Cognition: Mind and Terrain Dissertation BA (Hons) Fine Art 2010 - 2011

Laura Donkers

UHI Student Number: 004505

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Contents

Summary 3

Cognition: Mind and Terrain 4

Concept of Inquiry 5

Methodology 5

Defining biological learning through Action Research 6

1 Thinking with the body 7

2 Drawing – to engage with the present 14

3 Characterising Perception 20

4 Working in the Terrain: Arts Practice 26

Conclusion 30

Reference List 32

Illustrations 34

Bibliography 35

Appendix: Interview with artist Julie Brook

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This study looks at the phenomenon of embodied cognition and asks if it is a

more valuable approach to developing new thinking than mind-based thinking

alone. Through a process of practice-led research by way of the medium of

drawing it will reveal how the individual can unearth new thought paths that

engage with our natural intelligence. The body, through the senses, is able to

decipher with acute sophistication the subtle differences between things that

unveil the heightened ability of our comprehension, but this takes place in our

minds only after the body has processed the messages, meanings and signs

that have engulfed it. For too long we have prized the aptitude of the mind over

the body’s wisdom and this has undoubtedly contributed to the ‘modern

ecological crisis’ (Varela F. 1998) that witnesses our alienation from the world

encompassing us; the world that means everything to us and of which we are a

natural part.

This inquiry is about learning to look from the inside out. To see the wholeness

through having perceived the correlation of the substances contained within.

This is the record of a journey that leads to insight.

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Cognition: Mind and Terrain

Separating the self from our fleshy containers has always been a complex

operation…While we tend to consider the brain to be the seat of the self,

other cultures have pointed to the heart or the liver. It may turn out that all

these guesses are correct and the components of the self are diffused

throughout the body. (Pilkington, M. 2010)

I propose that this desire to separate the self from the body is a perverse aim

and more to do with (falsely) associating the raising of the consciousness with

achieving a ‘higher self’ removed from the contamination of physical daily

encounters. Raising ourselves into the realms of superiority through the

intellectual expansion of our minds’ world; concerned too much with mental

prowess while physical knowledge gained through action is deemed to be of

less significance. Through this investigation I wish to show that we need our

bodies to be earthed, so that they can recognise and respond to the messages,

meanings and signs that flow over it and into it. The danger of living in our

heads in ever developing sophisticated thoughts risks us floating away from the

reality that can be found in the solidity and dirt of the earth from where we

originated leaving us unable to comprehend the world which is our only home.

Leaving us alienated from the very things that feed us, clothe us, teach us, and

protect us. I believe that consciousness is not just a faculty of the brain it is the

faculty of our whole body, which came from the world, is part of the world,

cannot be separated from it and cannot survive without it. John Burnside’s The

Light Trap includes this extract from environmental philosopher Paul Shepherd

(1926 – 1996) who described the relationship as such:

What is meant here is something more mutually and functionally

interdependent between mind and terrain, an organic relationship between

the environment and the unconscious, the visible space and the conscious, the

ideas and the creatures. (Burnside, J. 2002, p.2)

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Concept of Inquiry

In our increasingly encoded, intellectually based lives I want to find out about

embodied cognition and consider whether pursuing opportunities for thinking

through the body can expand our abilities to perceive and imagine.

I am interested in the divergence between thinking about an action before

doing it, or carrying out that action and then reflecting on it afterwards. The

current implication is that the former will lead to a thoughtful but somewhat

predetermined outcome whilst the latter will invite the prospect of uncertainty

leaving the potential for an unknown outcome. In our modern world, as we give

away more and more control of our daily existence to technology that requires

increasingly more sophisticated programming it is the characteristic of

uncertainty that is the element most missing from the equation. I suggest that

the searching out of an indeterminate environment within which to explore

progressive outcomes is of primary importance if we truly wish to enrich our

thinking.

Methodology

This assessment has led me to approach my inquiry using the method of Action

Research. A basis of practice-led research will examine the process of drawing

to determine how knowledge is gained through action. The methodology will

involve me making my own investigation into drawing from the perspective of

biological learning. I will assess the drawing process from a personal point of

view by undertaking a weekly tutored drawing class throughout the period of

inquiry and through personal analysis of the subsequent progression of drawing

practice in an online journal. Further deliberation surrounding the phenomenon

of embodied cognition will reflect on a recent study by cognitive scientists,

consider established theory with reference to Maurice Merleau-Ponty and

others’ philosophy on perception and cognition, and will involve discussion with

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an artist whose professional practice is informed by drawing and whose

working process demonstrates thinking through the body.

Defining biological learning through Action Research

Action Research aspires to balance practice and the physicality of life alongside

theory, finding the connections that weave it into understanding. I chose the

practice of drawing because of the corporality of its production, the

uncomplicated nature of its materials and the ease with which it can be

practiced in any situation. The subject and the manner of its execution are of no

significance within the context of this investigation but the observations and

discoveries that have unfolded are of fundamental importance in charting the

journey of comprehension that has taken place.

I started off by thinking about what drawing is and found it to be a purposeful

approach to gather information and build knowledge of the surroundings by

placing oneself in relation to that environment and inhabiting it. It is a ‘fluid

means of anticipation’ (Lawrence, J. 2008, p.32) that enables one to become

aware of one’s own method of expression and define a personal language,

which in turn has a way of liberating the imagination. But the wonder of it is in

how it works for the viewer too, that revelation of perception being

communicated and being shared. To realise something through making work is

for the artist the most magical of things, but for that same work to instigate a

participatory connection with others, a resonance, is truly remarkable implying

that the biological learning that generated the communication could also be

translocated into the audience. Drawing then encapsulates the concept of

Action Research.

