Logomimesis: A Treatise On The Performing Body

What do the performing arts contribute to philosophical, ethical and political thinking today? This book is a study of the performing arts, the body and language. Inspired by contemporary artistic research and performance philosophy, Esa Kirkkopelto proposes a new understanding of embodiment that has no direct counterpart in existing philosophies of the body, in natural science, or in everyday experience. The way a performer imagines their body in performance breaks with body–language dichotomies so language and body can be conceived as co-original phenomena, beyond their anthropomorphic framing. Once we recognize the native relationship between body and language, we can acquire an evolutive perspective which reaches beyond ontological or transcendental paradigms, towards a more linguistic and corporeal coexistence. This book shows how radically different the world may appear from the point of view of the performing body. It addresses all who are interested in what a body can do.