theory - ARCHITECTURAL SPACE / Bill Hillier

Bill Hillier
A theory of the city as object: or, how spatial laws mediate the social constructions of urban space. Proceedings, 3rd International Space Syntax Symposium, Atlanta. 2001


K E Y Q U O T E S

culturAL variaNTS & microeconomic invariaNTS - SPATIAL LAWS confine/restrain &/or generate/extend MOVEMENT

…spatial configurations, through their effect on movement, first shape, and then are shaped by, land patterns and densities. 02.1

…although there are strong cultural variations in different regions of the world, there are also powerful invariants. 02.1

…socio-cultural factors generate the differences by imposing a certain local geometry on the local construction of settlement space, while micro-economic factors, coming more and more into play as the settlement expands, generate the invariants. 02.1

…there are certain invariants in the social forces - or more precisely in the relations between social forces - which drive the process of settlement aggregation. 02.2

…there are autonomous spatial laws governing the effects on spatial configuration of the placing of objects such as buildings in space… 02.2

…social forces working through the spatial laws create both the differences and the invariants in settlement forms. 02.2

The link between [differences and invariants] is […] movement, but whereas the ‘space-to-function’ mechanism was driven by the effect of spatial configuration on movement, the space-creating mechanism is driven by the influence of movement on space, and so can be considered ‘function-To-space’ mechanism. 02.2

…it seems likely that human beings already intuitively 'know' these laws (though they cannot make them explicit), and can exploit them as agents to create social effects through spatial behaviours at a very young age. 02.3

…by placing an object in the centre of a space we create more obstruction to lines of sight and potential movement than if we place it at the edge. 02.3

…the principle of 'centrality' set out in the 'theory of partitioning' ~ If we place a partition midway on a line, it creates more - and more evenly distributed - gain […] in the universal distance […] than if we place it peripherally… 02.3

An object placed centrally in a space will increase universal distance and interrupt intervisibility more than one placed at the edge. 02.3

…culture is a variable and puts its imprint mainly on the local texturing of space, generating its characteristic differences, whereas micro-economics is a constant and puts its imprint mainly on the emerging global structure of the settlement in a more or less invariant way. The reason one works locally and the other globally is due to the ways in which each uses the same spatial laws to generate or restrain potential movement in the system. 02.3

…local processes are largely residential [and are] the primary distributed loci of socio-cultural identities, it being through domestic space and its environs (including local religious and cultural buildings) that culture is most strongly reproduced through the spatiality of everyday life. 02.10

…it is the micro-economic activity of markets, exchange and trading that is most strongly associated with the ‘integration core’… 02.10

…the integration core of public space also reflects the spatiality of everyday life, but in this case it tends both to the global, because micro-economic activity in its nature will seek to extend rather than confine itself and also to the culturally nonspecific, in that it in these activities, and therefore these spaces, that people mix and cultural differences are backgrounded. 02.10

This is the critical difference between the two aspects of the settlement creating process: the socio-cultural component is idiosyncratic and local while the micro-economic component is universal and global. 02.10

…why should socio-cultural life generate one kind of spatial pattern and micro-economic life another? The answer […] lies in the fact that the relation between micro-economic activity and space, like the relation between culture and space, is largely mediated by movement, but micro-economic […] in a universal and global way, culture in a local and specific way. 02.10
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my observation key terms in this in respect to movement are ‘extending’ and ‘confining’ – that culture confines activity and specifies it in particular ways, whilst micro-economic activity extends interaction and movement through the use of generically designed spaces – the question for me is: whilst ‘variable’, i.e. culturally specific, movement can be easily identified, what do ‘invariable’ movements look like in micro-economic environments? And doesn’t ‘invariable’ in this context simply indicate a new kind of culture, the ‘globalisation’ culture, which is different from something like a biological invariant? Given that people act differently in these different environments (i.e. residential and micro-economic), does this gradually produce a dissolving of this divide? Does the global eventually invade the local and produce an equilibrium that dissolves and amalgamates the two? I guess this is an impossibility because in such a situation all differences would disappear.

theory - PHENOMENOLOGICAL SPACE / David Morris

David Morris
The Sense of Space. Albany: State University of New York. 2004

K E Y Q U O T E S

TOPOLOGIES OF expression & enveloping - PHENOMENAL GEOMETRIES OF THE BODY

The sense of space is the basis of all social experience and of perceptual experience in general. vii

...from the crossing of body and world to space via living perception. 5

…the geometry of the world, the structure of lived space, is not reflective of a mathematical geometry, but of a living, ‘phenomenal geometry’ of the body… 101

The lived body ‘sums up’ space as lived space. 101

What counts in this expressive ‘geometry’ of the body is the way that life takes up parts spread out alongside one another and envelops them in one another through movement as a unified whole that expresses an attitude towards the world. 102

…body-world movement generates envelopes of perception: an inner envelope in relation to the body as place, an outer envelope in relation to larger place… 126

…our sens of depth ultimately expresses a deep grammar of body-world movement… 126

…the sens of depth is… rooted in the crossing of the body and world, and is labile... discovered only in an expressive body, and in a nature in which movement gives rise to expression. 127

Our study suggests a pre-objective, bodily care, a care in movement. 127

If our being were not fundamentally care, then there would be no world and no objects. 127

…the topology of enveloping stretches our body in space and time [and] roots us in place… 127

The moving body 'translates' things in terms of its own movements… 127

…in the point where world and body cross, we do not quite have complete volumes meeting, but volumes moving together to generate envelopes… 127

If, as Merleau-Ponty might put it, I see the mountain, it is the mountain out there that makes itself be seen in me. 128

…in terms of body-world movement, […] by thinking that this reversibility is a marker of a care in movement, […] body and world give themselves to one another in order to move back and separate. 128

…the cultivation of place "localizes caring," and this suggests an intimate connection between care and place, one that would be rooted in the body. 128

…the topo-logic of a body that senses depth is not merely a topology of functional envelopment but of caring in movement, care in place. 128

...the moving engagement with the world implies earth, something that supports habitual body-world movement. 149

Facing is […] an index of responsibility and care in the deep grammar of our facing bodies. 154

…the topology of residing, and our sens of orientation via our bodies, open into an ethical dimension, and so too does our sense of space. 154

...our basic concerns - sexual, political, ethical, and so on - are often put in terms of orientation. 158

The deep grammar of the body surfaces in our words. 158

Metaphors of depth, solidity, volume, and expansiveness are used to describe someone’s being, whereas metaphors of orientation are used to describe their relation to their being in the world… 158

Our sens of orientation thus involves a moving care for place in the face of others […] habitat is the topic of ethology. 158

[The] ethical dimension of lived space [comes from] turning to developmental psychology and studying how our sens of space develops through moving and growing, by showing how care in movement is integral to development and facing others... 158

…the topology of concern [is] a link between posture, concern an emotion, over the course of development. 159

…the developmental crossing of the body and the social world [is] not simply kinetic, but involves emotional care in movement. 172

…our sense of space sways with changes in our emotional, social, moving, and postural relation to the world. 173

The ethical and spatial cannot be pried apart [they] encircle one another… 176

…ethical relation is textured as a doubled openness: it is an openness to the other through an openness to movement, place, the social, nature. 176

Our articulation of a sense of space is thus a movement away from death, a movement that at once faces death as a limit and turns that limit into something else… 177

…the sense of space […] belongs to a moving being who crosses limits and in doing so has a sense of space that always implicitly signals the limit of death, signals something that is there before us that can be neither encompassed nor sealed off. 178

If we feel death in our hand touching the bench, we also feel life in the hand of the other… 178

Merleau-Ponty detects a circuit of care in the phenomenon of double touch… 178

…insights... into the relation between spatial perception, movement, place, emotion, posture, and development […] suggest specific approaches to this relation that would add to existing investigations. 178

Our sense of space is the living sense that we take away from our movement in place… 179

...place is movement moved, movement spread out and traced in the texture of things. 180

In place the moving sens of living, building, growing, verges toward non-sens by being sedimented, traced, and spread out in unmoving things. 180

Lived space is the sens we make of our movement in place, lived space is the sens of place reanimated in our movement. 180

