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Articles 181 - 210 of 472
Full-Text Articles in Aesthetics
The Importance Of The Artist's Intent, Daniel Conrad
The Importance Of The Artist's Intent, Daniel Conrad
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Does considering artists' aesthetic intentions enrich our experience of art and enhance art’s aggregate value for human culture? By examining non-aesthetic intent, working motivations, biographical/historical context, and cases in which an announced intent drives aesthetic transformation, I argue that, while its specific value varies from case to case, aesthetic intent is a key part of our cumulative experience of art, correlates with specific neuroanatomical loci, and raises interesting and compelling questions specific to this age of automatized thinking.
The Ethos Of Cinema, Martin Seel
The Ethos Of Cinema, Martin Seel
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The history of film has always been accompanied by a theoretical debate over its artistic potential. In the works of many theoreticians, more or less explicit anthropological speculations have played a significant role, focusing on the relation between cinema and formerly dominant modes of perception and living. Against this background, this paper addresses the position of film within the arts, and thus also the position of this art form vis-à-vis the role of art in relation to the human condition. One essential characteristic of films is that they are capable of bringing their audience into a specific state of being …
Cinempathy: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, And Moving Images, Robert Sinnerbrink
Cinempathy: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, And Moving Images, Robert Sinnerbrink
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Some of the most innovative philosophical engagement with cinema and ethics in recent years has come from phenomenological and cognitivist perspectives. This trend reflects a welcome re-engagement with cinema as a medium with the potential for ethical transformation, that is, with the idea of cinema as a medium of ethical experience. This paper explores the phenomenological turn in film theory, emphasizing the ethical implications of phenomenological approaches to affect and empathy, emotion, and evaluation. I argue that the oft-criticized subjectivism of phenomenological theories can be supplemented by cognitivist approaches that highlight the complex forms of affective response, emotional engagement, and …
Introduction, Stefan Deines, Mario Wenning
Introduction, Stefan Deines, Mario Wenning
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
No abstract provided.
Ontology And The Aesthetics Of Cinematographic Bodies, Jean-Yves Heurtebise
Ontology And The Aesthetics Of Cinematographic Bodies, Jean-Yves Heurtebise
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
If it is true, as Bergson claimed, that the universe is the sum of images (less than “objective” things but more than “subjective” representations), and if it is correct, as Deleuze said, that this hypothesis bears direct consequences for our understanding of the cinematographic art, then the analysis of cinematographic images and, especially, of the cinematographic images of the body (this living part of matter, this incarnated form of consciousness) can provide not only interesting aesthetic comments about specific directors and films, but also a philosophical understanding of the diverse modes of the sensible incarnation of human bodies. Interestingly enough, …
New Grand Narratives—The Metaphysical Worldview Of Avatar And Cloud Atlas, Josef Früchtl
New Grand Narratives—The Metaphysical Worldview Of Avatar And Cloud Atlas, Josef Früchtl
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Referring to the films Avatar (2009) and Cloud Atlas (2012), the author will demonstrate that a new era of metaphysical holism follows Postmodernism. These films celebrate a resurrection of the flesh with 3-D technology and a reincarnation of souls with the aesthetic technique of morphing. However apocalyptic their visions of the future might be, and however much they might seem to worship technical megalomania, they are also and again conveying a resounding ethical message and a taste of Utopia.
Philosophy With A Twist: La Rivière Du Hibou, Paisley Livingston, Trevor Ponech
Philosophy With A Twist: La Rivière Du Hibou, Paisley Livingston, Trevor Ponech
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This paper explores the category of films known as “twist films” in relation to distinctions between different modes of epistemic access to works. With reference to the case of Robert Enrico’s short film, La rivière du hibou (1961), the philosophical significance of different sorts of twist films is explored. Twists are also discussed in relation to emotive responses, with special attention to the paradox of suspense
"Can The Audience Want?" On The Artistic Status Of Contemporary Tv-Series, Angela Keppler
"Can The Audience Want?" On The Artistic Status Of Contemporary Tv-Series, Angela Keppler
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This paper takes up a question that Theodor W. Adorno posed in 1963 relating to television. The aim is to situate the new TV series, which are part of so-called Quality TV, against the backdrop of the tradition, and to analyze the forms in which the medium is being used. An inspection of pertinent sequences leads to the conclusion that the enjoyment we experience when watching these series stems from the very type of active-passive involvement that Adorno described as being essential only for objects of high culture.
Recent Publications, Editorial Office
Recent Publications, Editorial Office
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
No abstract provided.
