On Technics and the Human Sensorium.docx

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On Technics and the Human Sensorium

Notes for Technics and the human sensorium, Mark Cot, 2010 in Theory &

Event

Andrei Leroi-Gourhan, paleo-anthropologist studied ethnology under MarcelMauss in 1930s.

Bernard Stiegler

Mark Hansen Marshall McLuhan etc re traditional medium theory examines

media artifacts as concrete mediations between the human and environment in

historically specific forms (page 8 of printed version).

Technics biology life

Medium ontological condition of humanization - HansenExteriorization

In my language by Amanda Briggs autistic lineration front

You tube

See coming alive in a world of texture for neurodiversity, Massumi and erring

from dance conference

Difference between Phusis is what emerges from itself see likeness with

performative utterance, dehiscence.

and physis from Latin natura meaning to be born.

In the age of the first and definitive unfolding of Western philosophy among the

Greeks, when questioning about beings as such and as a whole received its true

inception, beings were calledphusis. This fundamental Greek word for beings is

usually translated "nature." We use the Latin translation natura which really

means "to be born," "birth." But with this Latin translation, the originary content

of the Greek wordphusis is already thrust aside, the authentic philosophical

naming force of the Greek word is destroyed... Now, what does the wordphusis

say? It says what emerges from itself (for example, the emergence, the

blossoming, of a rose), the unfolding that opens itself up, the coming-into-

appearance in such unfolding and holding itself and persisting in appearance--in

short, the emerging-abiding sway...phuein [the noun form ofphusis] means to

grow, to make grow (Introduction to Metaphysics, 14-15).

Now, when we say "things" in the phrase "phusis looks like something inherent in

things" and then delineate the Greek "enviornment" as where these things set up,

we are talking not about physical things and a physical environment, like a table,

lamp, etc. in a three dimensional space like a room. For the Greeks, what was a

thing was what was encounterable, claims Heidegger. In fact, a thing was thisencounter itself--not in the sense that some subjective viewpoint "created" the


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tripartite dimensionality for understanding prehistoric technics: the external milieu

of the environment actualized by that tool; the interior milieu of the intellectual

capital of that hominid group; and, finally, the technical milieu, the socioeconomic

and cultural factors inscribed into tools themselves. It is the former site, the external

milieu, where we can get a first sense of how technics couples with an environment

to reconfigure the environment in which the human lives. It is the latter site, thetechnical milieu, which will later be identified as an inorganic repository of memory

as it is characteristic of all tools to be a site of accumulation, of the sedimentation and

exteriorization of knowledge and practicesindeed, of memory itself. This technicalexteriorizationwill be put forward as a fundamental extra-biological dynamic in the

very process of the evolution of the human. (Smith, n.d, p. www.unpaginated)

The evolution of the pre-human body is understood via a series of radical breaks

in the modalities through which the world is experienced, from one sensoria to

another (p. www.unpaginated).

The sensorium is recalibrated via a series of liberations and actualizations: from

water to feet, from feet to hands, from hands to mouthlanguage.SUMMING UP:

Mark Cot, in his essay, Technics and the Human Sensorium: Rethinking Media

Theory through the Body, 2010, considers the evolutionary development of the

relationship between the human body and technology. He argues for a

reorganization of a Darwinian influence on theories of human development. In

relation to prehistoric technics Darwins theory of evolution proposes that the

size of the human brain determines our capacity for technics. Cot suggests how

the work of paleo-anthropologist Andrei Leroi-Gourhan realigns the

development of the pre-human brain with the liberation of the body from water,

followed by the hands from the ground and being on all fours. Subsequently, a

larger brain develops in relation to our upright position, because of the need to

support the skull. The bipedal system1 was pivotal to the emergence of tool

manufacture via the liberation of the hands. Tool use was incorporated into the

body, for instance, like claws. This viewpoint is interesting because it challenges

the idea of the human body and technology as distinctly separate categories.

Prehistoric technics were not rationalized in terms of prosthetic additions to the

body. Rather, our pre-humanAustralanthropian ancestors incorporated

1 Leroi-Gourhans theory explores how the bipedal system developed in conjunction withtechnics about two million years ago. The bipedal system restructures the order of the senses in a

hierarchy, see the synoptic body.


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prosthetics in a zoological manner. Stone tools were used like the claws of the

animal. As Cot, quoting Bernard Stiegler notes what is:

At stake, is not just our understanding of our contemporary mediated existence and

its political implications, but the provocative claim that we have never been human;that is, technology will be presented not as a prosthetic supplement to the biologicalbody but as comprising an originary condition, a defining characteristic of the human.

(2010, p. www.unpaginated)

Thus X argues for Da-sein as a relation oftechnframed by Cots argument that

suggests a radical collapse of the dichotomy between the epistmof pure

theoretical knowledge and techn as a purely practical knowledge aligned with

art and skill.2 The fundamental condition that defines human existence wrests

upon sensory perception that is only ever calibrated in relation to technics

(2010, p. www.unpaginated) and by extension, being-in-the-world as such.3

References

Cot, M. (2010). Technics and the human sensorium: Rethinking media theory

through the body. Theory & Event,13(4). Retrieved from

http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/journals/theory_and_event/v013/

13.4.cote.html

Smith, B. D. (n.d).Aristotle's unmoved mover. Retrieved November 17 2011, from

http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/PhilRel/AristotleLecture.htmWeber, S. (1996). Mass mediauras: Form technics media. Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press.

2 Cot explains how the hierarchy of philosophical knowledge over practical knowledge begins

with PlatosPhaedrus

, thephilosophic episteme (such as the Platonic ideal form) has precedence

and is valued over that produced via sophistic techne(2010, p. www.unpaginated). Eventually,

this hierarchy leads to the domination of sight over the other senses, in relation to the synoptic

position of the human body. It is under such a hierarchy that Plato can condemn knowledgeproduced and supported by writing (as manifestation oftechne) as both a contaminant and lesser

derivative of the epistemic knowledge or logosof critical dialogue (p. www.unpagionated).3The Oxford English Dictionarydefines the term technology as, the application of scientific

knowledge for practical purposes. X identifies technology as an umbrella term underscored by

technics, and techn. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably to connote Heideggers

sense of technology as a way of revealingpoisis. With reference to the close relation between the

epistm and techn Weber notes:

the knowledge that is technics is not addressed at making or producing particular things but

rather at the unlocking of beings as such. In this sense, techn is a form ofpoisis that in turnis closely related to art. (1996, p. 60)
http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/journals/theory_and_event/v013/13.4.cote.htmlhttp://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/journals/theory_and_event/v013/13.4.cote.htmlhttp://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/journals/theory_and_event/v013/13.4.cote.htmlhttp://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/PhilRel/AristotleLecture.htmhttp://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/PhilRel/AristotleLecture.htmhttp://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/PhilRel/AristotleLecture.htmhttp://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/journals/theory_and_event/v013/13.4.cote.htmlhttp://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/journals/theory_and_event/v013/13.4.cote.html

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On Technics and the Human Sensorium.docx