Dialogical practices for imagined lines

Abstract

Imagined lines are proposed here as a phenomenon found in concepts, mental imagery, and metaphors. This essay has three parts to highlight the multimodality of imagined lines: a video, an audio track, and a written component. The writing introduces practices, frames the artistic works, and describes and considers the breadth of what an imagined line could be. The audio and video works give context to the writing and communicate in their medium the experience of imagined lines that appear in other modes. The body is used here as the starting point for examining its traces and how that helps us to understand ideas like straight, interference, and listening. This essay proposes that a closer examination of imagined lines can bring unrelated topics into proximity. Simultaneously, the work suggests there are benefits when paying attention to incorporating and using imagined lines in our thinking. By bringing what is often unnoticed into our awareness, we can make direct relationships between the intangible and tangible.