The search for knowledge has continued to expand to new domains since its start in the seventeenth century. Some of them have proved unusually resistant. Methods have had to proliferate to deal with the obstacles, for example in the social domain. There also have been ideological reactions. Surprisingly frequently, methods and activities that appear to be effective in dealing with such domains are classified as "preliminary" or are distinguished by a "point of view" that has yet to be transcended to (...) achieve "true" knowledge. One such activity is the acquisition of high quality experience. It is argued in the paper that it does not deserve being treated as a poor relative. It has a history of its own and can point to many successes, for example in the development of new values and emotions. Its only drawback seems to be that the search for high quality experiences has tended to be heuristic, or if one wishes, artistic. This situation is changing, however. In the paper the differences between the acquisition of knowledge and that of high quality experience are delineated. It is argued that facilitation of the latter's searches requires the development of interactions between entities that generate and structure experiences--i.e., of human collectives that stabilise sufficiently to execute a collective action in their environment. They are characterised by the use of coordinating languages. (shrink)

The enactive approach to perception is generating an extensive amount of interest and debate in the cognitive sciences. One particularly contentious issue has been how best to characterize the perceptual experiences reported by subjects who have mastered the skillful use of a perceptual supplementation (PS) device. This paper argues that this issue cannot be resolved with the use of third-person methodologies alone, but that it requires the development of a phenomenological pragmatics. In particular, it is necessary that the experimenters become (...) skillful in the use of PS devices themselves. The "Enactive Torch" is proposed as an experimental platform which is cheap, non-intrusive and easy to replicate, so as to enable researchers to corroborate reported experiences with their own phenomenology more easily. (shrink)

In this article I have written about a set of experiences with theatre productions over the last few years that have appealed strongly, in different ways, to the heart. To contextualise the phenomenon, I have coined the phrase theatre of the heart, and have provided an analysis of its manifestations with reference to non-linear theatre, atmosphere, love, and wisdom and age. I have provided examples for each of those contexts from recent theatre practice. In sharing this experience and my interpretation (...) of it, I hope to enable other spectators to make sense of experiences they have encountered but may not be able to place, or to open them up to such experience in the first instance. My considerations may also support theatre artists to be courageous and develop the theatre of the heart further. (shrink)

This essay extends the epistemology of practice put forward in *What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research* through a detailed application of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s social and historical epistemology to a 2011 solo performance by the author at Movement Research in New York City. Whereas *What a Body Can Do* surveys a range of historical and contemporary practices, this article attempts for the first time to enact a close technical and epistemic reading of the author’s own embodied (...) research. Eleven minutes of practice are analyzed in what the author, following Rheinberger, calls the phenomenotechnical mode. The article works to distinguish this mode of analysis from more prevalent approaches such as those associated with phenomenology, semiotics, and cognitive studies. In addition to suggesting how a rigorous phenomenotechnical analysis might be applied to one’s own embodied practice, the article offers insight into a specific line of embodied inquiry in post-Grotowskian song-action, with supporting photo and video documentation. (shrink)