In this chapter I have discussed Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the intertwining – the chiasm. I have suggested that Picasso’s account of the creative process is evidence of how artists might access experience in a way that is open to the body-world intertwining chiasm. I suggest that this way of accessing experience is different to everyday experience and is worthy of further investigation. In workshops and in performance, I attempted to research the process of accessing experience differently, by closely attuning-to visceral phenomena using body-centred practices that focus on the concept of the intertwining-the chiasm.
As a result, this Performance Research has helped me to build attunement capacity. I discovered that when I was in motion with the Möbius loop I could attune-to the forces that propel, bind, and separate things. I discovered that things have distinct forms, shapes, and assemblages that manifest in time and place. They have boundaries and edges but these structures are porous which makes them affected by their immersive conditions. As a result, I developed practices to focus in-between things.
My research reveals that focusing attention between things, embodying sensory metaphors, and encountering the Möbius loop in performance, makes it possible to more readily attune-to the intertwining – the chiasm. Based on my experiences, I propose that this fundamental structure works as a dynamic and generative force, and is therefore deeply implicated in the processes of artistic creativity. In the next chapter, I will focus on how Bergson’s concept of becoming has also helped me to access experience differently and develop artistic performance works.