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Thinking with the body

Seeing/drawing is the mechanism which disconnects thinking with the head;

where knowing what one is doing is forfeited in order to fully connect through

the body … Fredrick Franck wrote about Seeing/Drawing as a contemplative

activity and 'how the experience of drawing became a way of making

discoveries about the nature of thinking with regards to themselves and the

world at large'. (Cain, P. 2010, p. 80)

Investigation into the drawing process began by employing the technique of

blind drawing which involves firstly a careful observation of the subject before

any contact is made of the drawing instrument to the support. This method of

training the eye makes a distinction from the normal drawing technique as it

invites an exclusive engagement between the eyes and the hand. The blind or

missing element is in fact the brain. One simply maintains a fixed gaze and as

the eyes travel over the subject so the hand conveys the information via the

chosen medium. This is a worthy practice because it firstly allows the eyes to

stay fixed on the subject it is exploring thus avoiding the disorientating switch

between distance and close viewing (from subject to drawing) and the

subsequent refocus to the area under surveillance. Also this opportunity for a

fixed and sustained concentration engenders a deep connectedness between

viewing and drawing. It invokes embodied thinking that is not about logic,

layout or design, but relates pure observation.

For this semester I have begun working at a new drawing site: … I am

approaching this new large drawing from a slightly different perspective

brought about by starting with 'blind' drawing - looking at the environment

and letting my eyes guide my hand, aiming not to let my head get in the way!

The results are exciting - child like, complex, subtle communications about

what was seen and recorded. It may not turn out to be the way to continue,

but as a starting point it has been an Epiphany! Online Journal (17.09.10)

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The environment of the wood is enclosed and restrictive. The origin of sounds

cannot readily be identified due to the obstruction of the trees. Visually the

terrain is complex. How does one choose where to start the drawing? When

applying the blind drawing method the starting point of the drawing - where

the pencil first marks the paper - will have an effect on the final arrangement as

without observing the drawing’s progress one finds that the marks do not

wander very far from the initial spot (Fig 1). This produces a complex collection

of overlaid lines that have different qualities – hard, soft, intricate or simple –

according to the subject the vision rested on and how it was recorded. It is

interesting that the superimposing of these marks produces an uncanny

resemblance of the wooded environment. How is this possible - that the eyes

and hand can produce a truer picture without the input of the head? No doubt

the answer lies in the conditioning that minds have undergone since birth and

that the brain will continually strive to make logical sense of what is seen. In the

spatially crowded woodland clarity of vision is impaired and the overriding

impulse is to find a way through; to get to a place where lucidity is regained by

organising what is seen into definable shapes that are familiar; make sense. By

Fig. 1: Blind drawing of woodland environment (17.09.10)

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taking away the possibility of organisation and logical understanding, using

blind or ‘seeing/drawing’ (Cain, P. 2010, p. 80) creates an opportunity to record

an image of what it is like to really be there perceiving it.

These new drawings are so different to the work I made last year where I

returned frequently to the same small grouping of trees to record the variety

of ways that light revealed their shape (Fig 2). Those analytical drawings were

laboured as they required constraint so as not to confuse the desired

communication. It was a battle to keep the paper clear of extraneous

information and such a failure when too much had crept in. This is why I was so

shocked when I finally looked down at the first attempt drawing blind. I had

drawn for an hour scanning the wood in a methodical way lifting my pencil off

occasionally so as to traverse the paper, thinking that I was drawing in a similar

way to my previous method. It was a revelation to gaze at what had appeared

on the page. What it lacked in formal judgement it made up for in the richness

of its communication. There was no restraint, no organisation – just wonderful,

free observation and a clear engagement with being there. They were

configured just as my eyes had followed them and not controlled in a

descriptive sense replacing language but as though they had been seen

properly for the first time. Online Journal (18.09.10)

Fig. 2: Analytical drawing of woodland (23.02.10)

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It is in this communication of being there that generates uncanniness in our

minds as we know we are looking at a drawing, but there has been a shift in

perception as the picture feels true although it does not look quite how you

expected. Quigley cites Maurice Merleau-Ponty who referred to this in his essay

Eye and Mind (1964) as ‘awaken[ing] an echo in our bodies … because the body

welcomes them’ (Edie, J. M. ed. 1964, cited in Quigley, T. 2008, p. 2). Light,

colour, and depth are the elements of visibility that are not things that you can

touch or hold but they do exist: have an ‘internal equivalent’ in our body –

equivalence not in terms of representation but instinct.

The surprise at something feeling but not looking quite right has to do with ones

expectation; how understanding seems to be based on what one expects to

see. The modern age is consumed with the power of images. Bountiful,

illustrating images that show clearly the message to be communicated, express

exactly what someone intends and we have all become used to understanding

immediately through this process – getting the picture! This phenomenon is a

sophisticated, direct communication between the eyes and the brain that has

been exploited to an unbelievable extent and with such unprecedented speed

so that now all forms of imaging have permeated our daily lives – and we

welcome them. But within this lurks a perception that we do not have to feel or

physically experience in order to understand. This is a flawed notion as it denies

all the senses apart from sight but also denies the presence of the mind as part

of the body that functions in and is part of the organism that is the world. It can

leave us isolated behind an electronic screen alienated not only from our

sensory selves but the wider environment too.

