reason that one conveniently renders them a service by giving them, in several pages, the means of accomplishing, within the domain of good (la bonne chère), the best match possible between their inclinations and their money.30 grimod did not keep his observations to himself only; nor did he combat “the new.” instead, he created a kind of guidebook for gourmets in which criticism blends with humor, and scornful commentaries on the new class of owners are interspersed with precious advice on how to handle the challenges mounting for all those who venture onto the path of food connoisseurship. his reasonable decision was to make money on the transformation of the previous-age man of sentiment into the 19th-century consumer, and to profit from enlightening him and making him happy.31 somaesthetics if we seek to re-draw the habitus, the article “somatic awakening and the art of living” is, certainly, a useful source to consult. it describes richard shusterman’s own experience of a stay at a zen monastery, and relates in detail the rituals of meals with all the involved difficulties, such as mastering the art of eating with chopsticks. what the article offers is an account of successful training, which aimed at discarding the somatic style of the western professor for the sake of conduct and manners proper to the buddhist monks.32 a monastic stint and demanding somatic training are no surprising choices in shusterman, who has long been dedicated to making the ideal of unified theory and practice a reality. it is, actually, one of the pillars his somaesthetics project rests on. at this point, we should rehearse the project’s major tenets. william james said that pragmatism was “a new name for some old ways of thinking.” shusterman thinks similarly about somaesthetics, and claims that in founding a new philosophical discipline, he in fact revisits the primary assumptions of philosophy.33 somaesthetics aims to comprehensively focus on the body,34 which corresponds to the ancient ideas of practicing philosophy as an embodied art of living.35 so we go back to basics under the new banner of “somaesthetics,” which is a conscious move as, according to the author of pragmatist aesthetics, a new name “can have a special efficacy for reorganizing and 29 grimod’s most famous follower was jean anthelme brillat-savarin. 30 a. b. l. grimond de la reynière qtd. in appelbaum, dishing…, p. 45. 31 cf. appelbaum, dishing…. 32 see richard shusterman, “ somaesthetic awakening and the art of living: everyday aesthetics in american transcendentalism and japanese zen practice,” in richard shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics, new york: cambridge university press, 2012. 33 see richard shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics: living beauty, rethinking art, 2nd ed., new york: rowman &littlefield, 2000, p. 263. 34 shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics…, p. 262. 35 see shusterman, thinking…, p. 290, and “introduction” to r. shusterman, practicing philosophy: pragmatism and the philosophical life, new york: routledge, 1997. somaesthetics and food109 regimes of taste and somaesthetics thus reanimating old insights.”36 shusterman defines somaeshtetics as “the critical, meliorative study of the experience and use of one’s body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aisthesis) and creative self-fashioning.”37 the first two parts of this definition is crucial to this article. shusterman’s project presupposes accumulating knowledge and discourses on and of bodiliness, but it has also a normative dimension that pertains to methods of optimizing human somatic functioning. knowledge on how the body functions and consciousness of one’s own bodiliness must be intertwined with somatic practice because only through combining theory and practice can the perceptive capacities be enhanced. this is prerequisite to a better and fuller functioning both in the natural environment and in the social one. shusterman recommends a therapy of mindfulness, knowledge of one’s own body, and reflection on how it operates so that we could make the most of what our body and our environment offer us. he also calls for a greater sensitivity to our own and other people’s needs. expanding perceptual capacities creates opportunity of amplified being in the world and deriving pleasure even from the simplest experiences.38 summing up, we should emphasize that somaesthetics fuses three dimensions – analytical, pragmatic and practical. the analytical level concerns accumulation of knowledge. shusterman considers traditional ontological and epistemological body-related issues, and augments them with the socio-political considerations as developed by foucault and bourdieu.39 the pragmatic level comprises the normative and prescriptive elements of somaesthetics, and entails “proposing specific methods of somatic improvement and engaging in their comparative critique.”40 the practical level, in turn, pertains to action – specific somatic practices which are the ultimate goal of constructing the theoretical framework. at the core of the somaesthetics project lies the idea of conscious work and change – the idea of improvement. somaesthetics is a democratic project addressed to everybody, irrespective of their age, sex, class and/or somatic dispositions. of course, shusterman is not oblivious to various limitations and dichotomies we are entangled in as members of society: “for culture gives us the languages, values, social institutions, and artistic media through which we think and act and also express ourselves aesthetically, just as it gives us the forms of diet, exercise, and somatic styling that shape not only our bodily appearance and behavior but also the ways we experiences our body…”41 as the american pragmatist stresses, all aspects of our lives are modeled by culture, but, though always subject and exposed to external forces, we have also a potential of change and, thus, of overcoming various barriers – a potential of emancipation. looking to shusterman’s somaesthetics for ways of extricating ourselves from the “snares” of the habitus seems a natural step to take as bourdieu and shusterman come from a similar pragmatic background.42in his article titled “bourdieu and anglo-american philosophy,” richard shusterman dwells on the affinities between bourdieu and dewey. the two share the notion that social practices are constituted on the pre-linguistic and pre-reflective level, which, however, does not entail their complete repeatability and permanence. social practices are 36 shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics…, p. 263. 37 shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics…, p. 267. 38 shusterman, thinking …, p. 299. 39 shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics…, p. 271. 40 shusterman, pragmatist aesthetics…, p. 272. 41 shusterman, thinking …, p. 27. 42 bourdieu is sometimes called a pragmatic sociologist. in an essay titled “a (neo) american in paris: bourdieu, mead, and pragmatism,” mitchell discusses the influence of pragmatic philosophy, in particular of mead and dewey, on the french sociologist’s theoretical concepts. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 110 dorota koczanowicz responses to the changing environment, and yet they enable people to re-make this environment as their needs dictate. admittedly, bourdieu and dewey employ different categories: bourdieu’s central notion is “habitus,” while dewey’s – “habit.” this notwithstanding, there is a striking resemblance between their concepts, which not only reassert each other’s validity, but can also be mutually complementary. pragmatism can rely on bourdieu for “providing a more precise, sophisticated, and empirically validated system of concepts for the analysis of society’s structure and its strategies and mechanisms of reproduction and change.”43 for example, shusterman points out that “bourdieu’s nietzschean strain of emphasizing the intrinsic social conflict over power and prestige provides a useful balance to dewey’s excessive faith that all conflict could somehow be reconciled in the organic social whole.”44 bourdieu, in turn, as shusterman argues, could benefit from espousing the concept of language that dewey adopts. a particularly important thing is that dewey postulates a critique of ordinary language as tending to include elements of oppression. of course, as shusterman writes, it is an open question in how far such a revision is possible (if at all), and, if so, whether or not it puts at risk the stability of the whole social system. be it as it may, philosophy, together with critical social sciences, cannot give up on that task. shusterman repeatedly cites the writings of bourdieu, whom he counts among important formative sources of his theory. when elucidating his concept of somaesthetics, the author of body consciousness frequently refers to the french philosopher. what the two frameworks have in common is the idea of the body as a social construct that reflects the culturally differentiated conditions in which particular individuals live. in other words, individuals’ social histories are written in their bodies. however, despite indisputable affinities, their conceptions are not identical. the basic differences seem to lie in the emancipatory potential – the promise of healing inscribed in somaesthetics. bourdieu’s world is hierarchical and stiff, and his vision eschews transformation and shuffling off the regime of the habitus. it does not offer a dynamic account of culture which, in spite of its order and controlling function, finds itself in constant change. this is the objection luce giard advances against the author of distinction, calling the book’s hypotheses a dogma that brackets off the role of chance, influence of other people, or just individual ingeniousness: “everything happens as if society, without any history other than the temporal unfolding of individual trajectories, were immobile, locked in the vise of a stratification into classes and subclasses that are clear-cut and strictly hierarchical.”45 since dietary practices are formed in early childhood, bourdieu believes they are particularly deeply entrenched and perpetuated. but as giard notices, “in spite of its scope, distinction remains silent on ways of doing-cooking: as is often the case with bourdieu, feminine activities are a place of silence or disinterest that his analysis does not trouble itself to take into account.”46 bourdieu develops his argument and draws conclusions based predominantly on the consumption styles, rather than on the culinary practices as such. drawing on the concept of practices put forward by michel de certeau, giard suggests that women’s creativity eludes bourdieu’s attention even though preparation of food is usually the task of women, who in their individual cooking practices are on many occasions able to defy the constraints imposed by stiff social styles. the idea behind somatic exercises, mentioned above, is expanding the array of sensory and aesthetic pleasures, on the one hand, and eliminating the negative habits inscribed in our bodies, on the other. as a practitioner of the feldenkrais method, shusterman works on the 43 richard shusterman, “bourdieu and anglo-american philosophy,” in: bourdieu: a critical reader, ed. r. shusterman, oxford: blackwell publishers, 1999, p. 21. 44 shusterman, “bourdieu…,” p. 21. 45 certeau, giard, and mayol, the practice…, p. 182. 46 certeau, giard, and mayol, the practice…, p. 183. somaesthetics and food111 regimes of taste and somaesthetics bodily re-education of patients who report many problems caused by malfunctioning bodies. in his discussion of somatic pathologies bound up with inappropriate habits recorded in the body, shusterman addresses also wrong dietary routines.47 building on the normative notion of “perfection of every sense” developed by david hume, shusterman concludes that there is no reason why training of taste buds should not be included into the scope of somatic exercises. culinary practices and social change somaesthetics shows the way we could follow to understand how changes can be made to the habitus, and, more importantly perhaps, explains how our choices, including the gastronomic ones, affect our total functioning. but let us return to babette’s feast. it is by no means coincidental that there are twelve banqueters around the table. at its core, babette’s feast is, namely, nothing other than a last supper48 effecting a transubstantiation and healing of the community, parallel to the transformation of a meal into a work of art. contrary to the sisters’ expectations, it is not babette’s farewell dinner before her return to paris. just the opposite; this is a gesture in which she ultimately bids farewell to her old life and pays homage to art – its essence and core. it is the last opportunity that babette seizes to showcase her perfection in the culinary art, and, which is a striving common to all artists, to find self-fulfillment in giving others pleasure and happiness.49 we could say that karen blixen offers a profoundly pragmatist message, a message which insists that art occupies a very special position, and that each action and each experience, a dinner in this case, may deserve the name of art. this is how we could interpret the (already cited) pronouncement priscilla parhust ferguson, a researcher of french culinary tradition, makes: “a second article of faith in babette’s feast is the certainty of the instantaneous and direct power of art (…) art touches individuals of every station, even against their will.”50 from the viewpoint of somaesthetics, far more interesting than the change of habitus is the question whether bodily practices, including new culinary experiences, may effect social change. babette’s feast, albeit masterfully evocative, is but an individual example of how culinary culture may launch change in internal social ties. it would be highly pertinent to reflect on ways in which contemporary culinary culture may perform the same function of transforming cultural habits of a community, yet on the mass scale this time. post-modern culture is a culture of consumption, also in the literal sense of the term. we are interested in eating, read about eating, watch cooking shows, go to restaurants, cook, and love banqueting. research shows that in planning holidays people more and more frequently take the local cuisine of their destination into account. a question arises whether tourists and the audience of extraordinarily popular culinary tv channels learn to open up to otherness as they immerse in new cooking cultures and/ or find out about new recipes.51 discussing the issue, i believe, we should rely on shusterman’s division of somaesthetics into representational and experiential components. by analogy, a similar differentiation could be identified in culinary practices. the feast babette serves to the 47 for more details, see “somaesthetics and the art of eating,” in: practicing pragmatist aesthetics, ed. wojciech małecki, amsterdam-n.y.: rodopi, 2014. 48 see ferguson, accounting…, p. 190. 49 “the happiness is the accomplishment of great art. and of great love, of the material with which the artist works, and of the public that she serves.” ferguson, accounting…, p. 192. 50 ferguson, accounting…, p. 193. 51 the belief in the dialogic character of eating underpins artistic practices of rirkrit tiravanija. the cosmopolitan artist, a buenos aires-born thai who divides his time between new york and berlin, uses meals to build temporary communities around the table. he believes that eating is a message comprehensible to all. in his performances, he prepared red and green curries – the dishes characteristic of his native thailand. in this way, the meals turned into deliberate artistic gestures and communications of openness. an invitation to the table is, at the same time, an invitation to understanding and friendship. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 112 dorota koczanowicz villagers on the coast of jutland is, undoubtedly, an equivalent of experiential somaesthetics. it expands their world perception, and changes social relations in which the community members are entangled. it meets the basic criterion of experiential somaesthetics, that is, a holistic cultivation and transformation of the individual. where is the boundary, however, between the surface and the depth of a culinary experience? shusterman’s concept furnishes us with a conceptual apparatus to analyze this issue, and can serve as a starting point for the study of the emancipatory potential of contemporary culinary culture. notes contact information: dorota koczanowicz university of wroclaw e-mail: dorota.koczanowicz@uni.wroc.pl introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 166 page 166–182sue spaid the aesthetic enchantment approach from “troubled” to “engaged” beauty sue spaid abstract: aestheticians routinely wrestle with the asymmetry between aesthetic appreciation and “natural” beauty. in these pages, i develop the aesthetic enchantment approach (aea), which avoids “aesthetic disillusionment” while augmenting aesthetic enchantment, even for degraded sites. aea’s main claim is that people, whether citizen scientists counting species or stakeholders working alongside scientists to reclaim environments, boost their wellbeing, while cultivating environmental melioration. aea advances an “engaged” beauty grounded in wellbeing such that environments constantly permeate and shape human somas, which in turn penetrate and reshape environments. by urging people to protect all of nature, aea greatly expands upon scientific cognitivism’s territory. keywords: beauty, wellbeing, reclamation, degraded land, biodiversity. 1. introduction: “troubled” beauty with every passing year, the very wildlife or unspoilt nature that people routinely describe as beautiful becomes rarer and rarer: tropical forests give way to palm plantations, wetlands become farmland, and farmers cultivate monocultures. moreover, manmade disasters render land fruitless owing to desertification, flooding, deforestation, water contamination, soil erosion, drought, leaching and spills. given such widespread devastation, there must be a way to inspire people both to avert manmade environmental catastrophes (at home and abroad) (spaid, 2020) and to value such sites’ unimaginable potential. otherwise, degraded lands are readily dismissed as ugly, or worse still, beyond hope, leading to further degradation. that land degradation currently threatens the wellbeing of 3.2 billion people magnifies the urgency to amend both degraded sites and people’s attitudes toward them (leahy, 2018). in 2019, the nordic society for aesthetics issued a call for papers concerning “the place of beauty in the contemporary world.” recognizing that 75% of earth’s terrain is substantially degraded (leahy, 2018), i wondered how one could reflect upon these four points –place, beauty, contemporary, and worldin a manner that inspires people to protect nature, no matter how degraded. underlying these terms are rather weighty philosophical notions such as space, judgment, time, and cognition, which have characterized aesthetical judgments since immanuel kant. if degraded lands could be appreciated for their beauty, inhabitants might feel determined somaesthetics and beauty167 the aesthetic enchantment approach to resuscitate them, granting future generations greater access to natural beauty, rather than less, as is the current trend. i’m immediately reminded of artist aviva rahmani whose neighbor took her to court because he found her project to reclaim the local “town dump” suspect. he must have been pleasantly surprised when an “ecologically thriving salt marsh, surrounded by a successional forest, meadows, and uplands” sprouted up a decade later (spaid, 2000, p. 115). the aesthetic enhancement approach (aea) developed in these pages aim to engage stakeholders in habitat regeneration on nature’s behalf (spaid, 2016). people tend to appreciate their immediate environment, since it provides them habitat, as well as access to renewable resources that offer them sustenance and strengthen their capacity for eudaimonia (spaid, 2019, p. 7). as richard shusterman has observed, “[t]he self ’s action, will, and thinking are governed by habit, and if habits necessarily incorporate environmental elements, then the self essentially relies on such environmental elements” (shusterman, 2008, p. 214). moreover, an environment’s capacity to sustain inhabitants’ wellbeing reflects “somatic efficacy,” which blends “a desire to live better” with “pluralist individualism” (shusterman, 2000b, p. 215). by contrast, people tend to flee lands that no longer support their livelihoods. dislocation causes extreme stress and instability, rendering self-mastery a non-starter. mass migrations due to environmental degradation, currently underway in sub-saharan africa, southeast asia and central america, are expected to affect 50-700 million people by 2050.1 the harrison studio’s peninsula europe iv (sextych) (2017) anticipates droughts forcing 23 million europeans to migrate by 2070 (spaid, 2017, pp. 250-252). even people whose environments have yet to be directly impacted suffer the psychological harm/trauma known as “climate surprise,” caused by unpredictable meteorological swings, and the concomitant dread/fear known as “ecological grief,” afflicting scientists witnessing climate change (glantz et al., 1998). such stressful predicaments significantly diminish people’s wellbeing, even if their lives remain physically unaffected. finally, most conceptions of beauty are entirely human-centered, and are thus visually biased; better yet, visually impaired, since ecosystem features used by scientists to evaluate ecosystem functioning are not necessarily accessible to trained eyes, let alone the “naked eye.” ecosystem functioning refers to “‘the joint effects of all processes (fluxes of energy and matter) that sustain an ecosystem’ over time and space through biological activities” (truchy et al., 2015). to defeat “troubled” beauty, this paper offers eight frames for evaluating a site’s beauty. i begin by reviewing statistics culled from eu environmental reports that paint a rather grim picture, and thus demonstrate that europe’s “natural” beauty is largely illusory. to my lights, this picture frustrates scientific cognitivists’ characterization of nature as exhibiting “scenic or conventional beauty,” especially since its adherents admit that “scientific” beauty fails to inspire people to protect “those parts of nature that are deemed ugly or unsightly” (carlson and lintott, 2008, p. 205). building on science’s current method for “gauging” ecosystem functioning, aea advances “engaged” beauty, whose track record of mobilizing stakeholders to reclaim degraded sites has enhanced human and nonhuman wellbeing alike. i next offer four case studies that demonstrate the ramifications of “biodiverse” beauty. this sets the stage for a “values-oriented” beauty aimed at countering the way “cognitive states” distort “perceived” beauty, further jeopardizing scientific cognitivism’s reliance on science. lastly, i explore reasons to appreciate, and therefore protect urban wastelands; leaving “abandoned” beauty as is. 1 https://ipbes.net/news/media-release-worsening-worldwide-land-degradation-now-%e2%80%98critical%e2%80%99-undermining-wellbeing-32 the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 168 sue spaid 2. the buzz kill: “natural” beauty let’s return to that 2019 nsa conference. from the onset, i worried that this assembly of aestheticians decamped to the hanaholmen cultural centre (on an idyllic island in espoo, fi near aalto university) and sustained by sumptuous seasonal buffets, might lack the requisite exposure to environmental precarity. imagining that these participants inhabit similarly idyllic campuses, far from genuine environmental harm, i pestered listeners with eu statistics. i must admit, i felt a little guilty painting such a horrid scene, while astonishing harbor vistas loomed beneath helsinki’s stark sky. most horrific was the statistic citing that european animal populations fell on average 60% between 1970 and 2014 (the latest data available).2 not surprisingly, the habitats suffering the greatest damage were rivers and lakes, where wildlife populations fell 83% owing to agriculture’s enormous thirst and the large number of dams.3 consider that in 2011 the eu estimated that sprinkled among its 39 member and cooperating countries there were potentially 2.5 million sites with contaminated soil. by 2019, 45% of these sites were identified, yet only 51,300 sites had been remediated.4 since 95% of identified sites remain, the beauty potential proves enormous. regarding top soil erosion, 20% of europe’s land area [are] subject to wind and water erosion. “at eu level, soil erosion affects over 12 million hectares of land – about 7.2% of the total agricultural land – and leads to €1.25 billion loss in crop productivity.”5 only 43% of reported freshwater bodies have achieved a good ecological status, which was expected to rise to 53% by 2015.6 consider that 7% of groundwater stations report excessive levels of pesticides leached into the water,7 while “toxic blue-green algal blooms in europe [are] a growing problem.”8 since implementing the convention on transboundary pollution in 1979, “sulphur emissions across europe have fallen significantly, but with the increase in vehicle traffic nitrogen oxides emissions have been reduced only slowly. acid rain in europe will therefore continue to be a problem in europe until these emissions can be dramatically reduced.”9 in spain, “practically all the mining leachates exceeded the maximum concentrations established by directive 98/83/ce for fe and cd [and] almost 90% exceeded the limit for mn and 82% for al. likewise, fe, cd, and mn caused ‘extremely high' degradation in most sampled leachates.”10 the eu considers deforestation an “international” problem, since the production of logs and agriculture imported between 1990 and 2008 required non-eu nations to clear land masses the size of portugal.11 in 2018, the eu conducted a feasibility study to step up actions against international deforestation.12 to drive home deforestation’s impact, i reminded the audience that even though finland is widely recognized as one of the world’s most environment friendly countries, it too is an offender. in 2009, finnish artists sanni seppo and ritva kovalainen 2 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds 3 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds 4 https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/progress-in-management-of-contaminated-sites-3/assessment 5 https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/soil-erosion-costs-european-farmers-125-billion-year 6 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/all/?uri=celex:52012dc0673 7 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/archive:agri-environmental_indicator_-_pesticide_pollution_of_water 8 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279889378_toxic_blue-green_algal_blooms_in_europe_a_growing_problem 9 http://www.enviropedia.org.uk/acid_rain/europe.php 10 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29448194 11 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/forests/studies_euaction_deforestation_palm_oil.htm 12 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/forests/pdf/kh0418199enn2.pdf somaesthetics and beauty169 the aesthetic enchantment approach documented the widespread destruction of the finnish forests thanks to the forestry industry. their 2011 exhibition “koltainen metsä” (golden forest) at helsinki’s taidemuseum tennispalatsi made a lasting impression on me, since it cast finnish forests as far less pristine than their reputations, framing “sights unseen” as utopia and “unsightly scenes” as dystopia. 3. scientific cognitivism: “scientific” beauty in their introductory essay “nature and positive aesthetics,” allen carlson and sheila lintott note that “environmentalists find meeting the goal of protecting nature relatively straightforward for those parts of nature that traditionally have been seen as scenic or conventionally beautiful. on the other hand, they have difficulty with those parts of nature that are deemed ugly or unsightly” (carlson and lintott, 2008, p. 205). to solve this dilemma, they posit that since “all nature has positive aesthetic value,” one will eventually acknowledge that nature is essentially beautiful, and therefore deserving of protection. doing so requires an “appropriate appreciative stance,” specifically one informed by scientific knowledge (p. 205). scientific cognitivists claim that greater scientific knowledge informs people’s perception and opinions regarding nature, and thus stands to augment their appreciation for aspects of nature that are not obviously beautiful. scientific cognitivism’s primary beneficiaries include “pristine nature” (p. 205), such that species or places ordinarily considered loathsome such as insect populations (though not those framed as “pests”), lizards, swamps, mole hills, weeds, wastelands, wild flowers, compost, soil (dirt), spider webs, animal faeces, termite hills, wolves, bears, poison ivy/stinging nettles, scavengers/carrion, and lands ravaged by natural disasters, though not necessarily lands that spur people to flee. i realize that scientific cognitivists can adapt their view to accommodate whatever science has to say about the potential of degraded lands, but doing so would require them to characterize degraded lands as having “positive aesthetic values,” leaving one to wonder to which sites they would attribute “negative” aesthetic values. the position defended here denies the possibility of nature having negative aesthetic values, since whatever makes it negative is due to negligence. what’s “negative” is ethical not aesthetic, but this is another paper altogether. since nature provides habitat, it exhibits “positive somaesthetic values.” in light of the surfeit of environmental degradation, scientific cognitivists’ premise that nature is “essentially beautiful” strikes me as misguided, especially since they admit that nature’s deserving of protection hinges on human beings appreciating it. homelands that people are fleeing in droves have failed to elicit the appropriate appreciative stance. with so many sites for human beings to deem “unsightly,” i worry that scientific cognitivism justifies people’s abandoning or neglecting degraded sites, should science lack the wherewithal to identify such sites’ potential, let alone remedy them. to be fair, i imagine carlson and lintott defining nature narrowly. that is, they view nature as primarily wild, if not free from human incursion, which spurs degradation. for my purposes here, i conceive of nature more broadly, such that nature refers to all living species, native or not, and their current habitats. thus farms, urban green spaces, zoos, and pioneer plants are no less nature than the far reaches of yosemite national park, which incidentally hosts 275 invasive plant species. since ecology is a particularly human occupation, and ecology is concerned with nature’s conservation, human beings are in constant contact with nature, even when people opt for “benign neglect.” as we shall see, “benign neglect” is still action, since it is both willful and routinely monitored. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 170 sue spaid truth be told, all of nature, sightly or not, deserves human protection and/or reclamation, especially those swathes of land whose essential beauty has been lost to species depletion, deforestation, soil erosion, drought, salinity, desertification, flooding, dumping, wetland destruction, acid rain, and air pollution. if the “appropriate appreciative stance” is needed to compel protection, as carlson and lintott claim, what will motivate people to protect degraded sites? even if scientific knowledge stands to inform people, science alone cannot motivate the appropriate appreciative stance, since greater knowledge rarely shifts people’s values. this point has been proven time and again, every time evolution deniers capably explain the process of evolution. something similar happens among climate change deniers and believers, who regularly demonstrate their knowledge and ignorance, respectively; regarding carbon dioxide’s role in increasing earth’s atmospheric temperature (kahan, 2015). even when the former have their facts straight, their beliefs don’t change since their underlying values remain the same. beliefs about what counts as beautiful or a site’s potential remain intact until some earth-shattering experience shifts people’s values, which is ultimately what motivates the appropriate appreciative stance. most importantly, the strategies that people consider to reclaim a site are mostly hunches, lacking in scientific proof regarding their success. the question is, then: what inspires people to imagine some alternative environment, to believe change is possible, and to take actions previously not undertaken in order to reclaim degraded sites that others presumably deem unworthy of protection? i say presumably because human negligence causes degradation, yet it’s not unusual for degradation to be the outcome of a power struggle between foreign (corporate) interests and local inhabitants, whose ancestors have carefully protected their environment for centuries, yet their progeny proved powerless in the struggle over land rights. 4. “deemed ugly or unsightly”: “gauging” beauty because somaesthetics cannot single-handedly tackle such issues that crucially constrain human flourishing, aea advances a science-based, values-oriented approach for gauging the beauty of sites ordinarily deemed unworthy of protection. appreciating degraded lands requires a heightened imagination, such that recognizing a site’s beauty extends beyond sight to include one’s “vision” for such sites. to evaluate ecosystem functioning, scientists measure biodiversity, entropy levels, soil fertility/organic life, sustainability/growth, and habitat/food. scientists use the term biodiversity to describe variations “among taxa at multiple levels of ecological organization: between and within populations, species, phylogenies, functional groups, trophic levels, food web levels, food wed compartments, and even habitat patches that explain landscape diversity” (hines et al., 2015). so long as biologists, such as michael scherer-lorenzen, correlate ecosystem functioning with biodiversity, biodiversity doubles as a bio-indicator of a place’s beauty (scherer-lorenzen, 2005). as it turns out, this view is not so farfetched since even biodiversity’s staunchest critics deride it as having greater aesthetic than scientific value, so long as it’s just a feature for human beings to enumerate. scientists who employ biodiversity to gauge ecosystem functioning typically tap citizen scientists to count species, an action that participants report makes them feel “connected to nature” and motivates them to “learn more about nature” (ganzevoort et al., 2017). thanks to regularly held conference of the parties to the convention of biological diversity (15 meetings since 1994), un member nations regularly report biodiversity figures, so species counts are conducted across the globe. somaesthetics and beauty171 the aesthetic enchantment approach on its face, aea appears to offer a functionalist account of beauty, since it frames beauty as ecosystem functioning. however, aea not only “engages” stakeholders with nature, but species counts effectively track an environment’s wellbeing. aea thus expands somaesthetics’ goal of human flourishing to include nonhuman flourishing. most relevant for somaesthetics is the way biologists and policy makers explicitly link “biodiversity (i.e. genes, traits, species and other dimensions) and human wellbeing (hwb; i.e. health, wealth, security and other dimensions)” (naeem et al., 2016). since inhabitants tend to feel pride in species count results, counts used to assess degraded sites are also likely to attract stakeholders. since sustainable environments enable people to foster self-cultivation, species counts not only hold the key to human wellbeing (russell et al., 2013), but they unlock the “place of beauty in the contemporary world.” since scientists regularly refine their positions and change their recommendations, biodiversity is hardly some panacea. even so, aea’s account of “engaged” beauty motivates inhabitants to “gauge” the beauty of sites historically dismissed as blights and to envision ways to boost their wellbeing. 5. the aesthetic enhancement approach: “engaged” beauty since the millennium, ecologists have primarily focused on ecosystem services, whose humancentered approaches are designed to appeal to policy makers and thus provide ecologists greater resources to conduct research (kremen, 2005). in contrast to ecosystems servicing, i prefer the stronger target of ecosystem functioning, which is nature-oriented. stakeholders willingly work on nature’s behalf, because they view themselves in kinship relationships with nature, such that all lives are mutually-interdependent (spaid, 2016). stakeholders include eco-artists (like the harrison studio and aviva rahmani mentioned above), citizen scientists, community members, or environmental activists working alongside scientists to reclaim degraded sites that often double as open-air laboratories for testing novel reclamation strategies. terms like restore, conserve, preserve, remediate, and reclaim all have specific meanings. i rather employ reclamation more generally to cover strategies meant to improve ecosystem functioning and enhance human wellbeing without having to restore sites to their original conditions, which is rarely feasible and not necessarily desirable (o’neill et al., 2008). reclamation concerns an environment’s meliorative cultivation, yet human actors simultaneously undergo melioration, both as participants with shared goals and future beneficiaries of said efforts. when seeking to reclaim a site, i imagine stakeholders asking themselves: “whose wellbeing takes priority here? why? how can this be achieved?” and of course, there are probably numerous proposed solutions, but only some stand to optimize ecosystem functioning. consider aldo leopold’s oft-quoted “double” haiku“a thing is right when it tends/ to preserve the integrity,/ stability, and beauty/ of the biotic/ community. it is wrong/ when it tends otherwise” (leopold, 1966, p. 262). here, the biotic community, not leopold nor any stakeholder, is designated the beneficiary for whom “integrity, stability, and beauty” are optimized, if not maximized. one can easily recognize leopold’s vision of “integrity, stability, and beauty” as exemplary of a site’s wellbeing. aea thus shares his core value. people who ask such questions might come to realize that the grandeur and magnificence of those spectacular sunsets that they admire are at odds with the underlying pollution facilitating vermilion swirls and rosy streaks (ballantyne, 2007); or the other way around, “a godforsaken mosquito-infested swamp shrouded in frozen darkness half the year” is likely to be teeming with the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 172 sue spaid diversity, complexity, and habitat for myriad co-existing (some man-eating) species (hettinger, 2008, p. 415). in other words, the “whose” of “whose wellbeing?” rarely addresses those with the power to green light reclamation efforts, since individual preferences are likely to clash with strategies that improve ecosystem functioning. once stakeholders agree upon “whose,” they can delimit the ecosystem and identify appropriate strategies to make it “whole” (a term some scientists actually use) again. such an approach coheres with somaesthetics’ notion of soma, the conscious body that “reaches so far ‘beyond the conventional boundaries of the epidermis’” (shusterman, 2008, p. 214) in its perpetual exchange of energies and substances with other somas as well as nonsentient bodies. as john dewey recognized, we always live “as much in processes ‘across’, and ‘through’ skins as in processes ‘within’ skins” (214). according to wojciech małecki and simon schleusener, “human somas are ‘transactional’, that is, they are being constantly permeated and reshaped by their environment, which they in turn reshape and penetrate, something that happens both on the evolutionary scale and on the scale of the life of a single specimen of homo sapiens sapiens” (221). it’s difficult to compel people to clean up messes made by others. however, those who sue guilty parties for damages with the express goal to apply reparations toward reclamation are most likely to feel impelled to remake such sites to support their livelihoods. problem is, envisioning a positive outcome first requires believing in plausible strategies, which takes imagination and sheer will to implement. those stakeholders who are so disturbed by a site’s degradation that they do everything in their power to reclaim it justify scientific cognitivists’ impression of nature as “scenic or conventionally beautiful.” however, one uses different tools to assess whether reclaimed nature is “scenic or conventionally beautiful.” since extreme restorations are rarely necessary or economically feasible, some reclaimed sites remain visibly “ugly,” so people rely on “health stats” to determine “conventional beauty.” even if scientific knowledge fails to alter people’s beliefs, people who believe in its value rely upon it to identify salient signs of ecosystem malfunctioning, especially when degradation is suspected, though not yet obvious. just as people exhibit signs of poor health, nature too exhibits ill-health such as species loss, hydric stress, thermal stress, biological colonization, etc.; salient symptoms that warrant human attention. identifying an environment’s beauty thus requires stakeholders who capably identify relevant symptoms, recognize those aspects of nature that are in distress, and enact proven or prospective strategies for alleviating said stress. as section 6 case studies demonstrate, when a site’s problems are framed in terms that appeal to people’s core values, they feel motivated to take actions that optimize the presence of life, even for unsightly sites that lack scenic appeal. apparently, people’s appreciation for either reclaimed or potentially reclaimable sites reflects their belief that ecosystem functioning matters more than optics, not their knowledge of what constitutes normal biological states as some scientific cognitivists claim. consider patricia matthews’ view, “empirical knowledge does not tell us what is aesthetically valuable about an object, but by allowing us to perceive normal states [emphasis mine] of objects, empirical knowledge helps to reveal aesthetic properties and aesthetic value” (matthews, 2002, pp. 38-39). with degraded sites, not only is normal long gone, but scientists increasingly doubt that some “normal” ever existed. there is thus no “steady state” or equilibrium to serve as a benchmark against which one can compare an ecosystem’s current entropy levels (briske et al., 2017). since even healthy ecosystems are dynamic, constantly changing; the idea of “normal” biological states proves more fiction than real. absent handy benchmarks, scientists invite citizen scientists to somaesthetics and beauty173 the aesthetic enchantment approach count species, which reveal species numbers whose total picture is imperceptible to the naked eye, since hundreds of counters are needed to generate it. 6. four case studies: “biodiverse” beauty given the aforementioned relationships between biodiversity and human wellbeing, “biodiverse” beauty belongs more to somaesthetics than to environmental aesthetics. in fact, species counts are a kind of human action, a viable response to degradation whose results reflect inhabitants’ realtime, lived experiential gains, rather than moral retribution (ryan and riordan, 2000). what’s more, freely performed and self-concordant actions, such as counting species and reporting one’s results have been shown to boost citizen scientists’ feelings of “attachment to place” (ganzevoort et al., 2017, p. 2824). citizen scientists consider themselves custodians, rather than owners of the data they’ve collected (ganzevoort et al., 2017, p. 2821). such experiences positively impact wellbeing, since they enhance participants’ capacities, as in skill sets, and engender access to the scientific community. i even imagine that one’s role in providing scientists crucial data sets could assuage the ecological grief that so many people seem to be suffering these days (vince, 2020). if the stakeholder’s wellbeing is improved, then counting and/or reclamation activities exemplify shusterman’s point, following aristotle, that practical action (praxis) trumps poetic activity (poiēsis), since the former is “derive[d] from the agent’s inner character and reciprocally helps shape it. while art’s making has its end outside itself and its maker (its end and value being in the object made), action has its end both in itself and in its agent, who is affected by how he acts, though allegedly not by what he makes” (shusterman, 2000a, pp. 53-54). as briefly noted, ecologists tend to monitor biodiversity, because they consider it shorthand for ecosystem functioning (scherer-lorenzen, 2005). a tree-biologist, scherer-lorenzen offers the example of plotted forest data that captures growth rising rapidly (asymptotically) as the number of different trees in the canopy increase. ecology-oriented biologists consider biodiversity an independent variable, whose inputs are greater resource exploitation and productivity, in contrast to theories that treat biodiversity as an input (dependent variable). fortunately, datacollection knowhow is widely available, since 193 un-member nations, as well as 114 cities, have submitted national biodiversity strategy and action plans to the un conference of the parties to the convention on biological diversity. moreover, scherer-lorenzen and others argue that ecosystem functioning depends on biodiversity, as opposed to biodiversity depending on some combination of climate, nutrient, and disturbance (scherer-lorenzen, 2005). species depletion, however, is typically caused by some combination of reduced access to nutrients (such as water and light), competition from invasive species, and human contributions such as soil erosion, desertification, fertilizer runoff, and development (spaid, 2015, p. 119). finally, scherer-lorenzen and zoologist shahid naeem note that maximized productivity and resource exploitation not only improve biodiversity, but they hinder invasive species. elsewhere, i’ve noted that biodiversity serves as a bio-indicator for human cultural engagement, making it relevant for both somaesthetics’ focus on meliorative practices and even more classical notions of beauty (spaid, 2015). although the ensuing case studies exemplify “biodiverse” beauty, aea’s success doesn’t hinge on ecosystem functioning being linked to biodiversity, in perpetuity. for all i know, scientists will next tie ecosystem functioning to molecular energy diversity or polar wind patterns. it’s difficult to know whether species counts are just another passing fad, no different than the the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 174 sue spaid “invasive species wars” a generation ago. and since science endures leaps and reversals, it’s safe to assume “fad status,” such that scientists are already hard at work, hypothesizing even better tools for detecting salient symptoms of ecosystem malfunctioning. as jari-pekka naulapää points out, however, the “systems” part of an ecosystem is extremely difficult to define, making the identification of a particular system’s boundaries, let alone the quantification of its inputs and outputs, nigh impossible (spaid, 2017, p. 110). that said, i leave it to stakeholders to demarcate some particular ecosystem on whose behalf they aim to act. it could be as massive as a watershed, as large as a protective reserve, or as modest as a bird’s nest. since it is quite difficult to switch scales midstream, participants typically agree upon the territory’s scale before thoroughly researching a particular strategy. the following case studies focus on biodiversity and demonstrate a range of approaches, several of which yield counterintuitive outcomes. one could say that complexity itself produces a “ripple of direct and indirect consequences throughout the ecosystem” (farquhar, 2019). área conservación de guanacaste. novelist jonathan franzen actually despises the term biodiversity, yet he also credits its distinct role in inspiring costa ricans to protect 4% of the world’s species, even though their country covers only .03% of the earth’s land surface. as i have shown elsewhere, when biodiversity becomes a shared value, it galvanizes community members (spaid, 2016). as franzen explains: biodiversity is an abstraction, but the hundreds of drawers of pinned and named guanacastean moth specimens, in an air-conditioned room at santa rosa national park, are not. …if you spent a week in the dry forest as a child, examining chrysalides and ocelot droppings, you might, as an adult, see the forest as something other than a purely economic resource. finally, and perhaps most important, the parataxonomists create a sense of local ownership [emphasis mine]. some of them are husband-andwife teams, and many live at the research stations that dot the [área conservación de guanacaste](a.c.g.), where they exert a more powerful protective influence [emphasis mine] than armed guards ever could, because their neighbors are their friends and family (franzen, 2015). when used as a tool for gauging environmental wellbeing, biodiversity offers stakeholders quantifiable factors that signal ecosystem changes, numbers that heretofore went unnoticed until it was way too late, that is, until people started feeling the effects of entropy upticks (spaid, 2016, p. 82). since 1985, tropical ecologists daniel janzen and winnie hallwachs have been running a.c.g., which franzen considers the “most audacious and successful conservation project in the new world tropics” (franzen, 2015). janzen and some farsighted costa rican policymakers recognized that, in a country where economic opportunities were limited, the amount of protected land enormous, and funding for protection strictly finite, defending parks filled with timber and game and minerals was like defending mansions in a ghetto. the a.c.g. experimented with a new approach: the national parks and the reserves within it were exempted from the park administration’s policy of rotation, which allowed their personnel to put down roots and develop allegiance to the land and the conservation concept, and all employees, including the police, were expected to do meaningful conservation or scientific work (franzen, 2015). somaesthetics and beauty175 the aesthetic enchantment approach during the first years, the biggest issue was managing wildfires. “janzen experimented with planting seedlings of native tree species, but he quickly concluded that natural reforestation, with seeds carried by wind and animal droppings, worked better. once the new forest took hold, and the fire risk diminished, he developed a more ambitious mission for the a.c.g.’s employees: creating a complete inventory of the estimated three hundred and seventy-five thousand plant and animal species that occur within its boundaries (franzen, 2015).” as one can see, a.c.g. privileges ownership and a conservation allegiance grounded in maximizing biodiversity. yellowstone national park. in 1995, ynp reintroduced gray wolves, which had disappeared in the 1920s due to hunting. with the wolves gone, the elk population initially exploded, leading to over-grazing, far fewer beavers, increased erosion risks, and eventually fewer elks. twentyfive years later, the elk population has shrunk, which disappoints hunters; but it is still three times what it was in 1968, because the park itself is healthier. wildlife biologist doug smith remarks, “it is like kicking a pebble down a mountain slope where conditions were right that a falling pebble could trigger an avalanche of change” (farquhar). apparently, wolves’ predatory nature keeps elks on the move, thus reducing the over-grazing of willow, used by beavers to build dams. the reintroduction of wolves spawned a “trophic cascade,” whereby nine beaver colonies (up from one in 1995) led to: increased songbird and amphibian habitat, recharged water tables, and cold, shaded water for fish. exemplary of scientists treating biodiversity as indicative of environmental wellbeing, wolves have enabled ynp to host larger populations of many more species. bavarian forest national park. since the 1990s, european spruce forests have been ravaged by bark beetles. while most government experts think the solution is to fell and remove infested trees, scientists who conducted research in the bfnp found that “benign neglect” resulted in more biodiverse forests, whose greater genetic diversity is more likely to resist future infestations, making it increasingly healthier. although benign neglect sounds like “doing nothing,” it is rather teams deciding not to intervene the way they’ve done before, though of course scientists closely monitor outcomes. exemplary of another trophic cascade, bässler et al. remark: “the most obvious and ecologically meaningful habitat feature changed after [beetle bark] disturbance was the rapid enrichment of dead wood along with the openness of the canopy (moning & müller, 2008).…the availability of resources subsequently led to the restoration of species communities, which has been shown for saproxylic beetles (müller et al., 2010), woodinhabiting fungi (bässler et al., 2010b), bryophytes (raabe et al., 2010), lichens (moning et al., 2009), and birds (moning & müller, 2008)” (bässler et al., 2015). letting dead trees serve as nurse logs that attract woodworms (beetle larvae), fungi, mosses, lichens, birds, and eventually seeds has not only helped to regenerate bfnp, but its greater biodiversity improves ecosystem functioning, since tree species’ diversity boosts immunity against future infestations. halikonlahti bird pools. given the abundance of migrating birds flying over finland’s salo municipal sewage plant, the community decided to transform several of its former sewage lagoons into a wildlife park known now as halikonlahti bird pools. to provide waterfowl habitat, artist jackie brookner worked with the local community to construct three “fake” islands from scratch; two to clean the spoiled lagoon using phytoremediation and a third to provide birdnesting sites. being an experimental approach to wastewater reclamation, brookner engaged scientists to develop, measure, and test the impact of her ecovention (“artist-initiated practical action with ecological intent”) on this ecosystem. “to figure out ‘how, what, where’, [brookner] relied on local hydrologists, ecologists, and limnologists (lake specialists). most important, the the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 176 sue spaid work is being monitored so that its successes/failures are quantifiable” (spaid, 2017, p. 157). even though scientists use this data to grasp ecosystem functioning (and malfunctioning), this data never produces black and white outcomes, since “bad news” tends to spur protection, while “good news” ensures progress. people’s appreciation for such sites hinges more on their recognizing the value of ecosystem functioning than on their knowledge of what constitutes normal biological states as matthews claims. moreover, once a site’s health is assessed, i imagine many more stakeholders feeling inspired to “engage” it. ongoing “works in process,” stakeholders’ actions taken to enhance a site’s health need not be perfect, conclusive, or fixed. these case studies are exemplary of aea, since they are science-based, values-oriented approaches that inspire contemporaries to envision world, including degraded sites, as befitting beauty, thus guiding stakeholders to safeguard place. as one can see, “engaged” beauty entails far more than scientific knowledge and perception. 7. the cognitive states problem: “perceived” beauty as briefly noted, scientific cognitivists claim that “a serious, appropriate… aesthetic appreciation of nature requires a knowledge of natural history: the knowledge provided by the natural sciences, especially geology, biology, and ecology. to appreciate nature ‘as nature’ or ‘on its own terms’, therefore, is to appreciate it as it is characterized by natural science” (carlson and lintott, 2008, p. 9). carlson and lintott note, however, that other “cognitive approaches emphasize different kinds of knowledge and information, claiming that appreciating nature ‘on its own terms’ may involve experiencing it in light of various local, folk or historical traditions. thus, for appropriate aesthetic appreciation, local narratives and folkloric, or even mythological stories about nature are endorsed as either complementary or alternative to scientific understanding” (carlson and lintott, 2008, p. 9). those who uphold scientific cognitivism argue that it is the preferred approach since it supports neither a “disrespectful attitude toward nature” nor a “utilitarian application of scientific knowledge” (saito, 1998, p. 157). as already noted, the numerous reclamation examples thus far provided serve as scientific evidence, but they weren’t initially scientifically-based strategies. moreover, scientific cognitivism fails to account for cognitive penetration, whereby cognitive states such as beliefs, desires, and emotions, and by extension values tend to influence cognition, and thus routinely impair perception (raftopoulos and zeimbekus, 2015). in fact, the availability of scientific evidence itself is driven by whatever questions scientists have felt motivated to ask (and found funding to study), which largely reflects researchers’ personal attitudes toward nature and beliefs about its propensities. for example, scientists keen to research what animals learn and teach one another are likely motivated by animal experiences that resemble “instruction.” scientists seeking to understand whether birds learn to fly or do so instinctively carried out one such experiment. they restrained young birds from flying until they reached a certain age. the birds flew “immediately and normally,” which scientists attributed to neuromuscular maturation, rather than learning or sheer instinct (campbell and reece, 2002, p. 1166). even a reclaimed site’s success, expressed scientifically as ecosystem functioning, is hardly immune to errors, especially since ecologists risk erring on the side of overstating biodiversity’s positive impact. in fact, biodiversity’s critics likely consider the above case studies flawed, since they paint such rosy pictures of biodiversity as facile success stories. and no doubt, more research regarding biodiversity as a shorthand for ecosystem functioning must be undertaken. even so, these cases demonstrate stakeholders intervening on nature’s behalf, not because they somaesthetics and beauty177 the aesthetic enchantment approach appreciate nature “on its own terms,” terms that they may or may not one day adopt as their own; but because they value a site’s health and are eager to do what they can to make it whole again. i imagine stakeholders appreciating degraded sites even more once they are reclaimed, but this is simply a bonus, otherwise human beings could justify reclaiming sites in ways that primarily serve their own interests, such as planting lawns instead of protecting wastelands. when stakeholders privilege environmental wellbeing over what they normally find aesthetically pleasing, they not only take responsibility for nature suffering neglect, but they take actions whose impending outcomes are unlikely to match their ordinary preferences. stakeholders who value environmental wellbeing may even end up appreciating signs of wellbeing that they once deemed ugly or unsightly. fires in pine forests that foresters let burn because they avail seeds are one common example. to demonstrate how the debate concerning the cognitive penetrability hypothesis intersects scientific cognitivism, i turn to susanna siegel’s discussion of “pine-tree seeing” in her 2010 book the contents of visual experience. she juxtaposes 1) the case of seeing a pine tree, but not recognizing it as a pine tree because one is unable to discriminate between different trees, and 2) seeing a pine tree because one has the requisite skill. using a strategy familiar to scientific cognitivists, she claims that one sees the pine tree because one “sees (and therefore represents) the property of being a pine tree” (siegel, 2010, p. 115). she effectively describes “perceiving under a concept.” absent pine-tree concepts, none are seen. and the more one knows about pine trees, the more one notices, and thus appreciates. siegel’s view that knowledge enhances cognition proves central to scientific cognitivism, yet scientific cognitivists fail to account for cognitive penetrability such that beliefs, desires and values typically skew cognition, and therefore aesthetic judgments. this distinction creates an asymmetry between people’s conceptions of “conventional” beauty and their assessment of nature’s wellbeing, such that how people perceive the former tends to alter their awareness of the latter. for example, viewers who find nature pleasing often overlook its health, while those focused on nature’s health have difficulties finding it pleasing. moreover, scientific cognitivists claim that “even the devastation caused by floods and earthquakes or the ravages of disease and death can have positive aesthetic value if they are approached appropriately (carlson, 2008, p. viii).” but as we have seen, this rosy view not only renders a distorted picture, but it hardly paints a traumatic scene requiring urgent action. if the cognitive penetrability hypothesis is true, then scientific cognitivism actually faces a far higher hurdle than previously acknowledged. i term this the “cognitive states problem.” how can we expect those who neither share our beliefs nor care about our values to recognize, let alone admit that symptoms we find salient are material? the only way to change people’s minds is to expose them to strategies that have succeeded elsewhere. in the most experimental cases, artists implementing ecoventions could not appeal to scientific knowledge, since none was extant (spaid 2002, spaid 2017). even so, they have proven especially successful at motivating naysayers not only to view degraded sites as deserving of protection, but to do something to reclaim them. 8. shifting values: “values-oriented” beauty recall matthews’ claim that “empirical knowledge helps to reveal aesthetic properties and aesthetic values” (matthews, 2002, p. 39). empirical knowledge rather helps stakeholders determine which aesthetic properties, whether biodiversity or other scientifically measurable the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 178 sue spaid features, best capture nature’s wellbeing. i worry that her use of “reveal” smacks of platonism, as if aesthetic properties are constitutive properties. if i correctly understand her view, she denies a connection between “normal states of objects” and “aesthetic properties and values” in order to avoid the “fact/value problem,” such that values are improved by (and thus derived from) scientific facts, as j. baird callicott claims. aesthetic properties and values are not only dynamic, but they are situated, or perspectival, requiring one to select the appropriate perspective, the “whose wellbeing?” asked above. my main reason for rejecting matthews’ appeal to empirical knowledge is that when nature is degraded, there really are no “normal states of objects,” but this doesn’t mean that scientific knowledge is unhelpful. as noted above, teams engaged in reclamation work alongside scientists to evaluate nature’s health and assess its wellbeing in order to monitor ecosystem functioning. although we expect relevant information to alter people’s values, people tend to hold on to core values for as long as possible, even when they admit to irrationality. this is known as the “illusory truth effect,” such that people believe things in line with their existing understanding of the world (duffy, 2019, p. 132). as long as appeals to scientific knowledge prove insufficiently persuasive, as the above evolution and climate denier cases demonstrate, nature’s advocates must frame tactics that maximize ecosystem wellbeing such that they appeal to people’s core values (values that shape their identities). for example, passersby who only ever notice “pathetic” weeds when scanning prairies from car windows must be persuaded that “weed values” are also “passersby values,” since weeds not only reduce human maintenance (require less watering, seeding, mulching, and fertilizer), but they improve the environment’s health (enriches soil, attracts pollinators, provides critter habitat, and absorbs excess nitrates), which is why scientists deem them “sustainable.” scientific facts repackaged to appeal to passersby’s preferences (convenience, healthy soil, less costly water bills, etc.) are more likely to impress naysayers. more recently, lintott and carlson reframed their view to account for the way values influence values. to do so, they emphasize how “scientific cognitivism embeds, as it were, ecological knowledge within appropriate aesthetic appreciation, resulting in a judgment of aesthetic value from which there is…a clear link to a judgment concerning the imperative of preservation" (lintott and carlson, 2014, p. 133). contrary to callicott’s view that scientific facts correct false values, lintott and carlson derive “the imperative of preservation” from a “judgment of aesthetic value.” they continue, “the link here is between two judgments of value, the judgment that something has aesthetic value and the judgment that it should be preserved, in other words, the judgment that we have certain obligations regarding it. we move from aesthetic value to another evaluation of worth” (lintott and carlson, 2014, p. 127). it’s not clear, however, how aesthetic values alone prompt people to opine, “we now have certain obligations.” moreover, their newer view fails for sites lacking obvious aesthetic value, which aea amends by tying aesthetic value to “biodiverse” beauty. lintott and carlson’s reframing of scientific cognitivism in terms of aesthetic values addresses one of my concerns regarding their position, since it prioritizes values, but their claim fails to explain how this chain of events transpires. regarding the aforementioned “weed values,” they take it at face value that publicizing weeds’ advantages in terms of aesthetic values (maintenance free, enriches soil, attracts pollinators, provides habitat, etc.) will sufficiently inspire people to protect prairies from becoming gardens. although they rightly view aesthetic values as more compelling than scientific facts, i don’t imagine aesthetic values alone persuading people to prize prairies, let alone wastelands, over gardens. what is needed are witnesses, those somaesthetics and beauty179 the aesthetic enchantment approach people who themselves have been transformed as a result of registering thriving ecosystems. finally, carlson and callicott credit the “good” (both ecologically and ethically) to scientific cognitivism’s being rooted in science (lintott and carlson, 2011, p. 101). aea credits the “good” to “engaged” beauty, whereby stakeholders boost their wellbeing, while defending, protecting, or reclaiming sites whose aesthetic values are not widely valued. 9. tier paysages: “abandoned” beauty i now turn to the most controversial of sites, what french landscape architect gilles clément calls tier paysages (wastelands), those overgrown, abandoned sites that flourish when buildings are raised or brownfields arise following factory closures. real estate developers hate them, decrying them as “ugly” when they threaten lucrative deals. the higher the land value, the more buyers deride such sites as “ugly” so as to push prices down. as already noted, scientific cognitivism cannot motivate people to protect sites suffering environmental illbeing. since people tend not to appreciate tier paysages “as nature” or “on its own terms,” they are routinely considered “blights.” unfortunately, deriding tier paysages as unsightly tends to encourage their becoming a dumpsite. just as boarded-up buildings unwittingly hasten graffiti, undervaluing tier paysages invites unwelcomed human incursions. even if scientific knowledge enables people to appreciate aspects of nature that they ordinarily dismiss as “ugly,” wastelands are not known to have aesthetic value. in fact, there’s nothing to prevent scientific cognitivists from siding with real estate developers’ generous offers to replace abandoned lots with pocket parks, whose flowers and lawns are likely to become entropic madhouses. frankly, it’s difficult to discern offhand whether a tier paysage is fine as is or requires reclamation. once again, i imagine stakeholders, such as some neighborhood beautification committee (nbc) and scientists equipped to evaluate ecosystem functioning coming in handy. more potently, nbc members who value animal habitat, urban bees, biodiversity, low entropy, butterfly food, shade, transpiration, and minimal maintenance (no water required) sometimes opt to buy tier paysages in order to preserve them as is (habitat for birds, insects, and urban wildlife) or go to court to prevent such sites from becoming pretty pocket parks. most controversial of all, there may be good reasons for preventing tier paysages from becoming pocket parks (tier paysage values=people values), which nbc members apparently recognize. it turns out that the average front yard offers wildlife hardly any habitat, let alone food. imported ornamentals support only 3% the number of species that indigenous trees support. some trees support up to 500 different caterpillar species and 40 different bird species. when contrasted with pocket parks admired by drivers whizzing by, biodiverse hotspots remain largely invisible to the naked eye, yet they sound amazing, even to untrained ears. not surprisingly, degraded sites discourage human encroachment, enabling myriad plants and animals to thrive, so long as the public grasps its value in terms of “biodiverse” beauty and protects it from becoming a dumpsite. oftentimes, a little reclamation goes a long way. most important is the presence of clean water sources, so a brownfield that is an abandoned mine, whose metals/chemicals continue to leach into surface and groundwater, must be properly reclaimed to stabilize this problem. even if such sites need a boost (reclamation), they are hardly “ugly,” so long as they provide habitat for many more species than ordinary gardens, something that is not the case for a drain pipe or hole, leaching chemicals that kill or maim spawning species. one positive benefit of sprinkling tier paysages (a.k.a. “habitat corridors”) around towns the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 180 sue spaid is that they provide vivid alternatives to ordinary front yards, enabling people to quickly grasp their greater attraction for animals. i imagine that once people recognize the greater biodiversity present in tier paysages, they will become witnesses to the way “biodiverse” beauty signals an environment’s wellbeing. if their values change, they will start to act differently, acquiring new habits, preferences, and beliefs. cheryl foster terms “aesthetic disillusionment” the way an object or event diminishes in value once one recognizes how it “militates against the peaceful continuance of planetary life” (foster, 1992, p. 206). as more people realize how little habitat manicured lawns provide, they will value wilder front yards. to my lights, the above discussion not only characterizes the “appropriate appreciative stance” for evaluating degraded lands, but it proposes numerous reasons why degraded land must be protected, if not reclaimed. in addition to offering stakeholders strategies for working on nature’s behalf, gauging a site’s health, assessing the situation’s urgency, and imagining what must be done, aea substantially transforms stakeholders and inhabitants along the way. references ballantyne, c. 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(2015). the cognitive penetrability of perception: new philosophical perspectives. oxford: oxford university press. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 8 the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 page 8-18 olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and their interplay with his art in dialogue with else marie bukdahl “it is necessary to unlearn space in order to embody space. it is necessary to unlearn how we see in order to see with our bodies. it is necessary to unlearn knowledge of our body in three dimensions in order to recover the real dimensionality of our body.” olafur eliasson, unlearning space – spacing unlearning.1 1. olafur eliasson. film still. your embodied garden. 