City Research Online

Abstract

This thesis investigates Eugene Gendlin’s concept of the ‘felt sense’, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy on music and Daniel Stern’s concept of ‘vitality affects’ via Practice as Research. The practice is informed by principles of somatic practices from Skinner Releasing Technique, Authentic Movement and somatic voice studies. Set in a performative environment, the artistic praxis called somatic vocalics, brings together two strands: the symbol-and-mark-making strand and the sounding-and-moving strand. How mark-making and sounding-and-moving affect each other is explored and analysed in the mapped and the experiential in-between. The mapped and the experiential in-between are conceptualised as places and experiences, for which words are not satisfactory, resulting in other forms of articulation coming together under the notion of the in between. These other forms of expression are studied to describe the experience of the vocalic self which has communalities with the releasing process proposed in Skinner Releasing technique.

The three yearlong artistic research project that informs this thesis is concerned with the concept and practice of looping phenomena in somatic sounding-and-moving practices. By investigating feedback loops within the research practice, it aims to create a new paradigm for knowledge production within artistic environments and in particular for somatic based research projects. At the core of this project is the development of a new Practice as Research (PaR) methodology with looping phenomena as its main modality. Therefore, looping phenomena is the subject and simultaneously the methodology of this project. The looping phenomenon as subject is coined in this project the voca-moebius phenomenon. Investigated are kinaesthetic and sonic depth factors of the lived experience of the vocalic self in performance and practice which are underpinned by experiential feedback loops. The looping phenomena as methodology termed moebius-like feedback system led to novel emergent forms which are called heuristic diagrams that are suggestive of a somatic based research process. The heuristic diagrams resemble felt states of the vocalic self and are propelled by feedback loops. Examples of heuristic diagrams are live-mapping, somatic annotating, pre-semantic mapping and heuristic diagrams for analysis. Via their shared temporal paradigm of feedback loops, they offer a practice-based solution to the ephemerality of somatic disciplines and thusly extend the traditional Practice as Research model proposed by Robin Nelson. The value of sharing the heuristic diagrams is, to demonstrate that this method itself generates performative outcomes that would not emerge otherwise. Thus, this PhD thesis proposes that heuristic diagrams can be adapted by practitioners within the field and play a larger role in descriptiveness and analysis to become artistic tools to overcome temporal challenges in Practice as Research. It further claims that feedback loops are central experiential models that clarify what Gendlin means by the ‘felt sense’. This finding suggests that this artistic project reveals knowledge that is applicable to other fields of study such as phenomenology and cognitive scientific research.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > MT Musical instruction and study N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Departments:	Doctoral Theses

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