Anne-Cécile Surga researches bodily cognition. Through her practice, she seeks to understand what bodily experience contributes in terms of knowledge to existence. In contrast to positions that consider the brain as ruling over the body and emotions, her focus lies on the sensations induced by or felt through the body: how the external world impacts the individual, how these sensations become feelings and information, and how emotions translate into physical impressions.
The point of entry always stems from direct personal experiences, and the aim is to examine the relationship between body and feelings without embellishment or judgment. The mind is certainly considered, not for its reasoning capacity but for how it can actually differ from bodily cognition. The interest lies in understanding why psychological reasoning often prevails over other forms of knowing, and examining the mind's mechanisms that lead one to believe non-intellectual information should be overlooked.
Yet this work is less about trying to explain or understand the dichotomy between brain cognition and bodily or emotional cognition, and more about examining how this dynamic translates into lived experience—exploring the approaches, solutions, and limitations inherent to this complexity. The focus is not on representing the split, but on how it can be transcended.
The body serves as both receiver and transmitter of data, knowledge, and emotions, while also functioning as a site of perpetual questioning. The body matters.