BoK2019

The special issue of IDEA journal includes twenty-two BoK2019 conference presentations developed into full papers, selected for publication through a  double blind peer-review process.

Co-Constructing Body-environment: idea journal 2, no. 2 (2020).

https://idea-edu.com/journal/index.php/home

The issue can also be accessed via the BoK2019 website:

https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/bok2019/journal/

in addition it is available via:

  • University library, search for this issue in the journal data bases- fully accessible via EBSCO-HOST, to which nearly all university libraries subscribe.
  • publisher’s website AADR to purchase a copy: HERE
  • Visit online e-book platforms such as Apple Books.
  • Beginning in 2020, all issues of IDEA journal will have approximately 30% of the articles uploaded to the IDEA website and the AADR website at the date of publication. The entire issue will be open access on these sites one year later. You can find the sample articles HERE.

Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia) hosted the second international Body of Knowledge: Art and Embodied Cognition Conference, from 27-29 June. We have reconfigured the conference site to function as a research resource and archive / document of the conference. Most notably, videos from the conference keynote presentations and conversations are available as well as the conference program, exhibition catalogue, and information regarding the special issue of IDEA journal which will publish a selection of peer-reviewed papers developed from the conference presentations.

BoK2019 focused on the intersections of art and science to foster conversations that increase the potential for knowledge transfer and celebrate diverse forms of embodied expertise. The conference thematics were expanded to include cultures of practice and communities of practitioners that offer a range of perspectives on inclusion, diversity / neurodiversity and disability. The aim was to encourage the discussion of art as a process of social cognition and address the gap between descriptions of embodied cognition and the co-construction of lived experience. 

BoK2019 aimed to generate questions that explore the dynamic between an organism and its surroundings, by asking: How does art shift the way knowledge and thinking processes are acquired, extended and distributed? How do cognitive theories offer ways to enact and change individual and collective ways of thinking? The aims of the first Body of Knowledge Art and Embodied Cognition Conference, which was held at UC IRVINE in 2016 were to “bring together an interdisciplinary group including cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, philosophers of mind, physiologists, psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, computer scientists, artists and designers to explore emerging cognitive neuroscience and theories of embodied cognition.”

The expanded and inclusive approach to BoK2019 emphasized lived-experience of research. This was reflected in the structure of the conference—designed as a series of activated conversations. Keynote presentations were designed as conversations, pairing researchers and practitioners that have art and/or science expertise into one session. This allowed diverse perspectives to interact and promote discussion across the delegation. Keynote Conversations included prominent researchers and practitioners in the sciences, arts, design, social sciences and humanities. [*] 

The concept of interdisciplinary exchange permeated the event in other ways, including an ‘audit traces’ team who tracked, recorded and reported on interactions as well as speculated on the way disciplinary perspectives adapt and transform. The conference attracted scientists, scholars, designers and creative practitioners and cultural producers (art educators, arts administrators, art-health practitioners).

The conference, hosted by Deakin University, was co-sponsored by the School of Communication and Creative Arts, the Science and Society Network (Alfred Deakin Institute), School of Health and Social Development, the Disability, Inclusion & Advocacy at Deakin and the Senselab (Concordia University, Montreal).

Program

Conference Program: 

Conference presenter abstracts:


 

Committee

BOK2019 Organisers

Photo credit: Tobias Titz

 

Convenor of BoK2019 / Jondi Keane is an arts practitioner, critical thinker and Associate Professor of Art and Performance at Deakin University. Over the last three decades he has exhibited, performed and published in the USA, UK, Europe and Australia. and has published in range of interdisciplinary journals exploring contemporary art, embodied cognition and experimental architectural environments. His research interests include contemporary art practices, particularly performance-installation and collaboration as well as art and cultural theory, theories of cognition and the philosophy of perception, experimental architecture, and the way in which the arts contribute to common concerns. http://www.jondikeane.com

 

 

Photo credit: Steve Davis

 

Co-organizer BoK2019 /Rea Dennis is a performance practitioner and scholar based in Melbourne, Victoria who makes works ranging from site-based social engagement, to intense black box physical performance works. She also has a multimedia practice exploring perception and affect. She lecturer in Art and Performance at Deakin University and writes critical papers addressing experiences of thinking through making, embodied cognition and performance. Her work has toured to UK, New York, Taiwan, Germany, Brazil and Japan.

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: Amin Weber & Martin Streit.

 

Co-organizer Bok2019 / Scott deLahunta  has worked as writer, researcher and organiser on a range of international projects bringing performing arts with a focus on choreography into conjunction with other disciplines and practices. He is currently Professor of Dance, Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University (UK) and Senior Research Fellow, Deakin Motion.Lab, Deakin University (AUS). He is co-directing (with Florian Jenett) Motion Bank at the Hochschule Mainz University of Applied Sciences. http://www.sdela.dds.nl

 

 

 

Photo credit: Stacey Keenan

 

Co-organizer Bok2019 / Emma Whatman is a sessional academic and research assistant in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. Emma finished her PhD in March 2019 and her research focuses on fairy-tale media, postfeminism and adaptation. She teaches undergraduate and masters courses in digital media, children’s literature and gender and sexuality studies. Her most recent publications can be found in The Routledge Companion to Fairy-Tale Media Cultures (2018) and The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics (2017). Emma was a co-convener of the recent conference, ‘Queer Legacies, New Solidarities’ and can be found on Twitter at @emmawhatman.

 

 

 

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE

  • Patrick Pound – Art and Performance, SCCA Deakin
  • Cam Bishop – Art and Performance, SCCA, Deakin
  • David Cross – Art and Performance SCCA Deakin
  • Shelley Hannigan – School of Education Deakin
  • Sean Redmond – Screen and Design, SCCA, Deakin
  • Rosemary Woodcock – Screen and Design, SCCA, Deakin
  • Stefan Greuter – Screen and Design, SCCA, Deakin
  • Eben Kirksey – Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin
  • Emma Kowal, Director SSN, Alfred Deakin Institute
  • Russell Tytler – School of Education, Deakin 
  • Susan Baladin – School of Health, Deakin
  • Charles Anderson – Landscape architecture. RMIT
  • Jules Maloney – School of Design, RMIT
  • Andrew Goodman – Visual Art and Art Theory, Latrobe,
  • David Turnbull – University of Melbourne
  • Chris Cottrell, MADA, Monash
  • Ian Gibson – University of Twente, the Netherlands
  • Scott Andrew Elliot- artist, Helsinki
  • Pia Ednie-Brown- School of Architecture, University of Newcastle
  • Jelle van Dijk – Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, Netherlands
  • Claire French – University of Chichester
  • Sally Jane Norman, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Tony Chemero Univ of Cincinnati (next BoK organiser)
  • Simon Penny UC Irvine (BoK2016 organizer)
Photo credits: Left: Mike Davis. Right: Jessica Schäfer. 
[*] 2016 Keynotes: Simon Penny, (director) Professor of Art, Department of Art, University of California, Irvine; David Kirsh, Professor of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego; Erik Myin, Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp; Evan Thompson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver; Giovanna Colombetti, Professor, Department of Sociology, Philosophy & Anthropology, University of Exeter; Anthony Chemero, Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Cincinnati; Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Independent Scholar, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon.