[Leonardo/ISAST Network] Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology by Susan Kozel -- NOW AVAILABLE from Leonardo Book Series

[Leonardo/ISAST]

NEW from Leonardo Book Series and The MIT Press
 
Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology
by Susan Kozel
 
In Closer, Susan Kozel draws on live performance practice, digital 
technologies, and the philosophical approach of phenomenology. Trained 
in dance and philosophy, Kozel places the human body at the center of 
explorations of interactive interfaces, responsive systems, and 
affective computing, asking what can be discovered as we become closer 
to our computers--as they become extensions of our ways of thinking, 
moving, and touching.
 
Performance, Kozel argues, can act as a catalyst for understanding wider 
social and cultural uses of digital technology. Taking this one step 
further, performative acts of sharing the body through our digital 
devices foster a collaborative construction of new physical states, 
levels of conscious awareness, and even ethics. We re-encounter 
ourselves and others through our interactive computer systems. What we 
need now are conceptual and methodological frameworks to reflect this.
 
Kozel offers a timely reworking of the phenomenology of French 
philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This method, based on a respect for 
lived experience, begins by listening to the senses and noting insights 
that arrive in the midst of dance, or quite simply in the midst of life. 
The combination of performance and phenomenology offered by Closer 
yields entwinements between experience and reflection that shed light 
on, problematize, or restructure scholarly approaches to human bodies 
using digital technologies.
 
After outlining her approach and methodology and clarifying the key 
concepts of performance, technologies, and virtuality, Kozel applies 
phenomenological method to the experience of designing and performing in 
a range of computational systems: telematics, motion capture, responsive 
architectures, and wearable computing.
 
The transformative potential of the alchemy between bodies and 
technologies is the foundation of Closer. With careful design, future 
generations of responsive systems and mobile devices can expand our 
social, physical, and emotional exchanges.
 
Susan Kozel is Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and 
Technology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.
 
April 2008
The MIT Press
A Leonardo Book
ISBN:0-262-11310-4
380 pp.
 
To order this book and to learn more about other titles in the Leonardo 
Book Series visit the Leonardo Book Series website at: 
http://www.leonardo.info/isast/leobooks.html
 
MEMBER DISCOUNT! Leonardo/ISAST Associate Members are eligible for 20% 
off all Leonardo Book Series titles as well as a number of other 
membership benefits! Visit http://leonardo.info/members.html for more 
details.
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