"The visual arts world increasingly embraces temporal “unobjects” and events that range from phenomenological investigations to technically saturated, responsive a/v environments—dissolving not only Michael Fried’s notion of object-hood but also the notion of the work external to human perception itself. This talk will examine the repercussions of James Turrell’s and Robert Irwin’s proposal to investigate the thresholds of perception in an experiential environment. Specifically, it will focus on the conception of the self and body in both contemporary artistic practices with media coupled with recent concepts arising from enactive cognition. What happens to the “sensing self” and its embodiment in audio-visual environments that overload or reduce our perception and how does this self expand or dissolve through such encounters?"
