Artcetera

Are you experienced?

by Vince Carducci

12/18/2002 8:00:00 AM

Beauty, the truism says, is in the eye of the

beholder. The "eye" doing this beholding is symbolic

of the "I" inside each of us, which is supposedly

separate from the physical body. Especially nowadays

(as a result of the reduction of physical artworks to

pure ideas by 1960s conceptual art), we‚re said to

exist in an aesthetic state where truly anything goes,

given a plausible backstory.

One of the more interesting efforts at countering this

relativism is the new discipline of "somaesthetics"

(soma being Greek for body). Somaesthetics attempts to

understand beauty and art in terms of experience

rather than interpretation, as a product of perceptive

living rather than abstract thinking. And since the

body is the primary means through which we encounter

the world, it makes sense that it should figure

prominently in an activity that takes experience as

its foundation. (The Greek word from which aesthetics

derives is aisthesis, meaning „sensory perception.‰)

The main advocate of

somaesthetics is the philosopher

and hip-hop critic Richard Shusterman, who teaches at

Temple University in Philadelphia and the College

Internationale de Philosophie in Paris. Somaesthetics,

as Shusterman conceives it, covers a broad range of

activities, including fine and popular art as well as

what he calls "creative self-fashioning," i.e.

bodybuilding, piercing, tattoos, etc.

An obvious area where somaesthetics is useful is in

understanding dance. Wayne State University professor

Charles J. Stivale's new book, Disenchanting Les Bons

Temps: Identity and Authenticity in Cajun Music and

Dance (Duke University Press), was inspired by his

years of experience in the sweaty dancehalls of the

Louisiana bayous. From his practice of Cajun waltzes,

two-steps and jitterbugs, Stivale developed a complex

appreciation of a regional folk culture facing the

dilemmas of commodification as its music and cuisine

have entered the American mainstream. This not only

helped Stivale understand the beauty and art in Cajun

culture; it helped him become a better dancer.

Somaesthetics also sheds light on the current Detroit

Institute of Arts blockbuster, "Degas and the Dance."

Degas was obsessed with ballet his whole life and

images of dancers figure prominently throughout his

work. Dancers, of course, must cultivate their bodies

in order to practice their craft. But for Degas,

dancers also represented an escape from repressive

bourgeois society. Many of Degas‚ dancers are shown

nude or nearly so, freed from the restrictive control

of the era‚s burdensome clothing, which often

prevented a full range of motion. Their bodies

epitomize impressionism‚s desire to do away with the

authority of the internal „I‰ and experience direct

sensation. (To revise George Clinton, "Free your ass

and your mind will follow.")

It‚s not a big leap from the movements of dance to the

rhythms of music. The recent Standing in the

Shadows of Motown suggests the "bottom up" ways of

somaesthetic practice. At one point in the film, one

of the Funk Brothers (the studio musicians who played

on nearly all of Motown‚s significant recording

sessions) notes that virtually anyone could be put in

front of the band and have a hit single ˜ that‚s how

important the musical backup was in defining the

label's sound. The movie demonstrates that with

concert footage of performers as different as Joan

Osborne, Ben Harper, Bootsy Collins and Chaka Khan,

all falling into line behind the Funk Brothers‚

groove.

Finally, there‚s activity that's not art in the

traditional sense. At Feldenkrais "Awareness Through

Movement" classes at the Birmingham Community House,

for example and yoga studios, health clubs and

martial arts dojos throughout the metropolitan area

practitioners of "creative self-fashioning" are

unlearning the dictates of the internal

"I" and learning to listen to what their bodies have to tell

them. (Besides being a world-renowned academic,

Shusterman is a certified Feldenkrais teacher.)

Somaesthetics is an especially apt concept for

describing creativity Detroit-style. Besides the Funk

Brothers, there's Detroit's other brand of world-class

music, techno, which dispenses with words almost

entirely, thereby allowing you to abandon yourself to

the beat. (As Tom Tom Club says, "Who needs to think

when your feet just move?") Somaesthetics rules the

streets of Royal Oak and Ferndale in the daytime, and

clubs and raves all over the city at night. It also

helps to explain why conceptual art and its

postmodernist offspring haven't found many believers

among visual artists in the Motor City.

This is not to say that somaesthetics (not to mention

art and culture in Detroit) is anti-intellectual.

Instead, it's based on material effects and physical

processes. Beauty isn‚

it just in the "I" after all;

itis in the entire body, right down to the marrow.

Vince Carducci writes about art in context for Metro

Times. E-mail letters@metrotimes.com.