Aesthetic Form Research Articles

Imaginative storytelling – novel immersive production practices and processes for mobile cinematic, interactive 360-degree and real-time VR

ABSTRACT This article adopts creative practice research to explore novel Virtual Reality (VR) production practices and processes for mobile cinematic VR (MCVR), parallel interactive narratives in VR (PIN VR) and real-time VR (RT VR). As a result of Creative Practice research, Imaginative Storytelling analyses and describes these original production approaches and processes for immersive storytelling and illustrates emerging aesthetic formations, which shape new imaginative experiences in VR. These diverse representations of VR are examined through three case studies, A New Dawn [A New Dawn. 2021. Dir. Schleser (VR). Australia. Swinburne University of Technology.], Table for Two [Table for Two. 2022. Dir. Remedios (VR). India. Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad].) and Phases of Motion [Phases of Motion. 2021/2023. Dir. Berrett (VR). Australia. Swinburne University of Technology]. Each experience focuses on exploring innovative production processes for moile cinematic, interactive 360-degree and real-time VR. By means of outlining three distinctive approaches to VR production, contemporary developments and new directions in immersive storytelling are demonstrated. This research contributes to the expansion of storytelling and storyliving approaches in which navigators become co-creators of VR experiences.

Neither gift nor loan: the strategic use of pseudo-formality at the nexus of intimacy and economy

Abstract In this paper, I introduce the concept of pseudo-formality as a novel form of relational work in economic sociology. Pseudo-formality refers to the performative use of formal aesthetics, such as contracts and repayment plans, in financial exchanges between close ties—as both parties tacitly understand that the agreement is flexible and not legally binding. I argue that pseudo-formality works by leveraging the signaling function of formal market elements in a way that contradicts their typical purpose, allowing for the compartmentalization of the economic and social aspects of the exchange. Through two complementary vignette experiments, I demonstrate that pseudo-formal framing enhances the perceived dignity of the recipient and the respect conveyed by the giver, compared to formal, informal, or gift-based arrangements. This effect partially mediates the relationship between the type of exchange and its overall acceptability. This research contributes to relational work perspectives in economic sociology by identifying a prevalent but understudied strategy for navigating the intersection of intimacy and economy, and highlights the adaptability of economic forms for relational purposes. The findings have practical implications for interpersonal exchanges as well as the design of financial assistance programs and policies, suggesting that pseudo-formal structures can provide a dignified and empowering means of support.

Aesthetic Literacies in Digital Learning Ecologies: Tracing Aesthetic Tools and Functions in a Youth Literary Salon

Concerned with disinformation, fake news, and a posttruth era, literacy research on digital learning ecologies has focused on content of the texts that youth encounter but less explicitly on aesthetics—issues of form or the way a text is written. Drawing on critical sociocultural theories, this article examines youth aesthetic meaning-making with non-neutral digital texts. The data analyzed are part of a multiyear multimethod study of the aesthetic literacy practices of queer youth of color and allies. Data were collected during an online summer literary salon where youth discussed textual content alongside issues of aesthetic forms. Findings illustrate that youth drew on a broad range of aesthetic tools to achieve (1) a poetic function concerned with how aesthetic forms elicit figurative, connotative, and storied meanings; (2) a catalytic function concerned with how aesthetic forms persuade, manipulate, or encourage particular actions; and (3) an ideological function concerned with how aesthetic forms inscribe or contest social inequalities. These tools and functions, complicate previous understandings of disinformation, fake news, and critical reasoning in literacies research. This study suggests a critical sociocultural approach to aesthetics as territory for further scholarship across many areas of literacy research.