2013.2 1 quoted in topology at tate modern, november 2011 june 2012, http://ernahecey.com/files/final_topology_ programme.pdf 2 this film arose from a trip made by olafur eliasson to the chinese scholar’s gardens of suzhou, china, with writer hu fang and gallerist zhang wei, choreographer steen koerner, organisers lu jia and anna engberg-pedersen, graphic designers huang shan and huang he, artists julian charriere and thilo frank, documentarist tomas gislason and landscape architect günther vogt. olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 20159 interdisciplinary approaches introduction this dialogue between olafur eliasson and else marie bukdahl took place on the evening of november 24, 2014 at eliasson’s impressive studio in copenhagen, which previously was the residence of the well-known danish symbolist painter j. f. willumsen. thus even his studio shows an interplay between the local and the global and between tradition and innovation. olafur eliasson has always taken an interdisciplinary approach to his work – incorporating elements from fine art and aesthetics to science and social studies. installation art has been very essential to him in that it takes the viewer’s entire sensory experience into consideration. overall, eliasson’s work seems to assert that contemporary art is activating more than the brain. it has progressed to affect the entire body of the viewer. that is why there are many parallels between his art projects and mind body problems in philosophy, aesthetics, and especially in somaesthetics. the following dialogue with olafur eliasson investigates his own interpretations of how he has merged the fields of art, architecture, science, and philosophy and has been sculpting a new interface between humanity and nature. else marie bukdahl the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 10 olafur eliasson the dialogue the viewer’s active role in the perception of art a central concept in somaesthetics. marie else bukdahl (b): you have called one of your projects your rainbow panorama (fig. 1). with the word “your” you want to stimulate the viewers’ own experience and active participation. 2. olafur eliasson. your rainbow panorama. aros. museum of modern art, aarhus, denmark 2006–2011. b: an important point in somaesthetics is the interaction between the individual (artist or viewer) and the environment that he or she engages. aesthetic experience is therefore never passive, thus an artwork is not complete until the viewer has experienced and interpreted its particular qualities. is this point of view also one of the main themes in your projects and in your conception of art as such? eliasson: yes, i have even sometimes been criticized for emphasizing this idea to the extent that it seems to suggest that people in earlier times were passive. others the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201511 interdisciplinary approaches of my generation, who were also interested in phenomenology, were convinced that the notion of an active viewer was a discovery. i think that we need to emphasize two things: first, that the idea of the active viewer implies that we have to go back and discuss the role of the viewer and what enables a viewer to be an active viewer. that is why i consider not only the viewer, but also the viewing process itself, to be key. instead of saying that there used to be passive viewers and now there are active viewers, it is important to point out that viewers have always been active; we just never really thought of them that way. the second thing is more contemporary: it is about considering the viewing process as a resource that would allow the viewer to be part of the viewing process and to evaluate the nature of it at the same time – an evaluation that happens as part of the experience. in this case, construction and deconstruction co-produce each other. it is stimulating to think about this in relation to my use of ‘your’ in the titles of artworks; it suggests on the one hand that it is you who is generating your experience and also that it is your responsibility to reflect upon the quality of the experience critically or with self-reflection. also, when i say ‘your’, i am thinking of the artwork’s ability to hold you. it is not only about the awareness of yourself; it is also about the not-yet verbalized emotion within you. in that sense, it would be an interesting thought experiment to think about the artwork as something that is able to experience being viewed and also to experience itself as something that can evaluate the quality of being viewed. so it is not only the viewer who is active. the artwork takes an active stance because the object also has intentionality. merleau-ponty’s phenomenology of perception. b: merleau-ponty has explored the paradox that the human body “simultaneously sees and is seen. that which looks at all things can also look at itself.” this is why so many painters such as paul klee have said that things look at them: “in a forest, i have felt many times over that it was not i who looked at the forest. some days i felt that the trees were looking at me, were speaking to me... i was there, listening ... i think that the painter must be penetrated by the universe and not want to penetrate it.” 3 you have discussed this theme in the book at se sig selv sanse: samtaler med olafur eliasson (2004). is this concept still an important part of your concept of perception and in your art? 3 maurice merleau-ponty, ”eye and mind ”, in the primacy of perception, northwestern university press, 1964, p. 162 and p. 167. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 12 olafur eliasson eliasson: it is interesting that klee’s quote actually reflects what i just said. in the 90s i was studying a more phenomenological approach to sensing. i was interested in what conditions make us feel not just present here and now but also interdependent. if i make a drawing on a piece of paper, what consequences does that have? can those consequences be read, in one way or another, within the drawing? this means that i consider the drawing in a more systematic way, as part of a network. i am also interested in the related question: what is the next stage after the drawing? as to klee and the idea of creativity, i think there was a tendency at the time when he was working to think of creativity as happening within a single moment, where time and space were disregarded. instead of focusing on creativity as a moment, i see it as movement. before the drawing, there was an idea, and before the idea, maybe there was an intuition. and then it forms into an idea and becomes a sketch; the sketch becomes a drawing and maybe a painting, a sculpture, or a model. then maybe it can be turned into a larger sculpture or even a house or a city or something bigger. in this process, creativity is not necessarily located at solitary points on this line of evolution; rather, each point has connections to what has gone on before and will happen afterwards, and to the time period in which it took place. creativity lies in its context, its surroundings, which means it is also outside the drawing, because while the drawing itself might not necessarily be very creative, the way it impacts the world makes it creative. body consciousness an important term in contemporary aesthetics dealing with the body-mind problems. b: body consciousness, in the view of somaesthetics, has profound importance for our experience, perception, and action. somatic awareness is an essential means for self-cultivation. “the body also works to unify space by serving as a bridge between the spaces of inner self and outer nature, and between physical and mental events.” 4 does body consciousness or more directly your own body consciousness play an important role when you are exploring space, time, and memory and working with your large projects? eliasson: yes, it is important to me, and it is amazing that the role of the body is very rarely discussed in the art world. vision is still the predominant theoretical tool, though once you move into the realm of theatre and performance this attitude changes. i like shusterman’s idea of connecting the notions of soma and aesthetics. 4 richard shusterman, body consciousness. a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics, 2008, p. 145. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201513 interdisciplinary approaches it reflects my view of the body as well. as i understand it, somaesthetics implies that you are not only capable of shaping but that you are also being shaped. the body learns from different layers of experience, both constituting and being constituted, as we know from phenomenology. when we talk about the body, we tend to refer to it more as a container, whereas somaesthetics, for me, has more to do with the activity in or around the container. in my work, the idea that every experience is colored by what is already cultivated, by what is stored in the soma, is essential. we often believe that thinking about an experience replaces that experience for us, that it is possible, for example, to know what it feels like to walk around inside my installation at aros [your rainbow panorama, 2006–11] if you just think about it, if you describe it very well. and from this, we make the mistake of thinking that the description can be the work of art itself. actually i made the rainbow circular because i wanted to show that you can keep on walking and that there is no end to the narrative; unlike in a square, where you would be interested in the corners, the circle suggests that the walking itself is the primary activity. it might even indicate that in the galleries below, inside the museum, the sequence of walking from one painting to another also carries significance in terms of memory and expectations and the production of experience. this means that somaesthetic experience should also play a major role in the conception of architecture. but architects often underestimate this today, because their sense of temporality is very weak, and they don’t understand how to organize movement and the body in space. in my work, i feel i can always use experiences of my body. lately, i have been working in london with the choreographer wayne mcgregor.5 we are making a project together where i am building the stage and he is dancing. through seeing a choreographer at work, i have realized that i have been almost choreographing when i make my work of art, i am also engaged in creating a kind of choreography – although not always and not as according to a systematic approach. but in the spaces i work with, the sense of movement through those spaces is a constitutive element. the result is that the viewer or the user is the architectural pivot. 5 “he is the artistic director of wayne mcgregor random dance, resident company at sadler’s wells theatre in london and the resident choreographer of the royal ballet, appointed 2006. he is professor of choreography at trinity laban conservatoire of music and dance and holds an honorary doctor of science degree from plymouth university. he was the government’s first youth dance champion, appointed 2008. in 2004 mcgregor was a research fellow in the department of experimental psychology, university of cambridge. his work continues to explore the relationship between movement and brain science.” (wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wayne_mcgregor_random_dance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sadler%27s_wells_theatre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/the_royal_ballet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/trinity_laban_conservatoire_of_music_and_dance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/trinity_laban_conservatoire_of_music_and_dance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/university_of_cambridge the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 14 olafur eliasson 3. olafur eliasson. video still from movement microscope. 2011. in my youth, i actually danced a lot. i was very active as a breakdancer, and i became very conscious of where my limbs end and the space around me begins. 6 art as experience a core concept in pragmatist aesthetics. b: art and experience and art as an experiential process are central themes in somaesthetics, which emerged from a pragmatist aesthetics that recognized the body as the experiential core of perception and action. experience as such forms says shusterman “the generating core of my pragmatic (somaesthetic) philosophy, in theory and in practice. most of my philosophical views derive from experiences outside the library. (..) experience, for me, implies experimentation, creative exploration and involvement rather than mere passive reception, mechanical habit or distanced observation.”7 is art as experience a central issue in your art projects? 6 olafur eliasson considers his breakdancing during the mid-1980s to be his first artworks. see joachim bessing, “experiencing space,” 032c issue 8 (winter 2004/05). 7 richard shusterman, ”a philosopher in darkness and light practical somaesthetics and photographic art” and in french translation, “un philosophe en ombre et en lumière,” in lucidité: vues de l’intérieur/lucidity: inward views, ed. anne-marie ninacs (montreal: le mois de la photo à montréal, 2011, p. 280. http://032c.com/2004/experiencing-space-olafur-eliasson/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/032c the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201515 interdisciplinary approaches eliasson: yes, absolutely. as the years have passed, my articulation of experience has changed. i never follow a general rule, yet one concept has become very important to me: experience has something to do with trust, in the sense that people should trust the situation and themselves. i have long been interested in the experiences that lead up to encountering a work of art and those that come afterward. i am thinking, for example, of how we approach and arrive at the place where art is shown – it might be at a museum, but it could also be a street performance. the welcoming ritual has a profound impact on the quality of the experience of the artworks, and the whole sequence is part of, and inseparable from, the actual experience of the artwork. the experience of an artwork is part of the experience of the world and not autonomous. ideally, stepping into a work of art means taking a step closer to the world, rather than stepping away from the world. the same could be said about the studio and the museum. this is why i have always been interested in the issue of trust. it seems to me that audiences are most powerfully touched by aesthetic experiences when museums trust them and trust themselves. when museums are very insecure, there is a tendency for them to over-interpret the art. without trust, a museum does not work on behalf of the viewer but at the viewer’s expense. occasionally you are made to feel that you are not good enough to be in a certain museum. it is often because the museum does not trust itself to exercise hospitality. so the experience of going to a museum is actually not only part of a highly intimate and incredibly potent sequence of moments; it also has a lot to do with trust, inclusion, exclusion, self-confidence, and the strong tendency for elitism in the art world. there are two types of experience industries. one is called the “experience economy,” and generally when you meet it, you lose yourself. it gives you the feeling of losing control, the rules, the tools for navigation and orientation. it is like the funhouse at tivoli.8 you not only lose yourself, but you also lose your body. the other type of experience is one in which you are lost but then find yourself again. you feel that you have gone blind. you misjudge the distance of objects and the length of your limbs. it is very interesting that if we lose some of our senses, it has an impact on our whole orientation system. but actually what very often happens is that we recalibrate; we reorient ourselves and discover new sensory principles. if an artwork is successful, it celebrates these new senses. in a work like din blinde passager (2010), for example, we realize after five or more seconds that we have not actually gone blind, as we anticipated. this contrasts greatly with 8 the fun house in the tivoli gardens a famous amusement park in copenhagen is a different and challenging playground for everyone. there are weird staircases, treadmills, rope bridges and slides. it features lots of activities that are fun and that can be used to train your climbing skills too. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 16 olafur eliasson what happens in the experience economy. it allows us to reverse the experience, to evaluate the senses that generated the experience in the first place, and it reveals to us that what we perceive is not natural and unalterable, but culturally determined. it turns out that reality is relative. through such works, our senses and reality are reconstructed. this process, verbalizable or not, has therapeutic qualities. the ethical and critical function of art. b: you have emphasized that you have always been “looking for the felt feeling that can shed values without being dogmatic or normative. i think this is what art can be about.” 9 art projects sometimes also contain a visualization of the experience of what shusterman has called “the critical study and ameliorative cultivation of one’s experience and use of one’s body as a site of sensory appreciation and creative selffashioning.” 10 what are the ethical and social implications of your artistic projects? you have e.g. mentioned your focus on the interaction between ecosystems and society. eliasson: i am convinced that the aesthetic and the ethical cannot be disconnected. everything in experience that is important enough to theorize about systematically, i believe, should also be examined in terms of its ethical, socio-ethical, and political dimensions. on the other hand, there is a danger, in art as elsewhere, of always insisting that things have explicit ethical resonance. for me, as an artist, it is sometimes important to be absolutely non-ethical. it is not the primary function of art to be ethical, because art is just art and it can never, ever be anything else. this does not mean that art does not have an ethical aspect, but it should never be prescriptive. art’s ability to communicate things that words cannot express or capture. b: when i look at your projects, i think you are very much aware that concepts and verbal language never perfectly coincides with the language of art. in some of your projects one can clearly see that you, through the language of form, have been able to reveal perspectives and significances that cannot be mediated by verbal language in the same intense way and sometimes cannot be grasped with its tools alone. do you agree with this? 9 dream boys: “a conversation between olafur eliasson and kevin kelly.” see http://032c.com/2012/dream-boysconversation-between-olafur-eliasson-and-kevin-kelly/ 10 shusterman, a philosopher in darkness and light,” and in french translation, “un philosophe en ombre et en lumière,” in lucidité: vues de l’intérieur/lucidity: inward views, ed. anne-marie ninacs (montreal: le mois de la photo à montréal, 2011, p. 280. http://032c.com/2012/dream-boys-conversation-between-olafur-eliasson-and-kevin-kelly/ http://032c.com/2012/dream-boys-conversation-between-olafur-eliasson-and-kevin-kelly/ the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201517 interdisciplinary approaches eliasson: absolutely. i think it has to do with trusting the language of art because art is very resourceful, and it is also incredibly strong. i am very interested in its ability to create a statement that, by definition, is not verbalizable, because if it were verbalized, it would be something else. of course, sometimes it can be necessary to verbalize during the work process; for instance, when i want to involve a scientist, and i must explain to the scientist what, why, and how. but it might go from there back into a nonverbalized state. i really think we need to celebrate this capacity. it is almost as if we as artists underestimate how incredible this potential actually is, especially because in the rest of the world, the relationship between thinking and doing is relatively weak. the financial sector is very difficult to understand, and the political sector polarizes thinking and doing. it’s only in the cultural sector that there is a tendency to acknowledge the importance of the connection between the two. where the political and financial sectors fail, the cultural sector proves to be very strong when properly integrated into society. another question is: how can we, as non-specialists, understand something like the ipcc climate change report? the climate specialists came out with this report at the end of october 2014. in relation to this report, geologist minik rosing and i did a project, ice watch, using inland ice taken from greenland. we brought some big ice blocks from a fjord outside nuuk to city hall square in copenhagen. an official from the municipality, who was helping us realize this project, remarked that if people do not understand the academic report, they just have to come to the square for five minutes and then they understand everything. it is about learning by doing; by bringing thinking into experience. people nowadays (including media pundits) think that we can jump from merely thinking about something to ‘having done’ it. art is very much about all the mistakes, all the troubles you go through in making the work; sometimes it entails suffering and sometimes it is a celebration. but so much of it is experience that is strongly felt. it is not just how i personally feel about the artwork; it is also about what the feeling feels like. this brings me back to what i mentioned at the beginning: that we have the ability to reflect upon our own feelings and sensations while we are having them. i think the concept of somaesthetic reflection is based on this ability. i have also used the phrase “felt meaning,” because the feeling dimension is still expressive of our more primitive animal nature. a felt meaning is something we sense without the conceptual grid or architecture or words to attach to it. i believe there is great potential for art if we are daring enough to get hold of the felt meaning, without having to justify it in words in order to give it a place in the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 18 olafur eliasson society. our society’s obsession with quantifiability and words too often robs the felt meaning of the value it actually has. endnotes photo credits: olafur eliasson studio (1, 2, 3). abstract: this dialogue with olafur eliasson investigates his interpretations of how he has merged the fields of art, architecture, science, and philosophy and has been sculpting a new interface between humanity and nature. keywords: somaesthetics, cross-disciplinary installation, active participation, art of living. contact: olafur eliasson studio@olafureliasson.net else marie bukdahl mail@em-bukdahl.dk h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. page 113-123 somaesthetics and food113 fiat vinum salvum mundus fiat vinum salvum mundus joshua karant abstract: more than mere sustenance, food offers a source of identity, community and tradition, and a catalyst for reflection, exploration and exchange.  this is likewise true of wine, a gustatory pleasure whose distinct values – somatic, aesthetic, cognitive – make it a particularly ripe lens through which to examine the broader value of gastronomy.  looking at wine’s role in history, philosophy, and daily life, and examining the powerful role critics have played in its reception, i present a model of appreciation that, in begging thoughtful, measured participation, elucidates its value as a catalyst for personal growth and robust aesthetic experience. keywords: somaesthetics, wine history, philosophy of taste, brillat-savarin, high and low culture, inebriation, hume’s standard of taste, nouveau riche drinking habits some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. for my part, i mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for i look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else. –samuel johnson, from james boswell’s’ the life of samuel johnson (1791) what do you think of when you think of wine? inviting intoxicant or intimidating mystery? elegant old world labels and vineyards, or $5 bottles with yellow kangaroos? convivial evenings shared amongst friends, or nauseous mornings spent near a sink? do you greet tastings with an open, inquisitive spirit, or anxious uncertainty? do you think high or low, wine snob or wino, unmitigated pleasures or unrelenting headaches? wine critics – academic and nonacademic alike – rarely help settle matters. rather, in positing their subject as a rarefied locus of aesthetic study they obscure its accessibility and charm. wine becomes a pop quiz for which many fail to properly study. and in the process of tasting, the hunter becomes the hunted or, rather, the judger becomes the judged. can you identify styles, countries of origin, or varietals? are you versed in a highly technical yet unfailingly subjective vocabulary of description? can you parse distinct notes in the symphony of flavors? or are you what jean anthelme brillat-savarin dismissed as a person who “neither separate[s] one sound from another nor appreciate[s] what they might thus hear”? are you, in brief, refined or course? educated or ignorant? grounded in knowledge and experience? or dull in taste and intellect alike? beer and liquor carry little such angst. the nomenclature associated with each underscores this point: oenological discourse simply conveys far more gravitas. you never “shoot” or “slug” wine, as you would, say, whiskey or beer (or both, with a pickle juice “chaser”). you would never stop for a “cold one” of vermentino or viognier on a hot day, or bring a six pack of gamay to the big game. nor, confronted with a bottle of barolo, would you deign to “put one back” to joshua karant fiat vinum salvum mundus the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 114 joshua karant get “wasted.” the language associated with its consumption demands wine is taken seriously: sipped, sniffed, observed, discussed, debated, ruminated on, appreciated. if beer is, say, the slovenly joker, and liquor the exuberant wild card, wine is the high-profile guest you cannot help but feel mildly intimidated by. it puts you on stage, which, as an object of aesthetic appreciation, rings counterintuitive. why all the fuss? for literally thousands of years, the fermented juice of grapes has been uniquely idolized, and granted a dynamic role in social life, economic affairs, religious rites, and learned discourse. wine is considered spiritual, nourishing, enlightening, exciting, cultured, “the intellectual part of the meal,” alexandre dumas mused, distinct from its “merely… material parts” such as meat.1 yet it has also fallen into periods of acute disrepute, dismissed as everything from sinful and proletariat to pretentious and old-fashioned, receptions spurred by global trade and fraud, agricultural blight, and, most notably, historically capricious standards of quality and consistency (ancient wines were typically non-potable without the addition of water, sweeteners, and/or spices). since the enlightenment, philosophers and gastronomes have played prominent roles in salvaging wine’s reputation and clarifying its virtues. yet their influence has also fostered a culture defined by hierarchy and exclusion, particularly in a contemporary age when high-profile critics, reductionistic ratings systems, and swollen economic interests reinforce, rather than dismantle, the barriers restricting wine’s appeal. after all, wine gratifies on at least four levels: experiential (good times), somatic (the physical sense of well-being), intellectual (stimulating reflection and critical inquiry), and social (promoting conviviality). by contrast, high-cultural defenses – as in america, where wine is often viewed with an inchoate mix of reverence and suspicion – render its appreciation a pleasure of the dullest sort: strict, monologic, desexualized, and deaf to its most untamable virtues. to be clear, tradition, context and cognitive awareness can stimulate wine’s appreciation. yet unlike, say, sapphire gin – whose reputation rests on its ability to consistently deliver a proprietary flavor profile of “10 exotic botanicals” over time and space – its joys lie in its dynamism and unpredictability. wine’s manifold variables, evident at every stage of production and consumption, promote a uniquely vibrant, exploratory opportunity for absorption and engagement. and in the most rewarding instances, wine begs robust conversation, a point obscured by top-down mandates of standards and quality. to best appreciate wine we might therefore reconsider our approach to render its virtues more accessible in theory and practice. towards such end, i will trace wine’s historical and philosophical evolution, examining its development as a living narrative grounded in both tradition and innovation, and guided by ever-evolving standards and open, mediated experience. in so doing we might thus reclaim wine, not simply as a locus of aesthetic merit and philosophic inquiry, but also as a catalyst and guide for willful action, engaged dialogue, and a bit of fun to boot. “human beings,” william b. fretter argues, “have valued wine for thousands of years, as they have valued painting and sculpture.”2 why so? “[a]n eye for brightly colored fruit, a taste for sugar and alcohol, and a brain attuned to alcohol’s psychotropic effects.” these predilections, patrick mcgovern speculates, impelled our hominid ancestors to move “beyond the unconscious craving of a slug or a drunken monkey for fermented fruit to the much more conscious, intentional 1 alexandre dumas, alexandre dumas’ dictionary of cuisine, trans. and ed. louis colman (london: spring books, 1958), 267. 2 william b. fretter, “is wine an art object?,” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, vol. 30, no. 1 (autumn, 1971), 97-100. somaesthetics and food115 fiat vinum salvum mundus production and consumption of a fermented beverage.”3 evidence of human experiments with fermented fruit juice date back to the paleolithic and neolithic periods,4 and a wine cellar with jugs to hold over 500 gallons was recently uncovered near a 1700 bc canaanite banquet hall in northern israel.5 wine was also a centerpiece in anatolian and mesopotamian feasts, rituals and ceremonies.6 in babylon’s epic of gilgamesh, king jamsheed fortuitously ‘discovered’ its curative properties, and quickly ordered production to commence.7 and in protodynastic egypt, king scorpion was buried with over 300 jars – presumably for a festive after-party in the afterlife. wine is, of course, a natural product: break a grape, leave it in a container, and it will ferment, thanks to the residual yeast “bloom” on its skin.8 yet in ancient cultures, this transformation seemed a gift from the heavens. as paul lukacs writes, “people believed that wine came directly from their gods, [and] valued it… for its apparently divine origin.”9 wine was sensual, mesmerizing, mysterious. harvested from vines reborn each spring, it imparted a jovial buzz, carried deep, bloody hues, and came from fruit (whose temptations, adam reminds us, have proven irresistible to the human palate, consequences be damned). we know that caesar celebrated triumphs and toasted jupiter with the finest draughts of chios.10 virgil wrote of divine olympian feasts where “crystal vases fill with gen’rous wine.”11 athenaeus noted their digestive, “nourishing” qualities, while horace and pliny sang the praises of refined reds from piemonte to campania. “when [mediterranean] civilization disappeared with the barbarian invasion,” dumas laments, “wine, the measure of civilization, disappeared too.”12 (barbarians apparently prefer cider and beer.) “sophocles,” he adds, “calls them zeus because, he says, like the king of gods they give health and pleasure, the finest gifts the gods can give.”13 and in plato’s the symposium, wine is the catalyst for socrates’ extended meditation on love and self-possession. treasured for its intellectual, physical and cultural properties, wine has also proven economically lucrative. the greeks introduced grapes to the romans, who planted vines and exported barrels of fermented juice throughout their empire, including territories in modernday loire, burgundy, champagne, bordeaux and the rhone.14 such robust trade spurred a new class of connoisseur, wealthy enthusiasts who thirsted after high quality regional vintages like the falernum “opimian” of 121 bc.15 and citizens of all income brackets shared the joys of 3 patrick e. mcgovern, uncorking the past: the quest for wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages (berkeley: university of california press, 2009), 12. 4 ibid., 11. 5 john noble wilford, “wine cellar, well aged, is revealed in israel,” the new york times, nov. 22, 2013. accessed december, 2013 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/science/in-ruins-of-palace-a-wine-with-hintsof-cinnamon-and-top-notes-of-antiquity.html. 6 paul lukacs, inventing wine: a new history of one of the world’s most ancient pleasures (new york: w. w. norton & company, 2012), 11. 7 mcgovern, ancient wine: the search for the origins of viniculture (princeton: princeton university press, 2007), 4. see also: liz thach, “the ancient connection between women and wine,” wayward tendrils quarterly, vol 18, no. 2 (april, 2008). 8 mcgovern, ancient wine, 8. 9 lukacs, 1. 10 dumas, 268. 11 from virgil’s aeneid, book vii, quoted in launcelot sturgeon, esq., essays, moral, philosophical, and stomachical, on the important science of good-living, second edition (london: g. & w. b. whittaker, 1823), 78. 12 dumas, 268. 13 ibid., 268. 14 lukacs, 19. 15 ibid., 20. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 116 joshua karant consumption in the stimulating, learned banquets or convivia praised by cicero and plutarch.16 not that it was all fun and games. as livy reminds us, dionysian and bacchanalian cults brought wine‘s self-destructive potential to a decadent, unfettered fore. the roman senate eventually outlawed such festivals in 186 bc, presaging a rise in both sober, clinical defenses of wine (epitomized by galen’s cautious notes on blood production and nourishment)17 and, more powerfully, the christian asceticism of augustine and athanasius. restraint proved a compelling response to the broader excesses of roman society. wine usage was soon contained, harnessed by rites and rituals imbuing consumption with severity and gravitas. following the doctrine of transubstantiation, for example, wine is literally absorbed as the blood of christ, a testament of our ontological guilt and the possibility of redemption through submission, and a sharp rejoinder to the loosely celebratory models of communion cherished in ancient cultures. in codifying wine’s ceremonial role, the church nonetheless proved an ironic catalyst for wine’s reintroduction into quotidian life. beyond the strict confines of christian dogma, consumption in the middle ages flourished from poorhouses to noble palaces. furthermore, the rise of world trade and correlative birth of an independent merchant class spurred a new market driven by entrepreneurs with increasingly urbane tastes. from the 12th to 14th centuries ad, the apex of genoan and venetian dried grape vintages, wine commanded sustained interest as a status-laden global commodity.18 its quality, luster and appeal broadened, and critics again sought to explicitly identify its merits. in his c. 1256 le régime du corps, aldobrandino da siena thus championed “wine in moderation, in accordance with the needs and capabilities of… nature [and] custom” for providing, in measure, “good blood, good color, and good flavor,” adding that “it will strengthen all bodily virtues and make a man happy, good-natured, and wellspoken.”19 da siena here linked wine to a widely accessible eudaimonia, a good-naturedness of body and spirit alike. yet, as odile redon, françoise sabban and silvano serventi note, drinking patterns were increasingly drawn along class lines: “people chose their wine on the basis of their social standing, their occupation, their age, and their constitution.”20 the rich savored delicate, refined clarets and whites, for example, while physical laborers consumed heavier reds for their purported promotion of musculature. inequalities notwithstanding, the popularity of wine far outpaced beer – this, despite the hop-fueled 13th century rise of german commercial brewing. almost 22 million gallons (over 111 million bottles) of bordeaux were shipped yearly by the early 1300s, largely to england.21 and this success induced corruption. unscrupulous tavern owners adulterated imports and sold swill as hi-priced claret, a fraudulent practice particularly rife during the english civil war. yet wine enthusiasts had already been introduced to finer products, and were developing increasingly sophisticated palates to match, a point illustrated by richard ames’ lament that the “wine with which we now engage, has not that body, taste or age, it had before the war began.”22 16 ibid., 23. 17 lukacs, 29; galen, on the properties of foodstuffs, owen powell, tr. (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003), 149-150. 18 lukacs, 48. 19 odile redon, françoise sabban and silvano serventi, the medieval kitchen: recipes from france and italy, edward schneider, tr. (chicago: university of chicago press, 1998), 15-16. 20 ibid., 15. 21 lukacs, 60. 22 richard ames, “a farewell to wine, by a quondam friend to the bottle” (1693). accessed december, 2013 at: http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/richard-ames/a-farewell-to-wine-by-a-quondam-friend-to-the-bottle/. somaesthetics and food117 fiat vinum salvum mundus conflicts notwithstanding, a vocal connoisseurship was taking shape. four additional technological, cultural and scientific innovations spurred wine’s ascension as an object of increasingly rarefied appeal. first, during the middle ages, cistercian monks pioneered meticulous studies on varietals, yields, soil content, weather, growing conditions, plotting, harvesting and grafting, applying their empirical research towards radically improved methods of production.23 second, the introduction of coal furnaces, leaded glass, and advanced shaping moulds in 17th century england yielded stronger, more uniform, shatter-resistant bottles, an innovation that enabled producers to create rich, complex vintages for aging and storage in private cellars.24 third, the rise of the restaurant in 18th century france heralded the democratization of gastronomy,25 providing a newly public forum for wine consumption that facilitated its role as a vital constituent of fine dining. and finally, 18th and 19th century research conducted by adamo fabroni, louis jacques thénard, joseph gay-lassac, antoine lavoisier and louis pasteur on fermentation, yeast, sulfur and sugar helped vintners better understand, and subsequently command, flavor profiles, preservation methods, and product stability. equally, two prominent currents in enlightenment thought spurred wine’s legitimization as a subject of critical inquiry. first, the rise of scientific rationalism shed new attention on dietary and culinary habits. george cheyne and jean-jacques rousseau, for example, championed the somatic and moral virtues of a lighter, less ostentatious, more elegant cuisine, at once theoretically “populist” correctives to decadent royal traditions and healthy alternatives to waves of cream and butter. born of the vines ubiquitous throughout france, increasingly delicate and refined, relatively unadulterated and unprocessed, wine paired well with this newfound embrace of, to borrow susan pinkard’s term, “simplicity and authenticity.”26 second, and more significantly, the philosophic examination of concepts such as beauty and taste came into vogue during the 18th century. following hutcheson’s inquiry (1725) and alexander gottlieb baumgarten’s master’s thesis (1735), and in rebuttal to plato’s ancient denigration of art as anathema to the philosophical life in the republic, hume, rousseau, diderot, voltaire, schiller and kant reclaimed aesthetics as a field of philosophic inquiry on par, and often overlapping, with politics and morals. amidst this climate, hume famously introduced his 1757 study of standards with an empirical observation: tastes are ubiquitous, diverse, and generally dissentious, and we all think ours to be good – a “self-conceit” nourished amongst even “men of the most confined knowledge.” yet because judgments – aesthetic and moral both – presuppose an ability to discern right from wrong, or virtue from vice, lack of consensus is tantamount to moral indeterminacy. in seeking a standard, hume therefore sought a practical and virtuous corrective, one that satisfied our “natural” human impulse to establish moral and critical boundaries in polite, learned society. against plato, hume contends that concepts such as “beauty” are determined empirically, via experience and observation, rather than conceptually, via imagination and pure reasoning. in the absence of universalist standards, aesthetic rules must necessarily be “drawn from established models, and from the observation of what pleases or displeases.”27 we can reasonably praise 23 lukacs, 39 & 71-74. 24 aged wines were so popular that, in his 1823 essays, moral, philosophical, and stomachical, on the important science of good-living, lawyer launcelot sturgeon notes: “it is commonly said, that new wine, a family dinner, and a concert of amateurs, are three things to be equally avoided.” sturgeon, 16-17. 25 this brought to the public sphere what had previously been restricted to royal and aristocratic households, who alone could afford the ingredients and staff needed to prepare elaborate ancienne cuisine. 26 see: susan pinkard, a revolution in taste: the rise of french cuisine, 1650-1800 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2009), chapter 6. 27 david hume, essays: moral, political, and literary, ed. eugene f. miller (indianapolis: liberty fund, 1985), 235. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 118 joshua karant homer, for example, because the iliad is still roundly celebrated after thousands of years. and we can confidently serve a $2,400 bottle of chateau margaux, knowing it has, since the 1600s, delighted everyone from richard the lionheart to friedrich engels.28 historical reification and common accord therefore legitimize aesthetic judgments and cultivate immunity to the distortive whims, trends, prejudices and jealousies that characterize the “variety and caprice of taste.” following rousseau, hume believed that natural human sentiment, pure and unclouded by mediation, is “always real” and “never errs.” yet our apprehension and articulation of these sentiments is fallible, swayed by external stimuli and individual biases. in art as in life, prejudice perverts; and only critics, those “easily to be distinguished in society, by the soundness of their understanding and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind” might offer enlightened guidance.29 possessing the “delicacy of imagination… required to convey a sensibility of those finer emotions,” critics maintain minds “free from all prejudice”30 characterized by clarity (of conception), precision (of distinction), and vivacity (of apprehension).31 as hume concludes, it is a matter of “fact not sentiment” that questions of taste must therefore be entrusted to this expert class.32 at face value, the contemporary wine world seems to have absorbed much of hume’s counsel. delicacy, clarity, vivacity, and an empirical approach to learning dominate the language and disposition of formal tastings. consensus and traditions of excellence uphold the reputations and exorbitant prices commanded by some of the world’s most prestigious chateaux. and the wine critic’s prominence has swelled since the 1970s, directly influencing production and consumption patterns. together, these developments suggest hume may have underestimated the constrictive influence of literally and metaphorically placing the critic above the general populace. to borrow montaigne’s simile,33 our increasing reliance upon expertise has fostered a culture wherein wine critics train wine parrots, creatures far better suited to mimicking, rather than participating in, sustained dialogue on wine’s role in society. in application, hume’s standards have therefore fostered subservience; and they certainly don’t allow wine the opportunity to breathe. as wine further evolved, in kantian terms, from a source of “agreeability” to something approaching a symbol of “pure” aesthetic beauty, its evaluations increasingly relied upon objectivity as a requisite of legitimacy. this is particularly evident in the rise of the “rational epicure,” a phrase coined by william kitchiner in the preface to his 1830 edition of the cook’s oracle.34 kitchiner’s temperate vision of the gourmand combined scientific reasoning, medical 28 a. craig copetas and guy collins, “chateau margaux: luxury liquidity is pricey at $2,400 a bottle,” bloomberg luxury, october 3, 2011. accessed january, 2014 at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-10/ chateau-margaux-s-mature-luxury-liquidity-comes-pricey-at-2-400-a-bottle.html. 29 hume, 243. 30 ibid., 238-239. 31 ibid., 240. 32 ibid., 242. clearly, hume does not subscribe to the notion “à chacun son gout,” a position leon battista alberti (1404-1472) similarly dismissed as “a common error of ignorance” some three hundred years prior. alberti categorically dismissed the contention that standards are “changeable according to the taste of each individual and not dependent on any rules.” in brief: rules matter. quoted in dabney townsend , hume’s aesthetic theory: sentiment and taste in the history of aesthetics, (new york: routledge, 2001), 66. 33 see, for example, “of pedantry” and “apology for raymond sebond” in: michel de montaigne, the complete essays of montaigne, donald m. frame, tr. (stanford: stanford university press, 1958). 34 william kitchiner, the cook’s oracle and housekeeper’s manual, 7th and final london edition, (new york: j. & j. harper, 1830). first edition published in 1817. somaesthetics and food119 fiat vinum salvum mundus authority, and a somewhat rigid bon vivant epicureanism bound by rational “rules and orders.”35 if the oracle rang a bit self-important, it was partly a sign of the times: the nascent field of gastronomy ascended mightily during the 19th century, precipitating the proliferation of selfconscious, systematized guides. earlier, and to greater effect, the self-described “vieil amateur” grimod de la reynière published his yearly almanach des gourmands from 1803-1812. a locus classicus of modern food writing, grimod’s work heralded a changing cultural climate in which gastronomy held a central role. as he observed, “hosts have come to consider the dining table a serious matter, guests have become more refined in their tastes,”36 and the table had become “the linchpin of political, literary, financial, and commercial matters” alike.37 this was particularly true in grimod’s paris, where nouveau riche “cellars and larders [were] far better replenished than their libraries.”38 grimod’s eight-volume almanach took note, serving as treatise, chaperone, testimonial and trailblazer of the gastronome’s exploratory appetite and rising influence. in a similar spirit, brillat-savarin, an aristocratic ladies man with a penchant for pornography who wrote the notes for his physiognomy of taste while serving as a judge in versailles, wholeheartedly promoted gastronomy as a vibrant new field of scientific, sociological, historical and theoretical inquiry. as roland barthes put it, the physiognomy remains “the great adventure of desire” personified.39 employing a mixture of aphorism, intimate narrative, travelogue, and speculative science, it paints cuisine as an art of universal appeal: one as ancient as the world itself (even “adam must have been born hungry”) that merits heightened attention on multiple fronts, from experiential and cognitive to economic and interpersonal. others explicitly applied this ethos to wine. andré jullien, a parisian-based burgundy-born merchant, scribed the earliest modern guide devoted exclusively to its consumption.40 his 1816 topographie de tous les vignobles connus provided rules and rationale on standards and tasting practices. echoing his more food-obsessed contemporaries, he described taste as a cultivated quality apprehended, and enhanced, through education. this was particularly true of wine, an object of aesthetic appreciation that demanded ruminative experience to grasp its virtues. in publishing the topographie, jullien disseminated his model amongst the public sphere, codifying rules for assessment and enjoyment epitomized by the practice of savoring. if erudition was again posited as a requisite to sound judgment, it would also be identified as a form of fraud protection. as cyrus redding argued in his history and description of modern wines (1833), “the best test against adulterated wine is a perfect acquaintance with that which is good. those whose test of wine is the degree of spirituous strength it affords, may remain satisfied with wines as they are.”41 in other words, drunks need not fret; but for those who aspire to greater sophistication, wine study can elevate your sense and sensibilities alike. connoisseurship thus presented an increasingly aspirational model of tastefulness and cultural savvy. yet wine still proved difficult to master, a source of some agitation to would-be 35 as a doctor and man of faith both (his work was subtitled “a complete system of cookery for catholic families”), wine is conspicuously absent from kitchiner’s diagnoses. his preface also suggests “[t]he most useful art” was teaching readers to combine the “utile” with the “dulce,” “to increase their pleasures, without impairing their health, or impoverishing their fortune... and, with a little discretion, enable [them] to indulge occasionally.” 36 quoted in lukacs, 137. 37 quoted in denise gigante, “romantic gastronomy: an introduction.” accessed december, 2013 at: http:// romantic.arhu.umd.edu/praxis/gastronomy/gigante/gigante_essay.html. 38 ibid. 39 barthes, 251. 40 lukacs, 138. 41 cyrus redding, history and description of modern wines (london: whittaker, treacher, & arnot, 1833), 341. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 120 joshua karant experts. writing on his peers, influential victorian wine merchant thomas shaw observed that: the character of these old [quality] standards is a guarantee of goodness, but it also shows very distinctly the little confidence which the oldest and most experienced wine merchants have in their own judgment; and they are right, because it is utterly impossible for anyone to avoid being often mistaken, even if the wines tried were always the same, but such is not the case.42 as shaw makes plain, wine eschews absolute proficiency. a dynamic, living, breathing product, it is governed by variability in everything from varietals, harvests, weather, soil and terroir, to production techniques, storage conditions, and the tasting environment itself. such unpredictability was only compounded by a wave of 19th century threats, most notably diseases imported on new world vines which riddled the continent with rot and fungi, temperance movements (also generated in america), and rampant adultery and fraud. without much warning, wine quickly found itself in the metaphorical gutter once more; and again its revival was linked to a new breed of critic – this time hailing from america. working at the intersection of taste and commerce, author, importer and marketer frank schoonmaker became one of wine’s most influential pundits. he possessed what american consumers generally lacked: expertise, erudition, an ability to communicate standards of appreciation, and a wholehearted willingness to debate his peers.43 he wrote on american wine traditions as early as 1936 (before there was much to speak of ),44 completed two ambitious, comprehensive tomes (the complete wine book in 1935 and, in 1980, frank schoonmaker’s encyclopedia of wine), proffered purchasing advice to readers of his new yorker columns, and, in founding frank schoonmaker selections, made vogue the practice of importing wines mis en bouteille à la propriété direct from producers. schoonmaker therefore served a humean role with a commercial twist. he established wine’s validity as an object of aesthetic appreciation, constructing – much like james beard did for cuisine – a distinctly “american” history of wine production and hierarchy of standards, while helping build a sustainable national market. this was no mean feat during an epoch of cocktail vogue, when wine was viewed with increasing suspicion as stuffy, old fashioned, and (worse yet) european. schoonmaker nonetheless sparked a cultural dialogue on wine that simultaneously identified, and established, its role as an esteemed, achievable object of desire in mid-century america. a second, more sudden turning point occurred with the 1976 judgment of paris, a blind tasting in which californian upstart stag’s leap cellars defeated some of bordeaux’s most prestigious premier cru classés including haut-brion and mouton-rothschild. the judgment proved influential beyond its years, challenging both heretofore european-dominated standards of taste and, more broadly, the objectivity of existent aesthetic hierarchies. california’s victory suggested that the new world could produce, and also consume, with the best of them, thereby sparking america’s thirst for wine. yet as lukacs notes, these new wine drinkers also wanted guidance, and they soon turned to a new kind of expert to get it. promising impartiality, critics supplanted merchants (whether at the wholesale or retail level) in providing both counsel to individuals and direction to the marketplace. 42 thomas george shaw, wine, the vine, and the cellar, second addition (london: longman, green, longman, roberts, & green, 1864), 17-18. 43 see: raymond postgate, “snobbery of the vine and table cloth,” the new yorker, november 20, 1937; and frank schoonmaker, “department of correction, amplification, and abuse,” the new yorker, december 11, 1937. 44 frank schoonmaker, “the ups and downs of vinland the good,” the new yorker, september 5, 1936. somaesthetics and food121 fiat vinum salvum mundus they assigned allegedly objective scores or grades to wines, and those numbers, when high, propelled sales like nothing else.45 three points here merit consideration, two of them ironic. first, the american public quickly turned to critics who purported to represent precisely the sort of objective standards of wine tasting so recently subverted by the judgment. second, these critics – theoretically autonomous, uncompromised arbiters – shaped the 20th century wine market, at times single-handedly. and finally, the resultant rise of wine drinkers generated additional demand for guidance – namely, more critics. unlike the bordeaux classifications of 1855 (public, joint, government-sanctioned codifications of centuries-old traditions), individuals set america’s standards. and on this front, no one proved more influential than robert parker. a former lawyer who started his wine advocate newsletter in 1978, parker positioned himself as a sort of consumer watchdog. an “advocate” in both senses of the word (fighting on the public’s behalf, and upholding higher laws of quality and taste), he entered wine writing as a part-time consumer hobbyist. parker rose to prominence largely on the appeal of his 100-point ratings system. arbitrarily inflated to a 50-100 point scale (in contrast to the 20 point models favored in france, and by english authority jancis robinson), and marked by broad descriptions (terms such as “profound,” “character,” and “flaws”), this formula was embraced by wine sellers for whom neatly accessible numerations proved remarkably lucrative consumer stimuli. indeed, by most accounts parker’s ratings have dictated production and consumption patterns in both the new and old worlds, ushering the market saturation of high-alcohol, fruit-forward reds, creating sustained demand for previously unheralded producers, and fomenting the rise of a costly new category of “cult wines” including ribera del duero’s pingus and tuscany’s tenuta dell’ornellaia.46 in brief, parker’s ratings foster a cult of personality as oblique as it is dominant. objections to his critical qualifications have subsequently mounted in recent years, largely in reaction to his overwhelming influence, focused (some claim narrow) palate, and oblique financial interests.47 as author and berkeley importer kermit lynch recently put it, parker “is the only person in the wine world who does not think there is a parker palate.”48 dismissing the “label-oriented” bordeaux market parker helped revive as a distraction from “what counts” (namely “what is poured into the glass”),49 and citing “the incredible power the wine journalists have gained in the marketplace,” lynch argues that adopting such critics as guides yields little more than “an ulcer.”50 his dismissal of the hyperbole epitomized by ratings scales is rooted in experience: “seventeen years in the wine trade, has taught me never to reject a vintage out of hand, and never go overboard with enthusiasm.” more pointedly, lynch believes the concept of a purely objective “best vintage” is categorically amiss; to repeat, when it comes to wine simply too many variables lay at play. as he writes, your 45 lukacs, 279. 46 see: http://www.wine-searcher.com/robertparker.lml 47 see, for example: per-henrik mansson, “robert parker’s bordeaux assistant faces criminal charges: french police charge the wine critic’s tasting coordinator with forgery, in connection with allegedly billing a winery on wine advocate stationery,” wine spectator, posted: january 30, 2003. accessed januray, 2014 at: http://www. winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/robert-parkers-bordeaux-assistant-faces-criminal-charges_21528. 48 kermit lynch and daniel duane (interviewer), “kermit lynch knows the terroir,” the new york times, october 18, 2013. accessed december, 2013 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/magazine/kermit-lynchterroirist.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1&pagewanted=all&#h[awiijm,2]. 49 kermit lynch, inspiring thirst: vintage selections from the kermit lynch wine brochure by kermit lynch (berkeley: ten speed press, 2004), 100. 50 ibid., 170-172. the journal of somaesthetics vol. 2, nos. 1 and 2 (2016) 122 joshua karant experience ultimately “depends on your palate, the cuisine you are matching, the maturity of the wine when you uncork it, and the particular domaine or château.”51 furthermore, overreliance on critics yields little in the way of confidence, education or gratification. “you consumers,” he suggests, “for the most part, are ready to let journalists decide what goes into your cellar and glass before you are ready to trust… even your own palate. i think i understand why. you don’t trust your own palate as much as you trust a rating or numerical score.” yet placing such faith in a formula denudes us of wine’s most distinctive pleasures. as terry theise argues, “wine can be a bringer of mystical experience.”52 and while he suggests “there are no invalid moments of pleasure” in its consumption, the rise of the critic has molded a consumer culture which privileges status and cost above all else.53 we treasure wine’s “financial juju,” theise laments – the value and cachet certain vintages convey – above the specific tastes, experiences, histories and narratives it imparts.54 (consider this the “johnnie walker blue” approach: purchase the nicest looking, most expensive brand-name bottle you can find, present it with a flourish, and bask in the awe of your peers.) theise instead suggests we distinguish between “higher and lower pleasures, [and] delineate the distinctions among inadequate, ordinary, good, fine, and great—or between mass-produced ‘industrial’ wines and small scale ‘agricultural’ wines.”55 at face value, his point reads blunt and dichotomous: good versus bad, high versus low, local versus corporate, agriculture versus technology. yet it also provides a call to arms, a suggestion that wine might offer so much more than we expect; we simply need to rethink our modes of appreciation and consumption. the impetus, in brief, lies on us. after all, wine’s pleasures, are often uncovered on winding roads both literal and metaphorical, shared with friends or in contemplative solitude. the rise of critical mediation and, more specifically, rote, delimiting models of taste has nonetheless denuded us of these firsthand experiences. and while lukacs argues that “when all is said and done, pleasure in all its various forms—spiritual and communal, then secular, intellectual, emotional, sensual, aesthetic, and more—remains the only reason why anyone has ever cared about wine at all,” history suggests otherwise.56 but the future is still very much of our molding. to effectively realize wine’s potential as a source of gastronomic, social, cultural and aesthetic appeal, we must therefore reorient our approach. towards this end, richard shusterman offers insight. his study of somaesthetics demands reclaiming the body as a “locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aesthesis) and creative selffashioning.” stressing the value of lived experience, he argues that “improved awareness of our feelings [provides] greater insights into both our passing moods and lasting attitudes.”57 greater understanding thus stimulates the will, serving as a catalyst “to correct the actual functional performance of our senses by an improved direction of one’s body,”58 and yielding “joys and stimulations… intensified or more acutely savored through improved somatic awareness 51 ibid., 171. 52 terry theise, reading between the wines (berkeley: university of california press, 2011), 7. 53 as fretter notes, “just as all paintings are not works of art, so all glasses of wine are not works of art.” some taste mass-produced; are thoughtless and bland, or poorly executed. but no matter your tastes, still aesthetically rich experiences to be had. see: fretter, 97. 54 theise, 112. 55 ibid., 101. 56 lukacs, 314. 57 richard shusterman, performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art (ithaca: cornell university press, 2000), 139. 58 ibid., 138-9. somaesthetics and food123 fiat vinum salvum mundus and discipline.”59 this, in turn, bears fruits consistent with a more robust model of wine appreciation: knowledge in the form of sensory perception (attentiveness to wine’s symbiotic cognitive and physical effects); self-knowledge accrued from improved physical awareness (greater attentiveness to the process of tasting); enhanced will engendered by “right action” (emphasizing the value of concerted choice in enriching the experience of wine consumption); and a revival of the ancient philosophical quest for the good life (the realization of pleasure and joy with heightened intensity). in addition, somaesthetics “offers a way of understanding how complex hierarchies of power can be widely exercised and reproduced without any need to make them explicit in laws or have them enforced,” revealing how “entire ideologies of domination [have been] covertly materialized and preserved by encoding them in somatic norms.”60 in other words, power relations, as foucault and bourdieu likewise understood, are reified unconsciously, particularly in the case of wine. as we have seen, hegemonic and cultural forces from ancient rulers to pagan cults, pious christians to bourgeois mercantilists, colonial forces to intellectual and critical elites, have shaped the manners in which we define and appreciate its virtues. what we think of and feel about wine has therefore been directed by forces – instrumental, expectant, economic, status-driven – remote from, and often at odds with, the pleasures it imparts. yet taste, barthes rightly insists, is far richer and more complex: it is “that very meaning which knows and practices certain multiple and successive apprehensions: entrances, returns, overlappings, a whole counterpoint to sensation.”61 and while taste requires “discernment,” scrupulousness and training,62 the process itself imparts “a kind of enchantment; the first moment, the first time, the freshness of a dish, of a rite, in short the beginning, [which] refers to a… state of pleasure: where all the determinations of a felicity combine.”63 a revised model of criticism must facilitate this felicitous moment, engendering the “rehabilitation of earthly joys” without sacrificing thoughtfulness or depth.64 alas, as dumas notes, “the arts of eating and drinking are not learned overnight,”65 and solutions are far from simple, let alone compact or formulaic. so where to begin? perhaps with raised glass, and a revival of what the ancients intuitively grasped, free of self-doubt or irony or pretense: that the beauty of wine lies in its inherent mystery, in the unique combination of social, intellectual, somatic, aesthetic, sensory, and gustatory experiences it engenders. the more routes that lead us down this path, the more we might appreciate the journey. notes contact information: joshua karant pratt institute department of social science & cultural studies e-mail: jkarant@pratt.edu 59 ibid., 140. 60 ibid., 140. 61 roland barthes, the rustle of language (berkeley: university of california press, 1989), 250. 62 ibid., 257. 63 ibid., 264. 64 ibid., 270. 65 dumas, 267. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.1fob9te h.3znysh7 h.2et92p0 h.tyjcwt h.3dy6vkm h.1t3h5sf h.4d34og8 h.2s8eyo1 h.17dp8vu h.3rdcrjn h.26in1rg h.lnxbz9 h.35nkun2 h.1ksv4uv h.44sinio h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 48 page 48–63heidi kosonen suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018)1 heidi kosonen abstract: in my article i study two anglophone feature films, jeppe rønde's bridgend (2015) and susan bier's bird box (2018), from the viewpoints offered by visual cultural studies and the theoretical domains of taboo and biopower. both systems of control respond to risks and dangers to society, taboo through ideas of contagion and biopower through normative, especially medical discourses by authorized instances of knowledge production. they are reflected also in the audio-visual popular culture seeking to make sense of suicide through entertaining and artistic means. the two films i study present suicide as a contagion that has supernatural (bird box) and social origins (bridgend), and as a force of nature that threatens individuals from the outside yet also from within as madness (bird box), or as irrationality or vulnerability of youth (bridgend). by analyzing suicide's representation in both films, i discuss the ways western thinking trying to fathom voluntary death reflects senses of danger attached to suicide under taboo and biopower and in response to the humane emotions of love and fear of loss. i also discuss how taboo and biopower can be seen to generate this threat to individual lives by their suppression of living and dying.  keywords: suicide, voluntary death, taboo, biopower, danger, suicide contagion, parental worry, contemporary cinema, anglophone cinema, representation. introduction as colin davis (2004) writes, death “curtails our dialogue with the deceased as it removes their ability to speak with us” (p. 77). this might be clearest in the way that western cultural discourses make sense of suicide, which is a self-inflicted death and a personally felt tragedy to many, direly asking for a dialogue between the living and the dead. as a voluntary death and a form of reflexive violence (e.g., pickard, 2015), suicide possesses a sense of mystery in life-affirming and death-denying western thinking. for instance, patricia macgormack (2020) recognized the pervasion of western thinking by a binary between life and death, which has been laden with value by life’s intertwining with “affirmation” and death’s with “negation” (p. 139). both the 1 i want to thank the two anonymous referees appointed to this article for their valuable comments that helped improve this article. