What do the performing arts contribute to philosophical, ethical and political thinking today?
This book is a study of the performing arts, the body and language. Inspired by contemporary artistic research and performance philosophy, Esa Kirkkopelto proposes a new understanding of embodiment that has no direct counterpart in existing philosophies of the body, in natural science, or in everyday experience. The way a performer imagines their body in performance breaks with body–language dichotomies so language and body can be conceived as co-original phenomena, beyond their anthropomorphic framing. Once we recognize the native relationship between body and language, we can acquire an evolutive perspective which reaches beyond ontological or transcendental paradigms, towards a more linguistic and corporeal coexistence.
This book shows how radically different the world may appear from the point of view of the performing body. It addresses all who are interested in what a body can do.
Biography
Esa Kirkkopelto is a performance artist, philosopher and artist researcher focusing on the deconstruction of the performing body in theory and practice. Kirkkopelto was Professor of Artistic Research at the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2007–2018 and now holds a similar professorship at the University of Tampere. He is a founding member of the performance art group Other Spaces.
