Dr. sc.

Sibila Petlevski Redefining Spontaneity

Abstract: This paper is an attempt at cross-disciplinary understanding of the concept of spontaneity. It combines insights from performance theory with systems theory and neurobiology. However, we are aware of the major shift in research methodology from technical to more contextual and pragmatic approach. We think that purely theoretical insight into spontaneity proves inadequate when it comes to analyzing performing arts and thus open up room for new applied methods for the social sciences and performance analysis based on research in practice. This paper is divided into three parts. In the Introductory remarks we discuss the illusion of spontaneity in representational and non-representational systems of acting; we point to the everlasting tension between theory and practice and distinguish between the notions of spontaneity and improvisation. The second part of this paper suggests new possibilities of scientific (re)defining of an otherwise elusive aesthetic spontaneity. The third part of this paper makes a bold hypothesis that recent neurobiological explanations of spontaneous brain activity connected to the experiments with default-mode network might have some important implications on understanding creative potential of spontaneity in different media of artistic expression, particularly in jazz improvisation and in certain acting techniques.

Keywords: Spontaneity, Performance, Acting, Music, Systems Theory, Biomatrix, Improvisation, Conscious Resting State, Stimulus-Independent Thought, Default-mode Network, Creativity.

I. Spontaneity In Performance Practice and Performance Theory The notion of spontaneity seems to be elusive enough to make the imaginary gap between theory and practice painfully reopened each time we try to bring theorists and practitioners together at the same discussion table. We may well ask ourselves, then, how is it possible that we should still mind that gap in our post-dramatic epoch, when practice-led research and research-led practice gets mentioned one way or another in almost all syllabi for drama courses? According to Websters 1913 Dictionary spontaneity is the quality or state of being spontaneous, or acting from native feeling, proneness, or temperament, without constraint or external force. The popular, commonsensical belief in native feeling, however, brings additional complication to the problem of spontaneous behavior, especially when it comes to acting techniques based on spontaneous improvisation. Not to mention that practically in every historical period one can find elements explicitly

characterized as improvised. For example, there has been a lot of improvisation and low, physical humor in Phlyax play developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in the 4th century B.C., as well as in the genre of Atellan farce from the 1st century B.C., in Greek and Roman mimes, in Renaissance commedia dell'arte all'improvviso, in the 19th-century French Boulevard Pantomime Blanche and in some 20th-century historical avant-garde theatres. Improvisation in contemporary performance is a primary subject by itself. A new domain of interest has been set up in performance studies where a new concept of spontaneity connected to the concept of presence is considered as an important point of challenge leading to stimulating theoretical debate on the crossroads of different disciplines and scientific fields, different media approaches and diverse artistic insights into the same deceptive, historically hard-to-understand problem of spontaneity in performing arts. The shift in focus from questioning the correspondence between descriptions and reality to matters of performing practices, resulted in the current move toward performative alternatives to representationalism. However, preferring presentational performing styles over representational modes of acting does not solve the mystery of spontaneity. No matter how clear might seem the distinction between representation and presentation, based on the way performance addresses the audience, and no matter how deep might be the philosophical explanation of the core difference between the two the practice of acting proves that, when it comes to rehearsal and concrete exercises, both presentational and representational acting techniques search for the same ideal of spontaneity, and tend to prescribe recipes for attaining some sort of native feeling necessary for the production of the quality or state of being spontaneous. Once achieved internally, spontaneity is being acted out. Both representational and presentational modes of performance share that common rule. Spontaneity is located somewhere deep under the skin in no mans land between intimacy and collective consciousness; and it is doubtful whether it stays in the twilight zone of actors public privacy, as a form of painfully achieved artistically operational self-sufficiency, or it emanates positive feelings of lightness and pleasure, causing, as Mnouchkine would say, some sort of therapeutic friction: when an emotion bursts through unbidden in an improvisation and forms the basis for another improvisation1 Equally doubtful is the claim that to act spontaneously is to be without constraint or external force. Juxtaposing neurophysiological investigations of aestheticians accounts of dances impact, Susan Leigh Foster tried to show how the influence that one body can exert over another, its propensity toward contagion, has changed radically over the past hundred years.2 Foster starts from some remarks of the dance critic John Martin who in the 1930s described movements effect on viewers as contagious, spreading influence or emotion from one body to another, but suggesting pollution and disease. Forsters compares practitioners insights into interkinestetic activity for example, practical results of contact
1

Miller, Judith G. (2007). Ariane Mnouchkine. Routledge Performance Practitioners. London and New York: Routledge, p. 134. 2 Cf. Foster, Susan Leigh (2008). Movements contagion: The kinesthetic impact of performance in: The Cambridge Companion to performance Studies (2008) ed. Tracy C. Davis. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi. Pp. 46-59.

