In our age of massive industrial production, surreal
consumption, euphoric communication and fictitious digital environments, we
continue to live in our bodies in the same way that we inhabit our houses,
because we have sadly forgotten that we do not live in our bodies but are
ourselves embodied constitutions.
Embodiment is not a secondary experience; the human existence is
fundamentally an embodied condition.
Today, our senses and bodies are objects of ceaseless commercial
manipulation and exploitation. Physical
beauty, strength, youth and virility are adored in the realms of social values,
advertising and entertainment. In case
we fail to possess ideal physical qualities, our bodies are turned against us
as causes of deep disappointment and guilt.
With ever-accelerating frequency, all our senses are exploited by
consumer manipulation, yet at the same time these very same senses continue to
be undervalued as prerequisites of our existential condition or as educational
objectives. Intellectually, we may well
have philosophically rejected the Cartesian duality of body and mind, but the
separation continues to rule in cultural, educational and social practices.
Human conscious is an embodied consciousness and we are
connected with the world through our senses.
Our hands and entire body possess embodied skills and wisdom.
-Juhani Pallasmaa from The Thinking Hand
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