Why embodied approaches to cognition are better able to address the
performative dimensions of art than the dualistic conceptions
fundamental to theories of digital computing.
In Making Sense, Simon Penny proposes that internalist conceptions of
cognition have minimal purchase on embodied cognitive practices. Much of
the cognition involved in arts practices remains invisible under such a
paradigm. Penny argues that the mind-body dualism of Western humanist
philosophy is inadequate for addressing performative practices. Ideas of
cognition as embodied and embedded provide a basis for the development
of new ways of speaking about the embodied and situated intelligences of
the arts. Penny argues this perspective is particularly relevant to
media arts practices.
Penny takes a radically interdisciplinary approach, drawing on
philosophy, biology, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience,
cybernetics, artificial intelligence, critical theory, and other fields.
He argues that computationalist cognitive rhetoric, with its assumption
of mind-body (and software-hardware) dualism, cannot account for the
quintessentially performative qualities of arts practices. He reviews
post-cognitivist paradigms including situated, distributed, embodied,
and enactive, and relates these to discussions of arts and cultural
practices in general.
Penny emphasizes the way real time computing facilitates new modalities
of dynamical, generative and interactive arts practices. He proposes
that conventional aesthetics (of the plastic arts) cannot address these
new forms and argues for a new "performative aesthetics." Viewing these
practices from embodied, enactive, and situated perspectives allows us
to recognize the embodied and performative qualities of the
"intelligences of the arts."