improvisation in dance with Galleses neuropsychological discoveries connected to mirror neuron activity. Viewers bodies, even in their seated stillness, nonetheless feel what the dancing body is feeling the tensions or expansiveness, the floating or driving momentums that compose the dancers motion. Then, because such muscular sensations are inextricably linked to emotions, the viewer also feels the choreographers desires and intentions.3 In some of our previous texts we have also written quite extensively on the topic of inter-subject sympathy, embodied practice and choreomanic mechanism.4 Neuroscience research has demonstrated common neural mechanisms between executed and observed action at the neural level. Neuroimaging experiments in humans have showed the activation of a fronto-parietal neural network that is involved in the observation and imagination of action. There are also new insights into the problem of the self, representing the other, with the new cognitive neuroscience view of psychological identification. 5 Contemporary research in developmental science, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience provides cumulative evidence for a view of similarities in the construction of representations of the self and others. Trevarthens term (1979) intersubject sympathy a predisposition to be sensitive and responsive to the subjective states of other people gains in relevance in the light of the newly conducted experiments with neonatal imitation. These findings have led Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996) to propose that the understanding of the other person is primarily a form of embodied practice. (2004: 579). The perception of others action activates the premotor cortex and the parietal cortex in a somatotopical manner; watching mouth actions activates the cortical representation of the mouth, while watching hand or foot actions activates their respective representations (Buccino et al., 2001). Decety and Chaminade (2004) continue the line of the previously made research indicating that we are from birth not only acting and thinking selves, but we also express an intuitive need to relate ourselves to other people. The way Foster (as a choreographer, dancer and performance theoretician) draws theoretical conclusions from data obtained by scientific experiments made in social cognitive neuroscience laboratories, is symptomatic of the generally haphazard, sloppy way humanities borrow information from natural sciences. The poetization of the biological definition of spontaneity is obvious: Emotional states, described here in the language of disease as contagious, are transmitted through
3 4

Foster, Susan Leigh. Ibid. p. 49. Petlevski, Sibila (2011). Virulent Ideas, Memetic Engineering, Memeoid Identity, Aesthetic Warfare. In: Spaces of Identity in the Performing Sphere (2011) Eds. Petlevski, Sibila & Pavli, Goran. Zagreb: Fraktura/ADU. Pp. 13-49. See VI. Medieval dancing mania: choreo-meme abd its replicating strategy. 5 Cf. Decety, J., Chaminade, T., Grezes, J., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2002). A PET exploration of the neural mechanisms involved in reciprocal imitation. Neuroimage, 15(1), 265272.; Decety, J., & Chaminade, T. (2004). When the self represents the other: A new cognitive neuroscience view of psychological identification. Consciousness and Cognition, 12, 577596.

movement that has been devised spontaneously. The choreographer, tapping the emotional depths of his or her psyche, is moved by the force of the feelings found there. Even as re-presented on the concert stage, the resulting dance carries this primal force.6 Unfortunately, Fosters thesis is, scientifically speaking, a big misunderstanding: spontaneity connected to the emotional depths of the psyche has little to do with neural movement contagion suggested by the title of Forsters text. The value of this unfortunate marriage between popular natural science and practice-based performance theory, thus, remains exclusively in the domain of dance pedagogy. Spontaneity does not necessarily imply freedom as, for example, Viola Spolin would think. Her claim that the intuitive can only respond in immediacy right now is close enough to Stanislavskian being in the moment: The intuitive comes bearing its gifts in the moment of spontaneity, the moment when we are freed to relate and act, involving ourselves in the moving, changing world around us. Through spontaneity we are re-formed into ourselves. It creates an explosion that for the moment frees us from handed-down frames of reference, memory choked with old facts and information and undigested theories and techniques of other people's findings. Spontaneity is the moment of personal freedom when we are faced with reality, and see it, explore it and act accordingly. In this reality the bits and pieces of ourselves function as an organic whole. It is the time of discovery, of experiencing, of creative expression.7 Although undoubtedly under the influence of Stanislavsky, Spolin is more oriented towards pragmatic questions for which she gets material in sociological studies, experiments and group games of Neva Boyd8. In her opinion, acting can be taught to the "average" as well as the "talented" if the teaching process is oriented towards making the techniques so intuitive that they become the students' own. Spolins belief in an uncurbed flow of creativity and in blissful moments of absolute, private freedom, is nave but not devoid of charm. However, her argumentation suffers from circular logic fallacy. The acting technique Spolin claims must be so intuitive that it becomes the students own while, on the other hand, the only way to get to intuitive knowledge is through an activity that brings about spontaneity. Jacob L. Morenos concept of the impromptu, off-the-cuff, out of the moment, extempore
6 7

Ibid. 49. Spolin, Viola (1963). Improvisation for the Theatre. A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques. Nortwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois, p. 8. 8 See: Neva L. Boyd (1924). The Social Education of Youth Through Recreation: The Value of Play in Education, in Paul Simon (ed.) (1971). Play and Game Theory in Group Work: A Collection of Papers by Neva Leona Boyd. Chicago: The Jane Addams Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. p. 43.

theatre, was for the first time presented in his study published in Berlin in 1923 under the title Das Stegreiftheater9, (translated into English as the Spontaneity Theatre). Morenos philosophy of the moment is often interpreted in the specialist context of psychodrama as a method of psychotherapy where dramatic self-presentation and role playing exhibit therapeutic value for the individual who is supposed to respond creatively to the challenge of the moment. However, Moreno makes difference between the general concept of the spontaneity theatre and its psychoanalytically applied form. The therapeutic theatre uses the vehicle of the spontaneity theatre for therapeutic ends. The key person is the mental patient. The fictitious character of the dramatist's world is replaced by the actual structure of the patient's world, real or imaginary. It is not so much the therapeutic aspect of Morenos ideas as the anticipatory aspect of his analysis of the theatre from the point of view of the category of the moment that seems interesting now, almost eighty years from the first application of the concepts of spontaneity-creativity and improvisation in Morenos approach to the new, non dogmatic theatre. The concept of drama is changed in favor of what Moreno calls the script of the stage-play: In the rigid, "dogmatic" theatre, the creative product is given: it appears in its final, irrevocable form. The dramatist is no longer present, for his work is entirely divorced from him. His work, the creation of which was the very essence of certain moments bygone, returns only to deprive the present moment of any living creativity of its own. In consequence, the actors have had to give up their initiative and their spontaneity. They are merely the receptacles of a creation now past its moment of true creativity. Dramatist, actor, director and audience conspire in an interpretation of the moment which is mechanical. They have surrendered themselves to the enjoyment of an extra-temporal, moment-less performance. The value which appears supreme is like nothing but the spiritual bequest of someone who is dead. In this sense, the drama is a thing of the past, a vanished reality. The conventional theatre is, at its best, dedicated to the worship the dead, of dead events--a sort of resurrection-cult. (Moreno, 1941: 208)10. The contrast between the theatre as we know it and the spontaneity theatre, in Morenos opinion lies in their different treatments of the moment. The former endeavors to present its products before an audience as definite, finished creations. The latter attempts to produce the moment itself and, at one stroke, to create as integral parts of it the form and content of the drama. Moreno sees the conventional theatre in the world of appearances where the thing itself, the spontaneous creative process in statu nascendi, is suppressed. The extra-momentary character of traditional creation in the

