Aesthetics Commons^™

What Moves You?: Georges Didi-Huberman’S Arts Of Passage And Pittsburgh Stories Of Migration, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Contemporary art historian, critic, and theorist Georges Didi-Huberman thinks of images not as static objects, but as movements, passages, and gestures of memory and/or desire. For the French “historian of passing images,” as he has been called, “all images are migrants. Images are migrations. They are never simply local” (D2017). His book, Passer, quoi qu'il en coûte ("To Pass at Any Price"), co-written with the Greek poet and director Niki Giannari, takes on precisely the visual dynamics of passages, passengers, and passageways in the context of contemporary migration flows. In April 2018, only several months after the launching of the …

Beside| |Between, Brooke J. Armstrong

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Beauty and the grotesque both induce physical sensations in the body. Pleasure and displeasure are two points on the same line. They are not mutually exclusive. Like the body and the vessel, like the self and the other all things exist in reciprocity. The capability of holding brings agency, breaking down perceptions of of subject-object relationships. The works presented in this paper represent a merging and a transformation of perceived separate entities. Craft history and processes inform the work present in the thesis exhibition, Beside| |Between.

Editorial, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Recent Publications, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Causal Role Of Inferences Elicited By Accompanying Text In Aesthetic Experiences, Christian C. Steciuch

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Appreciating paintings has been shown to be partly based on the viewer’s knowledge of the artwork. One technique that provides background knowledge to viewers is through text that is shown alongside artwork. Knowledge of the artwork can also arise from inferential processes regarding the artwork. Relatively little research has explored the role of accompanying text and inferential processes on aesthetic responses. The current study assessed the causal role of accompanying text and inference-making across cognitive (e.g., understanding) and emotional (e.g., positive affect) aesthetic responses. It was hypothesized that aesthetic responses would increase with the amount of accompanying text paired with …

Notices, Editorial Office

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Difficult Paintings, Hao (Damien) Ding

Theses and Dissertations

The sublime as a concept has a fraught and racist history. However, it remains the single most helpful idea in describing the deeply felt state of being when one comes across something ineffably powerful. From an art-making perspective, this thesis, and the accompanying exhibition of installations and paintings, proposes an alternative construction of the concept of the sublime. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis as a conceptual point of departure, a painter can manipulate the relationship of the viewer and paintings to create paradoxical moments of simultaneous intimacy and distance, which interact to create an alternative path towards the sublime. Through descriptions of …

Earth Tone Sigh Spell, Martha Glenn

Theses and Dissertations

A written accompaniment to the artist’s thesis exhibition titled Earth Tone Sigh Spell, conceived during the years 2020-21 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from May 1–15, 2021.

The following thesis explores themes of personal memory, geo-theory, myth, symbol, and historical event. The artist uses research and stream of consciousness writing methods as a way to weave these concepts together and tie them back to her own practice with installation, sculpture, and new media.

Keeping Score: Some Lessons For Artists From The Later Wittgenstein, Nickolas Calabrese

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This text rounds up a few lessons fashioned after the idea of keeping score as it relates to the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. These lessons are emphatically related to the production of art, so this text might be at its best in the hands of an artist. They all loosely demonstrate the normative dimension of aesthetic production, which amounts to the claim that one is committed, by the act of production, to a communal endorsement for why an artwork ought to exist at all. The final part of this text will expand on this principle of normativity, but it …

Reconstructing Heritage: Places, Values, Attachment, Lisa Giombini

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

As natural catastrophes alter the environment, historical towns and other sites of heritage significance are at risk of being damaged, if not disrupted altogether. How should we confront the prospect of these disasters? And how are we to cope with the reconstructions that will be needed as these phenomena occur?

In this paper, I explore philosophical tools for thinking more deeply about the choices surrounding heritage conservation. Recent work in environmental psychology has investigated people’s emotional bond to places and how changes in a place’s structure may pose a threat to individual and social cohesion. Similarly, everyday aestheticians emphasize the …

De La Gravure Scientifique À La Gravure Artistique : Le Burin De Pierre Lyonet Et De Cécile Reims, Hélène Laulan, Caroline Anthérieu-Yagbasan

The Goose

Comment l’image peut-elle nous faire habiter le monde ? Pour répondre à cette problématique, nous cherchons ici à interroger la tension peut-être trop tranchée entre images scientifiques et images artistiques, pour construire un questionnement ontologique sur l’image. Cette réflexion s’appuiera sur la pratique de deux graveurs, l'un dit « scientifique », et l'autre « artiste ».