Origami as a philosophical thought and innovative design technique to enhance the formal aesthetics of architectural facades

Origami as a philosophical thought and innovative design technique to enhance the formal aesthetics of architectural facades

수학적 형식주의: 물질의 빌둥스로만

This essay examines what is known as mathematical formalism in the field of literary studies by providing a set of referneces from Pythagoras, Kant, Coleridge, Geoerge Boole, Augustus de Morgan, Andrea Henderson to Paul de Man. As varied as it seems, the center of the referential set is Kant. Kant’s aesthetics is one crucial reference in mathematical formalism. Mathematical formalism’s justification for its use of mathematics in the field of art is that Kantian aesthetic form is mathematical. This essay takes one step further from there. I argue that mathematical formalism reveals its true nature when we see that in Kant, there are two different types of mathematics, intuitive and formalist mathematics, and the former gives way to the latter due to its inherent limitations. The limitations of intuitive mathematics is that as it is based on the a priori framework of intuition, it does not allow for the empirical agency of matter. Kant solves the issue by formulating formalist mathematics in his third critique. This transition from intuitive to formalist mathematics makes a case for what can be called the Bildungsroman of matter: unlike mathematical formalism’s static understanding of Kant’s third critique, this essay’s approach captures the moment of formalist mathematics’s emergence from within matter.

Architectural Narratives of Aesthetic Form: Exploring the Perception and Psychological Design in Church Architecture

This article examines church architecture to explore the role of formal beauty in architectural spatial narratives and how perception and psychological design influence people's experiences and emotions. First, the article reviews the theoretical foundations of formal beauty in architecture, elaborating on the application of aesthetic elements such as proportion, symmetry, rhythm, and light and shadow in buildings. Then, through case studies of typical churches from different historical periods (such as Gothic, Baroque, and modern churches), it reveals how architects utilize spatial layout, verticality, light, and decoration to create unique spiritual atmospheres and enhance religious experiences. The article focuses on how architectural space guides people's perception processes, stimulates psychological resonance, and achieves emotional elevation. Finally, it summarizes the key role of formal beauty in architectural narratives, emphasizing the importance of perceptual and psychological design in enhancing the quality of architectural spaces. By deeply exploring church architecture, this study aims to provide new perspectives for modern architectural design, advocating for the creation of formal beauty to enrich the narrative and appeal of spaces while meeting functional requirements.

Chinese Art’s Influence on Roger Fry’s Aesthetics Formalism

Roger Fry was one of the greatest art critics of the 20th century, who promoted the rise and development of the Western modern art movement and constructed a set of modern aesthetics formalism and art criticism theories, exerting a huge influence on modern art. Despite the formation of Fry’s aesthetics formalism cannot be separated from the background of the transformation of Western cultural traditions, the influx of Chinese art into the West at that time also had an impact on Fry’s aesthetics formalism. Fry extracted and reinterpreted from Chinese art, forming a distinctive formalist aesthetic theory. In Fry’s various works, the influence of Chinese classical aesthetics can be seen, such as blank space, rhythm, and emotional expression. The research will explore the correlation between Roger Fry’s aesthetic formalism theory and Chinese art. The study will analyze how Chinese art was introduced into the West and how Roger Fry was influenced by Chinese art. It will focus some particular elements like rhythm and blank space, explore how Fry reinterpreted them and applied to modern art criticism theory, using his work “Cézanne: A Study of His Development” as an example.

Значение философии процесса в концептуальном формировании современной китайской эстетики как результат культурной динамики периода Второго Просвещения в Китае

This article examines the formation of modern Chinese aesthetics based on a specific period, which received its own name – the Second Enlightenment. This time determined the parameters of the real Chinese intellectual culture, became the basis for the formation of philosophical aesthetics as a part of it. The authors note similarities and differences in the course of the periods of the First and Second Enlightenment. In evaluating the latter period, emphasis is placed on the turn of Chinese culture towards national history and priorities. The philosophy of the process in the field of aesthetics in the Middle Kingdom turned out to be focused on the Chinese aesthetic experience and its procedural analysis, it refused to develop in line with Western standards, which as a result led to its wide dissemination in China, making it the basis for most modern national aesthetic concepts, in which the functional-oriented, rather than object-oriented, is at the forefront- a deterministic approach. This article will allow the reader to more accurately represent these circumstances, which are essential for cross-cultural interaction between Russia and China, using the example of the significant fact of the influence of the philosophy of the process, founded by A.N. Whitehead, on modern Chinese aesthetic thought.