Moreno, Jacob Levy. Das Stegreiftheater [Spontaneity theater]. Berlin_Potsdam: Kiepenheuer Verlag. (Part translated in Sociometry, 4, 205_226. Published in English by Beacon House in 1947; second enlarged edition, 1973. Selections also reprinted in Psychodrama, Vol. 1, 1970 and 1972 editions.) 10 Moreno, Jacob Levy (1941). The philosophy of the moment and the spontaneity theatre. Sociometry, 4, 205_226. Psych. Abs., 15, 4683.

conventional theatre has its metaphysics in a time already past, outside of the precincts of the stage. The more recent terminological option for Morenos thing in itself could be theatre presence; what Gertrude Stein in the 1930s defined as the complete actual present. Moreno critically remarks: The dramatic work, at the moment when it was created during the fleeting moments of that past, was not even then a thing of the present because it was directed towards a future moment the moment of its performance on the stage and not toward the moment of its creation. A spontaneous performance presents things only as they are at the moment of production. (Moreno, 1941: 208). One could clearly recognize anticipatory value in Gertrude Steins meta-theatricality and her dramaturgy of space based on the elimination of memory and narrativity. The same applies to spontaneity theatre. Lehmanns concept of the postdramatic owns much to Morenos concepts. Although H. T. Lehmann does not mention Moreno in his groundbreaking, widely influential book on postdramatic theatre11, it is hard to imagine that he never came across Das Stegreiftheater. The importance of Morenos thoughts on theatre surpasses the niche of applied psychodrama because his thoughts on the philosophy of the moment leads to a lucid analyses of the concept of the presence with its dramaturgical implications. Moreno advocates an early postdramatic turn in drama, in acting, and in theatre production: The spontaneity theatre is a vehicle organized for the presentation of drama of the moment. The dramatist is in the key-role. He is not merely a writer, in fact he does not actually write anything but an active agent, confronting the players with an idea which may have been growing in his mind for some time, and warming them up to immediate production. The role of the dramatist is often taken by one of the actors, who then becomes dramatist and leading actor at the same time. (Moreno, 1941:209) The spontaneity player is centrifugal. The spirit of the role is not in a book, as it is with the actor. It is not outside of him in space, as with the painter or the sculptor, but a part of him. ()What, with the actor, is the point of departurethe spoken word with the spontaneity player is the end stage. The spontaneity player begins with the spontaneity state; he cannot proceed without it. (Moreno, 1941: 213) The spontaneous concept of the moment has led to new methods of production. While the conventional theatre places the spontaneity process backstage (in space) and prior to the performance (in time) in the creation of the script, the creation of the roles and the study of them, the designing of the settings and costumes, the formation of the ensembles and the rehearsals the spontaneity theatre brings before the audience the original, primary processes of spontaneity, undiminished and inclusive of all phases of the production. That which, in the conventional theatre, takes place behind the curtainthe very "thing in itself," the spontaneous creative process, the "meta-theatre now takes the stage. (Moreno, 1941: 208)
11

Lehmann, Hans-Thies (2006). Postdramatic Theatre.Translated and with an Introduction by Karen Jrs-Munby. London and New York: Routledge. German edition: Verlag der Autoren, D-Frankfurt am Main 1999.

The impact of Morenos seminal ideas often remains half noticed or even unrecognized, and sometimes, as in Boals Forum Theatre, the influence is clear and straightforward, When Schechner asked him in an interview whether he feels any affinity to people like Jacob Moreno, the founder of psychodrama, Boal seemed reluctant to admit the influence and he said that it was curious because he never thought of Moreno. He recognized that once he read Theatre of Spontaneity which he supposedly did not like because he felt it was too superficial.12 Starting from the reading of Boals Mthode Boal de thtre et de thrapie: larc-en-ciel du dsir13, Daniel Feldhendler situates Theatre of the Opressed within the discipline of group psychotherapy particularly the work of J. L. Moreno, comparing Morenos theatre-based philosophy of therapy with Boals therapy-based techniques of theatre. Boals Newspaper Theatre, used as part of several South American literacy programs, parallels Morenos Living Newspaper in many ways, claims Feldhendler, pointing to the similarity between the literal space in which theatrical action occurs called locus nascendi by Moreno and aesthetic space by Boal. Moreno differentiates between three forms of catharsis: aesthetic catharsis; audience catharsis and action catharsis or catharsis of integration. Using impromptu behavior in an intermediary form between the theatre of spontaneity and psychodrama, Moreno discovered a catharsis of integration. Although Boal recognized cathartic processes in connection to his work only recently, it is clear that Morenos concept of action catharsis fits well into Boals conceptual framework. Feldhendler explains that Boals catharsis emerged when the protagonist of an action was transformed into the performer of himself or herself and hence triggered a deep experience of self-knowledge.14

