Re-embodying: Boatbuilding, Social Imagining, and the Senses
Maria Alexia Platia
This thesis explores the centrality of the body in shaping our lived experience and perception of the world. It aims to
reveal connections and divides between the body and the mind and the body and technology. Through self-ethnographic
anecdotes and design instantiations that traverse the sensory in-between, this thesis unfolds how our body informs our
identity, interaction with others, and our environment. In setting forth an emplaced view of human existence as
fundamentally interrelated and bound by a reciprocal exchange with nature, it underscores our responsibility to approach
the living world and technological mediation through a more embodied lens.
The Body is the Medium
This installation brings the communion between mind and body to the forefront. The disorienting soundscape clashes with the fluid movement of the body, creating a dynamic interplay of sensory stimuli. In all their dissonance, these elements are in conversation with each other, inviting the viewer to participate in the dialectic.
The Body is the Medium
The Body is the Medium
The audio layers sample tracks from Cicada Dream Band—an interspecies collaboration featuring musician David Rothenberg, overtone singer Timothy Hill, avant-garde composer Pauline Oliveros, and humming cicadas, superimposed by Constantine Cavafy’s poem “Body, Remember,” recited in both Greek and English.
In reflecting back on what made my experience building traditional wooden boats so transformative, I set out to uncover
how the body lies at the core of our lived experience as it relates to ourselves, others, and the spaces we inhabit.
Self-Ethnography
Manifesto
On Movement