المعنى المشترك وجماليات الخطاب في التصميم الداخلي

Designers seek to create a design product that is dialogic and communicative with the largest number of segments of society, with visual formations that prepare for a spatial environment that is distinguished by intellectual richness and seeks to communicate with minds. Then, the design represents a visual discourse that influences the recipient, as an intentional message that reaches his imagination with its idea, including the aesthetic meanings inherent in it, and what its intellectual and semantic content carries, the aim of which is to reach a common meaning between the designer and the recipient so that the designer can lead the recipient's behavior according to the ideas presented by the design. Therefore, the research problem was formulated with the following question: "Is interior design concerned with visual formations to highlight formal values that aim to improve the aesthetic taste through the visual reception system of the recipient only, or is it an ideology that indicates that these formations are more than just what the eye sees because of their connection to the shared latent meaning between the designer and the recipient, which is reflected in the nature of collective behavior?" The research aimed to "reveal the data of the aesthetic image of the formal discourse by translating the latter into an internal space that gives the recipient interpretations that are in harmony with what the designer is going for as a directed message with intent and meaning." The research came out with a set of conclusions, the most important of which are: The design product constitutes a message with a clear meaning when it is a reflection of the social, cultural, material and geographical environment of the design context through the aesthetic formations of the design discourse, and that the reception mechanism is not destined to succeed unless the designer has a specific idea that reflects the privacy of society and the identity of the place through what the design broadcasts in order to obtain a clear and easy response from the recipient and decipher the symbols of the discourse and enjoy its connotations and goals.

Forms of the Mother Right: Marxism's Matriarchal Origins from Friedrich Engels to Lu Märten

AbstractThe nineteenth‐century discovery of the matrilineal origins of society shattered assumptions about the necessity of the bourgeois family. For Marxists, ethnographic studies of the mother right provided an aesthetic form to reevaluate the “woman question” from a scientific perspective. Although Marx and Engels had long rejected the idea of the family in favor of “family forms,” Engels's adaptation of Morgan's Ancient Society (1877) in Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats (1884) was canonized as the authoritative Marxist text on the subject. While the ethnographic form enabled the denaturalization of the family, its racialized and gendered temporality undercut socialist critiques of social forms. This article introduces Lu Märten's queer utopian response to the mother right, Geschichte der Frau vom Mutterrecht bis zur Gegenwart (1947), which dispenses with the evolutionary structure of the ethnographic study to offer a vision of polyamorous and androgynous forms in a classless society.

“Neither of the East nor of the West”

What does it mean to do Islamic Studies within Religious Studies? Taking the cue from Thomas A. Tweed's intervention, this article discusses new theoretical and methodological approaches in Religious Studies and their relevance to researching Islam. Such approaches cross geographical, disciplinary, and intellectual boundaries while equally being emplaced in particular socio-cultural contexts that inform their perspectives. In order to overcome statist, normative, and essentialist understandings of Islam, the article explores three key themes: ambiguity, multi-locality, and aesthetics. When we approach the intellectual history of Islam, not only its diversity and plurality become obvious but also its culture of ambiguity, which is at ease with contradictions and inconsistencies. Recent reflections on diaspora religions decentre Islamic Studies from the Middle East and allow for exploring the multiple transnational connections between Muslim minority and majority contexts. Such approaches illustrate the multi-locality of Islam. Finally, the article explores what it means to approach Islam as an aesthetic formation in which rituals as embodied experiences and material sensory culture are central in forging and articulating Muslim individual and collective identities.