This paints the dilemma as though it is a modern one but trust in what the

senses convey has been questioned by philosophers and scientists for

centuries. The French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596 –

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1650) indicated that the senses should be regarded with some suspicion

reasoning that truth would be found through the route of ‘arithmetical or

geometrical demonstration’ (Flew, A. 1979, p 89). In order to analyse previously

‘accepted beliefs’ he devised the ‘method of doubt’ (p 90). This method

accepted that some things could not be disbelieved ‘for example that I am here

seated by the fire wearing a dressing gown’ (p 90), until he interposed the

possibility that he might well be dreaming inferring that ‘any judgement made

about the external world … may be suspect’ (p 90). He concluded that the only

proposition safe from the uncertainty of existence was the power of one to be

able to think – ‘I think, therefore I am … I am a being whose whole essence or

nature is to think, and whose being requires no place and depends on no

material thing’ (p 91) and thereby Descartes shaped the theory that the human

mind was distinct and also independent from the body and consequently the

world. This established the circumstances upon which science operates by

applying thought and observation and keeping a necessary distance so that it

can prove or disprove in order to identify truth.

In his letter to the Cosmos Forum in 1998, entitled ‘Why the Mind is not in the

Head’, Francisco Varela (1946 – 2001) biologist, neuroscientist and philosopher,

asserted that a significant element of the ‘modern ecological crisis’ (Varela F.

1998) lay in the detachment Western science had kept between ‘ the mind and

physical matter’. However, he saw that recent cognitive science research into

‘embodied or enactive cognition’ could redress that through a change in

approach from a limited scientific view of the head-based mind as machine

organiser (visualising the body as though it were a computer), to a stance that

the ‘mind is the body in coupled action’ which means that the body’s sensors

inform the body in a collective and responsive engagement with itself and its

environment: ‘the mind is not in the head since it is roots in the body as a

whole and also in the extended environment where the organism finds itself’.

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Recent research by cognitive scientists studying the nature of movement in

dance has revealed that before movement can begin it has first to be imagined.

Through an exciting collaboration between American cognitive scientist, David

Kirsh and the British choreographer, Wayne McGregor – whose personal quest

has been to develop ways to create new dance forms that break away from

formula – they have begun to explore the physical process of embodied

cognition.

What we realised is it's not just about what the dancers do, it's how they think

about what they do, because the first point of departure when you're moving

is actually imagining. So if you're always imagining in the same way, most likely

you're always moving in the same way. If you can redirect the imagining you

should be able to redirect the physicality. Burton-Hill, C. (2010) (Figs. 3 and 4)

Highly trained dancers

are already proficient in

embodied cognition

because of their ability

to respond with instinct

to music and movement,

the language of dance

that forms the image in

their minds largely

governs the movements

they will make. Kirsh, with his team of ‘neuroscientists, cognitive researchers

and computer scientists’ (Welsh, A. 2009) devised a rigorous programme of

research that observed, interviewed and recorded McGregor and his group of

dancers collaborating to create new movement. This experiment would reveal

the complicated process of artistic creation. It also showed that it is possible to

disrupt the imagination by redirecting visualisation into sound images that open

up possibilities for a new language of dance - ‘building images acoustically

Fig 3: Wayne McGregor (far left) analyzes each dancer's movements before

suggesting changes

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rather than visually’ as the ‘things we're taught to talk about in dance don't

actually describe what's happening in the mind’. Interestingly it also testified to

Merce Cunningham’s (American dance moderniser) assertion that ‘chance and

indeterminacy are core artistic tools’.

This research shows that the

development of the imagination is the

key to generating new actions, and that

the lack of new ideas exists because of a

lack of new direction requiring an

entirely new source of inspiration to be

found. Expectation that something new

can be reinvented from the same old

formula is clearly folly. It cannot be

thought about if it is not known about,

but that point, the state of unknowing,

rather than a place to be avoided is in

fact an indication of where to begin: in

essence to be ‘curious and open-minded,

as McGregor described his group of

dancers.

The message is that we can expand our thoughts by corrupting those well-

trodden thought paths. Blind/seeing drawing enables one to create the

possibility for new descriptions of seeing: allows another part of the body to

guide the drawing: the hand and the eye without the head - it feels like an

'other' that makes the drawing but it is I. My eye, my hand - in a state of

preparedness - ready to respond to what the whole self sees: seeing with the

whole self.

Fig 4: 'Far' by Wayne McGregor/Random Dance,

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Drawing – to engage with the present

How do the eyes engage with what they see?

Usually we care only that they work properly and mostly have little concern for

their physical construction or manner of their biology but it is useful to consider

something of their creation and how we use them. According to the Britannica

Online Encyclopedia our eyes have evolved from sea living creatures where the

single-chambered eye or ‘pigment cup eye’ (Photoreception) of the invertebrate

was able to perceive three-dimensionally the subtle light changes in the

shadowy, watery depths so unlike the compound eye of the land born insect

whose sight relies on ‘flickering contrast’ relaying a ‘mosaic image - a pattern of

light and dark dots rather like the halftone illustrations in a newspaper or

magazine’. (The Compound Eye, 2009)

Our vision is an inheritance of the subsequent primate evolution over millennia

developed by orienteering through the three-dimensional ground and tree

world and has led to our eyes being able to perceive the delicacies of form,

distance and depth with clarity.

