The Point of Being [1 ed.] 9781443862011, 9781443860383

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The Point of Being

The Point of Being

Edited by

Derrick de Kerckhove and Cristina Miranda de Almeida

The Point of Being, Edited by Derrick de Kerckhove and Cristina Miranda de Almeida This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Derrick de Kerckhove, Cristina Miranda de Almeida and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-6038-7, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-6038-3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures............................................................................................ vii Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix Derrick de Kerckhove and Cristina Miranda de Almeida Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Derrick de Kerckhove and Cristina Miranda de Almeida Chapter One ................................................................................................. 9 The Point of Being Derrick de Kerckhove Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 61 Orbanism Rosane Araújo Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 79 Toward the Reunion of Sense and Sensibility: The Body in the Age of Electronic Trans-nature Gaetano Mirabella Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 103 The Interval as a New Approach to Interfaces: Towards a Cognitive and Aesthetic Paradigm of Communication in the Performing Arts Isabelle Choinière Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 147 The Aesthetics of the Between in Korean Culture Jung A Huh Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 165 Sensing without Sensing: Could Virtual Reality Support Korean Rituals? Semi Ryu

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Table of Contents

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 197 Between Sense and Intellect: Blindness and the Strength of Inner Vision Loretta Secchi Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 213 The Connective Heart Cristina Miranda de Almeida Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 297 Quantum-Inspired Spirituality: Merging Science and Religion in the Post-Galilean Period Maria Luisa Malerba Editors and Contributors.......................................................................... 335 Index ........................................................................................................ 341

LIST OF FIGURES

Cover image copyrights: Emotion Traffic, Mechanics of Emotions © Maurice Benayoun, 2005 Dust cover image (frontal): Emotion Traffic, Mechanics of Emotions © Maurice Benayoun, 2005 Copyrights of figures in chapters 1, 4, 5 and 8: Figure 1-1: Speed of evolution according to the principal medium that carries language © Ijaz Rasool, Cristina Miranda de Almeida and Derrick de Kerckhove, 2014 Figure 4-1: Communion (Le partage des peaux II) © Isabelle Choinière, 1995 Figure 4-2: Communion (Le partage des peaux II) © Isabelle Choinière, 1995 Figure 4-3: La Démence des Anges © Isabelle Choinière, 1999-2000 Figure 4-4: La Démence des Anges, © Isabelle Choinière, 1999-2000 Figure 4-5: La Démence des Anges, © Isabelle Choinière, 1999-2000 Figure 4-6: La Démence des Anges, © Isabelle Choinière, 1999-2000 Figure 5-1: Triple tae-geuk figure © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-2: Image of Hwajaeng theory © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-3: Madang, in Gimhae Hanok Hall © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-4: A madang performance/play, in front of a Korean traditional house © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-5: Seokpajung (▼ᆜீ): Dae-won-gun’s villa © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-6: Pansori © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-7: Moo-dang, Korean Shaman © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-8: Play Group, “Garam”, Lee Su-Il and Shim Sun-Ae © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 5-9: Bibimbap, Korean traditional food © Jung A Huh, 2010 Figure 8-1: Heart’s features © Cristina Miranda de Almeida, 2014 Figure 8-2: Overcoming the opposites © Cristina Miranda de Almeida, 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are happy to be able to offer the results of this long work process to prepare the book The Point of Being to our friends, readers and to anybody who is interested in exploring the cognitive and perceptual changes in which we are immersed in the digital era. We expect that the book will contribute to the understanding of the role and power of the subject (being) in this epoch of change, in which we are still under the influence of the perceptual residues of the Cartesian paradigm of point-of-view and of the printing press era, but at the same time are already experiencing a paradigm shift towards what we call the Point of Being, as we are going to explain in the book. The writing and editing of this book has passed through different phases. The idea started years ago with Derrick de Kerckhove, trying to understand the implications of a sensorial reset that McLuhan had predicted would be a consequence of electricity. By opposition to the point-of-view, which positions the subject in a visually dominant and detached experience, a tactile response would be a proprioceptive experience, privileging a sensation of the subject over its representation. The notion of the Point of Being, if embryonically, was introduced in the book Skin of Culture in 1998. The second strong impulse to the materialization of the book happened in the summer of 2007, when Derrick invited a group of researchers to work together on the first nucleus of the book in his house in Wicklow, Ontario, Canada. Later on, the very complexity of the concept required the inclusion of other authors (other Points of Being) who joined the group to contribute with their expertise to the different aspects that are implied in this concept. The editors would like to thank the contributors to this book for their enthusiasm in writing its chapters. In particular, we are immensely in debt to their generosity and patience during the long editorial process during which we had the chance to work closely with each one. This book was developed with the support of people from different institutions as well. We thank the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, at the University of Toronto, and in particular, Lynne Alexandrova for the organization of the Research Seminar for the

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presentation of the book to McLuhan Fellows and for support during our stay in Wicklow. Our gratitude goes also to Marie Lou Reker, for her suggestions to the book and her support during the editorial process in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. We thank also the Physicists Emma Sallent del Colombo and Ijaz Rasool, for their expert support in the editing of Maria Luisa Malerba’s chapter. Kathrine Elizabeth Lorena Johansson helped with her excellent comments on Cristina Miranda de Almeida’s Chapter, and Michelle Alzola generously proofread Cristina’s chapter. John Jacobs proofread the whole book with great professionality and care. We are grateful for their support. Cristina Miranda de Almeida, on behalf of other authors, would like to express a deep feeling of gratitude to Derrick de Kerckhove, for being such an inspiration for all of us. Derrick de Kerckhove would like to acknowledge here the many conversations with scientists, artists and wise persons that led to insights about the Point of Being. Lastly, the editors would like to see this volume only as a first step in trying to understand the Point of Being. We plan to keep developing other necessary aspects of this complex and rich experience in further books. —THE EDITORS

INTRODUCTION DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE AND CRISTINA MIRANDA DE ALMEIDA

The Point of Being is a book of essays that explore the psychophysiological dimensions of the ways people experience their presence in the world and the world’s presence in them. While it is intended to interest every kind of culture, The Point of Being addresses conditions that apply principally to Western alphabetized societies. Indeed, the basic premise of the book is that the alphabet has emphasized a visual dominance among the senses people use to perceive the world as a whole, a trend that has repressed or toned down information from other senses. This literate1 bias is well documented by Eric Havelock, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Leonard Schlain and others. Much research has focused on understanding how people experience their presence in the world. These publications generally analyse embodiment and new manners of exploring the sensorium beyond the inherited context. These contributions come from varied disciplines such as architecture, art, music, art history, cinema, psychology and proprioception studies, design, a variety of technology and engineering studies, philosophy, medicine, aesthetics, sociology, and anthropology, among others.2 Although these contributions help construct the subject, 1

Literacy is understood as the ability to read and write. Research focus varies: the role of all senses (Constance Classen; David Howes); commodification of sensation, the sixth sense (David Howes); synaesthesia (Cretien van Campen; Robin Curtis; Sean A. Day); interrelations between senses, sensorial sensibility (Arnold Berleant); the interaction between vision and touch in photography (Patrizia diBello); inter-sensoriality (David Howes); interrelations of noise, smell, touch (Harvey, Elizabeth); contextual interrelations of sound and space, aural architecture, spatiality without space, aesthetic spatiality, eventscapes (Barry Blesser; Michael Bull); urban experience (Niall Atkinson); hearing, listening, urban aurality, listening and sound spaces (Raviv Ganchrow; Les Back; Alexandre Vincent; Lisa Blackman); the hierarchy of senses (Jean-Marie Fritz); embodiment and sensory phenomenology; first person narratives and auto2

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Introduction

they do not fully examine the impact of electricity or that of digital technology on sensibility. The concept of the Point of Being aims at offering different ways to understand this new situation. From the acknowledgement of this situation the book explores the research question: which are the psycho-physiological dimensions of the ways people experience their presence in the world and the world’s presence in them? The objective of this collective work is not only academic. Because they deal principally with issues of perception and sentience, there is in all chapters an invitation to experience a shift of perception. An embodied sensation of the world and a re-sensorialization of the environment are described to complement the visually biased perspective with a renewed sense of our relationship to the spatial and material surrounds. What is attempted here is to induce the topological reunion of sensation and cognition, of sense and sensibility and of body, self and world. The perception of the Point of Being, to which the various chapters of this book invite the reader, proposes an alternative to the Point of View inherited from the Renaissance; it aims at offering a way to situate the sense of self through the physical, digital and electronic domains that shape physical, social, cultural, economic and spiritual conditions at the beginning of the twenty-first century. What is examined is how current digital processes of production, reproduction and distribution of information affect our perception of time, space, matter, senses and identity.

ethnographies (Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson); the urban sensorium (Aimée Boutin); history of sound (Veit Erlmann); deep sound (Steve Ferzacca); significance of touch (Anne Cranny-Francis); touch in painting, sculpture (Peter Dent); the sense of taste and food perception (Bettina Beer; Charlene Elliott; Karin Bijsterveld); body, emotions and senses (Suzannah Biernoff); psychology of smell (Rachel Herz); smell in space (Victoria Henshaw); technological sensorial augmentation in art in general (Francesca Bacci; Anne Cranny Francis; Jim Drobnick); non-human and cyborg sensing (Stefan Helmreich); cinematic tactility, theories of spectatorship, affect and embodiment (Jennifer Baker; Pia Tikka); human-plant interaction (Jo Day); Human-computer-plant interaction (Guto Nóbrega); theories of senses in theatre (Stephan di Benedetto); historical environmental perception (Nina Ergin); material culture, bodies in stilled mobility and bodies in movement in space (David Bissell); trade-marking of the senses (Charlene Elliott; Hultén, Bertil); metaphorical/cognitive projections of the senses (Nicholas Evans); politics of sensation, the impact of political environments on sensations, the political component of senses, the political mediatization of the networks of sensation; sensorial pluralism (Kennan Ferguson); somaphoric organization (Steve Ferzacca); and senses in literature (Hertel, Ralf), among others.

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Nine authors explore different ways in which the paradigm of the Point of Being can help to bridge the interval, the discontinuity, between subjects and objects that began with the diffusion of the phonetic alphabet. The following nine essays contribute to defining and expanding upon the understanding of these main lines of argument. Derrick de Kerckhove positions the concept and analyses the features that constitute the Point of Being, and especially the role of touch in relation to the interval. The interval, as used throughout this book, is the liminal space between – or within the overlaps of – body and world, self and other, mind and thought. It is fluid and variable and it privileges a tactile appreciation. Rosane Araujo, Gaetano Mirabella and Isabelle Choinière offer different and complementary analyses of the interval, from the realms of architecture, philosophy and choreography respectively. The concept of interval is central to this book. The interval goes both ways; it is both within and without the perceived limits of self and skin. Proprioception is the internal front of the interval. The theme of the “milieu”, and its connection to proprioceptive experiences is treated in turn by Jung A, Semi Ryu and Loretta Secchi, the first two interpreting aspects of traditional Korean culture and the last named presenting her work for the museum of touch in Bologna. The last two chapters, by Cristina Miranda de Almeida and Maria Luisa Malerba respectively, propose a historical retrieval and a reflection on the possible future expansions of the perceptive features informed by the Point of Being. To introduce the theme in the first chapter, titled The Point of Being, Derrick de Kerckhove defines the concept of Point of Being as the feeling of one’s presence in one’s own life, and opposes it to the concept of Point of View, involving a shift from the visual to the proprioceptive and tactile. While the point of view is still central to the Western mental ecology, there are signs that other ways of apprehending the world involving more senses are evolving albeit in a paradoxical fashion. As it extends the nervous system, electricity expands the reaches of all the senses. The Internet, the Web and the electronic grid of the planet provide humans with an extension of their central nervous systems, linking body to the environment and vice-versa. This insight borrowed from personal contact with McLuhan leads into considerations about how electrical extensions and transformations have accelerated and diversified uses of language and made the world more connected. If the alphabet reduced sensory information to abstract sequences of signs, electricity has re-sensorialized human communication, however at a secondary level. The virtual and augmented varieties of “reality” are external to the body and, today, act as interfaces to many human activities. Interactivity is the technological

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Introduction

extension of touch. Interfaces are created to manage things and the interval between them and the body. Hence they are extensions of the body and provide variations in the handling of things. Embodiment has become quite paradoxical: the engagement of the subject/user via networks and software programming is both discarnate, and yet so tightly connected to body and mind that it seems to be a reverse – externalized – image of the incarnate body. Hence the electronic enhancement of touch, either via interactivity or connectivity, generates an ambient secondary tactility. The notion is substantiated by various examples taken from interactive arts, recent discoveries in neurology (mirror neurons) and cinema, haptic games, virtual environments and other interfaces that manage the interval between people and their existential situation. The study of this interval carries into considerations about presence and tele-presence to lead to conclusions about the social value and role of attitude, which is grounded in a proprioceptive relationship to the world. In the second chapter, Orbanism, Rosane Araujo provides clues as to how the interval between self and world can be experienced as an unbroken continuity. It contributes an architect’s vision to the understanding of the Point of Being from an analysis of how the personal and the urban spheres merge in holistic perception. The city is a concept dependent on personal experience. In this sense the city is experienced from the sphere of each Point of Being. As in Araujo’s text the subject (being) defines and brings forth cities, globes, universes; the interval is built by a change of vision in which sensibility is expanded and the subject does not feel separate from an environment that is activated by each person. This theme is directly related to the third chapter “Toward the Reunion of Sense and Sensibility: The Body in the Age of Electronic Transnature”, by Gaetano Mirabella, but in a reverse mode. For Mirabella, it is nature, space, environment or outer reality that feels and touches the subject (being). Mirabella writes about the body in the age of electronic trans-nature, wondering about the possibility of teaching our senses to think and questioning whether that thinking could be a basis for the ontological constitution of a “definitive presence” inscribed in a “conscious space”. The Point of Being brings together objectivity and subjectivity by means of a transductive tactile sensation of the world that fills the interval: the world touches you while you touch the world. This chapter contributes to the construction of the concept of Point of Being by offering a theoretical scaffold to support future conceptual developments reflecting on how our environment is starting to be aware of us, and

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responds to our emotions, with the implementation of technologies such as computational fabrics that respond to our emotions.3 In the fourth chapter titled “The Interval as a New Approach to Interfaces: Towards a Cognitive and Aesthetic Paradigm of Communication in the Performing Arts”, Isabelle Choinière focuses on the interval that evolves between bodies in movement and the public. The spectacularization of dance was a result of the processes of fragmentation, dichotomy and duality present in Western analytic tradition since the Renaissance. The author proposes to overcome this heritage and to offer a new logic of interconnection based on an integrative and interdisciplinary approach. The chapter explores how the Point of Being emerges to fill the interval between performers and public. Here technology becomes the catalyst for the sensorial renewal process by creating a constant reorganisation of our sensorial mappings and a “vibratory space” that permits connectivity. These are also conditions for a “recognition” between bodies, which itself depends upon the dissolution of psycho-corporeal barriers. The result is a new and enlarged corporeal drawing in which Choinière explores possibilities to move beyond instrumentalization in the relationship between dancer, public and technology. In the fifth chapter titled “The Aesthetics of the ‘Between’ in Korean Culture”, Jung A Huh analyses the concept of “between” or “in-betweenness” in Korean culture and how it emerges as unity, cultural and spatial convergence and social and spiritual integration in different cultural elements: in the flag, in the one-person opera Pansori, in architectural forms, in houses’ eaves and in the Bibimbap dish. Connecting opposites, the concept of “between” reflects the interaction between yin and yang or Derrida’s différance. The idea conveyed by the notion of “between” contributes to the construction of the concept of Point of Being by offering an integrative model of the concept of interval that helps to overcome dualist, fragmentary ways to deal with the interval opened between subject and object, being and world. The practical cases of analysis illustrate how this kind of integrative proposal can be achieved in different aspects of everyday life. This chapter and the following one are key to getting an impression of the epistemology of a different culture with different grounds as it is applied to the common understanding of the Point of Being. 3

For example, it relates to the experience someone can have with computational fabrics that actuate on human mood as proposed in the research project Textile Mirrors presented at the conference TEI’13 by researchers Felecia Davis (M.I.T.); Asta Roseway (Microsoft Research); Erin Carroll (University of North Carolina at Charlotte); and Mary Czerwinski (Microsoft Research).

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Introduction

In the sixth chapter, titled “Sensing Without Sensing: Could Virtual Reality Support Korean Rituals?” Semi Ryu explores how a shamanic ritual structure provides a model for understanding what is called the “potential experience”. This is a dimension of experience that takes place in two kinds of space concomitantly inhabited: an infinite imaginary (virtual) and the finite actual space. One could be tempted to compare this imaginary to the space of the mind of the reader versus the space of the book that is read. But is differs in that in the Korean approach, one space is not exclusive of the other as in the case of reading. Ryu frames this potential experience, accessed by imagination but affecting the physical sphere, as “sensing without sensing” (imaginary senses), a kind of hybrid sensorial regimen to deal with space that is incorporated in everyday situations in Korean culture. She explores a way to deal with this complex and paradoxical situation through art performances based in traditional puppetry, shamanic rituals and digital technologies. The chapter gives an indication as to how the Point of Being can be accessed in a Korean context and, by comparison, how the structure of the Korean shaman ritual can guide one through the paradoxical experiences triggered by the merging of digital and physical domains. In the seventh chapter “Between Sense and Intellect. Blindness and the Strength of Inner Vision”, Loretta Secchi presents a didactic and experimental method to help visually impaired people to read a work of art through the mediation offered by contoured reproductions on a plastic model of the work. The tactile exploration of the plastic model enables an aesthetic experience in blindness by integrating the sensorial and intellectual experiences (internal images, narration and touch). The contribution of this chapter to the Point of Being is found in the way a correspondence and a translation between the haptic and the visual experiences are developed. This approach helps to bridge the interval between the visual and the tactile comprehension of images and the recognition that it performs several functions: poetic-expressive, educational, narrative, informative, cultural-historical, psychological and speculative. In chapter eight, “The Connective Heart”, Cristina Miranda de Almeida writes about how, in the West, a heart-centred ontology was substituted with a head-centred analytic perception, cognition and consciousness. The animated interval between objects, people and world was emptied out and turned into a bare and neutral space to contain everything that exists. In this spatial concept that has already been identified by Anaximander as the a-peiron (the infinite space) “subjects” are clearly separated from each other and from “objects”, conforming to a situation that is still dominant in Western cultures. Miranda de Almeida

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claims that in the new global context, the Point of Being gains relevance, through the retrieval of the heart-based kind of perception and cognition, as a foundational reference for a society that is increasingly dissolved in a sensitive and interconnected environment due to the impact of digital technologies. The heart appears as the Point of Being, the interface that enables the diastolic processes of replenishment of the interval that are necessary for the construction of a different paradigm that overcomes polar dualities in relation to matter, space, time and self in contemporary sensibility in which physical matter, digital and social processes merge. In the last chapter, “Quantum-Inspired Spirituality: Merging Science and Religion in the Post-Galilean Period”, Maria Luisa Malerba explores the epistemological changes from pre-Galilean to post-Galilean periods in order, space, time, matter, perception, logic and axioms, and the relationships between subject, object and truth. Addressing polar concepts such as complexity and simplicity, truth and fuzzy truth, chaos and order she proposes an alternative form of quantum-inspired spirituality, citizenship and attitude. Her approach offers a reflection based on cultural studies about different ways of dealing with uncertainty, and to go beyond the limited Cartesian framework regarding the concept of truth. By analysing cultural production, this approach contributes yet another cultural context, more future-oriented, to reflect the Point of Being in a time of change, uncertainty and deep cultural crisis in society regarding knowledge. Then, of course, there is the question of the Point of Being, as in “what is the point?” That is certainly an underlying theme that plays across all chapters, but no definite answer can be given about this without including a total personal involvement. The Point of Being is a signpost on that journey.

CHAPTER ONE THE POINT OF BEING DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE1

Chapter Index Abstract I Approaching a definition of the Point of Being (PB) The Point of Being and field theory Sensory transduction Proprioception The role of the body II The fragmentation of the sensorium Point of View (PV) versus Point of Being Parallels between Point of View and Point of Being III Electricity and touch Electricity driven trends pertinent to the Point of Being The objective imaginary and the displacement of the Point of View The impact of electricity on the Point of Being Augmented tactility Managing the interval: muscular versus mental interfaces IV Presence and telepresence: reconstructing the Logos Recovery of the classical Logos V Social touch and responsibility The Internet as an electronic limbic system Ancient Greek tragedy revisited Phobos and terrorism Eleos and angst Catharsis VI Bibliography

1

Derrick de Kerckhove wishes to thank for their assistance and support Maria Luisa Malerba (bibliography and data treatment), Gaetano Mirabella and Loretta Secchi (reference support) and Cristina Miranda de Almeida (data structuration and editorial discussion) in the preparation of this chapter.

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Chapter One

Abstract The Point of Being (PB) describes a sensory relationship with the world and to others that is grounded in touch. PB is the feeling of one’s presence in one’s own life. It is a multisensory and predominantly tactile experience of the world, of self and of others. By contrast, the Point of View (PV) is based on vision. PV is characteristic of the Western perception of the world being framed by the eye. It has prevailed since the Renaissance and it largely owes to psychological consequences of the development of the printing press. A crowning achievement of a process of individualization that is attributable to readers’ appropriation of language through literacy, the dominance of PV is presently being challenged by the effects of electricity and electronic technologies. These are introducing a new sensorial equilibrium, still dominated by the eye but allowing more information from the other senses and, notably, touch. PB is not a substitute for PV. It is complementary and may restore people’s sensibility to a coherent social and personal order, even as PV is being weakened by the gradual externalization of cognitive and emotive capacities of the user on screen and in networks. The new order of sensibility is informed by a sort of “augmented tactility”, supported and encouraged by electronic technologies. The Internet, besides serving cognitive ends, also acts as a collective and connective limbic system that carries emotions instantly across frontiers, religions and cultures. This phenomenon observed in several grass-roots social movements lately can be compared to the so-called “weak force” in physics. In physics, such a force can be expressed mathematically, by its integration within the balance of the other three, the strong nuclear force, gravity and electromagnetism. In terms of pressure (i.e., tactility), the weak force acts over short distances without direct contact. In terms of society, it is attitude, the weakest but most precise expression of one’s disposition towards the world, that is the equivalent force. Keywords: Point of Being, interval, point of view, electricity, touch, proprioception, augmented tactility, homeopathic change

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I Approaching a definition of the Point of Being (PB) The world of the eye is causing us to live increasingly in a perpetual present, flattened by speed and simultaneity. —Juhani Pallasmaa (2008)

The Point of Being corresponds to the sense I feel about myself, which cannot be represented exactly by a point (except when I feel an acute pain in a part of my body or a strongly localized emotion in the chest). It is grounded in a state of being that is a condition of life, and it is reflected as a field more than a single point of origin. It is also an epistemological experience. I can perceive that this physical and sensate presence in the world is the very origin of myself rather than all the thoughts I can muster about it. PB is a boundary-less field of sensation experienced by anyone who stops to think for a second about how one perceives one’s presence in the world. The aim of this research is to focus on the physical and tactile sense (of being), its origin and the intellectual process behind it. Indeed, if I place the origin of my sensation within my body, I feel my surroundings and there is no way of really telling where the inside ends and where the outside begins. If I close my eyes, the other senses are highlighted. Though sound, smell and taste are involved, the effect is mainly a tactile, proprioceptive experience.2 The point of being is the emerging interface, or connective source of perception, by means of which people touch and are touched by a “reality” in constant flow. It is felt as a flowing sensation that begins in the chest.3 But that occurs only if I try to locate it deliberately. Otherwise the PB is only the sensation of my presence in the world. It is a background sensation as people go about their business.

2 The notion of proprioception comes from Latin proprius (one's own) and perception. It is the sense used to experience the relative position of parts of the body employed in movement. It is distinguished from exteroception (perception of the outside world) and interoception (perception of pain and movement of internal organs). 3 This sensation, which accompanies breathing, is probably why, according to Onians (1951), in the book The Origins of European Thought: About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate, the preliterate Greek cultures tended to locate perception in the chest rather than in the head, a shift that began to occur with the appearance of literacy. See also chapter VIII.

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Chapter One

Consequently, while there may be a point to being, there is no identifiable point of being. In that case, why does this book retain a concept that is misleading in the first place? It is because the merit of this metaphor is to immediately invite an experience of being. To feel one’s being, one needs to relinquish the Point of View, displace the vantage point of the sensation. The contrasting metaphors of PB and PV allow one to better estimate a tactile and proprioceptive perception of the environment by opposition – or complementarity – to the PV. The latter positions the person in a spatial relationship to the environment from a specific angle within which to evaluate and judge it. This is what is meant by “getting a perspective” on things or events. PB, on the contrary, is a total surround condition. We could have agreed to call PB the “field of being”, but that terminology would not reflect the focus on origin. Though it has no precise limits, there is indeed a centre to PB.

PB and field theory PB could also be described as occupying a middle position between thought, feeling and space. According to Augustin Berque, “Mesology” relates to the study of milieu; from the Greek word meson: middle, centre, half, average. The present use of the term dates back to Dr Charles Robin who proposed it to the Société de Biologie in Paris, June 7, 1848. The milieu, in effect, cannot be absolute: not only does it depend on a set of relationships at the core of which it is situated, but it also defines whatever is around the centre. The milieu of fish is the water that surrounds them, but each fish is also at the centre of the water, with which the fish has a unique relationship. Every living creature – humans in particular – is at the centre of its milieu. Berque explains that in French, the word milieu carries this ambivalence: it is what surrounds the centre and it is that centre itself. So we are confronted with a problem of logic, that is the co-existence of different logics, neither excluding the other and both composing a “meso-logic” that takes account of both inside and outside simultaneously.4 Thus there is a sort of Möbius strip effect in that while there is clearly an inside and an outside to every living being, there seems to be no suture or division. With this extended definition of milieu, the point 4

See also Maike Storks (2009) article on proprioception, http://sixthsensereader.org/about-the-book/abcderium-index/proprioception/ http://ecoumene.blogspot.fr/p/argument-english-version.html (accessed 2013/10/08).

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of being could be understood as the general core of a sense of being, a place of synthesis of time and space, of mind and body, of feeling and consciousness that transcends models of reality ruled by a visual regimen. It implies an expanded state of perception and consciousness. It calls for the whole body to come into play. I feel immediately this correspondence in everyday life, as I perceive myself as a whole that includes me (instant présent). Henri Bergson said: The more we succeed in making ourselves conscious of our progress in pure duration, the more we feel the different parts of our being enter into each other, and our whole personality concentrate itself in a point, or rather a sharp edge, pressed against the future and cutting into it unceasingly. It is in this that life and action are free. (Bergson 2008 [1911], p. 202)

Observing the role of the skin in perception, Michel Serres defines the experience against the notion of milieu: In the skin, through the skin, the world and the body touch, defining their common border. Contingency means mutual touching: world and body meet and caress in the skin [...] I do not like to speak of the place where my body exists as a milieu, preferring rather to say that things mingle among themselves and that I am no exception to this that I mingle with the world, which mingles itself in me. The skin intervenes in the things of the world and brings about their mingling. (Serres 1998, p. 97)

In this sense, Serres provides another clue to the PB in that, while it is bounded by the skin, it can be felt not as a limit but as a portal to experience the world. Gestalt therapy has found a convenient scientific ground in physics. For example, touch therapy (TT), a lasting nursing practice developed by Martha Rogers in the mid 1960s, applies basic notions related to energy fields to human sensoriality. She says that human beings are energy fields - not have energy fields but are energy fields. Humans and the environment are continually, simultaneously, and mutually exchanging energy with each other (environment refers to everything exterior to human, including other people). Universal order is a force innate to all energy fields. (Rogers 1970)5 5

See also this link, accessed 2014/05/08, http://currentnursing.com/nursing_theory/unitary_human_beings .html and SayreAdams, J (1993), ‘Therapeutic Touch - principles and practice’, in Complimentary Therapies in Medicine. See this link, accessed 2014/02/10, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/096522999390101I

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Chapter One

Within the field, the experience of PB includes proprioception (internal) and exteroception (external) as well as the perception of the interval and the relative distances of external objects. Indeed there are enough varieties of tactile experience to warrant categorical distinctions; they require, for example, considerations about frequencies and vibrations, distances, rhythms and movements, various forms of pressure (texture, weight, haptics), and the extensions and modulations of touch in presence, intuition, desire, emotion, and aura, to say nothing about the unconscious. Juhani Pallasmaa puts it very succinctly and precisely: Touch is the sensory mode that integrates our experience of the world with that of ourselves. Even visual perceptions are fused and integrated into the haptic continuum of the self; my body remembers who I am and where I am located in the world. My body is truly the navel of my world, not of the sense of the viewing point of the central perspective, but as the very locus of reference, memory, imagination and integration. (Pallasmaa 2012, p. 10)

Sensory transduction Today, because electricity in its digital evolution puts everything in touch with everything else, artists, scholars and psychologists are rediscovering the senses as a whole and in this process the sense of touch has an insidiously dominant role. Touch is directly connected to the configuration of self-in-the-world as it can be considered a tool for thinking “with” the body, allowing for the displacement of consciousness from brain to body and instructing people about what cannot be grasped by the eyes. The word touch comes from the Latin tactus, and tangere. Touch extends through the whole body’s surface6 and helps one to get data about things and their qualities, such as texture and temperature. In the concept of touch is also implied the idea of recognition and the ability to resolve difficult situations. Tactile cognition is based not only on contact pressure but also on the interval of space between people and things. As a flexible and fluctuant kind of cognition, touch takes meaning from texture, resistance, temperature and other aspects of matter. French Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot (1916) explored this aspect of the relationship between body and

6

Paracelsus is credited with having said that the skin was the extension of the ear, not the other way around, meaning that the whole body could be construed as one big ear.

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space, pointing out the collaboration between vision and touch in the experience of space: Only experience can teach us if there is agreement between vision and touch. Both senses could be contradicting each other without my knowing it; I could even believe that what is presented to my vision is nothing more than sheer appearance, if I had not been informed that these concepts are the same I had touched. (Diderot 1916, p. 51)

What people perceive through the other senses are mere hypotheses, but touch provides me with the confirmation that something outside my skin is not part of myself. However, by transduction touch is involved as well my own subjectivity when I feel myself exactly at the moment I perceive something that is not part of my body. As Walter Ong famously put it: “I feel other and self simultaneously” (Ong 1967, pp. 169-190).7

Proprioception Proprioceptive sensibility allows one to be aware of the position and the movements of each part of one’s body at any moment in time. The proprioceptor in the nervous system informs the organism in a mostly unconscious process about what is required to adjust muscular contractions so as to permit normal and fluid movements. Equilibrium, holding a posture, interoceptive sensibility (from the viscera) and exteroceptive (from the skin) are also part of proprioceptive information. From the proprioceptors, nervous fibres that are contained in the nerves reach the spinal cord and sense modifications such as pressure and stretching.8 According to Charles Sherrington’s classification: Intero-receptors transduce information from within the organism. Proprio-receptors transduce information regarding the body parts in relation to one another. Exteroreceptors transduce information from outside the body and can be further subdivided into two additional categories, telereceptors and somatoreceptors.

7

Full text at this link, accessed 2014/05/08, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1969.71.4.02a00030/pdf 8 More at this link accessed 2014/05/08, http://www.vulgaris-medical.com/encyclo pedie/ proprioception-6821/physiologie.html

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Telereceptors deal with stimuli which are away from – as in not touching – the body. Somatoreceptors transduce stimuli and events that occur on the body’s surface (Sherrington 1961, p. 114). PB, then, is an ever-emerging, fuzzy, interface between the world and me. It enables people to perceive their inscription in reality as a constant flow in which no fixed point of view is necessary. It is akin to the characteristics of the quantum scale of matter field, movement and vibration – which are different from the visible reality of places, distinct solid entities or clearly separated objects. It includes, in addition to the physical aspects already mentioned, other features that are complementary to touch such as memory, imagination, awareness and intuition, all to be considered important multi-sensorial elements in the perceptive process. Perhaps the most similar description of PB is found in this analysis of experience by Bergson Let us then concentrate attention on that which we have that is at the same time the most removed from externality and the least penetrated with intellectuality. Let us seek, in the depths of our experience, the point where we feel ourselves most intimately within our own life. It is into pure duration that we then plunge back, a duration in which the past, always moving on, is swelling unceasingly with a present that is absolutely new. But at the same time, we feel the spring of our will strained to its utmost limit. We must, by engaging strong recoil of our personality on itself, gather up our past, which is slipping away, in order to thrust it, compact and undivided, into a present, which it will create by entering. Rare indeed are the moments when we are self-possessed to this extent: it is then that our actions are truly free. And even at these moments we do not completely possess ourselves. Our feeling is duration, I should say the actual coinciding of our self with itself admits of degrees. But the more the feeling is deep and the coincidence complete, the more the life in which it replaces us absorbs intellectuality by transcending it. (Bergson 2008 [1911], p. 200)

The role of the body The first element that contributes to the construction of the paradigm of the Point of Being is the role of the whole body as the integral centre from where people become aware of all perceptions and from where they inhabit multiple kinds of place, matter and time, physical or electronic, and relate to other bodies and identities, where they too create, multiply and re-create their own selves.

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The body is the incarnation (and the interface) of being. People experience the world with their biological senses and their bodies are the places where they feel a real sensation of weight and presence. They know their body mostly by tactile sensations of pain or wellbeing and by proprioception. Intuition and emotions extend proprioception into exteroception beyond the confines of the skin. Juhani Pallasmaa puts the body at the centre of experience: Sensory experiences become integrated through the body, or rather, in the very constitution of the body and the human mode of being. Psychoanalytic theory has introduced the notion of body image or body schema as the center of integration. Our bodies and movements are in constant interaction with the environment; the world and the self inform and redefine each other constantly. The percept of the body and the image of the world turn into one single continuous existential experience; there is no body separate from its domicile in space, and there is no space unrelated to the unconscious image of the perceiving self. (Pallasmaa 2005, p. 39)

For Jean-Luc Nancy, the body is beyond discourse and description, a sign of itself that comes into existence only when is touched: Bodies are first to be touched. Bodies are first masses, masses offered without anything to articulate, without anything to discourse about […]. A body is what cannot be read in a writing […]. It is by touching the Other that a body is a body […] it is itself nothing but the being-exposed. (Nancy 1993, pp. 197-198 and 204)

There are many definitions of the concept of “body”. In this book the concept is explored in different ways by the authors, as it changes according to different cultures, disciplines and historical moments. For instance, Western medicine separates body parts (body and being are experienced as separate entities) while for the Eastern way of thinking the body is a single totality, and health problems are connected to energetic and spiritual issues (body and being coincide).9 This issue, of course, 9

Geurts points out “speculations in psychology [and we might add philosophy and physiology] are influenced by changing notions of the person and by the technology of the day” (Geurts 2005, p.169). See Maike Storks (2009), op. cit. “Proprioception”, accessed 2014/04/10, http://sixthsensereader.org/about-thebook/abcderium-index/proprioception/ “Among the Anlo-Ewe people of Ghana, we find an integrative conception of the sensorium as expressed through the term seselelame. Seselelame translates as perceive-perceive-at-flesh-inside and is a more generalized feeling in the body that consists of a wide array of internal senses (e.g. proprioception) and external senses,

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Chapter One

continues to generate endless debates between monists and dualists. One, author at least has thrown a genuinely new light on the subject. Mark Johnson, in The Body in the Mind affirms that, any adequate account of meaning and rationality must give a central place to embodied and imaginative structures of understanding by which we grasp the world. (Johnson 1990, p. 13)

Defining his thesis, Johnson grounds meaning in physical experience: The view I am proposing is this: in order for us to have meaningful, connected experiences that we can comprehend and reason about, there must be pattern and order to our actions, perceptions, and conceptions. A schema is a recurrent pattern, shape, and regularity in, or of, these ongoing ordering activities. These patterns emerge as meaningful structures for us chiefly at the level of our bodily movements through space, our manipulation of objects and our perceptual interactions. (Johnson 1990, p. 29)

Decades before the discovery of mirror neurons and their role in interpreting gesture, Karl Pribram and colleagues had identified experimentally the need that all mammals have to “pre-plan” any gesture as a rapid neuromuscular sequence before accomplishing the movement itself (Miller, Galanter and Pribram 1960). That is a kind of “body-thought”. Johnson proposes that thinking itself is a physical activity that finds its source, its patterns and the spring of its manifestations in the body. According to his views, the reason why people do not credit the body’s role is that they can only express themselves in propositional, i.e. linguistic terms. He explains: To cite a simple example, my present sense of being balanced upright in space at this moment is surely a non propositional awareness that I have, emotions, cognition, and intuitions. More precisely seselelame might refer to physical sensations; sexual arousal, heartache, passion, and pain; inspiration; intuition; or a generalized feeling in or through the body. It incorporates various sensations and actions such as aurality and hearing; balance and equilibrium; walking and kinesthesia; visuality and seeing; tasting; smelling; vocality and talking. In short, seselelame expresses a sensory order inherently different from the Western five-sense model. Proprioception, as experienced by the Anlo-Ewe as part of seselelame, is inherently intersubjective and based on shared feelings; it is phenomenological and processual in character. Thus, for the Anlo people perceiving their own body requires paying attention to the bodies of those around them” (Geurts 2005).

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even though all my efforts to communicate its reality to you will involve propositional structures. So, while we must use propositional language to describe these dimensions of experience and understanding, we must not mistake our mode of description for the things described (Johnson 1990, p. 4)

Johnson is facing a misconception about the role of the body that is quite germane to the dichotomy explored in this volume between PV and PB. People, and scientists in particular, tend to adopt what Johnson calls the “Objectivist” stance that is to describe something experimentally or in some phenomenological way and then take the description for the thing itself. He adds: I am perfectly happy with talk of the conceptual/propositional content of an utterance, but only insofar as we are aware that this propositional content is possible only by virtue of a complex web of non-propositional schematic structures that emerge from our bodily experience. (Johnson 1990, p. 5)

Johnson’s research is thus supported and even more so now that it has been established that mirror neurons serve as intermediaries for the understanding of gesture. The embodiment of cognition is also a major tenet of Francisco Varela’s work. Popular literature has abounded in that direction, as exemplified by various elaborations of Hand Selye’s Stress Theory, of Eugene Gendlin’s “felt meaning” and of Julius Fast’s “body language”. Not surprisingly, the scientific community has demonstrated a certain reluctance to embark resolutely into research in that direction. Johnson’s explanation of that reluctance seems to echo the thesis of this book.

II The fragmentation of the sensorium The subject-object fragmentation brought on by the processes of modernization had a strong impact on perception, on the body and on people’s relationship to nature, on the spiritual dimension of life and on processes involving knowledge. Literacy played a key part in this: with the transformation of reality into printed words,10 in the literate era the visual sense came to dominate and people began to feed on concepts 10

See Olson (1994).

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Chapter One

stored in their private minds. Language was silenced and privatized in the inner theatre of the individual’s mind. Silent reading, by isolating individuals from their community, has contributed to the processes and patterns of individualization that constitutes the worldview of modernity. The paradigm of PB results from a change in the human sensorial order due to the impact of electricity and that of digital technologies on people’s relationship to the environment. A gradual shift from the dominance of the sense of vision in perception and cognition is edging towards a multisensory order, in which many sensory modes are used, not only in cognition and perception but also in the creation, production and distribution of knowledge. This new sensorial order, in which touch and proprioception gain new relevance, is being established. The concept of Point of Being has its basis in the critique of modernity and coincides with the scientific thesis of the continuum between matter and energy. These theories criticize the rational instrumentality brought by the separation of subject and object and look for the coordination of cognition, perception and consciousness.11 Juhani Pallasmaa recognizes in strong and precise terms the opposition between sensory interpretations of the world: The perception of sight as our most important sense is well grounded in physiological, perceptual and psychological facts. The problems arise from the isolation of the eye outside its natural interaction with other sense modalities, and from the elimination and suppression of other senses, which increasingly reduce and restrict the experience of the world into the sphere of vision. This separation and reduction fragments the innate complexity, comprehensiveness and plasticity of the perceptual system, reinforcing a sense of detachment and alienation. (Pallasma 2008, p. 38)

The isolation of the eye from the other senses appeared in art during the Renaissance when trompe-l’oeil was at its most refined. The separation of the senses was completed, as the eye took over depth and texture, signifying to the hand that it was not needed anymore to estimate depth. The fragmentation of sensoriality can also be seen in the way Western physiology, from the time of André Vésale’s first dissections, has treated the body. This reflects the leap that occurred from a holistic paradigm to a pragmatic, empirical and quantitative paradigm. The body was dissected and fragmented into organic and mechanic systems.12 A 11

Critical theories can be consulted in Derrida, Barthes and Foucault. “The rise of individualism and the notion of private property, the implementation of industrialization and capitalism and the development of

12

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magical, organic and inter-connected idea of cosmos (the Stoics notion of Logos) was substituted for a mechanical model that deeply impacted human perception, cognition and definition. For Bacon, the process of learning is filtered by measuring and scientific scrutiny. The body is externalized into data with the support of instruments. Francesco D’Orazio explains thus: In the Baconian experience, “objective” instruments of measurement, that render discrete that which is continuous, obscure the wealth of corporeal learning, of sensory perception. Experience is thus externalized, abstracted from the body of the individual and transcribed in numbers and parts. It is not surprising then that, in the scientific re-transcription of experience, the most innovative instruments of the time, the telescope and the microscope, privilege observation and vision as the sensorial bias that creates a distance and allows to contain and classify stimulations that arise from the other senses. (D’Orazio 1994, p. 14)13

Different authors have analysed the human sensorial order and characteristics. Schopenhauer had a critical approach to Newtonian optics and proposed the interdependency between perception and the body (Jonathan Crary 1992). Aligned with Kant he defended the importance of the physiological influence of the body on knowledge.14 Bergson highlighted Kant’s posture regarding the interdependency of knowledge and body: Intelligence, as Kant represented it to us, is bathed in an atmosphere of spatiality to which it is as inseparably united as the living body to the air it breathes. Our perceptions reach us only after having passed through this atmosphere. They have been impregnated in advance by our geometry, so that our faculty of thinking only finds again in matter the mathematical properties that our faculty of perceiving has already deposed there. We are assured, therefore, of seeing matter yield itself with docility to our surveillance technologies precede and are of central importance at the moment of the discovery of proprioception by Sherrington in 1906. Thus, a focus on the individual and an isolation of the sense of proprioception in Western thought are deeply engrained in their socio-historic context. The discrepancies between the focus of the Western and the Anlo-Ewe account of the sensorium remind us that the classification of sensations is always a product of a certain socio-historic context and may vary over time and cross-culturally” (Storks 2009). 13 See D’Orazio (1994, p. 214), Immersione: La Scienza dei Fabbricanti di Universi, Unpublished doctoral thesis. 14 On the fragmentation of the sensorial order see Lukacs (1971) and Jameson (1981).

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Chapter One reasoning; but this matter, in all that it has that is intelligible, is our own work; of the reality in itself we know nothing and never shall know anything, since we only get its refraction through the forms of our faculty of perceiving. (Bergson 2008 [1911], p. 205)

PV versus PB The Point of Being coincides with the Point of View to the extent that both originate at the same time from perception, either predominantly visual for the latter15 or tactile and proprioceptive for the former. The difference introduced by bringing attention to the Point of Being is that instead of orienting perception exclusively outward, it invites one to attend a moment of reverberating introspection that reveals felt relationships with the immediate surroundings. This immediacy can be extended at will as it is practiced, for instance during meditation. Displacing the point of perception from the eyes to the whole body reverts to traditional concepts of body,16 a body linked with the universe: it helps to expand the scale of perception and situates people in a globalglocal sphere. In ordinary circumstances, unless it hurts, the body is ignored, but in sporting activities, running, swimming, skiing or riding, the mind turns to the body. For example, sailing a small boat puts one in contact with a complex extended universe of tactile sensations that cannot be ignored for fear of capsizing: there is the sea itself, felt through the movements of the boat, requiring one to constantly reequilibrate one’s position, and holding the rudder which puts the boater in direct contact with the water; there is the wind, as one holds the line to the spinnaker, teasing the sheet to maintain constant pressure, yet another tactile variable, just as fluid and indefinite as the extension of the sea; then there is one’s proprioceptive sensing of both equilibrium and closely watched well-being to avoid nausea; not to mention the emotional exhilaration and intellectual satisfaction of being in control. Sailing reveals the complexity of the extension of one’s body in space, without definite limits. Displacing the point of perception from sight to the whole being makes it easier to see that the Point of Being 15 Of course even a point of view must involve tactility, if only because one has to adopt a stance (physical as well as mental) to have a PV, but as I comment below, the paradox is that while expressing, thinking or developing a point of view, people tend to ignore other sensory stimulations. 16 Traditional concepts of body can be extracted from the definition of body in preCartesian philosophies such as Alchemy, a proto-science in the root of science before the Cartesian split.

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corresponds to the sense we feel about ourselves, our sense of place, time and state.17 All senses together create a space from where I can feel or intuit that I begin to be. That space is felt either as a void, as when people place the beginning behind their eyes, or as fullness, as when I perceive by feeling the joint presence of myself and the context I am in. With Point of View there is either complete control or complete ignorance of the body. As Narcissus losing himself in the image, you don’t even remember you have a body.

Parallels between PV AND PB In daily life, the experience of the PB alternates with that of the PV. The Cartesian mental reflexes of abstraction, mechanization and rationalization of perception, cognition and creation begun in modernity opened a gap between the self and the world. The Point of Being enables one to bridge the mental, intellectual, emotional and ethical interval opened by the Point of View. The following are some of the most essential aspects that characterize the concept of the Point of Being and how it contrasts with Point of View: 1) Objectivization, abstraction, de-sensorialization and disembodiment of reality One of the principal functions of PV, as Eric Havelock puts it regarding the effect of the alphabet, is to “separate the knower from the known” (Havelock 1963).18 Alphabetization, among other effects, created a clear separation between signifier and signified and a distance between subject (the reader) and object (the text) that give the illusion of objectivity, hence the invention of theatre and the consequent spectacularization of culture. To see, but not to touch, is the general order and condition, as in the non-interactive museums of the past. The decontamination of the objective from the subjective is the purpose of science. To achieve that, all the senses must be subdued under the rule of vision. The arts of the Renaissance would take care of that. Disembodiment follows in both 17

In this sense the Point of Being completes and expands McLuhan’s observations about aural societies including characteristics that were not considered in McLuhan. This expansion of the McLuhanian theory about touch relates to the last contributions about the sensorial order offered by Classen (2004). 18 See in particular Havelock’s demonstration in chapter XII, “The separation of the knower from the known”.

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senses of the word, that of reducing physical involvement with information, and dismembering the real, fragmenting the given into items and categories. PV allows for the dominance of science over other cognitive frameworks: a measured, homogenized, universal, abstract and lineal concept of space, time and matter. The funnelling transformation of all aspects of life and the world into scientific data brought the fragmentation and abstracting of nature and body under scientific analysis supported by the dominance of the sense of vision over other senses. Contrasting PV with PB evokes the following observations: via PB, subjectivity is expanded to include context and networks. The limits between self and other, or body and world, cease to be clear; the connections now become more significant than the separation of factors. The transformation of most of the critical aspects of life and the world into data is accelerated but, to foster assimilation, it is supported by all the extended senses, including touch.19 As I will explain below, the emergence of electricity is resensorializing human communication, however at a technically extended level which Walter Ong called “secondary” (1982, p. 133). The virtual and augmented varieties of reality are external to the body and today act as interfaces to many human activities. Embodiment has become quite paradoxical: the engagement of the subject via networks and software programming is both discarnate, and yet so tightly connected to body and mind that it seems to be a reverse – externalized – image of the incarnate body. A strange reversal is occurring, as if humans are being turned inside out. Hence, the erstwhile dominant, measured, homogenized, universal, abstract and lineal concepts of space, time, matter and self are being counterbalanced by the fact that matter is being given sensors, sensibility, and communication capability, space is temporalized (fourth dimension), time is spatialized (cinema, hyperlinking) and self is externalized in telepresence. 2) Polarization of cognition Polarization is a form of mitosis applied here to cultural change. It is the way opposite trends within a given environment distance themselves from each other and from the previous norm and gather the weaker strands of evolution in their preferred directions. Cognition is that kind of a milieu that experiences dynamic flows and changes. In human 19

See Mirabella’s and Miranda de Almeida’s chapters.

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cultures, it has already taken many shapes, such as collective, private and, now, connective forms of consciousness. The axis supported by PV is bi-polar, fostering a clear subject/object separation. Cognition is distributed in individual bodies and based on fixed opposite qualities set up at separate ends of a polarity axis. People can think separately and contribute to common knowledge in the full objectivity of a neutral (i.e., non-cognizant) space. The PB, on the other hand, introduces non-polarized models of cognition, hybrid modalities, and favours the convergence of opposites. There is a new equilibrium between different forms of cognition: cyberspace, for instance, challenges the status of both physical and mental spaces. The dual polarity (objective physical and subjective mental) has now become a triangular one (physical, mental and virtual) because of the time people spend in the virtual extensions of themselves. The opposite qualities set up at separate ends of the polarity axis are brought into movement and interaction. There is not a rigid separation between categories anymore.20 Boundaries and categories suffer a meltdown because tagging data instead of classifying it gives direct access to immediately contextualized information. Even the status of reality is brought into question, as a cognitive integration of all that awareness and consciousness can reach becomes a legitimate, but totally subjective description of being (see Araujo). 3) The centrality and exclusiveness of the brain as seat of cognition and consciousness The displacement of the seat of consciousness to the physical brain began with the Greek alphabet; pre-literate Greece had believed that the brain was a cooling system. Post-literate Greece claimed that it was the seat of the soul and the origin of perception. An egocentric and subjective epistemology built up around the eye; the ear and touch became subordinate to the visual appreciation of any situation. Nowadays, other forms of consciousness are being retrieved to complement the physical brain. For example, the notions of “felt meaning” and “body language” and the discovery of stress by Hans Selye are contemporary with, and perhaps consequences of, the impact of television on the human body. The light beaming from the screen is not reflected, it is painted on the retina and the body of the spectator. That is partly why McLuhan considered television as a “tactile” medium. 20

See chapters by Jung A, Ryu and Miranda de Almeida.

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For another example, shifting awareness from the head to the heart can be considered as a way to deal with the Cartesian interval as it brings the re-enlivenment of environment and the overcoming of polarities (see Miranda de Almeida’s chapter). 4) Centrality of the Point of View in creative, scientific and social processes The gradually growing hegemony of the eye seems to have occurred in parallel with the development of Western ego-consciousness and the gradually increasing separation of the self and the world; vision separates us from the world whereas the other senses unite us with it. The Point of View structures thought as the source of judgment and opinion. The aim in both science and law is to remove it (PV) so as to create a common (objective) understanding. Science and the Law must be objective or they are nothing. PV is also adopted in temporal sequences, supported by causality to extract linear historical evidence from myth and legend. PV is crucial in the creation and consumption of art processes, whether in painting, sculpture, theatre, literature or dance. The architecture of theatre will gradually freeze the spectator in a single and unique position with respect to the stage. Theatre, supporting the same bias as perspective and trompe-l’oeil has contributed to educating people to adopt a single, central, frontal PV. The participation of the public was discouraged by the seating arrangement and distancing from the stage. Hence judging was enhanced. Again Juhani Pallasmaa has a brilliant way of saying this: Unconscious peripheral perception transforms retinal gestalt into spatial and bodily experiences. Peripheral vision integrates us with space, while focused vision pushes us out of the space, making us mere spectators. (Pallasmaa 2008, p. 12)

But, for Lars Spuybroek, another architect, if “perspective expelled the spectator from the spectacle”,21 virtual reality brings him back in and turns him into actor, participant, interactant. Even as theatre was yielding to the supremacy of cinema, Berthold Brecht and Antonin Artaud were developing contrasting concepts of the theatrical stance: for Brecht, steeped in the classical literate tradition, the spectator was not to be involved emotionally in the play, contrary to 21 See “Where space gets lost”, accessed 2014/03/09, http://v2.nl/archive/articles/where-space-gets-lost

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Artaud whose basic credo was total involvement and absorption within the play. Artaud even went as far as to say that one should go to the theatre with the same apprehension as one goes to the dentist! Although they were immediate contemporaries, Artaud, of course, was the new drama theorist, inspired by theatre theorist Meyerhold, by experiments of “le théâtre Antoine” and by the relatively recent electrification of the world and the stage. Under the spell of PV, Brecht’s approach tended to privilege a lineal form of creation, with little or no interaction between public, artwork and text. This bias promoted individual forms of consumption of culture, that is, supporting a predominant notion of culture as a product rather than culture as a process, destined to noninteractive publics, fostered by individual writing and reading, and the artist considered in glorious isolation. Instead of experiencing our being in the world, we behold it from outside as spectators of images projected on the surface of the retina. David Michael Levin uses the term “frontal ontology” to describe the prevailing frontal, fixated and focused vision: The will to power is very strong in vision. There is a very strong tendency in vision to grasp and fixate, to reify and totalize: a tendency to dominate, secure, and control, which eventually, because it was so extensively promoted, assumed a certain uncontested hegemony over our culture and its philosophical discourse, establishing, in keeping with the instrumental rationality of our culture and the technological character of our society, an ocularcentric metaphysics of presence. (Levin 1988, p. 212)

He differentiates between two modes of vision, the “assertoric gaze” and the “aletheic gaze”. In his view, the assertoric gaze is: narrow, dogmatic, intolerant, rigid, fixed, inflexible, exclusionary and unmoved, whereas the aletheic gaze, associated with the hermeneutic theory of truth, tends to see from a multiplicity of standpoints and perspectives, and is multiple, pluralistic, democratic, contextual, inclusionary, horizontal and caring. (Levin 1988, p. 60)

As suggested by Levin, there are signs that a new mode of' looking is emerging. The PB favours the central role of the body in creation processes. Interactivity is the technical extension of touch. Interfaces are created to manage things and the interval between them and the body. Hence they are extensions of the body and provide variations in the handling of things. The late twentieth century has seen much experimentation with new forms of relationships between public and art work (see chapters by Ryu,

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Choinière and Secchi). The whole body either of the creator or the public informs creation and consumption of art and other processes. PB introduces non-lineal processes of creation, distribution and consumption of culture. Such processes are evidenced in hyperlinked forms of creation with interaction between public and artwork or text. Collective and connective forms of production and consumption of culture appear with the emergence of collaborative processes of consumption of texts and artworks (in writing and reading). They impact on the role of author in art, whereas the consumer becomes a “prosumer” (see below). 5) Development of a dependent attitude Whereas the PB encourages an attitude of responsibility based on the recognition of individual power, the objectifying of matter and history by PV defines peoples’ attitude to destiny. They see themselves as prey to events that overtake them. PV brings an end to magic and mythical relationships between human and cosmic environment. There comes a change in the magical medieval attitudes and “superstitions” that “fade into the light of common day”,22 and people begin to consider themselves as hostages to circumstances, natural disasters, political manipulations and historical determinations within a unified, indifferent, neutral but common space. But today, people tend to assume more responsibility in the construction of their own circumstances, as opposed to the Freudian psychoanalysis tending to eliminate responsibility. In a sort of revival of magic, the power of the electronic logos triggers a new attitude towards history. 6) The institutionalization of spirituality Religions of the book go by the book. What is written is what counts, giving rise to documented fundamentalism. God, nature and human beings are considered as separate entities and religion turns into a bureaucracy, even as secularization takes over the social body. 22

Wordsworth (1907) Poems: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, “Ode”: The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature’s priest And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended At length the Man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.

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Spirituality becomes a specialization, one among many cognitive approaches to reality, whereas in oral cultures faith is the ground of cognition. Spirituality inscribes itself in everyday life. In a world redescribed by quantum physics, the Higgs boson and by photographs of the fossil radiations following the Big Bang, God, nature and human beings become reconsidered as a whole in the feeling that all is connected, which brings new insights regarding people’s place in the world (see Malerba’s chapter). Thus the epistemology and sensibility based on point of view and private subjectivity are experiencing serious challenges and these challenges should be examined to arrive at an image of the contemporary condition.

III Electricity and touch Physical, material networks of interacting and integrated communications and classification technologies are being woven into, around and above the surface of the planet, and in space via satellite and space probes. Electricity is the common denominator, creating a single unified field of electro-magnetic and related activities upon and within the Earth’s crust. Whether you plug in a toaster in Toronto, place a call in Manila, or receive a digitalized lay-out of the surface of Miranda, one of the moons of Uranus, you share in this single environment much in the way any micro-event within your brain or your body takes part in the synergy of your whole person and being. The very structure of electrical conductivity is closer to the structure of human tactile experience than to any other sensory experience. Indeed, electricity does not, as we commonly assume, “travel in space”, it pushes itself within a resonant interval of distant electrons from one point to another at the speed of light. If everybody understood the implications of this tactile metaphor, it would probably help to bring the world and mankind to a closer understanding of each other: we are in fact, and not only in theory, in a global relationship of minute pressures, stimulations and variations of intervals between people and things, which make the global human sensibility approach the condition of the global variables. Thus the relationship between electricity and touch is formal. Electrons do not so much travel in space as knock into each other. So in a transatlantic telephone conversation, the voices are not carried from one point to another, they push themselves forward so to speak, from electron to electron. Of course, considering the slow speed of sound, the

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fact that the voices can cross enormous distances almost instantly is a property heretofore forbidden to language. Within the unified electronic environment, language provides the essential differentiating factor without which there cannot be articulation or processing. Just as the electronic hardware is the necessary technical metaphor for carrying out our increasingly complex operational activities, language, the human software, provides the articulated extensions of the human mind. We find in the whole world's electricity/language interactions, the same bewildering, but eventually understandable relationships that govern the mysterious brain/mind interactions. Indeed the principal thing to consider in understanding the relationships between language and personal and social psychology is the nature of the support that bears the language. The figure below proposes three periods of social and cultural evolution according to what medium has supported language, the human body, written surfaces or electrical currents. In oral cultures, language doesn’t travel very far. It is shared by few people, and only in “real time’. So it has to be repeated, embodied, ritualized and re-contextualized at every moment and for every succeeding generation. Whereas literacy pulls language out of the body and makes it accessible over time and space, with electricity, this access to language by everyone who carries a cellular phone becomes instant and global, thus eliminating both time and space as the Futurist Filippo Marinetti was the first to observe.23

Electricity driven trends pertinent to the Point of Being The figure below shows the speed of evolution acquired by human communication according to the principal medium that carries language, that is, the human body, writing, printing or electricity. Each new medium has introduced a quantum leap in communications. Suffice it to compare the number of generations it has taken to put language first to writing, then to print and now to electricity. Here the medium is profoundly the message. In oral societies, the medium is the body. The voice can only carry so far and the audience is limited even if the whole community is listening. Communications, even over short distances, are few and far between. Until the arrival of cellular telephony islanders had very little way of knowing what was happening in the world or in the 23

Marinetti, F T (1921) Le tactilisme: Manifeste futuriste, Taveggia, Milano. Manifeste read at the Théâtre de l'Oeuvre (Paris) and at the Exposition Mondiale d'Art Moderne (Genève).

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neighbourinng islands not only because of the time itt took to go frrom one island to another, but also for lack of other means of news distribution. In oral societies bodies are a in charge of rememberring. All inforrmation must be reecorded in memory m and transmitted faithfully (h hence a conservativee bias).

Speed of evoluution according to the princip al medium thaat carries Figure 1-1: S language (seee centrefold for this image in full fu colour).

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Once language is written, it is detached from the body as well as from the moment of its occurrence. It can now be sent, stored and reused in any number of different contexts. This property drives cultures in quite the opposite direction, that of permanent invention and growth. Language written down can be used by different generations in differing contexts. It can be translated in other languages and hence transmitted across space as well as time. Part of Holland’s proverbial affluence in the seventeenth century comes from the translating and printing industries that would give access to books in many different countries even when and where they were banned.24 Being detached from the body, language is also abstracted, especially in alphabetic writings systems. Literacy is thus responsible for redefining people’s relationships to their body. Reading obviously favours the eye. Because of the dominance of the visual sense in the information processing, both in reading and writing, much critically useful communication is desensorialized. Written words are soon deemed to possess more authority than spoken ones. A new distance arises between the reader and the world. This distance is reflected in new spatial arrangements in culture. So formal theatre, or perspective, or even theory, all define a distance between the observer and the observed and put the observer in a unique and privileged position. The distance between world and self is covered by the eye from a specific standpoint that makes the source of judgement coincide with spatial position. That, of course, is the point of view. Perspective and the point of view have been mutually reinforcing spatial relationships that separate the individual from the environment. What I am looking at is not part of me unless I am looking at some part of my body. Even my clothes and my glasses are not I. Not even my contact lenses. As seen above, the point of view becomes formalized in philosophy (Descartes’ cogito) and in geometry (perspective), although the need is first felt by artists to represent as faithfully as possible the spatial correlations within the appreciation of the viewer. The point of view coincides with the individual’s stance, and also with a new mental disposition. That is another benefit acquired from the printed word. Reading, generally, and reading silently in particular, privatizes language. 24

Again due to the Dutch climate of tolerance, book publishers flourished. Many books about religion, philosophy and science that might have been deemed controversial abroad were printed in the Netherlands and secretly exported to other countries. Thus during the 17th Century the Dutch Republic became more and more Europe's publishing house, accessed 2014/04/18, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age

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Literacy gives the reader a new measure of control over language. Michel Foucault’s theories of surveillance and the control of societies by structural discourse notwithstanding, mankind has never acquired as much power over language as when the printing press ran “le discours” practically without competition. People who learn to write take control of language and internalize it. They learn to think linguistically. They turn their minds into a laboratory of images and sounds to “render” the written words. The eyes of the reader control the page25 and select the contents to submit to interpretation. Readers adopt an internal vantage point to observe these internal images. Conversely, the internal point of view is mirrored in its external version, providing and ruling both spatial and mental experiences. Hence, one’s point of view comes from the accumulation and ordering of personal thoughts acquired by reading, and guided by education in a much-enlarged social context. The arrival of the printing press would increase the abstraction of writing and give more and more power to bureaucracies and institutions. The invention of the telegraph heralded the meeting of language with electricity. The telegraph combines the speed of light with the complexity of language. Hence the relentless succession of improvements and applications that characterizes the present time. Electricity has immensely expanded the speed and the reach of language. This acceleration eventually globalized communications multiplying interactions for yet more innovations. This is the visible part. The part that is not immediately apparent is that electricity makes language and its contents environmental. Once again language is being externalized as it is uttered and archived. Once again it takes possession of bodies, not in real time as in live speech, but overall in data tracking, storing and redistribution. People’s activities on and off line are traced and configured in different databases used for different purposes that they are unaware of. This constitutes a sort of “digital unconscious” that touches their lives to an extent that they do not suspect. Today, the crisis of identity that usually accompanies deep technological changes affecting the use and the position of language is not primarily individual. It is social. One’s representation is distributed across various profiles, a few constructed by the user, most of them by other interests. Of course, there are many uncertainties concerning the accessibility of individual data to third party, but it has become difficult 25 However, they have to share that responsibility with the processes and the contents of interactive screens.

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to maintain and support a fixed point of view in the face of so much change so fast. It will become more and more difficult to support and feed a private identity, whereas profiles – whether acknowledged or not – will facilitate the integration of individuals in communities.

The objective imaginary and the displacement of the Point of View26 Many parents complain about the tendency of their children to spend more time relating on screens than face-to-face. The truth of the matter is that people, parents included, already spend so much time in front of one screen or another, be it computers or cellular phones, that it has become “natural” to share one’s cognitive properties, including imagination, with this new electronic environment, this new “space” of mental and social activity. Between the screen and the mind, there is a partly externalized mental space that reverses the orientation of the process of imagination. The practice of reading novels, for instance, produces a steady stream of imagined relationships located exclusively inside the mind. The best example of this is also one of the oldest, the story of Don Quixote whose imagination was fed by medieval romances. He was so totally immersed in these novels that eventually the virtual internal experience would bleed into reality hence projecting the hero into a series of mishaps, among which the famous combat with windmills that he took for giants. Cervantes was the most articulate, perhaps the first novelist to question the epistemological effect of readership. All novels have the effect of nourishing this internal imagination, though not all, of course, to the point of being mistaken for an objective experience. Over many centuries of readership, mankind has developed private imagination to a very fine degree. People take this faculty for granted because it seems evident that all humans have imaginary powers, failing which they might never be able to plan actions and strategies, whether literate or not. The difference introduced and sustained by literacy was to fully privatize and internalize imagination, greatly expand it and to clearly distinguish it from real life. On the contrary, the screen-based virtual experience of imagination is one more example, perhaps a more significant one, of the power of digitization to export and externalize cognitive faculties. A contemporary example is Second Life, a virtual online 3D environment that certainly 26 Relating to the cognitive relationships between mind and screen: TV, Second Life, Skype, etc.

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has now passed its prime, but was a new point of maturation of the techno-psychology of the Internet. Second Life intertwines mind and screen. When you look into the virtual world from the point of view of the avatar, you forget that you are watching a screen, just as you forget you are reading a book when your mind really takes the place of a character. In fact, Second Life is a curious hybrid of objective and subjective, where the objective is provided by the scenery and the other actors on the screen, but where your subjectivity, externalized and partly rendered objective by your avatar, continues nevertheless to extend your internal subjectivity. To that extent, one’s relationship to one’s avatar in Second Life is not different from that between the puppeteer and the puppet in Korean puppetry as Semi Ryu describes it in her chapter. I can also easily project my subjectivity into less unusual figures such as characters in a film or in a novel. I can quite naturally take the place of a narrator in a novel, especially if the narration is in the first person. But apart from me there isn’t anybody else in a film or a novel, just figures and figments. An avatar is also a figure, and so it isn’t much different for me to project myself into that figure. The difference lies in the fact that figures of other avatars than mine have someone behind them, someone like myself endowed with a different subjectivity, and in the fact that we interact in the same imaginary space. The avatar, according to Francesco D’Orazio, is a mask, a symbolic element that works at bringing the spectator into the communication universe; it generates an assumption, a sense of “presence”. (D’Orazio 1994, p. 292)27

Second Life is an environment created by the imagination of all the participants, a fictional world that you can share. Don Quixote could not have shared the imagination of his romances when he was reading, and nor could Cervantes. There is a direct opposite between having your imagination on the screen and having your imagination in your head. Literally what was in your head is now on a screen. Second Life takes up the role of novels to accustom internauts to practice the objective imaginary and enter into the phase of connected cognition. It teaches them to export their point of view.

27

Janet Murray points out that “The mask sets off the participants from the nonparticipants and reinforces the special nature of the shared reality. It creates the boundary of the immersive reality and signals that we are role-playing rather than acting ourselves” (Murray, 1997).

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Thus Second Life is a crude but literal example of the externalization of our faculties, in this case, that of our imagination. That being said, pretty well anything that happens on your screen could be considered your objective imaginary since so much of the composite mental image is right there in front of you on a screen as opposed to being right here inside your head. Second Life represents and promotes a cognitive drive that has evolved as language technologies innocently appearing under the guise of hardware and software products in commercial practices – hence socially legitimized. The hidden agenda of Second Life is to propose, as the invention of the actor of theatre did in Ancient Greece, an external model of consciousness that is destined, at some point, to be internalized. What is it that will be internalized? It is likely the avatar. Just as the actor on stage becomes the model for actors in the mind, I believe that eventually people will understand and project themselves as interfaces, connecting directly via screens by thought alone with their augmented mental environment. A profound piece by Ulrike Gabriel, Terrain 0/1,28 gave me the first intuition of that possibility, which was later reinforced by the arrival on the market of a flurry of more sophisticated mind-computer direct connection systems such as e-Motiv. It consists in generating movements and sound by thought alone. The user sits in front of a screen with a head-mounted sensing system called “Interactive Visual Brainwave Analyser”.29 Thus connected by the headgear the user monitors a graph on the screen (assumedly representing the changes in his or her brain activity in real time) and thereby modifies the volume of light thrown on photovoltaic sensors that drive little robots on wheels in a closed arena. The robots are equipped with distance sensors that prevent them from banging into each other, so that the increase of overhead lighting makes them move gracefully, like a dance over a sound sensitive surface that creates different patterns of music. The mental experience comes full circle as the volume of sounds indicates to the user the level of light that he or she must generate by thought alone to create an interesting composition of movements and sound. Mind affects matter. The feedback loop between the mind and the screen affects a robot moved by electro-mechanical power to create music. There are several levels of translation from mental processes into processed data with instant 28

Presented in September 1993, at Ars Eletronica, Linz, Austria. For a full description of the installation, accessed 2014/03/14, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/terrain/ 29 Consult Brain Machine, accessed 2014/03/14, http://www.ibva.co.uk/

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feedback: electric power translated into light that feeds photo-receptors, the last providing energy to move the robots themselves translating the movements into music that feeds back to the mind of the user. One could interpret this piece as a stacking-up of multiple technologies upon each other to signify that they are all products of the power of the human mind, or a new kind of magic, the creative power of the mind, with an orientation towards art.

The impact of electricity on the Point of Being Electricity is re-introducing touch as a significant element in the sensory balance and is promoting the recovery of the PB in many ways. Thanks to electrons pushing each other, everybody is literally, and in some cases consciously, in touch with the whole world. The basis of this could be the basic conformity of electricity with touch, along with the biological electricity in bodies, which creates a closer intimacy between body and world. Electronically, the senses are coming back together as paradoxical extensions of peoples’ contact with the world. So what is happening via media is a gradual re-equilibration of people’s senses. In perspective, the balance was regulated by vision. Trompe-l’oeil as a technique was the mastery by the eye of tactile sensations of depth and texture and the estimation of weight. Painters such as Cezanne and Puvis de Chavanne first evidence the loss of interest in perspective. The evolution of western painting after them steered away from representing places, spaces and faces to create impressions and eventually abstract expressions. The taste for depth of field will wane with total surround of Virtual Reality but it will wax again in a new guise with 3D technologies. This condition calls for the eventual disappearance of perspective, along with a reduced depth of field that will be replaced by total surround, virtual reality (VR) and 3D. Virtual Reality provokes a reversal of perspective. It invites the person in instead of projecting one out of the scene. There occurs a recentring of the point of view in a total-surround theatre. When you are in a VR environment, your experience is immersive. Instead of being outside you are inside; the experience involves the synchronous participation of touch, vision and hearing. Movement measures your position. Once again, vision needs the assistance of the other senses in an integrated fashion. The viewer is now contained within the scene and movements drive the scene instead of merely being driven by it. In VR, there is not only a reversal of the position of the spectator from frontal to

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immersive, but touch is also given back its informing role in spatial simulation. Indeed, it is by moving, by changing the intervals of the spatial relationship, that is, a tactile kinaesthetic experience, that the visual dimension is properly estimated. Electronic communications are placing people at the core of a virtual environment of information to which they acquire open and free access; they get used to being immersed in it and consequently they develop a ubiquitous disposition to perceive not only the information they are seeking but also serendipitous stimuli from their surroundings. Roy Ascott coined the term “cyberception” to describe that condition.30

Augmented tactility Saint Thomas in his Summa Teologica explains that all senses are variations of touch, including vision. All forms of interactivity are variations on touch, even holding a broom. The difference comes when the interactions are supported by electricity and by electronic contraptions that amplify them and mediate contact.31 That is what I call “Augmented Tactility”. Augmented tactility is the sense of touch extended by technologies, electronic or otherwise. The most advanced technologies such as touchscreens, brain-wave management systems, tele-surgery and virtual engineering are rapidly expanding the uses of augmented tactility in society. Today there are many mechanized, alternative ways of knowing and understanding the environment, which often substitute for direct sensory perception. And these interfaces between body and world are by extension, paradoxically ‘tactile’. Most of these instruments are already distributed as toys, one of the fastest propagation devices. The virtual glove, a tactile interface par excellence, was invented by Jaron Lanier in the nineties, but distributed worldwide by Mattel for a mere 100 dollars. Today you can buy headsets online for about the same price that tap your brain’s surface potential to command events on a screen, by thought alone. One could object, of course, that if I can manage the contents of my screen by thought alone, that very fact would eliminate the tactile dimension. On the contrary, though very subtle, it could be considered as the summa of tactility, 30 For more about this subject see at this link, accessed 2014/03/02, http://w2.eff.org/Net_culture/Cyborg_anthropology/cyberception.paper 31 Sampled digitally or limited by analogue reproduction and delivery media, sound and vision are not “natural”, they become part of this tactile aura that electricity weaves around us.

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magical, in fact, action-at-a-distance and pressure over moveable objects that are not part of myself. The new generations of technologies command touch. Or is it the other way around? For the moment, touch technologies have been mostly committed to hand held commands, but with things like the Wii and the current generation of interactive games, the means are being developed to manage the interval between our bodies and the information environment.

Managing the interval: muscular versus mental interfaces E-Motiv is a company that produces and distributes headsets that connect the user’s mind directly to the computer.32 I used it to move objects on a screen merely by thinking about the moves and within minutes I succeeded in commanding simple actions to a cube, such as rotate, expand, jump, and even disappear. The system – and others like it – is still quite primitive, but it heralds new generations of direct interfaces between thought and technical performance.33 Among other things, it extends the reign of touch to the mind itself. Interactivity, requiring mental as well physical participation from the body, is becoming the new cognitive modality. Haptics is the science and the technology of tactile experience. Indeed it is possible to feel and manipulate virtual objects as well as see them. Using haptic interface software, a potter, for example, can have the tactile sensation of modelling an object in actual clay. An electronic suit can produce a sensation of full-body touch. Whereas the keyboard is a passive mechanical channel between the user and the computer, haptics enables a more active exploration and allows the user not only to see three-dimensional shapes represented on the screen, but also to feel them and interact with them. There are three main areas: - Basic devices, two dimensions (tactile mice, joysticks, etc.). - Sophisticated haptic “displays” that simulate shape and texture in three dimensions.

32 For more information visit E-Motiv, accessed 2014/03/07, http://www.emotiv.com/ 33 See one of the latest experiments in that direction at this link, accessed 2014/03/07, http://www.maxisciences.com/cerveau/controler-les-mouvements-d039-un-autre-par-la-pensee-c-039-est-desormais-possible_art30605.html

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- Exoskeleton or external devices for exerting tactile pressure on the skin, free-flowing space for the user (gloves and bodysuits). Haptics are transducive, as when giving weight to a virtual object with force-feedback simulation, or when the magic wand of Nintendo’s Wii allows the user to interact in real time with objects on the screen. Indeed, the Wii is another fascinating extension of sensory life. The most interesting aspect of Wii is that it extends and brings to evidence the less recognized and yet the most valuable property of touch, the sensing and use of the interval. Call it intuition, hunch or body language, the recognition of the interval between people and things is a flexible variable of touch that helps one to understand and experience the Pointof-Being. Playing with the Wii and other gesture and movement based interfaces is a kind of magical dance that has an effect on a distant (on screen) object. In a way, this kind of interface provides a pendant or complement to e-Motiv’s type of device, involving the body side of the mind. Innocently, unsuspected, the Wii and its ilks are training a whole generation to experience physically distant events.34 The implications of these technologies extend beyond artistic practice to social or collaborative activities, for they enable users to share the “feel” of an object over a distributed network. The notion of the interval extends the spread of touch (and feeling) beyond the narrow meaning it is often assigned within the traditional fivefold categorization of the senses. Interconnectedness is achieved through coordinated processes of bodies in close contact. Rhythm and dancing produce temporal and spatial markers that are based on repeated intervals. Dancing could be called a technique to manage interval. Two examples of interval management, Ulrike Gabriel’s first VR environment, wearing a belt35 and Char Davies’ Osmose,36 are prophetic examples of the increasing connection between electronics and the body. In both Gabriel and Davies’s installations the VR breathing controls environment. Two associations come to mind: one, that for the ancient 34

Many (if not all) technologies that extend our sensory lives, from the satellite to the Wii, also train our imaginations and sensibility to conform our senses of self and vision of the world to their dimension; for example, combined, satellites and mobile phones globalize our mental representation of the world. The Wii’s effect is to expand the reach of the PB. 35 Ulrike Gabriel, Breath, accessed 2014/02/08, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/breath/ 36 Char Davies, Osmose, accessed 2014/01/08, http://www.immersence.com/osmose/

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Greeks, all sensations came from breathing, including vision and hearing. The other thought is that the relationship between world and body is different from that of standard VR because in the latter the body apparently penetrates a fixed environment. In Gabriel’s, as in Davies’s piece, the impression is that the body generates an environment that responds to the observation. What is implied here is that the body is an interface that creates the world, not merely receiving it. French New Novelist Natalie Sarraute37 paid close attention to the interval, interpreting the emotional gaps between her characters. Her characters are neither named nor described, Sarraute merely gives spatial positions to them. It is only by the reaction they have to what people are saying in the space they are occupying that the reader can deduce both the course of the action and some features, mostly emotional, of the protagonists. It is the interval they share that tells the story. The technique of not naming them achieves the effect of decentralizing characters, so as to give maximum attention to the “space that feels” as Gaetano Mirabella explains in this volume.