Synthesis of Arts by means of Sculpture Forms

The purpose of the work is to characterise the syncretism of sculptural forms in the development of monumental Ukrainian sculpture; emphasise the national features of the development of national sculpture on the example of the works of modern Ukrainian sculptors. The methodology of the work consists in the principles of holistic and systemic approaches to the study of the synthesis of arts in the sculptural forms of Ukrainian artists. An analytical method was applied to study scientific approaches to the synthesis of arts, as well as an artistic-stylistic method, as well as a system-functional method to the structuring of artistic works as a phenomenon of modern monumental sculpture. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the discourse on the synthesis of arts in the art history environment, characterising some works of art that belong to the category of monumental sculpture. Conclusions. It should be noted that in the Ukrainian art space there is a synthesis between classical forms and intermedia installations, which creates a complex and multi-layered context for modern artists. The perception of time, space and material becomes plastic and changeable, and this, in turn, stimulates the development of new aesthetic forms. Sculptural images have a significant influence on the formation of styles of young artists, where the emphasis is not only on silhouettes, but also on specific elements originating from various forms. Artists build associative visual sequences, embodying unrealistic, yet deeply symbolic images that resonate with viewers on an emotional level. In the examples from the workshops you mentioned, we see how a variety of materials and art forms and execution methods are used to create coherent and complete images that reflect the synthesis of different arts. The theme of the synthesis of arts in different sculptural forms, which sometimes seem completely incompatible, is indeed one of the most relevant for research.

Musical Play and Playworlds Create Meaning in Swedish School-Age Educare Centres: A Matter of Engagement, Empathy, Exploration and Embodiment

One of the tasks of Swedish school-age educare centres is to offer children the possibility of different aesthetic forms of expression, such as music and drama. Based on theories of play, music and improvisation, musical play is introduced in which the process itself and the desire to participate are in focus, with the intention of investigating children’s and teachers’ joint meaning-making during the sound exploration and creation of playworlds. From a staged action-focused method, joint play with different voice sounds, both in song and speech, is introduced along with sounds and rhythms from everyday things, such as plastic bags and chopsticks. During the musical play, a fictional character is introduced to create possible openings for voluntary participation and engagement. The results are presented in four scenes and focus on engagement, empathy, exploration, and embodiment. In the results, the participants’ meaning-making is described as action during the musical play and the creation of the playworld. This study is expected to generate a basis for the discussion on joint musical play and play pedagogy as a form of extended education pedagogy capable of creating an experience of emancipation and participation in encounters between children and teachers.

Loss, Lament, and Survival in the Poetry of C. P. Cavafy

Abstract: The question of loss and its relation to aesthetic form emerges in poems by C. P. Cavafy that deal specifically with the unacknowledged losses suffered by lives on the sexual margins, for whom the challenge of survival takes shape under punitive social forces. Finding in Greek literary tradition the aesthetic potential to manage what is unmanageable about loss under the historical conditions of modernity, Cavafy has recourse to the poetry of lament to reimagine the work of living with enduring loss. Cavafy's revisions to the poetry of lament facilitate the process of grieving for same-sex desiring subjects, especially when one does not know precisely what or how much has been lost. A number of these poems articulate new forms of pleasure that become possible in the aftermath of loss, thus proposing sensual pleasure as a mode of survival.

A Difficult Beginning: Commencement and Birth in the Analysis of an Adolescent

The author distinguishes between two kinds of beginning, conceptually tied to two ways of approaching the psychoanalytic situation described as epistemological and ontological. Through a clinical case, the author shows how her work with a troubled adolescent had two beginnings that corresponded to these types. In this way, she tries to expand on the literature about the ontological turn, focusing on what beginning means in this context. For treatment to succeed, a birth must emerge, a transformative moment with the potential for significant change. The combined ability to transform the most primitive, somatopsychic pain can be more effective if shared by analysts and patients in a predominantly aesthetic form.

