THINKING BODIES

Thinking Bodies was conceptualised as an effort to build an exploratory body of knowledge(s), that draws upon the festival’s theme and weaves together perspectives, writing styles and formats. Drawing from the theme of the FIBER Festival 2024 edition, Outer/Body, we invited aspiring and emerging writers from a multiplicity of backgrounds to share their contributions, ranging from essays to interviews to poetries, resulting in a rich archive of knowledge.

The writers explored alternative re-figurations of the body and forms of embodiment;, non-Western perspectives on the body, the body in relation to its environment; the body under extreme weather conditions and sensory experiences; the representation, augmentation, and control of bodies within algorithmic culture; organic and hybrid bodies; the body as subject and object in the encounter with sound and visual art and performance. Furthermore, they reflected upon the festival’s programme through thoughtful profiles and interviews of artists, speakers, and performers.

In reconsidering the boundaries of our bodies, we are urged to question whether these limits are as fixed as they seem. The body is not a closed-off entity but as something continuously shaped by external forces. Our bodies don’t just react to the environment; they absorb and are absorbed by it. Thinking Bodies, and by extension Outer/Body, invites you to rethink the body as something that extends beyond its physical boundaries, evolving with the worlds it touches.