greetings friend,
When referencing this document, please remember that all depictions of anatomical structures are approximations of averages, and are all necessarily reductive. The aim of collected visuals and descriptions is to provide you with orientation points, and support you in navigating through your experience (-ing) and your research (-ing). Anatomy, as is embodied by you right now, is an emergent* phenomenon, a material expression of your and your ancestors’ continued intra-acting with the world. It is currently evidencing results of a process that has been ongoing since the literal beginning of time.
From what I can tell, most artists I admire agree that the motivation that moves one towards creativity comes from some unknowable source. What I had hoped to do with this workshop is give some examples of how it is possible to recognise, orient towards, and move with the unknowable in a critically-aware way. Critical here does not stand for negative or antagonistic. Critical stands for informed, empowered, situated, oriented, self- and co-regulated with the World. I wish you good relationships and informative, encouraging, and generous examples on your way. Strong sails and long keels with get you across the wildest of the oceans safely.
Thank you for your generosity, commitment, and patience. It was a true honour working with you.
till we meet again, pav
*Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown (link)
terminologies
As you move through different materials and engage in your own explorations, and especially if you start reading about anatomy, don’t be alarmed when you discover that the same word can be used to describe different anatomical structures, or physiological phenomena.
It may help to check when the material was published, and by whom.
If you ever get disoriented when reading about a particular structure, take a moment, and—when ready—reread the sentence that confused you, retrace the image, give yourself some time, and a new experience.
If a definition of a structure or a property does not make sense, if it evokes no feeling in you, that description might simply not work for you. Find one that does.
Start with those descriptions, those images that you can make sense of in-the-moment, no matter how basic they may be; work with them, understand them, play with them until they stop making sense. When an image that meant the world to you becomes a bit boring, underwhelming, or simply stops capturing your attention is usually when you’re ready to look for a new image; maybe a slightly more complex image, a more detailed description, or a more nuanced interpretation. Remember that the experience of learning is cyclical. Read about the learning curve.
website:
www.pavleheidler.com/2024cleftlipandpalate
password:
observingworlds
questions?
if any questions come up, please send them to me at
pavleheidler@pavleheidler.com
i’ll respond as soon as i’m able
if the questions relate to this document, i’ll update the document accordingly
😇
instagram @pavleheidler
table of contents
protocol Saturday
reflex
Most frequently, a reflex will be defined as an involuntary action activated through “a reflex arc” in response to a specific stimuli. An example of a reflex arc when we looked at the sensory-motor coördination (see below for image).
One of the crucial characteristics of a reflex is that it requires stimulation to occur. In BMC®, a reflex is often described as existing in a state of potential until that time comes when it is embodied in response to an appropriate stimulus. In class, we stepped on a balancing ball to trigger some of those reflexes that BMC® classifies under righting reactions.
Remember the Moro reflex? The one that extended our arms laterally to support us in regaining a sense of orientation and balance? Remember how quickly the Moro reflex showed itself in some bodies? You can often recognise involuntary actions relative to how quickly they show up. You can also recognise them by asking the person, Did you notice what you did with your arms? Look at their face when you ask them a question like that, you may get to appreciate the most wonderful expression of surprise.
Here are some examples of definitions of reflexes I found online:
“Reflexes are automatic and involuntary actions the body produces in response to certain stimuli. While some reflexes can involve muscles and movement, others involve internal processes within the body.”
“[…] according to 1989 guidelines issued by the American Academy of Neurology, “[…] Primitive reflexes and vegetative functions […] are either controlled by the brainstem or are so elemental that they require no brain regulation at all.”
“REFLEXES are processed in the spine and the low-brain. They are our most primitive responses.”(page 141)
- RIGHTING REACTIONS (page 127-129)
- MORO REFLEX (page 144-145)
cranial nerves
Unlike spinal nerves, whose roots are neural fibers from the spinal grey matter, cranial nerves are composed of the neural processes associated with distinct brainstem nuclei and cortical structures. Unlike the spinal nerves, cranial nerve nuclei are functionally organized into distinct nuclei within the brainstem. Typically, the more posterior and lateral nuclei tend to be sensory, and the more anterior tend to be motor.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470353/
AFFERENT (sensory)
I olfactory
II optic
VIII vestibulcochlear
EFFERENT (motor)
III oculomotor
IV troclear
VI abducens
XI spinal accessory
XII hypoglossal
SENSORY & MOTOR
V trigeminal
VII facial
IX glossopharyngeal
X vagus
nervous system classification
- the nervous system can be classified in several ways.
