Dear Kathryn
I agree about the embodiment aspects and I would see that all
agonistics have, at their core, an account of and an encounter with,
the body. Part of the difficulty lies in the different apprehensions of
the body that are available through the mediation of experience and
being-in-the-world.
Language, for me, is a key aspect of my being-in-my-body and my
being-in-the-world. Textiles are also key though nobody pays me to talk
about that even though I make textiles.
For many people, their account of language seems like a half-remembered
encounter with a vague ghost - many people seem to find language to be
abstract and more slippery than silk. I find language in my body just
like I find silk at my finger tips and in the centre of my eye.
Just as there are polyglots and polymaths so maybe we need a category
of poly-bodies - those who inhabit a wide range of sensory identities. I
recognise that mathematicians experience numbers as things just as
carpenters experience bits of tree as wood.
Maybe we need an expanded existential psychology that can inform us of
the varieties of sensory apprehension?
great re-direct
cheers
keith russell
oz newcastle
>>> Kathryn Simon <[log in to unmask]> 6/26/2008 3:03 pm >>>
Great conversation. Happy to be mostly a lurker-There are a couple of
issues that have come up that a very least need to be considered.
Most critical to me is design as a practice-that it is essentially
connected
to embodiment. It
becomes a tactile experience whose agency isn't really in words but in
the
realm of the senses.
I also agree that each of the design arts seems to have a different
quality
to its activity. Graphic design
is not like fashion. and so it goes. Each works with different elements
and
envisions them in dynamic
ways that are unique to their discipline.
There is also a terrific difference between those who practice design
and
those who write/think/research
on design. Its my personal feeling that the direction things have been
heading in for quite a while and will
continue to is about the connection-the embodiment not the rigor of
thinking
it through but the actual product
as it relates, is part of human life.
Kathryn Simon
Adjunct Professor
Fashion History and Fashion Theory
Parsons School of Design
New York
AAS Dept.
917 226 2860
Cultural Producer & Curator
Art/Design
On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 11:56 PM, Gavin Melles <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Wittgenstein's family resemblance is useful here (substitute design
for
> game)
>
> 65. Here we come up against the great question that lies behind
all
> these considerations.-For someone might object against me: "You take
the
> easy way out! You talk about all sorts of language-games, but have
> nowhere said what the essence of a language-game, and hence of
language,
> is: what is common to all these activities, and what makes them into
> language or parts of language. So you let yourself off the very part
of
> the investigation that once gave you yourself most headache, the
part
> about the general form of propositions and of language."
>
> And this is true.-Instead of producing something common to all that
we
> call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in
> common which makes us use the same word for all,-but that they are
> related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of
this
> relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all
"language".
> I will try to explain this.
>
> 66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I
mean
> board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What
is
> common to them all? -- Don't say: "There must be something common,
or
> they would not be called 'games' "-but look and see whether there is
> anything common to all. -- For if you look at them you will not see
> something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and
a
> whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! --
>
> And see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#Lan (below)
>
> It is here that Wittgenstein's rejection of general explanations,
and
> definitions based on sufficient and necessary conditions, is best
> pronounced. Instead of these symptoms of the philosopher's "craving
for
> generality", he points to 'family resemblance' as the more suitable
> analogy for the means of connecting particular uses of the same
word.
> There is no reason to look, as we have done traditionally * and
> dogmatically * for one, essential core in which the meaning of a
word
> is located and which is, therefore, common to all uses of that word.
We
> should, instead, travel with the word's uses through "a complicated
> network of similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing" (PI 66).
Family
> resemblance also serves to exhibit the lack of boundaries and the
> distance from exactness that characterize different uses of the same
> concept. Such boundaries and exactness are the definitive traits of
form
> * be it Platonic form, Aristotelian form, or the general form of a
> proposition adumbrated in the Tractatus. It is from such forms that
> applications of concepts can be deduced, but this is precisely what
> Wittgenstein now eschews in favor of appeal to similarity of a kind
with
> family resemblance.
>
> -----
> Swinburne University of Technology
> CRICOS Provider Code: 00111D
>
> NOTICE
> This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and intended only
for
> the use of the addressee. They may contain information that is
> privileged or protected by copyright. If you are not the intended
> recipient, any dissemination, distribution, printing, copying or use
is
> strictly prohibited. The University does not warrant that this
e-mail
> and any attachments are secure and there is also a risk that it may
be
> corrupted in transmission. It is your responsibility to check any
> attachments for viruses or defects before opening them. If you have
> received this transmission in error, please contact us on +61 3 9214
> 8000 and delete it immediately from your system. We do not accept
> liability in connection with computer virus, data corruption, delay,
> interruption, unauthorised access or unauthorised amendment.
>
> Please consider the environment before printing this email.
>
--
|