COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author's prior consent. Isabelle Choinière 2 December 2014 1 Choinière INTERCORPOREALITY AND TECHNOLOGY: TOWARD A NEW COGNITIVE, AESTHETIC AND COMMUNICATIVE PARADIGM IN THE PERFORMING ARTS by ISABELLE CHOINIÈRE A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfillment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Planetary Collegium School of Art & Media Faculty of Arts and Humanities December 2014 2 Choinière AUTHOR: Isabelle Choinière TITLE: Intercorporeality and Technology: toward a new cognitive, aesthetic and communicative paradigm in the performing arts. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The goal of this thesis was to reassess the relationship between the moving body and technology, and more specifically, to focus on recent perspectives in the performing arts which inscribe new manifestations and dynamics of cross-pollination between the somatic and technology. According to Dr. Andrea Davidson, 'Such research has rarely been formally identified with the specialised field of somatics' (2013, p.3). The thesis thus proposes to reflect on the experience and conception of the performative body in the link it entertains with technology. Investigating this relationship, it defines a new paradigm, that of an 'interfaced intercorporeality'. This paradigm is constructed with special attention to a different relationship revealed between the interface and the notion of a corporal potentiality or 'interval'. In particular, the thesis focuses on the concept of a 'collective body' based on this relationship and on practical research conducted within the framework of my research, along with the methodology that supported it. The research and creative work that are presented derive from experiments I conceived, conducted and participated in making. My analysis is thus based on direct experience. The relationship between the somatic and technology notably led me to focus on the notion of embodied cognition or 'bodily knowledge' and for this, to re- examine the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. As a consequence, this return to the experiential also required revisiting definitions given by the Greeks concerning the aesthetic as a reference to sensation and the ability to perceive. The thesis approaches the body as the ground and basis for creating work, as well as for testing the effect(s) that technology has on it. Experiments conducted sought to develop greater sensory and perceptual awareness in order to invest the relationship of somatics/technology in a dimension that could potentially constitute a transformation of self, of one's relationship to others and to the world. Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological existentialism formed the basis for explorations made to forge links between the somatic and technology. However, it is important to clarify that my intention was not to make an analysis of phenomenology per se. It was rather referenced as a means to explain the framework of my research in relation to lived experience, sensation, and specifically, to my creative approach involving new technologies. Merleau-Ponty's methodology includes subjective, first- person accounts of 'lived experience'. Third-person accounts, or so-called 'objective' positions, are also included. These accounts are then shown to evolve towards an ecosystem of interaction and movement in order to experience and test the production of theory and practical experimentation involved in the methodology I adopted. The thesis incorporates knowledge from several disciplines, but principally from the field of dance and technology. Highlighting sensorial and perceptual phenomena related to the transformation of the body through technology and subjective experience, it takes into account an interdisciplinary perspective that is linked to this problematic. The thesis begins with an introduction to phenomenology in which the concepts and positions of Merleau-Ponty are outlined, including those of anti-dualism, the lived body, the ontology of the body, corporeality, intercorporeality and the flesh. Chapter 1 looks 3 Choinière at the evolution of this philosophical movement throughout history and continues with a history of the body in phenomenology, an analysis of certain applications of phenomenology in the field of dance and subsequently, in the specific field of dance related to technology. Chapter 2 comprises a literature review. It also presents the bases of reductionist thinking, the proposition of a return to integrative thinking and issues concerning instrumentalisation, the double and the complexification of the self. It further examines the history of ideas surrounding the relationship between the body and technology, notions of the real-virtual-actual and a history and problematics of the interface. It concludes with a presentation of theories on the notions of potentiality, the interval and real-time. Chapter 3 presents my artistic background, an historical overview of the trends and principal ideas that have influenced my work, as well as an examination of the field of dance and technology from the point of view of its history and more recent developments. Chapter 4 is dedicated to an analysis of the research methodologies employed in the practical research for this thesis and identifies related issues. An analysis of problems encountered with existing methodologies notably highlights a need to invest in other methodological modes for practical research of an interdisciplinary nature. The chapter continues with a presentation of some of the methodologies currently used in the field of dance related to technology. The