The Art of Distributed Cognition

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Nowadays, the mind is often equated with the brain. But 'distributed' cognition - the idea that cognition is distributed across not only the brain, but also body and the world - is also widely considered in philosophy and cognitive science. Our AHRC-funded History of Distributed Cognition (2014-8) project showed that distributed cognition is not a new idea. The project revealed the diversity of ways in which distributed cognition has been expressed in beliefs and practices from classical antiquity to the twentieth century. We collaborated with National Museum of Scotland (NMS) to illustrate the way in which artefacts in their collections could extend thinking; we created a series of online seminars and lectures; we gathered scholars from across the humanities to create a four-volume landmark series on the History of Distributed Cognition (Edinburgh University Press, 2018-19). In the Art of Distributed Cognition project we will create an exhibition that challenges participants' beliefs about, and sense of, where their minds end and the world begins. The History of Distributed Cognition showed how different periods, traditions and scientific and technological innovations, led to different beliefs and practices of distributed cognition. Renaissance workshops trained apprentices to think 'with the hand' and to be able adopt the style and perspective of the master painter, with drawings circulating and often collaboratively created. Surrealists aimed to escape the confines of rational thought by employing materials and methods which took over parts of the creative process from their brains. In collaboration with Talbot Rice Gallery, we have designed an exhibition that explores the ways in which artworks can explore how our body, objects, language, ideas, other people and environments extend our capacity to think. The Extended Mind art exhibition will demonstrate how artworks enable spectators to undergo new perceptual, emotional, physical and other cognitive experiences. Distributed cognition raises questions about the interpretation of galleries and museums, demonstrating ways in which artefacts and artworks extend our biological cognitive capacities and draw physical culture into the creative process. The 12 international artists we have chosen reflect different ways in which human cognition extends across brain, body and world. For instance, Gianfranco Baruchello's works explore connections between industrial and natural processes, between flows of matter and flows of thought, revealing a thoroughly connected and distributed world. Myriam Lefkowitz offers visitors the opportunity to experience the city of Edinburgh in a completely different way - with eyes closed, individuals will be led by the hand by trained guides, who take them out of the Gallery and into the streets, awakening to embodied, sensorial experience. The mounds in Agnieszka Kurant's artworks were created for her by termite colonies, which plays on the ways in which we unwittingly contribute to social media multinationals without knowing our 'playbour' is being harvested for their profit. Magali Reus makes sculptures that reconfigure familiar objects, such as enlarged padlocks, to make us rethink their function and make us aware of the ways in which such mechanisms effectively organise aspects of our lives - they are things that when unlocked, enact pre-defined patterns of thought. Through a diverse range of contemporary artworks we will illustrate distributed cognition, particularly focusing on the themes brought to the fore by HDC, and so open new ways of interpreting the exhibition. The Extended Mind exhibition will demonstrate the applicability of distributed cognition not only to art, but to our ways of understanding the value of the arts and humanities for society.