Aesthetic Practice Research Articles

Magic and Politics: Conspirituality and COVID-19.

Why do people find conspiracy theories attractive, convincing, or useful? In this article, I analyze conspirituality—that is, the relationships between New Age spirituality and conspiracy theories—in Italy during the COVID-19 lockdown. After distinguishing between conspiracy-believing and belief in conspiracies, I claim that conspiracy-believing could be understood as an aesthetic (sensory and artistic) practice. In doing so, I offer a novel interpretation on conspiracism that complements current scholarship while departing from the latter’s focus on the cognitive and emotional weaknesses of those who adopt conspiracy theories. By engaging with the thought of Jacques Rancière, in conversation with studies on contemporary Paganism and Western esotericism, I consider the adoption of conspiracy theories as an expression of dissensus by a community of sense that does not look only for visibility but, rather, wants to be fully acknowledged, recognized, and legitimized in their “participatory”—or “magical”—way of inhabiting the world.

A “Common Spectacle” of the Race: Garveyism’s Visual Politics of Founding

The questions of what makes a people a people and how they are endowed with political power are central to political founding. Through the Universal Negro Improvement Association’s first annual convention, this essay reconstructs the central role of aesthetic practices to the constitution of a new people. The convention’s spectacular performances were a vehicle through which participants came to understand themselves as constituting the Universal Negro—a transnational and empowered political subject. Founding was tied to the development of “reverential self-regard,” which was a process rather than a singular moment. Central to this process was both the gaze of spectators whose affective responses confirmed the power of the people and the political leader who served as the people’s mirror. Focusing on a mass movement rather than canonical instances of constituting republics brings into sharp relief the reiterative labors of staging, enacting, and viewing necessary to the practice of founding.

Hyaluronidase for Treating Complications Related to HA Fillers: A National Plastic Surgeon Survey.

Background: Hyaluronic acid (HA) fillers have become a popular modality to address changes in the ageing face. There are many described indications of hyaluronidases in aesthetic medicine which include their use in the management of HA-associated complications. To better understand the current practice patterns, we surveyed Canadian plastic surgeons on their use of hyaluronidases. Methods: With the approval of the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons, an electronic survey was emailed to members. A total of 350 surveys were distributed and 98 surveys were completed for a response rate of 28%. Results: Approximately half (48%) of the survey respondents used HA fillers in their practice. Skin testing for hypersensitivity reactions was performed by less than 10% of hyaluronidase users. Nearly all respondents used hyaluronidase for filler over-correction (95.5%) and asymmetry (86.4%). Over half of the respondents have used hyaluronidase for inflammatory or infectious nodules and the Tyndall effect. Other reported applications included restoration of vascular compromise, and one respondent reported using hyaluronidase for assisting with haematoma resolution. When compared with the most recent guidelines, there was a wide range of doses used for common side effects and complications. Twenty-four percent of the respondents reported that their hyaluronidase formulation was prepared by a compounding pharmacy, and 20% of respondents who inject HA fillers did not stock hyaluronidase. Conclusion: There are many indications for hyaluronidase in aesthetic plastic surgery. Plastic surgeons should stock hyaluronidase and develop a specific plan in anticipation of adverse events. Although hyaluronidase is commonly used by plastic surgeons for over-correction and asymmetry, the dosages used in aesthetic practice is rather diverse and heterogeneous. When possible, plastic surgeons should perform allergy testing before hyaluronidase use.

Impact of COVID-19 on Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Practice in the United Kingdom

