Diachronic Perspectives on Embodiment and Technology

This book investigates the relationships between gestures and artefacts theoretically and historically, by analyzing different phenomena stemming from a variety of fields such as robotics, archaeology, gesture studies, anthropology, philosophy, and gestural practices like choreography, music performance, and composition. It underlines how embodiment and technology change the interplay between maker and artefact over time and appeals to students and researchers in these fields. Its goal is to enable the reader to understand that the recurring topics and questions as well as multi-level similarities are by no means accidental, but can best be understood if one pays attention to the intertwinements of materiality and cognition, praxis and techne.

Thiemo Breyer is Professor for Phenomenology and Anthropology at the Department of Philosophy and Director of the Husserl Archives, University of Cologne (Germany). His research interests include embodiment, perception, and affectivity, as well as the philosophy of science and technology. Important publications: On the Topology of Cultural Memory (2007), Attentionalität und Intentionalität (2011), Verkörperte Intersubjektivität und Empathie (2015), Perspectives on the Philosophy of Culture (co-ed. with Elio Antonucci and Marco Cavallaro, 2022).

Alexander Gerner is Auxiliary Professor and Researcher at Cicant, Universidade Lusófona and FilmEU, European University, based in Lisbon, Portugal. He works on Dramaturgies and Technologies of becoming other from the perspective of performative and cinematic arts. He investigates conceptual relationships and praxis between pervasive digital technologies, creativity and persuasion, and interdisciplinary resonances in between philosophy, technology, aesthetics and ethics. His research interests include philosophy of technology, computer, art & society, media and the digital; diagrammatic praxis, philosophy of gesture, hacking cultures and alterity, philosophy of embodied cognitive enhancement,AI avatars and anthropology of technology, philosophies of attention, dramaturgies of film, play and performative media, phenomenology and aesthetics, generative AI aesthetics and (h)acktivism of green and digital transitions. Recently he started proposing improvisational, turbulence-driven strategies for a diagonal dialogues and encounters of open-thinking collectives to address the climate crisis and other (technological-political-aesthetic) uncertainties for realizing future commons (e.g. Quantum Communication commons in the global south).

Niklas Grouls is a Research Coordinator at the Research Center "Work ¿ Education ¿ Digitalization" at the University of Hagen as well as a professional grant consultant. His interests lie in the field of history and theory of science as well as philosophical methodology.

Johannes Schick is currently scientific coordinator of the Collaborative Research Center 1187 "Media of Cooperation" at the University of Siegen (Germany). From 2017 to 2021 he ledthe research project "Action, Operation, Gesture: Technology as Interdisciplinary Anthropology" at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities, University of Cologne (Germany). From 2013 to 2017 he was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Research Lab "Transformation of Life" (a.r.t.e.s.). His current research focuses on interdisciplinary (techno-)anthropology, French epistemology, philosophy of life and the relation of anthropology and philosophy. He is a member of the editorial board of the Durkheimian Studies (new series). Furthermore, he is interested in phenomenological psychiatry and the phenomenon of creativity. In his PhD thesis he focused on the relation of intuition and emotion in the philosophy of Henri Bergson (published as: Erlebte Wirklichkeit. Zum Verhältnis von Intuition zu Emotion bei Henri Bergson (2012).

1. Diachronic Perspectives on Embodiment and Technology: Gestures and Artefacts An Introduction.- 2.  Playing with Arte(f)actors.- 3. The Ineffability of Motion in Robotics.- 4. Sophia the Robot as a Political Choreography to Advance Economic Interests: An Exercise in Political Phenomenology and Critical Performance-Oriented Philosophy of Technology.- 5. Gestures, Diagrams, and the Craft of Musical Composition.- 6. Describing Robot Gestures by Design and Agency: An Exploration with Dennetts Stances.- 7. The Philosophy of Gesture and Technological Artefacts.- 8. The Orchestration of Bodies and Artifacts in French Family Dinners.- 9. Towards an Ecology of Gesture: A Review (and some Promising Paths).- 10. Petrified Practice: Is there a Vernacular Choreography of Neanderthal Movements?.- 11. The logos of techné A Case for Technology as Interdisciplinary Anthropology.