Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
This research explores the embodied and enskilled experience of cold water swimming, utilizing methods such as 'swim-along' interviews, participant observation, and task groups. While initial aims...Show moreThis research explores the embodied and enskilled experience of cold water swimming, utilizing methods such as 'swim-along' interviews, participant observation, and task groups. While initial aims to compare gender differences were limited by participant demographics, findings reveal that the embodiment of cold water swimming is deeply connected to the natural environment and offers significant physical and mental health benefits. Additionally, it examines the concept of community within cold water swimming groups in the UK and the Netherlands. These communities are characterized by shared experiences, support, and non-judgmental attitudes, fostering strong bonds among participants. Within these groups, the research aimed to delve into the gender composition and group interaction. It additionally considered how cold water swimming integrates into participants’ lifestyles, noting the positive impacts on personhood and lifestyle development. Overall, the study provides an extensive portrayal of cold water swimming.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
Birds are very prominent parts of nature; if you pay attention, you can hear them in many places all year round. This article describes bird identification activities as arts of noticing,...Show moreBirds are very prominent parts of nature; if you pay attention, you can hear them in many places all year round. This article describes bird identification activities as arts of noticing, particular ways of seeing things - in this case, bird species - that remain invisible to others. Through qualitative research methods and audio-visual methods, this study explores how different practices of bird identification at the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen, the Netherlands, shape how bird identifiers perceive, conceive, and value local ecologies. Different bird identifiers have a different idea of what nature is or could be - especially within the Dutch context, where people often say that “real” nature does not exist. Therefore, studying how bird identifiers conceptualise local ecologies is essential for understanding how they see themselves concerning non-human entities and how they interact with and treat the nonhuman. By discussing how bird identification practices shape embodied encounters with nature through skilled vision and listening, this study examines how particular conceptions of Dutch socio-ecological systems and subsequent pro-environmental behaviour arise from a specific art of noticing, i.e., bird identification. Apart from a written output, this study also consists of an audio-visual part. While in the written part of my thesis, I mainly focus on academic literature, applied research methods, and the results arising from those methods, my audio-visual output will focus on how bird identifiers are birding. I.e. in the audio-visual section of this thesis, I aim to show rather than write about how (professional) bird identifiers carry out bird identification and how their ways of seeing birds establish their conceptions and perceptions of local ecologiesShow less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
This thesis delves into the socio-spatial reality of a so-called ‘’Fablab’’ – short for fabrication laboratory- in Amsterdam. The Fablab is a workplace that facilitates open-source maker practices...Show moreThis thesis delves into the socio-spatial reality of a so-called ‘’Fablab’’ – short for fabrication laboratory- in Amsterdam. The Fablab is a workplace that facilitates open-source maker practices and education in efforts to demystify digital fabrication tools and machines such as 3D printers and laser cutters. Each of the three main arguments of this research touch upon knowledge production practices at the Fablab at different levels of analysis. First, at the level of the individual, this thesis describes sense-making activities through embodied making. In the fashion of the ''gewoon doen'' [ENG: ''just doing it''] mindset, makers are induced to involve their bodies in the maker process. Second, the open-source values of the Fablab are embedded in the open-ended layout of the space. Likewise, the socio-spatial set-up of the Fablab constitutes joint-making practices, resulting in collaborative knowledge. Third, situating the Fablab in relation to the other maker spaces at Waag allows for the investigation of inter-lab exchanges of knowledge. The spatial intimacy and open attitude of the makers present at Waag result in the interdisciplinary coming together of information. Altogether, this research attempts to tackle the question of how the socio-spatial situation of the Fablab shapes the production and coming together of embodied knowledge.Show less
The underlying claim of the investigation is that images don’t act as just mnemonic or decorating devices for the text but are instead an integral part of the philosophical knowledge disseminated...Show moreThe underlying claim of the investigation is that images don’t act as just mnemonic or decorating devices for the text but are instead an integral part of the philosophical knowledge disseminated through the text. By denying the auxiliary or even decorative role of images and viewing them as an integral part of a philosophical system, the thesis challenges the common-sensical view that image doesn’t have a place within the philosophical text which is seen as closer and more connected to thinking. As it can be noticed, the investigation relies on a historical account, an analysis of seventeenth-century accounts on the conception and role of images in thinking, followed by a contemporary phenomenological and embodied analysis, informed by neuroscientific finds, to give an answer to the main research question. Namely, what is the role that printed images have within an early modern philosophical publication for thinking and understanding?Show less
This thesis investigates the Early Modern context of oath swearing and breaking within Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. This thesis draws on John Kerrigan's work on oaths, as well as on Jonathan...Show moreThis thesis investigates the Early Modern context of oath swearing and breaking within Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. This thesis draws on John Kerrigan's work on oaths, as well as on Jonathan Gray's work regarding oath's and the English Reformation. The context and rules of oath-theory will show that the oaths sworn by the men of the play have lost spiritual potency, rendering the oaths ineffective. However, the women of the play represent a new way of swearing in which the absent authority (i.e. God) in oaths can be replaced with intimacy and a hallowed human connection. This argument is based on Isabel Karremann's interpretation of Elizabeth Mazzola's "remains of the sacred" (Karremann 67). Subsequently, this thesis will question how Love's Labour's Lost and its oaths can be staged and have been staged in societies that have largely secularised.Show less
