On Technics and the Human Sensorium Notes for Technics and the human sensorium, Mark Cot, 2010

in Theory & Event Andrei Leroi-Gourhan, paleo-anthropologist studied ethnology under Marcel Mauss in 1930s. Bernard Stiegler Mark Hansen Marshall McLuhan etc re traditional medium theory examines media artifacts as concrete mediations between the human and environment in historically specific forms (page 8 of printed version). Technics biology life Medium ontological condition of humanization - Hansen Exteriorization In my language by Amanda Briggs autistic lineration front You tube See coming alive in a world of texture for neurodiversity, Massumi and erring from dance conference Difference between Phusis is what emerges from itself see likeness with performative utterance, dehiscence. and physis from Latin natura meaning to be born. In the age of the first and definitive unfolding of Western philosophy among the Greeks, when questioning about beings as such and as a whole received its true inception, beings were called phusis. This fundamental Greek word for beings is usually translated "nature." We use the Latin translation natura which really means "to be born," "birth." But with this Latin translation, the originary content of the Greek word phusis is already thrust aside, the authentic philosophical naming force of the Greek word is destroyed... Now, what does the word phusis say? It says what emerges from itself (for example, the emergence, the blossoming, of a rose), the unfolding that opens itself up, the coming-intoappearance in such unfolding and holding itself and persisting in appearance--in short, the emerging-abiding sway... phuein [the noun form of phusis] means to grow, to make grow (Introduction to Metaphysics, 14-15). Now, when we say "things" in the phrase "phusis looks like something inherent in things" and then delineate the Greek "enviornment" as where these things set up, we are talking not about physical things and a physical environment, like a table, lamp, etc. in a three dimensional space like a room. For the Greeks, what was a thing was what was encounterable, claims Heidegger. In fact, a thing was this encounter itself--not in the sense that some subjective viewpoint "created" the

thing such as it was in "perceiving" it (a la Berkeley's idealism or even the formative power of Kant's transcendental subjectivity), but rather in that something one happened upon suddenly thrust itself to the fore in a concrete way that was not in that way before (and yet occurred prior to any thematizing thought of it, any perception as such). It was this encounter in that something in it and not in you allowed you to encounter it. To be more clear: one suddenly becomes aware of a thing there, within the field of intention or--since the Greeks didn't really think of "intention"--within the field of action, possibility, potentiality. Something comes before me and I encounter it, it encounters me, it thrusts itself into my field of action and possibility as something to be taken up by myself and engaged with, and at the same time I thrust myself upon it such that it becomes something to be engaged by my action. This moment or rather structure of engaged encountering is the thing in that it is in the distinctive power of the thing to come before me in this specific way. In other words, the thing's being-there makes possible this structure and this encounter as if by itself. What I come across in my environment comes before me in this particular way, and doing so is what is characteristic of the thing itself as a thing in my environment. Thus, what is a "thing" can be said to be that and only that which encounters me: it is never a thing like a table in three dimensional Cartesian space. Excerpt taken from: http://mikejohnduff.blogspot.co.nz/2007/07/readyat-hand-and-physis.html (Smith, n.d) asks, how can we rearticulate the parameters of the human vis--vis technology? Idhe asks, if I make technologies how, in turn, do they make me? Important, for me to show how I make the media but the media inherently makes me? Cot argues for pre-human lithic industry as intrinsically bound in a relation of technics. He suggests technics developed along with our Australanthropian prehuman ancestors via a zoological model exclusively already merged with technics. He suggests this is a precondition for language and not the other way around. Tools were used like the claw of an animal, a prosthetic extension of the hand. This view would be inconsistent with the traditional Darwinian theory of evolution involving brain size and capacity. the work of paleo-anthropologist leroi-Gourhan, states the first step toward technical exteriorization begins not with tools but with the feet. Suggesting a series of evolutionary liberations of human the body. Firstly from water hominoids walked on the ground on all fours. Then as we began to stand up and walk on two legs our hands were freed from locomotion and thus able to gather food. Which freed the brain from what he calls cranial squeeze. In Gourhans work his:

tripartite dimensionality for understanding prehistoric technics: the external milieu of the environment actualized by that tool; the interior milieu of the intellectual capital of that hominid group; and, finally, the technical milieu, the socioeconomic and cultural factors inscribed into tools themselves. It is the former site, the external milieu, where we can get a first sense of how technics couples with an environment to reconfigure the environment in which the human lives. It is the latter site, the technical milieu, which will later be identified as an inorganic repository of memory as it is characteristic of all tools to be a site of accumulation, of the sedimentation and exteriorization of knowledge and practicesindeed, of memory itself. This technical exteriorizationwill be put forward as a fundamental extra-biological dynamic in the very process of the evolution of the human. (Smith, n.d, p. www.unpaginated)

