The role and importance of the body in the Kunstgreb method. Another approach to innovation and learning: phenomenology.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Professor and Philosopher 1908 – 1961:

Probably the body has sensed and made sense before reflection takes place.

Merleau-Ponty laid the weight on the body and the bodily being-in-world as a starting point for the recognition of the world, which is a breach of the long western philosophical tradition based on consciousness. According to Merleau-Ponty, the bodily cogito (body subject) is our basic conditions of existence (bodily cogito is a pre-reflexive centre of thought and action. This means that the body in every situation has already sensed and made sense before a conscious reflection or thinking can find place. The body just before consciousness takes in this manner based on an ‘I can’, rather than the epistemological principle that argues that “truth” must be determined by reason and analysis rather than through revelation and experience. the body situates himself before the tank. Ontologically (the doctrine of the being), body and consciousness therefore do not exist as two independent dimensions but are the same: body in the world. The only way we can experience this pre-conscious physical situation is through a return to the phenomena: the Immediate or lived experience. According to Merleau-Ponty, the body is like a work of art whose diversity invites meaning to interpretation.

Kjeld Fredens. Brain researcher:

We can learn in three ways: through experience, action and not least understanding, and they can be combined. However, some prefer one to the other, and such preference is called a “learning style”. When they play together, we talk about creativity, which is the highest goal of all education, as professionalism is only a means of creativity:

abstract

perceptual

motor

understanding

experience

action

Kunstgreb works deliberately combining all three learning styles to bring participants into full creative mode.

Experiences:

Recognition: Perception occurs before reflection - i.e. body before thought ...
The body is on its way into the future - the reflective consciousness is in the past ...
Mimic is perceived before words - the sight of the other body ...
You can describe what is on the other side of a building, but when you move your body about it, you will sense everything for a moment - and not just the bit that can be described ...
The body is our third dimension
The body’s registration is not necessarily translated into thoughts - instinctively, for example. in hazard situations ...
Being free is where something turns out from the body
Smells can bring us back to thoughts of a memory, the body recalls movements without thoughts

For example, it is a well-known experience in many contexts that misunderstandings between colleagues, collaborators, etc. can be reduced by meeting physically.

This is because the body places the conversation and thus creates a framework that ideally serves as a translation of the subjective views into a collective common understanding framework.

In the conversation, the participants feel that it is not easy to maintain a subjective perspective, as the argument must be made possible to understand if it matters.

The body’s use in the Kunstgreb method process:

1. Target room, setup and documentation of when we will be in goal:

Inclusion of sensibility, the participants let the body notice what it’s like to be in goal

2. The value room, create common direction and perception, clarify what controls:

Participants feel the importance – and allow to use their intuitive feelings as supportive tools

3. The freezing room, ‘park your darlings’:

Participants feel freeing from habits, ‘usually’, self-esteem clauses – three ways of learning, abstract – perceptual – motor

4. Breaking room, closing up for sensation and intuition and creating presence:

Participants feel and contain silence in, and on their own body, before thought

5. Idea-room, new ideas are being developed, stimulates brain flow, say ‘yes and …’

Participants use the body’s possibilities, all senses, everything is in motion

6. The structure and criticism room, gives an overview and gives constructive criticism:

Participants group in topics, and use the body to work with to get through-constructive criticism to create even more ideas

7. Validation room, evaluate according to criteria and choose:

Participants choose from all three dimensions – abstract – perceptual – motor i.e. they use the ‘body’s story’ (stomach sensation …) to assess the validation of the ideas

8. Visualization Room, Visible, Prototype:

Participants are, for example, physically based – in silence with enhanced awareness, sensation and intuition. Their tactile skills come into play

9. The Implementation Room, clarifies how the ideas are realized:

By working with the implementation phase, for example, using the Business Model Canvas tool in vertical model, the bodily intelligence of participants is challenged and stimulated