Het enactivisme is een benadering binnen de cognitiewetenschappen, waarvan aanhangers cognitieve processen beschouwen als lichamelijke processen die ontstaan door de wederkerige interactie tussen...Show moreHet enactivisme is een benadering binnen de cognitiewetenschappen, waarvan aanhangers cognitieve processen beschouwen als lichamelijke processen die ontstaan door de wederkerige interactie tussen het organisme en de omgeving. Enactivisten doen een poging om de cognitie- en neurowetenschappen te verreiken met ideeën uit de traditionele filosofie van de fenomenologie. In mijn onderzoek laat ik zien dat ze met deze poging in een spanningsveld terechtkomen, een spanningsveld tussen de subjectieve ervaring en objectieve meting van lichamelijke processen. Om verdieping en inzicht in het spanningsveld te bieden, onderzoek ik de verschillende epistemische waarden van beide stromingen. Zo beschouw ik dat binnen de cognitie- en neurowetenschappen het geven van causale verklaringen een belangrijke waarde is, om te kunnen interveniëren in processen. Daarnaast beschrijf ik dat binnen de fenomenologie betekenisvolle ervaring centraal staat, om terug te keren naar de dingen zelf. Ik beargumenteer dat enactivisten in staat zijn om de cognitie- en neurowetenschappen te integreren met ideeën uit de fenomenologie, op voorwaarde dat ervaring de gemeenschappelijke grond blijft waaruit onderzoek ontspringt en causale verbanden worden gezien als de stabiele eenheid van meerdere ervaringen.Show less
There is increasing awareness of the importance of the body in psychology and philosophy of mind. Embodied accounts of the self are promising in explaining the perceived unity and continuity...Show moreThere is increasing awareness of the importance of the body in psychology and philosophy of mind. Embodied accounts of the self are promising in explaining the perceived unity and continuity characteristic of it: the body provides spatiotemporal locatedness, and embodied experience provides relationships to and interaction with the environment. Given this emphasis on the body, it is surprising to find a lack of consideration of how the embodied self persists through time: as a three-dimensional entity, or rather as a four-dimensional one with temporal parts as well as spatial parts? Conversely, in discussions on persistence over time, a purely mental approach is dominant. I set out to detail the metaphysical debate on persistence, how it is typically applied to persons, and develop a novel account merging various influential lines of thought. The result is an embodied self as a perduring, bio-processual entity.Show less
This thesis focuses on vernacular photographs that have been altered by artists stitching various forms of embroidery directly into the photographic paper, creating an interplay of thread, paper,...Show moreThis thesis focuses on vernacular photographs that have been altered by artists stitching various forms of embroidery directly into the photographic paper, creating an interplay of thread, paper, and image. The combination of these opposing traits into a single work subverts the viewer’s assumptions about both mediums, and constitutes a specific spectator experience. I utilise theories from film, photography, painting, and digital media that deal with materiality and embodiment in order to examine what is at work in an embodied spectator experience with specific works from four artists using varied approaches. My hope is to provide insight into potential avenues and outcomes for embodiment with both these objects in particular and embroidered photographs more broadly.Show less
This thesis explores the role and influence of artificial intelligence in our contemporary society through the inter-subjective and embodied experience of new media art. By exploring the...Show moreThis thesis explores the role and influence of artificial intelligence in our contemporary society through the inter-subjective and embodied experience of new media art. By exploring the intersecting lines between art, technology, cognition and society, it discusses the potential in artistic practices involving intelligent technologies, to reframe the way in which we engage with Artificial Intelligence. This research benefits from an interdisciplinary approach that reaches through and beyond the field of contemporary art to challenge the mainstream discussion on the future of A.I. and the ethics of its applications. In order to do so, this thesis begins by establishing an understanding of embodiment in light of postcognitive approaches that move away from the dualism of mind and matter and negate representationalist paradigms of perception. This forms the basis from which to explore the particular subjectivities and material encounters in the practice and experience of new media art that engages with intelligent technologies. This thesis uses specific case studies involving creative applications of A.I. in contemporary art to reveal our interaction and co-existence with intelligent technologies as intricate and uniquely entangled. With the support of scientific, philosophical and aesthetic theories, it ultimately argues that such applications of A.I. in artistic practice provide a unique perspective for a transformative encounter with regards to the self, to our performed reality and to our becoming in a posthumanist environment.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
closed access
Om in het huidige technologische tijdperk onderzoek te doen naar de herdefiniëring van het mens-zijn zullen in dit eindwerkstuk verschillende vormen van interactie tussen de mens en technologie...Show moreOm in het huidige technologische tijdperk onderzoek te doen naar de herdefiniëring van het mens-zijn zullen in dit eindwerkstuk verschillende vormen van interactie tussen de mens en technologie worden verkend en daarnaast geanalyseerd worden aan de hand van verschillende culturele objecten. Het onderzoek zal geleid worden door de volgende onderzoeksvraag: op welke manier bevragen de roman The Circle en de films Her en Ex Machina de relatie tussen de mens en technologie, met als effect de lezer en kijker aan te sporen om na te denken over de herdefiniëring van het mens-zijn in het posthumanistisch tijdperk?Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
2018-06-30T00:00:00Z
Edgar Wind (1900-1971) was a philosopher and art historian who developed a theory of the symbolic inspired by both the work of Warburg and Peirce. This thesis explores the way his philosophy...Show moreEdgar Wind (1900-1971) was a philosopher and art historian who developed a theory of the symbolic inspired by both the work of Warburg and Peirce. This thesis explores the way his philosophy engaged with questions about humanism, human freedom, and the status of scientific knowledge. Wind's engagement with these issues resulted a realist philosophy based on a view of symbolic representation as embodiment. In the end this is related to current discussions on human-thing entanglement within the material turn and the problems surrounding agency.Show less
