someecards
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
SERRES
". . . to proceed cautiously towards the desperately desired opening; these are things I know about the body." (17)
"I touch one of my lips with my middle finger. Consciousness resides in this contact. I begin to examine it. It is often hidden in a fold of tissue, lip against lip, tongue against palate, teeth touching teeth, closed eyelids, contracted sphincters, a hand clenched into a fist, fingers pressed against each other, the back of one thigh crossed over the front of the other, or one foot resting on the other. I wager that the small, monstrous homunculus, each part of which is proportional to the magnitude of the sensations it feels, increases in size and swells at these automorphic points, when the skin tissue folds in on itself. Skin on skin becomes conscious, as does skin on mucus membrane and mucus membrane on itself. Without this folding, without the contact of the self on itself, there would truly be no internal sense, no body properly speaking, coenesthesia even less so, no real image of the body; we would live without consciousness; slippery smooth and on the point of fading away. Klein bottles are a model of identity. We are the bearers of skewed, not quite flat, unreplicated surfaces, deserts over which consciousness passes fleetingly, leaving no memory. Consciousness belongs to those singular moments when the body is tangential to itself." (22)
"Dense and blue, the body burns with stray languages. Empty like the tent, it leaves behind its jewels and regrets their absence: DESIRE. At the end of the fifteenth century, this term retains its Latin meaning, nostalgia, more than it embodies the contemporary meanings of lust and covetousness." (57)
"Loving a body, that rare special thing; no other volume on the surface of the planet has more value. Love confuses us; two chambers pouring together. Lingering near the surface of skins - veils, complex and subtle tissues - this or that indefinable scent, belonging exclusively to her or to him and signifying each one to the other, in consent. We do not love unless our senses of smell find themselves in improbable accord, a miracle of recognition between the invisible traces which scud over our naked skins, as air and clouds float above the ground. Until death there remains within us this spirit, in the chemical and mystical sense of the written and spoken word; as far as the nose is concerned, the emanations of whomever we have loved remain. It returns to haunt our skin, at dawn on certain mornings. Love perfumes our lives, aromas resurrect encounters in all their splendour." (171)
Michel Serres The Five Senses. A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies
"I touch one of my lips with my middle finger. Consciousness resides in this contact. I begin to examine it. It is often hidden in a fold of tissue, lip against lip, tongue against palate, teeth touching teeth, closed eyelids, contracted sphincters, a hand clenched into a fist, fingers pressed against each other, the back of one thigh crossed over the front of the other, or one foot resting on the other. I wager that the small, monstrous homunculus, each part of which is proportional to the magnitude of the sensations it feels, increases in size and swells at these automorphic points, when the skin tissue folds in on itself. Skin on skin becomes conscious, as does skin on mucus membrane and mucus membrane on itself. Without this folding, without the contact of the self on itself, there would truly be no internal sense, no body properly speaking, coenesthesia even less so, no real image of the body; we would live without consciousness; slippery smooth and on the point of fading away. Klein bottles are a model of identity. We are the bearers of skewed, not quite flat, unreplicated surfaces, deserts over which consciousness passes fleetingly, leaving no memory. Consciousness belongs to those singular moments when the body is tangential to itself." (22)
"Dense and blue, the body burns with stray languages. Empty like the tent, it leaves behind its jewels and regrets their absence: DESIRE. At the end of the fifteenth century, this term retains its Latin meaning, nostalgia, more than it embodies the contemporary meanings of lust and covetousness." (57)
"Loving a body, that rare special thing; no other volume on the surface of the planet has more value. Love confuses us; two chambers pouring together. Lingering near the surface of skins - veils, complex and subtle tissues - this or that indefinable scent, belonging exclusively to her or to him and signifying each one to the other, in consent. We do not love unless our senses of smell find themselves in improbable accord, a miracle of recognition between the invisible traces which scud over our naked skins, as air and clouds float above the ground. Until death there remains within us this spirit, in the chemical and mystical sense of the written and spoken word; as far as the nose is concerned, the emanations of whomever we have loved remain. It returns to haunt our skin, at dawn on certain mornings. Love perfumes our lives, aromas resurrect encounters in all their splendour." (171)
Michel Serres The Five Senses. A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies
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