Elaborated Knowledge: Reading Kinesis in Pictures

Abstract

Individuals learn, or try to learn, about other people from observing them and analogizing what they see to their own bodily or kinesic knowledge. We watch (for example) the position of limbs and the movement of eyes. We react to evidence of different states of muscle tension. Artists make use of their own kinesic knowledge and count on our understanding of it. But body language does not always reinforce knowledge available in other modalities, say, in language. As in other aspects of communication, conflicts are common between what can be known by observation and what may be known by other modalities. These conflicts are not errors but are a systematic aspect of the way we construct knowledge. The gaps between modalities are the necessary ground for human flexibility and creativity. A brief look at the work of Edouard Manet, Diane Arbus, and Barbara Kruger illustrates how artists take advantage of the conflict between information derived from bodily knowledge and that derived from language or other modalities of knowing.

Terrorizing Images

“…As Guillemette Bolens has argued, textual references to bodilym ovements and sensations trigger "sensorimotorp erceptual simulations" in the reader that invite her to adopt the position of the narrator (Bolens 2012: viii; on sensorimotor response, see also Spolsky 1996). But even though "kinesthetic empathy," an act of internal perceptual simulation that enables us to understand and to a large degree infer another person'sintentions, emotions, or state of mind (Bolens 2012,c h1 :3 ,6 ,1 3, 18, 40) might enable or increase the reader'si dentification with the narrator or protagonist of the story,t he form of perspective-taking -or readerly empathy -that Bolens describes is still several steps removed from social empathy ("sympathy" or "compassion," the lack of which Mehmedinović criticized in Western media reportingont he Bosnian war).…”

Movimiento primero, movimiento último: organización corporal del sentido en la lectura literaria

“…Paralelamente al planteamiento de la lectura de Zunshine, convive otro capitaneado por Guillemette Bolens o Anežka Kuzmičová cuyos trabajos rastrean únicamente el aparato sensoriomotor de quien lee y buscan analizar cómo desde el texto se interpela a la inteligencia kinésica del lector; esta última, en palabras de Ellen Spolsky, constituye la facultad de semantizar y comprender los movimientos corporales, posturas, gestos y expresiones faciales (Spolsky, 1996).…”

Narrative Use and the Practice of Fiction inThe Book of SindibadandThe Tale of Beryn

“…I discuss Geoffrey's simulated handicap and kinesic intelligence in my forthcoming article "Arms Akimbo: Kinesic Analysis in Visual and Verbal Art." On kinesic intelligence, see Spolsky 1996, and on kinesic analysis in literature, see my forthcoming book Le style des gestes: Corporéité et kinésie dans le récit littéraire. 20.…”