What we detect in lived space is a deeper complicity between space and the moving body. Lived space is what appears to us when we move in place, the sense we take away from place in moving through it. But this suggests that there is perhaps a different sense of space. When we move through place, we encounter a space sensed by our movement, that is, given sense by our articulating movement. When we do not merely move through place, but move in it, dwell in it, perhaps place senses our movement, that is, place gives our movement a sense, direction, in the way that a partially completed puzzle gives pieces a sense that helps us fit them into place. When we dwell in a place we connect with it in a different way, and that connection makes us re-sense our sense of space. I call space of this sort dwelling space, to contrast it with lived space. We could probably also speak of habitual spaces, spaces whose sense depends on habitual movement patterns that we carry with us, habitual patterns insensitive to places we are in. And we might also distinguish space, a growing sense of space that arises when we are learning to navigate new sorts of places, or to first learn how to move in place. 181

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my observation ultimately – place is embedded within the limits that bound it and beyond which it cannot go – a beyond that marks a crossing point between the knowable and the unknowable – a border that both contains and threatens – defines and defies – a perpetual stand-off, marked with tension and uncertainty – place and space are polarities marking the finite and the infinite that interlace the fundamentals of living and the tension point between life and death, bounded and unbounded, animate and inanimate, real and imaginary – the neutrality, indifference, and unfriendliness of ‘earth/nature’ that culture tries to keep at bay – polarity sits at the core of movement – what assists and what opposes it? – a freedom bounded

dance - ALVIN AILEY DANCE COMPANY

SADLERS WELLS

060907

FIREBIRD – Maurice Béjart

THE GOLDEN SECTION – Twyla Tharp

REVELATIONS – Alvin Ailey

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~ Maurice Béjart – circular floor patterns enclosing dancers, or linear tight group facing audience in centre of stage – circles and centre – I can’t see past the ballet! – can’t even apply my theories – lot of stiff forced lines – a very small and repetitive vocabulary of movement - what does this indicate? – emphasis on a static physical geometry of extended lines – symmetrical patterns – how do I view these? Static snapshots – movement as transition, not as subject matter – unless a held position is seen as a kind of movement – what is going on in this kind of dance? It is obviously stylised – very stylised – bodies detouring into experiential places that most bodies don’t do – but what is that sharing, sociokinetically? Symmetry is an emphasis on balance and order – security and stability – it is overt – a projected overt-ness trying to enclose bodies in communities of care – the care associated with being in a group or being enclosed and protected by a group – or trapped by it – or the group sticking together out of vulnerability and fear - the forced extended shapes become threatening, like weapons – pointed weapons, projectiles – accusatory, sharp, directional – self protecting as well as dangerous to others – like the needles on the porcupine – the solo dancer depicts/enacts the hero/martyr narrative, echoed as a double-dose of grace by the second spirit figure emerging upstage out of the dark of the heavens – his entrance towards the audience orients him as a benefactor that has come out of the infinitesimal recesses of the disappearing perspectival vanishing point, and so his passage and offering is directed into the world (as his pathway extends across the proscenium to embrace every seat in the auditorium) – saviour myths rankle me, they are obviously deep-rooted, but in this form lack a sense of personal – even though the dancers are clad mostly by skin, which gives them the vulnerability of exposed-ness – it still looks formulaic, the clichéd modern tribal in a world that has nothing similar to which to connect it to – tradition encrusting truth

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~ Twyla Tharp raises a different range of questions – the movement vocabulary was less restricted, with attempts to free up and animate hips and shoulders by incorporating popular dance-jazz-funk moves – in contrast to the rigid spatial emphasis on formal lines, circles, symmetry, and perspectivalism in Béjart, Tharp is deliberately destroying the boundaries and messing up the pathways as much as possible – a mayhem of activity masquerading as communal celebration and joy – so what of it sociokinetically? This is an avoidance of the circularity of the tribal ritual and a depiction of the business of the city street – celebration of life in the overcrowded congestion of the metropolis – narrow passageways, near misses, not enough time to engage with others other than emphatically and with impact – in attempting clarity amidst rush, what is created is a borderline whose edges are continually dissolving into messiness and blur – this is a freneticism faking its own joy because the pace destroys clarity, depth, satisfaction, and completion – life on the run – running is an exuberance, an energy, an abundance, a vitality – but it is also an escape, a departure, a getting away – a lack of commitment to the moment – no staying power – like the dance – flashes of attempted visual impact, like the gloss of advertising – contemporary advertising in the capitalist metropolis is about sex, impact, and shine – the costumes were skimpy shiny gold – reference, like Béjart, but this time with lots of lifting and partnering as the central activity, to mythologising human life as communal and vital – but the smiles are the smiles of professionals (the professional politician, the professional salesperson, the professional celebrity, the professional performer) and were echoed on my face as a grimace