- central (brain and spinal cord);
- peripheral.
- somatic (intentional),
- autonomic (homeostasis):
- sympathetic (fright, flight, or freeze),
- parasympathetic (rest and recuperation).
sensory-motor coördination
Broadly speaking, sensory receptor registers proximity to heat, triggering the sensory nerve. The sensory nerve delivers electric and chemical stimuli to the back of the spinal cord, and via the inter neuron, passes the stimuli to the motor nerve. The motor nerve reaches from the front of the spinal cord towards the periphery, engaging appropriate responses via effector organs, mainly muscles and glands.
Remember the conversation in which we compared sensing to a motor response, whereby the act of sensing becomes evident in the physiological changes you’re experiencing as you’re relating to the environment? As opposed to it [sensing] being compared with the words you speak to yourself internally when you decide that you are, indeed, sensing something?
nervous system : dependency principle (describe)
According to the Oxford Dictionary of English, jurisdiction defines “the territory or sphere of activity over which the legal authority of a court or other institution extends”. I find jurisdiction a particularly useful term to-think-with largely due to its positive treatment of limits; read the definition again and see that jurisdiction defines “the territory (limit) over which the legal (limit) authority of a court (limit) or other institutions (limit) extends”.
Applying the notion of jurisdiction to the nervous system—specifically that aspect of the system associated with recording, organising, and storing—we can now think of the nervous system (central and peripheral) as having jurisdiction over the territory outlined by peripheral nerves, the spinal chord, the brain, and their corresponding capacities or processes, but not (!) over the territory defined earlier as the “interface”.
What this thought experiment teaches us is fairly simple but fundamental, I think, in thinking about the function of the nervous system. Evolutionarily speaking, the nervous system (central and peripheral) develops the capacity to record, organise, and store within a closed system (or territory). Because it’s developed within a closed system, the nervous system’s capacity remains potential until information is introduced into the system. Without information being introduced into the system, in other words, the nervous system has nothing to record, organise, and store.
To provide the nervous system with something to record, organise, and store, the “interface” needs to be stimulated. That is to say, the “interface” needs to exposed to or come in contact with the world. By exposing the “interface” to the elements, we are making sure that (new) information is being introduced to the nervous system, and that due to the capacity of the “interface” itself. Remember that we defined the “interface” as describing “specialised environments where worldly or environmental factors are translated or transformed into the kind of code that can be processed (and so integrated) by the nervous system”.
There are 5 major types of sensory receptors: mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, nociceptors, electromagnetic receptors, and chemoreceptors.
For description of the 5 types, click here.
soma <> σῶμα
SOMA (ancient greek) for:
- body,
- one’s life in the physical world,
- material,
- person,
- an entire thing,
- (math) three dimensional object.
homeostasis
In biology, homeostasis (British also homoeostasis; /hɒmioʊˈsteɪsɪs, -miə-/) is the state of steady internal physical and chemical conditions maintained by living systems.[1] This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and includes many variables, such as body temperature and fluid balance, being kept within certain pre-set limits (homeostatic range).
from Wikipedia
QUALIFICATION ≠ EVALUATION
In BMC®, the nervous system (in general) is said to have the capacity to record, to organise, and to store.(1) This raises the question; to record, to organise, and to store what exactly?
