This presentation explores the intersection of art, technology, and Bildung, especially as they relate to streaming media. We begin by referring to the second part of Identity and Difference, “The Onto-Theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics”, in which Heidegger broaches the question of technology in relation to what he terms the “step back” out of metaphysical thinking. Thus, in our reading of Heidegger’s text, we pursue what consequences the view of technology and the “step back” has for the idea of Bildung, that is, the dismissal of the socio-constructive paradigm, the metaphysics of the “will to power”, where man both impose himself onto and deprive the world of its meanings. Instead we include the development of what Heidegger calls “thinking,” which is more than a purely rational and mental act, and rather involves emotions, the body, ethical considerations as well as what could be called relationality. Aside from ‘thinking’, in its mediative sense and social significance [mit-denken/mit-sein], we set out to elaborate on ‘saying’, that is, the conjoinment of thinking and art [technê] as a way of bringing the human being and the being of things out into the open. These dimensions of Bildung are essential parts in what we proposE to name an “evolving Bildung.” The term ‘evolving’ signifies Bildung as an open and ongoing formation process as well as a predisposition to the mystery of the meaning of technology. Bildung hereby implies a movement towards a state of mind and a place where the question concerning what it means to re-habilitate humanity, technological and Being itself ceaselessly is lived and pondered [fortgewähren]. We also set out to address the critical voices that question the phenomenological concept of Bildung as being too vague, lacking direction, being indifferent to ethics, and trapped in an ego-logical way of thinking. To us, Bildung operates within the possibilities of the human being as Dasein [Möglichsein/Seinkönnen], but cannot be anything. Rather, the process of Bildung can be seen as bound to, supported, and inhabited by, particular people, places, and traditions. To counter the calculative mindset, we focus on how Heidegger’s thinking concerning technology can inform our proposed notion of an “evolving Bildung.” Evolving Bildung, we claim, is intimately related to what Richard Capobianco, in Heidegger’s Way of Being, calls “the temporal-spatial unfolding” of beings and things. In line with Capobianco’s argument, we suggest that it is this view of Being, as temporal-spatial unfolding (what could perhaps be called streaming), and toward the contemplative releasement (Gelassenheit) around which our notion of evolving Bildung is developed. Evolving Bildung is thus to be seen as a movement of thinking aiming to come close to that which is yet unthought, which is also, we suggest, how we must approach streaming media as a form of technology and art.
ECREA 2018 Conference Secretariat , 2018. article id PN 175
7th European Communication Conference (ECC) (ECREA2018), 31 October-3 November, 2018, Lugano, Switzerland