The Art of Distributed Cognition

如今，头脑常常被等同于大脑。但在哲学和认知科学中，也被广泛认为是分布式认知--认知不仅分布在大脑中，而且分布在身体和世界上。我们AHRC资助的分布式认知史(2014-2008年)项目表明，分布式认知并不是一个新概念。该项目揭示了从古典时代到二十世纪，分布式认知在信仰和实践中表达的方式的多样性。我们与苏格兰国家博物馆(NMS)合作，展示了他们收藏的文物如何扩展思维；我们创建了一系列在线研讨会和讲座；我们汇集了来自人文学科的学者，创建了一部四卷本的里程碑式的分布式认知史系列(爱丁堡大学出版社，2018-19年)。在分布式认知艺术项目中，我们将创建一个展览，挑战参与者关于他们的思维结束和世界开始的信念和感觉。《分布式认知的历史》展示了不同的时期、传统和科技创新如何导致分布式认知的不同信念和实践。文艺复兴时期的工作坊训练学徒用手思考，并能够采用大师画家的风格和视角，画出流传并经常合作创作的图画。超现实主义者的目标是通过使用材料和方法来逃离理性思维的限制，这些材料和方法从他们的大脑中夺走了部分创造过程。与塔尔博特·赖斯画廊合作，我们设计了一个展览，探索艺术品如何探索我们的身体、物体、语言、想法、其他人和环境如何扩展我们的思考能力。扩展心灵艺术展将展示艺术作品如何使观众经历新的感知、情感、身体和其他认知体验。分布式认知引发了对画廊和博物馆的解读问题，展示了文物和艺术品如何扩展我们的生物认知能力，并将物理文化引入创作过程。我们选择的12位国际艺术家反映了人类认知跨越大脑、身体和世界的不同方式。例如，詹弗兰科·巴鲁切罗的作品探索了工业过程和自然过程之间的联系，物质流和思想流之间的联系，揭示了一个完全相连和分散的世界。Myriam Lefkowitz为游客提供了以一种完全不同的方式体验爱丁堡这座城市的机会-闭上眼睛，个人将在训练有素的导游的带领下，走出画廊，走上街头，醒来，体验身临其境的感官体验。Agnieszka Kurant作品中的土堆是白蚁群体为她创造的，白蚁群体利用我们在不知情的情况下为社交媒体跨国公司贡献资金的方式，而不知道我们的‘Platbour’正在被收获以获取他们的利润。马加利·雷乌斯制作的雕塑可以重新配置熟悉的物品，比如放大的挂锁，让我们重新思考它们的功能，并让我们意识到这种机制如何有效地组织我们生活的方方面面--这些东西在解锁时，会产生预先定义的思维模式。通过一系列不同的当代艺术作品，我们将展示分布式认知，特别是关注HDC带来的突出主题，从而打开解读展览的新方式。扩展心智展览将展示分布式认知不仅适用于艺术，也适用于我们理解艺术和人文对社会的价值的方式。

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.