Aesthetic Experience Research Articles

Mixed-reality art as shared experience for cross-device users: Materialize, understand, and explore

Virtual reality (VR) has opened new possibilities for creative expression, while the 360-degree head-worn display (HWD) delivers a fully immersive experience in the world of art. The immersiveness, however, comes with the cost of blocking out the physical world, including bystanders without an HWD. Therefore, VR experiences in public (e.g., galleries, museums) often lack social interactivity, which plays an important role in forming aesthetic experiences. In the current study, we explored the application of a cross-device mixed reality (MR) platform in the domain of art to enable social and inclusive experiences with artworks that utilize VR technology. Our concept of interest features co-located audiences of HWD and mobile device users who interact across physical and virtual worlds. We conducted focus groups (N=22) and expert interviews (N=7) to identify the concept’s potential scenarios and fundamental components, as well as expected benefits and concerns. We also share our process of creating In-Between Spaces, an interactive artwork in MR that encourages social interactivity among cross-device audiences. Our exploration presents a prospective direction for future VR/MR aesthetic content, especially at public events and exhibitions targeting crowd audiences.

Historical and Personal Time in Mariana Marin’s Poetry

Romanian poet Mariana Marin (1956–2003) made her debut in 1981 and published her last collection in 2002, an interval that covers about one decade of communism followed by one decade of transition to democracy. Like a litmus test, her poetry, known for its existential radicalism and authentic textualism, reflects the cultural acidity of despotism and its crippling effects on individuals. Her courage to express the truth in poetry situates her among the poets interested not only in their own private aesthetic experiences, but also in the role of literature as a form of protest and a cultural instrument. Contrary to what some contemporaries living in diaspora or in Romania said about her, she did not consider herself a political dissident, but a nonconformist writer, member of the 1980s generation. She wrote against the fosilization of the communist regime, marked by limitations, oppression and imposture, trying to conceive an imaginary universe that reflects and transforms these realities by adopting a concise style accessible to any reader. This paper aims to explore the ways in which Mariana Marin combined her acute sense of history with her unique perspective of personal time in several poems published before and after 1989.

The role of aesthetic quality in urban spaces to influence use of active transport modes

ABSTRACT This study investigates whether and how perceived aesthetic quality of urban spaces play a role in influencing the use of active transport modes. By focusing on urban spaces in terms of car-oriented or human-oriented types within the Reykjavik metropolitan region and interpretation of qualitative interviews, this investigation goes beyond previous studies that have identified particular characteristics of preselected urban spaces stimulating aesthetic experience. Analyses of routes to neighborhood grocery stores used by selected survey respondents show a relationship between choices of active modes and the two types of urban spaces. Morover, interpretation of qualitative interviews suggests explantory information about how perceived aesthetic quality of urban spaces has an important role in promoting the use of active transport mode. This depends on the options provided at different locations within the urban structure, shaped by the planning idelogies that have affected the aesthetic quality of urban spaces.

Diffused Aesthetics or the Globalization of the Aesthetic

Diffused aesthetics is the formula by which the pervasiveness of aesthetic phenomena in the current scenario is summarized: having overcome the long phase of the exclusive dominance of art as the parameter of aesthetic values, contemporaneity has recognized itself in a plurality of practices in which even the non-aesthetic is thought and experienced as aesthetic. The essay aims to probe the theoretical aspects of this process in which material consumption and immaterial consumption converge into a single, everyday and pervasive scenario. This definition of a globalized aesthetics, in which the role of the aesthetic in consumer culture is fully activated, has configured first of all the opposition between the aestheticization and the aesthetics of the everyday, one approach ideological and critic and another more constrained to the aesthetic experience of the practices of the contemporary life-world.

Learning Islam through the Senses

Abstract This article discusses how the visual and embodied storytelling methods of the theater may be used in the formation of Islamic knowledge. Examining productions staged by young women in Oslo in the tradition of the Twelver Shia theater, taʿziyeh/shabih, during commemorative rituals, I ask: How did producers and actors perceive theater to generate knowledge? How were visual and embodied storytelling methods used in conveying religious knowledge? What kind of knowledge was generated? Inspired by theater theory and post-structuralist semiotics, the analysis shows that the theater had transformative qualities that could contribute to cultural transmission, education, and moral and spiritual development. Knowledge was produced through sensorial communication, thinking, and understanding, and was held to emerge from the spectators’ and actors’ aesthetic and affective experiences, in addition to their abilities to create emotional relations with holy protagonists and the divine. The learning outcome was therefore presented as open-ended and invited young spectators and actors to take responsibility and reflect on how to act and respond in our time.