IV Presence and telepresence: reconstructing the Logos Face-to-face, the sense of presence, of one’s own or of something or somebody else, is recognized and estimated largely by touch. A presence is felt as much as it is seen and occasionally it is felt before it is seen. PB, not PV, is the place where the presence of self is recognized. The question is whether telepresence invokes feeling to a similar degree. Presence in the virtual domain has given rise to numerous studies, involving a deepening of the understanding of presence: Most of the studies that attempt to specify the determinants of the sense of presence have focused in the media form, concluding that some of the factors which can influence the subjective experience of presence are: the field of view, the foreground/background manipulations, the update rate, stereoscopy, geometric field of view, pictorial realism, image motion, the use of a CAVE versus a desktop VR or a Head Mounted Display, spatial sound, the number of audio channels, tactile or olfactory cues, the use of head tracking, the feedback delay, the possibility to interact with the virtual environment or the body movement. (Alsina, Carvallo and Gutierrez 2005, p. 1) 37 For more information see this link, accessed 2014/05/08, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Sarraute

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While the studies still privilege the visual cues, there are a significant number of references to the role of tactility in sensing presence. An interesting test of realism is to compare the effects of three different ways of experiencing Virtual Reality: on a desktop, in a ComputerAssisted-Virtual-Environment (CAVE), and via a Head-Mounted Display (HMD). The latter is by far the most tactile, at least according to my experience of it. It is the most immersive of the available media because it substitutes the total visual field for the virtual one and puts the user at the centre of the action. The desktop VR is involving in a different way, more like the experience of a videogame. In on-line 3-D virtual environments, even choosing eye-view for one’s avatar doesn’t reach the “effect of reality” that can be obtained in a CAVE, even less so than through the HMD. This increased effect can be attributed of course to the fact that seeing a virtual environment in goggles is, like seeing from one’s own eyes, without frame or boundary. The first thing that comes to mind with virtual encounters is that they may be deprived of “real” contact, but not of real sensations. It is clear that the bodily experience is extended by other means. Even the voice on the telephone is felt as well as heard. Touch comes in new, paradoxical, guises. While via Skype I cannot pretend to caress your face, other than by caressing the screen, my avatar can caress yours in Second Life because, in a paradoxical way, joining your avatar amounts to “being there”. “Caresses” in Second Life can be considered as a new and different experience altogether; they extend the imagination of the person behind the avatar, and increase the user’s imagination. That it can lend itself as readily as any photograph to fetishist satisfactions should not obscure the fact that it is a truly virtual experience and it requires examination without prejudice. Artists are perhaps even better at such explorations than scientists. This view is expressed by Gaia Novati, a performance artist, who has ingenuously and ingeniously recast pornography in an artistic mode to address new feminist concerns, and thus seems to echo McLuhan: The [porn] market is hungry, it is voracious, and it searches impatiently for any available body part, of anybody, to sell it. But we are quite running out of bodies. The body crisis is not far away from the petrol one. Peeping Tom owns a wonderful plastic mirror and he sees a new homo Faber. […] Virtual becomes almost more real than real: the aesthetics of mainstream porno scream for a definitive substitution of real bodies, necessity yet unsatisfied for miserable economical reasons, but time is running out and the difference will be unnoticed! Western society is submerged under a

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broth of pornography: fun.... but in the meantime, also with a rise of frigidity and impotence. The ones that still can get excited are set in front of the shocking evidence and awareness that excitation is other than self. Confronting not only the “impotence of orgasm”, defined as the impossibility to soothe completely the body’s sexual tension, but pushing towards an overall energetic disorder of the human being. More poignantly: indifference. How can my body deal with the fact that the coding of Self is already written and we are on the way to find a hard drive to fill it? It was predicted that the problem of contemporary society would be embodiment, as for the Middle Ages was the soul: the time has come. (McCarthy, Djordjevic, Bozic, Kobolt, and Kukovee 2008)38

Media artists have been prompt to seize the opportunity to explore non-technical ends of new technologies. Artists, as McLuhan observed, tend to be in the vanguard of social change. They are the first to spot and make use of new technologies and they provide a bridge between the ambient social psychology and the technologies that are changing it. Although at a quasi-homeopathic level, artworks are seismographs of contemporary events. Paul Sermon’s installation Telematic Dreaming39 is a typical example of an artist’s approach to the telepresent tactility. Imagine two gallery installations linked by videoconferencing. There is a bed at the centre of each room and, in front of the other gallery visitors are invited to lie on the bed. Thus you join virtually and physically the image of the person in the other gallery projected from up above the bed. Both of you need to interact physically/virtually in public intimacy. I tried the installation and I must confess that I had to get accustomed to the fact that I was “touching” an unknown person “in public”. It is only the patent and latent gallery context that allowed me to overcome my unease. The background sense of the presence of the public as a third party was part of the experience. My touching of the body of the other, seeing the immediate response from the virtual image, was tentative at first, occasionally playful but never, for me, fully satisfying. According to Susan Kozel: In Telematic Dreaming human interaction was reduced to its simplest essence: touch, trust, vulnerability. Movement usually began in a hesitant 38

Excerpt from a radio interview with Gaia Novati, accessed 2014/03/10, http://hackfemeast.org/web/?p=132 39 See the work Telematic Dreaming, by Paul Sermon, accessed 2014/04/12, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/telematic-dreaming/

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Chapter One way with hand contact taking on excessive importance. The impact of slow and small movement became enormous. Great care and concentration was required to make intricate web patterns with the fingers of a stranger, or to cause one fleshly finger meet up with one video finger. When the movement progressed from these early stages to a sort of full body choreography the piece became an emotional investment that shocked and sometimes disturbed people. Some people simply froze, and fled the installation once they realised what it was about. When politicians or members of the Dutch royal family visited they did not even venture onto the bed for fear of being recorded in a compromising position. (Kozel 1994)

What I retained from the experience was that touching in telepresence was a new kind of touch and that intimacy was available in ways that routine videoconferencing or Skype do not reveal. Kozel also talks about: the strong physicality of the piece, of the powerful link between the body on the screen and the bundle of emotions, thoughts and movement that makes up my material body […]. In the virtual world of Telematic Dreaming questions of privacy, intimacy and identity were central. (Kozel 1994)40

David Rokeby developed installations to the two editions of Strategic Arts Initiative (SAI and SAI 2.0)41 two related events presented in June 40 Although it is quite possible and useful to invoke the Point of Being to interpret the Telematic Dreaming experience, one could argue that the virtualization of mankind externalizes and eliminates the body in a new way. While literacy abstracts and internalizes the body in a visually dominant theatrical representation, virtuality and augmented reality abstract and externalize it. McLuhan’s observation that, on the telephone, you are a nobody, that is, quite literally, you have no body, seems to indicate that the virtual condition would diminish people’s sense of the physical. It is only true in that, being virtual, it puts an emphasis on the cognitive environment, a discarnate approach to communication, accessed 2014/02/06, www.philosophicalsociety.com/archives/McLuhan%27s%20Philosophy.htm 41 The name of SAI, as I told Joanna Sheridan in an interview, came to me because I had been quoted a year before in The New York Times talking about Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. So when we decided to get the thing going, I suggested replacing “Defense” by “Arts” because I thought both had a defence dimension and that Arts was the better kind. SAI 2.0, a second edition of SAI, invited artists that had taken part in the first edition to remake the works presented in 1986, many of which displayed possibilities that were visionary and still are, after 25 years in an age in which telepresence is a common experience everywhere and in different fields like education, business, entertainment, security and

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1986 by InterAccess in Toronto for Artmedia in Salerno, Italy, and in November 2011 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of SAI at the V2 Art Media Lab in Rotterdam, Holland. The objective of both events was to involve artists to explore the future of telepresence.42 In the first edition Rokeby used his Very Nervous System43, an interactive choreographic installation, to generate the production of music by dancing in front of cameras on each side of the Atlantic. Over and above the fact that the connection via a single, low quality telephone line did not allow to probe the full capacities of the installation, the result did not satisfy Rokeby because, as he pointed out himself, it was not easy to distinguish the contribution of each side from each other and there were not enough provisions to mesh the sounds in a harmonious or interesting way. 25 years later, Rokeby went back to the drawing board and this time produced a deeply impressive piece on the same basic concept. In this new installation the artist designed a square area for each side with a high quality loudspeaker at each corner and a monitor to trace the movements of the users on each side. The action was to follow the displacement of the sound of breathing of the person across the Atlantic on the four speakers and try to get close to it. A position analyser over both squares informed the computer about where either user was. When both came close enough to each other in the superposed arenas, that closeness instructed the installation to produce a violent musical sound. It was a kind of blind meeting or dance guided by the rhythm that resulted from the respiration movements of inhalation and exhalation of one person who was being followed by another six thousand miles away. When I tried it in November 2011, I was overwhelmed by the effect of intimacy created conjunctly by the extremely strong and precise sound of the moving breath, and the suddenness of the contact moment. There again, the physical experience of telepresence was as undeniable as it was paradoxical.

medicine in the forms of teleconferences, surveillance processes and medical telesurgery. For this second occasion artists Doug Back, Carl Hamfelt, Laura Kikauka, David Rokeby, Graham Smith, and Norman White, would work to allow visitors at InterAccess in Toronto to interact with visitors at V2_ in Rotterdam, accessed 2013/10/12, http://strategicartsinitiative.org/?p=291 42 Nowadays multi-sensorial telepresence can be achieved by different technologies, such as multisensory WiFi robots. 43 See Rokeby’s Very Nervous System, accessed 2014/01/12 http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/very-nervous-system/

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Recovery of the classical Logos The new paradox of digital technologies is that not only can they simulate and teleport sensory and intellectual experience, in a secondary fashion, but they can also create things at a distance as, for example, in 3D printing. They have recovered the magic power of Logos, the divine discourse according to Heraclitus44 and more precisely described by Philo of Alexandria as the power of the Word: The Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and it prevents them from being dissolved and separated. (Friedlander 1912)45

In the heroic ages Logos is the creator, the beginning. It is all encompassing, total communication. Electricity is presently creating a secondary logos fully equipped with a 3D printer. But the Word is now the Thought. As in medieval magic lore, it suffices to think of the object, or even barely express the desire to actualize it. With mind machine interface technologies now in rapid progress, a thought could command directly the creation of objects from a mind plugged into the network. It is toward perfect fluidity between mind and world via network that both the technology and the psychology of people are advancing. The virtualization of sensory extensions establishes a flowing continuity of communication that recalls oral discourse. Multimedia and virtual reality signal and evidence the return of the senses in human discourse, albeit at a secondary level, as Walter Ong would have explained. There occurs presently something akin to an about-face of the earlier biases of alphabetization. While the senses had been abstracted in the literate string of words and, during reading, expelled from oral discourse, they were also separated and mutated into the myth of the muses. Each muse represented a different, separated art, actually a separated sensory input of Logos. In multimedia and virtual reality, the 44 Heraclitus: “This Logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this Logos, humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep” (Diels-Kranz 22B1). See also: “Listening not to me but to the logos it is wise to agree that all things are one” (Diels-Kranz 22B50). 45 Philo, De Profugis, cited in Friedlander, G 1912, Hellenism and Christianity, P. Vallentine, London, pp. 114–115.

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sensory contents of language are recovered in a paradoxical way and the muses are once again re-united. The real issue, also raised by Eric McLuhan, is whether in its electronic, virtual form there is still a body out there: We have to begin working on the problem of consciousness in this new circumstance. We know what to think about consciousness when in the body; out of the body is another matter. Discarnate, the natural mode of awareness is unconsciousness or sub-consciousness, or the intuitive (visceral) senses rather than the rational ones. (McLuhan 2013)46

The way to deal with this strange new secondary Logos that is enveloping people like an aura, penetrating them like an X-ray, connecting them and everything globally, is to recover the point of being, to anchor the virtual experience in one’s physical presence. As with the point of view, which derives meaning from interactions with a perspective, mental or physical, one needs to be and remain conscious of the interactions between the physical and the virtual.

V Social touch and responsibility The title of this book (in English at least) is a pun. It begs the question: is there a point to being? Maybe it is time to address the other meaning, what is the point of existing at all? French neurophysiologist and philosopher Henri Laborit (2012) says that quite simply, the point of being is to be, that is to survive.47 In a global context such as the world situation today, survival implies not only the individual but also humanity at large. One of McLuhan’s most profound aphorisms, “In the electric age, we wear all mankind as our skin” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 47) is put in more explicit fashion in the first few pages of Understanding Media: In the electric age, when our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us, we necessarily participate, in depth, in the 46 This quote by Eric McLuhan was sent to the author by email on 19 September 2013. 47 “Nous ne vivons que pour maintenir notre structure biologique. Nous sommes programmés depuis l’œuf fécondé pour cette seule fin, et toute structure vivante n’a pas d’autre raison d’être, que d’être” (Laborit 2012, p. 12).

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Chapter One consequences of our every action. It is no longer possible to adopt the aloof and dissociated role of the literate Westerner. (McLuhan 1964, p. 4)

The new subject/object of responsibility is henceforth mankind itself and the Earth that carries it. Depending upon the principal medium carrying language, the object of one’s responsibility changes. In oral cultures the ground of behaviour is related to the honour code. Responsibility is to the community, not to the self. Oral cultures are called “shame cultures” by anthropologists because their relationships within and without their community are all “public”. Saving face is critical. One’s responsibility for misdeeds is shared by the family or the clan, hence the obligation of “vendetta”. Furthermore, an individual is deemed responsible only to the extent that the offender has been identified. As long as its perpetrator remains unknown the offending act induces neither responsibility nor any sense of personal guilt. On the other hand, when the culprit is known, the clan, the tribe, or the family of both the offender and the offended parties share a sensation of responsibility that is expressed by shame. But it is not guilt. Guilt comes with the appropriation of language for personal use and needs. One becomes responsible for one’s own destiny. This, of course, is allowed by writing. Shame and guilt are both experienced as physical discomfort that is often difficult to hide. In guilt, however, the pain associated with a recognized misdeed is internalized and experienced alone. The axis of direction is radically inverted. Instead of experiencing responsibility as shared and oriented to the public, or the “other”, the misbehaving literate individual “feels bad” and the emotional conundrum is oriented entirely to the self. The effect, however, of social media and big data – not to mention screens of all kinds, is to reverse again the orientation from within to without and to bring people to depend more and more on their virtual extensions and their profiles on line. On-line presence is becoming everyone’s “social capital”. Cyberspace is the new realm people occupy. It has no limit and it is global. Reputation capital operates as an electronic version of “shame culture”. It may include political correctness, environmental concern, transcultural values, and many other indicators of value or the contrary. The responsibility of the individual once again reverts to the other, to the exterior, even as the sense of guilt may be lessened.48 48

Indeed, since the work of Freud, the attribution of responsibility to unconscious drives has initiated a gradual diminishing, or at least increased questioning, of

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While the object of responsibility was the community in the oral condition, and the self in the literate one, in the electronic condition it is the whole world that is now perceived as the threatened ground of humanity’s survival.49 Thanks to increased access to critical data about the condition of the environment and the incompetence of governments to deal with it the world over, not to mention the blatant evidence of social injustice, more and more people are moved to participate in social unrest. This tendency is transcultural and transnational.

The Internet as an electronic limbic system The Internet, besides serving cognitive ends, also acts as a collective and connective limbic system that carries emotions instantly across frontiers, religions and cultures. Regarding the emotional direction and content, social networks have the power to increase the spread and the speed of emotions on the Internet and this feature generates an impact in mood that is emotionally contagious.50 Mood as a collective emotional state shared by citizens must be as much about their cities or countries as it can be about their own households. Of course radio, television and the press also participate in the transmission of emotions beyond frontiers and they preceded the Internet by a long measure. The Internet, however, multiplies this effect by the involvement it requires from its users, giving them power of action and consequent responsibility. The global electronic communication system flows into complex currents of digital interactions. Thus it appears that technology is developing a real-time social limbic system for humanity on the planet. The emotional spread can be compared to a “homeopathic” communication system. A small dose hits the right spots by generating globally viral reactions. In the age of instant information, rumours are the real thing, said McLuhan. A message can hit selected targets in a hypertinent (de Kerckhove, 2006)51 one’s total responsibility to account for one’s behaviour in law as well as in psychology. 49 If shame is to oral cultures what guilt is to literate ones, it could be that anxiety is the emotion that characterizes the sense of failure with respect to the global environment. 50 With the famous Free Hugs YouTube video, a soft emotion spread across the world and for a few months brought strangers to openly embrace in public. The Internet created a special kind of global mood, accessed 2014/03/09, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4 51 The term hypertinence, coined by Derrick de Kerckhove, is the opposite of impertinence (in the sense of lack of connection, link, relationship or pertinence

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way following different strategies of routing to points of open reception around the world. The emotions spread instantly and, more often than not, they generate conflict, but they can also help self-healing processes to occur in different circumstances. Great social divides have been bridged in this way. For example, the fall of the Berlin Wall, that was started by a concert under the west side of the wall, was part of a self healing process to mend the European split, leading eventually to the European Union. And it is truly emotions that started the process, as Régis Debray wrote in 1986: “There is more power in rock music, videos, blue jeans, fast food, news networks and TV satellites than in the entire Red Army”.52

Ancient Greek tragedy revisited In today’s turbulent world fraught with anxiety, run by untrustworthy global actors in declining economies and generalized corruption, big social emotions are in place for a social and psychological context similar to that of ancient Greek tragedy. The Greeks called a politically or socially corrupt situation “miasma”. The situation generates two main types of emotion, fear (phobos, from which the English “phobia”) and pity (eleos, a mixture of compassion and self-pity). Tragedy’s role was to inform the public about the predicament and potentially show the way out. The media carry that role today. The fall of New York’s Twin Towers was quite literally a tragedy played worldwide by big global actors and commented on by an international chorus of media. Society everywhere is the chorus that responds to global and local actors. Today the chorus sings its protests and its anxieties via Twitter. A billion people are commenting on everything, flashing instant currents of opinions and emotions. In the atmosphere, the mood of the global city, there is ample fear and pity.

between text/object and context); it brings both the object, or the text, and the context to bear on whatever situation. 52 See Tear Down the Wall, a Rock video that brings together shots of all the key moments of emotion, including that which started the process, namely, Ronald Reagan’s discourse in Berlin when he asked Mihail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” (July 1987), accessed 2014/05/08, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrPJYF2GzIs

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Phobos and terrorism53 Terrorism, even more than the spectre of nuclear war, establishes a running background of fear in many people’s subconscious. Terrorism is also felt in the flesh. Mirror neurons simulate the effect of bombs tearing through the crowd. The world is a total shape to which I belong and each terrorist act makes a dint in it. It hits my Point of Being. I see the results of suicide bombing and natural disaster. It makes me uncomfortable and inadequate. It attacks the collective nervous system of most of the world’s population. It creates an atmosphere of latent anxiety that is sustained by the rising frequency of media reports on completely irrational acts of violence. There is no defence against the growing suspicion that, yes, it could happen right here. This atmosphere is not pleasant and it is global. Terrorism is the corresponding form of war in a world of globalized sensitivity. The bomb attacks at the finish line of the giant marathon in Boston (April 15, 2013) put a new face to terrorism, that is, neither specific nor targeted, seemingly without recognizable reason. Whether in the form of the unprovoked massacre of innocents by a single, recognized individual (examples, alas, abound: Sweden, Connecticut, Columbine) or by unknown sources, terrorist acts present the social equivalent to volcanic eruptions. They have a cause, but it is diffused in the social body, and its origin may not even be present in the mind of the perpetrator. They reveal the deeper ground of terrorism, not as an individual act, but as one emerging from a collective unquiet. They emerge in weaker points within the social fabric, points that are unsure or unguarded.54

Eleos and angst Jean-Paul Sartre interpreted Aristotle’s notion of eleos (pity) as “selfpity”, the refuge of the self in a dependent attitude.55 The increasing precariousness of social and individual wellbeing in all societies adds to the generalized sense of impotence. I feel only the stress of the world that my body can bear; I repress it somehow, letting the right blinkers self-organise to protect me. But the anxiety stays somewhere in my body even when I forget it. Where do I store the fears and pities? People 53

For theories on the causes of terrorism see O’Connor (2011). Though infinitely more violent and absolutely condemnable, terrorism emerges, like art, beyond the absolute control of the artist or of the terrorist apart from lending competence to the realization of the act. 55 See Sartre (1939). 54

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construct shields in their bodies as revealed by Gestalt and Stress therapies. And as the social body achieves a global dimension, it needs new self-defence strategies. What would catharsis be like on a global scale?

Catharsis Catharsis is (mis)understood generally as “purification”. This interpretation relates it well to miasma, a form of pollution. Other approaches point to relief, release of psychological tension, but few suggest the deeper meaning as “understanding”. According to Aristotle, catharsis arises from anagnorisis, which means recognition. Oedipus recognizes finally that it is really and uniquely himself who is the culprit he is looking for. Through his personal drama, the members of the audience discover what it is to become a unique individual with a unique destiny. The global equivalent today, the required anagnorisis, is to recognize that the upheavals that have accelerated since the attack of the Twin Towers in New York is not only the agenda of a band of terrorists but a momentous manifestation of a much larger trend, that of the self-organizing process of humanity restructuring itself in a global context. It is indeed incredibly violent and uncomfortable, but, once the fact is known, new behaviours can be imagined, learned and practiced. Healing is necessary in many ways. It involves averting global warming and adapting to irreversible climate change. Global crises of confidence in the leadership of the big actors invite consideration and a search for genuine alternatives. A new ethic is developing now, still not quite discernible because of sporadic, intermittent and often weak manifestations. It may prioritize environment, global peace, and a fairer distribution of global resources. To achieve this, quite above anything forced by political upheavals and technological changes, behaviour, individual and social, will be paramount. A new sense of shared responsibility is beginning to emerge among people of all conditions. Opening her acceptance speech for an award on People’s disarmament, British activist and founder of “Trident Ploughshares”, Angie Zelter expounds the responsibility felt by the individual global citizen: There are more and more people who define themselves as global citizens, who know that life is intimately interconnected, and that we can never be fully human whilst others continue to suffer, and who know that love, justice and nonviolence is the very essence of life. And what gives me hope is the very many different ways in which ordinary people are taking

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responsibility. They are creating the changes needed to pass beyond war and injustice, control and dominance and towards a free, just, loving, and diverse world. (Zelter 2001)56

According to Hans Schattle, author of The Practices of Global Citizenship57, the main concepts of Global Citizenship “are awareness,58 responsibility, participation, cross-cultural empathy, personal achievement and international mobility”. As a researcher in the psychology of global culture, he adds: Global citizenship, then, is now conceived as a state of mind, a way of life, a series of outlooks and practices, and not a statement of allegiance to government institutions of any kind. (Schattle 2012)59

Though as yet there seems to be more wishful thinking about it than hard evidence, a different social consciousness is beginning to appear here and there. To reflect this new global citizenry, Pedro Alejandro Basualdo created the concept of “individual global responsibility”: Individual attitudes and actions constitute a new form of global action that seeks decent answers to human suffering. Future generations will judge us by how we have reacted to a crisis that has challenged our scientific community and evidenced the scope and limits of our ethical and moral

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http://www.rightlivelihood.org/trident_speech.html (accessed 2014/02/07). See Reviewing Global Citizenship by Hans Schattle, author of The Practices of Global Citizenship, accessed 2014/03/25, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/~/media/Files/Education/Teacher%20Support/Think%20 pieces/reviewing_global_citizenship_web.ashx 58 Ibidem. “Plain as it might seem, awareness serves as the crucial starting point for global citizenship. This is one key finding from my recent study into the many practices of global citizenship. As I interviewed more than 150 self-described global citizens and advocates of global citizenship, time and again it was evident how so many individuals believe that global citizenship depends, more than anything, upon awareness of oneself as well as the outside world”. 59 Idem. In Reviewing Global Citizenship Shattle gives examples of this state of mind: “As a prominent human rights activist from Paris told me: ‘I feel [like] a planetary citizen in the sense that I feel concerned about what’s happening everywhere. I feel planetary in the sense that I don’t feel closer to the problems of France than I do to the problems of Burma […] proximity is not defined by geography’”, accessed 2014/04/09, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/~/media/Files/Education/Teacher%20Support/Think%20 pieces/reviewing_global_citizenship_web.ashx 57

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world. It is time to grasp the value of humanity as global citizens and awaken our individual global responsibility. (Basualdo 2011)

The connection of the Point of Being to attitude is close and direct. Attitude is the outer face of the Point of Being. PB is both a sender and a receiver. It perceives the world and perceives itself without a precise limit between world and self. So there is a kind of space, the interval that modulates both sides. The world affects me directly but I too can affect the world. Usually people talk about a “good” or a “bad” attitude as an epiphenomenon, as intonation is to speech. But it should be the other way around: attitude is the message. It is one of the most immediate and readily available means to manage the interval that is opened between self and world. Attitude, as the social mask of proprioception, has two dimensions: reflective and projective (external projection of the self). The internal one is easier to change and thus enhances the effects of the external one. For example, political correctness that took such a long time to mature is primarily an issue of attitude. It arose first from people’s exposure to other human situations as they could be observed in the media and eventually was reinforced by social networks. In many advanced societies, political correctness is now becoming part of people’s second nature. Basualdo, however, adds more stringent objectives to the notion of individual responsibility: Acting with individual global responsibility means going beyond mere empathy, for it entails working actively, on an individual basis, to close the gap of inequality and exclusion. Acting with individual social responsibility means to empower communities […] and to change stigma and discrimination into solidarity and inclusion; to make decisions denoting an indelible commitment to humanity; and to ethically denounce and reverse any human suffering. (Basualdo 2011)60

Putting all this together, it seems plausible that developing a positive attitude to the world, in general and in particular contexts, can effect change in the world, even at a homeopathic level of influence. That is enough to contribute to positive change if enough people develop that attitude. The intention here is not to rehash the power of “positive thinking” though there is no denying that that kind of power actually exists in some measure if only to facilitate human relationships in antagonistic circumstances. Existing notions about positive thinking

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depend on a point of view. A positive attitude depends on the point of being. The idea is to supplement positive thinking with positive attitude. As Schopenhauer argued the combined powers of representation and will can now modify history in a way that was never imaginable or thinkable before. The representation of the new ground as the globe itself (as opposed to the nation or the continent), is pervasively supported by the media and the social discourse. Global will depends on greater, and better distributed, access to critical information. It is now possible to foresee all kinds of directions taken by all kinds of trends with electronic sensors and distributors and simulations of futures. Simulation, sensing instruments and data management can not only make accurate predictions over the long and the short term, but also command the right course of action. Taking control of destiny collectively requires that society be restructured based on emerging and self-organizing coherence. Until now, for better or for worse, Western cultures have retained a dependent relationship to fate and to History. People and societies have destinies. Good or bad, they impose a sense of fatality in literate cultures. But now a change in attitude towards History is possible and perhaps fundamental. It is becoming imaginable that after being battered by the backlash of environmental damage, society at large will be forced to rationally control the environment. Already the conquest of the human genome has effected a symbolic but also prophetic reversal between the relative powers of nature and culture. Culture is now in the position to control nature. That power calls for a higher level of collective social responsibility. So far the world’s key institutions have done little more than paying lip service to that notion. But, at the level of the individual, reclaiming access to the Point of Being may offer the most efficient existential strategy. What is possible is that the Point of Being will eventually have to complement the point of view in guiding individual choices.

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Havelock, E A 1963, Preface to Plato. Vol. 1 A History of the Greek Mind, Belknap Press /Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, Vol 1. Howes, D 2009, ‘Introduction: The Revolving Sensorium’, in Howes, D (ed.), The Sixth Sense Reader, Berg, Oxford, New York, pp. 1-52. —. 2011, ‘Cultural Synaesthesia: Neuropsychological versus Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Intersensoriality’, Intellectica, Vol. 1, nº55. Jameson, F 1981, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. Johnson, M 1990, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Kozel, S 1994, ‘Spacemaking: experiences of a Virtual Body’, in Dance Theatre Journal, vol 11, nº 3, autumn, accessed 2014/08/04, http://art.net/~dtz/kozel.html Krauss, R 1993, The Optical Unconscious, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Laborit, H [1976] 2012, Éloge de la fuite, Gallimard (Folio, Édition originale), Paris and Robert Lafont (1976), Paris. Levin, D M 1988, The Opening of Vision: Nihilism and the Post/modern Situation, Routledge, London. Lukács, G 1971, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxism Dialetic, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Marinetti, F 1921, Tactilism, a manifesto read at the Théâtre de l’oeuvre, January 11, 1921, accessed 2014/03/04, http://peripheralfocus.net/poems-told-bytouch/manifesto_of_tactilism.html McLuhan, H M [1964] 2003, Understanding Media, McGraw Hill, NY; reissued in 2003 by Gingko Press, Toronto. Miller, G A, Galanter, E & Pribram, K 1960, Plans and Structures of Behavior, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. Montagu, A [1971] 1986, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, Harper & Row Publishers, New York. Murray, J 1997, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. —. 2003, Inventing the medium, The New Media Reader, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London, accessed 2014/03/10, http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-intro-murrayexcerpt.pdf Nancy, J L 1993, The Birth of Presence, Stanford University Press, California. McCarty, D, Djordjevic, V, Božic, H, Kobolt K & Kukovec D (eds) 2008, Interview with Gaia Novati on 28th May 2008, accessed 2013/03/09, http://hackfemeast.org/web/?p=132 O'Connor, T 2011, ‘Theories of Terrorism’, in MegaLinks in Criminal

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Justice, accessed 2014/01/10, http://www.drtomoconnor.com/3400/3400lect01a.htm Olson, D 1994, The World on Paper, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York. Ong, W J 1967, ‘World as view and world as event’, in American Anthropologist, Vol. 71, Issue 4:169-170. —. 1982, Orality and Literacy, the Technologizing of the Word, Methuen, London and New York. Onians, R B 1951, The Origins of European Thought: About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York. Pallasmaa, J 2008, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, U.K. Philo of Alexandria 1912, ‘De Profugis, in Friedlander, G (ed), Hellenism and Christianity, P. Vallentine, London. Quinz, E & Menicacci, A 2006, ‘Étendre la perception? Biofeedback et transferts intermodaux en danse’, volume Nouvelles de Danse, Scientifiquement Danse; Quand la danse puise aux sciences et réciproquement, nº 53, pp. 76-96. Rogers, M 1970, An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of nursing, F.A. Davis Company, Philadelphia. Sarraute, N 1956, L'Ère du soupçon (coll. "Les Essais LXXX"), Gallimard, Paris. Sartre, J P 1939, Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions, Hermann, Paris. Sayre-Adams, J 1993, ‘Therapeutic Touch-principles and practice’, Complimentary Therapies in Medicine, Volume 1, nº 2, Pages 96-99, accessed 2014/03/09, http://www.complementarytherapiesinmedicine.com/article/09652299%2893%2990101-I/abstractref Schattle, H 2012, Globalization and Citizenship, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Lanhan Maryland. Serres, M 1998, Les Cinq Senses, Hachette, Paris. Sheridan, J 2011, ‘Interview with Derrick de Kerckhove’, Strategic Arts Initiative 2.0, accessed 2014/04/09, http://strategicartsinitiative.org/?page_id=300 Sherrington, C 1961 [1906], The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, Yale University Press, New Haven. Ruby, A & Spuybroek, L 1998, ‘Where Space Gets Lost, e-mail interview with Lars Spuybroek’, in V2, The Art of the Accident, V2 Publications, Rotterdam.

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Storks, M 2009, ‘Proprioception’, in Howes, D (ed.) The Sixth Sense Reader, Berg, Oxford and New York, accessed 2014/03/07, http://sixthsensereader.org/about-the-book/abcderiumindex/proprioception/ Taussig, M 2009, ‘Tactility and Distraction, in Howes, D (ed.), The Sixth Sense Reader, Berg, Oxford and New York, pp. 267-274. Wordsworth, W 1999 [1919], ‘Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’, in Quiller-Couche, A (ed.) The Oxford Book of English Verse, Clarendon Press, Oxford, and Bartleby, New York. Wordsworth, W 1919 [1907], ‘Poems’, in Quiller-Couch, A (ed) The Oxford book of English verse, 1250–1900, Claredon, Oxford. Zelter, A 2001, ‘People’s Disarmament’, The Right Livelihood Award Acceptance Speech on 2001 December 7th, accessed 2014/02/12, http://www.rightlivelihood.org/trident_speech.html

CHAPTER TWO1 ORBANISM ROSANE ARAUJO

Chapter Index Abstract Introduction Topological rationale Without frontiers Person What is city? The city is me Orbanism Bibliography

Abstract Being urban is being connected. The world is potentially our city and Urbanism is becoming “Orbanism”. The definition of city, understood as network, is now dependent on the consideration of each person as a network. This chapter offers an understanding of what the concepts of “city” and “me” have become in a connected world. It develops the hypothesis that there is no longer any distance or a break between the city and me. The dematerialization of the borders, that replaced the earlier walls in the contemporary city, has gradually forged a redefinition of the concept of urban. This concept has grown to encompass perspectives on 1

All the ideas and arguments in this chapter are developed in detail in the doctoral dissertation “The city is me? The twenty-first century Urbanism”, defended at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, which won a “Capes Dissertation National Prize”, Prêmio Capes Teses 2008 (in the Architecture and Urbanism Section), in Brazil. This Ph.D. dissertation was transformed into the book The City is Me (Araujo 2011) published by Novamente Publishing House, Rio de Janeiro. This chapter is an excerpt from this book and from an article by the same author.

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communication and mobility of goods, information and people. In this age of technological expansion, each person interacts with, connects, accesses and uses resources while inhabiting electronic domains that correspond to a personal network. In this perspective, the “urban” being, as inhabitant, interacts with this progressively dematerialized urban space and experiences the vertigo of decentralization and multi-pertinence, being forced to leave behind an undivided and permanent definition of self, or subject. The current state of the planetary web system constitutes the person as a place, so the city is me. This chapter presents arguments and conditions that underline the continuity between a person and world, the absence of frontiers between subject and object, the lack of distance between “city” and me. Thus it contributes to the construction of the Point of Being by an analysis of how the personal, the urban and the global spheres have merged and how the city is a concept dependent on a personal experience. Keywords: Orbanism, city, person, new psychoanalysis, formation

Introduction “The” city no longer exists. As the concept of city is distorted and stretched beyond precedent, each insistence on its primordial condition – in terms of images, rules, fabrication – irrevocably leads via nostalgia to irrelevance […] To survive, urbanism will have to imagine a new newness […] We have to imagine 1,001 other concepts of city; we have to take insane risks; we have to dare to be utterly uncritical; we have to swallow deeply and bestow forgiveness left and right. —Koolhaas (2002, p. 3)

The concepts of city, urbanism, and I/Person2, as with all concepts, are historical constructs. They are conceptual tools that are subjected to pressures for reformulation every time that major transformations structure a new epoch. This is the case in the twenty-first century, which requires a qualitatively new mental posture. A change is now upon us that goes

2

Editor note: The capitalization of the word “person” as “Person” in this chapter is based on the concept of “Person”, elaborated by MD Magno (New Psychoanalysis) and refers to the loss of individual, corporeal, physical, geographic, mental, intellectual or psychical boundaries that characterises our time and defies the separation between subject and object.

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beyond the exclusionary, demarcating, ideological, Cartesian and Euclidian thinking that has formatted us for so long. Innovations emerge from the most varied fields, reflected in nanotechnology, quantum computing, astrophysics, genetic engineering, artificial lives, intelligent cities, stem cell research, synthetic foods, the plethora of online services, robotics, artificial intelligence and neural networks, mapping of the human genome, space exploration and telepresence in its most varied applications: tele-work, tele-medicine, teleeducation, tele-communication, etc. In sum, a virtually infinite array of new discoveries is bringing increasingly evident transformations to all that we do, how we do it, how we live, and how all of us relate to others, ourselves and the world. All aspects of life are under this influence, which has been redefining concepts, habits and patterns of behaviour and methods of production in society. The economic-technological paradigm of information, besides new social practices, brings changes in our existence and in space and time as parameters of social experience. The city is the example par excellence for these occurrences. For all these reasons, the concept of city is in question. Various authors have tried to redefine city, with a common thread being to move this concept away from the link with geography and its spatial demarcations. City is coming to be defined according to different parameters, such as finance, information capacity and planetary connection, nodes and networks, virtualization, sensorial experience, and so on. The fact is that the concept of city, as historically understood, no longer expresses our reality. Once we have realized that the concept of city is presently under fire and subject to a host of different meanings,3 we associate with the theoretical positions that face the challenge of rethinking urbanism, even if it involves risk and uncertainty, but likewise we recognize the new potentialities of our epoch.

3

It is indisputable that, in order to express our reality, we can no longer appeal to the concept of city as it is historically understood. We just need to see the enormous quantity of neologisms used by contemporary authors – Ecstacity (Coates 2003), Nodal City (Tan Kok-Meng 2005), Videocity (Virilio 1996), Megacity (Castells 1999a), Control city (Hardt and Negri 2001), Cybercity (Lévy 1999), Global City (Sassen 1998), Informational City (Castells 1995), City of bits (Mitchell 1996), e-topia (Mitchell 2001), Metapole (Ascher 1998), Liquid city (Short 2007), etc. – as an attempt to situate the city within current changes.

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Topological rationale The emerging transformations in the known repertoire of communication and information technologies, in the radical restructuring of mobility parameters, communication and neighbourhood, and in the collapse of traditional borders, are already pushing the city to function non-tectonically. While the understanding of what a city and its architectonics are could not be indifferent to topology, it is evident that urban macrophysics continues to depend on the application of the plan and three dimensional Euclidian logics, without which there are no streets, buildings, houses, gardens, transportation, road systems, borders, walls, customs, urban/rural, or geocalculated space-time. Likewise, and compatible with this city-concept of Neolithic origin, we continue to live with ancient notions of kinship, of sexual reproduction of bodies, of subjectivities and identities, and of traditional social, judicial and political institutions, all of these ruled by the bilateralizing and mutually excluding logics of the Euclidian mentality. However, it is also evident that the city is no longer limited to its geometric and quantitative supports, nor to the cognitive skills based on the verbalizing competences of the human species, regarding the fact that there are various other ways of apprehending city. The range of accomplishments, conjectures, technological implementations, research programs, and so on, has exploded all possibilities of supporting the notion of city on a border criterion – whether physical, mental, cultural, ethnical, linguistic, financial or technological. More than that, the displacement of the notion of city is concurrent with the displacement of what might be its fundamental support: the carbon-based human format,4 constituted by the heterosexualfamily- reproductive- cultural- urban- geographic- couple design.5 Our assumption is that for a broad understanding, affording consideration of the different contributions of new concepts of city and its 4

Carbon is present in every living organism. The human body contains a large amount of carbon composites. That is why the carbon base is identified as fundamental to the human body. 5 We bear in mind what Lewis Mumford (1991) stated. For him in the general domestication process that marks the Neolithic “Perhaps the central event in this whole development was the domestication of man himself, itself an evidence of a growing interest in sexuality and reproduction”. However, going beyond the limits of this domestication, from the point of view of reproduction and nutrition, the arrival of the city was structured on the same logics of kinship, (male) domination and the maintenance of social institutions that emerged in the Neolithic. In this process, three characteristics of the human way of existing that are now deteriorating are articulated: sexual reproduction, kinship and territoriality.

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architectonics, a radical displacement is necessary towards basic concepts that are closer to a topology than to a Euclidian geometry (with its ideality and rigidity of forms and the oppositions of the system – inside/outside, left/right, etc.). Topological space suspends the rigid dualistic and idealistic logic of Euclidian space because it concretely studies the qualitative aspects of spatial forms or their laws of connection. This new mentality, in mathematics and elsewhere, opened, in the twentieth century, a rich field for investigation, application and metaphorization when developing increasingly abstract ideas (in a broad, refined and inclusive sense) of unilateralism,6 inclusion and transformation. Topology is suitable for the development of this study because it follows a logical reasoning that includes the flexibility and change without the ruptures that take place in everyday life. This is a starting point for the understanding of the relativization of usages and functions that are so evident in the contemporary city. It therefore enables the comprehension of the permeability between concepts that used to be considered antagonistic or different and today are relativized due to the use of space, use of technologies, the inclusion of speed as a determining factor for distance, hypermobility of goods, people and information, and the ubiquity generated by telecommunication in real-time, or not. Among several other concepts, we can stress: public and private space, inside and outside, near and far, global and local, dwelling and work, real and virtual, person and city. There is, therefore, multi-functionality, polymorphism, and passage and reversibility in urban forms. Topology is also a path for demonstrating that there is no “outside” according to this reasoning and that “me” and “city” are parts of the same concept.

Without frontiers In order to present new articulations that indicate the inseparability of Person and world, and of “Me” and “City”, a rationale that strengthens the arguments of our hypothesis The city is me, that will be developed subsequently., here we follow the thoughts presented by Brazilian psychoanalyst MD Magno in his Falatório (2007)7 that weaken or even rule out any possibility of sustaining the idea of an autonomous and independent subject or individual. The problematization of the frontiers that delimit, 6

It is important to mention that “unilateralism”, in this case, is understood as unification of the seemingly opposed, due to the dissolution of oppositions and undiscriminating perception. 7 Falatório is similar to a series of lectures (Magno 2009, pp. 29-32).

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separate and forge the idea of subject or individual is the gist of this question. First: we do not know where the frontier between individual and environment or between individual and group is. If we define an individual as a being that is contained under the skin that confers a corporeal image, we have to acknowledge that this does not exist without the most basic worldly exchanges, such as air, atmosphere, gravity, and so on. The environment is part of the individual, and the individual composes the environment, without the possibility of separating them and assuring his existence. We do not have any way to indicate frontiers, to separate or distinguish supposed sides, since they are part of a single process. Likewise, any individual defines him or herself as belonging to a discernible group. No matter how strong the illusion of separation, when analysing it from the viewpoint of pole with focus and fringe, any isolation is a fiction, because there is an infinite network that constitutes the Person, with which the idea of limit is also infinitely dislocated. Second: we don’t know where the frontier is between interior and exterior. As can be seen, the notion currently referred to as I, subject, individual or even subjectivity is a legacy of the Greco-Judeo-Christian mould. Originally hipokeimenon in Greek and subjectum in Latin, subject denoted something subjacent, that is “under things” or that “lies within”. But under what? Within what? There is no way to define what is inside and outside, or even whether there is an inside and outside. Third: we do not know how to precisely discern, in a given realm of knowledge, what comes from the subject and what comes from the object. The separation of subject and object is imbued with the idea that the former corresponds to an interiority and the latter to an exteriority, which is situated as such in relation to the subject. If we cannot distinguish “inside” from “outside”, all reasoning that depends on these concepts is undermined. Knowledge is an exchange of information; there is no way to separate the order of a subject and the order of an object. Likewise, there is no way to separate person and world. Fourth: we do not know where the supposed frontier between the conscious and the unconscious is. The idea of the unconscious introduced by Freud maintains that, in the psyche, the conscious is merely an instance, part or effect of the unconscious. In this sense, all mental processes are of an unconscious order.8 We do not heed the fact that the 8

“What, then, can a philosopher say to a theory which, like psychoanalysis, asserts that on the contrary what is mental is in itself unconscious and that being conscious is only a quality, which may or may not accrue to a particular mental act

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conscious is a focalization on something that can only be thus isolated by repressing – unconsciously – an enormous fringe of formations that extends to infinity. Fifth: personal affection is not totally incommunicable. Since everyone calls himself or herself “I”, where is the dividing line between one “I” and another? To communicate is to make common. When we communicate, we make common anything: an idea, a cold or a symptom. There is – clearly – permeability between people. Hence, the idea of delimitation is compromised. Sixth: we only accept the term subject in a logical-linguistic sense. Subject is also the notion developed from grammar – that which acts, which has attributes and predicates and that can also be a thing. Hence, we uncritically absorb this notion, which is imposed on us daily in various ways, whether through belief in the separation between body and soul (the subjectum as a little man expressed within ourselves), or in the practice of language (inherited from Greek and Latin) with its reflexive function, with its grammatical subjects and its distinction between subject and object. So, that which says “I” can be considered, within grammar, to be the subject of a sentence, but this cannot be confused with a Person. The most we can say is that “I” is the first person singular.

Person Given the huge transformations, in all fields, associated with the techniques facilitated in a networked planetary environment, in order to define the city we must define Person. From a topological perspective, places mix with people. When thought of according to their quality of interaction networks, places are moved according to the movement of people. An example of this situation, given by Manuel Castells, is mobile telework, a model of work that is being consolidated. This model considers the worker to be a nomad who performs his tasks through contact with his office, via cell phone, internet, fax, while on a trip, visiting his clients or on his regular way, thus establishing the concept of “office on the run” (Castells 2003, pp. 192). It is the office (considered a place, a physical space geographically locatable) that moves along with the worker. Going beyond this perspective we have developed the idea that nowadays places can move along with people. However, in this case it is and the withholding of which may perhaps alter that act in no other aspect?” (Freud 1924, v. XIX, pp. 268-269).

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necessary to present a concept of person in accord with this rationale, so we will explore the concept of person from the New Psychoanalysis.9 This Person, from a mental point of view, is composed of a network that is conjecturable as infinite and includes parts of urban agglomeration that interact with this network. This concept covers the corporeal configuration, the people that are part of one’s life, specific relations with physical and geographic spaces, fields of interest, professional, personal and amorous activities, technologies used, one’s particular history, DNA, the period in which one is living, worldview, and so on. In the final analysis, it includes an endless list of the connections existing at any level for any person. These connections are what compose the Person. Given the breadth of this concept, it is important to clarify that this process acts through polarization with focus and fringe. For example, although a person may reside in a particular city, geographically speaking, certainly only parts, pieces of the physical space composing that city, have meaning for that Person; these are the spaces from which a Person traces out relations of continuity and recognition: paths walked daily, shops, restaurants and leisure spaces frequented, and so on, that structure the fundamental ties that make up the network constituting a Person. In this sense, Person is the very network that is woven. Our understanding is that the person’s connections define the world and the city the Person is. Therefore, it is possible to think of the equivalence “City = Me” as a suitable one.

What is city? The city is me The criteria to be used in the evaluation of what “city” is, becomes increasingly dependent on the Person as interaction, location, access and functionality of the resources which one uses when inhabiting. The uselessness of separating the concept of Person from that of city comes exactly from the co-extension of what one is, what one has, what is

9

This concept of “Person” elaborated by the New Psychoanalysis by M D Magno is of major importance to explain what a person contemporarily is. In short, in the New Psychoanalysis, the concept of “Person” breaks with delimitations and boundaries either individual, corporeal, physical, geographic, mental, intellectual or psychical. Likewise, it does not make any subject/object distinction or separation. What we have are interactions between the relevant formations at each moment, which denotes a process without centre of enunciation. In order to learn more about this subject consult the books by Magno (see the Bibliography).

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accessed and what is available. Therefore, any city is liable to be analysed from a given Person’s perspective. Thus when we think about the process of expansion of human body and mind through technology, it becomes easier to conceive that the city as network is pertinent to the network that a Person is. Mentioning William Mitchell’s text, Castells reminds us that with the “explosion of portable machines that provide ubiquitous wireless communication and computing capacity”, people, organizations and spaces interact anywhere and at any time, “while relying on a support infrastructure that manages material resources in a distributed information power grid” (Castells 2004, p. 6). Simultaneously, [w]ith the advent of nanotechnology and the convergence between microelectronics and biological processes and materials, the boundaries between human life and machine life are blurred, so that networks extend their interaction, from our inner self to the whole realm of human activity, transcending barriers of time and space. (Castells 2004, p. 6)

If technology evidences the extension and interaction of the networks that constitute the urban fabric in its diversity, blurring the boundary between human, machine and digital, “The city is me” means that the network that constitutes a singularity (= Me) constitutes the city one is. We are the current and virtual connections that configure us as multiple spaces and inhabited times. Just as urban fabric and space are patched by the overlaying of the different values and experiences of their social roleplayers, we are the result of vinculums that, in a more or less intense way, conform us as the city we are. There is no distance between the city I inhabit and the city I am. The city each one is, is coextensive with one’s urban way of being in the world. If urban life, urban sociability and urban culture have become generalized, altering several environments and social practices (through increasingly intangible technologies), we can say that the expanded “city” has met the Person who supposedly inhabited it, revealing that, actually, inhabiting is to be. In other words, the city of cement, concrete and bricks that was liquefied through technologies, spaces of flows, and so on, has become the Person, previously contained in the city and transformed by the same process of liquefaction. We could say the city I am is not the geographic city in which I live, but rather the city that lives in me. We are not just a body, a thing, an address, but a “city-me”, full of the most diverse fragments – geographic, Personal, local, virtual, affective, sensorial, genetic, historical, etc.

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The city is configured according to the network that I am; at each change of this network, the city changes and, in turn, transforms me, too. I can only bear witness and enunciate while I configure myself within the very process, while I am the process. Then: the city is me. “The city is me” resides in the fact that the network society shapes us as urban beings, without an alternative to access an “outside” which would allow us, in opposition, to situate ourselves in relation to the non-urban. Stating “the city is” me is to definitely integrate the effects of a topological, rather than a geographical, appreciation into urbanism, and therefore, to include these ongoing potentialities and transformations. When we incorporate the concept of “City” into that of “Me” in our hypothesis “The City is Me”, we do so based on the following articulations: - The concepts of “City” and “Me” – as any other concept – are historically built products; - The concept of “City”, in this study, is not restricted to geography, Euclidian geometry, History, physical space constituted through its circumscribing boundaries or to chronological time; - This concept of “Me = Person” is as defined by the New Psychoanalysis; - The concept of “Me” is not restricted to a subject, an individual, an anatomic body or the first person of the verb; - In this concept of “Me”, there is no centre of enunciation, there is no separation between subject and object, what we have are formations which consider each other; - The concept of “City” is one of topological basis. When thought of as a network of interactions, cities move along with people; - In the hypothesis “The City is Me” there is a Person who makes this statement and this Person is the reference that affirms itself as city; In short, there is a correlation between the understanding of “city” and that of “citizen”, between habitat and habitant. There is inseparability between the human being and the world, inseparability, therefore, between the city and Me. It is not possible to separately understand these elements: we build the world that builds us at the same time. Our life story makes us build our world knowledge. What we have developed through this research is the idea that any citizen, any Person can say “The City is Me”.

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Orbanism In the contemporary world, “being urban is being connected” (Araujo 2001, 113), not only in the informational sense but also in the broad sense of all possibilities and uses of available connections. In this context, instead of referring to a citizen or townsman, it is more appropriate to retrieve the old concept of cosmopolitan, “citizen of the world” (ibidem). The events of material, Personal, mental and financial exchanges, of the establishment of social connections, and of social, political and economic insertion will take place through the interface generated by mental, social and Personal availability and also through the available technology. As the city is the location of these events we can say it will be wherever the cosmopolitan will be. Therefore 21st century Urbanism would transmute into Orbanism,10 where, given that we would no longer have borders or limitations as reference, we would treat as city not only the world, but also the known and yet to be known universe (Araujo 2001, p. 114). Some authors, in different fields of knowledge, already point to this direction. For instance, Derrick de Kerckhove (1997) affirms that in the informational context in which we live, architecture and urban planning will soon be thought of in terms of communication accessibility, not only in terms of road and water infrastructure. To give sense to what he means, he produces a new terminology and affirms that the work of the cybertect11 is to create trustworthy routes and useful environments in cyberspace and between cyberspace and the real space (de Kerckhove 2000, p. 70). We can then extend this idea and talk about cybertecture, which is the conception of an architecture in which the tools and questions at stake are immersed in the new technological and digital environment that we are starting to inhabit. It is not the world that is globalizing, it is us. Cyberculture implies “seeing through” matter, space and time with our informational techniques. Technology enables us to have physical access and movement to distant regions, creating a situation where we are contained in the global sphere. When we think globally, and communicate and trade from the place which we occupy, we include the global sphere internally: “we contain the earth in our minds and in our networks” (de Kerckhove 1997, p. 193). 10

Urbe = city; Orbe = globe, world, universe. Just as, etymologically, the term architect comes from the Greek arche, “first” or “origin”, and tekton, “carpenter” or “constructor”, replacing arche by kyber, “rudder”, “helm”, “government”, “direction”, the constructor element is maintained, but the new field of interactive navigation is added to the function of that which would no longer be the architect, but the cybertect.

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Lewis Mumford starts his book The City in History, today a classic, by extending a path which opened with “a city that was, symbolically, a world” (i.e., Rome in the Middle Ages) and closed with a “world that has become [...] a city” (Mumford 1991, p. 3). In his analysis of the role of city as a “magnet, container, and transformer in modern culture” (Mumford 1991, p. 570), he forecasted what we currently see happening, beyond the migration of man towards the city: the dissemination of urban culture across the planet, regardless of any geographic, cultural, economic or political situation. Many authors confirm this reasoning. For Octavio Ianni, for instance, as from the universalization of capitalism, at the end of the twentieth century, it is observed [that there is] a simultaneous generalization of the urban way of life, or urban sociability, of urban cultural standards and values, [...] invading rural areas, agrarian ways of life. [...] The agrarian world alters, changes, dilutes. (Ianni 1997, p. 80)

Two decades before, Henri Lefebvre supported the hypothesis of “complete urbanization of society” (2004, 15, author’s italics), in which urban society is the post-industrial society, a planetary society “that results from a process of complete urbanization. This urbanization is virtual today, but will become real in the future” (ibidem). The urban, in Lefebvre’s definition, is living creatures, the products of industry, technology and wealth, works of nature, ways of living, situations, the modulations and ruptures of the everyday – the urban accumulates all content. (ibid., p. 112, author’s italics)

In the same work he proposes to no longer say “city”, but rather “urban” (ibid., 50, author’s italics). What interests us in the aforementioned manifestations is the evidence of the urban phenomenon as paradigmatic in the conception of the field of urbanism. Therefore, “City” is the urban way of inhabiting/occupying the planet. The concept of City encompasses, today, all the inhabitants’ connections in the world, with or without a city (geographically speaking) nearby. New concepts of city have shown us that the city has escaped the physical-geographical space and has become broad. This way of inhabiting the world has put an end to borders. There are more or less dense urban focuses that do not necessarily coincide with geographical size. Factors have been displaced in such a way that it has become counterproductive to restrict one’s thinking to specific geographical areas.

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Can we determine where the focus and fringe of a city start and end, if we consider all the trade, exchanges, and commercial, cultural and financial interactions in which it takes part and on which it depends? The urban way of inhabiting is globally hegemonic. Orbanism seems more adequate to express the issues that are being considered when we deal with the Person’s relationship with the urban setting. If we wanted to articulate this question in the old terms, we could affirm that the rural way of life no longer exists. The rural way is determined by the urban way of living. In short: from the urban point of view the rural has a deficit in relation to the urban, because it is on the fringe. What we can analyse is the extent to which the Person is integrated, but already knowing that all are positioned within this Orban paradigm. In this sense, it is each Person whose level of urbanization may be determined. In turn, the level of urbanization of a Person does not coincide with the level of urbanization of the urban geometric space he/she inhabits. Thus, this geometric space functions only as another one of his/her connections.12 Following this reasoning we can speculate that, in the classic concept of city it was stated that cities contained people, or that person and city established a relation of subject and object, or that there was a boundary that defined where a Person ended and a city began. Now we can suggest that there is no distinguishable boundary that delimits a Person who is composed of a network that includes, among several others things, physical and geographic spaces. Therefore, singular cities are formed according to specific trajectories, which, despite being hardly detectable, – each in its own anguished, lonely, continuous present – are transmitted by the inscription of the actions of People in the world. Thus, the reference point for the understanding of city is changed: the city/Person will not be identical to any other. Regardless of how similar or coincident they are in some connections, the “city-the-Person-is” always depends on the product of a large set of formations,13 each with its own vectors. People certainly may 12

In this work the term “connection” is understood in a broad sense: informational, mental, cultural, political, symptomatic, situational, financial, intellectual, geographic, act or effect of connecting, social bond, professional bond, bond of interests, friendship bond, accesses, communication and telecommunication systems, means of transportation, means of communication, vinculum, that which unites from one point to another the several sectors of a person’s life, etc. 13 “Formation” is a concept of the New Psychoanalysis that, in general words, means information systems (universe, life, society, ecosystems, etc.) that express themselves in their own language, but which may be transcribed into one another as long as we have the adequate cognitive tools. Any configuration, any

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share some or several connections: in this case, we can say that these people constitute similar cities. This understanding includes and encompasses each and every Person, with their intrinsic differences. Thus, the city that constitutes me – that is, connections, vision of world, symptoms that filter the information that constitutes me, the utilization of the space I produce, my material condition and the optimization capability of this condition, my (in)competences, my preferences to attend given places, the affective memories associated with my everyday routes, the significations established in given places, the geography drawn by my specific need for daily displacement, my ignorance regarding spaces where I have never been, etc., ultimately the whole array of articulations that are part of my specific history and which constitute ‘Me’, all of the above – is unique. The city/Person in this context is defined by the set of formations – material, geographic, mental, intellectual, informational, historical, etc. – that constitute the citizenship’s dwelling. The city is the circumstances that constitute a Person: that is, its selective affinities connected to the network that constitutes it. As Magno (2008a, p. 35) puts it: “my singularity is the world I am”. In this same line of reasoning, one can ask, for example: does a world exist without me? Before I was born and after my death, where is the world? Clearly I can conjecture that everything was already here and will certainly remain here after my demise, but what experience did I or will I have of this? “Anyway, it is the others who die”14 – in that I disappear, end, cannot even have the experience of death. Likewise, all the Big Bang, evolution of the species, civilization, urbanization of the planet, etc., that occurred before my birth and that make up my DNA, cellular memory, place in civilizing evolution, was given to me ready, whole, all at once – when I was given existence. The world, including everything in the past, coalescence, any thing or species, thought or resonance that shows up is called a “formation”. Examples of formations: the cosmos, a plant, a thought, an equation, a body, a computer, etc. The proposition of working with “formations” constituting the network which is “I = Person” can offer us a discerning criterion for what exists as constitutive of the world we inhabit, liable to being approachable through characteristics such as quantity, materiality, complexity, composition, emergence, or, in brief, as porosity and as binding capacity which make available larger or smaller connectivity between formations. Therefore, consider that everything that exists presents itself as formation. For more see the books by Magno listed in the Bibliography. 14 “D’ailleurs, c’est toujours les autres qui meurent”. Marcel Duchamp’s Epitaph.

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present and future, exists for those who are alive, present. We clearly imagine and even believe that there is a world for other people, but even this articulation depends on this person called “Me”. The connections between each one’s formations bring forth the world, and each Person is the result of the confluence of different formations and articulations that constitute the Person as the world one is. Therefore, “The World is Me”.

Bibliography Ascher, F 1998 [1995], Metápolis: acerca do futuro da cidade, Celta Editora, Oeiras. —. 2000, Événements nos Dépassent, Feignons d’en être les Organisateurs; essai sur la société contemporaine, L’Aube, La Tour d’Aigues. —. 2001, Les nouveaux principes de l’urbanisme: la fin des villes n’est pas à l’ordre du jour, L’Aube, Paris. Araujo, R 2001, A Cidade Contemporânea e As Novas Tecnologias, Master Dissertation, PROURB, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2005, ‘La ville c’est moi’, in Grelet G, Théorie-rébellion: Un ultimatum, L’Harmattan, Paris. —. 2006, ‘O Urbanismo em Estado Fluido’, in Silva R A, Cidade pelo Avesso, Viana & Mosley, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2007, A Cidade Sou eu? O Urbanismo do século XXI. Doctorate Dissertation, PROURB, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro. Barabási, A 2003, Linked: how everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science and everyday life, Penguin Group, New York. Barabási, A & Bonabeau, E 2003, ‘Redes sem escala’, Scientific American (Brazil), year 2, nº. 13, pp. 64-72. Beyssade, J 1999, ‘Descartes et la nature de la raison’, in Marques, E R, Verdade, conhecimento e ação, Loyola, São Paulo. Bertalanffy, L 1973, Teoria geral de sistemas, Vozes, Petrópolis. Bourbaki, N 1984, Éléments d’histoire des mathématiques, Masson, Paris. Cassirer, E 1977, Substance et function, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris. —. 1992, A Filosofia do iluminismo, Editora da Unicamp, Campinas. Castells, M 1995, La Ciudad Informacional; tecnologías de la información, reestructuración económica y el proceso urbanoregional, Alianza Editorial, Madrid.

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—. 1999a [1996] ‘A Sociedade em Rede’, in A Era da Informação: Economia, Sociedade e Cultura – vol.I, Paz e Terra, São Paulo. —. 1999b, ‘O Poder da Identidade’, in A Era da Informação: Economia, Sociedade e Cultura – vol II, Paz e Terra, São Paulo. —. 1999c, ‘Fim de Milênio’, in A Era da Informação: Economia, Sociedade e Cultura – vol III, Paz e Terra, São Paulo. —. 2003, A galáxia da Internet: reflexões sobre a internet, os negócios e a sociedade, Jorge Zahar Editor, Rio de Janeiro. Castells, M (ed) 2004, The network society: a cross-cultural perspective, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Cheltenham. Châtelet, F 1972, Logos e Praxis, Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro. Choay, F 1979 [1965] O Urbanismo: Utopias e Realidades – Uma Antologia, Editora Perspectiva, São Paulo. Christelle, R 1998, ‘Reconstruction des territoires, projet urbain et anthropologie de l‘espace’, in Touissant, J & Zimmerman, M (dir.), Projet urbain: ménager les gens, aménager la ville, Pierre Mardaga Éditeur, Paris. Coates, N 2003, Guide to Ecstacity, Princeton Architectural Press, New York. de Kerckhove, D 1997, A pele da cultura: uma investigação sobre a nova realidade, Relógio d’Água, Lisbon. —. 1997, Connected Intelligence: The Arrival of the Web Society, Somerville House Publishing, Canada. —. 2000, The Architecture of Intelligence, Birkhäuser – Publishers for Architecture, Basel. Deleuze, G & Guattari, F 1995, Mil Platôs: capitalismo e esquizofrenia, Ed. 34, Rio de Janeiro. Descartes, R 1979a., As Meditações, Abril Cultural, Coleção Os Pensadores, São Paulo. —. 1979b, O Discurso do Método, Abril Cultural, Coleção Os Pensadores, São Paulo. Dumouchel, P & Dupuy, J (dir) 1983, L’auto-organisation: de la physique au politique, Colloque de Cerisy. Seuil, Paris. Farouki, N 1996, La foi et la raison: histoire d’un malentendu, Flammarion, Paris. Freud, S 1987 [1914], O Inconsciente, S.E. Vol. XIV, Imago, Rio de Janeiro. —. 1976 [1923], O Ego e o Id, S.E. Vol. XIX, Imago, Rio de Janeiro. —. 1976 [1924], As resistências à psicanálise, S.E. Vol. XIX, Imago, Rio de Janeiro.

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Hardt, M 1996, ‘La société mondiale de contrôle’, in Deleuze, G (ed) Une Vie Philosophique, Institut Sintelabo, Paris, pp. 359-375. Hardt, M & Negri, A 2001 [2000], Império, Record, Rio de Janeiro. Ianni, O 1997 [1996], A era do globalismo, Civilização Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro. Koolhaas, R 2002, ‘Qué ha sido del urbanismo? Oeste: cultivos urbanos’, Revista de Arquitectura, Urbanismo, Arte y Pensamiento Contemporáneos, nº 15, Madrid. Lefebvre, H 2004 [1970], A Revolução Urbana, UFMG, Belo Horizonte. Lévy, P 1987, La machine univers: création, cognition et culture informatique, Ed. de la Découverte, Paris. —. 1990 [1993], As tecnologias da inteligência; o futuro do pensamento na era da informática, Editora 34, Rio de Janeiro. —. 1996 [1995], O que é o Virtual?, Ed. 34, São Paulo. —. 1999, Cibercultura, Ed. 34, São Paulo. —. 2003, A Inteligência Coletiva: por uma Antropologia do Ciberespaço, Loyola, São Paulo. Magno, M D 2003, Revirão 2000/2001: Arte da Fuga e Clínica da Razão Prática, NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2005, Psicanálise: Arreligião, NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2006, Ars Gaudendi: a Arte do Gozo, NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2007, Clavis Universalis: da cura em psicanálise ou revisão da clínica, NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2008 [2004], A Psicanálise, Novamente: um Pensamento para o Século II da Era Freudiana, NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2008a, AmaZonas: A Psicanálise de A a Z. Rio de Janeiro (AmaZon: Psychoanalysis from A to Z), NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2009, A Rebelião dos Anjos: eleutéria e exousía (The Rebellion of the Angels), NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. —. 2010, Economia Fundamental. Metamorfoses da Pulsão, NovaMente Editora, Rio de Janeiro. Maturana, H & Varela, F 1980, Autopoiesis and cognition: the realization of the living, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht. —. 2001, A árvore do conhecimento: as bases biológicas da compreensão humana, Palas Athena, São Paulo. Mazlish, B 1993, The Fourth Discontinuity. The co-evolution of humans and machines, Yale University Press, New Haven and London. McLuhan, M 2003 [1964], Os meios de comunicação como extensão do homem, Editora Pensamento-Cultrix, São Paulo. —. 1969, O meio são as mensagens, Record, Rio de Janeiro.

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Morin, E 2006, Introdução ao pensamento complexo, Sulina, Porto Alegre. Mitchell, W 1996 [1995], City of bits: space, place and the infobahn, MIT Press, Cambridge. —. 2001 [1999], E-topía: vida urbana, Jim, pero no la que nosostros conocemos, Gustavo Gili, Barcelona. Mumford L 1991 [1961], A cidade na História: suas origens, transformações e perspectivas, Martins Fontes, São Paulo. Sassen, S 1998 [1994], As cidades na economia mundial, Studio Nobel, São Paulo. Solà-Morales, I 2002, Territórios, Gustavo Gili, Barcelona. —. 2003, Diferencias. Topografia de la arquitectura contemporânea, Gustavo Gili, Barcelona. Solà-Morales, I & Costa, X 2005, Metrópolis – ciudades, redes, paisajes, Gustavo Gilli, Barcelona. Short, J 2007, Liquid City. Megalopolis and the Contemporary, RFF Press Book, Northeast, D.C. Tan, K 2005, Teoría de la ciudad nodal, in Solà-Morales, I. de & Costa, X., Metrópolis – ciudades, redes, paisajes, Gustavo Gilli, Barcelona. Virilio, P 1993 [1984], O espaço crítico e as perspectivas em tempo real, Ed. 34, Rio de Janeiro. —. 1996 [1993], A arte do motor, Estação Liberdade, São Paulo.

CHAPTER THREE TOWARD THE REUNION OF SENSE AND SENSIBILITY: THE BODY IN THE AGE OF ELECTRONIC TRANS-NATURE GAETANO MIRABELLA

Chapter Index Abstract First Part The scene-body: a new frontier for aesthetic reflexion Second Part The “Thinking Sensation” Third Part Externity: The conscious space The amalgam that feels Conclusions Bibliography

Abstract This chapter develops the idea that it is nature, space, environment or outer reality that feels and touches the subject (being). It is divided into two parts: the first part analyses how the introduction of new technologies has brought a new configuration to the concept of the body by creating a situation of extroversion of interiority. A “new world”, formed by the projections of our body, has begun to appear in the guise of a complex new externality that is as difficult to perceive as it is to describe. The second part deals with the concept of “thinking feeling”. The question that guides this part relates to the possibility of teaching our senses to think about reality. This sensorially-based thinking can trigger in

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us a kind of ontological configuration here called “definitive presence”. The concept of “definitive” is not related to an ontological status that excludes the condition of becoming, or the difference, or the other, but rather to the fact that this kind of sensorialization of reality introduces us in a space that feels. This is a technologically-mediated conscious space that has the same sacred features that were characteristic in Byzantine art and in the philosophy of Plotinus. This chapter contributes to the construction of the concept of the Point of Being in the digital culture by offering a vision that re-situates the role of the subject in relation to a space that is being sensorialized, in which matter is being networked and connected to the Internet. In such a context, physical environments are starting not only to feel our presence but also to deliver data about themselves. We should be prepared to re-situate our perception and conception of environment and matter in the current phase of digital development. In this chapter the interval is built by a change of vision in which sensibility is expanded and the subject (being) cannot feel separate from its environment; rather it feels immersed in a living organism that makes its presence sensible to us.1 Keywords: Space, perception, body, space that feels, externality

First Part The scene-body: a new frontier for aesthetic reflexion The extent to which we possess science today is precisely the extent to which we have decided to accept the testimony of the senses- and learned to sharpen them, arm them, and think them through to their end. —F. Nietzsche

1

The topic of the network-body or scene-body stems from a philosophical novel written in four years from 1984 to 1988 titled “Ten steps before eternity”, published by Palladium, Salerno, 2005. The narrative is centred in the staging of the nervous system of the protagonist and tells of the spectacular existence of the prior Adam Cadmon, esoteric figure and metaphor for the collective consciousness, through whom the protagonist revisits its existence and enters into a “definitive” and enactive ulterior presence which leads him, through a “feeling thinking” process, towards the perception of a “conscious” space in a new body.

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Neither traditional nor current aesthetics2 are able to explain the aesthetic experience3 that happens around us and to us with our electronically extended senses.4 Why? Because we are in a situation, or in a layered configuration of situations, in which we have gone beyond our immediate biological sensitivity, and this “beyond” is configured as a conscious environment5 where the relationship between conscious and unconscious seems to be reversed. The more we externalize our mental faculties and our memory on screen and on line, the less we rely on them (hence experience them) within our minds, to say nothing of our bodies. Perhaps the gradual obsolescence of traditional aesthetics is due to the fact that it still uses hermeneutic research tools inadequate for describing a “sensing” that seems no longer to come from a perceptive body but that

2

Baumgarten, the founder of aesthetics as a stand-alone discipline, considers it as that part of epistemology that deals with sensate knowledge, distinct from logic that deals with intellectual knowledge. Schleiermacher retrieves the cognitive function of aesthetics, stressing the role played by arts in the knowledge of the singular. For Hegel, art, along with religion and philosophy, is a moment of absolute spirit and one of the highest historical manifestations of truth. In the 20th Century, we are faced with the lack of an aesthetic to provide a theoretical interpretation of the contemporary sensibility. In other words, the theoretical tools provided by Kant and Hegel, reason and dialectic, are unable to withstand the impact of an experience that cannot be described either as submission of the particular to the universal, or as an overcoming of the contradiction. The sensibility of the twentieth century has moved in a direction opposite to an aesthetic agreement, towards the exploration of a conflict that is larger than the contradiction dialectics, towards the exploration of the opposition between polar terms that are not symmetrically relative to each other. The aesthetics of the 20th Century have moved towards the impure dimension of feeling, the unusual, disturbing, ambivalent and excessive experiences not reduced to identity. This kind of sensibility, which maintains relations with psychopathological states, mystical ecstasy, drug-induced states, perversions, disabilities and with “primitive” and “other” cultures, has probably caused the obsolescence of the classical aesthetics approach, encouraging a reflection that takes us in the direction of a “neo-aesthetics”. 3 Aesthetics aims at explaining the aesthetic experience, not all kinds of experience. 4 According to Etienne Souriau (1990, p. 552) the word experience refers to what is lived, designates the very fact of living a presence. 5 We can consider that this is happening in the experiences linked to the Internet of Things, in which the use of sensors transforms the environment into a sensitive environment.

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disturbingly rests on a diffuse and scattered kind of “externity”.6 The core of this sensing is articulated in an intermediate point where human perception and a new machine-vision7 merge, mediated by technological devices. - I suggest that with information and communication technologies we have been placed in a state of heightened awareness that we simply take for granted because it is creeping upon us, without us being fully conscious of the effect yet. - In this state of heightened awareness we have entered a hidden body the existence of which we did not suspect: we have entered this body without really “being there”. - This state of heightened awareness puts us outside the influence of language as the new perceptual and cognitive environment is in excess of the expressive intentionality of the subject. - The reference to the “body” is plausible because, although we are probably no longer in a sensorial perception system concentrated in a place similar to the physical body, the perception of a widespread and dispersed externality comes to us from a configuration that I call the scene-body. - Although the scene-body, due to its special characteristics, is not alien to a mode of aesthetic, it has no point of contact with the artistry and the inner landscape of the artistic subject understood in the conventional way. The concept of the subject gets thinner until it disappears, merging into a technological hyper-subject who drowns rather than surfs the Internet. Contemporary aesthetic thinking has long pointed out the decline of categories such as intuition and expression, genius, the evocation of the absolute, the setting up of truth, freedom of imagination, the visualization of spirituality etc. The new dimension emphasises the sensoriality and sensation that have left their marginal position and became the object of the search. What differentiates the new mode of artistic talent, is related to perception and to the “thought of the senses that learn to think”, to 6

“Externity” can be understood as the quality of existing independently of a perceiving mind. However, this externity to which the text refers can be considered as a sensate extension of ourselves. 7 Computer vision, machine-vision and other senses.

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equipment that enhances the power, extent and relationship between sound-image and that of space-time, the relationship between organic and inorganic: communication procedures involving the new perception of corporeality after the extension of our nervous system via technological communication devices. Also by searching for “meaning” one passes to “meaning” activation, its “formalization” and activation. - This scene-body is a place for consciousness, that is to say, flexible, ubiquitous, holistic and decentralized, and appears, beyond an unsettled sensibility, with a vibrant aura that reverberates around the physical disappearance of the subject. - It is problematic to visualize the scene-body: it is “hidden” within the appearance of its production or in relation to the perception of incongruent images. Prigogine and Stengers said that in a regime where perception becomes saturated due to the accumulation of feedback, effects of alienation, similar to those that appear in the dynamics of molecular turbulence of so-called dissipative structures, could be determined. In nonlinear reactions, in conditions far from equilibrium, new states of matter are created. And also new conditions of perception and the enacting of “a new external” emerges (Prigogine & Stengers 1993). - The relationship between scene-bodies and images vanishes even as what is presented is perceived. The presence – that can only be inferred from the synergies that are created with the appearance of synthetic images – is based on a paradox: the presence is characterized by a thinking “sensing”, a reunion of sense and sensibility lost in the Renaissance and the perception of which is still wanting for a congruent syntactic definition. - The typical configuration in which the scene-body is activated is that of the computer in which a very fast recursive loop between the machine’s electrical impulses and the neural impulses is established and simultaneously changes the organization of both. In activating the scenebody, two important events occur: a process of externalization of language, which is replaced by a machine-based language, and the appropriation by computers of most cognitive operations. - The space-time in which the scene-body can manifest itself is a space-time suspended and enigmatic in which hovers a sensing without

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world: in a place without space the network, as the sum of all places, dissolves the concept of bond, losing its human nuance. - Dressed in nothing, purified and electric, the scene-body endorses the immateriality of the new electronic “naturalness”.8 The perception that is activated in the scene-body is characterized by a reality that is marked by dystopia and anamorphosis. Angela Azzaro9 talks about anamorphosis as the art of spatialization. The term, together with those associated with dystopia and scenology, emerges from reflection upon the demise of the concept of Euclidean space, the loss of importance of Classic Renaissance perspectivism (and its commitment to the point of view), and finally, a centre from which one could imagine the world. With information and communication technologies there is a shift from representation to simulation. - This perceptual displacement opens a space that activates an ultimate presence. - The ultimate presence is a “sensing” in which a paradoxical blend of sensory perception and thought is achieved. I allude to the possibility to perceive what presents itself and not what is only a representation of reality. - The ultimate presence is autopoietic,10 recursive, self-referential, auto-stated. To make a comparison: in Quantum Physics particles are in a state that has an undefined value before measurement and it is the observer who forces nature to reveal itself as having one of the possible values. The function of the observer is fundamental, as the actual characteristics and objective of the physical system are established only when it is measured and then created in that fated moment. - The ultimate presence is a contemporary life condition in which people, bodies, and existences are dis-identified, anonymous and technically reproducible. In our anonymous and trivial existential condition, our life is marked by uniformity, by the-same-as-always. It puts to rest the idea of man as divine opera, as the extraordinary site of the great cosmic masterpiece. The scene-body, the ultimate presence, unites all in a 8

Underlined by the author. http://www.venis.it/medea/infoperla/azzarhtm (accessed 2014/03/19). 10 N.E.: The concept is used here as defined by Varela & Maturana (1985). 9

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condition similar to that of the particle in Quantum Physics, a condition in which each one is just a chance event, provided to the observer. The great electronic eye does not choose us and make us exist only for a second, as an aspect of some objective reality on the network, as an auto-state.11 - Suspended in its final configuration the scene-body mimetically reproduces the circumstances that dress the physical body. In this way, although having name and identity, the ultimate presence cannot reveal them, because it appears there, in the place in which the code has been subverted, multiplying the scene-aspect. Because of this the ultimate presence is anonymous and dystopian: it cannot give an account of its appearance there, in the place where it appears, or where it is recorded by “others”. - We do not know what can be evidenced (relating to the physical body) to be the “self”, or, in particular, the “self” of this ultimate presence.12 - The sine qua non condition for the experience of this radiant sensing passes through the abdication of discursive thought. Discursive thought is seen as brain resistance to the flow of information that is treated by “us” 11

The eigenstate. In quantum physics, particles are in a state that has undefined value before measurement and the observer’s presence influences nature to reveal itself in one of the possible values. The function of the observer becomes essential so that the real and objective characteristics of the physical system are established only at the time of measurement, and so are created at that fateful moment. Quantum mechanics, therefore, introduces two new and unexpected elements: one is the importance of the observer that somehow requires a state to become an eigenstate, in other words, for a chance to become reality; the other, no less suggestive, is the randomness in choosing one of several possible eigenstates (each with its own probability), i.e. in front of some probabilistic possibilities, choosing one. N.E: Maybe we could relate the word self-stated to the word ‘eigenstate’. The word ‘eigen’ (German/Dutch), that means inherent, propio, permanent. An eigenstate is a state in which something can be measured, described and observed (i.e. something such as position or momentum that can be experimentally measured either directly or indirectly). Engeinvalue is the value measured. 12 While increasingly identifying with our “technobodies”, we are also learning better to build our “selves” on the Internet, selves that in turn appeal to many other selves: we shape and recreate them within virtual reality. What kind of characters do we become? Do these snippets of personality contribute to the formation of a new mind? For further discussion of the issues relating to the self see Turkle (1997).

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from electronic media, which also handle the majority of cognitive operations. - What matters is to lead embodiment to assume the status of “semiconductor”. The notion of semiconductor refers to the miniaturization of devices and the atomic impurity of the substances used. Thanks to the miniaturisation of elements that make up a computer, the latter could be disseminated and acquired by millions of users. On an allegorical, symbolic dimension, miniaturisation is the prefiguration of a condition of psychological-anthropological mutation of the consciousness of the web’s citizens. The gradual vaporization and disappearance of the subject can be considered to be a miniaturization process essential for the birth of a super-individual. This super-individual flows in the network in a condition likely to favour a homogeneous diffusion of intense communication and concomitantly to be present in the space that “feels”, constituted by the network. The other factor in semiconducting substances is given by impurity, as an essential condition, because a semiconductor behaves as such. In 1930, Gudden, a scholar at the University of Göttingen, hypothesized that pure substances cannot be superconductors and that only the presence of impurities allowed substances to be superconductors. The reference to impurities prefigures the condition of syncretism and blending of identities, thanks to which the poly-shaped web-citizen of the postideological, post-political, post-human society can join and flow in the liquid thought that circulates on the net thanks to social networks, the resonance organs of the new mind. - The mode of capture of anamorphic images and of phenomena of dystopia is the ad infinitum mode of apprehension of the “semiconductor”. This ad infinitum mode of apprehension of the semiconductor poses a problem for epistemology and hermeneutics, as here is not only a problem in reading and interpretation of texts, but also of reading the world and of the research of a core of interpretative activity that allows (or prevents) the understanding of entities that surround us. Ad infinitum understanding refers to various hermeneutical methods of understanding the world, as “explanatory knowledge” of post Enlightenment philosophers such as Schleiermacher, Dilthey, or ontological hermeneutics of Heidegger and Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. With regard to the phenomena of dystopia and anamorphosis, ad infinitum understanding, for us, almost marks the emergence of a faith act, an imperative belief in the “shaping” of reality which so far has only self-announced itself as a form-to-be, still far from the neurobiological and perceptual organization of our body.

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- These phenomena, in fact, cannot be reduced to unity. To experience virtual world-related phenomena, as happens when wearing data gloves, introduces viewers into a dizzying perceptual situation in which auditory, vestibular and visual sensations are excessively perturbed, so such viewers do not have a congruent idea of the experience itself, because, at proprioceptive level, the body cannot regain consciousness of its position in space, nor master movements within it. The very decoding and translation to the proprioceptive dimension consists of hard work, conducted without any coordination or verification, almost as a completely objectified pure visual substance so entirely foreign that it is also foreign to the internal routines of language interpretation. To move your body in a pure visual substance completely objectified through technological media is an ineffable experience because there are no reference points regarding normal perception of reality. The experience that you have under these conditions goes beyond any possibility of description as it unfolds beyond the neurological routines of language interpretation. - Language remains cut off from the description of any changes related to the phenomenology of the being-there as it is configured as an “eigenstate” whose mode can only be inferred from what is given in the appearance of the phenomenon of scene-body. In Being and Time Martin Heidegger (1927) analysed radio and stated that all forms of technology that tend to overcome distance by increasing everyday environment and world, fail to create the feeling of being-there, in proximity. Heidegger concludes that the “return” of the world through technology is only an illusory and alienating fact because the proximity of what “is” continues to fail. In the face of these findings language remains cut off from all consideration. - For McLuhan, the invention of the written word is the membrane that separates us, which divided me from all that is not me. […] The whole man became a fragment; the alphabet shattered the charmed circle and resonating magic of the tribal world, exploding man into an agglomeration of specialized and psychically impoverished “individuals”, or units, functioning in a world of linear time and Euclidean space. (McLuhan 1969)

- The Greek alphabet was the first completely abstract communication system; it yields information that is completely independent from human senses, causing a de-contextualization of the body.

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- With electronic media on the horizon, the possibility of “return” to a re-contextualized and re-sensorialized body comes via its production in the synthetic/virtual dimension. From the moment electricity emerges as a common principle that links the activities of our bodies and our machines, machines are no longer external but internal to the body. It is already happening today as in the intention expressed by a simple gesture, or with a nod or, in the near future, a thought exteriorized by means of technical range, as explicit links between brain and mind, between the psychic and somatic. - The technology-activated ultimate presence pushes into the spotlight our nervous system that, free of cognitive operations to perform, can shape new routines for psychological operations that transcend the limits of the individual physical body. - The technological production of the body activates a pragmatic dimension with the possibility of using personal aspects of sensing. These are manifested in perception and in diseases, that, together with gestures and words, are removed from the physical body, rendered impersonal and non subjective and incorporated into synthetic images that exceed both the subject and the object. These synthetic images are formed as autonomous and self-sufficient entities and, as such, are the non-human future of human beings. - From the moment in which a managerial, economic exploitation of the virtual-synthetic begins, we should ask questions about the fate of being-there because we can already see the first signs of modification of the biological conditions of the physical body, implemented by the policies of large multinational agencies working on alternative production lines. - The interventions that may upset the biological structures of the body are, on the one hand, biotechnology and, on the other, information technologies. In these two fields there are events clearly taking a direction towards a clash between natural balance and new visions of genetic engineering. In fact, these fields have begun processes to exploit the “human” dimension, processes based on the pretext of overcoming the crisis of identity and contemporary issues related to the distribution of food resources. The power of false Western democracies increasingly dominated by oligarchies and power groups increasingly approach the spectrum of an electronic fascism determined to upset cultural,

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psychological and biological social structures. Genetic engineering, biology and computer science seem to be the three areas on which projects to destroy balance and manipulation of consciences are concentrated. Genetically modified foods make it appear that nutritionists and their foods would induce people to access areas where bodies can be manipulated and routed in psycho-bio-neurologic protocols controlled by unknown algorithms. - The subordination of the individual both to the new species of “bodiless” electronic individuals and to the human13 species in general cannot be supported. - I believe the task of contemporary aesthetics relating to the field of artistic activity in general is finished. Its field of competence should now relate more specifically to the change of horizons determined by the impact of information and communication technologies. This impact has triggered an anthropological mutation the results and consequences of which are neither adequately analysed nor described in relation to the production of a beyond-the-subjective scene-body.

Second Part The “thinking sensation” The ultimate presence is a thinking sensation that merges sensory perception with the thinking process for the production of a world. That is a mental meta-structure characterized not by the predictability of noumenal data of an objective reality to which it is subordinated, but by the reliability of the inputs into the nervous system the internal states of which have been altered. The ultimate presence is a recurring metastructure that interacts with its own states; it is the observer who can describe a system that gives rise to a system that can describe an observer. The “sensing” that thinks of the object of its very sensing leads the person to accept the existence of a world in constant change where modification is a function of its internal states. Our “sensing” is made constantly free in a universe literally shaped by us and that has no other purpose than to be what it is. The nervous system, as we now know from theories of the school of Santiago, is a closed network of interacting neurons (Maturana & Varela 1992). The paradox of our enclosed freedom 13

N.E. The term “human” was added by the editors.

