Author: Stephen Neely

flat layers vs deep layers i.e. flattening the image in experience vs attending to multiple layers as counterpoint/ polyphony

Unison/counterpoint/polyrhythm following vs leading vs shared chamber music togetherness Who’s on top? power balance/imbalance who has agency to lead? swarms/flocks/mobs/cults There is a nice tension on the spectrum between Fascist military/mechanistic unisons and Occupy Wall St/starling murmuration heterogeneous unisons Practiced unisons vs improvised

Willful Performance n. the skillful ability to rearrange one’s Attentional Hierarchy. Willful Performance is an advanced concept of Soma Literacy. In novice interactions (which include a majority of mundane acts) we are all tossed about, nudged, and manipulated by our active environments. Because the body yearns for harmony with our worlds, we are in a… Continue reading Willful Performance

Weakest Link n. in attentional hierarchy, the attentional variable that is willfully dismissed. In automobile design, the designer/engineer chooses which part of the car to make weak as a safety feature. The decision is made by the designer in advance of the actor experience. In the temporal environment, one must recognize that the actor shares… Continue reading Weakest Link

Vectorial Trajectories/Yearning-Forward n. the threshold whereby a motion becomes a gesture. The bodied experience is defined by the in time interstitial yearnings. The experience-ing of the experience is in the yearning-toward and -away-from the crusis. This yearning-toward is both moving forward with inertia and momentum (trajectory) and is driving toward or away-from a specific crusis… Continue reading Vectorial Trajectories/Yearning-Forward

Time–Space–Effort n. the expression of an archetypal codependent relationship. Temporal attention is never about time singularly. To work with time is to implicate space and effort. The three are codependent. If redesigning a given happening, any change to one of these concepts will have to involve a change to at least one of the others.… Continue reading Time–Space–Effort

Tiers of experience n. analytical registers of attention. The tiers of experience are the visual, aural, logical, gustatory (taste), olfactory, and somatic. They are each implicated in one another. In actual in time unfolding experience, it is not possible to negate the soma in turn for another, rather, the Soma Literacy agenda strives for a… Continue reading Tiers of experience

Tension and Release n. the bodied phenomena of anticipation and follow-through. Tension and release is a supporting concept to Anacrusis–Crusis–Metacrusis and the Golden Gesture. Analog motion requires a shift of weight. This action is full of potential energy (tension) converting into kinetic energy (release) and back again. To the living sentient being, “stillness” (which is… Continue reading Tension and Release

Temporal Relativity n. The association of our personal temporality (literal and cultural) to the world we inhabit. Our current reality is relative to our past experience, our culture, and our actual physicality. Our personal history and individual disposition create relevances and dissonances that encourage hierarchical attention to our environments. Your world is the world that… Continue reading Temporal Relativity

Temporal Fit n. the appropriateness of temporal variables to the participating actor. “Good design is the absence of bad fit” (Steenson, 2017, p. 28). This is a significant statement in temporal designs as much as it is in 2-D or 3-D designs. In the temporal realm we desire a cohesive gestalt experience and this experience… Continue reading Temporal Fit