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~ Alvin Ailey freed up the space in a more nuanced and crafted way than the other two, albeit conventionally – the movement fitted the dancers more securely, perhaps the material has been performed more often – what did I see in terms of my sociokinetic agenda? The same emphasis on creating a body world peopled by the architecture of movement – as with Béjart, the group featured as a community, but the tribal was given an overt Christian subjectivity, colonised – sensuality was present in this as a current and a flow, represented tangibly in the river section/symbolism, that streamlined sexuality with spiritual grace, a device that sublimates it – and craftily incorporates it into the camp of the opposition – use of diagonal, sultry swaying steps, lack of fear of pause and slowness, stillness’s that weren’t forced – deliberate use of time, but a time that suggests unhurried travelling, but still purposeful – it’s a pulling back that is about moving forward in a coordinated way and making do – climaxes strangely with men and women in church in synchronised uniformity of attire and attitude – individuality that pits the sexes against each other but centralises and elevates the women as the guardians and moralisers overseeing the swaggering men circling beneath them – a climax of regimentation in the grid-o-sphere – boxed by the urban trap – a community populated by the innumerable nuclei of two – being faithful to partner and lord – the transition from river to temple – natural to urbane

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dance - AKRAM KHAN

RUSH [ on video ]

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~ made up of a lot of sudden changes of speed – eruptions and bursts of movement

~ intricate movement structures – strongly punctuated with stillness

~ maintains a consistency of vocabulary – flourishing spiral hands and arms – mostly vertical in posture and standing

~ structurally triangular and diagonal

~ music keeps a tension, and sudden lighting changes and interjections keep the momentum pacey

~ sociokinetic – linear, no contact, but sameness of being (all dressed and move the same) – 2 men / 1 woman – but this bears no relevance to the theme – androgynous neutrality of movement and energy inclined towards the energetic and ejaculatory

~ strong clarity and linear definition of movement – when dancers slightly out of sync in unison moments, it doesn’t make it problematic

~ geometrical with organic twists and curves that resolve back to the linear or erect

~ designed within the space – it sits presentationally for viewing – it swims within the frame of its edges – other than when they enter at the start from out of frame (off stage)

~ moments of swaying suspension (the piece is about hang gliding)

~ flourishes and stillness’s

~ sinking, twisting, hand curving gestures, round upper body and head, animal postures elongated occasionally along ground with isolated actions of the joints a la Forsyth, long straight arms – spinning motif like a propeller – tilting forward motifs – emphasis on held lines and planes – horizontal, sloping, angled

~ at the start the dancers assemble and look at the performing space from audience’s edge, and then abruptly finish here at the end of the 1st section – reminding the audience of the start

~ piece finishes asymmetrically and inconclusively near downstage corner by the audience looking diagonally off stage over their heads – anti-dramatic contrast to dramatic closure of 1st section

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dance - YAEL FLEXER

300807

INFORMAL SHOWING OF NEW WORK BY CHOREOGRAPHER YAEL FLEXER, FEATURING 2 DANCERS, IN THE THEATRE AT CHICHESTER UNIVERSITY

~ strong physical geography

~ rich movement melodies on the bodies

~ tight piece

~ structurally well put together

~ cross focus between audience and space – its volume and presence

~ weaving pathways

~ networking that knits the full span and depth of its surface

~ self-avoiding that attacks the space in get-out-of-the-way expansions that spiral down to moments of walking round each other, or grabbing hips to pull the other person behind

~ the themes are space, its emptiness made into a subject and its independent volume and presence marked by the dancers standing at the edges looking in - also, when it is empty, its is lit brightly in its own separate colour wash

~ the space is a player/performer in the work

~ the space is stage, viewing place, to be viewed, and to present

~ hence the small cube of light at the start followed by the same small cube with the dancer in it, which then expands to fill (become) the whole space - as does the dancers’ movement

~ this theme is restated again as the conclusion to the work when the small cube reappears after the dancers have left