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is a free enclosure that expresses itself as we live our lives, in a domain of cognition in which the content of cognition is the cognition itself. For Maturana and Varela, the simple and complex theory of autopoiesis tries to harmonize the scientific world, the world of molecules and their interactions, also very complex (as at the level of neurons), with humanistic and spiritual aspects of life. The school of Santiago takes into account a whole series of philosophical aspects of existence including ethics, consciousness, art, poetry and religion. Other scenarios unfold in relation to the environment and the ecological discourse that leads to a new vision regarding the continuous change in the world as a result of our actions on it. Also the assumption of equivalence between organic structure and cognition of life processes introduces the idea that the brain is no longer necessary to explain and justify the act of cognition (bacteria and plants do not have a brain, but have cognitive abilities even if not in an anthropomorphic sense). An autopoietic system such as a cell takes from the environment what it needs for its existence: it is as if the stuff that you take from the outside, either food or otherwise, is necessary in order to define life itself. In this regard these authors speak of enactment, i.e. of the process by which the body creates its world from the environment. It may seem exaggerated to speak of “creation” but MerleauPonty, for example, says that the same body with its receptors, its nerve centres, with movements of organs, chooses the stimuli to which it can be sensitive. A world is created and comes out with the actualization of the organism’s essence that creates it. Today, we shall probably recover our bodies and our freedom by following the intronautes’ route, passing through the synthetic projection of our internal sites in those topoi I call the scene-body and the ultimate presence. The staging of the nervous system has shown that the ultimate presence may eventually collect and coagulate around one or more “self”, that is, psychic material to forge the identity of a new versatile mind, but it would still be an image that comes from the scenology of the machine.14 The latter, being aesthetic, synthetic and virtual, is not decoded. Now, the important thing is not whether these aesthetic/synthetic images are true or false, or natural or not. As such the distinction no longer has any sense in relation to explicitly chosen frameworks for our value system. The alternative to reason is an aesthetic seduction of a value framework specifically designed to accommodate desires but not real needs. The machine’s virtual-ness that is brought about by the ultimate presence may appear as an obstacle, a game or even as a space of 14

Scenology refers to the study of possible scenarios.

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difference between a project and its realization. But its very appearance under whatever guise protects us from the danger of being retrieved by the machine before it has been absorbed in our personal psychological universe, and before it reappears on the horizon of our freedom. So we have had to stage our nervous system because by means of the ultimate presence’s mode of thinking it could be possible for us to regain our “being-there” in the forms and modalities of our contemporary historical time. By this staging, we realize that the nervous system is enclosed in a constantly changing domain of descriptions that it generates through recursive interactions within that domain, and that there is no other constant element in the historical transformation outside its identity maintained as interacting system. In other words: the human being changes and lives according to a frame of reference that changes in a world that is continuously created and transformed by him/her (Ronconi 1985). Through information and communication technologies we have entered a new body of which we are not aware; we have gone to a “place” of externality without leaving; we have opened a stand elsewhere – another world to which we are drawn at increasingly high speeds without being able to stop the race.15 We are about to render obsolete our biopsychological being through interactions with specific areas that may undermine some basic assumptions. Meanwhile, here a new embodiment is announced, one that is based on the abandonment of the physical body manipulated through biotechnology. Gobbledygook16 is a new “body” that flows from its own heart, shaping itself as a “new” scene of the scene-body and as a (recurring) ultimate presence: will it be that that was to come? The heart from which this new body emerges is an idealization of the heart called “the city of Brahman” in the Upanishad. But in any case, it is perhaps not surprising that this web-driven new body, this giant, appears unexpectedly and surprisingly from its own net-matrix. Is it perhaps not surprising that the beating heart of the planetary network is able to produce its own body in an illogical and paradoxical inversion of terms. This logical contradiction is considered today to be part of the boundary of a mind that has now collapsed. The announcement of this birth appears in the Veda of existence as a “body understood as a universal scene”, in which we have never ceased to 15

See Dery (1997) Velocita’ di fuga, Feltrinelli, Milan. Maury Maverick coined this word in 1944, as a critique to the obscure language used by US Congress members. In general, it refers to any jargon that can be difficult to understand. 16

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be, from which we have never started to move away. In the Upanishads the description of the “City of Brahman” is in many ways close to what I call scene-body. Ronconi (1985) mentions that in this city of Brahman – that the body is – a subtle lotus shapes a house, inside which there is a small space. That space that is located within the heart is as vast as the space that our sight embraces. The one and the other, heaven and earth, there are united; fire and air, Sun and Moon, light and constellations, and everything that belongs to each other in this world and what they do not have, meet all desires [= kamah potential beings] gather there. These desires that are reality (satya) are veiled by the unreal. Here is a surprising similarity with the ultimate presence that can be seen in the overlapping/juxtaposition of different places of which the simultaneous apprehension, according to Hinduism, comes through the experience of nirvikalpa Samadhi. The latter can be achieved according to the “Veda” by brahamacharya (renunciation) with a high degree of spiritual self-realization but that is potentially open to all human beings. For Westerners what is described by the Upanishads can be understood as an eigenstate, an “inherent-proper-permanence” condition that can be achieved “even” through technological devices. But what happens, or may happen, to our neural-bio-psychological organization when, as claimed by Maturana and Varela, living systems enter into interactions that are not specified by their circular organization? A living system defines through its organization the domain of all interactions into which it can possibly enter without losing its identity, and it maintains its identity only as long as the basic circularity that defines it as a unit of interactions remains unbroken. Strictly, the identity of a unit of interactions that otherwise changes continuously is maintained only with respect to the observer, for whom its character as a unit of interactions remains unchanged. (Maturana & Varela 1992, p. 55)

Put another way: have we generated a stronger body to withstand the electronic/synthetic revelation of a technological device that unfolds before our eyes? Does the entire inner surface of ourselves, in the form of all the pictures and representations of the world, warn us that this is our own body? Of course of all the people who spend most of their time in cyberspace, few know the Upanishads, Nietzsche’s Philosophy and experiences in the field of spirituality. The climate of spiritual emptiness and social fragmentation represents a fertile ground for cultivation of millennial beliefs and a nascent techno-eschatology in which the theology of the “ejection seat” preaches a successful emergency escape towards a lost archaic paradise. The scene-body and the ultimate presence reopen, at

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the beginning of the third millennium, an ultra-personal journey necessary to awaken the active side of infinity in human beings and overcome the nightmare of the uncertain fate of the body in an objective world.

Third Part Externity: The conscious space It is necessary to observe how space has changed and how we are very close to a mutation; and that although we are not yet occupying the externity, after the individual self has been dissolved, a tension without intention will eventually emerge. Indeed, in the cornucopia of new electronic media, events that happen in so-called “real-time” cannot be placed in a chronological dimension because a break in the sense of time leads us to a different time dimension. In that universe the person no longer has a position relating to knowledge, power, or “history”: its very existence seems to be “vaporized”. In fact there is no more memory, because events occur in real time, that is, the technical time of operation, and no longer in that of the historical dimension. In the virtual space, the emotional depth of any event can be transformed into mechanical physiology through the extroversion of interiority. We are expanding and our scene-body is becoming recognized. However, in the absence of landmarks, this body becomes the only possible operating system to reorganize perception. These considerations lead us to think that the time that is coming will increasingly be that of the externalization of interiority with the birth of a new concept of space. This new space pours out from us and is created by the staging and extending of our nervous system by means of available technologies. It is no longer the space of representation of reality, but simply that of its presentation and of the electric activity promoting the extroversion of interiority. The old aesthetics, born in the eighteenth century, as knowledge was linked to experience and to immanence, as an essentially terrestrial and worldly knowledge, fails to provide any theoretical interpretation of contemporary sensitivity bound to a strange and disturbing, ambivalent and excessive, experience that is irreducible to identity. It is no coincidence that this kind of sensibility is proximate to psychopathological states, to mystical ecstasy, to addictions and perversions, to handicaps and disabilities, to “primitive” and “other” cultures (Perniola 1997, p. 155). In synthesis, what is at stake is the general reconfiguration

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of aesthetics, of its use and its fate in the coming years. The technologies of image, sound, spatiality, writing and communication, have opened a new era of sensitivity that media theory is duly studying and defining. The contemporary sensibility is configured as a conscious environment where the relationship between conscious and unconscious mind seems to be reversed. Even as electronic and digital technologies are turning us inside out and making us contribute to a collective-connective, anonymous but highly conscious scene-body, the individual minds and hearts of people are being eviscerated and becoming the host of an unconscious once associated with a nebulous kind of permanent externality. The advent of electronic information and communication technologies by means of which we represent and simulate bring new light on the relationship between matter and memory, spirit and duration, as defined by Bergson (Costa 2002). In fact, memory is not the foundation of interiority anymore, but rather increasingly adopts new configurations (public, external, unchanging, repetitious) while matter ceases to be truly “material”. This symbiotic unity of matter and memory proves able to cancel any clear division between the interiority and exteriority. This new situation in which the concepts of internal and external lose their limits, and matter and memory blur their own boundaries dissolving one into the other, was also felt in the nineteen-twenties by many artists and theorists including Moholy-Nagy, who subscribed to the theories of synesthesia that were constitutive of the Bauhaus and supported by Kandinsky and Itten. From the concept of synesthesia, Kandinsky and Itten derived suggestions and mystical implications of various kinds, in part based on the alleged objectivity of the spiritual correspondences between sounds and colours, and more or less demonstrated by a large number of aesthetic experimentations. What was at stake was the transition from the inner phenomenon of synesthesia to that of the machines of synesthesia in order to build interfaces, firstly mechanical then electrical and lastly electronic, to finally endow a product with a state of consciousness. And this extroversion of interiority that had already started at the beginning of the twentieth century laid the foundations for the process of putting the world in a box in which time is spatialized and where the separate dimensions of space and time are cancelled or shrunk. Time becomes an endless present in which every here is also a possible elsewhere in the telematic network (Costa 2002). Then from this sensitive and conscious place, our new electronic naturalness seems to emerge and to emanate a sense of global indifference

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to our will. From this place our sensing seems to come from an intermediate point between human-based and technology-based perception. Our body contains the foundational concepts of that new space; it already moves about there without being conscious of it. This becomes visible at the point of hybridization in which the ghost of autopoietic implementation meets with the medium that shows it in a consistent configuration. The man-machine relationship is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about hybridization. Automatons, hybridized with humans of all forms, were already present in nineteenth century literature, such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelley in 1816 or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide, in which Stevenson talks about the encounter between the autopoietic ghost and its point of hybridization in its double. The Freudian unconscious can also be thought of as a hybridization point between the real man and the man-that-desires. I am also minded of the heart prostheses that hybridize and enable life to continue above a life-death, techno-nature, crossing point. And of love and the falling in love that passes through the point of hybridization and meets the ghost of autopoietic implementation (to be loved) that makes it evident. I am minded, too, of the immense power that the Internet gives through hybridization with our ghost projected in the network which implements its presence, finding its neo corpo, in the medium that places it in a consistent configuration. The space-time in the Internet is a suspended and enigmatic space-time in which the remnants of subjectivity are dying: in this space without place, the network, sum of all places, creates a new amalgam between the self and the externity, dissolving language and subject at the same time, and even the possibility of describing events. The thinking sensing is triggered to offset the threat given by the disappearance of the representation of everyday world. Information and communication technologies encourage us to cross the externity while a new phenomenology of presence is prefigured.

The amalgam that feels Information and communication technologies have led to a shift in our awareness of the outer limits of our body relating to the surrounding scene, determining in this way an amalgam between self and externity. Access to this limit is accompanied by the loss of the social and/or the language sphere. To be able to transfer the knowledge of our daily body to the externity by means of technologies is a difficult and dangerous task.

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Essentially it leads to the increasing of the awareness of the environment after breaking free from language. To become the “space that feels” involves a temporary loss of the body. Who or what are we? What do we become when we use technological extensions (data gloves, displays in general, endoscopy devices, etc)? What do we become when, having lost our body,17 our attention passes beyond the perception of a body extended like a network or an endoscopically circumscribed body, which looks at itself and one’s interior through a device for endoscopy? The loss of body and sense of self puts us in a condition in which our senses must reinterpret and redefine what we perceive, but that refining is carried out at the high speed of technological time that is not manageable by the rational intellect. At this point in the process, our senses must learn to redefine two things: - Who or what we have become (or the way we think about what or whom we relate to and, therefore, whether there is still an “us” that “accesses” anything, in other words, what that part of us is that clicks the link that is currently accessed by clicking); - What the type of access/Log-in is. The gate that opens is therefore of a double semantic nature; on one hand, it involves the problem of creating a new dimension in anthropology that enlightens us on what has become of us in this access to a different self and, on the other, what we consider to be the form and type of access, the door through which the form of new being passes.18. 17

The term “body loss” is just a way to configure a phenomenon that is still not sufficiently thought about nor reflected upon. Filtering its presence through the network and technological devices hugely expands the body, and, in a sense, we don’t know anymore where we are and where the boundaries of our mind-based bodies are. What changes is the consciousness that today we are heading towards a neo-body. I refer to McLuhan’s idea that there are technological projections of our senses that trigger a sense of vertigo in this process of body that, stretching, becomes a formless space that “feels” and, as such, disappears as a convergent centre of perception. In the last chapter of my book titled Liquid Thinking and Collapse of the Mind, I talk about a condition of the mindless liquid neo-bodies and of the resonant organs formed by social networks. “The shape of mindless neo-body with mind, is not fully complete in itself so it is not clear to which body you are coming back. The idea of considering older representations as expressions of a return of the body looks foolish and groundless” (Mirabella 2009, p. 89). 18 To become the “"space that feels"” involves the loss of the body. The loss of the body and the sense of itself put us in a condition in which our senses must

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It is attractive to follow a path in a landscape literally made of a consciousness that unfolds in space and gives us a basic description of the unknown part of our own life. However, this offer is not accepted beyond a certain limit as becoming part of the landscape that feels. It requires great discipline and imagination: we must give a name and a face to things, events, objects never seen before, but above all, our senses must have learned to distinguish the point of intersection, where the gate opens and we gain the possibility of accessing that realm. We need the prudence of being aware of the machine-based nature of the scene we are led to because what opens up is a war scene. While the anthropological horizon becomes increasingly uncertain and obscure, a danger emerges of expropriation of the human being in favour of a technological dimension, which seems to enhance the body and make it become increasingly externalised and objectified; the body turns into a thing among other things. The network seems to promise all sorts of facilities but actually appears to have the sole purpose of self-growth. Increasingly, a tendency emerges in people to develop a protective mental attitude aimed at mastering and dealing with the shocking mechanical vision that stifles and transforms the human even to the point of risking its own suppression. To become the amalgam that feels should be articulated as an exercise in self-knowledge in which we can recognize the landscape as the final scene of our presence in the world but that is impossible to describe because language is inappropriate to syntactically build a congruent configuration. Liberated from either social dynamics or approval from peers, cognitive processes are emerging now as a kind of perception based on a confident observation of the universe and not on a need for self-esteem. Those who ventured to access the amalgamation of the ultimate presence within the limits of language, and bound by a private self and by social constraints, would inevitably be preyed upon and devoured. Now we are the ones who manage the space without place in the network. We must consciously dress (in space) the intelligent vacuum that reinterpret and redefine what we perceive, but this redefining happens through a quick accelerated technical time-flow that is not manageable by the rational intellect. At this point in the process, our senses must learn to think so as to redefine two things: the first is relative to who or what we have become (that is, the “‘sense that think’” must “‘decide’” to whom we belong and therefore if there is still a “‘we’” that “‘access’”, that is to say, which is the part of us that logs in, the access that is currently linked to the log-in click); the second thing is to redefine the access mode.

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we have become in order to enter this new space. Between the externity and us there is no longer distance but continuity: we are the place that feels and flows through that space. Entering the space that feels, as an exercise in self-knowledge, should be rooted in eidos,19 which springs from the staging of the nervous system, according to a determinism based on intensity, rather than from a syntactic-mechanical determinism. We have a lot of stories on the neutral cognition of machines but we are short of descriptions of the conscious space or of the intensity in which the thinking sensing can emerge. If we become the space that feels we need to be as fluid as computer semi-conductors and avoid at all costs blocking the flow with linguistic, cultural or social considerations: we must open ourselves to the abstract first principles of the universe, hear to listen and go beyond the logic of the telephone, we should exercise aphasia and apraxia,20 practice to see without eyes, beyond eidos, sliding along the stream of consciousness, becoming the space that thinks and thinking about what inhabits it. The process of following abstract proceedings without looking for their productive finality, and opening ourselves to the space that flows from our nervous systems, opens doors to other aspects of the real, triggering a kind of expansion of perception that is so immense that little remains of the old visions of the world. In this process of creating a world-space we are led to manifest a life history of structural coupling. 19

Eidos from Greek, image, form or shape. In the era of our technically filmable existence, we are headed towards an externality of life. There is no need for a practice to reach the “land” we are heading towards: it will certainly emerge from electronic and electric-based technological spaces through which to enter the new dimension that I call “externity”. The human figure will be presented in its technically filmable life, from the production of appearances in which it has consisted, to a condition of revitalization and embodiment. If we want to understand who we are, we need to listen to listening, be silent and not talk, because our lives, occurring through electronic means of communication, propose only a feeling of de-subjectification. The voice, our very own voice passes through equipment that records and can repeat it ad infinitum. But infinity is not a quantity that concerns us nor can we have an experience of it in our lives. The “sound” of our lives seems to have already been recorded in advance, and it is as if the feedback of our questions came first and that then, only through the aphasia and the silence, can we “hear” what really speaks/belongs to us. By exercising apraxia people will use the old vision of reality as scenery in which to move like a hologram and retrieve new parts of themselves in the rubble that will help in the transition to the new externality elsewhere. However, it is not easy to define what type of aphasia and apraxia. 20

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That structural coupling is not based on the subject-object dichotomy, but rather in a figure-ground interface. According to the dictates of the School of Santiago, so that the coupling is potentially vital, the action guided by the system should simply facilitate the perpetuation of its integrity (ontogeny) and/or of its descendants (phylogeny). This means, as we have said previously, that we are entering into a dynamic that does not threaten our current bio-psycho-physiological organization. With the disappearance of the subject, the memory of worldspace is activated as a stream that goes with the feeling that we are the space that feels.

Conclusions Since neo-technologies offer an increasingly materialized extroversion of the basic human operations, it will be necessary to change the so-called point of view, ancient heritage of the Greek invention of theatre and repeated by Renaissance perspectivism, and replace it with the point of being more related to the universe of electronic media. The point of being or ultimate presence, activated by means of technological devices, moves the spotlight onto our nervous systems which, free of cognitive operations, can shape neural routines and create the amalgam space-body that feels and interprets what is felt by means of its spatial and temporal clothing. The descriptive logic of language hinders the perception and description of what happens in virtual domains. Our linguistic software, implanted in the brain by a technique called the alphabet, forces sounds and images to be identified before taking them into account. The void, the new space, starts exactly where language finishes. Although out of body, it is still related to flesh; in that space, an intense awareness begins to glow with a splendour that we are not aware of because language cannot grasp its light. Paraphrasing what Freud said in 1920 “Wo Es war, soll Ich werden”, (Where It (id) was, there shall I (ego) be) we say there (on the network of the nervous system) where phenomena used to happen (including ourselves as phenomena), we are happening and staging our nervous systems. We are now fused in a conscious space in which we cannot distinguish even a faint trace of individuality. The computer’s semiconductor is the new thread we use to exit the labyrinth into which we have been thrown. The semiconductor leads us out towards an attractive and unique externity that leads the senses to arrange themselves along an extremely perceptive

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path on and inside the things that are perceived. The effect is that the self is scattered in the environment-space, making it self-conscious. Instead of a frontal point of view (a metaphor of the eye) this semiconductor proposes an audience spread over diffuse listening points (a metaphor of the ear) that bursts within the eidos with the logic of the telephone. The process of miniaturization – through which the subject vaporizes – and the syncretism of the impurities of various materials and of various dimensions of identity that are juxtaposed and linked, give the web citizens the agility and versatility to transform their bias to freedom into a door through which they can escape from the maze of believing that “labyrinthine thoughts” are that which they are. And the excessive intensity of this incredible situation and this unusual eidos, is what we have pushed outside, to where our senses have to think of what they perceive, passing from representation of reality to presentation of reality. Exactly as happens in language, in which we pass from signs to ideas in an almost ideographic manner, we can pass from significant into meaning, from perception to percept, from the latter to a new body, and from this body to a new space, according to the indications of a possible text made up of a large amount of unconscious material and following in the footsteps of neuronal graphs beyond language.21 One thinks of certain theories of Bauhaus that say that it is enough to find the essential concepts and to turn them into places from the point of hybridization between use and meaning, and therefore from an ashtray the total project of the building could be traced back, just as from the seed comes the fruit. Rationalism and functionalism formed the background on which many artists including Taut, the founder, Gropius, Kandinsky and Moholy-Nagy, among others, were convinced that the deep collaboration of all disciplines in the new art of building would lead to a new cultural framework. The basic idea was to find some sort of organic idea, 21

According to neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux a neuronal graph is a mental object, namely a virtual network of synaptic relationships or updated from most neurons, depending on the type of activity stimulated by an event that is internal or external to the body. See more in de Kerckhove (1995) La civilizzazione videocristiana, Feltrinelli, Milano and Changeux, Jean-Pierre; Courrège, Philippe and Danchin, Antoine (1975) “A theory of the epigenesis of neuronal networks by selective stabilization of synapses”, Proceedings, National Academy of Science, USA, Institute Pasteur, Paris, Vol.70, October 1973, nº10, pp. 2974-2978, accessed 2014/02/26, http://www.pnas.org/content/70/10/2974.full.pdf

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structurally governed by geometrical laws similar to those of nature and that was also a metaphor for a space “liberated” from preconceptions regarding social representativeness: a space, therefore, that is democratic, open, symbiotic, and fluid, the catalyst of the event. Bauhaus gives us a conceptual framework that in the history of the contemporary project is recurrent and passes through more or less explicit mutations to reach us.

Bibliography Changeux, J-P, Courrège, P & Danchin, A 1975, ‘A Theory of the Epigenesis of Neuronal Networks by Selective Stabilization of Synapses’, Proceedings, National Academy of Science, USA, Institute Pasteur, Paris, Vol.70, No.10, pp. 2974-2978, October 1973. Costa, M 2002, Internet e globalizzazione estetica, Tempo lungo, Naples. de Kerckhove, D 1995, La Civilizzazione Videocristiana, Feltrinelli, Milan. Dery, M 1997, Velocitá di fuga, Feltrinelli, Milan. Freud, S 1975 [1920], A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Boni and Liveright, New York. Maturana, H & Varela, F 1992, Autopoiesi e cognizione Ed. Marsilio, Venice. McLuhan, M 1967, Gli strumenti del comunicare, Edizioni Garzanti, Milan. —. 1969, ‘Marshall McLuhan Interview from Playboy’, Playboy Magazine, March 1969, accessed 2014/03/23, http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring07/mcluhan.pdf Mirabella, G 2005, Dieci passi prima dell’eternita, Palladio, Salerno. —. 2009, Pensiero liquido e crollo della mente, Palladio, Salerno. Perniola, M 1997, L’estetica del Novecento, Il Mulino, Bologna. Prigogine, Y & Stengers, I 1993, La nuova alleanza.Metamorfosi della scienza, Enaudi, Turin. Ronconi, P-F 1985, Upanisad, Edizioni Boringhieri, Turin. Souriau, E 1998, Diccionario Akal de Estética, Akal, Madrid. Turkle, S 1997, La vita oltre lo schermo, Ed. Apogeo, Milano.

CHAPTER FOUR THE INTERVAL AS A NEW APPROACH TO INTERFACES: TOWARDS A COGNITIVE AND AESTHETIC PARADIGM OF COMMUNICATION IN THE PERFORMING ARTS ISABELLE CHOINIÈRE1

Chapter Index Abstract I. The interval as a new form of interface A schematic and traditional history of the issue of the interface A change of perspective in practice A presentation of various theories II. A schematic description of the Meat Paradox III. An evolutive methodology as a tool for creation IV. Conclusions and appendix a. Concerning the question of disciplines b. Concerning dualistic thinking, performance and body c. Concerning positioning in relation to disciplinary constraint d. Concerning the problem of exploitation and instrumentalization e. Concerning the problem of the relationship of the body and technology f. Strategies: sensorial and perceptual destabilization as a learning process f1. The interval as connective strategy f2. Different strategies of the body in movement: Brown, Paxton, Clark and Yano g. The need for creating new tools h. Definition and principle of the construction of the Sonorous Body 1

Chapter translated from French by Andréa Davidson.

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h1. A form of loss of bearings: relative space, a part of the Collective Sound Body h2. Slowness as an appropriation of proprioceptive change h3. Rizollatti, another strategy of learning and acknowledgement: empathy h4. A second loss of bearings: proximity as a strategy of deconstruction of the body’s hierarchy i. A strategy of connective and integrative learning V. Bibliography

Abstract This chapter focuses on a re-evaluation of the notion of the interval in the relationship of moving bodies to technology. As a basis for this reflexion, we are interested in new ways of considering and reinterpreting relationships amongst four fields: art, the body, science and technology. Throughout our research, we found that each of these areas and their interrelationships uphold a Western analytical tradition that is based on fragmentation, dichotomy and duality as identified by theorists in the context of science (Koestler and Smythies [1968] 1972; Ho 1993) aesthetics and philosophy (Burnham [1968-1969] 1973; Buci-Gluckmann 2001; Nobrega 2009). The analytic tradition engenders a series of problems that stem from its reductionist dynamic of which materialism and another issue are the result: that of instrumentalization. In our view, this instrumentalization is connected to and comes from a confusion and misunderstanding of the nature of technology and inherent relations between the moving body and technology. It is our intention to go beyond this legacy and propose a new sense of interconnection. To do so, it is necessary to develop a type of integrative thinking. We thus adopt an approach that is radically anti-disciplinary. Addressed by practices of the body, this form of research reintroduces the body and its specific intelligence in the understanding and construction of these new rapports. Keywords: Dance, interval, collective body, technology, art, science

I The interval as a new form of interface The interval as a new form of interface is a hypothesis we are currently developing and about which we will present only an outline in this text. It

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has taken root in many of the ideas we have recently presented. One such idea is the passage from an aesthetic of objects towards an aesthetic of behavioural processes. We propose that the aesthetic of objects, which itself comes from a culture of objects, and the aesthetic of behavioural processes that is grounded in cybernetic thinking, transit through what Christine Buci-Glucksmann calls the culture of flux (Buci-Glucksmann 2001). This culture of flux leads us to propose a new aesthetic paradigm of the transitional, of which real and mediated collective bodies are, in our opinion, an example. In addition, we will see how our practical research and the previously mentioned hypothesis are reflected in various complementary theories of Rolnik, Pitozzi, and Buci-Glucksmann that address the invisible in the development of different concepts from different points of view, some interconnected, namely, the virtual, the interval, Mâ or a latent corporeal2 potentiality, that is to say, a virtual dimension of the body which is already operating in the real (Pitozzi 2008). Finally, it will be shown how the concept of cannibalism,3 as applied in our experimentation and enriched by the influence of these diverse theories, leads us to an ontological alchemy that is rooted in the cognitive and communicative paradigm we are proposing, and that designs the phenomenology of what is emitted as with what is received, as well as the relationship they have together. To begin, the central notion of potentiality needs to be addressed. It constitutes both a point of departure and the theoretical focus of this section. But first, to ground the analysis to follow, the development of the notion of the interface will be examined.

2

Corporalité: qualité de ce qui est corporel (Bossuet) (translated by editors: Corporality: quality of what is bodily), accessed 2010/06/08, http://littre.reverso.net/dictionnaire-francais/definition/corporalit%C3%A9/16590 That relates to the real body. Corporeality: From Medieval Latin corporeitas. For the phenomenologists, made for man to be in the world, to be viewed by others as a person, a human being. See this link, accessed 2014/03/08, http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/corpor%C3%A9it%C3%A9 3 The concept of “cultural cannibalism” was first coined by Oswaldo de Andrade (1928) in Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibal Manifesto, in English). The concept refers to how, in the historical formation of Brazilian culture, there has been a process of cannibalization of other cultures. This cultural cannibalism corresponds to a mechanism of cultural self-assertion against the cultural domination of European post-colonialism. It is a form of cultural appropriation. The specific reference we are making to the concept of cannibalism comes from Suely Rolnik’s “Anthropophagic Subjectivity” (Rolnik 2007a) who develops the term as the potential for ontological contamination, integration and transformation.

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A schematic and traditional history of the issue of the interface The dominant discourse of contemporary stage performance that integrates technologies is based on a dualistic and materialistic Western vision of a “culture of objects” as identified by Christine Buci-Glucksmann (2003). Approaches to interfaces as designated by the visual arts are the ones mainly imported by the performing arts. Traditional views of the interface that lies at the intersection between technology and human beings formalize pragmatic goals of communication destined to translate and transform the language of the human body and the algorithmic language at the heart of computer technology (Quinz 2003a). According to Quinz3, who analyses the question from the point of view of the visual and media arts, even if the whole concept of the interface was to evolve, the fact remains that although the concept of the artificial interface is refined, it still operates according to principles of selection and reduction, contrary to the body which can be compared to a hyper complex physiological interface. At this point in time, the artificial interface is a function: that of uniting, defining and separating. The interface here is still a system of borders (Quinz 2003a). If we examine this issue from the perspective of the performing arts, it can only be seen as a borrowed concept (that is present in Stelarc, Palindrome, Troika Ranch, Kondition Pluriel, Jean-Marc Matos), and we share Quinz’s conclusions. We notably came to the following reflection: that in order to achieve the relational complexity that interested us, we could no longer use the interfaces proposed to us, but rather had to move towards principles of organicity to generate the desired complexity.4

3 Quinz, is a theorician currently teaching Aesthetics, Arts and Technologies at Université Paris VIII. 4 Parallel to these understandings, and under the influence of Roy Ascott and his research group at the Planetary Collegium to which we belong, we have been in contact with different fields of study on technology. Different approaches such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, neurotechnology, plant technology, Ascott’s theories on the “moist” and the “dry”, BioArt, etc. have also nourished our thinking. Even if they are not directly applicable to our research, they have radically changed our approach to technology. They led us to redefine the relationship with technology in our work.

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A change of perspective in practice Our interest in working with realtime interfaces came through developing a type of altered physicality stemming from a modification of corporeality that we were able to experience. The need to develop a relationship with an interface that could enrich corporeality and experiential awareness was the result of this experimentation. Figure 4-1 We needed to avoid the kind Communion of instrumentalization to which (Le partage des peaux II) 1995, performers are often submitted Isabelle Choinière with technology. Creative work Author, danseur and performer reflecting complexity, with five Photographer: Maryse Poulin bodies in constant contact with one another - the collective body - also demanded that we avoid a causal relationship with technology. We therefore looked for an interface that could act on sensorial-perceptual organization: the internal organization of the body (proprioception). The relationship with technology redefines modes of perception through a phenomenological approach experienced through strategies of destabilization. As noted above, it influences the ways we think of and feel the body, and thus ways of organizing a work. Our artistic goal was to reveal another dimension, other senses, and an opening of perspectives through strategies that destabilize perception, in order to go fleshly deeper and deeper into an experience. In Figure 4-2 this way, one could operate Communion changes of state, and propose (Le partage des peaux II) 1995, risk-taking strategies that can Isabelle Choinière lead to revelation. If this work Author, danseur and performer is not political per se, we are Photographer: Marc Deserrano aware that its radical nature (see centrefold for this image in full colour)

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and position opposing established codes, trespasses and breaks existing codes, and nevertheless constitutes a form of protest. Technology lived as an environment corresponds to the notion of a dilated body that is predominant in our process. This process was initiated by work on molecularization in our first creation Communion (first version created in 1995 and stopping being modified in 2000; see Photos 1 and 2: Communion), through a process we developed that can be related to Michel Bernard’s concept of fiction (Bernard, 2001). This work centres on the development of sound generated in real-time that creates the sensation of a vibrating sound body surrounding us. This experimentation with a sound body was initiated in Communion and pursued in our second creation, La Démence des Anges 4 (first version created in 1999 and stopping being modified in 2005) as a body that is experienced in what we call a dilated body, and not as a double. Following this, work in real-time on the sound body (and, in The Dementia of Angels, on bodies projected in real-time to a remote site), was continued in development currently underway, causing yet another change to the process of fiction (Bernard 2001), that of the sensation of the body in a state of diffraction (Photos 3, 4 and 5). The physical body becomes more complex as does the mediated body that stems from it, provoking a change in the state of presence, and even a change in the essence of this presence. Figure 4-3 La Démence des Anges, 1999-2000 Isabelle Choinière Author, danseur and performer Distant dancer: Alyson Wishnovsky Photographer : Frédérique Bolté Dancing with the projection of the distant dancer

4

Watch the videos Communion and La Démence des Anges in the following links. Link for the video Les Démence des Anges, accessed 2014/03/25, http://youtu.be/eaeJgRgBYm4 Link for the video Communion Molecularization, accessed 2014/03/25, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpoM-oYZYGg&feature=em-upload_owner

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Figure 4-4 La Démence des Anges, 1999-2000 Isabelle Choinière Author, danseur and performer Distant dancer: Alyson Wishnovsky Photographe/Photographer : Frédérique Bolté The distant dancer in her performance space

Figure 4-5 La Démence des Anges, 1999-2000 Isabelle Choinière Author, danseur and performer Distant dancer: Alyson Wishnovsky Photo: Frédérique Bolté Dancer in the performance space

Figure 4-6 La Démence des Anges, 1999-2000 Isabelle Choinière Author, danseur and performer Distant dancer: Alyson Wishnovsky Photo: Frédérique Bolté Dancer in the performance space

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This introduces the idea of experiential complexity to which we will refer shortly, and also in part to what Lygia Clark describes as “the body [that] is both singular and plural”5 (Luz 1975, Rolnik & Diserens 2005). What is referred to is not a loss of self but indeed a complexity-zation of self and the notion of performative presence. We are faced with a new performative real time behaviour created from the work with a mediated body, as an entity specific to the real body, deriving from its evolution and its complexity and not as a separate, superimposed or hierarchical form of the physical body as suggested by authors such as Deleuze and Guattari (1980) or Pitozzi (2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2010).

A presentation of various theories A more recent approach to the notion of the interface is presented by Christine Buci-Glucksmann (2001; 2003).6 It corresponds to the point of view of a theorist on the topic and focuses principally on architecture with other references made to the Japanese performing arts.7 The author advances the idea of a transition from a culture of objects to a culture of flux and in so doing, the idea that fluidity challenges old boundaries between the body and mind. If the idea of fluidity is not new to media art, the interest of Buci-Glucksmann’s proposition lies in the fact that she presents it via the Japanese concept of Mâ8 and the interval.9 She defines 5

Lygia Clark describes her approach in these terms: “>n@ow, the body is a house. It is a community experience. There is no regression because there is an opening of human beings towards the world. Humans bind themselves to others into a common body. They incorporate the creativity of the other into the collective invention of the proposition […] But each experience was by nature individual and risked closing down upon itself, whereas now, it is at the same time personal and collective since it is constantly bound to that of others in the midst of the same polynuclear structure”. (Luz 1975, Rolnik & Diserens 2005) 6 Christine Buci-Glucksmann is a French philosopher and Emeritus Professor, at the Université Paris VIII, who focuses on the aesthetics of the Baroque, Japan and computer art. 7 As with actors’ bodies in Nô, the traditional theatre of Japan, which are “[...] transitory media on which ephemeral encounters take place” (2001, p. 175) and Butoh’s preoccupation with the transition from within to without that provokes a “métaregard” (2001, p. 199). 8 According to Buci-Glucksmann, Mâ “[...] is both the interval, the void and spacing ‘between’ in the strongest sense of the word. It separates, connects, and installs breath, fluctuation and incompleteness, that engenders a relationship of time to infinity so typical in Japan [....] Mâ is the very form of time. Time that is uncontrolled and uncontrollable” (Buci-Glucksmann 2001, pp. 36-37).

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these concepts as constituting an unstable space, a space in which boundaries are broken down in our culture: in opposition to any form of thought in the West where form is fullness, purpose and what must be achieved [...] “On the contrary, especially in China and Japan”, she notes [...] the idea that the virtual was the actualization of a force and therefore that the virtual lay in the power of form and that it was necessary to put an end to a kind of blindness with respect to what is transitional, microscopic, the passage of the arts. (BuciGlucksmann 2003, p. 88)

Buci-Glucksmann goes on to say that the limited concept of the interface is a technological concept and that a broader concept of interface would be that of the virtual (2003). The idea of flux and of what is transitional is interesting and echoes our strategies to destabilize the three components of the somatic,10 leading us to rebuild and create what Hubert Godard calls “an ever fluctuating real” (Godard in Kuypers 2006, p. 60). The idea of a fluctuating real also reflects what Ascott proposes as the experience of change as, [...] a vital part of the total aesthetic experience of the participant. (Ascott 2003, p. 150)

As our creative process is based on tactile, kinaesthetic and experiential references, and as we work with the transformation of the body and the experiential as raw material, it seems possible to conclude that the results of those experimentations can have a significant impact on its aesthetic component. This last point resonates with what we support as an aesthetic model based on an approach of aesthesis, stemming from the Greek aisthêtikos, as [...] the ability to perceive or understand [...] and aisthêsis as “sensation”. (Darriulat 2006, p. 278)5

9

According to Buci-Glucksmann (2003, p. 89), the interval is the equivalent of Mâ, in the Japanese sense of the term. The interval is the latent potentiality already present within the virtual. The virtual is part of the real and the body. 10 The somatic applications are centred on being conscious of the body in movement. They consist in learning the synergetic interaction processes between consciousness, movement and environment. They are the study of experimental corporeality (ex. Alexander, Bartenieff, Body-Mind Centering, Feldenkrais, Pilates, etc.). 5 See also Buci-Glucksmann (2003).

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Building on sensation and perception in the field of the performing arts leads us to the same conclusions as Buci-Glucksmann on a philosophical and artistic level with respect to architecture: towards the conception and testing of a new aesthetic paradigm. As a complement to the theories of Buci-Glucksmann, we would like to offer another perspective, more radical, of Suely Rolnik, psychoanalyst, culture critic and close collaborator of Deleuze and Guattari. Analysing the issues mentioned above from the point of view of the relationship between the performer and spectator in the performing arts, and referring to both the bodies of the performers and those of the public, she suggests that it is no longer a question of surface, but rather of the dissolution of surface – what she calls the psycho-corporeal border – which creates another type of paradigm of communication, by installing an intersubjectivity through the development of psycho-corporeal links that are “vibratory” (2006). It is of note that while Rolnik speaks of the psycho-corporeal, due to the fact that psycho-corporeality is already integrated in our approach to the body, we will only use the word psycho-corporeal to speak of this idea when we make specific reference to Rolnik’s theories. The space between performers, and between performers and an audience, is thus not empty, but rather filled with this vibration of communication. Its fragile state is effective as a form of “recognition” between bodies and is conditioned by the dissolution of a psycho-corporeal barrier that, in our view, can be explained in part by the phenomenon of “mirror neurons” as proposed by the Italian neuroscientific team composed, amongst others, of Rizzolatti (2005), Gallese (N. D.; 2006; 2007), Jeffers (2009) and CalvoMerino (2005). While Rolnik neither speaks of the interface nor of the interval but rather of the dissolution of psycho-corporeal borders along with the phenomenon of cannibalism (refer to footnote 3), we propose the concept of the interval as a translation of Rolnik’s ideas about a space of psycho-corporeal communication through our staging intersubjectivity of a cannibalistic type as an ontological transformation. If Rolnik and Buci-Glucksmann neither speak of the same thing nor from the same point of view, their ideas are nevertheless complementary in support of our hypotheses. Their common ground lies in “space” of which they each speak differently, as an unstable space where borders break down. This quality of instability is required to maintain a relationship with a potentiality that is present in the body and that can be stimulated in different ways. On the idea of potentiality, Enrico Pitozzi, professor at the University of Bologna who studies issues concerning new contemporary performative stages, has developed the idea of a corporeal potentiality. He speaks of a

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corporeal potentiality in the performing arts that is latent, present, and manifest in different levels of intensity or, in his words, gradation (Pitozzi 2008). This potentiality is ready to be stimulated and constitutes, for Pitozzi, the interval in the sense that Buci-Glucksmann understands the term. Technologies employed in the performing arts that are perceived by the performing body as physicality – such as a vibration running through the body – oblige performers to constantly reorganize themselves on a sensory and perceptual level. For Pitozzi, this reorganization is of interest for the renewal and creation of gesture in the sense that Bernard (2001) understands it, in order to get out of choreographic neurosis.11 For us, beyond a question of renewing gesture, it is also a question of the appearance of new behaviours in the stage environment. Additionally, owing to this constant reorganization, the performer (including the spectator in the context of the destabilization to which we refer) develops new proprioceptive links that need to be appropriated, developed, and understood in order to be repeated and for the performer to be ready to constantly change reference points in a universe that evolves incessantly. This environment acts on the reactivity of the body and requires qualities of attention, integration, appropriation and transformation characteristic of the concept of cannibalism. On the question of this reorganization of the body, and even if Pitozzi approaches it from a different angle, Rolnik and Pitozzi essentially share the same opinion. Pitozzi speaks of technologies that directly engage the body of the performer, renewing perceptual organization and creating new gestural scores. Technology is here seen as exteroception (an environment) and registered by the body in a physiological way. Rolnik, for her part, speaks of technology that becomes the catalyst of a sensory renewal through installing a permanent destabilization made possible by electronic media due to the fact several universes have come closer together (Rolnik Figures nouvelles du chaos 2007b). What ensues is a constant re-organization of the senses amongst themselves – sensorial mappings – where we find ourselves in an exacerbated state of being, of life, of “presence”; a state of openness and sensory and perceptual awareness that Suely Rolnik calls a “state of fragility” – a state that results from these re-organizations – and which becomes the condition of the experiential. This state of fragility is essential in order to allow for what is “vibratory” (Rolnik “L’hybride de Lygia Clark” 2007c) or “resonant” as a form of communication in the interval as conceived by the Japanese. The interval, according to Japanese 11 Briefly and in a schematic way, this is when the dancer always does the same type of movements, as their proprioception is stable and set.

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Mâ, is a moving time-space, an empty space to be inhabited, a space of possibility. For the Japanese, all potentiality resides in emptiness, that of becoming. To summarize, for Suely Rolnik, potentiality resides in a state of fragility, that of reciprocal psycho-corporeal resonance which creates an intercommunication and the organization of a vibratory collective body. The result is a new and enlarged corporeal framework that is activated by the recuperation and reintegration of the body’s specific intelligence that results in the activation of a new cognitive paradigm: the inter-subjectivity of an active vibratory communication, a new paradigm of communication. Experimentation with these two paradigms has another consequence, the creation and experimentation of a new aesthetic paradigm. So, we were looking for an interface that could affect sensory-perceptual organization, or the internal organization of the body (proprioception). The relationship with technology redefines modes of perception, through the phenomenological approach we are developing with destabilization strategies. This in turn was to influence our ways of thinking, of experiencing the body, and thus of organizing a performance. This paper thus proposes a shift in the notion of interface in which technology is no longer considered as one of the two poles of communication involved, but rather a tool for the development of inter-subjectivity and a modification of corporeality. This hypothesis is possible in connection with another relationship between the body and technology: the development of the concept of the extended body and that of dilated time. From the construction of inter-subjectivity emerges a new paradigm of communication. This new paradigm is made possible through the activation of a corporeal potentiality (Pitozzi 2008; 2010), the virtual element inherent to the body. According to our hypothesis, this potentiality could be the interface. .

II A schematic description of Meat Paradoxe In the spring of 2008, Corps Indice, our performance arts company based in Montreal, Canada, devoted to examining the relationship between performance and technology, began experimenting with an integrated trans-disciplinary, syncretic and evolutive research methodology and creative process based both on a de-compartmentalization of artistic disciplines as well as on a strategy of sensorial and perceptual destabilization. Our goal was to work with an evolutive content that could extend to encompass role-sharing in the creative process, a dimension we felt was

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essential to creating a collective sound body. We also observed that a “symbiotic” sharing of the collective body leads to an extension of proprioceptive as well as exteroceptive faculties established in the relationship between the dancers and the performing composer. At the same time, this methodology contributes to enhancing an experiential corporeality. These new physical and mediated relational dynamics are only possible if dancers accept becoming involved at a supra-sensitive level (a concept related to Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica’s SupraSensorial) and at a hyper intimate level, both on physical and mediated levels. This form of presence emerged during a residency at CDC (Centre de Développement Chorégraphique) in Grenoble, in April 2008. The experimentation, discussed in this article, called Meat Paradoxe emerged from this residency. Meat Paradoxe is a hybrid creation which explores the relationship between the moving body and technology and, more specifically, between principles of somatics and technology. The performance presents a collective body of five partially nude dancers who are almost constantly in contact with one another as a kind of three-dimensional moving sculpture. This collective body is possible through a process that takes as its reference tactile, kinaesthetic and proprioceptive sensations as well as a creative dynamic rooted in the experiential, the evolutive and what is transversal. This body moves and takes form through tactics – what we call – “transitory” – that bear a relationship to Trisha Brown’s fluid body and, at the same time, radicalizing Steve Paxton’s “tactile body”. Sound in Meat Paradoxe is produced in real-time and is closely related to the different dynamics of the work’s movement. The soundscape has the particularity of being created from the collective dynamic, forming a collective sound body that becomes a sixth dancer with its particular dynamics, temporality, and relationship to space. The technological devices used to produce the choreography remain largely invisible. The first device is a wireless microphone system worn by the dancers, hidden under black turbans. The second device is the “Ring”, an original computer programme created by the work’s composer Dominique Besson along with Olivier Koechlin and Antoine Schmitt that is designed to spatialize sound. The scenography is organized around three concentric, circular spaces. The first circle, approximately 6 meters wide, constitutes the performance space in which the dancers move. Outside this circle lies a second circular space in which the audience is positioned around the performers. The outer circle is formed by eight speakers of the spatialized sound system

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and encloses the total space of the performance. Located between the speakers and the space of the dancers, the audience is in close contact with the performers and because of this proximity, may experience an impression of being in a trance or of being hypnotized by what is perceived as a complex form of flesh and sound: a chanting, speaking, moaning mass of flesh. The overall effect is the result of a conscious strategy of sensorial and perceptual destabilization. The proximity of the dancers’ naked bodies as a mass of moving flesh provokes a loss of bearings because the audience finds itself in the flesh. At the same time, spectators hear this mass of flesh. A second loss of bearings occurs as a result of immersion in a living sound form that is moving and produced in real-time by the five dancers, and proximity that strips the audience of its normal analytical references and distance. The spectator finds himself/herself in the form; he/she is confronted by what is extremely intimate and simultaneously by the sound emitted by this form that penetrates space and moves all around. Audiences are thus confronted with two forms of perception they are not normally accustomed to; ones that blur codes and bearings. The work is intended as a display of the presence and flesh of a human mass in its material and interconnected dimension. The desire to work with a collective body reflects a need to find a performative form that mirrors the interconnectivity and complexity of our contemporary world. The exploration of a new performative mode resembles that of the Post-Modernists whom, in their time and context, redefined the structures and codes of dance and performance. A poetic trip inside a hyper-feminine form characterized by a sculptural eroticism, Meat Paradox is a hymn to life, to femininity and to beauty. It is a reflection on sensoriality and perception, highlighting the orgiastic in its mythological sense as an experience of the body moving through different forms as a result of a loss of bearings. To understand this approach, it is necessary to bring attention to another important point of our artistic discourse that is related to Howard Gardner’s (1983) studies on multiple intelligences. The psychologist’s research at Harvard University showed that several types of intelligence exist and work complementarily. The particular context that interests us, is that of the new contemporary performance stage, and we will consider how kinaesthetic intelligence, amongst other forms of intelligence, when reintroduced and highlighted in the cognitive process, questions and redefines the very nature of cognition. According to our hypothesis, such reintegration concerns learning processes that will have impact on emerging and evolutive principles for the human being. In a second

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hypothesis, we propose that the same form of reintegration is needed to develop an integrative way of thinking that can in turn lead to the emergence of a new cognitive paradigm. Ascott promotes an idea that is of particular interest to us: that the act of changing becomes a vital part of the total aesthetic experience of the participant. (Ascott 2003 [1966-67], p. 150)

It was noted in the analysis of interfaces how this idea has direct resonance for the physical body in the context of stage performance and how it can lead to the creation of new aesthetic models that reflect the integrative dynamics of the living world. In our opinion, this new aesthetic paradigm is possible through our approach of destabilizing the body, investing in risk-taking multisensorial activity and enriching the creative process with a new paradigm of communication that has much in common with the theories of Suely Rolnik. Our research also reveals a change of perspective and new approach to what has generally been a focus on what is external to the detriment of what is internal. It implies a perspective that comes from the body and the experiential. We are more interested in the interoceptive, or changes produced within the body, rather than on exteroception, or external events caused by an environment, typical of most artistic productions involving technology. We began exploring this shift of perspective and it is indeed central to our research. From this angle, it will be shown how developing a specific relationship between the body and technology can create new paradigms through which technology activates a process that reconfigures sensory-perceptual activity and leads to a change in corporality that generates corporeality. This dynamic is based on the notion of a corporeal potentiality – the interval – and introduces the notion of emergence and the eventual organization of a new experiential form in the performing arts. When analysing the question of interfaces, we began to consider how this change of perspective lead to our hypothesis of the physiological interface, and how this alternative approach to the interface also leads us to propose an aesthetic model based on the approach of aisthêtikos as the capacity to perceive or understand and aisthêsis as sensation.

III An evolutive methodology as a tool for creation Our experimentation was also made possible by means of a tool we developed called the Observatory. It involves the elaboration of a critical and dynamic research process implying evolutive and adaptive analyses

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based on an interactive relationship between theory and practical work. From our point of view, this methodology can be used as a tool to enhance the creative experience. Here, the creative process is guided by critical feedback and this feedback also plays a role as a form of collaborative experience. Grounded in a trans-disciplinary and syncretic creative process, taking place in several locations around the world with teams of researchers from different universities and nationalities, this approach incorporates concepts culled from various cultures. It is an extremely rich process of exploration that is present at a structuring stage. Our intention is to observe the means by which the creative strategies we have put into play may be included and transmitted in accord with the logic of the evolutive research that we are presently conducting. To grasp this evolutive logic of research, it is necessary to develop an integrative approach, a different way of considering and thinking about the world. Our research has shown that in order to overcome the legacy of reductionist thinking, as mentioned in the summary, one must adopt a new logic of interconnection that is appropriate for the development of integrative thinking (Koestler 1972 [1968]; Ascott 2003 [1966-67]). This was our point of departure and the theoretical basis for this article. As a work-in-progress, our research is being conducted in a step-bystep process, with each stage of the creative process taking the form of a laboratory in which artistic expression is determined by experiencing a modification of corporeality.12 To stimulate integrative thinking, we propose a reflective methodology that involves free associations. With this logic, and within a context more directly linked to our experience in the performing arts, we defend the idea of a methodology designed to reintegrate the moving body into an understanding of the world and the interpenetration of multiple intelligences in order to generate a new cognitive paradigm.

IV Conclusions and Appendix Our work is rooted in risk-taking of an experiential nature on the part of performers and the public, and finds its meaning in the activation of 12 The present text notably concerns a third phase of creation, which took place during a residency at the Centre de Développement Chorégraphique, Grenoble, France, in the spring of 2008. Dominique Besson and her team were called in for creation only in Phase 3.

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potentialities we have experimented with and that have been referenced throughout this article from different points of view. This research leads us to discover an ontological alchemy of a cannibalistic nature, which constitutes the essence of what we defend: cannibalism that has as its fundamental principles components of absorption, integration, learning and transformation. This cannibalism is experienced both by the group of performers and the public. It also reshapes sensory and perceptual relations. But it also goes further: it redefines the very nature of the relationship between an audience and performers – with the notion of performers extending to include the various mediated manifestations of performance – which, in their communication, their “vibrational” intersubjectivity, become a collective physical and mediated body. Following these diverse observations and experiments, we are of the opinion that the phenomenology of transmission and reception, as well as their relationship, is transformed and drastically reshaped, leading us to note the emergence and possibility of new performative behaviours.

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Appendix a. Concerning the question of disciplines Without taking too much time to address this question, but rather to clarify the basis of our propositions, it seems important, at the outset, to state our position regarding the problem of instrumentalization that also led us to question existing interfaces and their relationship to the performing body. Several issues were identified in our field, the first of which concerns reductionist thought. The consequence of this type of thinking can be observed in the advent of two major problems we identify as increased materialism and alienation resulting from an uncritical use of technology and consideration of its promises. As a consequence of these trends, another problem can be observed: an instrumentalization of art and of the performing body through which technology and the body are seen as tools, and through which an aesthetic oriented toward objects has evolved into an aesthetic oriented toward behavioural processes (Ascott 2003 [196667]; Burnham 1973 [1968 1969]). In the case of the integration of technologies in the performing arts, we find that the performing body is often seen as an object. Unfortunately and erroneously, the focus of certain artistic practices has been to designate behaviours to objects and to approach the performing body in the same way, rather than questioning the nature of behaviour and the relationship between the moving body and technology.

b. Concerning dualistic thinking, performance and body An initial problem concerns the compartmentalization of artistic disciplines and reductionist thinking. Despite this, Burnham, in his book Beyond Modern Sculpture, seeks to understand the influence of science and technology on modern sculpture (1973 [1968 1969]) and other works dedicated to anthropology address the question of dance in aboriginal cultures more broadly (Highwater 1985 [1981]; Stoller 1997), recalling how transversal and integrative relationships form the basis of humanity. However, dichotomy and fragmentation developed and can be observed in dualistic thinking that opposes object/subject (Brett 2004), object/process, form/behaviour and body/mind. One consequence of this fragmentation that concerns us the most directly is the problem of the

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relationship of body to mind and its cleavage.13 What we desire to put forward here is that knowledge works as a whole. Life must be approached as a process of being, not as a thing, or as a material object or structure. In the performing arts, the moving body constitutes the starting point and theoretical node from which to analyse performative works. From this point of view, reductionism related to immobility is a problem that must be examined.14 Materialism is supported and maintained by science and technology and these fields dictate what we know about the world and determine the relationship we have to ourselves and to our environments. These paradigms are based on scientific rationalism and materialism and are supported, according to Burnham, by the fact that science rejects all that is non-materialistic and everything that is not visible. The problem of what is real (in French “le réel”) and what becomes truth, remains, and it will be seen, with respect to the interface, how other theorists such as BuciGlucksmann (2003) interrogate the question of the invisible in our society.

c. Concerning positioning in relation to disciplinary constrains From the outset, we have defended the need to develop another form of thinking, a method of integrative thinking, in order to avoid the traps of 13 According to Koestler (1972 [1968]), this theory dates back to Egyptian civilization and possibly before, and was clearly articulated and reiterated in Western culture by Descartes. For the Egyptians, human beings consisted of two distinct parts, the body and spirit. The body was seen as an extended physical object in the material world and no different in essence from all other objects in the world. The spirit consisted of the ego with its thoughts and emotions. This dualistic and materialistic view of the body as an extension in space was to influence an entire current of thought around the relationship of the body and technology, which will be discussed in the next few points. According to several authors from both, a Western scientific background (Smyrthies & Koestler 1972 [1968] and an Eastern one (Ho 1993), and from the field of somatics (Ginsburg 2006; Kuypers 2006), the reductionist tendency of the past hundred years is in conflict and contradiction with a naturalistic counter movement upholding principles of integration, interconnectedness and coherency of which the best example is the living organic form or patterns of behaviour. 14 Up until recently, the typical way of studying the living was to kill and immobilize living organisms or separate them into pieces. Nothing remained to study their organization, and notions such as coherence, that can be presented as a principle of self-organization, were difficult for biologists and neuroscientists to examine (Ho 1993; Ginsburg 2006). The problem of materialism and alienation underlies these methods and it can be seen that although the ritualistic aspect of creation is always present, materialism is gaining influence in our societies.

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reductionist and materialist thinking and disciplinary distinctions that constitute an inheritance from Descartes onwards. These transversal and integrative principles will now be examined in light of the term “dance and technology.” To be consistent with integrative thinking, it is necessary to free oneself from the disciplinary constraints that keep us under the grip of codes dictated by the major schools of dance. These codes reflect imported and imposed shackles from a different time and context. In our view, they block the development of artistic research. These codes should be re-examined with respect to current interests and contexts. It is symptomatic of reductionist thinking and disciplinary sectarianism to conclude that the dance and technology scene has been marginalized and excluded from the official dance scene. We therefore opt for a more radical position that approaches the development of this current in its cross-disciplinary and experimental nature, as should be the case, in our opinion, of the entire discipline. To do this, we refer to a definition of the term experimental by Roy Ascott who states, I use the word experimental to mean making an action the outcome of which is not foreseen. (Ascott 2003 [1966-67], p. 123)

d. Concerning the problem of exploitation and instrumentalization Instrumentalization is a problem tied to the development of materialism and the phenomenon of alienation. It is also a relatively new terminology. However, it is found in the field of dance Rousier and Sebillotte 2004), in music (Péijus 2008), in the context of the capture and animation of movement in computer-based animation (Calver Chapman and Patla 1980; Paradiso and Hu 1997) and, more recently, in the context of video games. The context that most directly concerns us is presented by Ascott (2003 [1966-67]) and Burnham (1973 [1968; 1969]). Both authors have raised the issue of the instrumentalization of art by which technology has been used as a tool to move from an old object-oriented aesthetic to a process-oriented behavioural aesthetic. According to their findings, this transition occurred in all spheres of art and has had a major influence. Unfortunately, and as we have mentioned, the focus of some artistic practice has been to designate behaviours to objects rather than to question the nature of behaviour. It is rather fascination with the power of technology that is thus staged. On the physical level, there are also consequences. According to our observations, the transition to an aesthetic of behaviour has traversed current “dance and technology” in the performing arts (e.g., Troika Ranch,

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Jean-Marc Matos, Palindrome) and has produced a complementary problem to that of the instrumentalization of art, of which we were amongst the first to identify (Choinière 1993) due to our experimentation and work as dancers. In the context of the performing arts, and under the influence of materialism and the theory of extension previously mentioned (we mentioned it as it is related to the notion of “the double”), the performative body is considered as an object, a screen (Paul St. Jean of L’Écran Humain, Klaus Obermaier, Alwin Nikolais) or approached as a part of a machine (as in the work of the Australian artist Stelarc). The body of the performer becomes a tool in the service of technology and is used as a trigger to activate media (sound, lighting, robotic movement, video, etc.). This double instrumentalization is interconnected and, in our view, stems from a confusion and misunderstanding of the nature of technology and the relationships inherent to the combination of the body in movement and technology that we will try to briefly analyse in the following section.

e. Concerning the problem of the relationship of body and technology The relationship of the body and technology (Leroi-Gourhan 1971 [1943]; 1973 [1945]; Simondon 2001 [1958, 1969, 1989]) lies at the heart of one of three problems that we have identified through our research over a period of sixteen years of practice in the sector “dance and technology”. This issue is based on an incorrect understanding of the nature of technology, its role in our world and the relationships that man can entertain with it. In his essay “The Question Concerning Technology”, Martin Heidegger (1958 [1954]) draws attention to the essence of technique based on the thought of the Greeks. In 1954, he issued a critique of modern technology. In his essay, Heidegger asserts that the essence of technology is by no means anything technological. (Heidegger 1958 [1954], p. 1)

His main concern is with human existence and the relationship technology has to it. To understand the stakes of such a relationship, Heidegger suggests that, the questioning about technology must be put in terms of not what it is but of how technology refers to the ontological way things “reveal” (Heidegger 1958 [1954], p. 5) themselves. For his part, Pre-Historian André Leroi-Gourhan provides an understanding of the evolution of technology in close relation to the evolution of the body and thus of gesture. He proceeds in the tradition of

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Heidegger, but from the perspective of the body and not of the object (as in painting, sculpture, etc.). His theory can be distinguished as integrating the body in an understanding of technology. Here, it is important to note that for Leroi-Gourhan, technology is directly related to tools: [I]n terms of technology and by extension, ethnology, my position remains categorical: there is no break other than perhaps verbal below and beyond the mysterious border of civilization. Technology, a precise word of modern industrial vocabulary, is progressively extending to encompass both the television set and the ancient flint. (Leroi-Gourhan 1973 [1945], pp. 315316)

The author presents the phenomena of technological and human evolution as a combinatory absolute: that of the interdependence of the body’s evolution to meet with needs of adapting to its environment, and the evolution of the environment to meet the needs of the body. According to Leroi-Gourhan, the human group assimilates its environment through a curtain of objects (instruments, tools). (Leroi-Gourhan 1973 [1945], 332)

He calls the study of this superficial envelope, technology. LeroiGourhan associates technical developments with gesture. He thus studies technology through the gestures associated with it. He does not present technique as a single element, but rather with a concept of continuity that he designates as a “'technical ensemble”': for example, the wheel leads to the chariot, etc. With this logic of continuity, he also notes: a tool becomes a machine according to a certain level of mechanical complication. The machine appears as a device that incorporates not only the common tool but, more importantly, one or more actions. (LeroiGourhan 1973 [1945], 112-113)

Leroi-Gourhan builds his argument from the point of view of the body and experience. It is a vision that comes from consciousness of the body, from within, and not from an external perspective, as an observer. It is from the specific positioning that Leroi-Gourhan adopts, that we build the hypothesis of a sound body that is, in fact, a vibrating body: one that is modified phenomenologically, sensorioperceptually and not as a double. The idea of the double is rather based on theories coming from the Egyptians, and later taken up by Descartes and Simondon ([1958, 1969] 1989). Simondon speaks from an external point of view and understands technology, in part, as an extension of the body, rather than considering

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the relationship body-technology from an internal, integrative and interdependent perspective as Leroi-Gourhan proposes. Leroi-Gourhan thus bases his understanding of the evolution of technology on the experience of the body: a physicality that he experiences as he uses tools. For him, to be understood, a technology firstly must be experienced. His research methodology is based on an experimental study of technology, a methodology that we have intuitively experienced and we share the same interest in. He integrates the development and evolution of the body as it is related to the evolution of technology, presented here as the environment of human beings. This position allows us to support our hypotheses, our research methodology and the strategies that underpin them.

f. Strategies: sensorial and perceptual destabilization as a learning process f1. The Interval as connective strategy Why is the question of the “interval” so important for our times? How does the idea of the interval insert and develop itself in post-modern (early 60’s to late 70’s) and actual/new dance (early 80’s to nowadays) (Banes 2002)? What different concepts of the body, of states of “presence” ensue from it? The fundamental path that dance traces in regard to the notion of interval lies within a profound syncretistic process. For us, it is the product of a “cannibalistic” dimension in the positive and integrative meaning seen by Brazilian artists. The notion of the interval is also strongly inspired by the Japanese notion of Mâ. The Japanese word Mâ signifies space-time, and particularly, the interval of time or space between one attitude and the next, an artistic transport of space-time (Gunji 1985). The technological times in which we live have made a break with the distance that the Renaissance period, vision-centred, has maintained between us and our surroundings (de Kerckhove 2011). We exist in multisensorial universes where our consciousness of the whole is instantaneous (Weissberg 1988). Technology becomes the catalyst for a sensorial renewal by installing a permanent destabilization made possible by electronic media due to the fact that several universes have become closer together (Rolnik Figures nouvelles du chaos 2007b). What ensues is a constant reorganization of our senses amongst themselves – our sensorial mappings – where we find ourselves in an exacerbated state of being, of life, of “presence”; a state of openness and sensorial and perceptual

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awareness which Suely Rolnik names a “state of fragility” – a state which results from these reorganizations – and which becomes a condition for the experiential. This state of fragility is essential in order to allow for what is “vibratory” (Rolnik 2007c)6 or “resonant” – as a form of communication occupying the interval as conceived by the Japanese. It is also a premise for the “recognition” between bodies, which itself depends upon a dissolution of psycho-corporeal barriers. The recognition between bodies can, in part be explained by the mirror neuron phenomena researched by Italian neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti (2005). The interval, according to Japanese Mâ, is a moving time-space, an empty space to be inhabited, a space of possibility. For the Japanese, all potentiality resides in emptiness, that of a becoming. For Suely Rolnik, potentiality resides in the state of fragility, of reciprocal psycho-corporeal resonance that creates an intercommunication, the organization of a vibratory collective body. The result will be a new and enlarged corporeal frame. The origin and principles underpinning the “Collective Body” originates from Brazil; a concept that was developed, to my knowledge, by the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920-1988). According to Guy Brett, a critic who has followed her work, the concept can be related to the notion of cultural “Canibalismo” (cannibalism) that for Clark is like entering each other’s bodies […]. This process is “in the cradle” so to speak of an experimental dissolution of the psycho-corporeal boundaries between people. (Brett 2004)

Brett (2004) also states that Clark, with her work, was able to dilute the notion of surface, resolve the subject/object dichotomy and propose the experience of communication in models of dialogue. Her work provides a point of clarity in the midst of this confusion and becomes ever more pertinent. Working as a visual artist and then in the field of art therapy in the last phases of her life, Clark developed a particular method with, amongst other things, what she called “relational objects”, such as pieces of clothing people could wear which would put them in contact with one another. This state of psycho-corporeal acknowledgement is activated by constructing a kind of inter-subjectivity, made possible by a common state of risk. Being a learning process that is constantly evolving, it exists, and develops, through an extremely close contact between dancers, but also

6

The hybrid in Lygia Clark.

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between performers and the audience at a distance. This transformative relationship is characterized by the fact that it is integrative and evolutive. f2. Different strategies of the body in movement: Brown, Paxton, Clark and Yano Artistic revolutions in dance, notably American post-modernism and Japanese Butoh, rebelled against the Institution. These revolutions questioned what was essential to all choreographic referents, especially the time-space relation as well as phenomena such as “ presence”, “conscience” and “reality”. With this questioning, several new body aesthetics emerged: [T]he rebel body (Duncan), the barbaric body (Nijinski), the mystic body (St-Denis), the dynamic body (Humphrey), the chthonian body (Wigman), the pulsional body (Graham), the articulated body (Cunningham), the tactile body (Paxton), the fluid body (Brown) […]. (Boisclair 2007)

The tendency to use a dominant quality of the body as an instrument of representation is frequent in art. According to Christine Palmiéri, [it] becomes an intersubjective space for moving identity exchanges, transforming itself through the layers of a collective fable. (Palmiéri in Boisclair 2007)

In light of this research regarding the interval, the “fluid” and “tactile” bodies are the ones that particularly interested us as well as two other types of body aesthetics: the introspective body (Butoh), notably in the later work of dancer Hideyuki Yano (1943-1988) and the collective body experienced by Lygia Clark. According to cultural critic Louise Boisclair (2007), our personal research seems to develop another kind of dance aesthetic: a “trans(e)dance” in her words comprised of the contraction trance, trans (recalling the transdisciplinarity of our research and corporeal work), dance, and (e) for energy, electronic, elasticity and electricity. Rooted in a syncretic course which blends different cultural elements, our artistic research is based on a strategy of sensory experience and perceptual renewal; in other words, how will twentieth and twenty-first century technology be able to open the path to a new perceptual synaesthesia formed by proprioception of the physical body and the exteroception of the mediated body? Our research also investigates the manner in which the infiltration of technological thought in contemporary dance (we are referring to the period called, in French, Actual Dance) can find applications in developing new performative/choreographic models.

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The “embryonic body” we are developing is of a resonant collective genre, using somatic practices and strategies as a way of renewing proprioception and exteroception. It considers the existing potentiality of the collective body and integrates some of the strategies used by Paxton’s tactile body, Brown’s fluid body and Butoh’s introspective body. According to Louise Boisclair one must understand this [l]arval body [original word in French] in terms of an “embryonic body”. This qualification does not refer to individual dancing bodies that are more energetic and malleable; rather, it defines an enlarged sound body, in a newborn state, inchoative, unfinished, always looking to develop and balance itself. This embryonic body, created from an enlarged sound body, represents a state of fluid gestation in perpetual movement. (Boisclair 2007)15

For Boisclair, [t]he spectator internalises the work, experiencing a full loss of bearings, in a mental and corporeal space enlarged by this capture […] Technologies, used in such a way, facilitate […] the apparition of a physical as well as digital creature, visual and aural collective body composed of individual bodies connected as an extended sound body, as if the whole was becoming the reflection of invisible exchanges between human beings inside the intimacy of physical, energetic, and kinetic bodies on the one hand, and digital and sonic on the other hand. (Boisclair 2007)

It is interesting to note how Trisha Brown constructed her fluid body. In fact, she worked on the beginning and the end of each movement. Influenced by machines in the industrial period, her work reflects the notion of series and withdraws transitions existing between movements. [T]he temporal logic is disturbed: the beginning of a movement of a body part takes over from a former unfinished one […] This game about the unfinished, the relieving and deviation creates a surprise effect which constantly restarts the movement […] The choreograph creates a movement that she herself qualifies as multidirectional. (Fontaine 2004)

For Geisha Fontaine (2004), Brown’s movement “installs another configuration”. For Guy Scarpetta (1992), her movement is incorrigibly 15

The cultural critic Louise Boisclair takes part in the international research group L’Observatoire’. Her reflections and conclusions derive from the integrative and transdisciplinary methodology that the group is exploring, based on the evolutive intersection of practice and theory.

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“transitory”. Steve Paxton, inventor of contact dance improvisation and of the tactile body, uses tactile, kinaesthetic and proprioceptive sensations as bearings rather than the repeated and memorized movement, or points in space that are fixed. (Boucher 2005)

The counter-culture of the sixties brought dancers such as Paxton and Brown towards other types of training. Alexander, Bartenieff, Body-mind Centering, Feldenkrais, Trager somatic practices as well as martial arts reveal a new consciousness of posture, movement and body moving in relation with gravity and space. (Boucher 2005)

Whenever applied, these techniques develop movement fluidity, body consciousness and stress elimination. Integrated, these techniques also question the interval. Hideyuki Yano’s work in the introspective body of Butoh in particular develops a relationship with the notion of interval. For Yano, past, present and future being one, time flows in every direction […] Distance can also be considered as an interval: the interval is thus simultaneously spatial and temporal: one can move it, project it into the past or the future. (Yano 1983)

For Yano, memory isn’t a necessity anymore since the past is there. This working method creates new circuits between corporeal and psychic memory, between experience and conscience. For Yano, when choreography surpasses the geometric and chronometric operation, it reaches the poetic soldered joint of time and space. It is like Japanese calligraphy which displays, by the blackness of the ink, the paper itself on which it must, in the single sweep of the brush, reveal a thousand other possible sweeps. (Yano 1983)

This way of weaving the creative gesture has a lot in common with the different levels of revelation that technology, as referred to in the present context, can display.

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f3. The orgiastic or collective body as strategy: an experience of the body towards different forms of loss of bearings As previously mentioned, our sensorial and perceptual experience is renewed in somatic practices based on new technologies that create exteroception. Somatic practices are centred on being conscious of the body in motion, on learning about the process of synergetic interactions between consciousness, movement and the environment. They constitute an experiential study of corporality. In our research, the collective body represents an orgiastic figure, essential for the dissolution of psycho-corporeal barriers, thus the notion of loss of bearings, loss of control, that we are developing through this reference to the orgiastic. From our point of view, it is a risky experiment. The orgiastic also speaks of the de-compartmentalization of the body and of the senses and, accordingly, of another way of organizing the body and the senses and, further, of its structure and design. Therefore the sexual physical body, its place and role, will also be deconstructed. Here, the word orgiastic is meant in a non-sexual or a-sexual sense. The collective body is a self-organizing state: the body re-organizes itself through sensation. What makes this direction interesting is the fact that it leads to altered states. Altered states constitute a loss of bearings. The collective body is a means of reaching this state. According to Laban (2007) in La Maîtrise du mouvement, and Michel Bernard (2001) in De La création chorégraphique, dance is an organization of movement through dance itself; these authors speak of the intelligence of the body. Dance is thus subjective, based on a sensoriperceptual re-organization of the body. This definition of dance and of dance-ality has re-channelled our interest in pure sensation and senses, and has also organized an experience that revisits the hierarchy of the body. Dance-ality is a state of sensibility: a capacity to organize movement in an affective and reflective way through movement itself. Our work speaks of taking distance from codes; it aims at de-structuring corporeal codes. It is a reasoned disturbing of the senses, of eroticism vector-izing the body. According to Lacan, the body is covered by language7. The body is “normalized” by codes written into the body. The orgiastic goes further than these codes, because it breaks hierarchy. It is a non-linguistic state, a different organization of the senses. 7

See Pluth (2007) about this issue: “As Bruce Fink puts it, the body, according to Lacan’s conception of it is always ‘overwritten’ and ‘overriden’ by language […] a body that has already gone through language.”

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g. The need for creating new tools Our intention was to develop a discourse on corporality, not on its impoverishment. The chosen technologies were conceived and developed so as to allow for a truly mutant and mixed form of writing, thus giving us access to all the necessary sound and kinaesthetic registers in order to create music and movement in a situation of total interdependence. It was only during our third creation of La Démence des anges, after Communion and La Démence des anges (first and second creations),16 that real tools enabling us to enhance corporality, through the development of a sound body, amongst other things, were developed. Usually and often dancers are subdued by a dominating, instrumental and restrictive use of technology that places performers in a subordinate situation in relation to technology. Through the various stages of the workin-progress, we have been motivated by the strong desire to go beyond this straight jacket that constrains the relationship between dance and technology. The same strong desire was directed to enhance the body experience. The use of somatic techniques has been the starting point of the method we are creating. We are consequently working on modifying corporality.

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Regarding the art works Communion (see photos 1 and 2) and La Démence des anges (2nd creation, photos 4, 5 and 6): In the performance Communion, we developed the idea of a ritualized change from the real body to a “synthetic body”. This change is expressed through the ritualization process of the real skin towards an electronic one (electronic scarification). Thus, Communion can be seen as a kind of prayer, mantra, or invocation. It speaks of the fusion of real and electronic fleshes. Interactive devices (sound in real-time, controls of lighting) were placed on the body of the performer, creating significant constraints for gesture by reducing the possibilities for movement. In our second creation, La Démence des Anges, we wanted to explore the concepts of alteration or mutation of the body when it is projected inside digital networks. The performance involves a telematic duo that incorporates two spaces that may be thousands of kilometres away. Devices allowing interactivity (sound in real-time but in a more complex dimension than in Communion) were placed on the arm of the performer creating constraints that were less imposing than in the first creation. However, the lighting design and video were extremely restrictive and confined the performers to very reduced spaces or even to stay on the spot at times. In the third creation in progress, performers are almost naked. They wear a sound wireless transmission system, hidden under the turbans, and a microphone. Analogue sound or signals are routed to an octophonic system of speakers placed outside the stage space. This staging gives them almost total freedom of movement in a 6-meter diameter stage space.

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When phase 2 of the project began at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and at the Center of Arts at Enghien-les-Bains, France, we began developing the concept of synaesthesia with sound and movement. The goal was to discover the relationships that would need to be built between a collective body of performers and the creation of realtime sound that would effectively enable us to go beyond this causality. The function of this process was to reflect upon a choreographic structure and artistic dynamics that could revolve around the complexity and the interconnectedness inherent to the world in which we live.

h. Definition and principle of the construction of the Sonorous Body When speaking of a sound body, we first refer to a dimension of the body that is engendered in real-time by dancers in such a way that it perfectly fits inside an enlarged choreographic concept (reference to oriental philosophies by which we were inspired17) that we are currently developing through our most recent projects. To put this idea into play, dancers had to be aware not only of themselves-in-movement, but also of the production of sound in real-time and of the close relationship that these two entities – sound and movement – interweave between each other. In so doing dancers develop an enlarged self-consciousness of their performance. The sound body we are developing is an emanation, a dilation of the physical body and also a vibration constituting a sensorial reference that dancers use to “compose” a score. The sound body is not duplication, but is in fact a new manifestation of the physical body emanating from a proprioceptive learning process brought about by the influence of technology as an element of exteroceptive destabilization. This 17 We refer here to the notion of interconnectivity and global awareness drawn from Taoist theories that inspired our first readings (Capra 1985) and that was later complemented with various other readings on Eastern cultures (Buci-Glucksmann 2001, 2003, Ho 1993, Gunji 1985). The perception of the world inscribed by my art process is inspired by the Eastern thought that presents the internal and external world as two aspects of the same fabric – and that challenges the very notion of surface, of the boundaries of the body – in which the sum of all energy and all phenomena, of all forms of consciousness and their objects, are woven into a continuous weft of endless and mutually conditioned relations. This stance calls into question current paradigms regarding the notion of limit, time and reality. The body experience enriched by various forms of training from different cultures leads to an interiority experience that in turn leads to expanded states of consciousness.

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“transformation” of the body nature itself needs time for learning and assimilation. It can only result from a real integration of the modification process that can also lead to a transformation of oneself. One of the most essential contributions of working with the collective sound body is that it triggers changes in the dancers’ perception and sensoriality. This forces dancers to abandon some previously explored composition modalities, enabling them to go deeper into a kind of movement construction that is in a state of constant transformation. Within this perspective, sensoriality reorganizes itself and interiority is mediated, for it is this interiority that has changed, evolves and is in constant transformation through the destabilization created by a technological exterior agency. This modification of interiority that becomes mediated opens the way to the renewal of two things: perception of movement and movement itself through space. This is what enables us to go beyond the sclerosis that characterizes much choreography (Bernard 2001) and constitutes, from our point of view, one of the most important aspects of research on technologies, among other things allowing us to renew perceptual organization in order to create new movement scores. Technologies should renew the experience of corporality. So, by working on the sound dimension of the body, we act upon a process of sensorial renewal that must be done by working on movement. This sensorial renewal will only be achieved through constant practice with the real body during a period of time. h.1 A form of loss of bearings: relative space, a part of the Collective Sound Body Through choreography, we are looking to build a relationship with space, but this relationship, rather than being formal, is relative because it is closely related to the experience of the body, in a similar manner to the way “left” and “right” are references to the moving body. Since 2008, we have also developed a kind of relative relationship to the movement of sound, to its spatialization. In the third stage (2008) of the work-inprogress, spatialized sound acts as a sixth dancer. It is a part of the discourse with space and is also an actor in the development of the idea of collective body as a collective sound body. We are working on a kind of abstraction of the Cartesian dimension of space. We tend toward a corporeal notion of space, a relative relationship with it: relative to the dancers but also to the organization of movement within the dancers’ space, their working together in unison, thus of a Collective Body.

