Technoaesthesis: The morning after the deluge (of technical images) – thoughts on perception, art and technology in our moistmedia times

The article aims to approach the concept of moistmedia and the role of art practices in contemporary culture by combining ideas about perception, technology and art, through different authors like media theorist Marshall McLuhan, philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger and Vilém Flusser, and anthopologists such as Constance Classen and David Howes. Thus, if we can understand perception as the genesis of sense and meaning (Merleau-Ponty), which is also culturally shaped (Classen, Howes), understanding the very nature of technology demands an understanding of the modes of perception from which it has emerged. Being able to develop art propositions which may be relevant to our moistmedia times demands an understanding of the power artworks may still have for challenging technologically shaped cultural patterns of perception, in such a way as to foster new modes of consciousness, living at risk in a world of ever-present instability.