ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I explore how environments that enable encounters with more-than human entities (urban environments as well as art installations) can heighten our sensitivity for ecological interdependencies (external) and at the same time for the responsiveness of our bodies previous to semantic reference (internal). In this responsiveness, I locate an openness toward patterns in the internal and external surroundings that allow a specific situation to make sense for a perceiving human subject. At a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult for individuals to comprehend the complex processes of global crises such as climate change, this chapter proposes a new turn toward aesthetic experience. However, the concept of aesthetic experience is not without problems, as the emphasis on (subjective) perception runs the risk of reintroducing obsolete dichotomies between subject and world. The notion of processual aesthetics introduced in this chapter, on the other hand, tries to overcome this separation by foregrounding the continuous exchanges between bodies and their environment. From a Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspective it is relevant to look at how the purposeful blending of living and non-living entities change our environments and how this impacts our subjectivity.
