1st Edition
Embodiment and Mechanisation Reciprocal Understandings of Body and Machine from the Renaissance to the Present
By Daniel Black
Copyright 2014
220 Pages
by
Routledge
220 Pages
by
Routledge
220 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Drawing on philosophical, neurological and cultural answers to the question of what constitutes a body, this book explores the interaction between mechanistic beliefs about human bodies and the successive technologies that have established and illustrated these beliefs. At the same time, it draws upon newer perspectives on technology and embodied human thought in order to highlight the limitations... Read more
Introduction; Chapter 1 How to Look at Bodies; Chapter 2 Machina Carnis; Chapter 3 Android Dreams; Chapter 4 Informateriality; Chapter 5 An Aesthetics of the Invisible; Conclusion;
Biography
Daniel Black is Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Monash University, Australia and co-editor of Complicated Currents: Media Flows, Soft Power and East Asia. He has published numerous book chapters and articles investigating our embodied relationship with technology, including publication in journals such as Body & Society and Theory, Culture & Society.
’Embodiment and Mechanisation is an exciting and impressive exploration of the matter of mechanistic thought, and one that makes a profound contribution to contemporary theories of embodiment and the intellectual histories that shape them. Black’s analysis of the complex and shifting body-machine relationship is insightful, richly variegated, and precise in its execution. From dissection to information processing, automata to robotics, steam engines to artificial intelligence, Embodiment and Mechanisation is a veritable tour de force. Try as I might, I couldn’t put it down.’ Nikki Sullivan, Macquarie University, Australia
