Being in the world as if there's nothing from the first : a praxis-framework for emergence

Abstract

Life is an ongoing process of unfolding within a continuum of matter-cognition-semiotics. Evolutionary dynamics and biophysical forces exhibit end-directed (teleonomic) behavior. They increase interconnection over time, integrating antecedent foundational emergent layers into new aggregations, with their own forms, semiotics, and cognition capable of better navigating the environment from which it emerged. Our current technologies and systems, an outcome of these currents of aggregation and agency, are increasing capabilities to interconnect and integrate across abiotic, biotic, semiotic, and cognitive spheres, leading to strong emergence and enframing. Critical aesthetic practices enable us to become conscious of the dominant epistemic, technological, and semantic structures that have become enmeshed in our perception giving us more agency, increasing our evolutionary flexibility, and allowing us to influence our becoming. By understanding underlying biophysical forces, evolutionary dynamics, and the relation of entities as a space inseparable from "Being," artists and cultural producers engaged in critical aesthetic practice can more easily perceive, embody, and analyze deep interconnections and dynamics within a world of increasing integration and complexity.