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the delivery of medical and surgical services globally. Subsequently, all elective and aesthetic procedures have been cancelled or deferred in accordance with government-mandated quarantine measures. The Cosmetic Surgery Governance Forum (CSGF) is a network of aesthetic plastic surgery consultants which has enabled a sharing of expertise during challenging times. We conducted a cross-sectional survey to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on aesthetic plastic surgeons and their practice in the UK.MethodsOn 15 June 2020, 131 respondents from the CSGF and wider aesthetic plastic surgeons in the UK were invited to respond to an online survey. An anonymised questionnaire was created using SmartSurveyTM and distributed at the end of the quarantine period. Questions regarding their current scope of practice, willingness to recommence face-to-face consultations, financial loss and psychological impact were asked.ResultsA total of 101 Consultant Plastic surgeons (76%) completed the questionnaire. If strict protocols and adequate personal protective equipment were available, 50-55% of respondents would consider offering non-surgical treatments as soon as the private clinic was open. Furthermore, 51% would consider procedures under general anaesthetic, whilst 89% of respondents would offer local anaesthetic only in the initial phase. Moreover, 66% reported experiencing a psychological impact and 100% of respondents reported a significant financial impact.ConclusionsThis survey aims to give an account of the current state (May-July 2020) of aesthetic plastic surgery in the UK. There is ongoing uncertainty and deliberation regarding the timing and organisational changes required for aesthetic practice to restart.

Higher Ground: Rev. Dr. William Barber II and the Political Content of Prophetic Form

This essay argues that Rev. Dr. William J. Barber’s message on “Higher Ground,” a speech delivered at a massive 2014 protest rally, reveals his intentional problematization of distinctions between the sacred and the secular. As Barber’s articulation of what Ashon Crawley calls “Blackpentecostal breath” spill over the boundaries posited by conventional categories—they are too ecstatic to be ordinary speeches, and too political to be traditional sermons—these plural expressions identify themselves as sounds that come from another world. If both content and form are understood as thought, it becomes apparent that these prophetic utterances critique the oppression wrought by contemporary social orders, announcing the reality of live-giving, just forms of social life. In place of the world that seems natural, Barber’s incantations presence a world to-come, a higher ground. Thus, while Barber’s sound is familiar as a signature of black Christian contexts, his public ministry asserts that aesthetic practices such as these contain a surplus, a transformative and collectivizing capacity. Barber’s ecstatic preaching, then, functions as a technology of transcendence which refuses putative divisions between the sacred and the secular, advancing in their place a moral worldview.

Aesthetic practices in the climate crisis: Intervening in consensual frameworks of the sensible through images

Abstract Previous research has shown that Western visual journalism has represented climate change through certain repetitive and stereotypical imagery mainly consisting of catastrophic images of climate change impacts, images depicting technological causes and solutions, and images of politicians and activists. This imagery has proven to be distant, abstract, and ineffective in motivating personal engagement with climate change. In this article, we claim that visual journalism's representations of climate change are rooted in the consensual frameworks of human-centredness and consumption-centredness. Leaning on Jacques Ranciére's notion of “the politics of aesthetics”, we aim to challenge these frameworks. We suggest, with examples from visual arts, four aesthetic practices which could intervene in these frameworks: 1) revealing connectedness, 2) recognising agency, 3) compromising the attractions of consumerism, and 4) illuminating alternatives. We propose that visual representations, renewed through these aesthetic practices, could have an effect on how people connect to climate issues and imagine possibilities for agency in the climate crisis. Implementing these aesthetic practices would entail shifts in the sphere of visual journalism.

FindingThe Irish Girl: Race, displacement, and the aesthetic promise of portraiture

AbstractAesthetic considerations have often been ignored, or even derided, when it comes to discussions of race in the 19th century. A disregard for aesthetics and the genres that arise from aesthetic experience has prevented critics from seeing how crucial such questions are to thinking about racial formations. This essay argues for the necessity of taking aesthetic practices and effects seriously in contending with questions of Irishness and anti‐Irish racism in Victorian Britain. In attending to Pre‐Raphaelite fellow‐traveler Ford Madox Brown'sThe Irish Girl(1860), this essay demonstrates how formal approaches not only allow us to observe how racial formations come to be in aesthetic terms but also teach us how to fully see the subject of the painting herself. Thinking about the painting according to the conventions of portraiture is significant for understanding the strategies by which minoritized racialized subjects—and particularly women and girls—make themselves visible.

