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A Cognitive Theory Of The Aesthetic Experience, Gianluca Consoli

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper aims at naturalizing the aesthetic experience on the basis of cognitive sciences. In traditional philosophical aesthetics, the aesthetic experience requires a specific attitude and a characteristic work of imagination. Today, cognitive sciences offer a rich set of empirically corroborated concepts useful in explaining these notions in naturalistic terms. This paper extends these concepts to explain how the aesthetic experience is integrated and how it affords knowledge.

From Environmental Aesthetics To Narratives Of Change, Nathalie Blanc

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Environmental aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that originated in the English-speaking world and is developing in France. It aims to take a new look at how relationships with the environment are constructed. Often addressed from a landscaping, technical or scientific angle, such relationships have remained largely unaddressed from a cultural perspective, i.e., one that includes a series of practices and values that represent a human group. In this article, I will address environmental aesthetics and how they point up tensions between fixed and static visual representations of the environment in the future and representations that can accommodate ordinary encounters, …

Flows, Vortices, And Counterflows: Artification And Aesthetization In Chiasmatic Motion On A Mobius Ring, Yrjö Sepänmaa

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

My first question is the general orientation towards the aesthetic and artistic in our culture. Secondly, I deal with intentional and sought-for aestheticization and artification, which are driven particularly by art and aesthetic education. Thirdly, I concentrate on the effects of the change on people and culture, in general, and on art, in particular. The processes of art and the aesthetic have their counter-movements that create tension and dynamics. I characterize the flow pattern as chiasmatic motion taking place on a Möbius ring. Art and the aesthetic are a pair, the parts of which are related to each other through …

Aesthetization, Artification, And Aquariums, Thomas Leddy

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

‘Artification’ is a term recently coined and developed in Finnish aesthetic theory and proposed by Ossi Naukkarinen in this volume as the process of treating non-art objects as art. In this paper, I distinguish between a superficial sort of artification and a deep sort. The superficial sort is the one we need to worry about. In Part I, I consider various issues surrounding the definition of artification. In the process, I situate artification within the larger question of aestheticization. I understand aestheticization in terms of recent psychological work on supernormal stimuli and Virginia Postrel’s defense of style and surface in …

When Is Artification?, Roberta Shapiro, Nathalie Heinich

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

How do people do or make things that come to be seen as works of art? In other words, when is there artification? The answer to this question is simultaneously symbolic, material, and contextual. It has to do with meanings, objects, interaction, and institutions. We seek to define not what art is nor how it should be considered, but how and under what circumstances it comes about by way of methodical observation and inquiry in a variety of fields. Circus acrobats, break-dancers, fashion designers, chefs, graffiti artists, printers, photographers, and jazz musicians are some of the examples we explore. This …

Artification And The Drawing Of Distinctions: An Analysis Of Categories And Their Uses, Kari Korolainen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The aim of the article is to examine how we distinguish between art, decoration, and furnishing within a research interview. The interview specimens here are examined by adapting the ethnomethodologically oriented method of Membership Categorization Analysis. The results indicate that the speakers rely, for example, on the context of the interview situation and also use flexible logical means, such as conditioning and comparison, to make the discussed issues more comprehensive. The results of the analysis are interpreted in the context of artification, emphasizing in particular the notion of the situated process of categorical resiliency.

Artification In Natural History Museums, Kaisa Mäki-Petäjä

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Natural history exhibitions have changed considerably over recent decades concurring with a rise of a general movement of aestheticization in the Western culture. This usually results from an attempt to make the exhibitions more appealing to provide the public numerous ways of enjoying themselves, but they are also used to communicate information, especially of an ethical and affective kind. In this paper I will consider the effects of a particular kind of aestheticization, namely artification, of these kinds of exhibitions. Artification, i.e, the process of regarding non-art objects as art, appears to be in conflict with the science-based purposes of …

Editorial

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Fragments In Libeskind And Wittgenstein, Rossen Ventzislavov

