The blindness paradigm: The visibility and invisibility of the body

Abstract

This article focuses on the theoretic issues of the collaborative project Canç[otilde]es dos Olhos (Paulo C. Chagas composition, Johannes Birringer choreography and video, Veronica Endo dance) in the realm of the Interaktionslabor, a laboratory for interactive media, sound, design, digital video, telecommunications and performance on the site of the former coal mine in Göttelborn, Germany. The work, inspired by the novel Blindness by José Saramago, explores the cognitive and aesthetic dimensions of blindness in terms of embodiment experience. The project was conceived as an ‘intermedia’ song cycle resulting in a DVD and an audiovisual installation. Compositional elements include voice (soprano), processed voice, dance and digital film. Based on the experience of Canç[otilde]es dos Olhos, this article addresses questions of both the visibility and invisibility of the body in the autopoietic process of generating electroacoustic and digital music, and reflects on the relationship between technology and embodied human interaction in artistic collaboration.

Keywords:

• Body
• Embodiment
• Autopoiesis
• Interactivity
• Intermedia
• Electroacoustic Music
• Digital Music

Notes

[1] Spencer-Brown's concept of form is an imperative demand: ‘draw a distinction’ (Spencer-Brown, 1969, p. 3).

[2] The theory of autopoiesis was formulated by the neurobiologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (see Maturana and Varela, 1980, 1987; Varela, 1979).

[3] Luhmann developed the analysis of the functional subsystem of art in several articles and in the book Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (1995), which has been translated into English (Luhmann, 2000). For an introduction to Luhmann's theory of autopoietic social systems, see Luhmann (1990).

[4] Most of the new theories or philosophies of ‘new media’ are focused on visual arts and offer very little, if no insight, to the acoustic domains of artistic creation (e.g., Manovich, 2001; Hansen, 2004).

[5] For an analysis of the evolution of music and sound art from the age of reproducibility to the age of connectivity, see Chagas (2003a).

[6] Rodney Brooks takes a different approach to artificial intelligence in his research in the AI laboratory at MIT; Varela describes it as enactive AI (see Brooks, 2002; Varela et al., 1991, pp. 208 – 212).

[7] Guattari (1992, pp. 11 – 52) introduces the concept of ‘machinic subjectivity’ for describing the impact of machines of information and communication technology on human subjectivity.

[8] For an analysis of the role of temporality in cognition, see Varela (1999).

[9] For the distinction between system and environment, see Luhmann (1984, pp. 35ff,242ff; 1997, pp. 60ff). For the concept of re-entry, see Spencer-Brown (1969, pp.69 – 76).

[10] The distinction between medium and form is discussed in Luhmann (2000, pp. 102 – 132); for an application in the musical domain, see Chagas (2003c).

[11] For a phenomenology of vocal, instrumental and electroacoustic gestures inspired by Wittgenstein and Flusser, see Chagas (2003c).

[12] Interview with John Cage, quoted in Reynold (1962).