The Hybrid Practitioner

The practice of architecture manifests in myriad forms and engagements. Overcoming false divides, this volume frames the fertile relationship between the cultural and scholarly production of academia and the process of designing and building in the material world. It proposes the concept of the hybrid practitioner, who bridges the gap between academia and practice by considering how different aspects of architectural practice, theory, and history intersect, opening up a fascinating array of possibilities for an active engagement with the present. The book explores different, interrelated roles for practicing architects and researchers, from the reproductive activities of teaching, consulting and publishing, through the reflective activities of drawing and writing, to the practice of building. The notion of the hybrid practitioner will appeal strongly to students, teachers and architectural practitioners as part of a multifaceted professional environment. By connecting academic interests with those of the professional realm, The Hybrid Practitioner addresses a wider readership embracing landscape design, art theory and aesthetics, European history, and the history and sociology of professions.

Chromatophony: A Potential Application of Living Images in the Pixel Era

Squids can rapidly change their body color using chromatophores that are controlled by electrical signals transmitted through nerves. The authors transform a squid's skin into an audio visualizer, Chromatophony. This is accomplished by sending an electric tone signal composed as music to the skin. Although the appearance of Chromatophony is similar to computer-generated images, it is based on a natural phenomenon with a colorful mosaic display. By comparing chromatophores with pixels, the authors propose Living Images, to expand the potential of visual expression from the perspective of bio-art theory.

Modernity through syncretism and eclecticism: Wu Guanzhong's artistic practice in the cultural and political environment of the PRC (1949-1989)

<p>This thesis examines Wu Guanzhong’s 吴冠中 (1919-2010) art and art theory in the context of socialist and post-socialist China. Wu’s art came to maturation through a sophisticated syncretism of Chinese and Western painting styles and techniques. Aesthetic considerations notwithstanding, each of Wu’s artistic breakthroughs was also a direct response to the cultural policies of the Chinese Communist Party or to the larger cultural and political currents at important junctures of twentieth-century China. Mirroring the syncretistic style and political nature of his artwork, Wu’s art theory is characterised by an eclecticism that mediates between Chinese and Western artistic concepts and walks a thin line between creative agency and political correctness. By identifying the particular qualities of Wu’s art practice that captured the spirit of the 1980s and contributed to his phenomenal success during the ‘Culture Fever’ at the time, this thesis seeks to demonstrate how Wu’s unique blend of syncretism may exemplify an alternative path of Chinese artistic modernity, one that is forged by ‘official artists’ working within the system and shaped by the artists’ strategies of cultural politics as much as their aesthetic choices.</p>

Modernity through syncretism and eclecticism: Wu Guanzhong's artistic practice in the cultural and political environment of the PRC (1949-1989)

<p>This thesis examines Wu Guanzhong’s 吴冠中 (1919-2010) art and art theory in the context of socialist and post-socialist China. Wu’s art came to maturation through a sophisticated syncretism of Chinese and Western painting styles and techniques. Aesthetic considerations notwithstanding, each of Wu’s artistic breakthroughs was also a direct response to the cultural policies of the Chinese Communist Party or to the larger cultural and political currents at important junctures of twentieth-century China. Mirroring the syncretistic style and political nature of his artwork, Wu’s art theory is characterised by an eclecticism that mediates between Chinese and Western artistic concepts and walks a thin line between creative agency and political correctness. By identifying the particular qualities of Wu’s art practice that captured the spirit of the 1980s and contributed to his phenomenal success during the ‘Culture Fever’ at the time, this thesis seeks to demonstrate how Wu’s unique blend of syncretism may exemplify an alternative path of Chinese artistic modernity, one that is forged by ‘official artists’ working within the system and shaped by the artists’ strategies of cultural politics as much as their aesthetic choices.</p>

Świat sztuki i czas ewolucyjny — dlaczego estetyka współczesna boi się unaukowienia

The criticisms I address in this article provoke questions about the very nature of aesthetic discourse and its relation to scientific approach in art theory. In the article, I try to respond to the author who criticizes me (and evolutionary aesthetics) for disliking avant-garde art and, worse, contemporary aesthetics. I also try to explain that I am not a biological determinist, that I do not consider art an evolutionary adaptation, that I do not practice reductionism, and that I know how evolutionary mechanisms work. I also describe the reasons why the contemporary aesthetics, which the critic represents, is afraid of being scientific, and what this has to do with the need for prestige and belonging to the art world.

Ռաֆայել Շիշմանյանի որմնանկարչական աշխատանքները

The artist and expert of art theory Raphael Chichmanyan’s works of art have correspondingly been covered in professional literature. However, his mural artworks, besides some brief references, still need some detailed professional exposure. The paper submitted is dedicated to the mural artworks by Chichmanyan housed in the Nubar Library of Paris and the House of Armenian Students in Paris. The subject-matter artworks have been created in line with the depiction technique typical of medieval ornamentation; nevertheless, nowadays, the artistic solutions of the interior of the institutions mentioned above ascribe an absolutely novel framework to Chichmanyan’s murals, deserving the admiration of art buffs.

The deep, sometimes wild, subjectivities of practice…

In recent decades, there has been considerable interdisciplinary debate around the theories of scenography, but less so around the practices of scenography. This article revisits scenography to reposition it as a contemporary design discipline, with a reminder that its history is embedded in the traditions of art theory and philosophy. Using Isabelle Stengers’ ‘Introductory notes on an ecology of practices’ as an opportunity to rethink the practice of scenography, a project is revisited, under the rubric ‘design fiction’. This project ‘Burying the Narrative’ is presented as a source of conceptual and theoretical encounter as several objects are buried under the ground. This was a tactic to deliberately disassociate scenography from traditional conventions and methodologies. Design practice is considered an integral part of the ecosystem of theatre and performance, and certainly in the early stages of a project, clever manoeuvres give rise to creative speculations.

Sztuka jako adaptacja: uniwersalizm w estetyce ewolucyjnej

The paper is a synoptic review of my monograph Art as an adaptation. Universalism in evolutionary aesthetics (2018), which is the analysis of the evolutionary theory of art — a theoretical phenomenon that has been developed in recent years, a discipline that explains the origin of human admiration for beauty and human inclination to create and admire art based on Darwinian theories of natural and sexual selection. The main objective of the paper is to determine to what extent the evolutionary perspective enriches our concept of art and whether naturalization and universalization of the analysis of art can be enlivening for aesthetics in the face of its crisis. On a more general level, the aim of the work is to demonstrate that the use of evolutionary hypotheses in the humanities, based on the achievements of, among others, biology and evolutionary psychology, human behavioural ecology and cognitive archaeology, can become a recipe for the conceptual and identity impasse in the humanities in general. In the paper I make a case for the claim that the evolutionary study of art and artistic behaviour indicates art’s inalienability “as a result of the inner human need”. It also formulates justified assumptions in a philosophical debate on the existence of aesthetic universals and the credibility of the universalist position in art theory. According to this, art operates as part of a natural, immutable apparatus of sensations, universal to all humans.

Chinese and Painting: an outsider's, inside experience of the Lingnan School and Xie He's writings.

<p>In this thesis, I draw on personal experience and contact with painters from within the Academy [of Fine Arts] structure, art associations, societies and individual practitioners, both in China and overseas. I choose to use the materials of brush, ink and paper that make up the treasures of the artist's studio. My understanding and interpretation is based on my experience as apprentice to master Fang Chuxiong, a third generation master of the Lingnan School. My perceptions were further shaped by the discussions on art theory and practice I had with masters and professors from both within the Lingnan School and outside the academy structure.</p>