Floating Gardens In The Urban Landscape, Victor Rivera-Diaz

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

On Japanese Minimalism, Paul Haimes

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Shibumi, a Japanese term referring to a subtle elegance, but at times suggestive of austerity or even bitterness, captures a certain sense of restraint that is reflected in much traditional Japanese design. Although concepts derived from Japanese Zen Buddhism, such as ma, wabi-sabi, and iki, may be more commonly known to English-speaking audiences, this article proposes that shibumi is the more appropriate concept to apply when considering the minimalist nature inherent in much Japanese design. Moreover, this article suggests that shibumi and modernist design tastes may be compatible, despite past suggestions to the contrary. To support …

The Hospitality Of The Abyssal Ground Or Perceptual Architectures Of Indeterminacy, Natasha Lushetich

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

There never has been such a thing as solid ground. As profoundly transient beings, all we can hope for is the hospitality of the abyssal ground.[1] Perhaps that is why our everyday aesthetic appreciation of our natural environment is inseparable from indeterminacy, as change and ambiguity but also potentiality; think of the immensely pleasurable journeys through the rapidly changing shapes in fire- or cloud-gazing. But can the same be said of our machinic environment? In this article, I discuss indeterminacy as a generative principle in four realms: elemental, evental, linguistic, and machinic. Anchoring the transubstantiating potential of the four …

A Philosophical Account Of Listening Musically, Paskalina Bourbon

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

What is the distinctive character of musical experiences? An answer: musical experience is distinctive because it is of music. I argue, however, that the difference between musical and nonmusical experience cannot be explained with an ontological account of music per se. Instead, we have musical experiences of sounds whenever we listen and attend to sounds in a particular kind of way. I call this special kind of attention “musical listening.” One can explain why musical experiences are distinctive by explaining what makes musical listening distinctive. This account of musical listening suggests an anti-realist stance towards music; there is no …

A Critique Of Nelson Goodman’S Aesthetics: Music As Process, William S. Gilbert

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

This essay seeks to provide a space to argue for music as both a process and memory as a counter to Nelson Goodman who argues for score as the fundamental means of identifying a piece of music. This paper builds off the work done by So Jeong Park in her piece, ‘Sound and Notation: Comparative Study on Musical Ontology’ in which she outlines an argument for calling attention to thinking about music as experienced over focusing on Platonic forms. She specifically focuses on the question, “what is music?'' rather than “what is a musical score”? Her question was intended to …

Drawn To Peace: Comics As Multimodal Narratives In Peace And Conflict Education, Laurence Stacey

Doctor of International Conflict Management Dissertations

Comics, a type of multimodal narrative, have historically been used as platforms for political discourse. Through a combination of visual, verbal, and spatial devices, comics often explore issues of peace, conflict, and justice “from below,” in ways that reveal the complexities of narrative and identity. In doing so, they have the potential to interrogate grand narratives that often go undisrupted. Humanities scholars have long recognized the value of literary and visual arts in preparing students to engage the salient themes of peace education. However, the medium of comics remains undertheorized in that field, despite the increasing popularity of comics as …

Editorial Introduction To The Special Volume On Urban Aesthetics, Sanna Lehtinen

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Urban Kinesthetics, Tea Lobo Ph.D.

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The question how a city can be an aesthetic object or a beautiful object can be posed in a more fundamental manner: how a city can be perceived in the first place. By city, I mean both a built environment and its less tangible social and political reality, such as hierarchies, interactions, and alliances. A city is never perceived, in this sense, as a whole but only as snippets of buildings, the smell of pollution, and so on. Therefore, it is not accidental that urban aesthetics have traditionally been associated with the figure of the flâneur, a leisurely stroller through …

The Socially Transformative Aesthetics Of Street Culture: From Walter Benjamin’S One-Way Street To The Arcades Project, Jules Simon

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper discusses the dialectical relationship of what I call an ethical aesthetics of the city, exemplified in the relationship of the Haussmannization techniques of architectural administration and spatial domination in their forms of the functionalist imperative of modern capitalist urban planning and spontaneous, improvisational-yet-collective, innovative modes of street life. I draw significantly on Walter Benjamin’s phenomenological ethics of urban aesthetics, comparing two developments in his reflections on the “everyday lived experience of the city,” specifically, lived experiences of city streets, namely, the work that he published in One-Way Street, and his unfinished work in The Arcades Project. …

From Footsteps To Data To Art: Seeing (Through) A Bridge, Sage Cammers-Goodwin, Michael Nagenborg

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

While the guiding vision for IoT (Internet of Things) suggests that technology withdraws to the background, this paper explores the case of a physically visible, IoT-enabled footbridge to be placed in Amsterdam in summer 2020. The question is, how do aesthetic relationships with the bridge shift as knowledge of its IoT capabilities increase? The outcomes of user observation and two community design workshops are discussed, focusing on 1) what individuals desire to know about the bridge’s IoT capabilities, 2) how to best inform users that the bridge is collecting data, and 3) what capabilities people would want a smart bridge …

