Contribution by Sally Stenton to collaborative writing as part of:
Davenport, K., Frandsen, P. and Stenton, S. Exploring ‘bending’ as an act of resistance. In: J. Boyer ed., Theorem 2018. Cambridge: Ruskin Arts Publications.
A conversation with the body (about bending)
Dear body, you have been slacking of late and I am receiving discomforting signals that suggest there is a problem with your posture. You have spent too much time sitting on the sofa with the laptop. Thank you for alerting me to the need for correction. I have come across some instructions that you might find helpful.
Stand up straight, alert, but relaxed, feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent, arms hanging loosely by your side. Feel your weight sinking into the earth as it pushes up under your feet. I will join you with a simple thought starting below you and defying gravity to propel itself around the body.
I am drawing a line that begins at the centre of the earth. I tie a loop around the earth’s core and then draw it up to the surface beneath the soles of the feet. The line divides and attaches the feet to the ground. Two lines now move up the body through the centre of the bones, ankles, calves, knees, thighs and joining again at the hips, up the backbone, separating at the shoulders [the screen has died. It needs re-charging. Plug in, switch on again and re-enter password] and extending to the hands, looping around and returning to the shoulders, joining again at the neck and moving up to the crown of the head. From the top of the head I continue the line upwards and tie it to a distant star to secure it.
I pull the string tight. You grow taller. I adjust the angle of the line and you lean softly in all directions, returning to the centre each time before tilting again. When the line slackens, you bend, a little to begin with, then lifting up and dropping lower, feeling the line pull you back up, stretching and expanding after each bend. Continue with the bending, sideways, forwards, back, diagonal.
When I stand back from the drawing I have made, I am not able to see you bending, because the scale I have used is so great that you are not even a speck. But how can a tiny, invisible dot be all this? Now that you have disappeared, I am lost and feel compelled to fill the empty space with anything to hand. Resistance to emptiness is the place of stuckness. I can’t go any further. If I am your guide, I have lost my body and lost my way. I return to the screen.
In my peripheral vision, a flicker of a dance appears along the line. To be honest it might be just too much effort to translate. I should try of course, but yours is a language without a recognisable vocabulary or grammar and it makes my brain ache. The line I am drawing, I know, is an imprecise means to connect us. It inhabits a space somewhere between words and experience. It is a rope to hold onto to guide me back to the comfortable scale that exists on the horizontal line of sight. We can both feel awe when confronted by a mountain, but when you turn you are my measure of normality.
What quality of line have I drawn? What are the qualities of the line? The course rope comprises many strands to give it strength. The metal wire can bend and hold its form. The hollow tube is a carrier, the channel for a constant inner flow of pulses more prevalent than the plethora of digital needles that prick the eyes.
I am beginning to feel your quiet rebellion. I press on the line. As I apply downward pressure you twist, and the line forms a spiral, absorbing my energy, and curling into the earth. When the coil releases it springs back and catches me by surprise, sending my words flying, scattering them into the air.
We will lie down together, body and I, and let the words fall on us. What is the weight of the words? Are they made of fire, ice or shadow? Do they penetrate the skin, imprint on the body or rest on the surface? Do they leave a mark or melt away without leaving any trace?
Lying on the ground, when the words have settled, there is no surface to separate our eyes from infinity. Now the line from feet to head continues around the planet, one of many lines without beginning or end, following the curve of the horizon. The weft bends softly around the earth and meets the warp, creating a fabric of empty space whilst millions of resistors like us agitate along the interwoven strands: a smart material ready for activation.
I sense the metaphors are replicating. The body is losing confidence with the line that always spins back into words. In a sudden and unexpected twist of events, I watch as the body stretches and bends the line, cuts the head out of the loop and slips effortlessly into playful anarchy. [The screen fails again and a raw, euphoric laughter fills the space.]