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self49 suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) loss of life represented by self-inflicted death and its incomprehensible challenge to the central axioms dominating western thought are reflected in the discursive sphere. in the modern era, the philosophical and theological discussions of suicide (e.g. minois, 1999) have been largely displaced by the discussion of suicide as a public health issue and a societal risk (e.g., marsh, 2010). this transition in making sense of suicide is reflective of biopower, the practice of normative techniques aiming at human bodies’ subjugation, including normative biopolitical discourses in the medical world and other institutions of knowledge. to biopower, that seeks “to foster life or to disallow it to the point of death” (foucault, 1990, pp. 138139), suicide appears a dangerous form of resistance. for that reason, foucault cites voluntary death as a key factor in the transition from sovereign power’s “right to kill” to the dominion of the discursive and normative processes (p. 141). thus, instead of appearing simply as a danger to self, suicide represents dangers to the “social body” (douglas, 1970), and this is reflected in the ways that the western imagination makes sense of voluntary death. very often, this imagination bears traces of suicide’s connection to contagion, which necessitates its regulation as a societal danger both in real life and in the sphere of fiction, as in the response to the netflix series 13 reasons why (kosonen, 2020). because of this contagious quality, suicide can also be related to the taboo, another system of control, as douglas (1996, 2002) understands it. audio-visual popular culture also has been affected by fears of suicide and knowledges produced of its dangerous ontology. in this article, i consider two films, bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018), which in different ways reflect both the individual and social danger surrounding suicide, including how they make visible the effects of biopower and taboo on how suicide is understood and made sense of. the two films, an art house rendition and a mainstream science fiction feature film, have differing plotlines, and they are dissimilar both in general and in their approaches to self-willed death. yet they both offer an interesting way to reflect on suicide’s relationship to danger, taboo, and biopower. the 2015 english-language danish drama bridgend, directed by jeppe rønde, studies suicide’s uncontrolled transmission among the young of a dying welsh town, despite the desperate efforts of the parents and institutions to find reasons for the deaths and a way to stop them. the 2018 sci-fi-horror bird box, directed for netflix by susan bier, is an apocalyptic survival story of a young mother and two children in a dystopic wilderness where supernatural influence has caused humanity to self-destruct. both films interest me because they associate suicide with a contagion: in bridgend, the contagion is social; the self-harm is transmitted by the vertical relationships of the young. in bird box, the source for the contagion is supernatural, with sweeping shadows and demonic voices carried by the wind that force people to see the invisible, and then, once they have seen it, cause them to kill themselves. in both films, suicide also takes the form of a mystery, reflecting the unknowable and fear-inducing qualities attached to the death and necessitating protection, as it is in varied ways related to madness, youth, religion, and addiction and in many places displaced to nature. in addition, what draws me to both bridgend and bird box is the way they, in their depiction of societal protection and parental worry, not only reiterate the knowledges born out of suicide’s threat to the social body, but also render visible the human forces that affect our understanding of self-inflicted death. thus, the two films shed light on the human element behind the sense and discourses of danger emphasized in the tabooand biopower-governed discursive sphere, and they show how lives can also be endangered by these structures' excessive suppression of the threats of self-harm and self-willed death. my article is a discussion of the complex relationship of suicide to danger. from the viewpoint of visual analysis of suicide cinema, i discuss suicide’s dangerous ontology through the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 50 heidi kosonen the diegetic and aesthetic choices by which the two films make sense of self-inflicted death. in particular, i consider this ontology of danger in relation to biopower and taboo, two systems of control that seek to domesticate threats like self-inflicted death, and in relation to how suicide is represented elsewhere in contemporary anglophone cinema as a contagious death pertinent to “vulnerable” demographies, like the mentally ill or the young. yet i also reflect on the human reasons that render suicide a dangerous death to be feared and regulated. bridgend: suicide’s contagion among the young of a dying town the 2015 danish production, bridgend, is a lingering study of suicide’s contagion among the young people of a dying welsh industrial town. the story follows a teenage girl sara (hannah murray) who moves to the area with her father, dave (steve waddington), a new police officer in the local community. the town is haunted by an unspeakable menace, a series of suicides by hanging, which is mysteriously transmitted among the local teenagers. sara becomes involved with the young townspeople, befriending them, and even falling in love with one of them, jamie (josh o’connor), while dave tries to solve the chain of suicides. in bridgend, suicide’s status is that of inexplicable and ominous death, appointed to it by the living. reflecting the sense of mystery and danger associated with it in western culture, suicide is depicted as an unstoppable contagion pertinent to the youth subculture. the spreading death has caused over 20 young people to kill themselves, and it has left the village and its structures, the parents and their institutions, powerless and stagnant. a suicide pact between the young townspeople is suspected, but there is none to be traced among them, which renders the deaths ever more ominous: there appears to be no reason or cure for the multiplying suicides. the sense of mystery and danger also pervades the aesthetic feel of the film, whose lingering shots of wild nature and the desolate, night-speckled town, displayed without dialogue or music with a dark color scheme, resonate with the threat and unknowability of suicide. in the diegesis, the deaths cause the parents to try to shield their young in ways that drive them further into their own compelling rituals. in addition, dave tries to protect his daughter with authoritarian measures that only pushes sara into the community of the local young with their cultist and forbidden ways. the young meet in a wild and ominous gathering by the lake, in the darkness of the woods and near an old railroad, where they take to prohibited pleasures, drinking alcohol by the fire, skinny-dipping in the lake, and delving into polyamorous relationships where the girls are freely exchanged among the boys of the lot. in the course of the film, their suicides leave the community mourning for three more young people, mark, thomas, and laurel, the twentythird, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth victims to the mysteriously transmitted suicide. their suicides are solitary, but their mourning is collective and loud, as the gang members bellow out their loss in their meetings in the woods. shielded by nicknames – lonewolf, maddock, wildkid – they also discuss the suicides and death’s eminence in euphemisms in an internet chatroom, leaving a feeling of a suicide cult, with death settled among them in a code language no outsider can understand. in the beginning of sara’s stay, the strange customs of the young townspeople scare her and cause her to flee their company. distanced from her father and integrated among them, however, she eventually takes part in their celebrations, embraces a pseudonym for herself, and participates in their online chatroom as the ultimate token of her inclusion and belonging. things develop and escalate, and after fights with both her father and jamie, sara tries to hang unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self51 suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) herself. yet, discovered in the dark night of the town by her desolate father, she recovers in the hospital. in the last scene, jamie comes for sara despite telling her he never loved her, removes her oxygen mustache, and takes her away from the hospital. the town is in flames. when they get to the lake, sara removes her hospital gown, walks into the lake and starts swimming toward the burning town. in the last image, we see all the young people, swimming in a flock, with their heads bobbing above the dark waves that reflect the towering flames of the burning town. as davis (2004) reminds us, the dead, who no longer possess voices to speak, cannot answer the questions of the living. thus, the living are left without answers, and the stories of the deceased are replaced by narratives born out of the flawed self-understandings of the living and the discourses authorized for defining suicide (e.g., minois, 1999, p. 321). bridgend reflects many of these discourses, born in the amalgam of folklore, myth, and popular culture (e.g., alvarez, 1970), theological and philosophical discourses with their focus on moralities (minois, 1999), and discourses by the institutions of medicine and science (jaworski, 2010, 2014). all these discourses strive to understand and prevent suicide. yet suicide's perceived negation of life, considered also by macgormack (2020), renders voluntary death bad and threatening, and it colors many of these approaches. thus, many of the conceptions of suicide offered in bridgend’s diegesis and artistic execution recur also in real life. because of its contagious nature, its association with cultist mindscapes, and susceptibility to influence by technology or peers, suicide is connected to danger. the danger is often framed as a danger to self, to individual somas and individual lives, rendered ever more vulnerable by the victimization of the ones who suicide. however, as bridgend’s collective dismay makes clear, suicide particularly endangers the so-called social bodies of communities, nations, and the human species. this is emphasized also in bird box’s vision of human extinction, discussed in the next chapter. seen from foucault’s perspective, suicide’s threat to the society is even wider: as an act of free will, and as a decision made by the individual, self-inflicted death threatens society’s power. these prevalent conceptions can be seen as pertinent to the regulation of suicide under modern biopower and to its status as an enduring western taboo. in foucauldian theory, suicide as voluntary death represents the transition from pre-modern sovereign power to secular biopower, whereas its taboo is reflected in its abject, stigmatized, and silenced status. in particular, suicide is treated through discourses of danger, prevalent in both biopower and taboo, which revolve around risks and dangers to society. mary douglas, in her career-long rethinking of the colonialist concept of taboo, reframes the magico-religious concept first to danger (2002, see also steiner, 1999) and then to risk (1996; douglas and wildavsky, 1982) to society: “[t] aboo turns out not to be incomprehensible but an intelligible concern to protect society from behavior that will wreck it. … danger in the context of taboo is used in a rhetoric of accusation and retribution that ties the individual tightly into community bonds and scores in his mind the invisible fences and paths by which the community co-ordinates its life in common” (douglas, 1996, p. 4, 27-8). a similar focus on the social collective is reiterated in biopower, as well, seeking to control social bodies through normative discourses that encourage self-regulation, and which represents the power of the modern institutions of knowledge over individuals’ lives and deaths (agamben, 1998; foucault, 1990, 2000). the highest function of biopower and these biopolitical forms of knowledge production is, in foucault’s words, to “invest life through and through ... to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (1990, p. 138-139). thus, suicide’s subjection to this normative power represents the transition from earlier systems of power to modern biopower (marsh, 2010). suicide’s regulation under biopower and under taboo’s rhetoric of danger, if anything, mark it a danger that is societal the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 52 heidi kosonen as much as it is individual. although the harm is to individual somas, it is the social body that is in danger, and it is the social body, its workforce and its values, that the taboo customs and biopolitical discourses seek to protect. according to foucault, the purpose of biopower is the disciplinary optimization of the human body’s capabilities, usefulness, and docility (1990, p. 139). the taboo, instead, seeks to protect society’s mores and those immaterial things that are valuable for the society to remain as it is (radcliffe-brown, 1979, pp. 52–56; steiner, 1999, pp. 107–109). cinema not only reiterates the discourses birthed under these two systems of control, but it also renders them visible, and this is so in bridgend. in the cross-cultural commonplace, taboos are marked by and subjected to regulation through fears of contagion (e.g., lévy-bruhl, 1987, p. 292; douglas, 2002). this can also be seen in the medical theories of suicide contagion (e.g., phillips, 1974) that gijin cheng and colleagues (2014) have criticized for the misleading use of the affective metaphor of contagion. in douglas’s thinking of the taboo, these beliefs withhold the moral component pertinent to social dangers: “thus we find that certain moral values are upheld and certain social rules defined by beliefs in dangerous contagion” (douglas, 2002, p. 3). these fears are also associated with suicide, which has been seen to be transmitted through media discussions and representations (e.g., phillips, 1974) and through both vertical and horizontal influence: from parents to children (e.g., cerel et al., 2018) or within peer-groups (e.g., randall et al., 2015). in particular, in considering the young individuals, the fear of suicide’s contagion has been strong (e.g., gould et al., 2003). in many senses, the vulnerability to suicidal influence might be stronger in youth, yet predisposition to self-harm and suicide is often represented as an essentialist, inherent condition pertinent to youth (marshall 2006), or other victimized, marginalized and “othered” demography (kosonen, 2017a; 2020, pp. 110-124). tellingly, it is often related to girlhood (gonick, 2006), homosexuality (cover, 2013; marshall, 2010), mental illness (kosonen, 2020; stack & bowman, 2012), or any other qualifier marking divergence from the “universal human being” (bauman, 1990, p. 8), constructed as white, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied and -minded, grown-up, cis man. suicide’s rampant contagion among the young is a fear made manifest also in bridgend’s diegesis where it is mixed with the fear of new media’s incitement of the young to violence. the chatroom of the teens of bridgend, in particular, creates a sense of danger lurking in the internet. this is a well-known danger to western culture, where new media have for long been accused of real-world violence and death through ideas of imitation and contagion (e.g., ferguson & faye, 2018). with its false identities, its euphemistic code language, and its digital memorial altar of the suicided teens and rip-messages, the chatroom appears as a source of death, danger, and contagion. as it is in a wealth of other recent suicide films, such as cyberbully (2011) or unfriended (2014), the chatroom in bridgend is the most telltale sign of suicide’s unstoppable contagion among the young. the same is true in real life, where it is precisely young audiences who are treated as the demography that must be defended from suicide’s contagion, for instance, in the media controversy surrounding the netflix series 13 reasons why (2017) (e.g., rhodes, 2017). in bridgend’s diegesis, pervaded by the confusion and worry of the grown-ups, separated from the young by generational distance, youth suicide is glamorized and presented as essential. this is both manifest in the strange and transgressive community of the youth and in sara’s integration to their chatroom, where the pseudonym she uses (nakedchild) emphasizes her innocence, youth, and vulnerability to the death that is transmitted among the young with dangerous ease. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self53 suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) bird box: voices no sane human can bear bird box is a 2018 science fiction disaster film and a survival story directed for netflix by susan bier. based on a novel by josh malerman (2014), bird box is a fictional account of the end of the world in its current condition. it is set in the united states, where an inexplicable wave of suicides suddenly exterminates human civilization except for a few surviving communities scattered across the nation. the film follows malorie (sandra bullock), a sharp-tongued painter and a single mother of two children, through two parallel narratives set five years apart. the first storyline follows the primipara malorie, preparing to give birth to her fatherless child, go through the apocalypse. in the apocalypse, an outbreak of mysterious origin makes people take their lives. the cause for the suicides is — as in bridgend — unknown, with both biochemical warfare and supernatural causes under suspicion, with the supernatural causes appearing more likely than the geopolitical ones. there is something moving outside that forces people to see visions that cause them to take their lives, and lures them to look. as one survivor proposes, the genocide is divine punishment for failed humanity. yet this threatened humanity still tries to prevail. even stronger than in bridgend, where suicide threatens the community by slaying the future generations, suicide here appears as a societal danger, as it takes the form of a supernatural and unstoppable pandemic that wipes away most of humanity and forces those who remain to seclude indoors with windows sealed tight. the threat of suicide forces all nations to avoid open air and public places, with life and its possibilities left outdoors with the demons. there is no solution but sensory deprivation; the survivors must adapt to live blindfolded or die. the first outbreak of the suicidal apocalypse bereaves malorie of her sister, her only remaining close relative. a band of stray individuals takes her to a place of refuge at a stranger’s house, where the individuals’ personalities and their survival mechanisms add tension and cause unusual relationships to burgeon among the desolate refugees. malorie makes friends with a misanthropic old man (john malkovich) and another pregnant woman, olympia (danielle macdonald). she also starts a relationship with one of the refugees, tom (trevante rhodes). the two of them survive to establish a family, after all the other people in their small community have fallen under the influence of the fatal visions in a tragic incident involving a fugitive from the mental asylum. he, a “madman” immune to the visions’ suicidal effect, settles among them under the pretense of seeking refuge. yet he soon opens the blinds, thus inviting the demons in and trying to force everybody in the house to see the horrific visions, too. in the second storyline, gaining more emphasis towards the end of the film, malorie as the only surviving adult of the house. she and her two children who are called only boy and girl, are traveling blindfolded through the wild. they make their way on a boat to find another place of refuge after tom’s heroic death in an attack by a pack of mad fugitives. malorie and the children carry a bird box, with two birds in it, which gives the film its name. it helps malorie navigate among the dangers of the wild. death is carried by the wind and the sweeping shadows, and it takes the form of voices that tempt the travelers to look at that which will cause them to take their lives. but the birds’ chirping gives away these demons as they approach. malorie and the children are not only threatened by these voices but also by a handful of individuals, who, like the earlier fugitives from mental asylums, are immune to the temptation to suicide. these individuals have embraced the horrific visions as beautiful, and they try to force the blindfolded survivors to see the demonic visions, too. yet despite these dangers, malorie and the two children reach the safe place they have been traveling toward: a school for the blind, where they are integrated into the community with a tentative hope for a future. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 54 heidi kosonen like bridgend, bird box considers suicide’s threat to the futurity of a human collective – a failed humanity instead of a conservative coal-mining town. despite this, and despite the fact that suicide has been defined as a phenomenon pertinent to the human world through anthropocentric understanding of cognitive processes such as reflexive subjectivity, free will, intentionality, and awareness of death (pena-guzmán, 2017), in these two films suicide is displaced to nature or the nature in humans. this can be seen to reflect suicide’s ontology of danger and its marginalization (kosonen, 2020) under the normative and classificatory process of biopower and taboo. the aesthetics of both films emphasize this. in bridgend, the thematic analysis of suicide contagion is conjoined by sweeping pans of nature: of railway tracks leading to the darkness of the forest, or of the curve of a misty river enveloped by evergreen trees. in the cinematography, wild nature steals in from the perimeters of the decaying coal-mining town, but it also threatens the community through the animality of the young, who are shown transgressing the community rules. intoxicated and bestial, they are depicted yelling by the roaring fire, like the wolves in the woods, and floating in the water naked like strange vegetation. in bird box, the demonic voices are carried by the wind, visually marked by sweeping shadows and swirling leaves. next to this, it takes malorie both the journey on the river and a climax set in the woods to wake up to a thematically central notion that she loves her children, who are at this stage wandering blindfolded and lost in the lush nature symbolizing the threat of self-inflicted death. in bird box, too, the demons are allied with the mentally ill, who are given a “less-than-human” status under the objectifying treatment of biopolitical institutions (marsh, 2010). their status in the film is marked by the bestial swirling pupils they show in the moment of their mad destruction. this happens also to the suicide victims who are exposed to the virulent supernatural: as reason evades them, their eyes turn into black swirls that are both inhuman and nonhuman. this madness in bird box, along with the vulnerability of youth to suicide in bridgend, is reminiscent of the othering and exotizing binaries between nature and culture, primitivity and civilization, irrationality and reason, that differentiate bauman’s universal human being from its “others” and help marginalize suicide under biopolitical discourses. besides the aesthetic and diegetic means that displace suicide to nature and human nature, and bird box’s biopolitical storylines of madness, the two films feature cultist and supernatural explanations for suicide, quite familiar from their history and domestication as a taboo (kosonen, 2018) and pertinent to suicide’s representation in contemporary cinema (aaron, 2014, pp. 42–47). in bridgend, under scrutiny is a cult in which suicide is not just imitated by the young. this is implied by the ominous, affective resonance of the film and the strange ways the young are depicted. this suicide contagion appears to be generated, like a curse or a contagion, in their rituals and code language. moreover, the chatroom is involved in the genesis of the suicide contagion and depicted through cultist imagery, where the young, lit with shamanistic neon colors by their screens, sit powerless against the pull of their digital community: each individual simultaneously hunter and prey. cultist connections also prevail in bird box, where the connection to suicide is supernatural, and the mentally ill are depicted as worshipping the creatures. they see the visions as beautiful and as trying to “convert” the blindfolded to their faith through any means, including violent ones. in both bridgend and bird box, the cultist elements and the untamed qualities of human nature are intertwined in such iconographies that tease out from the narratives elements pertaining to addiction. in bridgend, intoxication plays a role in the rituals of the young, and it is emphasized in the film’s atmospheric depiction of life in the stale community. also associated with youth is the fear of addiction to online technologies. their addictive and cultist nature are unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self55 suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) depicted in the imageries of the young logged into the chatroom, also representative of their own community, or “cult,” and its death-bound fate, under the neon-lit pull of the computer screens. in bird box, the connection between addiction, cultist mentality, and madness is instead drawn by the frenetic, obsessive-compulsive behavior of the fugitive from the mental asylum. the madness of the one who invades malorie’s community is especially marked by the art he spreads out on the furniture before he opens the blinds: similar drawings in uncountable numbers, representing the demons, drawn with frantic lines. in this sense, the dangerous and mysterious nature of suicide is, in the two films, enhanced through references to nature and lack of reason, as it is depicted in relation to madness, intoxication, youth and cultist mentality, and their many addictive and neurotic qualities that participate in suicide’s marginalization (kosonen, 2020). suicide’s threat is also enhanced when it is, through the lingering shots of untamed nature, given the sense of being a “force of nature.” that metaphor frequently pervades discourses related to other socio-cultural threats such as migration (arcimaviene & baglama, 2018). suicide’s threat appears ever more dangerous, as it is depicted in both bridgend and bird box, as threatening the archetypally vulnerable and often passivized figures epitomizing the futurity of the society – a young heterosexual woman and a single mother of two children – who eventually prevail against it. if these elements mark self-inflicted death as an irrational mystery under the life-affirming and death-denying western values, it could be argued suicide’s position as a death regulated by biopower is especially visible in its widespread connection to mental illness. this is reiterated in bird box’s demonization of the mentally ill as the villainous accomplices of the supernatural creatures. ian marsh (2010) notes the wealth of different kinds of discourses that present suicide as the ”tragic act of a mentally unwell individual” (p. 27), as a manifestation of suicide’s knowledge production under western biopower. this biopower works through normative discourses produced by jurisdiction and punition, university, military, writing, media, education, and healthcare (foucault, 2000, p. 131). in a variety of discourses, the suicidal persons are characterized, in the words of timothy hill (2004) “as in some way morbid, anguished, isolated and driven to end their life by some peculiarly internalized torment” (p. 2). katrina jaworski (2014) recognizes suicide’s increased connection to depression under “psy-knowledge” (rose, 1998), that complex of discourses produced by the various professionals of the mind, where suicide is often represented as the “most serious sign and consequence” of depression (jaworski, 2014, p. 95). similar depictions of suicide also permeate anglophone cinema: most films with or about suicide (aaron, 2014, p. 47; see also kosonen, 2015) have adopted the medical institutions’ view of suicide as proliferating diagnoses and as assignment of these diagnoses to “the vulnerable” (kosonen, 2020). a wealth of movies portray suicide in medical terms. they frame suicide as an anomaly of the mind through diagnoses and stereotypical – even pejorative – depictions of a variety of mental illnesses from depression to psychopathology (stack & bowman, 2012), institutional settings, survival stories aided by medical professionals, and juxtapositions between reason and its lack (kosonen, 2020). also, bird box, with its stereotypical depictions of the mentally ill who are immune to suicide, and with suicide’s genesis in the hallucinations caused by the supernatural creatures, and causing unbearable pain to the characters who see them, reiterates suicide’s connection to depression and psychopathology. of course, unlike films such as sixth sense (1999) or girl, interrupted (1999), the depressed or the mentally ill in bird box are not particularly vulnerable to suicide. instead they endanger the passivized figures and the social body to self-inflicted death as pejorative epitomes of villainy. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 56 heidi kosonen addressing dangers to self and society, from the prison of parental love both bridgend and bird box are interesting in their manner of reiterating the dangerous ontology of suicide, created and reinforced under taboo and biopower, but also in their manner of studying the senses of danger and mystery related to it beyond their influence. in some sense, they even reflect the dangers of subjugating life under biopower and restricting suicide’s representations under biopolitical knowledge formation. these two films present suicide as if as an epidemic and a contagion – with supernatural (bird box) or social origins (bridgend) – and as a force of nature that threatens individuals from the outside yet also from within as madness (bird box), or as irrationality or vulnerability of youth (bridgend). mystery and danger are painted over both films: diegetically, there are no reasons and thus no rescue, and the ominous atmosphere of the films, created by the soundscapes and the looming imagery of nature, emphasizes the unknowability and unstoppability of self-inflicted death. in both films, suicide is surrounded by a general sense of incomprehensibility and dismay. in particular, it is expressed in bridgend through the adults’ confusion over their children’s suicides: there is a language of death that is beyond knowing and decoding. as sara recovers from her attempted suicide in a hospital, next to her bedside the local priest prays for guidance and understanding: “ask him forgiveness, ask him for meaning, ask him why, please, please help me, help us all.” there is no meaning offered in the diegesis of the film, which paints life in bridgend as incomprehensible and purposeless as death. as proposed in the earlier chapters, marked a demographic threat and a social danger, suicide is prevalently defined, represented, and understood through such proliferating discourses that seek to confine suicide’s threat by medicalizing it (marsh, 2010). that can be traced back to foucauldian biopower, which seeks to “invest life through and through” (foucault, 1990, pp. 138-139). suicide is also surrounded by discourses of risk and danger. mary douglas (1996, 2002) recognizes them as pertinent to taboo and able to help explain the fear of contagion that both manifest as key dangers in suicide and to explain the regulation of both voluntary death and its representations. there are many such elements in bridgend and bird box that speak of the influence of taboo and biopower on the dominant truths in defining and making sense of suicide (e.g., jaworski, 2014; marsh, 2010). both the contagious genesis of suicide and the objectified and passivized demographies suicide tends to “stick to” – in the words of sara ahmed (2014) – from the vulnerability of youth to the danger of mental illness, are reiterated in their diegeses. both these choices and suicide’s depiction through natural cinematography also speak of the rendering of suicide as something not entirely human (if humanity is defined through its ideal form), which might express its dangerous, fear-evoking, and unthinkable ontology. critically analyzed, suicide’s ongoing displacement to this “less-than-human” status, which permeates bridgend and bird box, illustrates biopower’s paradoxes, with particular types of bodies rendered more valuable than others. giorgio agamben (1998) has made sense of biopower’s functions by distinguishing between “privileged” and “oppressed” life with the greek concepts zoe and bios – “bare life” and “qualified life” (pp. 1–12). agamben discusses the homo sacer, someone who has zoe yet not bios and that “can be killed but not sacrificed” (pp. 111-15, see also radomska & åsberg, 2020, p. 41). moreover, in cinema it appears suicide is made visible – partly as an act of denial, partly out of the spectacle of the forbidden – through these types of “thanatopolitics” (esposito, 2014), where society’s rule over individual deaths is made knowable by expending lives invested with lesser value. in cinema, suicide is frequently displaced from zygmunt bauman’s white, male, middle class, heterosexual, cis, and able-bodied and -minded “universal human being” (1990, p. 8) to the “less valuable” bodies: feminine, homosexual, objectified by medical institutions (kosonen, 2020). rendering suicide "mad" and "feminine" unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self57 suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) (and also juvenile) through these cinematic thanatopolitics is apparently intended to counter the glorification and romanticization of suicide (e.g., samaritans, 2002, pp. 10–11). yet these strategies for representing suicide are not without problems. they might enhance prejudices and make it harder for those living with mental illness to seek medical help (e.g., shapiro & rotter on video games, 2016). some reviewers have – for good reason – criticized bird box for its pejorative and hurtful stereotypes of the mentally ill (e.g., russo, 2019). there are, so to say, dangers also in some of these prevalent ways of taming suicide’s socio-cultural danger by means of cinematic fiction. this also pertains to warding off suicide’s dangers by associating it with youth, which, like childhood in looking at the less fatal societal dangers, enhances the perceived threat of selfharm by pairing it with epitomes of vulnerability and threatened futurity (e.g., edelman, 2004, pp. 2–3; jenks, 1996). here, suicide’s representations sacrifice to this death not only the abject outcast (the “madmen,” who “can be killed but not sacrificed”), but also the prime sacrificial victims – the young, whom the social bodies most try to protect and that also make the social body vulnerable in representing its uncontrollable future. the young, too, could be seen as part of the thanatopolicital strategy in which suicide’s thinkability and desirability, and thus its threat, is diminished by calling out figures devoid of reason, closer to nature and an animal state. in the ongoing discourses, their vulnerability often justifies the need to contain suicide and its dangerous contagion (e.g., bridge et al., 2019; gould et al., 2003). in that case, youth appears as instrumental to the systems of control that seek to keep voluntary death at bay (see douglas, 1996, p. 13, kosonen, 2017b, for similar use of childhood innocence elsewhere). there is a similar case with femininity and the two childbearing mothers in bird box. but reducing youth to vulnerability, or madness, or femininity (see kosonen, 2017a), can also be considered objectifying and passivizing. in the representation of queer youth suicide, daniel marshall and rob cover criticized similar victim tropes, where suicide and queerness as vulnerable conditions produce “an essentializing notion of victimhood” (marshall, 2010, p. 70), and where their resilience and survival are rendered “external and to be fostered socially” (cover, 2012, p. 3). as joan meyer (1996) argues, these types of representations have “the tendency to remove any sense of agency from that group as a whole” (p. 102). suicide’s connection to youth, however, is quite easy to understand: to those worrying over them, the threat never ceases to be real. both of these aspects connecting suicide to youth – its instrumentality and worry – are reflected in bridgend’s diegesis and in its reception. the film is a loose rendering of a real-life occurrence of a wave of suicides in bridgend, a real industrial town in southern wales, where, after january 2007, 79 people –mostly teenagers between 13 and 17 years old – took their lives by hanging (e.g., luce, 2016). in in its premier, rønde’s art house drama was deemed spectacular, exploitative, and lacking truth (e.g., bevan, 2016) in its portrayal of the tragedy personally felt by the bridgenders. by contrast, a 2013 documentary of the same tragedy, directed by john michael williams and similarly named, gave voice to the parents and peers of the suicide victims. both films deal with the traumatizing effect of suicide on parents: the frequent uttering “my child would never have committed suicide” in williams’s documentary and the diegetic and cinematic choices of rønde’s fictional film both emphasize suicide as an inexplicable tragedy no parent wants to face, underlined by a sense of threat that necessitates protection. yet in william’s documentary, the suicidal youth are absent – quite different from their centering in rønde’s depiction. in the documentary, as in davis’s (2014) and marsh’s (2010) analyses of biopower, the suicidal and the dead are muted under the objectifying and passivizing gaze of the institutions of knowledge. rønde’s bridgend, by contrast, approaches parental worry by focusing on the the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 58 heidi kosonen terrifying agency of the young. it is no wonder the art house film had a bad reception, although it conveys of the same heartfelt tragedy and sense of danger that the documentary gives voice to: it appears that the crux of the issue lies on whose point of view is centered – that of the parents or that of the young – instead of truth. and this same danger, slightly external to the ones defined by taboo and biopower, which are involved with protecting the symbolic body, also stands out in bird box. thematically, bird box is a study of the fear of loss and of living, whose dangers the demonic voices and the suicidal apocalypse represent. these fears are manifested in malorie’s unwillingness to love and give proper names to the two children whom she might lose any minute. her inhibitions are mirrored from her opposite, olympia, the other pregnant woman, with whom malorie shares her last months before birth and from whose conservative values and romantic worldview her own wariness and insurgence towards the heteronormative family values are reflected. at the start of the film, just before the apocalypse, malorie’s fears about motherhood are revealed at an appointment with a doctor who points out the tension between her sharp-tongued escapism and the reality of her pregnancy. the doctor reminds her about the option of giving the child she does not want for adoption. as we learn from discussions between malorie and her sister, their relationships with their own mother has been difficult. however, her romance with co-refugee tom allows malorie to experience a family life she did not know in her dysfunctional home. the narrative here is notably similar to another disaster film where humanity is threatened by suicide: in m. night shyamalan’s 2008 science fiction feature film the happening, a quirky young wife to mark wahlberg’s math teacher, alma (zooey deschanel), learns to settle down in an apocalyptic event in which a survival mechanism by the vegetable kingdom causes humans to suicide. yet in bird box, there is more than a heteronormative lesson to learn for fearful malorie. in the film, malorie tries to shield her children by keeping them in a figurative bird box, like the two birds she carries with them on the river. under malorie’s strict loving, the children cannot experience the world in its highs and in its lows. excessively she tries to protect the children; she denies them even the dreams of a better world with play and laughter and no demons threatening their lives. her fears of losing the children she has learned to care for hinder her from communicating lovingly with them, the girl birthed by deceased olympia and her biological son. they fear her because of her strictness, and they call her by her first name instead of mother. similar to bridgend’s allegorical interpretation of life, penetrated by a thematic focus on parents’ inability to protect their children, the lesson in bird box also pertains to fear-driven parenting and suppression of living. by the end of the dangerous journey that malorie and the two children make, malorie learns, after a lesson offered to her by tom: “surviving is not living. life is more than what is: it's what it could be, what you can make it.” at the end of the film, malorie and the children reach a haven from the dangers they have faced, an institution for the blind where they may relax in a safer environment.. the doctor from the beginning of the film finds malorie there and delights in seeing her alive. she asks malorie for the names of her unnamed children, and malorie names them, as if finally accepting both her responsibility and the children’s individual subjectivities: “your name is olympia. your name is tom. and i am your mother.” her gesture, allowing the two children individual identities, implies her acceptance that she must love something that she cannot protect or keep, and that she must allow to live in the dangerous world as autonomous beings. there is a connection between bird box and bridgend, where an authoritarian police father tries to cage her daughter in her room and in a boarding school to keep her from bad company unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self59 suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) and from the looming suicide connected to the mystery of youth. in bridgend, a curious dynamic reigns between sara and her father, a family of two. there is no mother, not even to speak of or to mourn, and as dave parents sara, sara parents dave: in an early kitchen-table discussion, sara tells dave to drink his milk, and dave tells sara to wipe off her make-up. caring is here contrasted with protecting, which dave tries to do, as he tries to shelter sara by containing her in childhood through locked rooms and prohibitions. in both films, suicide epitomizes the dangers of the wide world to children: it appears as a form of reflexive violence, of violence towards the self, and it represents mental suffering no parent can shield their children from because it pertains to life that cannot be left unlived, a theme familiar from sophie’s choice (1982). in bridgend, the culture built by the adults is everywhere surrounded by nature where the young go to escape the strict community, and in bird box, the visions the demons force the people to see are both beautiful and horrifying – and cannot be unseen. how may a parent ever shield a child from such: the temptations and horrors of the world? thus, suicide appears as a loss greater than no other, and it warns that the dangers interpellated by the usual strategies of taboo and biopower – seeking to protect the social body and the individuals from themselves – are built around the danger of losing a child, losing kin, losing a loved one. these systems of control encourage self-regulation and the containment of individuals through normative discourses and knowledges, and through ideas of danger and uncontrollable contagion. that these strategies are fragile is what probably draws me to bridgend as a researcher of suicide cinema and of these two systems of control. there is an element in the film, expressing the worries and dangers related to suicide, that renders institutional biopower visible and questions the parents’ diegetic measures. as the film proposes, the institutions of the conservative coal-mining town – police and religion – representative of the community and life built by the older generations, are all helpless in trying to understand and stop the deaths of the young. “why have we lost another vibrant young man? why are the youth so troubled in our community?” they ask in bridgend’s dialogue, but they cannot find an answer. against the easy causes considered by the parents and police, the life these instances represent is even depicted as part of the problem. falling in love with jamie, sara wakes up to the dangers of staying in the decaying town, with the cult of the young townspeople responding to the lack of prospects in the stale and pressuring community. in the rose-tinted reverie of the young couple, “leaving town” is their dream and an escape from the imminent death that is the only prospect bridgend appears to offer them. here, no contagion through new media or a cult causes an individual to take their life, no matter how young or vulnerable. however, a lack of futurity and the pressure of the customs and restrictions of the old generations may do that. “leaving town” is also a euphemism used by the young for killing oneself, in bridgend’s diegesis. in this aspect, suicide has an element of resistance that marks it as a threat to disciplinary biopower in foucault’s theory – the same resistance that makes it a danger to the social body to be addressed (foucault, 1990, pp. 138-139). in the film, suicide appears as subcultural resistance to the ways of the stagnant community to which the young are expected to comply. for sara, alienated by her father’s strict rule over her, its pressure makes her vulnerable, leading to her eventual suicide attempt. the same dangers prevalent in the cinematic fiction’s pejorative and victimizing stereotypes of suicide are also evident in these diegetic counteractions against the power of the community, which seeks to protect the young from suicide by making them vulnerable. as chloe taylor (2014) proposes in her foucauldian analysis, biopower also produces the suicidal subjectivities it seeks to contain, and rønde’s bridgend reflects this view. the dangers to self and dangers to society are in this sense joined by the dangers by the society the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 2 (2020) 60 heidi kosonen – and by one’s own kin, as the suppressive element of parental love in bird box and bridgend is studied. it is also the social body that fatally endangers the individuals in various ways. conclusion in the unthinkable denial of life that suicide represents both to the systems of power and many people, there are both dangers and senses of danger, created by love and warred against by taboo and biopower. they are even generated by their suppression of living and dying. studying bridgend and bird box, two quite different anglophone productions, offers ample illustrations of the cinematic ways making sense and seeking to contain self-inflicted death in continuum with and in relation to two systems of power that deal with dangers to bodies that are both corporeal and symbolic, individual and social. with the films’ diegetic and aesthetic references to contagion, madness, youth, religion, and the terrifying wilderness, both bridgend and bird box can be seen to reflect the biopolitical, normative discourses and representations making sense of suicide and reiterating such conception of suicide that are related to its history, ontology, and status as a taboo. in both films, the human component related to loss and the fear of it also is present. this makes them interesting instances to discuss, as suicide’s intermingling with danger is considered. as an example, the recent scandals in the reception of the widely discussed netflix series 13 reasons why (2017-) suggest that the sense of danger surrounding suicide and its artistic and entertaining representations make it hard to speak or “repeat” against the grain. there is a persistent truth-value appointed to the authorized ways of containing this danger, which often appears as an unstoppable contagion that – it is feared – will be unleashed when representations stray from the authorized, often medical frames for discussing and depicting suicide. ian marsh (2010) presents a similar notion in the introduction to his book about the knowledge production of suicide, where criticizing the medical (biopolitical) knowledges about suicide is rendered difficult “as the ‘truths’ of suicide tend to feel particularly real” with death and suffering in question (p. 6). this sense of danger is also reflected in both films, as they reiterate the parents’ and institutions’ confusion over voluntary death and display their struggle, where suppression ensues from love and fear of loss. the dead are 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(1999). history of suicide: voluntary death in western culture. john hopkins university press. unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles – and the care of the self63 suicide, social bodies, and danger: taboo, biopower, and parental worry in the films bridgend (2015) and bird box (2018) pakula, a. j., (director). (1982). sophie’s choice [film]. itc entertainment. pena-guzmán, d. m. (2017). can nonhuman animals commit suicide?, animal sentience 20(1), 1–24, https://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol2/iss20/1/. phillips, d. p. (1974). the influence of suggestion on suicide: substantive and theoretical implications of the werther effect, american sociological review 39(3), 340–354. http://www. jstor.com/stable/2094294 pickard, h. (2015). self-harm as violence: when victim and perpetrator are one. in h. widdows & h. marway (eds.) women and violence: the agency of victims and perpetrators (pp. 71–90). palgrave macmillan. radcliffe-brown, a. r. (1939/1979). taboo. in w. a. lessa & e. z. vogt (eds.) reader in comparative religion: an anthropological approach (pp. 46–56). harper & row. radomska, m., & åsberg, c. (2020). elämästä luopuminen – biofilosofiasta, epä/elämisestä, toksisesta ruumiillistumisesta ja etiikan uudelleenmuotoiluista. niin & näin 104, 39–45, https:// netn.fi/node/7553. randall, j., nickel, n., & colman, i. (2015). contagion from peer suicidal behavior in a representative sample of american adolescents. journal of affective disorders 186, 219–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.07.001 rhodes, s. (2017, march 5). after “13 reasons why,” a spotlight on teen suicide warning signs, michigan health. https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-prevention/after-13-reasonswhy-a-spotlight-on-teen-suicide-warning-signs rønde, j. (director). (2015). (2015). bridgend [film]. blenkov & schønnemann pictures. rose, n. (1998). inventing ourselves: psychology, power, and personhood. cambridge university press. russo, g. (2019. feb. 1). some viewers are criticizing “bird box” for how it depicts mental health, science alert. https://www.sciencealert.com/some-viewers-are-criticizing-bird-box-for-how-itdepicts-mental-health samaritans, 2002. media guidelines: portrayals of suicide. the samaritans. shapiro, s. & rotter, m. (2016). graphic depictions: portrayals of mental illness in video games, journal of forensic sciences 61(6), 1592–1595. https://doi.org/10.1111/15564029.13214 shneidman, e. (1985). definition of suicide. john wiley & sons. shyamalan, m. n. (director). (2008). the happening [film]. 20th century fox. shyamalan, m. n., (director). (1999). the sixth sense [film]. hollywood pictures. stack, s. & bowman, b. (2012). suicide movies: social patterns 1900–2009. hogrefe publishing. steiner, f. b. (1956/1999). taboo. in j. adler & r. fardon (eds.) franz baerman steiner selected writings volume i: taboo, truth and religion (pp. 103–219). berghahn books. taylor, c. (2014). birth of the suicidal subject: nelly arcan, michel foucault, and voluntary death, culture, theory and critique 56(2), 187–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/1473 5784.2014.937820. williams, j. m. (director). (2013). yorkey, b. (creator) (2017 f,) 13 reasons why [tv series]. netflix. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 44 karen j. leader page 44-57 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture karen j. leader abstract: to consider body modification, in this case tattooing, in the 21st century, opens new paths of inquiry about body and identity. in the context of stories on the skin: tattoo culture at fau, a long-term, multi-disciplinary creative and research collaboration, this paper will consider several questions about its scholarly import. first, the phenomenon of the widespread, mainstream popularity of tattoo is occurring at the precise moment when our lives are becoming more virtual. what is the significance of this profoundly bodily performance of self in a world where bodies are being left behind for avatars? if tattooing offers a positive value to individual subjectivity, can this significant embodiment of self offer an ethical model for that affirms our lived experience, on an increasingly endangered planet? analyses from art history, sociology, anthropology, and pragmatist philosophy offer tattoo culture as a touchstone for 21st-century body politics. keywords: art, body, bodying, culture, embodiment, humanities, occupy, tattoo, tattoos. in the course of a years-long creative and research collaboration called stories on the skin: tattoo culture at fau, hundreds of tattoos have been photographed and stories have been gathered and interpreted in numerous art forms, both for their artful content, and to explore the promising implications of reconnecting body and mind, ink and story, through the creative process. the focus of this essay is to describe and define the ways in which tattoos and the stories associated with them offer fruitful ground for experiences of embodied subjectivity, in the virtual age. i will argue for the merits of such bodily commitment. tattoos don’t merely “mean” something. rather, they “do” things. if a person inscribes part of their memoir—picture, text, or symbol—permanently in their skin, it is formative of their identity. what then is the significance of the recent expansion of this particularly embodied form? a 2016 harris poll estimated that “about three in ten americans (29%) have at least one tattoo, up from roughly two in ten (21%) just four years ago. what’s more, few inked americans stop at one; among those with any tattoos, seven in ten (69%) have two or more.”1 the astonishing rise to mainstream popularity—hardly a sitcom or talk show today fails to make a few tattoo references—indicates a distinctive zeitgeist, or, to borrow susan bordo’s apt phrase, a “crystallization of culture” that invites a closer look.2 rather than simply a trend or fad, the permanence of tattoo lends itself to more sustained study as aspects of the practice weave through other areas of interest in the present age. using john dewey’s concept of art as experience rather than discrete object as a baseline, and integrating scholarship that undergirds a pragmatist proposal that such experience-based interactivity promotes a social good, i argue that this potential resides in the connecting tissue of 1 larry shannon-missal, “tattoo takeover: three in ten americans have tattoos, and most don’t stop at just one.” the harris poll (feb. 10, 2016.) http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html accessed march 8, 2017. 2 susan bordo, unbearable weight: feminism, western culture and the body (berkeley: university of california press, 2003), 139. karen j. leader occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html bodies of belief / bodies of care45 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture body and mind. when set in motion through ink and story, the reanimated energies of original motivation, creative presentation, and social interaction are where art resides, and does its work in the world. with tattoo as an exemplary (but not the only possible) case study, this essay situates the above specifically within the political ramifications of such a project in the 21st century. is actively bodying a self in pictorial, textual and symbolic permanence of specific relevance in the virtual age? if hypothetically we determine that today’s tattoo phenomenon is period specific in its significance, then can we argue that it can be a positive phenomenon? can embodiment be empowering in the age of avatars? and can the active quality of stories and storytelling activate the aspirations embedded in tattoos, connecting body and mind toward a more authentic rather than contingent subjectivity?3 what then is the political dimension of such bodying of self, and of society? the use of the term occupy is provocative and strategic. “occupy your body” marshals the powerful image of zuccotti park and other sites around the u.s. and the world, where the virtual, in the form of social media, produced the corporeal, thousands of peaceful protestors, refusing to give ground. if their name, occupy wall street, conjured images of military occupations, their actions produced something quite different. once occupied, their means of communication was physical, in the form of the “human megaphone.” the assertion of human presence in the political realm, literally the “body politic” changed the conversation, inserting the phrase “we are the 99%” into the lexicon, and forcing wealth and income inequality into the public dialogue, where it remains. as rebecca solnit observed on the one-year anniversary: “wily occupy brought a trojan horse loaded with truth to the citadel of wall street. even the bronze bull couldn’t face that down.”4 thus from the theoretical we move to the practical. admittedly, asserting a positive value to an embodied existence, a committed physical presence, in an increasingly virtual world places a heavy onus on the kinds of meanings the body can carry, so marked is it by regimes of power. deploying methods from various disciplines, including art history, feminist theory, narrative studies, philosophy and sociology, this argument proposes the frame of “tattoo culture” and the metaphor/agent of occupation as a melding of mind and body, in order to turn those meanings into a confrontation with power, in the context of the facing down the global challenges of the twenty-first century. ask any person to tell you about their tattoo (s) and you will get a story. such stories are not uncommon, and when repeated in response to the vaguely hostile queries the tattooed often experience, can seem boilerplate; what louise woodstock calls dismissively “therapeutic narratives.”5 however, approaching with a genuine sense of curiosity will yield a remarkable range of experiences, interpretations, and opinions. the “tattoo culture” in the title of this article refers to ways my collaborators and i developed the stories we collected into other visual and performing arts (figure 1).6 the intricate connection between ink and story can be articulated through art, which can move audiences beyond shallow preconceptions, to more deeply appreciate the multiplicity of tattoo cultures. 3 arthur f. frank, letting stories breathe: a socio-narrative (chicago and london: university of chicago press, 2010). 4 rebecca solnit, “occupy your victories,” guernica (september 17, 2012): http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-yourvictories/ accessed may 24, 2017. 5 louise woodstock, “tattoo therapy: storying the self on reality tv in neoliberal times.” journal of popular culture online early view, 2011: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00814.x/abstract. 6 for details of the various phases of this project and initial analysis see leader, karen. “stories on the skin: tattoo culture at a south florida university.” arts and humanities in higher education 14.4 (march, 2015): 426-446. doi: 10.1177/1474022215575162. more about the project can be found at storiesontheskin.org, and facebook.com/storiesontheskinatfau. http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-occupy-your-victories/ the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 46 karen j. leader figure 1: alex catalano, “phoenix-toranika washington” from skin full of stories, choreography by clarence brooks and dancers, 2014. the dancer expresses abstractly student jesse’s story of a phoenix tattoo, a symbolic rebirth from the crippling self-destruction of addiction. (reproduced with the artist’s permission) surface and depth the interpretive anchor for this project has been the body. the skin is not a canvas to be framed and hung on a wall. and the story is not found in a journal or book. tattoos are living, breathing, embodied autobiographies, ink and story acquired through considerable pain and expense. when someone tells you about their tattoo, they are not describing something that happened to them, but something that is them. interpretation considers the pain, the permanence, and the ongoing influence of the ink. from the beginning of human existence, in candlelit caves or nomadic caravans, tattoos have been a living art, and a lived art form. they are part of elaborate ceremonies, they carry profound aesthetic, religious, and socio-political meanings. and they are often performed, meaning that they are hidden or revealed as part of a strategy of self-presentation. in addition, their interpretations change not only with the circumstances of the bodies that wear them but also with/in the societies that read them. of course tattoos are a form of creative expression, but they are also keepers of memory, celebrations and commemorations, affirmations and decorations. they are, in short, complex cultural interventions. asking a tattooed person about their ink can be a fraught interchange, and people have relayed extraordinary examples of rudeness. instead, starting from a position of curiosity and interest, and wanting to draw out the complexities, a dialogical model emphasizes the importance of telling but also of listening. this forecloses the unsatisfying “defensive mode” and turns the narratives away from narcissistic self-storying. it is here that the emphasis on what tattoos “do” rather than “mean” or “diagnose” becomes most fruitful. “tattoo culture” insists that the story is for the listener as much as for the teller. mary kosut posits an embodied storytelling (after arthur frank), made significant page 46-57 bodies of belief / bodies of care47 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture specifically through social interactions. the tattooed body is, kosut argues: “a conceptual latchkey— a tool that may enable researchers to begin to unlock the complicated relationship between the body, self-identity and society.”7 this approach takes tattoo as an opportunity for discovery and understanding of humanity in general, rather than as something in itself to be investigated in order to be diagnosed. arthur frank has focused in his most recent book on stories as “companions” or agents that offer possible outcomes. in an interview he explains: “stories teach us what sort of consequences follow from what sort of action; that’s their narrative logic. we then perceive moments in our own lives as fitting that narrative logic, and we act as if in the story.”8 in letting stories breathe, frank offers from the beginning, in the title, that there is a bodily component: “stories are material-semiotic in their double embodiment.” (frank, 44) referencing donna haraway, frank continues: “there is no existing as a human outside a companionship with stories that are semiotic in their being and material in the effects they bring about. the capacity of stories is to allow us humans to be” (frank, 44, the haraway cite is “how like a leaf ”). tattoos are often (though not always) a literal embodiment of a story, a partnership between mind and body. paul sweetman argues depth over surface: “in this sense, the modified body produces itself. a pair of jeans, or a new pair of training shoes, can be consumed and displayed as ‘pure sign’, in ignorance of the conditions under which the material product was fabricated. tattoos and piercings, in contrast, demand one’s presence as producer, consumer and living frame for the corporeal artefact thus acquired.”9 sweetman’s argument is against fashion, trend or commodity, but also emphasizes the active body politics in “an attempt to lend corporeal solidity to expressions of individuality.” sweetman is not arguing that tattoo shapes a fixed identity, but that it is a more committed expression of self. kosut, frank and sweetman provide interpretive threads that tie the permanence, the pain, and the reanimation of the tattoo’s agency, into a pragmatist proposition about the possible consequences of such a model. identity, life choices, and social interaction, fundamental aspects of humanity, are woven together. embodiment in a virtual age while plato could dismiss the body as too ephemeral to be real and valuable, today the body seems more stable, durable, and real than the rest of the world we experience. it certainly seems much more familiar and easier to grasp, survey, and control. the media’s unmanageable overload of unintegrated information is a strongly decentering force, turning consciousness into a flux of swirling, disconnected ephemeral elements.10 returning to the question of the period specificity of the current global expansion of tattooing, questions arise about the distinct physical commitment of the practice of getting tattooed, in an increasingly virtual world. a few years ago, a study of tattoos and public opinion was conducted not through interviews, a survey, or a questionnaire, but using avatars, a simulation model.11 one 7 mary kosut, “tattoo narratives: the intersection of the body, self-identity and society,” visual sociology. 15.1 (2000): 79. 8 quoted in caren schnur neile, “our stories, our companions: a conversation with arthur w. frank,” storytelling, self, society 9.2 (fall 2013): 264. 9 paul sweetman, “anchoring the (postmodern) self ? body modification, fashion and identity” body and society 5.2-3 (1999): 64. 10 richard shusterman, performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art (ithaca: cornell university press, 2000), 148. 11 s. wohlrab, b. fink, p.m. kappeler, and g. brewer. “differences in personality attributions toward tattooed and non-tattooed virtual human characters.” journal of individual differences 30 (2009): 1-5. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 48 karen j. leader wonders if the data was more or less reliable than had there been actual flesh and blood, skin and bones, involved. did the virtual presence, by its disembodiment, remove the very material essence that was at the heart of those opinions to start with? from the loftiest cerebrations of the philosophers from plato to present, to the jeering taunts of 7th-grade mean girls at their earlydeveloping classmates, to the multi-billion dollar diet/exercise/liposuction industries, bodies are under constant scrutiny. and we increasingly love our virtualities: our profile pics and selfies, second lives and emojis. the phenomenon of the widespread, mainstream popularity of tattoo is occurring at the precise moment when our lived experience is increasingly detached from the physical realm. what is the significance of this distinctly bodily performance of self in a world where bodies are being left behind for avatars? what does a tattoo do in the world? the stories can be surprising in their complexity, encompassing initial motivations but also accrued values through lived experiences. the telling reanimates these embedded meanings. tattooing is a way of marking important memories and life events. the passage from child to adult, graduation from college, birth of children, these and many other transitions are commemorated with a practice far more permanent than a photo. memorial tattoos commemorate a lost lovedone, survival tattoos, for instance on the site of a mastectomy scar reclaim the body from disease; shield tattoos are external reminders of the need to protect one’s body and one’s subjectivity from external violence (figure 2). figure 2: z. koppisch, eddie, inshallah, 2011. this tattoo represents a pact made between friends, one stateside, one deployed, then re-deployed to iraq. eddie explains inshallah (if allah wills it) as inspirational, a tattoo they would both get, in the script the soldier learned while serving, should he return home safely. (reproduced with the artist’s permission) bodies of belief / bodies of care49 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture anthropologist susan benson describes the transit between inside and outside: again, what is external is transformed into something internal to the subject; and memory, a critical property of contemporary self-identity, is externalized and fixed upon the skin... and such practices may do more than merely ‘remind’ or ‘reinforce’; they may, as [tattoo artist vyvyn] lazonga puts it, also elicit ‘who the person is or is becoming’. in this sense they evoke not the registration of external events but internal depth...12 (benson, 246) that depth marks the connection between past and present, memory and the constant process of becoming. it is significant that while the image is fixed if never altered (as tattoos sometimes are), its meaning is mutable. inscription is often invoked to emphasize how power colonizes the body, through selfsurveillance, the policing of social norms, or worse.13 the “counter-inscription” of extreme body modification projects can constitute active resistance to social oppression, but showing and telling tattoo stories offers a more subtle recalibration of the body’s active role in subject formation. it is not simply a visual cue sparking a memory, but sensory experience embodying emotion. sociologists atte oksanen and jussi turtiainen contextualize contemporary tattoo practice in relation to subjectivity, deftly approaching the topic from multiple perspectives. rather than just narrating life stories, the authors propose numerous active functions: the sociology of the body has recently started to approach tattooing as a form of selfexpression and body politics, hence opening the way to a positive diagnosis of tattooing... it is shown here that tattoos are used by subjects in order to control their lives when faced with the chaos of late modern society. a tattoo engraved into the skin represents a link to personal life history, as well as an opportunity for subjective security.14 just what is that chaos, which destabilizes our sense of self, creating a capitalistic paradise of putting on and taking off consumable subjectivities like so many halloween costumes? it is, at least in part, the chaos of the very information age virtuality that is separating identity from physicality, creating a burgeoning research focus on the problematics of virtual identity, such that you can earn an advanced degree studying it. it is that “flux of swirling, disconnected ephemeral elements” described by richard shusterman in the excerpt that began this section. there is obvious appeal to presenting oneself in a social space as an avatar. you absent yourself from the embedded preconceptions of corporal presence: weight, disability, class, gender, race, age, any number of external signifiers; each of them invitations to discrimination and prejudice. this disembodiment, however, has serious ramifications. the permanence of the tattoo resists the disembodiment of virtuality. sweetman’s postmodern metaphor of “anchoring the self ” leads to the more active metaphor of occupation, which is rooted in the body politic. sweetman argues convincingly that the combination of permanence, pain, and the narrow gap between producer and consumer (tattoo artist, tattoo customer) helps to move the practice beyond fashion. 12 susan benson, “inscriptions of the self: reflections on tattooing and piercing in contemporary euro-america.” written on the body: the tattoo in european and american history. ed. jane caplan (princeton: princeton university press, 2000), 246. 13 see margo demello, bodies of inscription: a cultural history of the modern tattoo community (durham: duke university press, 2000). also demello, body studies: an introduction (london: routledge, 2014). 14 atte oksanen and jussi turtiainen, “a life told in ink: tattoo narratives and the problem of the self in late modern society,” auto/ biography 13 (2005): 112. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 50 karen j. leader despite the commodification of tattoos, to the point where tattooed celebrities or models are now used to sell products, the “product” of the tattoo is difficult to quantify. the practice is widespread and popular, and particular artists are sought after by collectors, who have to book months in advance. yet there is no, in marxist terms, alienation, between producer and consumer. there is no resale market, no futures, the original owner/collector retains full possession. the continuing guild-like apprentice system of the tattoo shop resists co-optation by capitalism, or mass production. getting a tattoo is, as repeated by scores of our interlocutors, a singular, memorable experience resulting in a permanent change to the self (figure 3). rarely does anyone say that about a pair of jeans. figure 3: z. koppisch, arely, forever strong 2014. in our questionnaire, arely wrote: “...for me, the tattoos are even more than aesthetic visual ways of representing my life: they are in fact, part of me, of who i am. each one of them has become an integral part of me and my identity. that, as much as i originally created them, they create me as well.” (reproduced with the artist’s permission) what is tattoo doing now, in the 21st-century western world, that is needed for the body? has it replaced a previous somatic experience? the postmodern answer is the floating signifier, all skin no depth. but oksanen and turtiainen refer to the concept of “visualized subjectivity,” the active choice of externalizing a visible self with tattoos. their study is based, significantly, on narratives, in particular those found in the back of tattoo magazine. these serve as validation or defense, (often their original meaning) but also navigate a circuit between mind and body, word and image, and self and other. approaching the narrative as specifically mutable, adaptable, and active, the authors draw on various analyses to clarify that: “the narrative feature of tattoos should not be reduced to the symbolic level alone, for the tattooed body is more adaptive than static by nature. in other words, although the picture on the skin has a relative permanence, the affects connected to it change with the flow of life” (oksanen and turtiainen, 122). bodies of belief / bodies of care51 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture shannon sullivan’s preference of the term “bodying” over embodied, for its active construction serves to describe the ways in which tattoos and their stories activate the subject in her encounters with the world.15 tattoo narratives are no more the full story of a life than is the memoir, or autobiography. they are selective, strategic, and communicative in ways that the tattoo alone can never be. oksanen and turtiainen firmly reply to critics asserting versions of a pathological model with experiential and ameliorative counter-arguments, affirming the mind/body connection: “the subject tells his or her life story in relation to them, situates pain and charts life experiences...the tattoo narratives are construed as powerful existential experiences, where life events are integrated into a narrative form via the body.”16 (oksanen and turtiainen, 127) to borrow wolfgang kraus’ phrase from narrative studies, “the telling is the ‘doing’ of identity.”17 this aspect is also addressed by kosut who arrives at a nuanced reading of the narratives not as definitive but rather: “[t]hey describe modern subjects whose selves and bodies are in praxis. within these stories there is a continuous reflexive dialogue between the body, self-identity and society. through interpreting tattoo narratives we can begin to decipher the intricacies of this communication.” (kosut, 99, emphasis added) kosut interprets as a sociologist, observing through her field work the active quality of this “doing” or praxis of a storied tattoo identity. occupy your body any body politics, therefore, must speak about the body, stressing its materiality and its social and discursive construction, at the same time as disrupting and subverting existing regimes of representation.18 what are the ramifications of a theory and praxis that proposes empowerment through embodied subjectivity? contemporary media portrayals of tattoo split into the vaguely positive (hip, edgy, artsy) and decidedly negative (tattoos as a barrier to employment, as ill-conceived, as signs of deviance.) such mixed messages are legion, and can’t keep up with what is in or out. the first model is to be welcomed, since some tattooing is superb art indeed. but more important is to recognize the second for the strategy it reinforces, of reading in to all tattoos a psychopathology.19 as victoria pitts observes, pathologization, most often inflicted on already marginalized communities: women, people of color, sexual minorities, “is never politically neutral.”20 the body is, and indeed always has been marked, inscribed, continually colonized by power. the best countervailing force, demonstrated throughout history, is taking ownership of the body, and hence, the body politic, physically embodying it. storm the bastille, march on washington, sit in, stare down the tank in tiananmen square, populate tahrir square, occupy wall street. perhaps the most significant act of the political body in western history was to separate the head of king louis xvi from the body of france, symbolically severing state rule from “divine right” in all its abuses. “bodily power or movement” writes shusterman, “is perhaps the elemental root 15 shannon sullivan, living across and through skins: transactional bodies, pragmatism, and feminism (bloomington: indiana university press, 2001.) this concept is explored in more detail in karen leader, “on the book of my body: “women, power, and tattoo culture,” feminist formations 28.3 (winter 2016): 174-195. 16 there is no doubt that there is a negative side to this where tattoo traditions inscribe antisocial behaviors, gang markings, prison iconography etc. nevertheless, taking ownership of the inscription through narrative is at least an act of honesty. 17 wolfgang kraus, “the narrative negotiation of identity and belonging” narrative inquiry 16.1 (2006): 107. 18 amelia jones, ed. the feminism and visual culture reader (london: routledge, 2003), 424. 19 nikki sullivan, tattooed bodies: subjectivity, textuality, ethics, and pleasure (westport ct: praeger, 2001). 20 victoria l. pitts, in the flesh: the cultural politics of body modification (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2003), 18. