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Gaining
experience through our senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste
and touch) and making use of such experience to discern various
phenomena in the world is probably the basic requirement for
human being to survive. The body is indeed the subject of constructing
the perceptual world. However, as a living being capable of
activity and possesses gesture, the body is also the object
of perception. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a French philosopher,
perceives the body as our expression in the world and the visible
form of our intention. This manifests the communicative function
of the body. In fact, gesticulating with the body is always
the most primitive and direct means of expression. Putting the
body in a specific setting, using senses as the contact point
and taking the perceptual world as the field of imagination,
are often the basic requirement for creation and interpretation
of works of art.
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