In medias res: communication, existence, and materiality

Abstract

Although the questions of materiality and existence are often conceived in absolute terms (something is deemed as either material/existent or immaterial/inexistent), this article defends a relational view according to which materiality and existence should rather be considered matters of degree or gradation. A world where things more or less exist or are more or less material is a world where communication always matters. Communication is indeed the way by which things, animals, and people come to express themselves in a variety of embodiments, materialisations, and incarnations. Communication is therefore constitutive of the way any being happens to exist more or less since it, she, or he always exists through other beings.

Keywords:

• communication theory
• materiality
• existence
• relational ontology
• embodiment

Notes

1. For more details on the artistic expression of this principle, please visit the following website, which presents Vincent Roumagnac’s work, titled ‘The Theatre Season’ in the park Verkatehtaanpuisto (Klädesfabriksparken) in Helsinki: http://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-exposition?exposition=158753

2. I am, of course, aware that Bruno Latour (1996, 2005), following Hennion (1993), establishes a clear distinction between mediators and intermediaries. However, since I want to follow a logic of addition and not subtraction or reduction, it is key for me to point out that any intermediary actually is a mediator. In other words, what is deemed a simple intermediary – that is, something that is not supposed to make a difference when it transports something else from one point to another – makes, in fact, always a difference, be it only through the activity of transportation. For more details, see Cooren (2000).

3. When a thing is deemed as completely immaterial, it means, for all practical purpose, that it does not exist. Saying that a being does not exist is paradoxical to the extent that this amounts to giving it a mode of existence, be it only under the form of a name mobilised in an utterance. For more details, see Martine, Cooren, Bénel, and Zacklad (in press).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Research and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Title: ‘The collaborative emergence of creativity’; grant number 435-2013-0977).

Notes on contributors

François Cooren

François Cooren, PhD, is a professor at the Université de Montréal, Canada. His research focuses on organisational communication, language and social interaction, as well as communication theory. He is the author of three books (The Organizing Property of Communication [2000], Action and Agency in Dialogue: Passion, Incarnation, and Ventriloquism [2010], and Organizational Discourse: Communication and Constitution [2015] and also edited five volumes published by the Oxford University Press, Routledge, John Benjamins, and Lawrence Erlbaum. He is also the author of more than 50 articles, published in international peer-reviewed journals, as well as more than 30 book chapters. In 2010–2011, he served as the president of the International Communication Association (ICA) and was elected fellow of this association in 2013. He is also the current president of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis (IADA, 2012–2017).