Attunement and assemblages

Fieldwork observations (10th and 19th October) 5 and 6 /phase 2
My etudes depict the nature of materialisation of affect through images of thought and non conscious cognition (Hayles, 2017). In using my sketches I display a non- representational narrative account of the child- canine encounter adhering to a Deluzian paradigm to portray affect as a rhythmic, sonerous assemblage of movements which radiate into an affective atmosphere as affective capacities are felt between bodies both human and non- human.

Etude 5, 6 and 7: The children's stroking of Dave's fur is rhythmical and finger tips are moved up and down on Dave's body in a similar action to playing the keys on a piano.  Children are also using tapping motions on Dave's hind quarters as if they are playing drums. Dave seems to be an instrument in which the musicality of communication is literal and affective. This adds to as sonerous, affective space which transforms the atmosphere.

A parliament of lines: the sociality of touch.

Fieldwork observation 10th October, 2017 (observation 4, phase 2) revisits my fascination with anthropologist Tim Ingold's 'Parliament of lines'.  I can see through my sketching, how I have become perceptive to the children coming together, not just to to stroke Dave (usually in small groups of 3-4 children at a time)  but to create lines of connectivity through the sociality of touch (Htu, 2014). Or as one child said, 'Dave's creation of pathways' of connection. This in turn enables a meshwork of movement and growth, temporal 'lines of becoming'.  Rather like a rich tapestry, lines of cotton are made and joined together forming a picture or portraiture of the moment I am drawing, yet if we look closely at the process, turn the tapestry over, we see many loose threads, intricately woven that do not appear to fit together.  Meshwork is then rather different from a network. Human and non-human relationships are tangled and enmeshed.  The wonderful beauty of such communication can be its musicality and rhythm. The children rarely talk during these moments as they are not only sensually experiencing (Dave's silky fur lines and contours) but engaging active and passive intent as the same time.  In observing and drawing this I too am telling their story - not with words - but through the use of my pencil becoming like a musical instrument that draws the line that "tells" (Causey, 2017).  This is far greater in showing the transmission of affect, as drawing helps me understand and see the essence of experience in the encounter between Dave and the children, perceiving it differently.

In order to consider movement, rhythm and meshwork, I need to enact it through my drawing, my own encounters with Dave, and giving him a belly rub are part of my participant-observation and how my seeing-drawing is from my own "body memory" too. In this I am entering a culture, through ways that fit the particular social identity, as it is within the social environment of the classroom.  I am carefully perceiving and moving, acting and copying the children's everyday performances as a way to 'fit in'.  This language of communication would be invisible as 'written word' and by making the invisible visible, deeper understanding of the social phenomenon can be shown.

Etude 4: Dave and the children creating lines and "pathways" of connectivity and musicality and rhythm of communication through movement and sensory experience:  

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Drawing out the lines of the event

My fieldwork observations from Tuesday 26th September (Obs 3 phase 2) encapsulate the ideas of Derek McCormack, (2004) and how various movement practices and participation can be translated into the provision of a space(s) . By remapping the children's movements during a Spanish lesson it gives me a hook into the potentiality of these spaces in becoming fluctuated between 'smooth' and 'striated' (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). This can afford childrens agency, enabling something abstract to become quite real. The regulated/striated space becoming a liberated space of 'becoming'. The line can be something corporeal, with its contours moving and meandering (Dave's "lines of fligh") into unfamiliar territory. McCormack says that these are lines 'that go for a walk, lines of orientation'.  This is an apt description of Dave and the children as they come together in the encounter, the event of rhythmic stroking, the children's hand movements tracing the contours of his body and fur, encompassing pathways of  'movement vocabulary' in a space of shared embodied emotion. This assemblage becomes a "kinesphere" and lines of intersection which create sonorous rhythm. These qualities afford connective entanglements that have affective properties such as the creation of a space to 'be' or 'attune'.

The presence of moving bodies (such as Dave the classroom dog) affords physical transformation of the space but he also alters the affective, sonic, imaginative and social qualities of this space. Another way of thinking about how bodies (human and non-human) move between spaces is by considering the rhythmic relations between bodies and spaces; Lefebvre (1991) on "rhythmanalysis" states this is a technique for creative engagement with and through the sensory experiences of everyday life. These sensory experiences become affective energies that infuse the classroom atmosphere, perhaps transforming feelings and non-conscious processes.

Drawing out the lines of the event is remapped below: