Expandend Cognition. On diagrammatic signs as embodied means of thinking

• Applicant: Dr. Daniel Irrgang
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2020 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 454773373

The study is motivated by a fascination with diagrammatic representations: Like an interface to the complexities of the intelligible, they create a surface of optical consistency through which these complexities become conceivable as sensual, and accessible experimentallyprojectively as an offer for manipulation. But what are the conditions of the possibility of this coupling of sensuality and understanding, which is revealed in the operative iconicity of diagrammatic signs? The study pursues the assumption that it is not so much the pictoriality and visualization of structure that is at work in diagrammatic representations, but rather the spatiality of the body or its spatio-temporal orientation (sensorimotor functions), as the basic projection of meaning on our environment: Projected onto a two-dimensional surface spatial categories such as inside/outside, up/down, left/right, above/below, etc. appear as basic functions of diagrammatic representations. They provide an intuitive overview and show the way the respective diagrammatic signs operate. Such an extension of the diagrammatology discourse makes it connectable to current positions in cognitive science, including cognitive semantics or the heated debate on the possibility of embodied and extended mind. However, the extension also requires a critical component in order to avoid a reductionist limitation of this work to the efficiency and effectiveness of diagrammatic signs. This danger is obvious if one considers only their spatio-temporal or physical mode of operation and the rationality of their formal representation. For this reason, the work also establishes connections to positions from science and technology studies (STS), which have long been concerned with the specific function of representations as non-trivial artefacts of knowledge and also take into account the cultural bias of these representations: Even the apparently formal diagrammatic representations from the apparently rational natural sciences do not depict phenomena, but represent them, in a certain way that is influenced by technical, cultural and social variables (or bias). This extended perspective on the material conditions of a visualism in the sciences – the need to transfer phenomena into the domain of the visible – makes an extended hermeneutics necessary, which can play an important role especially in diagrammatology. The third part of this work applies a strong concept of diagrammatics, based on the previous extensions, to a particular case of diagrammatic theory and practice: Vilém Flusser’s concept of the “technical image”, which is related, at least according to one of my theses, to his own diagrammatic sketching practice. In this last part, under the auspices of a strong concept of diagrammatics, these connections are worked out and thus an as yet unexplored dimension in Flusser’s work is opened up.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants