Performance Research JOURAUIOJIOd pue SJT}IOd UOThe Poetics of Performance Knowledge FRED McVITTIE Ways of writing, and indeed thinking, can be associated with sensory modalities - those capacities with which we engage with and come ‘to know the world beyond ourselves, The objective, empirical knowledge, particularly correlation between certain forms of ‘knowing’ in the form of written or verbal language, it is and the gustatory (and olfactory) senses is a tacit assumption that forms of speech that ‘outlined in Classen (1998:56), who points out rely on figurative and ‘literary’ language are that the English words ‘sagacious’ and ‘sage’, inappropriate, As Martin Gregory argues in both referring to inteligence,are based on Latin a commentary entitled ‘The infectioneness of ‘words meaning ‘to have a good sense of smell’. Pompous prose’ in the journal Nature: bane ee Nord saplent, meaning WwisesIs There ae two kinds of slettic writing: that based on the Latin word for taste; hence the ‘which is intended to be read, and that which is term ‘Homo sapiens’ means “tasting man’ as intended merely to be cited. The latter tends to be well as ‘knowing man’ (Rouby, 2002:69).! infected by an overblown and pompous style. The Here | will be specifically contrasting disease is ubiquitous, but often undiagnosed, with Spanner ofconceptalzation and expression {MEU hat nection spreads owing the that prioritizes vision with one that draws on sat type: (Gregory 1992:11-12) and paints with the sweep of the hand. These sensational engagements, the ocular and the haptic, L will argue constitute distinct poetic epistemologies, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Here I'll be suggesting that some modalities may be better suited than others for thinking and writing about different practices and ask what kind of sensory knowing best engages with performance. Kind of writing that ‘escapes literature’) is that it voids the obfuscations and circumlocutions of oetry and rhetoric. When the aim is to produce "Discussion of he sense of sell isoutside the terms ofthis writing although tis extensively overed within the Itratuzeon conceptual metaphor and elated fields (Brennan, 2004; {Chu an Downes, 200; Drobnick, 200; Eno, 1982; owes, 2005; Roby, 2002). His extensive use of a metaphor of disease as athetorical device to support his argument is not acknowledged. Following an article on style in scientific writing in 1996, again published in Nature, ‘a number of letters appeared either supporting or disagreeing with the points made. Of Particular note was the use of the passive ‘with one respondent writing: Using the passive voice in scientific writing allows the researcher to stand ata distance from his or her ‘work. By standing at a distance, an unbiased viewpoint is much more likely to be reached. An unbiased viewpoint encourages a world view and an ‘open mind, surely prerequisites for good science.” ‘This phraseology, in which the desired “objectivity represented by ‘good science’ is satisfied by placing oneself figuratively within a clear space offering unimpeded views, is typical. The largely covert metaphors of larity, lucidity, and transparency that mark the WRITE IN FRONT OF Your EVES Poetics of knowledge... a study ofthe set of procedures by which a discourse escapes literature, gives itself the status of science, and signifies this status, Jacques Ranciere (1994:21) ‘pei Calg London, The linguistie style in which knowledge is tog, MIeCesther expressed has a bearing on the perceived | status of that knowledge. It is widely assumed that the forms of speech and writing that best articulate empirical scientific ‘knowledge (the *Simon R Leather, Department of Bisiogy, Sitwood Pak Campus PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 20-1: pp.72-77 1SSW 1352-8165 prin/1469-9980 online tepid org/10.2080/15828163.2015.991592 ‘© 2015 TAYLOR & FRANCIS metadiscourse describe the space in which the spirit of scientific endeavour becomes manifest. ‘The pursuit of a hygienically clean language style metaphorically constructs a similarly clean, clear, open space in which the object of knowledge may appear visible. This certain style in writing is, therefore, one in which the ‘metaphorical and figurative are not eradicated ‘but in which they are denied. The use of the passive voice isa part of this process, as indicated in the letter to Nature quoted above, in which the ‘unbiased worldview” achieved by ‘standing at a distance’ corresponds to having an‘open mind’, One of the aspirations accorded to this, ‘open-minded paradigm is that it represents not an individual (and therefore necessarily erspectival) viewpoint but a ‘worldview’; however, it follows that a speaking position that suggested particularity and individual locatedness while