principles underpinning the specific creative research methodology I experimented with are then presented, proposing an adaptation of the aforementioned methodologies in order to respond to the dynamics of collective research of an empathic nature that are specific to my approach and also in order to invest in the link between the somatic and technology my project proposes. This proposition modestly attempts to respond to the lack of methodologies observed in the field of artistic practical research. A discussion of the experimentation involved in the practical research for the thesis is made in Chapter 5. Two creative experiments are analysed. Their aim was to investigate and develop a collective physical body composed of five dancers in constant contact, whose movement and relationships create what I call a 'collective sound body'. This collective entity produces sound in real-time which is simultaneously spatialised. The analysis takes into account the ways these two bodies are interdependent and constantly interrelated. Schematically, the first experiment served as a basis on which to found principles related to the collective body, while the second experiment developed them. The chapter further outlines creative strategies that were employed to test principles of self- organisation linked to sensation and stemming from the somatic techniques employed. It also returns to some of Merleau-Ponty's main concepts that were implemented and tested in performative experience: intercorporeality, the lived body, the dynamic of continual transformation and the principle of coexistence. Lastly, Merleau-Ponty's investigation of sensation and perception and his concept of sensory chiasms are related to the experiments' multisensory exploration and theme of intersubjectivity which are then proposed as leading to the possibility of intercorporeality. Chapter 6 forms the conclusion and seeks to identify new knowledge generated in the thesis. Essentially articulating another vision of the performative body as 4 Choinière developed through its contact with technology, the findings, both practical and theoretical, bring to light a different understanding of the body rendered through a dissolution of psychophysical borders in the development of the performative model I called the 'collective body'. The thesis further proposes that the 'collective body' and its evolution as the 'collective sound body', open up the path to a new approach to interfaces and further, to what I propose as a theory of interfaced intercorporeality. This research aims to reintroduce the body and its specific intelligence in the understanding and building of relationships that can be renewed. The technology used in these experiments was considered as a physicality and the activator of a reconfiguration of sensory-perceptual processes that the thesis argues can lead to the final paradigm of 'interfaced intercorporeality' it proposes. References to the documentation included on the DVD are found throughout the thesis but mainly in Chapter 5. Along with the theoretical research presented, the two artistic explorations created are documented on the DVD. 5 Choinière Table of Contents page Executive Summary 3 Table of Contents 6 List of Figures 16 Acknowledgements 19 Author’s Declaration 21 Introduction 22 An overview of my training 22 An ontological opposition 24 The interdisciplinary context of Montreal 25 The international interdisciplinary context 27 Somatic techniques: my body as ground of exploration and experimentation 28 The question of duality 29 The subject of the thesis 30 Issues raised 31 Hypotheses 32 Conclusion 35 Organisation of the thesis 37 1. CHAPTER I – PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE EXISTENTIAL CONTEXT 40 1.1. Introduction 40 1.2. An overview of the evolution of phenomenology 42 1.3. A history of the body in phenomenology 43 Dualism and the birth of the body 45 Subjectivity 48 The lived body 49 Sensation 49 Perception 50 Merleau-Ponty’s ontological questioning 51 Corporality and corporeality 51 The principle of reversibility 54 The Flesh 54 Intercorporeality and the principle of coexistence 55 The Pre-reflective 57 1.4. An overview of the application of phenomenology in the field of dance 58 1.4.1 The lived body in dance 61 6 Choinière 1.5. A phenomenological view of dance and technology 62 1.5.1 The performative attitude as a principle of risk-taking 62 Towards an approach of transformation versus representation 64 1.6 Other contemporary approachs to phenomenology 67 1.7 Merleau-Ponty’s three sensory chiasms 72 The sensory chiasms 72 The first chiasm: intrasensorial 73 The second chiasm: intersensory 73 The third chiasm: parasensory 74 1.8 The question of multiple intelligences 76 1.8.1 Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences 76 Intuition 78 1.8.2 Empathy and intersubjectivity: a strategy of learning and recognition 79 Phenomenology and corporeality 82 1.8.3 Principles of the body’s self-organisation 84 1.8.4 The somatic and its principles 85 1.9 Summary 90 2. CHAPTER II – THE MEDIATED BODY IN THE ERA OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES 93 Literature review – Elements for a theoretical foundation and basis of practice as research 2.1 The problem of reorganising knowledge within the discipline 93 2.2 A few historical passages to frame the issue 94 An integrative position 95 2.3 The question of instrumentalisation 96 2.4 On the relationship of the body and technology: a look at the history of ideas 101 The problematic of the double: introduction 103 2.5 Historical precedents: the body and technology 104 The body from within 106 An introduction to the question of the invisible 