scholarly journals Out of Bounds: Confronting War Crimes and the Breakdown of Justice with Contemporary Art

2021 ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Catherine Bernard
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Collective Remembering ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
Marc Quinn ◽  
The Aesthetic

Recent art has turned to judiciary and extra-judiciary practices, specifically in the context of international conflicts, in order to assert art’s political accountability and relevance to our capacity to historicise the present. The war in Iraq inspired works that directly address issues of representation and remediation, such as Marc Quinn’s Mirage (2008), in which the aesthetic experience opens onto an ambiguous experience of the breakdown of justice. Other works have chosen to turn carceral space itself into the site of a collective remembering that harnesses affect to a critical reflection on the administration of justice, on assent and dissent. This article will turn to key works by Marc Quinn and Trevor Paglen that confront extra-judiciary malpractices, but also to recent collective art projects involving an interdisciplinary take on the experience of imprisonment, such as Inside. Artists and Writers in Reading Prison (2016), in which artists of all backgrounds responded to Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis on the very premises of Wilde’s incarceration, as well as the work of 2019 Turner Prize co-recipient: Jordanian sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan whose recent works rely on testimonies from Syrian detainees and probe the political pragmatics of aural art. All these works have turned to the document—literary, visual, aural—to reflect on the process of experiential mediation. How does the experience of imprisonment, or extra-judiciary malpractices, come to the spectator? How are they read, heard, interpreted, remediated? The article ponders the remediation and displacement of aesthetic experience itself and the “response-ability”—following Donna Haraway’s coinage—of such a repoliticised embodied experience. It will assess the way by which such interdisciplinary works rethink the poetics of the documentary for an embodied intellection of justice—and injustice—in the present.

The Game of Politics

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 459-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Logic ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Aesthetic

This article examines the game Papers, Please to demonstrate how the aesthetic experience of gameplay resonates with the cultural logic of contemporary globalist paradigms. The author demonstrates how video games make their players undertake a synthesis of work and play via a process of psychological and physical self-modification. This interrelation between work, play, and subjectivity modification within gameplay experiences embodies the same ideological framework that governs many knowledge-based economies which thrive off of user-generated content. In using the work/play/subjectivity connection to locate similarities between video games and the logic of globalist paradigms, the author presents a revised understanding of what constitutes the political dimensions of video games and the experiences they elicit in their players. This article concludes with an analysis of how the mechanics and narrative of Papers, Please embodies the cultural mind-set of work-as-play while simultaneously challenging the discourses often applied to user-focused information technologies.

scholarly journals Terrorens poetik: Revolutionen skrives med småt

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (107) ◽  
pp. 52-73
Author(s):  
Susanne Stoltz ◽  
Anders Tønnesen
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Situationist International ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Poetics of Terror: The Manifestoes of the RAF:This paper points to a ‘forgotten’ literary history of the Red Army Fraction (RAF) in order to contest a common misconception. The RAF is often perceived solely as a political phenomenon and its justification of terrorism as a political discourse. Thereby many scholars bluntly fail to pinpoint the attractiveness of the left-wing terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s. The paper argues that the writings of the first generation of the RAF also convey a ‘poetics’ of terrorism. It points to a somewhat overlooked strategy of justification in the writings, which can be formulated as follows: Both the act of terrorism and the utterance of its defence are justified as aesthetic experiences. Furthermore, this was constructed under heavy influence from groups of avant-garde artists in the tradition of the Situationist International (SI). The paper analyses the strategy of justification found in the first few RAF-statements. Beneath the political jargon of left-wing radicalism and the »credo of immediate action«, the paper locates another strategy of justification that carries the sign of avant-garde thought. According to the manifestoes of the RAF, the aesthetic experience of a terrorist act could liberate the spectator. The study concludes that the writings of RAF unveil a ‘poetics’ of terrorism. The act of terrorism is a radical transgression of reality. Hence, the terrorist act destroys the ‘mechanical’ system of cognitive oppression because it shows the possibility of another world. That is why the RAF views terror as a model of spiritual liberation. In addition to this the statements communicate a parallel concept to the ‘poetics’ of the terror act. The RAF constructed a concept of revolutionary language, ‘the armed propaganda’, which claimed to break down the barriers of ‘domination’ in the consciousness of the recipient. In doing so the statements perform what they preach; they are themselves acts of terror. The RAF’s concept of terrorism comprises both word and deed. The writings are acts and the acts are utterances. Accordingly, RAF’s ‘poetics’ of terrorism can be described as the transgression of reality in the word or deed of terror that leads to spiritual liberation.

scholarly journals The Parallels between Kantian Aesthetics and the Presence of Tibetan Art in the Yuan-Ming Era (1279–1644)

