Bodies of Artifacts
Call for Papers, Journal of Somaesthetics vol. 7 no. 2
The relationship between the human body and cultural artifacts, such as design artifacts, artworks, and religious artifacts, is both fascinating and peculiar. For example, various art forms depict human and non-human bodies or use them as a point of reference. However, the body of artifacts has been neglected by philosophical aesthetics. Due to the dominant aspects of Western culture, artifacts have until recently been largely treated as “parenthetical” objects transcending strictly corporal matters. Artworks and religious objects are predominantly represented as intrinsic aesthetic or spiritual values and ideas that rise above their physical relation to the human body as well as other mundane considerations in general.
However, despite our knowledge that artifacts cannot sense and feel and thus act as agents, humans often make them subjects of passionate relations such as love or hate, which are traditionally reserved for the animated world, and thus project their feelings and emotion onto objects of art. The conceptualization of the human body and its perceptual, affective, and emissive capabilities might be a promising starting point for reframing the bodily nature of artifacts
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