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 52 karen j. leader of our concept of freedom.”21 can what i’m arguing as a culturally and historically significant bodying of self, tattoo, enhanced as i’ve described, through “tattoo culture,” offer an ethical model that affirms our lived experience, on an increasingly endangered and politically polarized planet? the metaphor of “occupy” entered the lexicon powerfully as a result of committed, bodily, political activism. body politics in raced, classed and gendered terms is in full-on war mode at the moment, with civilian middle-eastern bodies being blown up by “un-manned,” that is disembodied american drones. #blacklivesmatter arose from the continual savaging of black bodies (and minds, and hearts) by police, the prison industrial complex, and domestic terrorism.22 laborers are treated as dehumanized working units, as evidenced for example by the atrocities of the chinese factories making i-phones. the “war on women” (note the martial label) has forced terms like trans-vaginal probe and “legitimate rape” into public discourse. full body scans at airports implicate all bodies as potential lethal weapons, no longer afforded privacy or the presumption of innocence. and yet postmodernism has disembodied the subject, separating agency from corporeality beyond the wildest cartesian dream. post-human cyborgs compete in cyberspace with bodies without organs. floating signifiers and bricolaged appropriations ironically circulate in the society of the spectacle. but wait, the agency of my embodied subjectivity just got here. how can the author be dead? my sarcastic tone reproduces the distanced ironic stance so pervasive in the information age. mascia-lees and sharpe pose the question dramatically: “but where do we turn when the body, the very place where social anxiety is traditionally concretized, has been abstracted into theory? where can we find the living, breathing, secreting, sensing, reacting, weeping body on which today’s concerns can be read?”23 while the body has taken center stage in numerous disciplines and interdisciplinary studies, theory dominates over praxis, mind over material. as kathy davis articulates the situation: postmodernism, with its critical demolition of dichotomies like mind/body, nature/ culture and emotionality/rationality has certainly helped to make the body a popular topic. however, postmodern perspectives on the body have not been unproblematic. postmodern theorizing about the body has all too often been a cerebral, esoteric and, ultimately, disembodied activity.24 richard shusterman’s “freedom” quote above positions this paper within a philosophical context that insists on an ethics of lived experience. philosophy, shusterman argues: should be transformational instead of foundational. rather than a meta-science for grounding and justifying our current cognitive and cultural activities, it should be a form of cultural criticism which aims to redescribe our experienced world and reconstruct our practices and institutions so as to improve the quality of our lives. improved experience, not originary truth, is the ultimate philosophical goal and criterion.25 21 richard shusterman, body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2008), 78 n. 5. 22 black lives matter, the movement was founded by the activists alicia garza, patrisse cullors and opal tometi. http://blacklivesmatter. com/. 23 frances e. mascia-lees and patricia sharpe, tattoo, torture, mutilation, and adornment: the denaturalization of the body in culture and text (albany: state university of new york press, 1992), 146. 24 kathy davis, ed. embodied practices: feminist perspectives on the body (london: sage publications, 1997), 14. 25 richard shusterman, “dewey on experience: foundation or reconstruction,” the philosophical forum xxvi.2 (winter, 1994): 127-148; revised and reprinted in his practicing philosophy (new york: routledge, 1997), 127-128. http://blacklivesmatter.com/ http://blacklivesmatter.com/ http://blacklivesmatter.com/ http://blacklivesmatter.com/ http://blacklivesmatter.com/ http://blacklivesmatter.com/ bodies of belief / bodies of care53 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture somaesthetics, shusterman’s body-centered, interdisciplinary philosophical practice is a progressive and transformational approach, which if pursued in each of the three branches enumerated (analytic, pragmatic and experiential) will produce outcomes that are concrete, earthbound, and somatic. the ethical dimensions of body studies must treat the body as an active agent rather than a passive vessel through which the mind enacts its will. thinking through the body, the title of a recent book of shusterman’s essays (2012), insists on just that, not what our bodies should do, but what we can do through our bodies. somaesthetics, rooted in the pragmatist philosophy of peirce, james and dewey, invites, even insists on, tracing concrete consequences of adopting particular positions. the third, experiential category of somaesthetics is where the theory of occupation intersects with shusterman’s philosophy: “this dimension, not of saying but of doing, is the most neglected by academic body philosophers, whose commitment to the logos of discourse typically ends in textualizing the body. about practical somaesthetics, the less said the better, if this means the more done.”26 what others have integrated into somaesthetics as it has expanded internationally enriches its potential. in particular, feminist theory and praxis, already grounded by necessity in the body and its potentialities, has much to offer a philosophy which seeks a way out of dualistic thinking. judy whipps explains, both pragmatism and feminism are more likely to bring social context to the forefront of philosophy, allowing for realities that are in flux and that are always being shaped and reconstructed by their context. pragmatists emphasize that we must include particular and individual experiences in a pluralistic discussion of multiple realities, and that all parties involved in the issue be involved in any creation of a solution.27 of particular promise in the context of this article is the narrative-somaesthetics proposed by marjorie jolles. centered around cressida heyes’ interrogations of bodily “normalization” in the foucauldian sense as disciplinary and self-policing, jolles argues “that a deliberate, collective practice of telling and contesting narratives of embodiment can disrupt the dualistic logic of norm/anti-norm that keeps normalization intact.”28 as a feminist, jolles embraces the active aspects of somaesthetics: “going beyond analytic somaesthetics—which emphasizes the intellectual work of tracing the intersection of bodies, culture, and discourse—pragmatic somaesthetics entails seeking out those somatic practices that might produce meaningful antinormalizing effects on our bodies and lives” (jolles, 306). tattoos operate precisely in that realm, at “normalization’s edge” in heyes’s terms. in the shallowest terms merely fashion or self-infliction, tattoos are self-adornment, creative expression, and, for some, art collections built over a lifetime. but as we’ve seen, they are also identity scaffolding, buttressing, or in a phrase quoted above, providing “subjective security” in the flux of possibilities. the narratives are an agent that activates (referring back to the title of this paper) not only the original energies in the tattoo’s history, but also the present self, bodying it in transaction with others. transaction, a deweyan term elaborated upon by shannon sullivan, another pragmatist26 richard shusterman, performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art (ithaca: cornell university press, 2000), 143. 27 judy whipps, “pragmatist feminism,” stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (2004, rev. 2016) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ femapproach-pragmatism/ accessed march 8, 2017. see also janet sarbanes, “body conscious: on somaesthetics,” los angeles review of books (august 16, 2013). https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/on-somaesthetics accessed march 8, 2017. 28 marjorie jolles, “between embodied subjects and objects: narrative somaesthetics,” hypatia 27.2 (spring 2012): 302-303. also cressida heyes, “somaesthetics for the normalized body” in self-transformations: foucault, ethics, and normalized bodies (oxford: oxford university press, 2007). the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 54 karen j. leader feminist, places our concerns firmly in the social context whipps identifies above: “the notion of transaction focuses on the way in which humans and nature effect each other so that their relationship might be improved.”29 thus “tattoo culture” presented through this lens offers the third term for image and story, the interpretive thread that operates in transaction, connecting people in an artful experience. beyond “self-improvement” or narcissistic self-storying, “tattoo culture” enacts the work of art as affective, altering perception and eliciting response. works of art do this on multiple levels, those works most likely to endure pack a bodily aesthetic jolt. it is necessary to reiterate that theorizing “occupying your body” is not merely controlling its representation or using it to perform a self, but rather to privilege a body-mind subjectivity. carrying that idea to its logical conclusion has enormous political ramifications. the disembodiment of daily existence in social media, telecommuting, distance learning and online shopping, google glass and seductive siri, offloads social existence to second life, where oxygen is superfluous and water an animator’s abstraction. while islands of garbage the size of continents float on rising oceans, the trending top story is a u.s. president who tweets conspiracy theories. cyber-trash leaves no mark, lost down the rabbit hole of endlessly consumable bytes of trivia. so occupy your body relates to the planet, and the body politic that must act in a physical sense to counteract the disembodiment, environmental destruction and a toxic trajectory driven by short-term domination models, and/or end of days ideology. occupy recovers the word from its martial meaning of invade and occupy, while retaining the resistance to removal inherent in the word. we are staying— in this body, in this park, on this planet. at precisely this moment of virtual ascendancy and planetary crisis, an art form as old as human culture itself explodes. am i suggesting that tattooing is, or has the potential to be a persuasive political practice? no, not the practice itself, which is personal, and sometimes quite narcissistic. but the permanence undermines the faddishness, the narrative embeds the meaning as “material-semiotic,” and “tattoo culture” externalizes and universalizes this corporeal presence by creating a space for communication, interpretation and interaction. john dewey helps further the proposal by foregrounding experience and communication in the social realm: “such facts as these give convincing evidence that the medium of expression in art is neither objective nor subjective. it is the matter of a new experience in which subjective and objective have so coöperated that neither has any longer an existence by itself.”30 the quote is extracted from a longer discussion of different aesthetic theories, but gets at a key aspect in pragmatist aesthetics, which is its embeddedness in social interaction, which dewey articulates further on: “art is a quality that permeates an experience; it is not, save by a figure of speech, the experience itself.... esthetic experience is a manifestation, a record and celebration of the life of a civilization, a means of promoting its development and is also the ultimate judgment upon the quality of a civilization.”31 somaesthetics locates the essential role of the body in this philosophical proposal: “one answer, inspired by the pragmatist philosophy that shapes somaesthetics, is that if we truly care about the ends, we must care about the means necessary to realize those ends.”32 tracing the practical consequences of philosophical disputes is central to pragmatism, thus recognizing the necessity of a healthy, empowered, communicative body for the realization of a functioning society is the ultimate goal; one in which experience plays a 29 s. sullivan, living across and through skins, 3. 30 john dewey, art as experience (new york: perigee, 1934), 299. 31 john dewey, art as experience, 339. 32 richard shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2012), 37. bodies of belief / bodies of care55 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture major role. as in all other forms of creative production, not all tattoos are art, but the combination of the visual, the narrative, and the embodiment of that experience offers fertile ground for the rich somatic bodying of self that produces the most fully active person/citizen. tattoos, to reiterate, are a touchstone in this project, not a symptom. “tattoo culture” starts with the popularity, attends to the permanence that separates it from passing fashion, and unfolds its complexity outwardly through public exhibitions and performances. this paper offers a 21st-century intertwining of mind and body, story and ink, which can be brought into the conversation about what you can know about the tattooed person sitting before you. it is not just in the showing, but in the telling as well. what is proposed pushes away from the crippling duality of a wretched body at the service of the god-like mind, toward an embodied subjectivity that is present, expressive and empowered. “tattoo culture” is a vehicle, while “occupy” is a potent, contemporarily resonant metaphor for active social change through corporeality, insisting on the value of this physical presence in human interaction, in communication, and in formulating a new body politic. acknowledgements i am grateful to richard shusterman for offering opportunities to test this thinking under the auspices of the center for body, mind, and culture at florida atlantic university. thank you to readers both anonymous and known. carla calargé, amy hamlin, and jane caputi each offered insightful feedback. the late arthur jaffe, my creative collaborator for stories on the skin remains present on every page. references benson, susan. 2000. “inscriptions of the self: reflections on tattooing and piercing in contemporary euro-america,” in written on the body: the tattoo in european and american history. edited by jane caplan. princeton: princeton university press, pp. 234-254. bordo, susan. 2003. unbearable weight: feminism, western culture and the body. berkeley: university of california press. caplan, jane, ed. 2000. written on the body: the tattoo in european and american history. princeton: princeton university press. davis, kathy, ed. 1997. embodied practices: feminist perspectives on the body. london: sage publications. demello, margo. 2000. bodies of inscription: a cultural history of the modern tattoo community. durham: duke university press. ---. 2014. body studies: an introduction. london: routledge. dewey, john. 1934. art as experience. new york: perigee. fabello, melissa a. 2013. “4 rules for talking to tattooed people without disrespecting our boundaries,” everyday feminism, july 19. http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/tattoo-etiquette/. frank, arthur f. 2010. letting stories breathe: a socio-narrative. chicago and london: university of chicago press. friedman, anna felicity. tattoohistorian.com. heyes, cressida. 2007. self-transformations: foucault, ethics, and normalized bodies. oxford: oxford university press. irwin, katherine. 2002. “tattooed bodies” (review of sullivan 2001), contemporary sociology 31: 708709. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 56 karen j. leader jolles, marjorie. 2012. “between embodied subjects and objects: narrative somaesthetics,” hypatia 27: 301-318. jones, amelia, ed. 2003. the feminism and visual culture reader. london: routledge. kosut, mary. 2000. “tattoo narratives: the intersection of the body, self-identity and society,” visual sociology 15: 79-100 kraus, wolfgang. 2006. “the narrative negotiation of identity and belonging,” narrative inquiry 16: 103-111. leader, karen. 2015. “stories on the skin: tattoo culture at a south florida university,” arts and humanities in higher education 14: 426-446. doi: 10.1177/1474022215575162 leader, karen. 2016. “‘on the book of my body’: women, power, and tattoo culture,” feminist formations 28: 174-195. leader, karen and arthur jaffe, executive producers. 2012. stories on the skin: tattoo culture at fau. documentary film. lodder, matthew. 2010. body art: body modification at artistic practice, ph.d. thesis, university of reading. mascia-lees, frances e., and patricia sharpe. 1992. tattoo, torture, mutilation, and adornment: the denaturalization of the body in culture and text. albany: state university of new york press. neile, caren schnur. 2013. “our stories, our companions: a conversation with arthur w. frank,” storytelling, self, society 9: 2. oksanen atte and jussi turtiainen. 2005. “a life told in ink: tattoo narratives and the problem of the self in late modern society,” auto/biography 13: 111-130. pitts, victoria l. 2003. in the flesh: the cultural politics of body modification. new york: palgrave macmillan. sarbanes, janet. 2013. “body conscious: on somaesthetics,” los angeles review of books, august 16. https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/on-somaesthetics. shannon-missal, larry. 2016. “tattoo takeover: three in ten americans have tattoos, and most don’t stop at just one,” the harris poll. http://www.theharrispoll.com/health-and-life/tattoo_takeover.html. shusterman, richard m. 1997. “dewey on experience: foundation or reconstruction,” the philosophical forum xxvi.2: 127-148; revised and reprinted in his practicing philosophy. new york: routledge. ---. 2000. performing live: aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art. ithaca: cornell university press. ---. 2008. body consciousness: a philosophy of mindfulness and somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. ---. 2012. thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge: cambridge university press. solnit, rebecca. 2012. “occupy your victories,” guernica. http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebeccasolnit-occupy-your-victories/. sullivan, nikki. 2001. tattooed bodies: subjectivity, textuality, ethics, and pleasure. westport ct: praeger. sweetman, paul. 1999. “anchoring the (postmodern) self ? body modification, fashion and identity,” body and society 5: 51-76. taylor, mark c. 1997. hiding. chicago: university of chicago press. bodies of belief / bodies of care57 occupy your body: activating 21st-century tattoo culture whipps, judy. 2004, 2016. “pragmatist feminism,” stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato. stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-pragmatism/. wohlrab, s., b. fink, p.m. kappeler, and g. brewer. 2009. “differences in personality attributions toward tattooed and non-tattooed virtual human characters,” journal of individual differences 30: 1-5. woodstock louise. 2011. “tattoo therapy: storying the self on reality tv in neoliberal times,” journal of popular culture online early view, 2011. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.15405931.2011.00814.x/abstract introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 58 page 58-67karmen mackendrick vulnerable from within: autoimmunity and bodily boundaries karmen mackendrick abstract: the vulnerability of bodies raises questions as to how to care for and protect our fragile, sensate flesh. traditionally, we have focused on shoring up our bodily boundaries, making ourselves as nearly immune to outside harm as we can. the issue of autoimmunity, both medically and politically, problematizes this desire for impermeability: “danger” seems to come from inside as well as out. i argue in this essay that it may be our metaphors of immunity and danger themselves that are problematic. recent scientific developments in immunology (including controversies around vaccination and the concept of the microbiome) and virology suggest that we might think of our vulnerability in terms other than the militaristic protection of borders. i argue that these changes can help us to rethink harmful approaches medically, interpersonally, politically, and ecologically. keywords: immunity, autoimmunity, metaphor, microbiome, catherine keller. perhaps the most ethically loaded aspect of bodies is their extraordinarily wide-ranging vulnerability. bodies are vulnerable to direct physical violence, of course, but also to words and discourses, economic deprivation, and environmental degradation. they are vulnerable to disease, which in turn makes them vulnerable to medical practices and discourses, iatrogenic ailments, and, in countries without health care provisions, bankruptcy and a still greater inability to care for themselves. a great deal of self-care is medical in some way; as bodies, we look after our health, whether we call that health mental or physical. vulnerability calls to us to care, perhaps nowhere so obviously as here. but what is it to care, besides to have a sort of feeling of concern, or perhaps affection; to be emotionally invested in some outcome? care as an act seems, at least at first, to call upon us to protect, to surround the body with barriers against possible harms. it even tempts us to try to render bodies invulnerable, impermeable, even though we know better, know that there is too much to value within the vulnerable itself. protection seems to appeal to our sense of boundary, and to call upon us to reinforce weak barriers between other and self. but those barriers are called into question by recent work in several disciplines. the distinctions between one entity and another turn out to be surprisingly untidy. we want to protect the vulnerable, but if we can’t really set them apart from everyone and everything else, and if we aren’t simply sealing off bodies, we don’t really know how to set about protecting, either. while i cannot lay out a plan for protectiveness—if anything, i hope to blur the distinctions further—i do want to consider carefully the language we use about it. i want to mess with our metaphors, including those of care and protection, of beings and boundaries, of selves and self-care—metaphors by which we understand both the sensations and the actions of our flesh. more particularly, i want to explore the often peculiar metaphors of immunity and autoimmunity, which have undergone dramatic change in recent decades. not only do these demand that we reconsider medical practice; they also turn out to be curiously intertwined with a much wider ethical sense karmen mackendrick vulnerable from within: autoimmunity and bodily boundaries bodies of belief / bodies of care59 vulnerable from within: autoimmunity and bodily boundaries of care for what is vulnerable even beyond ourselves. this sounds fairly trivial until we realize how deeply metaphorical our thinking really is—and what the results of some of our metaphors for the protection of and against vulnerability have been, and what effects those have had upon our understandings of care. i work primarily in philosophical theology, where vulnerability comes up fairly often— christianity has long been divided on whether to acknowledge that its god is wounded, and just how to feel about that. i was inspired to reflect on the topic again by my recent reading of catherine keller’s cloud of the impossible: negative theology and planetary entanglement. the book is complex, but there runs through it a line of thought that i can state fairly straightforwardly: that our boundaries are artificial, and dangerously so; that we separate both humanity and divinity from the rest of the animals, the rest of life, the rest of the world, at our peril. in other words, keller has no big guy god hovering over and moving the chess pieces of the world, but a marvel of a thoroughly interrelated and vital world—a world that is deeply vulnerable. when the whole world is vulnerable, the wounds cannot come only from without, and the threats will take a wide range of forms. immediately, many of our models of safety and care are unsettled. keller remarks upon the “multiple jeopardy” of the vulnerable subjects of liberation,1 and upon the vulnerability of all flesh, ours and the world’s.2 there is a vulnerability particularly pronounced in affection—“the vulnerability of love” or “of hope.”3 in describing all of these, keller holds to a central emphasis on the mutuality of vulnerability. we are vulnerable to one another, though unequally—“the separation of the over-resourced few from the vulnerable rest of us cannot hold,” she writes.4 the planet itself is vulnerable, not least to those of us who foolishly imagine ourselves invulnerable to the rest of it.5 even the divine is vulnerable; process theology, particularly, offers us “a contingent and vulnerable deity.”6 keller’s vivid reminders of entanglement, of the multiplicity and mutuality of vulnerability, can help us as we go about changing some of our dominant metaphors. with this deep mutuality always in mind, let me focus more narrowly on human flesh. our bodies are vulnerable to all manner of wounding and harm, to damage and to disease. this fact has been prominent recently in arguments over vaccination, where the language of parental rights and the vulnerability of individual children meets that of common good and herd immunity. parents may misunderstand, and thus overestimate, risks associated with vaccinating; unless one faces an emergency directly (say, a wall of fire, or an knife wielding assailant), doing nothing will almost always feel safer than doing anything. given the relatively low risk that first-world children have of coming down with many of the diseases against which they can be vaccinated, even a child’s unhappiness and uncomfortableness with an injection may seem grounds enough for avoiding it. parents can easily ignore the vulnerability of other children, who perhaps cannot be vaccinated effectively, and whose fragility their own children’s vaccination is intended to protect. the issues around vaccination are so difficult to understand not only because such deep emotions are involved, but because the boundaries of inside and out—my child, whole or invaded by germs; our children, clustered in classrooms—are not nearly so neat as we have thought. 1 catherine keller, cloud of the impossible: negative theology and planetary entanglement (new york: columbia university press, 2014), 32. also see pages 37, 227, 301. 2 keller, 53, 207. 3 keller, 271, 282. 4 keller, 282. 5 keller, e.g., 269, 277. 6 keller, 260. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 60 karmen mackendrick consider, first, that immunity itself is not individual. herd immunity is, as eula biss notes in her work on innoculation, an observable phenomenon (indeed, it has been recognized since well before its naming in 1923) that is counterintuitive “only if we think of our bodies as inherently disconnected from other bodies. which, of course, we do.”7 herd immunity, requiring us to think of collective rather than individual resistance to disease, is essential to the effectiveness of vaccination, which depletes the population available to host a particular virus and carry it to others in the community. thus it is that “the boundaries between our bodies begin to dissolve, [and]... immunity... is a common trust as much as it is a private account.”8 bodily boundaries become unsettlingly fluid. vulnerability and danger are redefined; those who are vulnerable— say, to measles—become those who are also dangerous, as hosts. but so are we all, after all, as embodied. to be vulnerable, then, is to share one’s vulnerability. to be protected is to share one’s protection with others. to say that we are vulnerable is to say that we, like the unvaccinated, are not immune—a conception with a startling range of political, philosophical, and theological applications. biological theories of immunity, which we might think are basic and foundational of other uses of the term, are already strikingly metaphorical. sometimes, they are gastronomic: “cells ‘[eat]’... pathogens.” at others, they are educational: cells “‘instruct[]’ other cells.”9 biosemiotician thure von uexküll says that “immunologists use phrases like ‘memory,’ ‘recognition,’ ‘interpretation,’ ‘individuality,’ ‘reading,’ ‘inner picture,’ ‘self,’ [and] ‘nonself....’”10 biss notes metaphors ranging “from a symphony to the solar system to a perpetual motion machine to the vigilance of a mother”11—in fact, she remarks, “the cells of the immune system lead lives in which they kiss, are naive, eat, purge, express, get turned on, are instructed, make presentations, mature, and have memories. ‘they sound like my students,’” a friend of hers observes.12 and it turns out that, just as it matters to those young students if they can call someone “my girlfriend,” so too it matters how cellular relations are described. keller reminds us, “the other comes before us then in the alterity not of a discrete overagainst, not in the bounded exteriority of some flat face to face, but as altering and as altered in the act of relation.”13 this is true at every scale, among all othernesses. for some time, though, the dominant metaphor of immunity’s relationality has been hostile: self vs. non-self. in biology, as on the grander scale of politics, we can easily see with what eagerness variously identified “selves” have sought out “others.” the most common description of the immune system’s self/ non-self relation has long been military. a system of immunity fights our alteration, recognizes the body’s isolationist desires, and reacts aggressively against what is not-self, to kill it or to contain it within protective boundaries—to imprison it.14 it is said to “tolerate” self. against 7 eula biss, on immunity: an inoculation (minneapolis: graywolf press, 2014), kindle location 244-246. the date for the use of the concept of herd immunity appears at location 1954. (all subsequent references to this text are kindle location numbers.) 8 biss, 232-36. 9 biss, 656-61. 10 biss, 637-44. biss notes that the remark was made at a conference on immunosemiotics. this conference occurred in tuscany in 1986, and the proceedings were published in 1988. sercarz, e., f. celada, n. mitchison, and t. tada, eds. the semiotics of cellular communication in the immune system (berlin: springer verlag, 1988). 11 biss, 656-61. 12 biss, 684-690. 13 keller, 22. 14 wilfried allaerts, “the biological function paradigm applied to the immunological self-non-self discrimination: critique of tauber’s phenomenological analysis,” in journal for general philosophy of science, vol. 30, no. 1 (1999): 155-171, at 158. allaerts cites alfred tauber: “the self has emerged in the 20th century as an operative metaphor for orienting immunity in terms of both the source of its activity and the object of its function. (...) the term self is borrowed from the philosophical discourse to denote concerns about the source of immune activity, that is the identity problem.” alfred tauber, the immune self: theory or metaphor? (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994), 141. bodies of belief / bodies of care61 vulnerable from within: autoimmunity and bodily boundaries non-self, it guards—or, especially when the body’s borders are breached, it wages war. and the non-self is a threat everywhere: think only of the incredible popularity of “detoxifying” regimens for everything from our intestines to our psyches. fearful of impurity, by the contamination of what is not our own, we clean out ourselves. there is no negative capability here, no endurance at all of the unknown. what is not recognized must be annihilated. anthropologist emily martin notes, “popular publications depict the body as the scene of total war between ruthless invaders and determined defenders.”15 biss comments on this, “our understanding of disease as something that we ‘fight’ invites an array of military metaphors for the immune system. ... the body employs some cells as ‘infantry’ and others as the ‘armored unit,’ and these troops deploy ‘mines’ to explode bacteria, while the immune response itself ‘detonates like a bomb.’”16 with these as the metaphors for protection of the most vulnerable, small wonder we create such disasters, trying to maintain an artificial purity. no bomb detonates altogether cleanly. on such an understanding of immunity, we imagine our bodies as highly individuated and constantly under siege, with germs and toxins sneakily seeking every possible mode of entry. this is the sense of the immune central to jacques derrida’s warning in faith and knowledge that autoimmunity is an inevitable outcome of violent protection, and that it is also at the intersection of politics with religion and science.17 he has a political version of immunity in mind, in which whatever is meant to protect the state and its people—police, military, even ecclesiastical forces—turns on itself instead. “the perverse effect of the autoimmunitary itself,” derrida writes, is that “repression in both its psychoanalytical sense and its political sense— whether it be through the police, the military, or the economy—ends up producing, reproducing, and regenerating the very thing it seeks to disarm.”18 (though that is how derrida phrases it, it is more exact in both political and biological terms to say that the protectors turn on those they had claimed to protect, or were instituted to protect.) as much in the cared-for body as in the political state, autoimmunity appears as a particularly puzzling, often frightening, form of vulnerability. it is no longer enough to guard our borders, to protect against attacks from without: in autoimmunity, what “attacks” or “wounds” is the very system that otherwise “defends;” that is, that wards off harm and minimizes bodily vulnerability. (i have used the scare quotes to indicate not only the problematic boundaries of selfhood, but the problematic nature of metaphors of attack.) like herd immunity, autoimmunity threatens our sense of wholly discrete human bodies, but in a different way: rather than those bodies together forming a sort of communal organism, we now realize that each “individual” body is enormously multiple. protection becomes problematic when we realize that not all danger is external—and not simply because, as i’ve already noted, we cannot always clearly bound our inside from out. the reaction that becomes “autoimmune” arises from the ever-present chance that we will fight against our own, and ignore the barbarian hordes, or deplete our forces’ strength before they 15 emily martin, flexible bodies: the role of immunity in american culture from the days of polio to the age of aids (boston: beacon press, 1995), 53. 16 biss, 646-54. 17 jacques derrida, “faith and knowledge: the two sources of ‘religion’ at the limits of reason alone,” in acts of relgion, ed. gil anidjar, (new york: routledge, 2002), 42-101, at 67 “we are here in a space where all self-protection of the unscathed, of the safe and sound, of the sacred (heilig, holy) must protect itself against its own protection, its own police, its own immunity. it is this terrifying but fatal logic of the auto-immunity of the unscathed that will always associate science and religion.” 18 jacques derrida, philosophy in a time of terror: dialogues with jurgen habermas and jacques derrida (chicago: university of chicago press, 2004), 99. 18 derrida, jacques. philosophy in a time of terror: dialogues with jurgen habermas and jacques derrida, 2004. chicago: university of chicago press: 99. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 62 karmen mackendrick attack us.19 the standard language for understanding autoimmunity has been that the self is misrecognized as stranger or other; in fact, defining what is self has been crucial to the history of that understanding. even the hopeful governing style that is democracy, says derrida, always risks the democratic election of a government that suspends the democratic20 (—a warning recently made uncomfortably prescient. on militaristic metaphors, the autoimmune danger is multiple: we risk attack from within, and because of this, we are ill-defended against attack from without. the body misrecognizes itself as a stranger, and fails to direct its forces to shoring up its barriers. this metaphor of self attacking itself has been extended in odd ways. one is particularly popular among bloggers, where we find the logic that because the self is attacking itself, there is a clear causal self-hatred. “i believe that this subtle, relentless, uncontained self-hatred is at the root of the autoimmune disease epidemic in women. how else would you personify a body that’s attacking itself as the enemy?” writes habib sadeghi, who has helped to popularize this argument through posts, a ted talk, and various publications. he declares, in a text reposted on gwyneth paltrow’s popular site “goop,” “the uncontained self-hatred that gives rise to autoimmune disease needs to be contained with self-love.”21 sarah wilson, an admirer of sadeghi’s work, asks “could female self-hatred be the real cause of autoimmune disease?” and her answer is affirmative.22 bryan eden assures blog readers that he cured his ankylosing spondylitis with love for himself.23 and anne merkel tells us that “where an individual’s body is starting to work against itself, often there is a deep feeling of deserving to be hurt or abused – an unworthiness to be healthy.”24 it must seem odd to position this demand for love and care—surely ethical responses to our vulnerability—within the discussion of militaristic metaphors of attack. but in fact the self-care demanded here is perceived as a response to attack: an attack by a self acting badly, a self with weapons that have been mis-directed, with hatred that needs to be put back in its imprisoning container. the demand may be that we fight back with love—but we are responding, nonetheless, to a violent attack: rejecting selfhood, the self has attacked what it really is. and we are fighting back, recognizing ourselves properly again as loveable. the language of self and nonself—self to be tolerated, nonself to be met by aggression(—is first used in immunology in the 1940s.25 (interestingly, in this it precedes the use of “immune system,” which appears in 1967).26 in 1984, antonio coutinho argues that the immune system needs to “know” (in some non-cognitive way) what is “foreign,” while imposing willful ignorance 19 cf. keller, 239f. 20 20 jacques derrida, rogues: two essays on reason, trans. pascale-anne brault and michael naas (stanford: stanford university press, 2005), 82f. in an interesting political variation, philosopher roberto esposito argues that political immunity protects the individual from the excesses of the demands of community—not us versus them, then, but me versus us. in this case too, the self is both recognized and protected by the immunizing—though esposito does not regard this positively; in fact, he sees in it a refusal of commonality and the risk of immunization turning upon itself, and he holds out the hope that we can change our biopolitics from its immunitary paradigm. a 2006 special issue of diacritics offers two useful summaries: roberto esposito, “the immunization paradigm,” translated by timothy campbell, in bios, immunity, life: the thought of roberto esposito, special issue of diacritics vol. 36 no. 2 (summer 2006): 23-48, and timothy campbell, “bios, immunity, life: the thought of roberto esposito,” in ibid.: 2–22. 21 habib sadeghi, “emotional erosion and uncontained anger,” in goop, undated, at http://goop.com/emotional-erosion-anduncontainedanger/, accessed november 4, 2016. 22 http://www.sarahwilson.com/2014/11/could-female-self-hatred-be-the-real-cause-of-autoimmune-disease/, accessed november 5, 2016. 23 http://kindnessblog.com/2015/01/29/how-i-cured-my-incurable-disease-with-love-by-bryan-eden/, accessed november 5, 2016. 24 http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/, accessed november 5, 2016. 25 allaerts, 157f. 26 biss, location 652, citing nobel winning biologist niels jerne. she does not offer a further reference; jerne uses the term in a number of different essays and addresses. http://www.sarahwilson.com/2014/11/could-female-self-hatred-be-the-real-cause-of-autoimmune-disease/ http://www.sarahwilson.com/2014/11/could-female-self-hatred-be-the-real-cause-of-autoimmune-disease/ http://www.sarahwilson.com/2014/11/could-female-self-hatred-be-the-real-cause-of-autoimmune-disease/ http://www.sarahwilson.com/2014/11/could-female-self-hatred-be-the-real-cause-of-autoimmune-disease/ 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http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causing-autoimmune-disorders/ bodies of belief / bodies of care63 vulnerable from within: autoimmunity and bodily boundaries of self, so that it will not attract attack.27 in 1994, alfred tauber declares that “the self has emerged in the 20th century as an operative metaphor for orienting immunity in terms of both the source of its activity and the object of its function,”28 suggesting the persistence of the metaphor even when, as we shall shortly note, its terms stop meaning very clearly. without the sense of self and an opposing stranger or foreignness, the language of attack is hard to motivate. but in fact, among physicians and medical researchers, the militaristic metaphor of immunity has already been supplanted several times. one of the first changes is a shift from self versus nonself to infectious versus noninfectious, where what matters is the capacity for harm to the organism, rather than the firm maintenance of boundaries. building on this, polly matzinger more recently proposed “the danger model,” suggesting that the immune system responds to danger and not primarily to strangeness; when it mis-responds, the problem is not in the immune system itself, but in the signals sent out by the perceived hazard. “[t]he immune system,” she writes, “is more concerned with damage than with foreignness, and is called into action by alarm signals from injured tissues, rather than by the recognition of non-self.”29 this is a start, not automatically responding to every difference as a danger. in both of these variations, though, there remains a fairly clear distinction: that which is to be tolerated versus that which is to be annihilated, whether these sides are identified accurately or not. the body is vulnerable; there are dangers to it, and the immune system does violence to those dangers. sometimes, it does violence elsewhere than it should have. we move away from modes of protection in the next step, one that seems to me both unexpected and delightful: the shift toward biosemiotics. biss recounts a fairly marvelous story: three immunologists on a road trip in 1984 became excited about the possibility that the cells of our bodies might, like the humans they compose, use a system of signs and symbols—a kind of language—in their communication with each other. after traveling for seventeen hours in a vw bus with a ripe wheel of taleggio cheese and an italian edition of umberto eco’s a theory of semiotics, they determined, through some rough translations performed by the italian among them, that a better understanding of semiotics, the study of how signs and symbols are used and interpreted, might enhance their work in immunology.30 alas, as she notes, the immunosemioticians did not get directly to work on theories of metaphor. but they did argue that bodily cells interpret, and they had a conference on the matter in 1986, where immunologist franco celada asked, “does the human mind use a logic of signs developed by lymphocytes 10 to the 8th years ago?,” arguing that our “bodies” may have interpreted long before our “minds.”31 there is argument—justified, i think—as to what counts as “interpretation” here. but there is a huge value, too, in blurring the strict dichotomy between spirit and flesh, and in the recognition that metaphor cuts both ways. changing our semiotics changes our metaphors by drawing attention to the very fact of reading them. the most recent immunological metaphors take us even beyond these interpretive possibilities. medical researches are now speculating that we don’t need your war machines, after all. what we need is better gardens, happier inner ecosystems, and immigrant life forms. 27 antonio coutinho, l. forni, d. holmberg, f. ivers, and n. vaz, 1984, 152. cited in allaerts, 159. 28 alfred tauber, the immune self: theory or metaphor? cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994), 141. cited in allaerts, 158. 29 polly matzinger, “the danger model: a renewed sense of self,” in science, vol. 296 no. 5566 (april 2002): 301-305, at 301. 30 biss, 630-35. 31 biss, 637-44. franco celado, “does the human mind use a logic of signs developed by lymphocytes 10 to the 8th years ago?” in “the semiotics of cellular communication in the immune system” (see note 10): 71-79. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 64 karmen mackendrick the boundaries between persons are not the only ones that we realize are far more fluid and strange than we’d thought. “each” of us, each permeable being in its veil of skin, is a colony; even a colony of colonies. i have read repeatedly that we are more inhuman than not, meaning that our bodies host astonishing quantities of bacteria and viruses, but the claim seems odd to me;32 rather, it seems that what it is to be human is to be multiple in this way. perhaps the insistence on the inhumanity of our bacterial bodies is a trace of the ancient fear that keller calls “ecophobia,” a fear of human inseparability from the nonhuman universe,33 a fear “carrying an ethos of conquest, control, commodification.”34 but we could try, just for a bit, to be less fearful. perhaps we might fearlessly think that we are symbiotes; that we as human are far more multiple than we thought, collectives within collectives. there are two important lines of contemporary scientific research suggesting some value to this way of thinking. the first comes from research in paleovirology, research on ancient viruses, which indicates that our collective bodies are colonies that that have been joined, not just within one organism’s lifetime, but throughout our evolutionary history. scientists have been aware for a couple of decades that there are elements in the human genome from the dna sequences of retroviruses that were originally sources of infection. quite recently, researchers at stanford “identified several noncoding rna molecules of viral origins that are necessary for a fertilized human egg to acquire the ability in early development to become all the cells and tissues of the body,” following a stanford study earlier in the year “showing that early human embryos are packed full of what appear to be viral particles arising from similar left-behind genetic material.” that is, “human embryos need ancient viral rna, trapped in the non-protein-coding regions of our genomes, to grow. they are essential for our existence.”35 what is the point of this claim about ancient viruses hanging out in human genetic material? “‘we’re starting to accumulate evidence that these viral sequences, which originally may have threatened the survival of our species, were co-opted by our genomes for their own benefit,’ [says] vittorio sebastiano, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. ‘in this manner, they may even have contributed species-specific characteristics and fundamental cell processes, even in humans.’”36 our vulnerability, in other words—the fact that we can be diseased, that viruses enter into the ill-guarded colonies of ourselves—has made us. a “threat” became us, and we changed, and not for the worse. our bodies are as they are by not always having been and not always being recognizably our own. it is not only within what we think of as human genetic material that we find this 32 even in arguing that the number of bacteria is not so overwhelming as we once thought, the distinction tends to remain. consider as an example this abstract for “revised estimates for the number of human and bacteria cells in the body.” “reported values in the literature on the number of cells in the body differ by orders of magnitude and are very seldom supported by any measurements or calculations. here, we integrate the most up-to-date information on the number of human and bacterial cells in the body. we estimate the total number of bacteria in the 70 kg “reference man” to be 3.8·1013. for human cells, we identify the dominant role of the hematopoietic lineage to the total count (≈90%) and revise past estimates to 3.0·1013 human cells. our analysis also updates the widely-cited 10:1 ratio, showing that the number of bacteria in the body is actually of the same order as the number of human cells, and their total mass is about 0.2 kg.” sender, ron, shai fuchs, and ron milo. “revised estimates for the number of human and bacteria cells in the body,” in plos biology (august 19, 2016), http:// journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533, accessed november 5, 2016. 33 keller, 268. 34 keller, 276. 35 cynthia fox, “symbiosis with ancient viruses critical for human development,” in bioscience (december 3, 2015), fox http://www. biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development, accessed november 5, 2016. my italics. fox also notes (ibid.), “in recent years humans have come to understand we are not just about darwinian natural selection, but symbiosis. for two billion years, there were only bacteria and archaea. then a single archaea swallowed a bacteria in such a way the bacteria became its powerpack. complex life exploded out of this symbiosis. remnants of that moment are alive in humans today: experimental and genetic analysis proves the power packs of our cells, mitochondria, are indeed ancestors of those ancient bacteria.” 36 in fox. https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/vittorio-sebastiano https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/vittorio-sebastiano https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/vittorio-sebastiano http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002533 bodies of belief / bodies of care65 vulnerable from within: autoimmunity and bodily boundaries madmultiplicity, but also within the current colonies of us, beyond our germ cells. as i noted above, we are made of all manner of curious little beings. and it turns out, in the second important development, that immunity may be a matter not so much of killing off as of living further—cultivating not warriors, but tiny horticulturists and abundant flora, well managed gardens that form ecosystems layered one within the other. the shifting sum of the bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are also us is called the microbiome, a term “proposed a decade ago by nobel laureate joshua lederberg,” which “identifies the totality of microbes..., their genomes..., and environmental interactions in a defined community or biological niche.”37 and so, says a new york times article titled “tending the body’s microbial garden,” “rather than conducting indiscriminate slaughter, ... scientists [at the national human genome research institute] want to be microbial wildlife managers.”38 as in other ecosystems, some elements must be nurtured to prevent radical, even fatal systemic imbalances. gratifyingly for our metaphors, this approach has shown promise not only in responses to “invasive” bacteria, but to obesity, antibiotic induced ailments such as those caused by clostridium difficile (treatable by the slightly infamous fecal transplant), and perhaps even disorders such as type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis—precisely those autoimmunities so central to the derridean analysis.39 in fact, some researchers hypothesize, “autoimmune diseases are more likely passed in families because of the inheritance of a familial microbiome, rather than mendelian inheritance of genetic abnormalities.”40 so at least three developments in our understanding require us to rethink the influential metaphor of autoimmunity as something other than an error in the identification of a protected, neatly bounded, self. the need for vaccination reminds us that immunity belongs to groups of human bodies; paleovirology reveals that an embodied human “self ” can only be because what became human was long ago successfully “invaded;” and the emerging view of the microbiome keeps us from thinking of “a” body as if it were singular, a thing to be kept pure in its isolation. with the changes in the metaphors of immunity, we must also rethink the inevitability of the autoimmune as a misguided attack: if we shore up our “selves” with the cultivation of multiplicity, our relationality, even our vulnerability, becomes another strength. all of this must remind us, to cite keller once more, that “the boundary between inside and out is never more than an abstraction imposed—whether for care, for convenience, or for conquest.”41 rather than thinking the body, personal or politic, in terms of repression and tolerance, guarding and attack, we may remind ourselves that protection of the vulnerable is protection of us all: tending to the microbial, not by blocking out but by building up, we cultivate life. there are no fully closed systems. a military force always prone to mutiny and self-destruction might be rethought both as a semiotic error—as misreading of a sign that was not danger, after all—and as a need for ecological cultivation. we might do well to hammer our microbial swords (and the big bombs of our immune systems) into miniscule plowshares. this is not to argue that derrida is wrong in his implications—that what seeks violently to eradicate violence will turn against rather than protecting—but it is to suggest that we shift metaphors, 37 jose u. scher and steven b. abramson, “the microbiome: a voyage to (our inner) lilliput,” in the rheumatologist, november 2011, unpaginated. at http://www.the-rheumatologist.org/details/article/1386089/the_microbiome.html, accessed november 5, 2016. see also amy g. proal, paul j. albert, and trevor g. marshall, “the human microbiome and autoimmunity,” in current opinion in rheumatology 25:2 (march 2013): 234-40. 38 carl zimmer, “tending the body’s microbial garden,” in new york times (science times), june 18, 2012. at http://www.nytimes. com/2012/06/19/science/studies-of-human-microbiome-yield-new-insights.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, accessed november 5, 2016. 39 zimmer. 40 proal, albert, and marshall. 41 keller, 165. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 66 karmen mackendrick and in so doing, our focus; in that, our practices, to emphasize deep implication; to think not of what we can kill off, but what we might encourage to live. “even at the scale of the teeny tiny quantum,” keller points out, “we witness how the material effects of common belief and presumptive knowledge tangle with our ethics. does that tissue structure or quantum field of infinitesimal relations begin to take on the feel of an infinite body?”42 an infinite body, as the most macro of microbiomes, requires infinite care— requires, and gives, inseparable from itself. keller’s clarification from the introduction to her text takes on a still greater resonance in this way of thinking bodies: “if the boundary marking difference shows itself also as fold, membrane, or connection, alterity requires an alter-knowing of its others, an altered state of radical interlinkage: what you do to the least of these you do also to me.”43 the least—the virus, the microbe, the self as multiple other in “the ecologies of an unbounded relationalism.”44 of course all relation is dangerous, every vulnerability also a risk. but not every risk is an evil, and perhaps our tendency to over-identify them thus is entangled in the vigilant violence of our response. perhaps we can surpass some of our fear of the different, which has kept us so long shut outside of our own gardens. perhaps we best care when we refuse to seal off borders, and allow instead the transfigurations of our vulnerable selves. references allaerts, wilfried. 1999. “the biological function paradigm applied to the immunological self-nonself discrimination: critique of tauber’s phenomenological analysis,” journal for general philosophy of science 30.1: 155-171. biss, eula. 2014. on immunity: an inoculation. minneapolis, mn: graywolf press. campbell, timothy. 2006. “bios, immunity, life: the thought of roberto esposito,” bios, immunity, life: the thought of roberto esposito, special issue of diacritics 36.2: 2–22. celado, franco. 1988. “does the human mind use a logic of signs developed by lymphocytes 10 to the 8th years ago?,” in the semiotics of cellular communication in the immune system. edited by f. sercarz, e. celada, n. mitchison, and t. tada. berlin: springer verlag, pp. 71-79. coutinho, antonio, l. forni, d. holmberg, f. ivers, and n. vaz, 1984. “from an antigen-centered, clonal perspective of immune responses to an organism-centered, network perspective of autonomous activity in a self-referential immune system,” immunology review 79: 151–168. derrida, jacques. 2002. “faith and knowledge: the two sources of ‘religion’ at the limits of reason alone,” acts of relgion. edited by gil anidjar. new york: routledge, pp. 42-101. ---. 2004. philosophy in a time of terror: dialogues with jurgen habermas and jacques derrida. chicago: university of chicago press. ---. 2005. rogues: two essays on reason. translated by pascale-anne brault and michael naas. stanford: stanford university press. eden, brian. 2015. “how i cured my incurable disease with love.” kindness blog, http://kindnessblog. com/2015/01/29/how-i-cured-my-incurable-disease-with-love-by-bryan-eden/, accessed november 5, 2016. esposito, roberto. 2006. “the immunization 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autoimmunity and bodily boundaries fox, cynthia. 2015. “symbiosis with ancient viruses critical for human development.” bioscience. http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-humandevelopment, accessed november 5, 2016. keller, catherine. 2014. cloud of the impossible: negative theology and planetary entanglement. new york: columbia university press. martin, emily. 1995. flexible bodies: the role of immunity in american culture from the days of polio to the age of aids. boston: beacon press. matzinger, polly. 2002. “the danger model: a renewed sense of self,” science 296. 5566: 301-305. merkel, anne. undated. “clearing early abuse issues causing autoimmune disorders,” eft/ tapping articles. http://www.thetappingsolution.com/eft-articles/clearing-early-abuse-issues-causingautoimmune-disorders/, accessed november 5, 2016. proal, amy g., paul j. albert, and trevor g. marshall. 2013. “the human microbiome and autoimmunity,” current opinion in rheumatology 25.2: 234-40. sadeghi, habib. undated. “emotional erosion and uncontained anger,” goop, http://goop.com/ emotional-erosion-anduncontained-anger/, accessed november 4, 2016. scher, jose u., and steven b. abramson. 2011. “the microbiome: a voyage to (our inner) lilliput,” the rheumatologist, unpaginated. http://www.the-rheumatologist.org/details/article/1386089/the_ microbiome.html, accessed november 5, 2016. sender, ron, shai fuchs, and ron milo. 2016. “revised estimates for the number of human and bacteria cells in the body,” plos biology. http:// journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal. pbio.1002533, accessed november 5, 2016. tauber, alfred. 1994. the immune self: theory or metaphor? cambridge: cambridge university press. wilson, sarah. 2014. “could female self-hatred be the real cause of autoimmune disease?” http:// www.sarahwilson.com/2014/11/could-female-self-hatred-be-the-real-cause-of-autoimmune-disease/, accessed november 5, 2016. zimmer, carl. 2012. “tending the body’s microbial garden,” new york times (science times), http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/science/studies-of-human-microbiome-yield-new-insights. html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, accessed november 5, 2016. http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2015/12/symbiosis-ancient-viruses-critical-human-development 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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/science/studies-of-human-microbiome-yield-new-insights.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/science/studies-of-human-microbiome-yield-new-insights.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/science/studies-of-human-microbiome-yield-new-insights.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0 introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 91–111 somaesthetics and beauty91 performative somaesthetics performative somaesthetics interconnections of dancers, audiences, and sites jessica fiala and suparna banerjee abstract: this essay contributes to the performative branch of somaesthetics through an exploration of the triangulated relationships among performers, audiences, and sites. dancer agency, the multisensory nature of audience experiences, and embodied encounters with non-traditional dance sites provide lenses for analyzing the dynamic relationships between these elements as live performance unfolds. through theoretical frameworks and two dance case studies—toomortal (2012) by shobana jeyasingh and dusk at stonehenge (2009) by nina rajarani—the authors draw upon somaesthetics to examine the holistic comingling of embodied aesthetic appreciation and physical environments. keywords: somaesthetics, dance, site, bharatanatyam, audience experience, rasa. introduction situated at the intersection of philosophy, embodied practices, and the cultivation of the body to advance self-awareness, somaesthetics is a field ripe for the analysis of dance. both combine theory and practice, cross disciplinary boundaries, and offer insights into entwined relationships between the self and the body—how embodied experiences inform (and comprise) the self and how the body can function as an active agent in philosophical practice (lamothe, 2015; spatz, 2015). richard shusterman developed somaesthetics as a field “concerned with the sentient perceiving ‘body-mind’…rather than with the body as a mere physical object or mechanism” (2007, p. 139), an orientation with direct applications to the nuanced work of dancers in practice and performance. casting a wide net, shusterman related somaesthetics to philosophy as an “art of living” (2018a, p. 2), outlining dual aspirations of “critical study and meliorative cultivation of the body,” while situating “the body as the site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning” (p. 1). this scope bridges dancers and spectators, incorporating theoretical considerations of the body as both a conveyor and perceiver of aesthetics. shusterman’s holistic approach offers a lens for viewing multiple somaesthetic elements simultaneously at play. on the side of aesthetic creativity, the dancer is a subject who expresses through honed corporeal intelligence while navigating physical, social, and situational factors. appreciating a spectrum of vantage points, somaesthetics recognizes spectatorship as embodied, the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 92 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee responsive, and distinctive. acknowledging external influences on the body, somaesthetics enables a grounded analysis, recognizing the significance of site for examinations of the somaesthetics of performance. in this essay, we map the relationships between these three elements to propose a framework for analyzing live performance as a durational experience hinging on the triangulation of dancers, audiences, and sites. with this strategy, we seek to provide a lens for deploying somaesthetic theories within studies of performance in a manner that recognizes both the individual nature of somaesthetic awareness and the overarching contexts and dynamics that inform such experiences.1 to do so, we have chosen to feature choreographies staged outside of theatrical settings to tease out the array of somaesthetic qualities encountered in built space, as well as the dramatic differences that distinct sites offer. throughout this paper, we use the term “site-based”2 to highlight the centrality of site for our analysis, while also acknowledging the spectrum of methods of working and staging reflected in our examples. our choice of site-based works is informed by our own backgrounds as researchers keen on investigating embodied experiences of shared spaces and navigating the borderline between theory and praxis (banerjee, 2014, 2018; fiala, 2014, 2016), specifically as practitioners of the classical dance form bharatanatyam,3 which has roots in ancient india and contemporary manifestations across the globe. we examine two site-based choreographies as examples of the divergent somaesthetic qualities of site, choreography, and audience positioning—toomortal (2012) by shobana jeyasingh, performed amongst the pews of historic churches, and dusk at stonehenge (2009) by nina rajarani, presented in the open expanse in front of stonehenge. our perspective takes a broad overview, sketching a theoretical blueprint for seeing intersecting and mutually influential components at play in site-based dance, with the two selected choreographies serving as examples for illustration and comparison. prior to delving into these works, we briefly lay the groundwork for analysis—performative somaesthetics, dance as a form of knowledge, embodied audience experiences, and the influential factor of site—to form a foundation for analyzing sitebased performance. performative somaesthetics in crafting a structure for somaesthetics as a discipline, shusterman outlined three core dimensions, ranging from contextual to comparative and practical approaches. analytic somaesthetics covers scientific as well as ontological, epistemological, and sociopolitical analyses, exploring the “basic nature of bodily perceptions and practices” as well as how such factors 1 the present essay lays the theoretical groundwork for practical applications of somaesthetics, which we pursue in our companion article focused on exploring the sensory nature of audience experiences, as well as approaches for engaging dance audiences (banerjee & fiala, 2019). for additional analyses of relationships between site, audience, and performers, see fischer-lichte (2008b), hunter (2012), and stock (2011). 2 our usage of “site-based” acknowledges the range of forms and processes that work with site can involve, from “site-specific” to “sitedetermined,” “site-referenced,” “site-conscious,” “site-responsive,” or “context-specific” (pearson, 2010, p. 8). alongside myriad forms of sitebased work exist an array of degrees of community involvement in creation and performance, as well as a variety of methods of positioning and engaging audiences. for studies of site-based performance, see wilkie (2002), hunter (2005, 2015), and pearson (2010). co-author suparna banerjee (2014) has further examined site-based diasporic south asian dance in the uk in her doctoral dissertation (see chapter 5, pp. 184-235). 3 as a form that includes storytelling components as well as abstract dance that balances rhythm, precision, and grace, bharatanatyam’s combination of the physical, emotional, psychological, cultural, and spiritual offers an example of the abundant channels for somaesthetic analysis within the field of dance. over the past century, bharatanatyam has traced a path from temples to theatres, from india to diasporas, and from theatres to non-arts sites. numerous studies have explored political, social, historical, artistic, and power ramifications of these movements. for examinations of bharatanatyam’s history over the past 150 years, see gaston (1996), meduri (2004), o’shea (2007), and soneji (2011). somaesthetics and beauty93 performative somaesthetics “function in our knowledge and construction of reality” (1999, p. 304). practical somaesthetics entails the physical practice of “disciplined body work aimed at somatic self-improvement” (p. 307). pragmatic somaesthetics turns a methodical, expository eye toward such physical techniques, both individually and comparatively (p. 304). under the umbrella of comparative inquiry, shusterman divided somatic practices into representational practices, concerning the body’s physical appearance, and experiential disciplines, dedicated to “inner” experience aimed at improving both the quality and the acuteness of somatic awareness (p. 305). these categories serve a functional purpose, helping to isolate and identify phenomena for analysis, however, shusterman underscored the interconnectedness of these dimensions as well, noting in particular the overlap between external and internal factors, as well as self-focused and other-focused practices, all of which influence somaesthetics on an individual level (p. 306). while discussing representational and experiential modes of practice, shusterman noted the possibility for a third arena, performative somaesthetics, considering this frame for disciplines such as martial arts, gymnastics, and athletics. ultimately, shusterman observed that such activities could fall within representational or experiential arenas, to the degree that they “aim either at the external exhibition of one’s strength and health or alternatively at one’s inner feelings of those powers” (1999, p. 306). these two prongs of external exhibition and internal feeling offer productive avenues for comparative somaesthetic analyses of dance, along with possibilities for dance studies across practical, pragmatic, and analytic dimensions. that said, our aim is to contribute to scholarship building out the particular arena of performative somaesthetics in terms of its applications for the performing arts generally and dance specifically. in this essay, performative somaesthetics provides a framework for exploring a sphere of activity that exists in-between the representational and experiential—creative and intentional embodied aesthetic activity manifested in the distinctive relationships between dancers, sites, and audiences as live performance unfolds. site-based dance is here viewed as durational, relational, and contextual. performative somaesthetics provides a basis for analyzing site-based dance as a dynamic intersection that bleeds across representation and experience, entailing the crafting and evolution of relationships with space, audience, and one’s own body. somaesthetics and dance—agency, artistry, and site shusterman’s centering of the “body-mind” (2007, p. 139) provides myriad paths for exploring dance in its variety—showcased to audiences and refined alone in studios; entrenched in systems of power and symbolic of acts of resistance; a connection to history, culture, or community; a moving meditation; a means of dynamically relating to time and space; and a method of fundamentally altering the body that changes how one traverses and experiences the world. despite the clear connection between somaesthetics and the aesthetic body-based labor of dance, the intersection of somaesthetics and dance is still gradually gaining scholarly attention.4 applications have included dance education and performance (arnold, 2005; carter, 2015), kinesthetic awareness and strategies for refinement (mullis, 2006, 2008), particular choreographers and practices (ginot, 2010; horváth, 2018), and the critique of tendencies to downplay dancer personhood in the valuation of choreographic works (shusterman, 2019). 4 over recent decades, somaesthetics has been incorporated into research surrounding numerous artistic disciplines, including poetry (bartczak, 2012), literature and performance (woźniak, lisowska, & budziak, 2017), visual art (feng, 2015; ryynänen, 2015), photography (shusterman, 2012; antal 2018), music (maus, 2010; tarvainen, 2018; marino 2019), and architecture (shusterman, 2011, 2012; veres, 2018). