By discussing the bodily aspects of undersea immersion, this paper investigates the lived experiences of the photographer’s body in space. To do this, it draws on the work of phenomenological philosophers who have theorized the body, such as Edmund Husserl, Edward S. Casey, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gaston Bachelard, showing how the body is simultaneously active and passive in its environs. To make this point tangible, it examines a recent photographic work by contemporary Dutch artist Roosmarijn Pallandt, who attempts to capture her bodily sensations by submerging herself underwater while taking photographs. The paper argues that her photographic practice augments the bilaterality of the phenomenal body: being both a physical body (Körper) that needs to hold together kinesthetically and a lived body (Leib) that can go further proprioceptively. Consequently, by employing phenomenology vis-à-vis Pallandt’s photographic practice, the author defines immersivity as being...
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By discussing the bodily aspects of undersea immersion, this paper investigates the lived experiences of the photographer’s body in space. To do this, it draws on the work of phenomenological philosophers who have theorized the body, such as Edmund Husserl, Edward S. Casey, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gaston Bachelard, showing how the body is simultaneously active and passive in its environs. To make this point tangible, it examines a recent photographic work by contemporary Dutch artist Roosmarijn Pallandt, who attempts to capture her bodily sensations by submerging herself underwater while taking photographs. The paper argues that her photographic practice augments the bilaterality of the phenomenal body: being both a physical body (Körper) that needs to hold together kinesthetically and a lived body (Leib) that can go further proprioceptively. Consequently, by employing phenomenology vis-à-vis Pallandt’s photographic practice, the author defines immersivity as being concurrently still and moving, static and dynamic, passive and active, that is: as being inactive in space. Following this line of argument, he puts forward that the bodily immersivity is an instance of sheer inactivity.
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