Absolute Pitch And Tone Identification, Gilead Bar-Elli
Absolute Pitch And Tone Identification, Gilead Bar-Elli
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Absolute pitch (AP), besides the psychological and neurological interests it has, raises some conceptual difficulties that can teach us about the richness of our notion of musical tone and various aspects of its identification. It is argued that when AP is conceived under a slim notion of identifying the pitch of a crude sound, it is hardly meaningful and has no significance in music comprehension. The rich notion, which is the meaningful and important one, involves knowing the position of a tone in a tone-space and its relations. This is presented as experiential: hearing and identifying tones under concepts and …
Human Nature And Aesthetic Ecosystem Services: Nature In The Service Of Humankind And Humankind In The Service Of Nature, Yrjö Sepänmaa
Human Nature And Aesthetic Ecosystem Services: Nature In The Service Of Humankind And Humankind In The Service Of Nature, Yrjö Sepänmaa
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The term “ecosystem services” refers to the material and spiritual benefits and goods that we receive from nature, or, in a broad sense, from all kinds of environment. The various forms of such benefits have begun to be called services. Nature serves people by producing the material and spiritual (intangible, non-material) prerequisites for life. This is also the foundation of our aesthetic well-being. Does humankind reciprocally serve nature, or only itself through nature, with the intention of exploiting it? We see when nature suffers or flourishes, and we also observe our own effect on its state. As much as our …
Symposium On The Cultural Promise Of The Aesthetic By Monique Roelofs: Introduction, Editorial Office
Symposium On The Cultural Promise Of The Aesthetic By Monique Roelofs: Introduction, Editorial Office
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
No abstract provided.
Positioning And Discernment: A Comment On Monique Roelofs's The Cultural Promise Of The Aesthetic, Kathleen M. Higgins
Positioning And Discernment: A Comment On Monique Roelofs's The Cultural Promise Of The Aesthetic, Kathleen M. Higgins
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This essay offers replies to the critical commentaries on The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic presented by Kathleen M. Higgins, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Mariana Ortega. The essay shows how the probing questions and criticisms that the three commentators raise bring out details in the framework of relationality, address, and promises through which the book theorizes the aesthetic.
The Difference That Art Makes, Mariana Ortega
The Difference That Art Makes, Mariana Ortega
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In the following essay I discuss Monique Roelofs’s The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic. I show that Roelofs’s rich and complex notion of the aesthetic, informed by promises, modes of address, and aesthetic relationality, offers an important and novel way of understanding the aesthetic within a context attuned to questions of difference. I point out that Roelofs’s analysis may be enhanced by notions theorized by Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, and María Lugones. Moreover, I raise a question regarding the intricate link between Roelofs’s notion of the aesthetic and morality
Experience Of Awe: An Expansive Approach To Everyday Aesthetics, Thomas Leddy
Experience Of Awe: An Expansive Approach To Everyday Aesthetics, Thomas Leddy
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
As opposed to Melchionne and Naukkarinen, I defend an expansive definition of everyday aesthetics, one that includes festivals, tourism, and many daily activities of artists and other professionals, along with most ordinary and common experiences. I argue for continuities between aesthetics of everyday life and the aesthetics of art and nature. Looking through a window, for example, may involve aspects of all three. Although I agree with Melchionne that everyday aesthetics is closely related to questions of subjective well-being, I take a more expansive approach to this, drawing from recent psychological studies of the experience of “awe” to stress the …
What Is Temporal Art? A Persistent Question Revisited, John Powell
What Is Temporal Art? A Persistent Question Revisited, John Powell
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
This article examines the fourteen conditions constituting Levinson and Alperson’s taxonomy of conditions for temporal arts. It claims that some of the conditions and several of the lists of arts exemplifying them need revision. It recommends adding a new condition concerned with the effects of the passage of time on gardens, environmental sculpture, and outdoor installations. The article concludes that gardens may be a model for understanding and appreciating other arts sharing the same bi-(multi-) modality.
Performing Politics, Troy R.E. Paddock
Performing Politics, Troy R.E. Paddock
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Walter Benjamin’s observation that fascism turns politics into aesthetics is, by now, a well-worn idea. This article argues that Benjamin’s critique of politics can apply just as much to the modern democratic politics of the United States. Borrowing from Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, and Carl Schmitt, this article suggests that modern political discourse in the United States does not follow the classical liberal ideal of rational discourse in the marketplace of ideas within the public sphere. Instead, contemporary politics has become spectacle where images and slogans replace thought and debate in a 24/7 news cycle and political infotainment programs. The result …
Listening To Musical Performers, Aron Edidin
Listening To Musical Performers, Aron Edidin
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In the philosophy of music and in musicology, aprt from ethnomusicology, there is a long tradition of focus on musical compositions as objects of inquiry. But in both disciplines, a body of recent work focuses on the place of performance in the making of music. Most of this work, however, still takes for granted that compositions, at leas in Western art music, are the primary objects of aesthetic attention. In this paper I focus on aesthetic attention to the performing activity itself. I begin by roughly characterizing what is involve in attending to the performing activity of musical performers. I …
The Aesthetic Pulse Of The Everyday: Defending Dewey, Kalle Puolakka
The Aesthetic Pulse Of The Everyday: Defending Dewey, Kalle Puolakka
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In the relatively fragmented field of everyday aesthetics, some issues have gradually become the subject of increasingly heated debate. One of the primary disputes concerns aesthetic experience and how that concept should be understood. This article defends the view that the conception of aesthetic experience developed by John Dewey offers a much more promising foundation for a theory on the aesthetics of everyday life than some scholars have believed.