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 94 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee peter j. arnold posited dance as a form of somaesthetic education that provides students tools for “understanding and appraising; creating and composing; and performing and expressing” (p. 53). taking a broad view, curtis l. carter proposed multiple avenues for dance somaesthetics, from dance as it is constructed by choreographers and enacted by dancers, to the embodied reception of dance in spectators, to broader possibilities provided by comparative analyses of somaesthetic qualities among different dance forms. promoting a balanced approach to somatic practices as “objects of research,” isabelle ginot foregrounded the importance of situating such work within histories, preferences, and power, noting that “sensations themselves are in no way exempt from ideology, exclusions, or disenfranchisement” (p. 25). tying dance into larger aesthetic histories that privilege art objects over practice, shusterman stressed the need to shift value structures toward acknowledging dancers as subjects who bring “a compound consciousness” to their work, one that includes the performance of emotion, narrative, or states of being as well as the dancer’s “own somaesthetic feelings” (p. 157). existing work aids dance practitioners and scholars in potentially drawing upon performative somaesthetics to develop strategies for cultivating audiences’ awareness and appreciation, to incorporate somatic responses into performance analysis, or to elevate dancer performance. in addition to such practical applications, performative somaesthetics enables the analysis of a coalescence of influential factors, including the immediate elements of audiences, dancers, and site; overarching layers such as histories, cultures, and power dynamics; and more personal, individually determined factors. singling out the dancer aspect of dancer-audience-site relationships provides a lens for viewing dance as a form of embodied knowledge reflected in artistic choices that respond to a variety of situational variables. focusing on the durational nature of dance, sondra horton fraleigh referred to dance as “a becoming” where “even the still points flow through time” (1987, p. 192). dance in this vein can be seen as a process, an agential act that is constantly developed within and in response to a given situation. while dancers regularly navigate elements of choice and chance in performance and practice across studio spaces and traditional theatres, non-traditional sites provide a platform for foregrounding dancer adaptability and artistic responsiveness. additionally, describing dance as “a becoming” promotes a process approach to qualitative interpretations (internal to performers and appreciated by audiences) whereby qualities such as beauty, groove, power, or the grotesque are not just identified or felt in a moment, but are experientially performed and apprehended through time. in moving from habitual theatre or studio spaces to alternative settings, dancers step into environments that require not only new applications of technique, but also reconsiderations and modifications, at times spontaneously, to adjust to unexpected challenges. this dancer versatility can be viewed as a convergence of dance technique, performer choices, and site that can be further understood via shobana jeyasingh’s comments on classical dance: we do not want to be bound by history, but we do not want to deny it. it is desirable that one first understand classicism [i.e. classical dance, ballet, or bharatanatyam] and then understand how to depart from it. to break rules you have to know the rules in a very deep way (qtd. in katrak, 2014, p. 75) while site-based dance may “break rules” of standard dance practice, it also leans upon embodied knowledge and artistry, merging mental, physical, emotional, relational, and artistic registers. dance in non-traditional settings is therefore more than physical adjustments to spatial somaesthetics and beauty95 performative somaesthetics restraints; it is an artistic reworking of technique and choreography imbued with dynamic relationships to audience and site, actively wielded and transformed by dancers in real time.5 sensorial audience experiences beyond somaesthetic analyses specific to dancers, there are precedents for considering the sensory-rich nature of audience experiences of performing arts. in the terrain of indian classical arts, audience encounters have been described in the natyashastra,6 an ancient compendium on the performing arts, in terms of rasa.7 here rasa is explained as the cumulative, embodied, emotional outcome resulting from determining stimuli, consequential reactions, and “complementary psychological states.”8 a wealth of scholarship has explored the natyashastra and rasa,9 while the concept of saundarya—aesthetics or beauty—and the related saundarya shastra, or “theory of beauty,” can be traced back to this seminal work (ghosh, 1951). in addition to providing a foundation for identifying and experiencing cadences, gradations, and differences, rasa also lends researchers metaphors of embodied experience relevant to somaesthetics. likened to the nuanced and layered appreciation of flavor in cuisine, the concept of rasa offers a framework that entwines the physical, transcendental, emotional, and personal to produce an essence that lingers with an audience. drawing out this metaphor, saskia kersenboom noted that the “tasting” of an exquisite art experience is a matter of “not only proper ingredients, but also their combination and exact timing…a chain of causes and effects that gradually build up a dominant sensory awareness” (kersenboom, 2007, p. 211).10 audience experiences are here connected to sensory encounters and firmly temporal in character. this speaks to the durational nature of live performance where, even if contributing to an overarching feeling, momentary and cumulative “tastes” play out through contrasts, evolutions, repetitions, reinterpretations, shifts, pauses, and surprises that transpire through time and within a particular context. while shifting performative journeys serve as robust fodder for analyzing audience responses, these sensations are not fully siloed from the contexts in which they occur. audiences’ experiences are enmeshed in physical environments, sociopolitical conditions, histories, and 5 in this paper, we speak broadly of dancer agency in the context of specific site-based choreographies, however, further scrutiny could explore distinctive somaesthetic aspects of choreographic practices, dancers’ embodiment of choreography, elements of improvisation, and intersections of these components in site-based dance performances. 6 attributed to bharata muni, the natyashastra is a compendium on the performing arts written in sanskrit dating to between roughly 200 bce to 200 ce, although estimates vary. comprising a total of 36 chapters, this treatise includes analyses of the nature of performance, the structure of a play, stage construction, genres of acting, body movements, the art of makeup and costuming, musical instruments, and the integration of music within dance/theatre performances. for sanskrit words, we here use common translated formations and italics rather than diacritical markings. 7 in sanskrit, rasa has connotations ranging from juice to taste, flavor, or essence, with implications varying from intoxication to the metaphysical absolute, and from concepts such as “beauty” to perceptions of “good taste” in the performing arts. for details on the evolution of meanings of rasa, see thampi (1965). 8 “vibhāva anubhāva vyabhicāri sam ̣yogād rasanis ̣pattiḥ” [“now the sentiment is produced (rasa-nis ̣pattiḥ) from a combination (saṃyoga) of determinants (vibhāva), consequents (anubhāva) and complementary psychological states (vyabhicāribhāva)”] (ghosh, 1951, 6:31, p. 105). these references have been similarly translated to describe rasa as the “result of vibhava (stimulus), anubhava (involuntary reaction), and vyabhicari bhava (voluntary reaction)” (bharata muni, qtd. in schechner, 2001, p. 29). this cause and effect sequence can be understood as the emotional response of an audience, moved by a performer’s cultivation of a mood, with dominant moods outlined in the natyashastra including love, courage, fear/shame, disgust, humor, sorrow/compassion, surprise/wonder, and rage. for additional analyses of rasa, see chaudhury (1952), and sundararajan & raina (2016). 9 see, for example, cuneo (2015), dace (1963), hogan (1996), larson (1976), and raghavan (1988). 10 kersenboom connected this viewpoint to other approaches to aesthetics, commenting that “experts in this canon are rasikas, that is ‘tasters’ of art, a perspective that does not deviate from the etymology of the greek aisthanomai, that is, ‘to taste,’ for aesthetics” (2007, p. 211). highlighting distinctions between aristotle’s poetics and bharata muni’s natyashastra, richard schechner emphasized that, “rasa fills space, joining the outside to the inside. food is actively taken into the body, becomes part of the body, works from the inside…an aesthetic founded on rasa is fundamentally different than one founded on the ‘theatron,’ the rationally ordered, analytically distanced panoptic” (2001, p. 29). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 96 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee personal intersections of culture, biography, and place. viewing audiences within such a web of relationships and situations both highlights the sundry nature of somaesthetic stimuli at play in live performance and reveals “audience” as a role both offered and taken up through various means. as kalpana ram explained, rasika (an aesthete of performing arts in sanskrit) is not merely descriptive, it offers audiences a category to step into; it is an “invitation to take up a distinctive way of being…to inhabit the time of the present in a very particular way” (2011, p. 161). outside of the specific category of rasika, and across genres and performance contexts, audiences are invited to inhabit roles ranging from passive to active, and to experience in an assortment of manners conveyed overtly and subtly, positioning both audiences and performers in a variety of relationships with one another. erika fischer-lichte has emphasized one such distinction between theatre viewed as an art object versus theatre approached as an event (2008a, p. 36). the difference outlined is in part embodied, wherein performance as an event is “not merely interpreted by the audience but first and foremost experienced” (p. 17). while acknowledging the interpellative power of the myriad ways in which audiences are invited to experience performances, ram also noted the agency of audiences who, while not neutrally invited, maintain the potential to respond in unanticipated ways (2011, p. 168). connecting such agency to somatic experience, ketu katrak elaborated that that “rasa is felt— bodily, mentally, and emotionally” (2014, p. 19), bridging prevalent mind-body divisions and facilitating an understanding of the spectator’s experience via bodily forms of knowing that interweave conceptual, sensory, and critical analyses (pp. 17-21). placing rasa theory in dialogue with a consideration of audience somaesthetics could provide rich layers for examining the interconnected nature of sensory stimuli and emotional responses. yet, shusterman has also outlined a distinction, contrasting somaesthetics with transcendent strains within the broad realm of rasa theory, a comparison that he related to the emplacement of art experiences.11 on the one hand, shusterman emphasized that “the bracketing off of art from the ordinary space of life is what affords art its feeling of lived intensity and heightened reality” (2001, p. 370). this observation particularly resonates with performing arts staged in established theatrical venues or arts institutions where attendance may entail a form of pilgrimage to a space reserved and designed for focused arts encounters. however, shusterman balanced this perspective with an understanding of art as “a real part of life,” where “our experiences of art are an important part of our real-life experiences” (2003, p. 297), proposing that, “art’s apparent diversion from real life may be a needed path of indirection that directs us back to experience life more fully through the infectious intensity of aesthetic experience and the release of affective inhibitions” (2001, p. 370). artworks such as site-based dance, public art projects, environmental/ecological art, and community-engaged art potentially bear a relationship to the transformative return described by shusterman. here, known places, identities, and habits can be both recognized and confronted anew via the prism of art, provoking a reorientation, however momentary, within quotidian space. the triangulation of dancers-audiences-site is therefore more than a shift in location, potentially entailing as well a shift in relationships and in the dynamics of relating to self, others, and the choreography being performed. in this regard, we view audience encounters as simultaneously individual, relational, and contextual—embodied amalgams of personal histories and factors, performance stimuli (auditory, visual, haptic, etc.), conceptual content, 11 for an exploration of shusterman’s approach to art as dramatization in relation to rasa theory, see shusterman (2001), ghosh (2003), and shusterman (2003). somaesthetics and beauty97 performative somaesthetics and the site in which experiences unfold. somaesthetics and site whether a performance is held in a theatre, restaged outside an art venue, or crafted uniquely for and in relationship with a particular place, site supports the creative development of immersive or focused encounters, and serves as an influential vessel or landscape for experience. while addressing a number of facets of dances staged in sites that are not typical art spaces, this paper focuses on just two examples of a spectrum of choreographic methods for working with site. such projects can range from work reliant upon theatrical settings and technical capabilities, to work staged or restaged outside of such spaces, to “site-specific” projects12 that are deeply connected to, created for, and distinctly existent within a specific site. somaesthetics has been used to unpack embodied relationships with site in the contexts of architecture (shusterman, 2011, 2012; veres, 2018), atmosphere (shusterman, 2012), and urban environments (shusterman, 2000). in thinking through the body, shusterman drew readers’ attention to the visceral aspects of engaging with architecture, writing that the soma enables us to appreciate not only the visual effects and structural design features that rely on perceiving distance and depth, but also the multisensorial feelings of moving through space (with their kinesthetic, tactile, proprioceptive qualities) that are crucial to the experience of living with, in, and through architecture. (2012, p. 224) resonances of sounds, shades of light and shadow, linearity or circuity, feelings of warmth or cold, inviting nooks or formal spaces all engage the body in navigating and taking on distinct modes of being and behaving within designed space. applying this approach to performance spaces, the choice of a site, the site’s transformation through staging, and the logistics of welcoming an audience all set a tone before a performance begins. the body is integral to absorbing and responding to site-based stimuli, but the body is itself also situated, embedded in the site it is experiencing. as shusterman succinctly stated, “just as we always experience a building in terms of its background environmental framing, so we cannot feel the body alone independent of its wider umwelt”13 (2012, p. 226). this insight reveals the sensory-rich and connotation-laden environments through which audiences pass and within which they experience performance. in addition to an immersive environment, site provides a distinctive frame—a context replete with histories, as well as formal and informal associations (which themselves inform physical responses, such as feeling at ease, intimidated, etc.)14 as shusterman noted in performing live, “experience is inevitably contextual, since it involves the interaction of an experiencing subject and the environing field, both of which are in flux and are affected by their interaction” (2018b [2000], p. 96). this observation fosters an interpretation of site as a key factor that informs 12 underscoring the difference between site-specific works and existing works restaged in nontraditional locations, mike pearson and michael shanks argued that site-specific performances are “inseparable from their sites, the only contexts within which they are intelligible” (2001, p. 23). 13 georges canguilhem described umwelt in relation to perceived relevance, as “a voluntary sample drawn from the umgebung, the geographical environment. but the environment is precisely nothing other than man’s umwelt, that is, the usual world of his practical perspective and experience. like this umgebung, this geographical environment that is external to the animal is, in a sense, centered, ordered, and oriented by a human subject (that is to say a creator of techniques and values)” (2000, p. 20). 14 in “art as dramatization,” shusterman explored art as an act of “the staging or framing of scenes” (2001, p. 367) and explained that “a frame not only concentrates but also demarcates; it is thus simultaneously not just a focus but a barrier that separates what is framed from the rest of life” (p. 370). the term “barrier” is particularly relevant to the relationship between site and audience, as it can be interpreted both as a division between spaces and a means of drawing attention to hindrances to arts access, which can range from location inconvenience to forms of invitation/welcome, physical access, degrees of community engagement or lack thereof, and financial costs of participation. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 98 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee somaesthetic experiences, rather than functioning as a mere static background. while studying site-based performance, victoria hunter elaborated on such an active relationship between audiences and site, describing a performance site as “metaphorically freed from its everyday.” in this context, she argued that a site “holds the potential to both locate and re-locate the individual, drawing their attention to the site whilst simultaneously challenging pre-conceived notions of the site as the real world is shifted momentarily ‘out of focus’” (2012, p. 259). it is this perceptive and experiential shift that in part separates performative somaesthetics from activities focused primarily on improving bodily appearance or sensory awareness. while the soma is central to dance performance, audience responses, and encounters with a site, in live performance these triangulated elements go beyond their individual components, crafting a scenario that opens up the potential for interrelated somaesthetic explorations. the dance case studies below enable us to examine these intertwined elements while also offering distinct examples of somaesthetic environments—delineated as sensorium and naturescape. toomortal shobana jeyasingh’s15 20-minuted piece toomortal was created for the unique setting of rows of church pews, and has been restaged in multiple locations since its premiere in 2012 at the venice biennale (including london, stockholm, belgrade, and worcester). we have chosen one iteration to serve as an example of the work, the 2013 staging of toomortal in st. pancras church,16 a grade i heritage building that dates back to 1819, located in euston, london.17 this columned greek revivalist style church was built with bricks faced with portland stone, topped by a stone portico and tower, and accented by red iron entrance doors bordered by decorative terracotta moldings. an external transept, supported by four female draped figures, resembles the caryatids at erectheion, athens (fig. 1). along the interior, interspersed with pews and pillars, two stories of small windows lead to an apse partially ringed by six columns raised on a marble-faced plinth backlit by stained glass (fig. 2). each staging of toomortal18 has been exclusively set within the congregation’s wooden box pews. hard, angular, and orderly, the pews in toomortal provided striking contrast to dancers’ bodies and movement qualities while also serving as a distinctive dance setting. critic sanjoy roy described the physical makeup of this performance space: “regular rows, blocked in by aisles, contained on the outside but with detailed internal features—shelves, slopes, angles” (2012). in addition to structures of support for dancers to lean on or push against, the pews offered unique choreographic possibilities. as roy stressed, “the pews…afforded her a kind of visual ‘editing’ that would have been impossible on stage.” this enabled jeyasingh, in her words, “to place the body at various levels, to see it from unusual perspectives, and to erase it quickly by 15 choreographer shobana jeyasingh has drawn inspiration from unconventional spaces for more than 25 years. duets with automobiles (1993), a dance for the camera, was set in a corporate office building in london. counterpoint (2010) staged female bodies around a water fountain in london’s somerset house. her recent piece contagion (2018) was set in venues connected to world war i and commemorated the 1918 spanish flu pandemic. for more information, see shobanajeyasingh.co.uk. 16 for more on this location, see: “church of st pancras.” available at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1379062 accessed july 9, 2019. 17 this iteration of toomortal was organized by dance umbrella on october 15, 2013. suparna banerjee attended this performance of the work and experiential comments draw upon her notes. for an exploration of toomortal that combines somaesthetics with sensory ethnography, see also our companion article, “somaesthetics and embodied dance appreciation: a multisensory approach” (banerjee & fiala, 2019). 18 images, video clips, interviews, and additional project information are available at: https://www.shobanajeyasingh.co.uk/works/toomortal. somaesthetics and beauty99 performative somaesthetics just dropping the dancers down” (church times, 2012, figs. 3 and 4). figure 1 exterior caryatids; figure 2 interior congregational space st. pancras church, london. (photos by mike quinn) figure 3 contrast and intimacy between body and built space, toomortal (2012) by shobana jeyasingh, st. mary’s old church, london (photo by carole edrich) inspired by the arrangement of pews, jeyasingh imagined “a wooden, wave-rocked sea, from which humans emerge and are tossed about” (qtd. in roy, 2012). accordingly, the dancers’ soaring and sinking between pews resembled a sea voyage, with tumultuous waves alternated with stillness. technically pivoting on western contemporary dance idioms, and with dancers only partially visible, toomortal highlighted torso bends, neck rotations, tossed hair, shaking, and suspended legs. this fluid movement vocabulary, executed by a cast of six female dancers, unevenly divided in pews on either side of the aisle, dramatically contrasted with the the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 100 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee site’s geometric pews and pillars (fig. 3). commenting on this juxtaposition, jeyasingh, who conceived of toomortal as an intimate conversation of the body with built space, described the piece as “an essay on bodies in this very man-made structure.” underscoring that “the human body is…ephemeral, prone to damage,” jeyasingh emphasized the distinction and intimacy “between human body and permanent building” (church times, 2012). figure 4 shifting levels, toomortal (2012) by shobana jeyasingh, st. swithun’s church, worcester. (photo by richard dean, courtesy of shobana jeyasingh dance) clad in crimson red, the female bodies could be viewed as invoking a blaze of passion within the pious church setting, which echoed with sound artist cassiel’s remixed score of chimes based on james macmillan’s tenebrae responsories. while jeyasingh highlighted formal aspects of her choice to cast women (church times, 2012), multiple commentaries have called attention to the symbolic nature of positioning women’s bodies within a church setting, alternately flung in exaggerated struggles and still, with a gaze fixed on the audience (roy, 2012; nijhawan, 2017). amita nijhawan wove together the significance of female bodies, choreography, and church site, writing that, there is something acutely disturbing about seeing women’s heads balanced on a row of coffins [fig. 5], lined up, one next to the other, hair flowing and clad in red. this calls to mind, all at once, witch trials, sexual and war crimes against women, and ritual sacrifices of women—not as individuals, but as a group (2017, p. 24) while toomortal can be interpreted as a critique of historic injustices, the piece also offered audiences the possibility to create their own myths, transforming the fixed boundaries of religiosity, gender, and history. in one sequence, dancers performed incessant, horizontal sliding movements, re-scripting the setting as a palimpsest to be reimagined by dancers, choreographer, and audiences. somaesthetics and beauty101 performative somaesthetics figure 5 dancers balanced in a row, toomortal (2012) by shobana jeyasingh, st. mary’s old church, london. (photo by carole edrich) taking a step back from the dancers’ embodiment of choreography, the church site can be interpreted as a sensorium for audiences, a contained built environment that serves as an immersive and focused vessel for site-based performance. within the geometric container of the church, fashioned in stone, wood, and glass, audience members were led by a group of dance umbrella volunteers to stand and observe the piece in respectful silence, their comportment mirroring the formal, reserved atmosphere of the church. quietly standing in this controlled domain, audiences, enveloped by the sound of echoing bells, took in the scene of artificial light beams scattered by odoriferous haze, watching the choreography from within a contained multisensory world. viewing toomortal via the lens of somaesthetics, the body can be understood as a theme of the piece (women’s bodies), a mode of performance (deep engagement with the site and choreography reliant on a particular setting), and a visceral means of implicating audiences. drawing upon the work of maurice merleau-ponty, sarah b. fowler underscored that “no sense is independent of any other, nor is the organization of our sensory experience independent of our moving through whatever world we inhabit” (1985, p. 62). in this vein, relating to the space as a sensorium refers to the enclosed, orderly site as well as staging, choreography, and the embodied positioning of audience members to experience the work. rather than an absolute definition, this terminology serves an evocative function—a means of describing an ambiance, drawing out key themes of a case study, and providing a method of contrasting one somaesthetic scene with another. dusk at stonehenge commissioned by the salisbury art festival and choreographed by nina rajarani,19 dusk at stonehenge used the metaphor of dusk to reflect the comingling of body, nature, and site. 19 through her company srishti – nina rajarani dance creations, rajarani has experimented with both urban spaces and digital technologies in performances such as bend it… (2009), staged on a soccer field; and the multimedia performance quick (2006), staged both indoors and outdoors. for more information, see srishti.co.uk. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 102 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee recognized as a world heritage site by unesco in 1986, stonehenge (wiltshire, uk) is comprised of a circle of standing stones, weighing approximately 25 tons each and reaching 4.0 meters high. this prehistoric site invokes a range of associations: a druidic temple, an ancient astronomical instrument, a tourist attraction, a symbol of ancient britain, and a part of england’s cultural heritage (chippindale, 1990). architecturally, stonehenge is celebrated for its sacredness (darvill, 1997), as well as its sonic qualities (till, 2011). building on this latter feature, the site’s managers organize performances for the celebration of the summer solstice, attended by nearly 20,000 people each year. it is in the context of this annual performance series that dusk at stonehenge was performed.20 if toomortal’s site was transformed into a contained sensorium, dusk at stonehenge could, in contrast, be viewed as a naturescape, a piece set within an expansive landscape and in relation to elements, such as the setting sun and the ancient stones of stonehenge, that span beyond humanscale physical and temporal limitations. the pieces diverged in process as well. toomortal toured to numerous venues, but relied on a very specific type of structure and spatial configuration, and was rooted in an intimate connection and contact between dancers’ bodies and church pews. dusk at stonehenge was created for an outdoor festival at the site, but the piece was rehearsed in a studio setting21 and dancers were prohibited from physically interacting with the ruins. nevertheless, dusk at stonehenge choreographically referenced the site. spatial patterns mirrored the circle of stones, themes drew upon ancient nature-based rituals and myths, and collaborators aurally embedded the work within the site through a soundscape that superimposed music on the gushing sound of the wind. green and red costumes, heightened as the light of the setting sun fell across the performance, “were chosen to reflect the resplendence of nature,” with green symbolizing the prosperity of the land, and red suggesting rich sunset hues (subramaniam interview, 2013). whereas toomortal drew largely from modern and postmodern dance techniques and aesthetics, dusk at stonehenge densely relied upon the clear geometry and gravitational pull of bharatanatyam, echoing the stark architecture and dense stones of stonehenge. dancers’ stylized walking (fig. 6) paralleled the erect stones, while the horizontal lintel stones resembled arm extensions foundational to the form (fig. 7). this choreographic deployment of the dance technique’s angularity placed dancers’ geometry in constant dialogue with the megalithic stones, while rhythmic sequences contrasted with the fluidity of the grass and expansive landscape. simultaneously, moments of sensuousness worked to transcend the fixity of stonehenge, balancing geometry and flow within both dance and site. dusk at stonehenge’s composer kuljit bhamra adapted the score to the site’s existing aural environment through the positioning musicians, including drummers, a vocalist, and voice modulators across the stones. alongside and through this sound installation, winds at stonehenge collided with the stones, resonating with a low frequency hum, and adding a layer of “aural architecture”22 to the site-based performance.23 20 research into this site-based work was conducted from afar, through video, media, interviews, and publications. 21 dusk at stonehenge dancer sooraj subramaniam described the process in an interview with banerjee, explaining, “we visited the site once before just to see how we could choreograph the dance. rehearsal was restricted to a brief run through just prior to the performance” (facebook interview, april 29, 2013). 22 barry blesser and linda ruth salter used the term “aural architecture” to denote the psycho-phenomenological effect cast by the sonic experience of space (2009, p. 3). 23 dancer sooraj subramaniam commented on his experience of the music, recalling that “the music had an ethereal quality simply because it was outdoors, and much of it was improvised…the overall feeling was poetic…the music would resonate between the stones, so it felt as though the music was coming from the stones” (facebook interview, april 29, 2013). somaesthetics and beauty103 performative somaesthetics figure 6 stylized walking; figure 7 circular patterns with arm extensions. dusk at stonehenge (2009) by nina rajarani. (photos by bimala naysmith) in addition to physical contrasts and resonances, as well as sonic landscapes, dusk at stonehenge was thematically tied to the site, foregrounding spiritual connections between humans and nature. dancers performed a full-bodied bowing salutation to the solar deity; spread into a circle, reinforcing the concentric ring structure of the site (fig. 7); and utilized gestures signifying holy oblation to the land (fig. 8). in interviews with co-author suparna banerjee, dusk at stonehenge dancer sooraj subramaniam (2013) affirmed the connection between choreography and site, noting that the choreography retraced the histories of the place, animating themes of human relationships with nature.24 complementing these more abstract references, the dancers depicted ganga avatarana25—a mythological tale of the descent of the river ganga from heaven to earth—thereby symbolically bringing the holy river to stonehenge, layering and interweaving distinct spiritual sites. the myth denotes not only embodied social life, but also the well-being of the land. by featuring the hydrological cycle (as a marker of livelihood) with its associated myths, rajarani called attention to the longstanding link between the site and humans, cultures, and histories. the personal, intimate aspects of human/nature relationships could in part be seen in abstracted sequences based upon the invocatory piece alarippu,26 through which the choreography underlined the blossoming of the self through ritual and in relation to expansive natural referents. highlighting an atmosphere of shared tranquility, hinging on site, dancer jahnavi harrison described the scene, “the sun lowered as we began, floated away as we just enjoyed dancing in the open air, surrounded by rolling fields, staring sheep, and birds circling overhead” (2009). the work concluded with dancers disappearing behind the stones, leaving the lingering sunlight to illuminate the scene. in contrast with the formality embodied by audiences of toomortal, dusk at stonehenge audiences relaxed on the grass, lounging in a picnic environment caressed by the breeze and engulfed by the setting sun. 24 subramaniam spoke of the connection of spirituality and place, and the emotion elicited for him through the particular somaesthetic experience of a bharatanatyam performance incorporating religious myths at an ancient spiritual site: “the stones felt sacred, each…like a deity with personality and compassion” (facebook interview, april 29, 2013). 25 in sanskrit, ganga avatarana literally means the descent of the river ganga. in this narrative, lord shiva (one of the major deities in the hindu pantheon), the bearer of the river ganga, saved the earth from devastation. for more information, see warrier (2014, p. 41-48). 26 alarippu (literally means blossoming like a lotus) is an invocatory piece of bharatanatyam repertoire, which features precise isolations of the neck, eyes, and shoulders. the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 104 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee figure 8 paying homage to the site, dusk at stonehenge (2009) by nina rajarani. (photo by bimala naysmith) atmosphere, performance, and rasa in drawing upon somaesthetics to study two site-based choreographies, we have sought to outline the spectrum of elements that inform performer and spectator encounters; variances between sites that influence choreography and somaesthetic experiences; and the relationships that can develop between audiences, performers, and sites in live performance. each layer offers room for unique somaesthetic analyses—dancer articulation, spectator responses, and the influence of site on each. in combination, we argue that there is a further somaesthetic consideration at play in the durational triangulation of dancers-audiences-sites that occurs during live performance, brought into relief through the example of site-based dance, which offers a revealing lens for unpacking the simultaneous influence of multi-directional experience and response. applying somaesthetics to site-based performance provides an avenue for moving beyond the intimate connection between performer and spectator to a perspective that takes in the entire performance environment. in thinking through the body, shusterman described the architectural concept of atmosphere as encompass[ing] the vast array of perceptual qualities, dominant feelings or moods, and ambient effects that emerge not only from the complexity of forms, relations, and materials of the articulated space but also from the complexity of practices, environmental factors, and experienced qualities that pervade the lived space of a building or other architectural structure (2012, p. 232) acknowledging the difficulty of pinpointing a phenomenon that interweaves somatic, psychological, personal, and physically constructed qualities, shusterman maintained the usefulness of atmosphere in the context of somaesthetics. he noted that “atmosphere is experienced by the subject as a perceptual feeling that emerges from and pervades a situation; like other perceptual feelings, atmosphere is experienced in large part as a bodily feeling” (2012, p. 234). somaesthetics and beauty105 performative somaesthetics gernot böhme brought such personal responses to atmosphere into dialogue with designbased counterparts, noting that discussions of atmosphere have spread to discourses ranging from town planning to interior design, radio, and television (2013). in highlighting the conjoined sides of reception and production, böhme provided added layers to perceiving site-based dance as both drawing upon atmosphere crafted in built space and adding to this atmosphere through lighting, sound, and other staging techniques. although somaesthetic impacts and personal associations may vary from person to person, böhme’s insights here bring attention to the intentionality behind architecture and staging, wherein site and staging act upon the traverser or audience member in part because they were designed to do so.27 erika fischer-lichte underscored böhme’s larger research into atmosphere, emphasizing that atmosphere is not created by any singular element within a space, but rather by “the interplay between all of them which, in theatre productions, is usually carefully crafted” (2008b, p. 75). while dusk at stonehenge audiences were presented with a seamless outdoor performance featuring themes of human relationships with nature, as with many site-based performances, this encounter was heavily managed. dancers worked to adjust technique to create an illusion of ease in performing in an unfamiliar environment,28 musical elements were carefully installed to facilitate an immersion in distinct sounds, and the site was monitored and guarded to ensure preservation. toomortal, through the deployment of dance umbrella volunteers and engagement of audience bodies, made the management of space visible, while also utilizing subtle staging strategies for lighting and sound. comparing site-based choreography to partner dancing, jeyasingh described environments as coming with “a personality.” such personality informed toomortal’s initial creation and has since turned the dance into a “site-reactive” piece, requiring adjustments with every restaging to fit within the unique configurations of each venue (qtd. in mackrell, 2012). considering such unseen work highlights that site-based performance goes far beyond surfacing genius loci, and requires intentional crafting, a meeting of choreographer, dancers, and site, facilitated through a spectrum of stagecraft techniques and technologies. we have explored somaesthetics in the context of dancers via intimate physical interactions with the built environment, choreographic patterns, and dancers’ post-performance reflections. these approaches are just a few methods of delving into dancers’ dynamic engagement with site, which includes both dancer performance as well as dancers’ aesthetic appreciation of the site and performance elements. in addition to their own embodied experiences and responses, dancers participate in the production of atmosphere through rehearsed approaches and in-themoment responses to both site and audiences. from the audience side, fischer-lichte has described the physical experience of atmosphere, noting that the performance spectator “is not confronted with an atmosphere, is not distanced from it; rather s/he is surround by it, s/he is permeated by it. in this sense, atmosphere is something which is physically sensed” (2008b, p. 76). site-based performance therefore provides a lens for combining the somaesthetics of atmosphere with embodied experiences of live performance. writing on rasa, saskia kersenboom noted that likening performance encounters to cooking “situates cognition in the senses, and turns understanding experiential,” emphasizing the “process and physical character of experience” (2007, p. 211). broadening this metaphor of the tasting of 27 for further examination of the influence of atmosphere, see griffero (2014). 28 describing the sensual discomfort involved in translating bharatanatyam technique to a nontraditional site, sooraj subramaniam explained that, “we had choreographed and rehearsed in a studio, so the texture of the grass made it difficult to move initially” (facebook interview, april 29, 2013). the journal of somaesthetics volume 6, number 1 (2020) 106 jessica fiala and suparna banerjee art, we situate rasa within atmosphere to enable a view that encompasses the layers contributed by site, staging, and dancer creativity to the unique character and sensations of performance. in our analysis, this intersection of atmosphere and rasa can be seen in the dramatic contrast between the distinctive flavors of toomortal’s sensorium and dusk at stonehenge’s naturescape. in addition to revealing the interconnections between situational environment and embodied aesthetic experience, the comingling of atmosphere and rasa serves as a reminder of the complex relationships between site and multifaceted individuals. in this article, we have repeatedly written of audiences and dancers in general terms, however, it is important to stress the personal nature of somaesthetic experience as well as the inextricable connection between experience of site and “self-identity” (proshansky, fabian, & kaminoff, 1983). both sites featured here interweave cultural practices, histories, and religious themes, all of which can elicit a variety of memories and associations. these palpable pasts are complicated by elements of contemporary transcultural identities and power differentials in the uk, elements variously interpreted and felt by choreographers, dancers, and audience members. site-based performance may open the possibility of deepening relationships between performers, audiences, and site, yet how this is experienced across individuals is inevitably kaleidoscopic. elements of community fostered within the delimited performance space and duration remain precarious. discussing the shared urban landscape of multicultural cities, shusterman noted, “these streets, through which the city’s many classes, cultures, and ethnicities move and mix can create a dynamic, hybrid collective.” yet he balanced this potentiality, recognizing that the “flexibly voluntary” constitution of such collectivity means that, “the same streets can be used to walk away, not just to come together” (2018b [2000], p. 110). this imagery of paths converging and diverging provides an apt illustration of the particular coalescence of performers, audiences, and site present in live performance, intersecting for a brief experiential encounter before dispersing. whether cultivating a sensorium, naturescape, or other environment, site-based performance crafts an atmosphere for experience that incorporates visual, auditory, and tactile senses, as well as psychological, historical, and social layers. rather than finite definitions, the concepts of sensorium and naturescape provide touch points and broad categorizations, examples within an extensive array of site-based somaesthetic qualities. as such they can be understood in part through comparison, both with quotidian spaces passed through beforehand and afterward, and with other performance sites and stagings that provide markedly different somaesthetic environments. each of the dance performances outlined above offered a distinct experiential terrain for choreographers/performers and spectators. in discussing these works, we have periodically isolated dancers, audiences, and sites to scrutinize elements of somaesthetic relationships and experiences. however, as sondra horton fraleigh has emphasized, “time, space, and movement are never separate except in analysis” (1987, p. 178). in this vein, the performative somaesthetic lens provides a framework for viewing individual components as well as their combined impact, positioning dancer, audience, and site within a dynamic relationship that unfurls in shared time/ space. conclusion in this paper we have considered the visceral, sensory qualities of the site-based dance performances toomortal and dusk at stonehenge, which entwined sites, choreography, and somaesthetics and beauty107 performative somaesthetics content to produce distinctive aesthetic experiences. performative somaesthetics has provided a structure for grounding such site-based dance within webs of physical and socio-cultural phenomena, exemplified by the triangulated encounter of dancers, audiences, and sites. we have used performative somaesthetics to unpack dancer agency and artistry, audience experience as an embodied encounter, and site as a frame and immersive vessel for performance. to examine each element is to gain one vantage point on a shifting, mutually dependent, and amorphous relationship. in exploring the particular somaesthetic factors at play within each, and in their interconnection, we work to gain a richer understanding of the distinctive shared context that unfolds during live performance. acknowledgments we are grateful to shobana jeyasingh dance company and holly morris for providing us with video and photos of toomortal, nina rajarani and sooraj subramaniam for sharing their insights and experiences, bimala naysmith and mark quinn for providing photos, arnab goon for providing a reference review, and kay fiala for offering comments on draft versions of this essay. references antal, é. 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(2017). literature, performance, and somaesthetics: studies in agency and embodiment. cambridge: cambridge scholars publishing. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 6 page 6-24else marie bukdahl orlan hybridity, creativity, and emancipatory critique in the somaesthetic art of orlan in dialog with else marie bukdahl “invention is the only true intellectual act, the only action of intelligence. only invention proves that we can really think.”1 introduction orlan is renowned world wide for her astonishing original ways of developing new genres, projects and performances. they have been presented–often with her body as the privileged instrument–in countless museums, galleries, universities and other places both in the west and the east. from the early sixties to the present day impressive new interpretations of the body’s relation between the self, the other and the society have appeared in different shapes in her artistic universe: real body and imaginary body, lived body and emotional body, mystic body and social body, diffuse body and hybrid body, all merge together in the ceaseless flow of references in orlan’s work. 2 since 1965 she has been active in photography, video, sculpture, installation and performance. she has created the so-called carnal art, and was the first artist to use plastic surgery as an art form to explore new aspects of the fields of art and science, engaging the viewer in unexpected ways. she used surgery-performance from 1990 to 1993. in manifesto of carnal art (1989), she emphasised that her uncovering of hidden and often grotesque aspects of our world is related to the baroque’s artistic renewals. carnal art “swings from “defiguration” to “refiguration,” and its inscription in the flesh calls on our age,” and this art “loves parody and the baroque, the grotesque and disconsidered styles.” it also “opposes the conventions that put pressure on the human body and the appearance of the work of art. carnal art is anti-formalist and anti-conformist.”3 orlan has many times stressed that she always has created her works “at the crossroads of two stories: my personal story, my private novel, and another history that of western or non-western art.” and in relation to this statement she quotes the following sentence by walter benjamin: “the actualization of former contexts puts the truth of all present action to test.”4 this statement 1  this quotation was etched on the walls of the library of the ecole centrale in lyon by michel serres in 2006. 2 eugenio viola, “the narrative” in orlan. le récit. the narrative. this book was published in connection with the exhibition of the same name in musée d’art moderne de saint-étienne métropole, may 29 – august 2007, p. 123. 3 manifesto of carnal art is the english version of manifeste de l’art charnel (1984). both versions have been reissued in orlan: le récit / the narrativ, p. 123. 4 orlan: a hybrid body of artsworks, editet by simon donger with simon shepherd, and orlan, routledge, london and new york, 2010, p. 36. else marie bukdahl bodies of belief / bodies of care7 orlan: hybridity, creativity, and emancipatory critique in the somaesthetic art of orlan is interpreted in her self-contained body of work—especially documentary study: drapery the baroque or saint orlan (1979-1986)—which has become particularly famous. these are her visual reinterpretations of some of the main figures of christianity, first and foremost the virgin mary and different female saints. they are visualised through herself and the figure of saint orlan and contain a re-creation of baroque art especially bernini’s. for her it was an intense and rich experience “to be a saint without being a virgin or martyr: saint, yes—but with humour.”5 since 1994 she has created a digital photographic series self-hybridisation—“a post-surgery series”—with past facial representations (masks, sculptures, paintings) from the west and the east, from pre—columbian, african and american-indian culture. there is, for example, orlan american indian self-hybridization #7: painting portrait tís-se-wóo-na-tís, she who bathes her knees, wife of the chief, with orlan’s photographic portrait (2005) (figure 1). in 2007 she has—in collaboration with the symbiotic laboratory in australia—produced a bio-art installation called “the harlequin coat,” where harlequin figures as a metaphor for multiculturalism. lóránd hegyi highlights the essence in orlan´s artistic activities by stressing that it is “marked by a consistenly compelling, intellectual, ethically and emotionally based intrinsic coherence legitimized by the radicalism of personal commitment.”6 figure 1: orlan. american indian self-hybridization #7: painting portrait tís-se-wóo-na-tís, she who bathes her knees, wife of the chief, with orlan’s photographic portrait. 2005, fine art print. 152.5 x 124.5 cm. 5 orlan: a hybrid body of artworks, p. 39. 6 lóránd hegyi, “an oeuvre positioned between the modern demiurge and postmodern referentiality,” in orlan: le récit/the narrative, p. 11. orlan: hybridity, creativity, and emancipatory critique in the somaesthetic art of orlan the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 8 else marie bukdahl orlan a dialog with else marie bukdahl un dialogue avec else marie bukdahl abstract: after a brief introduction to orlan’s art, else marie bukdahl engages the artist in a dialogue about the richly diverse ways she uses the body as her primary artistic medium. the dialogue explores her work on hybridity, creativity, performance, and the emancipatory critique of oppressively entrenched social conventions and beliefs (including those of institutional religion), while also touching on topics as different as biological art, digital technology, and the baroque. keywords: body, somaesthetics, creativity, hybridity, performance, liberty, critique, surgery, baroque. 10/03/2015 “liberty is about our right to question everything,” ai weiwei, 2009.7 « la liberté, c’est notre droit de tout remettre en question. » else marie bukdahl (emb): increasing interest in your projects is undoubtedly due to the fact that they are extremely radical as well as highly original. you have always set out to explore new boundaries in the fields of both art and science. without preconceived ideas, deliberately provocative, and with astonishing energy, you have never stopped coming up with personal ideas about how to tackle the many questions that arise in philosophy, science, aesthetics and art. do you think that this lack of preconceived ideas is the key to your works and your life? l’intérêt croissant porté à vos projets est sans aucun doute lié au fait qu’ils sont à la fois extrêmement radicaux et profondément originaux. vous avez sans cesse cherché à révéler de nouvelles limites dans le domaine de l’art et de la science. libre de tout préjugé, volontiers provocatrice, vous n’avez cessé, avec une énergie étonnante, d’apporter des réponses  personnelles à beaucoup de questions qui apparaissaient dans la philosophie, les sciences de la nature, l’esthétique et l’art. pensez-vous que l’absence de préjugés soit la clef de vos œuvres et de votre vie ? orlan: no one is ever entirely free of preconceived ideas. we are constantly confronted with preconceptions and my work is situated in this endless process of redefinition. i’ve always sought to break down barriers and avoid preconceived ideas. like my name, “orlan,” which is always written in capital letters so that it jumps out of a line of text. like i do in my life. in one of my series, attempting to escape the frame (1965) (figure 2), i explore how we represent space by pushing at its very limits, by playing with the idea of the frame as a symbol of 7 see so sorry, prestel verlag, munich, berlin, london, new york, 2009. else marie bukdahl bodies of belief / bodies of care9 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl something that both encloses us and formats us. more recently, in my experimentation with new media, i try to outrun the limits of reality using augmented reality software. in the series called self-hybridizations (1998-2005), created using peking opera masks, i emerge from the piece as a 3d avatar. at the same time i am disrupting the peking opera codes, which traditionally forbid women to play female roles, by making my avatar perform acrobatics that are usually done by male actors of the peking opera (figure 3). figure 2: orlan. attempting to escape the frame. no 3, 1966. the frame series. orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 10 else marie bukdahl nous ne sommes jamais totalement libres de tous préjugés, nous sommes incessamment confrontés à eux et c’est dans cette redéfinition perpétuelle que se situe mon travail. j’ai toujours souhaité repousser les frontières et déjouer les idées préconçues, comme mon nom « orlan », qui s’écrit toujours en majuscule, pour sortir de la ligne, des rangs, comme je le fais dans ma vie. dans une de mes séries, tentative de sortir du cadre (figure 2), je joue avec la représentation de l’espace et j’en repousse ses limites, mais surtout je désigne et joue avec le cadre qui symbolise ce qui nous enferme, ce qui nous formate. plus récemment, à travers mes expérimentations des nouveaux médias, je distance les limites du réel à travers un logiciel de réalité augmentée. dans la série des self-hybridizations, réalisée à partir des masques de l’opéra de pékin, je sors de l’œuvre en apparaissant sur les supports visuels au travers d’un avatar 3d. ici aussi, je dérègle les codes de l’opéra de pékin, qui interdisaient aux femmes de jouer leurs rôles et je fais faire à mon avatar les acrobaties effectuées par les acteurs dans les opéras de pékin. figure 3: orlan, bejing opera self hybridization n°1, orlan, augmented reality, beijing opera, augmented reality, 120 x 120cm, 2014. else marie bukdahl bodies of belief / bodies of care11 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl emb: it can also be important to mention the impressive digital photographs native-american self-hybridizations (2004) (figure 1). they are made from portraits of north american indians painted by george catlin, and visualize again your fight against the pressure society has made on our body. your installations, along with your plastic surgery and performances, use relentless surprise attacks to keep viewers from adhering to rigid positions, instead encouraging them to engage with new ways of thinking. your tireless willingness to search for new solutions to established problems and your inspired imagination undoubtedly explain how you have been so effective in presenting such original contributions to the art world and engaging the viewer in unexpected ways. to what extent does the viewer engage actively in the enactment of your projects? the active role of the viewer is very important for richard shusterman. is this also the case with your work? c’est aussi important de mentionner les photographies digitales intitulées native-american selfhybridizations (2005) (figure 2) où vous avez aussi dénoncée les pressions sociales que notre société inflige au corps. vos installations opérations de chirurgie esthétique et performances recourent sans relâche à l’attaque-surprise, afin d’empêcher le spectateur d’en rester à des positions figées et de l’encourager à adopter une manière nouvelle de penser. c’est indubitablement votre volonté infatigable de chercher de nouvelles solutions à des problèmes connus et votre imagination créatrice qui expliquent justement que vous avez réussi à apporter des contributions très nouvelles à la vie artistique et à faire participer le spectateur d’une façon surprenante. dans quelle mesure le spectateur est-il parti prenante de la représentation de vos projets? le rôle actif du spectateur est très important pour richard shusterman. est-ce également le cas pour vous? orlan: the viewer has several possible roles, all very different, depending on the type of performance being enacted. in my surgical operation performances, the viewer is primarily a spectator, whilst also being a witness to exterior actions effected on and within my body. the role of the viewer is important and taken into account, but it remains limited. participation can appear at first glance to be passive but in the end it is extremely selfreflexive, and thus inwardly active. during one of these surgical operations, omnipresence surgery (1993) (figure 4), the viewer, who was watching from the pompidou centre, was able to ask me questions, which i answered in real time, via a satellite transcription of the performance. in my series mesurages (1980) (figure 5), the viewer is an active witness of the measuring of spaces in the street and in the museum. it is my own body that measures the spaces in front of their eyes, and the viewers participate in the final counting of the number of orlan-bodies contained within that space, which they do out loud, before signing a statement attesting to the final tally. in my most recent exhibition in enghien-les-bains, orlan strip tease des cellules jusqu’à l’os (orlan stripteases her cells all the way down to the bone) (2015), i projected a harlequin suit onto the staircase linking the two levels of the exhibition, so that when the viewer goes either upstairs or downstairs they become harlequins themselves, becoming covered in projections made of my cells as well as of other humans and animals. le spectateur a des rôles possibles très différents, suivant le type de performance à l’œuvre. dans mes opérations-chirurgicales-performances, le spectateur est avant tout spectateur, mais il est the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 12 else marie bukdahl aussi témoin des actions extérieures provoquées sur et dans mon corps. le rôle du spectateur est important et pris en compte, mais il est restreint. la participation peut paraître à première vue passive et au final être extrêmement réflexive, donc active intérieurement. dans une des opérations, omniprésence (fig. 4), le spectateur, au centre pompidou, pouvait me poser des questions auxquelles je répondais simultanément (retranscription par satellite de la performance). fig 4: orlan. orlan 7th surgery-performance. titled omnipresence, new york, 1993. cibachrome in diasec mount. 165 x 110. cependant, dans ma série des mesurages (figure 5), le spectateur est témoin actif de la mesure des espaces de rues ou des musées. c’est mon propre corps qui prend la mesure des lieux sous leurs yeux. ils participent au comptage final du nombre d’orlan-corps contenu dans l’espace, ils le font à haute voix et viennent publiquement signer le constat. dans ma dernière exposition au centre des arts d’enghien-les-bains, « orlan strip tease des cellules jusqu’à l’os » (2015), je fais projeter un manteau d’arlequin sur l’escalier reliant les deux étages d’expositions et, lorsque les spectateurs montent et/ou descendent, ils deviennent eux-mêmes des arlequins, car ils sont recouverts des projections faites avec mes propres cellules et des cellules animales et humaines. emb: in shusterman’s somaesthetics it is the body that sees and walks, offering us an understanding of the outside world and acting as its intermediary. your installations and performances grab us by all our senses. the body’s epistemology, it seems to me, occupies a dominant place in your art works—that is to say the sentient body that determines our whole experience. do you agree? dans la soma-esthétique de richard shusterman, c’est le corps qui voit et qui marche, qui permet bodies of belief / bodies of care13 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl l’appréhension du monde extérieur et lui sert d’intermédiaire. vos installations et performances s’emparent de tous nos sens. l’épistémologie du corps occupe selon moi une place prépondérante dans votre œuvre à savoir celle d’un corps conscient//sensible  qui conditionne toute notre expérience. êtes-vous, madame, d’accord avec cela? avez-vous des commentaires? figure 5: orlan. performance orlan mesurage du musee st pierre lyon (5). appartient à la série mesurages (1974-2011). orlan: i would say that my approach has a great deal in common with richard shusterman’s, bearing in mind the significant difference which is that i invite the viewer to see me intrinsically and in every format (live, or through my dna sequencing, or by scanner) in images and the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 14 else marie bukdahl sculptures. of course i’m talking about shusterman’s philosophy, his theoretical work, as the founder of somaesthetics, which is the most important thing for me. i’m not talking about the practical aspects—therapeutic and artistic—of his work with somaesthetics, which i don’t know very well. it is undeniable that my body has always been the principle raw material in my work. i take risks, treating my body no less as an object than as the subject. this risk taking is also a journey during which i invite the viewer to experience feelings (it is always a body encountering another body). in one of my recent works, harlequin’s coat (2007-2008), i reached a new level. i invited the viewer to look at cells that have been integrated into a coloured plexiglas coat. going as deeply as possible into my being becomes also about removing the barriers that separate us from one another; we’re all made from the same matter, with just a few tiny differences. my body as an experience is more about being the representative, the binding medium that allows the other body to gain awareness. it’s a personal journey that allows me observe microscopically in order to see universally. je dirais que ma démarche a beaucoup de similarités avec celle de richard shusterman. a une différence près, j’invite le spectateur à me voir intrinsèquement et sous toutes les formes (à vif, par mon séquençage adn, ou par scanner, par exemple) et ce en images et en sculptures: je parle bien sûr ici de la philosophie de shusterman, de son travail théorique comme fondateur de la somaesthétique, qui est le principal pour moi. je ne parle pas du côté pratique (thérapeutique ou artistique) de son travail en somaesthétique, que je ne connais pas très bien.» il est indéniable que mon corps a toujours été la matière première de mon œuvre. c’est moi qui prends les risques, traitant mon corps tantôt comme objet tantôt comme sujet. cette prise de risques est aussi un voyage où j’invite le spectateur à avoir des affects (c’est toujours un corps qui rencontre un autre corps). dans une de mes dernières œuvres, le manteau d’arlequin (2007-2008), j’ai atteint un nouveau palier, je donne à voir des cellules de peau intégrées à un manteau de plexiglas coloré. aller au plus profond de moi, c’est aussi désamorcer les barrières qui nous séparent des autres, nous sommes faits de la même matière à quelques petites différences près. mon corps comme expérience est plutôt le relais, le liant qui permet à l’autre corps de prendre conscience. c’est un parcours personnel qui permet de voir microscopiquement, afin d’observer universellement. emb: when i study your installations, i think about the relationship between art and life, as established by richard shusterman. his notion of somaesthetics “argues against the traditional western division between art and life that has led to art’s marginalization from ethical selfcultivation and political praxis; it instead urges more continuity between art and life by refining life aesthetically with artistic skill to make one’s life a work of art [8]. but shusterman also stresses that “pragmatist aesthetics, as i conceive and practice it, recognizes that art is different from ordinary, everyday life in the sense that it involves an intensification or framing of life [9].” what is your interpretation of this and how do you think about the relation between life and art? en ce qui me concerne, quand j’étudie vos installations, je pense à la relation entre l’art et la vie que richard shusterman a établie. la somaesthétique de richard shusterman « s’oppose à la séparation occidentale traditionnelle entre l’art et la vie, qui a conduit à la marginalisation bodies of belief / bodies of care15 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl de l’art par rapport à la culture autodidacte et aux pratiques sociales; il exhorte, au contraire, à davantage de continuité entre l’art et la vie, en apportant du raffinement esthétique dans la vie par le biais de compétences artistiques qui permettent de faire de sa vie une œuvre d’art. »8 mais shusterman souligne aussi que « l’esthétique pragmatique, telle qu’(il) la comprend et la pratique, reconnaît que l’art est différent de la vie, en ce sens qu’il implique une intensification ou un cadrage de la vie. »9 quelle interprétation donnez-vous de cette relation entre la vie et l’art et quel jugement portez-vous sur elle? orlan: let me give you an example that highlights the point where my work intersects with the ideas of richard shusterman and somaesthetics. some time before i began my series of surgical operation-performances, i organised a symposium of performance and video art in lyons, during which i had to have an urgent operation for a life-threatening problem. i literally had 40 minutes to act, and i immediately thought of archiving and documenting the operation from the operating theatre by means of video and photography. as soon as the cassette was full, i asked for it to be taken to the fnac (which was one of the participants in our symposium), so that it could be broadcast, as though it were a performance on the programme of the symposium. it was about thinking about life as a retrievable aesthetic phenomenon. in the surgical operations performances that came after, which were actually programmed, i transformed my face so that later i would be able to produce new images with a face that had been etched into my flesh. removing the mask of the innate to put in place others created by my “self. ” the point was to overlay the figure on my face, in other words the representation, by creating a sfumato between presentation and representation. je peux donner un exemple qui met en évidence nos points de rencontre avec la pensée de richard shusterman et la soma-esthétique. bien avant les séries d’opérations-chirurgicales-performances, j’ai organisé un symposium de performance et de vidéo à lyon et, pendant un de ces symposiums, j’ai dû me faire opérer en très grande urgence, car il y avait un risque vital. j’avais quarante minutes pour agir et j’ai tout de suite pensé à archiver et à documenter cette opération par la vidéo et la photographie, au sein même du bloc opératoire. dès qu’une cassette était pleine, je la faisais porter à la fnac (qui participait à notre symposium), afin qu’elle soit diffusée, comme si c’était une performance programmée par mon symposium. il s’agissait donc de considérer la vie comme un phénomène esthétique récupérable. dans les opérations-chirurgicales-performances suivantes, celles réellement programmées, j’ai transformé mon visage pour pouvoir produire plus tard de nouvelles images avec un visage inscrit dans ma chair. en enlevant le masque de l’inné pour en mettre d’autres créés par moi “m’aime.” il s’agissait de mettre de la figure sur mon visage, c’est-à-dire de la représentation, en créant un sfumato entre présentation et représentation. emb: a central theme in richard shusterman’s aesthetics is that art is a central part of our lives. he has described this point of view in the following way: “if life ultimately survives because we living creatures want to continue to live, then art, in its multiple forms and styles, high and low, 8 richard shusterman, chemins de l’art, transfigurations, du pragmatisme au zen, al danteakav, collection cahiers du midi, traduction de l’anglais, 2013, par raphael cuir. c’est une très belle traduction, p. 67. 9 richard shusterman, chemins de l’art, p. 70. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 16 else marie bukdahl helps make us feel that life is truly worth living, by giving us experiences of deep meaning, value and pleasure” (10). but it is important that the ethical and social goals are interpreted as being ultimately satisfying on an artistic level so that they can be imprinted in the viewer’s memory and call on their engagement. do you believe that art can enrich our experiences and improve our quality of life? do you agree with richard shusterman? un thème central dans la somaesthétique de richard shusterman est que l’art tient une place très importante dans notre vie. il a décrit cette conception de la façon suivante: « si la vie survit finalement, parce que nous, créatures vivantes, voulons continuer à vivre, alors l’art (dans ses formes et styles multiples, grand et bas) nous aide à avoir le sentiment que la vie vaut vraiment la peine d’être vécue en nous procurant des expériences de plaisir, de valeur et de significations profondes. »10 mais il est indispensable que l’objectif éthique ou social soit interprété de manière pleinement satisfaisante sur le plan artistique, afin qu’il puisse se graver dans la mémoire du spectateur et faire appel à son engagement. orlan: art develops a sensibility, a critical sense, and when it is a kind of art that speaks both through and with the body, it makes the idea that the body of the viewer identifies with that of the protagonist even more visible. of course art can enrich our experiences, but for that to be the case one has to be aware of frameworks, of cultural and social contexts. these are things that the artist must tackle before starting work on a piece. it is in this sense that i consider a phenomenon such as digital technology to be important, and something that must be questioned. in several of my pieces i deal with social phenomena, positioning myself in relation to those that have been problematic for me. first off, plastic surgery and its insidious normalising effect. i have also dealt with football harassment, which is overwhelming and invasive, creating a certain kind of howling masculinity—primitive, nationalistic and limited to a single practice— that takes up all available time. recently, my target has been video games, games based on massive stereotypes, in which the aim of the game is to kill the largest possible number of people. in experimental face off, the main character resembles my interactive light sculpture “bump load.” it is a representation of a woman who has a strong, solid body. to make her go forward the player has to engage his whole body with myo armbands. little by little, by reconstructing broken works of art that are scattered around everywhere, the main character becomes human, so that as the player advances the ruined landscape is gradually remade. each of my works is a way of reflecting on the world and how to approach it in order for it to evolve and change and for us to progress. l’art développe une sensibilité, un sens critique, et lorsque c’est un art qui parle à partir du corps et par le corps, c’est d’autant plus évident, le corps du spectateur s’identifie à l’acteur. bien sûr que l’art peut enrichir nos expériences, mais pour cela, il faut être conscient des cadres, des référencements culturels et sociaux de notre société. c’est là l’un des travaux auxquels doit s’atteler l’artiste avant même d’entreprendre une œuvre. 10 richard shusterman, chemins de l’art, p. 70. bodies of belief / bodies of care17 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl c’est aussi dans ce sens que j’accorde une place prépondérante aujourd’hui à des éléments tels que le numérique dont on ne peut plus nier l’importance et qu’il nous faut questionner. dans plusieurs de mes œuvres, je me suis attaquée à des phénomènes sociaux et je me suis positionnée par rapport à ceux qui me posaient problème. en premier lieu, la chirurgie esthétique et ses mauvaises habitudes de normalisation. puis j’ai travaillé contre le harcèlement du football, qui est envahissant et qui fabrique une certaine sorte de masculin hurlant, primitif, nationaliste et limité à une seule pratique qui occupe tout le temps disponible. dernièrement, les jeux vidéo ont été ma cible, jeux dans lesquels les stéréotypes sont énormes et où tuer le plus possible est le jeu. dans expérimentale mise en jeu, le personnage principal ressemble à ma sculpture lumineuse interactive « bump load. » c’est la représentation d’une femme avec un corps fort et solide. pour le faire avancer, il faut engager tout le corps (celui du joueur) avec les bracelets myo. petit à petit, le personnage central s’humanise en reconstruisant des œuvres d’art cassées autour, le paysage qui est alors en ruine se reconstruit à mesure que l’on avance. chacune de mes œuvres est une réflexion sur le monde et la manière de l’aborder pour qu’il évolue, qu’il change et que nous, nous améliorons. emb: studying your works, it is clear that you are well aware of the significant power of the language of art. i am sure that you are also convinced that the vocabulary of form and performance can perceive nuances or wider perspectives in our lives that verbal language cannot grasp. do you agree with this? quand on étudie vos œuvres, il est évident que vous avez conscience de l’importance qu’ont les procédés artistiques. je crois en outre que vous êtes également persuadée que le langage des formes ou celui des performances peut interpréter certaines nuances et certaines grandes perspectives dans notre vie, que le langage verbal ne peut pas saisir. pensez-vous que j’ai raison? orlan: the baroque introduces us to saint theresa (figure 6),11 who gets erotic, ecstatic pleasure from the angel’s arrow. when someone looks at my work, they must always think of this “and” rather than this “or” in culture, which insists that we choose between good and evil, that we diabolise one or the other. speech can have a role beyond images or in conjunction with them. in one of my series of reliquaries made from my own flesh, i turned the christian principle of the word that becomes flesh into the flesh that becomes word. le baroque nous montre la sainte thérèse qui jouit de la flèche de l’ange dans une extase érotique et extatique. quand on voit mes œuvres, il faut toujours penser à ce « et », et non pas au « ou » de la culture, qui nous demande de choisir entre le bien ou le mal, de sataniser une des parties. la parole peut avoir un rôle en dehors des images ou avec elles. dans une de mes séries de reliquaires avec ma chair, j’ai retourné le principe chrétien du verbe qui s’est fait chair en chair qui se fait verbe. 