Atmospheric Affordances And The Sense Of Urban Places, Vesa Vihanninjoki

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The places of our everyday lives constitute a fundamental condition for the sensibility and the meaningfulness of our urban experience. Such places afford us various things, and it is precisely the afforded uses and actions that remarkably affect or even define our experience of a place. It is, however, crucial to ask what makes certain place-based affordances visible to us while others remain invisible. Why do we experience and interpret a place as a “place-for-something,” and what is the role of aesthetics in this process? Not all place-based affordances are equally visible to everyone, and the meaning of personal and …

Loneliness, Art, And The City, David Jenkins

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Recognition of the costs of loneliness, in terms of public coffers and people’s health, is a relatively new phenomenon. That cities can be experienced as lonely places is nothing new. Responding to this, urban design focuses primarily on designing parks, housing, and plazas that bring people together in public space. However, these designs tend to encourage sociability amongst the already connected and do not address the social needs of lonely people who often feel daunted by the presence of others in public space. In this paper, I compare and contrast David Foster Wallace’s novels and Edward Hopper’s painting as different …

What Is An Urban Atmosphere?, Adam Andrzejewski, Mateusz Salwa

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Atmosphere is one of the key ideas in contemporary aesthetics. The concept proves to be exceptionally useful whenever particular spaces, including interiors or urban spaces, are discussed regarding their unique features. The goal of the paper is to reconsider how an urban atmosphere may be understood. In order to do that, we will shed light on the ontological nature of atmospheres, by revisiting the concept as it recently was presented by some influential proponents of the aesthetics of atmospheres. Contrary to the widespread view, we argue that an atmosphere is not an entity itself. It is not a “quasi-thing” or …

Visions Of Political Form: Kantian Free Play And Urban Space, Ryan Wittingslow Ph.D.

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

A number of commentators have examined Kantian beauty in regards to its political promise. According to these readings, the free play inherent to beauty is a precondition for realizing political forms that are both pluralistic and non-coercive. But what does this mean for the design of urban spaces where pluralistic and non-coercive politics are supposed to take place? In this paper I offer a reading of urban beauty via a Kantian lens. I argue that any assessment of urban beauty is, in part, an assessment of that space’s capacity to encourage the free play necessary for non-coercive politics and a …

Street Art, Decorum, And The Politics Of Urban Aesthetics, Andrea Baldini

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In the last forty years or so, authorities across the globe have appealed to the notion of decorum to justify authoritarian policies of urban control. Such a notion is distinctly aesthetic insofar as it deals with good taste in matters of appearances and behavior; decorum is about what we should or is appropriate to see and do in public spaces. When considering how deeply discussions and policies of decorum shape our daily lives, it is surprising that aestheticians have largely ignored the city as a subject of inquiry. In this paper, I examine the heretofore largely overlooked link between the …

The Data City, The Idiom And Questions Of Locality, Noel Fitzpatrick

Articles

The paper aims to provide both a radical critique of the “smart city” as a techno-ideological apparatus,that through data analysis and algorithmic forms of governmentality tends to colonize space and time, and an attempt to reframe the very concept of intelligence within the smart cities. Two concepts are presented as tools for such a reframing: locality and idiom, where the first is conceived as openness of meaning generated by a territory, while the latter,analysed througha paradigmatic Irish example (Friel’s play Translations), prepares the ground for the pars construensof the paper. The claim, built by intertwining a set of authors (Ricoeur, …

Narcissus And Beauty: A Renaissance Of Paterian Aesthetics, Amir Dagan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is intended as a correction to the almost universal contemporary assumption that beauty is either nonexistent or a tool of oppression, and that the arts should be judged less by their aesthetic value than their social, political, or moral dimensions. This dissertation will propose a fivefold argument. First, I will assert that the experience of beauty is real, pleasurable, and not in any way culturally determined, second, that beauty is the most significant and characteristic feature of art, third, that the rejection of the reality of beauty is motivated more by the fragility of the mass man’s ego …

The Problem Of Literary Development In Russian Formalism And Digital Humanities, Basil Lvoff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The interest of this dissertation is how our understanding of literary development—as gradual or revolutionary; self-governed or socio-politically determined; like or unlike biological evolution—informs the status, meaning, and value of literature and literary studies. The dissertation shows how this problem—most pressing in our post-logocentric age—was addressed at the dawn of contemporary literary theory by the Russian Formalists. The latter are compared with Distant Readers, i.e., the Digital Humanists from, or conducting research in dialogue with, the Stanford Literary Lab: Franco Moretti, Matthew Jockers, Ted Underwood, William Benzon, and others.

This dissertation argues that both Russian Formalism and Distant Reading were …

Topics Of The Sky: Ashbery's Involving Search For The Poem, Tom M. Carlson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An essay lived by John Ashbery's Three Poems with special attention to the possibility of cosmic relevance. This paper attempts to imagine priorities and needs proper to celestial bodies. Three Poems is the consciousness that gives possibility to the text, while Blanchot, Nietzsche, and other thinkers ground its exploration in philosophical analysis.