II. Scientific Attempts at Defining Aesthetic Spontaneity One of the key points for discussion in contemporary performance studies is the concept of presence and various aspects of time treatment in performance and dramaturgy. Presence as the sense of being there is also important in any research involving human interaction with Virtual Reality in its broadest definition as a real or simulated environment in which the participant experiences telepresence which in in itself has repercussions for the thematization of the link between performance and new media. The concept of presence is clearly one of the most important, ever actual and perpetually re-discussed philosophical topics from Heidegger15, via Merleau-Pontys understanding of the enduring moment of
12

Cf. Michael Taussig and Richard Schechner. Boal in Brazil, France and USA. An interview with Augusto Boal. In: Playing Boal. Theatre, therapy, activism. Eds. Schutzman, Mady and Cohen-Cruz, Jan. (1994) London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 26-27. 13 Boal, Augusto (1990). Mthode Boal de thtre et de thrapie: larc-en-ciel du dsir. Paris: Ramsay 14 Cf. Feldhendler, Daniel. Augusto Boal and Jacob L. Moreno. Theatre and Therapy. In: Playing Boal. Theatre, therapy, activism. Eds. Schutzman, Mady and Cohen-Cruz, Jan. (1994) London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 98-99. 15 See, for example polemical contribution on Heidegger's concept of presence: Carman, Taylor (1995). Heidegger's concept of presence. In: Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. Vol 38, Isue 4. Pp. 431-453. Carman argues:

presence, the unfolding of the phenomenon where perception is the transcendence of the present to consciousness, to Derridas presence as the trace of the trace, the trace of the erasure of the trace where the trace is not a presence but a simulacrum of presence that dislocates itself, displaces itself, refers itself, it properly has no site erasure belongs to its structure.16 In such, derridean way, every presentation becomes a representation where the trace as present thing erases itself in the production of the trace as signifier. Bertrand Russell claimed that a certain emancipation from slavery to time was essential to philosophic thought. However, the answer to the mystery of how consciousness constitutes time now seems to be more in the domain of science than in the field of humanities and social science. Knowledge of things cannot be separated from power and human politics. Scientific truths are connected to political interests. Various textual strategies, rhetoric, writing, staging have simultaneous impact on the nature of things and on the social context. Bruno Latour was right: it is clearer than ever that in our contemporary world we cannot segment facts, power and discourse into tree distinct sets: The agent of this double construction science with society and society with science emerges out of a set of practices that the notion of deconstruction grasps as badly as possible. The ozone hole is too social and too narrated to be truly natural; the strategy of industrial firms and heads of states too full of chemical reactions to be reduced to power and interest; the discourse of the ecosphere is too real and too social to boil down to meaning effects. Is it our fault if the networks are simultaneously real, like nature, narrated, like discourse, and collective, like society? Are we to pursue them while abandoning all the resources of criticism, or are we to abandon them while endorsing the common sense of the critical tripartition? The tiny networks we have unfolded are torn apart like the Kurds by the Iranians, the Iraqis and the Turks, once night has fallen, they slip across borders to get married, and they dream of a common homeland that would be carved out of the three country which have divided them up.17 Merleau-Ponty in Phenomenology of Perception, begins the chapter on temporality with a quote
The central question in Heidegger's philosophy, early and late, is that concerning the meaning of being. Recently, some have suggested that Heidegger himself interprets being to mean presence (Anwesen, Anwesenheit, Praesenz), citing as evidence lectures dating from the 1920s to the 1960s. I argue, on the contrary, that Heidegger regards the equation between being and presence as the hallmark of metaphysical thinking, and that it only ever appears in his texts as a gloss on the philosophical tradition, not as an expression of his own ontological commitments. In his early work Heidegger seeks to confront and even correct the traditional interpretation of being by challenging its narrow preoccupation with presence and the present. By the 1930s, however, he abandons the idea that there is anything tobe intrinsically right or wrong about with regard to the meaning of being and turns his attention instead to what he calls appropriation (Ereignis) or the truth of being, that is, the essentially ahistorical condition for the possibility of all historically contingent interpretations of being, including the metaphysical interpretation of being as presence.
16

Cf. Derrida, Jacques (1973). Speech and Phenomena. And Other Essays on Husserls Theory of Signs. Trans. David B. Allison. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. P. 156. First published in French under the title La Voix et le phnomne, Pari: P.U.F., Collection pimthe , 1967. 17 Latour, Bruno, Nous navons jamais t modernes: Essais danthropologie symmtrique. (1991). We Have Never Been Modern, translated by C. Porter. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts 2001, pp.6-7.

