The Cultivation of Inward Attention: Resonances between Cartographic Research and Somatic Practices

Abstract

With reference to Yves Citton's ecology of attention and Hubert Godard's movement analysis, the aim of this study is to present a number of connections between how the cultivation of inward attention is discussed in cartographic research and in somatic practices in the context of dance. Taking as a starting point three practices found in the dance Contact Improvisation - the small dance, the imagined walk and the somatic touch - the article presents somatic practices as creating an attentional ecosystem that works with the tonic-affective and tactile-kinesthetic dimensions of experience, which facilitate the access to the collective field of forces and affects. It suggests that the attention cultivated in this context develops a quality of presence to oneself and to the world that approaches that of cartographic attention, which is concentrated and open, turning the practitioner into a kind of cartographer of oneself. On the other hand, the study points out that the attention cultivated by means of somatic practices can contribute to the training of the cartographic researcher, by creating conditions for the learning of an attention turned inward, towards the other, and the territory of investigation.