The evolution of the pre-human body is understood via a series of radical breaks in the modalities through which the world is experienced, from one sensoria to another (p. www.unpaginated). The sensorium is recalibrated via a series of liberations and actualizations: from water to feet, from feet to hands, from hands to mouthlanguage. SUMMING UP: Mark Cot, in his essay, Technics and the Human Sensorium: Rethinking Media Theory through the Body, 2010, considers the evolutionary development of the relationship between the human body and technology. He argues for a reorganization of a Darwinian influence on theories of human development. In relation to prehistoric technics Darwins theory of evolution proposes that the size of the human brain determines our capacity for technics. Cot suggests how the work of paleo-anthropologist Andrei Leroi-Gourhan realigns the development of the pre-human brain with the liberation of the body from water, followed by the hands from the ground and being on all fours. Subsequently, a larger brain develops in relation to our upright position, because of the need to support the skull. The bipedal system1 was pivotal to the emergence of tool manufacture via the liberation of the hands. Tool use was incorporated into the body, for instance, like claws. This viewpoint is interesting because it challenges the idea of the human body and technology as distinctly separate categories. Prehistoric technics were not rationalized in terms of prosthetic additions to the body. Rather, our pre-human Australanthropian ancestors incorporated

Leroi-Gourhans theory explores how the bipedal system developed in conjunction with technics about two million years ago. The bipedal system restructures the order of the senses in a hierarchy, see the synoptic body.
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prosthetics in a zoological manner. Stone tools were used like the claws of the animal. As Cot, quoting Bernard Stiegler notes what is:
At stake, is not just our understanding of our contemporary mediated existence and its political implications, but the provocative claim that we have never been human; that is, technology will be presented not as a prosthetic supplement to the biological body but as comprising an originary condition, a defining characteristic of the human. (2010, p. www.unpaginated)

Thus X argues for Da-sein as a relation of techn framed by Cots argument that suggests a radical collapse of the dichotomy between the epistm of pure theoretical knowledge and techn as a purely practical knowledge aligned with art and skill.2 The fundamental condition that defines human existence wrests upon sensory perception that is only ever calibrated in relation to technics (2010, p. www.unpaginated) and by extension, being-in-the-world as such.3

References Cot, M. (2010). Technics and the human sensorium: Rethinking media theory through the body. Theory & Event, 13(4). Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/journals/theory_and_event/v013/ 13.4.cote.html Smith, B. D. (n.d). Aristotle's unmoved mover. Retrieved November 17 2011, from http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/PhilRel/AristotleLecture.htm Weber, S. (1996). Mass mediauras: Form technics media. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Cot explains how the hierarchy of philosophical knowledge over practical knowledge begins with Platos Phaedrus, the philosophic episteme (such as the Platonic ideal form) has precedence and is valued over that produced via sophistic techne (2010, p. www.unpaginated). Eventually, this hierarchy leads to the domination of sight over the other senses, in relation to the synoptic position of the human body. It is under such a hierarchy that Plato can condemn knowledge produced and supported by writing (as manifestation of techne) as both a contaminant and lesser derivative of the epistemic knowledge or logos of critical dialogue (p. www.unpagionated). 3 The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term technology as, the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. X identifies technology as an umbrella term underscored by technics, and techn. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably to connote Heideggers sense of technology as a way of revealing poisis. With reference to the close relation between the epistm and techn Weber notes:
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the knowledge that is technics is not addressed at making or producing particular things but rather at the unlocking of beings as such. In this sense, techn is a form of poisis that in turn is closely related to art. (1996, p. 60)