Perhaps our esthetic feeling for symmetry and balance, our inclination to

abstract the vertical and horizontal lines and to follow them with our

eyes, belongs to the following of trunks and limbs, first with bodies then

by sitting and looking’ (Shepherd, P. 1996, P. 3).

Drawing brings into play intuitive processes that enable understanding to

develop through using abilities already possessed by the body to comprehend

surfaces. This understanding of textures can be read by our eyes in the most

remarkable way and comes directly from an evolved perception of the spatial

environment through the ability to focus and build up a three dimensional

image because of binocularity (the use of both eyes). Each eye has a slightly

different perspective of the view which is processed by the brain into a 3-D

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image. Objects close to the eye will have two very different images from each

eye; objects further away will be more similar; this is how the brain can read

depth.

The sense of continuous distance is due to the continuous array of surfaces

whose reflected light is projected upon the two-dimensional surface of the

retina as gradations into the distance. These are perspectives of texture, or

changes in the density of patterns such as leaves, perspectives of size,

convergent lines, amount of blur...The result of these gradients is what we

perceive as relief or terrain. (Shepherd, P. 1996, p. 5)

Being outside, inhabiting the space provides the circumstances to perceive the

terrain, choosing a vantage point from where the lie of the land can be read so

that a language to describe it can be constructed. How can the artist show on a

piece of cartridge paper with a simple drawing tool the varied texture of the

machair land (coastal arable land) that rolls out before him? It’s a conundrum!

How can marks on a sheet of paper express what is seen?

The eyes scan the terrain and finally settle on a point on the horizon that seems

to be describable. It has form. It is a low hill that has texture and the sky has

opened up above it allowing the sunlight to explain its shape by creating

shadows. One can start to see the land that adjoins it now and how this

happens: if it is flat or undulating, in shadow or in relief, whether it has tone

from its inherent qualities and what does that tone speak of – is it the depth of

the water that makes it seem dark and just how dark is that dark? And that

flatness of the pale machair land denuded after the recent harvest that reflects

the autumn sunlight – how light is that lightness?

Lesson today was a development on ‘blind’ drawing where we constructed an

environment by making frottage marks (rubbings of surfaces) on paper then

pasting into a box, disguising a vessel with the same material and setting that

too within the box (Fig 5). Attempted then to draw the fabricated terrain by

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recreating the frottage marks but avoiding drawing in the specific form of the

vessel that was concealed beneath the camouflage: hard to resist drawing in

what is known to be there yet is in fact unseen! This exercise makes me think of

the way you approach walking through unknown terrain, using your eyes and

feet to tell you if it’s safe to continue; scanning surfaces for tracks that mean

solidity and safe passage. Online Journal (20.09.10)

Fig 5: Constructed environment - frottage on paper pasted into box containing disguised vessel

What does drawing say about how we come to know things?

It is hard to realise it but we look at much of this world through conditioned

eyes. Our perception has been trained to observe what matters to us through a

complex series of taught and self taught signs. According to the individual

circumstances of our upbringing and the ensuing explorations we might make

into the wider world we cannot help but see according to the conditioning that

has framed our existence up to that point.

This conditioning of seeing allows us to recognize who we belong to, our own

group, community, culture; our separateness from others. Our ability to scan

the terrain for what we are looking for tells of a deliberate purpose in our

looking. This sophisticated ability to concentrate on key differences blurs out

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unconnected information. We cannot notice all the things, all the others when

we are looking for that thing.

The artist’s eye overrides this conditioning in order to notice and augment what

was blurred or drowned out; making connections, finding meaning. It requires a

sustained learning process to develop sufficient skill before the moment comes

when the noticing of much can be channeled towards a more refined looking.

When one has become fit enough! However this does not express a return to a

limited condition of seeing because all the developments that have expanded

vision are now part of the amplified perceptive ability.

In his essay about Richard Serra’s drawing practice James Lawrence recounts

Serra’s recollection that as a student his tutor Joseph Albers instructed him in

the ‘discipline of concentrated observation …to look for specifics – red things

for example and only red things’ (Lawrence, J. 2008, p 32) and how this instilled

in him a depth of seeing that has had a profound impact on his view of the

world and the awareness of himself in it.

Richard Serra (b. 1939) is famed for his minimalist steel sculptures that were

influenced directly while studying fine art when he supported himself by

working at a steel mill. His childhood too was indicative spent within the

environs of his father’s garage business drawing disassembled car parts. He

prizes drawing for its ‘immediacy’ (p. 33) and intends that this work be

understood within the context that it is shown, contemplated within the

present; a ‘material presence’ (p. 33). The Videy Drawings (1991) (Fig 6) reveal an

engagement with the precise nature of mark making. They have been crafted

by drawing a paint stick (oil bar) through a wire mesh onto paper so as to

impede the act of drawing a line: ‘I did not want it to ice skate across the page’

(p. 33). The structure of the finished drawings has a mechanized feel that

nullifies the artist’s hand. Devoid of gesture the structure is the drawing –

‘…they do not imply weight: they are weight’ (p. 34) - the material weight of

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the dense paint stick plus the corporeal weight of the artist bearing down on

the paper during the drawings execution. Serra’s drawings are a physical

endeavor – an industrious building up of matter that speaks of presence.