11 orlan is thinking of the ecstasy of teresa (1647-1652) by bernini. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 18 else marie bukdahl figure 6: bernini. the ecstasy of st. teresa. 1647-52. sculpture. marble. life-size. cornaro chapel in santa maria della victoria, rome. bodies of belief / bodies of care19 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl emb: “three philosophers in particular—christine buci-gluckmann, mario perniola and gilles deleuze—formulated a modern analysis of the pictorial figuration of the baroque that is capable of uncovering new principles for artistic creation in late modernity.” between 1970 and 1990 you visualised and explored the aesthetics and art of the baroque in a stunning and original way. when i was rector of the royal danish academy of fine arts in copenhagen i invited christine buci-glucksmann to be a visiting professor. she talked about you in a fascinating way and gave me her book orlan: triumph of the baroque (2000), which contains a nuanced analysis of your series of photographs the drapery the baroque (1979-1986) and your video, which deals with the same theme (figure 7).12 i am sure that you have had many inspiring discussions with christine buci-glucksmann? «ce sont en particulier trois philosophes—christine buci-glucksmann, mario perniola et gilles deleuze—qui ont apporté à la théorie des images du baroque une formulation actualisante, permettant de dégager de nouveaux aspects de la création des images dans la modernité tardive.»13 entre 1970 et 1990, vous avez visualisé et exploré d’une façon surprenante et originale  l’esthétique et les artistes du baroque. quand j’étais recteur à l’académie royale des beaux arts de copenhague, j’ai reçu christine buci-glucksman comme professeur invité.  elle a parlé de façon tout à fait passionnante de vos œuvres et m’a donné son livre orlan. triomphe du baroque (2000), qui présentait des analyses extrêmement nuancées de votre série de photographies, le drapé-le baroque (1979-1986), et de vos performances et vidéos sur le même sujet (figure 7). vous avez sûrement eu beaucoup de discussions inspirées avec christine buci-glucksmann? orlan: christine buci-glucksman is a great friend, both in terms of her theory and in terms of affection. we have had a huge number of discussions and have taken part in several conferences together. the essays that she has written about my work are the best that have been written by anyone and she has introduced me to writings that i didn’t know, including those by quevedo. there is a marvellous piece by quevedo, whose writings were outlawed by the inquisition for two centuries of christianity, called l’œil du cul. sortir le feu de son cul is the title of one of orlan’s pieces, her famous performance where fire takes flight. there, one is in an ascension, but from below, from the l’œil du cul. and quevedo sings the praises of the l’œil du cul for being solitary. it is the arsehole, fundamentally, which bataille, who didn’t know quevedo’s text, would later discover, which is the eye of the matter, this black matter, which is faecal and abject, in the purest sense of the term.... christine buci-glucksman est une grande amie de théorie et de cœur. nous avons eu énormément de discussions et participé à plusieurs conférences ensemble. les textes qu’elle a écrits au sujet de mes œuvres sont les meilleurs que l’on ait écrits sur le sujet et elle m’a fait découvrir des textes que je ne connaissais pas, tels que ceux de quevedo. il y a un texte tout à fait génial, de quevedo, qui a été interdit par l’inquisition pendant deux siècles de christianisme, qui s’intitule «l’œil du cul». «sortir le feu de son cul» est le titre 12 saint orlan with flowers against a background of clouds (1983) is an example of her photographs in the series the drapery the baroque. see also else marie bukdahl , “orlan and ‘the triumph of the baroque’” in the recurrent actuality of the baroque, controluce, copenhagen 2017, iii. 9, pp. 111 117, figs. 32-33. 13 else marie bukdahl, «vers un post-baroque,» puissance du baroque. les forces, les formes, les rationalités, galilée, paris 1996, pp. 130-143. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 20 else marie bukdahl d’un travail d’orlan, de cette fameuse performance où le feu s’envole. là, on est dans une ascension, mais par le bas, par l’œil du cul. et quevedo loue l’œil du cul d’être seul. c’est l’œil anal, au fond, que retrouvera bataille qui ne connaissait pas ce texte de quevedo, et l’œil de la matière, cette matière qui est noire, qui est fécale et abjecte au sens fort...14 emb. when one examines the amazing figures in the performance “saint orlan” and especially the complexity of the folds, one cannot help thinking of the book the fold (1998) by gilles deleuze: “the baroque refers not to an essence but rather to an operative function, to a trait. it endlessly produces folds. (...) the baroque fold unfurls all the way to infinity.” it is the relationship between body and soul that characterises the folds in bernini’s sculpture especially in saint theresa. the folds are in the matter and the matter has become spiritual. it is this type of fold that interested you most when you created “saint orlan” (figure 7). your concept of the body is very close to shusterman’s when he writes that “the term ‘soma’ signifies the living, sentient body rather than a merely physical body without life and sensation,” and he adds that “the aesthetics of art is closely related to the question of the soma’s role in the social field.” do you agree with that? quand on examine les figures surprenantes présentées dans la performance de « la sainte orlan « et surtout le bouillonnement des plis, on ne peut s’empêcher de penser au livre intitulé le pli (1998) de gilles deleuze : « le baroque ne renvoie pas à une essence, mais plutôt à une fonction opératoire. (...) le trait du baroque, c’est le pli qui va à l’infini. (...) « ce qui caractérise les plis dans les sculptures du bernin par exemple dans la sainte thérèse ce sont les relations de l’âme et du corps. les plis sont dans la matière, mais la matière devient  spirituelle. c’est, je crois, ce type de pli qui vous a intéressé prioritairement, quand vous avez créé « la sainte orlan ». votre conception du corps est d’ailleurs proche de celle de richard shusterman, quand il dit que  « le terme ‘ soma ‘ indique un corps vivant et sensible plutôt qu’un simple corps physique privé de vie et de sensation « et quand il ajoute que « l’esthétique de l’art est intimement liée à la question du soma dans le champ social.»15 êtesvous d’accord avec cela? orlan: when i try to answer that question, i immediately think of another contemporary philosopher, jean-luc nancy, who tells us: “we do not have bodies, we are bodies.” this is his way of confirming the need for an identity conceived through the body. the idea of the fold in this context is that as orlan, i am everything that i decide to be, or almost, and what i am doing is inventing myself, displacing myself, recreating myself, questioning myself, unfolding myself. but i am also a “we,” i unfold, displace, make happen, retain, re-illuminate, copy. the entrails, the folds that i show, are simultaneously the echo of a relationship to the subject in its entirety and a reference to multiple bodies. i am multitudes. pour répondre à cette question, je pense tout de suite à un autre philosophe contemporain, jeanluc nancy, qui nous dit : « nous n’avons pas des corps, nous sommes des corps ». il confirme par là le besoin d’identité conçu à partir du corps. l’idée dans ce pli qui est là est, qu’en tant qu’orlan, je suis tout ce que je décide ou presque, et 14 christine buci-glucksmann, orlan, triomphe du baroque, images en œuvres, marseille, 2000, p. 26. 15 gilles voir deleuze, the fold. leibniz and the baroque (1993), foreword and translation by tom conley, london, reprinted 2006, p. 3, and le pli. leibniz et le baroque, les editions de minuit, paris 1988, p. 5. voir aussi «du pluralisme au méliorisme, de l’expérience au corps» interview avec shusterman par  juliette soulez. voir  www.tales-magazine.fr/files/articles/pdf_fr_204.pdf. bodies of belief / bodies of care21 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl ce que je fais, je m’invente, me déplace, me recrée, me questionne, me déplie, mais je suis aussi ce que je « sommes  «, je déplie, je déplace, je fais advenir, je retiens, je rééclaire, je trace. les viscères, les plis de ce que je montre sont en même temps l’écho d’une relation au sujet dans son unité et une référence aux corps multiples, je suis plusieurs. fig. 7: orlan. saint orlan with flowers against a background of clouds. 1983. cibachrome photograph. 160×120 cm. emb: christine buci-gluckman has said that your work is very much part of a movement that the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 22 else marie bukdahl she terms the “feminising of culture.” she describes it as follows: “this feminising of culture implies the creation of a third sex. that is to say, a transgression of boundaries and established norms, the construction of the female sex with its attributes and the construction of the male sex” (16). how do you respond to that? christine buci-glucksman a déclaré que votre travail relève pleinement d’un concept qu’elle a intitulé « la féminisation de la culture «. elle la décrit de la façon suivante : « cette féminisation de la culture implique l’invention d’un troisième sexe. c’est-à-dire la transgression des frontières, des normes établies, la construction du sexe féminin avec ses attributs et la construction du sexe masculin.»16 orlan: i have performed several interventions where i wore a placard proclaiming “i am a woman and a man.” throughout the history of art, which has been dominated by men, the female body stripped bare has been overrepresented by men, for men and for the pleasure of men. i added male genitals to the figure in the painting that is the counterpart to courbet’s “the origin of the world,” which i called “the origin of war,” to show the other side of humanity and of art, in order for us to be conscious of what it means to mutilate the body, to cut off arms, legs or the head. the serial killer of the world... j’ai réalisé plusieurs interventions où je portais une pancarte proclamant: « je suis un femme et une homme ». le corps féminin dénudé a été surreprésenté dans l’histoire de l’art par les hommes et pour leur plaisir, car cette dernière est dominée par les hommes. j’ai mis un sexe masculin au personnage du tableau faisant pendant à l’origine du monde, intitulé « l’origine de la guerre «, pour montrer l’autre versant de l’humanité et de l’art, et pour que l’on prenne conscience de ce que cela veut dire de mutiler un corps, en coupant les bras, les jambes, la tête. serial killer du monde... emb: you have explored the use of new technologies in artistic projects like self-hybridizations, and you have worked with innovative photographic techniques. in the multimedia installation harlequin’s coat (2007) (figure 8) you used biotechnologies, alluding to michel serre’s books, particularly le tiers—instruit (1991), where harlequin is “one of the figures of knowledge.” “i was interested in harlequin,” michael serres has said, “because of his composite coat, made of different sized and different coloured pieces of fabric. as though he has assimilated many other people into himself. all learning processes imply the inclusion, the reception or the admission of the other, and what i am describing is simply the ideal of education as a state of openness to all possible alterities. somewhere in my book i said that a miracle happened to harlequin: he became pierrot. which means that by assimilating all colours onto his coat he became white [play on “candidus” in the word “candidate”]. for white is a complete integration of the totality of colours. it is an entire universe that is not opposed to individuality” (17). is it true to say that one of the central elements in your work is to use new technologies and scientific strategies combined with texts that establish an important dialogue between science and culture for example those by michel serres – to push beyond established boundaries in art? vous avez exploré l’utilisation de nouvelles technologies dans la création de vos projets 16 christine buci-glucksmann, et michel enrici,  orlan. triomphe du baroque, marseille 2000, p. 12. bodies of belief / bodies of care23 orlan: a dialog with else marie bukdahl artistiques, par exemple dans les self-hybridizations, et vous avez utilisé de nouvelles techniques photographiques. dans l’installation multimédia le manteau d’arlequin (2007) (fig. 8), vous avez utilisé les biotechnologies, en faisant allusion aux œuvres de michel serres, surtout au tiersinstruit (1991), où arlequin est «une des figures du savoir». «je me suis attaché à arlequin,» dit michel serres, «parce qu’il possède un manteau composite, entièrement formé de morceaux de tailles et de couleurs diverses. c’est-à-dire qu’il a assimilé en soi beaucoup d’autres. tout apprentissage suppose une inclusion, un accueil, et je décris simplement l’idéal de l’éducation comme l’ouverture à toutes les altérités possibles. a un certain moment, je dis dans mon livre qu’il est arrivé un miracle à arlequin: il est devenu pierrot. c’est-à-dire qu’à force de mettre des morceaux de toutes les couleurs sur son manteau, il est devenu blanc. parce que le blanc est un accueil complet de la totalité des couleurs. c’est un univers qui ne s’oppose pas aux singularités.»17 est ce-que l’un des éléments centraux de vos projets est d’élargir les frontières de l’art à l’aide de nouvelles technologies ou de stratégies scientifiques combinées avec des textes, comme ceux de michel serres, qui présentent un dialogue important entre la science et la culture? figure 8: orlan. le manteau d’arlequin. fact (foundation for art and creative technology). sigma. 2007. orlan: many of my works have been created from texts, “from reading to acting out.” one of the axes of my work has always been to question and, further, to reverse established roles. to throw thoughts into turmoil. because art, for me, is not interior decoration – we already have furnishings, furniture and curtains for that. 17 voir «rencontre avec michel serres» à propos de la parution de la légende des anges en 1993. l’hebdo, magazine suisse romand, avait interviewé michel serres. http://wwwedu.ge.ch/cptic/publications/formntic/vert08.html. voir aussi «d’hermès à la petite poucette, le théâtre  de la pensée selon michel serre», entretien dans  le temps, par m.-c. m., samedi 09 avril 2011. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 24 else marie bukdahl i have said, and i repeat, that questioning contemporary subjects must be done through the body. with the idea of the “emancipated body” introduced by the deleuze-guattari duo and their wild nuptials, as well as through the augmented and reinvented body. today the physical limitations of the body as a subject can be surmounted through the creation of digital identities. the avant-garde is no longer found in art. today it is found in science, medicine, genetics, in alliances with prosthetics and with machines, which, for me, are not our enemies but our allies. my work is immersed in these worlds, for these are the worlds that are going to transform our lives and our ways of life. like stelarc, i think that the body in its current form is completely obsolete – it is no longer capable of confronting our situation. i am reasonably optimistic, in terms of these means, these tools that alter our ways of thinking and our relationship with the world and with the self, even if i know that one can use a hammer both to build a house and to kill someone – it just depends on who is wielding the hammer. beaucoup de mes œuvres ont été créées à partir du texte « de la lecture au passage à l’acte «. un des axes de mon travail a toujours été de questionner et plus loin encore de renverser les rôles préétablis. bousculer les pensées, car l’art n’est pas pour moi de la décoration d’intérieur nous avons déjà les fournitures, les rideaux et les meubles pour ce faire. j’ai pu dire, et je réitère, que questionner les sujets contemporains passe inévitablement par les corps. avec l’idée du «  corps émancipé  » amenée par le binôme deleuze-guattari et leurs noces barbares, mais aussi celle du corps augmenté et réinventé. les limites physiques du corps – comme sujet – peuvent aujourd’hui être dépassées et plus encore élargies grâce à la création d’un « être identitaire » digital. l’avant-garde n’est plus dans l’art, elle est dans les sciences, le médical, la génétique, les alliances avec les prothèses, les machines qui, pour moi, ne sont pas nos ennemies, mais nos alliées. mon œuvre baigne dans ces univers, car ce sont eux qui vont transformer nos vies et nos manières de vivre. comme stelarc, je pense que le corps est dans sa forme actuelle complètement obsolète il ne fait plus face à la situation. je suis assez optimiste, par rapport à ces moyens, ces outils qui changent nos pensées, notre rapport au monde, à l’être, même si je sais qu’avec un marteau, on peut construire une maison ou tuer; cela dépend juste de l’être humain qui tient le marteau. orlan paris 31st october 2015 notes a special thanks to orlan studio for allowing me to publish their photos. photographic credit: orlan studio (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8), creative commons license by alvesgaspar (6). introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 20 the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 page 20-41 stelarc on the body as an artistic material interview with stahl stenslie in august september 2014 introduction the australian artist stelarc is one of the most remarkable performance artists around. for more than five decades he has employed his own body as the centerpiece in a wide range of artworks. he is known for artworks such as the third arm, a cybernetic device and body extension in the form of an arm; body suspension performances in which he hangs from cranes thirty meters above the ground; performance works involving the public’s remote control of his body through electric muscle stimulation via the internet; body invasive works involving electronic sculpture placed inside his stomach and a functional electronic ear transplanted onto and into his arm. 1. stretched skin. photographer: graham baring. stelarc on the body as an artistic material the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201521 on the body as an artistic material his wide range of performance-based works has extended our understanding of how the body can be used as a living material in art and technology. although this art often expresses his concept that the natural human body is obsolete by extending the body’s capabilities by incorporating cyborg-like devices, stelarc’s core investigations can also be seen as centered on how the soma can be used as a medium or material for aesthetic experience and knowledge building. this makes him a very interesting figure for the connections of art with somaesthetics, because he is clearly using his “body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning” and doing so in a deliberate and critically reflective way. the following dialogue with stelarc, which took place during two skype conversations in august september 2014, explores his understanding of these themes and how they relate to his artistic project and strategies: the dialogue stahl stenslie (s): how far do you see the body as artistic material? how do you evaluate its role? stelarc: the body has always been considered as a component of an installation. the body is a sculpture of stretched skin in the suspension performances. the premise has always been that if you adjust the architecture of the body you might adjust its operation and awareness in the world. having an extra ear, a third hand, an extended arm, translating human bipedal into a six-legged insect like locomotion with the exoskeleton robot are some of the projects that alter the evolutionary architecture of the body. on a social level, the body’s meaningfulness is only in relationship to other bodies, artifacts and institutions. as a particular person i can express certain feelings, but it can be argued that our desires and affect are social and cultural constructs. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 22 stelarc 2. ear on arm. photographer: nina sellars. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201523 on the body as an artistic material s: in terms of your own famous performance works employing the body, i remember seeing a video of your copenhagen piece, where you were pulled up by a crane. stelarc: yes, it was just the naked body hoisted up a large crane, about 30 meters high, shuttled to the end of the crane arm, rotated around several times and then lowered back down to street level. it was above the royal theatre in the city center. s: you were held up by those strings or cords, and you could hover over the city. it was not simply your body that was put up on display, but the body’s vulnerability, the fear of skin being ripped off, of falling to your death. and yet, there was also the almost angel-like image of a person hovering above the city. it was really fantastic. stelarc: my problem was my fear of heights ha, ha. there was the option the day before to ascend up the crane to check out the situation. but i decided not to, in case that dissuaded me to do the performance. it’s interesting that the copenhagen performance was only the second really public suspension performance. the other one was in new york but that was only four stories high. but in neither instance did i plan or feel the fear of putting the body at risk. i had done many suspensions before those ones and for me if it was safe to suspend the body one meter off a gallery floor, it was safe enough much higher. having said that cables instead of cords were used. previously the body had been suspended by the seaside or counterbalanced by a ring of rocks. what was important was this image of the body suspended in space whether it was in a gallery just above the floor or whether outdoors and very high. copenhagen was different from new york, where i could hear the sounds from street level, people shouting, police cars arriving. being so high in copenhagen meant all i could hear was the whooshing of the wind, the whirring of the crane motors and the creaking of the stretching skin. although you cannot see that in the video, my body was actually shaking from the wind. above the level of the buildings, unprotected, there was a reasonably strong wind and it was literally vibrating my skin. that was unexpected, unplanned, we did not know whether it was going to be windy or not that day. but those suspension performances were the only ones in public spaces. s: do you recall your feelings while being held up by the crane, beyond those sounds? stelarc: the performances are done in what i call a posture of indifference. by that i mean allowing the performance to unfold in its own time and with its own the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 24 stelarc rhythm. there’s a point in time when the planning is over, the thinking needs to stop and to allow the act to begin. yes, i looked down and around whilst suspended, visually framing the body in its surrounds. but this indifference that erases affect allows the idea to be enacted. what was felt was only the physical. a concern with the structural and operational aspects of the performance. what’s important is not what this body felt, but what the performance expressed. a distinction should also be made between affect and sensation. in fact, the suspensions should be seen as spectacles of bodily sensation, expressed in different spaces and in diverse situations. they are not actions for interpretation, nor require any explanation. they are not meant to generate any meaning. rather they are sites of indifference and states of erasure. the body is empty, absent to its own agency and obsolete. 3. ear on arm suspension. photographerpoli papapetrou. s: that brings us back to my first question. do you see the body as some kind of material that in certain degree can be depersonalized? stelarc: these performances are not about an insight into the psycho-social status of the body. rather the body is seen as a structure, as a sculptural medium, not as a site for social inscription. the body is this structure of skeletal support, draped musculature, with a collection of organs and circulatory systems of nerves and the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201525 on the body as an artistic material blood – all bounded by a bag of skin. but this structure also includes empty spaces. having made 3 endoscopic films of the inside of my body in the early seventies this realization of a body of empty spaces led to the stomach sculpture project, where an artwork is designed not for a public space, but rather for a private physiological space. the body has always been seen as a sculptural medium, and as a structure with empty spaces. s: one of the things i like about your work and that makes it distinctive is that you not only conceive these projects, you also perform them yourself. i do not really see, for example, people trying to recreate the copenhagen performance. stelarc: that’s an interesting observation. but why would anyone want to recreate that performance? there was never an impulse to recreate a suspension performance whilst with the exoskeleton walking robot performance, that’s been performed multiple times. these are very different approaches. with exoskeleton it’s about taking the robot for a walk. although the performance is structured it is not scripted. although i’m performing with a robot, each walk is a different one. each choreography of movement and the resulting cacophony and composition of sound is actually different. i have only performed with this large robot about twelve times and i am still discovering what i can do with it. so with exoskeleton it is rather learning new ways of performing with the robot. but with suspension performances, they have always been one off. 4. exoskeleton. photographer: igor skafar. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 26 stelarc in 2012 i was invited to oslo to participate in a suscon, an event held by the body modification and suspension community. initially, havve fjell, one of the organizers suggested that perhaps they could re-create one of my past suspensions to commemorate my being there. i suggested that it would be better to come up with an original suspension idea. i had always been interested in realizing a multiple suspension. but when i was actively doing body suspensions it was difficult to find anyone else to participate. anyway, five people – two male and three females – participated in the performance which was titled spinning / breathing: event for multiple suspensions. they were suspended upright, one female body counterbalancing one male body and the other male body counterbalancing the other two female bodies. the bodies turned around each other and also spun on their axis. their breathing was amplified by small microphones stapled to their cheeks. the performance was terminated after about twenty minutes when a male body passed out. but it was a beautiful performance with the multiple bodies rhythmically amplifying the suspension. as i had recently done a suspension of my own the ear on arm suspension in 2012, where i suspended my body above the four-meter long sculpture of the ear on my arm, i decided not to be a participant, but rather a designer and the person who documented the performance. when i got to dallas in 2013 for another suscon, and again with havve fjell’s collaboration, we designed a performance for six bodies arranged in hexagonal configuration. these bodies would be suspended and would be spinning, with the sound of the structure amplified. this performance lasted for about 20 minutes. they were slowly hoisted up and lowered down whilst spinning, and the documentation of this performance was enhanced with the positioning of cameras above and below the spinning bodies. the interesting thing about this performance was the projection of the shadow of these rotating bodies on the screen. in fact, it has become known as the shadow suspension. this mass of suspended bodies collapsed onto a wall as a shadow. that was a surprising outcome. the shadow becomes the image that encapsulated he performance, a kind of inversion of the platonic idea of shadows in the cave. s: your body is your medium and plays a key role in your practice, but, if the exoskeleton is in some way a structure beyond your own body, could other people enter it and perform the robot? would it not still be stelarc, by which i mean stelarc’s purposive, experiential body or soma, within the machinery. stelarc: yes, someone else can perform with the robot, someone else can learn to operate the third hand, someone else can be suspended. and that is fine. in the end the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201527 on the body as an artistic material it’s not about this particular person. it is the act of walking with six legs, extending a body with an extra hand, of becoming a landscape of stretched skin. what this person does is contextualize these performances as artworks. and in that case it is about a particular and peculiar sensibility. s: how would you describe the difference between your sensibilities as an artist versus those of other people doing suspensions? stelarc: oh, they are very different contexts. for example, when i went to dallas there was only one suspension group that performed in galleries. everyone else was doing it in the context of being part of the body modification and suspension community. it appeared they were interested in the experience as a kind of brutal act, as a purely physical act and others as a personal challenge or perhaps a pseudospiritual act. there was no framing of the performance with any particular artistic sensibility. this is not belittling suspensions done in the body modification and suspension community. this is a response to a question and providing a plausible response. this would not ordinarily be of concern to me. but there is a fundamental physiological outcome that occurs when you do such an extreme act. the physical act justifies itself. but going back to the distinction you were concerned with, i guess it’s like the difference between someone just splashing paint on a canvas as a mere physical act and willem de kooning splashing paint on the canvas. he would be doing that with a particular sensibility, conditioned and colored within a particular art historical context. 5. spinning / breathing: event for multiple suspensions. shown at suscon, oslo 2012. photographer: stahl stenslie. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 28 stelarc s: context, or course, is crucial. when i saw your suspension sculpture back in oslo, 2012, it was an amazing spectacle. for me the beauty of the installation was not just the experience of the final suspension, but also the preparation process: all the bodies being prepared, all the buildup, all these people coming together in this beautiful composition. this process of bodies being organized and ritually sacrificed in a way. it was very complex installation where the actual suspension at the top of the sculpture completed, yet was only a small segment of complex process. to be a part of the audience was indeed breathtaking. stelarc: oh, it is excellent to get feedback from you in particular about the performance from someone who was there watching it all unfold. i’m sure havve would be pleased to hear that too. the process did expose the duration and the difficulty of preparing for the performance. and for this artist there is no definitive start nor end but rather an unfolding towards something remarkable, something transgressive, and then a returning to the mundane, everyday body. it’s interesting that with both the oslo and dallas performances in which other people were suspended, there were problems about having completely naked bodies in suspension – and these problems were raised both by the people participating and by the venue organizers. i always think of a suspended body as a naked body, a body whose nakedness is harshly visible because of the stretched skin and the hooks visibly embedded into the skin. there is a distinctive aesthetic of this landscape of stretched skin. but in the suspension community most of the people who do suspensions do them partially clothed. they might take their shirt off but they would be wearing trousers or they would be wearing underwear. i always found this a little strange, because in terms of how one frames the sensibility of that sort of performance, nakedness is part of what it’s all about, at least for this artist. a person who wanted to participate in that performance, decided to pull out after she found out that it would involve complete nudity. she was willing to be suspended from hooks into her skin, but she was not willing to do it with her clothes off. i found this interesting in a contradictory way. if you are exhibiting your body as a physical body, why not to show it in its full physicality even if it means revealing pubic hair or hanging genitalia. s: morally this attitude is also puzzling; because in conventional terms, in most people’s moral outlook, putting hooks through your skin to stretch and extend it, is morally just as questionable as showing your naked body. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201529 on the body as an artistic material stelarc: i had a discussion with her about that, but i do understand her modesty, especially since the performance was also a very public one. it has to be said that we were almost unable to do the performance in dallas, because the organizers had a hard time finding a venue that would allow full nudity in the performance. there were a lot of venues that would allow the suspensions, but not the full nudity. of course the united states can be quite a moralistic country, but this was also a problem in oslo. s: the multiple body suspension in the oslo performance was really, artistically speaking, a spectacular thing. do you have any plans to do those beautiful body sculptures in a museum context to try to contextualize it artistically even more? stelarc: no there are no plans to perform these multiple body suspensions in galleries or museums. but i am open to possibilities. if any such performances occurred it would not be about replicating these particular ones. as with my own suspensions i did twenty-seven over a period of thirteen years in multiple positions, in varying situations and in different locations until i felt i had aesthetically exhausted the possibilities. further iterations with multiple bodies though present new challenges ha, ha. with both oslo and dallas it just happened, it unfolded in a very normal sense. there was a community of people who were willing participants, comfortable about being suspended and i was interested in pursuing suspensions with multiple bodies even when this did not include my body. but i am not pursuing possibilities. it could happen again. in fact there was a multiple body suspension event planned in mexico in october 2013 but unfortunately it could not be funded. it is not easy to get funding for such performances. i am not really interested in doing performances that are not challenging. s: in the public’s perception the body suspension pieces seem to be very painful events. stelarc: i never conceived them as actions for generating pain. instead these works are envisaged in terms of certain ideas whose actualizations are physically challenging and even physically difficult. of course, there is pain as an inevitable outcome. the suspensions were extreme physical actions, and in every one of these events there was always a fine line between doing them and not doing them. in other words, doing one did not make it easier to do a second one; and doing two did not make it easier to do a third. each time i knew what was going to happen: fourteen to eighteen hooks were going to be inserted into my skin, with no anesthetic, no medication. i had to endure each of those hook insertions, and the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 30 stelarc that was only the first stage of the physical difficulty. the second stage is when everything is put under tension; and then finally the most extreme stage is when the body lifts of the ground. everything is stretched as much as it can be, and then the body is suspended. and later when you touch down again, the skin sucks back into place, which is also a painful moment. finally, of course, extracting the hooks is irritating; and if that is not done carefully it could generate even more discomfort. here it is useful to comment that even though the strategy of such a performance was not about generating pain, there is important insight that the pain brings to you. in such a painful situation you collapse the distinction between mind and body. you are one painful body absorbed by the power of the extreme discomfort experienced. you cannot mentally detach and become reflective. in other words you collapse that convenient cartesian distinction between mind and body. you are just this one throbbing experience. this is the extreme, immersive and collapsed condition you become when you experience intense pain. i guess this is what is so seductive about sado-masochistic pursuits, fueled by desires of control and power. physiologically though pain is an early alert warning system that something wrong is happening with the body. that care must be taken with receiving treatment for this painful condition. if an athlete becomes injured pain is felt that indicates the seriousness of the problem. to block the pain with anesthetics and continue competing might result in more serious injury. but a person dying of lung cancer will experience pain when it would be better that the body no longer generates it. so pain is a problematic condition to evaluate whether conceptually, medically or culturally. 6. split body: voltage in / voltage out. photographer: igor andjelic. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201531 on the body as an artistic material s: could you tell us about your background and how you evolved into an artist and into the kind of artist that you are? stelarc: i was born in cyprus, both my parents are greek. we immigrated to australia when i was about four years old. i grew up in melbourne and did my art education there, but after three years i was not allowed to continue at art school (essentially informed i’d be better off leaving), so i do not even have a degree. at the time i was interested in sculpture, but i was making helmets and goggles that you wore and that altered your visual perception. they split your binocular vision, so what you saw were two unrelated, constantly changing but superimposed images. i also constructed a three-meter diameter immersive kinetic compartment that generated fragmented images and electronic sounds. i guess the art school thought that, because i was not casting, not carving and not welding, i was not doing any sculpture at all. this was the late sixties which might have been a progressively experimental in some places, but art training was still pretty conservative in australia. it was very disappointing for me, because there were some contemporary artists that i admired who taught me, but there was only one person in my first year at art school, ken scarlett, who encouraged and supported me. after a year of thinking what to do, i decided to go somewhere else. having grown up in australia with greek parents, my culture was entirely western, having studied western art and read western philosophy. i thought it would be interesting to go to an asian country to experience an oriental culture. to me the only country in asia that was interesting, and that was also hi-tech, was japan. i went thinking i would stay there for a year, but i stayed for 19 years. i arrived in 1970 when the most interesting performance art of the gutai group that were very active in the sixties had essentially died out. i liked the people and the culture in japan, because it was all interesting and new to me. then i got a job teaching art at an international school, so i just continued living there. i met some gallery directors and one of them, noburo yamagishi, the director of the maki, tamura and komai galleries, was very supportive of my work. but in japan at that time, if you wanted to have an exhibition at a gallery, you basically had to rent the space (except for a few select galleries). of course, it was very expensive to rent a gallery even though exhibitions in tokyo only lasted for a week. fortunately, i was doing performance work that would only require a gallery for a day. so the day between the change over between one exhibition and the next, which was typically on sunday, i could get the gallery for a few hours before the other artists moved in, and i could do a performance there. sometimes, the incoming artist canceled the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 32 stelarc at the last minute because they couldn’t come up with the funding or something or had not completed their artworks. yamagishi-san would then call me to say that the gallery was free for the next week and that i could do something in it without paying for the rent of the space. that accounts for the longer durational performances i did in japan. other galleries became available to me too. things just happened; i was kind of a silent guy who would hang out in the gallery and could not speak much japanese and did not fully understand what was going on. but somehow, without knowing how, i would get invited to participate in group shows without my having to push or hustle to be included. some of the artists found my work interesting and wanted to include me in their group exhibitions. and of course i was the esoteric gaijin inclusion in their group exhibitions. s: how do you explain that shift from making helmets, goggles, and strange perceptual experiments to using your body as your medium? stelarc: well, i was always interested in the body as an evolutional architecture and the body’s perceptual and cognitive capabilities. the wearable helmets, goggles and immersive installation were an outcome of those general concerns. the idea of the body itself as an artwork. this particular body becomes a convenient body to use. i did not have to worry about problems of causing harm to someone else’s body or about the ethical issues involved. for example, inserting a sculpture inside this particular body as opposed to inserting it into someone else’s body, male or female, is a totally different act ethically, aesthetically, and in terms of safety. you can see how my practice evolved. when i was making helmets and goggles i was splitting my binocular vision, i was altering optically what my body saw, what my body experienced. then the suspension performances were the end of a long series of performances exploring the physical and psychological parameters of my body. for example, i did sensory deprivation performances over 3-4 years leading up to the first suspension event. for example, i stitched my lips and eyelids shut with surgical thread and i was tethered to the gallery wall with two hooks into my skin connecting with cables bolted to the wall. i stayed there for one week, not speaking, not drinking, not seeing. i could only hear people coming in and out of the gallery, and i could understand that it was night when there was no sound. the gallery space was illuminated all during that week, so i could not make out any changes in the light in the space. that was the performance immediately before the first suspension event. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201533 on the body as an artistic material s: that is pretty hardcore, a radical transition from making helmets. was that a japanese influence? stelarc: i have to say, quite honestly, there was no japanese influence as such until i initiated the third hand project. then, of course, japan was the place where high tech robotics was happening and i could get good advice there and see other excellent examples of state-of-the-art robotics at waseda university (prosthetics and humanoid robots) and at tokyo institute of technology (insect and animal like robots). but in japan the sort of physical body performances like those earlier done by the gutai group were no longer being performed, so my work was not reviewed in art journals, but more in popular tabloids and magazines, or, when i started with the third hand project, in science-oriented publications. although i was exhibiting in japan from the early 70s, i was not really acknowledged as part of the arts community until the mid 80s. and my artist friends would remind me of a japanese saying“high tech, low art” ha, ha. 7. handswriting. photographerkeisuke oki. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 34 stelarc s: even as early as your days in art school, you clearly had your own way of doing things. what inspirations gave you your direction? was there a special source or some people around you that directed you to use your body that way for art? stelarc: i guess there were several impulses to go in that direction. first, i was very interested in the evolutionary architecture of the human body and comparative anatomy, looking at insects and animals to see how they move and manipulate things and comparing them to how our human body operates. i was reading about things such as how dogs only see in black and white, how bats navigate with ultrasound, snakes sense through heat. i realized that my philosophy of the world is very much determined by my physiology, not only by my five senses but also, because of the images i see and the information that is generated through technology. our instruments and machines contour and condition our experience of the world. the scale shifts from macro to micro. in other words, our realm of operation becomes this abstract realm of the unseen, the unheard, the unfelt. this is what happens when you look into microscopes, peer into telescopes and use various forms of computational data visualization systems. in other words we are now clothed in a skin of virtuality. a second skin that mediates your sensory or direct experience of the world. another significant impulse in this body-oriented direction was that from the outset of my performance work i was always envious of gymnasts, of dancers and singers who use their own bodies as a means of expression but also for experiencing. the expression and the experience are tightly coupled. if you are a painter, there is a kind of disconnect between the input and output. what you paint (that is, content that goes beyond the medium it is employing) is not what you physically experience. of course if you are jackson pollock, the actual dripping and dribbling and moving your body, and splashing the paint around, then there is more of a coupling of the input and the output. but if you are a painter in the conventionally accepted sense, you are dealing with images and ideas that are more abstract, so you don’t have to take the physical consequences of what you paint. if you paint a suspended body it is very different from performing a suspended body. reading about yoga is not actually doing yoga. s: you have developed your work in a remarkably unique way. you seem to be a human cyborg, with a third arm, an ear on the arm, and you’ve done all these radical experiences. could you also call yourself a body artist, a performance artist, a living artwork? how would you name or identify your art practice after all these years? stelarc: there has also been an interesting evolution in the names or genre of the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201535 on the body as an artistic material categories of art and artists in past half century. in the 60s as a younger artist, i was familiar with the events and happenings of allan kaprow, the performances of robert rauschenberg, pop art, andy warhol and the garage, and the installation work of edward keinholtz, and other artists in that genre. initially i wanted to describe what i did as events, because the word performance had a theatrical coloring. when we talk about performance, we think of it in that kind of context. at the time i tried to avoid using the word performance. if i did not use the word event, i used the word action, referencing (in art-historical terms) the austrian performance work of viennese actionism from the fifties and sixties. the word performance was more a category that came out of the united states. for example, you may remember the performances of the kipper kids, a west coast spaghetti and tomato sauce performance pair. quite kitsch, very messy, quite theatrical. similarly with the fake operations done by paul mccarthy at that time. those performances were much more playful than the more austere and harsh interrogation of the body typical of european body art. having said that, this cannot be said of the potent performances of vito acconci, chris burden and tehching hsieh. so some of the early performance artists from the usa, were about the psychology of the body, the physicality and about performing dangerous acts. and then, of course, in europe there was raw physicality, for of ulay and marina abramovic and stuart brisley in the uk whose work also involved using shit and body excrements. i was not interested in performances that were deliberately trying to be extreme. for me, there were these ideas some of which were physically difficult to realize and you had to take the physical consequences of trying to actualize those ideas. as a performance artist it was actualizing the idea that was important. actualizing the idea meant that i could directly experience it and therefore have something meaningful to articulate. i have never been an academic complicit with a particular discourse. performance art became a commonly accepted name because of magazines like flash art and other usa magazines. i just accepted that term. i did not title or describe my early works as performances though. take for example seaside suspension, the subtitle of which is event for wind and waves. a lot of performances have that kind of description. the notion of event denoted for me a singular, one-time action. s: your work in cyborg aesthetics and body extension like the third arm is very well known. yet i think of you as very much human; not a mechanical robot, but alive, curious and sensitive. what about the dangers and crossover effects of your work? it is quite extreme to extend your body in the ways you have been doing. how do you perceive the use of your living, sentient body, or ‘soma’ as we like to call it in the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 36 stelarc somaesthetic discourse ? stelarc: when we speak about the body in this way, as if i, who owns this body, am using this body, we are entangled in language problems. we can rephrase what we are trying to express by saying this body performs this suspension in this particular location and has these kinds of experiences which resulted from these kinds of ideas and then we do not have to be nostalgic for a body with a separate and individual agency that is responsible for how its body acts. this body interaction is the result of this person being inserted in a particular place at a certain time, with a certain cultural conditioning within social institutions, constraining it or allowing it to perform in particular and sometimes peculiar ways – at this point in time in our history. yes, it is a particular body that is realizing this suspension process, but it is not a single agency that determines what is going to happen when it is going to happen and what the outcome will be. how we talk about the body and its agency depends how you frame it. if we frame it in a very limited way, at this point in time, for in this particular place, then this body can say: “i picked this bottle of water up, i drink this water, i put this bottle down.” what has resulted in this action is not just me simplistically thinking that i initiated all that, that i just did all that. firstly, this bottle has been sitting here since yesterday, i filled it up outside in this building, because several weeks ago my partner nina said: “you do not drink enough water. you should drink more water every day.” in actuality there is an infinite number of causal events that resulted in this moment where i can say: “i lift this bottle of water up”. yes it is convenient to say now that i want to drink water or i am thirsty but what does thirsty mean? if i see a water bottle within reach maybe that is why i feel thirsty. i just want to problematize this simplistic idea of an individual agency that we commonly, popularly believe in. to go further i would agree with wittgenstein that this person who speaks as an “i” is the body whose lips move, it is not because of a mind inside a head. and with nietzsche who asserts that there is no being without the doing, it is the act itself that is the reality. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201537 on the body as an artistic material 8. stomach sculpture. photographer: anthony figallo. s: bodies move, act, and also feel pain. i return to the question of pain because your performances appear painful. but if i understand you correctly, pain does not have a specific functionality in your work beyond it being a byproduct of the artistic idea you want to express. stelarc: as indicated before, what you describe as extreme acts that generate pain can occur only because the artist performs them with a posture of indifference. you allow things to happen. you trust in your thinking and planning and your assistants. if you want to insert a sculpture inside your body, you have to consider the consequences and plan accordingly. you have to design and have engineered an object that can close into a form that can be inserted down through your esophagus. when it is inside your stomach it will open and close and emit a flashing light and a beeping sound. it is a machine choreography, a simple robot inside your stomach, actuated by a servo motor and a logic circuit. you have to allow that to happen, allow that to unfold. it was a very uncomfortable experience to have both the control cable of the sculpture (8mm in diameter) and the endoscope (10cm in diameter) both being pushed down your throat. my throat had to be sprayed with anesthetic to stop me gagging. and it took six insertions over a period of two days to film about fifteen minutes of video. the endoscopist who was assisting called the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 38 stelarc the procedure to a halt when scraping the esophagus produced some bleeding. unless you are prepared to have these things happen, to experience that physical difficulty, then you will not be able to actualize the idea. again, there comes a point in time with an artistic performance or in any other action when thinking stops, when it has to stop, and the physical act begins. it is with that kind of mentality that i approach my work. you just have to do it. but, of course, the consequences follow. s: since you mentioned the viennese actionists and since we’re discussing the body and pain, i can’t help thinking of rudolf schwarzkogler, one of the viennese actionists, who died from cutting off his own penis. that was certainly extreme. stelarc: yes, the viennese actionists were extreme body artists, and they certainly explored the body’s materiality. hurting the body, cutting the skin, bleeding, all those sorts of things which have become more familiar and almost part of the body-modification community and bodyperformance community these days. what i find especially interesting about art and about performance artists, beyond the impulse to experiment, is how that performance is structured or allowed to unfold in its own way, how structured but unscripted it is, whether it is repeatable or not repeatable. for example, many of marina abramovic performances were not imagined as repeatable performances or as performances done by others. but in new york when marina had that retrospective at moma in 2010, some of her performances were recreated, re-performed by people other than herself. this concerns the problematic of how to exhibit performance work. do you exhibit it only as visual traces, as photographs or as videos, or do you exhibit it by reperforming them by other bodies? can the context, intensity, bodily presence or historical moment be captured by doing it again with other performers? it’s a contestable approach to exhibiting body art. to re-create the sitting / swaying: event for rock suspension with any fidelity you would need to perform it in a similar size space, using a body the same kind of rocks counterbalancing a similar weighing body. certainly a body could physically be suspended in this way. but how much importance do we need to place on the other related details in replicating this as an artwork. the performance was stopped when the telephone rang in the gallery. for the artist this was a significant moment in the unfolding and the concluding of the performance. not something that can be meaningfully replicated. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201539 on the body as an artistic material s: our bodies have a certain lifespan, averaging around 70 -80 years. how has your body evolved as a medium or even material for performance over the years? how do you see the process of aging in terms of your art? stelarc: certainly, an aging body is going to deteriorate, increasingly malfunction and its physical endurance and stamina is going to wane. it is going to have problems with its internal organs or body condition that might not be medically treatable. body parts might be replaced by artificial components. we see this already today, including some of the most important organs with heart transplants. in fact technology continues to radically interrogate what it means to be human. the turbine heart, a smaller more robust artificial heart circulates the blood in the body continuously without pulsing. so you might rest you head on your loved ones chest, she is warm to the touch, she is breathing, she is certainly alive – but she has no heartbeat! because we are living longer, we are experiencing more fully and deeply what it means to deteriorate and malfunction and perhaps lose our memory. of course, there is interesting research in cell senescence, in studying how cells age. that might result in some increased longevity. but fundamentally, in radical terms, the body is inadequate in the technological terrain in which it now inhabits. the body is empty, alien to its own agency and profoundly obsolete. it is a system that is kept alive by bodily functions that not only guarantee its existence but guarantee its death. we have a sense that there are only a certain number of heartbeats, only a certain amount of breaths we can take. unless something radically changes with our genetic interventions, we are going to be increasingly experiencing ourselves as aging and malfunctioning bodies. in fact we will no longer die biological deaths, we will die when we switch our life-support systems off. for most artists, for most philosophers, for most poets, for most academics, remaining in prime physical condition is not a necessity as long as they can see, as long as they can hear, as long as they can type. but in performance, things are different. if you think of the performing body, if you are a dancer, your body is no longer flexible and coordinated after a certain age, if you are gymnast, after your teenage years you no longer have a body best equipped to adequately perform. even a singer’s voice will eventually deteriorate. this is just a harsh reality of what happens, but we are developing prosthetic attachments and body implants that extend our operational capabilities. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 2015 40 stelarc s: what about internal body feelings, inner bodily perceptions. i see this as evolving with age. i was a part of the extravagant bodies exhibit in zagreb in 2013. it was devoted to the body in old age. somatic experience changes with age, but not necessarily for loss. if we are somaesthetically attentive, we learn how sense memories accumulate through years of experience. how do you see this idea of an evolving body consciousness with age and what it might mean for you in terms of your performance? stelarc: there is no clear and simple answer. undoubtedly there can be some somatic melioration through the experience of age, but there is also malfunction and loss of coordination of body skills and body parts and numbing of certain sensitivities. sometimes these can be minimized with technologies that repair or replace. i think we should not be nostalgic about the biological body. undoubtedly embodiment is fundamental in lived experience. one can argue that the best time to procreate is in your teenage years not in your 30s or 40s, so we can freeze our sperm and eggs until we are ready to have children. if we wait till we are older to have children in the old-fashioned way (with older sperm and eggs), we may be acting irresponsibly we’re likely to give birth to children with genetic problems and physical handicaps. severe operational handicaps can be overcome though. think of a body like stephen hawking’s and how it can be technologically equipped for him to continue creative activities. the point i wish to make here is that i am not concerned about the change. we always have to manage these malfunctions. an aging body can still make useful contributions. fundamentally, to be alive is to be a performative body. if you are concerned about my body’s performance, then you only have to worry about it when i am dead ha, ha. s: concerning your transgressive, performance based works, what role has beauty played in them? stelarc: oh, i would assert none! but my projects and performances are situated in the context of art history, so one must accept the consequences of that and the inevitable association that can be made. in framing these projects and performances as art we become complicit in the realm of aesthetics and notions of design and beauty. certainly there is no deliberate pursuit of a particular aesthetic. i guess one can make associations with the nude body and with a certain form follows function approach to design. but this is not about the beauty of the body, nor the beauty of an object or an installation. beauty is like truth seemingly universal but in actuality somewhat arbitrary. these notions are cultural constructs that are in fact relative, highly contestable and arguably subjective. the journal of somaesthetics no. 1, 201541 on the body as an artistic material 9. blender:  stelarc / nina sellars. photographer: stelarc. endnotes abstract: in this dialogue with stahl stenslie, stelarc discusses his use of the body as an artistic material. he explains his own experience from the inside his own performance based artworks, disclosing a unique insight into somaesthetical matters representative of body-based performance art. keywords: body, art, obsolescence, suspension, soma, performance, somaesthetics, pain, exoskeleton, age. contact: stelarc stelarc@stelarc.org stahl stenslie stenslie@gmail.com h.rb40heju30b8 h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs introduction to the journal of somaesthetics introduction to issue number 1: olafur eliasson interdisciplinary approaches and stelarc on the body as an artistic material pan gonkai somaesthetics and its consequences in contemporary art throwing the body into the fight: the body as an instrument in political art metaphysics, corporeality and visuality: a developmental and comparative review of the discourses on chinese ink painting representation and visual politics of the extreme body embodied creation and perception in olafur eliasson’s and carsten höller’s projects. page 25-43 bodies of belief / bodies of care25 art and religious belief art and religious belief: lessons for contemporary theory from renaissance and baroque painting else marie bukdahl abstract: the purpose of this paper is to address the relationship between art and religious belief in the middle ages, and particularly during the renaissance and the baroque. there is special focus on the themes of art as religion and embodied belief in christian art in the renaissance and the baroque viewed in a somaesthetic perspective. these themes are analysed primarily through interpretations of the works by artists including raphael, veronese, titian, and caravaggio. keywords: somaesthetics, embodied creation and perception, simulacre, transfiguation, meliorist goal, sacred and profan love, embodied experience, eros and agape, the active viewer. in the baroque, we encounter a new notion of an independent artistic space of cognition and experience, and the notion of an embodied creation and perception that is much stronger than in the art of the renaissance. we also encounter new connections between art and life. these interpretations can be charted through many aspects of somaesthetics, which specifically profiles these connections. somaesthetics can also create nuances in the understanding of the relationship between faith and visual art, which danto espoused, and which shusterman has examined more critically. the italian philosopher mario perniola’s interpretation of ignatius loyola’s image theory demonstrates that loyola’s work constitutes a precursor – in a different way and with another aim – of the aesthetics of the phenomenon and the body. this aesthetic mindset, which is particularly apparent in the visualization apparent in caravaggio’s paintings, is connected to a concept of viewers’ involvement in the artistic process, in which an awareness of their own presence and their relationship with the environment arises. this relation between perception and bodily behaviour and the viewer’s involvement in the artwork also anticipates some of the main themes in somaesthetics. introduction all known cultures, even the most primitive, have had some form of artistic activity occupying a central place in society. this activity was often a visualization of their faith and was regarded in prehistoric times as important for the survival of society. cave paintings, for example, date back some 40,000 years and may have had a powerful ritual function. hunters probably believed that drawing animals on the dark cave walls would cause real animals out on the tundra to become spellbound, making them easier to kill. in historic times, religious systems emerged, both as major, a very complex religion, and minor, a less complicated religion. in their respective ways, these systems created the spiritual base and values that became the foundation of the systems of faith and understandings of the meaning of life and interpretations of death as a condition of life in their societies, based on the art and religious belief the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 26 else marie bukdahl sensory experiences present in the culture. christianity, despite all its internal conflicts in the theological realm and on the battlefield, formed many of our values and our faith in the west from after the fall of the roman empire and until the age of enlightenment. particularly in france the enlightenment created opportunities for science, art, and other disciplines to become independent. a process of liberation from the church began to prevail in society. secularization did generate a new understanding of art, which sidelined christianity, other religions and different philosophical systems. however, although secularization became increasingly dominant and also very fruitful in society, there were still many connections between first, and foremost, christianity and other fields of knowledge and the arts. “art as religion,” “art as transfiguration,” and the teachings of zen with the increasing dominance of symbolism at the end of the 19th century, and modernism at the beginning of the 20th century, a new understanding of art started to prevail in cultural life. stephan mallarmé was very significant in the poetic interpretation of this concept. he tried with great difficulty to make of the poem a religion of the future.1 this view achieved new manifestations with the birth of abstract art and in the work of artists like kandinsky, who created theories derived from the devoted spiritual study of theosophy, and who was informed by an intense relationship between music and color. a significant tendency in the art, aesthetics and philosophy of the 20th century, the new millennium thus became artistic interpretations and analyses of how the arts assumed the role of religion in revealing the general conditions and true essence of life. the various art forms were considered to have broader, more intense, and more convincing interpretations of our lives and the world than traditional religions. and in contrast to traditional religions, the visual arts and other arts have not been involved in persecution and warfare, and when they have been intolerant, it has only been in an intellectual context. it is, however, important to bear in mind that religions like christianity have also been central culture bearers. the christian message of love is there to suffuse our world and enshrine human rights in the many layers of society. however, human beings have frequently failed to fulfill these claims appropriately. christianity has undergone many developments and also many sorely needed purification processes, and this is an ongoing development. the question is how can art bear this cultural inheritance into the future in an innovative way? with this question, it is also important to get a more nuanced understanding of how artists have interpreted religions and what place they have occupied, not only in a religious context, but also in society as a whole. the arguments for art replacing religion were very influential, but were naturally also hotly debated. richard shusterman has in a very loyal, and in several instances, very unexpected way, both analysed and criticised this in a somaesthetic perspective. he wants to explore the idea that art provides a useful, even superior, substitute for religion, one that is free from the latter’s many disadvantages and that should be vigorously championed as an alternative that could eventually free our transcultural world from the hostile divisiveness and backward-looking attitudes that religions have inspired and instead lead us toward greater understanding, peace, and harmony.2 1 see bertrand, marchal, la religion de mallarmé: poésie, mythology et religion, 1998, pp. 14-16. 2 richard shusterman, “art and religion,” journal of aesthetics education, fall, 2008, vol. 42, no 3, pp. 1 18. this essay was originally written and delivered as a plenary lecture for the 17th international congress of aesthetics, held in ankara, turkey, on july 9-13, 2007, and devoted to the theme of “aesthetics bridging cultures.” see http://www.deweycenter.uj.edu.pl/tekst_shusterman.html. else marie bukdahl bodies of belief / bodies of care27 art and religious belief he points out that “art sustains the valuable features of religion while minimizing or refining out the bad.”3 but he is also aware that art has not been allocated an easy task. his own aim is to formulate an aesthetic in which experience occupies a central position. experience has always had an important place in his own life and work. he describes it as follows: experience forms the generating core of my pragmatist philosophy, in theory and in practice. most of my philosophical views derive from experiences outside the library, seminar room and the philosophical texts i’ve read. those valuable and cherished texts have served me principally as a source of scholarly encouragement, argument and useful terminology for what i have learned from adventures of living and from reflecting on such experience. experience, for me, implies experimentation, creative exploration and involvement rather than mere passive reception, mechanical habit or distanced observation. 