Emanuele Coccia: Quest for freedom

Emanuele Coccia has captivated minds with his fresh take on the natural world and our place within it. Through his work as a philosopher, associate professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and author of books-among them The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture–Coccia investigates the great mysteries of life: nature, reproduction, interspecies flourishing, and cultural and material production. Through highlighting the way in which plants are central to our understanding of the metaphysical and existential aspects of life, Coccia challenges us to rethink our relationship with nature.

His philosophical curiosity extends beyond the natural world into fashion, where he explores how clothing reflects both our identities and potential, bridging the gap between the theoretical and the everyday. With Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Valentino, Coccia co-authored The Life of Forms-Theory of Re-enchantment, which examines the intersection of philosophy and fashion. Together with renowned art historian Olivier Saillard, he curated The Many Lives of a Garment, on view until January 2025 at the ITS Arcademy Museum of Art in Trieste.

We invited Vidar Logi to reflect on Coccia’s intellectually expansive and uniquely contemplative work through a visual narrative of his own creation. Logi’s interpretation took the pair on a photographic adventure from London to Reykjavik.

hube: Ethical changes are usually followed by aesthetic changes but is ethics always the primary driver?

Emanuele Coccia: Sometimes, aesthetic changes lead to broader transformations because redefining new identities, including moral identities, often requires altering a person’s static or sensitive body. Thus, I don’t think you can easily distinguish ethics from aesthetics. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. For instance, an aesthetic change can spark a moral revolution. Otherwise, you might be compelled to view aesthetics merely as commentary on the morality of others, which is not the case. You invent your way of being by experimenting with new ways of presenting yourself, and that’s why you cannot say that ethics is always primary. I would argue that they go hand in hand.

h: In the rational or physical world, humans define the boundaries of perception, ranging from the quantum realm to the imaginary limits of the universe. Do these boundaries exist in the emotional world?

EC: I don’t think the emotional world and the physical world are separate. We don’t know, perhaps wood and atoms have emo-tions. It’s not easy to define the boundaries of perception because, first of all, physical worlds are complex. We keep discovering smaller parts of matter, and we don’t know the limits of the universe. Since we don’t fully understand the physical world, we cannot determine the boundaries of physical per-ception, making it even harder to define the world of emotions. Additionally, it’s difficult to identify and name the entities that exist in the emotional world-we don’t even agree on the names of emotions. So, it’s not just a question of boundaries, it’s about understanding what exists in this emotional world.

h: How can we use advances in technolog! and communication to enhance our rela tionship with nature, rather than distancing ourselves further from it?

EC: There is a huge misunderstanding about technology and nature. We tend to think that technology is taking us away from nature but this is impossible because we are part of nature-it’s like trying to get away from ourselves. Even when using technology, we are harnessing the power of nature through materials like stones, air, and electromagnetic fields. Computers and smartphones are made of natural chemical elements, so with them, we are not moving away from nature but rather delving deeper into it. Technology is just another form of nature, not living in the usual sense, but still nature. So, it always brings us closer to nature.

There is also a huge misunderstanding about nature itself. When we talk about plants or animals, we often think we can have a direct relationship with them without any mediation.

There is a trend of hugging trees, as if we can establish a connection just by doing that. It’s impossible to connect with, or reflect on, a human just by hugging them, let alone a plant, which is so different from us. We need technology to understand plants and animals. The problem is that we often don’t know what kind of technology we need. So, the question isn’t about being close to, or distant from, nature.

We have two problems. First, we do not know how to live harmoniously without destroying other species-not just nature, but species in general. This is a major issue. Secondly, we have gone through a huge technological revolution in the last 50 or 60 years, but we haven’t invented ways to use this technology effectively. The digital world, like the internet and social media, is as transformative as the printing press was at the beginning of the modern age for Europe and the Western world. Back then, people like Gutenberg and Luther used this technology to disseminate important content, like the Bible. The state also used the press to emerge.

Today, the digital world is a huge power, but it is mainly used for commerce and not cul-ture-it lacks meaningful use. The only time museums, universities, cultural institutions, and even the fashion industry recognised the potential of this space to produce culture was during COVID-19. However, we quickly forgot about this potential. We need to occupy the digital space to produce culture within it, rather than using it to transfer culture that was produced elsewhere. Thus, we also face a significant problem figuring out how to create proper culture for these new technologies, rather than merely using them to transmit culture from elsewhere.

h: Exploring the breadth of the world inevitably requires some generalisations, which means we might overlook individual expe-riences. Can new technologies, such as Al, help us understand ourselves?

EC: Yes, of course. Technologies are not just mirrors of ourselves, they are exten-sions, metamorphoses, and transformations. With Al, we are not only gaining a better understanding of ourselves and the world, we are also radically changing our way of being and the world’s way of being. So, in a sense, we know ourselves and each other less than before because we have changed. It is as if we have a new body, but we don’t yet know how to use this body or what its limits are.

h: Art can be perceived as a challenge to rationality, logic, and predetermined out-comes. What are your thoughts on this?

EC: I don’t think that there is a distinction between art and rationality. Art is one of the most powerful forms of our rationality, and there is no rationality without art. Even a scientist is dealing with forms and expressing concepts in a way that is akin to art. What we call art is not a separate kind of practice, it is a practice driven by a quest for freedom.

From this point of view, every practice, including scientific, can be infused with this quest and become an art.