Playing the jigsaw : senses of rhythms and rhythms of the senses

Yi Chen — 2022-12-20T16:30:00Z

This paper has already been published in Free Associations : Psychoanalysis and Culture, Media, Groups Politics Number 63, October 2012. We thank Yi Chen for the permission to republish it here.

Abstract : In Rhythmanalysis : Space, Time and Everyday Life, the French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre illustrated vividly the infiltration of rhythms in our concrete experience of lived life. Sparse comments on the relationship of psychoanalysis and rhythmanalysis set up a contested terrain. The proposition that rhythmanalysis as a tool of cultural investigation will eventually replace psychoanalysis provokes major lines of arguments in this paper. In assessing their forms of attention, analytic techniques, interactions with the world and the nature of their pursuit, this paper suggests that instead of conceiving an antagonistic relationship between the two fields of enquiry, a constitutive and dialogic form of relation lies at the heart of the problem. I argue that by examining aspects of psychoanalysis through the optic of rhythmanalysis and vice versa, concealed perceptions and interpretations of each are made visible. A tentative reformulation of D. W. Winnicott's object relations theory within the framework of rhythmanalysis is undertaken. The credentials of employing psychoanalysis and rhythmanalysis in cultural criticism are evaluated and the synergy of rhythmanalysis and psychoanalysis in the arena of cultural studies is emphasised.

‘Walking With' : A Rhythmanalysis of London's East End

Yi Chen — 2019-10-23T12:27:45Z

This paper has already been published in Culture Unbound, Volume 5, 2013 : 531–549, hosted by Linköping University Electronic Press. We thank Yi Chen for the permission to republish it here.

Abstract : In this paper, I will be looking at the practice of walking through the lens of rhythmanalysis. The method is brought to attention by Lefebvre's last book Rhythmanalysis (2004) in which he suggests a way of interrelating space and time ; a phenomenological inquiry hinged on the concrete experience of lived life. My interest in the nuance of walking was initially evoked by the structural film Fergus Walking which was made by the film maker William Raban in 1978. I will explore the potential of using structural films in sensitising us to the temporalspatial relationship of things. The main body of the paper centres around two themes : Firstly I address the primacy of movement as a mode of engaging with the world. It is through ‘muscular consciousness' (Bachelard 1964 : 11) that walking becomes a form of experiential knowing, feeling, connecting and protesting. Secondly, I examine the practices of walking in relation to the radical transformations of the Docklands' landscape since the beginning of the 1980s. I propose that the contesting interests of different groups can be explored by analysing the rhythmic interactions of their activities. The transition and recomposition of an economy from locally based industrial activities to globalised financial services were manifested in the syncopation of regeneration rhythms to the living rhythms of the Docklands. The fast changing urban landscapes were negotiated through alternative ways of navigating the streets, hence engendering a different set of rhythms.

Keywords : Walking, roads, rhythmanalysis, structural film, Docklands.

Rhuthmos

Playing the jigsaw : senses of rhythms and rhythms of the senses

‘Walking With' : A Rhythmanalysis of London's East End