Between sensuous and making-sense-of: an introduction

Abstract

In seeking to position the Open Arts Journal’s special issue ‘Between sensuous and making-sense-of’ the introduction opens by probing notions of binarity that are instrumental to the commonplace division of affect and meaning, sensing and intelligibility, material and discursive, and sensuous and sense-making. Subsequently, a variety of philosophical approaches that have sought to recognise the metaphysical underpinnings of such oppositionality are presented to indicate why this special issue has sought to explore the shared spaces of these terms as a fruitful arena of enquiry. Writing itself, whether art-historical writing or any other, is presented as a practice that inevitably partakes in material contingencies that engage the writer sensorially and sensuously. The epistemic trajectory of writing is thus already embroiled in the contingencies of material encounters. The introduction therefore indicates how writerly approaches that break down the binaries of intelligibility and the sensible fit into the historically shifting understanding of knowledge. Finally, a brief sketch of discourses around materiality and precis for all contributions are provided.