from Claudel's Art Potique where time is being defined as the means offered to all that is destined to be, to come into existence in order that it may no longer be. Already in the forties of the 20 th century, MerleauPonty was able to conceive the subject and the time as communicating from within. Time presupposes a view of time, a witness of its course. Therefore, it is not a real process, not an actual succession that I am content to record. It arises from my relation to things18 Merleau-Ponty could not accept the past and the future as mere concepts abstracted by us from our perception and recollections, mere denominations for the actual series of physic events. Consciousness constitutes time: The passage of one present to the next is not a thing which I conceive, nor do I see it as an onlooker. I effect it. 19 Karl H. Pribram's holonomic model of the brain, developed in collaboration with quantum physicist David Bohm, theorizes that memory and information is stored not in cells, but rather in wave interference patterns. University of London physicist Bohm, one of the most respected quantum physicists, and Stanford neurophysiologist Pribram, one of the pioneers of modern understanding of the brain, believe that the universe itself may be a hologram-like construct partly created by the human mind.20 Other scientists, like Huping Hu and Maoxin Wu,21 explore the issue how mind influences the brain through spin processes related to dark chemistry model of mind. Their thoughts are that the manifestation of free will is intrinsically associated with the nuclear and/or electron spin processes inside the varying high electric voltage environment of the neural membranes and proteins which likely enable the said spin processes to be proactive, that is, being able to utilize non-local energy (potential) and quantum information to influence brain activities through spin chemistry and possibly other chemical/physical processes in defiance of the second law of thermodynamics. Merleau-Pontys theory

reads surprisingly fresh in the light of recent scientific discoveries of Fritz-Albert Popp on quantum coherence of biophotons and living systems. Biophoton emission is a general phenomenon of living systems. This universal phenomenon of biological systems is responsible for the information transfer within and between cells, answering then the crucial question of intra- and extracellular bio-communication, including the regulation of the metabolic activities of cells as well as of growth and differentiation and even of evolutionary development. Human consciousness is viewed as a global event that takes place in entire human body. From that perspective, our world functions as a dynamic network for energy exchange.

18

Merleau-Ponty. Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception(1945). English translation by C. Smith. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 478. 19 Ibid. p. 489 20 Cf. Pribram, K.H. (1991) Brain and Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum: New Jersey; Pribram, K.H: Languages of the Brain. Prentice-Hall, New York 1971.; Pribram, Karl H. / Nuwer, Marc / Baron, Robert J.: The holographic hypothesis of memory structure in brain function and perception. In: Krantz, D.H./ Atkinson, R.C./ Luce, R.D./ Suppes, P. (eds.): Measurement, Psychophysics, and Neural Information Processing. W.H.Freeman, San Francisco 1974, pp.416-457. 21 Cf. Hu and Wu., On dark chemistry: how mind influences brain through proactive spin. NeuroQuantology | June 2007 | Vol. 5 | Issue 2 | pp. 205-213

Merleau-Ponty described the world as a field of experience based on vibration of our psychophysical being: Both universality and the world lie at the core of individuality and the subject, and this will never be understood immediately if the world is made into an object. It is understood immediately if the world is the field of our experience, and if we are nothing but a view of the world, for in that case it is seen that the most intimate vibration of our psycho-physical being already announces the world, the quality being the outline of a thing, and the thing the outline of the world. 22 Roger Penrose, mathematical physicist, after more than nine hundred pages of hard-core science, swarming with formulas and schemes more precisely after the paragraph discussing the string theory of the universe and the reasons why in our world we cannot experience the freedom of more than ten theoretically known dimensions surprises his reader with an unexpected remark: Indeed, according to some recent ways of looking at higher dimensions, the entire philosophy may be overturned, as far as I can see, with no public intimation that any serious change has happened at all.23 Penrose thinks that someone from the sphere of science should slip across the border into the filed of humanities and take upon herself and himself responsibility to inform philosophers that our concept of freedom has undergone dramatic changes in accordance with new discoveries in quantum physics. Penroses remark seems extremely important to us because our deepest belief is that knowledge of things, power and human politics go together. The topic of freedom provides the necessary link between them. Penroses appeal to reason is at the same time an appeal to cross-disciplinary collaboration without prejudice and by sharing responsibility in creating the common ethical basis for research. An impressive example for such open-minded collaboration is a book-length discussion about ethics, human nature and the brain between Jean-Pierre Changeux, a French neuroscientist, and Paul Ricoeur, celebrated French philosopher.24 In the 3rd chapter, in the section titled The Human Brain: Complexity, Hierarchy, Spontaneity, Changeux calls attention to the notion of spontaneous activity arguing that our nervous system is not active only when it is stimulated by sensory organs. The brain functions in a projective mode. It is the permanent seat of important internal activities when one thinks, when one plans a movement, when one hears, perceives, imagines, or creates. This activities occur when we are awake, but also while we are asleep. Changeux explains how these activities play a fundamental role in the sense that thay serve as the basic material for sonstructing, elaborating, and organizing the representations that will be projected
22

Merleau-Ponty. Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception(1945). English translation by C. Smith. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 472. 23 Penrose, Roger, The Road to reality. A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe. Vintage: New York 2007, p. 923. 24 Changeux, Jean-Pierre; Paul Ricoeur (1998). Ce qui nous fait penser (2002) What Makes Us Think. A Neuroscientist and a Philosopher Argue About Ethics, Human Nature, and the Brain. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise. Princetonand Oxford: Princeton University Press.

