Posthuman Intermedial Semiotics and Distributed Agency for Sustainable Development

This chapter brings Intermedial Studies out of bounds by introducing intermediality in a discussion on the possible scaling of agentive capacities beyond the human and onto the material medium itself. In order to do this, the chapter begins with an introduction to Lars Elleströn’s media modalities (the material, the sensorial, the semiotic, and the spatiotemporal) and how they relate to neo-materialism and Peircean semiotics. The chapter shows how some of the main ideas present in the neo-materialist mind-matter continuum of philosophical posthumanism are also in close relation to Charles S. Peirce concept of synechism. The chapter discusses this continuum and its connection to 4E cognition in order to offer a theorization of process ontology that helps envision the need for systemic process epistemologies that, with a proper body of practices, might align Intermedial Studies with Sustainable Development through the idea of agency distribution across material media, including human and nonhuman agencies.