~ intelligent choreography with a simple task/agenda of spatial investigation/deconstruction in respect to its persona and function as a viewing/performance space for dance

~ the geographical location is added to by the moving geographies/architectures of the dancing bodies who provide further volumes, masses, arches, and pathways that are moveable, malleable, and transient

~ the dancers share the same technical vocabulary as each other with occasional idiosyncratic insertions (which always come as welcome tidbits and as embellishments/quirks/discoveries) (- the flapping elbows and outstretched arms over the head with flayed/splayed fingers are examples in this piece) – unlike the bulk of the movement material which is more familiar and generic, and widely available and used as the current/preferred aesthetic style in contemporary dance – it’s a recognisable pool of movement that is fed from the technical training dancers get (what comes first? Does the aesthetic originate in choreographic practice and then migrate to technique class so that dancers can keep abreast of choreographers' needs? Or is it more simultaneous? Or do new nuances and stylistic emphases originate in advanced technical investigations and training?)

~ the quality to the dynamic and mass of the movement is in keeping with the current vocab – edged, geometric, cutting, sudden, circular, abrupt – a relaxed attack that spirals asymmetrically and erratically – with durational elements that taper of their own accord as the internal energy and momentum expends itself naturally (internally expending energy releases) – meaning the dancers have to force-start the dance (re-start their own commencing) each time – this creates a pattern of bursting jump starts dotting and punctuating (serrating) a timeline

~ this is dance that establishes virtuosity as its natural condition and ground-base on which to relax as a casual occupant – the theme becomes a ‘this-is-for-me’ space – the ‘me’ being a dancer first and in this piece, also an androgyne, which goes with the formalist aesthetic (i.e. movement in space first) – these are the raw essentials, instruments, tools, ingredients of the practice – a stripping that reveals the backgrounding of other factors made inessential by this focus (gender is one) (specific non-theatre spaces or ‘other’ spaces, other than those similar to this one, is two)

~ modern art and the hugging of the white canvas closely to its chest, which it wants to show unspoilt by too much picture but just enough to create another kind of fullness in which the canvas features as much as the paint – inanimate and animate co-animating

~ this piece showed great complexity and competency of crafting and artistry but is low on originality, the exclusion of which makes the concept of originality less significant to the artist’s purposes here

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reflection - 100907

MOTION – E/MOTION (this is never absent) – QUALITY OF ANIMATION (go together)

SPACE – TOPOLOGIES (unimpeded – impeded)

- corners
- open places / enclosures (receptacles)
- ascending / descending
- gaps and openings in barriers (glass transparencies and empty)
- barriers and walls, obstacles
- indicators and signs (function enhancers / assists)
- passages and pathways
- compression points
- contact points
ground (feet, lower extremities)
hand operated
proximity triggers
furniture (posture altering)
- textures (smooth, frictional, soft, hard) & colours (dark, highlighted, muted, attractive, distinctive) (also signitive & triggers)
- movement regulators (control flow, speed & density)
- segregating elements (road & pedestrian walkway)
- sound – distance & proximity, direction & orientation, discourse/discursive, sound is a form of touch and an emotion accompaniment (e/motion) signalling (controlling, allowing & disallowing movement)


How much of these are in a choreography?
Kinetic snapshots can dissect an environment mechanically in respect to all of the above – but nothing is arbitrary, everything is driven by intentionality, purpose, and collective/personal narrative(s)
- how do I connect the arbitrary/independent fragments ‘snapshots’ to narrative?
- AND (considering narratives are generated unconsciously in dream and reverie – i.e. they’re a natural psychological/somatic function) connect narrative to inner landscapes as either its biological/psychic outcome/imperative or the reverse – i.e. inner narratives mirror life narratives
- ultimately, this research is all about me getting to know something my way that other people already know about in other ways


so one thing that is emerging from watching the footage of everyday movement is a language that describes the action and the attitudes/intentions that surround or underpin it – there are presently 5 clear factors that I am observing:
- avoidance
- detours
- making space
- violation & approval of touch (touch is sanctified)
- equilibrium

there is an equilibrium state in the body – and in street movement – in the street, the direct route is the equilibrium state – the detour/deviation is a departure from the equilibrium state – in the body, posture has an equilibrium state – movement that takes the body away from its postural equilibrium is a detour or deviation

o a lot of the business of moving is space-making – avoiding is making space – rather than denying and claiming space, it is about relinquishing space to others – deferring – what makes one person defer to another?
o creating space is self-removal
o proximity to structural supports is a blending with that support – an increase in mass, volume, and security to create greater personal security and stability – there is a blending and an adopting of the qualities and strengths of the support
o built environments are designed to calculate and provide as much (meaning as little) space as is needed for the purposes and function of the location