Sculpting Aesthetic Experiences through Autistic Indigenous Knowledge

Sculpting Aesthetic Experiences through Autistic Indigenous Knowledge

Stimming as a Form of Autistic Aesthetic Experience, Neuroqueering Landscape

Stimming as a Form of Autistic Aesthetic Experience, Neuroqueering Landscape

Aesthetic Normies and Aesthetic Communities

Abstract Although there has been significant work on aesthetic snobbery and its ethical implications, much less work has been done on the aesthetic normie (normie for short). The normie is someone who primarily engages with popular aesthetic items. I argue that the normie is motivated by a drive towards sociality to connect with others and to rely on them given limited resources and time. I argue that the normie who is motivated by this drive will limit their aesthetic range and depth. This makes it harder for them to access new aesthetic experiences, distorts their ability to accurately appraise others, and makes it harder for them to connect with others. Nonetheless, I argue that we can achieve the goods of sociality by being aesthetically open. Expanding our willingness to engage with new aesthetic items and to develop and share more informed aesthetic judgments allows us to access more aesthetic values, appraise each other more accurately, and form valuable aesthetic communities.

‘Lines, shapes, and colours can alter the feel of a story’- A Reading of “The Heart and the Bottle” and “The Why-Why Girl”

Picturebooks are a powerful genre within children's literature, as they combine text and visuals, which deeply impact young readers. These books not only provide pleasure and aesthetic experiences but also help to expand children's imaginations. Molly Bang in her seminal text ‘Picture This: How Pictures Work’ (1991) delves into the intricacies of how we interpret visual elements like shape, colour, size, and composition, and the emotional impact they carry. This paper is a brief attempt to explore the application of Bang’s insights along with Moebius’s ideas in picturebooks like “The Why-Why Girl” (2003) by Mahasweta Devi (and illustrated by Kanyaka Kini) and “The Heart and the Bottle” (2010) by Oliver Jeffers.

Freud and the Two Michelangelos

ABSTRACT The aesthetic experience of an art work, and the analytic experience, are both created in a partnership; between artist and viewer, and analyst and patient. They take the viewer of an art work, and the analytic patient, beyond their familiar ways of relating to the world. The Moses of Michelangelo made a powerful impact on Freud, but he was unable to appreciate the aesthetic experience because he could not understand it rationally. Giving up the assumption that a work of art must represent something allows a different kind of engagement with it that is more contemplative and more psychoanalytic. Freud identified with Moses as a Jewish hero preserving the word-presentations of the Law against the irrational thing-presentation of the Golden Calf. A different response to the Moses appears in a film by Michelangelo Antonioni. Without words, it shows Antonioni gazing at the statue and interacting with it emotionally. Antonioni made the film aged 92. It is the last footage he shot, and its ending shows that, as well as the statue, he is gazing at his own death.

So Much Depends Upon a Red Stripe

ABSTRACT The paper explores the impact of Palmer’s spontaneous gesture of a red stripe that completed his abstract painting—emotionally and aesthetically—in response to a difficult analytic relationship. The red stripe arises from his search for greater openness, emotional freedom, and creative responses to the flow of communication with his patient. The analyst’s ethical intentions are inward to be open and available to the influx of the patient’s emotional world, and outward, found in actions and gestures with the patient striving for honesty, transparency, a willingness to take risks and accept accidents in a search for emotion truth and authentically being present. The analyst inhabits, gathers, and concentrates feeling that provides a medium for feelings to live, take shape, and be recognized by an analytic function called “the aesthetic” that then fosters “aesthetic experiences”—intense passages of shared living that are transformative.