The Aesthetic Expression of Abstract Calligraphy: Emotion and Form between Brush and Ink

Calligraphy is one of the most important visual art forms inherited from China for thousands of years. The visual formal resources contributed by the dots and structures of Chinese calligraphy are one of the wonders in the world art history. Among them, abstract calligraphy, as a unique art form, contains rich emotional expression and formal aesthetic exploration between brush and ink. This study adopts a qualitative research paradigm, through in-depth interviews with senior abstract calligraphers, art critics and scholars, combined with on-site observation of the creative process of calligraphy, literature analysis and interpretation of works, in order to comprehensively analyze the emotional connotation and formal vocabulary of abstract calligraphy, and to clarify the intrinsic connection and tension between the two. The results of the study show that in abstract calligraphy, the subject's emotional experience is the root power of modeling. Through the refinement and sublimation of life experience, the calligrapher injects the vibration of individual consciousness and philosophical thoughts into the brush and ink with the help of visual elements such as brush strokes, lines, and compositions. The brush and ink become the direct speech of the mind, and the viewer can feel the rhythm and bitterness of life, the struggle and emptiness of desire, the pursuit of tranquility and other rich emotional experiences in the works. At the same time, the careful construction of formal language is also the core of abstract calligraphy exploration. Through the mastery of brush and ink materials and writing momentum, the use of wet and dry contrast, white space, texture and other techniques, to create a shocking visual tension, giving people a strong experience of formal aesthetics. The study emphasizes that abstract calligraphy realizes a high degree of unity between emotion and form. On the one hand, the form itself carries the spiritual experience and inner emotion of the calligrapher; on the other hand, the emotion gives life and inner tension to the form. The two integrate and echo each other, forming an organic whole. It is this perfect combination of mind and form that makes abstract calligraphy become the visualization of human emotion and spiritual world, and triggers endless thoughts and resonance in the viewers. The researcher comprehensively analyzes the emotional core and formal qualities of abstract calligraphy from both theoretical and empirical levels, providing a new perspective for a deeper understanding of the unique aesthetic value of this art form.

Discussion on the Aesthetic Evolution and Optimization Strategies of Neo-Ming Style Chair Design

This paper explores the balanced development of Neo-Ming style chair design in both traditional and modern contexts, focusing on its design evolution, aesthetic characteristics, and future optimization strategies. By analyzing the cultural background, aesthetic form, material craftsmanship, and structural functions of Neo-Ming style chair, the paper highlights the importance of maintaining a fusion between traditional aesthetics and modern demands in contemporary design. It proposes future optimization directions such as personalization trends, cross-disciplinary integration, and the application of intelligent technology, aiming to provide theoretical support and practical references for the design innovation of Neo-Ming style chair.

The postcolonial museum and nonsynchronous heritage

This essay proposes a concept of “nonsynchronous heritage” to reimagine the role of the museum in postcolonial times. Current discourses on the postcolonial museum have focused on important questions about decolonizing contested heritages, the restitution of looted artefacts, and making the space of the gallery relevant to minorities and non-hegemonic groups. However, these discourses cannot be detached from the problem of the museum as a cultural enclosure, a space born in an age of colonialism and capitalism. In postcolonial times, the aesthetic form of the museum shifted from an encyclopaedic exhibitionary complex to the sensorium of a capitalist utopia, embodying the extractive operations that also underlie formal subsumption and the international division of labour. From this point of view, the museum epitomizes a capitalist modernity fraught with inequalities and reflective of the expanding process of combined and uneven development. The heritage that museums conserve and appropriate cannot be reduced to the synchronicity of the present or a scenario of total commodification. As aesthetic form, the postcolonial museum rather testifies to globalization as a process of dialectical interlocking of different regimes of temporality. This nonsynchronous heritage can complicate the dilemmas pitting universalism against restitution, globalization against nationalism. A notion of nonsynchronous heritage drawn from the philosophy of Ernst Bloch can help rethink the role of the postcolonial museum. By no means external to the unevenness of capitalism, the contemporary museum displays a contested field of differing temporal strata and surviving historical ages still active in a turbulent and incomplete present.

