Intuition 2 - improvisation

INTUITION PART 2: IMPROVISATION
"Note:These exercises are not meant to be followed rigidly. They are a stimulus to set you off, perhaps in another direction, as long as the inertia of inactivity is broken. Improvisation is almost by definition best free from preconcieved prescription or definition."

 Improvisation with Visuals Conventional 'artistic' materials are not allowed. What can you find around and about that can be used to make... a picture? a sculpture? a hat? Rubbish is a good and is readily available. Industrial waste material can be especially good. Things from the jumble sale or charity shop.

If you have an idea this will direct your search for materials. If you have no ideas... look for materials and the materials will suggest things. Be topsy turvy. Be messy with clean materials. Be meticulous with filth. e.g. Draw local scenes on scrap paper with burnt sticks; make a public exhibition. Or dream up or copy a design for a head dress. Then make it with materials that are to hand. Be inventive... leaves might replace feathers, milk bottle tops medals.

Visit the local rubbish tip. Factory dustbins. Middle class skips. Pile up your scavenged materials in the middle of your room and set to work to fill the walls with your creations. The secret is to get stuck in; its no good holding back looking puzzled. Bend it, turn it over, fit it together, play with it, tie it up... suddenly some coherence becomes evident. An idea or just a sense of something. The junk materials take on a new sense of presence or identity. ('ref Exploding Galaxy')

 Visual improvisation 2 Collect a dozen or so objects or materials) that you like but that have been thrown away or are conventionally valueless.

Bring these objects together in a box or room and consider them together. This consideration might include listing all the associations these objects have for you. Observe them all closely from every angle. 'What does it remind you of from this angle?'

How could you put several or all of them together to make a unified identity? Play with the many possibilities of fitting them together or arranging them in relationship to each other. Pleasing effects should be noted; but do not be satisfied with the first hint of cohesion. "Aim to make an aesthetically pleasing conglomerate after a pre decided amount of time. This may be a sculptural or fantasy object or 'anything'. Additional colour may be added to make the 'finished product'.

Intuition holds the key to our aesthetic judgement and concepts of 'creativity'.

 Drawing improv You need a wad of blank paper and a good drawing implement.

Allow your hand to draw some ambigious and perhaps amorphous shape of its own. Don't think about it. Then start casually moulding the shape on impulse. Don't care a fig about results. Work quickly giving full responsibility to the hand. As soon as the sheet bores or frustrates you .. try another.

If after five minutes or five sheets nothing of any interest has occurred postpone the exercise and do something else. You may have to do several sessions like this before something happens. (Some may recognise this technique as a form of the much maligned peripheral activity of 'doodling'.)

 Sounds improv Without any instruments; unless you call a pair of shoes an instrument. Begin by spending an hour or more compiling a vocabulary of sounds. Try for range and variety. Find out what's possible.

Begin playing with these sounds. with a real sense of the utter importance of what you are doing. (After all it's your time in your life...) Stay open to ambient sounds. Produce only what is needed. Produce whatever you want. Look ahead. Remember what you are doing. Forget yourself. Be ruthless.

Note: This may be difficult to do because letting yourself go lays you open to ridicule and abuse. Find trusted company who can listen without expectations. On this level of doing there are no aesthetic scales of Standards. All that is necessary is to open yourself up. Letting go whilst remaining in control and sensitive.

 Intuitive Massage Everything is allowed: except the recipients discomfort! Don't allow hir to get cold. Don't tickle, dig, punch or pinch.

'Listen' to the person you are massaging - not just to what they are saying, but listen to their body with your fingers and palms. The you must tune in to the person psychic state and do whatever seems right. Invent the strokes and finger presses and knuckle kneading as an empathic response. Keep in touch with your subject.

Much emphasis should be given to the reassuring placement of hands on the body and and to the beneficial effect of simple touching. Rhythm and variety of speed, different aromatic oils, hot water bottles, pillows for support. different textures of cloth and glove can make such a massage as rich an experience as a piece of music.

Music is in fact a good accompaniment.

 Mime and Movement Improv 'Split up ino pairs. One person in each pair talks to her partner for five minutes. Decide beforehand what is going to be the topic, something like 'what happened from the time you got up this morning until now', The other person says nothing but gives attention. Change over after five minutes.

The second stage is the same process but miming or acting out the experience instead of talking. Take about seven minutes each this time.

