ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 addresses the concept of touching oneself through the dance-video Solo by William Forsythe. Starting point for the argument is the long tradition of writings on touch in phenomenology as well as Derrida’s reading of them. Center to these writings and the analysis of the video are the hands that touch themselves. Yet the movements of touch in Solo demonstrate that the development of a coherent self – as proposed in most phenomenological text – is in no way absolute. The video presents a fragmented, multi-rhythmic body full of differences, which occur in the acts of self-touching. The chapter finally proposes Simondon’s concept of individuation and its differential becoming as an alternative way to address the act of touching “oneself”.
