Performative embodiments and corporealities
The notion of the body as either an interface through which we perceive the world, or a mirror/producer of perceptions are definitely interrelated. It would be very difficult to prove it philosophically but we can prove it phenomenologically, that is, by observing the use/notion of the body occurring in contemporary daily life and art.
Why is this easier to observe this way? Because when we study these manifestations we actually receive a mediated body and it is that mediation which reveals the notion of body that is being addressed.
The defense mechanisms established through mediation allow us to perceive the body as cleansed and infinite. It is possible to understand the body better through mediation thanks of this notion of augmented or hyperbolic reality. In that sense it constitutes an hermeneutic exercise: it consists of putting the images of reality in front of the viewer and carefully going through its description to -through the careful description- see what remained vague or blurred.
A dermatological idea, that of the skin as "ultimate frontier", might prove very efficient in encapsulating the perceptive elements of the being such as: mind, heart, spirit (differentiated from soul), body and soul. Ultimately it will be these elements who are responsible for creativity, and in such sense establishing a difference between the body as interface or the body as mirror/antenna might prove efficient for philosophy for the purpose of categorizing cognitive processes; but our reality proves that the ways in which we embody the world do not differ much from the ways in which the body embodies our collective experience.
It makes us all responsible and capable of realizing that what we see in the world is there because the human body has produced it. Mediations, like glasses, allow us to see this better.
Watch: Geoffrey Alan Rhodes – Mirror (2006, 6:09) and also his amazing Mirror Series
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