«What makes us human is not our rationality, aptitude for language, upright posture, or our ability to make tools – but our ability to represent things.» (Hans-Jörg Rheinberger)
The declarative consciousness of man is based on memories which can be consciously recalled, related and referred to other memories. This referral is possible thanks to so-called propositional speech acts communicated by specific declarative speech and memory systems in the human brain. Our procedural consciousness also includes non-verbal behaviour and emotions, however, which are communicated by older (in evolutionary terms) areas of the brain and also support communicative utterances in the form of non-propositional, emotional vocalisations. It would seem then that what we currently understand as communication is a form of emancipation from the older, non-propositional form of discourse, thereby facilitating the recursive power of thought and speech. A form of «representation» based on gesture and onomatopoeia would therefore have favoured the process of teaching primarily, with what was being represented having to free itself from the compelling link with emotional (fight, flight, or freeze) responses. The purpose of this «didactic representation» was highly favourable then to the emergence of a communication system: In the beginning was the play?
The project looks at whether what we know about these hypotheses from the field of neuroscience can help with performative practice and artistic education – and if so, how.