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In Meat Paradoxe, phase 2 (2006), the dancers redefine their reciprocal relationship with and in space at every moment by creating a second performative structure and another kind of organization of performative space figures, as well as the soundscape (not yet spatialized in phase 2, however) of the performance in real-time. This approach to organizing relationships in space is similar to, even if not originating from, the dynamics of a swarm. Thus, the rhythm and positioning of the dancers in space is determined according to their relationships, and the latter is in perpetual change inside a tridimensional structure of movement and interrelationship. During phase three, realized with the participation of Dominique Besson, we made this relation more complex by working on choreographic figures of space closely related to figures of the sound space. We integrated the spatialized sound body in this relative relationship. h.2 Slowness as an appropriation of proprioceptive change We were interested in exploring a new kind of temporality, mainly concerning movement; a kind of slowness up to the point of immobility if necessary that would give the impression that time stops, or is suspended. This process has always been present in our works, inside a larger strategy of de-compartmentalization and of the self-organization of sensorial and perceptual bearings. It presents another strategy for organizing the body structure in order to include it inside a flux of more precise and composite movements made of contact, division, but in which individual bodies lose their priority within the development of the performance. We wanted to focus on installing another type of temporality: a collective one, that is not related to one body alone, and thus to the articulation of lone movements, but rather to the construction and relationship of movements and temporalities that are completely different from one another, and which may either work in unison or be diversified, by meeting and splitting. This form of temporality is related to a mode of self-organization based on Trisha Brown’s strategy of the transitory movement and a radicalization of Paxton’s process based on techniques of “tactile bodies”. However, for our work, we intend pushing Paxton’s techniques to a point of hypnotic obsession of contact amongst the dancers bringing together different temporalities inside the same movement process and resonating together. In this way, we intend drawing trajectories inside matter. This process could possibly be acquired during, and because of, a certain experience with technology. This way of working could even be described as

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allowing for a renewal of trajectories of the matter of the body, sound and space. The level to which we are referring involves understanding and listening to every passage and sensorial transformation that technologies allow one to develop and this, at different stages of intervention. Once again, it can be summed up as a work of sensory organization, thus of proprioception. Afterwards, this modality of “listening” to and learning from movement from within the body must be exteriorized and transmitted to the audience. h.3 Rizzolatti, another strategy of learning and acknowledgement: empathy The research of Giacomo Rizzolatti on mirror neuron systems is of interest here, because it presents an explanation for the “intelligence of the body” and the non-linguistic state we are referring to. It is this non-linguistic state that is involved in the transmission of knowledge from one dancer’s body to the other. It is also a neuroscientific theory that corresponds to Suely Rolnik’s theory from a psychoanalytical point of view; it would explain for example, or at least in part, a space of “vibratory” recognition and influence that can lead to states of learning and transformation. Suely Rolnik speaks of a “vibratory” experience that can facilitate learning and transformation, even at a distance. Rizzolatti speaks of a physiological independence in the learning process: >T@he present findings strongly suggest that coding the intention associated with the actions of others is based on the activation of a neuronal chain formed by mirror neurons coding the observed motor act and by “logically related” mirror neurons coding the motor acts that are most likely to follow the observed one, in a given context. To ascribe an intention is to infer a forthcoming new goal, and this is an operation that the motor system does automatically. (Rizzolatti 2005)

From our point of view, these studies provide answers to the psychophysiological learning techniques that are used in dance, and which we are exploring in a more intensive fashion through the concept of a vibratory collective body and its development as a collective sound body. It speaks of a phenomenon of transformation and “contamination” that we have been able to observe. To illustrate this point, we could say that this state propagates itself like a wave. The mass of dancers acts as an entity which activates this phenomenon that spreads like a wave, contaminating all others present, meaning the audience, teaching them another corporality and leading them into a symbiotic experience with the dancers. This is

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what constitutes the strength of a new form of subjectivity. A complementary relationship is thus set up between the works of Rizzolatti and Rolnik, between two phenomena of mutual recognition and contamination that act as much at the level of corporality as with its complementary aspect, psycho-corporeality. To bring up, in a better way, this idea of psycho-corporeal modification, we would like to present the origin and principle of the concept of Cannibalism/Anthropophagy that we have integrated in our work. In December 2006, we had the good fortune to interview Suely Rolnik, cultural critic, curator, psychoanalyst and professor at the Universidade Católica de São Paulo where she conducts a transdisciplinary doctoral programme on contemporary subjectivity. A specialist on the work of Lygia Clark and of the collective body, Suely Rolnik explains the origin of the notion of cannibalism: >T@he inspiration for the idea of anthropophagy came from a custom of the Tupi Indians: it consisted in eating their enemies – but not just any enemy, only brave warriors. A certain relationship with alterity thus ritualized itself: a choosing of their others in terms of the vital power that their proximity would intensify; allowing themselves to be affected by those desired others to the point of absorbing them into their own bodies, so that particles of their virtue would integrate into the chemistry of the anthropophagous’ souls and promote their refinement [anthropophagic subjectivity]. (Rolnik 2007a)

In the thirties, the concept migrated toward cultural spheres and was more commonly called cannibalism. However, it keeps its essence, i.e. the principle of ingestion, of integration, and finally of appropriation and transformation that is a part of it. So we were able to observe that the process involved in working with the collective sound body implied what Rizzolatti calls a doubling of the emphatic dimension (Rizzolatti 2005), or a process of learning-at-adistance another corporality involving both the performers and the audience. In other words, it can be said that an emphatic relationship is established. In this relationship, we find ourselves facing a kind of movement “cannibalism” acted by the latter (Anthropophagic Subjectivity, Rolnik 2007a). The spectator watches the performance and his perceptive state appeals directly to his corporality, becoming entwined in an exacerbated and contaminating intersubjectivity. The spectator is directly immersed in the movement he is watching via the spatialized sound body. This transformative phenomenon acts directly on a redefinition of his

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perceptual organization. This form of perception constitutes a phenomenon of transformation that directly acts upon the spectator’s method of perceptual organization. This learning process is performative, integrative and evolutive. It exists through the activation of the dissolution of psychocorporeal frontiers (Rolnik, 2007c) that are characteristic of the collective body. h4 A second loss of bearings: proximity as a strategy of deconstruction of the body’s hierarchy The collective body or mass of bodies of which we have been speaking, and on which we are currently working, comprises a way of reforming the body’s shape. The special proximity between spectators and performers helps to decompose the body’s shape in the flow of collective movement. We are thus looking for different modes of reception with this “sensorial material”. During the last performance spectators were positioned extremely close to the dancers’ bodies. We were aiming at an immersive and emphatic effect, and feel that it was achieved for most of the audience. To conclude, the next section illustrates a modification of performative behaviour, that of the composer onstage, who acts on the modification and spatialization of sound in real-time. This behaviour is also possible through the development of the concept of hyper intimacy that we were able to experiment with and of which we have already made mention.

i. A strategy of connective and integrative learning To illustrate the hypotheses made in the last section, during the last phase of development in spring 2008, we experimented with a creative process that is even more de-compartmentalized. Our goal was to create “evolutive” content that could lead to experiment with role sharing while creating the collective sound body. Through enlarging the concept of the sound body, composer Dominique Besson found herself playing a complementary role of user-generator. Two systems were used: the Ring, which is an original computer programme designed to spatialize and transform sound in real-time, and a wireless sound system worn by the dancers. We were able to observe that the “symbiotic” sharing of the collective body leads to an extension of proprioceptive as well as exteroceptive relationships, while at the same time participating in an enhancement of experiential corporality. This result was only possible because of the

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nature of the composer’s artistic involvement in the work. Her experience as a musician, through her breath and the complexity of her pianist’s touch, lead her to get involved at supra-sensitive levels (a concept similar to Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica’s concept of the Supra-Sensorial) and with the hyper intimate (a notion that we will explain later), on a physical as well as on a mediatized level. Osthoff explains the notion of the suprasensorial in these words: >B@razilian artist Helio Oiticica speaks of this phenomenon in his practice and explains how samba practice has helped him to develop his ideas on the Supra-Sensorial: The Supra-Sensorial, promotes the expansion of the individual’s normal sensory capacities in order to discover his/her internal creative center. The Supra-Sensorial could be represented by hallucinogenic states (induced with or without the use of drugs), religious trance and other alternate states of consciousness such as ecstasy and delirium facilitated by samba dance. For Oiticica, the Supra-Sensorial created a complete deaesthetization of art underscoring transformative processes […] For Oiticica, samba was a conduit for the flow of energy and desire. Samba was a relay, a connector […] he was incorporating in this process the kinetic knowledge of the body. (Osthoff 2004)

The de-compartmentalization of roles: discovering new physical and mediated relationships We have been experimenting with new physical and mediated dynamics, precisely in order to bypass an instrumentalized relationship that can hinder, in our opinion, the development of a rich physical experience for the dancers/performers. The event of these new physical and mediated relational dynamics modifies the psycho-corporeal state of both the composer and dancers. A mutual influence exists in this process. The symbiotic creative process also becomes a modality for de-compartmentalizing the body. What happens between the dancers and technology is not simply an external relationship; it must blend with the performative work process, and in the context that is being described, this process is collective. Dominique Besson is a composer who works with spatializing sound. She has developed a tool called the Ring, a real-time application and graphic device for spatial composition. It enables the composer to manipulate and place sound objects detected from different sources in the stage space or from pre-recorded sources. Used for our new development, the Ring allows for

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the direction of an open system for real-time spatialization and functions of gradual memorization of signals and trajectories. Being thus interfaced as real-time data within the Ring, the five sound sources generated by the dancers can be driven through space and time […] Today it is possible to observe sound matter, to project it through physical space, to manipulate its components; in a word, to organize it. This new drivability reinjects movement in compositional practice and makes it possible to observe the birth of new forms that are intelligible but not always foreseeable. (Besson 2009)

By asking dancers to work with their breathing and take into account new relational parameters obtained through kinaesthesia and proprioception linked to the dynamics of the collective body as a whole, a change of bearings [is introduced] by making something very intimate solid through sound: the inner perception of movement. (Besson 2009)

The process of symbiotic creation is also a means to de-compartmentalize the body. What happens between the performer and technology does not constitute an external relationship; it must rather blend itself into the process of performative work. In order to achieve musical results of a symbiotic magnitude, Dominique Besson reintroduces movement into the compositional practice through, types of sound objects that, once animated with a life of their own in their spatio-temporal reiteration, form the sound space. In other words, organizing a time that opens and reveals the body. By letting the collective body go at its own pace towards creating the sound object, we open a form. Regarding the sound object, their exchange enables one to observe the birth of new forms that are constantly renewed, but circumstantialised […] Thus, we obtain a polymorphic and changing sound object characterized by certain elasticity and which regulates itself like a body. Its projection inside physical space, its bursting forth from the circle of eight speakers acts in return on the proprioception of the dancers, involving an awareness of what is being created collectively. (Besson 2009)

In our opinion, this approach enhances the experience of corporeality in choreography rather than being caught in a process of cause and effect. The composer expresses this idea in a touching way with the following words on l’hyper-intime: >I@n this fashion, we obtain a kind of moving form, animated, living, selforganizing in an organic way: a sound body […] In such a situation, we

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Chapter Four must learn how to read movement by going beyond the limits of perception of simultaneous phenomena, finding bearings inside the space of the choreographic figure so we can reinterpret it by molding it within the acoustic space by projecting, enlarging it […] The collective body is very sensitive and reactive to its sound body, as if it could inhabit it, extend itself in it, discovering its length, its infinity. There is something here akin to flux, to sap rising, spreading or colliding […] It is necessary to be able to decompose every choreographic figure […] to live them from the inside, in order to identify them in a “muscular” way as objects of the research so as to optimize spatial movement during performance. In this context, the composer becomes an interpreter of the collective body. The relationship that develops amongst the dancers is intimate, almost affective […] The particularity of this form of musical writing is that its time is shared, dictated by the body and that things are never reproduced identically […] once more, this experience feeds our imagination by opening new horizons for us. (Besson 2009)

It takes time for changes in proprioceptive modes to occur and it also takes time to understand and assimilate the exteroceptive effect of technology on perceptual and sensorial modalities, and, in our case, to understand the transformation that is taking place. It is also important to review the different modes of production and kind of research necessary if one really aims to address the questions of meaning, aesthetics and corporality in these times of change that may be unsettling, but which are often rich in inspiration and revelations.

V Bibliography General bibliography Ascott, R 2003 [1966-67] ‘Behaviourist art and the cybernetic vision’, in Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, pp.109-156. Banes, S 2002, Terpsichore en baskets; post-modern dance, Edition Chiron, Paris. Bernard, M 2001, De la création chorégraphique, Edition Centre National de la Danse, Collection Recherches, Pantin. Berthoz, A 1997, Le sens du mouvement, Editions Odile Jacob, Paris.

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Besson, D 2009, ‘Le corps sonore, entre écriture chorégraphique et écriture musicale’, Conference Journée d’informatique Musicale – JIM’09. 1-3 avril, accessed 2014/03/02, http://acroe.imag.fr/jim09/index.php/descrip/conf/schedConf/actes Boisclair, L 2007, ‘Isabelle Choinière de Corps Indice; Autour des Demoiselles d’Avignon’, Inter, art actuel, Espaces Sonore, Québec, nº 98 (hiver), pp. 52-56. Boucher, M 2005, La danse, ses contextes et ses récits, accessed 2014/05/08, http://www.tangente.qc.ca/websichore/fra/DCR.htm Brett, G 2004, Carnaval of perception; Selected Writings on Art Guy Brett, Institute of International Visual Art IVA, London. Buci-Glucksmann, C 2001, L’esthétique du temps au Japon, Du Zen au Virtuel, Galilée, Paris. —. 2003, ‘Interview par Emanuele Quinz’, in Quinz, E (ed.), Interfaces, Anomalie, Digital_Arts, nº 3, pp. 88-97. Burnham, J 1973 [1968; 1969], Beyond Modern Sculpture: The effects of science and technology on the sculpture of this century, George Braziller, New York. Calvert, T W, Chapman, J & Patla, A 1980, ‘The integration of subjective and objective data in the animation of human’, in ACM Siggraph Computer Graphics, ACM, vol.14, issue 3, July 1980, pp.198-203. Calvo-Merino, B, Glaser, D E, Grèzes, J, Passingham, R E & Haggard, P 2005, ‘Action Observation and Acquired Motor Skills: An FMRI Study with Expert Dancers’, Cerebral Cortex, Vol.15, nº8, pp.12431249. Capra, F 1985, Le tao de la physique, Edition Sand, Paris. Choinière, I 1993, ‘Réflexion d’une danseuse sur son travail avec la virtualité’, in Inter Art Actuel, Édition Inter, nº 58, (automne), Québec, pp. 25-26. Crémézie, S 1997, La signature de la danse contemporaine, Edition Chiron. Paris. Darriulat, J 2006, ‘Esthétique’, in Blay, M (ed.) Dictionnaire des concepts philosophiques, Larousse, CNRS Editions, Paris, pp.278-280. de Andrade, O 1928, Manifesto Antropófago, Cannibal Manifesto, on line in the English version n.d, accessed 2014/05/08, http://feastofhateandfear.com/archives/andrade.html Deleuze, G & Guattari, F 1980, Milles Plateaux: Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2, Les éditions de Minuit, Collection Critique, Paris. Fontaine, G 2004, Les danses du temps; Recherches sur la notion de temps en danse contemporaine, Edition Centre National de la Danse, Collection Recherches, Pantin, France.

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Gallese, V 2007, ‘Commentary on Toward a Neuroscience of Empathy: Integrating Affective and Cognitive Perspectives’, Journal Psychoanalysis, Vol 9, nº 2, pp. 146-151. —. 2006, ‘Embodied simulation: from mirror neuron systems to interpersonal relations’, Proceedings of Novartis Foundation Symposium 278, Empathy and Fairness, Wiley, Chichester, July 21, pp. 3-19. Gallese, V & Freedberg, D 2007, ‘Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience’, Cognitive Sciences, Vol 11, nº 5, pp. 197-203. Gardner, H 2006 [1983], Frame of Minds: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Gardner, Cincinnati, Ohio. Ginsburg, C 2006, ‘Le Mouvement et l’esprit; une critique en forme d’essai’, Nouvelles de Danse, Scientifiquement Danse; Quand la danse puise aux sciences et réciproquement, nº53, pp. 37-55. Goleman, D 1997 [1995], L’intelligence émotionnelle 1, Editions Robert Laffont, Paris. Gromala, D J 2007, Towards a Phenomenological Theory of the Visceral in the Interactive Arts, PhD thesis, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, July’s draft. Gunji, M 1985, ‘L’esthétique de la danse japonaise’, Alternatives théâtrales, April-May, nº 22-23, p.12. Heidegger, M 1958 [1954], ‘La question de la technique’, in Essais et conférences, Editions Gallimard, Paris, pp. 9-48, accessed 2014/04/01, http://simondon.ocular-witness.com/wpcontent/uploads/2008/05/question_concerning_technology.pdf Highwater, J 1985 [1981], The primal mind; Vision and Reality in Indian America, Meridian, New York, Scarborough, Ontario. Ho, M W 1993, The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, River Edge, NY, London. Jeffers, C S 2009, ‘On Empathy: The mirror neuron system and Art Education’, International Journal of Education & the Arts, vol.10, no.v15, pp 1-17, accessed 2014/05/08, http://www.ijea.org/v10n15/ Koestler, A 1971 [1969], ‘Beyond Atomism and Holism: The concept of the holon’, in Koestler, A & Smythies, J-R (eds.) Beyond reductionism, new perspectives in the life of sciences: Proceedings of the Alpbach Symposium 1968, Beacon Press, Boston, pp. 192-232. Kuypers, P 2006, ‘Des trous noirs, Un entretien avec Hubert Godard’, Nouvelles de Danse, Scientifiquement Danse; Quand la danse puise aux sciences et réciproquement, nº 53. Laban, R V 2007, La maîtrise du mouvement, Acte Sud, Paris.

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Leroi-Gourhan, A 1971 [1943], L'homme et la matière: Évolution et techniques, Éditions Albin Michel, Collection Sciences d’aujourd’hui, Paris, nº I. —. 1973 [1945], Milieu et techniques: Évolution et techniques, Éditions Albin Michel, Collection Sciences d’aujourd’hui, Paris, nº II. Luz, C 1975, ‘Lygia Clark na Sorbonne: corpo-a-corpo no desbloqueio para a vivencial’, Vida das Artes 1, nª 3, August 1975, p. 64. Nobrega, C A M 2009, Art and Technology: coherence, connectedness and the integrative field, PhD thesis, University of Plymouth, Plymouth. Osthoff, S 2004, ‘Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica: A Legacy of Interactivity and Participation for a Telematic Future’, Leonardo Online, p. 8, accessed 2014/03/04, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/spec.projects/ osthoff/osthoff.htm Palmiéri, C 2005, ‘Le corps écranique: Figure du sensible et lieu de partage’, Paper presented at the 73e Congrès de l’ACFAS, Chicoutimi, Québec, accessed 2014/05/08, www.acfas.ca —. 2005, ‘Le corps écranique: Figure du sensible et lieu de partage’, paper presented at the 73e Congrès de l’ACFAS 2005, Chicoutimi, Québec, accessed 2014/01/04, www.acfas.ca Paradiso, J A & Hu, E 1997, ‘Expressive Footware for ComputerAugmented Dance Performance’, MIT Media Laboratory On-line, Cambridge, MA, accessed 2014/01/04, http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.43.4554 http://www.media.mit.edu/resenv/pubs/papers/97_10_Wearcon_Shoes.pdf Péijus, A 2008, ‘Entre archéologie et récréation’, Périphéries, Cairn, info, 2008/1, nº 238. Pitozzi, E 2008, ‘Sismographies de la presence’, Paper presented at the Journées d’études; Effets de presence, effets du reel, June 6, 2008, Montreal, Quebec. —. 2009a, ‘Spazio stereoscopico per corpo sonoro. Conversazione con Isabelle Choinière’, Art’O, Summer 2009, nº 28, pp. 58-65. —. 2009b, ‘Espace stéréoscopique pour corps sonore. Conversation avec Isabelle Choinière’, Archée-périodique électronique, Projets, section entretiens, Montréal, December 2009, accessed 2014/03/08, http://www.archee.qc.ca/ —. 2010, ‘Étendre la peau; Scène, perception, dispositive technologiques’, in Poissant, L & Tremblay, P (ed.), Ensemble ailleurs; Together elsewhere, Presses de l’Université du Québec, Collection Esthétique des Arts Médiatiques, Québec, pp. 321-340.

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Pluth, E 2007, Signifiers and Acts. Freedom in Lacan’s Theory of the Subject, State University of New York, Albany. Quinz, E 2003a, Editorial, in Quinz, E (ed.) Interfaces, Anomalie, Digital_Arts, nº 3, pp. 8-9. —. 2003b, ‘Seuil de mutation. Notes sur la notion d’interface’, in Quinz, E (ed) Interfaces, Anomalie, Digital Arts, nº 3, pp. 10-15. Quinz, E 2001, From object to flow. Interview with Christine BuciGlucksmann, accessed 2014/04/21, https://www.academia.edu/4237994/From_object_to_flow._Interview_wit h_Christine_Buci-Glucksmann Rizzolatti, G 2005, ‘Grasping the Intentions of Others with One’s Own Mirror Neuron System’, PLoS Biology, vol. 3, Issue 3, e79, March 2005. Rolnik, S & Diserens, C (eds) 2005, ‘Lygia Clark, De l'oeuvre à l'événement. Nous sommes le moule. A vous de donner le soufflé’, in Catalogue Editor Musée des Beaux-arts, Nantes, pp. 247-249. Rolnik, S 2006, ‘Perguntas sobre Arte, Consciência e Tecnologia’, Forum F.A.Q. SESC/ Premio Sergio Motta de Arte e Tecnologia, São Paulo, November 30-December2, 2006. —. (non dated) ‘Anthropophagic Subjectivity’, accessed 2007a/05/27. http://caosmose.net/suelyrolnik/textos.htm —. (non dated) Figures nouvelles du Chaos; les mutations de la subjectivité contemporaine, accessed 2007b/27/05, http://caosmose.net/suelyrolnik/textos.htm —. (non dated) L’hybride de Lygia Clark, accessed 2007c/05/22, http://caosmose.net/suelyrolnik/textos.htm Rousier, C & Sebillotte, L 2004, ‘Pour une recherche en danse: de l’accès aux sources aux développements de méthodologies spécifiques’, Périphéries, Cairn info, nº 44, 2004/2. Scarpetta, G 1992, Trisha Brown, Le festival d’automne de Michel Guy, Éditions du Regard, Paris. Simondon, G 2001 [1958; 1969; 1989], Du mode d'existence des objets techniques, Editions Aubier, Paris. Smythies, J R 1971 [1969], ‘Aspects of Consciousness”, in Koestler, A & Smythies, J R (eds.) Beyond reductionism, new perspectives in the life of sciences: Proceedings of the Alpbach Symposium 1968, Beacon Press, Boston, pp. 233-257. Stoller, P 1997, Sensuous Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.

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Weissberg, J L 1988, Paysages Virtuels; image video, image de synthèse, Séries Prise de vue, Collection dirigée par Danièle Rivière, Editions Dis Voir, Paris. Yano, H 1983, ‘Dérapage’, Théâtre/Public, July 1983, nº 52-53, p.75.

Biographies Dominique Besson, accessed 2009/24/06, http://tqp.free.fr/bio_Dominique_Besson/ Lygia Clark, accessed 2007/11/06, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/artist/clark/biography/ Suely Rolnik, accessed 2009/24/06, http://transform.eipcp.net/bio/rolnik

Links to artists referenced in the text Paul St-Jean, compagnie L’Écran Humain, accessed 2011/26/06 http://2plusinternational.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=a rticle&id=72&Itemid=105&lang=fr Stelarc, accessed 2014/17/04, http://stelarc.org/?catID=20247 Alwin Nikolais, accessed 2008/16/08, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/nikolais_a.html Jean-Marc Matos, accessed September 19, 2008 http://www.k-danse.net/ Palindrome (Robert Wechler), accessed 2008/19/08, http://www.palindrome.de/ Troika Ranch, accessed 2008/19/08, http://www.troikaranch.org/technology.html Klaus Obermaier, accessed 2008/19/08, http://www.exile.at/ko/ Kondition Pluriel, accessed 2010/19/08, http://www.konditionpluriel.org/

CHAPTER FIVE THE AESTHETICS OF THE BETWEEN IN KOREAN CULTURE JUNG A HUH

Chapter Index Abstract I. On the concept of “between” II. Why aesthetics of between? III. Cultural aspects of between IV. Beyond between to convergence: aesthetics of “3” V. Bibliography

Abstract In The Aesthetics of Between, Jung A Huh aims at analysing the peculiar paradigm that characterizes Korean traditional culture and that is based on the concept of “between”. This concept offers a way to deal with the coexistence of differences and allows for the connection between opposites, for example between absolute and relative. The concept of “between” relates to the ever changing kind of interaction that happens between the concepts of yin and yang; a relationship that cannot be explained by Western dualistic metaphysics. This idea can be compared with Derrida’s “différance”. Derrida proposes to deconstruct the metaphysical dualism inhabiting Western thought through the concept of “entre”(between), an empty space of signification which is eternally un-decidable between binary oppositions, so that it functions as a “hinge” that creates “différance”. The manifestation of the Korean aesthetics of “between” can be observed in (1) cultural convergence (expressed in three ways, firstly by the use of the curve, a form between a straight line and a circle that appears in architecture; secondly, by “madang”, the empty space of

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between that connects inside and outside spaces in Korean traditional houses; and lastly by the relational space shared by nature and human beings present in Korean traditional gardens), (2) the interaction between singer and audience, illustrated by the performance structure in the oneperson opera Pansori, (3) the convergence between complex elements (the mixture of drastic emotions in Korean emotional structure present in the Shinpa (a Korean new wave melodrama); the complex emotional structure of transition from Han (resentment) to Jung (affection); the symbolic mixing of elements in the preparation of Bibimbap in cuisine) and (4) spiritual integration (the philosophy of “3” found in numerous Korean cultures; “triple tae-geuk” in the flag, the fundamental principles of Hangul (Korean Alphabet), hwajaeng theory (three element theory), that offers an interface to go beyond oppositions and contrasts). The concept of between contributes to the construction of the concept of Point of Being by offering an integrative model to deal with the interval opened between the subject and the object, being and world, and to overcome dualist, fragmentary thinking. The practical cases of analysis illustrate how this kind of integrative proposal can be achieved in different aspects of everyday life. Keywords: Korean culture, mediation, interactive performance, emotional intersection, convergence

I On the concept of “between” The fundamental characteristics of the concept of “between” enable complementary relationships in binary oppositions such as yin and yang, form and matter, absolute and relative, inside and outside. No element is fixed to one particular side in these contradictions and conflicts. Therefore, “between” is not founded on an exclusive metaphysical dualism but can be interpreted as mediating and vacillating between categories; this vital principle can be discovered and understood through the various Korean cultural paradigms. “Between” is a never fixated and eternally hesitant potentiality in which emptiness enables form to be possible and vice versa. Form exists in relation to emptiness; yin exists in relation to yang and creates an interdependent relationship in which they can operate mutually. According to these paradigms, the concept of between functions as a flexible “hinge” that harmonically mediates and enables change in binary oppositional elements of the universe and avoids self-contradictory relationships.

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Assuming always a la mise en relation role, the “between” generates energy to create relationships, enabling them to happen. Such features reflect the concept of “milieu” in the East Asian “tao” (Madhyamaka kƗrikƗ of NƗgƗrjuna). Tao does not enforce the duality of the essence and phenomenon; it never separates from reality, and the flow of the current situation is in itself tao. Tao thus points to “naturalness” and flow. Julien said, Qu’elle soit ouverte ou fermée, la porte remplit toujours également son usage; non seulement le passage d’un stade à l’autre est à chaque fois utile, en fontion de l’exigence du moment, mais aussi la réciprocité qui conditionne le changement rend un tel fonctionnement à jamais inépuisable: c’est la possibilité meme de ce cours, se renouvelant sans cesse, qui constituera la (le Dao) – qui est au Coeur du procès. (Julien 1989, p. 29)1

“Between” is a key concept to understanding Korean politics, history, and culture in general and therefore also forms the essence of the Korean aesthetic principles. These aesthetic principles or paradigms take shape in architecture, design, cuisine, performing arts and emotional constructs. In Korean architecture, the concept of between refers to space that is neither inside nor outside. Rather, it is a space that is both inside and outside, hence representing a space that is linked and mediated. In the traditional Korean opera form Pansori, the content of the performance can flexibly change according to the audience participation and the atmosphere of each performance. The relationship between performing elements operates flexibly, significantly, and features the importance of context in the concept of between. The turmoil of historical, political, and cultural events harshly impacted the complexity of emotions that define Korean sentiment. In particular, the concept of between is key in the reconciliation of opposite emotions: blending of joy and agony, tears and mirth, Jung and Han.2

1

Translation: “Whether open or closed, a door always performs its function; not only being a passage from one stage to another is always useful, according to what the moment requires, but also the reciprocity that conditions the change makes this operation ever inexhaustible: it is the very possibility of this course, in constant renewal, that will be the ‘Way’ (The Dao) – which is in the heart of the process” (Julien 1989). 2 Semi Ryu’s chapter offers further explanation on how this is achieved.

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II Why aesthetics of between? Every country possesses its own unique cultural characteristics and aesthetics. This distinction is founded on traditional philosophy and history. What aesthetic elements constitute Korean traditional culture? I want to explore this question through the concept of between. By definition, “between” assumes the relationship of two or more elements without being fixed to either of them. “Between” does not belong to binary opposition but makes differences operate mutually. The concept of “entre” (between) that Derrida argued to deconstruct the metaphysical dualism inhabiting western thought can be understood within this context. Derrida finds the key to deconstructing metaphysical logic in language. “A is B” fixes the relationship between A and B so that all other possibilities are excluded. Derrida replaces the verb “être” (be) with “entre.” Here Entre is a “syntactical expletive”, an empty space of signification. However, entre comes between A and B to deconstruct the equation of A=B so that it becomes a kind of hinge that creates “différance” (Derrida 1972). In this “différance” A and B are eternally indécidable (undecidable). Between A and B an interval, a space which cannot be determined, is innately created. This interval is the operational force that creates another relationship by not fixing the element to one particular side in binary opposition. “Between” functions as the hinge that enables opening and closing of the door (Choi 2004). Korean culture, instead of adhering to “A is B” has created a third history and culture by vacillating between A and B. The concept of between is the key to understanding Korean politics, history and culture. Korea is a peninsula geographically situated between the ocean and the continent and geo-politically located between China and Japan. This geo-political and geographical circumstance has influenced Korean culture to mediate between those of these two countries. For example, Korean eaves, with their curved shape, demonstrate the midway between the rounded Chinese and the straight Japanese eaves (Song 1992). In terms of the length of chopsticks, Korea ranks itself in the middle, between Chinese and Japanese utensils. “Between” is related more fundamentally to Korean traditional philosophy and aesthetic principles. The icon that represents Korea is not tae-geuk but the “triple tae-geuk.” While the former stands for the universe of two, yin-yang, the latter represents the universe of three. The triple tae-geuk manifests the aesthetics of harmony and integration between dualistic opposition, and

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the “hwajaeng theory” of the Unified Silla Dynasty (BC57-AD935). Hwajaeng theory involves harmonizing contradiction and conflict. The aesthetical prototype of Korean culture is not founded on a binary opposition but on the harmony and integration of “between”. This aesthetic principle can be discovered in the cultural paradigm handed down from the past to present in architecture, design, cuisine, performance art and emotional constructs as well.

Figure 5-1: “Triple tae-geuk”

Figure 5-2: Image of Hwajaeng theory

In this paper I wish to begin the discourse on the Korean aesthetic concept from “madang,” the space of “between” in the Korean traditional house. I also investigate: the garden, a space of “between” shared by nature and human beings; Pansori, the performance art of “between”, of “fulfilling” and “emptying”; and the Korean melodrama, the “between” of complex emotions. I will finally conclude by referring to the aesthetics of “3” in the “three element theory” in order to understand what the aesthetics of “between” ultimately pursues.

III Cultural aspects of between III.1 Madang: The space of between The Korean kite singularly distinguishes itself from those of other cultures in that there exists an empty space in the very centre. While other kites merely float, this hole executes a specific function in that it enables the kite to manage the quantity of wind and fly freely (Lee 2008). The empty space in the Korean kite reflects the concept of space in Korean traditional architecture. As with the unique form of the kite, Korean architecture is

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also characcterized mostt conspicuoussly by the eempty space between buildings. In the Koorean traditionnal house, theere exists a maadang, an emp pty space that is surroounded by buuildings on fo our sides. Funnctioning as th he buffer between buiildings, the madang had diverse forms aand styles acccording to the architectture surroundiing it.

Figure 5-3: M Madang, in Gim mhae Hanok Halll

One alw ways had to trraverse the madang in ordder to move to o another building witthin the housee. Unlike Japaanese or Chinnese yards, th he Korean madang is nneither encloseed nor isolated d, but always maintains opeenness. A Madang, altthough envelooped by build dings, is openn to the sky and a faces nature in thhe way it ofteen looks towaard the hills bbehind the ho ouse. It is neither insidde nor outsidee. Rather, it is a space of ““between” thaat is both inside and outside. This space designates a signnificant mean ning and function in architecture: the t rest of thee buildings arre linked and mediated by the madaang. The maddang represennts the East Asian A conceppt of space. This T is in stark contraast to the wesstern architecttural concept by which th hat empty space cannoot be recognized as a form m. In westernn architecture, form is possible onnly when a space is co onstructed phhysically. In western architecture,, form and maatter always were w placed inn binary oppo osition, as were essennce and phhenomenon, whole and individual. Aristotle acknowledgged form as suuperior to sub bstance. In coontrast, the Eaast, rather than viewingg form and matter m in a binary manner, pputs importan nce on the process of thheir constructiion (Kwon an nd Han 2006). An empty spaace in the West is meerely empty and a is not a form. In coontrast, in Eaast Asian tradition, foorm is relatedd always to the emptinesss (ibidem). Thus the

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emptiness enables the form to be possible. In East Asian paintings, the form of the image is not complete. This is because form is not only recognized as form but exists in its relationship with emptiness. This is why a big portion of the painting is left blank; this empty space functions as the relational form that completes the meaning of the painting. The madang connects the buildings inside the house and also balances the relationship of inside and outside. It protects the house from being exposed to the public and also functions as the space of communication among family members. In modern Korean novels and plays, the Figure 5-4: A madang performance/play, in front of madang is depicted as a a Korean traditional house favourite place where neighbours and peddlers come freely to share news about the outside world and also to hear the families’ stories. It is a space of epical communication. Moreover, as the madang accommodates traditional weddings and funerals, it witnesses celebration and grieving not only of family members but of strangers as well. While the madang is a private space of the family, it is simultaneously a neutral zone that also allows external influence. It is, in some ways, a world of middle. Current Korean society is dominated by western modern architecture; however, television dramas still utilize the madang setting as a place where family drama unfolds. The madang still retains a powerful position in popular culture because there is no better alternative place for communication across three generations of the grand family and for everyday episodes to be created. In the madang, the family washes, dines and rests together. If rooms are individual living spheres, the madang is a relational space of communal living. It is an interactive avenue where different generations, classes, and genders commune. The meditative and communicative characteristics of the madang give it a situational property beyond its spatiality that incorporates everydayness. In Korean, the madang encompasses a spatial meaning as well as the situation or pan (occasion) of the event. This trait is an integral

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element in constructing the spirit and concept of Korean traditional culture. The terminology madang in mask dancing and Pansori is derived from the communicability and situationality that this space harbours. The Madang play, a modernized form of the traditional play, is set in the madang. The fact that a performance is played not on the stage but in a madang is not merely a matter of place. It fundamentally affects the relationship between the audience and the performer so that the boundaries between the two are blurred. The audience becomes a part of, or the subject of the performance. While a madang is a space in between that communicates inside and outside, the madang play brings into relief the situational element between the stage and the audience.

III.2 Garden: the path of between The traditional Korean space emphasizes the “relationship of between”. The garden is an example of this relational space. “Waterways” and “wind paths” are terms that describe the representative attributes of the Korean garden. What are waterways and wind paths? How do pathways exist in water and wind? This Figure 5-5: passage is invisible and Seokpajung(苳讘袎): Dae-won-gun’s villa symbolizes the communion of man and nature. In the Korean garden, nature and man were not considered different or in conflict, but to harmonize as one in a mutual relationship (Huh 2002). Thus there exists no separate trail for man since he should not inhibit the flow of nature. Instead, waterways and wind paths are created so that man can promenade along naturally formulated paths. This naturally made “between” is characteristic of the Korean garden. It is difficult to determine whether the So-swe-won (1530), an illustrative example of the Korean garden, was decorated artificially or generated naturally. Beautiful nature itself initiates the construction of the house and the building of the bridge. The garden of Dae-won-gun’s (1820~1898)

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villa, designated as Seoul’s tangible cultural asset no.23, was formulated in the same context. The rock now situated in the garden was not purposefully moved there for the sake of the garden. Rather, the rock attracted wild flowers around it, blending nature into a beautiful vista. The building of the house was simply a natural outcome of life. In the garden of the palace, there are more broad leaves than evergreens. This is because broadleaves were considered to respond more sensitively to the circulation of the seasons and were thus more appreciated. The idea that gardens should form naturally is in stark contrast to the aesthetic principle behind the Chinese garden where everything is displayed and placed as if adapted from a well-directed piece of theatre. The Chinese construct gardens to complement the weaknesses of natural scenes; they imitate nature and embellish extravagantly, limiting the viewer’s gaze to rest according to the director’s intention. The Japanese garden is also decorated artificially and formulated within a perfect structure; this suggests that man is the locus of control. An integral attribute of the Japanese garden is that it reconstructs a miniature version of nature. Meanwhile, the Korean garden refuses to theatricalize or artificially imitate nature. The Korean garden does not demand the viewer’s attention. Rather, it enables the stroller to experience the essence of nature by simply walking along waterways and wind paths. Such structure in the Korean garden reflects the East Asian “tao”. In contrast to the Western concept of idea shaped by Plato, East Asian tao does not enforce the duality of essence and phenomenon. Tao never separates from reality. What follows the current situation is in itself tao. Dao points to “naturalness”. The inspiration behind the Korean garden originates from tao in that the garden never transgresses nature but prefers to admire the ways of water and wind in its natural state of being.

III.3 Pansori: the performance art of between, fulfilling and emptying Pansori, a one-person opera, is a traditional Korean performance art that originated in the eighteenth century. Pansori orchestrates a variety of characters, scenes, texts and genres simultaneously. Yet the only physical performers on stage are a single singer and one drummer. The stage is stripped of all props but for a folding screen, a drum, and a fan that the solo singer flaps in her hand. During the several hours of performance, the singer plays the roles of more than ten characters. What is the singer’s role in such a unique style of performance art? What features does this role ascribe to the performance? How do such characteristics of the Pansori

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meet with the aesthetic concept of between? I wish to explore the unique role of the Pansori singer by examining the origin of Pansori. There are various speculations about the origin of Pansori, the most prominent being that it originated from shamanism. This conjecture is a result of the indoctrination of Figure 5-6: folk beliefs and shamanism Pansori into Korean culture since the Figure 5-7: tzhe period of the Three Moo-dang, Korean Shaman Kingdoms era (fourth to seventh centuries AD). The relationship between Pansori and Korean folk shamanism can be found not only from the contents of the texts of Pansori but, more fundamentally, from the role of shamans. A shaman mediates between the living and the dead. She connects the two worlds by becoming possessed. She allows the living to hear the voice of the dead man’s spirit as she accepts it into her own body. Similarly, the singer in the Pansori performance connects the characters and the audience through her voice. Performing the song, the singer delivers the events of the play and characters into the present. The Pansori adopts a distinctive singing style. The embodied sound is coughed out of the singer’s body (Lee 1998). Through Pansori, the singer vents out her internal strength, and summons the characters of the narrative to the present. This presentation differs from the means of representation found in other forms of performance art. “Representation” usually refers to a simulation of the characters of the play on the part of

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the performers. In contrast, the singer of the Pansori brings the characters into presence through her voice. The singer of the Pansori does not pretend to represent the characters. She accentuates her own being as the mediator who connects the characters. She is a twofold being. That said, performers in other plays or operas strive to conceal that they are acting the roles of the characters. The singer of the Pansori reveals that she is acting the roles. In this context, a singer of Pansori rejects all theatrical elements such as stage settings or costumes, which highlights the various roles of the characters in the play. A single stage and costume transform into limitless settings and costumes simply by sound. The two elements that make this change possible are the fan and audience participation. A fan is the only tool that directs a situation. It is similar to a bell that a shaman uses to log in to different realms. The fan, utilized as the cue sign to tell the drummer of a certain situation, performs the role of the conductor’s baton. The fan mainly has the role of switching scenes and transforming characters; this reflects the shaman’s act of shaking the bell to greet the spirit and invite it to enter her body. Audience participation is a crucial element in enabling the singer to switch scenes and rotate characters with a tap of the fan. When a shaman gives sounds of souls via “possession”, communicating with the audience is significant. Without audience participation, the connection of two worlds by her sound bears no meaning. In the same way, audience participation in the Pansori performance is achieved by changing scenes and characters. The role of the singer in the Pansori is to create a dramatic situation through encouraging the audience to participate. Thus, the singer takes on not only the role of an actress but assumes the roles of conductor, director, and producer at the same time. She sometimes speaks to the audience directly and provides commentary on the play. The point of the Pansori is for the singer to bring the audience to breathe with the play through song instead of falling into the role of the characters herself. The factor that makes audience participation possible is chu-im-sae, perhaps the most essential factor of Pansori. Chu-im-sae is the audience’s vocalized reaction to the singer’s singing. The responses appear in various forms from spontaneous short comments such as “nice!, oh, yeah!” and “of course” to the memorization of the full text of the song. The Pansori performance is completed as a performer creates empty space for audiences to participate and the audience reacts and fills the empty space with sounds. Chu-im-sae is the space of “between” in the Pansori performance. A unique form of chu-im-sae in Korean culture today is that of fans participating in the singer’s performance by singing along aloud as

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a chorus or calling out the singer’s name in a synchronized manner Chu-im-sae enables Pansori to formulate a special relationship with the madang of the Korean traditional house. Interactive participation endorsed through chu-im-sae is the element that links the situational communication to madang practices. This is why we call the episodes of the Pansori madang. The term madang not only signifies place but also marks a type of situation. The reason Pansori uses the term madang for an episode is that it signals the importance of situationality for the singer in connecting audiences and the text. In this context, the contents of the Pansori performance can change flexibly according to audience participation and the atmosphere of each performance. The reason that Pansori performance is not fixed but liable to change is that the relationship between performing elements is based on flexibility. The performing elements such as narrative, actors/actresses, audiences and stage are inevitably connected with “situation”. The space of the text that is perpetually made present by the singer of the Pansori is converted as it meets audiences in real space and is reconstructed into a new style. Pansori, the performing art native to Korea, can accept changes in “between”.

3.4 The emotion of between Korean modern history has witnessed a tumult of events from the invasion of China and Japan, through the fall of the Chosun Dynasty and the turmoil of the Korean War immediately upon the independence of Korea, to military dictatorship and beyond. This harsh storm has greatly impacted the sentiment of Korean people, inculcating in Koreans a modern identity. A key characteristic of Koreans in the modern era is complexity of emotions, the blending of joy and agony, tears and mirth. This compound of antithetic emotions makes it difficult to define Korean sentiment in a clear and rational way. This phenomenon still exists today, in everyday language. In communicating, Koreans evade a direct mode of expression. “I think I will like it” or “perhaps it is so” are examples of such. Figure 5-8: Play Group, “Garam”, Lee Su-Il and Shim Sun-Ae, 2010

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Historical agony has embedded in Koreans a “strong sentimentalism”, which has led to the “distinctive feature of responding with drastic emotions to extreme pain” (Choi 2003). In the intersection of pain and loss, Koreans have endlessly tried to reconcile agony and joy, tear and delight, not sinking into any of them but existing between them. This special sentiment is the foundation for the Korean melodrama that pervades Korean modern culture and art. The distinctive Korean structure of complex sentiment is related to the Shinpa (Choi 2003). The structure of the Shinpa (new wave) sentiment is a key element of Korean melodrama in mass art such as movies (ibidem). The Shinpa represents the general emotion of the Korean public and forms the legacy of traditional Korean popular culture. The reason Shinpa is the most distinctive characteristic of Korean popular culture is because it is directly related to Korean features that are created by complex emotions and situations. A distinguishing quality of Korean Shinpa is that it developed into a unique form when it was established in Korea despite the fact that it was imported from abroad. In other words, Shinpa is not confined to popular art, but was moulded into a complex sentiment by historical, political and cultural mixture and clashes (Choi 2003). Shinpa has the property of expressing an excessive emotional state without a clear division of emotions. The protagonist submits to the agony of reality and blames himself for everything. In this way, the agony becomes entirely his own. Self-torment is the key attitude that causes Shinpa. Rather than trying to solve the problem through independence and rationality, the protagonist resorts to excessive tears. However, recognizing incapability in resolving the problems does not mean giving up remorse. Unable to encounter the situation face-to-face does not ensure falling into endless despair. Self-torment is followed by self-compassion. Shinpa is the mixture of self-torment and self-compassion. The complexity of Korean sentiment derives from being between this self-torment and self-compassion. This conflicting emotional state that travels back and forth between drastic emotions creates two opposite faces at the same time, such as despair and hope, sadness and delight, self-compassion and passion. The ambivalent characteristic of the Shinpa is related to the fundamental nature of Korean culture. Historically stained with numerous hardships, the Korean culture is usually regarded as the culture of Han (resentment). However, Korean Han is not confined to the feeling of resentment. Korean Han is based not on resentment itself, but on resolving resentment through sang saeng and hwajaeng. Sang saeng signifies the circulation of the five elements of the yin yang theory of five essential

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elements on earth. Korean culture is hwajaeng of Jung (affection) and Han. Jung and Han are not in a relationship of conflict and contrast, but in hwajaeng (Lee 1991). Jung and Han are not two separate emotions, but are two sides of a coin. When Jung is deep, it becomes Han, and Han creates deeper Jung. The mixture of drastic emotions in Korean emotional structure shown by the Shinpa and the Korean melodrama is created by the energy of hwajaeng of affection and sorrow. Hwajaeng of Jung and Han forms the unique Korean humour. Between affection and sorrow, emotion is expressed in a third way that is neither affection nor sorrow. The irrationality of hierarchical society and painful reality due to frequent invasions by foreign forces has led Koreans to find escape from agony in humour. This complex emotional structure of emotions can be interpreted as the characteristic of Bibim. Bibim comes from Bibimbap, one of Korea’s Figure 5-9: Bibimbap, Korean traditional food (see centerfold most representative dishes. for this image in full colour) Bibimbap is made by blending several vegetables with rice. Blending various ingredients with different tastes recreates the harmony of tastes through the fusion of ingredients, just as yin-yang and the five elements form harmony. Baek Nam Jun refers to the Korean Bibimbap as the inspiration of his aesthetics. The act of bibim creates a third taste that is different from the individual foods. Bibimbap recombines the “between” relationship among ingredients. It relies on the blending of five colours, which each represent one direction: East (blue), West (white), South (red), North (brown) and Centre (yellow). To mix these signifies the harmony of the various foods and tastes (Kim 2005). The flourishing of Korean IT culture by blending in cutting-edge IT with Korean features is also derived from the aesthetics of bibim. Complex emotions themselves are merely a chaotic bundle. However, it is not chaos but a merging – in other words, hwajaeng of Jung, Han and humour – to form a third sentiment. Koreans especially love zhigae, Korean hot stew boiled with various ingredients. However, one very interesting thing is that Koreans use the expression “very cool” when drinking the hot soup of zhigae. To Korean

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taste, something that is “very hot” and “very cool” is not two different things, but two related feelings. A sense of hotness that is hard to endure ironically induces sensual catharsis, leading to sense of coolness. This is the same as extreme Han resonating with passionate Jung, creating humour. To Koreans, the best taste is the mingled sense of hot-coolness.

IV Beyond “between” to convergence: aesthetics of “3” Derrida tried to deconstruct metaphysical dualism with the syntactic expletive, “between”. This trial was to create an undecidable interval within the verb “be” (être). However, the Korean “between” already involves deconstructive thoughts. In Korean, “between” is not a meaningless expletive as contrasted with in French or in English. “Between” has various and flexible meanings. It can be used as both a noun and an adverb. By definition, “between” is a cracked gap or it is somewhere in the spatial distance or the period of time. At the same time, however, it also assumes a relationship: for example, the relationship especially between men and women, or situational relations between phenomena. These linguistic uses show a characteristic of Korean thought. The Korean “between” has flexible senses through various linguistic functions and meanings. This fact implies that the Korean thought system rather emphasizes the relationship between different elements than be dichotomous. Korean traditional thought and culture place importance on relationship and harmony, and generate flow and transition from binary opposition. This Korean characteristic can be well founded in the icon of the “triple tae-geuk.” The triple tae-geuk is one of the representative images seen frequently on the doors of traditional buildings or on paper fans. China and Japan use the tae-geuk in which yin and yang are crossed, while Korea has used the triple tae-geuk, which represents the three elements heaven, earth and the human, since the fifth century. The triple tae-geuk symbolizes the aesthetic of “between” which maintains a balance of difference and separation. If the tae-geuk symbolizes harmony between yin and yang, it is possible to say the triple tae-geuk adds one more element, and shows the new worldview of three elements. The number 3 forms a totally different culture from the worldview controlled by the number 2. The tae-geuk focuses on the bipolar difference called yin-yang. In the view of the triple tae-geuk, however, the flow and the rhythm appear from the difference of yin-yang. The number 3, which comes from the sum of the prime odd (yang) 1 and

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the prime even (yin) 2, is the first variable number. Therefore, as a number of “between”, the number 3 pursues changeability through the communication between two different things rather than regarding them as oppositions. The philosophy of 3 is found in numerous Korean cultures. The “three element theory”, based on number 3 philosophy, has operated from past to present as a formative principle of Korean philosophy and art. The nation’s birth myth, the Dangun legend, is based on the heaven-earthhuman idea and claims to support Trinity. God is the Triune God, existing as three Gods, but one being at the same time. In addition, the number 3 contains the fundamental principles of the invention of Hangul. Hangul is made up with an initial phoneme, a middle phoneme, and a final phoneme. Here, the middle phoneme, the vowel, bridges between the two other phonemes, which are consonants. Vowels are formed from the combination of three components: “·”, “l” and “—”. Symbolically, “·” stands for heaven, “l” stands for the human, and “—” stands for earth. In other words, with heaven, earth and the human who is a connection between them, the “three elements theory” is a key principle to make Hangul. Not only Hangul but also Korean traditional music reflects the harmony of heaven, earth and the human. The most important characteristic of traditional music is dividing one beat into three equal subdivisions. In addition, Korean traditional music is divided into three tones by pitch. It has a system to create new sound through harmonizing a high tone and a low tone together with a mid tone, a so called tone of “between”. The three elements theory is the basis of the “hwajaeng theory” that was established by the Great Master Wonhyo in the Unified Silla Dynasty (fifth century AD). This hwajaeng theory, which was formed before the introduction of foreign ideas from China or India into Korea, constitutes Korea’s own spiritual foundation. The hwajaeng theory is a philosophy of between since it avoids extremes; it neither belongs to the state of nothing that denies anything, nor to complete something that affirms everything. Furthermore, it combines “something” and “nothing”, but this does not mean this being is compressed into one. The key point of hwajaeng is to find the interface beyond oppositions and contrasts and to connect different things together. Illuminating, immersing and combining oppositions are the principles of hwajaeng theory. Korea’s unique curved thoughts, which can be bent or combined according to different environments, are based on it. In contrast to western imperialism that is “straight”, Korean culture is comparatively “curved”. In the position of Korea that is always located in

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“between”, its curvedness can be seen as a strategy to survive. It is possible to say that “straight” draws boundaries while the “curve” combines boundaries. A curve merges the boundaries of the straight and the round. It has the potential to transform to any side, at any time. In Korean thoughts and culture, the curved concept of between symbolizes latent changeability that cannot be decided with one side. “Between” finds itself in conflict within boundaries but also has the power to connect and move borders.

V Bibliography Choi, S 2004, Rereading Houses through Korean Housing, Jeonwoo Munhwa Publishing, Seoul. Derrida, J 1972, La Dissemination, Editions du Seuil, Paris. Huh, K 2002, The Korean Garden: The World of the Classic Scholar, Scent of Culture, Seoul. Julien, F 1989, Procès ou Création, Editions du Seuil, Paris. Kim, D 2005, Country that Ferments, Country that Mixes, Wisdom Literature, Seoul. Kwon, Y & Han, J 2006, Han Joog Il’s Spatial Construction, Gookjae, Seoul. Lee, D 1999, Hwajaeng Semiotics, Theory and Reality: Formalism through Hwajaeng and the Synthesis of Marxis, University of Hanyang Press, Seoul. Lee, K 1998, ‘Phonation Education of the Pansori Singer’, Pansori Study, issue 9, pp. 79-81. Lee, U 2008, The Birth of Youth, Tree of Thought, Seoul. Lee, Y 2006, ‘Study of the Participation of the Audience in Pansori’, Pansori Study, issue 22, pp. 292-298. Song, I 1992, Eaves: Architecture that Sketches the Sky, K-Forum, Seoul.

CHAPTER SIX SENSING WITHOUT SENSING: COULD VIRTUAL REALITY SUPPORT KOREAN RITUALS? SEMI RYU

Chapter Index Abstract I Introduction II “Sky”, “earth” and “human” III From actual to potential IV Nostalgia for Ha-Na (䚌⇌) V Looking up to sky VI Joy of flying VII Shin-Myeong VIII Looking at sky – quiet mind IX Virtual bodies, sensing without sensing, impossible love X Bibliography

Abstract “Sensing without sensing” explores the new dimension of sensorial experience shaped and suggested by virtual interactive technology. The core principle of “sensing without sensing” is the lightening of weights of actuality, in order to open the infinite space of meta realms, awakening underlying perceptive layers of our bodies, transforming them into the intangible, indefinable, and spiritual. It is a Korean experiential reality, continuously conflicting between actual and virtual layers: the chaotic state of being neither here nor there, in a quantum state of paradox. Sensing without sensing is a Korean ontological journey of taking off to the sky. It is quite an emotional journey, from extreme grief to joy, continuously dreaming, desiring, and eventually transcending the sky. It is

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the dynamic swirling dance of Korean cosmology, Sam-Taeguk, where emerge gradually developing emotional psyches such as Jung, Han, and Shin-Myeong. The mode of sensing without sensing is further connected to the ontological issue of the virtual, supporting the paradoxical state of human experience in intervals between multiple realities. Technology has supported the distance between human and alternative bodies, using devices such as the rod and the stick, wireless and virtual, constantly increasing the state of paradox in the psychical dimension of the “active void”. Sensing without sensing contributes to the construction of the paradigm and concept of Point of Being by analysing the relationship between the virtual/potential and the actual. It suggests Point of Being in ongoing human endeavour to maximize intervals between multiple dimensions of body, and as a way to deal with it in a psychical and emotional dimension, searching for an alternative mode of senses, nerves and tactility. Keywords: Paradox, virtual, interval, meta-sensorial experience, ritual body

I Introduction Sensing without sensing is a meta sensorial experience, typical in traditional Korean beliefs whose roots are in the myth of taking off to the sky, the nostalgic and ancient dream of a journey to reach the sky, that is achieved by a continuous cultural process of “lightening up”, dematerializing or virtualizing the materiality, or actuality, of everyday experience. Essentially it constitutes a highly emotional journey from extreme grief to joy, fuelled by a continuous dream and desire to eventually transcend the sky. Regarding this book, “sensing without sensing” can contribute to the construction of the paradigm and concept of Point of Being by analysing the relationship between different dimensions of matter and energy, such as between the virtual/potential and the actual. So, sensing without sensing can serve as a model to explore the process of managing the interval between different dimensions and to explore emotional aspects implied in the merging of the “actual” and the “potential” in our electronic age. In concrete, this framework for inter-dimensional experience can be applied to the analysis of the process of virtualization of reality by technology in

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which an interval opens between the physical and the virtual dimensions of matter and experience. Firstly, this chapter will introduce a Korean cosmic vision called SamTaeguk (ㇰ䈐Ἥ) that describes the three basic elements in the Korean psyche, that is to say, “sky”, “earth” and “human”, and their swirling dance in process. Next, we will discuss the uniquely Korean social psyche called Jung (㥉), as an emotional aspect of the swirling dance, the nostalgic dream of returning from the number three to an infinite wholeness. The concept Koreans call Jung (㥉) brings forth another psychological feature called Han (䚐), which is the first action of looking up to the sky from an extreme emotional state of grief, but with a strong wish to overcome a situation that seems almost impossible. Han eventually transforms into the ultimate state of playfulness called Shin-Myeong (㐔⮹) which is “joy of flying”. The “virtual” will be discussed in this context of sensing without sensing, as a “potential” tactile space in a higher plane of human experience. Perceived and re-fashioned within a traditional Korean context, virtual technologies could be understood as tools to perform “active void”, as will be explained later on. These concepts will also be explored and illustrated in the analysis of the virtual puppet performance titled Parting on Z, included in the chapter.

II “Sky”, “earth” and “human” 1

The number 3 (pronounced “Sam” (ㇰ)) is essential in Korean culture. This fact is reflected also in the Korean cosmology called Sam-Taeguk (ㇰ䈐Ἥ), in which “sky”, “earth” and “human” are the basic three elements.2 Sam-Taeguk is the three-fold structure of Taeguk (䈐Ἥ). Taeguk has been primarily introduced as Yin/Yang to the world, as a representational model of Eastern cosmology. However, the Korean 1

For example: in games, playing three times; three mistakes can be forgiven; the hot season has three stages. The number three also means a critical shift and change. 2 Based on North Siberian shamanism, Sam-Taeguk has been further developed into Sam-Jae-Ron (ㇰ㣠⦔), Sam-Shin-Sa-Sang (ㇰ㐔㇠ㇵ), Poong-Ryu-Do (䗁⪌⓸), and Do-Ga Sa-Sang (⓸ᴴ㇠ㇵ) dominating all Korean thoughts (Hur 2004, p. 21).

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scholar Shilha Woo (2010, pp. 108-114) discovered that Sam-Taeguk was the initial pattern of Taeguk in ancient times, and Sam-Taeguk patterns had appeared long before Yin/Yang. However, the Chinese Song dynasty supported Seonglihak (㉥⫠䚍), Confucianism and Ikiron (㢨ὤ⦔) and started the Taeguk or Yin/Yang dichotomies (Hur 2004, p. 30). In the time of Qin Shi Huang,3 Tae-Hwang (䈐䞝) (human) was decided to be the most integral. Therefore, a hierarchical relationship was set up, centred in Tae-Hwang. As a consequence, Cheon-Hwang (㷐䞝) (sky) and Ji-Hwang (㫴䞝) (earth) were considered as sub categories of Tae-Hwang (human). According to the Korean creation myth, human was created between sky and earth and became one of the three elements in Sam-Jae (ㇰ㣠): sky, earth and human (Choi 1998, pp. 200-201).4 When human appeared between sky and earth, a more complex cosmology was required: the SamTaeguk. Sam-Taeguk represents the three components, sky, earth and human, in non-hierarchical relations.5 Human and sky are endlessly shifting their positions as subject or object. In the Korean modern theology Donghak (┍䚍), this shifting appears also in Bul-Yeon-Ki-Yeon (⺼㜤ὤ㜤) thought, meaning that the meta universe6 is embedded in the 3

Qin Shi Huang was the king of the Chinese state of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC during the period of wars between states. He became the first emperor of unified China in 221 BC (Wikipedia). After the unification of the whole country, as a political ideology to support the power of the emperor, the In-hwang (human) was given relevance as mother of Chon-hwang (sky) and Ji-hwang (earth). Therefore, the emperor was considered as the center of the power, having “sky” and “earth” as subordinate elements in the hierarchical structure (Hur 2004, p. 30). 4 “There was darkness where sky and earth were one together, then the one was cracked like ricecake (Si-Roo (㔲⬾).) Blue moisture from the sky, and black moisture from earth, met and gave birth to everything in the world” (Choi 1998, p. 200-201). Oral performance by Shaman Joobyeong Jeong 5 It is a manifestation of the universe based on a trichotomy, which goes one step further than the dichotomy Yin/Yang and that is completely free from the substance, hierarchy and dualism present in the latter. The STG pattern embraces “human”, “sky” and “earth” all together: yellow (Taeguek) embraces blue (Yin) and red (Yang). At the same time, yellow as a part, is embraced by red and blue (Kim 2000, p. 37). This paradoxical structure is also the foundation of different traditional Korean theological schools. For example, in Donghak (☯䞯), In-NaeChun (㧎⌊㻲) thoughts mean “human as sky” and also “sky as human”. 6 The concept of meta universe was proposed in 1895 by the American philosopher William James, to refer to a possible existence of multiple universes apart from the universe we experience. It is also called metaverse or multiverse.

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actual universe (Kim 2000, pp. 138-140). It reminds us of the embrace between observer and space in quantum theory, creating a dynamic flow as swirls. It is an intense state of paradoxical shifting between an “actual” state into a “meta” state. Alfred North Whitehead calls it “creativity” (Kim 2001, pp. 52-53). The Sam-Taeguk pattern has been a constant cultural and religious reference in Korea since ancient times, before the pattern of Yin/Yang, and is an important clue to understanding the Korean cultural imaginary and psyche. For example, Sam-Taeguk patterns are shown in palaces, stairs, king’s graves, gates, schools, as well as in everyday objects such as furniture, utensils, textiles and ceramics (Hur 2004, 32-33). Sam-Taeguk is in the structure of the Korean foundation myth Dangun (␜Ấ㐔䞈). Dongsik Yoo (1997, p. 36) describes three steps of process shown in the Dangun myth. The myth describes the story that the first Korean, Dangun (␜Ấ) was born between Hwaung (䞌㟹) –sky god – and a bear woman (㟹≴) – earth god – and shows an organically integrated system of three elements. It says that ancient Koreans believed creativity comes true when sky and human are integrated in a swirling dance, like the patterns found in Sam-Taeguk, an organic interpenetrated relationship between sky, earth and human. Original patterns of Sam-Taeg·k (ㇰ䈐Ἥ) or Samwon-Taeg·k (ㇰ㠄䈐Ἥ) represent the shape of the sun in which a sun-flame is whirling strongly (Woo 2010, p. 116). It is a swirling dance of flames, continuously multiplied by three, called Yul-Lyeo (㡜⥘). It is a continuous flow of one embracing three, and three returning to one, in infinite paradox. It is the principle of neither here nor there, the status of being completely lost. This is Korean way of escaping from dualism, substances and hierarchy (Woo 1999, pp. 18-19). In this swirling dance, everything is infinitely divided into, or multiplied by, three. This is reflected in the Korean understanding of sky as well. For example, the Korean creation myth describes a multiplicity of skies: there are three skies on top of the sky, and also three skies on top of the earth and below the earth. In all, the myth describes thirty-three kinds of skies. Regarding the universe, it is shaped by the three elements, and likewise, each element is also divided into three. In this complex cosmology, there are infinite skies present in different layers (Choi 1998, pp. 201-203). However, the meaning of sky goes beyond what

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we normally call sky. In this swirling dance, the concept of universe goes beyond the actual phenomena, exploring all potential realms.7 The Korean special relationship with sky can be explained as the endless effort to be free from material reality and to explore potential meta realms. In this context, sky works as a metaphor representing all nature embracing the earth component, as it is shown in In-Nae-Cheon thought in Donghak (┍䚍) theology: human equals sky as sky equals human (Choi 1998, 201). In this sense, the In-Nae-Cheon (㢬⇨㷐) thought, and other philosophies in Korea, are other versions of Sam-Taeguk.

III From actual to potential In the Korean traditional setting, there is an interesting first night scene after the wedding ceremony. Usually it takes place in the bride’s house, in a room prepared for the couple. People gather outside a paper window, to see the couple’s actions in shadows. Traditionally, these shadow characters were young couples who had never met before. In front of candlelight, the bridegroom starts by undressing the bride and taking off the adornments from her head. Releasing all the layers of traditional costume, layer by layer, is quite a challenging process. The outer layer is secured with long ribbons that must be disentangled from all the threads; a system that, unlike buttons, rewards with no immediate control. The traditional Korean costume does not reveal the physical contour of the female body, as the Japanese and Chinese ones do. Rather, it completely covers and erases the bodyline under the costume. It is a different strategy of concealment that in fact addresses the body silhouette even more. The line of breasts, waist and hips completely disappears under the long skirt starting from the chest. In the absence of the actual body, a kind of “meta body” is activated in the participants’ imagination. The special texture of Korean costumes also adds an auditory sensorial value to this scene. The subtle and continuous sound of releasing long threads of ribbons creates interesting tensions. The shadow performance carried out by the two figures continues slowly on the paper windowscreen, in a ritual aimed at activating the meta body in our consciousness. 7

The thirty-three skies are not based on mathematical calculation, rather they metaphorically present the fractal (chaos) nature of an infinite process of copying. It is the principle of Samsoo Bunhwa (㌒㑮⿚䢪) (meaning “multiplication by three”). It is the dynamic swirling motion of Sam-Taeguk, in continuous multiplications.

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By the time the process reaches the ultimate phase, those dim candles will have been blown out and the shadow figures will have been lost in the darkness. Information suddenly stops, and fails to fulfil. After no more information is offered a clearly felt experience of emptiness remains with the audience. Everything seems to be designed to create obstacles or challenges, ushering the experience into a meta sensorial realm. Tensions and sensorial experiences safely find their place in a meta layer, that is to say, in human consciousness, constructing alternative senses, nerves and physicality. It is as if a sudden pause of sound created echoes that, bouncing back and forth, constitute a kind of sound experience in the meta layer that fills up the entire auditory space. There is a sensorial intimacy in this scene not seen, heard or touched: a continuous development of tensions never actualized. By lightening, and emptying actuality, participants become aware of layers of potentiality, awakening underlying perceptual layers of their bodies. This process is the basis of what I call “sensing without sensing”. So sensing without sensing is the process of awakening the actual body to allow it to perceive its intangible, indefinable and spiritual layers. It is achieved by the transformation of actualities into potentialities. This concept may resonate with what, in Western philosophy, is called transcendence of matter into spirit.8 For Koreans, sensing without sensing would mean metaphorically “to fly”. This reflects a culturally based dream to reach the sky. This metaphor is represented in different cultural products. In architecture it appears in the elegant curves of Korean roofs; in clothing it is present in the strongly curved contours of traditional socks that point upwards, towards the sky. The energy of those lines invites us to reach the sky. In Korean shaman dance, hopping symbolizes the shamanic journey of ascending to the sky. The core principle of flying depends on the lightening of weights. If you only fill yourself, you overload yourself and, therefore, you become too heavy to fly. The Taoist Lao-tzu said that you should empty yourself and keep emptying yourself out until you become light enough, like a feather (Kim 1999, p. 192). Then, being, by itself, will find place in a void. Void will take you off to the sky, to the infinite space of meta realms where we may find the state of “being itself” and find potentiality. The magical part of this journey is turning inside out and upside down: radically twisting reality in all possible directions. In such a framework, void shifts into plenitude. Emptiness is fulfilled. It is the paradoxical state 8 The noun transcendence has roots in Latin and means climbing or going beyond: to be able to exist above the material experience or be independent of it.

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of Hur-Ryong-Chang-Chang (䛼⥭㵱㵱): completely empty but completely full (Kim 2001, p. 279). It is shown in the philosophy of Korean traditional dance where potential movement happens between two paused or stilled arms, proposing the existence of a meta motion fulfilling the empty space between. The Korean experiential reality happens in the chaotic state between the material, or actual layer, and the meta layer, a state of being neither here nor there. It is an ongoing struggle of limited actuals and infinite potentials: a kind of quantum state of paradox.

IV Nostalgia for Ha-Na (䚌⇌) Silha Woo (2004, p. 1) describes the dance of Sam-Taeguk, called YulLyeo (㥾⩺), as a repetitive circulation of three kinds of energy, sky, earth and human, in alternate phases (swirls), from a quiet phase to a dynamic one. There is a Korean nostalgia for Ha-Na (䞮⋮) in this swirl that would be the motivation for human’s continuous dancing between sky and earth. It is demonstrated in the dance of Sam-Taeguk: one embraces three and three return to one. In Korean, the word Ha-Na means one, but includes different dimensions such as “single” or “whole” (Lee, Park & Cha 2001, p. 45). There is a strong nostalgia towards oneness (from single to whole) present in the Korean psyche called Jung. Jung is the Korean psyche of feeling “us” (㟤⫠) (Choi 1993, p. 9). It is interesting to note the Korean dominant usage of the words “our” or “us”, in a situation in which other cultures would have used “my” or “me”. For example, Koreans say “our” school rather than “my” school, “our” mother rather than “my” mother, and “our” family rather than “my” family. When I first heard the expression “my” student in America, I felt very strange, as if I were claiming ownership regarding the student. For Koreans, the word “my” or “me” raises a high sense of ownership and individualism. Using “us” is a way to get around this problem.9 Jung (㥉) 9

Derrick de Kerckhove suggests here that the tension between “us” and “me” or between oneness and division or between actuality and potentiality experienced by Koreans as expressed in the above analysis of traditional ritual, could have arisen from their relationship to Hangul (䞲⁖), the very particular and original Korean phonetic syllabary. Indeed, different from Chinese ideography, Hangul represents the Korean language itself and not ideas or images. This implies a strong stimulus to individualization because it allows individual writers and readers to manage and control the language itself on their own terms. Of course, the control of any writing system can do that to a certain degree, but none to the extent that a fully

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is the Korean sense of affection and caring for others under the sensibility of “us”. It is an effort to embrace everything into the infinite wholeness Ha-Na. It acts like glue that links all individuals into a bigger unity. It is a voluntary emotion towards other selves, transcending the rational criteria of judgment or likability. Jung has two dimensions: Miun-Jung (⴬㟨㥉) and Goun-Jung (Ḕ㟨㥉). Miun-Jung is the kind of Jung that is created when you go through difficulties, disagreements, and unpleasant times with someone. In the first situation, although you might not like this person, the difficult situation creates Jung towards this person due to the fact that you are both sharing a time, a place and a story together. To the contrary, Goun-Jung is generated when you spend good time and share nice memories with someone. Jung is usually a mixture of feelings of these opposite aspects, some of Miun-Jung and some of Goun-Jung. However, even if the two Jung originate from opposite situations, they are both considered to be the same Jung. Jung is the warm and peaceful mind embracing it all, beyond agreements, beliefs, preferences, comfort or likability. It is a very strong and unique desire to be one with others, transcending all boundaries. True friendship in Korea is determined by the amount of Jung shared. Much Jung brings the state of great intimacy, allowing people to share almost everything, good or bad, and transcending all privacy. Under the feeling of Ha-Na, friends share all secrets, as within a single family, as if they were a single person: they share the same stew from the same pot and drink from a single cup. Being considered as one single person, there are no “manners” between them. From different cultural perspectives, a Jungmotivated behaviour could look impolite and ill mannered, since there are no personal realms to be protected. If someone tries to protect their own privacy, or show much kindness in the name of manners, this behaviour is phonological script can, because only a fully phonemic system can support complete linguistic structures. Hence what a Korean writes in Hangul expresses his or her ideas in the Korean language and not merely suggestions of ideas from iconic graphs that need the support of context to be properly interpreted (the many homonyms in Chinese require differentiation by context, whereas the polysyllabic Korean, like Indo-European languages, can do without it). This power over language confers power to the self and the needs of the self inevitably enter into conflict with duties towards family and clan. The drama and the nostalgia for HaNa in Korean culture, in that respect reflects the deep message of ancient Greek tragedy which also dealt with the conflicting duties to one’s self and to one’s social surroundings. It is no surprise that Korean also invented opera soon after having developed Hangul.

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considered as a sign of lack of Jung (Choi 1993, p. 13). Jung is based in a completely voluntary emotion without any intention while kindness is based on an intentional behaviour, supported by a culturally defined manner in a specific situation. Jung is the Korean way of deeply caring for each other, according to the sensibility of Ha-Na. Koreans strongly pursue Ha-Na in every situation, which is shown in the swirling dance of three elements. However, rather than unifying all individuals into the same unity, Ha-Na embraces all diversities, including opposites, something similar to what happens regarding the two kinds of opposite conditions that provoke the two kinds of Jung (Goun-Jung and Miun-Jung). Apart from that, Jung can also be related to quantum theories and can function as a quantum psyche capable of unconditional love: In a quantum view of the person, it is impossible not to love my neighbour as myself, because my neighbour is myself, certainly if we have shared any kind of intimacy. My relationship to him is part of my own self-definition, part of this self that I love if I do love myself. In a quantum psychology, there are no isolated persons. Individuals do exist, do have an identity, a meaning and a purpose; but like particles, each of them is a brief manifestation of a particularity. The particularity is in nonlocal correlation with all other particularities and to some extent interwoven with them. (Zohar 1990, p. 169)

Jung is a quantum psyche open channel for wholeness that helps achieve a feeling of comfort and peace. It is a longing for Ha-Na: the dance of burning flames in Sam-Taeguk, as strong as the sun’s flames. The Korean modern theology Donghak says Wicheonju Goajung (㥚㻲㭒ἶ㞚㩫): that is, Jung integrates sky and human. It also says human desires sky, as much as sky desires human in In-Nae-Cheon (㢬⇨㷐) thought. This process of desiring and longing seems to be important in Sam-Taeguk. In the Korean foundation myth Dangun, Hwanung (God of sky) was intently waiting to meet human, just as human intently wanted and waited to meet him for days and nights (Kim 2001, p. 305). Metaphorically, the human dream of integration with the ‘sky would mean flying. As previously stated, there are many flying motifs in Korean culture, such as roofs in architecture, the decoration of shaman with bird feathers, contour lines in socks and ceramics with the top bigger than the bottom part (Kim 1998, p. 295-310). All energy goes upwards to sky. Everything is waiting for the moment of flying: integrating with the sky, being in love with the sky, the personified sky called Ha-Neu-Nim (䚌⏄␌), the God of sky.

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This is the emotional aspect of a revolution. This mind is Jung, waiting and wanting longingly for wholeness. Sangyil Kim stated that it would be Eros in Whitehead’s terminology. Alfred North Whitehead (1933, p. 295296) said ultimate unification is Eros. Eros is a will for life that every potential goes towards.

V Looking up to sky Jung (㥉) also brings up the level of sensitivity and awareness about distances we confront in our daily lives. When wishes exceed our capacity to satisfy them, there is a sense of deep frustration and incompleteness about the situation, of not being one yet, even when there are strong wishes to overcome the limitation; an interval between potentiality and actuality appears. Han (䚐) emerges exactly in this interval between potentiality and actuality. At the end of Jung, there comes Han. Han is known as the most important element of Korean mind and emotion. It is a paradoxical state of consciousness that combines an extreme state of grief in a feeling of incompleteness, but with a great hope and desire for overcoming a situation that seems almost impossible to overcome. It has tremendous power to turn the world upside down, and this is represented in the first phase of the swirling dance of the three elements in SamTaeguk. Han can be seen in the shape of the Korean pine tree called So-NaMoo (㋀⇌ⱨ) that is not as straight as the Japanese pine tree, Sam-NaMoo (ㇰ⇌ⱨ). So-Na-Moo grows curved with several turning points, reflecting the pains and difficulties endured over a long period (Park 2002, p. 72). These difficulties make the inner nature of So-Na-Moo eventually stronger, heavier and fuller. Han is like those knuckles of Korean pine trees deeply embedded in the tree’s structure. It also has been described in diverse ways; as an old score inside the mind that has not been settled (Choi 1991, p. 342). Gil-Sung Choi describes Han as the sentiment created by a permanent resignation and a sense of great sorrow. Sometimes, Han has been described as a blood clot, blocking the healthy circulation of energy flow in the body (Choi 1991). Yeol-Kyu Kim (1982) showed the diverse spectrums of the Han quality by describing it in many dimensions: loneliness, emptiness, pain, sorrow, misery, sharp pain, lyricism, regrets and incompleteness.

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According to Jang-Bu-Ron (㣙⺴⦔),10 body organs are connected with certain emotional feelings. For example, the lung is connected with the feeling of grief, which is known as a feeling of sky. That is why when people are in grief they look up to the sky with sighs and longing. Han is connected with this action of looking up to the sky. What the king of the Cho-Sun (㦤㉔) dynasty of Korea feared most was to see people looking up to the sky with sighs or tears, since this is the sign of Han. Calling forth revolutions, it makes people look to the sky with fearsome desire for change: let us fly. Han motivates people to see beyond the power structures, lamenting the distance between the actual and the potential, so it is a psychological determinant in struggles, as struggles are born in the same place as dreams and grief: in the other side of joy. From the very attitude of lamenting and celebrating the distance, from the very recognition of a broken heart, we start looking up to the sky. Created in the void we are eager to fill, Han is a complex mix of feelings combined with a sense of grief but accompanied by a strong will to overcome them, and is easily found in persons with lots of Jung. Han can be understood from historical, social and ontological perspectives. In a historical context, as Korea is an important cultural route and a pathway between China and Japan, it was frequently invaded from neighbouring countries. It has been said that the development of this Korean special psychological feature, Han, might be explained based on this long and tragic history of Korean suffering occasioned by these invasions. From the social perspective in a Confucian society, Han was considered to be the trigger of class conflicts, especially regarding minority groups, low social classes or women. As society’s true voice remained unspoken and unexpressed behind rules and authority, there has been a continuous frustration and discomfort developing in the psyche. In these senses, Han has been primarily discussed in negative ways in Korea. However, Han is an important motivation for the Korean ritual sensing without sensing. Fundamentally, Han corresponds to the feeling of incompleteness and absence that activates a powerful wish to be completed. This fulfilment is to be achieved in the dimension of infinite oneness. It could be the “determinant of the struggle” (Whitehead 1948 [1933], p. 820) and the trigger of an honest analysis of the current tragedy 10

The medical theory based on different body natures claims that a therapeutic method should be customized in four categories, as explained in the book Jang-BuRon (㧻⿖⪶) written by Jema Lee (㧊㩲Ⱎ), at the end of Chosun Dynasty (Naver encyclopedia), accessed 2014/02/25, http://100.naver.com/100.nhn?docid=127902

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at the level of Korean consciousness. It is the Korean way of lightening weights, in a dream of flying to the sky and achieving full potentiality. Han is the power of emptying the self in order to expand to further possibilities. It activates imagination and the ritual of a swirling dance – let us fly.11 The Korean scholar Chiha Kim (2004, pp. 331, 711) said that in 21st Century all individual Han is going to be expanded into universal Han. Universal Han stimulates cosmological imagination, as true awareness. It is the power to push forward. He said without Han we cannot reach awareness about life and universe. Han shows the specific way in which Koreans handle their grief or frustration. Paradoxically, the way to deal with Han is dancing. There are many scenes in Korean legends and stories depicting dancing in front of tragedy. In the story of Cheo-Yong-Ga (㷌㟝ᴴ), Cheo-Yong (㷌㟝), in an emotional state, is singing and dancing in front of the tragic discovery of his wife being taken by the spirit Yeok-Shin (㜡㐔). The way to treat Han is through releasing, rather than through resolving. In order to understand the critical differences between these two concepts we need to compare Han (䚐) and Won (㠄). 㠄Won (ᛷ) is another emotional state, commonly driving heroic Asian literature. For example, when an enemy kills a master that has a servant, Won rises in the servant’s heart, promising to avenge his/her master and to kill the enemy. As in the Confucian virtue and heroic attitude, Won tries to overcome a distressing situation by eliminating the source of the problem, e.g. by “resolving” it. It triggers a linear process towards a definite end that often culminates in revenge, animosity and resentment. Quite distinct from Won, Han is a kind of non-objective mental state, which means acknowledging one’s own participation in the entire situation (Kim 2004, pp. 320–321). This perspective means projecting the sources of problems towards oneself, rather than onto others. It creates extreme states of grief, weakness, self-accusation and a sense of futility. In this sense it may indeed sound very passive and therefore Han has been primarily discussed negatively in Korea (Han & Han 2007, p. 84-85). However, the kind of mental state projected by Han can be associated with a quantum mind that positions itself as part of an interconnected system. Han favours the 11

Alfred North Whitehead talked about the paradoxical nature of the organic relationship as a whole. “The initial phase of each fresh occasion represents the issue of a struggle within the past for objective existence beyond itself. The determinant of the struggle is the supreme eros incarnating itself as the first phase of the individual subjective aim in the new process of actuality” (Whitehead 1933, p. 198).

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attitude of embracing everything, including difficulties. The role of Korean shamanic ritual is to release Han. The Korean writer Chiha Kim highlights the essential quality of Han as a kind of “passive activeness” in his book Hwang-To (䞝䋔), where he uses a lotus flower as a metaphor for the endless flow of love. The lotus flower shows an endless flow of love processed through constant pain, grief and difficulties. Jung, unconditional and eternal, is the infinite process of love shown at the root of Han. Han shows a way to live with problems but with great hope and strong belief, asserting with a soft but powerful voice, “not yet but some day!” The Korean scholar EeoLyeong Lee supports this optimistic sense of Han, saying “Han cannot be shaped without a strong desire to overcome the situation” (1982, pp. 9– 23). Han gives one the courage to deal with pain, even magnifying it for the ritual. It is power to empty and lighten actuality, in order to dream of real potential. Han has been a major motivation for Korean popular arts. Impossible love stories predominantly appearing in Korean pop culture such as drama, song and movies demonstrate the emotional aspect of Han. Han is the necessary condition to heighten the extreme state of playfulness called Shin-Myung (㐔⮹), that is the other side of Han and to show how opposite emotional states can contrast, balance and indeed transform into each other (Kim 1986, pp. 123-133). How would we feel if we were eventually able to jump over all difficulties and obstacles? It has been known in Korea that the ultimate potential of playfulness called ShinMyeong is derived from its opposite state of tremendous constraints, Han. Han is a necessary condition of Shin-Myeong, as a springboard allowing us to fly higher and higher. This condition brings a synergy that is impossible to be explained in a logical way, with the tremendous power of swirling movements, communicated by contagion from one to the other (Kim 1982). The real potential of Shin-Myeong is driven by Han (Cho 1997). Han is a sense of grief but also a sense of joy. It is a cry but also a laugh. It is the soft but very powerful energy of creation.