simultaneously claiming the high ground of a totalizing vision would bea contradiction, one that is recognized by ‘Thomas Nagel in The View from Nowhere: One ofthe strongest philosophical motives isthe desire for a comprehensive picture of objective reality since it is easy to assume that that is all there really is. But the very idea of objective reality guarantees that such a picture will not, ‘comprehend everything; we ourselves are the first ‘obstacle to such an ambition. (Nagel 1986: 13) ‘The aim within this kind of language, therefore, isthe discursive production of transparency through appropriate metaphorical framing, which in turn relies on an embodied ‘metaphor that is primarily oriented around the visual sense, The various entailments of the ‘overall schema that ate active in the discussion above are all reliant upon the experience of seeing, and are examples of one of the key ‘metaphors through which knowing is Understood through the association KNOWING IS SEEING (Lakoff and Johnson 1981; Lakoff and Johnson 1999) This metaphorical relationship is part ofa larger set of body-based metaphors ‘that map different types of knowing with different modes of sensory access ~ touch, smell, hearing, taste, and so forth (Owen 1984; Classen McVITTIE = THE POETICS OF PERFORMANCE KNOWLEDGE 1998; Rouby 2002). The KNOWING 1s SEEING ‘metaphor is particularly relevant because itis through the entailments of this metaphor that ‘many aspects of the structure of knowledge are articulated. Some of these entailments support the concept of a particularly ‘objective’ or ‘object-like’ knowledge, and, allied to this, other entailments narrate the relationship between ‘the human subject and this knowledge object. It is these latter entailments that shape the ‘metadiscourse, such as that above, in which we talk about different communication styles, Henri Lefebvre writes of this ‘illusion of transparency’ in The Production of Space, in which he says [ajnything hidden or dissimulated — and hence dangerous ~ is antagonistic to transparency, under whose reign everything can be taken in by a single slance from that mental eye which illuminates ‘whatever it contemplates. Comprehension is thus ‘supposed, without meeting any insurmountable ‘obstacles, to conduct what is perceived, i. its ‘object, from the shadows to the light. I is supposed to effect this displacement ofthe object either by piercing it with a ray or converting it from a murky toa luminous state. (Lefebvre 1991;28) Irit Rogoff, in an analysis of the visual culture associated with the practice of geography, refers to this suggestion by Lefebvre as ‘of the utmost importance to numerous endeavors {in cultural studies and cultural criticism. It provides ‘critical apparatus for dealing with postivstic thought and with analyses which do not take ‘on board issues of situatedness, of unmediated Positionality, and which believe unselfconsciously both in exteriority and in the ability to define the realm ofthe ‘know’. Rogoff 2000:24) This noted significance accorded to endeavours in cultural studies and other related practices may be indicative of a distinction between the kind of positivistic analysis appropriate to scientific enquiry, and to forms of knowing and talking about knowing associated with performance practices. It may also be valuable to note that the visual/spatial metaphor invoked throughout these writings is productive of an ‘exteriority’ and the optically transparent space in which the hard facts of objective knowledge may appear to appear. "tis aconvention within {he els of practice Tam fing hereto capitalize these metaphorical relationship. willbe foleeing this convention ere appropriate.+ avarianton this aim fora univer viewing prsition a legiimiing thority ever know fepresentedby Foucault is Disine & Push: The birth ofthe prio. nis saya, authoritative ower asserts self Fivetynot by simulating fmnleience but throu theelevavon ofa sings ‘point ta postion of note disepinary ‘ontol Foucault and Sheridan 1977 195-228. = George Lak ees t0 this proces as ‘eceping ‘he frame’ by whieh he reans that any atempt0 rg a ale that is tamed metaphorically as nose ace) ually requires that partes to that debate twethe sme set of metaphors This means that those who determine the metaphorial Tame tthe argument are a2 Gistince stvantage Calott 0004. ‘hie wse ofthe tem ‘confusion’ is iealy ead ints ginal exymotoical sense from confer, Sizing the at of being ‘poured together Claims for objectivity are advanced through the strategic deployment of totalizing visual ‘metaphors that deny ‘viewpoint’ while simultaneously adopting an omnipresent ‘viewing position. This may be through the strategies of empiricism that, when properly applied, have validity, or through the transformations of