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei-Valentin Bacrău
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper will look at Kant’s views of the aesthetic experience, in relationship to Buddhist philosophical and political discussions of art and social organization. The primary focus in Kantian literature explores the relationship between free and dependent beauty, as well as Kant’s paradox of taste. The central argument of the Kantian portion is going to navigate the paradox of taste via Graham Priest’s epistemic and conceptual distinction pertaining to the limits of thought. Secondly, I shall contextualize the debate with similar argumentation found in medieval Tibetan literature, by thinkers such as Tsongkhapa and Drakpa Gyaltsen. Lastly, I shall look at the political and artistic state of affairs in Yuan and Ming Dynasties and assert the applicability of both Kantian and Tibetan discussions of effibility in the context of Tibetan poetry and Thangkas.

scholarly journals En defensa del concepto de “actuación estética” como actuación teatral verosímil

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 79-97
Author(s):  
Gina Cima Vallarino ◽  
Juan C. González González
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
A Performance ◽  
Aesthetic Performance

Este trabajo atañe a la experiencia teatral desde la estética y las ciencias cognitivas. Se defiende la idea de que la actuación estética puede ser entendida como actuación verosímil. Si la experiencia estética posee tres dimensiones –sensorial, conceptual y hedonista–, la verosimilitud en la actuación se lograría en términos de una estrecha y apropiada relación entre ellas. La experiencia estética del espectador sería, pues, una consecuencia de lo que éste percibe, piensa y siente. A su vez, los estudios empíricos permiten establecer criterios objetivos de evaluación para juzgar una actuación como verosímil, tanto por parte del actor como del espectador. In Defense of the Concept of “Aesthetic Performance” as Truthful Theatrical PerformanceThis work concerns Aesthetics and Cognitive Science. Furthermore, deals with theatrical issues, defending the idea that an aesthetic performance can be understood as a truthful performance. If the aesthetic experience has three dimensions –sensory, conceptual and hedonistic–, the truthfulness of the performance would be achieved thanks to a close and appropriate relationship between them. The aesthetic experience of the spectator would thus be a consequence of what he/she perceives, thinks and feels. At the same time, empirical studies allow to establish objective criteria of evaluation for judging the truthfulness of a performance, by both the actor and the spectator. Recibido: 03 de agosto de 2020Aceptado: 14 de diciembre de 2020

Introduction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikita Mathias
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Narrative Patterns ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
The Aesthetic

The reception of disaster films has been predominantly shaped by ideology-critical, semiotic, psychoanalytical, and eco-critical approaches that prematurely abstract from the films’ imagery in order to foreground capitalist, chauvinist, and racist discourses, narrative patterns, repressed collective anxieties, and states of crisis of the political mind. In my opinion, these approaches fail to grasp the disaster movie at its receptive core. In contrast, I argue that this core is located within the visuality and sensuality of the films, within their visceral images that agitate the spectator in a sensorily and affectively intense manner, within their ethical and spiritual sides which emerge in reaction to the receptive violation of the viewer, and finally within the complex relations between the films’ elements of attraction and their narrative elements. The predestined means of analytically uncovering these various facets of the reception of disaster cinema is, I believe, the aesthetic category of the sublime.

The New Gestural Cinema

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Berry
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Narrative Coherence ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
Art Scene ◽  
The Spectator

This essay examines the work of Chinese artist Yang Fudong, who often uses moving images in his art. It notes that not only has he always been interested in the gestural, but also that he has become increasingly drawn to gestural cinema. It argues that Yang Fudong’s output is a prime example of a new gestural cinema, and that this new gestural cinema is encouraged by the political economy of working on the transnational art scene, or the “artscape.” It goes on to ask how Yang Fudong has been able to deploy this new gestural cinema to his own artistic ends. Noting the debates about whether the gestural is an alternative and even redemptive language or whether it is the excess that stands beyond meaning, the essay argues that Yang’s art exercises the tension between the two potential understandings to produce his own unique effects. In Yang’s gestural cinema, the promise of meaning and narrative coherence is repeatedly invoked, and associated with the appearance of numerous figures of the modern, young, and educated individual. Yet, this promise is always frustrated, creating a structure that moves us from gesture as a way of conveying embodied experience to thinking about what meanings might attach to the gestures without imposing any particular conclusion on the spectator. This ambiguity is ethical insofar as it demands our cogitation rather than our judgment.

scholarly journals The performative turn at Inhotim: installation art and Baudelairean modernity

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-30
Author(s):  
Lauren S. Weingarden
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Installation Art ◽  
Charles Baudelaire ◽  
Art Museum ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Botanical Gardens ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Individual