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onto the world, thereby making it possible to anticipate the future to anticipate events that will occur in both the external and the internal world: They assure what Merleau-Ponty called the meshing of my experiences with those of others. These spontaneous activities are manifested already with nerve cells in vitro. A few molecular switches controlling the transfer of ions across the cell membrane suffice. One finds such switchesin the microbrains of molluscs and insects. They are abundantly present in the brain of vertebrates. But spontaneous activities have not been sufficiently studied by psychologists; nor have psychologists with a few notable exceptions taken them into account in their own research.25 Commenting on Changeuxs remarks, Ricoeur points to Husserls last writings highlighting his thesis that human agent does not content himself with being informed about his environment in order to modify it afterward; from the beginning he interprets it and shapes it, or better to use Husserls formulation he constitutes it as the world that surrounds him by projecting onto it the aims of his action and his demands for meaning. Further on Ricoeur says: This phenomenology of action, in its prelinguistic and (in this sense) preintellectual stage, points in the same direction, it seems to me, as the recourse of the neurosciences to notions such as choice, hypothesis, wager, prediction, forecast, and so on. You yourself have just mentioned spontaneous activity. But doesnt this borrow exactly from psychology that, as your say, remains to be worked out but, in my view, is to be bound in embryonic from in the phenomenology of action, operating at a prelinguistic level?26 Changeux notices that both Ricoeur and himself rejected the input-output model of cerebral function common to cybernetics and information theory in favor of the projective schema. He partly agrees with Ricouer, saying that we project husserlian aims of action and demands of meaning onto a world that has neither fate nor meaning, and that it is with our brain that we create categories in a world that according to his opinion possesses none, apart from those already created by human beings. Changeux points to the experiments that have shown that distinct cortical (and subcortical) regions are mobilized by the sight of the moving hand, the mental image of the movement of ones own hand, and preparation for executing this movement. He explains that when brain interacts with the external world, it develops and functions according to a model of variation-selection that is sometimes called Darwinian. According to this hypothesis, variation the generation of diversity of internal forms precedes the selection of the

25 26

Ibid, p. 88. Ibid, p. 89.

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adequate form. Representations are stabilized in our brain not simply by imprint, as it were a piece of wax, but indirectly via process of selection.27 One of the rare theatre practitioners keenly, vividly interested in embodied acting and cognitive foundations of performance is Phillip B. Zarrilli. In Acting (Re)Considered28 he argued that every time an actor performs, he or shy implicitly enacts a theory a set of assumptions and styles that guides an actor through performance, the shape that those actions take (as a character, role, or sequence of actions as in some performance art) an the relationship to the audience. In an essay on An Enactive Approach to Understanding Acting 29, inspired by recent developments in phenomenology, cognitive science, and anthropological ecology, he explores an enactive approach to meta-theoretical understanding of acting as a phenomenon: In contrast to representational and/or mimetic meta-theories of acting that construct their views of action from a position as a outside observer to the process/phenomenon of acting, an enactive view provides an account of acting from the perspective of the actor as enactor/ doer from inside the processes. Acting should not be viewed as embodying a representation of a role or a character, but rather as a dynamic, lived experience in which the actor is responsive to the demands of the particular moment within a specific (theatrical) environment.30 Perceptual, sensiomotor knowledge is vitally important for an enactive view of acting. Zarrilli promotes the perspective of the actor-as-(human) doer enactor inside the performance od an acting score. Acting is here considered as an extra-daily skilled mode of embodied practice requiring the performer to negotiate interior and exterior via perception-in-action in response to an environment. The type of spontaneity Zarrilli advocates (the one that allows one to become an animal, ready to leap and act, embodying the lions fury) is based on daily training of actor-as-perceiver: In the moment of enactment we are utilizing their perceptual and sensory experience and cumulative embodied knowledge as skilled exploration in the moment od the specific theatrical world or environment created during rehearsal process.31

27 28

Cf. Ibid, pp. 90-91. Cf. Zarrilli, Phillip B., ed. (2002). Acting (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide. London: Routledge, p. 3. 29 Zarrilli, Phillip B. (2007). An Enactive Approach to Understanding Acting. Theatre Journal 59, no. 4 (December 2007), pp. 635-647. 30 Ibid, p. 638. 31 Ibid, p. 647.

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III. Instead of Conclusion: Default-mode network experiments and creative potential of spontaneity There are some recent attempts at analyzing the perception of spontaneity in improvised performance; among them a fascinating study by Annerose Engel and Peter E. Keller titled The perception of musical spontaneity in improvised and imitated jazz performances.32 The study addresses the behavioral and brain mechanisms that mediate the perception of spontaneity in music performance. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, 22 jazz musicians listened to piano melodies and judged whether they were improvised or imitated. Judgment accuracy (mean 55%; range 4465%), which was low but above chance, was positively correlated with musical experience and empathy. Analysis of listeners hemodynamic responses revealed that amygdala activation was stronger for improvisations than imitations. This activation correlated with the variability of performance timing and intensity (loudness) in the melodies, suggesting that the amygdala is involved in the detection of behavioral uncertainty. An analysis based on the subjective classification of melodies according to listeners judgments revealed that a network including the pre-supplementary motor area, frontal operculum, and anterior insula was most strongly activated for melodies judged to be improvised. This may reflect the increased engagement of an action simulation network when melodic predictions are rendered challenging due to perceived instability in the performers actions. Taken together, Engel and Keller results suggest that, while certain brain regions in skilled individuals may be generally sensitive to objective cues to spontaneity in human behavior, the ability to evaluate spontaneity accurately depends upon whether an individuals action-related experience and perspective taking skills enable faithful internal simulation of the given behavior. Authors conclude: Spontaneously improvised piano melodies are characterized by greater variability in timing and intensity than rehearsed imitations of the same melodies, and highly experienced, empathic listen-ers can detect these differences more accurately than expected by chance. Distinct patterns of brain activation associated with listening to improvised vs. imitated performances occur at two levels. At one level, differences based on the objective classification of performances reflect a distinction in the way the brain processes improvisations and imitations independently of whether the listener classifies them correctly. The amygdala seems to be involved in this differentiation, operating as detector of cues to behavioral uncertainty on the part of the performer who recorded the melody. At the other level, differences in brain activation related to the listeners subjective belief that a performance is improvised or imitated were observed. A cortical network involved in generating online predictions via covert action simulation may mediate judgments about whether a melody is improvised or imitated, perhaps based on the degree of expectancy violation produced by perceived fluctuations in performance stability. It should be noted that the above effects were found with musically trained listeners. Whether they generalize to untrained individuals