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

My paper explores the similar role that fragments play in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and in Libeskind’s architecture. The fragment is an infraction of traditional linear approaches to architecture and philosophy and thus affords an alternative critical glimpse into the fabric of each respective field. The fact that some philosophy and architecture use this device and its critical stance bodes well not only for the futures of the two disciplines but also for the embattled connection between them. In my paper I try to show that the break with linearity Wittgenstein and Libeskind engage in effectively replaces the ivory towers of …

The Problem Of Cinematic Imagination, Rafe Mcgregor

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to identify the problem of cinematic imagination, and then to propose a satisfactory solution. In part one I analyze the respective claims of Dominic McIver Lopes and Roger Scruton, both of whom question the scope of imagination in film, when compared to other art forms, on the basis of its perceptual character. In order to address these concerns I develop a hybrid of Gregory Currie’s model of cinematic imagination and Kendall Walton’s theory of make-believe in section two. Section three offers a reply to Lopes and Scruton, examining the problem in terms of …

Pink Jacket 2011, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

Pink Jacket was a single issue student publication published in 2011 in both print and online formats. It features MFA student musings, artwork, and creative writing.

Editorial

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Notices

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Recent Publications

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

A New Problem For Aesthetics, Kevin Melchionne

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The essay introduces the problem of aesthetic unreliability, the variety of ways in which it is difficult to grasp our aesthetic experience and the consequent confusion and unreliability of what we take as our taste.

Philosophical Hermeneutics And The Ethical Function Of Architecture, Paul Kidder

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Karsten Harries’ book, The Ethical Function of Architecture, raises the question of how architecture can be interpretive of and for our time. Part of Harries’ pursuit of this question is done in dialogue with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, whose evocatively expressed ontology of building and dwelling recovered, in philosophical and poetic terms, the power of buildings to symbolize and interpret the most fundamental truths of being and human existence. The present essay identifies contributions to this hermeneutic and ontological approach to architecture drawn from the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, emphasizing Gadamer’s notions of play (Spiel), symbol, and the …

Affirming Difference: Everyday Aesthetic Experience After Phenomenology, Wood Roberdeau

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This article explores the complex relationships among two different types of critique, the socio-temporal zone known as "everyday life" and the moment of the encounter by those who are encountering art works. It proceeds with a close study of the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Mikel Dufrenne, and tests their key concepts against generalized contemporary art practices that question a model of the traditional aesthetic experience by suggesting the possibility that within the expanse of postmodernity such a paradigm has shifted, (although it is not completely irretrievable). The paper argues that this shift has been achieved by remobilizing readymade objects …

Video Games As Mass Art, Grant Tavinor

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Videogames are one of the most significant developments in the mass arts of recent times. In commercial terms, they are now among the most prominent of the mass arts worldwide. This commercial and cultural success does not exhaust the interest in videogames as a mass art phenomenon because games such as Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3 are structurally radically different from previous forms of mass art. In particular, the ontology of videogames, the nature and identity of their works, and how they are instanced and evaluated is a departure from the familiar mass arts of film and popular …

Disgust And Ugliness: A Kantian Perspective, Mojca Kuplen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Contemporary discussions of the problem of ugliness in Kant’s aesthetic theory have, to my knowledge, left unexplored the relation of disgust to ugliness. At most, they have explained away disgust as merely an extreme form of ugliness or displeasure, as Guyer did in his interpretation of ugliness in Kant’s aesthetic theory,[1] and by that strayed from the phenomenological and conceptual uniqueness of disgust in comparison to ugliness, while Kant, as I argue, did not. As a matter of fact, careful investigation of the concept of disgust in Kant’s writing will reveal the distinctive and multifaceted character that he ascribed …

Virtual Dance And Motion-Capture, Marc Boucher

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

A general view of various ways in which virtual dance can be understood is presented in the first part of this article. It then appraises the uses of the term “virtual” in previous studies of digital dance. A more in-depth view of virtual dance as it relates to motion-capture is offered, and key issues are discussed regarding computer animation, digital imaging, motion signature, virtual reality and interactivity. The paper proposes that some forms of virtual dance be defined in relation to both digital technologies and contemporary theories of virtuality.