Designing Digital Diagnostics

Abstract Since the 1990s Western clinical radiology has been confronted with a fundamental media-induced change - the so-called analogue-digital migration. Film-based diagnostics and archiving of radiological images are transformed into digital interfaces and infrastructures. Networked software applications, namely picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), provide a new basis for processing and displaying image data. The design and implementation of PACS and their (user) interfaces challenged, amongst others, the search for data standards for digital diagnostics. The data format DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communication) was developed to provide the technological basis for encoding image data. Simultaneously, DICOM determines how patients’ bodies are rendered machine-readable and how radiologists are able to gain software-based insights. A main function of DICOM metadata is encoding and continuously actualising patient identification for technological and human actors. A misidentification of image data and specific patient could lead to fatal errors in the furthe+r treatment process. Accordingly, metadata themselves meander between being invisible to the human user and being essential and hence necessarily visible information for diagnostics. Shifting between normativity and fluidity, DICOM metadata enables new practices of radiological diagnostics, which literally bear vital consequences for patients and, on another level, for the profession of radiology. The paper analyses inherent politics and tensions of metadata from a media theoretical point of view by employing the case of the DICOM standard. Based on subject-specific discourses, data models as well as an in-depth examination of exemplary DICOM metadata it shows how (meta)data politics redefine diagnostic infrastructures and routines as well as gain impact on epistemic and aesthetic practices at the turn of the analogue-digital migration.

A Hybrid Filler: Combining Calcium Hydroxylapatite and Hyaluronic Acid Fillers for Aesthetic Indications

Limited data are available describing the use of calcium hydroxylapatite (CaHA) and hyaluronic acid (HA) in combination. The aim of this study is to investigate the safety of premixing CaHA and HA fillers before injection. The authors performed a retrospective chart review of patients injected with a premixed combination of CaHA and a cohesive polydensified matrix (CPM®) HA in the authors’ aesthetic practices. Patients records were evaluated for adverse events at 1-3 month, 5-7 month and >12-month posttreatment follow-up visits. The retrospective chart review identified 134 patients who had been treated with premixed CaHA: HA, most of whom were female (95%). Most patients were treated for multiple facial areas. Injections were subcutaneous and performed with 25G 38- or 50-mm cannulas, using a fanning injection technique. Injection volumes and product ratios depended on the number of areas being treated and severity of the aesthetic defect. Only 2 adverse events were reported which comprised slight cases of overcorrection at 1-3 months, both of which resolved with hyaluronidase. No other adverse events were reported. This combined evaluation of the published literature and retrospective examination of case reports raised no concerns about the use of premixed CaHA and CPM-HA (Hybrid) fillers for the treatment of a range of facial aesthetic indications.

Fashion as an Aesthetic Form of Life

Fashion is an aesthetic practice that concerns the ordinary sphere of our life: it is associated with everydayness and it is a source of endless aesthetic experiences. The purpose of this paper is to validate a new perspective on fashion based on Wittgenstein’s later aesthetic conception. In Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion (2017), Matteucci introduces the idea of combining the Wittgensteinian concept of “form of life” with fashion. In accordance with this thesis, the paper aims at showing how fashion is constituted as a “form of life”. Specifically, I shall argue that fashion is an “aesthetics form of life” which structurally employs a language of an aesthetic type ––one with a specific grammar (or set of rules) of its own. I claim that there is in fashion a contact point between the grammar of language and socially encoded aesthetic responses: fashion follows slavishly its own grammar, through its cyclical seasonality, while at the same time tending to creatively reinvent itself. Thus, anyone who daily commits to the practices of fashion acquires sensitivity to its rules, contributing to a social dialectic of identification/diversification typically belonging to fashion itself. Finally, on the basis of the claim that fashion is a “form of life”, and indeed since fashion is primarily an aesthetic practice, I claim that Wittgenstein’s aesthetic notions can coherently be related to fashion as well: concepts such as ‘aesthetic reaction’, ‘gesture’, and ‘correctness’ will be shown to be crucial to an analysis of the aesthetic phenomenon of fashion.

Evaluation of alternative diluents for clinical use of collagenase clostridium histolyticum (CCH-aaes).