32

Engel, Annerose and Keller, Peter E. (2011). The perception of musical spontaneity in improvised and imitated jazz performances. Frontiers in Psychology 2011; 2:83. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00083

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remains to be seen. The current findings point to a bipartite answer to the question posed at the opening of this article: Although your amygdala may be sensitive to whether the mesmerizing pianist is engaged in spontaneous improvisation or rehearsed imitation, the ability to judge this would depend on whether your musical experience and perspective taking skills enable faithful internal simulation of the performance. Thus, while certain brain regions may be generally sensitive to cues to behavioral spontaneity, the conscious evaluation of spontaneity may rely upon action-relevant experience and personality characteristics related to empathy.33 The concluding part of this paper makes a bold hypothesis that recent neurobiological explanations of spontaneous brain activity connected to the experiments with default-mode network might have some important implications on understanding creative potential of spontaneity in different media of artistic expression, particularly in jazz improvisation and in certain acting techniques. Starting from the premises of the systems theory (Bartalanffy, Turchin, Luhmann)34 we define culture as complex adaptive system where, as in every complex system, cultural works have to be seen in the context of the environment in which they were produced and consumed, and with which they are interactive.35 We are particularly interested in interaction and co-production of entity systems and activity systems (the biomatrix) and its unpredictable outcomes. On the other hand, knowing that the spontaneous behavioral variability was an adaptive trait selected by evolution, we reflect upon the recent shift in perspective in neuroscience from passively responding brains to spontaneously acting brains. Functional imaging studies have shown that certain brain regions, including posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC), consistently show greater activity during resting states than during cognitive tasks. This finding led to the hypothesis that these regions constitute a network supporting a default mode of brain function not only in nonvertebral and vertebral animals previously examined, but also in humans. (Greicius, Krasnow. Rice, Mennon, 2003)36. Mapping such a network may provide insight into the neural underpinnings of a critical but poorly understood component of human consciousness variably referred to as a conscious resting state, stimulus-independent thought, or a default mode of brain function (Reichle, McLeod, Snyder, Gusnard &

33 34

Ibid, pp. 11-12. Cf. Bertalanffy, Ludwig von (1968). General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications New York: George Braziller; Bertalanffy, L. von (1950), An Outline of General System Theory. British Journal for Philosophy of Science Vol. 1 (No. 2); Luhmann, Niklas (1996). Social Systems. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA; Turchin Valentin F. (1977). The Phenomenon of Science. New York: Columbia University Press; Turchin, Valentin F. (1995), A dialogue on metasystem transition. World Futures 45 (1): 557. 35 We have already compared some of the premices of Autopoietic Systems Theory (Maturana and Varela, Luhmann) with some concepts of Branko Gavella, Croatian theatre director, pedagogue of acting and theoretician. See: Petlevski, Sibila (2005). Prostor razmjene. Uvodna studija o Gavellinoj potrazi za metodologijom kulturalne povijesti. (Exchange Space. A study on Gavellas search for a methodology of cultural history). In: Petlevski, Sibila (ed.) (2005) Branko Gavella. Dvostruko lice govora. (Branko Gavella. Double Face of Speech. Zagreb: CDU
36

Cf. Greicius MD, Krasnow B, Reiss AL, Menon V. Functional connectivity in the resting brain: a network analysis of the default mode hypothesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003;100:253258.

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Schulman, 2001)37. The so-called default-mode network (DMN) interacts with task-related sensorimotor networks such that they mutually inhibit each other. Some studies show that participants in DMN experiments might have more non-specific or non-goal-directed visual information gathering and evaluation, and mind wandering or daydreaming during the resting state with the eyes open as compared to that with the eyes closed. This spontaneous activity has spatial and temporal characteristics that resemble those of intracortical electrical and optical recordings. There is a substantial level of brain activity that occurs in the absence of overt or task-related behavior. The brain's default mode supports self-referential, introspective mental activity. Regions of the default network have been more specifically related to the internal narrative, the autobiographical self, mentalizing, stimulus independent thought, and self-projection an array of activities usually associated with the creative mind. Internally oriented attention is a basis for creative work in any media. The ability to evaluate spontaneity in human behavior is called upon in the esthetic appreciation of dramatic arts and music, but the concept of spontaneity as we tried to show in the overview part of this paper could not be approached scientifically without the help of neuroscience. The original hypothesis of this paper is that there might be a vital connection between brains default-mode network activities and creativity. A close cooperation across the respective fields of humanities, social sciences and natural sciences would be needed for the experimentation phase of a possible collaborative project on this challenging topic.

NOTES: Bertalanffy, L. von (1950), An Outline of General System Theory. British Journal for Philosophy of Science Vol. 1 (No. 2) Bertalanffy, Ludwig von (1968). General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications New York: George Braziller Boal, Augusto (1990). Mthode Boal de thtre et de thrapie: larc-en-ciel du dsir. Paris: Ramsay Carman, Taylor (1995). Heidegger's concept of presence. In: Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. Vol 38, Isue 4. Pp. 431-453. Changeux, Jean-Pierre; Paul Ricoeur (1998). Ce qui nous fait penser (2002) What Makes Us Think. A Neuroscientist and a Philosopher Argue About Ethics, Human Nature, and the Brain. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise. Princetonand Oxford: Princeton University Press. Decety, J., & Chaminade, T. (2004). When the self represents the other: A new cognitive neuroscience view of psychological identification. Consciousness and Cognition, 12, 577596.