Framing the capacity of the nervous system in such a way asks that the nervous system be considered as active or acting on or at the proximal end of sensory receptors. Sensory receptors are classified as nerve endings that, by responding to environmental stimuli, provide sensory aspects of the peripheral nervous system with content (signals, chemical and electric stimuli, or simply: information) to relay through the rest of the system (peripheral and central). Often times you will find sensory receptors defined as organelles or ‘bodies’ to which the peripheral nervous system is (in some sort of way) attached.(2) Be them nerve endings or bodies to which the nervous system is attached, sensory receptors can be thought of as specialised environments where worldly or environmental factors are translated or transformed into the kind of code that can be processed (and so integrated) by the nervous system. One could think of sensory receptors in terms of an “interface” operating at the intersection of world systems (distal) and body systems (proximal).
To respond to the question, record, organise, and store what exactly?, we have to acknowledge any and every experience of received interaction that, by the transformative property embodied at the level of the “interface”, is finally registered under the jurisdiction of the nervous system.
(1) BMC® is not the only format that defines the territory of the nervous system (central and peripheral) in this way. UK’s National Institutes of Health, for example, define the responsibilities of the nervous system (central and peripheral) as inclusive of “receiving, processing, and responding to sensory information”.
(2) When talking about sensory receptors, we are talking about sensory aspect of the peripheral nervous system. The equivalent of sensory receptors in the context of the motor aspect of peripheral nervous system are sometimes called effectors. Like sensory receptors, effectors can be thought of as specialised environments where information delivered by the nervous system can be translated or transformed into the kind of phenomena that, due to the effect of effectors on their environment (muscle tissue or glands), can be registered in the world or the environment. (#expression)
videos and quotes:
2024-08-29
i first started writing the following to add to a travel grant i was asked to hand in on behalf of a choreographer i am working for. writing this, i experienced a moment of clarity, which is why i’m sharing the text with you, as an example of dancing clarity in writing.
i like to say that my job is to make people's dreams come true.
whenever i say that sentence, i am reminded of my training; it's like something in my mind softens and i become conscious of the brilliant, relational sensitivity of my cellular existence and/or consciousness; social components of life recede in that moment, allowing bodily materiality to step into the spotlight and so transform or influence the way i can relate to others or participate in this world. it is through this process–of saying and remembering what i think my job is–that i keep becoming a dance artist.
i say 'dreams' to capture something of the range of interests and capacities i've encountered working as a dancer in the field. at one end of that range or spectrum i find something like a concern with prestige, at the other the inexplicable urge to love a seemingly random and irrelevant abstraction. a choreographer like Cristina Caprioli, whom i worked with for a better part of a decade, has required of me to hold that whole spectrum in my imaginary at 15:49h on a Tuesday afternoon as I moved along the paths determined by her materials, looking for ways to become the one who’s going to show her something that, up until that very moment, she'd only ever seen in herself.
which is where ‘truth’ becomes interesting, doesn’t it? because, of course, when talking about ‘dreams coming true’ we’re talking about something subjective, not objective and definitely not reasonable. artists, traditionally speaking, do not deal in reason. ‘reason’ is not of our lineage and was never meant to be our responsibility; we’d never have come up with ‘reason’ on our own. what artists do and have been doing, the way i understand it, was evidencing all the different ways bodies in this world are able to perceive and make sense of their environment, their experience, their relationship. artists are like gardeners of alternatives, tenders of options, committed to protecting the complexity in texture and range of what it could mean to be alive.
reading list:
nonfiction
And Then, You Act by Anne Bogart
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Sensing, Feeling, and Action by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (link) !!!
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown (link)
The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study by Fred Moten and Stephano Harney
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Meeting the Universe Halfway by Karen Barad
12 bytes by Jeanette Winterson (essays)
Staying with the Trouble by Donna Haraway
Testo Junkie by Paul B. Preciado
This Life by Martin Hägglund
Everybody by Olivia Laing
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing
Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde (essays)
The Privilege of Partial Perspective by Donna Haraway (essay, link)
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk
The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio (feelings)
The Second Brain by Michael Gershon et al (“gut feeling”)
A Journey to the Centre of the Cell (essay, link)
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van den Kolk (did not read this yet, but it comes recommended from multiple sources and is a very famous book at the moment)
fiction
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Parable of the Sower + The Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. le Guin
Earthsea Chronicles by Ursula K. le Guin