Techno Body Practices && – Matthew MacKisack

TECHNO BODY PRACTICES && – Matthew MacKisack (London)

Vortrag / 29.11.2022

Outside Imagining: artmakers and neurocognitive diversity

This lecture is about the relationship between imagining - internal, mental imagery - and making - the physical manipulation of materials. We will explore the power dynamics of the relationship between the artist and their environment, focusing on how, for some, the external world can 'guide' imagining.

Drawing on qualitative psychological research we will explore the historical and conceptual implications of the fact that, for artists as much as the general population, imagery experience ranges from absence to near-perceptual vividness. It is the latter group that fulfils the Romantic stereotype of the artist imagining intensely and vividly before realising those images in the world. But not all artists work like this - in fact, as we will see, the material environment can play a therapeutic role for the non-imaging individual.

We will find that, while all art-making involves a degree of cognitive extension (using the environment in a feedback loop between eye, hand, and material), the possibility exists that the individual's neurocognitive constitution (i.e. the strength of their imagery) is a factor in where, in art-making, the boundary between mind and world lies.

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Matthew MacKisack is an academic, writer, and editor. Since gaining his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, he has held research positions at the University of Exeter Medical School and China Academy of Art, Hangzhou. His work explores relationships between modernity, artistic practice, and the mind.

29.11.2022, 18 Uhr
Nebenflut, Seg. 7, Am Speicher XI 8, 28217 Bremen