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Cf. Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J.,. Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A default mode of brain function: A brief history of an evolving idea; Raichle M.E, Snyder A.Z. A default mode of brain function: A brief history of an evolving idea. NeuroImage. 2007; 37:10831090.

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Decety, J., Chaminade, T., Grezes, J., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2002). A PET exploration of the neural mechanisms involved in reciprocal imitation. Neuroimage, 15(1), 265272. Derrida, Jacques (1973). Speech and Phenomena. And Other Essays on Husserls Theory of Signs. Trans. David B. Allison. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. P. 156. First published in French under the title La Voix et le phnomne, Pari: P.U.F., Collection pimthe , 1967. Engel, Annerose and Keller, Peter E. (2011). The perception of musical spontaneity in improvised and imitated jazz performances. Frontiers in Psychology 2011; 2:83. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00083 Feldhendler, Daniel. Augusto Boal and Jacob L. Moreno. Theatre and Therapy. In: Playing Boal. Theatre, therapy, activism. Eds. Schutzman, Mady and Cohen-Cruz, Jan. (1994) London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 98-99. Foster, Susan Leigh (2008). Movements contagion: The kinesthetic impact of performance in: The Cambridge Companion to performance Studies (2008) ed. Tracy C. Davis. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi. Pp. 4659. Greicius MD, Krasnow B, Reiss AL, Menon V. Functional connectivity in the resting brain: a network analysis of the default mode hypothesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003;100:253258. Hu and Wu., On dark chemistry: how mind influences brain through proactive spin. NeuroQuantology | June 2007 | Vol. 5 | Issue 2 | pp. 205-213 Latour, Bruno, Nous navons jamais t modernes: Essais danthropologie symmtrique. (1991). We Have Never Been Modern, translated by C. Porter. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts 2001, pp.6-7. Lehmann, Hans-Thies (2006). Postdramatic Theatre.Translated and with an Introduction by Karen Jrs-Munby. London and New York: Routledge. German edition: Verlag der Autoren, D-Frankfurt am Main 1999. Luhmann, Niklas (1996). Social Systems. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA Merleau-Ponty. Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception(1945). English translation by C. Smith. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 478. Merleau-Ponty. Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception(1945). English translation by C. Smith. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 472. Michael Taussig and Richard Schechner. Boal in Brazil, France and USA. An interview with Augusto Boal. In: Playing Boal. Theatre, therapy, activism. Eds. Schutzman, Mady and Cohen-Cruz, Jan. (1994) London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 26-27. Miller, Judith G. (2007). Ariane Mnouchkine. Routledge Performance Practitioners. London and New York: Routledge, p. 134. Moreno, Jacob Levy (1941). The philosophy of the moment and the spontaneity theatre. Sociometry, 4, 205_226. Psych. Abs., 15, 4683. Moreno, Jacob Levy. Das Stegreiftheater [Spontaneity theater]. Berlin_Potsdam: Kiepenheuer Verlag. (Part translated in Sociometry, 4, 205_226. Published in English by Beacon House in 1947; second enlarged edition, 1973. Selections also reprinted in Psychodrama, Vol. 1, 1970 and 1972 editions.) Neva L. Boyd (1924). The Social Education of Youth Through Recreation: The Value of Play in Education, in Paul Simon (ed.) (1971). Play and Game Theory in Group Work: A Collection of Papers by Neva Leona Boyd. Chicago: The Jane Addams Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. p. 43.

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Penrose, Roger, The Road to reality. A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe. Vintage: New York 2007, p. 923. Petlevski, Sibila (2005). Prostor razmjene. Uvodna studija o Gavellinoj potrazi za metodologijom kulturalne povijesti. (Exchange Space. A study on Gavellas search for a methodology of cultural history). In: Petlevski, Sibila (ed.) (2005) Branko Gavella. Dvostruko lice govora. (Branko Gavella. Double Face of Speech. Zagreb: CDU Petlevski, Sibila (2011). Virulent Ideas, Memetic Engineering, Memeoid Identity, Aesthetic Warfare. In: Spaces of Identity in the Performing Sphere (2011) Eds. Petlevski, Sibila & Pavli, Goran. Zagreb: Fraktura/ADU. Pp. 13-49. See VI. Medieval dancing mania: choreo-meme abd its replicating strategy. Pribram, K.H. (1991) Brain and Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum: New Jersey; Pribram, K.H: Languages of the Brain. Prentice-Hall, New York 1971. Pribram, Karl H. / Nuwer, Marc / Baron, Robert J.: The holographic hypothesis of memory structure in brain function and perception. In: Krantz, D.H./ Atkinson, R.C./ Luce, R.D./ Suppes, P. (eds.): Measurement, Psychophysics, and Neural Information Processing. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco 1974, pp.416-457. Raichle M.E, Snyder A.Z. A default mode of brain function: A brief history of an evolving idea. NeuroImage. 2007; 37:10831090. Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J.,. Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A default mode of brain function: A brief history of an evolving idea Spolin, Viola (1963). Improvisation for the Theatre. A Handbook of Techniques. Nortwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois, p. 8. Teaching and Directing

Turchin Valentin F. (1977). The Phenomenon of Science. New York: Columbia University Press. Turchin, Valentin F. (1995), A dialogue on metasystem transition. World Futures 45 (1): 557. Zarrilli, Phillip B. (2007). An Enactive Approach to Understanding Acting. Theatre Journal 59, no. 4 (December 2007), pp. 635-647. Zarrilli, Phillip B., ed. (2002). Acting (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide. London: Routledge, p. 3.

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