16.12.20 Embodiment and disembodiment in my practice
embody
[ em-bod-ee ]
verb (used with object), em·bod·ied, em·bod·y·ing.to give a concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form
to provide with a body; incarnate; make corporeal:to embody a spirit.
to collect into or include in a body; organize; incorporate.
to embrace or comprise.
disembody
[ dis-em-bod-ee ]
verb (used with object), dis·em·bod·ied, dis·em·bod·y·ing. to divest (a soul, spirit, etc.) of a body.
divest
[ dih-vest, dahy- ]
verb (used with object)to strip of clothing, ornament, etc
to strip or deprive (someone or something), especially of property or rights; dispossess.
to rid of or free from
Law. to take away or alienate (property, rights, etc.).
[ em-bod-ee ]
verb (used with object), em·bod·ied, em·bod·y·ing.to give a concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form
to provide with a body; incarnate; make corporeal:to embody a spirit.
to collect into or include in a body; organize; incorporate.
to embrace or comprise.
disembody
[ dis-em-bod-ee ]
verb (used with object), dis·em·bod·ied, dis·em·bod·y·ing. to divest (a soul, spirit, etc.) of a body.
divest
[ dih-vest, dahy- ]
verb (used with object)to strip of clothing, ornament, etc
to strip or deprive (someone or something), especially of property or rights; dispossess.
to rid of or free from
Law. to take away or alienate (property, rights, etc.).
I've reflected about embodiment here, in terms of making an idea visible or tangible.
Stern's assertion that 'When we move and think and feel we are, of course, a body. This body is constantly changing, in and through its ongoing relationships. This body is a dynamic form, full of potential. It is not 'a body', as thing, but embodiment as incipient activity. Embodiment is a continuously emergent and active relation. It is our materialization and articulation, both as they occur, and about to occur. Embodiment is moving-thinking-feeling, it is the body's potential to vary, it is the body's relations to the outside. And embodiment, I contend, is what is staged in the best interactive art.' (Stern, 2013, p2)
So, embodiment can be the idea of an idea - 'moving -thinking-feeling', but there's also an aspect of embodiment that is about making something physical, possibly giving it body or a body. Much of my work has an abstract yet recognisable bodily form, or is made up of body parts, some more abstract than others. Recently I have quite literally been 'giving a concrete form' to some of my ideas! As I have discussed too, increasingly, my whole body is important in my practice - through using my bodily dimensions as a model, to performative making and performance. There is a sense that I am present in my work , even though it is often implicit. I have also written about 14.12.20 presence and absence in my practice, as part of Apparition and obviously there are significant links between that binary and this one.
I think though that if embodiment is about making something physical or maybe 'real', disembodiment, from the dictionary definition, means to divest (a soul, spirit, etc.) of a body.' The implication in this definition is that although there is no physical form, there is something ethereal left - a body, a soul....or maybe that same idea or feeling, the trace or memory of something? This definition uses the verb 'to divest' which can mean 'to strip, deprive or rid' but interestingly, it can also mean 'to free from'. I definitely like the idea of being freed from the physical burden of a body.
I think, as with many of the other binaries that I explore elsewhere, I think my work actually deals with the threshold between embobiment and disembodiment. With my cast feet, for example, I have made physical replicas of my own feet, given them a physical form or embodied them, but for a number of reasons they are actually disembodied. Everything about them makes it clear that they are not my real feet:
- they are body parts
- they are grey, or white or mottled
- they are hard
- they are separated from the rest of the body, they are body parts
It feels as if Freud's Uncanny sits well with this idea of embodiment/disembodiment. I am making replicas of myself which in fact become 'uncanny harbingers of death', the ultimate disembodiment.
"Dismembered limbs, a severed head, a hand cut off at the wrist, [...] all these have something peculiarly uncanny about them, especially when [...] they prove capable of independent activity in addition. As we already know, this kind of uncanniness springs from its proximity to the castration complex" (Freud in Baird, 2013). This is also linked to Kristeva's notion of the abject and Douglas' contamination anxiety.
I also thin there is a sense of embodiment/disembodiment when I wear my Body cocoons and then when I remove them. I am giving (a) body to the knitted form when I put it on, embodying it. It becomes one of my Living sculptures. It's animated, alive. When I remove it however, it becomes what it is, a piece of knitting, disembodied, possibly abject, with traces of presence, yet full of absence. With Body cocoon 1, during the first lockdown in England, in I took a series of photos of the knitted sculpture around my house, which I called Body cocoon: Self portrait, public/private. In my statement for that module, MF7002, I wrote 'Body cocoon becomes my Self, a wearable sculpture, yet also a series of photos of the same, unworn, in my domestic spaces; embodied, yet abject.' and in other reflections, this: 'It is as if it has become part of the private me, my self. Wearing it and photographing it in place of me, a discarded cocoon, in my private domestic spaces enhances this.' I also wrote this in another reflection:
'Body cocoon feels as if it’s part of me, an extension of my body. During the time I knitted it, I carried it with me wherever I was in the house and garden; the physicality of the knitting process means that the mark of my hand is evident, and also traces of me, my actions and the places I have inhabited – dirt, sweat, my hair, spilled drinks, leaves from the garden, the faint scent of suncream – it embodies me. The series of images of the empty form inhibiting those private spaces in my house is a form of documentation of my knitting process. It becomes part of me.'
The object itself is an embodiment of me, and yet it's also disembodied when I am absent... and these thresholds between embodiment/disembodiment., presence/absence all lead to discomfort, according to Mary Douglas.
‘The abject is…the compulsive search for the in-between, not respecting borders, positions and rules.' (Sjoholm, 2005)
Baird, A (2013) The Abject, the Uncanny, and the Sublime: A Destabilization of Boundaries Available at: http://writing.rochester.edu/celebrating/2013/Baird.pdf (Accessed: 30 August 2020)
Sjoholm, C. (2005) Kristeva and the political Available at: file:///C:/Users/TEMP/Downloads/1005927.pdf (Accessed 5 May 2020)