subjective tastes into objective facts through careful conceptual framing. Not every discourse that escapes from literature deserves the status of science, ‘no matter how well it signifies that status in figurations of the optical Tn either case this privileging of the gaze as the site of insight has been widely critiqued, particularly within feminist theory (Dubois 1988; Braidotti 1994). Donna Haraway (1997:289) refers to this sleight of hand through which a visual metaphor is transformed into claim for omniscience as ‘the God Tick’ simultaneously implying not only a panoptical ‘objectivity but also the lofty, elevated and authoritative position from which such @ viewpoint may be gained; in this she seems to be following Nagel’s observation regarding such, claims to objectivity. In his book The View from ‘Nowhere he writes on the development of 2 visually based ‘detached! viewpoint, associating this with Descartes who ‘tried to recapture Jmowledge by imagining his relation to the ‘world from the point of view of God! (Nagel 1986: 129).. Itis significant to note that in most cases the critiques of epistemologies that make extensive use of visual metaphor to confer authority are ‘mounted through the deployment of the same metaphor structure, evidenced by the use of ‘terms such as situatedness’ A notable exception is the ‘ecriture feminine’ of Helene CCixous (1981), Julia Kristeva (1984) and others in which an epistemology of vision is ‘complemented by one that acknowledges touch, and the distant, autonomous object of scopic knowledge is joined by the up-close and personal knowing of the haptic and the visceral. ‘As Kelly Oliver (2000), ina discussion on the ‘work of Cixous, describes it, this form of primarily tactile, bodily, and interior in the extreme »eriture feminine is hard to follow because itis not iineat but begins from all sides at once ~ allowing for a neve departure in history, wandering through the unknown elsewhere, across detachment and boundaries, crossing categories, and opening onto certain laughter. (Oliver 2000:256) “The overt use of metaphors inthe passage above, and their exuberant mixing and ‘confusion,*is typical of écrture feminine itself. ‘The rejection of a scopic epistemology centred ‘onthe distanced, detached, disembodied object also necessitates an abandonment of the rules of form that prescribe the simulation of a ‘clear space’ within which the object seems to appear. Tits use of figurative language such writing may read as‘poetic’ but this effect is a measure of the extent to which the equally poetic writing of scopic objectivity is unconscious and hegemonic. May it not be the case that much critical engagement with performance, while less formal and therefore concerned with empiricism, tends nevertheless to deploy similar ‘vocabularies and grammatical structures as one finds in scientific writing and its prioritizing of the visual? The object of performance is deseribed as existing at a discreet/discrete distance, at some remove from the ‘spectator’ where it may best be focused upon, held up to the light for scopophilic inspection and held away from the press of personal contact. 'An interesting and salient variant on the use of sensory metaphor is found in some of the ‘writings of Bourdieu, who makes the observation that the exteriorized, visually constructed sense ‘of objectivity described above is often usurped by power elites through a Kind of synaesthetic ‘transformation. As Loic Wacquant, summarising Bourdieu's thinking, puts it, [To impose one’s at of living i to impose at the ‘same time principles of vision of the world that legitimize inequality by making the divisions of social space appear rooted in the inlinations of individuals rather than the underlying distribution of capital. (Wacquant cited in Stones 2008:11) Inthis understanding, the kind of knowledge that we think of as ‘taste’, normally confined ‘to the interior of the individual, when held by PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 20-1: ON POETICS AND PERFORMANCE those in authority is given the status of the optically evident objective fact. ‘Taste is a practical mastery of distributions which makes it possible to sense or intuit what i ikely (or unlikely to befall ~ and therefore to bet an {ndividval occupying a given position in social space. It funetions asa sort of social orientation, a 'sense of one's place’. (Bourdieu 1984:466) ‘In Bourdieu, this exterior, conceptually public space undergoes a sensory sleight-of-hand through which access to knowledge-making {s removed from the empirical interpersonal sphere of visual exteriority and placed inside the body of certain individuals, the arbiters of ‘taste’ The largely covert mobilization ofthe taste metaphor within an epistemology that