13th Sep2012

Proprioception and The Body.

by alyssaneuner

In the Farman piece, a section that really stood out to me was the section of proprioception, although seemingly minor, I stayed on this point for a while, thinking of ways this could be understood. A friend of mine brought up this idea of people who are sleep walking, experiencing a dream in tandem with movement, how are they situating themselves in this space? I understand that they are navigating the world, but they are unlikely to navigate it in the same way – does this complicate this idea of situating ourselves in relation to objects and people? Another scenario that we thought of was virtual reality or virtual worlds more broadly? Although my friend argued that this relationship works on a two layer rendering system, I would argue that this needs a sense of physicality – hence the idea of the senses aforementioned. Maybe I’m missing the point here or overanalyzing but this is something that got me thinking.

On page 61 of Still Life in Nearly Present Time, I have to both agree and disagree with Thrift here. The body is an object that gets filled with signs from society. We instill upon every ‘body’ our ideas about it, about them, etc. We label things for reasons many of us have no understanding. I don’t think that takes away from the experience of spatial production or the importance of the body (although he isn’t directly stating this it can be read as such). Although I do agree that the body creates space and is in constant relations with people and objects in the world (Deleuze). “Being in space means to establish diverse relationships with the things that surround our bodies (Gill 1998: 127).

Thrift addresses my issues with Lefebvre in an interesting way – talking about mental spaces. Although at the time my understanding was somewhat crude, I think I have a tendency to agree that the brain aids in the creation of space through unconscious and conscious actions. The brain receives messages or signals, interprets them, and then we (using the term very loosely) act on those interpretations. Except (from my understanding), within Thrift and Farman, both work in tandem with each other.

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