[-empyre-] ah, aesthetics

[Tyler Fox]

Another useful source for aesthetics and bioart, in my opinion, is
Whitehead. Instead of a judgement, as with Kant, Whitehead considers
aesthetics as "lures for feeling." Such a position opens up a range of
aesthetic consideration of human and nonhuman aesthetics in bioart.

(I'm pulling from Steven Shaviro's book _Without Criteria_ for this reading
of Whitehead: http://www.shaviro.com/Othertexts/WithoutCriteria.pdf).

Best-
Tyler


On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 8:31 AM, Nell Tenhaaf <tenhaaf at yorku.ca> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Michele, there are a lot of ways to approach the expansion of aesthetics,
> some examples I like: Brian Massumi on event-based "lived abstraction";
> Jennifer Fisher on the non-visual senses; Margaret Morse on
> "viewer-turned-participant" going back to 1970s interactivity. I've just
> been looking at the material Oron referred to, found the really interesting
> Introspective Self-Rapports: Shaping Ethical and Aesthetic Concepts
> 1850-2006, by Katrin Solhdju that includes Neal White's work and some
> "bottom-up aesthetics" basics. -Nell
>
> On 2013-09-12, at 3:21 PM, Michele Danjoux wrote:
>
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > Hello Oron and Nell,
> >
> > Just enjoying reading your posts. I am finding the discussion
> fascinating thank you and was wondering what kinds of references might be
> ones to look at on aesthetics aside of "the heavyweights of aesthetic
> philosophy?"
> >
> > Thank you
> > Michele
> > ________________________________________
> > From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [
> empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] on behalf of Oron Catts [
> oron.catts at uwa.edu.au]
> > Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 6:35 PM
> > To: soft_skinned_space
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] ah, aesthetics
> >
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > Thanks Nell,
> > Interestingly enough- in 2002 we organised  a conference titled the
> Aesthetics of Care, there also was very little reference to the
> heavyweights of aesthetic philosophy.
> > What we had instead was lots of discussion about the non-human on
> display and references to performance/live art as  point of departure for
> biological art practices.  Later, Neal White talked about  invasive
> aesthetics, an idea we liked very much as it yet again disrupt the ocular
> centric bias of the field.
> >
> > The most intimate relationship one can have with an art work is by
> digesting, incorporating  it into one's body-  you can't really do it with
> a-life... and it is a very different aesthetic experience than just watching
> >
> >
> > But as Samuel Butler wrote in  Erehwon, 1872 '...for an art is like a
> living organism - better dead than dying.'  No cascade there...
> >
> >
> > Oron
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [mailto:
> empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Nell Tenhaaf
> > Sent: Wednesday, 11 September 2013 7:30 PM
> > To: soft_skinned_space
> > Subject: [-empyre-] ah, aesthetics
> >
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Hello
> everyone,
> >
> > Oddly, aesthetics has become one of my favourite topics even though I
> come out of the 70s "postmodern" and otherwise busted-open art moment. when
> it was the last thing anyone wanted to invoke. My feeling is that we will
> get hamstrung in seeking an aesthetic for bioart (or a-life art, or any of
> the marvellous outlier practices of the past decades) if we drop back to,
> say Kant - as comforting as that might sound. This came up in the context
> of a TOCHI (computer-human interaction) special issue I was part of a few
> years ago, on "aesthetics of interaction", which had a lot of good thinking
> about Dewey's pragmatist aesthetics that keeps real world deployment in
> view, and in general focused on ways of designing experience or interfaces
> to engage multiple kinds of embodiments and types of events. One
> commentator lamented than in the whole issue, the heavyweights of aesthetic
> philosophy were nearly invisible. It was a bit of a shock - although if the
> concern is to legitimate some k
>  in
> >   d of practice or set of practices, then yes, not such a surprising
> comment. Can't we legitimate at this point if we need to, via practices
> that we feel have a kinship in their kind of renegade approach to asking
> questions? - this reminds me of Rob Mitchell's comments about performance
> art as a key precursor to bioart, linking it with human/non-human
> population interactions - and it also links up to often physical risk and
> lots of good subject/object permeability.
> >
> > all best,
> > -n
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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