BODY LANUGAGE
Body Language was an interactive installation created by Alex Goldberg for Un:Resolved 2.0 The Enclothed Collective group research show.
“Insight for the planning of Body Language arrived in my mind by way of language: The mind is a self constructed spiral. Spirals exist in constant motion. Utilize physicality to redirect yours towards embodied presence. I did not question it.
My imagination aided in processing the language. A colored textile emerged, where we can search for the message on one side or feel it through light and color on the other. This did not make perfect sense, but: I did not question it.
My mind is constantly questioning the validity of the process, but I’ve been doing this for long enough that my muscle memory knows that I will achieve mind-body balance if I continue. My body will become engaged enough to focus the mind. The two work together in tandem.
The entirety of the process is about grasping the gift from the mind, the words, and utilizing the body and creativity to process it. If the body is not engaged, the brief mental clarity will be swallowed up by the usual mental chatter. There is a speed within which I must work so that my body is more engaged than my mind, because this is not a matter of the mind. The process is about moving away from my mind and into my body so my body can communicate instead.
And then I hit that moment where I reach embodied knowledge. Completely unplanned, my body starts to sew a spiral and I realize that this process of physical making is redirecting my spiral towards embodied presence, which was the invitation that began this whole process.
Something is unlocked and I am now able to question constraints. A mode of inquiry quite different from questioning based on constructs. The mind-body balancing has altered the way that my mind is functioning. My mind is focused, free, and expansive.
I shared this process with participants and invited them to listen to a meditation and explore how language, geometry, sensory perception, and body movement can integrate to enhance self awareness and activate perceptual shifts.
The process is the practice and the practice is the process. The goal is that through these processes, we can learn to accept the gifts that come from the paradoxes in which we exist. That we can live into the understanding that we are having both an individual experience and one of a much larger network.
I practice this transformation in relationship to self, other, and environment. And most importantly, I do not question it.” - AG