The risks that he takes on paper have a bearing on the subsequent

development of his sculptural works, such ‘improvisations’ carried out in the

drawings would not be possible during steelwork construction and are

Fig 6: Videy Drawing XIX

Richard Serra (American, born 1939) 1991. Paintstik on paper, 24 x 19" (61 x 48.3 cm). Gift of the Dannheisser Foundation. © 2010 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 218.1996

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therefore one of the ways that he can ‘discover new possibilities in deliberately

restricted means’ (p. 36). He sees the paradox where becoming skilled in one’s

drawing ability can prevent mistakes happening and thereby limit the

opportunity for the unknown development to offer solutions to a new problem

– ‘to reject your own practice, at times, becomes necessary’ (p. 36) . His

approach for addressing this paradox is to never settle for what may have

become a comfortable practice, but to keep pushing it through the boundaries

of familiarity.

We learn by coming to grips with problems until we establish habits that serve

us well, but those habits are inherently based on past experience. To engage

with the present is to test those habits, to adapt and if necessary discard them.

Habits are short-cuts, routes we know so well that we no longer notice the

terrain. Using them is ritual rather than work. (pp. 36-37)

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Characterising Perception

Looking closely, following form, texture: tracing processes. Importance lies in

the details. In an observational drawing each mark made represents where the

eye skimmed across details of strands – lichen, or moss, fissures of bark,

journeys made by branches through the atmosphere, where the trunks

disappear into the depths of the earth and an unseen world contains a

complexity of connections back to the presences above that can be witnessed.

The image is confused – what horizontal relates to which vertical? Why does a

sudden diagonal distract the eye to take another path? Step back, further, so

that the whole is apparent – the whole is complete. But what is discernable

then? There is no detail, just the whole.

But if the detail cannot be seen, however confused, distracting, or distorted it

may appear how can the whole be known or understood? One can only make

assumptions unless they have already sat within it – looked closely at the

details, traced the journeys of each strand of the complexity, considered the

importance of each presence…

The perception of experience is achieved through awareness of presence –

sensing for oneself firsthand the things that develop into knowing. This

knowledge becomes a personal truth for the individual developed as a result of

reflective thought followed by the realisation of an insight. Therefore a

perceived truth can only be real for that individual in that moment of presence

and shared only by those who have similar experiences of the phenomena.

I will never know how you see red, and you will never know how I see it; but

this separation of consciousnesses is recognised only after a failure of

communication, and our first movement is to believe in an undivided being

between us (Edie J. M. ed. 1964, p. 17).

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 – 61), French philosopher, developed theories

about the importance of perception in human understanding the key themes of

which were explored in his seminal work The Phenomenology of Perception

and in the collection of his essays on phenomenological psychology entitled The

Primacy of Perception. His premise was that the ‘perceived life-world is the

primary reality … the concrete … life-world of immediate experience’ (Edie,

J.M. 1964, p. xvi) that the real world is where we function in our daily

ordinariness using our senses to guide us. On the other hand, Man does not

function only in terms of ‘sensory-motor behaviour’ (p. xvi) because he thinks

and uses language to identify himself both culturally and historically and this

enables him to have a lived experience that is rich and expressive. However the

essential thesis of Merleau-Ponty is that we are fundamentally all grounded to

the perceptual reality of our presence in the world.

Thereby it is only in placing oneself within the phenomenon that one can fully

come to see and know it. Thinking alone cannot lead to knowing because the

mind can assume the creation of whole worlds through ideas and theories but

these can never be a substitute for action and the subsequent securing of

knowledge that occurs during the experience one physically encounters

through the body.

This beginning from a state of not knowing places one directly in the present, at

the centre, from where the perception of an experience leads to the forming of

a truth based on ‘reflective thought’ that ‘determines meaning or essence’

(p.68). But this truth is incomplete. True understanding occurs only with the

attainment of an ‘essential insight’ (p. 68); that one has come to see clearly the

truth in the perception. Perception is grounded in the ordinary, everyday

occurrence. We need only to open ourselves up to the ordinary by not thinking

but by using the extraordinary power of our senses to feel, taste, smell, hear,

observe the thing to know it. Clarity is achieved when we realise that this

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knowledge is already deep inside us. It recounts our ontological make up – the

nature of our being - that connects us to all earthly organisms.

I found in the experience of the perceived world a new type of relation

between the mind and the truth. The evidence of the perceived thing lies in its

concrete aspect, in the very texture of its qualities, and in the equivalence

among all its sensible properties – (Edie, J. M. ed. 1964, P. 6)

Our personal experience of reality is guided by our perception of how ‘things

seem to us’ (Dennett, D. 1988). The philosophical term for this is Qualia and it

refers to the conscious awareness of properties and an individual’s private

response to them. Due to the clandestine nature of these experiences the

language to describe them is elusive and ultimately understood on an

idiosyncratic basis only. However, for the sake of demonstrating Qualia,

examples are best revealed through poetic language as in the work of

contemporary poet John Burnside, winner of the 2000 Whitbread Poetry

Award. In the Forward to the book The Light Trap the Poetry Book Society

defined his work to be about ‘kinship: the subtle and complex interdependence

of all living things’ and reiterates the Whitbread Prize judges description of his

poetry as having the ‘rare power to alter ones perception of the world and of

language’ (Burnside, J. 2002).