Epistemic Function And Ontology Of Analog And Digital Images, Aleksandra Lukaszewicz Alcarez
Epistemic Function And Ontology Of Analog And Digital Images, Aleksandra Lukaszewicz Alcarez
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
The important epistemic function of photographic images is their active role in construction and reconstruction of our beliefs concerning the world and human identity, since we often consider photographs as presenting reality or even the Real itself. Because photography can convince people of how different social and ethnic groups and even they themselves look, documentary projects and the dissemination of photographic practices supported the transition from disciplinary society to the present-day society of control. While both analog and digital images are formed from the same basic materia, the ways in which this matter appears are distinctive. In the case of …
Yellowism And Ontology: A Skeptical Analysis, Wesley D. Cray
Yellowism And Ontology: A Skeptical Analysis, Wesley D. Cray
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
When Vladimir Umanets entered the Tate Modern on October 7, 2012 and defaced Rothko's Black on Maroon, he was operating, not as an artist or a vandal, but as a Yellowist. Yellowism is neither art nor anti-art but is instead a supposedly new cultural element that exists for its own sake and is about nothing but the color yellow. It might be tempting to write Yellowism and the Rothko defacement off as a mere prank or as pseudo-intellectual fraud, but I argue that, intentionally or not, the Yellowists have raised issues salient to those invested in both the ontology of …
Norms Of Cultivation, Kevin Melchionne
Norms Of Cultivation, Kevin Melchionne
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
In this paper I identify a new group of aesthetic norms, which I call norms of cultivation. Judgments of taste are often accompanied by forecasts or expectations about future aesthetic satisfaction. When we find something beautiful, we expect to find it beautiful in the future. Forecasting is at play in all sorts of aesthetically motivated behavior. Yet psychologists have observed an unreliability in such forecasts. As a result of forecasting error, what we take as our taste can be an unreliable guide in our aesthetic lives. Compensating for the unreliability of taste are norms of cultivation, implicit rules for engaging …
Longing For Clouds - Does Beautiful Weather Have To Be Fine?, Mădălina Diaconu
Longing For Clouds - Does Beautiful Weather Have To Be Fine?, Mădălina Diaconu
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Any attempt to outline a meteorological aesthetics centered on so-called beautiful weather has to overcome several difficulties: In everyday life, the appreciation of the weather is mostly related to practical interests or reduced to the ideal of stereotypical fine weather that is conceived according to blue-sky thinking irrespective of climate diversity. Also, an aesthetics of fine weather seems, strictly speaking, to be impossible given that such weather conditions usually allow humans to focus on aspects other than weather, which contradicts the autotelic character of beauty. The unreflective equation of beautiful weather with moderately sunny weather and a cloudless sky also …
Landscapes Of Human Experience, Martin Seel
Landscapes Of Human Experience, Martin Seel
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Landscapes of Human Experience, PDF download. This essay begins with some observations concerning the interaction between nature and art. Relying on these reflections, in the second part experience of landscape will be interpreted as a model for the human stance within the natural as well as the historical world. In the third part some consequences for an ethics and politics of saving the conditions for individual as well as social well-being will be drawn.
The Cacaio Project: Education For Environmental, Aesthetic And Moral Development, Atila T. Calvente
The Cacaio Project: Education For Environmental, Aesthetic And Moral Development, Atila T. Calvente
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Economic inequalities, institutional awkwardness, cultural underdevelopment, social exclusion, a fast rate of environmental, ecological, and biodiversity degradation have all been at the root of historic social injustice and structural poverty in Brazil for centuries. Human development and emancipation in this context should be approached as a set of non-formal educational practices to promote better learning and dignity. These would become potent means for reducing material poverty and selfish individual behavior, and for improving holistic modes of education and culture. Non-traditional educational practices can have an important influence in state-run schools, as well as in private schools, by enhancing resilience and …
Annunciations - Figuring The Feminine In Renaissance Art, John M. Carvalho
Annunciations - Figuring The Feminine In Renaissance Art, John M. Carvalho
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Viewers of Renaissance representations of the Annunciation miss an important irony. Where Mary is figured as unimpressed by Gabriel's proposal, she is upholding a masculinist ideal of female virtue. Where she is figured as delighted by the news, she represents an alternative feminine ideal that continues to be attractive to women and feminists, today. Inspired by the writings of Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva, I figure Mary in Renaissance representations of the Annunciation as contesting an ideal of feminine virtue that would deny her sexual difference and deny her pleasure in fulfilling her role as the bride and mother of …
One Song, Many Works: A Pluralist Ontology Of Rock, Dan Burkett
One Song, Many Works: A Pluralist Ontology Of Rock, Dan Burkett
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
A number of attempts have been made to construct a plausible ontology of rock music. Each of these ontologies identifies a single type of ontological entity as the “work” in rock music. Yet, all the suggestions advanced to date fail to capture some important considerations about how we engage with music of this tradition. This prompted Lee Brown to advocate a healthy skepticism of higher-order musical ontologies. I argue here that we should instead embrace a pluralist ontology of rock, an ontology that recognizes more than one kind of entity as “the work” in rock music. I contend that this …