Did I miss something? Since when did it become such a given that the corporeal should be so driven by technologic?

[charlotte nichol]

'At this point the question is not about the meaning of technology but rather about the meaning of the 'new'. On the other hand, I personally feel the importance to question the meaning and usage of 'technique' and 'technology'. This critical inquiry possibly evolves political issues fundamental for the future of humankind. To go further within, I believe that Heidegger's theory is essential to put the right questions.'

Writes Daniel Tercio...(Discussion group thread:2008)

 

In 2008 in a post entitled 'Heidegger' Tercio wrote on the importance of Heideggarian theory. The fact is most see Heidegger as anti-technology, however this I believe to be a deep mis-representation of his position. He asked 'what was the essence of technology?' not to critique it but to address our relationship to it. Technology in current western culture is something driven - driven by production, by rapid development and determinism and by a largely positivist discourse informed by phallocentrism.

 

So I wonder, in the adventure of further study - how this thing called dance, so tacit in its knowledge and expression and so visceral in its articulation of corporeal language, becomes so intertwined with technologic? Where still does this take the 'body'? How do we as dancers/movers relate to technology? How can we resist being driven by its sparkle and promise to sanitise something so innately human and corporeally expressive in its implicit epistemologies? At the risk of taking 2 steps forward and one step back, I guess, like Heidegger - I am wondering if this relationship to technology through dance/somatic practice needs to be observed through a lens of scrutiny that addresses the finer points of being driven by bigger and better applications and hardware that scientise study and make logical the body in practice? Or how can we as practitioners develop an awareness that fosters an approach to technology that is not seduced by its progressively logical invasion?

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this provocation. Response welcome.    

 

[Emma Meehan]

It seems to me that it is difficult to separate my body from technology considering the kind of society I live in. I spend so much of my time moving through and using and being scrutinised by technology all day - can we now say that our bodies are separate from technology?

So I am saying that perhaps when we perform, that maybe we are already in-formed by our relationship with the technological. But I think that we need to carefully consider and reflect on the way that the body and technology relate in performance and the implications or meanings this can have for the body/technology relationship in the world. It is a very complex interaction which I have only started to explore.

[charlotte nichol]

Our relationship to technology or technologies relationship to us ..... its a good question really. Where in are the power relations? I would agree - to live daily without it might seem fairly impossible even to not encounter it in society... I guess its easy to think of it as a way to project self(s) or other(s) - so I wonder what the human is in post-?