WHAT MAKES A GROUP RECOGNISABLE AS A GROUP?

o it’s to do with a connection that’s visually set up between the members or people in the group
o so this is a connection that merges their mutual spaces
o holding hands is a physical linking device
o but when there is no physical contact, proximity and a matching of physical momentum – matching feet and a maintained closeness – aided of course by talking to each other, or turning towards each other
o do groups have to detour less because they force single bodies to go round them?
o holding hands is quite frequent in partnerships – is this just an affection connection? Or is pragmatic in busy places because they don’t have to detour as much? People that are connected are impossible to walk between so, as a couple, they don’t have to give up as much space as they may as individuals – but couples and groups don’t have as much momentum in more crowded areas as individuals, so they sacrifice space for speed in some circumstances
o you are aware when you go between people who are in groups that you are breaking or passing through connected space – like they own it – the space between them becomes territorial
o connected space is a definite spatial state


socialised groups are about connected spaces – and connecting the space between people

in a mass activity, like a lot of people going through a small doorway, people blend their individual spaces to make or form a large collectively-connected space in which individuals adjust their momentum to that of the people around them

reflection - 290807

290807
o larger groups displace smaller groups
o groups of equal size displace each other equally
o movement and environment interact – can’t have one without the other
o there are countless obvious things about how they interact
o so what am I looking for that is not already obvious?
o phenomenologists are right in their enclosing-folded-enveloped appraisal of reality
o context and culture stand out
o the security of the fixedness of environments enables greater secured-ness in the fragility that movement is – movement is inherently fragile
o demarcating and apportioning space to facilitate particular types of movement – i.e. walking goes here, cars go there, etc
o there are obvious things about when movement encounters other movement – orientations, distances, configurational relationships, displacements…
o all these can be studied but are obvious and don’t reveal anything startling or new
o is there nothing else to see?
o I am looking at something in which there are no revelations…
o and why connect this to choreography?
o how does the dance of the street inform the dance of the stage? – they are already related – they are both about people so will utilise shared laws…
o like economics, there are limitations in space that are designed to maximise utility through restriction not excess – the purpose of the city street environment is for maximum human occupation – not emptiness
o everything is flattened and at right angles – edges are softened (made safer) with curves
o sociokinetic laws – what are they?


if the inanimate and the animate are dancing with each other – one silently and in the background, and the other actively and on the surface – what kind of partnering is this? – it is the stable hand that allows the twirling form – the back across which one can roll – the arms to catch the falling body

environment is the watchful supporting partner – dormant and timeless in its role – slumbering in the immobility of it – like a prison sentence from which it cannot escape – endlessly yawning in the subservience of its duty – laying and spreading itself out just ahead and all around so that what is on offer can readily be seen – like competing shopkeepers waving their wares at prospective buyers – “here I am, a bit of road, walk on me” – “no, look over here, I’m a doorway, come inside” – “ignore them, I’m the footpath, faithfully catching and anchoring your every step”

o kinetic laws operate between silent and blind partners – between the subservient and the pampered – the trapped and the mobile – between attack and a resistance that never falters – or, like a door, falters intentionally – accidents are unintentional falterings (faults)
o of course movement in the world is purpose driven – instrumental – goal directed…


the woman with the umbrella
is carrying her space

protected from the rain
she replaces where it is falling
with a down-pouring of rain-less space

a horizontal blot of moving shadow
her umbrella impotently re-fabricates the darkness overhead
and mocks it with its rain-less exertions