The colour

is nothing like baize

or polished jade;

the gap between coltsfoot and mint

no more or less

specific than a field of kale after rain

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In this extract from Taxonomy, Part 1, Flora, (pp. 6 - 7) he reveals the acute

sophistication of our understanding of the differences between things, which in

this case is describing with exactitude a shade of green. This reveals how sharp

our senses are but also how heightened our comprehension is too.

There is an internal contemplation here that cannot be denied even though it

may not be possible to prove. Maybe this explains some of Merleau-Ponty’s

apparent aggravation where he deliberates over the disparity between the

artificiality of science and the reality of phenomenology in Eye and Mind: a paper

that extols the virtues of painting. Science acquires evidence by testing out

theories through experimentation set up within parameters that require an

amount of thinking, including conjecture, to be carried out prior to constructing

the boundaries within which the experiment takes place. This system is

necessary so as to enable universally recognised measurements of the process

to be discerned but the evidence procured is limited and lifeless. ‘Science

manipulates things and gives up living in them’ (Edie, J. 1964, p. 159). He asserts

that ‘Evidence in never apodictic’ (p. 76) (categorical) as it cannot take into

account the full experience of reality especially when gleaned from a restrictive

formula.

In his essay Quining Qualia (1988), Daniel C. Dennett would appear to do just

that, i.e. suffocate the life out of the characteristics of qualia, because he could

not prove its existence and concluded therefore that it simply did not exist! His

intention was to ‘destroy our faith in the pretheoretical or "intuitive" concept’

through a convolution of tests – fifteen in total - that would lead to the

annihilation of the term and the concept of intuition itself. He defined them as

the ‘special properties of Qualia’ and proceeded to isolate them in order to

analyse them. His premise was that not only is the terminology of qualia

indistinct but also the sense that they define something innate as improbable.

In ‘watching you eat cauliflower’ he muses over the idea that someone

can like to eat cauliflower even though he (Dennett) cannot stomach it.

24

He considers that it must therefore taste and smell different to others,

but that it is not possible to extract the specialness of that taste in order

to define it.

In ‘the wine-tasting machine’ he asks if a computer could take over the

role of the human wine taster. He accepts that ‘quality control and

classification’ are already possible but makes the case that the ‘special

qualities’ that recognize ‘the conscious experience’ when drinking wine

are not possible for a machine to replicate. The reason for this is that

qualia are indescribable and therefore evade scrutiny as essentially

‘private properties’. He proclaims agreement with Wittgenstein’s ‘thing

in the box’ statement that the unknown quantity cannot be part of the

equation because it may, in the end, turn out not to be there at all.

‘The inverted spectrum’ refers to Merleau-Ponty’s statement about the

imperceptibility of the way we individually see red, but Dennett refers to

the basis of learning colours using a common language to describe it

even if the individual experience of how we see colour cannot be

defined.

A speculation about two people: how do I know that you and I see the

same subjective color when we look at something? Since we both

learned color words by being shown public colored objects, our verbal

behavior will match even if we experience entirely different subjective

colors.

In ‘the Brainstorm machine’ he imagines the production of a real machine

that transfers what one person sees into the brain of another person.

Following the transfer of that information the second person reports

with closed eyes that the sky is yellow and the grass red. ‘Would this not

confirm, empirically, that our qualia were different?’ he asks. He then

poses that if the hypothetical plug was turned upside down and the

viewer now reported that the sky was blue and the grass green – does

25

this then show the new position as correct? He concludes that no

‘intersubjective comparison of qualia is possible, even with perfect

technology’. In other words, that we can never share our particular way

of seeing with anyone else however sophisticated the technology.

In ‘the neurosurgical prank’ and ‘alternative neurosurgery’ the person

wakes up to find that they see the colours of the sky and the grass as

yellow and red, but no one else reports any problems with their vision,

which would imply that their qualia have altered, or that a hypothetical

‘evil neurosurgeon’ has rewired the optic nerve or the memory to

contradict normal values. Either way Dennett asserts that the person has

no grasp of his own qualia and would only assume this difference simply

to be ‘a shift’ in how they see things.

It is interesting that the very method that he uses to attempt their destruction

reveals so much of the richness of the concept of intuition, the presence of

qualia, and ultimately why they are so clearly part of life. He seeks to extract

essences of qualia in order that he may examine them yet it is the very nature of

their connectedness that renders this impossible. His failure to prove their

existence leads him to the conclusion that they do not exist rather than the

deduction that it cannot be proven and so is possible. And in this testifies to

Merleau-Ponty’s premise that science treats ‘everything as though it were an

object-in-general – as though it meant nothing to us and yet was predestined

for our own use’ (Edie, J. M. ed. 1994, p. 159).

In his essay Eye and Mind, Merleau-Ponty explores the interconnectedness of

our being in the world ‘Visible and mobile, my body is a thing among other

things; it is caught in the fabric of the world’ (p. 163), but it is clear that within

this collectivity lies an inherent aptitude for expressing ourselves

independently. In the case of qualia nothing could mean more to us, they are

the essence of how things seem to us and define the individuality of our senses;

our particularized perception of the world.

26

Working in the Terrain: Arts Practice

Seeking out the means that they may express the distinctiveness of their

perception is what drives the artists’ practice. The artist places themselves

within an unknowing state and proceeds to work from the centre of it. This

appears to be a paradox as how can one begin from the centre of unknowing?

Merleau-Ponty begins to unravel the essence of this conundrum when he

describes the body as a ‘thing among other things … But because it moves

itself and sees, it holds things in a circle around itself’ (Edie, J. M. ed. 1964, p.

