field studies: process

by elena gianotti

 

‘Field Studies’ is for me a process of combustion.
Combustion is a chemical process in which a substance reacts vigorously with oxygen to produce heat and light, seen as a flame.
It is like burning the fields after the summer to prepare the ground for the following spring.
The ash will enter into the soil and restart the living processes.
I am still burning at the moment.
Ash goes everywhere, covers surfaces, remains suspended in the air for ages, it is transported by currents of movement and it also enters thin spaces, inaccessible to other gross matter; I can compare ash with my process of embodying movement and digesting thoughts.
Dance is a thin matter. Perception, impression, thought and action come all together and in any order at the same time.
Every thought or unthought-of action in ‘Field Studies’ will deposit into some layers of my body.
I am just waiting for this to happen.
So ‘Field Studies’ is our dialogue, of Michael and I, about exhausted thinking to burn and allow the ground, maybe just the neuromuscular system? to re-nurture itself.
I don’t neglect any former form: nothing about my burning dance is lost or thrown away; it is given the possibility to chemically re-experience growth and maturity.

published 29 February 08  /  2 comment(s) with 0 new

 

1.

Elena,
My own feeling is that Nature does not favour one state over another, but she loves process. The idea of being engaged in process is paramount and far outweighs the general supposed need for static, flatline equilibrium. For the possibility of harmonics to generate with ourselves and with our surroundings, process is key to this synthesis.
Great article.
Alexis.

by Alexis at 3 March, 11:11 AM

2.

“For Bion, the ´undigested facts´ or beta elements are stored in the form of bodily sensory traces. They are raw elements of sensuous and affective impresssions in which psychic and physical are as yet indistinguishable. As such they can only be dealt with by projective identification as a form of primitive communication. It has been one of his main contributions to remind us, that much of our lives is lived without thinking outside significant emotional experiences. And that we often busily go about our daily activities without thinking about it´s meaning, surrounded by a mass of undigested facts. Bion insists: “It is important to distinguish between memories and undigested facts´.” (1962) Because they are not genuine memories, they are unavailable for thought and consciousness until they are transformed by alpha function, that is by the interpretation of the selected fact in order to become recycled as genuine memories which can then acquire the possibility of retranscription and be forgotten or recalled. Learning from an emotional experience is indeed a retranscription so that “the mind builds itself, bit by bit, by digesting experiences” (Meltzer, 1984) and the Grid will graphically describe the whole progressive process going from corporeity to levels of greater abstraction. But when the ´undigested facts´ are not transforned (or metabolized), they remain in the words of Alvin Frank (1969) “The unrememberable and the unforgettable” and in the words of Edelman´s the ´remembered present´ (p.120) characteristic of the ´primary order of consciousness´.”
Guy da Silva, The Emergence of Thinking: Bion as the link between Freud & the neurosciences
http://www.psyche.com/psyche/mt/archives/000020.html

by jeff g at 4 March, 09:37 PM

 



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