City Walks And Tactile Experiences, Mădălina Diaconu

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper is an attempt to develop categories of the pedestrian’s tactile and kinaesthetic experience of the city. The beginning emphasizes the haptic qualities of surfaces and textures, which can be “palpated” visually or experienced by walking. Also the lived city is three-dimensional; its corporeal depth is discussed here in relation to the invisible sewers, protuberant profiles, and the formal diversity of roofscapes. A central role is ascribed in the present analysis to the formal similarities between the representation of the city by walking through it and the representation of the tactile form of objects. Additional aspects of the “tactile” …

Editorial Note

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Ananta Sukla

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Everyday, Elsewhere: Allegory In Philippine Art, Patrick D. Flores

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The essay traces certain contexts of the allegorical impulse in Philippine image making and art, specifically as it marks the self-consciousness of the maker of image and art to render time, place, and event legible. It conceives of it as an aesthetic of migration, prefiguring an elsewhere that is aspired to as well as a phantasm of affinity that describes a present condition. The allegorical, therefore, bears the desire to belong to the world, referencing both the critique of coloniality as well as the possibility of transcending it at the very moment of revealing its ethical failure.

The Grid And The Nomadic Line In The Art Of Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Flaudette V. May Datuin

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Inspired by Thomas Lamarre’s deployment of Deleuze and Guattari’s “nomadic line” in his analysis of Heian calligraphy, this essay hopes to demonstrate how the Thai artist, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, drawing on a deeply internalized feeling for form in Buddhist painting, moves us to go beyond sight and surface appearances by creating through gestures, sensations and inscriptions zones of disruption, disorientation, departures, and arrivals.

The Role Of Westerners In The Conservation Of Legong Dance, Stephen Davies

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The image of legong-sumtuosly costumed girl dancers crowned with frangiapanis-is the face of Balinese culture. Yet it is only one of twenty dance/drama genres and prominent in only some centers. Legong, a secular court dance, has often been (and still is) in danger of extinction. Balinese are now less interested in legong than ever before and musicians prefer to play other kinds of music.

Since the 1930s, legong has been presented at tourist centers and by ensembles touring overseas. Western expatriates have founded legong groups and generally brokered the relation between Balines and foreigners. Foreign scholars have studied, recorded, and …

Icon And Image In Modern Thai Art: A Preliminary Exploration, John Clark

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Thai modern art is marked by the actual deployment of religious or august symbolic icons or the quasi-iconic use of images of variable indexicality in otherwise highly secular contexts. What were the sources for such modern uses and have the semiotic functions of icons shifted? To answer these questions, at least partially, religious functions for images are examined by tracking the use of court images and Buddhist figures.

Playing With Shadows, Apinan Poshyananda

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This essay reflects on the practice of the Indonesian artist Heri Dono, whose exhibition in Tokyo in 2000 is the anchor. It probes the cultural contexts in which the contemporary art of Dono plays out, identifying key trajectories that help clarify the concerns of this particular articulation: the locale of Yogyakarta, the mentality of the Javanese, and the device of the puppet presentation or the wayang, which derives from the ancient epics.[1] All this is located within the scheme of an exhibition of contemporary art and rendered in such a way that it conveys a certain aesthetic of hybridity and …

Taking Art Personally: Austin, Performatives And Art, David Goldblatt

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper is an attempt to apply speech act theory to aesthetics. In particular, it purports to be a contribution to reception theory by drawing attention to certain similarities between the contextual structure of performatives and the structure of the reception of art. It hopes to locate the auditor or spectator of artworks in what J. L. Austin calls “the total context” to help explain how certain aspects of artworks can be taken personally, somehow being about and seemingly directed at “me.” It is one way the so-called paradox of fiction can be by-passed by showing how the emotive aspects …

Politics Of Beauty, Ken-Ichi Sasaki

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

I look back at the history of modern aesthetics to grasp its current situation and to propose its possibilities for the future. The early modern period, during which aesthetics came into being, was a great historical turning point for civilization. Our contemporary period shares this character, and it is worthwhile for us to consult its history in order to reflect on our civilization. Aesthetics began with Baumgarten’s proposal, which consisted in a triple subject: sensibility, beauty, and art. His idea was accepted because it responded to the fundamental problems of the period. Sensibility was the only form of cognition of …