BackgroundCollagenase clostridium histolyticum (CCH‐aesthetic formulation [CCH‐aaes]; QWO™ [Endo Aesthetics, Malvern PA, USA] is approved as a subcutaneous injection for treatment of cellulite. In the aesthetic practice, dilution of marketed products is commonly employed to tailor treatments to individual patients or off‐label locations. Dilution beyond the 0.23 mg/ml achievable with the proprietary diluent supplied with the CCH‐aaes lyophilized powder requires diluents readily available in clinic.AimTo characterize the functionality and stability of CCH‐aaes when reconstituted and/or diluted with alternative diluents, including normal saline, bacteriostatic saline, and/or proprietary diluent.Patients/MethodsEach dilution was assessed for purity using sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS PAGE), activity using collagenase (AUX‐I) and gelatinase (AUX‐II) assays, and aggregation using size‐exclusion chromatography.ResultsWhen reconstituted with either saline or proprietary diluent, and diluted with proprietary diluent or saline, purity, activity, and stability of CCH‐aaes is maintained for up to 24 h at 5°C or 25°C. In contrast, use of bacteriostatic saline to reconstitute and/or dilute CCH‐aaes results in up to a 40% decrease in activity and aggregation of 5.3% of CCH‐aaes protein. Importantly, inclusion of 2% lidocaine and 1:200 000 epinephrine does not negatively impact CCH‐aaes purity, concentration, or activity for up to 24 h at 5°C or 25°C.ConclusionsFrom an efficacy and safety perspective, CCH‐aaes must not be/should not be reconstituted and/or diluted with bacteriostatic saline to avoid injection of protein aggregates. Ideally, CCH‐aaes should be reconstituted in proprietary diluent: further dilution with normal saline and addition of lidocaine and epinephrine is acceptable.

Current use of botulinum neurotoxin in esthetic practice-Clinical guide and review.

Botulinum neurotoxin is one of the most versatile and widely used medical products in the world. The review's focus is the plastic and dermatologic uses of botulinum neurotoxin currently supported by published data. Relevant clinical articles regarding botulinum neurotoxin use in plastic surgery, dermatology, and general esthetic literature were searched and reviewed. The search yielded 258 studies. Two hundred articles were excluded following title and abstract review. Twenty-one studies were excluded following full-text screening. A total of 37 studies remained and were discussed in this review. Botulinum neurotoxin is widely used for numerous off-label indications from head to toe. Some uses are well documented, and their safety has been demonstrated in controlled trials, yet most remain poorly researched.

From Cannes to Cardboard: The Circulation and Promotion of Visages Villages and the Auteur on Instagram

Abstract This article explores the Instagram activities of Agnès Varda and her Visages Villages (Faces Places, France, 2017) codirector JR to consider the role of social media in the film's theatrical release and awards campaign, which led to the film's nomination for Best Documentary Feature—Varda's first and only Academy Award nomination. Through analysis of Varda's posts and her appearances on JR's Instagram, the author argues that social media complemented the film's conventional promotion while extending Varda's aesthetic practices and interests, offering one of the final examples of her consistent, enthusiastic experiments with new forms of media. On Instagram, Varda recycled and recontextualized the strategies of self-presentation and formal play seen in her documentaries for a different format, as she posted images and videos involving premieres, special events, and press coverage from her perspective. Throughout the film's release and awards campaign, social media began to function as an atypical way to draw attention to the film and its directors, especially for a low-budget documentary. The Visages Villages team merged traditional methods of achieving visibility with an unusual and intentional online presence, culminating in substantial coverage from new types of outlets when JR traveled to the Academy Awards luncheon with cardboard cutouts of Varda.

