Experience: Culture Cognition and the Common Sense

About this book

A book that produces sensory experiences while bringing the concept of experience itself into relief as a subject of criticism and an object of contemplation. Experience offers a reading experience like no other. A heat-sensitive cover by Olafur Eliasson reveals words colors and a drawing when touched by human hands. Endpapers designed by Carsten Hller are printed in ink containing carefully calibrated quantities of the synthesized human pheromones estratetraenol and androstadienone evoking the suggestibility of human desire. The margins and edges of the book are designed by Tauba Auerbach in complementary colors that create a dynamically shifting effect when the book is shifted or closed. When the book is opened bookmarks cascade from the center emerging from spider web prints by Toms Saraceno. Experience produces experience while bringing the concept itself into relief as an object of contemplation. The sensory experience of the book as a physical object resonates with the intellectual experience of the book as a container of ideas. Experience convenes a conversation with artists musicians philosophers anthropologists historians and neuroscientists each of whom explores aspects of sensorial and cultural realms of experience. The texts include new essays written for this volume and classic texts by such figures as William James and Michel Foucault. The first publication from MITs Center for Art Science & Technology Experience approaches its subject through multiple modes. Publication design by Kimberly Varella with Becca Lofchie Content Object Design Studio. Cover concept by Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Kimberly Varella (Content Object). Contributors Tauba Auerbach Bevil Conway John Dewey Olafur Eliasson Michel Foucault Adam Frank Vittorio Gallese Rene Green Stefan Helmreich Carsten Hller Edmund Husserl William James Caroline A. Jones Douglas Kahn Brian Kane Leah Kelly Bruno Latour Alvin Lucier David Mather Mara Mills Alva No Jacques Rancire Michael Rossi Toms Saraceno Natasha Schll Joan W.Scott Tino Sehgal Alma Steingart Josh Tenenbaum Rebecca Uchill