Carnal Knowledge: Towards a 'New Materialism' Through The Arts - Paperback

by Barbara Bolt (Editor), Estelle Barrett (Editor)

Carnal Knowledge is an outcome of the renewed energy and interest in moving beyond the discursive construction of reality to understand the relationship between what is conceived of as reality and materiality, described as the 'material turn'. It draws together established and emerging writers, whose research spans dance, music, film, fashion, design, photography, literature, painting and stereo-immersive VR, to demonstrate how art allows us to map the complex relations between nature and culture, between the body, language and knowledge. These writings are unique in the field because they represent the authors' commitment to a new materialism through the creative arts. The questions they address include: Does the material turn in the creative arts take a different turn from continental epistemology, philosophy and the humanities? How does the agency of matter, the material nature of artistic practice and the notion of 'truth to materials' affect what we understand as the 'new materialism'? In engaging with these questions the book offers perspectives on the emergence of this exciting fresh field of new materialism.

Author Biography

Estelle Barrett is Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. She is the author of Kristeva Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts (2011) and is co-editor, with Barbara Bolt, of Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry (2007), both I.B.Tauris. Her reviews and articles have appeared in such publications as Text, Social Semiotics, Double Dialogues and the Journal of Visual Arts Practice. Barbara Bolt is Associate Professor in the School of Art at the Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne. She is a practising artist and art theorist. Her publications include Art Beyond Representation: The Performative Power of the Image (2004) and Heidegger Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts (2011), both I.B.Tauris. She is also co-editor of Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry (I.B.Tauris, 2007) with Estelle Barrett, and of Sensorium: Aesthetics, Art, Life (2007) with Felicity Coleman, Graham Jones and Ashley Woodward.