Monster aesthetics as an expression of decolonizing the design body

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafaela Angelon ◽  
Frederick van Amstel
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Characteristic Form ◽  
Good Design ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Standards Of Beauty ◽  
Design Experiments ◽  
As If ◽  
Form Of Expression

Institutionalized design education aims at training the human body to become a design body, a subject capable of designing according to aesthetic canons. In colonized territories, the modern canon predominates over indigenous, vernacular and other forms of expression. Manichaeism, utilitarianism, universalism, methodologism and various modern values are inculcated in the design body as if it did not have any. The colonization of design bodies makes young designers believe that once they learn what good design is, they need to save others from bad design. This research reports on a series of democratic design experiments held in a Brazilian university that questioned these values while decolonizing the design body. Comparing the works of design produced in the experiment with some works of art from the Neoconcrete movement, we recognize a characteristic form of expression we call monster aesthetics: a positive affirmation of otherness and collectivity that challenges colonialists’ standards of beauty and goodness.

scholarly journals Neurological and Neuropsychiatric Diseases through the Lens of Roman Sculpture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Fadda
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Clinical Signs ◽  
Medical Diagnoses ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Neuropsychiatric Diseases ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
As If

Roman sculpture has often given the impression that it provides such a precise simulacrum of the bodies of ancient Romans that their statues can be studied autoptically as if they were a patient. Specialists in medicine and art-history have studied Roman sculptures to the point of producing real medical diagnoses, generating a research niche which, while controversial, has led to some interesting discoveries. However, scholars had sometimes misunderstand certain elements of ancient sculptures, interpreting aesthetic choices as clinical signs. In the article several works of art from the Republican period to the Tetrarchic age will be observed, to assess if the diagnoses made on them are due to actual physical features of the individuals portrayed or not. This article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the study of ancient pathologies through Roman sculpture to delineate the limits and the possibilities of such approach.

scholarly journals New Century – ‘New Essays’?

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-35
Author(s):  
Dobrawa Lisak-Gębala
Keyword(s):  
Travel Writing ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Second World ◽  
Cognitive Attitude ◽  
Animal World ◽  
Form Of Expression

This article constitutes an attempt at organising the non-conservative tendencies in Polish essays published in the 21st century, which apply to themes, the lowering of the tone, and forms of writing. One major stream is travel writing, which focuses not on the Mediterranean legacy, but on the ‘second world’: long-disadvantaged provincial areas. Many essayists abandon the traditional topic of books and works of art, and turn to ‘reading’ the animal world, the plant world, and the world of ordinary objects. The essay has also become a tool for introducing polarisation between that which is mainstream and that which is marginal and concerns minorities. The fact of choosing a non-traditional topic often entails a non-canonical cognitive attitude, which translates into experiments within the area of the form of expression. The author of this article argues that all those innovations can be accommodated by the flexible convention of the essay as a genre which, in principle, is supposed to constitute an artistic cognitive experiment.

scholarly journals 139. An Attempt of Observing a 3-D Organic Images as if Projected within the Real Human Body

1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 1058
Author(s):  
Makoto Iwahara ◽  
Yoshitsugu Nishi ◽  
Naoki Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
The Real ◽  
As If

scholarly journals IMAGES AT WORK: NARRATIVES IN WORDS AND PICTURES

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavina Cherchi
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Italo Calvino ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Aby Warburg ◽  
Work Narratives ◽  
As If

Images are not innocent. Even though they arise from us, and often are made by us, they face and challenge us as if they lived a life of their own. Once they have appeared or have been produced, they acquire separate existence and indisputable reality of independent beings, which populate and shape our outer and inner world. As sensitive or imagined bodies they enter in resonance with our own sentient and imagining body. Human body is indeed the “locus of images” incessantly moving and acting on the ever-changing scene of our memory and imagination (i.e. of our own ‘fluctuating’ Self): thereby images are responsible for what we are as well as for what we wish (or dream) to be. Images are not innocent because they are neither inert nor lifeless. We are never safe in the presence of images: they can be alluring or frightening, reassuring or threatening, familiar or disquieting, lifesaving or harmful; they can impede or elicit action. Such irreducible ontological problematic, yet unmistakably empathic, nature of our relationship with images, is, in this essay, surveyed in the light of the reflections of Aby Warburg and Italo Calvino. Warburg’s theory of Pathosformeln and Calvino’s account of the role of visual images in his own verbal narratives, then provide the theoretical horizon for interpreting the narration by images sculpted by the medieval architect Biduinus on the façade of the XII century church of Saint Casciano of Cascina, near Pisa, and thereby unfolding the symbolical, iconological and metaphysical implications of its powerfully empathic imagery.

scholarly journals Invisible Surveillance in Visual Art

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 204-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Barnard-Wills ◽  
David Barnard-Wills
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Surveillance Society

Contemporary art has recently started to engage with surveillance. Before this trend developed art theory had developed a rangeof approaches to understanding identity in art, sometimes borrowing from social, psychoanalytic and political theory. Art work atthe intersection of surveillance and identity tends to focus upon the representation of the human body as subject of surveillanceand bearer of identity. However, contemporary surveillance is data, categorisation and flows of information as much as it isCCTV and images of the person. There are notably fewer works of art that engage with ‘dataveillance’. This paper engages withsuch artwork as a case study for assessing the suitability of contemporary art historical theories of identity to make sense ofidentity in a surveillance society.