4 other philosophers have transferred the role of religion to art before shusterman, but have posed few critical questions. the founder of analytical philosophy, g.e. moore, and the pragmatist richard rorty are cases in point. john dewey, one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism, maintains that “the moral function of art itself is to remove prejudice, do away with the scales that keep the eye from seeing, tear away the veils due to wont and custom, perfect the power to perceive.”5 he also points out that the arts have the power to improve, beautify and intensify social and public life. like shusterman, dewey “holds the pragmatist ideal that the highest art is the art of living with the goal of salvation in this world rather than the heaven of an afterlife.” 6 shusterman, however, adds, that when dewey rejects institutional religion, he “seems strangely unpragmatic in advocating ideal ends while regarding the concrete cultural means—our institutional practices—as irrelevant.” 7 if we look closely at contemporary society we will see that under the secular fields of aesthetics and philosophy there are clear and less clear connections to religion. analysing the relationship between art and religion or art and faith is a major project. to clarify aspects of this in a more succinct manner, shusterman refers to arthur danto’s notion of “transfiguration.” arthur danto, one of the most renowned contemporary aestheticians, has developed an interpretation of art’s almost sacred role in an impressive, original and very influential way. danto agrees with hegel that philosophy is capable of a greater universality than art, which must always embody its meanings in particular works, but it is not cognitively or spiritually superior to art. danto is convinced that “philosophy is simply hopeless in dealing with large human issues.”8 the core of his notion of “transfiguration” is that in works of art our world is transformed or transfigured into a higher, almost sacred, ontological status, which is entirely different from our world’s domain of ordinary things. as an example of this kind of “transfiguration,” he mentions the transfiguration (1518-29) (figure 1), which was raphael’s last work.9 it was left unfinished at his death, but his pupil giulio romano put the finishing touches to it. in this monumental painting, the perfectly proportioned, sensual and harmonious style of the high renaissance, which focused on beauty, worldly love and the soft light of christ’s 3 shusterman, “art and religion,” p. 5. 4 “a philosopher in darkness and light,” and in french translation, “un philosophe en ombre et en lumière,” in lucidité: vues de l’intérieur/ lucidity: inward views, ed. anne-marie ninacs (montreal: le mois de la photo à montréal, 2011), p. 280. 5 john dewey, art as experience (1934), perigee trade paperback edition, august 2005, p. 338. 6 shusterman, “art and religion,” p. 6. 7 shusterman, “art and religion,” p. 7. 8 arthur danto, the abuse of beauty, 2003, p. 137. 9 danto, 2003, p. 89. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 28 else marie bukdahl love for us, was replaced by a new style in the dramatic expressive style of mannerism. here, the transfiguration represents a prefiguration of the last judgment and a vision of the hereafter. shusterman highlights the fact that this work “wonderfully conveys the alleged truth of classical christian transcendentalism (just as hegel’s philosophical idealism does) while just as superbly implying its artistic analogue—that art’s transfiguration is an ‘elevation and separation’ into some higher otherworldliness.”10 figure 1: raphaël. the transfiguration. 1518-1520. tempera on wood. 159 x 109. pinacoteca apostolica, vatican, rome. shusterman notes that danto’s conception of art contains traces of the catholic faith. because “if the religious tenor of transfiguration did not still somehow resonate with our religious sensibility, with our religious experience, faith, or imagination,” then danto’s aesthetic would not have had as much influence as it has achieved. but even if shusterman admires danto’s “religious mission of transforming and re-enchanting life,” he is unable to accept its “transcendental catholic imagery.”11 10 shusterman, “art and religion”, p. 11. 11 richard shusterman, “art as religion. transfigurations of danto’s dao,” in danto and his critics , second edition, ed. by mark rollins, wileyblackwell 2012, p. 258. bodies of belief / bodies of care29 art and religious belief vlad morariu aptly points out that: richard shusterman tried to show that danto’s attempt to increase the number of types of ontological entities was unnecessary. his alternative is a  deflationist approach, although it also parallels a religious model—that of zen. however, i believe that it is worth paying further attention to shusterman’s idea that art’s transfiguration is reduced to a  “suffusion of ordinary objects and events with intensified meaning and value through heightened attention, care, and insight.12 shusterman is, however, most interested in the tenets of “upper west side buddhism,” where danto points out, that “the beauty of zen was that there were no sacred texts and no special practice. one could practice it as writer or a painter, but also as a butcher.” 13 zen has a central place in somaesthetics, because it has a pragmatist notion of immanent transfiguration of ordinary objects and a close relationship between art and life. when zen principles are practiced, art can be a peaceful journey and a path to self-realization to achieve calmness, serenity and concentration. the arts focus on the importance of the unity of the mind and the body. and this unity is also very important for the creation and perception of art. garden art has a central place in zen philosophy and practice. zen-gardens like ryōan-ji in kyoto, japan (figure 2) “take our mind away from the paltry cares of the day and serve to open us to take another look at our lives from a wider perspective.” there are two fundamental principles in the creation of a zen-garden, “one, the recreation of natural habitat and, two, the attempt to appeal to the less rational and more intuitive sense of the viewer.”14 both principles are embodied in the zen-garden. ryōan-ji is adjoined to a sub-temple of the daitoku-ji buddhist complex, which was constructed in 1502. the garden was rebuilt in the showa period (1926-89). general reflections on embodied belief in christian art in a somaesthetic prominent interpretations of the relationship between religion and art from a somaesthetic view in the art and aesthetics of the renaissance, the baroque and its roots will be highlighted and put into perspective. these are perceptions that are in many respects an extension of somaesthetics and can be clarified through aspects of this aesthetic. but they can also contribute to broadening the understanding of the connection between religion, art and embodied belief. in christian art, interpretations of the relations between art, life and embodied belief have also occupied a fairly central place. artists have frequently worked at activating the feelings, senses, thoughts and imaginations of the viewer to help to improve living conditions for human beings and to create a greater space for experience and cognition. it is precisely these characteristics that are highlighted in the analyses of art in somaesthetics, but seldom in a christian context. somaesthetics has some reservations—but always in a tolerant optic—towards christianity, because it is “based on a transcendental theology with an eternal, unchanging, disembodied god existing apart from the world” and is characterized by “an elevated distance from the ordinary material world.”15 christianity is based on a transcendental theology, but, particularly after the reformation in the north and the counter-reformation in the south, has been dominated by the concept of an embodied god with more focus on this world than the 12 vlad morairu, “transfiguration,” atlas of transformation, 28.2. 1989. see http://monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-of-transformation/ html/t/transfiguration/transfiguration-vlad-morariu.html 13 shusterman, “art as religion. transfigurations of danto’s dao,” danto and his critics, p. 258. 14 tom wright, zen gardens text, in zen gardens by tom wright and mizuno katsuhiko, suiko books, 1990, p.68. ryogen-in is a zen rock garden or a dry landscape garden from the showa periode kyoto, japan. 15 shusterman, “art and religion,” p. 9. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 30 else marie bukdahl hereafter. christianity is not—in contrast to religions like islam—a static entity. in the modern era, it has mostly been very open to critique, undergone many changes and been characterized by ongoing purifications. figure 2: ryōan-ji zen-garden. showa period. late 15th century. zen garden. kyoto, japan. finally, not only the artists working with christian motifs, like leonardo da vinci, but also many other artists and aestheticians, have repeatedly asserted that art is more open than the disciplines in which concepts and categories have prevalence. and visual art may also contain a freer view than even its “sister genre”—poetry—can communicate. in addition, visual art has a unique expressive power. the french philosopher maurice merleau-ponty has explained in an original and clear manner how visual artists communicate an understanding of reality that verbal language cannot express in the same way, and in certain instances, is unable to encompass at all. leonardo da vinci wrote of the knowledge expressed in what he called a “pictorial science”: [this science] “does not speak with words [and still less with numbers] but with oeuvres which exist in the visible just as natural things do and which nevertheless communicate through those things to all the generations of the universe.” this silent science, says rilke [apropos of rodin], brings into oeuvre the forms of things “whose seal has not been broken”; it comes from the eye and addresses itself to the eye. we must understand the eye as the “window of the soul.”16 16 maurice merleau-ponty, op. cit., 1964, p. 186. merleau-ponty has found the quotations from leonardo da vinci’s texts in robert delaunay’s book, du cubisme à l’art abstrait, paris, 1957, p. 175. see also rilke, auguste rodin, paris, 1928, p. 150. bodies of belief / bodies of care31 art and religious belief theologians and philosophers have endeavored to reconcile christianity with the dominant beliefs of the periods, just as they have highlighted the role of the christian message in this world. these endeavors have often resulted in church artists visualizing this message in an open and transparent manner. how has the verbal and visual dialogue between christianity and philosophy been characterized, particularly in the renaissance and the baroque periods and in their origins in the islamic golden age and in the middle ages? and how have these dialogues gained significance for the attempts to improve living conditions, stimulate art and science, and connect the body and mind? the dialogue between christianity, philosophy, and art in the golden islamic age and the middle ages the great arab andalusian philosopher averroes lived in the islamic golden age in the rather tolerant caliphate in spain, where jews, christians, and muslims coexisted and worked together peacefully in the fields of art, philology, philosophy and science. averroes lived in a time particularly suited to combining a broad understanding of philosophy, sciences and religion. his “dialectical treatment of the role of religion and philosophy in human affairs and his theory of knowledge remain relevant to the contemporary science and religion discourse.”17 the relationship between philosophy, science and religion was always in focus in his works. he was particularly admired for his commentaries of aristotle’s works, which were largely forgotten in western europe at the time. latin translations of averroes’ works made aristotle very well known outside spain. he had a great influence on christian europe and has been described as the creator of secular thought in western europe. he opened channels both in the islamic and the christian world, inspired new dialogues between religion and philosophy, and highlighted the importance of finding fresh solutions to the problems and challenges of our world. thomism dominated church life in the west during the middle ages. it was founded by thomas aquinas (1225-1274) and consisted of a combination of christian theology and the philosophy of aristotle. his studies of aristotle’s epistemology and ethics were inspired by averroes’ works and created fertile dialogues in the beginning, but he ended up constructing a firmly established theological system that culminated in the summa theologica (1265-1274). aristotle’s approach was used to comprehend and substantiate a christian worldview, not as a guideline for open epistemological discussion. he was convinced that the arguments and concepts from the pagan aristotle and muslim averroes were too controversial in the catholic church of his day. however, thomas aquinas also argues for tolerance, not only of culturally different people (such as jews and muslims), but also of their public rituals. bertrand russell has described the essence of the critique—from the middle ages and in the centuries that followed—of the final versions of thomism as follows: he does not, like the platonic socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. he is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the catholic faith.18 it became the task of art to visualise and bring alive the evangelical message, everyday life and 17 muzaffar qbal, “averroës,” encyclopedia of science and religion, 2003. 18 bertrand russell, a history of western philosophy, ch. 34, “st. thomas aquinas,” allen & unwin, london; simon & schuster, new york 194. see ed. from 1967, p. 463. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 32 else marie bukdahl the wonders of nature. for people in the middle ages, the world was a whole created by god, with large and small perspectives. according to thomas, god reveals himself through nature, so to study nature is to study god. medieval people, who were often illiterate, encountered aspects of both the christian universe and their own world in a sensuous way. they met stories from the bible (figure 3), but also impressive pictures of scenes of courtly love and romantic adventures (figs. 4 and 5). stories of this kind were very popular at this time. these love scenes were often used as decorations in upper class homes, on their mirrors and later visualised in more accessible media. they represented an often-unattainable dream of fantastic encounters with love, which were seldom played out in real life. figure 3: the mother of god enthroned with the christ child amidst angels and saints. 1308-1311.tempera and gold on wood. 213 x 396. the central panel of duccio’s huge maestà altarpiece for siena cathedral. museo dell’opera metropolitana del duomo, siena. figure 4: scenes of courtly love on a lady’s ivory mirror-case. paris, 1300–1330. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/courtly_love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ivory bodies of belief / bodies of care33 art and religious belief figure 5: the assault on the castle of love, attacked by knights and defended by ladies, was a popular subject for gothic ivory mirror-cases. louvre. about 1350-1370. musée du louvre, paris. it was not only visual art in the form of paintings and sculpture, which had a central function in transmitting the christian message to ordinary illiterate people in the middle ages. there were also rituals, such as burial rites and various objects, which appealed to both sight and the sense of feel, and which generally provided a variety of opportunities for corporal experiences. these objects visualise different forms of “embodied beliefs.” examples of these could be brooches with christian symbols and motifs. they became increasingly popular in north western europe in the 8th to 10th centuries: “these objects, in being worn, held, and touched, were used by individuals in their everyday experience and expression of christianity.” the common use of these brooches created community and “religious identities within the context of the changing socio-political landscape of early medieval europe.”19 in the islamic golden age and in the middle ages, we find traces of the beginning at times fierce, but also rewarding debates about the relationship between theology and philosophy, or belief and knowledge, which led to taking up the changing challenges that came from the society surrounding it. furthermore, we encounter a closing down of fruitful dialogues inside and outside the church. religious art of the renaissance the marriage between christianity, neoplatonism, and the influence of the art and culture of the ancient greeks and romans in the renaissance, the philosophy and art of the ancients conquered cultural life and opened up new dialogues with christianity, which was still the most important value system of the era. christianity underwent a process of purification and a powerful dialogue between the philosophies of antiquity—plato’s, in particular—was established. the art and literature of the ancients were studied with great enthusiasm and rapidly made its mark on the art and literature of the time. in the school of athens (figure 6), raphael provides a monumental interpretation of 19 rosie weetch, “embodied belief: wearing brooches and being christian in early medieval europe,” paper given at the international medieval congress, university of leeds, july 2, 2013. see http://www.academia.edu/2241604/embodied_belief_wearing_brooches_and_ being_christian_in_early_medieval_europe. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 34 else marie bukdahl the renewal of great interest in the art and culture of antiquity and thereby also a consistent preoccupation with how it is possible—both artistically, scientifically, and philosophically—to interpret the world that we live in. the building is in the shape of a greek cross, which some have suggested was intended to show a harmony between pagan philosophy and christian theology.20 almost every figure in the painting can be identified as a greek philosopher, rather than a religious character. the two main figures at the center of the fresco, at its architecture’s central vanishing point, are: plato on the left and aristotle, his student, on the right. they are engaged in a deep dialogue. socrates is present—debating passionately. plotinus, the creator of neoplatonism, is also there on the right close to the corner, dressed in a red gown. raphael has even painted michelangelo as the philosopher heraclitus, plato as leonardo da vinci, plotinus as donatello, and himself as the greek painter apelles. through this he wanted again to create relations between greek philosophy and christianity, symbolized by the christian artists. and he has not neglected to visualize fornarina, his mistress and model, as the personification of love. figure 6: raphael. the school of athens. 1509 1511. fresco. 500 x 770 cm. stanza della segnatura. vatican. rome. in contrast to the artists of the middle ages, who preferred an abstract, two-dimensional linear style, renaissance artists emulated the body-conscious quality of ancient greek and roman sculpture, drawing inspiration from the extensive depiction of nudity and the use of drapery as a means of articulating the body. and the gods and goddesses of antiquity are often resurrected as holy persons from the bible. it is precisely because the artists of the renaissance period strove for mastery of the physical world that they preferred to transpose biblical episodes to their own time. through those free interpretations, they wanted to visualize the stories in the bible to 20 horst voldemar janson and anthony f. janson, history of art: the western tradition, see the section about the school of athens. bodies of belief / bodies of care35 art and religious belief appeal powerfully to viewers of their own era, and to create new orientations and meanings in their own life. with a masterly freedom of interpretation, veronese transposed the biblical story of the wedding feast at cana (1561) (figure 7) into the sumptuous, joyful setting of a venetian wedding. the colors—the yellow-oranges, vivid reds, and lapis lazuli—create an intense impression of vibrant life. at the venice biennale in 2009, peter greenaway transformed veronese’s wedding at cana into an impressive video installation. he highlighted the more worldly aspects of the work: the gossip amongst guests, servants fretting about food supplies, the soaring music. the continued popularity of this sixteenth-century painting clearly indicates that veronese’s work speaks to viewers in the twenty-first century as well as its original renaissance audience. veronese’s aim resembles some of the basic ideas about visual art in somaesthetics, with his focus on how a piece resonates with viewers and captivates their senses. veronese wants to incorporate viewers actively, to give them a sense of being a part of the scene in the painting, to provide them with an opportunity to meditate, and to deepen their understanding of the significance of the message in the stories from the new testament for this world. somaesthetics can deepen our understanding of veronese’s art, because it establishes a theory about the relationship between the viewer and the artwork. in relation to the artist and the viewer, somaesthetics aims for a fully embodied experience, creation, perception and a meliorist goal. figure 7: paolo veronese. the wedding at cana. 1563. oil on canvas. 677 x 994. musée du louvre, paris. but how did the philosophers and artists of the renaissance connect the new interpretations of the philosophy of antiquity with christianity? they did so in several ways. their overall aim was to combine the claims for the enforcement of the rights of the individual and improvements to society as a whole, which both the philosophers of antiquity and the new testament put forward in their respective ways. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 36 else marie bukdahl one of the people who took on this demanding work, was marsilio ficino (1433-99), the great florentine scholar, philosopher, priest and the architect of renaissance platonism. his enduring influence on philosophy, love, music theory, medicine, and magic extended across europe. he tried to create a new kind of synthesis between christianity and classical antiquity. he translated the most important works of plato and other ancient philosophers. and “plato was introduced as a gateway to st. paul: christianity became the crown of human dignity, the source and culmination of inner tranquility”21 and harmony. his most important book de religione christiana et fidei pietate (1475-6) was an apology for christianity, but it also dealt with the problems in other monotheistic religions, particularly judaism and islam. ficino analyzes in a new optic the connections between plato and christianity in a series of letters to his colleagues. the same connection was also described in a collection of sermons and commentaries on st. thomas aquinas and st. paul. the parallel between ficino and st. paul can be interpreted as a parallel between ficino’s conception of eros and st paul’s concept of agape.22 he had worked hard to convince the leaders of the catholic church to create a new and fruitful relationship between reason and faith and to improve the relationship between the art of living and religion: marsilio ficino was more than a philosopher with powerful intellectual and spiritual ideas. he was a  magnus, a unique type of philosopher that brings spirituality into the heart by making it part of the total environment and culture of society. ficino knew that there was no other way for human institutions and society to live and prosper. ficino, while wholeheartedly devoted to philosophy, was immensely practical. he brought about cultural change by continually encouraging leaders to maintain their health in body and mind, to keep good company, and to live and work in an environment that was harmonious and uplifting. he also insisted that leaders become examples of the highest qualities and only focus on activities and actions that bring out the best in human nature.23 ficino’s medical works, for example de vita libri tres (three books on life),24 exerted considerable influence on renaissance physicians such as paracelsus. both of them were keen on analyzing the unity of the microcosm and macrocosm and their interactions through somatic and psychological manifestations with the aim of investigating and curing diseases. ficino’s desire to establish a better relationship between the art of living, religion, and philosophy is a renaissance forerunner of one of the main aims of somaesthetics, which is that philosophy and aesthetics should not merely be considered a purely intellectual body of doctrines, but more. later, in somaesthetics, it is called an “art of living”25 which also focuses on health.26 21 dermot fenlon, heresy and obedience in tridentine italy: cardinal pole and the counter reformation, 1972, p. 2. on ficino’s theology generally see: marsilio ficino: his theology, his philosophy, his legacy, ed. m. j.b. allen and v. r. rees, leiden boston cologne 202. it contains an ample bibliography. 22 eros is the love that can exist between man and woman, and agape, the distinctly christian love of god and of neighbor. 23 ron cacioppe, “marsilio ficino: magnus of the renaissance, shaper of leaders.” integral leadership review, march 2007. see http:// integralleadershipreview.com/5397-feature-article-marsilio-ficino-magnus-of-the-renaissance-shaper-of-leaders/. 24 three books on life, 1489, translated by carol v. kaske and john r. clarke, tempe, arizona: the renaissance society of america, 2002. with notes, commentaries and latin text. 25 richard shusterman, “somaesthetic awakening and the art of living,” thinking through the body. essays in somaesthetics, 2012, pp. 302307. 26 richard shusterman, “a disciplinary proposal.” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, vol. 57, no. 3 (summer, 1999), pp. 306-307. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/paracelsus bodies of belief / bodies of care37 art and religious belief ficino’s words and actions convinced his contemporaries to treat others with dignity and respect because the human soul was an expression of the divine.27 his conception of the soul does not indicate the dualism of descartes, because ficino regarded the soul as one of the elements with the capacity to bind human beings, heaven, and earth to one another. for him, love linked all things together as well and flowed first from god, also called the one, into all existing things, which, consequently, shared the property of similarity; however different they appeared from the outside. the soul has, so to speak, a material effect on the phenomenological world. the duality between body and mind, introduced by among others thomas aquinas, was beginning to lose its position. carl henrik koch explains ficino’s unity of the earthly world and spiritual divinity: plotinus had taught ficino to conquer the duality between soul and body by understanding being as an outflow of the creative force, or god. just as the rays of the sun spread out and light up the darkness, so being streams out of god. and just as the light of the sun gives the perceived world the character that it has, it also creates a likeness of the source. this earthly, sensual beauty is thus an afterglow of heavenly, spiritual beauty. it thus provides greater continuity between the earthly and the heavenly. with plotinus and ficino, the earthly is analogous with the sun’s halo, and ideal beauty is the sun itself.28 in the renaissance both artists and aestheticians believed that art could broaden, develop, and deepen our understanding of the other, our world, and ourselves. but art can also have a transformative force in making human life more harmonious and beautiful, and connecting sacred and profane love. it was a widely held view both in the artistic world as well as that of the church, that art and culture could elevate and cultivate people so that the destructive forces of evil and sin could be pushed to the periphery and gradually lose their power. this idea was later called the “golden dream of the renaissance.” according to ficino, “this century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts...poetry, rhetoric, sculpture, architecture, music...and all this in florence.”29 in 1693 titian created his famous painting entitled amor divino e amor profano (sacred love and profane love). there have since been many interpretations of it. most scholars are now convinced that the title is correct and that erwin panofsky’s interpretation of it is convincing. in a very long and detailed article, he posits that the two female figures are personifications of the platonic concept of sacred and profane love (figure 8). in his book de amore (1484), ficino calls the personification of the two kinds of love “the double venus” (venus duplex). panofsky interpreted the two figures in titian’s painting as “the double venus,” because “the neoplatonic doctrine of love and beauty filled the very air which titian breathed (..) he was no less responsive 27 ”even though ficino generally marks a distinction between being and becoming, or between the incorporeal and corporeal, he is no simple dualist. his view of soul, and the role that it plays in the material world, is fundamentally different from, for example, the strict dualism of the seventeenth-century philosopher rené descartes. matter and soul are entirely distinct from one another, according to descartes, and these two basic substances share no qualities in common. in his treatise on physics, the world, descartes distinguishes himself from earlier approaches to natural philosophy when he explains that he uses the word “nature” to “signify matter itself,” and not “some goddess or any other sort of imaginary power” (at xi 37). according to descartes, a natural philosopher does not need to appeal to anything other than matter in order to properly explain the natural world. on the contrary, according to ficino, the material world is not something that can be adequately explained by turning to matter and motion alone; nature is an active power that suffuses matter and provides it with its life, activity, and order. on this account, nature is a dynamic force operating on material things from within, and this is the proper or genuine cause of things changing, as well as their generation and corruption. soul, therefore, has a paramount role to play in ficino’s natural philosophy.” marsilio ficino. internet encyclopedia of philosophy. see http://www.iep.utm.edu/ficino/ 28 carl henrik koch, “kunsten, kunstneren, skønheden og kærligheden,” kunst og æstetik, the royal danish academy of fine arts, copenhagen, 1996, p. 85. 29 ficino marsilio, 1492 (severy, 1970: 43). the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 38 else marie bukdahl than michelangelo to the new gospel of neo-platonism.” 30 there is little doubt that he believed that contemplating the beauty of the creation led to an awareness of the divine perfection of the order of the cosmos. figure 8: titian. sacred and profane love. 1513-1514. oil on canvas. 118 x 279 cm, borghese gallery, rome. the clothed woman in titian’s painting is seated below and closer to the ground than her nude counterpart. she is wearing crimson gloves and holding a case of jewels, both signs of worldly interests. and she is dressed very elegantly in white silk with crimson sleeves and rich fabrics. she is the venus that is a symbol of profane love. the nude figure symbolizes sacred or divine love. she carries a flaming chalice in her hands, which is an attribute of christian charity. she is placed at the same level as her twin sister, but occupying a higher position. so they are twins, but on a different level. and this means—as panofsky has formulated it—that they do not express a contrast between good and evil, but symbolize one principle in two modes of existence and two grades of perfection. the lofty-minded nude does not despise the worldly creature whose seat she condescends to share, but with a gently persuasive glance seems to impart to her the secrets of a higher realm; and no one can overlook the more than sisterly resemblance between the two figures.31 the two venuses are seated on a roman sarcophagus filled with water. a little cupid—another symbol of love—stirs the water, and may suggest the “neoplatonic belief that love, a principle of cosmic ‘mixture’ acts as an intermediary between heaven and earth.”32 on the sarcophagus is a relief with the wild horse and the flaying of the phrygian satyr marsyas. the depiction of the gruesome and uncontrolled sides of the human being are thus placed on the very sarcophagus that the two venuses are seated upon, and are without direct visual connection to them and the sun-drenched landscape. this depiction seems very self-contained. titian probably wanted to visualize his dream that humanity’s dark side could be conquered through the powerful influence of culture and love. 30 erwin panofsky, “reflections on love and beauty,” problems in titian. mostly iconographic,” london, 1969, pp. 109-110. 31 erwin panofsky, studies in iconology. humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance (1939) torchbook edition, 1962, pp.151-152 32 panofsky, 1962, p. 152. bodies of belief / bodies of care39 art and religious belief the new theory of images in the baroque and a new conception of art and life in the baroque, we encounter a new notion of an independent artistic space of cognition and experience, and the notion of an embodied creation and perception that is much stronger than in the art of the renaissance. we also encounter new connections between art and life. these interpretations can be charted through many aspects of somaesthetics, which profiles precisely these connections. however, it can also create nuances in the understanding of the relationship between faith and visual art, which danto espoused, and which shusterman more critically examined. the italian philosopher and aesthetician mario perniola, in particular, takes this new trans-historical approach to the italian baroque. this is an approach that humanists have not been able to provide until now. perniola started his analyses referring to the conflict between iconolaters, the worshippers of icons and images, and iconoclasts, breakers or destroyers of images, which has surfaced repeatedly since the beginning of the byzantine empire in the 7th century. this debate has always created new orientations in the aesthetic debate and in the visual arts. but between the scylla and the charybdis of these two positions, perniola created the idea of the “image as simulacrum” that is “neither icon nor vision.”33 he found the source of this third standpoint in the aesthetics of the baroque and of the counter-reformation, including in roberto bellarmino’s theory of images. perniola sums up this theory as follows: (he) destroyed the direct connection between the image and its model, the foundation of iconophilia, yet nonetheless without falling into iconoclasis, nor even into devaluation of the image. the essential is that the validity of images is no longer due to the reality and the dignity of the metaphysical prototype, but rather depends on their intrinsic, concrete, and historical qualities.34 ignacio de loyola’s exercitia spiritualia (1548) was one of the most important sources of inspiration for the aesthetics of the baroque and for the counter-reformation, influencing, for instance, both bernini and caravaggio. in this book, perniola uncovers the theoretical premises on which the conception of images as simulacra rests.35 he proposes that loyola’s writings on images dissolve the dispute between the attribution of a transcendental value to icons and the denial of the role of images in spiritual life and introduce a third possibility: the image as simulacrum that satisfies a necessary condition for spiritual life even though it is only an appearance that signals the absence of the sacred being.36 ignacio de loyola’s approach to images is based on two irreconcilable attitudes “disinterest” and “application of the senses.” in exercitia spiritualia, he emphasizes that it is important to “to see with the sight of the imagination the corporeal place where the thing is found which i want to contemplate” e.g. the temple where jesus has been (1. exercise 47) and also to use the senses in order to approach reality as concretely as possible, because there is no spiritual progress if things are not felt and acknowledged internally. this method involves the four senses: “the sight, the hearing, the smell and the touch.”37 the 33 the following quotes from “icons, visions, simulacra” are english translations from the french version of perniola’s article, published in traverses, no. 10, 1978, pp. 39-48. the abovementioned quotation can be found on p. 45. see also r. bellarmino, de controversiis christianae fidei 1986-93, quarta controversia, liber ii, cap. xx, sq. 34 perniola, p. 45. 35 perniola, pp. 45-46. 36 see baroque garden cultures: emulation, sublimation, subversion, ed. michel conan, vol. 25, 2005, p. 12 and else marie bukdahl, “vers un post-baroque?,” puissance du baroque. les forces, les formes, les rationalités, ed. by carsten juhl and e. m. bukdahl, éditions galilée, paris 1996, pp. 135-138. 37 see the spiritual exercises of st. ignatius of loyola, 1548, translated by mullan, father elder, christian classics ethereal library, 1914, p. 31 and p. 46. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 40 else marie bukdahl conditions necessary for the appearance of the simulacrum are thus present, inasmuch as the metaphysical legitimization of the identity between things and the world has disappeared and consequently their historical status has become a reality. no image constitutes a revelation, and yet all images become “a necessary condition of a ‘spiritual exercise’, e.g. the formation of experiences. images of hell, just like those of christ, contribute toward this end as well.”38 the simulacrum draws attention away from the imitated object and towards the image as an image and is therefore able to activate the senses. it thus succeeds in evoking an image that is larger, more unexpected, and more sensual than that which our usual viewpoint is able to produce. by being active participants in the completion of the artistic process, our senses are also provided with a more in-depth view of the process of artistic creation. they are, in essence, a very integral part of the work. in caravaggio’s monumental church art, we encounter the most original and most innovative visualization of an understanding of the image, which is a parallel to perniola’s interpretation of the picture theory of the baroque. his depictions of the stories of the new testament are so realistic that the church often disliked them. he did not—like the artists of the renaissance— portray the human individual as sublime, beautiful, and heroic. no artist before him depicted the entombment in such a radically naturalistic format, very foreign to the grand manner. and nobody before him dared to hire common people as models for saints and apostles. his figures are bowed, bent, cowering, reclining, or stooped. one of the main characteristics of baroque art is the breakdown in the divisions between our space, the space of the painting, and the opening out to infinite space. the result is that we feel much more a part of the painting than we do viewing a renaissance painting. we are simply drawn into the pictorial universe. this effect is extremely visible and intense in the paintings of caravaggio. experiencing something with your body has a much more powerful effect than knowing it in your mind. baroque art, caravaggio’s paintings in particular, often impel you to have an experience that is situated in your body. this means that baroque art is even closer to the concept of the active viewer and of the notion of the embodied perception of somaesthetics than renaissance art. these characteristics are particularly evident in the entombment of christ (figure 9), which was painted for the second chapel on the right of santa maria in vallicella, also called chiesa nuova, a church built for the oratory of saint philip neri. the oratory regarded his realism as too intense and asked him to tone it down. this large painting, dominated by a very dramatic diagonal spiral of mourners and cadaver bearers, which point at the dead christ and the bare stone, is not a scene of transfiguration, but of deep mourning. at the top of the painting is the figure of mary of cleophas, the sister of the virgin mary. she raises her outstretched arms to the sky, in a gesture of inconsolable grief, bereft of hope. beneath her is mary magdalene, drying her tears with a white handkerchief. on her left, the head of the virgin mary, covered in a nun’s habit, is visible. her extended hand is also a sign of intense sorrow, and is in close proximity to the shadowed face of john, which is also marked by deep sadness.39 beside him emerges nicodemus, helping to bury christ and one of the key figures of the painting. he is modeled as a thick-limbed laborer, and looks directly and intensely at the viewers, establishing a psychological bond with them, and drawing them into this drama of life and death. his elbow and the edge of the lid of the tomb—which is not parallel to the picture plane, but is positioned obliquely—also invite the viewers to enter into the burial scene. or as giorgio bonsanti points out: 38 perniola, p. 46. 39 this figure can be identified as either john, the writer of the gospel, or joseph of arimathea, who obtained christ’s body from the romans. here, we will just call him john. bodies of belief / bodies of care41 art and religious belief the scene is viewed as from the tomb; the impression is almost as if the figures are about to surrender the body of christ, if not to the observer, at least to someone standing in the same place. the identification is therefore complete, the involvement inescapable. the way the painting affected nineteenth-century artists is understandable. it combines a structural classicism that is timeless (cézanne) with an extremely strong sense of drama (géricault).40 figure 9: caravaggio. the entombment of christ. 1603-1604. oil on canvas. 300 x 203 cm. pinacoteca apostolica, vatican, rome. the diagonal placement of john, nicodemus, and the dead christ on the picture plane is connected to the dramatic spiral line. this compositional strategy intensifies the overall impression. 40 giorgio bonsanti, caravaggio, scala, 1984, p. 50. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 42 else marie bukdahl caravaggio created a very complex, intense, and tightly organized figure composition, viewed against an endless, absolute, black space, dominated by an experience of death, suffering, deep loss, and hopelessness. but the deep darkness is pushed aside by the powerful light surrounding the thin body of the dead christ, which in one diagonal movement, forces its way up to the head of the sister of the virgin mary. there is no doubt that this light symbolizes christ’s messages of love, which create new meanings and orientations in our life. or as john expresses it, he is “the light of the world” and so he that follows him “shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (john, 8.12). conclusion the aestheticians and artists of the middle ages, the renaissance and the baroque were aware, in their respective ways, that concepts and verbal language never entirely correspond with artistic expression. visual art is, therefore, capable of grasping perspectives or revealing traces and significances of belief that philosophers and scientists cannot grasp with their tools alone. the artists of these three periods transformed and applied new strategies in their artistic production in a variety of imaginative ways. the artists and artworks here discussed illuminate somaesthetic ideas because they focus on embodied creation and perception, full-bodied, sensuous aesthetic experience, the establishment of a bridge between art, real life and praxis, and the interactive dialogue with the viewer and their surroundings. the artists engage viewers by drawing them into an impressive artistic space of experience, inspiring them to think and create in new ways, stimulating them to positive action. although these artists perceive and work within a christian context, they address their—often open—visual message to this world. photographic credits thanks to the following art institutions and photographic organisations for allowing us to publish their photos: : creative commons license by alvesgaspar (1), wikipedia commons (2), public domain (4, 5, 6, 7, 8). references allen, michael j. b, and v. r. rees. 2001. marsilio ficino. his theology, his philosophy, his legacy. leiden: brill. bonsanti, giorgio. 1984. caravaggio. scala. bukdahl, else marie. 1996. “le baroque récurrence d’une inspiration,” in puissance du baroque. les forces, les formes, les rationalités. edited by carsten juhl and e. m. bukdahl. paris: galiée. cacioppe, ron. 2007. “marsilio ficino: magnus of the renaissance, shaper of leaders.” integral leadership review. conan, michel. 2005. “the new horizons of baroque. garden cultures,” in baroque garden cultures: emulation. sublimation. subversion. edited by michel conan. washington, d. c.: dumbarton oaks research library and collection. dewey, john. 2005. art as experience. new york: perigee trade paperback edition. danto, arthur coleman. 2003. the abuse of beauty: aesthetics and the concept of art. chicago: open court publishing. fenlon, dermot. 1972. heresy and obedience in tridentine italy: cardinal pole and the counter bodies of belief / bodies of care43 art and religious belief reformation. cambridge, uk: university press. ficino, marsilio. 2002. three books on life, 1489. translated by carol v. kaske and john r. clarke. the renaissance society of america. iqbal, muzaffar. 2003. “averroës,” in encyclopedia of science and religion. new york, ny: macmillan. janson, horst woldemar, and anthony f. janson, ed. 1997. history of art: the western tradition. london: thamses and hudson. koch, carl henrik, 1996. ”kunsten, kunstneren, skønheden og kærligheden,” in kunst og æstetik, the royal danish academy of fine arts. iqbal, muzaffar. 2003. “averroës,” in encyclopedia of science and religion. new york, ny: macmillan. loyola, st. ignatius of. 1548. the spiritual exercises of st. ignatius of loyola. translated by father elder mullan. christian classics ethereal library. 1914. marchal, bertrand. 1988. la religion de mallarmé: poésie, mythology et religion. paris: j. corti. merleau-ponty, maurice. 1964. the primacy of perception. edited by james m. edie, evanston: il: northwestern university press. panofsky, erwin, ed. 1962. studies in iconology. humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance (1939). baltimore, md: harper torch books. perniola, mario. 1980. la società dei simulacri. bologna: saggi cappelli. russell, bertrand. 1967. a history of western philosophy. new york: simon and schuster. shusterman, richard. 1999. “somaesthetics: a disciplinary proposal.” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 57.3. ---. 2008. “art and religion.” journal of aesthetic education 42. 3. ---. 2011. “a philosopher in darkness and in light,” in lucidité: vues de l’intérieur/lucidity: inward views. edited by anne-marie ninacs. montreal: le mois de la photo à montréal. ---. 2012. “art as religion. transfigurations of danto’s dao,” in danto and his critics. edited by mark rollins. new york, ny: wileyblackwell. ---. 2012. “somaesthetic awakening and the art of living,” in thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. weetch, rosie. 2013. “embodied belief: wearing brooches and being christian in early medieval europe,” in the international medieval congress, university of leeds. seehttp://www.academia.edu/2241604/ embodied_belief_wearing_brooches_and_ being_christian_in_early_medieval_europe. wright, tom. 1990. “mizuno katsuhiko. zen gardens text,” in zen gardens. japan: suiko books. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs page 105-116 bodies of belief / bodies of care105 as fragile as tissue and as strong as fragile as tissue and as strong: toward a lacanian somaesthetic literary theory diane richard-allerdyce abstract: for many writers, self-care is closely linked to social justice issues and involves either telling the story of bodily violation and wounding or exposing it—often both. drawing upon alice walker’s metaphor of physical scars as “warrior marks”—the site and source of strength, this paper employs a lacanian somaesthetic lens to explore examples of feminist literature that thematize bodily vulnerability as a condition of human existence at the same time they also suggest a way of approaching this vulnerability as an opportunity for transformation. the first half of the paper investigates how lacanian psychoanalytic theory, when conversant with a feminist somaesthetic pragmatism, can help readers employ what richard shusterman has called “thinking through the body” to move beyond binary systems of oppression. the lacanian idea that all human subjectivity is constructed on the brink of a loss is useful for re-imagining a way of working through one’s own states of exile to achieve greater creativity, compassion, and community while avoiding the totalizing move of speaking for and about others as if culture were universal or homogeneously constructed. the second half of the paper provides a brief lacanian somaesthetic reading of a passage from barbara kingsolver’s the poisonwood bible and a longer reading of octavia butler’s parable series to suggest that a body-based linguistic/ literary approach to vulnerability may be potentially liberating for individual writers and readers as well as potentially transformative on a larger scale. keywords: jouissance – joy that can easily tip over into pain; excess of feeling. magnetism – the force literature has upon the human psyche. primary narcissism – bodily sensations that evolve “into the meanings lacan called ‘letters’ that connect the body to the outside world via the drives” (ragland, epd 34). trieb – freud’s word for the psychic drives that make physical demands upon mental life. at the end of her essay “beauty: when the other dancer is the self,” pulitzer prize winning author alice walker describes the moment when her small daughter stood up in her crib, took walker’s face in both hands and tipped it to the light, exclaiming, “mommy, there’s a world in your eye!” that “world” in walker’s eye was the scar tissue left by the childhood injury that permanently blinded her on that side when one of her brothers “accidentally” shot her with a bb gun. walker dedicated the book in which this essay appeared to her daughter, rebecca: “who saw in me / what i considered / a scar / and redefined it / as / a world.”1 walker objects to the accidentality of the incident that blinded her, though. she employs a feminist perspective to call into question the different ethics of care that boys and girls were (and to some degree still are) taught by patriarchal systems founded on duality. why did her brothers get bb guns and the girls other types of playthings? why was she put in danger and her brother empowered to wound with a weapon? for me, her confronting the gendered binary of social 1 alice walker, “beauty: when the other dancer is the self,” in in search of our mothers’ gardens: womanist prose (orlando, fl: harcourt, 2004). diane richard-allerdyce as fragile as tissue and as strong the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 106 diane richard-allerdyce constructs resonates with richard shusterman’s claim that cultivating somatic awareness can advance feminist goals by confronting dualities that perpetuate gender injustice. the ability for thoughts to produce physical changes in thinkers’ bodies, shusterman has argued, is evidence that the dualities between binary poles such as male and female, body and mind are misleading.2 similarly, when walker calls into question the so-called “accidental” nature of her injury at the hand of her weapon-bearing male sibling, she draws upon the experience of vulnerability to confront binary systems of oppression from the personal and familial levels outward. walker’s subsequent activism against domestic abuse, war, and female genital mutilation speak to the potential transformation of one’s own bodily vulnerability into an ethics of care beyond duality. for many writers including walker, self-care is closely linked to social justice issues and involves either telling the story of bodily violation and wounding or exposing it—often both. drawing upon walker’s metaphor of physical scars as “warrior marks”—sites and sources of strength--in this paper i employ a lacanian somaesthetic lens to explore examples of feminist literature that thematize bodily vulnerability as a condition of human existence at the same time they also suggest a way of approaching this vulnerability as an opportunity for self-care and transformation. to explore the relationship between somaesthetic vulnerability as it appears in literature and the potential for greater awareness on both writers’ and readers’ parts as they confront their own vulnerabilities, the first section of this paper, “toward a lacanian somaesthetic literary theory,” uses the example of walker’s “warrior marks” as a jumping-off place. from there, i investigate how lacanian psychoanalytic theory, when conversant with a feminist somaesthetic pragmatism that includes reading and/or writing stories about healing places of woundedness into sites of strength, can help readers move beyond binary systems of oppression. the lacanian idea that all human subjectivity is constructed on the brink of a loss is useful for re-imagining a way of working through one’s own states of exile—a form of self-care--to achieve greater creativity, compassion, and community while avoiding the totalizing move of speaking for and about others as if culture were universal or homogeneously constructed. the second half of the paper, “our vulnerability is our gift and our hope: two literary examples,” provides two lacanian somaesthetic readings of feminist literature. the first examines a brief scene from barbara kingsolver’s the poisonwood bible to illustrate a character’s realization of her complicity in a colonizing project that wounds her and her family as much as it oppresses members of another culture. the second is a longer reading of octavia butler’s parable series. drawing on the lacanian metaphor of human subjectivity as a mobius strip, my analysis of parable suggests that a body-based linguistic/literary approach to vulnerability may be potentially liberating for individual writers and readers as well as potentially transformative on a larger scale. toward a lacanian somaesthetic literary theory somaesthetic philosophy recognizes the centrality of the body in human culture and consciousness. lacanian psychoanalytic theory is useful in seeing how language derives from awareness of the body and how language is used to situate the body in a world where it is vulnerable. literature, particularly that which evokes a sense of bodily nostalgia, offers an experience of physicality as well as emotional solutions for the perplexing paradox that all of us are negotiating life from within and through bodies that die. humans’ vulnerability is not merely physical, of course, but the physical body mitigates the losses that make consciousness 2 richard shusterman, thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics (cambridge, uk: cambridge up, 2012), p. 1. bodies of belief / bodies of care107 as fragile as tissue and as strong possible, even more so when viewed through the lens of a lacanian somaesthetic literary theory such as that proposed in this paper. one way of understanding the relationship between writing and the body is to look at literary form as analogous to bodily form. in addition, the psychological effect writing has on readers and writers may stem from an analogous relation between literary creation and the processes of the psyche’s development in infancy and beyond. most of us, i imagine, have noticed when one’s heart starts racing faster when reading a particularly moving passage. i remember hearing that emily dickinson once described good writing’s effect on her as causing the top of her scalp to go cold. similarly, lacan pointed to the uncanny sway that james joyce’s writing had on him and theorized how that happens. ellie ragland calls this pull a kind of “magnetism” that from a lacanian perspective is based upon literature’s function as “an allegory of the psyche’s fundamental structure.”3 lacanian theory provides a framework for viewing how such networks form our identities through a process that is similar to the way formal aspects of narrative serve as construct for identification in the places in the texts that resonate with past trauma--the formal literary structures of literature provides a container for writer and reader to confront a psychic fragmentation born of a paradox. this paradox is that human consciousness comes into being in the wake of a loss. lacan’s reformulation of freud’s unconscious as structured as a language sheds light on the role between body and mind. what lacanian theory adds to somaesthetics is a way of seeing how language operates somatically in the body. what somaesthetic philosophy adds to the lacanian account is a pragmatist application of theory to a real-life ethics of care. for example, shusterman writes in response to a passage of beauvoir’s where she celebrates “a new aesthetics” in working women’s dress that: “clearly the message here is that a change of somaesthetic representations cannot only help change the bodies of women but also improve their overall self-image and empower them toward greater transcendence.”4 from a lacanian perspective, transcendence would not be the goal even if it were achievable; nevertheless, it is clear the practice of a somaesthetics can be potentially liberating in much the same way that a lacanian perspective of vulnerability moves beyond binary rigidities to increased empathy for those whose bodies are as mortally vulnerable as one’s own. a lacanian view would not support a belief in a “true transcendence of consciousness and action in the world that real freedom requires” (shusterman 120); it posits, instead, a relative affective freedom that is possible through bringing into awareness one’s own and others’ vulnerability. knowing that all human beings are “the same boat” in the sense of having bodies whose social meaning in linked up with formation of identities through awareness of loss and awareness of the fictional role of the self as analogous to the ego/psyche and aligned to the ultimate vulnerability of both ego and body (which are inextricably linked, for lacan, in language) is what is liberating. reworded to include the lacanian component, shusterman’s response to beauvoir that “imagined mysteries are usually much more feared than the familiar realities one has explored for oneself” (125) might read as follows: denied unconscious attachments are more dangerous than consciously acknowledged alignments about real, imaginary and symbolic elements of the psyche. that is, rather than walking around in a body-ego designed to project an image of invulnerability, it is by engaging in the world from a conscious awareness that we are 3 ellie ragland, “the magnetism between reader and text: prolegomena to a lacanian poetics,” poetics 13 (1984): 381-406. 4 richard shusterman, “somaesthetics and the second sex: a pragmatist reading of a feminist classic,” hypatia 18.4 (2003): 106-136. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 108 diane richard-allerdyce all temporary (rather than engaging in denial of unconscious “truth”) that can allow an affective freedom and appreciation of the strength and health that are achievable. this is not exactly the true liberation shusterman discusses vis-à-vis beauvoir. but it is an affective awareness based on acceptance of the paradox that only by acknowledging one’s own and others’ vulnerability can one be strong. it is also an awareness that might be harnessed within networks of social power. the impossibility of reconciling self and other, body and mind, male and female is served by the somaesthetic enterprise of transcending dualities. and the impossibility of it can be liberating in that even gender categories do not have to be social prisons when the constructedness of gender identifications are seen through the lens, for example, of queer theory, such as in judith butler’s challenge to a gender as binary and through the lens of lacan’s account of everyone’s ascension to the social order through a non-biologically determined gender.5 the account of that ascension, or at least entry, would not fit within the limits of this paper. but important to note is that for lacan, categories of women and men exist only in their naming as such while emphasis is put on each subject’s individuality. this is not to erase the usefulness of gender categories for forming bonds of solidarity on whose basis to exert political power. it is, though, to draw attention to the human psyche as linked to bodies through language that determines identity and, from that perspective, to make examining the physical responses to literature that individual readers feel a worthwhile subject of philosophical consideration. more importantly, lacan’s work sheds a light on the psychological mechanisms that cause readers to experience somatic effects at the level of identity and desire. that is, the structural foundation of language (metaphor and metonymy) mimics the ways that humans develop consciousness in the first place. delving into these in literature can aid a reader in identifying how she or he is organized as an individual within a social organization. in lacan’s teaching, “the body resides within the metaphorical field of jouissance, while representation elaborates the metaphorical field of substitutive meanings (the other).”6 lacan used the word jouissance—a pleasure that can easily tip into its opposite—to refer to “the supposed consistency of being, body, or meaning that individuals seeks to attain and maintain” (ragland, essays 13). further connections between somaesthetic philosophy and lacan’s ideas bear noticing. for instance, lacan admired the work of melanie klein for drawing attention to the body in psychic life, and he reworked the theory freud developed in beyond the pleasure principle (1920). there freud defined trieb or drives as “‘somatic demands upon mental life’” (ragland, essays 33). the term “death drive” appeared here to account for human’s tendency toward constancy, aggression, and destructiveness. these are important to an exploration of how fear of dissolution can lead some to oppress others in order to compensate. this passage from ragland’s essay on the pleasures of death shows the connection between this fear, which in lacan’s thought is fundamental to all human consciousness, and the drives. it also points to the link between language and self-image as rooted in bodily sensations from the earliest stages of human development: in 1936 lacan had proposed the ego as a strategy of defense for blocking the apprehension which comes from situating the infant body in the world. in the 1950s lacan described the beyond in the pleasure principle as the principle of repetition whose modes are a few ego signifieds by which individuals try to guarantee their being at the level of their position in 5 judith butler, gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity (new york, ny: routledge, 1999). 6 ellie ragland, essays on the pleasures of death: from freud to lacan (new york, ny: routledge, 1994). bodies of belief / bodies of care109 as fragile as tissue and as strong a social signifying chain. (33) “in lacan’s reformulation of freud’s concepts,” ragland continues, “primary narcissism becomes corporal sensations that involve into the meanings lacan called ‘letters’ that connect the body to the outside world via the drives” (essays 34). she explains the connection between the soma and language in this passage: “by the time most children begin to use language (the symbolic) coherently, language functions to tie the biological organism (the real) to images of the body (the imaginary) and to objects in the natural world by naming or evoking the form of an image that replaces and absence ... language enables most individuals to be ‘human’ by talking or writing about the world at one remove from it” (essays 117-118). their use of language is steeped in images of the body that indicate how language is not just a medium for the telling of a story but also material out of which a writer constructs psychological boundaries to withstand and process the world’s cruelties. that is, the narrative structure of these works of fiction mirrors that of the ego configurations of the human psyche, providing both writer and reader a place to confront and reorganize myriad elements of the world into a coherent form. meaning-making is what humans do in order to live in the world. literature represents and mirrors the process by which they do it, and a lacanian somaesthetic theory can help illuminate those processes toward the possibility of increased compassion for oneself and for others, that is, toward the possibility of transforming bodily sites of vulnerability into warrior marks—signs and sources of strength. our vulnerability is our gift and our hope: two literary examples complicity and awareness in barbara kingsolver’s the poisonwood bible literature such as that presented in this paper often points beyond the words to something that lay outside of conscious memory, inviting readers into a realm from which they may have been excluded before. these “rupture moments” operate in the body as well as the imagination. barbara kingsolver’s novel, the poisonwood bible, provides several such moments of rupture as readers enter the world of the price family whose patriarch, nathan, takes his wife orleanna and four daughters in 1959 to the belgian congo where he has decided to serve as a christian missionary.7 nathan is resolutely unconscious that he is replicating colonialism in dangerous and abusive ways. the narrative alternates in point of view among the female prices; orleanna learns through the materiality of grief over their youngest daughter’s death by snake bite to see her husband as the ineffective dominator that he is, but only years later as she processes her experiences in retrospect. the novel’s plentitude of somatic imagery provides a site for readers’ identification, as when the price women prepare ruth may’s small body for burial (454). another is when one of the price sisters says that exhilaration and fear feel the same in the body; only the naming of these emotions, she says, differentiates them (431), an observation reminiscent of-and that problematizes--how language in lacan’s account is “always already” embedded in the flesh as traces that trigger certain emotions or sensations. a full somaesthetic reading of poisonwood, although certainly worthwhile and fascinating, is beyond the scope of this paper; however, i want to turn now to one more passaging from kingsolver’s masterpiece as of the most compelling instances i have encountered of a somaesthetically haunting literary passage that highlights a character’s realization of vulnerability on several levels, including the rawness that accompanies becoming suddenly aware of one’s own 7 barbara kingsolver, the poisonwood bible: a novel (new york, ny: harpertorch, 1998). the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 110 diane richard-allerdyce unforeseen culpability. the scene in question illustrates what i wrote in the introduction above: the lacanian idea that all human subjectivity is constructed on the brink of a loss is useful for re-imagining a way of working through one’s own states of exile to achieve greater creativity, compassion, and community while avoiding the totalizing move of speaking for and about others as if culture were universal or homogeneously constructed. in the following scene from poisonwood, orleanna price, the mother of the four daughters, writing from the us years after she has left her husband and returned from the congo, revisits a memory that disrupts her idea of a universal womanhood and provokes instead—and over time—her realization that others’ culture may not be so easily appropriated as she’d been taught to believe: from everyone within walking distance, every fifth day, people with hands full or empty appeared in our village to saunter and haggle their way up and down the long rows where women laid out produce on mats on the ground. the vendor ladies squatted, scowling, resting their chins on their crossed arms behind fortresses of stacked kola nuts, bundles of fragrant sticks, piles of charcoal, salvaged bottled and cans or display of dried animal parts. they grumbled continually as they built and rebuilt with leathery, deliberate hands their pyramids of mottled greenish oranges and mangoes and curved embankments of hard green bananas. i took a deep breath and told myself that a woman anywhere on earth can understand another woman on a market day. (106) the scene oscillates between the sensory textures, colorful imagery, and movement in orleanna’s description and her increasing awareness of an acute separation that is based in part, but only superficially, on her different color: “however i might pretend i was their neighbor, they knew better.” the next part of her narrated memory is palpably cringe-worthy as orleanna tells the story of a cultural gaff she and one of her daughters made in a particularly striking way when twelve year-old leah made a seemingly innocent but culturally ignorant move and was aided by her mother in doing so. finding themselves separated on either side of a display of goods without a visible path to rejoin each other in the same aisle, leah reaches for her mother’s hand for assistance in stepping over the mat of a vendor’s wares between them. it seems a natural shortcut, but as soon as leah has propped the large basket she is carrying on one hip and has started to step over the display, the young girl becomes stuck, unable somehow to complete the move she has initiated. orleanna and leah are mortified as leah finds herself suspended over the piles of vegetables and fruit. immediately there is a cessation of movement all around as the men on the sidelines cluck in disapproval and the women vendors rise in protest and indignation at the audacity of the white women to have violated the vendor’s territory. leah is wearing a pinafore-style dress; it occurs to orleanna that the vendors are all imagining her daughter’s genitals, “bare—for all anyone knew--,” suspended over what orleanna calls--in her recounting of the incident--the vendor woman’s “market day wealth.” the passage consolidates her and her daughters’ vulnerability to being duped into complicity with her husband’s colonizing project, which she later recognizes as the result of tremendous cultural conceit on all their parts. the passage is also memorable in its marking the daughter’s genital-sexual vulnerability, pointing to the paradoxical absence of solidarity between the colonized and colonizers of the same physical gender: bodies of belief / bodies of care111 as fragile as tissue and as strong until that moment i’d thought i could have it both ways: to be one of them, and also my husband’s wife. what conceit! i was his instrument, his animal. nothing more. how we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness. i was just one more of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war... a wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars. (107-08) the fictional orleanna’s scarring by her husband’s colonization of her own family in addition to his shortsighted and failed attempts to convert the villagers to his worldview may serve as impetus for kingsolver’s readers to identify. orleanna’s willingness to change and to become aware may be an indication that she, like the real-life walker, is using her scars as warrior marks, to tell a potentially liberatory story. her greatest weakness as her greatest strength: hyper-empathy in octavia butler’s parable series in octavia butler’s dystopian novels parable of the sower (1993) and parable of the talents (1998) protagonist lauren olamina, a hyper-empath who feels others’ pain literally as her own, is the epitome of bodily vulnerability.8 she is also, paradoxically, the epitome of strength in the sense of walker’s transformation of sites of physical woundedness into warrior marks— signifiers of strength and compassion. my reading of lauren’s thin-skinnedness (as a child she literarily bleeds through the skin when she sees someone else hurt) links a somaesthetic lens to the lacanian idea of selfhood as having the shape of a mobius strip to suggest that the dystopian message of butler’s parable series may have an inner lining of hope that is continuous with and emergent from despair. “the mobius strip,” write ragland and dragan milovanovic in topologically speaking, “enabled lacan to demonstrate how ‘that which is interpersonal (conscious and unspoken) is connected to that which is intrapsychic (unconscious and pre-spoken). indeed this topological device was lacan’s way of indicating how an “inside” (the unconscious) has continuity with an “outside” (the conscious).”9 in this section of this paper, i investigate how the somaesthetic and lacanian psychoanalytic goals of moving beyond oppressive binary systems-inside/ outside, male/female, physical/spiritual, black/white, vulnerable/strong, for instance--play out on the surface of human bodies. the novel’s message of hope for a sustainable existence reads gender and race beyond individual bodies while also suggesting that it is through the living, breathing, conscious, individual somatic body from which intentional community may emerge. in the parable series, the body repeatedly appears as the site of suffering and oppression as well as potential instrument of connection to soften lines between self and other. the story opens in july of 2024 (less than a decade from now of course but over three decades from the time of publication). it is the eve of lauren olamina’s 15th birthday and her father’s 55th. they live with lauren’s step-mother, corey, and lauren’s four younger half-brothers in a gated cul-de-sac neighborhood in suburban los angeles. life outside the gate is dangerous and violent. politics are extremist and leaning toward fascist. the newly elected p resident donner has successfully campaigned on a platform very similar to that represented in the slogan “make american great again” and intends to do that by targeting minorities, the poor, the lower middle classes, and anyone else who threatens the social order his party envisions, including lgtb persons and 8 octavia butler, parable of the sower (recorded books, llc, 2000); parable of the talents (recorded books, llc, 2007). 