1.8
1.8
Joy (Material Sensing) 2017
HD video without sound
The shape of this skirt is quite different to the dress that Sam wore in the first session. Joy’s skirt projects outwards, away from the body. Sam’s above was cut close to the body, particularly close to the hips. Notably, Sam’s tactile exploration discussed above employed contact of the open palms to press and smooth the body, indicating the use of hands and their tactile sense to survey or assess. This movement also suggested the tactile sense was oriented towards the body beneath the textile. Joy’s touch is via the fingertips and pads and explored the tensioned surface of the fabric. This takes place in the following way.
Her first action involved pinching fabric between the fingers and drawing it out towards the sides of her body. This created a tensioned skin or membrane, while the second set of movements is directed towards an exploration of the surface, as if ‘playing’ the surface of a small drum. Her finger pads gently tap the surface, although not to produce sound, but to explore its surface, to examine or test the limits of the tension with tiny applications of pressure. In both cases there is no mirror to observe oneself and it is arguable this modality of touching gathers information about the status and appearance of the body. The touching maps the exterior limits of her dressed body, which can be observed in the silhouette which outwards projects from her hips and body - analogous to the woman wearing the hat with the feather 6 relayed by Merleau-Ponty , where the exterior limit of the skirt, would not be experienced as the cutaneous surface of her legs plus the indeterminate amount of textile beyond, but rather the body’s incorporation of the skirt as the exterior threshold of the dressed body and an interior volume it conceals.
Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the spatiality of the body, articulated in The Phenomenology of Perception is useful to understand the significance of these micromovements. He addressed the variable nature of the body, I in relation to our engagement with material things. For example, things worn or employed by our bodies can augment our experience of space as well as enlarge our perceptual scope. In addition to the famous example of the blind man’s cane discussed above, he also relays an account of a woman wearing a feather in a hat that augments the spatiality of her body in such a way:
that the woman, without calculation, keeps a safe distance between the feather in her hat, and things which might break it off. She feels the feather where the feather is just as we feel where our hand is. (1962, p. 165).
In other words, the exterior threshold of the woman’s body is experienced at the tip of the feather and not at the top of her head. He explains the hat has:
ceased to be an object with a size and volume which is established by comparison with other objects. They have become potentialities of volume, the demand for a certain amount of free space (1962, p. 165).