163). We are part of the whole and are naturally drawn to the things that we

respond to and recognize through our qualia and our own perceptive abilities.

Our body takes itself to the places where the things it needs can encircle it – we

call it intuition. This is how, as artists, we think through the body, and are led to

the circumstances wherein we can make work. For some these comprise of

physical places out there in the landscape.

Julie Brook (b. 1961) is one such artist. She practices her art by exploring the

wild places of Scotland and began on the uninhabited West coast of the island

of Jura in 1991. Her methods and means of expression have changed over the

years but throughout her career she has consistently returned to the field of

drawing of which the fundamentals - discipline and practice - combined with an

‘an absolute sense of freedom in oneself’ (Brook, J. App. P. 1) appeal to her

philosophy of work and life. She defines this sense of freedom as the

‘unselfconsciousness’ (p. 1) to be herself. To be yourself within a discipline

would seem to be something difficult to achieve. She reveals that through a

method of repeatedly drawing one can go ‘beyond just your visual

understanding into a more intuitive and physical understanding’ (p. 2) which

implies a mental dominance is overtaken by a physical dominance when a

sustained working process is employed. This appears to succeed in broadening

the channels of seeing that enable a greater understanding of the subject to

develop.

27

…that’s certainly what I did with the cliffs in Mingulay [Outer Hebrides]. I just

would go back and back and back and when I began to strip away a more

superficial understanding, I felt with that particular cliff that I was beginning to

understand the void that I was dealing with … the fall of the cliff … also this

great big void where the gully was, but I was beginning to understand that in

non-explicit terms (p. 2)

She explains that the process is to make lots of drawings in order to maintain

‘the spirit of that physicality’ (p. 2) that reveals itself later as a quality of depth

in the final drawing. She considers depth to relate to something immortal about

the work that goes further than simply skill. Works on paper are continued onto

the land in large scale earth drawings using pigment that have developed away

from forms that relate texture and surface to a focus purely on form.

Recent work of this nature (in 2009) has been made in the Libyan Desert where

she worked as she walked over a six week period. The surfaces she found there

were obviously vastly different to those she was used to (Fig 7). She developed

a method of scraping back the surface to reveal another beneath that enabled

her to make drawings that had tonal quality recalling her painting background.

Fig 7: Sand Line Blue volcanic plates

28

She also created three dimensional works that subconsciously responded to the

terrain she encountered.

The impact of the terrain on her work is influenced by her choice to make art in

wild, isolated places. She has sought out the forgotten corners in order to

remain unobserved and afford her the solitude to develop her work

uninterrupted. Even though her life is now very different from her time in Jura

when she could work and live alone outside for a year she has learned enough

about her practice to achieve as much depth condensed into six weeks in Libya.

Being at large in the elements has an effect of overriding laboured practice

because something happens that supports the artist to reach a place of physical

connection.

Brook has started to change her view about her isolated way of working as a

result of her experiences with the Tuareg guides who assisted her in travelling

through the desert. In witnessing their response to her work she has begun to

that it is important how she shows this work so that a more significant

relationship develops between these landscape works - that would normally

only be seen by the public in photographs – and her public commissions.

Fig 8: 2 Rising Curved Lines Tanta Mihnook, Jebel Acacus, Sahara Desert, Libya L.1860cm W.60cm Top Height 110cm Stone

29

I can see that if I can place a sculptural work either in the gallery or outside the

gallery then that means I’ve got to tackle maybe a street or an urban

environment … that would create a much more dynamic relationship between

the remote work and critical work outside … if you could physically experience

the work it would then make you go back to the desert work (Fig. 8) and you’d

feel a more intimate relationship with it. (p. 5)

In describing the element of solitude in her work she reveals how important it is

for her sense of liberation and lack of self-consciousness knowing that for

children this is such an easy condition to achieve. Yet this ability that children

possess combined with the discipline of perfecting ones’ craft is something that

should be sought. ‘So it’s a combination of wanting to convey something of

that solitude, in that depth that solitude enables, with that sense of freedom’

(p. 6).

Achieving this ‘sense of freedom’ engenders an attitude where ‘throw away

work’ (p. 6) can be produced. These are important because they can be pivotal

in developing more serious works. It is important to stress here though that

Brook does not specifically search for this condition. What she looks for are the

‘wild, untrodden landscapes’ (p.6) because she knows that they affect her. She

remains open to what that place will offer her but does not seek to engineer an

affect. This is what Merleau-Ponty was getting at in the Eye and the Mind when

he describes how we come to see that which we are a part of. Our impulses

respond because we already see it from the inside out. Placing oneself within

the environment that suits best; following ones intuition affords the vision to

see what is sought.

… that vision happens among, or is caught in, things – in that place where

something visible undertakes to see … like the mother water in the crystal, the

undividedness of the sensing and the sensed’ (Edie, J. M. ed. 1994, p163)

30

Conclusion

This investigation sought clarity about the role of embodied cognition, or

thinking through the body, and whether it could deliver a better route to

enriched ideas than mind-based thinking alone. I have used Action Research to

find out how the body learns through physical engagement and reflection, and

the evidence gathered reveals connection with lived experience to be

imperative in the development of perception and the subsequent discovery of

insights. It is not possible to locate precisely how insight is achieved because

when it is realised one is left with a feeling, a sense, of having already known,

almost a remembering; what Merleau-Ponty describes as ‘a secret of pre-

existence’ (Edie J. M. ed. 1964, p. 182). This implies that we are unaware of

knowledge already contained within us. This natural intelligence is a product of

our genetic and environmental ontology and founded in our evolutionary

development.

