The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction… Phenomenological Relationships

O’Neill, S. (2008) Interactive Media: The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction. London: Springer-Verlag.

“Heidegger makes explicit the idea that the nature of our being-in-the-world is not only related to the world we inhabit, but to the fact that we are aware that we exist in that world. In short, a fundamental aspect of our being-in-the-world is that we are concerned about (aware of) ourselves being-in-the-world. Furthermore, another aspect of Heidegger’s conception of ‘Being’ is that our being-in-the-world is a being-with-other-beings (being as people, things or entities that exist in the world around us). Those other beings may or may not have a concern for being with us, but we most definitely have a concern for being-with them as they have an effect on how we exist. Our consciousness and our knowledge of the world are deeply entwined with our phenomenological relationship to it.” (pp34-35)

Annotation
O’Neil in building his case for the semiotics of embodied interaction naturally takes a Heideggerian perspective seeing “our consciousness and our knowledge of the world [as being] deeply entwined with our phenomenological relationship to it” (p35). Our interconnectivity with others shapes how we see and interact with the world we perceive as our reality.