107 The sixth sense of movement: the moving body and perception 108 Interior/exterior: introduction 109 Flesh, corporality and corporeality in the light of technology 111 Activation of the carnal body through the experience of Technology 113 2.6 The real, the virtual, the actual 115 7 Choinière 2.7 The notion of interface: a schematic history of traditional interfaces 116 2.7.1 Development of an aesthetic approach to the interface 118 2.8 A presentation of various theories on the interface and potentiality 127 2.8.1 The interval 128 An aesthetic model based on the approach of aesthesis 129 2.8.2 Suely Rolnik: the notion of a dissolution of psycho-corporal borders 130 Conclusions on the question of the dissolution of surface 131 2.8.3 Corporeal potentiality as proposed in the relationship with technology 133 2.8.4 Real-time 134 The complexification of self 135 Theoretical debates on real-time and time-space 135 The evolution of different types of stage presence 137 Molecularisation 141 Diffraction 142 2.8.5 The ontological shift of the body in contact with technology: introduction 144 Interior/exterior: a return to the notion of the interface 144 2.9 Summary 147 Intercorporeality as developed with respect to technology 148 3. CHAPTER III – DESCRIPTION OF THE FIELD OF DANCE AND T ECHNOLOGY AND INFLUENCES 150 3.1 The bases of my work and artistic approach 150 3.2 An historical context of the field 153 3.2.1 Trends and concepts in the field of dance and technology 153 An international community 153 A discipline to be created 154 Questions 156 Overview: significant artists and collectives 159 Principal philosophical approaches 162 Three periods in the history of dance and technology 164 The precursors 164 The second period (1980-1999) 168 The third period – contemporaries 172 Influences 180 3.3 Summary 184 4. CHAPTER IV – A METHODOLOGY FOR PRACTICE AS IN THE FIELD OF DANCE AND TECHNOLOGY 186 4.1 Towards a methodology of transformation: presentation of the problematics and methodological foundations of my practice as 8 Choinière research 186 Introduction 186 A first problem: the lack of methodologies for creative research 187 A second problem 190 A third problem: the valorisation of objectivity in classical Western thought 190 A fourth problem: finding a methodology that reflects the artistic paradigms of its creator 192 4.2 An evolutive methodology: a process of collaborative research based on empathy as a creative tool 194 4.2.1 A methodological strategy inspired by phenomenology and an empathic dynamic 194 4.2.2 Phenomenological methodology in the field of dance 195 4.2.3 Phenomenological methodology in the field of dance and technology 197 A lack of clarity in the methodological legacy of Merleau-Ponty 198 A modified phenomenological methodology 198 4.3 Presentation of the foundations of my methodology 200 Lived experience 200 Presentation of principles and strategies underpinning my methodology 202 Proprioceptive experience as a guideline for research on the body 204 4.3.1 The approach with performers 206 A surprising problem of training 207 The specificity of my practical approach: the importance of daily physical contact with technology during practical experiments 208 The five stages of my methodology with the performers 211 4.3.2 The Observatory: general approach and work with the researchers 213 Presentation of the main strategies for working with the members of the Observatory 215 A modified phenomenological methodology: meeting the needs of Practice as Research involving technology 217 4.4 Conclusion 219 5. CHAPTER V – STUDIES #2 AND #3: CREATIVE RESEARCH IN DANCE AND NEW TECHNOLOGY 222 5.1 Introduction 222 5.2 A schematic description of the practical research and its phases of experimentation #2 and #3 224 5.3 Analysis of the dance performance: introduction 230 Towards a methodology based on a phenomenology of lived experience 232 9 Choinière 5.3.1 An Aesthetic and historical analysis of models of the performative body 247 Towards a definition of the collective body: an ontology of the body 247 Overview: different aesthetics of the body 247 Trisha Brown’s fluid body 249 The introspective body 250 Steve Paxton’s tactile body 251 Contact dance: one starting point for new performative stages integrating technology 253 The collective body: a first glance 254 The development of my collective body following this model 256 5.3.2 The collective body: an experience 258 Practical information concerning the background and contextual elements involved in the practical research 258 General Notes 258 Video documentation 258 Technical information 259 Agreements relative to the collaboration 259 Notes on the Appendices and videos on DVD 259 General information regarding Studies #2 and #3 260 Study #2 260 Study #3 260 Time line of the meetings and publications concerning the Observatory 261 5.3.3 Sensorial and perceptual destabilisation as a learning Process 265 5.3.3.1 Proximity as a strategy of deheirachisation 265 Space – the placement of spectators 265 Study #2 265 Study #3 266 Development and progression from Study #2 to Study #3 268 Evidence – comments by members of the Observatory Louise Boisclair / Enrico Pitozzi / Elysabeth Plourde On the notion of spectatorial circulation, proximity and effect of the collective body 268 Louise Boisclair On the notion of the collective body, its complexity, the concept of larval, the inchoative and introduction of the concept of perpetual transformation 273 Proximity, a modality for reformulating the perception of shapes and choreographic structure 274 5.3.3.2 The team, kinaesthetic and choreographic choices 276 The team and choice of dancers 277 Study #2 277 10 Choinière