The ability of our human structure to recognise difference is phenomenal but it

can also leave us isolated from the natural world and our own kind. The quote ‘I

will never know how you see red, and you will never know how I see it’ (p. 17)

holds within it the very essence of the loneliness created by our sovereign

existence and it is our intellect which confines us. Trapped within our thoughts

we will never know how the other sees unless we recognize the need to

advance our own perception. This lies in us developing awareness as Beings

intrinsic to the world; for us to see that we are an animated part of the living

moving structure rather than just observers detached from the substances we

perceive - ‘he who looks must not himself be foreign to the world that he looks

at’ (Cazeaux, C. ed. 2000, p. 166).

For my own account I can attest to a developing recognition of perceptual

expansion. The tangible revelation of personal insight into the process of

31

learning to see and how this stimulates ability to draw what is seen in a richer

and deeper manner.

I finally started to see what happened with the blind drawings – it’s a startling

insight. They have let me see the wood as a unit because I stopped seeing the

trees as individuals. This happened because I just trusted my eyes and let them

follow the information … now I know the following of the diagonals is the link.

The link to the next piece that makes up the whole – the unit that is the wood:

the depth and breadth of it in its entirety. We start with what we can see – but

if we are to go further we must trust – take a blind step forward – reach into

the dark and discover something for ourselves. Online Journal (01.12.10)

It is to do with recognising that one is already placed within the space: that your

body has led you to where you can engage with the present. When you want to

discover something new you need to be able to leave your mind to one side and

let your body lead you – trust it, it knows you better than you think! It already

knows what you respond to as your body encompasses all that you are. Then,

when you can see with renewed vision and realise that you are beginning to

analyse and comprehend the unknowing, you can begin to construct thought

around it and make it solid. My essential insight about embodied cognition is

that it is where the mind recognises that the body knows, and so permits the

body to make fresh discoveries that lead ultimately to enriched thinking. I will

conclude with a passage from Apocalypse, written by D H Lawrence (1885 –

1930) where he has captured the essence of this philosophy.

We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and

part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of

me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of

the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic

part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very

self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute

except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is

only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters. (Lawrence, D.H. 1930)

32

Reference List

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33

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34

Illustrations

Fig. 1: Blind drawing of woodland environment (17.09.10) Author’s own work

Fig 2: Analytical drawing of woodland (23.02.10) Author’s own work

Fig 3: ‘Wayne McGregor (far left) analyzes each dancer's movements before

suggesting changes.’ Californian Institute for Telecommunications and

Information Technology. Available at:

http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/article.php?id=1474 (Accessed on: 19.11.10)

Fig 4: 'Far' by Wayne McGregor/Random Dance, Sadler's Wells, London EC1.

Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-

dance/reviews/wayne-mcgregor-giant-leaps-in-the-studio-ndash-and-in-the-lab-

2135922.html

Fig 5: Constructed environment - frottage on paper pasted into box containing

disguised vessel – Author’s own work

Fig 6: Videy Drawing XIX 1991. Paintstik on paper, 24 x 19" (61 x 48.3 cm). Gift of

the Dannheisser Foundation. © 2010 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS),

New York 218.1996. Available at:

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3

A5349&page_number=33&template_id=1&sort_order=1 (Accessed on: 4.12.10)

Fig 7: Sand Line Blue volcanic plates’ Libya Trip 2009. Available at:

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Fig 8: 2 Rising Curved Lines Tanta Mihnook, Jebel Acacus, Sahara Desert, Libya

L.1860cm W.60cm Top Height 110cm.Stone. Libya Trip 2009. Available at:

http://juliebrook.typepad.com/photos/desert_drawings/2-rising-curved-

lines.html#tp (Accessed on: 12.09.10)

35

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PDF Documents

Artscilab (2001) ‘Expanded Cinema PART TWO: SYNAESTHETIC CINEMA: THE

END OF DRAMA’ Available at:

http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_ExpandedCinema/part2.pdf (Accessed on:

14.11.2010)

Thistlewood, D. (2002) ‘HERBERT READ (1893–1968)’ PROSPECTS: the quarterly

review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of

Education), vol. 24, no.1/2, 1994, p. 375–90. Available at:

http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/reade.pdf [online]

accessed 16.11.2010

41

Welsh, A. (2009) Cognitive scientists seek to quantify body movement.

Available at: http://www.randomdance.org/docs/lacacognition_0.pdf

(Accessed: 19.11.10)

Quigley, T. (2008) Summary: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Eye and Mind" (1964)

Available at: http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/em-sum.pdf

(Accessed 9.12.10)

Podcasts

‘Science in fiction and fact, John Burnside on Waking UpIn Toytown’ (2010)

Guardian Books Podcasts. Available at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2010/mar/19/science-fiction-john-

burnside-waking-up-toytown (Accessed on: 29.10.2010)

BBC iPlayer

The Culture Show Episode 14 Clemency Burton Hill meets with choreographer

Wayne McGregor to find out how he is collaborating with scientists to create his

latest work, Far (2010) BBC Two Television, 18 Nov. Available at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00w5l22/The_Culture_Show_2010_2011

_Episode_14/ (Accessed on 21.11.10)