Last Wed night I was watching bits and pieces of a film on Robert Irwin
called "The Beauty of Questions' which covered similar terrain to the
Lawrence Weschler biography 'Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing
One Sees'. Both the film and the book are an indepth look at Irwin's
persona and his artistic practice. In the film Irwin speaks about his desire
to create situations where the viewer perceives themselves perceiving.

But if we catch ourselves perceiving is it not the same as waking from a
dream and remembering it? If you become aware of the mechanics of your
own understanding, what is your focus? It is no longer on the object
or the experience you are having, rather it is now on the mechanics of
comprehension or perceiving.

This weekend I had a house party and whilst I was djing, I was watching
people dance and I began to think about it....for Irwin the whole point
is to catch people become conscious of the fact that they are perceiving.
But my goal is to create situations and context within which to give
people an experience be it perceptual or phenomenological. I have
struggled with it for the past few months: what does that mean, what
sort of situations is it etc? But when I was standing back and watching
people dance, it seemed to answer a lot of questions. When you are
dancing you lose yourself in the fabric of the music, the people around
you. In some ways when I dance I feel like a fool because I think I
must not be doing it right, and I must look ridiculous. But watching
that group of people didn't seem to be any self consciousness, or discomfort.
There was only pleasure, and immediacy. No one seemed to be thinking to hard
about what they were doing, they just seemed to throw themselves into
the moment, and were present.

I am not sure that I can agree with Irwin; if you catch yourself
perceiving, then you are no longer perceiving. You are analyzing
something that happened, being critical of the act to some extent. But
when you are fully experiencing the phenomenological you are in the
moment completely. Your not thinking about what you did three hours ago,
nor are you considering where you are going to go in an hour, your
movements become fluid and your actions become whole. You don't really
care if you look like a fool, because your not aware that you are
supposed to care.

The question is how does one create a universal experience that equates
going off your head because 'Blue Monday' is on? Granted not everyone
was off their head dancing, and that is the crux. Is it even possible
to create the universal? How do you create a situation or environment
that makes someone stop thinking and just be?