Taking Advantage of the Aesthetic Values of Asiri Art Decorations to Enrich and Sustain the Printing of Modern Women’s Clothing Supplements to Preserve Saudi Heritage Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques

Sustainability is the result of modern-day design philosophy as a result of major industrial developments and many conflicts and wars. This concept is what prompted this research to focus on the possibility of achieving the principles of sustainability practically - in field reality - through the use of artificial intelligence techniques to create contemporary designs derived from the Saudi Asiri heritage and employ them in printing sustainable clothing supplements. Heritage-inspired design has cultural meaning and importance, and its purpose is to transmit our heritage to our emerging generations, and therefore it is considered a type of sustainable thought. The Asir region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a rich heritage that is greatly influenced by the charming nature of the place. The Asir region is distinguished by the art of the “Asiri Cat,” which consists of engravings, lines, and aesthetic formations engraved by women specialized in this field. They inherited this art from the women who preceded them. Asiri art is distinguished from other arts. The use of bright natural colors such as blue, green, orange, black and white, as the Asir region is considered one of the important heritage and tourist areas within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has played a pivotal role in enriching the cultural and creative stock not only of the Saudi citizen, but also of the Arabian Gulf region. This is what prompted us in the current research to delve into the analysis of the creative and artistic aspects of Asiri art inscriptions and to benefit from the aesthetic values of Asiri art decorations in contemporary artistic designs that achieve sustainability for the purpose of exploiting them in the manufacture of plastic fittings for clothing supplements to serve small industries. Many diverse designs have been implemented using different printing techniques. From (direct drawing method - stencil printing - pictorial screen printing) the use of different types and colors to implement different products to produce clothing accessories that are closely related to the structure of form and content of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art, and depends on its aesthetic philosophy about the heritage and cultural references associated with the place and the artist’s own vision. To revive Saudi heritage. The research aims to take advantage of the geometric and floral decorative elements in Al-Qat Al-Asiri’s artistic engravings as a source for enriching and sustaining printed designs for women’s clothing supplements that are characterized by authenticity and contemporaryness, and preserving popular motifs by reformulating them. In keeping with the times, and preserving its most prominent features, in a way that enhances belonging and preserves the community’s heritage and values. From extinction, endless horizons of creativity and innovation have been achieved in the field of printing clothing supplements, and sustainable plastic repetition, which the designer or art practitioner resorts to in general, and the field of printing in particular, as a creative pluralistic plastic method.The research followed the descriptive and analytical approach in identifying the origins and characteristics of the Asir artistic inscriptions (the cat), analyzing their vocabulary, reformulating them, and drawing inspiration from them to enrich the printed designs of women’s clothing supplements, in addition to the experimental approach in the applied study through the use of different techniques and materials. The results of the study concluded that there are various aesthetic values in the Asiri cat engraving that can be used to create contemporary designs on clothing accessories using different printing techniques, in order to preserve the Asiri heritage in the southern region of the country. The study recommended the need to pay attention to studying heritage and the arts it contains because of its great importance, as it stimulates appreciation of traditional art and preserves it.

Collapse awareness in the face of climate breakdown and urbicide

ABSTRACT ‘Collapse awareness’ is a complex attunement to a radically insecure present and future that reaches beyond known logics of security such as prevention, resilience, or preparedness. Bringing together two very different empirical fields – planetary ecological destruction and the urbicide taking place in the war in Ukraine – the article introduces collapse awareness as a particular form of situational awareness that is concerned with the existential loss of living environments in the Anthropocene. We analyse intellectual and activist interventions in the face of the ecological crisis, on the one hand, and the everyday and aesthetic forms of dealing with the ongoing shelling of urban architecture and infrastructure, on the other. Working through these two fields of attention we propose five overarching temporal and affective features of collapse awareness in the face of existential destruction: how it moves beyond known security rationales in its grappling with radical insecurity; how it attaches itself to ‘truth’ in particular ways; how it responds to the violence of the Anthropocene; how it evokes a ‘we’ that has yet to be formed; and how it negotiates despair and hope in the face of catastrophic ruin.