This article explores the participatory turn in installation art as part of a trajectory from Baudelairean modernity to twentyfirst-century postmodernity, as represented at Inhotim, the outdoor contemporary art museum and botanical gardens in Brumadinho, MG. In his 1862 essay “The Painter of Modern Life,” Charles Baudelaire defined modernity as fleeting, transitory and fragmentary. Baudelairean modernity initiated a breakdown of boundaries between art and life and between high art aesthetics and popular culture, which continues in the work of installation artists. In the sites of installation art, the spectator is compelled to extend – rather than complete – the work of art in his/her own time, prior experiential encounters and transformative afterthoughts. The shift from the isolated work of art to the experiential one not only complicates how and where works of art are viewed, but also radicalizes the materials that constitute the work of art – whether those materials are extracted from the quotidian sphere or complex technologies, each undergoes a process of defamiliarization and reactivation to produce the transformative aesthetic experience. The individual installations in Inhotim’s “outdoor museum” engage the spectator in a dynamic/participatory experience with spatial, temporal and material relationships that define the very essence of art’s reciprocity, or contrast with the natural and man-made worlds. It is the rarefied setting of Inhotim’s botanical gardens that makes the participatory and transformative experience central to the aesthetic encounter with installation art.

scholarly journals Aesthetic Experience and Creativity in Interactive Art

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Esma Betül Savaş ◽  
Thijs Verwijmeren ◽  
Rob van Lier
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Interactive Art ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Way

Abstract Interactive art, which is art that relies on the participation of a spectator and in which the spectators enter the creative process, has changed the way people relate with artworks. An experiment was conducted in a laboratory with an interactive artwork (Temporal Perspectives by Doruk Kumkuoğlu and Sadettin Bilal Savaş, 2016) to investigate whether interactivity is a factor that plays a role in the aesthetic emotions and creativity of the spectator. The results indicated a significant increase in beauty, in response to interactive art. Partial correlational network analyses were conducted to further investigate the emotional experience of the artworks in both conditions. These analyses showed differences between the conditions in the emotional response to interactive art. However, cognitive flexibility of participants did not differ between conditions. The results indicate that interactivity should be taken into account as an element that affects the perception of art.

Dante Alighieri

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Bartoloni
Keyword(s):  
Dante Alighieri ◽  
The Political ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Artistic Process ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is invoked several times in the work of Giorgio Agamben, often in passing to stress a point, as when discussing the political relevance of désoeuvrement (KG 246); to develop a thought, as in the articulation of the medieval idea of imagination as the medium between body and soul (S, especially 127–9); or to explain an idea, as in the case of the artistic process understood as the meeting of contradictory forces such as inspiration and critical control (FR, especially 48–50). So while Agamben does not engage with Dante systematically, he refers to him constantly, treating the Florentine poet as an auctoritas whose presence adds critical rigour and credibility. Identifying and relating the instances of these encounters is useful since they highlight central aspects of Agamben’s thought and its development over the years, from the first writings, such as Stanzas, to more recent texts, such as Il fuoco e il racconto and The Use of Bodies. The significance of Agamben’s reliance on Dante can be divided into two categories: the aesthetic and the political. The following discussion will address each of these categories separately, but will also emphasise the philosophical continuity that links the discussion of the aesthetic with that of the political. While in the first instance Dante is offered as an example of poetic innovation, especially in relation to the use of language and imagination, in the second he is invoked as a forerunner of new forms of life. Mediality and potentiality are the two pivots connecting the aesthetic and the political.

From Altered States to Altered Titles: A Close Analysis of the Title Sequence to Ken Russell's Altered States (1981)

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 556-571
Author(s):  
Jack Post
Keyword(s):  
Altered States ◽  
Thematic Structure ◽  
Personal Projects ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
Narrative Representations ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Film Images ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Aesthetic

Although most title sequences of Ken Russell's films consist of superimpositions of a static text on film images, the elaborate title sequence to Altered States (1981) was specially designed by Richard Greenberg, who had already acquired a reputation for his innovative typography thanks to his work on Superman (1978) and Alien (1979). Greenberg continued these typographic experiments in Altered States. Although both the film and its title sequence were not personal projects for Russell, a close analysis of the title sequence reveals that it functions as a small narrative unit in its own right, facilitating the transition of the spectator from the outside world of the cinema to the inside world of filmic fiction and functioning as a prospective mise-en-abyme and matrix of all the subsequent narrative representations and sequences of the film to come. By focusing on this aspect of the film, the article indicates how the title sequence to Altered States is tightly interwoven with the aesthetic and thematic structure of the film, even though Russell himself may have had less control over its design than other parts of the film.

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