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ABSTRACT
Dina Robinson
IN TOUCH AND BETWEEN
Throughout this past year there has been a constant thread of touch and somatic practice frameworks in my movement exploration, however due to the global pandemic physical contact between bodies cannot take place. Therefore, I sought to investigate isolated modes of contiguous touch and the impact this has on our relation with our art and between other disciplines. The reason why I am so interested in touch is that not only does it challenge our habits through spontaneity but it plays such a significant role in our lives as it transforms abstract noticing into concrete experiences enabling us to have a greater sense of self, embodiment and situatedness within our surroundings. Not only this, "the immediate experience of the lived body appears to be founded on the sense of touch [as it is] the first or the only example epitomizing the ego’s ability to control and manipulate, directly and at will, its organs of sensation” (Pirovolakis, 2013, p.105) and so as a creative methodology for all disciplines it augments individual artistic/ moving identity whilst providing a common ground to collaborate. Ultimately touch is the essence of life itself as Gerko Egert states “the body emerges in touch. The body is nothing given or pre-existent to touch; it is produced and changed through touch.” (2019, p.88).
Below you will be able to access the methodology and theoretical frameworks underpinning this investigation as well as the scores the artists and dancers embarked on originating from my previous works 'Touch Between...' and 'Conversations with the earth', both of which could not be performed live. Although I originally saw this as a problem I came to realise that we should embrace the process and not necessarily the outcome as no tactile sensation will be the same and so enables us to stay in constant flux with ourselves, others and our contextualised environment. Due to touch occupying an inclusive nature I wanted to uncover how my tactile scores could live within another body and how this can generate embodied movement and artwork.
This project will therefore investigate the ability of touch within the two disciplines to generate that medium and connect the subjective being with a visual object. Not only this, it will generate interconnectivity between artists and disciplines due to it's social construct as it is the one perceiving sense we all have in common through the physical and visceral dimensions (Montagu, 1986). My findings have been collated into a choreographed tactile installation which can be viewed below and will be linguistically expressed on Friday 18th September at 2.30 pm.
**Please note: as the tactile installation page holds multiple videos and images please be patient as it can take a while to fully load ad make sure you have good WIFI connection. Not only this, you will be able to play the 'Decibel negative sound' throughout viewing. Due to its low frequency it will be best to listen through a speaker or headphones.
I hope this will open up your perception and consider the sentient body as a stimulus to generate an embodied approach to art making.
Please navigate your way through the scores presented to you below before experiencing the tactile installation
REFERENCES
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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