The phenomenology of embodied heuristics in contemporary art: exploring novel modes of cognition and thought

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problem of the entirety of knowledge of the world, in particular the problem of knowledge of the “invisible”. The authors use a phenomenological research method, complemented by elements of the naturalistic method. These methods complement each other and create the conditions for a new understanding of the body, the corporeal and its functional capacities. Contemporary art uses this methodological synthesis and creates context to form new cultural meanings. It shows that the artist’s aim is to search for new semantic contexts that fit organically into the theory of the embodied mind. Architectural and sculptural art indirectly activated questions of knowledge, creating a sense of “height” through one’s own body as a path to the transcendent and access to the mystery of the “invisible”. The modern cognitive paradigm is in crisis: the development of cognition based on rational tools is unable to grasp the objectivity of the world in its totality. The artist activates an inner attunement to specific trajectories of thought, thus destroying the limits of knowledge and expanding its boundaries. The philosophical analysis of the activation of the senses, taking into account bodily capacities and embodied rationality, points to a possible path for the development of knowledge in the future.