VI Joy of flying The paradoxical relationship between Han and Shin-Myeong can be compared to a clown’s tightrope walking: risky, unstable and unbalanced, continuously swinging between left and right. In Korea, the clown usually holds a fan in one hand, which seems to defy the act of balancing, but actually demonstrates a different philosophy: that of oscillating continuously

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between balance and unbalance, in order to find the greater moment of balance. It is a metaphor for the cosmic tree, which connects separated poles: left and right. The taller the cosmic tree the more unstable it appears and, paradoxically, the greater its stability. We may find ultimate joy in this process of very unstable walking. The deeper Han is, the more ShinMyeong is raised and the more powerful the ritual is (Ryu 2010, p. 106). The state of Shin-Myeong cannot be explained without taking into consideration the long shamanic Korean tradition. Ancient texts describe the state of Shin-Myeong, in the context of shamanic ritual. “The Record of Three Kingdoms (ㇰạ㡔㇠)” is an ancient text written in the 13th century, featuring the main characteristics of Korean people in a section called “Wi-Ji-Dong-Yi-Jun (㠸㫴┍㢨㤸)”. In this text, Koreans are described as people who love to “play” and who are involved in singing, dancing and drinking activities, day and night. It relates the social group activities of everyday singing and dancing that produce a balance between sky, earth and people, and that are connected with the swirling dance of Sam-Taeguk. The ancient sub-countries of Korea performed rituals for sky, called Yeong-Go (㜵Ḕ), Dong-Meng (┍⬭) and Moo-Cheon (ⱨ㷐). These rituals featured days and nights of drinking, singing and dancing, which used to drive the entire group and individual experiences to an altered state of consciousness: a feeling of a great oneness. One of the rituals, Moo-Cheon, was described as a repetitive simple movement in group dancing, where dozens of people stand up together, stamp on the ground and raise their hands continuously up and down until everyone is exhausted (Cho 1983, p. 32).12 “Playfulness” is the very nature of spirit, or God, in Korea. This spirit is made eventually visible through the shaman’s playfulness: singing, hopping and dancing in ecstasy (originating from the state of Han). When a shaman is transformed into the spirit, she speaks the voice of the spirit, 12

It is difficult to translate all the layers of meaning of Shin-Myeong into English. Shin-Myeong includes the meaning “joyful spirit” and “bright spirits present in earth and sky” (Koo, 1985, p. 10). Nowadays, Shin-Myeong has been used to describe people singing and dancing well, with extreme immersion and focus. When people say “Shin-Myeong is arisen!” it means that people feel and respond to the “sky”, which reveals an ultimate potential of play. Don-Il Cho explains it as the state of a bright mind that swirls tremendously, like a tornado (Cho 1997, p. 72). Koreans call this phenomenon Shin-Ba-Ram(㔶⹪⧢) which means “winds of spirit” that will eventually dissolve the incredible sadness of Han. The process of releasing Han by Shin-Ba-Ram, is called Shin-Myeomg Puri (direct translation: releasing by Shin-Myeong), which can be seen in the process of a Korean shaman ritual and Sam-Taeguk.

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appearing with a completely different nature: a graceful and respectful quality bringing everyone to drop to their knees (Dakashi 2000, pp. 139140). There are many kinds of spirits named Mooshin (ⱨ㐔) that are worshipped and called up by shamans. These spirits are mostly Korean heroic figures such as generals, kings and princesses who died tragically in a deep state of Han. The significant shaman song “Baridegi” (ⵈ⫠⒤ὤ) describes the tragic story of Mooshin. It is the story of princess Baridegi who was abandoned, lived and died in Han and eventually became Mooshin. During this difficult process, she acquired the ability to feel and understand Han and learned how to release others from Han. A shaman is also someone who fully understands and experiences Han, adding additional layers to be released during the ritual.13 It is interesting that Korean shaman rituals start from deeply sharing feelings and broken hearts between participants. After that the ritual drives incredible swirls of transformation, jumping up to the ultimate state of playfulness. This is the stage of sharing feelings, bringing three components all together in a swirl: the spirit from sky, shaman as mediator, and people from earth, all in the state of Han. It allows for a tremendous release of Han layers together, from jumping up to the ultimate potential of playfulness, layer by layer.

VII Shin-Myeong The state of Shin-Myeong has been researched within diverse fields such as Korean cultural studies, traditional arts, economics and politics, each one showing different manifestations of shamanism in Korean culture (Han & Han 2007, p. 86). Shin-Myeong is primarily a strong emotional state. Yeol-Kyu Kim (1982) said that Shin-Myeong comes from a holistic 13 Shamans lost the high social status they used to have in ancient times and are treated in a contemptuous way. This makes a shaman and her/his family life difficult and with suffering, isolated from their community. The majority of shamans that are called and selected by spirits have a mysterious illness called Shin-Byung(㔶⼧). It is impossible to be cured without accepting the spirit’s call by Nae-Lim-Gud (⇨⫰ẳ) which is a special ritual to become a shaman. This ritual is very hard to watch, with lots of tears and cries from the new shaman and her/his family. After this moment, she/he is reborn as a shaman with a mission to release people from Han and disconnects almost completely her life from family and social life. Through the painful process of becoming a shaman, the candidate acquires the ability to feel and understand Han, and therefore release Han for others.

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experience, from a psyche in extreme excitement, immersion and an extremely developed focus. It is this focus, accompanied by intuition and insight that triggers the altered state of consciousness in which the feeling of infinite wholeness Ha-Na rises. What the shaman’s spirit wants from the ritual is to play (in Korean, Nol-Ja (⊴㣄)). This is shown in the repetitive speech of the spirit’s voice through the shaman’s mouth, “Let me play enough!” and “Play for me!” It seems that the main purpose of the ritual is nothing more than “play”, understood as a continuous process towards infinite wholeness. The term Shin-Myeong also appears frequently in Korean linguistic expressions such as “Let’s play as Shin-Myeong!”.14 A Korean traditional dancer, Yul-Ja Oh, described 13 features of Shin-Myeong, among them: complete focus, absence of fear, transcendence of daily self, being natural, destruction of dualistic thinking, special cognition about space and time and feeling of oneness (2005, pp. 161-172). It evokes our primitive vital cognition of time and space. Another characteristic of Shin-Myeong is the speed of contagion of the movement towards infinite wholeness, from individual to group consciousness. Yeol-Kyu Kim defines it as the “contagion phenomena of Shin-Myeong” (1982). It was well shown at The World Cup 2002 in Seoul, when everyone got into a state of delirium and experienced the group as a whole. Jung would be the source of transfer for this contagious phenomenon, from individual to group consciousness (Choi 1991, pp. 339-350). It is a kind of telematic connection of feelings, exchanging from heart to heart. The state of Shin-Myeong allows people to do something that cannot possibly be done in their daily lives and consciousness (Han & Han 2007, p. 88). Korean shaman ritual develops from a micro to a macro scale, as a channel from dissatisfactions to satisfaction, from incompleteness to completeness, from grief to joy and from Han to ShinMyeong. The process of ritual is deeply embedded in Korean subconsciousness, which continuously drives the ritual of transformation in everyday consciousness.

VIII Looking at sky – quiet mind In the climax of Sam-Taeguk, the experience moves to the meta-layer, detached from the phenomenon itself. It is a shift from desire to non14 The state of Shin-Myeong has three aspects: 1. a strong emotional state; 2. speed of contagion; and 3. chaotic & orgiastic energy (Han & Han 2007, p. 86).

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desire, and from mind to no-mind, turning the world upside down. It would be moment when we realize “sky” and us as a unique picture – looking at “sky” in a “no-mind” state of transcendental quality. Koreans call this the state of Moo-A-Ji-Kyung (ⱨ㙸㫴ᷱ), or Moo-Shim (ⱨ㐠), where the selfhood is completely erased: a state in which we go beyond our tedious efforts to own or rationalize. This state is quiet, however noisy. It welcomes tremendous paradoxical conflicts between the actual and the potential, but the frequency might exceed the audible range of human perception, therefore, it is quiet, just as in the eye of the storm. It would be the point when our experience turns upside down, accompanied by a completely different perception. It is like what happens in an I-Mo-Ko (㢨⯜⁠) question in Hwadu (䞈▄) (Koan) of Korean Hwaom (䞈㛸) Buddhism, which explores maximizing conflicts in questions given by the Seon (㉔) Master, so one cannot settle down. Foreground noise shifts into ambient background, as we quietly observe the scenery of self-incompleteness and void. Shift may occur from focus to horizon, and from desire to nondesire (Odin 2001, pp. 36-39.) We find ourselves looking at sky, in fact, an entire picture of me looking at sky. It is the ability to look at entire fields of Being in itself. This state would bring sensory integration, meta sensory experience and an intuition-opening space for creative imagination, connected with the state of Shin-Myeong. Being itself would be including me in the entire scenery of me looking at sky. There would be no noticeable changes in material levels. Everything would look exactly the same, but there would have been a crucial difference made to our perception, awareness and consciousness. It is the magical part of sensing without sensing. Nothing seems to have changed but the real change has happened in our awareness. This is linked to the number 3 again, that as previously stated, is an important number in Korean culture, the number of “change”.15 It is the very principle of swirling dance where everything keeps being multiplied by three, creating layer after layer. In the ultimate point of each swirl we may pass from a current layer to another.

15

For example, there is a saying that a new bride should spend 3 years losing her hearing and tongue, since something will start being changed after 3 years. The expression “three days and nights” means that after three days and nights the perception of things are supposed to have changed. It has been thought that nine is the number for completion of change and 81 is the number for completion of a universe (Woo 2010, p. 102).

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The three stages of enlightenment in Korean Seon Buddhism are a good example to support this argument.16 Before you study Seon, you see mountains as mountains; while you are studying Seon, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; but once you have had enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers are again rivers (Kim 2000, pp. 163-169). The beginning and the end of sequences look the same but are totally different.17 In Taoism, detachment is known as a transcendent way to consider the world, “letting-be”, practicing non-desire (Odin 2001, p. 15). One is, once again one, just as in the meaning of the Korean word Han (䚐) shifting from a single one to an infinite wholeness meta layer of oneness (Han 2008, p. 62). It is the paradoxical aspect of consciousness that supports the natural shift from one to the other, from being to beingin-itself. This aspect is supported by the Korean foundation myth “Dan-Gun (␜Ấ)” describing that Hwan-Woong (䞌㟹) (God of sky) came down from the mountain without any special assistance or devices. His travel was just as the flight of a bird that naturally sits or stands on the earth (Choi 1998, p. 211). Hwan-Woong favours the coexistence of different mixed realities – such as the virtual and the physical – conforming to a syncretic feature in Korean consciousness. The assumption that there is always a virtual shadow underlying reality, co-existing with actual space, is the basis of sensing without sensing: a sensorial mode that enables free displacement from one state to another.18 Different realities come from different perceptions of the same phenomena. This philosophy has been reflected in Korean words that have a common root but opposite meaning as, for example, in the word Han 16

For Koreans, Seon(㍶) enlightenment brings all worlds together within a paradoxical loop. This would be equivalent to the “no-mind” state looking at a mountain. 17 Another example is the three states in the I-Ching. In I-Ching, the first state is called So-In (㏢㧎), the second, Gun-Ja (ῆ㧦), and the third, Tae-In (╖㧎), which is considered as the greatest awareness (Kim 2000, 166-169. Gun-Ja’s hierarchical fallacy is that he considered the spiritual world higher than the material world. Gun-Ja was obsessed with virtue, “good” and “sky,” and lacked wholeness in relations. So-In may not see the difference between Tae In and themselves; however, there is a great difference. Tae In thinks everything is correlated and balanced together, focusing on the whole (quantum fields). 18 This would be connected with the concept of field consciousness, which is a quiet but ultimate state of paradoxical conflict. It would be a state that refers to neither here nor there, accepting the indeterminate nature of the world.

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that means “one” and “many”, or in the words Body (⯬) and Mind (⬌) that have a single root but different meanings (Kim 1992, pp. 24, 103). A seamless flow between polar opposites is behind the apparent arbitrary intentions in Korean design. This merging of opposites supports the unique features of Korean design’s aesthetic philosophy. In this sense design is a tool to manage the interval between the meta and the actual layer. Its apparent arbitrariness is due to interpretation from the point of view of the side of physical reality. In fact, design is considered a way to open our ability to perceive, experience and feel the layer characteristic of the state called being-in-itself. Although everything seems to be designed without goals, intentions, definitions, control and hierarchy, design responds to the dream of ultimate freedom, just as shown in the structure of Sam-Taeguk. This can be seen in the design of ritual objects, gardens, ceramics and buildings. Regarding ritual objects, most are prepared, designed and decorated to represent something critically different from their daily uses and appearance. However, Korean ritual objects are created by assembling everyday objects such as a dried fish, a white cloth, rice, a table and a broom stick together in different ways (regarding order or usage). Even if looking almost the same, daily spaces are suddenly transformed into sacred spaces that reveal a different layer of reality (Dakashi 2000, p. 21). Due to this transformative quality a Korean shamanistic ritual can happen anywhere in daily consciousness. Regarding Korean gardens, despite being perfectly and intentionally projected, they do not look as prepared as Western gardens. The same applies to Korean ceramics, Mak-Sabal (⫽㇠ⵐ), that look arbitrarily and uncontrolledly shaped but demand different perceptions of daily phenomena and natural beauty. In the case of buildings, palaces are not filled but rather left empty (Park 2002, pp. 215-216). In all these manifestations the mode of experience called sensing without sensing is present, that is to say, sky and earth keep switching and flipping positions seamlessly, enabling the ordinary to turn into the spiritual and the spiritual into the ordinary. Actual turns into meta, meta turns into actual, integrated with Jung, Eros towards infinite wholeness. Sky is in love with earth, as earth is in love with sky. Because of this feature, this meta experience can be situated in our daily lives and daily consciousness easily. A Korean shaman lives a block away in our neighbourhood, inscribing herself in the on-going conflict of her paradoxical position between the mundane and the spiritual. It is a great paradox of Korean contemporary culture that being the shaman is considered a social taboo when we still

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live with the shamans in our neighbourhoods and perform on-going rituals in this highly technically developed society. Our struggles and pains on the level of the materiality of the “actual” are the basis from which to jump to reach the ultimate point of field consciousness and imagination where we can move from focus to horizon, and from desire to non-desire. This is a peripheral horizon of the perceptual field, which is precisely the horizon of disclosure termed by phenomenological analysis “the region of openness”. This would be the ultimate state of sensing without sensing when emptiness shifts into fullness (Odin 2001, pp. 35-37). Edmund Husserl considered that in each perceptual experience there are two kinds of horizon (the horizon phenomenon): internal and external. When we perceive, we usually attend to delimited forms of objects but these objects are perceived within a field. Attention can be directed either to concrete limited forms or to the field in which these forms are situated. In this experience, the attention is on the field rather than on its contents. It is an imaginative visionary wholeness, and openness in Heidegger’s terminology (Odin 2001, pp. 37, 50). It could be considered as a “syncretic balance” or “harmony”, a new sense of self and “planetary consciousness”. (Ascott 2003, p. 197) The flow of Han over time goes from a strong emotional state, passes through or over stages of confusion and becomes stabilized in a transcendental layer. In the final stage, this emotion becomes separated from the self and objectified. Therefore, each person can talk about his/her Han, as if the experience was not his/hers but from others, showing the transcendental quality of Han (Choi 1991, p. 18). Han is on the way to approaching the transcendental nature, appreciating our presence in the actual layer, confronting suffering in actuality. In Korean thought we need to get through and even celebrate all pain in the actual layer in order to get to the meta layer. Korean courage to celebrate emptiness is a real power to push forward to the meta layer of experience. It could be connected to the “releasing technique” in psycho-therapy where all feelings of pain, grief, frustration and anger are welcomed and people really feel and get to know what they are, all through the body. Only after this “pain shower” as I call it, can these feelings eventually be released, and detached from the self. The American writer Mitch Albom says: If you hold back on the emotions, if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them, you can never get to being detached. You’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way over your head

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This supports the principle of sensing without sensing at an ontological level, starting from recognition of tragedy, shifting to a transcendental layer and following a paradoxical position by acknowledging that the burden of the actual layer is a necessary condition to become open for the full freedom of potentiality.

IX Virtual bodies, sensing without sensing, impossible Love As an artist working with virtual interactive technology, I am interested in the ontological aspect of the concept of “virtual” in the context of sensing without sensing. Deleuze defines the virtual as a kind of potentiality that becomes fulfilled in the actual. He said it is still not material, but it is real (Deleuze 1988, pp. 96-100). Slavoj Zizek (2004) talks about the constitutive ambiguity of the relationship between actual and virtual according to Quantum Physics: Perhaps, the ontological difference between the Virtual and the Actual is best captured by the shift in the way Quantum Physics conceives the relationship between particles and their interactions: in an initial moment, it appears as if first (ontologically, at least) there are particles interacting in the mode of waves, oscillations, etc.; then, in a second moment, we are forced to enact a radical shift of perspective – the primordial ontological fact are the waves themselves (trajectories, oscillations), and particles are nothing but the nodal points in which different waves intersect. (Zizek 2004, p. 4)

In the mode of sensing without sensing, actual and virtual contrast and balance each other in a paradoxical way. The virtual, as a complete potentiality of experience, can only be defined from, and through the actual layer, in the attempt to erase the actual itself. This entire process can be called “active void”. My virtual puppetry projects have explored paradoxical relationships. In concrete I have focused on impossible love relationships between beings that belong to different layers: the virtual, the actual and the inbetween. The story of an impossible love reveals the tragic component of a

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cosmological relationship, exploring the infinite process of loving – and constant dreaming of – the virtual. The state of paradox appears when the world is considered as an organic whole that favours the coexistence of dream and tragedy. In the Korean experience mode of sensing without sensing – a story of impossible love19 – this state of paradox is present. I employ the word virtual in my virtual puppetry projects not only in the sense defined by Deleuze but also referring to the technical usage of virtual interactive technology. So, in this sense I propose a marriage between the ontological and the technological issues. Personal experiences of physical presence have been transferred to virtual bodies such as avatars, virtual objects and sometimes to the entire virtual space. One of the objectives of my research is to explore whether Jung – understood as a voluntary feeling of affection and caring for each other – can be activated between the multiple bodies supported by interactive technology that inhabit different layers. In the Korean cultural imaginary Jung exists between human and sky.20 In the state of Jung, we feel other’s hearts and emotions, and this includes even things thought of as inanimate. Sky is as personified as a human being with personality regarding share of feelings, grief and love. Feeling others’ hearts (for example, sky’s grief and joy) is a great way of acknowledging, confirming and extending our own body states rooted in physical organs and senses. Jung would be the Korean way of relocating, distributing and expanding the body into different dimensions of reality without losing the root in the physicality of body. Once the body is re-situated, our senses are re-located and our experience is shifted into the virtual realm, the virtual body and virtual senses. In this hybrid context, the relationship of bodies situated in different layers, for example, the relationship between a puppet and the puppeteer or an avatar and a user, can be analysed to know what happens relating to the flow of Sam-Taeguk and Jung: it is a flow of love and emotions between virtual and physical bodies.

19

Alfred North Whitehead writes: “At the heart of the nature of things, there are always the dream of youth and the harvest of tragedy. The adventure of the universe starts with the dream and reaps tragic Beauty. This is the secret of the union of Zest with peace: That the suffering attains its end in a harmony of harmonies. The immediate experience of this final face, with its union of youth and tragedy, is the sense of peace. In this way the world receives its persuasion towards such perfections as are possible for its diverse individual occasions” (Whitehead 1933, pp. 295-296). 20 Wicheonju Goajung (㥚㻲㭒ἶ㞚㩫) in Donghak theology.

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Regarding the flow of Sam-Taeguk in the relationship between a puppet and a puppeteer, the following episode is interesting to explain different aspects of the process. One day, my two brothers visited me at home and played hand puppets for my kids. It was interesting to note the differences between their performances: one brother reflected the puppet’s emotions on his face: therefore he cried when the puppet cried, and he was happy when the puppet was; the other brother performed in a quite different way as an observer from a distance, without any sympathetic facial expression. Even if the puppet laughed or cried he kept a neutral look, being the detached audience of his own play. He and the puppet were completely distinct beings; therefore the puppet seemed to move by itself. Stephen Kaplin characterizes the latter approach as the essential aspect of puppetry: “[T]he performing object has become detached from the actor’s body, developing its own center of gravity, [...] its own presence” (2001, p. 23). It is at this point, where the centre of gravity of the performing object and the performer are distinct from each other, that the term “puppet” can be used. In becoming puppet, the puppeteer’s body occupies a liminal zone suspended somewhere between puppet and puppeteer. It is like driving – initially the car is an external tool in which the driver sits and manipulates controls, but eventually it becomes like an extension of the driver’s body. Interfaces become transparent, intuitive. In the same way, puppet and puppeteer come to share a single body, a single centre of gravity, sharing sympathetic expression. However, there is also a point at which the object becomes liberated from the puppeteer’s body, creating its own life and centre of gravity. At this point, the puppeteer’s body seems to return to where she started the journey. However, her state of mind and body seem crucially changed by this development; she becomes a distant spectator of the entire field, the puppet’s autonomous performance. This can be considered as a flow of Sam-Taeguk starting from Jung, then Han as the other side of Jung, and Shin-Myeong as the other side of Han, and eventually detachment or shift to the other side of reality. When we translate this into the emotional context of an impossible love, the tragedy of the puppeteer lies embedded in the recurrent and ironic process of joining before the farewell. In this scenario of impossible love, the puppeteer is in love with the puppet (her alternative body), despite all of the definite portents of the upcoming farewell. It would be a tragedy because of the puppeteer’s continuous desire for an impossible relationship: the paradoxical aspect of becoming the other. The puppeteer faces the irremediable distance of the puppet and experiences nostalgia for the fulfilled moments of integral unity. The puppeteer laments her

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separation from her alternative body, a symbolic lover, a symbolic dream of oneself displaced, renewed or forgotten. It is tragic when you recognize the separation from that which you love. It is tragic when you are aware of the upcoming farewell, even when deeply in love. Tragedy comes from a paradoxical situation: from the continuous denial of a current state. It is akin to a continuous denial of our own body, starting with the very recognition of our own bodies situated within a definite field. In relation to a socio-economic field in which our bodies are situated, Felix Guattari talked about the micro-fascism of our own body and the molecular revolution, in the context of our body situated in the micro-politics of power structures, and systematically trained to be better adapted to the formations of power (Guattari 1996, pp. 7-14). The dramatic part of this impossible love starts from the confirmation of a “tragedy of paradox” that corresponds to Han. At the ontological level, it is a confirmation of the oppressive state in which from our body we continuously desire to achieve fulfilment by means of, and ownership over, apparently impossible materials. Lacan discusses impossible relations as a never-ending desire for becoming and a desire for love. As desiring machines we are the main characters of impossible loves; we follow the rainbow that cannot be perceived, felt or dreamt except from a distance. The distance challenges us to look over, standing on our toes, lengthening our necks, and narrowing our eyes, very carefully and longingly, for the eternal process of loving. Humans’ broken hearts and tears are the very signs of Han emerging in the story of impossible loves, in the mode of sensing without sensing. Distance is one of the elements analysed by different authors regarding the evolution in the relationship between the body and performing objects, such as masks and puppets. Baird analysed that distance is increasing between the body and the performing object, as a linear progression that places the performing object on an outward trajectory of departure from the performer's body, considered partial, towards a full body. Gradually, in the course of centuries, the hinged and jointed mask moved upward, off the head, and was held in the hands in front of the body. Later it moved farther away and was made to live by the manipulation of strings. (Baird 1965, p. 30)

The constant separation that happens between the performing object and the performer’s body is similar to the situation of the virtual body that constantly leaves the actual body in the digital age.

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This trajectory is also operative in Stephen Kaplin’s puppet tree, where the distance between the performer and the object increases along a continuum encompassing performing objects, actor, character role, masks, body puppets, hand puppets, rod puppets, marionettes, remotely controlled figures, shadow figures, animated figures, computer generated figures and virtual performer/object. Kaplin’s puppet tree clearly shows the evolution of alternative bodies moving away from the performer’s bodies, and the relationship between spatial distance and technological development: As the physical distance between the performer and the object widens, the amount of technology needed to bridge the gap increases. Moving the puppet’s center of gravity outside the body of the puppeteer requires more and more sophisticated linking systems. (Kaplin 1999, pp. 21-23)

Moreover, the tension generated by the different modalities of movement at distance, in physical separation and remoteness, contributes to the sense of an autonomous life force. Though a mask may partially or fully cover the face, or can be significantly outsized, still it typically forms a direct analogue to the structures of the human face and is typically superimposed over the anatomical structures it analogizes. However, as usually every part of the puppet’s body is driven either by the puppeteer’s hands or, even more remotely, through the use of rods or strings, the result is that distinct body parts and systems seem to be at once connected and disconnected, in a continuous conflict. This paradox challenges the puppeteer, and makes the puppet uncannily distinct, an irreducible enigma, mysterious as life itself. Puppet control is mechanically challenging, but these obstacles contribute to the dynamic transformation that aims to reach the ultimate state of playfulness Shin-Myeong in the mode of sensing without sensing. In this sense the degree of Han in the relationship between human beings and alternative bodies can be noticed. Kaplin’s puppet tree model is built on the Indonesian kayon, or cosmic tree. As a two-dimensional model, the Y axis maps all kinds of distance, regardless of direction, onto a single axis, corresponding to the height of the tree. I envision an updated version of Kaplin’s puppet tree in a fourdimensional virtual and psychic space-time. It would require a Z-axis to represent a complex interplay of psychical and spatial dimensions encompassing virtual space. Detachment could be analysed as an aspect of psychical distance across which the puppeteer observes her own becoming rendering the puppeteer as a quantum observer, both involved in the event and detached from it. This integrated embodied consciousness emerges in a process of transformation, in the mode of sensing without sensing.

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Technological development has been dedicated to the critical quality of the ritual body, continuously parting on the Z-axis of the virtual realm, the metaverse over the network, over the rainbow, over the horizon. We seem to be drastically increasing the height of the cosmic tree, connecting and also disconnecting the separated poles, reflecting humans increased desire for a more dynamic version of the swirling dance, and a more dramatic story of impossible love. In this context, the virtual space can be defined as infinite space for farewell, increasing the aspect of void, nothingness, incompleteness and emptiness. Virtual bodies travelling on such a Z-axis would be new ritual bodies in the context of the impossible love, becoming more and more remote, intangible, flexible, deconstructed, multiplied, and fragmented: challenging us with new types of emptiness, void and incompleteness that pose different experiences of sensing without sensing. There is a level of uncanniness arising from the paradoxical conflict between life and death, and also between materiality and immateriality. The virtual body appears in an “in-between” state: neither material nor immaterial, neither tangible nor intangible. This can be considered as an additional layer of paradox pertinent to the experiential mode of sensing without sensing. A virtual space can be understood as a space for lightening weights from actuality – as space for Han. The potential emptiness and void brought by virtual technology appeals to human consciousness regarding the tangibility of virtual spaces, even if intangible, and the tactile experience of the untouchable. Regarding detachment, the translation from focus into horizon (Husserl, James)21 is somehow embedded in navigation in virtual space as the constant moving from focus to field that is similar to the movement featured by virtual cameras. The action of finding the camera picture’s point of interest (focal point) is about determining the distance between subject and object. It is a continuous action of creating and reconfirming the distance (gap) in the virtual field. In this space emerges a new body presence. This nature of navigation in virtual fields could illustrate our

21 Regarding the translation from focus into horizon consult this link accessed 2014/04/10, http://books.google.es/books?id=_zI4_pKMNJQC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=f rom+focus+to+horizon+james+husserl&source=bl&ots=Spc_ilf0WR&sig=Bdm8b z3I8PPSY4Grx4mSOrO9OU4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CosMT6S8J47tgbw6KmeBw&r edir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=from%20focus%20to%20horizon%20james%20husser l&f=false

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flow of consciousness, from desire to non-desire and from mind to nomind.22 My virtual puppet performance titled Parting on Z23 explored Han in the paradoxical relationship between a virtual puppet and a puppeteer, this time realized in a love relationship between an artist and an avatar. During the performance the symbolic lovers continuously exchanged dialogues of love and farewell, facing each other. The story chosen for this performance was the farewell scene from “Chun-Hyang-Ga” (㻌䛙ᴴ), a classic Korean story of an impossible love that demonstrates Han. The performance shows the experience of sensing without sensing, starting from Jung, turning into Han and arriving at field consciousness. My experience with Parting on Z’s performance was emotionally overwhelming; my whole body shook with crying and laughter with my lover-avatar. As a performer interacting with a virtual body, I felt grief in the process of merging into the virtual puppet body on screen. This could be interpreted as a subjective experience related to my personal background: my body is pretty much full of Han; it always suppresses self-expression due to my education as a female that grew up in a conservative family in Korea. My empty body is intently dreaming about alternative places to be. During the performance, using a microphone and standing on a Wii fit balance board, I played for two characters who are deeply in love. The whole action represented the moment just before the farewell. In the middle of the performance, turning on two candlelights, I became ChunHyang (㻌䛙: female lover) in the actual space, facing Mong-Ryong (⯱⨕) as virtual body on screen. From this point on, all was farewell between my actual body and the virtual one. The process of handing over to him my ring and a drink for the farewell ritual was emotionally overwhelming. My body and lips were harshly shaking and I was unable to verbalize words. During the last scene, I was watching my lover slowly disappear beyond virtual fields, walking with him in the virtual space connected from the Wii fit balance board. I was standing on my toes, stretching my neck and narrowing my eyes. Based on the original script I said:

22

Michael Heim talks about the nature of navigation in virtual space embedded within an ever-changing reality that is related to the constantly changing reality in Zen Buddhism (1998, pp. 56-57). 23 N.E.: For more information on Semi Ryu’s art works consult this link accessed 2013/12/10, http://www.semiryu.net/

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You look as big as a moon, a star, a butterfly, a firefly disappearing beyond the horizon (Z). I don’t see your shadow. I don’t see even the shadow.

This farewell text, put into a 2-dimensional perspective, a different dimension of reality that is quite humorous and poetic, reflects the constant process of parting on Z. By the time my lover was the size of a firefly I found I had stopped crying in the middle of the process, in the extreme state of grief, but was smiling to my lover. I started looking at the entire virtual field connected to my walking steps. In a way my attention was moved from focus to horizon. I was looking at my virtual body leaving over the horizon until he became a tiny bit of a shadow, until tiny tiny bits of information slowly disappeared on Z. I kept my gaze until his tiny bit of body was gone and completely erased, just as Koreans wave their hands until you are completely out of sight. This may be the way to welcome and celebrate the full pain of farewell-grief, regret, longing in a pain-process of emptying yourself. I left my avatar to infinity, probably still walking on Z. It is interesting to observe that technology has supported the ritual of farewell between human and alternative bodies, provoking an increased state of Han. The virtual body parting on the Z axis reflects the human desire to achieve a higher level of ritual, by maximizing the state of paradox supported by technological devices (rods, strings, wireless, virtual, network, etc.). Jung, Han, Shin-Myeong and transcendental detachment would all be different manifestations of Sam-Taeguk occurring in a non-Newtonian time, supported by the experiential mode of sensing without sensing. The basic principle ruling this experiential mode remains the same no matter which media is employed. We can analyse different manifestations of the ritual relating to different technologies to see how each type of technology shapes the flow toward the “potential” layer of human experience in a different way. Sensing without sensing can be explored in the digital age, regarding the emotional and psychical human engagement in the interval between different layers of reality supported by technology.

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X Bibliography Ascott, R 2003, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness, University of California Press, Berkeley. Albom, M 2005, Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man and life’s greatest lesson, Anchor books, New York. Baird, B 1965, The Art of the Puppet, Macmillan, New York. Cho, D 1997, Catharsis, Rasa, Shin-Myeong, Jisik Press, Seoul. Choi, G 1991, Korean Han, Ye-Jin, Seoul. (㾲₎㎇ (1991), 䞲ῃ㧎㦮 䞲, 㡞㰚, ㍲㤎.) Choi, I 1998, Imaginary structure of Korean basic culture, volume1, Minsokwon, Seoul. (㾲㧎䞯 (1998) ὤ㽩ⱬ䞈⪰ 䋩䚨⸬ 䚐ạ㢬㢌 ㇵㇵ㷨᷸(ㇵ), ⴰ㋁㠄, ㉐㟬.) Cho, M. 1983, Therapeutical aspect of dance, Sejong University, Master Thesis, Seoul. (㦤⴬⢰ (1983) ⱨ㟝㢌 㾌⨀㤵 ὤ⏙㜄 Ḵ䚐 㜤Ạ, ㉬㦹␴䚍Ẅ ␴䚍㠄 ㉑㇠䚍㠸 ⊰ⱬ, ㉐㟬.) Choi, S 1991, ‘A psychological conceptualization of Korean Hahn concept and its empirical evaluation’, Proceedings of Korean Psychology conference: conceptualizing psychosial aspect of Han, Chung-Ang University, Seoul. (㺐ㇵ㫸 (1991) 䚐㢌 ㇠䟀㐠⫠䚍㤵 ᵐ⊄䞈 㐐⓸, 䚐ạ㐠⫠䚍䟀 91’ 㜤㵜␴䟀 䚍㍔ⵐ䖐⊰ⱬ㬅, 㩅㚍␴䚍Ẅ, ㉐㟬.) Choi, S 1993, ‘Korean Psychology of Shimjung: Phenomelogical understanding of Jung and Han’, Proceedings of Daewei Symposium, Korean Psychological Association, Seoul. (㾲㌗㰚 (1993) 䞲ῃ㧎㦮 㕂㩫㕂Ⰲ䞯: 㩫ὒ 䞲㠦 ╖䞲 䡚㌗䞯㩗 䞲 㧊䟊, ╖㣎 㕂䙂㰖㠚, 䞲ῃ 㕂Ⰲ䞯䣢, ㍲㤎.) Dakashi, A 2000, Shaman dancing or not, Hanool, Seoul. Deleuze, G 1988, Bergsonism, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, Zone Books, Brooklyn. Guattari, F 1996, Soft Subversions, Semiotext(e), New York. Han, M & Han, S 2007, ‘Cultural Psychology of Shinmyeong’, Korean Journal of Psychology, vol.26, nº1, Seoul. (䚐ⴰ, 䚐㉥㜨 (2007) 㐔⮹㜄 ␴䚐 ⱬ䞈㐠⫠䚍㤵 Ḕ㵤, 䚐ạ 㐠⫠䚍䟀 㤴≄, 2007, Vol 26, No. 1, ㉐㟬.) Han, J 2008, The legacy of Korean philosophy, Ewha University Press,

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Seoul. (䞲㧦ἓ (2008) 䞲ῃ㻶䞯㦮 ⰻ, 㧊䢪䞯㑶㽳㍲, ㍲㤎.) Heim, M 1998, Virtual Realism, Oxford University Press, New York. Hur, H 2004, ‘Harmony of sky, earth and human in Dangun myth and organic cosmology’, Proceedings of the 5th International Whitehead Conference “Process Thought And East Asian Culture”, The Whitehead Society of Korea, Seoul: International Process Network. (䛼䝬㢩 (2004) 䢪㧊䔎䠺✲㦮 㥶₆㼊㩗 ㎎Ἒὖὒ ┾ῆ㔶䢪㦮 㻲㰖㧎 㫆䢪⪶) Kaplin, S 2001, A Puppet Tree: Puppets, Masks, and Performing objects (ed. John Bell), New York University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York and Cambridge, MA. Kim, C 1970, Hwang-To, Han-Er Press, Seoul. (ₖ㰖䞮 1970, 䢿䏶, 䞲㠒 㿲䕦, ㍲㤎.) —. 2004, Social sublimation of human being, Hope Philosophy Press, Seoul. (ₖ㰖䞮 (2004) 㧎Ṛ㦮 ㌂䣢㩗 ㎇䢪, 䧂ⰳ 㻶䞯, ㍲㤎.) Kim, J 2004, ‘Interpreting Han in the perspective of Hope Philosophy’, Philosophy, Korean Philosophical Association, Seoul, 78:2, (ₖ㰚 (2004) 䞲㦮 䧂ⰳ㻶䞯㩗 䟊㍳, 㻶䞯 78:2, 䞲ῃ 㕂Ⰲ 䞯䣢, ㍲㤎.) Kim, S 1992, Hanism, Onuri Press, Seoul. (ὴㇵ㢰 (1992) 䚐㇠ㇵ, 㝜⌸⫠ 㻐䑄, ㉐㟬.) —. 2000, The structure of Donghak existance, Jisik press, Seoul. (ₖ㌗㧒 2000, ☯䞯ὒ 㔶㍲䞯, 㰖㔳㌆㠛㌂, ㍲㤎.) —. 2001, Donghak and process philosophy, Jisik press, Seoul. (ₖ㌗㧒 (2001) 㑮㤊ὒ 䢪㧊䔎䠺✲, 㰖㔳㌂㠛㌂, ㍲㤎.) Kim, Y 1982, Korean Shinmyeong, Jooryu, Seoul. (̡ࠊ̍ 1982, ଞ˲ࢉࢂ ‫ָݦ‬, ࣯զ, ۰ࡌ.) —. 1986, Who are we as Korean? Jayou- Moonhak Publisher, Seoul. (ₖ㡊′ (1986) 䞲ῃ㧎, 㤆Ⰲ⓪ ⑚ῂ㧎Ṗ?, 㧦㥶ⶎ䞯㌂, ㍲㤎.) —. 1998, Understanding Korean Aesthetics: Look though Korean Habitus, Ewha University Press, Seoul. (ₖ㡗₆ (1998) 䞲ῃ㧎㦮 ₆㰞ὒ ㎇䟻㦚 䐋䟊 ⽎ 䞲ῃ⹎㦮 㧊䟊, 㧊䢪 㿲䕦⿖, ㍲㤎.) —. 1999) Noja and 21st Century, volume 1, Tongnamu, Seoul. (ₖ㣿㡻 (1999) ⏎㧦㢖 21㎎₆ (1), 䐋⋮ⶊ, ㍲㤎.) Koo, B 1985, ‘Shinmyeong-Go from Korean literature and music’, Humanity Research, volume 2. (Ạ⸬䜵, 䚐ạ㢌Gⱬ䚍SGᴴ㙹SG㢀㙹㜄㉐G⸬G㐔⮹ḔSG㢬ⱬ䚍㜤ẠG⊰㹑SG 㥐YỀUPG

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Lee, E 1982, Culture of releasing in Shinbaram, Joong-Ang daily newspaper, Seoul. (㧊㠊⪏ (1982) 䛎⓪ ⶎ䢪, 㔶⹪⧢㦮 ⶎ䢪, 㭧㞯㧒⽊, ㍲㤎.) Odin, S 2001, Artistic Detachment in Japan and the West: Psychic Distance in Comparative Aesthetics, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Oh, Y 1995, Shinmyeong experience from dancing, Dance conference thesis, vol. 18. (㝘㡜㣄 (1995) 㻘㜄㉐㢌 㐔⮹㷨䜌㜄 Ḵ䚐 㜤Ạ, ⱨ㟝䚍䟀⊰ⱬ㬅.) Park, S 2002, Korean trait from the cultural heritage: exploring the prototyope of Korean identity, Hanbando, Seoul. (⹫㌗䞮 (2002) 㤆Ⰲ ⶎ䢪 㥶㌆㦒⪲ ⽎ 䞲ῃ㧎㦮 ₆㰞—䞲ῃ㦮 䡫㎇ὒ 㩫㼊㎇㦮 㤦⮮⯒ 㺔㞚㍲, ☚㍲㿲䕦 䞲⹮☚, ㍲㤎. ) Ryu, S 2010, ‘Virtual Puppet, My Impossible Love’, Metaverse Creativity, Intellect Journal, vol. 1, nº 1, pp. 105-117. Whitehead, A 1948 [1933], Adventures of ideas, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. —. 1979, Process and reality: an essay in cosmology, Simon and Schuster, New York. Woo, S 1999, The structure of Korean culture, Sol, Seoul. (㤆㔺䞮 1999, 䞲ῃⶎ䢪㦮 ῂ㫆, ㏪, ㍲㤎.) —. 2004, ‘Yul-lyeo and Sam Taeguk philosophy’, Proceedings of the world lifeculture forum: memory and transmission of lives, The Way of Life and Peace, Seoul. (㤆㔺䞮(2004)㥾⩺㢖 ㌒䌲⁏ ㌂㌗, ㎎Ἒ㌳ⳛⶎ䢪䙂⩒-ἓ₆(2004) 㦮 ‘㭒㩲Ⱎ╏2: ㌳ⳛ㦮 ₆㠋ὒ 㩚㔏’, ㌳ⳛὒ 䘟䢪㦮 ₎.) —. 2010, ‘On the origin of the shape of Sam Taeguk/Samwon Taeguk and the classification of Sam Pamun patterns’, Society of Eastern thoughts, Volume 21, Seoul. (㤆㔺䞮 (2010) ㌒䌲⁏/㌒㤦䌲⁏ ⶎ㟧㦮 ₆㤦ὒ ㌒䕢ⶎ㦮 㥶䡫⿚⮮┺㟧䞲 ㌒䌲⁏ ⶎ㟧㦮 䢲㣿㦚 㥚䞮㡂, ☯㟧㌂䣢㌂㌗ 㩲 21㰧 .) Yoo, D 1997, Poongryudo and Korean religion, Yonsei Press, Seoul. (㥶☯㔳 (1997) 䛣⮮☚㢖 䞲ῃ㫛ᾦ㌂㌗, 㡆㎎╖㿲䕦, ㍲㤎.) Zizek, S, 2004, Organs without bodies: Deleuze and consequences, Routledge, New York. Zohar, D 1990, The quantum self, Harper Collins, New York.

CHAPTER SEVEN BETWEEN SENSE AND INTELLECT: BLINDNESS AND THE STRENGTH OF INNER VISION LORETTA SECCHI

To Andrea Sangiorgi, in memoriam Chapter Index Abstract I. Understanding words as aesthetic equivalents II. Role of aesthetic lifelong learning of visually impaired and non-impaired adults III. Bibliography

Abstract Reading an image endowed with aesthetic value for both sighted and partially sighted people (congenital, belated blind people and partially sighted people) means facing the problem of the form endowed with aesthetic value by means of recognizing that it performs several functions: poetic-expressive, educational, narrative, informative, culturalhistorical, psychological and speculative. Formalism and content analysis, from the late nineteenth century onward, have both been favoured for discussion over the value and importance of interdisciplinary and integrated comprehension of a work of art, over the cognitive role of the interpretative act as well as over a history of art conceived as a science, as a history of ideas, as a display of the creative thought and as a history of the experiential and cognitive relationship between men and the world and with its transfigured representation.

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On the basis of these principles it is possible to follow a process which depicts the individual and collective nature of the relationship existing between people and art, and which elucidates the usefulness of an experience having psycho-rehabilitative potentials which are able to strengthen the imaginative processes of people, leading to the refinement of intuitive faculties and to oriented internalization of the aesthetic contents of art. The starting point of this process is education to facilitate constant improvement of visual, tactile and, ideally, synaesthesic senses, by taking into account all inevitable variations and corrections aimed at partially filling the visual deficit. In reviewing the interpretative methodologies applied to didactics directed at blind and partially sighted people at the Anteros Tactile Museum of Ancient and Modern Painting at the F. Cavazza Institute for Blind, one perceives the comparison between the cognitive-perceptive experience generated by retinal vision and the haptic-perceptive experience generated by tactile vision. This is not intended to find a simplistic equivalence between optic and tactile perception but rather to identify some common ground between the organisation of optic and haptic visual processes. From this will originate observation on the usefulness of a progressive reading of the work of art and on the mediation offered by the reproduction of the work of art, thus a didactic tool, a mould and a technical relief for a systematic approach towards the tactile exploration of the plastic model and towards overall comprehension of the image, in order to instil an aesthetic experience by integrating the sensorial and intellectual experiences. Keywords: Touch, tactile vision, perspective, blindness, inner vision, art

I Understanding words as aesthetic equivalents of artistic images Can a colour painting be described to those who cannot see it, but who can build it in the mind, with the help of imagination, hearing and touch? What is the role of words, understood as aesthetic equivalents of images? And how, in the presence of visual impairment, can listening to a description be supported by direct contact with a three-dimensional model, perceived by touch? And then, how is it possible to enhance the integration between senses and intellect to support oral descriptions relying on the contribution of touch and using the residual senses that substitute vision?

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These questions can be answered assuredly only if a theoretical reflection on these issues is supported by a practical verification of the effects of research applied to aesthetic education in the presence of visual impairment. To visually impaired people, knowing the world of representation is complex. It requires prudence and experience in the assessment of the cognitive, psychological and emotional effects produced by the internalization of artworks. To determine whether or not a metaphor has a cognitive value, and if this value is useful in producing or retrieving an aesthetic experience, it is important to consider the philosophical, semiotic, psychological or aesthetic field of inquiry to which it is associated. The current research addresses the problem of the “place” of meaning, that is to say, the language, text or mind of the interpreter itself, more than the realization of meaning. Regardless of the nature of sensory deficit, in aesthetic experience a metaphor may determine, and perhaps facilitate, the understanding of artworks. In the presence of blindness, the metaphor will be expressed by words in a poetic language; in the presence of deafness, the metaphor is expressed in an iconic language: in both cases it will lead to a specific knowledge of the artwork. In order to show the place reserved in the world for visually impaired people, with either congenital or acquired impairment, it is necessary to determine the communication value of description in the aesthetic experience and to decide whether or not we can consider as knowledge, a knowledge that is acquired through the sensory perceptions of others. For Max Black and Martin Milligan, although language is an indispensable tool with which everything can be described, it is also important to check if language, properly distilled and strengthened, can actually lead to aesthetic experience (Magee & Milligan 1997, p. 31). To achieve that, it is essential that words, understood as verbal translations of formal values, also be supported by a tactile perception of aesthetic forms. Words, that is to say, poetic descriptions and narration, recreate images of the world in our mind, redefining iconic or non-iconic representations. And as the gaze, striking the contour lines, surfaces and volumes of a painting, allows for the redrawing of the image, so the hand, touching lines, surfaces and volumes in its three-dimensional act of translation, allows for an understanding of the composition and its aesthetic meaning. But it is always in the mind, and in the connection of sensory perceptions and disseminated knowledge, that we elaborate visions, either optical or haptic in nature. Seeing is never only the product of the physiology of the eye or touch. The intellectual development of the

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synergy between the senses is thus in the basis of vision, in connection with a good perception of form and content. In order to achieve this it is necessary to have direct physical contact with the material form supported by the figurative power of words that reveals hidden formal meanings making possible an inner vision and its interpretation and to use knowledge-supported sensibility. “One must always apologize for speaking about painting” /“On doit toujours s'excuser de parler peinture”, wrote Paul Valéry (1934, p. 134). Nevertheless, later on he acknowledged that as all arts live through words there are important reasons for us not to stay silent. From this statement we still derive the idea of the use of the word as an aesthetic equivalent capable of translating an artwork into speech. At the bottom of the ekphrasis is a description of the visible by words,1 as explained by Umberto Eco in his recent essay entitled Dire quasi la stessa cosa.2 But relating visual impairment the use of words should be under control, not leading to verbalism, and be reinforced by the concrete experience of its meaning within the different contexts in which it is used.3 Since 1999, the Museum of Touch of Ancient and Modern Paintings Anteros Francesco Cavazza, Institute for the Blind, has been studying a didactic method that makes it possible to enhance the cognitive and interpretative faculties of visually impaired people. The aim is to enable the sharing of different functional and readable forms of visual representation by means of touch in order to facilitate communication and integration in school, and in social and professional relationships between visually impaired people and those who can see. The analytical power of touch also enables the experience of seeing more deeply, fully reflecting the potential of vision and on the strength of the inner eye. Being able to read reality both analytically and at a glance is a form of respect for the complexity of the world, and a non-reductive attitude that expresses a healthy desire for simplification, so that every cognitive process can be interiorized, re-enacted and shared, without pretending to transform this process into an undisputed paradigm, or rigid scheme, but rather to consider it as a model to look to for inspiration. 1

Ekphrasis comes from the Greek ek, out, and phrasis, speak, and means the oral description of a visual artwork. 2 To get more information about the concept of ekphrasis consult Eco (2003, pp. 197-208). 3 To read more about the function of language to the blind consult Mazzeo (2005, pp. 269-274).

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The gaze’s depth depends on the correlation between those aspects of intellectual and physical life that, creating our perception of reality, help us to encode and decode our entire experience relating what we are, how we create similarities, coherence and relations between phenomena. In this way, to see is to feel and to feel is to know.4 By not refining the practice of feeling, which requires the opening of receptivity in all senses, we risk pre-favouring vision, with the result of not making the effort to understand the value of difficulty, a metaphor for the unknown. To face this difficulty means to read the individual potentiality of overcoming the fear of anything that can generate a crisis, the fear of conflict. Accepting the complexity challenge also means having the strength to explore ourselves, to discover the real inner resources and the secret will that each person has within herself or himself, to tend to an evolutionary metamorphosis that, from time to time, moves us beyond our own limits. As Angelo Errani explains, referring to the theories of Vygotsky, A disability not only forces the subject who experiences its effects to encounter obstacles but it also determines the search for strategies to overcome these obstacles and activates a reorganization of personal resources. (2006, p. 105)

That is why it is useful to perceive the common thread that binds the lives of psychic and spiritual forms of thought, in the same sense that it is also useful to read art as a representation of the cognitive tension between instinct and human consciousness. Art is a projection of infinite variables according to which we express our more authentic needs and hopes; it is our memory and the summary of our inner processes: a product of our double condition as spiritual heirs of past experiences and donors of experiences for the future, for coming generations. Art that cannot be communicated in its deepest sense can neither be converted into self-awareness and skills, nor have an educational function, nor stimulate us to become architects of our own interiority. Knowing life, in its joys, sorrows, losses and re-conquests, means to recognize the many forms of visual language that depict the human self. The convergence of forces produced by imagination reinforces the inherent human inner power of transmutation and outlines the mental transaction that fuels the symbiotic relationship between intellectual vision 4

In order to deepen understanding of the affective experience based on sensibility consult De Monticelli (2003, pp. 69-87).

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and sensorial perception. Symbols and metaphors are the results of conscious processing, decompositions and compositions of figures drawn from the sensible and evocative world into an intelligible other world. Through the use of language and analogy, putting touch at the centre of personal experience, the congenitally blind person arrives at an understanding of the world in such a way that this person can give an interpretation of perceived things, as explained by the Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot: But every language being to writers of a lively imagination deficient in fit words, they are in the same case as clever foreigners: the situations invented by them, the delicate gradations they perceive in characters, the natural scenes they draw, are continually leading them away from ordinary locutions and causing them to adopt turns of phrases which never fail to charm when they are neither precious nor obscure. (1749, pp. 100-101)

Not all knowledge comes through experience. Can experience related to aesthetics be conveyed to a congenitally blind person by means of words? Here is where there is a direct confrontation with an easy-tounderstand metaphoric language, able to awaken knowledge in analogy with other senses: and the most efficient language is the synaesthetic. Synaesthesia is in fact a sensorial stimulation influenced by the intervention of other sense organs or the whole body; in art it manifests in the emotional perception of images and here metaphors seem to play a constructive role, as privileged meeting places between language and synaesthesia. In the tradition of art criticism of the last century there are descriptions of famous works of art that use figurative language to reveal their significant features. In these descriptions historical, structural and compositional data is offered by strong images that overlap with the described artwork. As a result knowledge is intensified. Here the function of words is to retain the attention and the mind of the viewer, thus allowing him/her to experience the full story, arousing in him/her a participatory attitude that is also an immersion in the essence and in the deeper and substantial meaning of the work. An emblematic case that illustrates this mode of understanding a verbal re-creation of artworks is represented by the description of the first painting by Caravaggio, San Matthew’s Vocation, translated by the art critic Roberto Longhi: Matthew’s vocation is linked to the beam that entered through the door together with Christ, hatched and touch the infame table of gamblers […] Light divided by the shadow come in an adjustable dial under the window bays, leaving faint reflections on the sordid breaded: it is suspended in the

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severe expression of Christ while the shadow erodes his empty gaze: fragmented on the feathers, is imbued in the cheeks, is reflected on the players thirst; it rests on Matthew while doubling the bet again with his right hand, pointing to himself, as if to ask: “Does he want me?” (a face that projects itself from the eyelids’ angle is barred on the shadow’s eyelashes); plucks the old tiresome grey hairs in glasses; and finally, cleans the face and shoulders of the players at the head of the table that want to immerse themselves in the lurid shadow of their own perplexity. (Longhi 1952, p. 837)

The table is “infame”, rough, and in this case this term has a moral value. The table becomes humanized, becomes a synthesis of what the characters represent in the scene; it absorbs and reflects all their characteristics. “Sordid breaded”: the frame of the window is qualified by a term that relates to that of “infame table”; it is in fact dirty, morally greedy, just like the players. The expression is “severe”, heavy, the face displaced, the grey hair plucked, sensations linger on the environment and gestures display the saturated atmosphere in which, by contrast, Matthew’s “awakening” occurs. The argumentation exposed above conduces to an accurate reflexion on the fundamental introspective, cognitive and communicative contributions that visual art can offer to visually impaired people to experience art with the support of a verbal description combined with a sensory perception of form. In order to enhance the visual nature of verbal language, in the Museum of Touch of Ancient and Modern Paintings Anteros Francesco Cavazza,5 three-dimensional translations of famous paintings and arthistory descriptions are displayed. These have the task of giving body and communicative form to the public’s imagination, to bridge the gap between the non-blind and the visually impaired publics. Masterpieces of painting are selected according to criteria of popularity and cognitive and expressive signification. These paintings are translated into prospective reliefs (scale models) and narrated in a descriptive and evocative language. Each painting is historically introduced, described regarding its genesis, iconography, iconology, meaning and insertion in its original cultural context and shown together with the author’s poetics and biography. The advantage of using a scale model in support, which was adopted in the museum as a didactic tool, together with the verbal description, resides in the mixing of the narrative with a material 5

The Museum is linked to the Institute for the Blind Francesco Cavazza, in Bologna, Italy.

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recognition of the aesthetic values of a work of art, reified by the mind with closed eyes. The evocative and backfilling function of words, as substitutes for optical perception, is an intellectual and imaginative knowledge opportunity that should not prevent the pleasure and the cognitive values of tactile sensory perception: rather, it may highlight the importance of the relationship between image and content, form and substance of a work of art, as a reflection of the spirit of a time and culture. The imaginative process through which we reconstruct a painting, in its iconic nature, rests on the idea that in any case, room is made in mind and feeling, for the connections between different forms of knowledge, for the relationship between sensory memory and mental representation of form. An aesthetic experience is a product of the meeting of emotion and reason, which leads to an intellectual achievement that comes from the disposition of our minds when we learn and reinterpret content. And this, too, though not exclusively, is linked to the power of imagination, which is never a sterile conjecture or self-made fantasy: on the contrary, it feeds on the contact with the search for a common denominator between collective and individual thinking supported by experience. Therefore it cancels any separation between subject and object and brings to both the uniqueness of understanding, a significant achievement, for between thought and art, between spirit and matter, there is real vicinity. The convergence of the forces produced by imagination supports the translation of visual representation into storytelling and affords the symbiosis between intellectual vision and sensory perception: but it is also necessary to acquire methodological skills to evaluate the usefulness of art theory and the critical tools necessary to develop independence of opinion. The concise description, though technical, is a narrative of an artist’s poetics, of the feeling of a form with aesthetic value, and therefore, in the process of describing artworks, it is pertinent to associate the description to the thought of an actualized content. Due to the connections between art, literature, history and philosophy, whether in a fresco by Giotto, in which a Christological subject is treated, or in a narrative of the Neo-Platonic myths, we can place forms of being, feelings and mythological subjects described with great sensitivity into categories such as happiness, pain, beauty, ugliness, soul turmoils and quietness. Thus, for instance through knowledge of various iconographies, we can select anything from that which relates to a pain like that of a mother in the face of her son’s death, to the delicacy or severity of a portrait, to the poetry of a landscape, to the enchanting beauty of a goddess, to the truth behind a myth.

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Focusing on the evocative and backfilling role of words does not mean avoiding the irreplaceable value of sensory visual perception, rather it means recognizing the vicarious and complementary function of senses. Although invisible, the listening experience that comes with the correspondence between words and visible forms teaches us, above all, how to understand representation by metaphors based on a shared code of representation (Secchi 2007).

II Role of aesthetic lifelong learning of visually impaired and non-impaired adults Lifelong learning is a universal resource to be used by any discipline including aesthetic education. In fact, the acquisition of a skill reveals the individual and collective potential for internalization of psycho-perceptual, sensory and intellectual skills when supported by a cognitive approach to any discipline including art. Artistic creation happens in the interval between the formless infinite and materialized form: thus between an indiscriminate perception and the ability to organize sensible data. For this reason, the cognitive nature of the interpretation act is not only central to an art history, understood as a science and as history of ideas, but is also even more essential if the goal of art education is the integration of people of different ages and cultural backgrounds, both in the presence and absence of sensory deficit. In the case of visual impairment, for example, the relationship between tactile perception and mental vision is the research subject in the analysis of learning processes and of how meaning is given to images with aesthetic value. The experiential and theoretical relationship of subjects with reality and its representation has always been the field of study of aesthetics, psychology of art and perception because sensibility is active in art and reflects life. The definition of aesthetic experience requires consideration of the individual judgements and cognitive behaviours taking into account their backgrounds, training, cultures, ages and conditions. Each approach to aesthetic representation implies, therefore, a framework for the perceptual and cognitive conditions of the subject and an analysis of its culture. An aesthetic experience has many functions and provides both intellectual transformations to both sighted people and the visually impaired. The didactic experience leaves a cultural, physiological and psychological impact on adults of different ages, and determines and

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confirms both the changing nature of the experience of artworks, understood as sum and reflection of human condition, and the wealth of impulses and ability brought by that impact. The arbitrariness of the judgement of value and the differences in the ripening of perceptions, feelings of form, internalization of content, and acceptance and processing of historical and aesthetic values, place these elements in the foundations of aesthetic experience, determining quality, development and function. This awareness is consistently endorsed by a teaching of art history as the history of image and the ideas it keeps, a teaching of didactic practices and of the pragmatic knowledge implemented by learners. In particular, the phenomenon of perceptual differentiation and the ability of sharing both the perceptive behaviour and the codes of signification of forms and images are important in the aesthetic experience of children and adults, in those seasons of life that mark the passage not only from childhood to youth but also from maturity to seniority. The approach to the informative, expressive, emotional and poetic value of images considerably changes in the course of life. It reveals interesting autonomous mechanisms of appropriation of cultural knowledge and its conversion into existential insights, sometimes through an awareness that matures by means of logical, intuitive and analogue processes. We can consider that process as a phenomenology of learning, therefore a phenomenology of the recurrent ways of understanding that are offered as integral parts of creative, and in some ways regenerative, thinking in sensory perception and in the intellectual processing of forms and contents (Secchi 2006, p. 130). Recognizing the contribution that tactile perception brings to the process of knowing visual arts and the values of form and content that dwell in them, also means having evaluated the concepts of tactile eye and optical touch, so that tasks are delegated not only to sight or to touch but to the two senses integrated. In the presence of visual impairment the sense of sight depends, in its own right, on the sense of touch and is supported by the sense of hearing. Therefore, the act of listening to a story reorganizes and creates content. To undertake an articulated cognitive path that leads to the comprehension of the relationship between elements, temporality, spatiality, bias and completeness of vision, through a mature tactile perception, means to consider the intuitively plastic and synoptic nature of pictorial representation to make it ours through a mental process of image decomposition and re-construction. Psychology and Special Art Education have recognized that the world of visually impaired people is not substantially distant from that of the non-visually impaired, even in

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relation to knowledge of spatial concepts. The difference is rather the way in which visually impaired and non-impaired people define and control spatial guidelines and spatial conduct. We must not forget that some tactile actions prepare us for the perception of the physicality of form (understood as a solid body with a specific weight) and other movements are more suited to perceiving the geometric-morphological architecture (structural and substantive) of the form. Both visual and tactile perception can be defined as sequential, although the duration of the exploratory procedure practiced by eyes is very much faster than that done by tactile sensation. The difference is rather the way in which the blind and visually impaired process spatial control. The time of optical and tactile reading can be defined as a time of image construction in which perception of form, element recognition and compositional meaning converge to determine the complex phenomenon of vision. One can therefore understand the importance of teaching the vicarious tactility of vision that, apart from strengthening the cognitive processes in the non-blind, allows also the sighted to rehabilitate a sensibility too often inhibited. In the same sense that for a visually impaired person the education of the residual senses is a formative path that affects the intellectual and emotional spheres, to non-visually impaired adults a proper sensorial development reinforces the awareness of their own cognitive and perceptual ability and teaches them to see with more depth and order, inside and outside themselves. It should also be opportune to reflect on the existence of psychological forms of blindness that can indiscriminately interest very different people, especially adults, when in a visual-based system something unusual is introduced. All that is offered as new data can be considered strange to this world and therefore subject to implicit rejection. But visual skill is both recognition of what is known and comparison between differences and, therefore, triggers emotional conflicts that can only be overcome through a vital and dialectical cognitive will. The neurophysiological system – with which we apprehend the world’s form either through direct experience with reality or by sensory perception of representation languages – acts consistently until the end of childhood, but it is the education of the senses that determines the quality of the emotional and cognitive use of the five senses. For early blind children such sensorial, cognitive-emotional and sensory processing occurs more slowly, with greater difficulty and with necessary stratification,. Achievement is often non-lineal because such

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processing maturates through different experiences that can be assimilated and integrated.6 In the haptic experience with cognitive and interpretive purposes, the techniques of tactile exploration of artworks present a number of variables, and involve apparently subtle actions, that in fact are crucial for the process of mental reconstruction of images. In the reading of a pictorial artwork, contact with the original, the visualization of a photographic reproduction, or the perception of its plastic translation are conditions that significantly alter the emotional response, but not always the cognitive one. When an original work of art, a photographic or a plastic reproduction is examined, it is advisable to make the observer-reader aware that there is a meaningful difference (not an obstacle to knowledge) between directly or indirectly (mediated) contact with the artwork. This should be considered relevant but cannot constitute a kind of discrimination in the didactic-pedagogic experience of learning. Sometimes, our behaviour is induced by judgment, to the detriment of conscious understanding of an aesthetic experience, and therefore of the possible “visions” of an artwork. In the specific case of perception of an artistic image translated into a bas-relief perspective that can be perceived by touch, the difference between the original and its reproduction is greater than the difference between seeing the original and its photographic reproduction. In front of any representation with aesthetic value, it is important to physically perceive the material nature of the image (so as to weigh and feel the quality of the substances or the material’s temperature) and it is vital to include its material and technical component in order to transcend it. Only in this way can perception and meaning of the work result in a cognitive sum directed to a sensible semantic transfiguration of images. As previously highlighted, to evoke in us the recollection of the morphological, spatial, physical and expressive characteristics of forms and substances – especially if the nature of the artistic image either in its original, translation or copied form, can be linked to our experience – means to perceive the aesthetic quality by synaesthesia. Tactile exploration techniques have a “physical” component that includes actions relevant to understanding the compositional structures of a three-dimensional image, without excluding access to a more complete and versatile aesthetic experience. 6

About visually impaired children and adult cognitive behaviour and about the right of access to culture, as personal resource and social integration, see Tioli (2006, pp. 85-93).

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With these assumptions, it becomes useful to underline that a correct image education for blind and visually impaired people should present the requirements of a gradual and mental construction of techniques of perception of space and time experienced by the movement of bodies within a composition, and of the spatial-temporal nature of the scene, often suggested by the progression triggered by the narrative to describe and to revive the dynamics of relationship and interaction between individuals. Between the internal time of the painting (time that belongs to the scene narration) and the time of optical and touch reading, there is the common denominator of sequence and an organized layering of concepts and information received from the haptic perception of form and the verbal description of its contents. A guide to reading a pictorial composition transposed into a plastic relief requires close attention to the correspondence between perception and cognition, between received information and processing of personal data, and therefore uses the Panofskian tripartite reading and memory interpretation model. Based on this model, iconographic and pre-iconographic reading and iconological interpretation, for structure and its correlation, are but phases corresponding to the cognitive progression through which we pass from the perception of forms and from the recognition of primary subjects, through the identification of their meaning associated with a topic, to the point where they reach the extension of iconographic meaning, read and internalized beyond the limits of cultural and historical meaning.7 Through iconological interpretation one grasps the deeper intrinsic meaning of a thematic subject, raising it to a symbol and a metaphor for the “other”. The reading of an artwork, so conceived, can become an educational and cognitive experience that guides to a greater depth of vision, regardless of the mode of perception with which we proceed in the encounter with the work, and irrespective of the presence or absence of visual impairment.

7

Regarding Panofsky’s tripartite method see Panofsky (1961, pp. 31-57). In relation to the translation of the anglo-saxon model into a functional method for progressive and stratified knowledge of form and content in the aesthetic education for blind and visually impaired people see Secchi (2004, pp. 70-75).

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III Bibliography Arnheim R 1994, Aspetti percettivi dell’arte per i ciechi’, in Per la salvezza dell’arte, Feltrinelli, Milano. AA.VV 2006, L’arte a portata di mano, a cura del Museo tattile Statale Omero di Ancona, Armando Editore, Roma. Canevaro A 1999, Pedagogia Speciale, La riduzione dell’handicap, Bruno Mondatori, Milano. Dellantonio A 1993, Il tattoo: Aspetti fisiologici e psicologici, Edizioni Cleup, Padova. Diderot, D 1749, ‘The Letter on the Blind’, in Diderot’s Early Philosophical Works, accessed 2014/04/01, http://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ZO3WnVWtM9AC&oi= fnd&pg=PA1&dq=denis+diderot+letters+for+the+blind&ots=JS8mys XZ0C&sig=zgCMUUv2CCrC3jfshdso4Xr77E&redir_esc=y#v=onepa ge&q=lively%20imagination&f=false Eco, U 2003, Dire quasi la stessa cosa, Esperienze di traduzione, Bompiani, Milano. Errani, A 2006, ‘Esperienza visiva: esperienza tattile e apprendimento’, in Bollea, G (ed), L’arte a portata di mano: verso una pedagogia di accesso ai beni culturali senza barriere, Armando Editore, Roma. Gombrich E, Hochberg J & Black M 1978, Arte e percezione visiva, Einaudi, Torino. Gregory R L 1966, Occhio e cervello: La psicologia del vedere, Il Saggiatore, Milano. Hildebrand A 1949, Il problema della forma, trad. it, Ed. G. D'Anna, Messina. Lancioni T 2000, Il senso e la forma: Il linguaggio delle immagini tra frateoria dell’arte e semiotica, Leonardo, Bologna. Longhi, R 1972, Da Cimabue a Morandi, Arnoldo Mondatori, Milano. Magee, B & Milligan, M 1997, Sulla Cecità: Lettera di Magee a Milligan, Astrolabio, Roma. Mazzocut-Mis M 2002, Voyeurismo tattile: Un’estetica dei valori tattili e visivi, Il Melangolo, Genova. Monticelli R de 2003, L’ordine del cuore: Etica e teoria del sentire, Garzanti, Milano. Panofsky E 1961, Il Significato nelle arti visive, Einaudi, Milano. —. 1998, Imago Pietatis e altri scritti del periodo amburghese (19211933), trad. it., Il Segnalibro, Torino.

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Riegl A 1963, Problemi di Stile, Fondamenti di una storia dell’arte ornamentale, trad. it., Feltrinelli, Milano. Magee B & Milligan M 1997, Sulla Cecità. Astrolabio: Roma. Mazzeo, M 2005, Storia naturale della sinestesia, Dalla questione di Molyneux a Jakobson, Quodlibet, Macerata. Secchi, L (2007) ‘Raccontare l’arte, La funzione evocativa e colmativa della parola’, Vedere Oltre, Periodico di informazione dell’Istituto dei Ciechi di Bologna Francesco Cavazza, Anno quattordicesimo, nº2, December 2007. —. 2004, L’educazione estetica per l’Integrazione, Ed. Carocci, Roma. —. 2006, ‘Percezione, Cognizione e interpretazione dell’immagine dotata di valore estetico: Conoscere l’arte entro e oltre la disabilità visiva’, in Bollea, G (ed), L’arte a portata di mano, verso una pedagogia di accesso ai beni culturali senza barriere, Armando Editore, Roma. Tioli, E 2006, ‘La fruizione dei beni culturali da parte delle persone con disabilità visiva come fonte di arricchimento personale e come fattore di integrazione sociale’, in Bollea, g (ed) L’arte a portata di mano, verso una pedagogia di accesso ai beni culturali senza barriere, Armando Editore, Roma. Valéry, P 1934, Pièces sur l'art: Autour de Corot, Gallimard, Paris.

CHAPTER EIGHT THE CONNECTIVE HEART CRISTINA MIRANDA DE ALMEIDA

Chapter Index Introduction I The shrinking of the interval II The centrality of the heart. The haptic electromagnetic interface III The auratic interval IV Definitions of heart V The heart as mind VI The electromagnetic interval: the centrality of the heart in Western thought, Aristotle and Pascal. Field theory, soul and aura VII The heart as medium and sensor: intuition The heart: from soul to field and aura, spirit and consciousness Aura and electricity The electromagnetic density of the interval VIII The centrality of the heart in mystical and symbolic thought and in different cultures, in Chinese medicine and science. IX Kinds of cognition from the heart X Translating and synthetizing Essential contributions from blindness to heart-centred consciousness, perception and cognition XI The interval replenished XII The Sense of Being used in an intransitive way XIII Bibliography

Abstract Ancient philosophies and cultures considered the heart to be a kind of mind, a medium able of cognition and perception and the place of consciousness in the body. These processes of perception, cognition and consciousness have their base in the heart’s ability to be a multidimensional transducer that emits and receives electromagnetic

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waves, which is completely different from the mechanicist view of the heart only as a pump. With the process of substitution of heart-centred for head-centred processes of perception, cognition and consciousness, there was a loss of the ways ancient and pre-Cartesian societies used to experience the world. For these societies the world used to be a lively, animated, multisensorial and active space or sphere, in which objects, people and world were all connected. With this loss, that animated space in between objects, people and world was emptied and turned into a bare interval between everything that exists. This is the kind of interval in which we, as “subjects”, are separated from “objects” (subject-object dichotomy), shaping a situation that is still dominant in Western cultures. We claim that some residues of this lively interval that have survived are still present nowadays in some fields, especially in blindness and art, and that Information and Communication Technologies can contribute to the retrieval of these “spheres of animation” (Sloterdijk) and multisensoriality. The objective of this chapter in relation to the book The Point of Being is to recover some of the knowledge about the heart present in these previously mentioned ancient philosophies and cultures and to translate it into building blocks for the construction of the paradigm of the point of being. In particular, we would like to translate some of the features of the heart’s kind of perception and cognition into the analysis of some aspects of electronic technology and culture. Firstly, in the part titled “the shrinking of the interval” we will concentrate our attention on the moment in which the heart lost the centrality it used to have in ancient thought and pre-Cartesian societies. This is the moment of the shrinking of the interval. Next we will explore a definition of the concept of heart and analyse some aspects of the centrality of the heart in Western thought, in Field Theory, and review how the heart relates to concepts of soul, aura, intuition and electromagnetic interval. Then we will focus on the centrality of the heart in mystical and symbolic thought, in different cultures and science. The following step is dedicated to a brief review of the types of cognition typical from the heart that are preserved in the fields of blindness and art. Lastly, an analysis of the contributions of the diastolic processes brought by the retrieval of the heart will be made. In a graphical chart the heart appears as the “point of being”, the interface that enables the processes of replenishment of the interval that are necessary for the construction of a different paradigm for our contemporary sensibility. Keywords: Art, heart consciousness, point of being, interval, touch, technology, fieldworking

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Introduction Where are “you”? If we asked you to use body language and point with your hand to the place in your body where your sense of self is placed, would you point to your head or to your heart-chest area? The localization of consciousness and subjectivity is a mere cultural convention, historically determined. The Scientific Revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is considered the origin of the understanding of the world as a machine in which qualitative, emotional, and spiritual aspects were excluded. However, the root of this process could also be linked to the period in which the early Greeks started the transition from consciousness seated-in-the-heart to consciousness and subjectivity seated-in-the-head: “where there first seems to occur documentation of a turning away from the heart toward the head” (Lind 2007, p. 41).1 This period can be considered as an early announcement of the eye-brain centred Cartesian logic; a logic that later would translate flesh, soul and consciousness from an animated, lively, organic and experimental world in which the heart had a role,2 into the abstract space of concepts and ideas situated in the brain and dominated by the sense of vision. The ocular centrism of the modern scopic regime, created a world geometrically represented by means of perspective, almost without the support of other senses. This is the cradle of the point of view. Because the head is the physical localization of all but one of the senses, it seems a natural perspectival localization of subjectivity until one realizes how rarely, if ever, it was experienced as the localization of consciousness in ancient history (i.e. before c. 500 B.C.E) and how infrequently it plays

1

Lind stressed: “Psychological change inspired, in the early to middle period of the first millennium B.C.E., the later developments of the genre of Tragedy and the intellectual tradition of philosophy. This change also re-situated the role of the subject in relation to knowledge. From a previous heart-soul based role as ‘recipient of knowledge’ (linked to the concept of lineage-identity, according to which the mesolithic family probably used to be oriented), to the role of ‘seeker of knowledge’, that is the usual way we relate to information and knowledge in contemporary societies” (Lind 2007, p. 42). 2 Although the heart is not usually separated from lungs in relation to cognitive, perceptive and consciousness processes, here we will focus especially on the role of the heart, leaving the lungs in a secondary position.

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Chapter Eight any significant role in the awakened condition of primitive consciousness. (Lind 2007, p. 266)3

The localization of consciousness in the heart-soul, previous to consciousness in the head, is widely documented, appearing in ancient Greek literature (Homer),4 philosophical and medical writings (Empedocles, Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates) and in ancient religious texts from the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hebrews and Chinese apart from in the works of Indian and Iranian Vedic Aryans. It is equally present in the Bible and in the traditions of native Americans (Lind 2007, p. 44). One of the most revealing images of the important role of the heart to subjectivity and consciousness comes from Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.E) when he uses the word arche as a synonym for heart. Arche means the starting point, the principle of life and movement. It is a concept linked to knowledge acquisition and retention by means of senses, memory and imagination (Lind 2007, p. 43). Arche is also the matrix of ideas. We suggest that the heart-soul roots of the concept of arche can nourish the trunk of our contemporary concept of Point of Being from which many branches can develop towards the overcoming of the Cartesian matterenergy, mind-body split, which our contemporary concept of self is striving to outgrow. The heart has the unique characteristic of being a multidimensional five-folded transducer,5 both physical and subtle, both broadcaster and receptor and also an inter-communicator. On the one hand it belongs to a hybrid domain, as it is a physical organ in our circulatory system and, at the same time, it is the place of the subtle chakra Anahata. On the other hand, it displays other features.

3

“Subjectivity and mind, especially as they are experienced in the modern context, do not account for many positive phenomena associated with ancient and medieval descriptions of the immanent heart-soul. Ancient subjectivity and the faculties of mind were not limited to the individual but included an animistic sharing and interchange with the living, dead, spiritual beings (e.g. ‘gods’) and inanimate objects. For the modern self these positive potentials of the soul, at least as they are described in primitive and ancient/medieval reports of them, are for most individuals unrealized potentials and therefore abstractions or hearsay” (Lind 2007, p. 273). 4 The concepts of kardia (place of soul), thumos (feelings and thought-inspiration) and pneuma (the inner senses of touch, vision, smell, taste and hearing) that enable a person to perceive spirituality were considered features of heart perception. 5 A transducer is any device that converts one type of energy or physical attribute into various other forms.

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We claim that if we can recuperate the earlier knowledge on the heart that is present in cultural traditions and spiritual beliefs we could extract concepts that could be essential for producing a shift in our perceptive paradigm. The retrieval of the heart dimension could enrich our perception with some of its features that are meaningful for the replenishment of the interval. So, the question is what the impact would be of the influx of the heart on the Cartesian paradigm of point of view? As a possible answer to this complex question, later in this chapter, we would like to extract the kinds of cognition that come from the heart from these ancient concepts and experiences. In so doing we prepare the translation of these ancient cosmovisions about the heart-soul perception for its use in the construction of a contemporary concept of Sense of Being that is fundamental for the paradigm shift which we present as the Point of Being. Firstly, the heart is a biological generator able to convert sensations, feelings and thoughts into electromagnetic information coded in infinitely irradiated electromagnetic waves. Special devices render these waves visible: HeartMath researchers found that different emotions are associated with distinct patterns of heart rate variation, each of which in turn reflects a particular physiological state. This is the result of a two-way process: emotions trigger changes in the autonomic nervous system and hormonal system affecting the heart rhythm, and specific changes in physiological activity generate emotional experience. Thus emotion and physiology are inextricably interconnected, and by managing one’s emotions, it is perhaps possible to manage one’s physiological health. (Ho 2008, p. 174)6

Secondly, it is a special receiver, or antenna, that is capable of sensing information that arrives as electromagnetic fields and waves, housing similar emissions from other hearts. The heart-centred type of connection goes beyond personal communication. The concept of “other” is expanded: [The] heart, through its electromagnetic field, continually senses electromagnetic patterns from its environment and works to decode the information contained within [these patterns]. (Buhner 2004, p. 111).

6

According to Mae-Wan Ho (2008, p. 175) the heart is extensively networked and in communication with the brain, and its impulses affect brain centres: “The heart has an extensive communicative network with the brain. Inputs from the heart not only affect the homeostatic regulatory centres in the brain but also influence higher brain centres involved in perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processing”.

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Lastly, thhe heart is a kind k of intercconnector thatt has a self-orrganizing, emergent beehaviour wheen it dialogues with the eleectro-magnetiic energy (EM) receivved from otheer hearts. In so ome situationns it converts emotions and anxietiees into forms of o somatised emotions e and hheart diseasess. In these movements of emitting and receivin ng, the heartt is the placce where multidimenssional processses of perceptiion, cognitionn and consciou usness are shaped. Ancient philosophies and beliefs considered c thee heart to be a kind of mind, a meedium capable of cognitio on and percepption and thee seat of consciousneess in the bodyy.

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These prrocesses of peerception, cog gnition and coonsciousness have h their basis in the heart’s abilityy to be a mulltidimensional al transducer that t emits and receivess electromagnetic waves. With the process off substitution of heart-cenntred for head-centred processes off perception, cognition and d consciousneess there was a loss of the ways anncient and pre--Cartesian soccieties used too experience th he world. For these soocieties the woorld used to be b a lively, annimated, multiisensorial and active sppace or spheree, in which ob bjects, people and the world d were all connected. With this loss, that annimated spacee in between oobjects, peoplle and the world was eemptied and tuurned into a bare interval beetween everytthing that exists. This is the kind off interval in wh hich we, as “ssubjects”, are separated from “objeccts” (subject-oobject dichotomy), shaping a situation th hat is still dominant inn Western cultuures.

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We claim that some remains of this lively interval that have survived are still present nowadays and that Information and Communication Technologies can contribute to the retrieval of these “spheres of animation” (Sloterdijk 2003, p. 39) and multisensoriality. The objective of this chapter is to recover some of the knowledge about the heart present in these previously mentioned ancient philosophies and to translate it into building blocks for the construction of the paradigm of the point of being, observing especially the applications of this way of understanding the heart as a contribution to the analysis of some aspects of electronic technology and culture. Firstly, we will focus our attention on the moment in which the heart lost the centrality it used to have in ancient thought and pre-Cartesian societies. This was the moment of the systolic process of shrinking of the interval.7 Next we will analyse some aspects of the centrality of the heart in Western thought related to Field Theory, and review how the heart relates to concepts of soul and aura. Then we will focus on the centrality of the heart in mystical and symbolic thought, in different cultures, in Eastern medicine and science. The following step will be a quick review of the types of cognition from the heart focusing mostly on touch and blindness. Lastly, we will analyse the contributions of the influx of the heart in the construction of Sense of Being.

7 Interstice is a controversial word linked to the concept of space and espacement. “Espacement also evokes the ambiguous figure of interstice, and is related to the equally complex derridean notions of chora, différance, the trace and the supplement. Derrida’s reading of the Platonic chora in Chora L Works (a series of discussions with the architect Peter Eisenman) as something which defies the logics of non-contradiction and binarity, implies the internal heterogeneity and instability of all structures, neither ‘sensible’ nor ‘intelligible’ but a third genus which escapes conceptual capture” (Blackburne, C), accessed 2014/03/30, www.parrhesiajournal.org; Derrida, in Positions, calls espacement the impossibility for an identity to keep inscribed on itself, to be limited by its proper interiority or to coincide with itself. Interstice can be traced in the space of difference in tension (Foucault and Bataille), in the concept of l’infra-mince, understood as the interval between the 3rd and 4th dimensions, time, matter or sensorial states, and the concept of devenir (Duchamp). We can also see interest in the interval in dance, in the subversive in-between space of Jean Genet, and in Butoh dance; in architecture, in the dynamic notion of space with the introduction of choreographic codes by Bernard Tschumi; in literature, in Antonin Artaud’s interest in Balinese theatre, and in philosophy, in Gilles Deleuze’s texts on Francis Bacon (Blackbourne 2008).

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I The shrinking of the interval McLuhan told us that the introduction of a new medium and technology triggers a change in scale in our affairs. This change is usually understood in a positive way, as an expansion of scale. However, if we explored the reversal of this situation, we could state that the disappearance of a medium or technology, not the modification, but the complete erasing of a medium, which used to be deeply embedded in a culture, could trigger a shrinking of scale. Let’s consider the heart as a medium capable of cognition and perception and the place of consciousness in the body. From this standpoint we can understand the Cartesian impact of the substitution of the mind for the heart on pre-Cartesian cultures. This displacement of the heart, from a central to a peripheral position, means a shrinking in the scale of cognitive and perceptive processes, the cloistering of consciousness in a limited concept of being. As a result of the Cartesian split between mind and matter, mind and soul, mind and flesh, body and matter, representation was reduced to an abstract point of view and vision was disembodied (Bryson 1986). In this Galilean conception of the world, soul, aura, spirit and consciousness were separated from minerals, animals and plants, body and nature, and placed, as abstract concepts, in the brain. In the same way, the human body lost its reference to its psychic centres that corresponded to the chakras present either in Eastern or Western traditions. As a consequence of this systolic phase the heart and lungs lost the specific roles they used to have in cognitive, perceptive and consciousness processes and also their roles in the management of interval or interstice, as we will see, because the very interval was stripped of its flesh and soul. The interval grew lean. The heart, shrunken to fit the physical box of analysis, started to be compared to a pump, a machine. Even in the most sensitive textbooks we will find evidence of the Cartesian point of view when defining what a heart is. Although Lynch (1977) does not agree that “the heart is a pump, and like other types of pumps it can malfunction through simple mechanical breakdowns”, he still uses the analogy of a pump, a machine, to defend his theory about the heart: What I do imply is that the heart is a complex pump that is influenced by the most subtle human feelings and social situations. (Lynch 1977, p. 32)

Lynch also says that available mortality statistics demonstrate that a broken heart, due to the loss of a loved one, touches the physical heart.