“Being Careful in Only a Perverse Way”: The Use of Aesthetic Experience in Psychoanalytic Work

ABSTRACT The author describes some of his interest in the painting of Richard Diebenkorn, the poetry of Bob Dylan, and a lifelong enjoyment of entomology and fly fishing as it comes into “play” with his analytic work. Diebenkorn’s “Notes to Myself Upon Beginning a Painting,” which were discovered after his death in 1995, are remarkably overlapping with elements of the ontological analysis of both Winnicott and Bion. The author elaborates a few elements of analytic listening from inside his personal “aesthetic matrix,” a concept so helpfully introduced in Palmer’s paper, “The Aesthetic Matrix: A Conversation Between a Painter and a Psychoanalyst.” There is special attention to a few varieties of visual and verbal imagery linked to auxiliary containing functions for the analyst.

Seeing with New Eyes: On Jonathan Palmer’s “Aesthetic Matrix”

ABSTRACT Jonathan Palmer’s account of his artmaking practice illuminates the distinct role of intuition and the centrality of aesthetic experience in the creative process. The paper throws light on the work of creating a setting and framework that lends itself to an intuitive engagement, both in art-making and in analysis, an engagement that allows the painter and analyst to remain open to new formations of not-yet represented elements of experience. This paper shows what is entailed in keeping the possibly of fresh experience alive, by careful attention to the framing of things, the properties of the chosen medium, and the experimental posture of the practitioner.

Understanding Musical Beauty

An exploratory study was conducted investigating the concept of beauty related to music listening—“musical beauty.” The study implemented an online qualitative questionnaire aimed to evaluate how listeners construe the concept of beauty, the pieces of music considered to be beautiful, and the intrinsic and/or extrinsic features that listeners attribute to musical pieces being considered as “most beautiful.” Analysis of long-answer responses provided by English-speaking participants ( n = 32) reveals the way that listeners characterize “musical beauty” and contributes to empirical evaluation of musical aesthetic experiences. Listeners in this study construe beauty in two ways: one construal emphasizes the perceivable or recognizable intrinsic features of the piece of music, while the other emphasizes the affective or emotional extrinsic features of their listening experience.

Investigating User Experience of VR Art Exhibitions: The Impact of Immersion, Satisfaction, and Expectation Confirmation

As an innovative form in the digital age, VR art exhibitions have attracted increasing attention. This study aims to explore the key factors that influence visitors’ continuance intention to VR art exhibitions using the expectation confirmation model and experience economy theory and to explore ways to enhance visitor immersion in virtual environments. We conducted a quantitative study of 235 art professionals and enthusiasts, conducted using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), to examine the complex relationship between confirmation (CON), Perceived Usefulness (PU), Aesthetic Experiences (AE), Escapist Experiences (EE), Satisfaction (SAT), and Continuance Intention (CI). The results show that confirmation plays a key role in shaping PU, AE, and EE, which in turn positively affect visitors’ SAT. Among these factors, AE positively impacts PU, but EE have no impact. A comprehensive theoretical model was then constructed based on the findings. This research provides empirical support for designing and improving VR art exhibitions. It also sheds light on the application of expectation confirmation theory and experience economy theory in the art field to improve user experience and provides theoretical guidance for the sustainable development of virtual digital art environment.

Beauty and Paintings: Aesthetic Experience in Patients with Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia When Viewing Abstract and Concrete Paintings

We assessed the aesthetic experience of patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) to understand their ability to experience feelings of the sublime and to be moved when viewing paintings. We exposed patients with bvFTD and control participants to concrete and abstract paintings and asked them how moved they were by these paintings and whether the latter were beautiful or ugly. Patients with bvFTD declared being less moved than control participants by both abstract and concrete paintings. No significant differences were observed between abstract and concrete paintings in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. Patients with bvFTD provided fewer “beautiful” and more “ugly” responses than controls for both abstract and concrete paintings. No significant differences in terms of “beautiful” and “ugly” responses were observed between abstract and concrete paintings in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. These findings suggest disturbances in the basic affective experience of patients with bvFTD when they are exposed to paintings, as well as a bias in their ability to judge the aesthetic quality of paintings.

