Bodies of Knowledge: A Toolbox for Alternative Methods of Knowledge Production

Bodies of Knowledge: A Toolbox for Alternative Methods of Knowledge Production

researchers:

Jules Sturm (GRA)

research questions: How can we understand knowledge as not only mental, but as also shaped and produced by corporeal practices, gestures, and perceptions? How does our bodily condition structure our everyday experience? And how does the body force us to reflect about our temporal, spatial, material, social and environmental embeddedness in the world?

 

The project is based on embodied theories, which challenge traditional models of cognitive thinking by arguing that conceptual forms of knowing are always grounded in sensory and motor experiences. Theories of embodied knowing, as they have been formulated by contemporary theorists and artists alike, are bound to employ alternative methodologies. They offer ways of reconstructing and further developing practices of writing, thinking and making, which question common scientific approaches to knowledge production. Embodied theories will form the basis for the creation of the projected toolbox. The long-term goal will be to contribute to research practices at the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut that are significant for thinking about research in the arts as well as for future pedagogies within art schools. This pilot strives to expand the current discourse on research in our school and aims to spur discussion on the specific types of knowledge produced in the arts academy.

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Kneeled Shadow II (2009), House Of Knowledge (2008) by Jaume Plensa