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The conception of heart as “pump” was necessary to the heart’s reconception as split into two as envisaged by Harvey’s work.8 Separation made blood circulation, cor duplex, possible. Romanyshyn (Hillman 2007, 24) places the death of the heart to Western consciousness exactly in that moment. In separating the heart Harvey affirmed an archetypical idea, that the heart is not simple, not one, but is inherently divided against itself; its left and right chambers, though side by side. (Hillman 2007, p. 24)

This author says that we carry the “Harveyein heart” in our chests. That mechanical physical heart is exercised, controlled with pace-makers and fixed by means of bypass tubes: If it wears out, irreparably, I can let that heart doctor, named paradoxically enough Christian Barnard, remove it and replace it with a spare – an operation, by the way, already presaged by St. Catherine of Siena who prayed and was vouchsafed that prayer that her heart be removed and that of the Saviour placed in her breast. (Hillman 2007, p. 23)

So, although surviving in traditional ancient mystical thought and in the imaginary of many cultures, both organs, heart and lungs, have been almost completely forgotten in theories about cognition, perception, consciousness and also in medicine. The heart turned into a mechanical pump and the body lost its connection with the soul and consciousness. It has been transformed in the measurement of life expectancy as well: for my heart can insult me, attack me. I must propitiate it: I take this for my heart, do that for my heart, watch out my heart. I turn it in regularly for a check up. The mechanical model, by means of which I watch my heart as if it were a dead thing outside me, moves with technological progress from Harvey’s waterbellows, to stethoscope, to Electrocardiogram (ECG) attached to me by wires, my heart on a television screen. Our modes of imagining its conservation are also mechanical: unobstructed elastic channels, light viscosity of the blood, reduced pressure of blood volume against arterial walls. (Hillman 2007, p. 23)

Nowadays, the idea of a mechanical nature is not acceptable anymore. The opposition to the Cartesian paradigm started in the eighteenth and 8

Harvey’s book An Anatomical Dissertation concerning the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals was first published in Latin in 1628, in Frankfurt. It explains the circulation of blood, the functioning of valves, and the difference between veins and arteries, pulse and chambers.

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nineteenth centuries with contributions from Romantic literature, philosophy and biology.9 That resistance to the mechanistic model started a process of reanimation of nature that continues to grow and is now also present in science. It can be seen in the re-covering of many ideas from Aristotle, Goethe, Cuvier, Diesch and Kant in the twentieth century. In this process of reanimation there have been some translations of previous concepts into a new nomenclature. For instance, in relation to the concept of soul, Sheldrake highlights the essential connection to field: […] in area after area of science, the old idea of the soul, as an invisible organizing principle, has been replaced by the concept of field. So, I would say that Nature is being reanimated through fields, which have taken on many of the traditional roles of souls in the premechanistic paradigm […] The idea of inert atoms has given way to the idea of atoms as structures of activity. They do not consist of fixed, inert stuff, but rather of energy moving and oscillating within fields. So, matter itself has turned out not to be fundamental; fields and energy are more fundamental. (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, pp. 22-3).

In addition, the idea of indeterminism at the microscopic level substituted deterministic theories. Re-animation means leaving the interior cage, that closed circle of subjects privately experiencing a world in which there are only “dead public objects” (Hillman 2007, p. 101) in which we have been entrapped in “private and subjective experience”, and starting to sense the movements that come of what before used to be called anima mundi. Hillman invites the re-animation of the world by means of our imagination: The anima mundi as that particular soul-spark, that seminal image, which offers itself through each thing in its visible form […] The world comes with shapes, colors, atmospheres, textures – a display of self-presenting forms. All things show faces, the world is not only a coded signature to be read for meaning, but a physiognomy to be faced. As expressive forms, things speak; they show the shape they are in. They announce themselves, bear witness to their presence […] They regard us beyond how we may regard them, our perspectives, what we intend with them, and how we dispose of them. This imaginative claim on attention bespeaks a world ensouled. More – our imaginative recognition, the childlike act of imagining the world, animates the world and returns to its soul. (Hillman 2007, pp. 101-2)

9

Among the most important philosophers and writers were: Johann Wolfgang Goethe, William Blake, Immanuel Kant, Alexander von Humboldt, Georges Cuvier and Hans Driesch (Vitalism).

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This kind of imagination belongs to the heart. Mae-Wan Ho (2008, pp. 176-7) states that the heart is “far more than a mechanical pump”. According to her it is a sensory organ and an “information encoding and processing centre”. The heart has more than 40,000 neurons and capacity to (1) sense (hormonal, heart rate and blood pressure); (2) regulate (it modulates the activity of the nervous and endocrine systems, influences the digestive tract, the urinary, spleen, respiratory and lymph systems and skeletal muscles); (3) remember; and (4) help human connection (the heart produces hormones and neurotransmitters such as oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, that help bonding). The heart is the most important generator of electromagnetic field in the body. This field, that is “60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity produced by the brain”, can be measured, permeates every cell and is immediately registered in the brain waves. Ho stresses the capacity of communication that the heart displays: Information about the person’s emotional state is also communicated throughout the body and into the external environment via the heart’s electromagnetic field, and may play a role in our perception […] (Is this where intuition comes from?)” (Ho 2008, p. 177)

Nowadays some authors (Varela, Merleau-Ponty, Damasio, Luria) stress the importance of the body and emotions in processes of cognition and perception. However, with a few exceptions such as Ho (2008), the role of the heart has not yet been sufficiently valued. The need for considering different dimensions of the body in cognition has been pointed out by other authors: We hold with Merleau-Ponty that Western scientific culture requires that we see our bodies both as physical structures and as lived, experiential structures, in short, as both outer and inner, biological and phenomenological. These two sides of embodiment are obviously not opposed. (Varela, Thompson and Rosch 1991, p. 3)

What we suggest here is to explore and restore the centrality and structuring role of the heart in perception, cognition and consciousness in the construction of the paradigm of Point of Being. We would like to highlight that the re-inscription of the heart in experience, perception and theory would help us to have a better proprioceptive appreciation of our Point of Being in our contemporary wandering across hybrid realities. With de Kerckhove we insist that the Point of Being is the grounding of a sense of presence that can be lost as a consequence of the electronic nomadism in which we are immersed:

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Chapter Eight [I]ndeed, just as the rapid elaboration of the point-of-view became a condition for individual freedom in the neutral space of Renaissance perspective, a proprioceptive appreciation for one’s point-of-being in networked data flow is among the conditions for retaining a measure of physiological and psychological control over one’s whereabouts in electronic nomadism. (de Kerckhove 1995, p. 202).

That electronic nomadism in which we are immersed is founded in the intense flux of technological changes that clearly reveal our interconnection as human beings and our deep relationship with all that exists. Nevertheless, these changes have still not been fully embedded in the matrix of our most intimate experience, in a paradigm that is able to help us find our focus in transit. There are vestiges of the Cartesian paradigm of perception in our contemporary sensibility and some of these permanences reveal the power of influence of other paradigms, especially the rationalist and Cartesian point of view. Two very telling aspects are important. On the one hand, the fact that intellectually understood connectivity is not fully inscribed in the core of our enactment is shown by our wars, terrorism, lack of empathy among nations, the dark image of hunger, social injustice, and historical pain and recurring shoots of hate that project their spiralling shadow on our most cherished hopes. Like Pinocchio (de Kerckhove 1995, 1997) we are still developing our contemporary potentialities. However, quite surprisingly, in our latest theoretical contributions (see Pepperell 1995) there is a denial of this very notion of human being if we agree without further thinking with the idea that our advances relate to a post-human state of being, not to a human dimension of being. Our identities are interwoven with all that exists. When I, in the silence of language, see stars and constellations on my skin and canyon rivers in the wrinkles of my hand, my body is a microcosm that immediately puts me in connection with many dimensions of reality, from atoms to organic and inorganic beings. My body turns into an inter-body, my interface with different spheres of experience.10 In this moment of electronic connectivity, with Kapra we would like to extend our contemporary sensibility and ask ourselves [w]hat pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all four of them to me? And me to you?” (Kapra 1989, p. 75) 10

One of the possible references for exploring this kind of inter-body is a cyborg. A cyborg is a cybernetic entity, a hybrid of a machine, an organism, a social reality and a fiction. See Haraway (1991).

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Instead of detaching our human condition from our technological changes we could incorporate them as part of our human condition to our Point of Being, the trans-place where nothing is strange to us. It is true that technologies are bringing a resizing of our perceptive paradigm but that fact does not necessarily imply that this wider dimension does not belong to the human condition. What it really does is help us to grow towards our full dimension. When Pinocchio becomes human he doesn’t outgrow his technological condition, he absorbs it, and inscribes the impact of technology and science in the very sphere of his experience, placed in his body. So, globalized communications, nanoproducts and processes, artificial life and intelligence, robotics and all sensorial extensions could be considered mere hints that pave the way towards our full human expression. Our hybrid condition mirrors our hybridization skills; recombinant gender, recombinant bodies; a never-ending metamorphosis configures the very condition of our human dimension. This resizing of our perceptive paradigm by technology does not do more than remind us of what we already are. And this is the role of the heart. In the traditions of the Tzutujil Mayans regarding the powers of animation of the heart there is a deep connection between memory, identity and heart: You became what you remembered by remembering it, because it was very literally in your body before birth. (Prechtel 1998, p. 109)

II The centrality of the heart. The haptic electromagnetic interface A medium is anything from which a change emerges; all innovations are McLuhan’s media. So the heart as a forgotten place of consciousness, rescued as a medium, can be considered an innovation, able to bring subtle changes in our scale of cognition and perception, enlarging our concept of being. To McLuhan, changes indicate the presence of new messages. In this sense the rescue of the heart, considered as a change, brings a different message that challenges the Cartesian point of view. The medium is the message/massage and this message reveals the universe as a complex system of touch animated by contact and attraction. In this system the heart could be considered the main organ of the sense of touch. This is not a new statement; it is a kind of knowledge that is present in ancient

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philosophies and cultures, in the philosophical thought of Aristotle and Pascal, and in some scientific research into the bio-field. In Vedic and Buddhist writings, and in the Upanishads, the heart, understood both as (1) the physical organ and (2) the subtle heart’s centre, is considered to be the seat of the true self, soul, animus (in Latin), chakra Anahata and Atman. For these non-Western philosophies the heart is an energetic interface between different spheres of reality. Interface is understood as a flow of energy that is able to activate our subtle sensors, our chakras, and with them form a system of interconnectivity that usually we are not aware of. In this sense, interface is not a material element, it is an energetic bridge that dissolves the materiality of our usual interfaces into the invisibility of other dimensions of our reality. Onians (1951) showed how the heart and lungs (Gk phrenes, Lat. cor), contain the thumos (Gk) or animus (Lat.), which is the higher part of the mortal soul. In Homeric times the thumos was the conscious spirit, the vehicle of thought and feeling (cf. Skt manas). Later, it was restricted to feeling, emotion, passion and especially spirit, courage and anger – the affective function. This centre corresponds to the fourth chakra, called Anahata, “not hit”. This chakra is associated with prana (Skt) – vital breath, vital spirit (Campbell 164), as are the phrenes with pneuma (Gk) or spiritus (Lat.) – breath, spirit. Campbell (164-5) says, “This is the aspiration, then, of spiritual striving”, and “the birth of the spiritual as opposed to the merely physical life”, and likewise the phrenes are associated with spirit, as opposed to the lower parts, which are associated with physical needs and desires. Individual and collective desires for communication, connectivity and exchange spring from the heart. Our longing for connectivity, love and unity, that we see actualized, materialized, in so many different forms throughout life, is placed in our hearts. Our Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have their roots in the heart’s longings. The association of the heart to prana is very telling. Prana is life. It is said by ancient Hindu texts to have its origin in a chakra close to the heart, as the seat of self. In these teachings the word prana signifies a group of fluids (physic, vital and astral) or ethereal essences. Similar concepts can be found in mediaeval thinking, that considered the human body to be trespassed by physical humours and vital fluids or spirits. These pranic fluids have been excluded from the concept of body by the mechanistic model of medical science. In Hindu writings, apart from other kinds of pranas, there are two higher pranas, one anchored in the heart and the other in the head. For these writings these pranas, called vital fields, nervous fluids, vital winds,

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are basically streams of psycho-astral substances that energize the body, flows of particles, atomic unities or life-atoms. These pranic streams of life-atoms build the human body. This building process is performed according to currents of vitality present in the human auric egg.11 The prana currents would be the form that the currents of vitality present in the auric egg take in the physical plane, and the human body would be shaped as an expression of these currents. Pranas produce auras, a kind of subtle psycho-magnetic magnetic matter around the physically dense body that constitutes the psychic characteristics of each person. The pranic auras come from different sections of the auric egg to different chakras in the physical body. So, in these teachings the human body is the physical expression of the auric egg and there is a correspondence between body organs and energetic centres present in the auric egg. In this sense, health in the physical plane depends on the state of health of these centres in the auric egg. The physical body receives its prana from the auric egg while the latter receives its energy from streams of vitality present in the higher monadic centres of the self. The energy starts as currents of light in the higher centres that transforms itself into grosser flows of vitality in tridimensional matter (nervous fluids). These flows of life are psycho-magnetic in their nature and constitute what is understood as electricity and magnetism in the physical plane. The human body is a drama of psycho-magnetic pranic vital energies that originate in different dimensions of being and enter the physical body through the heart. The heart would be the interface that enables connection between these flows. Similar flows are found in all scales of matter, from atoms to planets and the solar system. In these theories, cosmic forces have their counterparts in the pranas that constitute the human body and all pranic currents of energy have correspondences to currents in the solar systems reflected in the zodiac. Consciousness, perception, intellection and intuitive processes are different variations of the influx of pranic forces from higher planes, from monads to the human physical level. This means that consciousness, perception, intellection and intuitive processes are materializations of pranic flows of life: vital currents coming from higher planes to the human body and taking shape as cognitive and perceptive processes. 11

For Blavatsky the auric egg is the preserver of the karmic record and the storehouse of all the good and evil powers in the human being. The aura is the mirror that reflects the real person beyond appearances.

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Apart from Eastern writings, the heart was also considered as a psychic centre related to thinking processes in Western theories about the chakras. Systole and diastole, soul and breath were linked. The movements of inspiration and expiration, breathing in and out, were compared to the movements of contraction and expansion of the universe.12 How do Homeric notions of the main processes of consciousness differ from our own? A good deal is explicit. Thinking is described as “speaking” and is located sometimes in the heart but usually is in the […] “midriff” or “diaphragm”. (Onians 1951, p. 13)

In the same sense our daily respiration is a bodily rhythmic movement of expansion and contraction that brings oxygen to the body. The rhythmic movements in flow that take the form of systole and diastole in the heart are also displayed in many emergent phenomena of our daily lives, either social or physical. For instance, this kind of movement is associated with concepts such as pulse, dialogue, feedback (some forms of dance), ebb and flow, waves, looping (Wiener), circularity (Barthes) and retroactive /feedback looping (Morin). Culture as system of values, symbols, images and myths, is reflected in daily life, in the collective imaginary and, particularly, in the technological imaginary The idea of circularity and feedback of a system rests on the concept of looping, of a spiral causality in which the effect turns into cause.13 We see the same process related to the heart: with the heart we touch and are touched. Somatization of hard touches develops in heart diseases. That is one of the consequences of these alternate movements of touch. But the acknowledgement of these alternate movements of touch implies admitting that touch is a two-way street and that there is connection between things, people and the world: the world seen as an animated sphere. 12 As Fox pointed out, “[s]pirit is breath […] Hildegard [von Bingen] says that prayer is nothing but inhaling and exhaling the one breath of the Universe […] Eckhart says that our soul is a sleigh that rides through every portion of our body. The body itself is a field. Then the soul goes wherever our mind and our heart go” (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 99). 13 This effect that returns is the self-reproductive looping: the effect that turns into cause. Individuals form societies and societies shape individuals by means of culture and language. Individuals are producers and products of society. Morin also questions the unconsciously assumed dualist paradigm that is reflected in polarities such as those between art-science, magical thought and reason, subject and object. To him an individual is not a readily manipulated being immersed in a shapeless mass.

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That dynamic feedback process is materialized in forms of heartinteraction, heart-communication, heart-connection and intersubjectivity. In the flow of these movements we build an intersubjective identity with which to inhabit the interval, either in our everyday lives or in the “lives” of our avatars or any other kind of technologically assisted identity strategies. That intersubjective creation of our identities which is the result of social bonds and dialogue processes with the mind and the heart of the other, takes shape in the form of electronic minds and hearts. This hybrid identity is a kind of computer-aided constructed identity. In this constant process of production of electronic identities most identities are ephemeral. The electronic territory of cyberspace is inhabited by identities that manifest and occult themselves according to movements similar to the systolic and diastolic heart flows. This intersubjectivity based in hearts is built on processes of intuitive dialogue and co-creation: a two-way tactile process of negotiating boundaries and identities. So, we wonder what the role of the heart is in these processes of co-creation of hybrid identities in the technologically assisted space we inhabit by means of our identities. Living in the animated interval we are multidimensionally touched through our hearts: our hearts attune to each other. The heart is a live transducer that irradiates the electromagnetic energy that touches the hearts of others. In these processes we can analyse the role of the heart as interface and how this interface manages the interval. What are the dimensions of the heart-interface? We will try to provide an answer to this question at the end of the chapter. However, we wonder, how can we be touched through our hearts? What is the role of touch in processes of co-creation and intersubjectivity? The question is how touch relates to inter-subjectivity. We suggest that touch is a technology for contact, connectivity and co-creation in a hybrid level, multidimensional reality. The heart is a technology for touch in multiple layers of reality from electromagnetic to emotional touch. Together with the heart, lungs also had a central role in consciousness and cognition. When Cartesianism transformed the heart into a mechanical pump, stripping it of any role in consciousness and placing consciousness in the brain, we lost an easy answer to the question about what the relationship between soul and heart is as we can see in the dialogue between Fox and Sheldrake: “Of all our words in the West – Fox says – heart comes closest to what we mean by soul. As you said Rupert [Sheldrake], soul is not just psyche or even mind. The word mind in the Middle Ages was about creativity.

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Chapter Eight Rationality included our creativity at that time. (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 86)

However, nowadays we assume the possibility of an exclusive objective world, as a consequence of the Cartesian division: we [ha]ve internalized this shrunken soul and think that the inner means something inside our brains and the outer is something out there. Well, if the soul is extended and expanded […] the inner isn’t confined to our bodies; it’s the inner experience of things. Science is based on trying to do everything with the outer experience of things […] The idea that [scientists] are totally objective, like disembodied minds, is a pretence. This idea of the inner involvement being not just inside but outside us is the key to breaking down the Cartesian division. (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 89)

III The auratic interval In pre-Cartesian thought the heart-soul was part of body and soul. [It] not only permeated the whole body but was involved in all experience and perception, it was an extended soul. For instance, the word soul in Hebrew also means body. This extended soul implies a projection of our souls in space and includes the unconscious mind. (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 93)

This space could be understood as interval or interstice, a fracture in a dimension of reality, the inscription of a presence, that belongs to another dimension, in the body of some reality as a kind of absent presence. But, what kind of interval? Before Cartesianism, the conscious mind was considered immersed in a much larger mind or “psychic system”. Apart from being connected by our conscious mind we are connected to everything by means of the unconscious mind, our collective memory (Jung), morphogenetic field (Gurwitsh), morphic resonance (Sheldrake), sphere’s air conditioning (Sloterdijk), space as active mould (Ozenfant) and by means of the soul, the heart, the field. For Bateson the mind was immanent in the body and outside the body. [The] mind was immanent not only in the body but also in the pathways and messages outside the body. This concept of mind is linked to the theory of self-organizing systems of Prigogine. Self-organization is the

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pattern of organization characteristic of living systems, that is to say, that its order is not self-imposed by the environment but is established by the system itself. In other words, self-organizing systems exhibit a certain degree of autonomy. This does not mean that they are isolated from their environment; on the contrary, they interact with it continually, but this interaction does not determine their organization; they are self-organizing. (Capra 1988, p. 84)

Amédée Ozenfant suggested that space is an active element, a kind of active mould that renders shapes, originated in other dimensions, visible. The interstice or interval could be understood as active agencies, which work behind the perceivable universe, and could be revealed by art (Krauss 1997, p. 171).14 In this sense, is the heart a kind of active mould that gives emotional shapes to the virtual matrix that exists beneath the perceptible universe and enables us to sense its presence? Is it the medium or the auratic interval that enables the dissolution of the physical dimensions and the actualization of virtualities? These are all elements that contribute to the understanding of touch. In particular, Sloterdijk’s analysis of different relationship models based in the metaphor of a sphere, that generate various spaces of animation between the individual and the world, can be explored in relation to technology and touch, technology and connectivity. Getting inspiration from Sloterdijk, we can analyse how different mediums create spherical spaces of technologically assisted animation between the individual and the environment. The characteristics of each medium shape the characteristics of each kind of sphere, that is to say, its dimension, structure and scope of relationship. So, we see how the use of each medium produces a technologically assisted kind of animation in each sphere of interrelationship and builds the interstice, revealing the shape of the interval. These are some spheres of technologically assisted animation according to their mediums. For each kind of sphere different opportunities, problems, obstacles and challenges exist: 1. Individual and global: From the sphere of each person and the global sphere and vice versa. Sphere of animation by Internet, RFID; Social Media; Social Networks; 2. Between 2 people and global: 14 For example, we can see the negative space shape in the works Room 1001, Ghost (1990) and House (1993) by Rachel Whiteread (2003).

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Sphere of animation by mobile phones, mobile technologies of information and communication; mobile technologies of information and communication; RFID; Social Media; Social Networks; 3. Within and between the sphere of more defined groups and between these groups and the world and vice versa: Sphere of animation by Skype, Internet, Internet of Things, Social Media; Social Networks; So now, we ought to ask, what is the role of the heart-soul in these technologically assisted spheres of animation? The heart-soul is an important element in the spiritual counterpart for that haptic interface – the universe’s interface, the universe’s skin – that puts us in contact with all that exists. Eckhart is enthusiastic about that: “the ground of the soul, [heart, field] is dark” (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 138), the realm of which has no name. Going beyond the eyes. Rilke said “the work of the eyes is done’” […] [meaning that] now it is time to go into heart work, which includes dark work. You can’t do heart work very well if you’re all in the eyes or in the ears (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 151)

If we think of the interval in terms of force fields (Rasool 2013) we can probably understand that it is not an empty space. The interval is rather an energy space locked up in a force field that makes most of the Universe. This way of looking at the interval resonates with the concept of Ma (see chapter 5) and also with the features of the heart. According to Rasool:15 In physics, “empty space” is not really empty but full of hidden energy locked up in a force field. It is that field between bits of visible matter that makes up most of the universe. Within it is locked up all the dark matter and energy. It is also from that field that the visible matter and energy materialises. In the universe it may appear that there are nodes of matter joined by fields of force but the reality is that there are mostly fields of force that in rare instances are dense enough to become matter. There is no network but a field of energy. Humans are currently busy “net”working as if there is a net of energy to work. The reality is that there is no net but a field of influence which happens to sometimes be concentrated enough to 15

For more information about the concept of Fieldworking (Rasool 2013), consult these links accessed 2014/01/04, http://ewic.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/51030 http://www.energydiamond.com/docs/fieldworking.pdf

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be visible or able to be experienced from one person. There is no net to work but a “field” of energy to work. Fieldworking then is more powerful than Networking. For a start, unlike Networking, there is no “six degrees of separation” between any two people because the field overlaps the space between contacts and even extends beyond them, even beyond “six degrees of separation” that ultimately connects any two people together in a network. That means any one person can affect any other without going through a chain of command in between (Rasool 2013)

The heart is the inhabited interval, the interval that is intuitively and emotionally felt, not seen, heard or measured. It is the very lubricated axis we use as a sliding path between dualities. So, the heart is the place of our liminal experience between dimensions, dualities and forces. It is the interface for accessing a dimension of memory that transcends the limitations of the memory situated in the physical brain, including other dimensions of memory and mind. This paradoxical condition is a feature of the heart. It is a kind of transspace, or interval that has a Janus characteristic, serving as an interface between the visible and the invisible, the interior and the exterior sides of reality. It is a place for hybridization and for crossing over dimensional borders: a space that is created between individuals but neither belongs to any of them nor is the sum of both. Social space in democratic countries is a kind of lived interval, a political and social bonding space created between individuals. It is a kind of space that neither belongs to any individual in particular, nor is the sum of all individuals, where lonely points of view are transformed into connective Points of Being. In the same sense this reflects what Rasool (2013) claims about the shift that is needed from “networking” to “fieldworking”: Is Networking then becoming an outmoded, Newtonian way of connecting and transforming between people? Is a “field” or “quantum” approach to people engaging with one another more complete and realistic? The pins on a map that mark important places are not reality. The canvas of the map though is more complete an image of reality but even then is still an approximation, a model. The world the canvas of the map represents has much more richness and is not fixed in some static medium but instead flows through a field of ever shifting transformative energy of many dimensions. (Rasool 2013).

The heart, as a relational organ, a synthesis of opposites, a dweller of limits, a kind of double-faced skin inscribing us at the same time in multiple worlds, a point of transduction where different dimensions of perception meet, can help the shift from networking to fieldworking: a

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material receiver for a virtual reality; a virtual transmitter of material experiences. Merleau-Ponty suggests that any presence has a root in the negative; any presence is rooted in absence (Merleau-Ponty 2001, p. 217). The tactile sense of the heart, one of our inner senses, enables it to function between dimensions and displays two characteristics. The first one is an inner “sympathetic response”, in the form of affections and intuitions, to the external world. The second one is “empathic intuition” that enables the heart to get in touch with the movements or changes within other souls (Lind 2007). In this spiritualized, animated and animistic kind of perception, the unity that underlies everything that exists is perceived through the tactile faculty of the heart. The word ta’wil is a concept in Sufism that means, as Lind put it, “the carrying back of a thing to its principle or origin, of a symbol to what it symbolizes”. Ta’wil is the intuition of an essence or soul within an object, person or image, which is the only, or archetypal, means of truly signifying what there is to be signified (Lind 2007, p. 290). When the Aztecs performed ritual sacrifices they used to tear out the heart still beating hold it high as an offering of the person’s teyolia, or soul and life.16 The heart was understood as a physical container for the subtle teyolia, that is to say, the special place in which the spiritual dimensions of reality were inscribed in the physical ones. As a haptic instrument the heart is able to get in touch with the real nature of any thing or being. Exercising this sensorial ability from the heart we intuitively connect and identify with other beings, seeing in others the roots of our very identity, to deeply understand the idea of connected identity. Similar concepts are present in the Aztec word for heart (teyolia), in which the root yolia is linked to the concept of animation. It means that the

16 These rituals were based in their belief that human beings had three essences, each of them located in a different place in the body. At the top of the head and in the hair was the essence tonalli, which controls the person’s fate and actions in life. Teyolia, the second essence housed in the heart – understood as a container for that essence – and in the blood, was considered to be the person’s soul, the place of the personal sense of existence, the centre of life and the seat of thoughts and feelings. There would be no life in the body without teyolia. Ihiyotl, the third essence, is based in the liver and controls personal instincts. So the heart, as the container of teyolia, used to be offered to empower and praise Aztec Gods. With the heart the Gods would receive the life and soul of the person’s heart.

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heart, present in animated and inanimate beings, is able to animate the world by means of its thoughts.17 Understood as soul and field, as Fox remarks, and reflected in the concept of “fieldworking” (Rasool 2013), the heart is an emergent experience that is the fruit of the interaction of multiple elements, especially the construction of identity based in the memory of what we already are, even before we know who we are: I would say that the individual soul is localized, in the sense that the soul is centered on the body. It informs the body, it literally gives it its form. And the body is the center of action of the soul […] My soul, having to do with my memories, my stories, my myths, my upbringing, and so on, is localized in my body and around it. (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 101)

This idea that the soul goes beyond the body resonates with the idea of the universe being constituted 96% of dark matter filling an apparently “empty” space, the interval that supports our relationships and networks: Scientists estimate that the observable universe is only 4% of the whole universe, 96% of which is “dark matter” or “dark energy”. People Networks are very similar […] [A]s far as physics or psychology is concerned we are all connected and even the empty spaces around social relationships are teaming with hidden or “dark” transformational or supportive energies. (Rasool 2013)

According to Rasool, in fieldworking hidden opportunities for collaboration emerge as can be seen in the Collaboration Cycle.18 As mentioned before, in the traditions of the Tzutujil Mayans regarding the powers of animation of the heart there is a deep connection between memory and heart. Likewise, there is a connection between our bodies and our identities and our identities and the identities of others. However, although two bodies cannot occupy the same space, souls or fields can be juxtaposed: electromagnetic and gravitational fields are different fields but they can interpenetrate and be together in all spaces at the same time. In the same way our souls or hearts or heart-souls, understood as fields, interpenetrate each other. We share the same heartsoul space and we experience the idea of connectivity, especially intensified, when we are in love. 17

The sources refer to the hearts of things such as towns, mountains, sky, lake and oceans (Lind 2007, p. 294). 18 Watch the Webinar on The Collaboration Cycle at this link, accessed 2014/04/24, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QeCHyLHias

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Our body is a heart-soul-field. For a shaman the world is a building, a big body called the House of the World. Our personal bodies, referred to in the same way, relate to this referential body, are similar to it. There is a correspondence between what exists in the first House of the World (the outer world) and the other House of the World (our personal body), as everything that exists in one body exists also in the other. The world body is the summation of both houses. So, if the body is heart-soul and field, the house of the world is a building for all spaces at the same time. Love is the supreme form of touch. Love and Eros are the interpenetration of souls, psyche and hearts through bodies (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 102). It relates to the sense of touch: [I]t may be that the use of fire – says Fox – and specially fire in the darkness, has a key role in the evolution of consciousness [That is a] metaphor, or archetype of the fire inside the heart, the heart as fire and being on fire, the burning heart, the passion (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 150)

Hearth or focus, the heart is that living centre of the sphere’s animation (Sloterdijk, 2003), the interface-point, the connector or translator that enables us to interpenetrate and be together in all spaces at the same time without losing our referential Point of Being. It is the keeper of experience in memory, the agent of acclimatization in Sloterdijk’s spheres, beyond death and separation, the keeper of the auratic space. We collectively share multiple past and present spheres of reality, by means of our heart-soulelectromagnetic personal auratic fields centred in our Points of Being.

IV Definitions of heart In the dictionary we read that the heart is a hollow muscular or otherwise contractile organ that, by its dilatation and contraction, systole and diastole, keeps up the circulation of the blood in the vascular system of an animal.19 The heart can be considered as the centre of vital functions, the seat of life, the vital part or principle. So, in some sentences, and for the Hebrews, heart means life. The heart of something is its innermost or central part, its core part, the part in which the character of this thing is more defined, having a distinct 19

Oxford Dictionary (1989).

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conformation or character: the white tender part of a cabbage, the core of an apple, the receptacle or other central part of a flower, the central strand of rope around which the other strands are twisted or the core of a twisted column. The heart is also the “solid central part of a tree without sap or alburnum”. According to the Oxford Dictionary (1989) the heart (Latin cor) of something is its vital, essential part or principle. When the word heart refers to land it means strength, fertility, capacity to produce or effect what is required of it; “in heart” means in good or sound condition. The heart as a physical organ is both an electromagnetic generator and receiver that displays self-organizing, emergent behaviour and is directly connected to other electromagnetic fields.20

V The heart as mind: the seat of intellect, wisdom, understanding, mind, judgement, thought, perception and imagination In the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1987) we can read that the heart, or cor, can be understood on the one hand as the centre of thought, memory, and other mental processes and on the other hand as mind, soul or spirit. It can also be considered as the seat of intelligence, wit and intellect. The

20

Lynch (1997, p. 42) said that “Stress, pain, anxiety, fear and rage sometimes appear in indexes of textbooks on the heart, but never love. Take, for example, the Index Medicus, a scientific journal that annually prints the title and a summary of most medical research articles published in the world. In one four-year period (1970-1973) over 500,000 research articles were cited in this journal. Only 15 of those articles dealt with the topic of love (all from a psychiatric point of view), and not a single one of those articles discussed any effects of love or lack of love on the heart. Apparently a peculiar type of intellectual schizophrenia exists between common sense and scientific attitudes when the human heart is considered. Does common sense recognize something that scientists and physicians cannot see? Why do we continue to use phrases such as broken heart, heartbroken, heartsick, heartless, sweetheart? Why do people persist in the notion that their fellow men die of broken hearts when no such diagnoses ever appear on twentieth-century death certificates?”. Considering the heart as the place of images, a heart infarction “refers to a heart stuffed (farctus = stuffed, crammed, filled, fattened) with its products, imaginings” (Hillman 2007, p. 16). Hillman sees that there is an analogy between this clogging of the heart by images and theories of heart disease about the narrowing of circulation due to fat accumulation.

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meaning can be seen especially in the phrase “cor habere” that means to have good sense. The same kind of acception linking the heart to the mind can be found in the Oxford Dictionary (1989), in which the heart appears as mind in the widest sense, including the functions of feeling, volition and intellect.21 There are analogies between the heart and other sense organs of the body, such as eyes and ears, establishing a link between the heart and other faculties of the mind, as can be the faculty of understanding.22 The heart, understood as soul, had vision, a direct intuition of itself. We agree with Lind that intuition is a kind of immanence: [H]ere the word “intuition” can be understood as the consciousness of immanence, or “presence”, and as a sensibility associated with the faculties of the awakened body-mind and its animistic experiences. But in addition, “presence”, is associated with “transparency”, that is, the light is allowed through so that what is present can be seen by the eye of the heart-soul (Lind 2007, p. 273)

In the same sense, the heart, as soul, also displays haptic features that inscribe it in a universal system of touch. It is the interface for everything that touches or concerns our being, the interface of interfaces, a direct connection to the world around and inside us. It is the very Point of Being, the punctual-interface that enables us to connect to other beings via ourselves. We use that connective personal interface to touch other beings, to feel all that concerns other beings, through intuition (the mind of the

21

Here the Oxford Dictionary is quoting from Sanderson; Serm III (1681, 306): “The heart …is…very often in Scripture… taken more largely, so as to comprehend the whole soul, in all its faculties, as well the apprehensive as the appetitive; and consequently taketh in the thoughts as well as the desires, of the soul” (Oxford Dictionary, 1989). Look for Sanderson references at this link accessed 2014/06/09, http://books.google.es/books?id=GwFJe0eFWMQC&pg=PA1983&lpg=PA1983& dq=R.+Sanderson+Serm.+%281681%29&source=bl&ots=hdSfGTGLsd&sig=C3F lMkRSlnIBZjGo2w0cKdVKrFo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pFYcU9O9HcXIhAfB0IHoD w&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=R.%20Sanderson%20Serm.%20%28168 1%29&f=false 22 “Upon the knees of our hearts to agonize our most constant faith, obedience and loyaltie to your Maiestie” (1604 Act I Jas I, c.I). “Behould the eares of my hart (heart), are set before thee, open thou them, O Lord” (1620, Sir T. Matthews tr. St. Augustine’s confessions I.V). Also Inma Jiménez (2003) talks about “the vision of the heart”, and about the importance of turning on the heart’s light, in a conference given in Bilbao, Jornadas de Paz.

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heart) and empathy (the emotion of the heart).23 As a universal sensor, the heart feels everything that concerns us: [T]he function of the heart consists in feeling everything that touches our being. Consequently, the heart always feels the condition of body and soul as well as multiform impressions created by concrete activity, whether spiritual or physical, the things which surround us or cross our path and, in general, the course of life. (Spidlik 1986, p. 106).

The characteristics of this sensor are widely extended and function as a translator between dimensions, translating the external objects into internal ones: [T]his tactile sense of the heart-soul was not limited to the body but felt the presence and movement of external objects as if they were interior objects, that is, as if they were moving and expressing their being within the medium and internal space (“breadth of heart”) of its immanent consciousness. Such inner “movements” were understood through a preverbal mode of understanding, that is, an intuitive sense of the subjective experience and intentions of the souls of external persons and objects (e.g., animism), by in a sense being them. This was in addition to seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting the internal phenomena experienced by the soul. Although other inner senses, especially seeing and sometimes hearing and smelling, were emphasized in other contexts, the sense of touch was arguably the most important inner sensory ability of the heartsoul. (Lind 2007, p. 274)

In the Oxford Dictionary24 the heart appears as the seat of the mental or intellectual faculties,25 understanding, intellect, mind and (less commonly) memory, especially in the phrase “by heart”. By heart means in the memory, 23

“The Goethean “systole” and “diastole”, the contraction and the expansion of the heart, speak as one and even at the same time. One may also understand the two parts of Olenin’s [Tolstoy’s character] feelings as the manifestation of those two fundamental characteristics of the soul as Rousseau understood it: unity and extent, or expansiveness. The feeling points both inward, fostering happiness and unity, and outward, fostering love of others. If this feeling in fact expresses the natural tendency in the soul toward unity and extent, then Tolstoy in his work gave to the natural expansiveness of the soul a moral meaning that it did not necessarily have in Rousseau” (Orwin 1993, p. 89). 24 We thank John Jacobs for his comment that it is important to notice that the Dictionary here seems to be telling us a 1415 usage of heart, not stating in some authoritative manner that it is in fact the seat of mental faculties. 25 Oxford Dictionary (1989), 1415 Rolls of Parlt. IV. 85/I “As free mak I thee, as heart may thynk, or eygh may see”.

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from memory, by rote; so as to be able to repeat or write out correctly what has been learnt. Tolstoy placed great importance on the heart. In a letter he thanked Pierre Bezukhov for using the expression “heart’s mind”, in comparison to the expression the “mind of the mind”, because the mind should serve the heart’s desire. You can have a good head with a bad heart, or vice-versa; as an example of a man with both good head and good heart, Fet had adduced Goethe. Like his friend Andrei, Pierre cannot live without thinking, but unlike Andrei he thinks with his heart’s mind, that is, with the reason inherent in consciousness that does not separate itself from what it observes. Pierre is the most perfect representative of what I [Tolstoy] have been calling the Goethian side of war and peace (Orwin 1993, p. 130)

This mind of the heart at work, free from the Cartesian split between observer and observed, can also be seen in relation to intuition, in the manner of intuitive reason: Verstand [reason, mind], then, would be the intuitive reason, the “mind of the heart” by which an individual could have direct access to what we have been calling living reason […] The “mind of the heart” is a partner of poetry, especially poetry understood as the voice of feelings. Because of this knowledge of the movements of the heart, the poet has direct access to the great motions of the universe as well.26 (Orwin 1993, p. 132).

One of the faculties of the heart is also active imagination, an instrument that enables us to see the spiritual in the physical, and vice versa, or to animate or spiritualize all the forms that we perceive, and see them as a unity. It is an instrument that serves as a kind of bridge between the physical and the spiritual spheres: The Active Imagination was a faculty of the heart, and in ancient literature at least some of the more positive or neutral references to the “thoughts of the heart” may have been references to what the Sufis later referred to as the Active Imagination. Therefore “imaginal animism” or spiritual creativity, in the sense of the birthing of the soul, is one way of understanding the original and unproblematic “thoughts of the heart”. (Lind 2007, p. 292)

26

Von Gronicka mentioned that Goethe sees a correlation between the beating of the human heart and the rhythms of nature.

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The heart as feeling and emotion The heart is cor in Latin. According to The Oxford Latin Dictionary (1997) it is the seat of the character or emotions, while in the Latin Dictionary [1879] (1969), the heart is the seat of feeling and emotion. “From the heart” means cordially. Something that “lies at one’s heart” means something that pleases, is agreeable or dear, while “to have at heart” means to lay great stress upon something, to value it. The Oxford Dictionary (1989) offers the possibility of understanding the heart as the place of emotions: the emotional nature, as distinguished from the intellectual nature placed in the head.27 It also relates to feeling or sentiment toward a thing.28 It is particularly considered the seat of love or affection, as is clear in expressions such as “to give/lose one’s heart (to)”, “to have/obtain/gain a person’s heart”. Near or nearest one’s heart means close or closest to one’s affections. The word also relates to kind feelings: cordiality, heartiness, and susceptibility to higher emotions, sensibility or tenderness for others. In this sense it is connected with the meaning of empathy. The expression “to have a heart” means to be merciful, while “poor heart” is a term of compassion. Homer placed in the heart and lungs the emotional centre of the body (Onians 1951, p. 84) The haptic ability of the heart, understood as soul, to sense internal movements, is in the root of the word emotion. The word movement (emovere in Latin) is linked to the sense of touch. The etymological origin of the word emotion is associated with the idea of motion and with the expression “to affect the feelings” (Partridge 1958, p. 419). However, the Cartesian split mind-body in relation to emotions remains strong in our age, for we still consider the mind as the main seat of consciousness. The body has a subordinate and un-integrated position in relation to that consciousness placed in the head. Lind is clear about that: [W]hile a significant portion of ancient psychology might be understood to be a psychology of the motions and emotions of the soul and also, presumably, of the emotive influences of the spirit, in modern experience the emotions and emotional communication (e.g. nonverbal “reading” of emotions and the expression of one’s emotions toward an other) in general 27

Oxford Dictionary (1989), c 1600 Sonn. Xlvi. I “Mine eye and heart are at a moral war. How to divide the conquest of thy sight. /a 1700 Dryden tr. Ovid’s Art Love I Wks.1808 XII 252 “Tears will pierce a heart of adamant”./1867 Trollope Chron. Barset II.I.71 “Her heart was too full to speak”. 28 Oxford Dictionary (1989), 1603 Knolles Hist. Turks (1621) 356 “Above others, his heart was greatest against the Hungarians”.

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Chapter Eight remain untapped reservoirs of understanding largely relegated to the unconscious. While the expression of some forms of modern religiosity seem to attempt to center themselves in this emotional substratum of understanding, […] in these practices the mind of the body remains subordinate and unintegrated in a manner that maintains the status quo of head-consciousness, that is, the mind does not descend into and dwell within the body. (Lind 2007, p. 274)

In Saint Augustine’s writings, the heart is the centre of a person, inward dwelling, closet, anima or soul. Heart is always MY heart (cor meum) and reflects the importance feelings have in our contemporary world of personal feeling hearts; feelings are the medium of heart cognition. Cognition is feeling when the thought of the heart is feeling; “this heart is emotional, the place of storms and tears, of conflict” (Hillman 2007, p. 29). In the same sense Rousseau, who placed divinity in the heart, weighs existence by feeling; for us to exist is to feel. The ancient and traditionally available descriptions of a consciousness placed in the heart-soul-body are more similar to each other than to our contemporary concepts of a consciousness placed in mental and abstract Cartesian space of the head. In ancient literature head-consciousness is not currently found and consciousness, and subjectivity, are clearly placed in the body, in the trunk and mostly in the heart. Hillman sees in both Augustine and Rousseau examples of a confessional mode, an externalization, an exposition of the subjectivity (similar to the externalization and objectivization of our imaginary by technology): The word confession from fassus bears the root pha (grk) and bha (Skr), “show”, “light”, “shine” [T]he experience of heart as abyss. (Hillman 2007, p. 31).

Our hearts confess and reveal our images (inscribed in feelings) that appear in anything we express. Images are encapsulated in feelings.

VI The electromagnetic interval: the centrality of the heart in western thought, Aristotle and Pascal. Field theory, soul and aura The consideration of the heart together with the lungs as seats of knowledge and perception is also present in Western thought. The heart is not only understood as the symbol of love, charity, friendship and rectitude but also as an empathic sensor and a cognitive medium that can

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be traced back to Aristotle.29 Aiw from Indo-European, means vital force, life and eternity and relates to breathe in sensations, to hear, see, feel from the phrenes, the lungs. For Aristotle perception as a whole was dependent on heart perception. It was the fundamental condition for the animal psuche30 and aisthetikon, understood as the animal’s perceptive capacity to manifest itself. The heart – or its correlate in bloodless creatures – plays a central role in Aristotelian animal psychology. It not only contains the controlling organ of perception but is also the locus of the capacities of motion and nutrition (PAII.1, 647ª 25) – indeed, at times Aristotle seems to talk as if the heart is the location of the psuche itself […] The individual sense organs have the capacity for perception – for life – not merely because they have whatever material constitution is necessary for being affected by their proper sensibles but because they are connected to the controlling sense organ, the heart. (Everson 1997, pp. 141-2)31

29

Johansen says, “Aristotle made the point in De Partibus Animalium II.10 that the heart rather than the brain is the seat of all perception (78-81). He referred us back to De Sensu 2 for the view that touch and taste were clearly dependent on the heart (656 to 28-30). The relevant passage seems to be De Sensu 2 (438b16-439a5) where he argued that the organs of touch and taste were situated in the heart whereas those of vision, hearing and smell were placed in the head” (Johansen 2007, p. 204). 30 “The psuche of a plant is the nutrition capacity (ENI.13, 1102 a 32-3,b29-30) and presumably, the animal psuche will be the perceptual capacity, the aisthetikon, since it is the possession of this which makes a living thing an animal” (Everson 1997, p. 68). 31 To Aristotle “something is a sense organ in virtue of possessing the capacity to take on the forms of the proper sensibles – that is, to be affected by the sensible objects. This means that neither the agent nor the patient can be characterized independently of their relation to each other. Sensible objects are the sort of thing to bring about changes in the sorts of things which are such as to be affected by them. Any substance that has the power to affect other things will satisfy that definition. Similarly, sense organs will be the sort of thing to be affected by the sort of thing that is such as to affect them – and, again, any substance that is such as to be affected by anything will satisfy that. One way out of this would be to make reference to the kind of change that is produced in the organ. This will not help, however, since the change will either be that of the organ’s taking on the property in question (a property which is merely the disposition to produce that change) or that of coming to perceive the property in question, and, in either case, the change is itself definitionally dependent on the property that it is intended to define” (Everson 1997, p. 113).

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In analysing the sense of touch Aristotle made a distinction between the primary sense-organ of touch and the medium of touch. For him the heart possibly would be the main sense-organ of touch while the whole body would be the medium (Johansen 2007, 201).32 This author helps us see that, although the heart could be considered the main sense organ of touch, the body and its flesh constitute the medium the soul uses to touch: the flesh and body are the soul’s organ of touch: for it is when the tangibles are received by the heart that they are perceived, though this fact escapes our notice since the affection of the flesh coincides with the affection of the heart. (Johansen 2007, p. 202)

There is a medium for each sense. For taste and touch the medium is the body, flesh and skin, while for vision, hearing or smell the medium can be air or water. For Aristotle’s theories, there is a parallel between touch and other senses that work in separation from their object of perception, for instance, smell, hearing and vision. A medium brings the presence to the site of feeling, within the organism but the organism does not feel the medium with which they keep touch: [A] medium, as the term itself implies is situated between external and internal, between material environment and physical sentience (this describes breath as a medium of the body, oscillating between two physicalities, the body and the world). (Johansen 2007, p. 210)33 32

“The entire body insofar as it consists of flesh is first to be considered the organ of touch. But a distinction is then introduced between the primary sense-organ of touch, which Aristotle presumably also here would take to be the heart, and the flesh. It might be that the flesh rather than being the primary sense-organ of touch is the medium of touch. So far the history is familiar. But the story does not end there, for we can take the sense-organ of touch to be the flesh and the primary sense organ together, just as if we were to take the Kore and the transparent medium of sight together to be the sense of sight” (Johansen 2007, p. 201). 33 Aristotle argues that the “animals living in water do not notice if the surfaces of things which touch them are wet” and moreover the proper sensation cannot result from touching the sense organ directly. Analogously, layers of skin and flesh cannot be the organ of touch but constitute instead its medium: “When objects are placed on the sense organs no sensation occurs but when they are placed on the flesh it does, hence the medium of the tangible is flesh. If flesh is the tactile medium, just as air or water is the visual, where would the tactile organ itself be found? It is hidden somewhere inside the body, masked by its medium, like the logic (or nonsense) hidden within a rhetoric. Touch, the sense of immediate contact of proximity, thus preserves a certain distance, as if the flesh of a body were always dividing it from its subject” (Johansen 2007, p. 210).

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In Aristotle’s writings, flesh and skin cannot be the organs of touch because, for a sensation to be perceived, an object must be placed in the medium, not in the sense organ. If we place something in the sense organ of hearing, the ear, we do not hear. So, breathing and electromagnetic fields could be understood as the mediums for perception through the sense organ of touch that is the heart. So, if the medium is the message and the body is the medium for the sense of touch, the recovery of the body implies a change in our paradigm. In the same sense if breathing is the medium, the medium is the message, and the message is an invitation to change, breathing could be understood as a connective technology that dwells in the hybrid interval between the analogical and the subtle electromagnetic, electronic dimensions. As a technology for managing the transdimensional interstice, breathing, when recovered to be re-inscribed in our contemporary paradigm, offers us an opportunity towards the comprehension of our electronic constitution, the comprehension of ourselves as hybrid points of being that animate the interval between different forms of energy which constitute the continuum matter-energy: we can start to see ourselves as electronic bodies as much as we can re-turn our attention to our outer flesh shell. This could be considered a kind of body “enlightenment” and electronic incarnation that results from comprehension of technology from the animistic thinking of point of heart-arche-soul-being, something that is impossible to be understood from the linear thinking of point of view that builds an artificial boundary between us and the world. Inspiring are the words by Goethe when he says that eyes owe their existence to light, are responses to light, inner light meets outer light. We can speculate saying that the heart is a response to electromagnetic energy. If the luminous heart were not electro-magnetic touch, vibration, pulse and attraction how could we be touched in our hearts, how could we practice aesthesis, that is to say, being able to perceive the touch of the animate world upon us?

VII The heart as medium and sensor: intuition Apart from being considered the sense organ of touch, the heart appears in Western philosophy also as the seat of intuition. Relating to seeing, there could be no capacity of seeing if it were not connected to the heart: Eyes are not independent organs; in order for an eye to possess the capacity of seeing, it must be connected to the central organ of perception, the heart. (Everson 1997, pp. 66-7)

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This reminds us of St. Thomas’s attitude regarding Jesus’ apparition to the disciples: [U]nless I see in his [Jesus’] hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe. (Jn. 20:25)

Here it seems that believing is impossible if separated from seeing, impossible without direct verification of evidence. When St. Thomas changed his attitude and believed in Jesus’ apparition Jesus said: “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and (yet) have believed” (Jn. 20:29). Jesus’ words could have referred to intuition, this heart’s faculty of direct perception that does not depend on the evidence of physical senses. Intuition is “the source of all knowledge of matters of fact not based on, or capable of, being supported by observation”.34 For Spinoza and Bergson intuition refers to concrete knowledge of the world as an interconnected whole. For Pascal our reason should base all its arguments in the knowledge of first principles such as space, time, motion and number that come through our heart first. We can see this in this series of statements: 277. The heart has its reason, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and also itself naturally, according as it gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against one or the other at its will. You have rejected the one and kept the other. Is it by reason that you love yourself? 278. It is the heart that experiences God, and not reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by reason […] 282. We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart, and it is in this last way that we know first principles: and reason, which has no part in it, tries in vain to impugn them […] For knowledge of first principles, like space, time, motion, number, is as sure as any of those which we get from reasoning. And reason must trust these intuitions of the heart, and must base them on every argument. (We have intuitive knowledge of the tridimensional nature of space and of the infinity of number, and reason then shows that there are no two square numbers one of which is double of the other. Principles are intuited, propositions are inferred, all with certainty, though in different ways). And it is as useless and absurd for reason to demand from the heart proofs of her first principles, before admitting them, as it would be for the heart to demand from reason an intuition of all 34 http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-560202/Benedict-de-Spinoza (accessed 2014/03/09).

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demonstrated propositions before accepting them. This inability ought, then, to serve only to humble reason, which would judge all, but not to impugn our certainty, as if only reason were capable of instructing us […] 283. The heart has its own order; the intellect has its own, which is by principle and demonstration. The heart has another […]”. (Pascal 1944 [1623-62])

This same aspect of intuition, as a kind of direct knowledge that does not need demonstration, which we see in Spinoza, Bergson, Pascal and in the Biblical passage of St. Thomas, is also associated to the senses of touch and smell. The sense of touch, from Latin tactus, derived from tangere, is understood as a sense extended through the whole body that is able to perceive things and its qualities. It is associated with finger, skin and tentacle and with the verb to touch, to try out and to feel with hands. It is also associated with re-cognizing, a cognitive ability, and with having prudence when managing difficult situations. The Latin word olfactus is composed of olere (to smell) and fácere (to make). Apart from the ability to perceive odours, to smell is also the ability of knowing without thinking. It signifies to guess, to suspect, to have curiosity. In the same sense it relates to the concept of research, that is to say, searching for a knowledge that is not defined yet and following a path of hazy hunches to develop a chain of actions to develop something that belongs to the future.

The heart: from soul to field and aura, spirit and consciousness The heart or cor can also be understood as the seat of the conscience, volition and as a term of endearment.35 It is also the place of courage hence spirit – to pluck up, gather, keep (up) or lose heart – and the source of ardour, enthusiasm, or energy, especially in the expressions “to have one’s heart in” and “to put one’s heart into a thing”. In a different sense it means the moral sense and consciousness.36 In relation to consciousness, in the heart we keep our inmost thoughts and secret feelings, our inmost being, the depths of our souls and the spirit.37 35

Oxford Latin Dictionary (1997). Oxford Dictionary (1989). 37 Oxford Dictionary (1989), 1794 Mann in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 440 “Excuse my laying my heart open to you and exposing my feelings as they are”. / 1886 Baring-GouldmCrt. Royal xviii. I. 283, “I like you to speak out of your heart freshly what you think. 36

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Chapter Eight Let us look for the seat of consciousness. Where is it in the body? A man is said to think his thoughts and feel emotions and impulses in his heart […] but more usually in the [midriff or diaphragm]. The diaphragm was also said to contain something vaporus [the breath], the blood soul. (Onians 1951, p. 23)

Onians showed that Romans and Greeks had similar views about the role of the heart and the lungs in consciousness. Especially for Romans the heart and the lungs, indeed the whole chest, were the seats of consciousness, of mind. Heart and lungs could be the seats of soul. Onians affirms that the lungs of a bird in several countries are called “soul”, as a survival of the old Anglo-Saxon belief that this organ was related to the soul.38 The combined role of the heart and the lungs in consciousness is reflected in the interaction between blood and breath; the medium of consciousness is breath and blood. Hebrews, Greeks, Hindus and other cultures hold similar ideas about the relationship between heart, lungs and breath. Such belief was not unnatural in view of the compactness of lungs and bronchial tubes with the heart and its vessels, and of the fact that the “arterial” (i.e. left) ventricle of the heart is found virtually empty after death, and of the supposed relation of breath to blood. (Onians 1951, foot note, 49).

This interaction, for Onians, is also registered in many manifestations of the interaction between breathing and emotions, as in sobbing with grief, snorting with indignation, yawning with weariness, laughing with mirth, sighing with sadness or relief, panting with eagerness and gasping or whistling with astonishment. For the Homeric Greeks the [heart] is the “spirit”, the breath that is consciousness, variable, dynamic, coming and going, changing as feeling changes and, we may add, as thought changes. Thought and feeling were […] scarcely separable then, and it is still recognized that thought, even the abstract thought of the philosopher affects breathing. Upon a man’s “spirit” or “breath-soul” depend his fierness or energy […] and courage […] He breathes them […] We can now better understand “inspiration”. What conception could be more natural, when feeling and thought are the work of the lungs?. (Onians 1951, p. 50)

38

“In Beowulf the sawol […] departs out of (the hero’s) kreer. Hreer is usually rendered vaguely heart, breast, mind, but probably designated or included the lungs […]” (Onians 1951, p. 39).

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Corbin (1969) considered the heart as the seat of imagination: the thought of the heart is the thought of images. When we speak from the heart we are using the voice of the heart: This power of the heart is what is specifically designated by the word himma, a word whose content is perhaps best suggested by the Greek word enthymesis, which signifies the act of meditating, conceiving, imagining, projecting, ardently desiring – in other words, of having (something) present in the thymos, which is the vital force, soul, heart, intention, thought, desire. (Hillman 2007, p. 5)

Himma is the origin of images, creatures that live in our imagination. Corbin says: Philosophy enunciates the world in the images of words. It must arise in the heart in order to mediate the world truly, since […] it is the subtle organ that perceives the correspondences between the subtleties of consciousness and the levels of being. This intelligence takes place by means of images that are a third possibility between mind and world. Each image coordinates in itself qualities of consciousness and qualities of the world […] the imaginational intelligence resides in the heart: “intelligence of the heart” connotes a simultaneous knowing and loving by means of imaging. (Hillman 2007, pp. 6-7)

In Paracelsus the heart is the microcosmic place of a process of imagining that is in connection with the sun, considered to be the macrocosmic heart of the universe. A strong connection between love and imagination is also essential to psychoanalysis; wishing, Wunsch (thymos), works as a principle that explains situations for a patient, a creature of enthymesis, love as projection. Aristotle placed consciousness in the region of the heart, describing the heart as a sensitive bodily part. [The heart] senses and responds directly, for the organs that sense the world run to the heart (781a21, 647a25ff, 703b24, 743b26) and especially taste and touch provide this immediate connection of the heart with the world. (Hillman 1997, p. 16)

The Stoics understand breath connected to the heart as soul and to the sense of touch:

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Jews shared a similar view and situated consciousness in the heart, while for Greeks and Romans animus was similar to breath and breath was consciousness in the chest: “[A]nimus […] must have been used constantly and predominantly to describe the various states and changes of consciousness. (Onians 1951, p. 171).

In Egyptian beliefs the heart used to be weighed after death for the weight of the soul. Greeks and Romans used a ring on the fourth finger of the left hand because they believed this finger to be connected to the heart, that is to say, to consciousness. The organs of consciousness for Romans were the heart, the liver and the lungs or praecordia. In the Old Testament Nephesh is “life” or “soul” and refers to the conscious self connected to the heart, blood and breath. Phoenicians place the Nephesh in the chest (Onians 1951, p. 481). The thah for Karens in Burma is the conscious self-seated in the heart and chest. Vedic concepts of soul situate the manas or conscious mind in the heart. The soul was what animated the world in animistic traditions; it was present in nature as the anima mundi, in which the world, animals and plants had souls. The soul was understood as a formative principle, some kind of force that draws each thing in the universe towards its shape. It was the objective or aim behind each existence. The telos in Greek, the soul was a synonym for entelechy for Aristotle.39 Fox analysed the formative role the soul has either in plants, animals or humans.40 Souls animate and guide organisms by means of attraction. 39

According to Sheldrake (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 76). “In the case of animals, the soul plays a formative role, just as it does in plants. In English this aspect of the soul was called the vegetative soul. As the animal embryo grows, it gives form to the body, the healing of wounds, the regeneration of organs after damage, and so on. In animals, there is also the animal soul, which is concerned with the correlation of the senses and the movements; it acts as the coordinating principle of instincts and of behaviour in general. In human beings there are three aspects or levels of the soul: the vegetative soul, responsible for the form of the body; the animal soul, giving us our animal nature; and the intellect or the rational soul, the conscious part of our mind, our reason. In classical thinking, the conscious mind was part of a much larger psychic system which linked us to the animals and plants” (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, pp. 76-7). 40

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Attraction is in the base of the sense of touch. The soul, understood as a field, heart and breath is a medium or instrument for touch and therefore, attraction. Sheldrake clarifies how attraction has been dismissed by science: [T]his kind of motivation by attraction was dismissed from science in the seventeenth century. It has recently been smuggled back in through the concepts of attractors. (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 23)

Sheldrake reminds us that the concept of attractor is also related to the pre-Cartesian concept of soul which holds that minerals, especially magnets had souls: [A] magnet can act at a distance, attracting and repelling things, without anything in between […] in the ancient world, and right into the seventeenth century it was generally believed that magnets had souls. The basis of magnetism and electricity was a psychic reality, a psychic entity. (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 80)

In the same sense there is a parallel between gravitational forces and psychic realities. The idea of field appeared with Faraday in the nineteenth century and Einstein applied it to gravity, substituting the concept of the soul of the world or anima mundi that keeps the universe together with the idea of gravitational field. Later on, different applications of the concept of field appeared: quantum fields, morphogenetic fields, formative fields, etc. Sheldrake finds striking similarities between soul and field: “everything the soul did before, the field does now” (Fox and Sheldrake 1996, p. 81). Souls could also be the animating elements of spheres. For Sloterdijk, there is a convergence between the theory of the mediums and the theory of spheres: “in the spheres, shared inspirations become the basis for human beings’ association in communes and towns” (Sloterdijk 2003, p. 39). In this sense the soul could be the magnet, the attractor, the formative field of Sloterdijk’s spheres. Let’s collapse the concepts of heart, breath and soul. What used to be called heart, breath and soul before, is now what science calls field. So, if we assume a synchronic approach to the subject, heart, breath and soul equal field. The word field also relates to electricity and electromagnetism, as in the expression electromagnetic field. If we take a ride in the latter expression we arrive at the heart again, as the heart can be understood as an electromagnetic receiver and transmitter (considering just its merely

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physical aspects). Apart from that, the concept of field is linked to that of élan vital (for Bergson fields had qualities), entelechy (Driesch), auric fields, L-fields,41 motor, morphic and quantum fields. Living organisms create and emit electromagnetic fields, which in turn have an impact on many physiological processes, as cells are sensitive to them. For example, when emigrating, turtles and shoals of fish follow electromagnetic lines. The updating of ancient expressions such as heart, breath and soul, considering them as a field, generates the expressions e-field society, efield body and e-field object. The e-field society is the updated name for a society that considers the heart as the seat of perception and consciousness: a society that considers the heart to be a cognitive and perceptive organ that is able to touch at a distance and to emphatically perceive realities. The e-field body defines the body that includes all those features present in the ancient definitions of heart, breath and soul that have been denied by the Cartesian paradigm. From these features appears the idea of body as a multidimensional interface that connects different levels of realities, from the spiritual to the material. The e-field object is the virtual counterpart of a hybrid object, an object that allows access to its treasure, its soul, its history, its symbolic connections, a kind of electronic aura for any kind of object. The object is revalorized and recovers the role things used to have in animism. E-field society, e-field body, e-field object and e-field nature structure a hybrid electronically assisted animistic reality, the appearance of the electronically assisted convergence of mediums and animated spheres.

Aura and electricity The interval inhabited by these hybrid societies, bodies and objects is electronic aura. Aura means electricity, electrical atmosphere or electrical aura, and the current of air caused by the discharge of electricity from a sharp point, e.g. from those of the electrical whirl.42 In Latin,43 aura means air in gentle motion, a gentle breeze, a breath of air (ventus, spiritus); a 41

Saxton Burr discovered that different types of organism have different patterns of electrical activity; each one has a characteristic pattern, like electrical fingerprints. 42 Franklin differentiates types of earthquakes, in function of the different position, quantity etc., of this imprisoned aura. Ganot, wrote “On approaching the hand to the whirl while in motion, a slight draught is felt, due to the movement of the electrified air. This draught or wind is known as the electrical aura” (1875, 764). 43 Latin Dictionary [1879] (1969).

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breeze, a wind (even when violent). In another group of meanings aura is prosperity, and aura popularis is popular favour. In poetry it is air: Vivit et aetherias vitalis suscipit auras is the vital air; captare naribus auras means to sniff the air; libertatis auram captare is to catch at the air of freedom, to seize upon any hope of liberty. Many mystical texts, from the Prana of the Hindus to the Ruach of Kabbalistic treatises, from the concept of Chitta in Sanskrit or the concept of Astral Light in Alchemy, affirm the psychic nature of the universe as a principle. Basically a principle is a rule, or law concerning the functioning of a natural phenomenon or mechanical process. As we can experience gravity without having learned the laws of physics, or electromagnetism without the use of special tools, we can experience aura. Thought could be considered a principle, the principle of thought or thinking principle. In ancient texts the thinking principle is considered to be the connecting medium, universal mind, electromagnetic substance or psychic nature that connects each one of us to all other things and beings in the universe: a medium or substance, that is sensitive to our mental images, feelings and inner and outer forms of speech, that is to say, a principle amenable to images, feelings and language. For instance, for Kabbalah there is a powerful psychical influence of letters, numbers and images in the construction of our world’s conditions, and a strong power behind words. These ancient beliefs maintain that we do not own the thinking principle, and neither the thinking principle nor our personal thoughts are imprisoned inside our skulls: to them the thinking principle is a flowing electric force that pervades everything, a substance in which we are immersed. Basically it is a principle on which the unity of all that exists is based. It is present in all our states of mind, our memory, perceptions, volition, imagination, desires, dreams and reasoning, taking form in our thoughts, sensations and emotions. According to these old thinking traditions, every time we use language, or make a mental image, we project a modified temporary version of the thinking principle, and work with the very electric substance that unites everything, with aura. So the thinking principle is connected to electricity. Basically electricity, as we know it, is the flowing of electrons from one atom to another. Elecktron, means “beaming sun”, and this is the Greek origin for the words electricity and electronics. Elektron in Greek is also the word for amber, the stone that burns, and in Latin the word electricus means what is produced when amber is rubbed. In this sense, in the origin of the concepts of electron and electricity there is a mystical connection to the sun, considered to be a spiritual entity by many old traditions and mystical

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texts, such as those previously quoted. So, between our macro sun and the electrons or “beaming suns” at the atomic scale there is a spiritual and mystical link developed by these systems of thought, in which aura participates. Aura is also the upper air, heaven, on high and, in opposition to the lower world, it refers to the upper world. Fere sub auras is to make know; pondus in auras spulit is related to child birth; reddere ad aura is to restore while fugere auras means to seclude or hide one’s self. Aura is also used to talk about the influence that atmospheric objects exert on bodies, like light, heat, sound, vapour, etc. In this sense a bright light, a gleam, glittering, the warmth of sunlight, a sound, tone, voice, an echo, vapour, mist, odour or exhalation are auras. In the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1997), aura is also air in gentle motion, a puff or breath of air; a draught; a light breeze; a minute amount, a puff, breeze or wind, especially in navigation. It relates also to Aura popularis, the breath of favour or the favour of fortune. Aura is the air above the earth, the atmosphere; air as substance and air issuing from the lungs, breath. An odour, fragrance, aroma, an effluvium or a stench are auras in the same way that exhalation, vapour, effluence, radiation or gleam are. Aura,44 is taken from the Latin aura “breeze”, “wind”, “breathe” and to breathe. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) considers aura as a gentle breeze, a zephyr, or as a subtle emanation or exhalation from any substance; e.g., the aroma of blood, the odours of flowers, etc., and as a distinctive impression of character or aspect,45 a supposed subtle emanation from, and enveloping, living persons and things, viewed by mystics as consisting of the essence of the individual, serving as the medium for the operation of mesmeric and similar influences. In another meaning46 aura is a path and a sensation, as of a current of cold air, rising from some part of the body to the head. It is also the name of the visual symptoms that precede epileptic fits and hysteric seizures. Electromagnetism is the substance of auras.

44

Diccionario Crítico Etimológico Corominas (1954). For Emerson “The condition of true naming, on the poet’s part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms”, The Oxford English Dictionary (1989). 46 The Oxford English Dictionary (1989). 45

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The electromagnetic density of the interval For science, fields underlie both material bodies and the space between them. We can interpret them as interval. There are different kinds of fields, for instance, gravitational and electromagnetic. [I]n the quantum field theory of matter, subatomic particles are thought of as quanta of excitation of matter fields. Each kind of particle has its own special type of field: a proton is a quantum of the proton-antiproton field; an electron is a quantum of the electron-positron field, and so on. In these theories, physical phenomena are explained by the combination of the concepts of spatial fields and energy, not in terms of energy alone. Thus although energy can be regarded as the cause of change, the ordering of change depends on the spatial structure of the fields. These structures have physical effects, but they are not in themselves a type of energy; they act as […] spatial causes. The radical difference between this idea and the notion of exclusively energetic causation is illustrated in the contrast between Newton’s and Einstein’s theories of gravitation: for example, according to the former, the moon moves around the earth because it is pulled towards it by an attractive force, according to the latter, it does so because the very space in which it moves is curved. (Sheldrake 1981, p. 60)

The non-linear and moving electromagnetic field generated by the heart can be measured and read. Expanding in all directions of space it carries encoded information. The Earth’s magnetic field is a very similar torus (or pattern) toward which hearts (and magnets) emit. The North and South magnetic poles are the two ends of the dipole, like the lower and upper ends of our spines (or the two poles of a battery). Like that of the heart, the Earth’s magnetic field is a constantly shifting, living field. All living organisms possess just such a torus, including plants […] The whole body is cradled within the electromagnetic field generated by the heart. (Buhner 2004, p. 87)

The electromagnetic heart field is a means for touch; it gets in contact with other electromagnetic fields, receiving and decoding the information brought by them. One of the most striking examples of this is the capacity heart cells have to coordinate with each other and start to beat together, in harmony. Their electromagnetic fields get in touch and synchronize their self-organized behaviour that triggers a combination of fields that goes

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beyond the sum of parts and constitutes a kind of resonant connective intelligence.47 The very nature of the electromagnetic constitution of the field, considered as interval, is determinant for understanding the weight of its presence in perception. Developing awareness of the presence of the interval, framing the interval in order to highlight its significance and presence, sensing the interval that connects everything through touch, understanding its specific properties (in our case the interval is electronic, electromagnetic), is one of the most important tasks now. Understanding interval as field, or as an updated space for the reenactment of the features that the ancient concepts of heart, breath and soul and aura used to display, can be helpful for us in building our contemporary sensibility in times of an anachronistic, but still pervasive, presence of the Cartesian mind-body split.

VIII The centrality of the heart in mystical and symbolic thought and in different cultures, in Chinese medicine and bio-field science A photon is a single indivisible quantum or particle of light without mass that interacts with charged particles. They are behind electromagnetic phenomena as they carry electromagnetic radiation of all kinds of wavelength, from visible light to X-rays, ultraviolet, infrared, microwave and radio waves. The wave-particle property displayed by photons is explained by quantum field theory. Electromagnetism is also the energy present in theory of chakras. Electromagnetism offers us an alternative way to consider the sense of touch. Mystical thinking links the sense of touch to the heart’s chakra called Anahata, that relates to love, compassion, empathy, breath, prana (life-force in Sanskrit), relationships, emotion and time. The heart as chakra is considered to be a kind of interface organ that is a place between the material and subtle spiritual existential spheres of a human being, a kind of “house of soul”, or, house of Brahma (Bramahpura), Seat of God (Islam), Realm of God (and altar = hearth in Christian cruciform church plans), God’s Temple (Silesius), a King (Nei King-Huang-ti). The Temple of Jerusalem is the Heart of the World (Judaism). 47 Joseph Chilton Pearce (2002) talked about aggregates or resonant groupings of information and/or intelligence.

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The heart is an organ that is able to feel the beauty in everything and others, as it, as a perceptive organ, goes beyond the outer appearances of things. The heart’s chakra favours compassionate and humanitarian attitudes, stimulates the desire to nurture others, and makes it possible for the person to be in touch with her/his own feelings: to be generous, gentle, adaptable and self-confident. In an unbalanced situation the person lacks compassion, becomes insecure, jealous and possessive, distrustful of life and others. In cases where the energy is too intense in this chakra, overcritical, over demanding, jealous, over-confident behaviours emerge and the individual develops a lack of respect for herself and for others. If this chakra is energetically poor the attitudes of self-pity, indecision and possessiveness appear and the person, unable to feel love, will be in need of reassurance from outside and will easily get hurt. Symbolism studies show how the heart is considered the individual’s central organ and corresponds to the notion of “centre”.48 This notion relates to that of “point”, that is present in the concept of Point of Being. In this sense the heart is the same as intent, will, purpose, inclination, desire; “after one’s own heart” means “after one’s will, inclination, desire”. And desire is the centre of a being, the attractor in a process of entelechy of being.49 On the other hand, we cannot forget that the definition of knowledge changes and in Eastern cultures it does not exclude affective aspects. The heart is the vital centre of human life. Systolic and diastolic movements are symbols for the expansion and re-absorption of the universe, so the heart is the symbolic origin of the cycles of time. For the Chinese it is linked to the element of fire, spiritual light, intellectual intuition and revelation. For Sufism it is an organ of perception called the “Eye of Heart” (Ayn el-Qalb). In Nei-King,50 the heart’s function is to govern, like a king. Taoism treats it as the owner of breath. 48

The information on the symbolic aspects of the heart was taken from Chevalier and Gheerbrand (1986, pp. 341-344). 49 Entelechy comes from the Greek word en-telos, and means something that carries its own finality or aim within itself. It is possible that the development of any organism is under a hierarchy of entelechies that have their origin and are subordinated to the global organism’s entelechy. Reproduction and regeneration show that there is something that keeps existing as a whole even when some parts of the physical whole are eliminated: something that interacts with the physical life’s system but is not subordinated to it. Entelechy would be a non-physical causal fact. To Vitalism it is the non-mechanical origin of life. 50 Nei-king is a book on Chinese medicine.

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In Taoism, breath is equivalent to light and spirit and so there is an analogy between the cardiac rhythm and breathing rhythm. The sun radiates light while the heart radiates breath (Plutarch). The heart is also linked to the Holy Grail and the image of a cup. In Egypt a human’s heart was considered the individual’s God. In some cultures and traditions the heart is the seat of consciousness. For Bantus in Angola the heart is called Mucima and means intuition, feeling insight. Its role is to connect the human being to the rest of the world. In the Bible it is considered the inner person, the seat of intelligence and wisdom. “[T]he ancient Egyptian word ‘heart’ means dancer” and probably they consider it together with the lungs as the seat of thought and feeling (Onians 1951, p. 28).51 What could be the impact of the heart for interactive dance? The heart is to the inner person what the body is to the exterior person. It is the first organ that forms in the foetus and one of the last to die. To “love with all one’s heart” means to love till the last breath, in another association with breath. In the Hebraic tradition to meditate means to talk to your heart. In the expression, to take someone’s heart is to make someone lose control. To have a “heart to heart” talk is to have an intimate, honest, revealing conversation. In Islamic tradition it is considered the seat of consciousness. Jili, a mystic Sufi, describes the heart as the eternal light of the sublime consciousness. The Koran says that the heart of the believer is between the fingers of God. To the heart, flexibility (Ibn al-Arabi) is attributed for its skill to be in a state of transit, its potential for fluidity and receptivity. There is an analogy between the word qalb (heart) and qabil, that signifies to receive, to be receptive. In Tirmidhi52 (IX s., 824-892) the heart is at the same time an organ that regulates thought and a flesh organ. For Muslim psychology the most authentic thoughts come from the heart, this source of human intellectual activity. In the Koran there are also references to the heart as a cognitive organ, an organ that can be blind. For Caribbean Indians in Venezuela and the Guyanas, there is just one word to refer to the soul and the heart together and for the Tucano Indians, in the Amazon, the same word designates soul and pulse while for Wuitoto Indians (South Colombia) there is just one word for heart, chest, memory and thought.

51 52

Timaeus, 70B ff.cf. Aristotle, de Part. Anim, 669a, 18ff. A medieval collection of sayings of Muhammad, called Hadith.

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In Chinese medicine, one of the most important of all internal organs is the heart. The mind, mental activities and consciousness are housed in the heart and in the blood and are affected by their states. The word shen, mind, is used in at least two different contexts. First, it indicates the most complex of mental faculties that are said to inhabit the heart. Secondly, the mind refers to the emotional, mental and spiritual spheres of a person. In this sense, apart from being connected to the heart, it is linked to the emotional, mental and spiritual features of all other organs, notably the yin organs (Maciocci & Ming 1989, p. 72). On the one hand, the heart needs the nourishment from the blood to shelter the mind and, on the other hand, the heart needs the mind to govern blood; the blood is the root of the mind (Maciocci & Ming 1989, p. 72). While the heart governs blood the lungs control Qi: Although it is not the “Heart” that drives the “Blood” through the blood vessels, it relies on the “Lungs” to provide the Qi for this job […]” (Maciocci & Ming 1989, p. 105).

The Spleen, as “Blood” producer, has a central role in supporting the “Heart” function of sheltering the “Mind” and also houses thought and memory that depend on the “Heart”. These are clarifying reflections by Chew and Capra along the same lines: -So you have a quantum level at which there are no solid objects and at which classical concepts do not hold; and then, as you go higher and higher in complexity, the classical concepts somehow emerge? -Yes. - And you are saying, then, that space-time is such a classical concept? - That’s right. It emerges along with the classical domain and you should not accept it at the beginning. - And now you also have some ideas about how space-time will emerge at high complexity? - Right. The key notion is the idea of gentle events, and the whole idea is uniquely associated with photons. Chew went on to explain that photons – the particles of electromagnetism and light – have unique properties, including that of being massless, which allow them to interact with other particles in events that cause only very slight disturbances. (Capra 1988, pp. 62-63)

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IX Kinds of cognition from the heart So far our attention was centred on the role different cultures, sciences and philosophies attribute to the heart, in particular in its role in relation to cognition, perception and consciousness. In that sense, it is necessary to deeply analyse the characteristics of that role. The heart is an interface between different human dimensions. As a kind of border, skin or boundary it is the space for an intersection, the intersection field between spheres: material and spiritual, rational and emotional, immanent and transcendental, individual and collective spheres. The heart is understood as the hybrid space for memory and anticipation. As a translator between dimensions the heart defies the mind and questions its rigidities, abstractions and conceptualizations. The heart is in constant movement. There is an analogy between the movements of systole, diastole, and pulse, and the movements of inspiration and expiration related to breath. In its expansions and contractions, the heart resonates with nature’s rhythms, like a haptic microcosmic instrument, puts ourselves in touch with the macrocosm. The heart is one of the means that enables the manifestation of the infinite haptic system, which is the universe. Working as a reduced model for our connection to the universe, the heart is a haptic interface that we can use to connect to everything via our bodies. In that sense, the heart reflects what Sloterdijk called “general science of visibility” (2003, p. 39), the ability of something to make something visible by means of something else. The heart is able to give us intuitive, subjective, affective and emotional coordinates for orientation and communication beyond instrumental reason, making universal connectivity visible. So, the heart is a vehicle for our multidimensional displacement between matter and spirit, a means for travelling in the intersection of different spheres. With Sloterdijk, we say that the heart makes it more simple to understand how “the theory of media and the theory of spheres converge” (Sloterdijk 2003, p. 39). The heart can be understood as the centre of an energetic vortex, the inward and outward sense of spiral unfoldment: from the centre towards the exterior and from the exterior towards the centre. In its inward movement, it is a psychophysical technology that brings changes to being. The heart, as a sensitive interval, can have a parallel in the concepts of

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aura and ma,53 contributing to a process of re-sensorialization and reanimation of the world lost with Cartesianism. In this sense the heart interferes with the design of being and can be considered as one of the Foucault’s technologies of the self (Martin; Gutman; Hutton, 1988). In its inward movement the heart effects the translation of techno-fields or auras into psycho-physical technologies that change us, expanding our body image in relation to the expansion of our sensory feedback that extends well beyond our skin; “while our sensory feedback extends well beyond our skin we have not expanded our bodyimage accordingly” (de Kerckhove 1995, p. 186). In its outward movement the heart brings out human spiritual capacities-in-progress as “extensions of our inner selves” (de Kerckhove 1995, p. 157). This is how the heart translates the human capacities of intuition, emotion, reason, instinct, empathy and connectivity into technocultural fields or auras, for the externalization of being. Either in its inward movements or in its outward movements the technologies of being manifest in and through the heart, as a central point of body and being, as the synthesis of matter, culture and spirit. If technologies are like musical instruments played by the whole culture over a period of time (de Kerckhove 1995, p. 155), the same could be said about the heart if we understood it as an aural interface: the heart is an instrument played by culture, spirit and emotion together, an instrument 53

Pilgrim pointed out that “ma was yet another reflection of a Japanese religiousaesthetic paradigm or ‘way of seeing’ […] The word ma basically means an ‘interval’ between two (or more) spatial or temporal things and events. Thus it is not only used in compounds to suggest measurement but carries meanings such as gap, opening, space between, time between, and so forth. A room is called ma, for example, as it refers to the space between the walls; a rest in music is also ma as the pause between the notes or sounds” (Pilgrim 1986, p. 256). I think ma can be the interval of space and time understood as live presence, not as absence, the sensible space between notes, the silent substance from which sound in music, shape in painting, and movement in dance, emerge: the pause in speech that gives birth to words, the energetic root of creation of space, time and matter present in all form. “While in the West the space-time concept gave rise to absolutely fixed images of a homogenous and infinite continuum, as presented in Descartes, in Japan space and time were never fully separated but were conceived as correlative and omnipresent [...] Space could not be perceived independently of the element of time [and] time was not abstracted as a regulated, homogenous flow, but rather was believed to exist only in relation to movements or space [...] Thus, space was perceived as identical with the events or phenomena occurring in it; that is, space was recognized only in its relation to time-flow” (Isozaki Arata, in Pilgrim 1986, p. 256).

