Diachronic Perspectives on Embodiment and Technology: Gestures and Artefacts

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 a Researcher in Philosophy of Science and Technology at the Science Faculty of the University of Lisbon with his investigations on ＂Hacking Humans. Dramaturgies and Technologies of Becoming Other＂. His research interests include philosophy of technology, 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. He is head of the research group ＂Philosophy of Technology, Human Sciences, Art and Society (GI3)＂ at the Center of Philosophy of Sciences (CFCUL), teaching Computer & Society and History and Philosophy of Technology at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon (FCUL).

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 led the 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).