Politics of Silence: On Autonomous, Communicative and Aesthetic Silences

Abstract The article analyses the political meaning of silence by reflecting on the communicative, autonomous and aesthetic function of silence in context of prevailing political speech systems. In the article, silence is interpreted as an active communication form, as an activist protest tactic and as an aesthetic practice. The article argues that silence can have a politically subversive function toward prevailing aesthetically organised speech systems.Conventionally, silence is devalued in Western societies that primarily celebrate the expressive and communicative capacity of verbal speech. In theorising about radically egalitarian politics, it is however crucial to note the various ways in which silence can be an important source of power. Silence holds the potential for certain active political change in current legal-political frameworks. On the one hand, silence can enable new communication forms and actualise alternative political solidarities and attachments. Also, the logic of oppressive speech systems can be resisted through silent political action. On the other hand, it is in an individual’s own practices of silence, ones that silent protests can bring about in their aftermath, where the sensibility of prevailing political speech orders can be rearranged. The article analyses these many meanings of political silence.

Changing face of dermatology – A paradigm shift

Over the last three and half-decade of my life, I have seen the changes in dermatology and marked paradigm shift towards procedural dermatology and cosmetic dermatology. Dermatosurgery clinics started in 1996, and lasers were procured in 2009, setting the tone for laser and cosmetic dermatology at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry. Cosmetic dermatology (aesthetic medicine/medical aesthetics) has now been recognized as a sub-specialty of dermatology. Dermatologists have supremacy over other aesthetic practitioners as they also treat visible as well as stigmatizing skin disorders. In the last two decades in India, more and more women are taking up dermatology to pursue aesthetic practice. Women in dermatology have started their association, the Women’s Dermatologic Society, and their journal, International Journal of Women’s Dermatology (IJWD). Skin lightening products are overwhelmingly used by women and are one of the world’s largest markets. Nowadays, aesthetic surgical procedures are done with a motive to earn profits. Cosmetology has gained tremendous interest in the world, especially in the United States of America. Much of its recognition is due to scientific research in the development of imaging techniques, drug therapy, and other nonsurgical methods lessening downtime for the patients. The focus in dermatology is shifting gradually from diseased skin to desired skin which people prefer. Hence, the journal CosmoDerma, gives cosmetology its due place. Moreover, there is an increase in the anti-ageing population in this world who don’t want their face wrinkles and aging skin changes. In the absence of world wars in recent times and the increasing longevity of man, the cosmetic industry/aesthetic industry is surging ahead despite the COVID 19 pandemic. Accreditation system to regulate the practice of cosmetology practice needed to be put in place in all countries. Many of these cosmetology practitioners are inadequately equipped to perform cosmetology procedures. There is a need for structured training and accreditation for cosmetic dermatology, aesthetic surgery, dermatosurgery, use of lasers, and hair transplantation.

A Randomized, Single-Blind, Crossover Study Evaluating the Impact of OnabotulinumtoxinA Treatment on Mood and Appearance During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

BackgroundThe emergence of Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), quickly became one of the most severe disease outbreaks in modern history. This caused many aesthetic practices around the country to close temporarily and led to a unique time period to evaluate the impact neurotoxin has in the setting of an ongoing pandemic.ObjectivesTo examine whether the administration of onabotulinumtoxinA (BOTOX Cosmetic, Allergan plc, Coolock, Ireland), in regular users, synergistically amplifies the elevation in mood/happiness, self-satisfaction with appearance and overall satisfaction, in the context of the ongoing pandemic.MethodsA randomized single-blind cross-over study was designed to evaluate the impact of neurotoxin treatment in the upper third of the face on mood, self-satisfaction with appearance, and overall satisfaction. The placebo group crossed over to treatment after 1 month. Surveys evaluating patient happiness, self-satisfaction with appearance and overall efficacy were completed among both groups, and again to the placebo group again following crossover to treatment.ResultsForty-five subjects were enrolled with 30 in the treatment and 15 in the control/cross-over group. The placebo group demonstrated no change in happiness or self-satisfaction in appearance until cross-over to the treatment group. Both groups, once receiving, onabotulinumtoxinA reported increased happiness, self-satisfaction with appearance and overall treatment satisfaction.ConclusionsOnabotulinumtoxinA treatment to the upper face in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic was found to increase patient happiness, self-satisfaction with appearance, and overall treatment satisfaction.