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that, on the one hand, turns the capacities of the human being into technocultural fields or auras while, on the other hand, translates the techno-fields or auras into psycho-physical technologies that change being. So, in its inward movement the heart is a technology for the development of human capacities-in-progress while in its outward movement the heart is a technology of the externalization of being, for the development of extensions of our inner selves. In the aural interface which is the heart there is: (1) A generation of new technocultural fields or auras: the heart is the medium for the translation of what is received from spiritual, cultural, emotional domains of being into techno-cultural fields or auras for the externalization of being (outward movement); and (2) A re-building of being: a translation of technocultural fields or auras into psycho-physical technologies that change the very being (inward movement). Contemporary techno-cultural fields or auras come from the outward movements of the heart and from cyberculture. As the result of the inward movements of the heart, technological fields or auras trigger changes in perception, presence and in all human capacities-in-progress. So we develop the capacity of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting through or into matter, time and space. Technological fields or auras are our electronically assisted intuition, reason, instinct, emotion, empathy, connectivity and presence. Our electronically assisted presence is either augmented presence or distributed presence in the form of co-authorship. Let’s consider aura as field (photons/quanta), field as soul, soul as heart, heart as relationship, and relationship as space, in the sense of interval or ma. In this scheme the electromagnetic nature of the heart can be the interface between our psycho-physical and our techno-cultural fields. The awareness of the electromagnetic nature of the perception and cognition of our hearts can contribute to “the loss of psychological boundaries between self and environment” (de Kerckhove 1995, p. 177), as much as awareness of the electrical nature of both our biological and technological environments did before. The skin understood as interface gets thicker, as thick as space; interface turns into space in the sense of ma, relationship and eros. The interface transforms itself in the very interval. The point expands into an electromagnetic sphere of eros and psyche, a synthesis of supreme touch, awareness of the connectivity and intersubjectivity: electromagnetic aura.

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X Translating and synthetizing But, how can we use the features of the heart that are encapsulated in traditional philosophies and scientific knowledge? I propose a translation of the most important features of the heart extracted from traditional knowledge and mystical and philosophical systems of thought into concepts that can help us to construct the paradigm of Point of Being. Let’s consider how the heart can contribute to a new understanding of the system of touch. We can consider five fields: x Heart as a connective organ. To traditional systems of thought the heart is an organ capable of empathy. Empathy is a kind of emotional connection, an existential transference, a means to transform oneself in the other, to feel the pain of someone else. The heart, as an electromagnetic generator and receiver, performs this kind of electromagnetic empathic touch. The features of this kind of touch are based in the dialogue between electromagnetic fields. In the emergence of this dialogue the heart displays self-organizing behaviour.54 x Heart as a cognitive organ. The heart is a cognitive organ that directly grasps the inner nature of things. In this sense, traditional systems of thought and belief place in the heart what Western thought calls emotional intelligence and intuition. But what kind of knowledge can we receive from the heart? It is a kind of nonverbal cognition that is able to put us in contact with human and other realms: an electromagnetic cognitive touch. x Heart as an organ for experimental perception of time, space and matter: an organ for praxis. In praxis, the action has no end outside itself. Life is praxis: to live is to create, but the work of life is accomplished in the person that lives and grows. The main objective of poiesis is to serve praxis. Praxis is experience centred

54

To Prigogine, “the patterns of organization characteristic of living systems can be summarized in terms of a single dynamic principle, the principle of selforganization. A living organism is a self-organizing system, which means that its order is not imposed by the environment but is established by the system itself. In other words, self-organizing systems exhibit a certain degree of autonomy. This does not mean that they are isolated from their environment; on the contrary, they interact with it continually, but this interaction does not determine their organization; they are self-organizing” (Capra 1988, p. 84).

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in the being, a kind of self-work and self-poiesis: work that can provoke changes in our self-perception and self-consciousness. x When science places perception in the brain, experience loses relevance and we focus on representing our perceptions as if they lived outside of us rather than living them multisensorially. Experiencing through the heart taints our perceptions with nonlineal, quantum features. This quantum feature inscribed in the very process of perception helps us to travel through various dimensions of any circumstance, especially enabling us to overcome dualities. x Heart as a consciousness organ. Traditional thinking places consciousness in the heart and some cultures focus their life experience and self-perception in this organ. That aspect links the heart to intuitive processes and to research on identity. It is necessary to introduce the logic of the heart in the analysis of contemporary technological changes to see its impact in cyberperception and technoperception. x Heart as a multidimensional interface between matter and spiritual energy. For some cultures and mystical philosophies the heart is the anchoring of spiritual energy in the body: a multidimensional interface sensitive to spiritual processes. As in the previous case, this aspect of the traditional knowledge about the heart also relates to intuition and emergence. If we listen to the suggestions of traditional thought we can understand the heart as an interface by means of which we connect, know, perceive and can be conscious of a multidimensional reality. So, let’s explore what the contributions could be of listening to ancient thought about the heart’s features to understanding the role of the heart in perception, consciousness, cognition and connection. In relation to perception and cognition, with the heart we inhabit an interval that is hybrid, dense and alive, a kind of animated interval that has grown to the size of the interface. This interface engulfs us. We have changed from the condition of observers typical of the paradigm of point of view to the condition of subjects, in which the interval, the interface, is turned into the space of being. The space of being is a point of concentration of many dimensions including not only the tridimensionality of everyday life but also the subtle dimensions of our beings, our spirituality embedded in our matter. The heart is the interface between all the dimensions of our being, the crossroads for all wandering through electronic territories and hybrid realities.

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The heart touches and is touched. With the heart we consciously use our faculties for empathic touch and for intuition, that is to say, to “touch” knowledge directly without intellectual mediation. Intellect and mind are the central and dominating agencies in the abstract cage of point of view. With exceptions, consciousness studies in Western thought places consciousness mainly in the mind, either if this concept of mind is understood as an extended mind, not seated in the brain, or only relates to a brain centred, Cartesian type of consciousness. It is a fact that the heart’s capacities for cognition, perception, awareness and connection, that are so important in ancient philosophies, have been almost forgotten in contemporary theories about consciousness, technology and medicine. In theories that analyse the influx of contemporary technological changes on perception, the features of the heart have no place at all. Contemporary theories of technology respond to a mind or body centred logic that places consciousness, perception, cognitive and connective processes either mainly in the mind or in the body but rarely in the heart, in the sense of acknowledging the same importance it used to have in ancient thought. Let’s analyse how the features of the heart relate to concepts like cyberperception and technoperception to see if the logic of the heart could contribute to these concepts. Ascott (1994) defined cyberperception as a post-biological faculty of perception. Planetary telematic networks are incorporated into our human sensorial system and our perceptive capacity is amplified, generating a radical change in our conception of space, time and personal interrelationships: “cyberperception is a convergence of conceptual and perceptual processes in which the connectivity of telematic networks plays a formative role”. In that convergence “perception is the awareness of the elements of the environment through physical sensation”; it is “physical sensation interpreted in the light of experience” and conception is “the process of origination, forming and understanding ideas”, a process in which minds float in the telematic space: [I]deas come from the interaction and negotiation of minds. Once locked socially and philosophically into de solitary body, minds now float free in telematic space. (Ascott 1994, pp. 1-2)

Here there are some elements that we can explore in relation to the heart’s features. First of all, in the concept of cyberperception there is an assumption that the body was a solitary entity until minds were able to float free in telematic space. However, if we take into consideration the previous role the heart used to have in ancient and traditional thought, we

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cannot affirm that our bodies are solitary. We could affirm only that we started to perceive them as solitary by the influence of Cartesianism. If we take into consideration the heart’s features, our bodies were already immersed in a flow of connectivity of which we are not always aware, a flow in which our hearts are the point of intersection of perceptual, conceptual and consciousness processes. We are always connected to others, to our environment and to ourselves by means of our innate capacity for electromagnetic emphatic touch, intuition and consciousness placed in the heart. The heart can be a good analogy for the connectivity we have in telematic space. In the same sense, if we take into consideration that the heart is a kind of mind, the seat of cognitive processes – especially by means of intuition or direct knowledge – and the seat of tactile perceptive processes, we should expand our concept of mind to include the heart as a tactile mind, with all its idiosyncrasies. The intuitive ideas that come from the mind of the heart are not lineal nor linguistic, they are direct hunches, images and desires, a kind of innocent, pre-linguistic perception, that must be worked on by the mind in order to be developed. In this sense it is more connected to what is being developed towards the quantum computer than to our lineal computers. In the same sense highlighted by de Kerckhove, we see that instead of giving importance to analysis, advanced technologies will develop in the direction of being able to “actually see, feel, and perceive the whole thing at once, the way our mind works”. Considering our previous analyses of the heart as mind we might understand that intuitively de Kerckhove was already speaking of a concept of mind that included the heart as mind, able to see, feel and perceive the whole thing at once. Ascott had already pointed out the importance of the sense of interface: [T]he sense of individual is giving way to the sense of interface. Our consciousness allows us the fuzzy edge on identity, hovering between inside and outside every kind of definition of what it is to be a human being that we might come up with. We are all interfaced. We are computer-mediated and computer enhanced. These new ways of conceptualising and perceiving reality involve more than simply some sort of quantitative change in how we see, think and act in the world. They constitute a qualitative change in our being, a whole new faculty, the postbiological faculty of cyberperception. (Ascott 1994, p. 1)

In that sense let’s explore what different scales we have for different interfaces. A scale is a kind of representation for controlling the dimensions of reality. As de Kerckhove said:

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You will be able to wear somebody else’s day experience once lifelog55 technologies reach full maturation. Being an image today means being an interface.56 (de Kerckhove 2008, 5)

In this case the retina, our former interface for gathering images from the outside world, has been displaced from our bodies and placed in the centre of a public space. Society plays its images in this public exposed retina on which we are all images available for collective action. What is the concept of space and time at the scale of a quark? Matter at that scale is pure energy and this very energy, in another form, is what we touch in our daily life experiences, is the energy of which we are made. Every kind of touch has a scale; we touch a leaf at the distance of our extended arm but in order to touch a molecule we need optical tweezers. However, although we cannot touch our planet we can have satellite images. We observe that vision is more related to the vertical macrocosmic scale of matter and touch is increasingly developing in relation to very small vertical scales of matter. In particular, touch is the sense that enables us to develop a relationship between different dimensions of reality. In this sense what would be the scale of the heart’s touch? We have been analysing the heart as a multidimensional tactile interface with quantum features that enables us to travel through different dimensions of reality and to overcome dualities. However, the tridimensional filters we use generate paradoxes. Interpreting the quantum dimension through our everyday concepts of space and time is what makes it seem so paradoxical (Hoffman 1959, pp. 198-9). However, if we try to approach these ideas from the heart’s ability to be a tactile interface maybe we could build a bridge between our tridimensionality and the dimensions of the quantum world. In this sense, the concept of self as a multidimensional entity, a transpersonal unity that does not sacrifice the distinctions among people that shape it (Ogilvy 1979, p. 135), linked to a bigger whole (Upanishads57), can help us to 55

Life-loggers, life-bloggers or life-googlers are those people that use wearable computers to register their lives. Life-logging, a phenomenon linked to social networks, is a kind of digital memory of stories of life. 56 de Kerckhove (2008) Draft for The Mind of Touch (image, body, tactility, photography). 57 The Upanishads states the unity of the real self and that the individual ego is inscribed in a bigger whole. For this Indian compilation of thought, the knowledge of the self must be direct, intuitive, and although the individual self remains inside an illusion of separation there is a real self that is trans-individual, a self that is the

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understand what it means to belong to many places and times and to understand other elements from the same multidimensional perspective. An ancient hermetic principle states that “as above so below, as below so above”. This statement affirms the idea of unity and correspondence in the universe. Can we imagine that the principles that exist in a domain can be translated to other scales of reality and if, by learning them, we can know more about ourselves, about consciousness and about our world? Could we apply the principle of correspondence between domains to turn abstract concepts into familiar things that we can recognize, and in so doing bring within our threshold of perception what is barely perceptive? Some of the laws and principles most important in the scientific paradigm shift of our time – such as the laws of quantum physics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (one of the pillars of quantum physics), wave-particle duality,58 the self-assembly principle, the laws of selforganization,59 emergence60 and self-recognition by chemical and molecular affinity, the “surface effect”, and the principle that all observation implies interaction between observer and observed – are features of a realm in which the properties of matter are different from those of daily life, which is ruled by the laws of mechanical behaviour of matter studied by classical physics. In this dimension of reality everything, matter and energy, vibrates; “the shape of a molecule is never fixed: it is always vibrating and waggling its loose, floppy parts” (Ball 2001, p. 119). Everything vibrates. If we start our trip in the tridimensionality of matter and travel from the materiality of our lives we arrive at pure energy, a world that we can only feel by touch. According to Mae-Wan Ho: The unity of experience depends on a complete (quantum) coherence of brain and body. It is a quantum coherence that enables us to perceive (and bind) the world experience into a meaningful whole, and not a random real knower. Only through the silence of the individual self, of the silence of name, language and shape, would it be possible to get in touch with this real self. 58 The consequence of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is that any microphysical phenomena must be described as a wave-particle duality; every measured particle in quantum mechanics exhibits wavelike behaviour. The waveparticle duality in Physics claims that light and matter have properties of both waves and of particles. It is a central concept in quantum mechanics. 59 Self-organization is a relevant concept in physics, biology, sociology and chemistry. In self-organised processes an open system increases in complexity and displays emergent properties. 60 Emergence is a concept with different meanings but basically it refers to a process of complex pattern formation from simple rules.

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collection of separate sensory inputs. Quantum coherence enables us to gate and bind our experiences in a series of non-local simultaneities that appear abruptly as large-scale phase-synchronised activities in separate parts of the brain that has no obvious source in the brain itself. Rather I propose that they are generated (almost) instantaneously in the liquid crystalline matrix in which all cells, including neurons in the brain, are embedded. (Ho 2008, pp. 240-1)

de Kerckhove61 once again refers to touch in a creative way saying that what is happening now is that electricity and its many applications in electronic and wireless technologies are returning touch to the fore of sensorial options, and that with Walter Ong, who created the concept of ‘secondary’ orality, vision and audition, we are developing a ‘secondary tactility’. This is clearly seen in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology and nanoscience give us access to a scale we are not used to in everyday life. They help us to unveil a dimension of reality that, from a scientific point of view, poses questions about this very interconnection between dimensions that has been so deeply explored by ancient philosophies in relation to the heart. Nevertheless, we live in a tridimensional world and in our endeavour to understand the experiences that belong to other scales and domains and to bring them to our perceptive framework we need a conventional system of measurement. The nanodomain is difficult to see and understand either as a visual image or as abstract principles. Quantum mechanics mathematically describes matter at the scale of atoms and the visual representation of the nanodomain is a mathematical interpretation of data. It is not possible for us to see an atom by means of a conventional microscope.62 The Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (STM) is able to resolve molecules individually, although the interpretation of the images produced 61 These ideas were taken during Group meetings in Wicklow for the preparation of this book in 2007. 62 The reason is that “we see with visible light, which is a wave-like radiation for which the wavelength – the distance between successive crests – varies from about 700 nanometres for red light to 400 nanometres for violet light. In other words, red light fits about 140,000 undulations into a centimetre. This wavelength is hundreds of times larger than a molecule. Roughly speaking, light cannot be focused to a point smaller than its wavelength, which means that objects smaller than that cannot be resolved [...] There are some new optical (light-based) microscopes that surpass this wavelength-limited resolution by moving the light source up close to the sample […] that can increase the resolution to, so far, around a tenth of a wavelength” (Ball 2001, p. 21).

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by this microscope needs previous knowledge on the part of the observer. If the wavelength is comparable to its own size, we could see a molecule. Scientists see molecules using X-rays and the electron microscope. The electron microscope, in which a beam of electrons is bounced off the sample and focused to make an image is another instrument that can be used to “see” in the nanodomain: [X-rays] have a wavelength of about a tenth of a nanometre, and, by bouncing X-rays off crystals, it is possible to deduce where their constituting atoms are located. X-ray crystallography can reveal the structures of molecules. (Ball 2001, p. 23)

In the famous talk, “There is plenty of room at the bottom” Feynman addressed the possibility of engineering nature at the atomic scale. Nowadays with optical tweezers, scanning probe microscopes and the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) scientists and molecular engineers can manipulate and probe the mechanical properties of molecules and learn about nature’s principles. The AFM allows scientists to explore molecules and atoms through the sense of touch.63 In perception at nanoscale there is a dominance of the sense of touch over the sense of view and this represents a paradigm shift because the access and control of the nanoworld is done through tactile feeling sensors not through lens-based viewing microscopes. It is similar to using a Braille system on the atomic scale: being able to feel the “text” points to a change from vision to touch.

63 The perceptive process in an AFM “is actually a tactile probe that feels surfaces rather like a blind man reads Braille. By gently touching and scanning over a surface of a tiny silicon tip attached to a micro-lever it records the topography of a surface. The feeling of surfaces extends to pushing and pulling on them and recording the sensations of soft or hard or sticky or elastic and so on. This is quantified and has been used to actually stretch and unravel long molecules such as polymer strands or DNA. The unravelling and twisting of molecular chains can be literally felt through a haptic interface as shown by the nanotechnology company Veeco”, accessed 2014/02/05, http://nano.arts.ucla.edu/i_table.php. In perception at the nanoscale there is a dominance of the sense of touch over the sense of view: “one of the greatest advances in nanoscience was a paradigm shift in understanding that access and control of the nanoworld is possible through tactile feeling sensors as opposed to lens based viewing microscopes. Like brail on the atomic scale, this method of reading through feeling shifts the perceptual focus of science from image saturation to the subtlety of touch”. See this link accessed 2014/02/30, https://www.academia.edu/3163177/Inner_Space_Global_Matter_exhibition_catal ogue_

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It is a kind of non-visual perceptive process, in which electronic technology is operating in the mode of a “secondary tactility”. Nevertheless, we should not forget that some of these very basic design and engineering principles of nature have been understood and represented, by other philosophical and mystical systems previously mentioned, as features of the heart, an organ capable of synthetizing all knowledge, time, space, and dimensions. If we admit the multidimensionality of the heart we can make use of this connective, cognitive interface to inscribe these quantum features of reality into the tridimensionality of our daily life experience. Our personal identity is a field penetrated by natural, cultural, emotional, historical, political and spiritual influences. If we place the heart at the centre of our identity, as the nucleus of our consciousness, knowledge, connection to others and perception, we can redefine our identities in light of the paradoxes of the wave-particle duality. In the multidimensional interface that the heart is, the past – by means of memory – and the future – by the hand of imagination – meet in the body, in a never-ending “now” (Bergson [1908] 1991). Maybe it is kairos, the qualitative fissure in the thickness of time. The word kairos from Greek means the right moment or the opportunity, a fleeting moment that appears in the thickness of time, a fissure opened in the thickness of time. Kairos is the kind of time that relates to heart-time. Understood in this manner, the heart turns into the centre of lively multidimensional experience and the nucleus from which we build our sense of being. In relation to connectivity, the heart is a mirror for our problems of love, communication and relationships. Although statistics identify emotional stress as one of the important causes of heart problems the heart nowadays is mostly seen only as the passive victim of other agencies: a heart without emotional intelligence. Emotion is only a mind-body centred issue, removed from the heart’s agency. Human companionship does affect our hearts, and reflected in our hearts is a biological basis for our need for loving human relationships, which we fail to fulfil at our peril. Since human dialogue is the elixir of life, the ultimate decision we must make is simple: we must either learn to live together or increase our chances of prematurely dying alone. (Lynch 1977, p. 13)

Heart disease is one of the major causes of death and although Lynch does not mean to belittle the scientifically demonstrated importance of diet and exercise for the healthy functioning of the heart:

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And he proposes that the lack, or loss of love, loneliness and lack of human relationship should also be introduced into studies of heart disease. Together with other kinds of cause, lack of love is responsible for cardiac disease and for increasing death rates.

Tuning in on things by means of electricity The fact that we can see a parallel between what happens when an AFM feels the topography of a surface and a blind man reading Braille opens to us another way to explore the heart as a cognitive and perceptive sensor suggests interesting research questions. Could the perceptive and cognitive strategies in blindness be pre-Cartesian residues and remains of heartcentred forms of knowledge and cognition? We consider that perceptive strategies in blindness constitute a sphere that remained preserved from direct influence from the scopic regime of our time and that our peering into it can bring insights about the way blindness manages the interval. Management of the interval in blindness displays many similarities to the management of the interval in heart-centred forms of knowledge and cognition. It is already theoretically admitted that the cognitive and perceptive strategies that come from blindness are essential lessons for overcoming the paradigm of point of view. The history of blindness, from antiquity to our time, has much to teach us and makes clear for us the dependence of perception in learning processes. Vision, as much as other senses, is something learned, and everything that has been learned is just a social construction that can be changed. Medical registers show that it is not possible for a blind-born person that has recovered vision to make sense of the light images that enter their eyes without passing through a long period of learning how to relate these images to what they know about the world. Nowadays, with the aim of fostering the integration of visually impaired collectives in society, some methods are being used across the world. It is not in the scope of this chapter to explain these methods but the fact that they exist brings to the foreground the existence of at least two perceptive regimes, among which there is one non-Cartesian that is

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attributed to blindness and one that corresponds to the Cartesian point of view. These regimes live together but do not mix. However, by exploring cognitive and perceptive processes in blindness we can draw a parallel between these processes and the role the heart and electricity have in the challenging of the paradigm of point of view, especially in the way these processes explore and manage the interval. For visually impaired people the interval is as alive and dense as it used to be when the heart was the seat of consciousness in pre-Cartesian times. So we claim that blindness has had the role of preserving the heart’s perceptive and cognitive processes inside a protected sphere of consciousness through history. Lusseyran’s64 life experience with blindness is a rich testimony to the presence of heart perception in relation to the interval. In analysing his experience we can see a parallel with the role of heart-centred consciousness and perception and the role of electricity in the construction of the paradigm of point of being. His feeling of connection to objects by means of electricity and his sensation of beginning to live in love with them and not in front of them anymore are very telling: Touching the tomatoes in the garden, and really touching them, touching the walls of the house, the materials of the curtains or a clod of earth is surely seeing them as fully as eyes can see. But it is more than seeing them, it is tuning in on them and allowing the current they hold to connect with one’s own, like electricity. To put it differently, this means an end of living in front of things and a beginning of living with them. Never mind if the word sounds shocking, for this is love (Lusseyran 2006, p. 10)

Touching the invisible to feel the electromagnetic substance of the interval Reality appears refreshed when touched. Touch enabled him to see reality beyond the limitations of form and the apparent solidity of matter: to experience the plenitude of a dense and lively interval. You cannot keep your hands from loving what they have really felt, moving continually, bearing down and finally detaching themselves, the last perhaps 64

Jacques Lusseyran was born in Paris in 1924. He became totally blind in a school accident at the age of 7. He soon learned to adapt to being blind. At a young age he decided to learn the German language so that he could listen to German radio broadcasts during the Second World War. By 1938, when the Germans annexed Austria, he had accomplished this task and now is considered as a hero of the French Resistance. See Lusseyran (1998).

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This plenitude was felt also as the substance of the interval, when he realized that looking from an inner space redefined the world as a living place: [L]ooking more closely not at things but at a world closer to myself, looking from an inner place to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside. Immediately, the substance of the universe drew together, redefined and peopled itself anew (Lusseyran 2006, p. 4)

Feeling the sympathetic vibration and touching light Blindness is até in Greek. It can be objective or subjective até. This is a concept that relates either to lack of physical, psychological, social or religious vision. Blind people used to be the object of social derision. Blindness used to be considered in ancient times as a favourable condition for the interpretation of natural signs, that is to say, being able to construct your own meaning by the subjective non-lineal and hypertextual reading of symbols present in nature. This is a kind of personal language, built on public signs displayed for each person to capture in the pool of life and performed by the intelligence of nature. Before I was ten years old I knew with absolute certainty that everything in the world was a sign of everything else, ready to take its place if it should fall by the way (Lusseyran 2006, p. 10)

In a completely different sense the image of blindness was also attached to the metaphor of transcendental and supernatural vision or spiritual illumination: Before his spiritual conversion Pablo enjoys full physical vision but does not see spiritual light. The period of blindness produces a dramatic inversion. The loss of physical vision, although only temporary, opened his eyes to the ineffable vision of the divine revelation. (Barasch 2001, pp. 8889).

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Lusseyran tells how he felt he was a vestibule for light, how he could see light in spite of being blind: “the seeing eye was in me”. And also how that inner light made him perceive people in a different way: Light threw its color on things and people. My father and my mother, the people I met or ran into in the street, all had their characteristic color which I had never seen before I went blind. (Lusseyran 2006, p. 5)

But his most telling experience relates to how he was able to feel the vibration of matter and the fluid pulse of reality. The most striking conclusion we can extract from his experience is that it is similar to the way people experienced the world previous to the Cartesian body-mind split, when reality was animated and the heart was considered as the active central organ of cognition and perception. Blindness protected heart centred perceptive strategies from the dominance of vision. In our Western contemporary sensibility we have two parallel perceptive and cognitive strategies living together: parallel spheres that together could enrich our contemporary sensibility and help the needed retrieval of heart-centred strategies in our times. Movement of the fingers was terribly important, and had to be uninterrupted because objects do not stand at a given point, fixed here, confined in one form. They are alive, even stones. What is more, they vibrate and tremble. My fingers felt the pulsation distinctly, and if they failed to answer with a pulsation of their own, the fingers immediately became helpless and lost their sense of touch. But when they went toward things, in sympathetic vibration with them, they recognized them right away. (Lusseyran 2006, p. 9)

Hearing the voice of things Blindness triggers multiple reflections65 – from spiritual to medical and psychological. The most important contribution for the construction of the paradigm Point of Being is blindness’s preservation of the sphere of aural perception and cognition in spite of sharing time and space with the 65 Blindness is associated to supernatural knowledge and to the ability to improve the efficacy of other senses, to interpret natural signs, and to obtain other kinds of knowledge, as in the case of Tiresias whose predictive actions could be technically performed through the eyes of others and make us think of a kind of visual perception of shapes, forms and composition orders and other qualities different from those we normally know by means of our eyes; “in a certain way, blind Tiresias could see” (Barasch 2001, p. 49).

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Cartesian regime in which touch and synaesthesia do not have a central place. Lusseyran’s experience once again enables us to peer into another world, a world enriched by sound, smell and life. How could I have lived all that time without realizing that everything in the world has a voice and speaks? Not just the things that are supposed to speak, but the others, like the gate, the walls of houses, the shade of trees, the sand and silence. Still, even before my accident I loved sound but now it seems clear that I didn’t listen to it. After I went blind, I could never make a motion without starting an avalanche of noise […] Every piece of furniture creaked, once, twice, ten times, and made a trail of sounds like gestures as minutes passed. The bed, the wardrobe, the chairs were stretching, yawning and catching their breath. (Lusseyran 2006, p. 7)

The sense of obstacles: being touched by the animated heart of the world For Diderot the origins of knowledge and ideas are placed in our senses’ ideas. Considering that memory favours continuity of tactile perception, he proposed a geometry for the blind in which he gave a definition for a straight line as the recollection of a series of tactile sensations, points in the direction of a stretched string (Barasch 2001, p. 210). Usually, in the case of blind people multi sensorial aspects are taken into consideration. This is clearly seen in Lusseyran’s writings and experiences and has a striking parallelism with the way reality used to be perceived when the heart was the seat of consciousness. He talks about the sense of obstacle as the ability to perceive the presence of things without seeing them. Being understood as an engraving matrix. At the age of eight everything favored my return to the world. They [other people] let me move around, they answered all the questions I asked, they were interested in all my discoveries, even the strangest. For example, how should I explain the way objects approached me when I was the one walking in their direction? Was I breathing them in or hearing them? Possibly, though that was often hard to prove. Did I see them? It seemed that I didn’t. And yet, as I came closer, their mass was modified, often to the point of defining real contours, assuming a real shape in space, acquiring distinctive color, just as it happens where there is sight […] As with the sense of touch, what came to me from objects was pressure, but pressure of a kind so new to me that at first I didn’t think of calling it by name. When I became really attentive and did not oppose my own pressure to my surroundings, then trees and rocks came to me and printed their

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shape upon me like fingers leaving their impressions in wax. (Lusseyran 2006, p. 12)

Touching and being touched In blindness, touch is always a two-way street. We touch while we are touching. The action of touching is not the action of a subject touching a passive object; the world is the same active, animated world present in heart-centred pre-Cartesian processes of cognition. The body: is similar to an ontological continuum that inscribes inside of itself either the object or the cognizant subject, that is to say, a common underground where subject and object converge. Knowledge is made reflexive, as it is impossible not to count on the presence of a body in all the phases of the cognitive fact […] the object that we want to know is present and affects the subject. A cycle of reflexivity is completed and threatens one of the basic fundaments of traditional epistemology. (Sierra 2005, p. 78)

The aural cardio interface can display a similar role. This is clear in Lusseyran’s words: As I walked along the country road boarded by trees, I could point to each one of the trees by the road, even if they were not spaced at regular intervals. I knew whether the trees were straight and tall, carrying their branches as a body carries its head, or gathered into thickets and partly covering the ground around them […] To see them like this I had to hold myself in a state so far removed from old habits that I could not keep it up for very long. I had to let the trees come toward me, and not allow the slightest inclination to move toward them, the smallest wish to know them, to come between them and me. I could not afford to be curious or impatient or proud of my accomplishments. (Lusseyran 2006, p. 12)

The contribution from art Other residues of heart-centred consciousness, perception and cognition can be found in art. As blindness has remained a protected sphere some artistic processes peer into the territory of blindness to explore different perceptive and cognitive strategies that challenge Cartesianism. Artists such as Rudolf Rainer, Wilhem de Kooning and Robert Morris, among others, have tried to understand how a blind person perceives, and have explored what they learned in their artistic processes. These artists have worked with trans-sensorial expansions of senses, haptic vision, visual touch (colour perception by means of touch), sensorial deprivation

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or synaesthesia (the simultaneous performance and superposition of different senses such as touch, taste, smell and hearing) in order to transform, complement or eliminate the presence of sight in perception. In parallel to blindness we can consider the recurring interest in multisensorial strategies as claims for the replenishment of the interval and the recovery of the features present in the heart-centred processes of knowledge and cognition from the field of art. In some cases artists have placed the heart at the centre of the artwork. Among others, artists such as Jean Dupuy (Heart Beats Dust), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Pulse Room) and Laura Beloff (Heart Donor) are dialoguing with this ancient system of perception and cognition that is the heart by means of their contemporary artistic strategies. So, both from the history of blindness and the field of art, we have contributions to the overcoming of the paradigm of point of view and to the construction of the paradigm of Point of Being. Next we will synthetize the essential features of these contributions.

Essential contributions from blindness to heart-centred consciousness, perception and cognition Cognitive contributions: blindness can favour other kinds of knowledge, specifically, a kind of random and multidimensional access to knowledge. If vision relates to control, touch relates to chaos and to a random and fragmented apprehension of realities. Knowledge is understood as an active negotiation between environment and subject. There is a questioning of the subject-centred processes of cognition and empowerment of environment, interval and object. Sensorial contributions: the lack of vision improves the effectiveness of other senses, especially the sense of touch, and in many ways this is similar to the multi-sensoriality found in heart-centred pre-Cartesian regimes. The same displacement from vision to touch is present in contemporary processes of communication that arrive by means of Information and Communication Technologies, in which we can see the dominance of haptic processes and blind strategies. However, as in heartperceptive processes, the reality that is touched is felt as a dense energetic interval rather than as a container for separate objects and entities. Apart from being responsive, the interval in the sphere of blindness is animated, lively, peopled, dense and active as in heart-centred perceptive regimes. There is substance in the interval.

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Perceptive contributions in relation to space: Perception of space in blindness is a two-way street and an energetic experience. In blindness, people perceive space by being perceived by it. Blind touch is also an experience of touching, and being touched, at the same time. This transforms the subjectĺobject relationship into a subjectļobject relationship in which both elements are active. The centrality of touch as the fundamental mode of perception in blindness is linked to the nonvisual and haptic features displayed in the connectivity of the Internet and mobile technologies. We are technologically touched while touching others by means of our technological devices.

XI The interval replenished We can use these translated concepts (mentioned above) as building blocks to construct the perceptive paradigm Point of Being. In so doing we start a diastolic expansion phase in which the role of the heart is retrieved in relation to the management of interval. The influx of the heart, understood as a haptic and aural interface, brings a non-mechanistic dimension to perception and cognition in our wanderings through electronic, hybrid territories and augmented realities. The heart, as interface for the sense of being, enables us to perceive with the whole being in order to overcome the still-dominant Cartesian scopic regime. However, in order to unpack this somehow entangled node of ideas we need to explain how we understand the Sense of Being and how the concept “being” is being used here.

XII The “Sense of Being” used in an intransitive way Usually, the expression Sense of Being is used as an introduction for “being something”. Immediately after the use of this expression some kind of restriction of the word being – an adjectivization – appears, for example “the sense of being old”, “the sense of being respected”, etc. It is an expression mostly used in a restrictive way, dependent on other conditions to be understood. However, used in a transitive way, it is an expression that is linked either to situations that come to us from outside or to situations that relate to our emotions or sensations in relation to something that has had an impact on us; situations that we are aware of.

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The concept of sense of being is never used alone, without definition. If used alone, it could be understood as a sense that, unlike the other senses such as sight, touch, proprioception, interoception and exteroception that mostly inform us about our physical dimensions (movement, tensions, balance, position in relation to space and viscera), could give us extended information about more dimensions of ourselves, and help us create a sensation of ourselves as complex living beings, with all that implies. The sense of being enables us to grasp our changing identities, including all the aspects of this “sensation of identity” as a body, as an energetic field, as an intellectual, emotional and spiritual being, in addition to all other definitions of identity that come from outside of us, from society, etc. The sense of being, in this sense, helps construct the concept of Point of Being.66 Direct, or synthetic, knowing is deeply linked to processes of intuition and touch. In relation to the Point of Being, the sense of being could be an instrument for a kind of proprioception of being, this emergent, tentative and uncertain state of interstice, the state of being in between, between what we have been and will be, the lively interval in the thickness of time, in the multidimensionality of space, and in the density of matter that we are. We are the very interval; living in the interval between time and space is our human nature. So we ask you: (1) Could the sense of being based in the heart be understood as a sense – as any other sense but subtler – that can help us to overcome the Cartesian Point of View? Could it be a kind of proprioception of being that includes all dimensions of the human being, body, psyche and spirit? (2) Could the sense of being be understood as a haptic instrument to be in touch with ourselves, understanding ourselves (understanding the concept of ourselves not only as a group of individualities, societies, ethnicities, but also our deep connection to nature and energy, a notion that better mirrors the connectivity we perceive in contemporary processes of globalization and glocalization)? (3) Could the aura be the medium for the sense of being, and the heart its interface? (4) What are the characteristics of this haptic instrument? (5) What is its role in relation to the Point of Being? 66

The concept of Point of Being is defined in Chapter one.

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To perform this perceptive jump it would be necessary for us to overcome our tendency to perceive reality as a system of dualities and expand our sensorial system in such a way that the perceptive system serves us to inscribe our connective dimension in our experience. This connective dimension is our connection to other beings, all natural forms in manifestation, and material, energetic, technological and emotional processes. We can trace evidence of this connection in the unified concept of energy in Spinoza, in quantum theory and in Western and Eastern mystical thought. From the perspective of a Western and Cartesian point of view, it is absolutely alien to us to admit that opposites can live together. But, where does heat start and cold finish? Is it possible to establish a border between them? Aren’t our dichotomous poles dependent on subjective biases that, unless overcome, will hinder our journey towards our full human condition? Hofstadler, reflecting on paradoxes, reminds us that a pencil cannot write on itself, nor can a snake eat itself and so on: [We] can come close to seeing and understanding ourselves objectively, but each of us is trapped inside a powerful system with a unique point of view and that power is also a guarantor of limitedness. And this vulnerability – this self-hook – may also be the source of the ineradicable sense of I (Hofstadler 2001, p. 278).

If we part from a cosmovision linked to a point of view there is a basis of truth in Hofstadler’s words, but from a possible paradigm sprouting from Point of Being we could develop an artistic attitude towards limitedness, a kind of perceptive jump that enables us to act on ourselves. Art is a hammer; it breaks rigid perceptual models, provokes changes in perception and self-perception, and destabilizes deeply frozen states of reality. We suggest starting a profound analysis of the heart’s system of knowledge and perception to know the impact of the technology of the heart in the construction of reality, for liberation of residues from Cartesianism that pervade our contemporary thinking and feeling. Next we would like to propose a few points from which to start. Empathy: the natural electromagnetic touch. Consider the heart as an organ for connectivity and empathy based on its properties as an electromagnetic generator and receiver. The heart is the organ that enables us to inscribe connectivity and interconnectivity in our intimate experience of being, an organ for working in the interval, an aural interface. The

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touching of the heart is an electromagnetic touch. The heart being touched allows us to experience perceptive, cognitive and consciousness changes provoked by empathy. On the other hand, when the heart is “touched”, it can develop cardio-diseases and its electromagnetic patterns are modified. Intuition. Using the heart as an open door to intuition means transferring the main seat of consciousness from mind to heart. This transference brings consequences in relation to theoretical knowledge on consciousness, and a need to introduce the heart, as an important element to consider in the field of consciousness studies. Emotional intelligence. We should understand the heart as an organ that can be used for cognition and perception, an organ that is able to directly grasp the inner nature of things and events. The heart can be considered the basis for emotional intelligence and should be taken into consideration in existing theories about cognitive and learning processes and memory. The heart as organ of praxis. Include the influence of the heart in all theoretical and practical thinking that is produced about perception and cognition, taking into account the heart as an organ of perception. In this sense it is also necessary to extend the analysis of the electronic technologies of connectivity, treating them as technologies of the haptic heart, not only of the mind. So, the so-called cybernetic mind would be enriched. Empathy, intuition, emotional intelligence and praxis should be introduced as elements to be analysed relating to the cybermind and we could analyse its specific forms in cyberspace. The very cyberspace could be understood as an electronic aura in which forms of e-empathy, eintuition, e-praxis, collective and connective emotion exist. Cyberspace, in this sense, is a space that springs from the emotional side of mind, that has its origin in the heart understood as mind. Could we talk about information systole and knowledge diastole? What does the heart perceive? The attention and intention of the heart have their own determination and reason (Pascal) and this reason is difficult to understand if we remain in the static position established by this straight jacket that is the paradigm of the Point of View. The Zen Buddhist method of accessing reality explores the overcoming of the duality between subject and object by enactment, or embodied experience. Varela understands that the “enactive approach consists of two points: (1) perception consists in perceptually guided action and (2) cognitive structures emerge from the recurrent sensorimotor patterns that enable action to be perceptually guided” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch

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1991). In this sense, knowledge is viewed neither as an external projection of an inner mind (as happens in Rationalism and Idealism) nor as experimentation with an independent reality (Empiricism); abstract knowledge becomes embodied and situated knowledge, dependent on having a body, linked to a biological, cultural, historical and psychological context (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991). That process generates a kind of cognition, understood as action, that is neither projection nor representation of reality, a process in which reality and cognition simultaneously emerge (Garcia Selgas 1994, p. 79). In this sense, the role of the heart is to allow for the emotional contextualization of knowledge. That form of reviewing the relationship between knowledge and body, recalling the centrality of the heart in the cognitive act, produces an impact in the relationship between subject and object. If we take the role of the body in enactment and focus our attention on the role of the heart in enactment, as a specificity of this perceptive and cognitive organ, we could extend our point a little bit further. The aural cardio interface is the place for reflexivity that overcomes subject-object dualities. It is the very sensor of the sense of being. Heart memory. It would be interesting to relate it to previous theories about human memory and inscribe its characteristics in systems of filing and organization of information. It implies the expansion of memory to include the role of the heart, the keeper of emotional or spiritual memory, of what we already are before knowing who and what we are. Emergent properties. Analyse the features of self-organization and emergence present in the behaviour of the heart and translate them to the theories and practices about emergence in other fields. Now we are in a better position to see how the contributions of ancient philosophies about the heart can be translated to the construction of the paradigm of the Point of Being in relation to some aspects of technology and culture, and to give an answer to the questions about what the role of the heart as interface is and how this interface manages the interval. Management of the interval of communication: Following an analogy from the electronics and telecommunications field, we could say that the heart is a physical port, a piece of hardware, an electromagnetic interface, a kind of standardized port by means of which signals from the heart are emitted and signals from other hearts are received, allowing us to get connected to other peripherals (the hearts of humanity and other beings). It

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dissolves the distinctions between self and other. It is also a port of data (memory of the heart). It is an interface for personal communication. Management of the interval of time: Following an analogy from geology, for which an interface is a superficial or different layer that marks the transition point between ages of geological types, the heart can be understood as a point or layer that helps us to get in touch with different times. It is an interface-layer that articulates and manages the interval of time, shrinking it to the concept of eternal now. Situated on this point of now we are better equipped to overcome dualities of time, such as the concepts of past and future. It is a kairotic interface for time communication. Management of the interval of communication between different material and energetic domains: Assuming the dual nature of the heart as a physical organ and as a subtle chakra, and following McLuhan’s definition of interface as instrument, a prosthesis or extension of our body, we can understand the subtle dimension of the heart as an extension of our physical heart. The subtle counterpart of our heart is a keyboard by means of which we are interfaced by the spiritual dimension of existence. It dissolves the differences between energy and matter. It is an interface for spiritual intuitive communication. Management of the interval of space: When the interface expands into space it engulfs action and interaction, and it is the very place for interchange. In this case, space is one unique non-compartmentalized topological surface that dissolves the distinctions between inside-outside and all categories of spatial dualities. It is an interface topological surface that articulates and manages the interval of space, shrinking it to the concept of here. It dissolves the distinctions between presence and absence and is an interface for space unification. Any interface talks to us in a certain way. How does the heart communicate with us? How do we receive the information it releases? An intuitive communication?

Touching with the heart to feed our desire After our analysis of the heart’s features, we would like to suggest that the heart is a kind of mind with perceptive, cognitive, conscious dimensions that is intuitively attuned to others: an emotional mind that displays

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memory, intention, will, desire and intuition. The influx of the heart imposes a change to the Cartesian paradigm of the point of view in relation to some aspects that help us to construct the paradigm of Point of Being. The heart introduces human desires and longing, in the very perceptive, cognitive, consciousness and technological systems and structures we use to construct reality. It is a means to explore a new paradigm in the way we approach the world. This new paradigm reflects a world vision suggested by James which points directly to our responsibility in relation to reality: [I]n our cognitive as well as in our active lives we are creative. We add, both to the subject and to the predicate part of reality. The world actually stands maleable, waiting to receive its final touch at our hands. Like the kingdom of heaven, it suffers human violence willingly. Man engenders truths upon it. (James 1907, pp. 256-257)

The power to change reality is sustained by human desire. Either for William James or for Alfred North Whitehead, ideas have real agency and affect the world as Einsendrath points out: The world is within us and we are in the world; our acts of mentality are not epiphenomenal comments on real things of the world, but rather acts of communication. (1999, p. 231)

Philosophical empathy is our proposal for going beyond the self of individual personality and to empathically feel that all is connected and that the world is as much in us as we are in the world. Can the heart be the platform from which we can experience our empathic building of reality, the interface for re-enactment of the experience of the other, so that we inscribe the point of view of the other in the centre of our desire in order to overcome egocentrism and change our attitude towards different realities and alter egos? This would be a buffer for the negative and violent aspects of touch: touch that lacks empathy. The heart displays multidimensional characteristics and is the centre of human desire. Any technology is a materialization of human desire. So we can ask ourselves which is the desire that is hidden behind the development of each technology, of each technological device, of each avatar in Second Life, or in each of our electronic hybrid identities with which we are inscribed as citizens in electronic territory:

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Desire for connectivity in real time – Internet, mobile phones; Desire for love – haptic devices to touch and be touched at a distance, Skype, augmented reality devices and processes; Desire for freedom – mobiles, tablets, Wi-Fi technologies, Blue Tooth; Desire for beauty – beauty as an ontological and epistemological need; Desire for immortality – Second Life, post-humanism, post-digital and post-biological processes. We could try to analyse technologically assisted space, time and matter structuring our questions around the features of the heart, understood as the place in which we are able to overcome dualities.

Desire of awareness of the continuum matter-energy How does technology relate to desire? Can we see behind the tendency for mobility, connectivity and interactivity, that shape our contemporary sensibility, the shadow of this desire for unity? One of the central ideas in Bateson’s thought is that the structure of nature and the structure of mind are reflections of each other, that mind and nature are a necessary unit. Thus epistemology – “the study of how it is that you can know something”, or […] “what it’s all about” ceased to be abstract philosophy for Bateson and became a branch of natural history. (Capra 1988, p. 80)

Desire of awareness of memory Is there any possibility of changing reality by creative imagination and belief? This is the question behind desire. William James said, “the part of wisdom as well as of courage is to believe what is in the line of your needs, for only by such belief is the need fulfilled” (Einsendrath 1999, p. 174). Courage is a feature of heart perception. Finding a mutual correspondence between beliefs, needs and fulfilment we can interpret James’ observations as a hint about our own active power to reshape and create our worlds, identities and realities. Power demands responsibility: “What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all four of them to me? And me to you?” asked Bateson. (Capra 1988, p. 75)

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In one sense, if we consider that there is a power in us that enables us to shape our conditions we need to assume a great responsibility either towards the conditions we have already created or in future ones. James places the power in the hands of the individual. He said that [I]f religious hypothesis about the universe be in order at all, then the active faiths of individuals in them, freely expressing themselves in life, are the experimental tests by which they are verified, and the only means by which their truth or falsehood can be wrought out. (James 1907, xii)

For him the fulfilment of our desires and needs are the empirical verification of previous ideas as much as we are creative in our cognitive and active lives. Like James, Whitehead also thought that we participate in the “creative advance” of our conditions and realities. He talks about the origin of freedom of an organism to make itself. We, like books, are ephemeral editions amenable to continuous change that express desire of awareness of connectivity. Logic is a very elegant tool […] and we got a lot of mileage out of it for two thousand years or so. The trouble is, you know, when you apply it to crabs and porpoises, and butterflies and habitat formation […] you know, to all those pretty things […] logic won’t quite do […] It won’t do […] because that whole fabric of living things is not put together by logic. You see, when you get circular trains of causation, as you always do in the living world, the use of logic will make you walk into paradoxes […] the cybernetic equivalent of logic is oscillation. (Capra 1988, p. 76)

Awareness of space Today we are living a “general crisis of space” (Sloterdijk 2003, p. 70). For Sloterdijk, the virtual space of cybernetic media is transitable, technological and external, an exterior without an interior counterpart. In this crisis, concepts such as virtual, actual, hybrid, cyber and global space are drawing much attention. In order to review the transit from a closed conception of space to a scattered conception of space, from a more intimate to a more involving conception of space, Sloterdijk (2003) offers the concept of sphere, discriminated in three kinds: globes, foams and bubbles. A sphere is understood either as an animate space or as a represented and virtual globe of being. It is a concept that brings to the foreground the transit from a closed to a scattered conception of space, from a most

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intimate to a most involving one. His analysis of the pathology of spheres is also an analysis of pathology of space. He presents the problems associated with the foam-sphere. Firstly, is the tendency foam has to morphological anarchy (political kind); secondly, the impossibility of individuals and associations living in foams to form a global world, or a closed world typical of monospheres (cognitive type); and thirdly, the tendency that separated individuals display in foam. They lose power in the psychic formation of space and shrink, becoming isolated, depressive, points. This sensation of being an isolated point can be left behind with the deep understanding of the meaning of aisthesis that we are going to see next.

Awareness of beauty as process, the thought of the heart as aesthetic response The contributions we have received from the features of heart-centred perception in blindness and art have produced a qualitative jump in relation to the concept of beauty. Beauty can be understood as the heart understands it, that is to say, the “breathing in” and “with” the world, the heart-centred aesthetic perception that connects us with an animated world in which there is no loneliness. By beauty we do not mean beautifying, adornments, decorations. We do not mean aesthetic as a minor branch of philosophy concerned with taste, form, and art criticism. (Hillman 2007, p. 41)

Beauty is epistemological need – “the being of a thing is revealed in the display of its image; visual form, all appearance is a show of soul” (ibidem) – and ontological necessity, as the heart is the organ that is able to perceive physiognomically, animating the world. For Aristotle the heart is the organ of aisthesis, “taking in” or “breathing in” of the world, the aesthetic response or the activity of perception or sensation in Greek. What the heart “takes in” or “breathes in” is the “literal presentation of things”. Wonder, the aesthetic reaction that precedes intellectual comprehension, is a medium that transforms how we perceive the environment. To Hillman, “taking in” means taking to heart, interiorizing and also interiorizing the object into itself, into its image in order to activate its imagination so that it starts to “show its heart and reveals its soul” (Hillman 2007, p. 48). So, beauty is:

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[T]he form of what is presented, that which is breathed in, aisthesis, and by which the value of each particular thing strikes the heart, the organ of aesthetic perception, where judgements are heartfelt responses, not merely critical, mental reflections. (Hillman 2007, p. 51)

For Bateson beauty was a manifestation of complexity in patterned relationships. The matrix of his [Bateson’s] collections of stories was a coherent and precise pattern of relationship, a pattern which for him embroidered great beauty. The more complex a pattern became, the more beauty it exhibited. The world gets much prettier as it gets more complicated. (Bateson, in Capra 1988, p. 79)

Also for Pascal beauty is “omission of judgement” (Pascal 2004 [1944]). In this sense, it connects with the concept of beauty present in Goethe’s method: [A]ll knowledge, and science, has value only to the degree that it enhances, sooner or later, the intrinsic (that is, aesthetic) value of human life. The objective of Goethe’s methodical approach is not to unveil, but to hold in contemplation […] the self-regulation at work in nature, by means of experimental re-enactment and symbolic representation. He calls this contemplative experience. (Stephenson 1995, p. 8)

It is by aesthetic contemplation that we can bring details to consciousness. It is achieved by thinking, or doing, art while observing nature. Similar ideas about beauty can be found in Wittgenstein, as the concept of pure beauty unadulterated by anything beautiful, beauty free of intention to seem beautiful (Stephenson 1995). Mezza (2008, 10) said that context (fruition and production) replaced text (format and content) in relation to the political, economical and social scene. Beauty can also be achieved by awareness of the perceptive process, awareness of time and of life’s sense and principles. Bateson was able, somehow, to observe a plant or animal with his whole being, with empathy and with passion. And when he talked about it he would describe that plant in minute and loving detail, using what he considered to be the plant’s own language to talk about the general principles he had derived from his direct contact with nature. (Capra 1988, p. 82)

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The heart is the interface Taking into consideration the characteristics attributed to the heart by ancient and traditional thought the re-inscription of the heart in our contemporary sensibility could contribute (1) to generating perceptive changes in relation to time, space, matter, form, identity and personal or collective memory; (2) to exploring the sensorial, cultural, emotional and spiritual possibilities that emerge in the confluence of heart and technology; and (3) to increasing the convergence and to bridging the gap between fields’ dimensions of knowledge, the intellectual and the intuitive. The heart could make art more “luminous green”67 or ecologically minded, more luminously empathic, more globally minded without losing its grip on micro-spheres of action. The heart can generate intrinsic contributions – that are still not sufficiently valued – to the understanding of the principles that guide the complexity of the world. Interactivity, interconnectivity, emergence, rhizomatic phenomena and intersubjectivity are processes inscribed in our contemporary experience. What can the heart approach say about each one of these concepts? Like people in traditional cultures throughout time, we can draw direct and intuitive lessons from the heart’s domain to touch underlying principles and processes in which we are embedded as human beings. By means of the heart we experience, perceive and are in a better position to grasp the lessons that come from fractals, emergence, entelechy, entropy, the nanoscale domain, organic and inorganic systems, from the behaviour of energy in quantum mechanics and from electromagnetism than we are if we place the seat of our consciousness and perception only in the mind or in the body, a model in which still persists the centrality of the head and vision of the point of view. Apart from offering us the possibility to better understand the complexity of our world and ourselves, the consideration of the heart as the centre of our Point of Being, the centre that makes the synthesis of everything we perceive, the origin of our sense of being alive, can provoke a paradigm shift.

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Luminous Green: Reflecting on the role of the arts, design and technology in an environment of turbulence was a workshop developed in ISEA 2008/Fo.am, in Singapore. One of the questions to be addressed was: how can electronic art be more luminous green? One possible answer could be to perceive environmental problems by means of a heart-centred kind of consciousness.

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Figure 8-2: The overcoming of opposites (ssee centrefold fo for a full colour version).

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So, let’s finish this chapter asking ourselves to feel the beating of our hearts now and, turning our attention to that vibrating pulse, to restore its role in our lives. Trying to be in tune with the title of this paper, I would like to keep silent and by means of my own heart to connect with the audience’s heart now.

XIII Bibliography Ascott, R 2003, Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness, University of California Press, Berkeley. —. 1994, ‘The Architecture of Cyberperception’, ISEA, The 5th International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA, Helsinki. Barash, M 2001, Teorías del arte de Platon a Winckelmann, Alianza, Madrid —. 2003, La ceguera. Historia de una imagen mental, Madrid, Cátedra. Berger, P L, Berger, B & Kellner, H 1979, Un mundo sin hogar: Modernización y conciencia, Sal Terrae, Santander. Bergson, H 1991 [1908], Matter and Memory, Sone Books, Cambridge MA and London, Blackburne, C, Non Dated, (Up) AgAinst the (in) Between: Interstitial Spaciality in Genet and Derrida, accessed 2014/03/03, www.parrhesiajournal.org —. 2008, Dancing in the in-Between: The Subversive Choreography of Jean Genet, accessed 2014/03/03, www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/cultspaces/papers/Blackburne.pdf, Bohm, D 1999, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London, Routledge, New York. Brett, G 2004 Carnival of Perception: Selected Writings on Art, , Institute of International Visual Arts, London. Briggs, J & Peat, D 1984, Looking Glass Universe, Simon and Schuster, New York. Buhner, S H 2004, The Secret Teachings of Plants, Bear & Company, Vermont. Bryson, N 1983, Vision and Painting. The Logic of Gaze, Yale University Press, New Haven. Campell, J 1990, Transformations of Myth Through Time, Harper & Row, New York. Capra, F 1988, Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with Remarkable People, Bantam Books, New York.

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—. 1997, The Web of Life, Random House, New York and Toronto. Caronia, A 1996, Il corpo virtuale: Dal corpo robotizzato al corpo disseminato nella reti, Franco Muzzio Editore, Padova. Chandradhar, S 1960, A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, Rider, London. Crary, J 1992, Techniques of the Observer: On vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. de Kerckhove, D 1995, The Skin of Culture: Investigating the New Electronic Reality, Somerville House Publishing, Toronto. —. 1997, Connected Intelligence. The Arrival of the Web Society, Toronto, Somerville House Publishing. —. 2008, Draft for The Mind of Touch (image, body, tactility, photography), unpublished. Deleuze, G & Guattary, F 2000, Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Dillard, A 1974, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Harper & Row, New York. Driesch, H 1979 [1907-8], Science and Philosophy of the Organism: The Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of Aberdeen in the year 1907-08, AMS Press, New York. Eder, S 2005, Art & Science, I. B. Tauris, London and New York. Eliade, M 1969, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Einsendrath, C R 1999, The Unifying Moment: the Psychological Philosophy of William James and Alfred North Whitehead, iUniverse, Lincoln. Everson, S 1997, Aristotle on Perception, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Feynman, R 1959, There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom, accessed 2014/04/04, http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html Martin, L H, Gutman, H & Patrick H 1988, Technologies of the Self: a seminar with Michel Foucault, Univ. of Massachusets Press, Massachusets. Fox, M & Sheldrake, R 1996, Natural Grace. Dialogues on Creation, Darkness, and the Soul in Spirituality and Science, Doubleday, New York. Garcia Selgas, F J 1994, ‘El cuerpo como base del sentido de la acción’, Revista española de investigaciones sociológicas, nº 68, pp. 41-84. Ganot, A 2013 [1887], Elementary Treatise on Physics, Forgotten Books, London. Haraway, D 1991, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, New York.

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CHAPTER NINE QUANTUM-INSPIRED SPIRITUALITY: MERGING SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE POST-GALILEAN PERIOD MARIA LUISA MALERBA

Chapter Index Abstract I Introduction II A few aspects of the post-Galilean condition: from the shipwreck of the old paradigms to a new way of relating to reality III Quantum-inspired spirituality IV Quantum-inspired citizenship V The quantum-inspired personal mind VI Quantum-inspiration in some cultural productions VII Bibliography

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to explore a few quantum-inspired concepts such as uncertainty, complexity, chaos and fuzzy truths, in order to suggest a possible framework for a quantum-inspired spirituality, citizenship and personal attitude more aligned to the post-Galilean moment in which we are immersed. The chapter contributes to the construction of the concept of Point of Being by offering an analysis of some examples of cultural production that illustrate the overwhelming quantum-inspired perspective over the past framework of the Point of View. Lastly, it addresses the concept of interval focusing on the intersection of religion, quantum physics, chaos theory, culture and technology and I explore the areas in between these fields in order for individuals to develop a quantum inspired approach to different life aspects.

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Keywords: Spirituality, culture, technology, chaos theory, quantum theory

I Introduction Reason is a very small island in the vast ocean of irrationality. —I. Kant There really are times when the omnipresent and logical network of causal sequences gives up, taken unawares by life, and climbs down into the stalls to mingle with the public, so that up on the stage, under the lights of a sudden, dizzying freedom, an invisible hand may fish in the infinite womb of the possible and, out of million of things, will permit one thing alone to happen. —A. Baricco Un rien imperceptible et tout est transformé. —Henri de Montherlant

This chapter aims to contribute to the construction of the concept of Point of Being, offering a reflection about spirituality, by taking into consideration the intersection of religion, quantum physics, chaos theory, culture and technology. Although quantum physics, chaos theory and religion, have to deal with blurred truths and uncertainty in different manners, they all go beyond the limited Cartesian framework that is still dominant in the society of knowledge. In the same way, the impact of information and communication technologies has triggered new ways of dealing with cultural creation and distribution, which are a response to the changes which have occurred in the scientific paradigm and which have been inspired by quantum mechanics. Firstly, I will provide a short overview of the basic concepts that have been subjected to this change from the old framework of experience (preGalilean period) to a new one (post-Galilean period). In particular, I will address the concepts of complexity and simplicity, truth and fuzzy truth, chaos and order. Secondly, I will analyse these concepts in relation to spirituality, in order to suggest the idea of a quantum-inspired spirituality. Thirdly, I will apply these concepts to the construction of a quantuminspired citizenship and a quantum-inspired personal attitude.

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Lastly, I will look at quantum-inspiration taking into account some examples of cultural production that illustrate the construction of a quantum-inspired framework for our contemporary situation.

II A few aspects of the post-Galilean condition: from the shipwreck of the old paradigms to a new way of relating to reality The concept of “Post-Galilean moment” was coined by de Kerckhove1 (2005, N.D.) to refer to the moment of birth of communication between distant places that came with the telegraph.2 That was the point of “no return” that gave rise to the “mythical marriage between the maximum speed and the maximum complexity” (de Kerckhove 2005, N.D.). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some theories appeared which offered a different framework that questioned those previous assumptions that were the bases of the pre-Galilean period. Therefore, the shift from one period to another can be interpreted as a consequence of a series of changes in many fields. Pre-Galilean concepts have been superseded by post-Galilean concepts, which will be represented here according to a thematic order rather than a diachronic sequence: (1) Regarding order: from the idea of a fixed order to chaos and entropy. In thermodynamics, with the second law of thermodynamics3, the illusion of a fixed order echoing the harmony of the cosmos disappeared and gave 1

This concept appears in an interview given to Alvaro Bermejo, accessed 2014/03/09, http://www.emigrati.org/emigrati.org_en/Web_Communication_Evolution.asp 2 It symbolically occurred on May 24, 1844 when Samuel Morse transmitted the message “What hath God wrought” through electric impulses from Washington to Baltimore. 3 The second law of thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed; it can only change form. When two previously isolated systems (in separate but nearby regions of space, each in thermodynamic equilibrium in itself, but not in equilibrium with each other at first) are allowed to interact and exchange matter or energy, they will eventually reach a mutual thermodynamic equilibrium. In the process of reaching a new thermodynamic equilibrium these systems do not return to the initial phase as the amount of energy dissipated has increased, that is, entropy has increased.

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way to the disorder and chaos of the molecular movements within a system. Entropy can be found in the merging of two different temperatures when two liquids, one hot and one cold, are put in the same glass. The Big Bang, the explosion that gave birth to the universe 13 billion years ago, is in line with this principle. (2) Regarding the relationship between space and time: from an absolute, separated and measured space to a relational one. In Geometry, the hegemony of Euclidean geometry was replaced by several geometries. Absolute truth was replaced by the intrinsic truths present in any language.4 A different relationship between space and time was established. They are not absolute, separated and measurable in different ways (Newton), but they are in relation and influence each other. In physics, as a consequence of Einstein’s special theory of relativity (1905), the three dimensions of space and the dimension of time are interpreted as a spatio-temporal continuum.5 (3) Regarding matter: from the solidity of matter to the liquidity of matter-energy continuum. In 1900 Max Planck introduced the idea that energy is not emitted as a continuous stream, but through discontinuous particles called constant h or “quanta”. A vibrant atom emits beams of quantum light. In 1905, Einstein explained the photoelectric effect suggesting that luminous energy travels as quanta, elementary particles of electromagnetic energy (called photons later on in 1916). The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy.

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According to Euclid’s fifth postulate, in a two dimensional space, for any given line L and point P not on L, there is exactly one line through P that does not intersect L; i.e., that is parallel to L. Nevertheless, according to hyperbolic geometry (Nikolai Lobachevsky and János Bolyai) there are at least two distinct lines (but they could be infinite) through P that do not intersect L, so the parallel postulate cannot occur in the realm of this geometry. In Riemann’s elliptic geometry there is no line parallel to L passing through P. Spatial or temporal distances’ measurements depend on the reference system as well as on the observer. Two events that are simultaneous in a given system might not be so in another.

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Quantum mechanics turned a reality based on atoms, made of unchangeable substance, into a reality based on quanta, solid and liquid at the same time, matter and energy. A new dimension in the continuum matter-energy appeared. Quantum mechanics focuses on the micro scale of matter, on the indefinable and chaotic universe of subatomic particles and of the infinitely small. At this scale, two contradictory truths can be simultaneously true depending on observation.6 (4) Regarding perception: from the idea of sensorial separation to a concept of physic and psychic influence in perception. In the field of neurophysiology, the union of physiology and psychology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Arthur Schopenhauer, John Muller, Berkeley and Ernst Max7 analysed the physical and psychic features of perception. Berkeley had previously underlined that it is observation that creates physical laws.8

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The uncertainty principle stated by Heisenberg in 1927 states that it is impossible to describe precisely in all moments all the properties of an elementary particle. Therefore, if you do observations in order to measure the position of a particle, you modify its velocity and vice versa; if you want to determine its velocity, you lose its position. The measurement process involves the “collapse” of the wavefunction observed. See this link, accessed 2014/04/09, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle 7 In the book the Analysis of Sensations (Ernst Mach 1897) it is underlined that an object is both physical and psychical at the same time. It is physical if we relate it to colours, heat, and space, and if we shut it off from our body; it is psychical if we consider this object in relation to the retina, as a sensation. 8 “The observer’s participation gives rise to information and information gives rise to physical laws […] through mere observation, we actually define the physics of what we measure”. Any attempt made by the physicist to extract information from nature determines the answer. All laws are the result of a “cosmic game” (Frieden, R 1999) between the world and human beings. Therefore, when nature reveals itself in all its inconsistency, instability and chaos, it is still part of us, it perceives and it is conscious: plants respond to the presence; crystals transform themselves according to sounds; matter is modified by colours and grapes grow better under the effects of Mozart’s music. Recently, in neurology, Semir Zeki found that the retina firstly perceives colours, then shapes and then movement, at an interval of 60-80 milliseconds, which is a rather long period of time from a neurological point of view. It is up to the brain to make the “assemblage” and to reconstruct the whole into an image that seems to be simultaneous, but is the outcome of an imperfect synchronization.

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(5) Regarding logic and philosophy of mathematics: from axioms to incompleteness theorems. Kurt Gödel formulated his incompleteness theorems in which he demonstrated that, in a given formal system, the consistency of the axioms cannot be proven and that there will always be at least one true but not provable statement. In arithmetic, the old parameters failed. Arithmetic used to be based on sequences, but according to set theory (Georg Cantor 1874), numbers are considered in their aggregative aspect (not the single but the group). Number 3, for example, is the set of all those numbers that are composed of three elements. Set theory challenged sequences by proving that there was more than one kind of infinity,9 conceived in a way in which each part is the same as the whole. (6) Regarding the relationship subject-object: from the Cartesian separation of subject-object represented by the point of view to the concept of the Point of Being. In the era of quanta, the act of observing and measuring determines interferences; what is observed changes as a consequence of being observed.10 9

Georg Cantor published this theory in the article entitled “Über eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen” (“On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers”) in 1874. Set theory has been highly discussed by different mathematicians. Discussion about the issue of infinity and the division between reason and reality started much earlier, in ancient Greece, with Zeno’s (489 - 431 B.C.) arrow paradox: movement is the sum of many instants of immobility. 10 Drawing on an example taken from ethology, the Galapagos’ penguins cannot easily feed when they have to bear the weight of detection equipment. Also radio collars stress animals during capture and cause disease. These phenomena interfere with the idea of a neutral and natural study of wild animals. In the information field, Roy Frieden, American physician and mathematician, maintained that the origin of physical laws rely on information: the information you try to grasp from nature through observation (“I” corresponds to the observation of the phenomenon and to the information obtained) and the information that nature is reluctant to share (“J” is the quantity of information retained in a phenomenon that you try to measure and it corresponds to the information present in any given system). All the information you need exists “in a row state”, in the J state. Men have the creative and intuitive task to extract this information through measurements and to bring it

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Quantum mechanics is the realm of the ephemeral and precarious, it is a formulation that comprehends and embraces the complexity and all the variables present in a question. In such a complex scenario, different views can offer a different explanation of what is discovered: the hypotheses of natural science are temporary and revisable. Quantum mechanics raises awareness of the importance of dealing with partial, “fuzzy” truths in the complexity of our everyday lives. I claim that one of the possible ways to explore these blurred truths is by merging science and religion in a quantum-inspired spirituality. In order to analyse this possibility, I will focus on how science and religion can collaborate to offer a different approach to the uncertainties of our epoch. At the atomic scale of matter, matter, space and time show properties that challenge human everyday logic, reality seems to be magical and nothing is foreseeable. Quantum physics obtains exact results, but the interpretation of these results only applies to a scale of matter that goes beyond the everyday scale of perceptions dominated by vision. On this scale, the characteristics of the world find correspondences with some religious paradigms.11 One of the most bizarre quantum features relates to the concepts of order and chaos. So far we have understood the relationship between these two concepts from a dualistic approach that needs to be reviewed. According to Monturi, in the traditional Newtonian scientific paradigm, order was the dominant category and our understanding of the relationship between order and disorder was based on a binary hierarchical opposition. Later, the theories of chaos and complexity changed this

to the I state, trying to obtain the best description of a phenomenon and to fill in the gap between I and J. 11 For instance, one of the world’s leading centres of research on the mysteries and subtleties of quantum theory in the University of Innsbruck (Austria) invited the Dalai Lama for a conference, to talk about the similarities between quantum mechanics and Buddhism. One main similarity is that neither of them are fully objective. For instance, quantum properties only have meaning in the context of a measurement, while, in the opinion of the physicist Arthur Zajonc, many elements of Buddhism are potentially helpful to the philosophical approach to quantum mechanics. The Western world could benefit from the vast and subtle set of philosophical approaches offered by Tibetan Buddhism. See this link, accessed 2014/04/09, http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/3186

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centrality to understand the process- oriented relationship between order, information and noise. (Monturi 2003)12 Gleick (1987) maintains that chaos theory has changed how we perceive the world. Rather than total absence of order, chaos is a sort of self-regulated order that rules complex interactions between multiple elements on a scale of reality that is different from the one we experience every day. In order to understand the behaviour of complex systems, the cohesion among members of a group and self-organization, it is necessary to take into consideration not only the analysis of single components but also the whole, which is more than the sum of parts. Some examples of self-organization are found in (1) the behaviour of flocks of birds and swarms of bees: these animals follow a group logic that is different from the logic of the single members; (2) the way proteins are organised differently depending on their isolation or not; (3) climate and nature phenomena such as waterfalls, avalanches, tornados and hurricanes; (4) financial markets; (5) the way the Internet works according to its internal and unpredictable order; (6) the non-linear order in which the genome is structured, resulting in the adaptive way in which evolution produces organisms; and (7) social relationships: each one of us lives in a complex social system, in a whole that organises itself “according to a nexus” (Buchanan 2002). The same laws characterize social activities in human relationships; individuals are in touch with each other (one-to-one) and with society (one to many and many to one). In this vibrant connective dance, each single individual, despite being a single in the whole, is creatively and harmonically entangled with the whole, and acquires new qualities that enrich his/her identity. The global dance is something more than the mere sum of each dancer and a separated individual cannot evolve (Zohar 1995, p. 103).13 In this sense, even in the unexpected circumstances of everyday life, on the macro scale of the world, there is an “uncertain cloud” (Edgard Morin); contingent accidents deviate the course of pre-established events and make us change our trajectories. Although complexity is a principle ruling our everyday life, the strong mechanical thinking that characterizes the Galilean period provided a framework in which complexity was simplified. However, when we compare the etymological Latin roots of the words complex and simple, we see that complex is made of com (together) and plectere, plexus (to 12

The same framework reminds us of Democritus, according to whom everything happens by chance and necessity. 13 For a deeper exploration of this idea, see Zohar (1995).

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weave), while simple is made of sine (without) and plicare, plicat (to fold).14 Complexity is something beyond the reductive, simple concatenation of events inscribed in a dualistic logic of exclusion of opposites. The same simplification process is usually applied to the concept of truth, but “truth” is a complex concept, and it is better to compare it to a rich texture. Reality does not work as a mechanical clock even when knowledge creation produces habits of knowledge.15 According to the theory of chaos and complexity, there is no cause-effect linearity implicit in things: there is not a logical, truthful, universal relationship to link events; rather what exists is my own way to connect them: the sun rose yesterday, is rising today and will rise tomorrow. Are we really sure it will always rise, even in ten million years? We are in the realm of probability: truth is not intrinsic in things; there are no certainties, just hypotheses. Is it possible, then, to set the bases for something firm and long lasting in human knowledge? It is wise to look for something grounded but it is not correct to be sure of having found it. Even Descartes said that in practical life we would better rely on a “provisional morality”. The word nature (natura in Latin) is the active periphrastic conjugation (future participle) of nascor (urus-a-um) and indicates something that is about to spring or in the process of development. It shows that reality is an ongoing evolution, a non-static process of being. For Heraclitus “everything flows” (ȆȐȞIJĮ ૧İ૙). Aristotle thought that nothing is what becomes at the end of its development (Aristotle’s Metaphysics). This idea is in line with the notion of the expanding universe after the Big Bang. According to Hubert Reeves, the fact that our universe is expanding and that scientists do not have the slightest idea where we are going, is a huge revolution in our search for knowledge16. Although physicists have warmly welcomed the latest discoveries about quantum theories, they can hardly imagine what is hidden behind “quantum mysteries”, where quantum laws come from or how they work.

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In Latin complex is complexus. Cum = con/together and plexus (from the ancient Greek pleko) = web, tangle, weaving, intertwining. 15 David Hume supported the idea of the existence of probable certainties, relying on the principle that we are regular in our habits. We have impressions that are given by sensations, and ideas arise from particular events that remind us of past impressions and experiences. 16 http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=213&pg=1 (accessed 2014/03/09).

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We are shifting from science (HSLVWKPK),17 or as certainty – based on the study of the physical universe by observation, measurements and experiences, aiming to establish, verify and modify general laws that explain nature and behaviour – to science as GR[D, opinion and precarious knowledge. Together with philosophy, even science, as Minerva’s owl, “begins its flight only in the gathering dusk” and starts renouncing the claim of being the only perspective from which to explain reality. Science is useful to know, but its basic principles do not get to that unknowable core; it follows that physics is getting more and more “mystical” and is more oriented towards the symbolic. Science and religion do not need to compete against each other because neither of them is omniscient and because, being both of them dominated by mystery, they share something in common. The language of science, and the language of religion as well, have to rely on partial, “fuzzy” truths. In this sense, to consider mystery as part of science, and science as part of religion, means that both science and religion can be different ways to explore partial, “fuzzy” truths. The languages of science and religion can complement each other by means of a dialogue in a non-competitive environment. A science-based atheism can gradually give way to a more agnostic position.18 The biologist Richard Dawkins, the author of the atheist manifesto,19 maintained in a recent interview20 that the hypothesis of a supernatural being to calibrate the constants of the Universe might seem very improbable but not impossible (Dawkins 2007, p. 43). A similar

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This means science in Greek. Agnostics are those who do not exclude the presence of God, but cannot see any proof of His existence and prefer to suspend judgement on this idea. 19 The book is entitled The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin Boston. Dawkins also wrote The Selfish Gene, in which he states that genes are the means of reproduction of organisms (and not vice versa) and that by its nature itself, the gene is “selfish”, since its actions do not increase the probabilities of replication of other genes to the detriment of itself. What you interpret as altruism is an “enlightened selfishness”. Animal species’ behaviours to both individual and social levels are driven by this mechanism and altruistic behaviours are acquired and not innate (Dawkins 1976). 20 To access this information see Dawkins (2007). 18

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attitude could be applied to our current experience and to faith, especially in this period of existential crisis.21 In this essay, I claim that a quantum22 and paradoxical dimension of faith could support a new form of spirituality, a secondary, transformed spirituality that meets metaphysics on the borders of physics, as a new beginning, as a new ethics to reconcile opposites.23 The adherence of Buddhism to modern physics could possibly work as a model for other religions such as Catholicism and Protestantism. Pirandello, an important writer of Italian literature, was a forerunner in the issue of reason and relative and subjective truths. One of the main themes of his literary production was that truths are as many as all those individuals who believe they have one. However, when each truth denies the other, the result is anxiety, nihilism and a century of wars, extermination, ideology and gradual loss of values.24 In spite of these changes in the scientific background, the Newtonian framework still seems to be dominant and ubiquitous, and it is clearly manifested in our everyday life’s prejudices, stereotypes25 and winner-loser situations. As McLuhan teaches, ubiquity is a sign of obsolescence (McLuhan 1988). I would like to suggest the thesis that science-based laicism is fading away and giving way to the settlement of a new spirituality and to a more reasonable rationality.26 I will explore this issue in the next section. 21

Contrary to what is commonly thought, a crisis in itself is something positive. As its ancient Greek etymology suggests, the word derives from NULQHLQ, which means to judge or to discriminate, and implies a careful reflection leading to a recovering from a situation after touching the ground. 22 Such quantum dimension of faith intends to face spirituality according to the realm of the hypotheses and uncertainties of quantum physics and implies the acceptance of contradictions in the word “faith”. 23 To explore this parallelism see the Tao of Physics by F. Capra. 24 Pope Benedict XVI talks about a new drastic Age of Enlightenment or laicism that excludes God from culture and public life when referring to the Western world. But this current condition of relativity in the world should be seen more as the peak of a deconstructive trend that has reached a point of saturation and is ubiquitous. 25 McLuhan used to say that value judgments create smog in our culture and divert our attention from processes. 26 “In the individual model, reason does not follow the ‘absolute universality’ but a ‘universality compared to’ someone, something. This teleological change, that affects the ethos and logos of rationality, makes reason reasonable. Reasonability is a teleological human rationality as it turns reason into human reason, addressing to the humankind” (Bellino 1997, p. 160). According to this author, if reason aims to achieve universality and adheres to an impersonalised and objective model,

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III Quantum-inspired spirituality A new phase in human history has started, which is defined as postpanoptic (Bauman 2000) and which witnesses the liquefying of the social model of panoptic control typical of our contemporary epoch. It is an epoch that lacks guarantees and certainties, in which we bring inside ourselves an interior ghost, a latent, liquid fear. To float in the amniotic fluid of society would be to recognise in the world the sounds of the mother’s womb, a rocking cradle: a safe and intimate shelter from the modern-fluid storm of uncertainty (Sloterdijk, 2007). For this author, to inhabit space is the primary experience of existence; to live is to create spaces that embrace us: spaces of which we are unaware are social institutions, extensions of our skin, which he imagines as spheres and atmospheres.27 After a period in which we looked at nature as an object to dominate and conquer, and at faith as something to institutionalise and turn into a reasonability is a twisting of rationality and grasps what is universal for us, it links the universal to the person, it cares about the particular and does not become intellectualism and erudition for their own sakes. If reason only acts on the basis of a cognitive-rational dimension, reasonability involves the human being as a whole, which coincides with the definition of cognitio affectiva (Saint Thomas Aquinas). While reason brings the external world inside us and imprisons it in mental categories, reasonability is the opposite, moving the internal towards the external; it is an emotive driver. Pathos (SDTR9) is something concrete that puts us in direct contact with reality, outwards from ourselves. 27 In his Trilogy, Spheres, that includes Bubbles, Globes and Foams, Sloterdijk talks about the breaking of the modern world. The concept of bubbles reminds us of the spherical and dyadic nature of individuals and of the symbiotic relation mother/child; a vision that is opposed to the atomistic conception of modern individualism that gave way to totalitarianisms. The concept of globe reflects the image of our society that is changing its state of aggregation. As water passes from the liquid state to steam spreading its elementary particles, in the same way our society appears more and more unstable and its values are being redefined into a renovated harmonic state. Foam corresponds to the combination of these spheres and their giving of life to a pluralistic whole, a third dimension where human beings, who create spaces, can float and pass across each other without overwhelming or being overwhelmed. In the fluidity of current society, it emerges that the idea of community is tightly linked to the word identity, but also that the identification with a given community represents a conscious, free, voluntary choice. We fear strangeness but it is necessary that, from this heterogeneity, a culture based on dialogue and respect for diversity could spring.

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commodity – under a positivist and mechanical view, of scientific rationality and mathematics – a different framework is emerging as a global culture based on ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity (UCaPP) (Federman 2007, p. 7). In this framework, a change in the scale of perception is happening and a sort of global perception, in which there is a fusion of the individual and the planetary dimensions, opens the door to a different kind of religion. The Quantum person’s “religion”28 should “tie” him/her to other beings (Zohar, 1994). Another field of inspiration for the relationship between society and the world, in which the possibilities and potentialities of each individual are taken into consideration, is the art of poetry.29 When Shakespeare put in Hamlet’s mouth the words “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (philosophy and science had not been separated yet),30 he not only invited us to say no to an overly schematic and methodical vision of reality, as well as to absolute and totalitarian conceptions, but also to learn from what Gaston Bachelard defines as the “human material”: fantasy, music, rêverie, surrealistic and archetypical images of individual and collective sub-consciousness (water, fire, air, earth), which complement the images provided by science. Since the relations we intertwine with others define us, in this “human material” there is also room for emotions, sensations, intuition and creativity.31 As a way towards knowledge and faith, McLuhan (2002, pp. 17-18) wrote that faith “is not a matter of concepts: it consists of precepts, it is a matter of contingent reality”. For this author, the message of God’s death means the disappearance of the Newtonian God who, through incarnation, made himself visible, and hence the crumbling of a universe based on “the point of view”, at the moment of “access into the contemporary acoustictactile world” (McLuhan 2002, p. 26). According to the Canadian sociologist, the relation between individual and divinity is a sort of perception based on senses such as sight, hearing and touch and it is as 28

There is a strong tactile connotation in the literal meaning of this word: it derives from Latin religare that means “to tie”, “to unite”. 29 Gay Science or Gaia Science (in the Provençal language, gai saber or gaia scienza) is at the basis of poetry and of a poetic academy founded at Toulouse in 1323 to revive and perpetuate the lyric school of the troubadours. The title of Nietzsche’s book Gay Science (Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft), in which he stated that God is dead (Gott ist tot) for the first time, was inspired by this Provençal expression “gai saber”. 30 Shakespeare, W 2002, Hamlet, Wordsworth Editions, UK, Act I, Scene V. 31 Although Christianity created the moral of resentment, Christ accepted the creative moral of His creatures.