9 ellie raglan and dragan milovanovic, eds., lacan: topologically speaking (new york, ny: other press, 2004). the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 112 diane richard-allerdyce those with religious beliefs that run counter to the status quo. food, water and jobs are scarce. troops of renegades called “paints” rove the land, addicted to a new street drug called “flash” or “pyro” that makes watching fire better than having sex and thus causes those who use it to become murderous arsonists. corporate employers are reinstituting slavery by luring desperate families with abusive compensation packages that include housing and food sources for which employees are trapped into paying exorbitant amounts of their meager pay, often becoming indebted beyond remedy. there are rumors of new laws being passed that prevent employees from leaving the compounds where their jobs are based until their debts are paid. (an interesting twist is that black and latino families are not as sought-after by the corporations creating such systems, so that whites are the most likely group to be enslaved—perhaps a projected kind of karmic pay-back). patriarchal backlash against any possible progress made before the novel’s opening is rampant and systemic. beyond the walls of the neighborhood, rape, murder, decapitation, and other forms of bodily dismemberment are the norm. when community organizers venture beyond the walls for gun practice—the kids are allowed to start accompanying the adults from the age of fifteen— they are met regularly with the site of sick, desperate beggars, hungry dogs, and decapitated human heads and other body parts, and corpses. it would be difficult to describe the extent of the horrific conditions the novel presents as a projected reality for the western us in 2024, when robbers and arsonists have already begun making it over the walls despite the broken glass bottles and razor wire that have been installed on top of the wall. parable of the sower opens with two scenes, written as a series of lauren’s journal entries, that are remarkable for their somatic themes. in the first, lauren reports in her journal entry of july 2014 that she had a recurring dream the night before, the eve of the birthday she shares with her father. the dream, she writes, comes when she struggles to “be [her] father’s daughter,” signifying her grappling with traditional familial roles in a patriarchal system that has spiraled out of all control in the dismal and violent world that is the book’s setting. we soon learn her rebellion is waged most overtly against his religion, which she says is “all a lie” although she loves the man her father is to her, “the best person [she] know[s].” in the dream, she is learning to fly, which involves manipulating her body through the air. she is not able to completely control the direction she moves in as she projects herself, and sees that she will inevitably hit the jam of the door through which she is attempting to fly. it seems to be a long way from me, but i lean toward it, holding my body stiff and tense. i let go of whatever i’m grasping, whatever has kept me from rising or falling so far, and i lean into the air, straining upward, not moving upward but not quite falling down either. then i do begin to move as though to slide on the air drifting a few feet above the floor, caught between terror and joy. as in the other renditions of the dream, the walls begin to burn and she flies through the flames as if swimming, grabbing at handfuls of air in a futile attempt to escape. then the scene goes dark and she awakes. the fire is reminiscent of the violent world outside as well as symbol of transformation. the dream also highlights the role of the body as an instrument as lauren imagines traversing normative limits and defying rules of physics that may seem as inconvertible as social attitudes toward gender and race. the second somaesthetic theme appears shortly after that of the fire dream, as lauren reflects on a childhood memory: at the age of seven she used to go outside just after dark with her stepmother, corey, to take the laundry down off the line. in the relative coolness and safety from bodies of belief / bodies of care113 as fragile as tissue and as strong the heat of the day they would marvel the star-filled sky as corey handed lauren armfuls of her little brothers’ diapers. speaking in her native spanish, corey told lauren that they hadn’t been able to see too many stars when corey was small because the lights of the now-destroyed cities would block their being seen. stars, she tells lauren, were windows through which god could keep an eye on the people below—a story lauren believed for about a year, already precociously developing her own theory of humans’ relation to a larger order. while corey preferred the city lights, ostensibly wishing for a return to normalcy to the time when cities’ infrastructure provided convenience, comfort and structure, lauren, who had never lived in a “functional” society, prefers the stars, even at her young age longing to be released from captivity on the small stamp of earth where her family lives behind a wall in what is left of their gated community. this sky in the remembered scene appears as a kind of membrane, the skin of the universe’s face. here and throughout the narrative the universe itself is not a separate entity but more of a living body, a theme that is central to the novel’s impulse toward an expanding sense of relationship between self and other, between individual and community, between inside and outside. once again, i find the metaphor of the mobius strip for representing the psyche an image applicable to lauren’s worldview as well as of the semi-permeable membrane-like quality characteristic of her perceptions. even as a child her hyper-empathy puts her in the company those whose jouissance—lacan’s term for a capacity for overflowing of both pleasure and pain, or enjoyment that can easily tip over into its opposite—is characteristic of people whose ego boundaries are more fluid than normative. lauren’s is the jouissance of poets, mystics, and hysterics for their flexible sense of selfhood (as opposed to the more rigid egos of those who buy into patriarchal structures). i see lauren as a mystic in this sense, someone who sees and feels beyond the surface of things, beyond the surface of her own skin. she is someone able to “think through the body” in ways that not everyone can do, at least without practice or a leap of faith (although others affected by the same condition appear as the story continues). hysteria manifests in bodily effect. in the parable series, the body repeatedly appears as the site of suffering and oppression becomes an instrument of hope and connection that leans away from binaries between self and other. lauren’s dream about teaching herself how to fly signifies that thinking through the body, while easier perhaps for some who are predisposed to fluidity through hyper-empathy, is a learned skill. it is a skill butler’s novels suggest could become an antidote to oppressive colonization (later lauren suggests that colonizing other planets, however, underlining the narrative’s resistance to binaries including “good/bad” may be a key to a different kind of existence). it is earthseed, lauren’s own kind of religious philosophy that counters the norms upheld by her father’s seemingly benign form of patriarchy and its dangerous inner surface that is continuous with its outer expression. here the image of the mobius strip, where there is only the illusion of inside and outside, is helpful in visualizing the relationship between the inner and outer surfaces of patriarchy as lauren olamina experiences and resists it. the mobius strip may be an ideal metaphor for unveiling the insidious dangers of rigid binaries—as well as the danger in wholesale condemnation of either pole. in this regard, parable of the sower’s call for a nuanced reading of conventions and suggests that even in efforts to resist totalizing effects of polarity in psychic and social life, it may be advantageous to avoid wholesale rejection of the systems from which they stem. that “the baby shouldn’t be thrown out with the bathwater is thematized when lauren, having stopped believing in her community’s god three years beforehand, allows herself to be baptized to keep the peace. in her journal, which is the book being read—there’s no aesthetic distance between the two—lauren sardonically remarks on the absurdity of “seven kids [getting] dunked in a big tub of expensive water.” yet she respects her father’s sacrifice in the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 114 diane richard-allerdyce purchasing that water and decides to choose her battles carefully as she matures from the fifteenyear-old who opens the novel to the eighteen-year-old who, several chapters later, will present herself as a man when she takes to the road after her entire family is murdered and most of the community decimated in series of raids by rapist-thieves. on their journey northward, the tendency to constantly weigh what is worth risking proves useful as she and a growing band of travelers make their way toward a hoped-for better life in the pacific northwest and later, in the sequel, parable of the talents, as some members of their group seek that better future “among the stars,” that is, in space. lauren’s hyper-empathy, we learn, is an inherited condition caused by a drug called paracetco that her mother took when she was pregnant. labelled by doctors as a delusion, lauren’s hyper empathy, is both a blessing and a curse, a form of “biological compassion” she calls it at one point in the narrative. having to experience others’ pain as her own leads her, several years later, to found an intentional community based on cooperation over competition for resources. as a child, lauren bleeds when others’ skins are broken. interestingly, after she begins menstruating, the bleeding through the skin stops although the pain she feels when she sees anyone else injured remains intense. the displacement of lauren’s bleeding from the surface of her skin to her menstrual flow seems significant, though i’ve struggled to make sense of it completely. for me, the shift from surface bleeding to uterine--external and visible to others to internal and concealed--draws attention to the novel’s grappling with the relation between gendered biological reproductive functionality and the somaesthetic--aspects of lauren’s condition. also significant is that it is about the same time as she begins menstruating that lauren also begins to develop her antireligious philosophy of “earthseed,” signaling a turn from the conventional expectations that her destiny is to marry young and bear children as several of the teens in her neighborhood have already begun to do. the name of the new religion lauren envisions, “earthseed,” comes to her as she works in the garden, pushing seeds below the crust of earth and dreaming of how the destiny she envisions for humankind is to “take root among the stars.” we can see a parallel between this crust and the protective membrane around the body that is the skin, like the novel’s playing with the idea of the sky as a living membrane. for at least three years, she says, her father’s god has not been her own. her journal becomes home to her own set of scripture-like messages, subtitled “the books of the living,” which will become the basis for the intentional community she’ll start a few years later after her family and most of her neighbors are killed during an invasion by the “paints.” her father has been missing for weeks when this happens, disappeared while bicycling home from the college where he teaches outside the neighborhood (no one of modest means can afford to drive a car any longer; only arsonists and the very rich can afford to buy gasoline). he is suspected dead, considering the numerous corpses and charred body parts found when the community searches for him. in the immediate aftermath of the raid when their families, including children and elderly, are burned, raped and murdered, lauren teams up with two other survivors: 1) zahra moss, a young african-american who has just had her baby ripped from her arms and thrown into the fire during the invasion, the third wife of a man scorned by his neighbors for bigamy but, it turns out much loved by the formerly homeless girl who found in the marriage the first home she ever had, and 2) harry balter, a member of one of the neighborhood’s several white families who has barely survived after being attacked when he pulled a rapist off of zahra. the three survivors find each other after lauren ventures back to the neighborhood she has fled the night before to look for her stepmother and brothers and to retrieve supplies, money and guns from their hiding places at the house, which is being ransacked by scavenger-looters. bodies of belief / bodies of care115 as fragile as tissue and as strong lauren, zahra and harry hole up in a burned-out garage for a few days while harry recovers and decide to start traveling together. prevailing attitudes toward mixed-race groups lead lauren, who is tall enough to pull it off, to travel as a man and thus to present as zahra’s partner—a black couple traveling with harry, whom they hope will tan enough to be believable as a cousin of theirs. thus lauren, the youngest of the group and perhaps the most headstrong, becomes, at 18, the leader of a growing troop of travelers trying to make their way north to a better life in oregon. neither of her companions knows about her “sharing”—another word for her hyper-empathy; she feels too vulnerable having anyone outside of her family realize that she can be disabled by pain at the mere sight of another’s injury because if the knowledge spread to the wrong people it would give them power over her. nor do they know that lauren is writing the verses that will become the scriptures for her new religion, earthseed: the books of the living. earthseed is a philosophy based on the idea of an impersonal god that is essentially a law of physics. lauren’s god does not love or protect anyone personally nor require of them any form of obedience. rather, “god is change” we are told multiple times, and “everything you touch changes you.” what lauren’s philosophy is getting at, it seems to me, is the interconnectedness of all things and all life. her words hint at a pliability and permeability of the membrane that separates god from people and/or the spirit from the body and where the skin separates the outside from the inside. at times the point seems overwrought; the philosophy presented as controversial and potentially revolutionary is based on a theory that is as metaphorically as old as the stars themselves. still, the story and especially its relational themes are compelling as the narrative follows lauren and her fellow travelers many hundreds of miles on foot through a landscape ravaged by environmental destruction and undeclared civil war. gradually zahra, harry and lauren allow others, including a young family with a baby, to join their group. bonds between some become romantic and sexual, and new families are forged from survivors of multiple forms of violence; lauren finds love in the unlikely person of a much-older retired physician named bankole whose destination is an expanse of land his family owns in humbolt county, california. over the ensuing chapters as their relationship develops, the plan evolves to settle on that land and create the intentional community lauren has long envisioned, which butler portrays as far from utopian. named acorn, the community is based on the teachings of lauren’s earthseed philosophy of change and cooperation. it is built on the ashes of bankole’s whole family whose charred remains they find upon arrival at the property. throughout the parable series, the body repeatedly appears as the site of suffering and oppression. yet the body also becomes an instrument of hope and connection that leans away from binaries between self and other. lauren’s dream about teaching herself how to fly—the scene with which parable of the sower opens--signifies that thinking through the body, while easier perhaps for some who are predisposed to fluidity through hyper-empathy, is a learned skill. it is a skill butler’s novels suggest could become an antidote to oppressive colonization. while some critics have remarked on the lack of hope that butler’s dystopian novels portray— the utter sense of disillusion and despair brought on by human excess--i read them somewhat differently, seeing in the parable series the possibility that what is good and noble might be retained and/or regained. for lauren olamina and her followers, hope of a better world may lie in outer space. but the story’s embracing of a continuum rather than binary opposition between “inner” and “outer” realities, between “self ” and “other,” and between culturally prescribed gender identities (among other binary constructions that are oppressive) coincides with walker’s metaphor of scars as symbols of strength and resilience. in conclusion, stories about the body’s fragility can signify the possibility of compassion and the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 116 diane richard-allerdyce community beyond the surface of individuals’ skins. as kingsolver’s character orleanna price embraces a wounding that leads to awareness and self-forgiveness, the lacanian somaesthetic approach to the feminist literature presented here indicates that the body’s vulnerability may be seen as opportunity for furthering both psychoanalytic criticism’s and somaesthetic philosophy’s meliatorive aims. through their lenses, stories of wounding transformed become components within an ethics of care that can lead to healing on both individual levels (for writers and readers) and, potentially, on a larger social scale as individuals take that healing into the world. references butler, judith. 1999. gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. new york, ny: routledge. butler, octavia. 2000. parable of the sower. recorded books, llc. ---. 2007. parable of the talents. recorded books, llc. kingsolver, barbara. 1998. the poisonwood bible: a novel. new york, ny: harpertorch. ragland, ellie. 1994. essays on the pleasures of death: from freud to lacan: new york, ny: routledge. ---. 1984. “the magnetism between reader and text: prolegomena to a lacanian poetics,” poetics 13: 381-406. ragland, ellie and dragan milovanovic, eds. 2004. lacan: topologically speaking. new york, ny: other press. shusterman, richard. 2003. “somaesthetics and the second sex: a pragmatist reading of a feminist classic,” hypatia 18.4: 106-136. ---. 2012. thinking through the body: essays in somaesthetics. cambridge, uk: cambridge up. walker, alice. 2004. “beauty: when the other dancer is the self,” in in search of our mothers’ gardens: womanist prose. by alice walker. orlando, fl: harcourt, pp. 361-70. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 68 page 68-92natasha lushetich the art of being elsewhere neoliberal institutions of care natasha lushetich abstract: the being of human beings and, in particular, their wellbeing is profoundly spatial and temporal. we feel well in dramaturgically stimulating, sheltered, yet expansive spaces that lend themselves to daydreaming, much like we feel well in “thick” time that, like a complex melody, textures our existence aurally, kinesthetically, and propriocentrically (influencing our body’s sense of balance). this existential relation is created through movement, sound, language, chronotypes, physical and symbolic objects, all of which weave bio-social matrixes, micro-cultural landscapes, even individual inscapes – internalized terrains of symbolic meaning. this essay offers a socio-phenomenological account of a medium-security forensic service unit river house, part of the bethlem royal hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in bromley, south london. its aim is to articulate the interdependence of practice, space, and inscape, while simultaneously shedding light on a very particular, emergent form of existential vulnerability caused by the increasing precarization, the reponsibilization of the individual, and the culture of blame. keywords: activated space, archive, gelassenheit, inscapes, parasites, precarization, risk management, vulnerability. a spatial transplant on july 6th 2013 i visited sunfayre, the annual open day at bethlem royal hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in two hundred and seventy acres of land in bromley, south london. upon entering the immaculately kept hospital gardens, my attention was immediately drawn to a quizzical, wagon-like object made of cardboard, incongruously parked next to car. on closer inspection, the mobile object revealed a tiny door and a sunroof window, made of what resembled pink and blue plexiglass. an energetic middle-aged man, who was later introduced to me as patient1 x, approached me, explained the purpose of the mobile object: to travel through the hospital and to be taken around the hospital grounds, and asked me if i’d like to have a go. 1 i use the word “patient” in its latin meaning, to signify suffering and endurance, not passivity. although the neoliberal “service user” can be seen as less stigmatizing, it also places the responsibility for recovery largely with the patient. natasha lushetich the art of being elsewhere bodies of belief / bodies of care69 the art of being elsewhere figure 1. patient x: cardboard mobile, bethlem royal hospital, london, july 2013. photographer anonymous. it was a warm sunny day and the inside of the cardboard mobile was inviting, bathed as it was in pink and blue light. at once reminiscent of early childhood spaces – tents improvised in the living room with a sheet and a couple of broomsticks – and a sophisticated rumination on the bio-social dimensions of human existence in the style of alice aycock or krzysztof wodiczko, the mobile exuded a sense of mystery. it was also an unmistakable critique of lived space. the shortest way to describe alice aycock’s work is as a sustained engagement with collective memory and individual experience. aycock’s seminal 1975 simple network of underground wells consisted of an underground structure into which visitors crawled in the dark. at first, the configuration appeared to be simple and clear, geometric and rectilinear, resembling a staircase leading to a cellar. the actual experience of descending the staircase, however, was not at all clear or simple. as the visitors moved from light to dark they entered a much more mysterious place whose unexpectedly narrow confines they were forced to explore with their faces, bellies, knees, and elbows. evoking memories of cozy hiding spots, fallout shelters, and nightmarish prisons, underground wells simultaneously instigated sensations of excitement, panic, and fear. krzysztof wodiczko’s work, by contrast, situated at the interstice of sculpture, public art, and engineering, foregrounds the socio-political dimension of underprivileged human lives – those of the homeless and immigrants. his 1988-1989 homeless vehicle project, a stylishly designed multifunctional vehicle, at once a suitcase, a trolley, a table, and a collapsible bed, was simultaneously an insightful rethinking of a homeless existence and a means of a dignified public appearance. it brought the physical existence of politically invisible citizens into view by exposing their spatial and temporal “being there,” their dasein2, and in this way 2 a term extensively used by martin heidegger. see martin heidegger, being and time, john macquarrie and edward robinson, tr. (oxford: blackwell publishers ltd., 1962). natasha lushetich the art of being elsewhere the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 70 natasha lushetich staging an emphatic critique of what achille mbembe was later to call “necropolitics”: a mode of government that makes and lets die through neglect and denigration3. in similar vein, patient x’s mobile simultaneously disclosed and hid a very particular, existential form of vulnerability. operated by patient x himself, the fragile vehicle excavated early-childhood feelings of sheer glee associated with being invisible to the outside world, while, at the same time, creating an unpredictable sense of space endlessly extended in time. when, at the end of the journey, i was told that i had spent no more than twenty minutes inside the vehicle i had a genuinely hard time believing my interlocutors. my kinesthetic and propriocentric memory was of a much longer and far more elaborate journey, with many stops, turns, crossings, and encounters with cars, vans, and bicycles. lying flat on the vehicle floor i was much more “outside” than when walking outside; i viscerally felt every, even the most minute change in the texture of the ground – pavement, grass, pebbles – much like i felt every single stray stone that momentarily swerved the otherwise steady motion of the wheels. and yet, the mobile structure felt like a second skin in which my vertical, socialized self could be abandoned in favor of dissipating into an assemblage of tactile, kinesthetic, and aural sensations. it was a form of spatial surgery: a transplant whose topology exposed the passenger to the precariousness of chance as well as to introjection; traveling was here a form of a searching for a proper place, for lost time, for “thick” existence. the vehicle’s slow, minutely textured motion afforded meditative rumination of a very specific kind: a heideggerian gelassenheit, a “releasement towards things.”4 for martin heidegger, gelassenheit is an immersion in thick time cued by an existentially relevant relation to dwelling. residing in a form of relationality he terms the fourfold – the earth, the sky, the mortals, and the divinities – dwelling involves one’s physical, visceral existence, much like it involves rediscovering a sense of place, and a sense of belonging5. in this context, a log, a hut, or a bridge, none of which have a single, delimited, strictly utilitarian purpose, afford dwelling as a “way of staying with things.”6 they produce a form of thinking-feeling that is simultaneously alert and relaxed. gelassenheit is, for this reason, also an antidote to goal-orientated, calculative thought associated with technology: gestell or enframing. however, in heidegger’s parlance, technology does not refer to gadgets or technicalities, but to a scientific, material, and social form of ordering as related to systems of knowledge, exchange structures, and means of production7. enframing therefore refers primarily to emplacement, sequencing, and fixing; to a spatio-temporal organization that summons the forces of life into a set of manipulable reserves. heidegger’s example of such a “summoning” is that of coal: “[t] he coal that has been hauled out in some mining district has not been supplied in order that it may simply be present somewhere or other. it is stockpiled; that is, it is on call, ready to deliver the sun’s warmth that is stored in it.”8 the problem here is not delivering coal where it is needed; it is robbing the world’s resources of their present-ness and their futurity by organizing them according to a single, predetermined principle, that of extraction, stockpiling, and use. within the hospital context, enframing is, of course, not related to extraction or stockpiling. it is, however, related to predetermination, albeit of a different kind, one that concerns two 3 achille mbembe, “necropolitics” in public culture 15:1, 2003, 11-40. 4 martin heidegger, discourse on thinking. john m. anderson and e. hans freund, tr. (new york: harper and row, 1966), 54. 5 martin heidegger “building, dwelling, thinking” in poetry, language, thought, albert hofstadter, tr. (new york: harper, 1971), 145-161, 153. 6 ibid., 151. 7 martin heidegger, the question concerning technology and other essays, william lovitt, tr. (new york: harper colophon books, 1977), 20. 8 ibid., 15. bodies of belief / bodies of care71 the art of being elsewhere important socio-phenomenological registers: the custody-care continuum, and the index offence. as the modern matron suggests, many patients come to bethlem “as very damaged people.”9 a forensic unit that houses patients who, apart from being ill, also have an index offence – the gravest of two or more offences committed in the moment of or because of their illness, ranging from homicide, attempted murder, and grave bodily harm, to arson or theft – will seek to provide custody as well as care. however, custody will organize the patients’ time and movement into what may be experienced as repetitive, constraining patterns. the index offence, on the other hand – a moment of derailment that occurred years, or, in some cases, decades ago – is by many perceived as an inexorable force that continues to enframe their lives by sequencing their actions, and programming their reactions within the monitored recovery process, while also influencing the way they are perceived by others. in contrast to such a sequenced, restrained, and potentially incriminating mode of existence, gelassenheit is focused on the here and now – the moment, the process, the sounds, the somaticenvironmental sensations – all of which make the percipient dwell on “what is closest ... the here and now”10 and, in so doing, activate space. “activated space” is a concept derived from native indian art. it makes the existential dimension of a physical-symbolic relation with elements similar to heidegger’s fourfold – explicit. within this context, space is activated via a performed action whose primary purpose is restorative. for example, the color of the plains ojibwa’s moccasin beads activates the wearer’s existential relationship with the environment through the action of walking or running: white is here placed in relation to the light of day, red to the horizon and the limits of the world, blue to the sky, green to plant life on earth.11 similarly, navajo sand paintings, made on the tamped floor of especially built “song houses” – altars upon which the song man, or shaman, performs the ritual connected with a particular petition – are restorative. if there is a persisting health problem (which is often the reason behind such rituals), the petitioner is placed in the center of the painting, so that the space activated through performed action may impregnate his/her body.12 in a sense, all space is active, as is all existence. as dasein, we are always engaged in a transitive, dynamic activity of nearing and distancing. our body is a matrix that “remembers” past configurations and orientations. each local situation or experience within a specific environment becomes a part of the body’s memory through repetition. the wearing of moccasins or the shaman’s ritual only amplifies this relation by stimulating the flow of the vital energy, since, in native indian cultures, like in chinese medicine, illness is equated with the obstruction of the flow of the vital energy, often attributed to a lack of relationality with existentially relevant elements. similar ideas have also been voiced by trauma theorists; for jeffrey prager, trauma is “a memory illness” that manifests “as a collapse of timeliness...the present is distorted to incorporate the memory of an un-metabolized, or unprocessed, past: a then folds in upon the now largely without awareness or distinction.”13 it goes without saying that the bethlem staff are abundantly aware of this. not only does the units’ and wards’ spacious, open-plan design reflect this awareness, but the units’ names – river 9 interview with the modern matron, bethlem royal hospital, london, 9 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 10 martin heidegger, discourse on thinking. john m. anderson and e. hans freund, tr. (new york: harper and row, 1966), 47. 11 william jones quoted in ruth, b. phillips, “comments on part ii “catching symbolism” studying style and meaning in native american art,” arctic anthropology, vol. 28, no. 1, 1991, art and material culture of the north american subarctic and adjacent regions, 92-100, 95. 12 kenneth e. foster, “navajo sand paintings” in man, vol. 63 (mar., 1963), 43-44, 43. 13 jeffrey prager, “jump-starting timeliness: trauma, temporality and the redressive community” in time and memory. ed. jo alyson parker, michael crawford and paul harris, eds. 229-245 (the netherlands: koninklijke brill, 2006), 229, emphasis original. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 72 natasha lushetich house, for example – purposefully connote flow, recovery, and change, both in the qualitative and the demographic sense of the word.14 figure 2. river house, bethlem royal hospital, 2014. photographer anonymous. while some patients have been at bethlem, albeit on different wards, for seven or eight years, others leave after only a few months, never to return again. yet others return, once, twice, or several times, either because their condition worsens, or because “they feel vulnerable in the outside world” and yearn for the “predictability of the hospital routine.”15 despite their length of stay, not a single patient, or staff member, out of the several dozen i interviewed during the fourmonth period of observation conducted in the spring and summer of 2014, underestimates the need for rules and fixed routines, in other words, for a certain degree of enframing. no patient underestimates the gravity of his/her condition, or the need for recovery, either. and yet, patient x’s activated space where a restorative gelassenheit might take place is conspicuously constructed to escape the hospital space. ambiguously situated between intimacy, exposure, and fantasy, the vehicle is a vociferous demand for a sheltered “elsewhere” that might act as “an instrument against chaos,”16 a function gaston bachelard ascribed to all secluded spaces that order space, time, and existence. among patients, the yearning for such a space is universal. given this state of affairs, one may well ask: if most patients accept that a degree of enframing is both desirable and necessary, what is it that prevents bethlem’s units, equipped with such enviable facilities, full of committed and highly competent staff, from providing the much-needed combination of shelter and gelassenheit? 14 interview with the modern matron, bethlem royal hospital, london, 9 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 15 ibid. 16 ibid., 136. bodies of belief / bodies of care73 the art of being elsewhere figure 3. bethlem royal hospital garden, london, 2014. photographer anonymous. living in the archive at first glance, bethlem looks like an ideal place to rest, not only on account of its beautiful grounds, but also because most units, river house included, foreground liminality: a spacetime where “former [social] obligations are suspended”17 and where experimentation with the “elements of the familiar”18 is the order of the day. apart from being a place where old, sometimes life-long ailments are cured, river house is also a place where new identities (are hoped to) emerge. it is therefore both a place and a non-place. the difference, according to marc augé, is that “place,” is formed over time by “individual identities, through complicities of language, local references, the unformulated rules of living know-how,” and repetition.19 by contrast, “non-place” is temporary. it refers to places of transit, formed in relation to specific ends, and characterized by a projection forward. however, place and non-place are not mutually exclusive. they operate along a continuum, much like custody and care do. place is “never completely erased.” non-place is “never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten.”20 a palimpsest is a paper that has been written upon and erased several times; it contains no original writing, but bears witness to the process of writing, erasure, and rewriting. it is simultaneously a site of novelty and repetition. this dual, inscriptive and erasing function is particularly important in the creation of lived space, which, to borrow from michel de certeau, is “practiced place.”21 heavily patterned ground, characteristic of “place,” that makes people move in one direction and not another, 17 victor turner, from ritual to theatre: the human seriousness of play (new york: paj publications, 1982), 27. 18 ibid. 19 marc augé, non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, john howe, tr. (london: verso, 1995), 101. 20 ibid., 79. 21 michel de certeau, the practice of everyday life, steven rendall, tr. (berkley: university of california press, 1988), 91-96. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 74 natasha lushetich would not be appropriate for an institution of care where the emphasis is on the restorative, stabilizing function of time and performed action, and where a degree of habit-formation is desirable but “institutionalization,” a form of automatism, is frowned upon.22 due to the fact that some patients’ early life experiences are those of abuse and molestation of the extent that even the seasoned hospital staff dare not repeat, and that these experiences are often additionally aggravated by extremely difficult adult lives, security is, naturally, taken very seriously. alongside physical security, such as fences, personal alarms, and locks, there is also relational security, which refers not only to the “knowledge and understanding staff have of a patient and of the environment” but, more importantly, to the “translation of that information into appropriate responses and care.”23 relational security hinges on observation. as a clinical psychologist explains: “you want to know whether their [patient] interaction is usual or unusual for them; in a familiar environment people will observe that “you are not acting your usual self ’’24. knowing what is likely to happen affords the delicate balance between pattern and novelty, since stabilizing new behaviors, and thus also habits and identities, is a crucial aspect of the recovery process. it converts the hospital into a “domesticated” ground, and creates navigable maps of the possible and the permissible. to an extent, repetition also affords freedom. it neutralizes demarcations and divisions, such as the ubiquitous cctv cameras, or the procedural “no trespassing lines,” those that separate the nursing station – an area only staff may enter – from the rest of the ward. such lines of separation tend to disappear in a heavily patterned ground, and ground springs back as a space of multiple trajectories. this balance is carefully monitored; stability is, of course, needed yet care is taken to avoid monotony. settled rhythms are constantly altered by purposeful action, such as the quizzical objects placed in the hospital corridors by the occupational therapy staff. a cotton bag with mysterious, semi-visible content will thus unexpectedly appear on the edge of a corridor chair; a spatial intervention in the form of a mobile cardboard object such as that authored by patient x will be placed in the adjacent corridor (figure 4). intended as syncopal elements that break the usual spatio-temporal layout of the hospital, these sculptural provocations, and the ensuing debates, improvisations, and often, humorous remarks and excitement, valance the space as a space of inter-subjective co-creation, and thus also possibility and change. the ability to maintain this delicate balance between repetition and novelty, that serves the bigger goal of maintaining the balance between custody and care, is largely dependent on the number of available staff, however. as one nurse explains: “it looks like we’re stepping back in time, we only have three nurses at night now, and nights can be very difficult.”25 a veteran nurse with more than thirty years of experience, she adds that: “patients are very complicated in hospital today, multiple axiologies, learning disabilities, obsessive behaviours, ritualistic behaviours, anger management problems, and a mental illness all rolled into one person.”26 given this state of affairs, and the nurses’ ambition to maintain the high standards crucial to the practice of their profession, encapsulated in the “six c’s formula: being caring, compassionate, committed, courageous, communicative and competent,”27 the neoliberal precarization of the workplace is decidedly not conducive to providing quality care. 22 interview with nurse d, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np.; interview with occupational therapy technician, bethlem royal hospital, 8 july 2014, np. author’s private archive. 23 interview with the head of security, bethlem royal hospital, london, 6 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 24 interview with clinical psychologist a, bethlem royal hospital, london, 22 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 25 interview with nurse d, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 26 ibid. 27 ibid. bodies of belief / bodies of care75 the art of being elsewhere figure 4. patient x’s spatial intervention. river house, 2014. photographer anonymous. consisting, among other factors, of temporal compression, cuts in staffing, and of increased worker responsibilization, precarization is, as isabell lorey has argued, neither an accident nor an exception. it is “a rule,” an “instrument of government, social regulation, and control,”28 it subjugates through frequent job cuts and the threat of economic ruin, and, in so doing, feeds into the dogma of the risk society. narrowly related to the digital compression of space and time, which decouples the “here” from the “now,” and stockpiles tasks beyond the possible, the risk society is, according to ulrich beck’s prescient theorization, a “systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced ... by modernization itself.”29 it is characterized essentially by the impossibility of an external attribution of hazards and their dependence on “managerial decisions, which makes these decisions politically reflexive.”30 added to this is the neoliberal intensification of moral regulation based on the withdrawal from government and the responsibilization of individuals through measures such as regulated choice making. present in education, healthcare, and child rearing – to name but a few examples – regulated choice making transfers responsibility from the public institutions to the individual. it is no longer the institution, service, or the government that is responsible for any form of malfunctioning; it is the individual who, having made the wrong choice, only has itself to blame. unsurprisingly, the one thing that neoliberal institutions provide in plentiful supplies is training in how to 28 isabell lorey, state of insecurity: government of the precarious (futures) (london: verso books, 2015), 1. 29 ulrich beck, risk society: towards a new modernity (new york: sage, publications, 1992), 21. 30 ibid., 183. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 76 natasha lushetich make a supposedly informed choice. the hospital employees are thus tasked with attending all manner of workshops and courses that instruct them in how to climb ladders, move and handle objects, open and close windows without hurting themselves or others.31 the purpose here is to assign predictable or potential accidents to the employee’s erroneous choice, rather than to the decisions of the higher managerial echelons. needless to say, such operational principles reinstate vulnerability and insecurity of a professional, moral, and financial kind. several staff have had to repeatedly interview for their current post, not to mention the long periods of trepidation when the job cuts are announced but not confirmed, which can last for up to six months at a time.32 many staff are also painfully aware that staff shortage often makes it impossible to escort patients when they go on leave – leave being any time that a patient spends away from the ward, even if only fifteen minutes. this has a direct effect on the patient dynamic and on relational security, since, unsurprisingly, the patients’ reactions to such curtailing are often violent. there are, of course, entire rule structures designed to prevent peripheral problems from interfering with the projected hospital practice; they take the form of written, verbal, and agreed rules. meal times, medication time, and rest time, as well as most staff-patient interactions – recovery team meetings, shift handovers, and the patient’s leave – are regulated through scripts which specify precisely how, when, and where something is supposed to happen. agreed rules are those created by ward staff and communicated to patients; for example, that staff will not accept patients passing remarks on their looks or clothes, as this may create a deceptive sense of familiarity.33 equally, if not more important, are the unwritten rules, such as the extra attention granted to all patients returning from a meeting with a relative, the recovery team – clinicians, nurses, and occupational therapy staff – or their lawyer, as the patient’s mood might have changed during the meeting and could be the cause of a violent attack or verbal abuse. staff shortage makes optimal alertness and the much-needed flexibility, which, as several nurses have explained, includes “bending the rules when a particular situation requires it,”34 much more difficult to achieve, however. aware of the effects the neoliberal pressures to do more in a given unit of time with fewer resources have on patients, staff are adamant to create “open spaces;”35 opportunities for recuperation and change. as a member of the occupational therapy staff in charge of river house’s art classes explains: “[i]deally, i would like the room to change all the time – to be modular – i want it to feel free, like a place where anything can happen.”36 however, he also adds that many patients are “institutionalized”37: instead of doing what they want to do, they do what they think staff would like them to do. the reason behind this is simple; they are in pain and they want to make themselves as non-vulnerable as possible. but they are not the only ones. the same expression is also used for staff who are overly eager to label and tabulate according to pre-established norms so as to avoid any (extra) personal responsibility. as one nurse explains: “some staff are very punitive, very institutionalized.”38 the reason for overzealous rule conformity is that staff, too, are subject to surveillance. while patients are observed 31 interview with occupational therapist c, bethlem royal hospital, london, 23 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 32 ibid. 33 interview with nurse d, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 34 interview with nurse j, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 35 interview with occupational therapy technician, bethlem royal hospital, london, 8 july 2014, np. author’s private archive. 36 ibid. 37 ibid. 38 interview with nurse d, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np. author’ private archive. bodies of belief / bodies of care77 the art of being elsewhere through the cctv cameras, special surveillance provisions, such as hidden monitoring rooms, and medical writing – notes written up to three times per shift, and made available to the entire recovery team – staff are observed through the now ubiquitous performance reviews. this means that both patients and staff live in the archive. they live with the certitude that some, if not all entries and/or recordings will be examined. living in the archive is an abstract condition that renders the everyday transcendent: every action may at any point be interpreted as problematic, inappropriate or, worse still, dangerous. depending on the interpretation, an utterly insignificant gesture may lead to long-term complications; in the case of patients, it can endlessly extend their sojourn at the hospital. in the case of staff, it can lead to self-doubt, lack of confidence, and the loss of employment security. in rendering the insignificant significant in an unfathomable way, the archive ceaselessly creates new, treacherous temporalities by organizing the smallest details into a temporal architecture that reverberates with ominous consequentiality. it also affirms the authority of the archivist (whether human or technological). the imaginary residence in such an archive – and it is worth remembering here that, according to jacques derrida, the word “archive” refers both to “commencement and to commandment” 39 – destroys stability. it also corrodes personal relationships and contaminates personal space. its working is not solely destructive; it is also propelling: it forces the individual to perform. as jon mckenzie suggests in perform of else, in the twenty-first century, performance is “an emergent stratum of power formation.”40 the performative subject has internalized discipline, not only because of the multiple surveillance mechanisms, but also because of the ubiquitous performance imperatives. given that such a subject is “fragmented rather than unified, decentered, rather than centered, virtual as well as actual,”41 and that the subject’s personal, professional, medical, financial and legal records are “produced... through a variety of sociotechnical systems,”42 the subject is in constant need of optimization. this requires a very particular, dispersed form of sensitivity to an ever-growing multitude of requirements, further aggravated by the quantitative demand – to do more in a given unit of time, such as peruse large documents with new regulations, or write more detailed reports, with hardly any time to do it in. one of the results of the conflict between what has to be done, what can be done, and what has to be shown as having been done, is compassion fatigue. several nurses and an occupational therapist defined compassion fatigue as a combination of “exposure to trauma and frequent violent episodes,”43 but also of “work overload, time famine, and the ever-increasing amount of unnerving surveillance mechanisms.”44 unnerving not because there is an actual lack of competence but because the practice of constantly introducing new regulations and new methods for doing old things, creates a perceived lack of competence, which not only looks bad in the obligatory performance reviews, but also undermines interpersonal trust, a very important, if not the most important feature of the hospital employee’s relationship to what is, without a doubt, a very dangerous work environment. another unavoidable aspect of the hospital space is sound. 39 jacques derrida and eric prenowitz, “archive fever: a freudian impression,” diacritics, vol. 25, no. 2 (summer 1995), 9-63, 9, emphasis original. 40 jon mckenzie, perform of else: from discipline to performance (london & new york: routledge, 2001), 18. 41 ibid. 42 ibid., 19. 43 interview with nurse d, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np; author’s private archive. 44 interview with nurse j, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np; interview with occupational therapist c, bethlem royal hospital, london, 23 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 78 natasha lushetich sound as parasite despite the fact that river house is known for its sound facilities where patients make – compose, improvise, play and produce – their own music, cuts in resources, mostly those related to maintenance, claim their due. being empty, the hospital corridors through which trolleys with food, medication, cleaning products, and equipment are wheeled five times a day, have a resounding echo. regardless of where you are, in the interview room, on the ward, in the communal areas, in the multi-faith room, in the gym, or in a patient’s room, the sound of clunky steel trolleys whose steadily deteriorating wheels, although mostly with a 360 degree swivel, regularly get stuck in corners, lifts, and under stairs, is unavoidable as well as painful. painful not only because it prolongs the interminably long and far too frequent trolley diminuendo, but because the interminably long, and therefore irritating sound of the trolleys is, like all irritating sounds, anticipated. it is heard not only when it is actually taking place but every time a similar sound – and there are many – is heard. the nursing station is soundproofed, but as there are always many conversations going on simultaneously, accompanied by the not too intrusive but nevertheless incessant sound of the television coming from the communal living room, as well as, on occasion, screams and torrents of verbal abuse, the soundscape is dense, to say the least. this is complemented by loud music coming from the patients’ private television sets, or from their headphones. the hospital does not use swipe cards but, instead, heavy keys, which continue to cause injuries to staff who lock and unlock up to fifty doors a day.45 needless to say, the sound of locking and unlocking doors echoes in the empty corridors thus undermining what the open-plan design has tried to bypass: signifiers of incarceration. when escorted outside, patients are taken through long corridors and sometimes up to twelve doors. the unavoidable agglomeration of parasitic sounds inculcates the body actionally and sensorially. all parasites are colonizers that cannot be removed from the body, whether a house, a dwelling, or an institution. as mark wigley, re-interpreting jacques derrida, suggests: “the uncanniness of the parasite is that it is never simply alien to the body it haunts ... rather, the body is haunted by that which exceeds it: para-site, that which is supplementary (para) to the site.”46 as a figure of excess, located neither inside nor outside, the parasite is perversely violent, since it is never purely external. all aural violence is internal to the body; it creates affective residue through repetition. shigenori nagatomo has termed such calibrations of the body “attunement,” although this word, in nagatomo’s parlance, has both a positive and a negative meaning. it refers to the “engagement that obtains actionally as well as epistemologically between a person and his/her living ambiance.”47 otherwise put, attunement is a process by which “affective residue” sediments through the “experiential momentum”48 – the repeated engagement in particular somatic structures as related to movement, sound, kinesthetics and proprioception. given that attunement impregnates the body sensorially and configures future engagement with the living ambiance, the effect of the experienced aural intrusions is not merely cumulative; it creates unwanted kinesthetic matrixes: wincing, grimacing and the tensed shoulders, which many patients, as well as staff, exhibit at the very sight of trolleys or keys. furthermore, the creation of somatic-affective paths is related to the passage from the hazy to the clear horizon of 45 interview with occupational therapy technician, bethlem royal hospital, london, 8 july 2014, np. author’s private archive. 46 mark wigley, the architecture of deconstruction: derrida’s haunt (cambridge, ma: mit press, 1997), 180. 47 shigenori nagatomo, attunement through the body (albany: state university new york press, 1992), 179. 48 ibid., 198. bodies of belief / bodies of care79 the art of being elsewhere consciousness. the hidden, interoceptive, recessive part of the body, which we are often entirely unaware of, is continually in the process of passing from the hazy – or unconscious – to the clear horizon of consciousness. while the former is related to humoral events, the latter is related to clearly discerned emotions. once a particular experiential engagement and affective path have, through affective residue, created emotions, these emotions inform future actions. the ambiental sound of the hospital is therefore far from innocuous. even if not experienced as nerve-racking at first, it shapes and orients future experiences; it configures perception. the monotonous trailing of the malfunctioning, and, on occasion, screeching wheels, the interminably long locking and unlocking of door after door are oppressive in their regularity, to say the least. if one closes one’s eyes and merely listens to the sound one finds oneself in a (sonic) labyrinth since there is hardly a time when no sound of locking and unlocking doors is heard. when moving through the hospital, as staff do all the time, and as patients do when they go on leave, or for their numerous checkups, consultations and occupational therapy groups, one’s ears are assaulted by yet another traumatizing sound, which forms part of the experiential momentum, and which, as both staff and patients report, has a highly irritating effect: the frequent alarms.49 triggered by perceived or actually dangerous situations, alarms produce a deeply disturbing, hurtful sound that causes panic and tumult in the less accustomed, and irritation in the accustomed. like (a certain degree of ) spatio-temporal enframing, alarms are, of course, necessary. what is not necessary, however, as well as directly counterproductive, is their shrillness. despite numerous staff debates about the unnecessarily shrill sound of these alarms, nerve-racking alarms, like hand-hurting keys, do not seem to be a priority on the list of required changes50 in the various hospital meetings, such concerns are overridden by more urgent concerns with risk management, and the steadily growing health and safety agenda, both of which are a direct consequence of the neoliberal litigation culture. these unnecessarily aurally harsh working and living conditions have a lasting effect on the sensorimotor system, however. they cause an increased use of headphones in patients (which isolates them from their environment), and a less disposed, because irritated and exhausted attitude in staff.51 more importantly perhaps, sound also marks and partitions time. the temporality produced by the ambiental hospital cacophony is not only that of incarceration, but almost one of aural torture, given the regularity of the various sounds and their anticipation. in addition, the echo of the long corridors amplifies repetition thus multiplying the partitioning of time. what such sound does is to disassemble the spatial perception of the hospital. the hospital space is no longer perceived as open. rather, it is perceived as an overly dense, “swarming” temporal agglomerate, in which everything happens all at once. such a temporal structure disables temporal succession, and thus also resolution. this has a mentally extremely taxing effect. as one patient put it, “if you aren’t on heavy drugs the din wears you out, if you are, you’re half dead anyway.”52 however, this particular aural-kinesthetic, highly noxious effect is, for organizationally mysterious reasons, impossible to rectify. instead, preference is given to workshops that instruct staff in how to “manage” persistent problems in new ways, thus simultaneously de-materializing material problems, and turning them into the employees’ own 49 interview with patient g, bethlem royal hospital, london, 3 june 2014, np. interview with patient h, bethlem royal hospital, london, 19, june 2014, np. author’s private archive. 50 interview with nurse j, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np. interview with occupational therapist c, bethlem royal hospital, london, 23 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 51 interview with nurse d, bethlem royal hospital, london, 7 may 2014, np. author’s private archive 52 interview with patient b, bethlem royal hospital, london, 8 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 80 natasha lushetich problems. but where does that leave those who have lived in the hospital for months, perhaps even years? inscape closure in contrast to the shared cultural, narrative, physical and affective constructs or landscapes, inscapes are internalized terrains of symbolic meaning.53 they are created through the individual’s psychosomatic processing of the socially shared, symbolically charged spaces. a number of enabling devices, such as “the buddy” – a gps that enables patients to leave the hospital premises unescorted – are, in fact, experienced as constraining objects. as one patient put it: “even when i’m away from the hospital, the hospital is all around me.”54 instead of leaving the physical space of the hospital, the patient feels remotely controlled by the very space s/he is trying to leave. the reason for this is that s/he has internalized the buddy’s symbolic connotations. however, there are many other reasons why the residual hospital inscapes are those of turmoil, or, worse still, fear. as one patient explains: “i’m looking forward to being discharged. i’m doing everything that’s required, all the groups... i’m finding this very overwhelming, too many people. but i’m totally isolated. i have a shower and breakfast and i go to groups, i work in the library downstairs, it keeps me off the ward... last year i was nearly strangled while doing laundry. i feel safer outside than i do here.”55 there are also patients who, after a significant, or repeated period of incarceration, see themselves as fused with the hospital space. they get very angry about such things as rubbish not being taking off the ward as soon as it touches the ground, although, this, too, is by no means regular practice, but a direct consequence of staff shortage. as a female patient points out, “they’re polluting the only space we have...the hospital corridor is not a street where you just leave your empty packet of crisps, or don’t care if you spill coffee.”56 the theme of pollution, or defilement, is not surprising given the aural and relational density of the hospital space, and the ease with which affective contagion occurs in all social environments without exception. the particularity of the hospital environment, however, is that a person’s jitteriness, caused by an inscape of fear, is often the reason why coffee or tea is inadvertently spilt on the floor. this feeds directly into another patient’s affronts-and-insults-tinged inscape, and is the cause of violent arguments, which not only aggravate the already difficult situation, but also further “cement” the existing inscapes. the most accurate description of this process, which can be seen as one of deterioration, came from a patient who had spent many years on a number of different hospital wards; he called it “permanent desecration.”57 a sacred place – a church, a mosque, or a temple – can be desecrated only once: when pillaged, destroyed, or used to purposes such as torture or rape. the very occurrence of torture or rape robs the church, the mosque, or the temple of its sanctity. “permanent desecration,” by contrast, refers to a perpetual worsening of an already impossible or highly offensive situation; it refers to the violent imperative to make do with the unacceptable, until, finally, there is nothing left to protect. the conflation of the physical space of the hospital, its practice, patterns, accidents, and one’s identity, is not unusual, regardless of mental health, given that our existence is inseparable from 53 this is derived from gerard manley hopkins’s notion of inscapes. see w.h. gardner “gerard manley hopkins and the poetry of inscape” in theoria: a journal of social and political theory, no. 33, october 1969, 1-16. 54 interview with patient g, bethlem royal hospital, london, 3 june 2014, np. author’s private archive. 55 interview with patient k, bethlem royal hospital, london, 21 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 56 interview with patient l, bethlem royal hospital, london, 21 may 2014, np. author’s private archive. 57 patient y quoted by occupational therapy technician in interview with occupational therapy technician, bethlem royal hospital, london, 8 july 2014, np. author’s private archive. bodies of belief / bodies of care81 the art of being elsewhere space and time. this is why some patients will purposefully try to bring disorder into the existing spatial arrangements when showing disagreement with a particular hospital practice, as was the case with a patient who tore up all his books and magazines in an act of protest. when asked to photograph their environment, and thus, also, indirectly, show their inscapes, many patients produced photographs of incarceration, peril, decay and oblivion. figure 5. patient p’s photograph of the hospital grounds. bethlem royal hospital, 2014. figure 6. patient r’s photograph of the hospital grounds. bethlem royal hospital, 2014. one of the reasons for this may be that, in addition to the various actions, sound, physical and symbolic objects, inscapes are also formed by the content of the frequent torrents of verbal the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 82 natasha lushetich abuse, or, more precisely, by their linguistic performativity. in discussing the constitutive function of language, and in reference to toni morrison, judith butler suggests that language is “an extended doing, a performance with effects.”58 this statement is indebted to j.l. austin’s theory of linguistic performativity, according to which words do not describe the world, but do things in the world, and to louis althusser’s theory of interpellation, which suggests that the subject is formed as a consequence of social address. the difference here is one between recognition and constitution. the subject does not respond to a particular interpellation because it recognizes itself in it – althusser’s example is that of a policeman hailing the passerby with “hey, you there”59 – but because the subject is constituted by that social address. it comes into being as an “obedient citizen,” or, simply “the citizen” as a result of the interpellation. likewise, the constitutive power of language resides in “the power to injure.”60 a name, whose key function is to “freeze, delimit, render substantial,”61 can have an enabling, inaugurative function, as well as a disabling, denigrating one. given that interpellation is a methodology by which “subjects are formed and reformulated,”62 all subjects are vulnerable to it. words are “threats to one’s physical well-being” because “language sustains the body not by bringing it into being or feeding it in a literal way” but by granting it “a certain social existence.”63 this is why the address of the other both “constitutes a being within the possible circuit of recognition” and, “outside of it, in abjection.”64 within the hospital context, people, patients and staff, are often called the most offensive names imaginable. some of these names constitute the person as stupid, immoral, ridiculous, ugly, irremediably ill, and generally worthless. because of this, great pains are taken to elicit positive attitudes and to inaugurate positive roles. patients will thus often be addressed as talented human beings, much like staff will be addressed as exceptionally committed and hardworking. a patient who has an interest in fashion will be addressed as lady gaga; a patient who is passionate about music making will be called dr. dre; a member of staff who works long hours in order to improve patient experience will be nicknamed “robot,” the reference here being to the lack of need to rest. these linguistic devices are used to create a very specific form of order and conviviality that seeks to overcome the necessary enframing of the hospital, alleviate the suffering created by the clashing inscapes, and erase the boundary between the hospital and the outside world. but the question remains: is this enough? with inscapes formed by countless somaticaffective paths that weave together place, daily practice, intended or unintended interpellations, accidents, and symbolic objects, it comes as little surprise that many patients feel the need to escape. for some patients, this means filling in a delineated stripe of paper in pencil – to physically see the time passing and to feel their approaching discharge. for others, it means playing imaginary chess with an imaginary opponent, in their rooms, with headphones on. there are also those, who, like patient x, construct vehicles and invent stratagems, such as diplomatic immunity, that, in addition to the transplanted space, where gelassenheit may take place, creates the status of intangibility. the crowning feature of patient x’s copious production 58 judith butler, excitable speech: a politics of the performative (london and new york: routledge, 1997), 6. 59 louis althusser quoted in judith butler, excitable speech: a politics of the performative (london and new york: routledge, 1997), 3. 60 judith butler, excitable speech: a politics of the performative (london and new york: routledge, 1997), 2. 61 ibid., 35. 62 ibid., 160. 63 ibid., 5. 64 ibid. bodies of belief / bodies of care83 the art of being elsewhere of steadily more sophisticated cardboard vehicles, such as that depicted in figure 7 was the invention of a miniature diplomatic passport. the purpose of the passport was to ensure that his movement through the hospital was circumscribed by diplomatic immunity, given that, in legal terms, diplomats reside on the soil of the sending state, not the receiving state, and are not subject to the jurisdiction of the local courts.65 figure 7. patient x’s yellow cardboard mobile at a petrol station, bromley, london, 2014. photographer anonymous. although such a stratagem could easily be dismissed as a fanciful illusion, play, a joke, or even delusion – after all, bethlem is a psychiatric hospital – it is none of those things. it is a pragmatic way of “escaping the [lived] space of the hospital.”66 in this sense, patient x is already doing what the neoliberal responsibilization of the individual is asking everyone to do: take care of themselves. the only problem is that, as many have noted, alain ehrenberg,67 and byungchul han68 among them, mental illness is on an unprecedented rise. the multiple and steadily proliferating vulnerabilities created by the culture of misplaced personal responsibility and blame are claiming their due. in a unit like river house, in an institution like the bethlem royal hospital, the assumption is that care-providers are less vulnerable than those in need of care. but how much longer will this be the case? without wishing to equate indescribably difficult lives with professional hazards, the question that poses itself is not “who will take care of the care-seekers if the care-providers themselves become care-seekers on a mass scale?” but “what can replace the practice of care?” much like the (embodied) subject is constituted in language, as well as through multiple, and increasingly impactful mnemotechnical processes, it is also constituted through relations of care or neglect. while self-care is, of course, important, the care, and, conversely, the neglect of others, has constitutive effects. at stake here is thus not a particular case, or a dozen cases, but the destruction of bio-social tissue on a grand scale, comparable to 65 mitchell s. ross, “rethinking diplomatic immunity: a review of remedial approaches to adress the abuses of diplomatic privileges and immunities” in american university international law review, 4:1 (2016), 173-205. 66 interview with patient x, bethlem royal hospital, london, 11 july 2014, np. author’s private archive. 67 see alain ehrenberg, the weariness of the self: diagnosing the contemporary age (montreal: mcgill-queen’s university press, 2009). 68 see byung-chul han, the agony of eros (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2017). the journal of somaesthetics volume 3, numbers 1 and 2 (2017) 84 natasha lushetich such “grand” necropolitical enterprises as colonization, ethnic cleansing, and covert forms of genocide. references augé, marc. 1995. non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. translated by john howe. london: verso. beck, ulrich. 1992. risk society: towards a new modernity. new york: sage, publications. butler, judith. 1997. excitable speech: a politics of the performative. new york: routledge. certeau, michel de. 1988. the practice of everyday life. translated by steven rendall. berkley: university of california press. derrida, jacques, and eric prenowitz. 1995. “archive fever: 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1997. the architecture of deconstruction: derrida’s haunt. cambridge, ma: mit press. introduction to issue number 1: h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll id.gjdgxs h.1fob9te h.gjdgxs _goback h.gjdgxs h.30j0zll h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs h.gjdgxs