bag on head

I decided to put myself through a series of physical experiments in vertigo and blindness in order to start to find some atypical ways of experiencing systems that feel familiar. 

First, I covered my head with two trash bags to cancel any light from coming through.  Then I spun around in multiple directions in order to disorient myself.  Then I attempted to navigate the space without using my hands, periodically spinning whenever I began to find myself in familiar territory.  I did this in my living room, up and down the stairs to my bedroom, and finally, over the railing down into my kitchen.  

I was interested in exploring ineffective communication of the body to the environment, and ways that this disintegrates down when the body is displaced from its normal modes of data collection.  I was also thinking about the concept of a "skin" of a body as being an entire environment that is uninterrogated and allowed to exist without challenge or critique from the outside world.  The idea of expanding and contracting skins congruent with safety were especially interesting to me. 

Points of interest: 

The double bag was very thick.  Depending on how I moved my head, the potential for hyperventilating was very possible.  This actually was pretty interesting, and I spent most of all three experiments playing with the line of physical comfort.  There was something that was momentarily interesting for me in following the breath- only moving at the speed and quality that my breath was allowed to come.  Forcing your voluntary movements to follow an automatic system that is suddenly made vulnerable is pretty interesting to me, and I'd like to explore this further. It brought the sense of orientation inside really deeply, and I lost track of the edges of my body and nervousness of pain really quickly. 

There were moments when leading with my head felt very interesting- asking your body to lead with what feels most vulnerable felt very alienating from normal navigation-  moments when I trusted the environment and allowed myself to move freely while leading with my head were pretty fascinating: negotiating the body's desire to keep itself safe/in control with total abandonment of physical safety felt like pretty interesting territory.  

Things that felt safe/unchallenging to sense of body's boundaries: over awareness of height or speed or lack of breath pulled me back into the body. Moments of dizziness or total disorientation felt really promising.  I think if there was a way to do this longer/slower/in an unfamiliar space that would be informative.  

https://vimeo.com/52111647