The third stage is to take the essence of the experience picking from things that have come up the previous two times, and to improvise in movement for perhaps ten minutes each. The person giving attention acts as an external focus for the people working.

Discus afterwards.'

Emilyn Claid IMPROVISATION, New Dance Magazine No,6. Spring '78.

 Automatic Writing Write the first absurd or otherwise phrase  comes into your head. Then stop. Look out the window. Read the phrase you have written, then write the first thing that comes into your head, to follow the first phrase. As soon as you pause to think and consider..,stop. Look away. Reread and continue.

If you have prepared yourself sufficiently so that this process happens unselfconsciously the result may be weird and seem disassociated from your own self.

Even better done with two people each with typewriters. Both simultaneously type out a paragraph about anything that comes into their heads. They then exchange typewriters, read each others and continue typing on from where the other person left off.

In this way stories grow in unpredictable and exciting ways. The previous paragraph will spark off an immediate and original response.

 Story Telling The essence of good story telling is rich and detailed descriptions and strong characterisations within a succession of events.

Explanation is not necessary and can be supplied by the listener. The way to start is just to say whatever comes to mind however cliched and witless.

Practice regularly every day.

A young child is an ideal audience as most children love stories told to them face to face however ridiculous and disjointed. Topics may suggest themselves in preliminary conversation with your audience.

The stories will be more effective if they find ways to involve the listeners. This is much more important than beginning, middle and end. Regularity of practice will develop a style and probably some themes you will enjoy repeating and embellishing, probably on demand from your audience.

 Taste and Smell You have been too busy to get food in. Some friends arrive. This is the perfect setting in which to do this excercise. A meal can usually be made with scraps and bits not normally considered in routine cuisine. In the larder find those few dried beans and the quarter full bag of flour. Those few vegetable in the garden of that empty house down the road. Sorrel from the wasteland. Houseplants? Nasturtium leaves make a tangy salad.

Scour you house and neighbourhood for anything edible. Put all your loot onto a table. Choose some items that need cooking longest and start to prepare them. As soon as you actually start ideas for combining this random selection will start coming to you. You are making a new and unique dish. Style and presentation are as important as taste and smell so dont let them be forgotten. Proceed step by step carefully tasting at each juncture, to ensure you have taken a wise direction.

One of the most important parts of the meal might be the smell of the paper flower that adorns your buttonhole as you go out to greet your guests.

 Feed Ritual Select an aim in your life that requires a degree of randomness or luck to get it to occur. Eg. getting a job, meeting the right peron, finding money in the street.

Spend a little while (eg. ten minutes) in a garden or local park selecting a twig and a leaf. This is a meditative preparation so give full measure to the selection of the twig and leaf.

Now, thinking of your aim, break twig - drop leaf. Then walk away and get on with your business. (Requires faIth in the of operation of interrelatedness of all things and the subtlety which the intuition is capable).

 Premonition (as a use of intuition)

1. Whenever you receive a letter - guess who has sent it before seeing it if possible. You will probably be wrong at first. But if you persevere with this practice in a lighthearted way, without a false feeling of failure you will probably find your premonitory accuracy increasing.

2. The same can be done with telephone calls. As the telephone rings allow a couple o! rings for an image to rise up in your mind. This image will give you the clue to who is calling. Always trust the very first image that arises.

3. Apparently many people are able, with preparation, to do Nostrodamus type predictions for the future and gain a 50% or more accuracy.

4. Tarot, Numerology etc are all useful practice for the intuition.

 Tapping Group Intuition (Brainstorming or Synectics.) "Synectics (meaning the joining together of differentand apparently irrelevant elements) aimed at stimulating the rate and complexity of combination (of ideas) through use of metaphor, symbol and fantasy." Barron 1958 p144

A group technique in which a problem or question is understood by all as the subject. The group then throws in ideas all around the subject area. Lunacy is encouraged as it is often in the wake of an absurdity that the most original ideas arise. During the madness seemingly irrelevant material should not be suppressed. In fact the aim should be to, drop inhibitions and conventions that will normally keep our thoughts to the straight and narrow. Group trust is essential. Do not expect fantastic results from your first sessions.

Everything that comes up is taken down on tape or by shorthand. Before the group meets again a concise typescript is made and duplicated so each person can have a copy. The original is kept for reference. Discussion of the transcript takes plave, new ideas arise and a more serious critical appraisal of material takes place.