Course information

(Research context) The following steps expose my exploration of the topic rather than the actual sequence of course execution. I distinguish between distancing (subject-invariant, predominant in natural sciences) and immersive (subject-dependent, participatory) models of experience, with focus on the latter. Then, I explain the core assumption of my methodology, which is based on the correlation between synesthesia that technomodified people undergo and semiosis that locally transforms the horizon of meaning in non-modified subjects. In order to reach the state of induced semiosis, I designed a text-based exercise in guided imagination that destabilizes existing perceptual evidence of everyday experience and allows one to grasp the ‘paradoxical’ ones (which form in human cyborgs). However, models’ means of representation vary greatly since semiosis could be induced in different ways besides text: via structured visual content, interactive digital environments, sensory substitution devices, body performances, etc. By the end of the course, I invite participants to construct an immersive model of this kind on their own.

(Spirit) The course is aimed at enhancing students’ ability to engage with a cutting-edge multidisciplinary area of expertise, both theoretically and practically. Experimentality is the central theme here: I provide the necessary preliminaries that make the entire theoretical framework comprehensible – and yet I will inevitably share with students a sense of awe and surprise, since Cyborg Studies don’t form a coherent disciplinary field and must be explored through action, not just by contemplating their fluctuating vocabularies.

(Content) The course includes elements of neuroscience, semiotics, philosophy of technology, phenomenology of perception, Theory of Mind and science art, thus requiring students to synthesize different modes of knowledge production and implement the resulting synthesis in a project.