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much real and concrete as any sensorial perception, allowing the synaesthetic merging of the physical and spiritual dimensions. According to de Kerckhove (1995), for Marshall McLuhan faith was a means to observe and to pay attention. McLuhan had extended the notion of artist to anybody who had the attitude to observe, and it is on observation that we rely in this era in which the quest for information on Earth is at the basis of everything and in which faith too can act as a filter in the process of observation and attention. It is not an issue if contemporary aesthetic exploration and scientific research are deeply investigating the nature of observation with similar methods.32 This collaboration between fields can also be seen in the ways scientific data are extracted from the closed domains of laboratories and then exposed in other spheres such as cultural centres, museums and art galleries.33 Artistic perceptive jumps could help faith to discuss past models whose categories are in shreds, to invent a new language, to place perceptions before conceptions and to foster individual self-perception in relation to the whole, from the point of view of a fluid pantheism. In the post-Galilean period the personal transcendental dimension does not necessarily have to materialize in a religious creed or a monotheistic God because there are many ways to conceive of God. Faith can take the shape of a feeling based on attention, intention, interaction and sharing; it is a unified collective movement of production (de Kerckhove). In this sense, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam can find a common point of truth beyond their contradictions. As the philosopher Giulio Girello maintains, solidarity is the fundamental value. It neither implies nor excludes a divine principle. It is available to the members of any faith, provided that they respect differences more practically than theoretically. An atheist too can take part in this connected “intelligence dance”, as atheism is a faith. “Atheism and religious faith have something in 32 For instance, the artist H. Håkansson (in the exhibition Vespa Vulgaris) made use of a sophisticated, high-speed video camera. As a scientist he “recollected information” and “documented” wasps’ flights catching the uniqueness and beauty of their movement in slow motion (to a fifth of a second of real time corresponding to thirty seconds of film). The method used by Håkansson consists of looking and of manipulating parameters of time and space. He shows what cannot be seen by naked eyes in order to provoke an effect on the public. 33 Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, from December 1, 2007 to January 13, 2008. See this link, accessed 2014/02/08, http://www.contemporaryartgallery.ca

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common: they lead to thinking of the world globally, which is necessary to reduce sufferance”, says the historicist George Minois.34 Independently of faith, individuals can belong to a whole without losing their identity. Like a photon, that does not collapse to its particle self and whose wave-self is mixed with the other wave-selves, we can relate to other wave-selves (Zohar 1995), keeping the features that distinguish each one of us from the others and from the mass. In this sense individuality is as much – and necessarily – about independence as interdependence. Dependence corresponds to the paradigm of “you” (you take care of me), independence to the paradigm of “I” (I can do it, I can choose), and interdependence to the paradigm of “we” (we can join our capacities and create together something bigger) (Bellino 2004, p. 286). From an attitude of feeling like victims of history, of its definitive, infallible, incontrovertible determinations, we are reaching a new phase in which observation and thoughts enable us to feel that we can construct history. For this reason, at an ethical level, in the face of the implosion of the world on itself35 and of an impressive amount of emergences and urgencies at all levels (health, ecology, economics, technology, etc) we are beginning to develop a new kind of responsibility and sensibility, to try new solutions and to understand what kind of world we are creating. Kingwell suggests: The true force of universalism lies not in the act of picking out some dutiful responsibility to the abstract moral law but in the shared capacity of humans to be pained by the pain of others. The human community is not so much a community of reason as it is, at a basic level, a community of feeling. (Kingwell 2001)

This author, therefore, thinks the challenge is to motivate citizens to recognise the benefits of participation.

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A similar approach can be found in The Brights Movement. Their manifesto revolves around three points: (1) promotion of civic understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, which is free of supernatural and mystical elements; (2) public recognition that persons who hold such a worldview can bring principle-based actions to bear on matters of civic importance; and (3) social education toward accepting the full and equitable civic participation of all such individuals. See more at this link, accessed 2014/02/10, http://www.the-brights.net/ 35 The Earth has become small. The polar ices melting, a civilian massacre in Baghdad and a terroristic attack in London are able to touch us much more than decades ago.

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Ethics becomes an ethics of feelings, attitudes, thinking and heart. Personal attitude is a creative energy able to change the world and to provoke powerful effects simply through a weak thought (Vattimo & Rovatti 1983) a flexible thought, adaptable to the never-cesing changes of reality, a thought that shows plurality of the senses, without imposing a strong point of view and an absolute and static truth. Connection, intertextuality and hypertextuality are part of human nature. These conditions can be seen in several fields. For instance, in order to better explain this idea, de Kerckhove usually makes use of the horoscope: how is it possible that a short sentence in theoscope can be applied to all those thousands of people born under that specific sign? This happens because people’s minds interpret that word in their own personal way and create various connections between aspects of private life, lived experiences, personal desires, personality, etc. By connecting information, we interpret signs and make sense of experience.36 Even the way China has organised society for five thousand years is hypertextual and owes much to imagination.37 In our contemporary condition, mind is tightly connected to the Web: thought, exported to the fluidity of the screen, is multiplied and interconnected. Not only are we shifting from hardware to software but the latter is also getting increasingly more flexible, like a mind. Redistributed thought increases the possibility of controlling history, supporting knowledge processes and triggering a different attitude towards the world. Under the lens of McLuhan’s thinking, it would be possible to use a metaphor and associate atoms to a hot medium and the quantum to a cold medium. Due to the emphasis on one sense to the detriment of the others, hot media require a lower level of sensorial participation and mental activity. Containing information, they foster brief but intense experiences and tend to divert attention. The atomistic universe is a metaphor for a specialised and fragmented attention that forces you to focus just on one aspect of reality (single thought, fundamentalism), which is foreseeable. The atom is closed and collides against another; it expels the other in the 36

We have always interpreted signs to make sense of reality. Haruspicy, for example, is another technique of divination dating back to the most ancient civilizations, even before the Homeric one. Auguries had to distinguish between good and bad signs depending on the thunder sound coming from the right or the left. Depending on the type of bird flying, you decided whether to start a war against the enemy or not. 37 The I-Ching is another effective method to conduct one’s life as well as faith and prayer. Chinese traditional thinking is based on the idea that everything hides something else. It is up to them to extract the meaning.

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same way as a Renaissance painting excludes the observer from the depicted image. On the contrary, cold media force the reader to “fill in the picture”, to “fill in the empty fields”. These kinds of media involve the observer and activate senses and synaesthesia. Requiring attentive and conscious attention, they determine long lasting experiences over time. In the complexus world inspired by quanta we are a part of what we observe, we choose participation and can opt for a wide range of interpretative models, all possibly right. In the eighteenth century Voltaire held that it is an impossibility to have two simultaneous actions because the mind is used to treating a single piece of information at a time and because the Western mental organisation based on writing was based on one point of view. Now we are given the opportunity to complete our Renaissance single point of view, which is a point of separation from the world, with a point of integration in the world.

IV Quantum-inspired citizenship Derrick de Kerckhove uses the metaphor of Pinocchio, a puppet turned into a human being, to express that we are subjected to a techno transformation of ourselves. As Theilard de Chardin suggested, an increase of tangential energy38 is directly proportional to the growth of complexity of an organism and to the growth of consciousness. The more the connections among the hubs of a system are, the more intelligent this system is; the more intertwined and solid the planetary neural network of the Internet is, the more global intelligence increases, as a multiplication of intelligences of individual citizens. A participative and quantum-inspired attitude is characterized by the awareness of a correlation with everything, by the hypertextuality of society and by the possibility of experiencing six degrees of separation (Buchanan). Such an attitude provides a tactile-religious feeling and a stronger degree of consciousness that helps us to consider: (1) the local and global scales of everyday situations and problems; (2) the equilibrium

38

According to Theillard de Chardin, “tangential energy” (coming from inside) is the equivalent of the divine spark and conscience. This energy, together with physical forces, guides beings through the evolutionary process. To the tangential energy is opposed the “radial energy” of Newton’s physics (coming from outside).

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between intuition, emotions and intellect, linking reason to life; and (3) the implications of a secondary sensoriality through which senses are extended. Integral awareness (McLuhan)39 means to develop a sense of full presence and participation in a global process. This kind of attitude can have an impact on cognition. Wearing a global habitus (Bourdieu & Passeron 1970), a person is equipped to nourish and stimulate a child-like curiosity for the universe, a personal dimension of biophilia and, as a consequence, a different attitude towards environment and society.40 The constant personal re-shaping and information41 seeking that empathically integrates others points of view despite differences, breaks the winner-loser logic such that nobody is considered as an enemy, an opposing rival, but rather as a co-operator. Deconstructing one’s own point of view during a Socratic dialogue is not a sign of fragility. As Zohar thinks, every time you try to understand someone else’s point of view you perform a small act that is at the same time religious and political (Zohar 1995, pp. 294-295). Rather than a passenger, someone who adheres to this perspective feels like an active member of the crew in the space capsule “Life in the cosmos”. He/she is challenged by the need to learn how to find pertinent ways to deal with an increasing number of choices. In the Society of Knowledge, the current merging of traditional and electronic knowledge is offering more opportunities for creativity and plurality of opinions, languages and media, for the integration of paradoxical and unconceivable elements, and for the development of different kinds of intelligence,42 versatility and eclecticism. Barriers are actually inside us but unity is possible in spite of differences. An emblematic and emotional example of this global feeling 39

http://www.utoronto.ca/mcluhan/ Among the ten rules of “The Philanthropic Initiative”, some offer some reflection on this attitude. These rules are: reflect on your personal values and on your passions but listen to the stories of others before saying your opinion. Listening pays. Respect that people know what they want and help them to find their own voice and to achieve their destiny; look for points of contact between your personal interests and the public welfare; do anything in your possibilities; never give up: there’s always a possible strategy. Keep going. Concentrate on your soul: the most important transformation is in the heart of people. “Il circolo Rockefeller”, L’ Espresso, January 3, 2008, p. 170. 41 In the etymological sense of the word, the person acquires a new form (shape) day after day, carrying out a constant labor limae on himself/herself. 42 In relation to theories about different kinds of intelligence, Gardner identified approximately twenty types of intellegence. 40

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is provided by the movie A Talking Picture (Manuel de Oliveira 2003). The image of individuals, from different backgrounds and nationalities, understanding the other in spite of speaking different languages, is a metaphor for the fact that cultural differences should not hinder dialogue.43 In the realm of quantum computing, information exchanges between atoms that are not close can be possible.44 Previously, information had to be transmitted directly from one qubit45 to another that was close, a bit like in the Chinese Whispers Game.46 For the first time, scientists at Yale University (USA) have been able to transfer information stored in a steady quantum bit to a photon (produced by microwaves) and to transmit it to a second stable quantum bit, that is distant from the first and not in direct communication inside the same chip of the computer. Separately, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have sent a signal between two qubits making use of the electronic vibrations of a subtle aluminium cable. The two research groups, although working independently from each other, have basically created a quantum channel allowing “dialogue”. Not only is Quantum information much more delicate than classic information, but it is also much more powerful, according to Steven Girvin (Yale University). In the quantum world photons are entangled and share aspects of their identities founding their streams (wave-like) without losing their individuality (particle-like) (Zohar 1995, pp. 185-186). When we dialogue constructively with someone (provided that the relation is equal and symmetric), our being floats in an intermediate stream between the individual point of view of the particle and the impersonal point of view of the wave. 43

On a ship, sitting at a table some people are having dinner: they are an American of Polish origins (the Captain), a French entrepreneur (Dauphine, blue-dressed), an ex-Italian top-model (Francesca, red-dressed) and a Greek actress and singer (Helena, black-dressed). A Portuguese woman and her little girl are sitting at another table observing them. They talk about the destiny of the European Union, fundamentalism, scientific progress, contradictions, the sad history of humanity, gender, sentimental life, culture and nationality. Although different opinions about religion soon emerge, they keep talking, listening to each other and sharing feelings, pathos. In the background the ship crosses thousands of years of civilization in the Mediterranean Sea, from Ceuta, through Marseille, Pompey, Athens, Istanbul and Cairo to Aden (Red Sea) with its long wake of myths and legends from the past. 44 This information appeared in Nature, September 2007. 45 For a definition of “qubit”, see section V. 46 The telephone game is a childrens’ game in which information passes from one child to another in a chain, until it gets blurred and unrecognizable.

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Recalling Zohar’s (1994) distinction between wave and particle applied to society, it is possible to maintain that the physics of the web can be compared to quantum physics: in the Web, as de Kerckhove (1997) suggests, the individual and the mass are not opposed, but live together. The Internet relates to the wave (mass), while the individual relates to a particle that is neither swallowed by the mass nor rejected by it. He is part of the mass but not destroyed by it; the mass interacts with the individual without totally absorbing him. “Avoidance”, the typical trend present on the Web, aimed at preventing conflicts, does not mean total tolerance. In fact, there is a spontaneous bottom-up selection of contents. Collective wisdom takes shape in effective self-organised systems, and in an integrated and integrating reality like the Web that can be seen in the use of social media, platforms47 and bottom-up services created by citizens for citizens: intelligences in progress and always available. All cultures should be “pierced”, that is, should be made permeable: many big turning points in history happened as a consequence of two cultures that opened to each other.48 Freedom of thinking, collaborative attitude and creative integration are the consequences of this piercing. Moreover, in anthropology the concept of close identity is at the basis of racism and it is the condition of proximity to someone else that gives us an identity. The practice of multiculturalism and globalism49 can be a tool to give birth to a global sensibility and interaction that could work against a “clash of civilizations” and in favour of a meeting between cultures. But we need what de Kerckhove defines as a globally shareable mental attitude. But this kind of globalism should not mean disappearance of local culture, imposition of a monoculture, linguistic and nationalistic imperialism and disappearance of nations.

47

Nowadays we have an access to knowledge that we had never experienced before: the information present in Wikipedia is over ten times more (at the moment) than the authoritative British Encyclopaedia and Microsoft Encarta; it is based on the connected transmission of knowledge and on a horizontal structure relying on the contributions of any user. In Wikipedia there is no “pertinence discrimination” because pertinence belongs to the user and is not based on the object of the research. Craigslist is another example of it. 48 A rich inheritance was handed down to us from the greatest civilizations of the past such as the Phoenicians, and from enlightened sovereigns such as the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (also called “stupor mundi”). 49 Term coined at the McLuhan Program. It relates to a global culture and describes the ethics and the new responsibilities we have to face as world citizens.

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Globalism means appearance of a global citizenship through transnational, trans-political, trans-religious and trans-cultural institutions, but it especially means to observe, reflect and notice changes happening around us and to learn how to surf amidst the ocean of uncertainties, paradoxes and ambiguities of our contemporary condition. Some time ago a new scientific discovery contributed to showing us how deeply-rooted the ties that link us are and how bizarre it would be to conceive an “I” without a “we”: when we observe peers carrying out an action, our brain activates so-called “mirror-neurons”, that is, exactly those same cells that are activated when we are making that action. In other words, between the two brains a sort of inter-subjective coparticipation is established: a spontaneous, pre-rational, pre-verbal communicative correspondence. This mechanism makes our brain resonate together with the brain of another person that we are observing. Not only does this discovery explain how we imitate actions and share emotions and feelings, but it also underlines the fundamental role played by our body when we feel ecstasy50 and emotions in our relationships with others. Social identity is the outcome of a co-construction process obeying reciprocity rules: the other is similar to us because we share the same biological basis. It means that, beyond any linguistic or cultural barrier, we can share with our audience sounds, movements, actions and bodily emotions, including them as a part of an event that the audience itself contributes to create (Zohar 1994).51 The origin of society is a web of relations that constitutes human beings (clan, tribe). With the alphabet, Western identity became private;52 with Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton emerged the solipsistic image of homo clausus, the selfish and isolated individual, a monad without windows, an indivisible reality (DWRPR9, a word coined in the atomistic school of Democritus, Epicure and Lucretius, meaning undividable). The identity closed in on itself, unchangeable, colliding with others and acting out of self-interest: homo homini lupus (Hobbes 1983 [1651]). The cosmos-centrism of Oriental religions has been opposed to the anthropocentric Western vision for centuries: in order to be satisfied and to exist, the individual has to lose his singularity, to relate and indentify himself with the principle ruling the world, melting and spreading in the cosmic whole. The cosmic whole, an anonymous and impersonal entity, 50

In the ancient Greek sense of DLVTKVL9 (sensation). As in Peter Brook’s performances. Zohar, op.cit. 52 The three “book civilizations” fight against each other: Muslims, Christians and Jews. 51

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threatens to cause us to lose our individuality: at the other extreme, it is a way to forget about our responsibilities and to be swallowed up by the crowd (Gustave LeBon). Neither individualism and anthropocentrism (particle), nor collectivism and cosmos-centrism (wave) taken in isolation can become good models for our mission on Earth. It is necessary to integrate the two in a quantuminspired flexible and indeterminate way. The union of both should give birth to something that transcends each one of them. Even studies of electricity and magnetism could be interpreted in this sense: forces tend to an organism’s unity and not to his disaggregation. Opposite poles do not destroy themselves and do not destroy anything but enrich each other and create something more (electricity), which is a synthesis and which is more than the sum of its parts. The formula for water demonstrates it: water (H2O) is more than the mere synthesis of two elements (hydrogen and oxygen).53 George W. F. Hegel wrote that the individual does not live for his own sake, but to express his personality in the relationships intertwined with other people (the pure being is the pure nothing). But this thinking is still full of the old logic as dialectic is apparent: two poles, dualism, antithesis and dichotomy. In Hegelian dialectics there is no room for the many unknown possibilities of a quantum-inspired reality in which it is not possible to say with certainty which possibility will be actualised. While in the Hegelian idealism the single is united to the other to form a superior entity (the State) that transcends both and renounces his/her individuality, instead the quantum-inspired citizenship experiences the double condition of a private individual and public, socially active, person. In quantum mechanics things are not, they tend to be (Erwin Schrödinger). Schrödinger basically replies to William Shakespeare, to when Hamlet said: “to be or not to be, that is the question”. To apply this idea to human identity implies de-individualising our existence and destroying the idea of closed identities in competition with others: a person is seen as a process, a being-in-movement. And this being-in-movement relates to other beings-in-movement. It is here that morality comes into play, when individuals decide to create society and ties according to a free ethical choice. This morality is driven 53

In the nineteenth century something started changing: the epoch of the right comes to an end (let us think of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and of the various Revolutions of the previous century) and the epoch of duties starts (Mazzini starts thinking about the responsibilities of Italian people); the utility of the single and the individual selfishness are replaced by the logic of the us.

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by an irrational impulse and it is conceived as a form of responsibility to other beings, rather than as mere obedience to moral rules (Bauman 2000; 2003; 2005). A human being is an esse ad, a being to, a tensional and relational being, not a self-referential being (Bellino 2004, pp. 111- 130). Formal and identity ontology (Aristotle’s a = a), fundamentalism and unique thought derive from the dualism between to be and not to be, from a system that tends to ensure esse and to deny ad. On the contrary, relational ontology of inter-being and co-being (a = all those relations that make it a), complexity and quantum theories are referenced in the idea of tend to be. There is an apparent paradox in the consideration of freedom. So far we have dealt with a narrow concept of freedom without considering it also as a tie. In each free individual choice ties are created with the other/others. For example, deciding to tie my life to someone or something I am free to take all the risks and limitations that this choice implies. An isolated human being has no raison d’être, as we can see in ideas such as (1) nihil est sine relazione (Gottfried Leibniz); (2) a drop separated from the ocean dries. The ocean is humanity (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi); (3) if the alter becomes alienus, I, in turn, become a stranger to myself, alienated (Emmanuel Mounier); and (4) if I always consider the others as enemies, in the end I will be an enemy to myself (Bertolt Brecht). Day after day we become what we are and this process of becoming is dependent on others. In order to understand identity, we need relational attributes, modalities in which a human being realises his/her own potential and exists in relation to the others: the others reflect and mirror the true image of ourselves (Bellino 2004, pp. 111-130). In the Indra Sky, in Hinduism, there are endless shining spheres, each sphere reflects the others and hence all the reflections of one on the other. The unity reflects the whole. Pascal maintained that we are disproportionate beings because, despite being finite, we tend to an eternal principle of infinitude. There is a transcendental dimension in us consisting of an unsocial sociability (Kant) which, despite not being perfect, is our constitutive dimension. This inner desire for infinity is at the basis of our need to expand identity and conscience and supports our desire for communication. Our deep identity flows fast and is constantly redefined. As a consequence, the knowledge of our being, reflecting the knowledge of the world, rather than being definitive, is an open, fluid process. The nature of a personal, deep identity is a plural, complex, rich and chaotic sphere: I am Apulian, Mediterranean, Italian, Latin, Christian, Catholic, European and a citizen of the world. The more these multiple

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dimensions of my being are intertwined the more intense and complete my life is. With regard to virtual identity, it is possible to identify a similar process. The Web has created a new condition for the identity, a condition of consciousness sharing, of “selving”, that is, of self in fieri, in becoming (de Kerckhove). In this state, our minds are always in interaction with others, expressing our inner needs to be part of a community54 and they are shaped and reshaped on screens, where everything flows and where a reality is in suspension. In the depths of our selves there are endless other potential selves waiting to be awakened through relationships with the other, and the difference present in the other is a possibility hidden in our selves. It is on these bases that plural consensus is built (Zohar 1995, pp. 205-211 and 329). The concept of superfluidity can be useful in explaining some aspects concerning plural consensus in relation to different cultures. If we applied the concept of superfluidity to cultures, we could consider that, in this sense, Eastern societies are more similar to a superfluid than Western ones (Zohar 1995, p. 56) from the point of view of cohesion.55 Indefinite states and uncertainty are key-concepts for innovation and it is in the indeterminacy that emerges the creative potential of being.56 This means that our society needs flexible people interchanging roles rather than “Faustian” experts alienated from the situation and from the context, possessing a fragmentary knowledge of everything. Paraphrasing Montaigne, plusieurs têtes presque vides mais connectées valent mieux q’une tête bien faite. 54

For example, in social network sites such as Facebook, Second Life, Twitter, etc. rather than ending, our individual freedom increases, and new forms of augmented identity appear. 55 As de Kerckhove clarifies, for example, cohesion is typical of Japanese culture, since this people are influenced very much by the concept of Ma. About this concept, see previous chapters (Choiniere and Ryu). The Ma is expressed in different manifestations: (1) a bunch of flowers in Japan is not organised in a symmetric way and according to Western visual parameters, but according to the spatial tension between one flower and another; the same happens with architecture and interpersonal relations and (2) there is a huge complexity in No and Buto, Japanese forms of theatre. They perform dances, variations and modulations of space according to the interval between two people: it is in this interval that connection starts. 56 As a metaphor, in the quantum world, particles produce effects on the environment when they are in their wave-state, indeterminate (indefinite spacetime position, but definite energy and movement quantity) (Zohar 1995).

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McLuhan used to say that “the expert is the man who stays put” (McLuhan 1967, p. 93) and that not only is his dialogue poor but also he is against discoveries. Fragmentation and specialization create hierarchies. Guidelines and easy, cheap recipes to achieve success do not exist: “the trouble with cheap, specialized education is that you never stop paying for it”.57 Integral knowledge requires open, eclectic, creative thought, unbound by fixed rules and mental ties. McLuhan understood that “the method of our time is to use not a single but multiple models for exploration and that trying to understand what is happening from a single point of view is not very useful”.58 If it is true that our consciousness is changing and acquiring something new under the impact of a new medium, then it is also true that our consciousness today might mature, might be ready to change attitude and to admit that our way of looking at things is not the only possible way: every religious community is an expression and actualization of one of the possibilities of God, and the different customs of different cultures represent different ways to express our selves (Zohar 1995, pp. 178-195).

V The quantum-inspired personal mind The characteristics of the quantum dimension of reality are much more than mere instrumental metaphors to explain a fluid dimension of the human self. According to the British scientist R. Penrose, the behaviour of neural networks reflects faithfully the phenomenon of “quantum coherence”.59 Brain tubules contained in neurons move in unison and reach the maximum state of “coherent excitation”, corresponding to the conscious state. The level of consciousness of tubules can decrease or increase spontaneously because everything is subjected to the laws of quantum mechanics. We cannot talk of a specific localization of its functions in single areas. It is the brain in general and all its dense network of interconnected 57

http://mcluhan.ischool.utoronto.ca/new-web-site/ Ibid. 59 Quantum coherence is a physical process according to which a large number of particles act chorally, assuming the characteristics and the qualities of a single macro-entity, allowing the phenomenon of superconductivity. Some metals, at very low temperatures, can conduct electricity without opposing resistance and the secret of it consists in the fact that electrons move altogether consistently, allowing electric current to pass without obstacles. 58

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systems that control all activities. The conscious process is driven by the concerted action of several zones of mind that shape what Penrose defines as a “unitary sense” (Penrose 1989). Edward de Bono compares the human mind to jelly onto which two spoons of hot water are poured (de Bono 1970). This jelly surface is a Bose-Einstein condensate,60 a self-organised system in which depressions, hollows and bridges arise and give birth to models. It is a metaphor for our creative processes in which external influxes are integrated to transcend pre-existent models (old ideas, which are temporary) restructuring them through perception,61 creativity, intuition’s sparks (which are a weak connection), humour and irony in an interconnected and hypertextual way. Creativity, imagination and rationality work together. Fluidity and multiplicity of perceptions which are oriented towards the new, open to infinity, to the unknown, to the possible and the indefinite, free us to choose between divergent solutions, all potentially correct. A quantuminspired mentality promotes the development of creativity through suitable techniques of lateral thinking focused on a feasible and fluid approach. The concept of what is, the normal logic (vertical), where a single answer is possible, is opposed to the fuzzy and rich logic of what might be, where there are not sharp boundaries between true and false (de Bono 1992). In lateral thinking many ways are opened and many different alternative approaches occur in the field of probability and possibility. Based on leaps, lateral thinking chooses chaos as a method and puts things together in unusual ways. What is important is not the direction but the change. Vertical thinker knows what he is looking for; instead lateral thinker is looking for something but does not want to know what he is looking for until he has found it (de Bono 1997). Computational quantum mechanics is an example of the possibilities quantum physics is providing the mind with. A digital computer is based on bits: sequences of 0 and 1 obtained through logical calculations able to 60

It is the most stable and cohesive structure existing in nature. As the name suggests, is consists of bosons, which are all those particles that share their identity and compose the fundamental forces bounding the Universe: the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, electromagnetism and gravitation. 61 De Bono associates perception to the logic of water. As fluids adapt to a glass’s shape, in the same way perception reaches a stable state. This is opposed to the traditional logic of the rocks, which are fixed and immobile. They are both important. Look at: I Am Right, You Are Wrong: From This to the New Renaissance: From Rock Logic to Water Logic, Penguin Books, 1991.

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codify any number and any alphabetical letter that combined generate an algorithm. Quantum computers, instead, are based on “quantum bits” or “qubits”, atomic particles that can also assume intermediate values and absorb bigger quantities of information. While a bit of a normal computer can value 0 or 1, a qubit can be 0 and 1 overlapped. The qubit takes into examination all the possible combinations of 0 and 1 in a single moment and at one time; like flipping a coin and obtaining heads and tails at the same time: qubits are ubiquitous, occupy two places at the same time. According to the German physician D. Deutsch, there are many parallel universes and each qubit is simultaneously in two universes (in one its value is 1, in the other 0). Each quantum computer corresponds to many classic computers that make their calculations simultaneously, each in a different universe. Hence, our universe could be divided into a multiverse of ramifications. The multi-world interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, formulated by Everett in 1957 to explain the collapse of the wave function, is a physical theory according to which when you observe and measure a wavefunction, this is not the only real measurement you have (as was previously thought). Even all those other measurements that have not been found do actually exist, and each one generates a different universe. They are real measurements for the inhabitants of other universes as much as they are for us. Considering Schrödinger’s cat paradox from this point of view, the situation of the cat, which is in two overlapping states, alive/dead (the wave-function describes the cat half-alive and half-dead), generates a universe where the cat is alive and a universe where the cat is dead. We can draw an analogy between the multi-universe interpretation of quantum mechanics and “contemporary communicative experience” as “existence in infinite parallel universes”. For example, “The videogame The Sims proposes an ocean of possibilities inside the subject’s mind” and “in Second Life the whole universe is made of medial substance and teletransportation is the displacement mode from one place to another” (D’Orazio 2007, pp. 66-67). Faith is as immersive as the Cyberspace: considered as a medieval Empyrean,62 the Cyberspace could be a place to find our mystic dimension (D’Orazio 2007, p. 214). By means of technology aren’t we perhaps acquiring new perceptive skills for a multi-dimensional spatiality and temporality? We see what we are able to see but there is much more to discover about our body and 62

Empyrean is the ancient highest heaven, a realm of pure light; paradise; sky.

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mind. An example? The frequencies of the visible spectrum (spectrum of light)63 perceivable by the human eye are minimal in comparison to the possibilities offered by the extremities of red and violet. But we can still perceive ultraviolet when we burn ourselves under the sun’s rays, as well as perceive infrared in a tactile way as heat. As Zohar (1995, pp. 152-153 and 194) explains, we do not represent just what we are and do, but also what we might be or might do. As bridges between the infinite ocean of potential, which in physics is called vacuum, and the actual world, we transform many possibilities into one actuality. String theory64 suggests that we are entrapped in a very small portion of a dynamic and changeable space. According to this theory, we live in a sort of tridimensional membrane that our atoms cannot penetrate. This membrane floats in a universe made of eleven dimensions, eight of which are hidden and not perceivable. Even at one millimetre of distance from us, invisible and parallel universes could exist. Together with the four dimensions we already know, there might be extra dimensions that could intertwine and be smaller, irregular, circular, rounded, as well as long, regular and extended.

VI Quantum-inspiration in some cultural productions In the third millennium the concepts of time and space are changing; having experienced them as a priori categories, now we are subjected to a period of maximum acceleration of time, as we become aware of the matter-energy continuum and of new dimensions of space. In relation to time, according to Galimberti, we could talk about a project time, referring to the time of technique: something appears as a means in the moment in which there is an aim. An aim is such when there are means to achieve it. Our psyche is subjected to a time contraction and our existence, according to him, plays between a recent past (where means are retrievable) and an immediate future (where we figure out the aims) 63

In the quantum world light is both wave-light and particle-like. According to string theory, in the chaotic and unforeseeable universe, the realm of the endlessly big is connected to the realm of the endlessly small. The theory unifies the universe and gathers all forces (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, the strong force), matter, and all physical laws in a single comprehensive theory. See Greene, B 1999, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, Random House, New York. 64

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(Galimberti 2006). Information and Communication Technologies, when whilst contracting time, also make it at the same time more flexible. If in the past we controlled space, today we can also can control time, which is fragmented and is the object of infinitesimal measurements, since we can even talk about zeptoseconds (10-21 part of a second) and yoctoseconds (10-24).65 The Long Now Foundation proposed a different perspective of time.66 It revolves around a 10,000 Year Clock that ticks once per year, its hand moves on every one hundred years and its cuckoo comes out every millennium. As Pekka Himanen writes, the clock can symbolically tune us to a different sense of time scale. A different rhythm drives the attention to a bigger sense of responsibility for what concerns the long-term impact of our actions; a sort of ethical dimension of time where the action is considered in a longer span. In contrast to the proposal of the 10,000 Year Clock, is time on the web (real time, time of now). The extension of our mind and our language on the web has broken the classic linearity of time, typical of the ancient Greek alphabet. The web works like a “huge private memory” and makes us feel our temporal condition as an “enlarged present” where everything is now (McLuhan). Unbounded by temporal sequences, that time is also lived in our inner self: the past, the present and the future are a “whole” in our mind, they are fused and coexist in the time of conscience, the Bergsonian subjective time of memory. Subconscious time is not like a pearl in a necklace, where every element linearly follows another, which reminds us of a deterministic and mechanistic vision of events. Rather, it looks like a ball of wool in which sounds, colours, smell and sensations of our existence can suddenly arise: a subjective time in which very distant moments can meet and overlap (in Proust, the Madeleine). In every single moment of our life there is trace of our present, past and future. Therefore, to dig deeply in the subconscious in a reduced arch of time could have the same value and the same meaning as investigating an extended period of time. A temporally short event can be extremely important; a single minute rich in emotions could open endless dimensions to our self. In the same way, it is possible to live through a long arch of time and not remember it because it had no effects on us. 65 According to current theories in physics, it is not possible to know what happened 10-44 seconds after the Big Bang, that is, when space and time split. This is the shortest interval of time ever known. 66 http://www.longnow.org/. See also Himanen, P 2001, The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age, Random House, New York.

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Together with our inner dimension there is the imaginary and mysterious time of quantum mechanics, which belongs to a dimension of reality that is different from our current sensorial experience, where time is strictly connected to space. At the quantum level there are potential extra-dimensions of temporality that, rather than damaging our inner sphere, throw a new light on the hidden potential of our self. The quantum micro-world is crazy and obeys apparently weird rules, where particles are ubiquitous, can travel in many different directions simultaneously, teletransport from one place to another at huge speed and synchronise themselves.67 The features of the quantum dimension of reality and the Butterfly Effect68 defined by chaos theory have been used as metaphors in several recent cultural productions. For example, the film Babel (A. G. Iñárritu)69 shows how the personal universes of a group of people apparently disconnected are linked through a solid web of very subtle threads, able to tie and intertwine their lives at a global scale. A similar approach is found in the novel Nadja, written by the French surrealist writer André Breton (1964), who introduced magic into everyday 67 This phenomenon is named “quantum entanglement”. Being simultaneously in two different places, the particles can synchronise themselves: two entangled particles are “magically” subjected to a distance correlation in real time, beyond the speed of light. If two entangled photons were on two different planets, they would continue to be as one and an action carried out on one of them would have effects on the other one. The most fascinating phenomenon connected to quantum entanglement is quantum tele-transport, a process allowing the movement of the physical state of a particle to another particle, even when they are distant. A minimal action on one of the particles has an immediate effect on the other, even if the twin particles have been sent billions of light years away. By measuring the polarization of one, you also obtain the polarization of the other (non-localism or non-separation). 68 According to this concept, very small variations in the initial conditions can produce big long-term variations in the evolution of a complex system; the flapping wings represent a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different (Wikipedia). 69 Babel is an international film drama directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga. In Morocco, in the middle of the desert, a simple shotgun will determine a series of unimaginable consequences and will link the existences of two American tourists, two Moroccan children, a Mexican immigrant and a deaf-mute Japanese student. See this link accessed 2014/03/02, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel_%28film%29

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life, as in a quantum-like reality. His love for a woman, who beholds a truth that goes beyond reason, opens the door to a different wonderful world that cannot commonly be reached, in a sort of dream-like travel where imagination and reality are mixed.70 André Breton defined Surrealism as a psychic automatism that emerges when thought is not controlled by reason, intellect or moral rules. It is based on the idea that there is a reality made of hidden associations and correlations, in which time goes beyond classic linearity and chronology. The book seems to convey the idea that in our psyche there is a transcendent space including the Christian eschatological dimension, with its sense and its divine project. But at the same time, it stresses that the only linear temporality cannot be sufficient to explain the wonderful and mysterious beauty of existence. This real time emotional space, embracing different contemporary lives, also emerges in the aforementioned Babel. Beyond linguistic barriers (and Babel shows how deaf-muteness can be defined as such), non-communication among peoples, ethnic groups, cultures and social statuses is constantly to the fore, exemplified through the circumstances of immigrants, struggling couples, loving fathers and children being raised. All these contradictory, possible states, float in the same magma, which Zohar defines as Vacuum, a fluid space swarming with particles triggering other particles’ reactions that, in turn, cause their trajectories to deviate. In the same way, in our everyday life, our actions cause repercussions on others, and we perceive their effects. In a telepathic way, similar ideas can emerge almost simultaneously in different parts of the world (Zohar 1995, pp. 59-60 and 243). We are all immersed in a “miscellaneous” (Weinberg 2007) vibrating whole in which we borrow everything, including our body. Electrons take energy in order to jump to an upper orbit; then, when it is no longer possible to sustain the energy required in the upper orbit, they go back to the original orbit. In the same way, all energy absorbed by our physical body is returned to the environment. We might believe or not in reincarnation or immortality but,

70

Everything starts with an unexpected meeting, which obeys a quantum-like surrealist logic of coincidences. Asking the question Qui suis-je? Breton’s aim is to observe how his life in Paris unfolds among the accidents and the événements of this city, which is cryptic, mysterious, and uncommon. The protagonist explores Paris and its streets as in a crazy dream, a delirium. Paris, its sights, its neon signs, its house windows and its various shows, is the setting, of erring, where “to err” means both “to wander” and “to make mistakes”. It is a place where eventuality sweeps away the rationality of cynical reason (Breton 1964, p. 9).

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in cosmic terms, we are energy that for a nanosecond has taken some physical shape (Freake 2007). As Reeves (1998) holds, life itself is the result of a very long story: the atoms of our bodies derive from the dust of those stars that died thousands of years ago. In the adventure of the universe, each one has his own place beyond ethnic, religious or gender classifications. From such a place we are supposed to feel responsible for the future of the planet. Therefore, our happiness is directly proportional to our will of harmonic integration in an ecosystem that embraces us, the others and nature. Moreover, according to Zohar, our happiness could be inversely proportional to obedience to the Jante Laws.71 As existing realities, we are all temporary, ephemeral floating parts of the cosmic whole; our relations with others actualize some of the infinite possibilities of the evanescent, as Zohar maintains. In his typically cryptic style, McLuhan wrote “without an antienvironment, all the environments are invisible”.72 He meant that the only thing a fish is not aware of is the water around it, since it is immersed in the fluid and there is no anti-environment that makes the fish aware of the element in which it lives. It is only when the fish is pushed outside the water that it becomes deeply aware of the previous environment. God is hidden in the resonances between human beings and the unknown, in the harmonics of a sound that is very difficult to hear. To “build” a good “quantum-inspired anti-environment” means to assume a more intimate, moral, altruistic and spiritual approach towards ourselves, others and the world; something to be done independently of religion, since we are embedded in a wider, quantum spirituality. By the participation and the acknowledgement of the importance of relationships we awaken one of the thousands of possibilities of God and we dialogue with the process of creation (Zohar 1995, p. 307) Should string theory receive an experimental demonstration, we would be aware that we live immersed among invisible, very small, versatile filaments of vibrant energy (both open and ring-shaped). By stretching, drawing back and swaying, they would give rise to the different shapes existing in our universe. As violin strings produce notes and different tones, in the same way, the chords of our being, in an inter-subjective cocreation, would contribute to read human life as a polyphonic system of 71

This refers to a set of group behaviours in Scandinavian communities that negatively portrays and criticizes individual success and achievements as unworthy and inappropriate. According to these ten laws, the person has no value, is not able to teach anything and has no role at all in the universe. Consult this link, accessed 2014/02/09, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_Law 72 http://www.utoronto.ca/mcluhan/

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sounds and to play this great cosmic symphony. According to the orchestral director Barenboim, since a human being, taken individually, is finite in comparison to the endless depth of human nature, her/his interpretation of a piece is just a finite and transitory expression. Therefore, when playing, the task of a musician is not so much to interpret or express music, but to be part of it (Barenboim 2007). This metaphor could inspire our relationship with the universe. Australian aborigines dreamt reality to create the world during the Dreamtime, the Time of Creation (Chatwin 1986).73 Dreams inspire the shaping of the territory and the creation of living beings. The Ancestors, after dreaming of creating something on the Earth, woke up. From the eternity, they materialized and came to the Earth in order to reproduce all the things they had seen while they were sleeping, giving shape to the territory and creating every kind of living being. In this way, they actualized the potential of the dream in the same way as the collapse of a wave-function concretizes many possible states in a single real state. Once they ended their work, they turned into elements of creation on Earth and Sky, left and went to particularly beautiful places that still today vibrate with their powers. By collaborating with the dream, the Aborigines, like children, enter the metaphysical dimension of being and other dimensions as well, and they create a work of construction and permanency in the world. Instead, Prince Segismundo, the protagonist of Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, exclaims that in his world, to live is to dream and people dream until they are awakened.74 His real existence started after death, considered as the happiest instant revealing the disillusion of the world. According to Calderón de la Barca, we play just a role in the big theatre of life and the world, where reason has to prevail over instincts and where characters are narcotized, numbed75 and confined to the illusionary and narrow perspective of existence. Every situation, considered from a single perspective, is just a portion of the real; without a definite interpretation, we live in a dream that is a reflection of the ephemeral, partial, earthly-bound knowledge we have. Our play-dream is the contemporary allegory of those who have decided to orientate their actions towards a principle of superior wisdom, adapting human chaos73

The Songlines, Penguin Books, NewYork. It is an anthropological research about Aborigine ritual songs and the Dreamtime. 74 de la Barca, C. Life is a Dream, scene XIX, vv. 1166-1171. 75 1DUNZVL9 means “numbness”, and to this word is linked the myth of Narcissus. For the interpretation given by McLuhan, see McLuhan, M. 1964, Understanding Media: the Extensions of Men, McGraw Hill, New York.

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based circumstances to the chaos-based things and events and to the symphonic chaos of the universe. We do not inhabit the big stage of the world but the global theatre of the Vacuum, of which we are excitations (Zohar 1995, p. 274) and on which stage we are called to play important roles: 1) Atom-inspired role: the world is the stage in which people are merely characters. They enter and exit. Each actor/human being plays many parts. 2) Quantum-inspired role: the Vacuum is a stage, all actors are quantum-inspired people that are Vacuum’s excitations and ecstasies. A person plays all parts, in all the possible dimensions, in many potential acts (Based on W. Shakespeare, As you like it, Act II, Scene 7) (McLuhan Program, How do you like it?).76 According to Schopenhauer, human beings are “metaphysical animals” and, unlike all other beings, they are surprised by their own existence. This is the reason why they tend to ask themselves questions about life’s essence. Beyond faith and intelligence, personal intuition is the way to find wisdom even when wisdom is veiled and blurred. Beyond the arabesque quilt, that veil of appearances and illusions, and that deceitful dream named life, there is something arcane about which we cannot stop asking questions, especially the philosopher and the artist in us (in McLuhan’s sense). The secret essence of our self is longing, craving for life, it is a pressing and irresistible, impulsive urge to exist, think, act, perceive and feel in the world. Not only do we see ourselves from outside, but we also live from inside ourselves. This hybrid experience of the world allows the finding of a secret passage, tearing up the veil of Maya and unravelling Arianna’s thread in order to find our way in the labyrinth of uncertainties. Our task in life is to understand the world we live in and to try to find our own place. As Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela say, every act of knowledge delivers a world into our hands (Maturana; Varela 1998); it is time to try to be more in contact with ourselves, to discover the magic mirror reflecting our new attitude and the most recondite and intimate aspects of our nature. We can find, for example, that small changes of attitude, such as the sincere and kind attitude towards others expressed in a smile, can trigger the same chaos-like effect of a butterfly flapping its wings.

76

Inspired by an idea of Mark Federman.

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VII Bibliography Abbagnano, N 2006, ‘Storia della filosofia contemporanea. Verso il pensiero contemporaneo: dallo Spiritualismo all’Esistenzialismo’, L’Espresso, Roma, Vol. 5. Barenboim, D 2007, La musica sveglia il tempo, Feltrinelli, Milano. Baricco, A 1993, Sea Ocean, Random House, London. Bauman, Z 1997, Postmodernity and its Discontents, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. —. 2000, Liquid Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. —. 2003, Liquid Love, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. —. 2005, Liquid Life, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. —. 2006, Liquid Fear, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. —. 2006, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. Bellino, F 1997, Persona e ragionevolezza, Levante editori, Bari. —. 2004, Filosofia del successo, Cacucci Editore, Bari. Bourdieu, P & Passeron, J C 1970, La reproduction. Eléments pour une théorie du système d'enseignement, Minuit, Paris. —. 1983, La distinzione. Critica sociale del gusto, Il Mulino. Breton, A 1964, Nadia, Gallimard, Paris. Buchanan, M 2002, Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, Norton & Company, New York. Chatwin, B 1986, The Songlines, Penguin Books, NewYork. Dawkins, R 1976, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford. —. 2006, The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. —. 2007, ‘Se Dio è un’illusione’, in La Repubblica, September 6. D’Orazio, F 2007, Immersion: The Science of the Makers of Universes. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University La Sapienza, Rome. de Bono, E 1970, Lateral Thinking. A textbook of creativity, Penguin Books, Westminster. —. 1991, I Am Right, You Are Wrong: From This to the New Renaissance: From Rock Logic to Water Logic, Penguin Books, UK. —. 1992, Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas, Penguin Books, UK. —. 1997, Teach Yourself How To Think, Abridged Edition, UK. de Kerckhove, D (non-dated) Web_Communication_Evolution, accessed 2014/01/08, http://www.emigrati.org/emigrati.org_en/ —. 1995, La civilizzazione video-cristiana, Feltrinelli, Milano.

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—. 2004, Il Quanto è il Messaggio, Lectio Magistralis, Urbino, November 29. de la Barca, C 1635, Life is a Dream, scene XIX, vv. 1166-1171. Federman, M 2007, How Do We Know: The changing culture of knowledge. Essay presented at the biennial conference SEARCH Canada, June 15, 2007, in Edmonton Alberta, accessed 2014/03/08, http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/HowDoWeKnow.pdf —. (n.d.) Creating a Culture of Innovation, Presentation to the Canada School of Public Service, Creative Commons, accessed 2014/03/08, individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/CultureOfInnovation.pdf Freake, R 2007, ‘Possessed by our lust’, in 24hrs.Ca, Vancouver, December 7. Frieden, R 1999, ‘I is the Law’, New Scientist, 30 January. Galimberti, U 2006, ‘Fede e ragione’, in La Repubblica delle donne, June 17. Gleick, J 1987, Chaos. Making a New Science, Penguin Books, New York. Granieri, G 2005, Blog generation, Laterza, Roma-Bari. —. 2006, La società digitale, Laterza, Roma-Bari. Greene, B 1999, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, Random House, New York Himanen, P 2001, The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age, Random House, New York. Hobbes, T 1983 [1651], Philosophicall Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Karoff, P 2007, The World We Want, AltaMira Press, Lanham. Kingwell, M 2001, The World We Want. Virtue, Vice and the Good Citizen, Penguin Canada, Toronto. Mach, Ernst 1959 [1897], Analysis of Sensations, Dover Edition, Dover. Maturana, H R & Varela, F J 1998, The Tree of Knowledge. The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, Shambhala Publications, Boston. McLuhan, M 1964, Understanding Media: the Extensions of Men, McGraw Hill, New York. —. 2002, La luce e il mezzo: Riflessioni sulla religione, Armando Editore, Roma. McLuhan, M & Fiore, Q 1967, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, Bantam Books, New York. McLuhan, M & McLuhan, E 1988, Laws of Media: The New Science, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.

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Montuori, A 2003, The complexity of improvisation and the improvisation of complexity: Social science, art and creativity, London, New Delhi, Sage. Penrose, R 1994, Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Penrose, R & Gardner, M 1989, The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and The Laws of Physics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Reeves, H 1998, Origins: Speculations on the Cosmos, Earth and Mankind, Arcade Publishing, London. Shakespeare, W 2002, Hamlet, Act I, Scene V, Wordsworth Editions, Hertfordshire, UK. Sloterdijk, P 2007, Bubbles: Spheres Volume I: Microspherology, Semiotext(e), Los Angeles. Vattimo, G & Rovatti, P 1983, Il Pensiero Debole, Feltrinelli, Milano. Weinberger, D 2007, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, Times Books, New York. Zohar, D 1995, Quantum Society. Mind, Physics and a new Social Vision, HarperCollins Publishers, UK.

Webography http://www.hubertreeves.info/ http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=213&pg=1 http://www.contemporaryartgallery.ca http://www.the-brights.net/ http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/ http://mcluhan.ischool.utoronto.ca/new-website/ http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/ http://www.longnow.org/

THE POINT OF BEING

EDITORS DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE AND CRISTINA MIRANDA DE ALMEIDA

CONTRIBUTORS JUNG A HUH ROSANE ARAUJO ISABELLE CHOINIÈRE DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE MARIA LUISA MALERBA GAETANO MIRABELLA CRISTINA MIRANDA DE ALMEIDA SEMI RYU LORETTA SECCHI

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Ediitors and Contributor C rs Derrick de Keerckhove is Em D meritus Professor of the D Department of French, Univerrsity of Toronto o, Canada, f former Directorr of the McLuuhan Program in i Culture a and Technolog gy (MPCT) and of the Research P Programme in n Digital Cuulture, at thee Internet I Interdisciplinary y Institute, U Universitat Oberta O de C Catalunya (IN3/UOC) and Proofessor, at the Faculty of S Sociology, Univ versity Federic o II, Naples. This T author r received his Ph hD in French L Language and Literature ( (University of Toronto) in 19975 and in Socciology of A (University Art y of Tours) inn 1979. He worked w as translator andd co-author witth Marshall MccLuhan. De Keerckhove holds the Order of “Les Palm mes Académiquees”, is Memberr of the Club o f Rome and Paapamarkou Chair in Techhnology and Edducation at thee Library of Coongress, Washin ngton DC. Among his bbooks are Skin of Culture, Co onnected Intellligence and Bra ainframes. Acting as prromoter of diffferent projectss such as Globbal Art and Connective C Intelligence W Workshops his research r focus is mostly in artt, technology an nd society, psychotechnoologies, technoppsychologies and a modes of ccreation, co-creeation and distribution oof culture, in parrticular of art, in n the electronicc age. E-mail: [email protected] Crristina Miran nda de Almeiida is Lecturer at the Deepartment of Art A and Technoology, Universsity of the Baasque Country and a Visitinng Scholar and d external ressearcher at Meedia@cciones # Digital Culturre, Internet Innterdisciplinary Institute (IN33/UOC), Barceelona. She hoolds a European PhD in Art (UPV/EHU, 2005). 2 She sppent post-doctoraal research perioods at the Écolee Nationale Suuperieur des Beeaux-Arts, Pariss (2009), at the McLuhan Prrogram of Cultu ure and Technoology, Toronto (2007) ( and at the CaiiA-Hu ub-Planetary C Collegium, Uniiversity of Plymouth (2005--06) and a prre-doctoral researcher at F (2005). Her research innterests are focu used on art Accademia dii Belle Arti di Firenze and the impaact of Internet of o Things on th he production oof hybrid realitiies, hybrid sensibilities aand materialitiess (Project Web of Matter) and on digital iden ntity, transdisciplinary reesearch and colllaboration betw ween art, sciencce and technology (SEAD network andd Project T2EIIA – Transdissciplinary Teleematic Environ nment for Interactive A Arts, with the University Fed deral of Rio de Janeiro/NA ANO). She collaborates thhe Internation Journal J of McLu uhan Studies, N NoemaLab and Ausart. A Her practical-baseed art researchh (video instaallations, photoographies, perfformances) focuses on thee cultural constrruction of identity and has beenn internationally y exhibited. E-mail: cristiinamiranda.de@ @gmail.com

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Contrib butors (alph habetical oorder) Ju ung A Huh stu udied French Liiterature and received her M M.A. and Ph.D. at the Universsity of Paris 8 in French Contemporary Poetry and is a R Research Professor at the dia Arts, Yons ei University, Korea. In Innstitute of Med 20004, as the executive e produucer, she organized an Innternational Meedia Art Exhibbition in Seoul. She was foormerly a guest professor aat EHESS in Paris and leecturer of Koreean Cinema att University of Paris 3. A Also, she was a curator at thhe National Museum M of Contemporary Art, A Seoul, Koreea, a planning director d of thhe Seoul-Sincho on Art Festivall and a consultaant for the Asian Culturee Hub City Prooject, which iss supported by the Ministry of o Culture, Sports and T Tourism, a suppervising manaager of the Huumanities Koreea Project “Imagination and Technologgy” at Yonsei University. U Shee published two o books on trans-culture and art manageement in 2006, awarded a “Best Book of the Yeear” by the Ministry of C Culture, Sports and Tourism, Body, Imaginaation in 2011, and many interdisciplinaary articles bassed on post-structural theory and modern ph hilosophy. She is the Supervising Director D of thee Humanities Korea Projecct, Yonsei University. E-mail: hja@ @yonsei.ac.kr http://yonseiima h a.cafe24.com/enn/?page_id=465 5

Rosane Araujo is an Architectt and an Urbaniist holding R a Masters, a Doctorate andd a Post-Docctorate in U Urbanism and an n MBA in Bussiness. She was awarded thhe Capes Disserrtation Award ffor Best PhD dissertation d inn architecture an nd urbanism (B Brazil, 2008). Sh he enjoyed a Post-doctorate grant for a Viisiting Scholarsship at the Columbia Univeersity, New Yoork; Graduate School of A Architecture, Planning and Prreservation (20 010-2012). Shhe is the President of NovaaMente, Psycho oanalytical reesearch center in Rio de Janeeiro (1991-pressent time). Soome of her pu ublications are related to the following City in the 21st Century); themes: Concceito de Cidadee no século 21 (Concept of C Mental Devellopment and Soociety: The city is me; Da Ciberrcidade à Cidad de Sou Eu: transformaçõees contemporânneas condicionaadas pela tecnoologia (From Cyybercity to The City Is Me; contempoorary transform mations conditiioned by techn nology); O Urbanismo em m estado Fluiddo (Urbanism in n a Fluid statee); La Ville, C' est moi-L' Orbanisme duu XXIème sièclee (Urbanism in the XXI century ry). E-mail: [email protected] http://www w.acidadesoueuu.com.br

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Issabelle Choinièère PhD (Centtre for Advanceed Inquiry inn the Integrativ ve Arts (CAiiA A), Planetary CollegiumC Pllymouth University, Englannd, supervised by Roy A Ascott and by En nrico Pitozzi, D Departement of Music M and Peerformance, University U off Bologne in Italy. Innternational artiist, researcher, author and prrofessor of thhe new contem mporary perforrmative scene involving technology since 1994, her rresearch lookss into the deevelopment of new performaative models th hat merge technology and alternative appproach of dan nce. More sppecifically, heer interdiscipllinary and integrative i research evalluate the relatioonship of moving bodies to teechnology by developing d emerging coggnitive, aesthetiic and commun nicative paradiggm in the perforrming arts. She works onn how an ontoloogical transition n of the body – through its co ontact with technology – lead to emergiing concepts off collective carnnal and mediatted bodies. Since 1995, sshe has regularlly presented heer creations andd lectures in intternational festivals (Fraance, Germany, Denmark, the Canary Islandss, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argenntina, Canada). Her art produ uctions are the case study fo or research groups from uuniversities throoughout the wo orld. Alongside her work as an n artist, she also works intensely in research: r her latest texts haave been pub blished by Cambridge Sccholars Publishhing, UK (2009) and Intellectss Journals, also in the UK (2006, 2013).. E-mail: [email protected] Web site: ww ww.isabellechoiiniere.com

Maria Luisa Malerba is a PhD candidate and M r researcher at the IN3 (Innternet Interdiisciplinary I Institute, Univeersitat Oberta dde Catalunya, Barcelona, B S Spain). She received a Master’s Degree D in C Communication n Science at the University y of Bari ( (Italy) with a thesis on D Derrick de Keerckhove’s thhinking. She was w a McLuhann Fellow at the McLuhan P Program in Cullture and Technnology of the University U o Toronto in 2007 of 2 where shee started her co ontribution to The Point off Being. Her ccurrent research h interests r revolve around d Web 2.0 ttechnologies applied a to language teaching and learningg. She is fluentt in Italian, English and S Spanish. She haas presented thee results of her research in, am mong other venues, Toroonto (2007), at the MPCT and d in Barcelonaa (2011) at the McLuhan Galaxy Internnational Conference, on the occasion of the M McLuhan’s Centtenary. E-mail: [email protected]

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Gaetano Mirabeella studied Phi G hilosophy and Art A History at the University y of Urbino, annd wrote his theesis About thhe Dyonisiac in n Nietzsche, uunder the supeervision of M Mario Perniola. Member M of the Italian Society y of Ethics, hee has written maany texts amonng which he high hlights the phhilosophical romance r titledd Dieci passsi prima deell'eternità. Thiis author is a ccollaborator witth Derrick dee Kerckhove forr the text Pensiiero liquido e crollo della meente, a text thaat turned into a book of the same title puublished in 2009 by Palladio eed. Salerno. Th his text has beeen adopted in n the course Soociology of Digital D Art, University Feederico II, Naplles. Mirabella has h also workedd for theatre and d is author of many theattre texts. E-mail: [email protected]

Seemi Ryu receeived a BFA from Korean n National Unniversity of Arrts and an MFA A from Carneg gie Mellon Unniversity. She is an assocciate professo or in the Deepartment off Kinetic IImaging at Virginia Coommonwealth University. U Ryyu is a media artist who specializes in ex xperimental 3D D animations and a virtual puuppetry, based d on Korean shamanism and oral traaditions of sttorytelling. Heer animation has won nuumerous awardss, including “Thhe Best Young Animated Fillm Award” at the Internationnal Festival of Animated Fillm, Stuttgart, Germany. Heer artworks have h been widely presennted in exhibitiions and perforrmances in moore than 15 cou untries and her academic papers have beeen published in n international jjournals and co onferences. One of her ppapers “Ritualiizing Interactiv ve Media” wass mentioned ass being of exceptional qquality in Leonardo review. Her H virtual pupppetry “Parting on o Z” was recently perfoormed at Chelsea Art Museum m, New York. C Currently, she works w as a senior advisorr for the project “Avatars for virtual v heritage””, funded by th he National Endowment ffor the Humanitties. E-mail: [email protected]

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Editors and Contributors Loretta Secchi is Director aat the Museo Tattile di L Piittura Antica e Moderna Antteros, Istituto dei d Ciechi Frrancesco Cavazzza, Bologna. Prrofessor at Alm ma Mater Studiiorum – Univeersità degli Sttudi di Bolognaa – Facoltà di S cienze della Fo ormazione. Teacher of Histo ory of Art – Icoonology and Ico onography – at the Universiità degli adulti ““Primo Levi”, Bologna. B H research in Her nterest is focuused on the subject s of aeesthetic educaation for inteegration: from m optical peerception to artistic imaginary . E E-mail: loretta@ @cavazza.it

INDEX

A aesthetic, 1, 6, 79, 80, 81, 82, 90, 94, 105, 111, 112, 114, 117, 120, 122, 127, 149, 150, 151, 155, 161, 184, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 261, 288, 289, 310, 338, 340, 343 aesthetics, 1, 42, 81, 89, 93, 94, 104, 110, 127, 140, 147, 150, 151, 160, 161, 202, 205, 343 Alfred North Whitehead, 169, 175, 177, 187, 285, 293, 343 animistic traditions, 250, 343 architecture, 1, 3, 26, 71, 110, 112, 147, 149, 151, 152, 153, 171, 174, 207, 219, 320, 337, 343 art, 1, 2, 6, 20, 26, 27, 37, 46, 51, 57, 80, 81, 84, 90, 100, 104, 110, 120, 122, 123, 126, 127, 131, 132, 138, 140, 141, 151, 155, 156, 158, 159, 162, 192, 197, 198, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 211, 214, 228, 231, 277, 278, 288, 289, 290, 309, 310, 333, 336, 337, 338, 343 artists, 14, 32, 43, 44, 45, 94, 100, 125, 145, 277, 278, 343 attention, 16, 18, 22, 41, 96, 113, 116, 123, 155, 185, 193, 202, 209, 214, 219, 222, 245, 260, 282, 283, 287, 292, 307, 310, 312, 313, 325, 343 attitude, 4, 7, 10, 28, 51, 54, 55, 97, 125, 159, 176, 177, 200, 202, 246, 281, 285, 297, 298, 307, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 316, 321, 330, 343 augmented tactility, 10, 38, 343

aura, 14, 38, 47, 83, 213, 214, 219, 220, 227, 242, 247, 252, 253, 254, 256, 261, 262, 280, 282, 343 autopoietic, 84, 90, 95, 343 auto-stated, 84, 343 avatar, 35, 36, 42, 187, 192, 193, 285, 343 awareness, 16, 18, 25, 26, 43, 47, 53, 82, 95, 99, 107, 113, 126, 132, 139, 175, 177, 182, 183, 201, 206, 207, 256, 262, 265, 286, 287, 289, 303, 313, 314, 343 B Bacon, 21, 219, 343 Bergson, 13, 16, 21, 22, 56, 94, 246, 247, 252, 271, 292, 343, 346 between, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 50, 54, 55, 61, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 81, 83, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 100, 104, 106, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 136, 137, 138, 139, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 168, 169, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 218,

Index

342 219, 220, 221, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 244, 245, 248, 249, 251, 254, 255, 256, 258, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269, 272, 273, 274, 277, 278, 280, 281, 282, 284, 286, 290, 297, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 309, 310, 312, 314, 315, 316, 317, 319, 322, 323, 324, 328, 336, 343 Bibimbap, 5, 148, 160, 343 blindness, 6, 111, 198, 199, 207, 213, 214, 219, 272, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 288, 343 body, 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 51, 64, 67, 69, 70, 74, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 156, 157, 166, 170, 171, 175, 176, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 202, 203, 207, 213, 215, 216, 218, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 230, 234, 235, 236, 238, 239, 241, 242, 244, 245, 247, 248, 250, 252, 254, 255, 256, 258, 261, 264, 265, 267, 268, 271, 275, 277, 280, 283, 284, 290, 293, 301, 317, 323, 327, 338, 344, 349, 351 C cannibalism, 105, 112, 113, 119, 126, 136, 344

Cartesian, 7, 22, 23, 26, 63, 133, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 224, 225, 230, 240, 241, 242, 251, 252, 256, 265, 272, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 285, 298, 302, 344 chakra, 216, 226, 256, 257, 284, 344 Chaos theory, 344 Christine Buci-Glucksmann, 105, 106, 110, 144, 344 city, 4, 50, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 91, 92, 327, 337, 344 cognition, 2, 6, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 29, 35, 77, 90, 98, 116, 181, 209, 213, 214, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225, 229, 242, 260, 262, 263, 264, 265, 272, 275, 277, 278, 279, 282, 283, 314, 344 communication, 3, 24, 30, 32, 35, 44, 46, 49, 62, 63, 64, 69, 71, 73, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 94, 95, 98, 106, 112, 113, 114, 117, 119, 126, 153, 158, 162, 199, 200, 217, 223, 226, 229, 232, 241, 260, 271, 278, 283, 284, 285, 298, 299, 315, 319, 327, 344 connective, 10, 11, 25, 28, 49, 94, 103, 104, 125, 137, 233, 238, 245, 256, 263, 265, 271, 281, 282, 304, 344 consciousness, 6, 13, 14, 20, 25, 26, 36, 47, 53, 80, 83, 86, 87, 90, 94, 96, 97, 98, 111, 124, 125, 129, 130, 132, 138, 170, 171, 175, 177, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 190, 191, 192, 201, 213, 215, 216, 218, 220, 221, 223, 225, 227, 228, 229, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 247, 248, 249, 250, 252, 258, 259, 260, 264, 265, 266, 268, 271, 273, 276, 277, 278, 282, 285, 289, 290, 309, 313, 320, 321, 344

The Point of Being D dancers, 115, 116, 123, 126, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 344 David Rokeby, 44, 45, 344 de Kerckhove, 49, 56, 71, 76, 100, 101, 125, 172, 223, 224, 261, 262, 266, 267, 269, 293, 299, 310, 312, 316, 320, 331 Derrick de Kerckhove, 1, 3, 9, 49, 58, 71, 313, 335, 336, 338, 339, 344 différance, 5, 147, 150, 219, 344 disciplines, 1, 17, 100, 103, 114, 120, 345 DNA, 68, 74, 270, 345 Don Quixote, 34, 35, 345 dualism, 147, 148, 150, 161, 168, 169, 318, 319, 345 E ear, 14, 25, 100, 245, 345 electricity, 2, 3, 9, 10, 14, 20, 24, 29, 30, 33, 37, 38, 88, 127, 213, 227, 251, 252, 253, 269, 272, 273, 318, 321, 345 electromagnetic, 213, 214, 217, 218, 223, 225, 229, 235, 236, 237, 242, 245, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 262, 263, 266, 273, 281, 283, 300, 345 electromagnetism, 10, 251, 253, 259, 290, 322, 324, 345 emergent, 218, 228, 235, 237, 268, 280, 345 emotional intersection, 148, 345 emotions, 2, 5, 10, 17, 18, 44, 49, 50, 121, 148, 149, 151, 158, 159, 160, 185, 187, 188, 217, 218, 223, 241, 248, 253, 279, 309, 314, 317, 325, 345 empathy, 53, 54, 104, 135, 142, 224, 239, 241, 256, 261, 262, 263, 281, 282, 285, 289, 345

343

energy, 13, 20, 37, 127, 132, 138, 149, 160, 166, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 181, 216, 218, 222, 226, 227, 229, 232, 233, 235, 245, 247, 248, 255, 256, 257, 264, 267, 268, 280, 281, 284, 286, 290, 299, 300, 301, 312, 313, 320, 324, 327, 328, 345 Euclidean, 84, 87, 300, 345 experience, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 29, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 62, 63, 74, 81, 85, 87, 92, 93, 98, 107, 110, 111, 116, 117, 118, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 142, 155, 165, 166, 167, 168, 171, 180, 181, 184, 185, 186, 187, 191, 192, 193, 196, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 217, 218, 222, 223, 224, 225, 230, 233, 235, 236, 239, 241, 242, 253, 263, 264, 265, 267, 268, 271, 273, 275, 276, 279, 281, 282, 285, 289, 290, 298, 304, 307, 308, 312, 323, 326, 330, 345 Exteroreceptors, 15, 345 eye, 10, 11, 20, 25, 26, 32, 37, 42, 85, 100, 182, 199, 200, 206, 215, 238, 241, 245, 275, 294, 324, 345 F formation, 62, 74, 85, 105, 268, 287, 288, 345 G Garden, 154, 163, 345 H Ha-Na, 165, 172, 173, 174, 181, 345

Index

344 haptic, 4, 6, 14, 39, 198, 199, 208, 209, 213, 225, 232, 234, 238, 241, 260, 270, 277, 278, 279, 280, 282, 286, 345 Heart, 6, 213, 218, 221, 242, 248, 256, 257, 259, 263, 264, 271, 278, 283, 294, 345 Helio Oiticica, 115, 138, 346 homeopathic change, 10, 346 I identity, 2, 33, 44, 81, 85, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 100, 127, 158, 174, 196, 215, 219, 225, 229, 234, 235, 264, 266, 271, 280, 290, 304, 308, 311, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 322, 336, 346 imagination, 6, 14, 16, 34, 35, 36, 42, 82, 97, 140, 170, 177, 182, 185, 198, 201, 202, 203, 204, 216, 222, 237, 240, 249, 253, 271, 286, 288, 312, 322, 327, 346, 348 inner vision, 198, 200, 346 instinct, 201, 261, 262, 346 integrative learning, 104, 137, 346 intellect, 96, 97, 198, 237, 238, 239, 247, 250, 314, 327, 346 interactivity, 4, 38, 131, 286, 346 interface, 7, 11, 16, 17, 38, 39, 40, 41, 46, 71, 99, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 112, 114, 117, 121, 144, 148, 162, 213, 214, 224, 225, 226, 227, 229, 232, 233, 236, 238, 252, 256, 260, 261, 262, 264, 266, 267, 270, 271, 277, 279, 280, 281, 283, 284, 285, 290, 346 interfaces, 3, 4, 9, 24, 36, 38, 39, 40, 94, 106, 107, 117, 120, 226, 238, 266, 346 intero-receptors, 346 interval, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 23, 26, 27, 29, 39, 40, 41, 54, 80, 103, 104, 110, 111, 112, 113, 117,

125, 126, 127, 129, 148, 150, 161, 166, 175, 184, 193, 205, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 219, 220, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 242, 245, 252, 255, 256, 260, 261, 262, 264, 272, 273, 274, 278, 279, 280, 281, 283, 284, 297, 301, 320, 325, 346 intuition, 14, 16, 18, 36, 40, 82, 181, 182, 213, 214, 223, 234, 238, 240, 245, 246, 247, 257, 258, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 280, 282, 285, 309, 314, 322, 330, 346 intuitive, 47, 188, 198, 206, 227, 229, 239, 240, 246, 260, 264, 266, 267, 284, 290, 302, 346 J Jean-Luc Nancy, 17, 346 Jung, 3, 5, 25, 147, 148, 149, 160, 161, 166, 167, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 181, 184, 187, 188, 192, 193, 194, 230, 335, 337, 346 K Korean culture, 3, 5, 6, 148, 150, 151, 156, 157, 159, 162, 167, 173, 174, 180, 182, 196, 346 L language, 3, 10, 19, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 40, 47, 48, 67, 73, 82, 83, 87, 91, 95, 97, 99, 100, 106, 130, 150, 158, 172, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 215, 224, 228, 253, 268, 273, 274, 289, 300, 306, 309, 310, 325, 338, 346 Lewis Mumford, 64, 72, 346 literacy, 10, 11, 30, 34, 44, 346 Logos, 9, 21, 41, 46, 47, 76, 346 love, 52, 95, 160, 165, 174, 178, 179, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189,

The Point of Being 191, 192, 223, 226, 235, 237, 239, 241, 242, 246, 249, 256, 257, 258, 271, 272, 273, 286, 327, 346 M mâ, 346 madang, 147, 151, 152, 153, 158, 346 magic, 28, 37, 40, 46, 87, 326, 330, 346 Manuel Castells, 67, 346 Marshall McLuhan, 1, 101, 310, 336, 347 material, 2, 29, 44, 69, 71, 74, 90, 94, 100, 111, 116, 121, 137, 170, 171, 172, 182, 183, 186, 191, 200, 203, 208, 226, 234, 243, 244, 252, 255, 256, 260, 281, 284, 309, 347 matter, 2, 7, 14, 16, 20, 21, 24, 28, 34, 36, 47, 66, 71, 80, 83, 94, 134, 139, 148, 152, 154, 166, 171, 193, 204, 216, 219, 220, 222, 227, 232, 235, 245, 255, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 267, 268, 269, 273, 275, 280, 284, 286, 290, 299, 300, 301, 303, 309, 324, 347 McLuhan, 3, 23, 25, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 57, 77, 87, 96, 101, 220, 225, 284, 307, 309, 312, 314, 316, 321, 325, 328, 329, 330, 332, 336, 338, 347 medium, 25, 30, 31, 48, 57, 95, 213, 218, 220, 225, 231, 233, 239, 242, 244, 245, 248, 251, 253, 254, 262, 280, 288, 312, 321, 347 memory, 14, 16, 31, 74, 81, 93, 94, 99, 129, 196, 201, 204, 209, 216, 225, 230, 233, 235, 236, 237, 239, 253, 258, 259, 260, 267, 271, 276, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 290, 325, 347

345

Merleau-Ponty, 90, 223, 234, 347 Michel Foucault, 33, 293, 347 mind, 3, 4, 6, 13, 20, 22, 24, 30, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 42, 46, 51, 53, 64, 69, 82, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 96, 110, 120, 129, 142, 165, 173, 175, 177, 179, 181, 183, 188, 192, 198, 199, 202, 204, 213, 216, 218, 220, 228, 229, 230, 233, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 248, 249, 250, 253, 256, 259, 260, 265, 266, 271, 273, 275, 282, 283, 284, 286, 290, 297, 312, 313, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 347 mirror neuron systems, 135, 142, 347 mirror neurons, 4, 18, 19, 112, 135, 347 N Natalie Sarraute, 41, 347 new psychoanalysis, 62, 347 O objective imaginary, 9, 34, 35, 36, 347 Onians, 11, 58, 226, 228, 241, 248, 250, 258, 294, 347 opera, 5, 84, 148, 149, 155, 173, 347 oral societies, 30, 347 orbanism, 347 P painting, 2, 26, 37, 124, 153, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203, 204, 209, 261, 313, 347 Pallasmaa, 11, 14, 17, 20, 26, 58, 347 Pansori, 5, 148, 149, 151, 154, 155, 156, 157, 163, 347 Pascal, 213, 226, 242, 246, 247, 282, 289, 294, 319, 347

346 PB, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 37, 40, 41, 54, 347 perception, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 38, 58, 65, 80, 82, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 107, 112, 114, 116, 132, 133, 137, 139, 140, 141, 143, 182, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 227, 230, 233, 234, 237, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 252, 256, 257, 260, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281, 282, 286, 288, 289, 290, 301, 309, 310, 322, 340, 347 performance, 39, 42, 103, 106, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 140, 148, 149, 151, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 167, 168, 170, 188, 192, 278, 294, 348 performing arts, 106, 110, 112, 113, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 149, 338, 348 person, 1, 4, 5, 12, 17, 29, 35, 37, 42, 43, 45, 61, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 73, 75, 89, 93, 105, 148, 155, 173, 174, 185, 201, 202, 207, 216, 223, 227, 231, 233, 234, 241, 242, 257, 258, 259, 263, 272, 274, 277, 308, 309, 314, 317, 318, 328, 330, 348 personality, 13, 16, 85, 187, 285, 312, 318, 348 perspective, 2, 12, 14, 26, 32, 37, 47, 62, 67, 69, 76, 103, 106, 107, 112, 117, 124, 133, 176, 177, 186, 193, 195, 198, 208, 215, 224, 268, 281, 297, 306, 314, 325, 329, 348

Index photons, 256, 259, 262, 300, 315, 326, 348 plants, 90, 220, 250, 255, 301, 348 point of being, 11, 12, 13, 34, 47, 55, 99, 214, 215, 219, 273, 348 point of view, 3, 10, 16, 22, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 47, 55, 64, 68, 73, 84, 99, 100, 106, 110, 112, 118, 121, 124, 130, 133, 135, 184, 215, 217, 220, 224, 225, 237, 245, 264, 265, 269, 272, 273, 278, 281, 285, 290, 301, 302, 309, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315, 320, 321, 323, 348 post-Galilean condition, 297, 299, 348 presence, 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 14, 17, 23, 27, 35, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 63, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 99, 108, 110, 113, 115, 116, 125, 127, 143, 156, 185, 187, 188, 191, 198, 199, 205, 206, 209, 222, 223, 225, 230, 231, 234, 238, 239, 244, 256, 261, 262, 273, 276, 277, 278, 284, 301, 306, 314, 348 proprioception, 1, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 54, 59, 107, 113, 114, 127, 128, 135, 139, 280, 348 proprioceptive, 3, 4, 11, 12, 15, 22, 87, 104, 113, 115, 129, 132, 134, 137, 140, 223, 224, 348 Proprio-receptors, 15, 348 Q quantum, 7, 16, 29, 30, 63, 85, 165, 169, 172, 174, 177, 183, 190, 196, 233, 251, 252, 255, 256, 259, 264, 266, 267, 268, 271, 281, 290, 297, 298, 299, 300, 303, 305, 307, 312, 313, 315, 316, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 326, 327, 328, 330, 348

The Point of Being R reading, 6, 20, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 46, 86, 198, 207, 208, 209, 219, 241, 270, 272, 274, 348 reason, 18, 51, 81, 90, 158, 159, 204, 205, 228, 240, 246, 250, 260, 261, 262, 269, 282, 302, 307, 311, 314, 327, 329, 330, 348 robots, 36, 45, 349 S Sam-Taeguk, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 174, 175, 179, 181, 184, 187, 188, 193, 349 screen, 10, 25, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 81, 123, 155, 170, 192, 221, 312, 349 Second Life, 34, 35, 36, 42, 285, 286, 320, 323, 349 self-organizing behaviour, 263, 349 semiconductor, 86, 99, 349 sense of being, 13, 18, 271, 279, 280, 283, 290, 349 sense of touch, 14, 38, 206, 225, 236, 239, 241, 244, 245, 247, 249, 251, 256, 270, 275, 276, 278, 349 senses, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 37, 38, 40, 46, 47, 79, 80, 81, 82, 87, 96, 97, 99, 100, 107, 113, 125, 130, 161, 166, 171, 176, 187, 198, 200, 201, 202, 205, 206, 207, 215, 216, 217, 234, 239, 244, 246, 247, 249, 250, 272, 275, 276, 277, 278, 280, 309, 312, 313, 314, 349 sensibility, 1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 15, 24, 29, 40, 80, 81, 83, 93, 94, 130, 173, 174, 200, 201, 205, 207, 214, 224, 238, 241, 256, 275, 286, 290, 311, 316, 349 sensing without sensing, 6, 165, 166, 167, 171, 176, 182, 183,

347

184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 349 sensor, 213, 239, 242, 245, 272, 283, 349 sensorial order, 20, 21, 23, 349 shaman, 6, 156, 157, 171, 174, 179, 180, 181, 184, 236, 349 shame culture, 48, 349 Shin-Myeong, 165, 166, 167, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 188, 190, 193, 194, 349 Simondon, 123, 124, 144, 349 skin, 3, 13, 14, 15, 17, 40, 47, 66, 131, 224, 232, 233, 244, 245, 247, 250, 260, 261, 262, 308, 349 sky, earth and human, 168, 169, 172, 195, 349 Sloterdijk, 214, 219, 230, 231, 236, 251, 260, 287, 295, 308, 333, 349 somatoreceptors, 15, 349 sonorous Body, 349 soul, 25, 43, 67, 204, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 222, 226, 228, 229, 230, 232, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 256, 258, 262, 288, 314, 349 space, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 40, 41, 54, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 86, 87, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 111, 112, 114, 115, 116, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 158, 165, 167, 169, 171, 172, 181, 182, 183, 187, 190, 191, 192, 209, 214, 215, 218, 219, 224, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236, 239, 242, 246, 255, 256,

Index

348 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 271, 274, 275, 276, 279, 280, 282, 284, 286, 287, 288, 290, 299, 300, 301, 303, 308, 310, 314, 320, 324, 325, 326, 327, 349 speed of evolution, 30, 349 sphere of animation, 349 spheres, 4, 62, 122, 136, 153, 207, 214, 219, 224, 226, 231, 232, 236, 240, 251, 252, 256, 259, 260, 275, 288, 290, 308, 310, 319, 349 spirituality, 7, 28, 82, 92, 216, 264, 297, 298, 303, 307, 308, 328, 350 subjectivity, 4, 15, 24, 29, 35, 66, 95, 114, 119, 126, 136, 215, 216, 229, 242, 350 Suely Rolnik, 105, 112, 113, 117, 126, 135, 136, 145, 350 Susan Kozel, 43, 350 Synaesthesia, 57, 202, 350 T tactile, 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 22, 25, 29, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 111, 115, 127, 128, 129, 134, 167, 191, 198, 199, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 229, 234, 239, 244, 266, 267, 270, 276, 309, 313, 324, 350 tactility, 2, 4, 9, 10, 22, 38, 42, 43, 166, 207, 267, 269, 271, 293, 350 techno-cultural fields, 262, 350 technology, 1, 5, 17, 39, 46, 49, 69, 71, 72, 87, 88, 95, 103, 104, 106, 107, 113, 114, 115, 117, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 129, 131, 132, 134, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145, 165, 166, 186, 187, 190, 191, 193, 214, 215, 219, 220, 225, 229, 231, 242, 245, 260, 262, 265, 271,

281, 283, 285, 286, 290, 297, 298, 311, 323, 336, 337, 338, 350 techno-psychology, 35, 350 telematic, 43, 94, 131, 181, 265, 350 telepresence, 9, 24, 41, 44, 45, 350 telereceptors, 15, 350 texture, 14, 20, 37, 39, 170, 305, 350 thought, 3, 12, 18, 21, 26, 36, 38, 39, 41, 44, 46, 67, 70, 71, 74, 82, 84, 85, 86, 88, 95, 96, 111, 120, 121, 123, 127, 132, 147, 150, 161, 168, 170, 174, 182, 185, 187, 197, 201, 204, 213, 214, 216, 219, 221, 226, 228, 230, 237, 242, 248, 249, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258, 259, 263, 264, 265, 267, 281, 286, 287, 288, 290, 305, 307, 312, 319, 321, 323, 327, 350 time, 2, 7, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 40, 42, 43, 45, 47, 49, 53, 54, 62, 63, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 83, 85, 87, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 106, 107, 108, 110, 114, 115, 116, 120, 122, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 157, 159, 161, 162, 163, 168, 171, 173, 181, 185, 190, 192, 193, 201, 204, 207, 209, 216, 219, 230, 232, 233, 235, 236, 239, 246, 253, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262, 263, 265, 267, 268, 271, 272, 274, 275, 276, 279, 280, 284, 286, 289, 290, 300, 301, 303, 309, 310, 313, 314, 315, 317, 320, 321, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 330, 337, 350 topology, 64, 65, 350 touch, 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 47, 138, 198, 199, 200, 202, 206, 208,

The Point of Being 209, 215, 216, 219, 225, 228, 229, 231, 234, 236, 238, 243, 244, 245, 247, 249, 251, 252, 255, 256, 257, 260, 262, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 274, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 284, 285, 286, 290, 304, 309, 311, 350 transcendence, 171, 181, 350 transduction, 9, 14, 15, 233, 350 U unconsciousness, 47, 351 V vibratory collective body, 114 virtual, 3, 4, 6, 24, 25, 26, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 65, 69, 72, 85, 87, 88, 90, 93,

349

99, 100, 105, 111, 114, 165, 166, 167, 183, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 231, 234, 252, 287, 320, 339, 351 vision, 1, 4, 10, 15, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 37, 38, 40, 41, 56, 74, 80, 82, 90, 97, 98, 106, 124, 125, 140, 167, 198, 200, 201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 209, 215, 216, 220, 238, 243, 244, 267, 269, 270, 272, 274, 275, 277, 278, 285, 290, 293, 303, 308, 309, 317, 325, 351 Vygotsky, 201, 360 W weak force, 10, 324, 360 wisdom, 237, 258, 286, 316, 330, 360