Aesthetics

Screen design: composing with dynamic symmetry

by Eugene Ch'ng

Screen design with dynamic symmetry: A discovery

by Eugene Ch'ng

SIMULATION OF A DESIGN ENVIRONMENT FOR USERS TO INCORPORATE PROPORTIONING SYSTEMS INTO SCREEN DESIGN

by Eugene Ch'ng

2012 CAJ Aesthetics

by Tilman Lenssen-Erz

“Sin and Redemption in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” in Bloom’s Literary Themes: Sin and Redemption. Eds. Harold Bloom and Blake Hobby. New York: Chelsea House, 2010: 223-230

by neil murphy

'Myself Creating What I Saw': The Morality of the Spectator In Eighteenth-Century Gothic

by Fiona Price

Published in Gothic Studies 8.2 (November 2006): 1-17.

Represented as feminised, the gothic's emotional and visual excess leads to its dismissal as artistically inferior.... more Represented as feminised, the gothic's emotional and visual excess leads to its dismissal as artistically inferior. However, this tendency can be reinterpreted as part of an important response to a tension between two key elements of eighteenth-century aesthetic thought: disinterestedness and sensibility. Although far from being necessarily incompatible, these came to possess significant points of friction. From its inception as a philosophical concept, the notion of disinterested sensibility was undermined by its connection with vision. Examining this in relation to the work of Anna Letitia Barbauld, Ann Radcliffe, Eliza Fenwick and Joanna Baillie, I contend that gothic fiction queries how the disinterested yet ethical spectator might be distinguished from the inhumane, voyeuristic consumer.

"Medium, Immediacy, Intermediality": a call for contributions to a proposed special issue of POSTMODERN CULTURE

by Matt Tierney

Co-edited with Mathias Nilges.

We invite submissions for a proposed special issue of Postmodern Culture entitled “Medium, Immediacy, Intermediality.”... more We invite submissions for a proposed special issue of Postmodern Culture entitled “Medium, Immediacy, Intermediality.” The issue aims to gather ways of seeing the term “medium” beyond current disciplinary frames. Rather than take the routes of literary or film studies, art history or communication theory—and rather than see media as discrete, pre-constituted categories of aesthetics or mechanics—we seek to put the category of medium into question, and in doing so, to facilitate approaches to the various mutually dependent media whose boundaries and frames might now seem less conclusive.

'Lessons in Seeing: Art, Religion and Class in the East End of London, 1881–1898', Journal of Victorian Culture (2011) 16:3, 385-403.

by Lucinda Matthews-Jones

In 1881 the Reverend Samuel Barnett, Anglican incumbent of St Jude's Church, Whitechapel, established the Whitechapel... more In 1881 the Reverend Samuel Barnett, Anglican incumbent of St Jude's Church, Whitechapel, established the Whitechapel Fine Art Exhibitions with his wife Henrietta. These quickly became an important part of the parochial programme ofSt Jude's. The Barnetts followed the art theories of John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold and argued that exhibiting famous and beautiful paintings would revive the spirituality of poor East Enders. In order to test this theory, they introduced the practice of ‘Voting for Your Favourite Picture’. The result, however, did not bear out straightforwardly the Barnetts' belief that paintings are ‘Windows into the other World’. The gap between the intended outcome and the actual reception of the Whitechapel Exhibitions reveals that, although they may not have adopted the Barnetts' religious aestheticism, working-class visitors were keen to engage with art on their own terms.

Book Review. Victorians in the Mountains: Sinking the Sublime, by Ann C. Colley, Farnham, Surrey, UK and Burlington, Vermont, USA, 2010, 253pp, £55.00 (hardback), ISBN 9781409406334.

by Jonathan Westaway

Book Review
Journal of Tourism History (forthcoming)

Black and White. On Symbolical Implications of an Aesthetical Polarization.

by Roman Meinhold

In: Boleswa Journal of Philosophy, Theology and Religion. Vol.1, No.3. December 2007. 155-166. ISSN 1817-2741

This paper attempts to show that the aesthetic opposition of black and white as
aesthetic perceptible... more This paper attempts to show that the aesthetic opposition of black and white as
aesthetic perceptible "colours" applied to the description of the density of human
skin pigment (as it is still done, for example, in southern Africa) does not reflect
aesthetic reality. To make its case, the paper argues that human beings are not
simply black or white in skin colour; this categorisation is not precise, because
the black and white scheme is a simplifying reductionism. Besides being a
simplification and reductionism, the application of this colour scheme to humans
is also wrong, because from the perspective of human perception black and white
"colours" are opposites or extremes, while humans with contrasting skin
pigmentations are by no means necessarily opposites or extremes. Another
argument advanced in the paper is that this aesthetic opposition may lead to an
anthropological extremism and thus to an ethical problem. The paper concludes
with two normative suggestions, namely that the black and white scheme should
be replaced with a non-binary scheme and that an individual should not be
signified by her/his skin colour alone.

