As of 2023, the Editorial Organism of the journal Technoetic Arts has been 'in becoming' for three years. It will never 'be,' or, perhaps we should say, it will never want to be. Change is as inherent to the idea of an organism as it is to life. Development is at the heart of the editorial work we do. We learn every day – with our authors, reviewers, and board members. We learn from the ideas they place and the questions they raise as they link art to the body, consciousness, mind, technology, or to biology and other sciences.
As we think as artists, designers, composers, and scientists, there are no questions or ideas that are not engaged — in one way or another — in the material world. We think with things. They situate the frames through which we approach a question and deconstruct them. They provide orientation, and yet, they are not things of certainty.
What does it mean to be human?, asks Monika Michałowska in the editorial that introduces the special Technoetic Arts issue ‘Dismantling the Anthropocene’. Within this series, contributions ‘entwining philosophical, artistic and anthropological concepts to foster the idea of human–nonhuman dialogue and ethics of care’ (Michałowska, 2022: 4).
In this context, the mask plays a particular role (Żyniewicz, 2022). We became used to seeing in the mask a necessary defense technology — protecting us from others, disconnecting us from contaminated environments. And yet, as a shaman's technology, the mask has a long history of assisting in integrating people and things into communities. It is an opportunity to conceive of communities ‘otherwise.’
What implications do these differences have on our society and our interactions with others?
Art is almost always about creating a form of prosthesis: a thing to mediate relations. Grounded in an artist's experience, the thing is not necessarily made explicit as personal because the interest in remodeling relations rarely focuses on the connection between the artist and the audience but goes beyond.
When ready-made solutions seem only to deepen the problem, we need to create new things to re-think relations through modes of participation. The Technoetic Arts issue ‘On Modes of Participation’ displays performance artist Emie’s cyborg prosthesis on its cover and further reflects on the transformation of things into prostheses of thought in its editorial and a collection of articles that propose the reconfiguration of the worlds in which we live (Bardakos, Honorato, Jacques, Westermann, & de Filippi, 2021)(Elg, 2021).
In what ways do you use digital prosthetics to go beyond your worldview?
Confined to four weeks of quarantine in 2021, Editorial Organism member Claudia Westermann was lucky to be allowed deliveries from outside the quarantine hotel. The quarantine situation, however, turned the fruits she had ordered into a symbol of the pandemic. Calling forth and reaching out, the image of the quarantine fruits became the initiation of another issue of Technoetic Arts to be published in spring 2023.
What objects have become enduring symbols that prompt and continue to prompt reflection?
4/ Our Call, Your Voice
Once or twice per year, we send a call out to the community. The most recent has just been published. If you work at the juncture between art, technology and the mind, drawing from academic research or practice-based and other possibly unorthodox approaches, you may submit your article before the deadline on 30 July 2022 for issue number 1 of 2024. Technoetic Arts also welcomes original research articles for the ongoing special Cryptoart section that is co-guest edited by Primavera De Filippi.
Do you have a creative idea for a submission?
5/ The Editors’ Cloud Picnic
In a recent interview, Sarah Kearns asked us about the Cybernetic Picnics we have been running for a couple of years. A Cybernetic Picnic turns objects into relations, and as you might realise, it mirrors the spirit of this 'Five Things' newsletter. We have used it to connect the Technoetic Arts, Cybernetics and Systemic Design communities.
When discussing this newsletter, Dalila Honorato of the Editorial Organism suggested we have an Editors' Picnic — a picnic in the clouds, she said. If you would like to discuss an article or a special issue, if you are interested in becoming a reviewer for Technoetic Arts, or in academic writing more generally, please email us. We will be happy to let you know about our next picnic in the clouds.
When was the last time you caught yourself with your head in the clouds? What kind of cloud was it: digital, metaphorical, or celestial?
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