atom10:Rhythm

Contents 1 Definitions 2 The Rhythmanalytical project 3 Glossary

Definitions

RHYTHM = time + space + energy

Everywhere where there is interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy, there is rhythm. Therefore: a) repetition (of movements, gestures, action, situations, differences) b) interferences of linear processes and cyclical processes c) birth, growth, peak, then decline and end.

Rhythm is change and repetition, identity and difference, contrast and continuity. Lefebvre uses it as a mode of analysis – a tool.

The notion of rhythm brings with it also the notions of polyrhytmia, eurhythmia and arrhythmia.

Lefebvre defines some categories to analyze rhythm:

• Repetition and difference
• Mechanical and organic
• Discovery and creation
• Cyclical and linear
• Contnuous and discontinuous
• Quantitative and qualitative.

The Rhythmanalytical project

There is a strong relation between everyday life and rhythm - a concrete modalities of social time.

We are particulraly interested in the relation between cyclical and linear time. In this way we can describe daytime in accordance with social categories.

The realtions of the cyclical time and the linear are not simple: there is between them antagonistic unity - they are in perpetual interaction.

Cyclical repetition and the linear repetitive separate out under analysis, but in reality interfere with one another constantly. The cyclical originates in the cosmic, in nature: days, nights, seasons, the waves and tides of the sea, monthly cycles, etc. The linear would come rather from social practice, therfore from human activity: the monotony of actions and of movements, imposed structures. The antagonist unity of relations between the cyclical and the linear sometimes gives rise to compromises, sometimes to disturbances.

Glossary

1. Polyrhytmia = the use of an instance of simultaneous contrasting rhythms
2. Eurhythmia =
   1. Harmonious relationships among the separate organs of the body
   2. Eurhythmia is also used to indicate the good subjectively conditioned, which is not in the harmonic composition of parts, but in the impression of harmony.

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