o all this stuff in the street may be purposeful and clear (transparent) in respect to what is happening
o but it is clumsy
o people avoid collisions with others and objects
o it is not smooth
o choices have to be made with care
o it is about constant adjustment
o things avoiding other things constantly
o objects are positioned to be avoided
o avoidance is the dominant physical objective on a moment by moment level – there is constant vigilance about what needs to be avoided – anticipation of calamity relegated to the highly active semiconscious goings on of instinct and peripheral vision
o people steer themselves along paths that open to non-collision
o this avoidance is an avoidance of touch – it keeps the boundary of skin sacred and available only by permission – this keeps ownership of self intact – anything else is violation (violence)
o public movement is about carefully and skilfully controlling violation
o is there a difference between the violation of the animate and the inanimate?
o necessity in the fulfilment of purpose selects/allows the violation of the inanimate
o we will touch buttons, open doors, give or take objects, and do a thousand other things that permit and neutralise the violation of touch
o the ground remains an unavoidable constant – but for the feet alone – other body parts are less comfortable on the ground
o so different parts become accustomed or adapt themselves to violations associated with them, thereby allowing and permitting them, even claiming them – chairs for backsides – numerous implements for hands – clothing, but allocated to specific parts of the body – is clothing a violation of touch? – a pseudo-skin blocking real skin from the violation of the public gaze – what the body allows to touch it becomes a sanctioned violation
o violation of the social code would be walking into other people and bumping, crashing into them, colliding, knocking over, pushing
o social space is full of the absence of violational activity – an ordered constraint is imposed, sanctioned, and understood in physical languages that become very skilled in adhering to and mastering the weaves and intricacies of complex spatial manoeuvrability and motion with and amongst/amidst others [EXAMINE THE FOOTAGE OF THE HEAVILY POPULATED AND CRAMPED CHICHESTER MARKETS IN RELATION TO THIS]
o obviously there is the practical consideration of harm-to-self and self-preservational priorities and instincts at work in all of this – reflecting the presence of CARE that begins with SELF and becomes communal through commonality (Morris) – the evidence/basis in movement of an ETHOS/ETHIC
o the ETHOLOGY OF CHOREOGRAPHY – is still an intriguing concept/term that is pulling me but as yet I don’t know why
o choreography and dance is rife with avoidances
o every curve is an avoidance of the space in its immediate proximity
o a curve is never a directional path – it is always semi- or indirect-ional (also in-directional – it is avoiding what is on the ‘in’-side of its curve – even if something isn’t there – all curves demarcate an inside and an outside, otherwise they wouldn’t be curved)
o but a choice or sacrifice is being made here – a preference to avoid one area of space is to simultaneously exercise preference for proximity with a less problematic location/vicinity
o every movement that is over, around, circular, curved is possible only from the basis of avoidance – you can feel this physically when you do curved or circular movement – it is probably the basis for most dance movement in the body, and the accounting/determining factor for its stylisation – because I can avoid, I can embellish – because I can avoid, I can abstract – because I can avoid, I can go beyond – because I can avoid, I can repeat – because I can avoid, I can flourish -
o in movement, dance takes the longer route (the detour) because it enjoys the journey as much as, if not more so, than the arrival (the goal) – it is a delayed arrival – and sometimes, a delay without arrival – making it just a delay - it is a hedonistic indulgence in the physical act of avoiding that allows greater proximity and access to things that have to be detoured to, to be experienced
o what is avoidance? – it is the next most direct route
o and this is what is seen in the street in the pathways mapped by social movement
o YAY! – now I’ve just done my first reversal – looking at dance through the lens of everyday movement
o every solid in architectural and other environments are there as avoidances, guiding and confining people through the laws of non-contact to the gaps and openings leading to things


this is like treasure hunts – structures gesturing politely through their don’t-touch-me-I’m-contaminated personas to the treasures they protect (24/7) devotedly and tirelessly (dutifully) (they have no choice) and allow visitation to through doors (traps) (lures) – “come buy the treasure, taste the treasure, take some of it away – but leave something behind – you can’t steal it – and we have a never-ending supply – which is why we make it available and easy for you to find – look at our BIG SIGNS – and our BIG WINDOWS - see!”