is, structured visually, allows those with vested interests in controlling these epistemological processes to claim exclusivity and centrality. The logic of taste is that it is individual, interior and inaccessible, and the mixing of metaphors that uses this concept of taste while simultaneously ‘maintaining a visually panoptic, omniscient position gives such claims the appearance of transparent objectivity. An entailment of this strange mixing of eye and tongue in the economy of capital knowledge is that other members of a society are unable to make a claim for this ‘global gustatory gnosis. Located eccentrically or peripherally within social space, the possessors of these other unaccountable ‘tastes’ are not position to claim the principles of higher vision cowed by the aesthetic) elite ‘While an epistemology based on gustatory metaphors is possible, as we see in Bourdieu the use of ‘taste’ as a mode of knowledge construction is more usually a means of asserting privilege. Subjective and local preferences are given the appearance of objective truths through the mobilization of the same appeal to visual oversight. ‘Asalternatives to the elevated eye of empirical observation, there are other approaches to the poetics of knowledge that draw on more varied and less distant sensory modalities, some of which may ‘more closely match that form of knowing we call performance. BETWEEN EYE AND TONGUE APPROPRIATE TOUCHING CClassen’s archeology of the sensory subconscious (of the English language reveals that many English terms for ‘thought are, infact, tactile or kinaesthetic in origin. These include ‘apprehend’, “prood’,‘cogitate, ‘comprehend’ ‘conceive’ ‘grasp, mull, ‘peteeive, ‘ponder, ruminate’, and ‘understand’. The predominance of tactile imagery in words dealing with intellectual functions. indicates that thought is, or was, experienced primarily in terms of touch. (Rouby 2002:70) ‘Asa contrast to the optical knowledge described above I would like to briefly consider the sense of touch as providing an alternative structure for poetic epistemology. Paul Rodaway in Sensuous Geographies: Body, sense, and place (1994) carries out an extensive survey on the relationships struck between body and world, part of which is negotiated through what he refers to as this ‘haptic’ sense. Rodaway goes on to delineate the various terms through which this negotiation takes place ‘and the apparatus gets information. Focusing particularly on the tactile aspects of this way of knowing, Rodaway points out that touch is more than the action of the fingers feeling the texture of surfaces. Touch involves the whole body reaching out to the things constituting the environment and those things, or that environment, coming into contact with the body. ‘This is the basic reciprocity ofthe hapti system: to touch is always to be touched. (Rodaway 1994: 44) He goes on to suggest four types of ‘touch’ that he argues are significant for the experience ‘of knowing and being - Global Touch, Reach Touch, Extended Touch and Mind Touch. Global Touch is Rodaway’s term for proprioceptive presence and the sense one has of existing as a body at a certain location in space. Reach Touch is described as a property of the limbs, and is represented by the grasp of the hand and the stretch of the foot, Extended Touch js that that operates through intermediary tools and technologies: the cane of the blind person and the axe of the woodcutter. Mind ‘Touch (that he elsewhere refers to as Imagined NeVITTIE : THE POETICS OF PERFORMANCE KNOWLEDGE* endt works up this distinction nt a critique ofcertan aspects of "modem aiming that the focus on ndvidual, prosperity, production and consumption has diminished the Lntersubjctive word of ma fae in favor ofthe alienating, ply set being of anima lara Touch), perhaps most salient for this analysis, is the mobilization of the felt sense as a means of ‘conceptualizing concepts that would otherwise be inconceivable. As he puts it: [laptic experience (is) rooted in (the) memory and expectation. This is demonstrated both in ur use of touch metaphors to describe other sensuous experiences and the creative recall of haptic experiences, as when reading a description {na novel or when remembering a treasured experience, Rodaway 1994: 54) In developing this use of touch as a source of metaphors, Rodaway cites as an example the common expression ‘to keep in touch’ as an indicator that the tactile reciprocal contact of skin on skin is part of the cognitive poetics of intimacy. This metaphor, in which intimacy is understood as closeness, is well established within the literature on conceptual metaphor (Kovecses 2001; Lakoff and Johnson 1981). This understanding, in which we shape the physical world even as it shapes us through this intentional touch