On a Multiplicity: Deconstructing Cartesian Dualism Using Mathematical Tools in Performance

The well-known and seductive idea of being a dual entity composed of a body with emotions and a mind with reason, with only tentative and uncertain connections between them, has been considered an instrinsic human feature in many academic fields. Decartes’ (i.e., Cartesian) dualism, which associates reason with mental and rational processing and emotion with body and feelings has influenced thought for nearly four centuries. This dualism played a central role in many research fields, from philosophy, psychology, anthropology, biology, and sociology to mathematics and performance art. The development of technologies, combined with a turn to the study of emotions as an important feature of research itself, has contributed to the ongoing deconstructing of Cartesian dualism. Recent research trends in the neurosciences and visual anthropology—and in particular visual autoethnography— are important examples of the rising of non dualistic ways of researching and connecting techniques and technologies associated with reason to the study of the senses and art associated with emotion.