POETIC LITERATURE is part of the process of this research because it is all heading towards ARTISTIC OUTCOMES as the primary goal – this is not just academic research, which is where my head and focus has been till now – the now prior to this realisation that is – little poetic moments have popped out, but I’ve sidelined them and been uncomfortable with their frivolity – but this is wrong – I am going to make choreographic work that is going be equally engaged with as art (it is already an overstatement to call choreography art – I am stating the obvious - tautologising) - so the mix is equal portions of academic and artistic/personal (because the artistic is personal) – so now my note-keeping can be organised into 3 categories:

- THEORY / ACADEMIC formal / traditional

- REFLECTIVE personal / revelatory / ‘meandatory’ (that’s a nice new word! meandering & predatory)

- ARTISTIC interpretive / creative / unconstrained & uncensored / poly-vocal / imag(in)istic

F O O T P A T H scenario

avoiding is interchangeable with favouring

subject is walking along the footpath
subject favours a small distance on this side
subject favours this side (means avoiding the other curb)

______________________
subject favours a bigger space on this side
subject is avoiding this side

______________________

a volume of space
a volume is not a volume without parameters – in a moving world of envelopes within envelopes, spatial volumes can only be established by avoiding & favouring surrounding parameters


o in dance movement in the body in open space the parameters that are being avoided are invisible
o this is why dance can be made in empty studios and be stand-alone in its application and occupancy of any suitable open/empty space
o the invisible presence of volumetric parameters being avoided in stylised dance movement (– this of course is what Forsyth understands and manipulates/demonstrates so masterfully and so complexly in his IMPROVISATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES)
o this is not a new thing about dance – it has been there the whole time – just never articulated so clearly, overtly, consciously, and intricately in the way that Forsyth has specialised and researched
o this is a contextualisation strategy that famously underpins modernism – the removal of immediate visible socio-cultural parameters in order to make the art object seem out (or ahead) of time


too much is coming out now – I stare and stare at the obvious and see nothing and I despair – what I see is not interesting, and I suddenly doubt what I’m doing – and then I see it – it has been staring at me the whole time, but completely invisibly – it is all about avoidance – this is so obvious – yet it is also not obvious – it is an obviousness buried and forgotten (at least to me – obviously!) – but when seen again, it opens up strong realisations, perceptions, and explanations – it is a resurgence of energy – from a barren familiar uninspiring landscape, suddenly a perceived (and felt) overflow of meaning, insight, and possibility – things sprouting out in all directions completely out of control – it is 1.23 pm – I’ve been trying to sleep for the last one-and-a-half-hours – but have to keep getting up and turning on the lamp to write down the next thought that won’t let me sleep – I want to exhaust the flow because I want to go to sleep – I would actually prefer to go to sleep – but I know from experience that if I don’t write these thoughts down, the subtleties, distinctions, energy, nuance, specificity, whatever, will be lost tomorrow – memory failure will erase two-thirds of my semi-sleeping realisations – I guess this is REFLECTIVE PRACTICE in action – now I will sleep – PLEASE! [nothing comes after this line tonight]


WRONG
I keep lying down in my bed, facing the wall, with my back to the writing pad (avoidance), but I had to get back up to write this…



o so environments are jam-packed full of ‘avoid me’ and ‘don’t avoid me’ signs – similarly, so is dancing
o dance is continually structured around the avoidance of invisible volumetric spatialities – or rather, the complex physical circumnavigating of these, produces it as art
o a dancing figure at full flight and in full splendour is all about ‘get out of my way’
o this thinking of dance in terms of ‘avoidance’ and ‘getting out of the way’ reminds me of a classic anecdote that an actor friend told me – he was an extra in an Australian ballet company’s version of Petroushka many many years ago – he had a very small part as a costumed bear in the crowd scenes – he was standing one night in the wings watching the action on stage when a thickly accented voice behind him said “Get out of the way cunt!” – he turned and it was Rudolf Nureyev, who was the company’s megastar guest artist, in full splendour about to make his entrance, but the costumed bear was in the way – I feel apologetic quoting an extremely objectionable expletive, which, coming out of the mouth of someone whose god-like stature at the time represented the very soul and spirit of dance, not to mention the implications associated with his choice of body part to denigrate in respect to dance as a feminised art form (– all of this is a very fertile essay in itself that has a lot of stuff that could be unpacked) – the story re-enforces a structural requisite/determinant/preoccupation/enjoyment of dance that this discussion of avoidance highlights – the words “get out of the way” by this famous dancer just before his entrance also speaks to dance’s destructive kinetic momentum (not just hierarchical prejudices and misogyny), an art form built around complex physical understandings of how to manipulate and play with the laws of avoidance