Поэтика вещи в книге сказов П. П. Бажова «Малахитовая шкатулка»

The article deals with P. P. Bazhov’s world of things as an aesthetic unity. The book of skaz (folk tales) of the Ural writer is a unique artistic world, the structure of which is defined by a system of several basic oppositions. It is a world extremely full of things, such as household items (people’s everyday lives), clothes (social status, the «us-them» divide), instruments and tools of craft (key topics of handicraft / craftsmanship) etc. A special role in this objective world is played by artisan products that combine the functions of a household item, an artefact and a magical object, and magical objects per se that are received from a donor but are usually different in function from their proper fairytale counterparts, which are common to the traditional Russian folklore and literary fairytales based on folklore stories. Bazhov’s system of images-things also includes a specific «human as a thing» category that is connected with the main conflicts of the book depicting serfdom-based mining civilization. Generally, the peculiarity of the world of things in «The Malachite Casket» is defined by the «borderline» nature of the skaz genre, its complex relationship with folklore and the unique character of Bazhov’s aesthetic experiment.

Comparative Study of Chinese and Western Literature

The purpose of this paper is to comparatively study the differences and commonalities between Chinese literature and Western literature. First of all, the characteristics of the two are compared from three aspects, namely, presentation methods, thematic contents and literary forms. Chinese literature focuses on mood, ambiguity, and emphasizes the natural flow of emotions; while Western literature attaches importance to structure, logic, and pursues innovation in form. In terms of thematic content, Chinese literature tends to express personal emotions and expresses the harmony between human beings and nature and society; while Western literature focuses on the conflict between individuals and society and emphasizes freedom, equality and human rights. In terms of literary forms, Chinese literature coexists in various forms such as poetry, prose and novels, while Western literature takes novels, dramas and poems as its main forms. Secondly, this study explores the reasons for the differences between the two in terms of cultural background, writers' creative concepts and readers' acceptance. Chinese literature is deeply influenced by traditional cultural ideas such as Confucianism and Taoism, emphasizing moral education and philosophy of life; while Western literature is influenced by ancient Greek and Roman myths as well as religious beliefs such as Christianity, focusing on the inner world of man and exploring human nature. In terms of writers' creative concepts, Chinese writers tend to focus on social harmony from the perspective of traditional morality and ethics, while Western writers advocate the liberation of individuality and the pursuit of the realization of personal values. In terms of readers' acceptance, Chinese literature focuses on aesthetic experience and emotional resonance, while Western literature pays more attention to logical reasoning and thinking. The comparative study of Chinese literature and Western literature can help us better understand the diversity of world literature and enrich our concepts of literary aesthetics and creation. At the same time, by learning from the excellent achievements of Western literature, we can promote the innovation and development of Chinese literature.

Revisiting façade design and its contribution to the urban experience in the 21st century

ABSTRACT As one of the most exteriorized architectural elements, façades are significant features of the urban image and important contributors to the aesthetic and other urban experiences. However, discussions on the subject have lost relevance in academic and professional circles following arguments about physical determinism, façadism, beautification, and aestheticisation practices. Reflecting on the multiple contributions of façades to contemporary urban life, this article re-engages with the debate on façade design and the aesthetic and other urban experiences it affords from a political perspective to interrogate the impact of individualistic design practices in an era dominated by capitalist place-making.

The Textual vs the Contextual: A Heideggerian Reading of Walid Saif’s Poem ‘Love Again’

This article reads Love Again (1992), the last poem written by contemporary Palestinian poet Walid Saif based on Heidegger’s concept of the Dasein as detailed in Being and Time and his concept of art as detailed in “The Origin of the Work of Art” as well as in other of his works. In Love Again “togetherness,” which is the essence of the Dasein, dissolves completely into the kind of being of “the Others”. Heidegger’s definition of “the truth of being” has the tendency of combining two contesting groups of theories: the first is a modernist group that advocates an intrinsic/textual approach to read literary texts in light of new criticism and other formalist schools. The second is a group that advocates a contextual/extrinsic/political approach to read literary texts like new historicism, postcolonialism and others. A Heideggerian reading of Saif’s poem debunks the modernist claim that a detachable aesthetic experience can safeguard the poem’s “historical permanence” and transcend its political context. Unlike formalists of his time, Heidegger was not concerned with the tension that emerged between the above two groups since he took both the extrinsic and intrinsic elements of a literary work as indispensable elements towards exploring the literary work. Furthermore, the above tension does not seem to be part of Heidegger’s consciousness.