accidental observations on the corporeality of space
Well I seem to be extremely accident prone this year. In January a (minor) head injury and now I have broken my heel bone. However, there are always things to be learned in the process. Indeed it could be argued that my interest in learning from the novelty of each new catastrophe prevents me from absorbing the most basic lesson - caution. This aside, my two accidents have led me to some interesting experiential conclusions about the relationship between bodily capacities and the construction of spatiality.
My head injury caused me to lose my sense of smell. This is a common effect of head trauma, as the olfactory neurons are particularly susceptible to shearing. Given the relatively minor nature of the injury, I have been working with the assumption that it will come back in some form and, thankfully, this does appear to be the case in recent weeks. However, the initial loss was total and caused a subtle but definite shift in my perception of the world - everything seemed flatter, duller, without nuance. When I first began to smell things again, I could only do so when they were pressed right against my nose. Now slowly, but surely, the world is regaining its emotive depth. The atmosphere around me has density, it is no longer populated only by objects, but by faintly sensed intensities, whiffs, swirls, incorporations. I am beginning to feel like I am inside the world again.
While I have been on crutches several times before (the accidental history of my life is long and colourful) this has to qualify as by far the most debilitating incident. All the objects in the room now seem to be an interminable distance away. The space of my immediate surroundings is indexed to exertion. I feel like I have shrunk to become an insect for whom the distance between couch and fridge is a journey not a reflex. The spatial ordering of the room appears static, its relations are no longer composed by motive rhythm and flow, but rather things sink into place with varying degrees of inertia, calculated in terms of weight, time and number of hops.
May 14th, 2010 at 7:15 am
why are you such a booboo?
May 14th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Reminds me of the spatial shift of perception in Kafka’s the Metamorphosis. I wonder what form this will take in your work. Have you read The Perfume by Patrick Süskind? It’s a novel full of smells. Actually, there was a movie version that came out last year, I think. But you should read the book. The main character is someone with a hyper-perception of sound–a perfume maker–and in a (trite) plot point (which you should just ignore) he enjoys the smell of virgins. Anyway, it’s an amazing book for its vivid descriptions of smell. Might be interesting to you.
July 4th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Yes I’ve read Perfume - really enjoyed it. And interesting that you bring up Kafka’s cockroach because I have really been thinking about, or more feeling I suppose, the way that differently incorporated beings must bear a totally ‘other’ relation to the world. Jakob Von Uexkull had a word for this reciprocal constitution of sense capacities and life world - Umwelt.