Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research

The Timed body

Ellis, S. (2008) The Timed body. Extensions: The Online Journal of Embodiment and Technology. 4

Item Type: Article
Abstract: The central component of The Timed body is an interactive sampling of the performance, web and video project, Four Acts of Violence Leading Up to Now (Ellis, Corbet & Leach, 2006). The project, which premiered in Melbourne in September 2006, considers personal and glancing perspectives on the microtraumatic impacts of time. This account of Four Acts in The Timed Body incorporates animated, aural and videographic components of the project, whilst talking to conceptual concerns for Henri Bergson’s la durée. In it I attempt to sidestep the spatialised (mapped) body in which humans act as containers for memory, and instead offer a consideration and performed articulation of a temporality of remembering. Although memory is conventionally linked with time, for Henri Bergson, time “is the spatialized, measurable counterpart of space, the other of space” (Grosz, 2004 p.279) that is already marked by the penetration of space. In Bergson’s efforts to distil or untangle time and space he proposes ‘the data of consciousness’ as being temporal, in other words duration (la durée). Duration incorporates, by definition, newness and creativity and it is where “our memories are forged” (Cariou, 1999 p.102)
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater > PN2041 Performance studies
G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation. Leisure > GV1787 Ballet. Modern dance
Creators: Ellis, Simon
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: Faculties > Faculty of Arts, Science & Technology > Journalism, Media & Performance
Date: 1 June 2008
Date Type: Publication
Journal or Publication Title: Extensions: The Online Journal of Embodiment and Technology
Volume: 4
Language: English
Status: Published / Disseminated
Related URLs:
References: * Bergson, H. (1988a). Creative Evolution. London, Macmillan. * Bergson, H. (1988b). Matter and Memory. New York, Zone Books. * Bergson, H. (1996). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Whitefish, MT, Kessinger Publishing. * Cariou, M. (1999). Bergson: The Keyboards of Forgetting. The New Bergson. J. Mullarkey. Manchester, Manchester University Press: 99-117. * Ellis, S. (2008). Gertrud. London, The Place. [Performance]. * Ellis, S. and Corbet, D. (2006). dad.project. Melbourne. www.dad-project.net. [Webart]. * Ellis, S., Corbet, D., and Leach, P. (2006). Four Acts of Violence Leading Up to Now. Melbourne, Dancehouse. www.fouractsofviolence.net. [Performance/Webart]. * Ellis, S., Corbet, D., Bott, S., Lally, C., and Mitchell, S. (2006). Inert. Melbourne, Dancehouse. [Performance/Installation]. * Grosz, E. (1999). Thinking of the New: Of Futures Yet Unthought. Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory, and Futures. E. Grosz. Ithaca, Cornell University Press: 15-28. * Grosz, E. (2004). The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution and the Untimely. Crows Nest, NSW, Allen & Unwin. * Guerlac, S. (2006). Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henry Bergson. Ithaca, Cornell University Press. * Marks, L. U. (2002). Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. * Matthews, E. (1999). Bergson's Concept of a Person. The New Bergson. J. Mullarkey. Manchester, Manchester University Press: 118-134. * Mullarkey, J. (1999a). Bergson and Philosophy. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. * Mullarkey, J. (1999b). La Philosophie Nouvelle, or Change in Philosophy. The New Bergson. J. Mullarkey. Manchester, Manchester University Press: 1-16. * Moore, F. C. T. (1999). Magic. The New Bergson. J. Mullarkey. Manchester, Manchester University Press: 135-144. * Schwartz, S. (1992). Bergson and the Politics of Vitalism. The Crisis in Modernism: Bergson and the Vitalist Controversy. F. Burwick and P. Douglass. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 272-305.
URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/1972

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