“Concepts in the Making” – Elissavet Kardami

Maaike Bleeker’s lecture offered an expanded understanding of the notion of literacy which approaches corporeality as a source of knowledge. What I particularly enjoyed from the lecture was that, instead of presenting the results of her research, she guided us through the process of shaping the concept of corporeal literacy. Her lecture exemplified how the work of different thinkers like Walter Ong, Brian `re-evaluate and re-articulate common understandings of literacy and conceptualizations of embodiment. The way her lecture gradually progressed exemplified how the development of a new concept, or in other instances the rearticulation or reappropriation of an existing one, creates new connections between various lines of thought. On the one hand, the concept of corporeal literacy challenges dualistic approaches between body and mind. On the other hand, it offers new tools on how to understand contemporary media and their potential to reconfigure our senses, as well as develop new patterns of thinking and moving in the world. These new patterns of thinking and moving in the world are closely connected to, and shaped by, new technological affordances and the specificities of the culture(s) from which they emerge. Corporeal literacy provides a perspective on the body as an active agent, a recipient and a facilitator of change in the environment, always as part of an extended network which shapes perception and cognition. Consequently, the engagement with this concept offers a point of entrance into current discourses on cognition and consciousness and can inspire new ways of making sense of the highly mediatized cultural landscape of the 21st century. At the same time, technology also acquires an extended meaning. Technology is part of an evolving ecosystem. Old and new technological artifacts are not just tools that we use. They are an integral part of our perception and they are intertwined with our cognitive and physical development.  This shows how the development of new concepts create new lineages of thought throughout history. It sheds a new light onto the past. It can help us understand the present and think about future possibilities. This can also be related to Munster’s view of history as an enfolded topography that is always dynamic and able to offer an understanding of the past as “present” in the present but not as a fixed and fully explicated.  Overall, by being able to articulate how embodiment in combination with new technological affordances can provide new types of knowledge, we extend the conceivable possibilities of perception. Moreover, we can revisit the past, explore new ways of perceiving it and understand how it relates to the present.

Sources

• Munster, Anna. Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics. Hanover (N.H.): Dartmouth College Press, 2006.