Diachronic Perspectives on Embodiment and Technology
November 28 – December 1, 2018
- Collaborative Research Centre “Our Way to Europe”
- Cologne-Lisbon Philosophy of Technology Lab
- a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne
Organisers: Thiemo Breyer, Alexander Gerner, Niklas Grouls, Johannes Schick
The relationship between gestures and artefacts
Gestures are a crucial form of human embodied expression, which can be defined as “visible action” (Kendon 2004) for the purpose of communication. Gestures are more than mere actions without words (Sigaut 2012). They go beyond the explananda of linguistics and communication studies (Mittelberg & Gerner forthc.). As social, aesthetic, and epistemic forms of display, they make the body and its corporeality thematic in relation to itself and to others against the background of ecologies of material affordances (Gibson 1977, Norman 1988), engagements within chronoarchitectures of action (Gosden & Malafouris 2015) and enactive individuations (Simondon 1958). Thereby, gestures allow for a reflection on cognitive (material and informational) ecologies (Hutchins 2014) as well as digital design and fabrication (Poulsgaard 2017).
The conference intends to take a diachronic perspective on the relationship between gestures and technical objects. The tactile-haptic exploration of the environment with its epistemic function for the perceiving agent, manipulative actions (ergotic gestures and interactions; Luciano 2007, Roth 2003), and cognitive-semiotic gestures are fundamental for the evolutionary and historical development of anthropotechniques and their correlative cultural artefacts. Gestures are dynamic, performative, and explorative; we can adapt Austin’s (1962) pragmatic function and ask (Kendon 2017): how to do things with hands (and bodies)?