Effect of Providing an Opportunity for Competition in Design Education

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenji Iino ◽  
Masayuki Nakao
Keyword(s):  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Functional Requirement ◽  
Good Opportunity ◽  
Good Design ◽  
Creative Solutions ◽  
Students First ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
To Come ◽  
The University

We have been offering conceptual design courses to graduate level mechanical engineering students. The courses are taught at three different graduate schools; Kyushu Institute of Technology, Sophia University, and The University of Tokyo. The mechanisms of course offering are different among these three schools, however, the underlying theme is the same. That is to identify a problem that the students want to solve and work in groups to come up with creative solutions. The students first go through sessions to sharpen their sense of feeling inconveniences. We then emphasize the importance of properly stating the functional requirement for their yet-to-build solution. Engineering students often struggle with this first stage. Once they set the goal, the course teaches brainstorming, Design Record Graph, and prototyping. Last year, we experimented with a final assignment of producing posters of their new products. The posters were collected and presented at an adult conference. The conference participants cast votes for their preferred posters. The top three winners received book cards to purchase books. This poster competition gave the students high incentives to produce good design proposals. The winning factor was not just technical supremacy but the votes were strongly affected by the solution presentation on the posters. It provided a good opportunity to teach engineering students that technology alone is not always the most important factor in winning businesses.

scholarly journals An Introduction to Design Studio Experience: The Process, Challenges and Opportunities

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-69
Author(s):  
Sehnaz Cenani ◽  
Yazgi Aksoy
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Parametric Design ◽  
Spatial Perception ◽  
Design Studio ◽  
First Year ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Abstract Level

This paper explores design education in studio settings and presents insights from a design studio based on parametric design thinking. The first-year design studios are essential parts of the architectural education. In these studios, design decisions are taken on a more abstract level, there are less constraints, and the exercises are designed to explore the potentials of design, within the framework of various scales, ranging from human to building, and then to urban. The Introduction to Design course is constructed with interconnected exercises based on concepts such as modularity, the parameters of the human body and spatial perception. The first exercise is designing an architectural structure through parametric thinking. The second exercise is about exploring the design potentials of cube modules with each other, with a rule-based design approach. To better understand the importance of ergonomics in design, the third exercise focuses on the concept of movement through the human body. The aim of the fourth exercise is to study a physical environment and to investigate spatial perception in the built environment. The main aim of this design studio is to teach design with parametric design thinking while focusing on improving the cognitive skills of the students. An Introduction to Design studio experience that is formulated according to these features is described in this study.

The Force of Small Gestures

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. N. Rodowick
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Plastic Arts ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Philosophical Intuition ◽  
Experimental Video ◽  
Continuous Dynamic ◽  
As If

In The Logic of Sensation, Gilles Deleuze describes sensation as a domain that lies beneath, over, or inside quotidian vision as if in another dimension of intensive qualitative experience masked by habitual perception. Sensation is also a way of grasping the immanence of philosophy to works of art. The logic of sensation is part and parcel of our world as lived; one might say that sensation is immanent to perceptual experience as force is immanent to matter. In Deleuze’s account of sensation, the plastic arts are less concerned with matter and figuration than they are with force and becoming. Perhaps the problem for both painting and cinema is how to see time and force differently, and to release the figural force of sensation in the image. The chapter continues by investigating the logic of sensation in recent experimental video, primarily Ernie Gehr’s Glider (2001), but also two of the author’s own recent artworks, Waterloo and Plato’s Phaedrus. The chapter concludes with an account of Henri Bergson’s lecture on philosophical intuition to argue that there is a continuous dynamic line that runs between intuition and philosophy, Image and Concept

scholarly journals L’impossible « chambre des horreurs » du Museum of Ornamental Art : une archéologie du design criminel

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-51
Author(s):  
Marie-Ève Marchand
Keyword(s):  
Design Education ◽  
Art And Design ◽  
Good Design ◽  
The Public ◽  
British Art ◽  
Design Theories ◽  
Ornamental Art ◽  
The One ◽  
Victoria And Albert Museum ◽  
Do So

In 1852, the Museum of Ornamental Art, today the Victoria and Albert Museum, opened its doors to the public. Taking part in a general reform of the British art and design education system, the museum sought to instill what were considered good design principles. To do so, a museographic strategy that proved to be as popular as it was controversial was chosen: the exhibition gallery entitled “Decorations on False Principles,” which immediately became known as the “Chamber of Horrors.” This gallery, a dogmatic expression of the functionalist conception of ornament advocated by the museum, referred through its nickname to another then famous Chamber of Horrors, the one in Mme Tussaud’s wax museum. In this paper, I will first argue that the Museum of Ornamental Art’s Chamber of Horrors is an early example of the association of ornament with crime that reappears in later design theories. Second, by examining the means taken to transmit the idea of the criminalization of ornaments designed after “bad principles,” I demonstrate why the concept of the Chamber of Horrors is in itself doomed to failure. I thus analyze this uncommon exhibition as a manifestation of the museum’s aesthetic philosophy and mechanisms at a time when the institution’s modalities were still in the process of elaboration.

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