of the hand, is developed by Hannah Arendt in “The Human Condition’ (1974) under the designation homo faber, according to the rubric of which we again find ourselves partly defined by this haptic, manual, shaping ability. Arendt distinguishes this active ‘mobilization of the use of touch from animal laborans, describing the activity of the latter (that she associates with ‘animal being’) as being confined to the intimate and the ” Homo Faber, on the other hand, in Arendt’s formulation, moves out of the personal sphere and into the world, or as Lewis ‘Hinchman describes it in an analysis of Arendt, In contrast to labor, work (homo faber is the activity that corresponds to the ‘unnaturaliness? ‘of human existence. I'life’ and the private vealm locate the activity of animal laborans, then ‘the ‘world’ locates homo faber. Work is, literally, the \Working up of the world, the production of things- in-the-world. If animal laborans is caught up in ‘nature and inthe cyclical movement ofthe body's life processes, then homo faber is, as Arendt puts it free to produce and free to destroy. (Hinchman, and Hinchman 1994234) In these descriptions, the extension of our body toward the world allows the flesh to shape PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 20-1: OW POETICS AND PERFORMANCE the world that it touches. There is a sense that our hands precede our occupation of the space ‘toward which we are reaching and moving. They each out and open doors at exactly the right ‘moment for us to walk through ~ prehensile apprehensions preparing the future for our arrival As suggested in Rodaway, above, this grasping and probing and shaping of the world is not ‘only physical, but is also conceptual. The active interventions that define us are both excursions into physical nature but also incursions into conceptual culture, including those aspects of culture that may variously be understood. as knowledge, ‘This points to a conceptual ordering in which the fully embodied physical action of shaping the physical environment with the hands is transformed into an understanding of sapience, As Leroi-Gourhan puts it: Originally, our hands were nothing but pincers used to hold stones; Man’s genius has been to turn, ‘them into the daily more sophisticated servants of his thoughts as a homo faber and as a homo sapiens. (Cetoi-Gourhan cited in Nespoulous etal. 1986:49) An epistemology incorporating this understanding is markedly different from one which is primarily scopic. In this haptic interpretation knowledge is less like an object that pre-exists one’s attempts to ‘see it, but rather resides within the active process of bodied cognition itself. The comprehension of performance necessarily returns the word to its roots in comprehendere, the ‘grasping together’ that in turn bears comparison to the ‘mutual holding of entertainment. To the extent that performance is always interactive and interpretive, both on the part of the actors and. the audience, then the knowledge that is being Created in the moment of performance exists at those surfaces where mutual touching is giving shape to that experience. (A) work of art is an expressive form created for ‘our perception through sense or imagination, and what it expresses is human feeling, The word ‘feeling’ must be taken here in its broadest sense, ‘meaning everything that can be felt from physical sensation, pain and comfort, excitement and and repose, to the most complex emotions, intellectual tensions, or the steady feeling tones ‘of a conscious human life, Langer 1957: 15) This is an understanding of the notion of ‘touch that considers it as a way not only of ‘making contact with the wider world but also of engaging conceptually. Within an ordering of experience and engagement oriented around the senses touch hovers between sight and taste. Lying neither beyond the reach of the body nor hidden within it, the objects that come to hand are both shaped and shaping, touching and touched. ‘The up-close and personal nature of touching and being touched supports the use of this sense as indicative not only of physical proximity but also of emotional contact, ‘Tobe ‘touched’ is part of a vocabulary of meaningfulness that draws neither on scopic detachment (and the bloodless rationalism such objectivity is occasionally accused of) nor con the dark and personal interiorty of tasting, ‘Touch operates with the press of surfaces and the entertainment of close mutual holding. This intimacy of epistemological relationship is alien to the formal endeavours of science but is firmly enshrined within the traditions of art anaesthetics. REFERENCES Arendt, Hannah. (1974) The Human Condition, The University of Chicago Pres, Chicago. Bourdieu, Piere. 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