John Dewey's Social Aesthetics

by Jason Kosnoski

Taste Regimes and Market-Mediated Practice

by Zeynep Arsel

Co-authored with Jonathan Bean. Forthcoming in Feb 2013.

Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily... more Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily practice. In this paper, we develop a practice-based framework of taste through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a popular home design blog, interviews with blog participants, and participant observation. First, we define a taste regime as a discursively constructed normative system that orchestrates practice in an aesthetically oriented culture of consumption. Taste regimes are perpetuated by marketplace institutions such as magazines, web sites and transmedia brands. Second, we show how a taste regime regulates practice through continuous engagement. By integrating three dispersed practices—problematization, ritualization, and instrumentalization—a taste regime shapes preferences for objects, the doings performed with objects, and what meanings are associated with objects. This study demonstrates how aesthetics is linked to practical knowledge and becomes materialized through everyday consumption.

A aura na era do seu anunciado declínio: Em torno de Cópia fiel de Abbas Kiarostami [The Aura in the Era of its Proclaimed Decline: Some Notes on Certified Copy by Abbas Kiarostami].

by João Pedro Cachopo

Published in "Viso", no. 10, 2011 [in Portuguese]

Abstract

The following text focuses on a recent film of the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, Certified... more Abstract

The following text focuses on a recent film of the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, Certified Copy (2010), and delves into it in order to reflect (with an eye to the present) upon the notions of copy, fiction, simulacrum, and, surprisingly enough, aura.

One comes up against these issues due to the “theme” and the “structure” of the movie: considering that it features an art historian discussing the value of copy in art (as in life), and that suddenly, in the middle point of the film, both protagonists (the art historian, and a woman with deep interest in art, with whom he gets acquainted in Italy) seem to act out a relationship. The spectator’s certainties fade out: have James and Elle recently met each other (as the first part of the film suggests), or do they maintain a relationship long since (as whoever watches the movie, having missed the first part, would guess)? The answer turns out to be undecidable.

A fiction unfolds within another fiction; however, none of them have primacy; the copy (the fictitious fiction) becomes independent from the original (the alleged true fiction); a simulacrum comes to the floor. How powerful is the latter? To what extent might a fiction transform life, rescue it from banality, or transfigure it? These questions encourage us to hazard the paradoxical hypothesis of there being a copy with aura. By this hypothesis (as we subvert the traditional association between aura and originality), it is the very transforming power of art (with regard to life) that remains at stake, beyond and independently of the bankruptcy of the distinction between original and copy.

Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton Cultural reproduction, attitudes, and meaning in the category of outsider art

by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

By Andrea Fritsch

Published in Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 4(1): 87-105. (May 2012)
Copyright ©2012 by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

An analysis of the debate surrounding the art exhibit Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton at Intuit: The Center... more An analysis of the debate surrounding the art exhibit Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in 2010 reveals sets of actors with competing interests and claims on the term outsider art. I explore the public fascination with madness and outsider art, suggesting actors engage outsider art in three attitudes—aesthetic, instrumental and investigative. Aesthetic attitudes operate within an expanded definition of official ‘Art’ that allows outsider artwork, but not the outsider artist, to participate in the reproduction of fine art conventions. Instrumental attitudes engage outsider artwork and perceptions of madness as forms of cultural and social capital in the Bourdieuian sense. The curators of Almost There operated with an investigative attitude, seeking to understand the social conditions influencing the artist as well as the artist’s sociality and intent. Investigative fields such as documentary production and psychiatry situate outsider art historically, as art practice, and subjective expression. I argue each attitude strategically engages the label of outsider art to both negotiate and question hierarchical relationships. The imperfect fit of the Almost There exhibit in the category of outsider art demonstrates the limitations of current conceptions of artistic merit and mental health.

Art's Fateful Hour

by Christopher Long

In 1935 Walter Benjamin wrote that “art’s fateful hour has struck” and that he had “captured its signature” in his... more In 1935 Walter Benjamin wrote that “art’s fateful hour has struck” and that he had “captured its signature” in his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproduction.” Less than a month after these words were written, Martin Heidegger gave a lecture entitled “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Freiburg. These two philosophical reflections on the nature of art, written in the lengthening shadow of European fascism, are brought into relation with one another in this essay in order to draw out the relationship between art and politics in the thinking of Benjamin and Heidegger. By focusing on Benjamin’s conception of the “aura” of the work of art, the article juxtaposes Benjamin’s attempt to locate the critical and emancipatory dimensions of art with Heidegger’s attempt to reinvigorate the aura in order to establish an authentic relation to the origin that might serve as fertile ground for a new vision of politics.

"Phantasmaphotography"

by Kas Saghafi

"The Ghost of Jacques Derrida"

by Kas Saghafi

Call for Papers: Midwest Society for Women in Philosophy Fall 2012

by Summer Renault-Steele

Aesthetics Awry: The Painter of Light™ and the Commodification of Artistic Values

by Jonathan Schroeder

I'm the Operator with the Pocket Calculator Some Reflections on Pure Data.

by Harald Wiltsche