Since René Descartes famously separated the concepts of body and mind in the seventeenth century, western philosophy and theory have struggled to conceptualize the interconnectedness of minds, bodies, environments and cultures. While environmental psychology and the cognitive sciences have shown that spatial perception is 'embodied' and depends on the aforementioned concepts' interconnectedness, architectural design practice, for example, has rarely incorporated these insights. The article presents research on the epistemological foundations that frame the communication between design theory and practice and juxtaposes (...) it with scientific research on embodied experience. It further suggests that Asian aesthetics, with its long history in conceiving relations and art as interactive, could create a bridge between recent scientific insights and design practice. The article outlines an approach to the interconnectedness of minds, bodies, environments, the sciences and cultures, in favour of a future that is governed by creative wisdom rather than 'smart' efficiency. (shrink)

The gap between the limited human sense of how living entities change over time and the ways in which living systems change is one of the most potent uncertainties in ecological knowledge. This gap remains a significant source of problems and errors for those working with the transformations of living systems. This article foregrounds Mary Catherine Bateson’s cybernetic practice of working with narratives in order to cultivate better understanding and responses to change, at the level of both societies and individuals. (...) To do so, I investigate some significant moments, encounters and projects that connect her practice to the ecological ideas of her father, Gregory Bateson and situate their ideas on abduction, metaphor, recursion and narrative within broader discussions of ecological change. The Batesons did not seek a particular attitudinal change towards the transformation of selves, cities and worlds but rather sought to change the very understanding of what an attitude towards change should be, a distinction that is worth pondering given the challenges of attending to change within the present ecological crisis. (shrink)