TRANSCRIPT
Correspondences.
A Bodcast on Bodily Sensing Delivered in Voice Packets
A project by Savannah Theis and Valentina Curandi
Friday March 6th, 2020

00:00.00 Voice packet #4 begins

Savannah Theis
In physics, a field is a region in which every point is affected by a force.

Savannah Theis
Figuring out, refiguring.
Figuring otherwise, prefiguring.

Savannah Theis
It’s interesting because I’ve been meaning to speak about the book that I’ve been reading, ‘Depression. A Public Feeling’ by Ann Cvetkovich. She talks about how depression shouldn’t just be understood as biological or medical, but as a social and cultural phenomenon, so an expression of a depressive culture, which pushes down our spirit.


Archive of bodily sounds
SHAME


Savannah Theis
When I feel I’m in that state, I usually I feel like this is just me... this is the reality and I’m completely alone in it.

Valentina Curandi
I went to my doctor today. It was my check control test visit.
While I thought I was doing quite good, actually, the doctor responded that I’m doing pretty bad. Between my feeling and the results, I probably looked delusional. Somehow I found myself in this, in this hole that I oftentimes feel I am, when I’m in the company of doctors. I feel judged, then I also feel punished, when I get back with that diagnosis.


Archive of bodily sounds
NEW RECORDING21


Valentina Curandi
But mostly, yeah, I feel between this tension, which is also the dual meaning of the word pain, which mostly comes from another word, that is punishment.

Savannah Theis
So it’s comforting to read what she says about this being a collective condition. It makes me think about how this applies to other conditions too.

Savannah Theis
-There’s an i in my-

Savannah Theis
How my irritable bowels or...

Savannah Theis
-there’s an i in my b, there’s an-

Savannah Theis
itchy feet or stabbing sensation or slight twinge or sensitive stomach or...

Savannah Theis
- i in my bowels. There’s an i in my bowels, there’s an -

Savannah Theis
short sight or locked jaw or... are both articulations of social relations, and an undoing of those relations.

Savannah Theis
- in my bowels, there’s an... in my bowels, in my i in my bowels, there’s an i in my bowels, in my bowels in my bowels, in my i in my bowels, in my bowels, in my bowels, in my -


Archive of bodily sounds
FLATULENCE


Savannah Theis
They call it silent but violent. And so the


Archive of bodily sounds
FLATULENCE


Savannah Theis
comes out ever so subtly. Ever so silent. Dispelling and silently violently entering nostrils. A violent ph. Having an impact. My i.... bowels having an impact, having an impact, having an impact.

Savannah Theis
Cvetkovich in her book is compiling an unusual archive of spiritual and literary and personal writings and practices that speak about the condition of depression as

Savannah Theis
- having an impact -

Savannah Theis
asking for new ways of living.

Savannah Theis
One can be in dialogue with it.
Meeting the force one is confronted with, with the same force.
Picking it up, becoming it and directing it back.
The forces that catch your attention activate you, create an interference.
Do you notice through a body feeling?
is it a symptom, or an element in a dream?

Valentina Curandi
Yesterday one eye was tearing, while the other one kept vigilant towards the outside.
Eye has been tearing while I was waiting at the tram stop.
Eye has been tearing while I was sitting on the tram.
Eye has been tearing while I was going through the results of a psychological therapy.
Eye has been tearing while I was sipping a coffee in a bar between an appointment and another. Eye has been tearing when the detector of the store rang at me and at my bag full of purchased items.
Eye stopped tearing, and I don’t know exactly about that.

Savannah Theis
When something, when something comes up in the conversation, that is part of the conversation, whether it’s a person or like in our case also with the piece, it’s like the bodies, the organs, then they become a bit like dream figures, which aren’t, it’s not like a fixed thing but in the moment they are a dream figure that contains a certain... it contains certain information and a certain way of inhabiting the world and relating to the world.

Valentina Curandi
Eye was being so publicly private, mourning the loss of communication between the lacrimal gland and its excretory ducts. In public and under the vigilant support of the other, who kept managing all that I had to deal with half through my day.

Savannah Theis
It’s a broader understanding of dreams than dreams that occur at night during sleep. The dreaming shows up in different forms, different forces that affect, giving rise to experiences that might be likened to a form of dreaming. A force that has a pattern.

Savannah Theis
Today I did a kind of body dreaming on doubts and fears coming up for me. As I sensed into them, I tried to notice how I was sensing them in my body. I noticed I was leaning back and there was a slight pressure on my throat. I sensed into this more and leant back further and also sensed into the pressure tightening around my throat. I tried to sense into this further and visualised it to support that, imagining that my head was going further and further back.

Savannah Theis
Everything is always interacting with these forces, is in dialogue with the dreaming, impacted by and impacting upon it.

Savannah Theis
Could you consider it as a dream door, a portal to another pattern and become that dream figure? Could you catch something of its essence, how it stands, its posture, how it moves, how it speaks, how it sees and understands?

Savannah Theis
As I leant back all the way, feeling the tension on my throat all the way, my head came off and went to the back of the room.
I was headless and blood was spurting out of my throat. I sensed into my...

Savannah Theis
-wild-

Savannah Theis
decapitated head on the floor being supported...

Savannah Theis
- uninhibited -

Savannah Theis
by the surface. A deep sense of relaxation...

Savannah Theis
- squirting -

Savannah Theis
with the head being relieved from its dominant function...

Savannah Theis
- covering the room, covering everything -

Savannah Theis
and just lying there held by the ground. I sensed into what feels good about that...

Savannah Theis
- freely -

Savannah Theis
feeling supported by the ground and melt away.
Tried to sense into this melting quality and imagined where in nature one can find this quality. To pay attention and to intervene, is a form of activism.

Savannah Theis
- figuring out -

Savannah Theis
Both internal,

Savannah Theis
- refiguring -

Savannah Theis
in oneself - picking up a force, intervening in a pattern.

Savannah Theis
- figuring otherwise -

Savannah Theis
Or external

Savannah Theis
- prefiguring -

Savannah Theis
interfering in the patterns of the wider world. Following the dreaming.

Savannah Theis
- figuring the dream field -

Savannah Theis
Could you forget the original trigger and go further, becoming and exploring this force,

Savannah Theis
I melted into, I became a kind of slime mould. Oozing and seeping and leaking and


Archive of bodily sounds
MELTING


Savannah Theis
further and further and notice whether there’s anything you enjoy about it.

Savannah Theis
following what feels good, sensorially guided.

Savannah Theis
Not to excuse to excuse or validate the original trigger but to discover something of its essence

Savannah Theis
merging and ingesting and excreting.


Archive of bodily sounds
SLURPING


Savannah Theis
Exuberantly covering everything freely.
Exuberantly, exuberantly covering everything in a deep crimson. Spattering and spluttering and squirting.

Savannah Theis
- figuring out, refiguring, figuring otherwise, prefiguring, figuring the dream field -

Savannah Theis
If you see it as roles, who in you is impacted, disturbed?
What is the quality of this role or force that is impacting?
What is the specific characteristic that is causing the activation?
Could you become it?
Could you become the doctor?
Or the pressure pushing down, or the thing that you are speaking up against? Could you embody it and imagine meeting and interacting with the thing that activated you from here?

12:19.000 Voice packet #4 ends


References
Ann Cvetkovich, Depression: A Public Feeling, Duke University Press, 2012, p. 199