> The global account of the metalworkers? material imaginary I have provided > here suggests that the lived experience of metalworkers in sixteenth-century > Europe emerged from a long-term itinerary of materials and trade goods, such > as pigments and silk. Over the long history of these goods and materials > being cultivated and worked within different communities, a ?material > complex? of written texts and material practices?of making and knowing?formed > around them and journeyed with them as they moved. What we see written down > in the sixteenth-century European metalworking texts is just the tip of an > iceberg in a process of knowledge formation. Following the processes of > amalgamation and agglomeration by which such material complexes and their > material imaginaries emerged can provide a new understanding of how human > beings produce knowledge. By focusing on the material dimensions of the human > engagement with matter over the deep human past, and by following the flows > of material objects and > techniques?, we can delineate the formation of knowledge systems as they > emerged from material, social, and cultural fields. A historical analysis > that begins with natural materials, then follows them through their > reciprocal interactions with human bodily practices into objects that are > given meaning, used, consumed, desired, and studied by human communities, can > be illuminating. Indeed, each of these stages?the materials, the > human-material interactions via skilled practice, and the objects and their > meanings in production, use, consumption, and in their afterlives?can form > whole, self-contained sites of study and analysis. Today, researchers in > different disciplines share the view that mind and hand are not separate in > human cognition and action; however, we do not have a concept or vocabulary > for the amalgam formed by the actions of brain, mind, and body. If we agree > that making and knowing are an inseparable whole, then new accounts of where > mind and hand intersect in the inte > rface with the material world?material histories?may be able to bring them > together to provide a foundation for thinking and writing in non-dichotomous > ways about mind-hand knowledge and action. >
I liked where your interest in alchemy might have brought you. I once had an epiphany of the living materiality of the moving ores beneath us. Your citing of the the “material complex” echoes the recent philosophical trend of New Materiality & OOO. And with Abiogenesis, you can see a correlation with other current ideas such as Emergence Theory and not only philosophy’s Assemblage, but bio-physics’ Assembly Theory. -- - Anthony Stephenson http://anthonystephenson.org/ _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
