101 Chapter 3 Rhythm and Textural Temporality Sha Xin Wei and Garrett Laroy Johnson Body + Movement + Irregular Matter → Rhythm Let us start with a simple proposition: rhythm as a feature of experi- ence (rather than an abstract pattern) arises from a body encountering variation in matter through movement. Without a body there would be no sense. In a perfectly homogeneous experience of a perfectly homogeneous world there would be no (non-degenerate) 1 rhythm regardless of movement. Running your finger across the ridges of the sea shell, you feel irregular pressure on your skin that you can interpret as a rhythm – a pattern of irregular variation of sensation correlate with your movement. Stopping your finger’s movement you would feel no variation. If the shell were perfectly smooth, you also would feel no variation. So, corporeal movement and irregularities in matter are necessary to rhythmic experience. Notice that corporeal movement compounds the body as a necessary ingredient in having this experience. Feeling through the body, via embodied engagement is an inextricable component of experience. Thus, according to our formulation, body, movement and inhomogeneous matter are neces- sary for rhythm as sense. Regarding sense, Merleau-Ponty writes: The sensing being [le sentant] and the sensible are not opposite each other like two external terms . . . the movement of my hand sub- tends the form of the object. In this exchange between the subject of sensation and the sensible, it cannot be said that one acts while the other suffers the action, nor that one gives sense to the other. Without the exploration of . . . my hand, and prior to my body syn- chronizing with it, the sensible is nothing but a vague solicitation. (Merleau-Ponty 2014: 221–2) However, variation of matter and corporeal movement, while elemen- tal as ingredients of a sense of rhythm, may not exhaustively account for the phenomenon. Rhythm as a temporal pattern in experience lies 6327_Crespi and Manghani.indd 101 6327_Crespi and Manghani.indd 101 24/01/20 3:44 PM 24/01/20 3:44 PM