November 8th to 11th, 2004

Heloisa Helena da Fonseca Carneiro Leão
heloisaleao@globo.com
PUC - SP - Brazil

THE ART, THE MEN AND THE HABITAT AS A WAY TO CONSTRUCT THE WORLD

ABSTRACT
This paper aims at illustrating how men and art are constructing the world. The men and the different artistic manifestations represent the vision of the contemporary world they see, men and their relations as a web of interactions where changes never occur isolated. This situation has the purpose to construct a world to inhabit in, in which the interaction will generate a web that has no beginning or end. This is an understanding of the world in which sub-systems change the information between themselves, contributing to increase the diversity and complexity. The theoretical ground of the work is linked to Charles Sanders Peirce, Ilya Prigogine, to Martin Heidegger's notion of habitat, and to some other artists. Heidegger's view is related to the work because it's reinforcing the human understanding of the world as inhabitants of one sole location. In this same thinking process, Ilya Prigogine says that creativity is what constructs the future once you cannot define the future through the past. Charles Sanders Peirce defends the notion of semeiosis, where the function of the signs directs to an evolution in search of the latest ideal driven by esthetics. Besides these thinkers, some artists are worried with the construction of the world. Among these artists, Lygia Clark proposes that men should search again for the senses that have been lost during the evolutive process, and on the other hand, Gilberto Prado is utilizing the network to provoke the need to be in the world.

KEYWORDS: Semeiosis, Habitat, Construct, Network.

Center for Pragmatism Studies
Philosophy Graduate Program
Departament of Philosophy
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo - Brazil