Conserving Ourselves, Creating Ourselves: Thinking with the Philosopher Alva Noë

When we endeavor to preserve a work of art, what are we preserving? What does it mean to preserve, and how can an artwork be grasped in the context of its preservation? What is the difference between the preservation of a traditional artwork and the preservation of performance? How much is any work of art a creature of its context? In the following, I am thinking with, and through, the ideas of Alva Noë, a philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.[1] Noë’s research interests are the theory of perception and consciousness, cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. In addition, Noë works in the theory of art and analytic phenomenology and is interested in Ludwig Wittgenstein and enactivism. The following is a brief reflection on Noë’s ideas that offer a fruitful ground to interrogate both conservation and its “object.”