On making futures with human touch

Anna M Barona,Lambros Malafouris

doi:10.1177/1059712321989428

Abstract

We commend Rietveld’s affordance-based approach to art and architecture for foregrounding an oft-neglected area in the cognitive sciences: the material dimension of human cognition, creativity and imagination. We suggest that supplementing the cross-disciplinary approach that Rietveld calls for with insights from archaeology and anthropology can not only help us create futures ‘with human touch’ but also gain a deeper understanding creativity more broadly.

Highlights

If there is anything that archaeology has increasingly come to realise in the past few decades, it is that humans have always been a self-engineering kind
As materialconfigurations of spaces and things, can put forward tangible propositions for possible futures. These are futures ‘with human touch’ or, as Rietveld proposes at the start of his lecture, futures for which technologies are meaningful in a deeper sense
Much progress has been made in the philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences in terms of bringing the mind out of the brain: embodied, enactive and ecological approaches give us plenty of ways to think about the relationship between cognition and material culture in a manner that avoids neurocentrism (Newen et al, 2018)

Summary

Introduction

If there is anything that archaeology has increasingly come to realise in the past few decades, it is that humans have always been a self-engineering kind. Rietveld in this compelling piece gives the reader much to think about in terms of the meaning of making, the role of artistic practice and the recursive and dynamic interaction between materials and bodily practices.

Results

Conclusion