THINKING BODIES

An Introduction

Are the borders between our bodies fixed? Or is our skin actually porous, a “fleshy interface between bodies and worlds”, allowing substances to constantly enter and exit our bodies? Is the space between two bodies also a body? 

Both intimately private and up for public deliberation, the body is exposed to scrutiny, touch, and violence. Furthermore, the body is not a mere receptor of stimuli, but can be understood as an active medium that interacts with and shapes its environment, absorbing it and being absorbed by it. In the words of Donna Haraway, “why should our bodies end at the skin?”[1] Though decades-old, this enduring question exposes the fluidity of categorisation, threatening to implode Cartesian notions of the body as nothing more than a vessel for sensation and physical interaction. 

For much of the history of western philosophy the body has been conceptualised as simply an individual biological object among others, separate from our faculty for reason. In feminist somatics, the body is not just a physical entity, but a site of lived experience. The body is not individual, but collective. 

The notion of Thinking Bodies may initially appear paradoxical. According to the paradigm of Cartesian dualism, the body and the mind are often seen as separate and opposing entities. Yet, contemporary frameworks challenge this dichotomy. Posthumanism and post-anthropocentrism provide critical lenses through which to examine these issues, critiquing the humanist ideal of ‘Man’ as the purported universal measure of all things and challenging species hierarchy and human exceptionalism. As binary oppositions—such as body and mind, self and Other, inside and outside, human and nonhuman—become increasingly obsolete, they further complicate normative and Eurocentric conceptions of the body.

By interrogating these categories, we open ourselves to a more nuanced understanding of embodiment that aligns with the fluidity explored during FIBER Festival and the contributions presented in this collection.

FULL OVERVIEW ARTILES

FIBER 2024

With a focus on multi-sensory and embodied forms of experience, Outer/Body challenged visitors to experience new realities while questioning who (or what) defines the boundaries and compositions of bodies. Through multi-sensory installation art, boundary-pushing performances, and critical conversations, FIBER Festival 2024: Outer/Body will explore and question the boundaries and inextricable connections between body, mind, living environment, and technology.

The body is a constant fixture in art, as its subject, but it can also become an active participant, a necessary element of it. Installation art, sound art, media art all feature a form of embodied interaction and exchange with the artistic object, one which facilitates unique, embodied experiences.[2] The body is a ‘space-defining’ element of sound art, as scholar Andromachi Vrakatseli writes. “Installation art, with its immersive and participatory character, has been argued to require the use and awareness of the body, which potentially constitute key parts of the artwork's experience and appreciation.”[3]

Let’s take the installations, for instance, around which the two festival exhibitions were built. What kind of relationship occurs between the body and technology when the participant engages experientially with immersive installations? In the words of practitioner and scholar Sarah Rubige, immersive interactive installations are “multi-sensory experiential environments, designed to be inhabited rather than viewed as an artefact or event”, where the viewer becomes an active participant in the enactment of an ephemeral, site-specific, relational experience in which the body is a principal actor.[4] 

Open Call

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.

About the Contributions

Across over a dozen contributions, a group of emerging writers, based in Netherlands (and beyond) touched upon a tableau of reflections, critiques, and imaginative explorations. These writings traverse a wide spectrum of ideas—from the dissolution of bodily boundaries to the poetic interplay between sound and sensory perception, and from the choreography of everyday objects to the speculative politics of outer space. Collectively, they probe the relationship between body, environment, and technology, questioning hegemonic frameworks and celebrating alternative modes of being and knowing.

These writers extend the festival’s themes into personal, philosophical, and imaginative domains. They challenge readers to consider the porous boundaries between self and environment, the fluidity of identity, and the potential for art and technology to reshape how we perceive and inhabit the world. By engaging with soundscapes, installations, and performances, they reveal how art can make the unseen felt, and the unheard, audible. Their contributions invite readers to engage not only with the ideas presented but also with their own embodied interactions with the world—encouraging a deep, multisensory reconsideration of existence itself.

CREDITS

Authors: Anna Lina Litz, Babak Ahteshamipour, Borbala Magdolna Pal, Callum McLean, chiara pitrola, Eleni Maragkou, Joana Prochaska, Kat Milligan, Kiki Lennaerts, Nikolai von Moltke, Léa Shamaa, Mila Narjollet, Pembroke King, Timéo Menard.

Editorial & coordination: Eleni Maragkou
Festival theme: Jarl Schulp