Last but not least a guest post written by Lisane Renalda, Master student Arts and Society at the University of Utrecht. She writes about the philosophy behind Kinesics and the need for artistic research.
We use language in our daily life to communicate with one another. It shapes our thoughts, our connection with others, and our lives. Language is a huge part of who we are as a species. But if we ask:what exactly is the meaning of language, it hard to formulate a clear answer How can we come up with a definition for something we use everyday, yet we also don't fully understand?
According to cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram we run into a problem when we try to define language. This task seems almost impossible because “every attempt to definitively say what language is, is subject to a curious limitation. For the only medium with which we can define language is language itself”[1].
Before 1970, Western philosophers considered language as a set of propositions that corresponded to reality, or failed to do this. But this way of thinking gradually changed when Ludwig Wittgenstein started to explain how language is used to give meaning to the world around us. He argued that we think about life and meaning by the way language is put to use. Language is no longer an instrument, but is considered as a force that shapes the way we think and experience the world. His theories about language were a starting point of a radical change in philosophy during the 70’. This moment is also known by the term ‘the linguistic turn’. Philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler argued that language can never be transparent, but is always related to power. Following their theories the use of language shows what is considered as the general norm in society.
Thus, language is grounded in the way we think and perceive the world. But, why did verbal language become so powerful and dominant in the way we create meaning? Have we forgotten that we also use our bodies to make sense of the world?
In 1945, philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty explained how the body is central for the understanding of our existence. He saw embodiment as a mode of experiencing the world. It is through our body and embodied experiences that we experience life and ourselves[2]. Philosopher Mark Johnson, who builds on the theory of Merleau-Ponty, adds that meaning arises from bodily interactions: “meaning is a matter of relations and connections grounded in bodily, organism-environment coupling or interactions. The meaning of something is its relation, actual and potential, to other qualities, things, events and experiences”[3]. Therefore, meaning is always embodied and relational.
To understand this relational part better, we can go a layer deeper and look at philosopher and theoretical physicist Karen Barad. She introduces the concept of ‘intra-action’[4], as a counterpart of interaction. Interaction between two entities suggests that they were already existing before they encountered each other - they both maintain a degree of independence. However, intra-action considers two bodies as dependent things. Every body can only exist because of its relation to the other - they are formed from within their relationship. In other words: bodies are shaped by each other. So, we are permanently transformed by continuous encounters with other bodies, objects and forces. We are continuously in flux - we ‘become-with’ others, both human and non-human[5]. This way of thinking relates to the way we make sense of the world, but also to how we make sense of ourselves, our identities and our emotions: “Feelings take shape of the contact we have with objects. Emotions are about objects which they hence shape, and are also shaped by contact with objects”[6].
So, we see that our body is inherently connected with how we interact, experience and make sense. But even if emotions, thoughts, and meaning are grounded in the living and moving body, it seems that words, concepts and representations are still our dominant focus in life.
This is what makes the artistic research Kinesics of Monobanda so interesting. Their multi-sensory art games can be seen as laboratory playgrounds, to explore how bodies move, intra-act and change, or in other words, how bodies ‘become-with’. They facilitate speculative environments to imagine new ways of understanding the human body and its relation between co-players and other matter such as technology and virtual images. In this way, Monobanda explores the possibilities to rethink the human body, the dominant position of language and critiques the separation between mind and body and the position of the human in the world.
References
[1] David Abram, The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world (New York: Vintage, 1997), 52[
2] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962)
[3] Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of human understanding (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 265
[4] Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007), IV
[5] Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 77
[6] Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotions (Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 2014), 10
Lisane Renalda, a student of the Masters programme Arts and Society in Utrecht. The project Kinesics was a collaboration with ImproVive and funded by Creative Industries NL.