ABSTRACT

In Greek there is a semantic circuit that weds the sensorial to agency, memory, finitude, and therefore history—all of which are contained within the etymological strata of the senses. The word for senses is aesthisis; emotion-feeling and aesthetics are respectively aesthima and aesthitikt. The senses represent inner states not shown on the surface. They are also located in a social-material field outside of the body. The senses are meaning-generating apparatuses that operate beyond consciousness and intention. The interpretation of and through the senses becomes a recovery of truth as collective, material experience. The senses are also implicated in historical interpretation as witnesses or record-keepers of material experience. The involuntary circuit of the senses reveals that embodied performance is in part constructed out of the cross-communication of senses and things. Memory as a distinct meta-sense transports, bridges and crosses all the other senses.