Malafouris is a Professor of Cognitive and Anthropological Archaeology.
His primary interest lies in the study of the interaction between cognition and material culture.
He is currently Principal Investigator of the project HANDMADE: Understanding Creative Gesture in Pottery Making.
Abstract: Modes of Human Becoming
Humans become through their creative engagement with the material world. We are plastic creatures inextricably intertwined with the plasticity of things that we make. I use the term ‘things’ in the broadest sense of material forms, environments and technics – not in the narrow sense of static objects. Humans are creative 'thingers'. There is nothing in our genes, as there is nothing in our cultures that can explain that. Instead, we need to look at the lived space ‘in-between’, that is, where brain, body and culture conflate. In my talk I will try to explore the major implications of this entanglement of mind and matter for the traditional ways we understand the process of creativity and the role that it plays in human becoming.