[Dancecult-l] rythmanalysis & sonic war machines

[Nibelungentreue at aol.com]

Have just read some abstracts for the Somatechnics conference organised by 
Macquarie University in Sydney. Couldn't help thinking of the connections 
between speed as an aspect of rhythm and drug use in context of EDMC (particularly 
with relation to current research pioneered by Kode9 on "sonic war machines", 
as featured in previous post on dancecult).
The second abstract typifies a rigorous philosophical attempt to think 
through the relations between corporeality and dance, with particular emphasis on 
whether subjectivity is a conservative element. But if it is, what does its 
relinquishment leave the door open to in EDMC. It worries me that "becoming" in 
such a context might be translated into the "states of exception" featured in 
the previous dancecult post on violence and ravers in Ibiza. But I think I would 
do well here to read Graham's book for other readings on ritual/trance states 
etc.

Best,

Neil Huthnance

Bjorn Nansen
University of Melbourne
Email: b.nansen at pgrad.unimelb.edu.au


Economies of Speed: Bodily Rhythms and the Psychostimulants Modafinil and 
Methamphetamine

Recent theories of mobility, exemplified by John Urry's 'mobilities 
paradigm', emphasise fluidity, movement and speed as fundamental and ubiquitous 
features of contemporary culture.  I want to extend this paradigm to describe a 
parallel set of mobilities operating within the body.  These function according to 
a diverse range of internal speeds and (bio)rhythms that are monitored and 
transformed through a range of technologies and practices.  This economy of speed 
complicates popular understandings of a universal and general acceleration of 
both society and the body, expressing ambivalences in the experience and 
relations of bodies to motility and speed.  

The ambivalence and relationality of somatechnic speed is addressed via Paul 
Virilio's transplant revolution.  Virilio's thesis recalls the 
anatomo-politics of Foucault, however, its focus on dromology argues that while the body is 
treated as something to be motorised and brought up to speed with contemporary 
technological developments, that acceleration simultaneously produces multiple 
forms of stasis, standstill and inertia.  Extending Virilio's insights, Henri 
Lefebvre offers a productive avenue for exploring this nexus via what he 
labels rhythmanalysis.  Part of his critique of everyday life, rhythmanalysis is a 
phenomenological method that draws attention to the ways the body's 
polyrhythmic economy does not exist in isolation, but is related to the conditions and 
environments of everyday life.  

I want to deploy this method to map the economy of body speeds and rhythms 
affected by the psychostimulant technologies modafinil and methamphetamine-or 
what Don Ihde calls 'edible technologies'.  These chemical technologies amplify 
a range of bodily tempos in divergent contexts: modafinil, initially 
prescribed for the treatment of narcolepsy, is currently sold in quantities suggesting 
a wide range of off-label use; while methamphetamine is a stimulant primarily 
used in its illicit form for recreational purposes.  Despite these divergent 
uses, both technologies accelerate the body's rhythms and are used to suppress 
the need for sleep through stimulating the nervous system.  As such I will 
argue that these technologies are imbricated within a wider set of ideologies of 
speed and speeding up the body that traverses both work and leisure 
activities.  I will argue that as speed and motility have become highly valued within 
contemporary culture as signatures of physical capital, status and success, the 
pace of the body is monitored and adjusted via pharmaceutical technologies to 
ensure the achievement of a desired tempo.   Within this paradigm, the 
inability to achieve a desired or normalised pace can result in a range of abnormal, 
excessive or pathological rates of speed indicating repudiation, fatigue or 
failure.


Dr Philipa Rothfield
Philosophy
La Trobe University
Email: p.rothffield at latrobe.edu.au

The question of technique in dance, via Klossowski and Nietzsche

This paper is an attempt to think through the implications of Klossowski's 
notion of corporeality in relation to (modern) dance.  It will cover 
Klossowski's account of corporeal change and interpretation, language and subjectivity.  
These notions will be discussed in relation to issues of kinaesthetic 
practice.  Can movement techniques be considered forms of corporeal 
self-interpretation?   How does corporeality manifest itself within dance?  Is it fair to 
suggest that subjectivity is a conservative force within the context of dance?  And 
if it is, what other resources can be brought to bear upon the question of 
choreographic invention?  These questions will be posed in relation to the work 
of a number of choreographers, including Russell Dumas (Australia), Eva Karczag 
(the Netherlands), and Susan Rethorst (USA).  It will be argued that whilst 
kinaesthetic sensibility belongs to the domain of the subject, choreographic 
invention calls for something else, beyond subjectivity.  What then of 
technique?  Does it belong to the facility of the dancer, or to the means by which 
movement itself is made?
 
 



   
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