Seeing my body so I can feel

“It is hyperbolic, of course, to say that the perceiving body cannot be perceived" (Carman, T. 1999. pp.207)

We find ways to view ourselves in amidst of understanding our own bodies.  I started to explore touch in my daily life for a new work. What I came to realize was that I needed to have bodily self-identification for me to understand the resonance of touch and the localization of that feeling. This is why I perform showing my skin; it is a demonstration to be seen by viewers and for myself to understand my borders.  As I cannot truly “see myself seeing” I can view the body through devises and mechanisms that allow me to re-examine my image of self.  But the form I see is my perception and possibly is not the real or the perception of others.  I try in understanding what histories allow us to make a response to the body and how we view it.  I consider my histories or exchanges that make up my view of myself.  I find that I am more shocked by my image in pictures than in mirrors.  But I made a mental note of the image of myself and that doesn’t include my current state that is that I have a mustache.  The image is of myself with a trimmed beard as this is my usual fashion and has been for 6 years. 

I chose video to display my solo work because I can choreograph the image and present it to the spectator as the  possibility of how I view my body.  I think about the idea presented by Merleau-Ponty “as for my body, I do not observe it itself: to be able to do so, I would need the use of a second body, which would not itself be observable” (PP, 91).  I am not sure I agree that this is the way to discovery self-identification but I do like the concept.  I have chosen to film 5 short improvisations based on the same concept (“The body and feel itself feeling”) from different angles. In performance I will watch these improvisations all at once.  I am interested in what will I see?  I have found myself surprised by my image but the response of a fully dressed figure watching his naked image exploring touch.

        

Once I am on to certainty of self-identification I can explore feeling and resonance.  Touch is emotion, physical contact prempted by feeling.  The receptor of the contact is skin but the resonance of that feeling is stored within the brain.  Memory and proprioception work together I feel in a way that I must indentify the place of contact and the emotion exchange from the event.