The Postphenomenological Corporeity Artistic Practices on the Borderline between Art and Science

Abstract

The paper presents the notion of postphenomenology and implies that postphenomenological body is both sensual and spiritual. It is ambivalent, perhaps even paradoxical. Postphenomenological approach to the problem of corporeality seems somewhat different, which is most pointedly evidenced by Henri Maldiney’s reflections, or the work of Jean-François Lyotard, on the borderline of phenomenology. They perceive subjectivity as sensual and affective, haunted by the sensual fact and, paradoxically, formed in an act tantamount to its destruction and abolition. On the other hand, the body also turns out to be invisible and filled with symbolism, it refers to the metaphysical dimension, turning us towards incarnation in the Christian sense, which is superbly illustrated in the writings of Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Marion, but also Jean-Louis Chrétien. As such, postphenomenology seems a perfectly suit able method for describing the work of artists who, for instance, as Marion Laval-Jeantet, injected herself horse blood plasma or make bread containing fragments of their own DNA with a view to ritually consuming it, as Karolina Żyniewicz did.