Works of Art and the Future

Abstract

Will adding an artistic layer to our future exercises eventually improve them? Why? How? Will this supposed improvement contribute to the entire exercise or only to some of its aspects? Moreover, will such an improvement have long-term, stable consequences or only momentary and occasional ones? The research question I would like to unfold may then be summarized by the claim “Works of art as gates to the future.” Unsurprisingly, this claim needs further qualifications, such as works of are always/often/occasionally/rarely/never gates to possible/preferable/obnoxious future. Furthermore, what does it mean to be a “gate to the future”? To make the future visible? To make the future understandable? To pave the way toward the future? This vast array of preliminary qualifications suggests that the question of the connection between works of art and the future is awfully tangled. I would be satisfied if this paper provides a frame to be eventually improved by subsequent works. Specifically, I would be happy to explain the first, basic question: why works of art may eventually improve futures exercises. I will focus primarily on Nicolai Hartmann, and secondarily on Roman Ingarden and Ernst Bloch. The conclusion I shall arrive at is that works of art can definitely improve futures exercises, because both aesthetic objects and the futures are unreal objects and presents irreducible points of indeterminateness.