How the Visual Design of Video Game Antagonists Affects Perception of Morality

The visual design of antagonists—typically thought of as “bad guys”—is crucial for game design. Antagonists are key to providing the backdrop to a game's setting and motivating a player's actions. The visual representation of antagonists is important because it affects player expectations about the character's personality and potential actions. Particularly important is how players perceive an antagonist's morality. For example, an antagonist appearing disloyal might foreshadow betrayal; a character who looks cruel suggests that tough fights are ahead; or, a player might be surprised when a friendly looking character attacks them. Today, the art of designing character morality is informed by archetypal elements, existing characters, and the artist's own background. However, little work has provided insight into how an antagonist's appearance can lead players to make moral judgments. Using Mechanical Turk, we collected participant ratings on a stimulus image set of 105 antagonists from popular video games. The results of our work provide insights into how the visual attributes of antagonists can influence judgments of character morality. Our findings provide a valuable new lens for understanding and deepening an important aspect of game design. Our results can be used to help ensure that a particular character design has the best chance to be universally seen as “evil,” or to help create more complex and conflicted emotional experiences through carefully designed characters that do not appear to be bad. Our research extends current research practices that seek to build an understanding of game design and provides exciting new directions for exploring how design and aesthetic practices can be better studied and supported.

The Bauhaus Viewed from the Perspective of Jacques Rancière’s Theoretical Concept of the Aesthetic Revolution

The philosophical platform of the contemporary French theorist Jacques Rancière is one of the crucial interpretations of the way art is identified and acts in various social and historical conditions. Encompassing the domains of political philosophy, social history, education, and aesthetics, Rancière’s oeuvre is vitally important for recognizing the import of aesthetic experience as vital for anticipating the community of the future as well as for understanding the relationship between art and politics. The initial basis of this text comprises Rancière’s aesthetic conceptions, a constitutive element and axiom of which is the principle of equality, which he uses to illuminate the synthesis of art and social context. The text focuses on analyzing the work and creativity of the Bauhaus as an aesthetic practice from the perspective of the aesthetic revolution, as theorized by Rancière. Using analytical and historical methods, the text shows how the Bauhaus successfully used its intentions and practice to overthrow previously imposed hierarchies and conventions of art and, by analogy, social divisions as well, and became a major outcome of the aesthetic revolution as theorized by Rancière. Article received: April 16, 2020; Article accepted: July 1, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper

Beyond ‘radical’ versus ‘moderate’? New perspectives on the politics of moderation in Muslim majority and Muslim minority settings

ABSTRACT Muslims are increasingly conceived through a binary frame of ‘radical’ versus ‘moderate’. In this thematic issue, we critically explore how the dichotomy of ‘radical’ versus ‘moderate’ is constructed and mobilized in different Muslim majority and Muslim minority settings across the world, and we examine the active role played by Muslims in upholding, appropriating, and/or subverting this binary frame. How do Muslims present themselves, their religion, and other Muslim groups amidst growing concerns about the dangers of ‘radical’ Islam – not only through texts, but also through a wide variety of aesthetic practices? And how do discourses about national sovereignty, loyalty, and belonging feed into these representations? This issue brings together scholars from various disciplines, who analyze how the ‘politics of moderation’ play out in Kenya, Norway, Russia, Morocco, Indonesia, and Egypt. We also call for the development of new pathways of thinking about Islam and Muslims in the contemporary world.

Teju Cole: Public intellectual

ABSTRACT From collaborative experiments on Twitter to creative projects in word and image, Teju Cole’s work is characterised by connectivity and plasticity. Within the tradition of the public intellectual, it comes into focus as a mode of artistic activism, because it creates new publics through the use of social media and affords new insights in its protean erudition. Cole’s distinctive positionality as a public intellectual is theorised as an amalgam of Achille Mbembe’s Afropolitanism and Bruce Robbins’ cosmopolitanism. Characterised by “distant belongings,” this Afrocosmopolitanism informs Cole’s Tweets and contributions to other social media. It also infuses the essays in Known and Strange Things and the photographs and texts in Blind Spot and Human Archipelago with thoughtful reflection on and incisive questioning of the most pressing issues of our time. Cole’s aesthetic praxis is thus integral to his political stance as a public intellectual.